Manties in a Twist (The Subs Club Book 3) (6 page)

I blew out a breath, making my lips flap. “That was crazy.”

“Wild,” he agreed.

“I didn’t even know some of the people who were here at the end.”

“Those were friends of my friends.”

“Well, it was nice of them to bring us Fact or Crap.” I glanced at the game cards littered across the floor.

Silence. I scratched my crotch. My balls smelled like sweaty bacon, which was a thing I wanted to change with some shower magic. But also I didn’t feel like getting up.

Ryan had been in a shitty mood since the incident with Dave and Gould, and after a couple more beers he’d come up to me and been like,
“God, do they overreact much?”
I could tell he wasn’t trying to be mean—just when Ryan felt guilty he got extra snappy. I hadn’t known how to defend my friends without making Ryan feel worse. So I’d given him another beer because alcohol is like a grown-up pacifier.

Ryan’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “It feels like it’s finally happening.”

“What?”

He turned toward me. “Like we were saying the other night. We’re a
couple
. We have a place, and we host parties, and it’s cool.”

“I know exactly what you mean!” I could barely contain my excitement. “This is all the stuff I never even thought about. Like, wall art and dishwashers, and now other people come over to
our
place to do their laundry . . .” I decided not to mention my sweaty bacon balls, ’cause that seemed like it might lose me some adult points. Also I didn’t mention what Dave had said about this place not feeling like me. It
did
feel like me, just kind of a me I hadn’t known was in there.

He snuggled against my shoulder. I seriously fucking
loved
when he snuggled, because he was small and warm like a bunny. Not a well-dressed hare, but like a die-from-cuteness
bunny
. I was about to give him a noogie when he said, “Amanda asked me if she left some underwear here.”

I paused mid-noog. “No way. What’d you tell her?”

“I said no.”

I snickered and let him go, flopping back against the cushions. “We’re the worst.”

“I blame you.”

“Me?”

“You shouldn’t look so hot in panties.”

I yawned, bumping my head against his. “We should start having theme parties. I really l—” Another yawn. “I really like dressing up.”

He shifted. “Would you dress like a woman for theme parties?”

Whoa
. “Depends on the theme.”

He was silent awhile. “That’s what I love about you.”

“The cross-dressing?”

“Just how imaginative you are. I always felt like maybe I had a decent, like— I was kind of creative. But my parents steered me toward noncreative, uh, pursuits. But you’re good at sooo much things.” He punched my chest a few times, lightly.

“So much things? Do you know English?”

“So. Much. Things. Kamen.”

I grabbed his tiny doll hand. Held his arm back so he couldn’t punch me again, and grinned at him through the darkness. He tried to swing with his other hand, but I could feel it coming and caught that one too. I held both his wrists. “Uh-ohhhh.”

He struggled, laughing. “You’re such a jerk.”

“What happens when you try to punch Pelletor?”

He kicked my shin. “You become an asshole.”

“Ohhh, nope, nope. You get tickled. And you know it.”

He fell still and watched me, his eyes glinting. “Doooon’t. Don’t you
dare
.”

I fake lunged, and he tried to jerk out of my grasp.

“Kamen. I order you. By the power of Gay-skull . . .”

Gay-skull was the power invoked by his gay dom alter ego, He-Manacles. And I was Pelletor, his submissive nemesis.

I pounced and tickled him.

“No! Noooo!” He brought his legs up onto the couch and braced his feet against my chest. I could only hold on to one wrist, because I was tickling him with the other hand. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, which meant my work here was done.

I pushed his legs down and trapped his body under mine. Swooped to kiss him. “You have no power here, Gandalf Gay-hame.” We also had Lord of the Rings gay alter egos. And Star Wars. And
Party of Five
, but we didn’t tell anyone about that.

“Game, set, point, match,” I declared.

He shook his head. “There’s no point. It’s just game, set, match.”

“I like throwing a point in there.”

He groaned, stretching underneath me. “Maybe I
don’t
like your imagination.”

“Yes, you do.” I blew a raspberry on his cheek.

“Ewww.” He pulled his hand up from between our bodies and wiped his face.

Most people saw the creative stuff I did as more reason not to take me seriously. Like my music was just part of my goofiness. Ryan was the only one who got how much it meant to me. And, like, maybe I should have told him how much I appreciated that, instead of summoning Pelletor. “Thanks. For what you said.”

We shifted so we were lying side by side. I held on to him to keep him from falling off the edge of the couch.

I sighed. “I always thought I wanted to do music as a career, but honestly, I love being a cook. I don’t
feel
good at so many things. But I’m okay with that.”

He was silent another few minutes. “My job bores the crap out of me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Lots of people hate their jobs. Drix? He quit being a private eye—a
private eye
—because he wanted to be some kind of vampyre yoga instructor.”

“And is he happy now?”

“Yeah, dude. He just got promoted to vampyre king or something.”

“It’s just frustrating, because my height limits my job prospects.”

“Wait, what?”

“I can’t go in front of a courtroom.” He gestured to himself. “Nobody would take me seriously. So I have to settle for being a paralegal.”

“What are you
talking
about? There’s a million short lawyers.”

“Like who?”

“Theodore Boone.”

“Did you just compare me to
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer
?”

“No,” I said quickly. “But, like, you don’t
actually
think you can’t be a lawyer ’cause you’re short, right?”

“I’m not making this stuff up. When I was sixteen, I applied for a job as a server, but they offered me a job as a dishwasher instead. It makes people uncomfortable to see a man so short.”

I watched the shadows of the flies as they got down with the creamy ranch dip. “That’s mostly in your head, I think. Short guys are everywhere.”

“You comment on it all the time. My height.”

I turned to him again, kinda surprised. “You know I’m just kidding when I say stuff like that, right? I mean, you
are
short. But I love it.”

“I know.”

“Did you get stuffed in a lot of lockers in school?”

“Nah. People actually really liked me. I think because I was scrappy.”

“What’d you used to want to be when you were a kid?”

“An oncologist.”

“What even is that?”

“Cancer doctor.”

“Dude.”

“My uncle was one, and I liked the word. Then I found out what it would involve, so I wanted to be an artist instead.”

“An artist? For real?”

“Yeah, I used to draw a lot when I was little. Picked it up again in college.”

“That’s awesome. How have you never told me that?”

“I have some ancient, expensive painting program on my computer. But I never use it.”

“Then use it. Make me a drawing.”

He got quiet again. I tried to wrap my head around him feeling insecure about his shortness. He was amazing. I loved the way he moved and talked and yelled at the screen during baseball games and pretended not to watch
Elementary
when I had it on but knew key plot points when I quizzed him later. I loved his weird infatuation with megalodons. And the panty thing.

I gave this guy an eight hundred out of ten.

But clearly he had some confidence issues or something, because that law-school stuff didn’t make sense. How could a dude who loved to argue about shit—and who, like, never let being short get in the way of arguing about shit—think he couldn’t be a lawyer?

He shoved his elbow into my ribs as he sat up. “For you? I suppose I could.”

We made a pot of coffee, and he got out his computer and opened the art program. I stood behind him, chugging my coffee like it was goddamn OJ.

“You can’t watch me while I draw it.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Shoo. Go on.”

“Fine.” I retreated across the room and picked up my guitar. Played softly and sang a little. Drank a lot of coffee. After about an hour, I looked up. “How’s it coming?”

He shook his head. “It’s shit.” He glanced at me. “You can come look at it being shit, if you want.”

I stood. “Yes. I want to see a giant, steaming pile of art shit.”

I arrived behind him and folded myself basically in half to place my chin on his shoulder. “Oh my God.”

It was definitely a drawing of a megalodon, but it was, like, abstract or something. He had the kind of style that would be— I mean, if he got famous, you would know that style anywhere.

He frowned at the screen, tapping the stylus against the counter. “I know, it sucks. I used to be better.”

“No. That’s fucking awesome.”

“Can you tell what it is?”

“A megalodon jumping out of the ocean to eat a helicopter.”

He nodded.

“Ryan. I don’t think you understand. You have a
thing
going.”

“A thing?”

“Like, surrealist, conceptual, abstract-y . . .”

“You’re just saying words.”

“You’re just being a secret genius. How’d you learn to do this?”

He turned to me. “Do you really like it? Or are you just shitting me?”

“I frealz like it.”
Frealz
was what I’d started saying sometimes in place of
for reals
. It drove Dave crazy, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Can we print it and put it on the wall?”

“No!” He shielded the screen with his hands, like I might forcibly print-and-hang.

“Can you send it to me so I can look at it all the time?”

“You’re a freak.”

“You’re a megalodon hog. Let me have more megalodons.”

“I’m gonna hire a megalodon to eat you in a minute.”

“Ummmm, extinct, one. Not for hire, two.”

“Whatever.”

“Can you write and illustrate a children’s book about a megalodon that’s a hitman?”

“Ooh.”

“You can call it—wait for it . . .
Sharksassin
.”

“Lame.”

“
Megalodon Corleone
.”

He snorted.

“You laughed. I’m funny.”

He shook his head and went back to drawing. Added some shadows to the megalodon’s fin. But he was smiling, which meant he
did
think I was funny, he just didn’t want to admit it.

Which was fine. I didn’t want to get an inflated ego or anything.

I pulled up a chair so I could watch him, and he didn’t even shoo me away.

The guys applauded when I walked into Dave and Gould’s kitchen the next day. “Well, look who finally showed up to a meeting.” Dave grabbed a slice of deli turkey from a plate on the table and threw it at me. It stuck to the front of my shirt.

I looked down at it. “Did you just throw turkey at my shirt?”

He watched me peel the slab off and nodded. “In retrospect I should have used a chip or something. But life is too short for regrets.”

Gould moaned a little and rested his head on his arms. “Applause was a bad idea.”

Dave raised his eyebrows at me. “
Someone’s
hungover.”

“’M not,” Gould muttered, sitting up.

Dave pinched the back of Gould’s neck. “Grum-pyyyy.”

Gould swatted at him. “Sto-o-op.” He did like a bad Russian accent or something. “I kill you.”

No one seemed to have any hard feelings about the party, so that was cool. I stuffed the turkey slice in my mouth, then took a seat at the giant kitchen table. Dave’s dad had built the table, and it had been our hangout spot for years.

Years
.

It was still crazy to think we’d all been friends for so long. I mean, it wasn’t
that
long in the scheme of things. But considering high school still felt like yesterday to me, it kinda blew my mind that we were all in our late twenties now.

“What is this?” I nodded at the plate of deli meat, olives, and tiny pickles. “What about Mel’s?”

In the past, we’d always ordered lunch from Mel’s Sandwich Shop for Subs Club meetings, and it was meta because we were subs eating subs.

Dave grabbed a tiny pickle and crunched it. “The Subs Club is spending all of its budget on the kink fair. Not that we really have a budget. But, like, the money we got from giving the talk at Hymland College and the money I got from GK and Kel for being part of Riddle’s advocacy program. It’s all fair funds now.”

“Does this mean no snacks?”

“Nah, we’ll always have snacks. D gave me this whole tray the other night after a scene. He’s a snack dom who gives
to-go
food. What a guy.”