I shake my head, still feeling guilty even though he’s not asking me to apologize. “I’ve always been in private schools, and I guess it was sheltered with the likely high tuition fee. We had a few scholarship students, but they were mostly there for their grades, so they seemed to study a lot and keep to themselves.”
I’ve always thought of my parents, and by extension myself, as pretty down-to-earth, generous, chill people. I thought that meant I didn’t fit the spoiled stereotype despite having more money than most. I realize now just how wrong I was. There’s a lot I was able to ignore because of my privilege.
“Well, how do you feel now? Ready to get us an A?” Porter asks, changing the topic once again. I want to know more about his brother and his mom, but I don’t want to overstep. He’s slowly been sharing pieces of himself with me, and I’m trying to savor them all without pushing too hard.
“Sure am,” I reply confidently with a grin. The thought of saying goodbye already has my smile falling though. Maybe we don’t need to split up just yet. “Hey, I’m not sure what you’re doing the rest of the night, but I skipped dinner with the guys after practice. Would you want to go grab something with me?”
He hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I’m down.”
“Hell yeah,” I cheer as I pack up the note cards. “How about Mexican?”
“As long as we can get a margarita.”
“Bet.”
13
PORTER
“Hey, Porter, wait up!” Will calls out, and I turn to see him jogging toward me as I leave the building where my media class just was.
A part of me is still a bit surprised whenever he seems so happy to see me and that we’ve become friends so quickly. I still can’t believe I opened up to him so much about my family last week. I wasn’t expecting to do that. It’s never been something I enjoy talking about. Normally people’s eyes fill with pity for me and my family, which is understandable. But I’ve dealt with it for as long as I can really remember, and coming here felt like a clean way to distance myself from the “oh the poor Johnson family” narrative.
Will didn’t treat me any differently after. We just went to dinner, and as promised, got margaritas. It was easy and fun. If Will was queer, I would say it was even a little flirty at times, but I’m sure that was just my mind playing tricks on me because that tiny part of me, shoved down deep, maybe wished it were a date.
“Glad I caught you!” Will huffs out as he catches up to me. “Did you see our grade is posted for the speech?” He looks really happy, so I’m assuming we did well.
“I did not,” I admit.
“Ninety-five percent! So I’m taking you to lunch to celebrate,” he announces.
I raise a brow. “Oh, are you? What if I had other plans?”
“Cancel them,” he replies with a smirk.
“Do you want to call my manager or should I?” I tease rather than immediately agreeing. Not because I’m actually opposed, but it’s my natural instinct to push back a little.
“Shit, when do you work?”
“In like an hour.”
“So much time!” he insists. “Well, not for anywhere fancy, but we can do that another day. Let me take you to lunch, P. We can do Tommy’s again if that’s alright?”
“Yeah, sounds great,” I agree, ignoring his comment about going somewhere nicer another time. I don’t think that’ll actually be happening. Grabbing margaritas after working on our project or getting a sandwich when we run into each other on campus is one thing, but that would feel way too much like a date, and that’s obviously not what we are doing.
We head in that direction, and I realize he doesn’t have a backpack. I try to remember his schedule, but he was the one who always suggested our meeting times. Was he already on campus? I assumed this was a convenient idea while we were in the same area, but did he go out of his way specifically to find me?
“So, how long were you waiting for me?” I ask, attempting to sound casual.
He sticks his hands in his pockets as we walk. “Oh, not long. I still have your schedule so I knew where you’d be.”
“Did you have a class?” I push.
“Yeah, but it ended before yours. Then I saw the grade and decided to hang out for a bit instead of going home.”
I wonder how much earlier, but I tease him instead of findingout. “So instead of texting me, you thought, ‘I’ll stalk him and demand he spend time with me’?”
He nods. “I was prepared to kidnap you if necessary, so you made it pretty easy for me.”
