Chapter Text
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey
Somehow, Casey makes it through the rest of his day without setting himself on fire or spilling espresso on anyone. It’s good that he’s been doing this for a while now, because he’s able to go on autopilot, measuring and mixing without having to turn on any meaningful part of his brain. Puck doesn’t try to talk to him, and Miles sits at the table in the back with his phone and his coffee, and while that’s weird, it’s also comforting.
When Casey came in to work, Miles told him, “I’ve got you, Cherry,” and it’s nice, to not have to feel as completely alone as Casey thought he would feel today. Somebody’s got him. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, but at least he’s not hurting all by himself, not yet anyway, and he can keep himself together, and he can make coffee, and he can get through the end of this shift.
Neither Miles nor Puck says anything when Casey goes out to sit in the Lemon for his fifteen minute break, and neither of them says anything about his wet eyes and red face when he comes back in, though Miles does give Casey another hug. Casey lets himself relax into the hug for a moment before he pulls away to go back behind the counter again. When things slow down in the store just after noon, Casey does a quick search on his phone, texting a business name and address to David. Even in Atlanta, David should have a good place to find a good doughnut, maybe even one of those weird raspberry danishes.
Miles stays at the Starbucks until the end of Casey’s shift, buying another coffee or a muffin or something any time Puck starts to give Miles a look like he might want to consider being someplace that isn’t the Starbucks. Puck leaves at two, though, so Miles moves over to the counter and talks to Casey—more like at Casey, since Miles doesn’t seem to require any specific response and Casey doesn’t feel like giving much of one—for the last hour.
“You give me a call after your swimming class, Cherry?” Miles asks, as the two of them walk out to their cars.
“Miles,” Casey sighs, but not with a lot of force behind it. “It’s not a class. It’s practice. I already know how to swim.”
“Course you do,” Miles says, nodding his head in agreement. “So, give me a call after your swimming class practice, right?”
“Miles!”
“I’m just messing with you, Cherry. I know you know how to swim,” Miles says. “Come here.” Casey goes over to Miles, and lets himself be enfolded into another hug. “You’re gonna be just fine, Cherry. You hear me? Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
Casey nods against Miles’ shoulder, not because he agrees with him or believes it’s ever going to be just fine, but because he wishes that it would be. “Thanks, Miles,” he says, as he disentangles himself and takes a step towards the Lemon. “I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, you’d better, or I’ll have them put out an APB on you!” Miles calls out as he climbs into his little red car.
That does make Casey laugh a little as he sits down in the Lemon’s driver’s seat, though the laughter fades before Casey even makes it out of the St. Rita’s parking lot. He stalls out twice on the way to the pool, something he hasn’t done in at least a month, and he’s frustrated and grumbling under his breath to himself by the time he’s finally gathering up his bag to walk in.
He’s a little early, and normally, if he were that early, he’d do a few warm-up laps before anybody else got there, but today he just can’t muster up the energy. He drinks a bottle of water and sits on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet into the water of the open lane on the far side, and wishes it were yesterday, or a month ago, or two years from now.
After another fifteen minutes pass, the rest of the team and Coach Brum arrive, so Casey puts on his best smile and says hi to everyone in his liar’s voice. He gives Brandon the weird pre-workout Gatorade pouch things that Coach Beiste—Aunt Shannon—keeps putting in his bag, and Brandon fist bumps him. It should feel nice to be included, part of a team, but mostly it doesn’t feel like anything.
Casey does his swims, and he knows in the moment his time is bad. He doesn’t have any energy, and he honestly doesn’t even care he doesn’t have any energy. He does the best he can, but it’s not very good, and when he climbs out of the pool, Coach Brum looks at him all concerned. Casey gives one of his Powerbars to Jason and the other one to Thomas, and they declare him to be “awesome” and tell him “thanks, dude”.
When practice is over, before dryland, Coach Brum says, “Hey, Casey, stay after a minute, will you?”
Everybody else slowly filters out of the building after dryland, and Casey lags behind, waiting. Once they’re all gone, Coach Brum waves him over.
“Everything okay with you?” Coach Brum asks him. “Those weren’t your usual times out there today.”
Casey shrugs. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was up early and I worked today.”
“Anything else going on with you?” Coach asks him, like some kind of psychic mindreader–Coach.
“My, um. Friend. David. He left for college today,” Casey says, his voice steady, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for people to do, just pack up and drive out of your life, hundreds of miles away. And it is, he supposes. It is normal for people to go, just like that, here with you one moment, and then gone another.
Coach Brum nods like he understands, though how he could understand that, Casey isn’t sure. “Well, get some rest tonight, okay?” Coach says, and Casey nods at him like that’s something that could actually happen, even though it isn’t.
Casey changes into his dry clothes and checks his phone, because he should be hearing from David soon, might even have a voicemail he can listen to. There isn’t a voicemail, but he does have a long—for David, especially—text:
Made it to the parking deck, at least. Pretty sure that there was a wreck farther down on the freeway. All EIGHT lanes of traffic were stop-and-go. Now to find out what my room is, I guess. I'll call later after you finish practice.
Casey can’t even imagine what eight lanes of traffic would look like, though he supposes he could look could at Google Maps to see. He won’t, though. The idea of even looking at those streets right now makes him feel kind of sick, so instead he drinks his second bottle of water, and goes out to sit in the Lemon for a while, mustering the energy to drive back to Shannon and Monty’s house. They’ll want to talk about it, and he most definitely does not.
Wednesday: June 27th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave
The first thing Dave wonders is where the wreck is. He must have missed seeing it on the other side while he was navigating all the ramps and exits, but there's obviously one or all eight lanes of traffic wouldn't be stopped. Dave thinks it's eight lanes, anyway. He's really not sure. It's definitely more than two or three, though.
It takes longer to exit the interstate than he expects, too, but eventually he finds his way to the parking deck, as directed, puts the temporary permit in his window, and climbs out of the truck. The first few days, the last email sent out warned all of them, will be hectic: orientation to the residence hall, orientation to the workout facilities, academic advising with the athletic staff, then going through orientation on Sunday and Monday. At this point, Dave will settle for finding the right place to get a key for his room.
He stops behind his truck and pulls out his phone, trying to decide if he really should call, like he said, or if maybe it'd be easier on both of them if he just texts Casey. Casey's in the middle of swim practice, as it is, and Dave has no idea how busy he'll be by the time Casey's done. He'll try to call, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing, and fuck. He doesn't want Casey to worry that he didn't make it. He's replayed the morning a thousand times in his head as he drove, and he's still not sure what other things he could have said. He doesn't want to call and leave a voicemail full of pauses and uncertainty. He knows it's the coward's way out to send a text, but he takes it, regardless.
Made it to the parking deck, at least. Pretty sure that there was a wreck farther down on the freeway. All EIGHT lanes of traffic were stop-and-go. Now to find out what my room is, I guess. I'll call later after you finish practice.
Dave slides his phone back in his pocket, and heads towards the actual dorm buildings. There's a table in the courtyard, luckily, and an overly–enthusiastic woman checks him in. "You're in 315B, North Avenue South," she tells him, smiling. "Looks like two of your dorm-mates are already here. Because your meal plans don't officially activate until Tuesday morning, we'll be serving a buffet for dinner tonight through Saturday here in the courtyard. We'll talk more about other meal locations." She frowns briefly. "But drink lots of water! We're going to set some records this weekend."
"Right," Dave answers, nodding almost out of habit. "Uh, thanks." He takes a map and a folder of information and heads in the direction she points, taking an elevator to the third floor before finding 315. He unlocks the door and finds himself in a kitchen that opens into a living room, and two guys are sitting in the living room with a deck of cards.
"Hey!" One of them says with a huge grin. "You Dave or Danny?"
"Dave," Dave manages to get out, stepping through the kitchen. "Dave Karofsky."
"Tyler Davis. Ty."
“Cooper. Anthony Cooper. If you call me anything but Coop, we’re gonna have some problems.”
“Okay. Coop.” Dave smiles at both of them. “So we’re waiting on a Danny?”
“Speak for yourself, man,” Coop drawls. “I’m waiting for the supermodels. They show up before this Danny character, I’m gonna let ’em have his room.”
“Well… maybe that’s what caused the wreck out there?” Dave says.
“Was there a wreck?” Ty asks. “Man, people drive like the temperature outside makes a difference.”
“I guess so. Traffic was bad enough.”
“Where are you from, anyway?” Coop asks. “’Cause that’s just Atlanta. That’s not a wreck.”
Dave narrows his eyes, trying to decide if Coop’s kidding, but he looks pretty serious about it. “Ohio,” Dave says. “Lima, Ohio. Straight up 75.”
“Ohio. I’ve never been to Ohio.” Ty shrugs. “Guess you got down here in time for hot weather, anyway.”
“Lima, Ohio,” Coop repeats. “That doesn’t even sound like a real place. Whatcha got going for you up in Lima, Ohio?”
Dave winces mentally, thinking about Casey, but he shakes his head. “Do I look like I’m still in Ohio?” he finally responds.
“Sure as hell don’t,” Coop agrees. “Well, hope you packed your sunscreen, man. Welcome to Atlanta in the summertime.”
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey
Casey’s phone beeps to indicate an incoming call, and a quick glance shows that it’s David, so Casey says, “I’ve got to go. It’s David,” and ends the call with Miles without saying anything else. “Hi!” he says, once he’s switched to David’s call.
“Hey,” David replies. “Sorry, it’s later than I thought it would be. We had to listen to a fifteen minute talk about food, where they read the information on the sheet of paper we already had.”
“Oh, that sounds terrible, I’m sorry,” Casey says. Talking about food for fifteen minutes sounds terrible in general, but being read to off a paper sounds worse. “How, um. Your drive? How was it?”
“Pretty easy, until I got in the city. There’s so much traffic. I thought it was a wreck but one of my roommates said no, that’s just Atlanta traffic, so I don’t know.” David sighs. “But yeah, I mean. Straight down 75.”
“Are they nice? The roommates, I mean. Not the traffic.”
“Yeah, I haven’t met Danny yet. His parents are driving him and they had car trouble or something, the check-in lady told us. The other two are Coop and Tyler, they’re both from somewhere near Atlanta.” There’s a brief pause before David continues. “I can’t remember where, though, for either of them.”
“Oh. Well, that’s probably good. They probably know where things are, so, um... So that’s good,” Casey says. He winces at himself, because this is probably the dumbest a person could possibly ever sounds on the phone, ever.
“Yeah, maybe so,” David agrees.
“So, it’s, um. Probably really hot down there, huh?”
“Yeah, supposed to break a record or something, soon; everyone keeps saying ‘drink a lot of water!’ every other sentence, practically. But then they tell us we have outdoor workouts.” He snorts. “Kinda inconsistent.”
“Do they have a pool? You should go swimming. That would be, um. Cooler, probably. Than not.” Casey puts his forehead down on the steering wheel and tells himself to just stop talking before he gets any dumber.
“Yeah, I think we get a tour or something tomorrow, and schedules of when we can go where. I don’t know, it’s all kinda overwhelming right now.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is,” Casey says. It’s kind of overwhelming for him, too, and he isn’t the one who had to go anywhere new. “A schedule’s good, though. At least you know where you’re supposed to be, so you know, that’s... That’s good.”
“Yeah. I, uh. I’ll try to figure out some kind of routine, you know. And let you know when I’m going to be free. If there’s a set time most days.”
“I can be free anytime, so. You know. Just anytime, okay?” Casey says. “If you want to talk or anything like that, anytime is fine. Or tell me when, and I can call then. Or text you. Whichever one.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, so David can’t hear it shaking. “I’m… It’s good you made it there safely, David.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” David says. “Definitely.”
“I should, um. I guess you probably need to…" Casey trails off. There isn’t anything else he can say without veering into the territory of things that might make David feel bad, and he doesn’t want David to feel bad about going to college. He wants David to be happy and do a great job, and not have to worry about him.
“Yeah, there’s some kind of, I don’t know. Get–to–know–you thing in a little while. Hopefully it’s not that one with the movie title on your back. I hate that one.”
Casey has no idea what that get–to–know–you thing with a movie title might entail, so he just says, “Yes, me too.”
“So, uh. I’ll talk to you sometime tomorrow, anyway.”
“Okay, David,” Casey says softly. “Have a good time at the thing. I hope there’s no movie titles.”
David half-heartedly chuckles. “Yeah. Thanks. Bye, Case.”
“Bye, David,” Casey says. He keeps the phone to his ear until David ends the call, and then he sets it down on the Lemon’s passenger seat, folds his arms around the steering wheel, and takes long, deep breaths. He has to drive back to Shannon and Monty’s now, and make it into his room without any kind of conversation, and call Miles back. Those are all the things he has to do right now, and crying in the pool parking lot is not on the list.
Thursday, June 28th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave
Ty complaining is the first thing Dave hears when he steps out of his room after his first night in the dorm. "I can't believe we had to report yesterday and then they don't have anything scheduled for us until eleven."
"And no breakfast, either," Dave points out. "Which reminds me." He pulls out his phone and looks at the website Casey sent the night before. "Want to go check out this doughnut place?"
Ty's eyes light up. "Oh, yeah. Sounds good. We'll let lazybones and late–arriver stay here."
Dave snorts. "Aw, it's not Danny's fault his parents’ car broke down. Twice."
"Yeah, I know. But I think it is Coop's fault he's sleeping in."
"Yeah, that's probably true."
Dave grabs his wallet and waits for Ty to do the same, and after they consult the website, an online map, and a campus map, they decide to drive to the doughnut shop.
"We'll be nice and get a frosted croissant for the other two," Ty decides, surveying the selection in Sublime Doughnuts. "But me, I'm getting this strawberry ’n’ cream one. Ooh, and nutella!"
"Yeah, I'm gonna try the two with raspberry." Dave pays for his two doughnuts and two of the croissants, and then Ty does the same before they drive back to the dorm.
When they get back, Danny and Coop are both awake, slumped on the living area couch and staring at the blank wall where they’ll get a television eventually. Coop casts a bleary–eyed look back in their direction, grimacing.
“How’d we get paired up with a couple of morning people?” he grumbles.
“Hey, are those doughnuts?” Danny asks, sounding far less grumpy. “Doughnuts!”
“Got croissants for you two. Next time you have to be awake if you want to pick your own,” Ty answers, setting the box down. “Didn’t you see the schedule for the rest of the month?”
“I didn’t,” Dave admits.
“The one that says we’ve gotta get up at ass o’clock in the morning?” Coop asks. “Naw, I ignored that one.”
“Did you look at all your papers or not?” Ty asks Dave, grinning. “What, you think you’re special and don’t have to read them?”
“Like cereal,” Danny says. “Special K.”
“Yeah, Special K here’s from Ohio, he doesn’t have to read his papers,” Coop agrees.
Dave snorts and picks up one of his doughnuts. “I can give your croissants to Danny, you know.”
“I thought we were bonding,” Coop says.
“I always bond by stealing food.” Dave shrugs. “Don’t you?”
“I can’t bond without a croissant, so. No, I guess.”
“You two are kinda strange,” Danny says. “But at least things’ll be interesting around here.”
Ty laughs. “Those are the truest words spoken all day.”
“There’s nothing strange about me,” Coop protests. “I’m just a red-blooded all-American boy who happens to like a pastry. That’s perfectly normal. Everybody likes a pastry.”
“Except people with celiac disease,” Ty says, grinning widely. “They might like ’em, I mean, but they can’t eat ’em.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” Danny shakes his head. “What about you, Special K?”
“Something about wheat.” Dave shrugs. “But at least none of us have to worry about it.”
“Nope. We just have to worry about getting oriented.” Ty grins. “I call dibs on the left-hand shower.”
Friday, June 29th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey
The doorbell rings at 8:30, which is weird, and neither Shannon nor Monty makes a move away from their coffee and papers, which is even weirder. When the bell rings a second time, Casey says, "I'll get it, I guess." Shannon makes a small sound of acknowledgment, and Monty looks like he's smiling behind his paper, but that's all the response Casey gets.
He didn't expect to see Miles Brown at 8:30 on a Friday morning, but Miles can sometimes be unpredictable that way. Before Casey can even say hi, though, Miles has him by the arm, hauling him out to where Miles’ car is parked in the driveway.
"Cherry," Miles says, his voice as serious as Casey has ever heard it. "I need your help for a critical mission."
"Um. I think I'm supposed to ask Shannon or Monty before I disappear on any critical missions," Casey says, looking back at the front door, which Miles has just swung closed behind them. Really, today was supposed to be his day for wallowing in self pity, at least until swim practice at 3:30. He thought surely he could have one day, at least, for that; apparently not.
Miles just looks at him like he's crazy. "Cherry, you think I'd do anything to get on Coach's bad side with the season starting up soon?" He shakes his head. "Nah, I called last night and ran it by ’em. You're free until your swim classes start."
"Swim practice, Miles."
"Right, right. I know that!" Miles waves his hand dismissively as the two of them take a seat in the Versa. "Now, what you see here today, you are to speak of to nobody, you understand?"
"Where are we going?" Casey asks. "I'm not sure I want to—"
"Nobody, Cherry!" Miles repeats, and he seems so very serious about it that Casey just nods in response, wide-eyed. When Miles pulls into the parking lot of Brown's Flowers a few minutes later, though, Casey laughs.
"Miles, everybody knows your parents own the florist," he says. "It's right there on the sign. Brown's Flowers. Anyway, you, um, kind of actually talk about it sometimes."
Miles glares at him, and Casey feels like he should probably act more impressed or intimidated than he actually is, but he hadn't even had a second cup of coffee before Miles picked him up a few minutes ago. Miles will have to settle for Casey looking confused, instead.
When they walk inside, a friendly–looking older woman behind the counter looks up and smiles at them. "Oh, there you are, Miles! First batch is back on the table, whenever you're ready for them."
"Thanks, Ms. Betty," Miles says, with that big charming smile he has.
"Miles? Do you, um. Work here?" Casey asks. "Is that the big secret?"
"Yeah, I do, and no, it's not, but don't go spreading that around, either," Miles warns him. "This isn't one bit of their business."
Casey's starting to wonder if the Browns' florist shop isn't maybe a front for the mafia or a casino or something even worse, because Miles is acting awfully weird about all of this, when he actually sees the table in the back. It's a long cafeteria–style table, covered in boxes of different types of flowers, all roughly similar in color, and several large rolls of green and silver ribbon.
"Miles!" Casey says, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. "Do you assemble the flower bunches?"
"They're called bouquets, and shut that little mouth of yours before it gets you in trouble," Miles says. "More trouble, anyway."
"More trouble than what?"
"Never you mind about that! I've got a crisis scenario here, and I need your help to get all of this done by pickup today at 2!" Miles says, waving his hand over the table.
“But… why do you need me? I don’t have any, um. Flower experience. What about Alicia or somebody?”
“Well, see, it’s like this, Cherry,” Miles says, heaving a big sigh as he moves towards the table. “This order, it wasn’t supposed to get picked up until later, like seven, eight o’clock, but then last night my dad gets a call from the bride, and she’s all kinds of freaking out, decides she needs these flowers by two. And my dad, well, he doesn’t know how to say no.” Miles grins at Casey and raises his eyebrows. “Guess you can say that’s a family trait.”
“So, crazy bride. Got it,” Casey says. It’s better, sometimes, to just pretend he doesn’t know what Miles is talking about when he’s talking like that. It just encourages him.
When Miles realizes he’s not going to get a laugh or a blush or any indication of shock out of Casey, he drops his eyebrows and shakes his head. “Anyway, Ma and Alicia already had all this paperwork they were going to go over, at the insurance agency today, and they couldn’t put it off, just because some bride gets all freaked out about a bunch of flowers, right?”
“Right?” Casey echoes.
“Exactly right,” Miles says, nodding. “So, instead, here’s poor Miles Brown, gonna be stuck in the florist at before nine in the morning on a Friday, all by his lonesome.”
“What about her?” Casey asks, gesturing towards the front.
“Oh, Ms. Betty doesn’t arrange, Cherry. She answers the phones and handles the books, and talks to people at the front counter. My dad says I’m not allowed to talk to people anymore ever since that couple called off their engagement.”
“Why did they— Miles! What did you do?”
Miles shrugs, like it’s not a thing at all, and says, “Didn’t do anything but talk, Cherry. I can’t help how people respond to that. Dude called back the next day and canceled that flower order, though, so my dad wasn’t real happy about that.” He shakes his head and turns his attention back to the table. “So, anyway, I got to thinking, who do I know that’s good at organizing? Naturally, you came right to mind.”
“You mean you tried to make Rick do it and he said no,” Casey says.
“Cherry!” Miles exclaims, with a comical look of shock and horror. “I would never, ever let Foots anywhere near these flowers. These are delicate. He’d probably crush ’em, knock a box over and sit on ’em, or something like that. No, I needed somebody with a light touch who can tell the difference between a stargazer and a calla.”
“Are those… um, types of flowers?”
“See? You’re getting it already,” Miles says. “Now, first I’ll tell you what everything is. It’s all sorted by type. Then I’ll just stand down here at the end, and you hand me whatever I need, and I wrap it up and make it all pretty. I bet we can get done with this by lunch, and I’ll take you out for a milkshake after.”
Casey looks at the flowers suspiciously. “But we aren’t telling anybody about this, right? Not even Rick and Alicia?”
“This is our own dirty little secret. We shall never, ever, ever speak of it again,” Miles agrees. “Also, Ma wants you over for dinner after your swim class.”
“Miles.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Cherry. Nobody’s gonna try to make you eat anything you don’t want,” Miles says, opening up the boxes of flowers and straightening them on the table. “She did get a new juicer thing, though, so if she offers you a cup of juice, you’d better drink it. We’re humoring her about the juicer. Also, don’t ask what’s in it, ’cause you probably don’t want to know.”
Saturday, June 30th, 2012: Dayton, Ohio — Miles
Casey still smells like a little freckly cup of espresso when he picks Miles up at around a quarter after two, but there’s worse things to smell, and at least he’s not wearing that silly green apron anymore. Even Miles has a line he will not cross, and taking people out in public wearing aprons is just way, way past that line.
Miles had sort of expected Casey to look a little worse than he does, what with this being the first trip out to the center without Karofsky, but obviously the combination of putting together wedding bouquets and a big glass of bright reddish–orange juice from Miles’ Ma’s juicer was just the thing to perk the kid right up.
That April girl almost ruins everything in the first two minutes, when she comes bounding up in that pounce–on–you–out–of–the–blue way she does. “Hello, citizens of Lima! Aren't you missing—”
Miles starts flailing his arms around and mouthing “no” and doing a cut–it–out motion with his hands, which luckily she notices, because she stops talking and looks at Miles like she’s not sure what’s wrong with him. Which is fine, because at least it means she’s not talking about Karofsky and getting Casey all worked up or anything.
“Hey, April,” Miles says. “We’re just here for your fine company and to eat all of your cookies.”
For some reason, that makes Casey start to giggle, and Miles looks over at him, then back at April. April doesn’t look like she knows what’s going on any better than Miles does, because she just sorta looks confused and shrugs, and it’s almost like a bonding moment.
“Are cookies really that funny?” Miles asks, and Casey starts giggling again, covering his face with both his hands. “Breathe, Cherry. I swear.”
“Oh, they are. They really, really are,” Casey insists. April shakes her head again, and Miles shakes his right back, and the two of them roll their eye at each other before April flounces away, and Miles steers Casey in the direction of the seats, grabbing a plate of cookies on the way. For obvious reasons, Miles directs them away from the couch where Casey and Karofsky usually sat, and then end up side by side in a pair of plush chairs that have seen better days. Or decades.
“So, you and Taylor been talking about what’s going on with PFLAG this year?” Miles asks. He helps himself to one of the chocolate chip cookies from the plate balancing between the two chairs’ arms, and nudges a sugar cookie across the plate in Casey’s direction. Casey ignores it.
“His family’s traveling a lot this summer,” Casey says. “Conferences and things? We’re getting together at the end of July to start planning, though. It’s, you know. Been a busy June.”
“Yeah, it has,” Miles says. “We should have more parties this year, is what I think. Make everybody bring food. Now that vegan–Berry’s gone, we don’t have to worry about mushroom loafs and cakes make out of bean curd.”
“I don’t ever worry about those.”
“I always worry about those, Cherry. That vegan shit’s insidious. Sneaks into everything,” Miles says.
“We could have more parties, though,” Casey says. “I’ll talk to Taylor. I’m not sure who’s doing what, or how much he wants to do, or anything like that. Maybe we could form a party committee.”
“I could be the party committee.”
“You could be on the party committee, Miles. You can’t be a whole committee by yourself.”
“Who says?” Miles asks. He eats another cookie and lets his eyes drift around the room, making eye contact with a couple of people on the way.
“The dictionary. A committee is a group of people, and there’s just one of you,” Casey points out, sounding all stubborn.
“Yeah, but one of me’s all anybody really needs,” Miles says, in his best ‘friend’–making voice, and Casey glances up at him, his cheeks turning ever so slightly pink before he looks away.
“That’s, um. Probably true,” Casey says.
“Oh, it’s true, Cherry. Believe me, it’s true.”
Casey’s face turns even brighter pink, and he sinks down into his chair. After a couple of minutes pass in silence, Miles digs through his backpack and pulls out a Code Red Mountain Dew, passing it to Casey, and they sit there for a while, occasionally making idle conversation about the people walking around and wondering what the lecture–talk–thingy was about today, or if they even had one.
Eventually, Casey pulls out a book and tucks his feet underneath him, curling into a tiny little ball in his chair. Miles eats the last of the cookies—not a single one of which Casey ever touched—and tries to talk to Casey, which doesn’t work so great, since that boy goes selectively deaf with a book in his hand. He watches Casey read for a little while, which is sort of boring and sort of funny, since he makes faces at all the surprising parts, and then his attention turns to the group of guys across the room.
Miles exchanges some sweeping looks with a couple of them, but hottie number three gives him that lock–on, go–ahead eye contact, and Miles is about halfway out of his chair to go over there and introduce himself when he remembers that the whole reason they’d even come out here today was because he wanted to keep Casey company. He starts to slowly lower himself back down into his seat, looking back in Casey’s direction.
“You can go over there if you want,” Casey says, without even looking up from his book.
“Nah, Cherry. It’s fine. I didn’t come here for that!” Miles protests. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that’s not what this is!”
“Miles, I know you,” Casey says, still not looking up from his book.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miles asks. He’s not sure if he’s indignant or embarrassed or maybe just a little bit disappointed that Casey might know about all of that. “What’s that mean, Casey?”
“It means I know you, and I know why you come here, and I still like you just fine,” Casey says, finally closing his book and looking over at Miles. “Go make a friend.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Casey says, and he does look and sound pretty sure. “I have a book.”
“Well, okay, Cherry. If you’re sure.”
Casey opens his book, and Miles can see his eyes start to travel across the page again. “I’m sure.”
“You’re the best, Cherry, you know that?” Miles says, grinning as he stands up.
Casey nods his head absently, fiddling with a little piece of hair falling into his face, like he’s already tuned Miles out again, but as Miles starts to walk away, Casey calls out, “Be back by five-thirty, though, or I’m leaving you here with your new friend.”
“Oh, I will. You just bet I will!”