Secrets & Lies: Two Short Stories(3)

He grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Are you getting fresh with me?”

I laughed. It was weird seeing Toby Tucker be so… relaxed? Funny? He’d always seemed so easily embarrassed. The boy who’d blush at any mildly suggestive comment. Not anymore, though. A semester at college had really loosened him up. I liked it.

“You know it,” I teased. “Now strip.”

He took off his wet blazer and handed it to me. Underneath he was wearing a plain white dress shirt. And he looked pretty good in it. Without the blazer, I could actually see the shape of his arms, and I wondered if he’d been taking advantage of the campus gym. Honestly, I thought he should ditch the blazer altogether. It wasn’t doing him any favors. But, hey, people make weird-ass fashion choices. There was a period of time when I thought purple skinny jeans were an essential fashion piece.

“This isn’t, like, dry-clean only, right?” I asked, holding up the blazer.

Toby shook his head. “No. Do you really think I’d wear one of my nice blazers to a party?”

“Well, Toby, most eighteen-year-olds don’t wear blazers to a party. Period.”

“Touché.”

I plugged in the hair dryer and switched it on, pointing the stream of hot air at the blazer, which I’d stretched flat over the toilet lid. It was too loud for us to talk, so Toby just stood off to the side, leaning against the wall while I worked. A few minutes later, his blazer had gone from drenched to just a little damp. I turned off the hair dryer and put it away.

“That’s as good as it’s gonna get tonight,” I told him.

“That’s fine,” Toby said. “I can’t really keep wearing it, anyway. With how it smells. I’ll just put it in Jeanine’s car and wash it when I get home. Thanks, Casey.”

“No prob,” I said, waving my hand. I sat on the edge of the sink, facing him. “To be honest, that was more enjoyable than the rest of this party has been. I mean, it’s not that the party is, like, lame or anything, it’s just that it—”

“Feels like you’ve been here a million times?” Toby offered.

“Yeah. Exactly. Like a rerun of a TV show you’ve seen on cable over and over again. You know every story line and every quote, and even if it’s a great episode, it just isn’t exciting anymore.”

“I feel the same way,” he said. “I didn’t go to many parties in high school. Just a few. And I admit, I had fun, but they were all pretty much the same. It’s hard to believe that was just a few months ago.”

“Right?” I said. “It’s like everything is different—”

“But exactly the same.”

We looked at each other, then laughed.

“I’m glad I ran into you tonight, Toby,” I said. “I don’t know if B ever told you, but I was actually pretty pissed at her after she broke up with you.”

“Really? Why?”

I shrugged. “You just seemed liked a good guy. I had a good time tagging along with you two.”

“You mean you and Jessica enjoyed sitting in the backseat, making fun of us.”

“Exactly.” I swung my leg forward, playfully kicking at his khaki-covered legs.

OMG. Was I flirting with him?

“So I take it her new boyfriend isn’t as fun to mock?” he asked, grinning.

“Wesley? He’s great, but I don’t have nearly as much fun tagging along with them. I always feel like a third wheel. Even if Jess is around.”

“I know how you feel,” Toby said. “I’ve been single all semester, but my roommate got a girlfriend the first week of school. She practically lives in our dorm room, and sometimes I seriously consider sleeping at the library just so I don’t have to feel like I’m intruding on them.”

“Dude, I’ve had the same issue at school. My roommate started dating this guy from her biology class, and it’s like they’re fused together now. Like if they’re apart for more than three seconds, they might actually die. Sometimes it’s seriously like, WTF, why are you making out right in front of me? Don’t you want some, like, privacy? Luckily, Wesley and B have never been that bad, but it still sucks to feel like everyone’s just being polite and don’t really want you around.”

“I have a hard time imagining anyone not wanting you around,” he said. “But I know how you feel.”

“What’s wrong with us?” I asked, picking up my can of beer, which I’d left next to me on the sink, and taking a drink. I offered it to Toby then, and he took it. “We’re cool, funny, good-looking people. How do we always end up being the third or fifth or seventh wheels? Hell, I’ve even been a ninth wheel. If my life were a semitruck, it would topple over.”

Toby took a long swig of my beer, then stepped forward and put the can back on the sink, his arm brushing across mine. “Maybe we just need to find our matching wheels,” he said. “And maybe we’ve overextended the metaphor here.”

“Maybe just a little.”

He laughed. Then I laughed. And I don’t know if it was the beer starting to go to our heads or the slow, sexy R&B song playing beyond the bathroom door or the fact that we were both single wheels, but the next thing I knew, I was leaning forward and he was leaning in and his hands were on my waist and mine were in his hair and then…