Page 2 of A Totally Platonic Thing
I carefully set my pretzel and mustard down on the little piece of waxed paper it’d come with—on the other side of me, because that sweater didn’t need any more abuse—slid my backpack off my arm and set it on the ground, and shrugged out of my jacket.
The guy stared at me some more as I wordlessly held it out to him. “You know,” he said at last, “I’ve been having the shittiest day. And now I have a pretzel. And—like, a knight in shining armor.” He shot me a coy, sideways smile. Oh, fuck. He did think I was flirting. I had to correct him before he figured it out on his own and got all embarrassed. I’d been there more than once, and it sucked. But he kept talking before I could think of a tactful way to do that. “Are you really giving me your jacket?”
“I want it back at some point.” I shook it at him. “C’mon, take it. I have two other layers on. You’re turning blue. And it’s machine washable.” That lame joke won me a blinding smile that had me blinking at him. Fuck, if he’d been a girl…why didn’t anything like this happen to me with someone I wanted to ask out? I really had to say something. “And, uh, I’m not a knight, okay? No armor. Just a jacket. I’m, um, I’m not…”
A little flicker of something passed across his face too quickly for me to interpret, dimming him for a second like a cloud blowing across the sun. And then the smile ramped up a notch, almost too wide. “Not gay? Yeah, I figured. Sorry. I like, flirt with everyone. Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I said a little too gruffly, feeling like an asshole. “You should take the jacket, though. I’m getting cold just looking at you.”
He blushed, but he finally took the jacket out of my hands and put it on, making little contented sounds and snuggling into it. Was he sniffing it? Oh, for fuck’s sake. I probably should’ve washed it or something. But that was stupid, right? How the hell would I have known to wash my jacket so that I could randomly loan it to some stranger?
Because I’d reached some peak level of awkward, I picked up my pretzel and started to eat it. What else was I supposed to do?
He did the same after a second, and I munched away in silence.
Until he started making little moaning noises around his pretzel.
I choked on a bite.
“Oh my God, this is so good, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it sounds like I’m having sex with it. But I was starving. I really can’t overstate what a shitty day I’ve been having.”
When I finished swallowing the bit of bread stuck in my throat, I looked over at him. And he was smiling at me, like we were in on the joke of him fucking his pretzel together.
I found myself smiling back helplessly. All right. That should’ve been even more awkward, but instead…instead it wasn’t, all of a sudden, because he’d made it not.
Usually, I wasn’t the kind of guy to take a huge interest in random people’s problems. I had my own, and they felt a lot heavier today than usual. I was about to fail two of my classes if I couldn’t write acceptable term papers for them. I’d moved into an apartment I couldn’t afford and I’d be drowning in debt and evicted onto the street in a few weeks if I didn’t do something about it.
But I’d already brought him a pretzel and given him my jacket. I was invested. Or at least that seemed like the likeliest explanation for why I cared.
“What’s going on? I have fifteen—” I cut myself off. Yes, I had fifteen minutes until I needed to be in class. But that professor sucked anyway, and his lectures never made any sense. Yeah, I could miss one. “Actually, strike that, I have all afternoon. Lay it on me.”
His face brightened, those eyes getting all glittery. “Really?”
I dipped my pretzel and settled back against the wall behind the bench. “Really.”
So he did, a long, rambling story about how his roommates were the absolute worst, what with the loud dubstep all night long and the pot smoking, and how he was allergic. To the smoke, not the dubstep, he made sure to clarify, but he added, “I think the music is totally giving me hives too. I mean, at a club, fine. At home while people are studying? Ugh.” He’d given notice, but now he couldn’t find another place to live, and he’d been thinking about asking his friend Sebastian to let him crash for a while since Sebastian had a guest room, except that Sebastian was really particular about his space and it would be a total imposition, but he was running out of options since he only had a small inheritance from his grandfather to use for school on top of his grants and loans, and he was only a sophomore, and he had to make it last…
My pretzel was long gone, long before he finished ranting about the dubstep and Sebastian’s problems with having people around all the time.
Actually, he didn’t finish so much as keep going until I cleared my throat pointedly.
“Oh,” he said, blinking, his hands poised mid-gesticulation. “I guess I’ve been…talking for a while.”
“Yeah,” I said, and then immediately felt like shit when he looked away, his lips turning down. “Not that it’s a problem. It’s just that I realized I know a lot about this Sebastian guy. But you haven’t even told me your name yet. Also, I have an idea.”
The idea had popped into my head while he talked. It sounded insane even in my own head.
He turned back to me, his eyes widening comically. “Chris! It’s Chris. You’re so right. Oh, wow, that was dumb of me. What’s your idea? And what’s your name?”
“Lucas. Nice to meet you. And my idea is…” I swallowed hard, feeling like I was teetering on the brink of something either amazing or incredibly stupid. What did I even know about Chris, including his last name? Well, I knew he hated mustard, dubstep, and pot. The first I didn’t care about, but the other two were definite pluses. He was a loyal and thoughtful friend, not wanting to take advantage of Sebastian’s good nature even though he really needed the help. He and I were in the same year, so presumably we’d be graduating around the same time.
And he obviously needed someone keeping an eye on him. Jesus, he couldn’t even manage to keep himself warm and fed without getting covered with condiments he didn’t like in the first place. Why was that my job? Well, it wasn’t. But some weird part of me wanted it to be.
Maybe I should get a cat, if I’d started having urges to take care of someone.
Nah. Fuck it.
“A couple of weeks ago, I moved into this little apartment over a garage on the west side of town—so like a fifteen-minute drive to school. It’s not all that close to a good bus line, so it’d be more convenient to have a car living there.” His eyes kept getting wider as I talked, sucking me in until I couldn’t see anything but shining green. “It’s small, seriously. It’s a studio. Eleven hundred a month. I can’t afford it, but I couldn’t stand my shitty roommates anymore either. There’s probably room for another bed. Want to take a look at it, think about maybe moving in and splitting the rent? And if we hate it, you can always call Sebastian after all.”
