Page 71 of Wingmen

But the pills were the thing that clinched it. Or at least, they gave him something to hang it all on.

He went to Force only at his scheduled times, and avoided the other spots where he knew Dustin might be. It wasn’t long before he realized he didn’t know anyone else in the city: he’d been so preoccupied with Dustin he hadn’t bothered to make any friends.

He sent Drew a DM on Saturday morning.

Her reply came back after lunch:The king lives! Long live the king!

Elliot was at Force, doing sprint intervals on the treadmill. He had thirty seconds to read her message and send,Sorry. Didn’t mean to ghost you

No worries bud,she replied.We’re all busy. Internship has been craaaaazy i haven’t even checked my dms tbh. Whats up?

He sprinted for thirty seconds, then texted back, gasping.wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight

Her reply didn’t come back for a while. He sprinted and rested and sprinted again.

Sure! sounds great. What did you have in mind?

They met at a bowling alley.Drew turned up with her own shoes and Elliot immediately knew he was in trouble.

She looked cute. Kind of a tomboy thing going on, which was oddly working for her. She had her Patagonia on when she arrived, and as they sat to put on shoes she took it off to reveal an old t-shirt with cutoff sleeves and a faded word on the front. Elliot glanced at it as he bent to lace up his shoes.

His heart jolted.

“You like that band?” he said, making his voice what he hoped was the right amount of casual.

She looked down at the t-shirt. “Rush? My mom got me into them. Have you heard them?”

Elliot looked down at his shoes. He hadn’t. He repeated what Dustin had told him at basketball verbatim: “They’re the greatest of all time.”

At the end of the night he walked her home and said goodnight at the door, and asked if they could hang out again. She said yes.

He didn’t feel as nervous about hanging out with her as about hanging out with Dustin. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

Dustin

He hadn’t heard from Elliot in almost a week by the time he ran into him at Force.

It wasn’t Dustin’s usual day; Tom had a scheduling conflict and needed to shift things around. They spotted each other across the gym as Dustin walked in. Elliot looked away without acknowledging him, and his heart sank as he went to the locker room to change.

Tom had him in an excruciating purgatory of balance tests, upper body cardio, and core work while they continued to try and figure out what was up with his knee. Roddy was doing a circuit with Marisol, so they didn’t have a chance to talk until they were wrapping up and came to stretch. Roddy sat by Dustin on a blue mat by the mirror – close enough to talk; far enough away that it wasn’t clear if he wanted to. Dustin waited, watching him in the mirror.

Eventually, he said, “How’s it going?”

Roddy nodded, stretching his legs in front of him. “Good.”

“Your family thing worked out?” Another nod. Dustin watched him reach for his toes. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Not much.” Roddy shrugged. “This. Hanging out.”

“Cool.”

Christ, this wasawful.Why was it so fucking awful?

Dustin stretched in silence and waited for Roddy to say something else. He didn’t. It went like that for what felt like a hundred years, until Roddy got up, picking up his water bottle, and mumbled, “See you around,” as he went to the locker room.

Dustin stared after him in disbelief. Then got up and followed him.

He walked in as Roddy was stripping off his shirt, and leaned in the doorway behind him. “Did something happen?”