Junkie(21)

She chuckled and walked off to check the other tables.

Trent glared at me and pulled his feet back under the table. “Really?”

I snagged the ketchup (the good kind) and laughed while piling it on the side of my plate by the mighty tasty-looking fries. When I was done, I handed it to Trent, and he poured some on his plate as well.

Next I flipped the top off my burger, picked up the two slices of tomato, and tossed them onto Trent’s plate.

Did I mention I don’t like tomatoes?

Yes. I know that’s what ketchup is made of.

He picked up one of the slippery-looking red, seedy slices and shoved it in his mouth.

Trent didn’t like ketchup, but he loved tomatoes.

As he chewed, he angled his plate so the fries and the ketchup were within reaching distance. I reached over and plucked a fry off his plate, dunked it in the ketchup, and shoved it in my mouth.

I always ate half his fries.

I had an addiction.

He was my enabler.

Besides, I paid him in tomato slices.

“Gave my support to one of the candidates tonight,” he announced casually.

I knew this wasn’t a casual thing for him, though. He’d been kinda quiet lately. I figured it had to do with frat shit. Football was over, and he wasn’t the type to get all emo about his schoolwork. Trying to talk to Trent sometimes was like talking to a brick wall. He didn’t talk about himself too much. He played a lot close to the vest.

Sometimes I pushed. Most times I didn’t.

“So will it be Tweeter Dumb or Tweeter Dee?” I asked, still eating the fries off his plate. They were just the way I liked them.

He smiled mid-chew. He had food in his teeth. “Jack.”

“Your ass finally get tired of all his kisses?” I cracked. I pointed to his plate. “You’re out of ketchup.”

“You have some on your plate,” he pointed out.

“Tastes better on yours,” I retorted quickly.

I paused.

Why the hell did I say that?

I glanced up. Trent was staring at me, this funny look in his eyes. Something passed between us, something I didn’t recognize.

Whatever it was, Trent chased it away by shaking the portion of Rueben in his hand at it. “You know how I feel about ass kissing.” He scoffed.

He shoved the rest of it into his mouth and picked up the ketchup to casually add more to his plate.

“So how’d you finally make up your mind?” I asked, using the sauce even as he poured.

“Con pissed me off.”

I barked a laugh. “Spoken like a true leader.”

“Fuck you,” Trent muttered. It was a little less sarcastic than usual.

I hit a nerve.

“What’s up?” I said, kicking out my foot and hitting his shoe. Since I’d demolished most of his fries, I turned my attention to my burger.

“He just seems a little too confident. Like he thinks he has the election won already. I don’t like it.”

“So you threw in with the underdog.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He sat back and glanced out the window. “It’s weird, you know? Graduating, trying to figure out what’s next.”

I’d been where he was. When I graduated. When I was doing that fancy internship. Hell, I still asked myself what the hell I was doing. Moving to Maryland changed me. It challenged me.

It made me feel different… yet the same.

There I went again with the deep thoughts. I shoved a bite of burger into my mouth and focused on the topic at hand. “They make it out like it’s easy, right? Like going to college will just lay out your whole life for you. But it doesn’t. College is like being on the starting line of a race, revving your engine to go.”

Trent was watching me. I felt his attention in a way I didn’t normally. Like he was really listening right now, like he needed to hear whatever I was going to say.

Made me wish I had something better than a car analogy.

“Then the flag goes down and you’re off, speeding toward the finish line, but you forgot to load your GPS with the course, so you have no idea which way to go.”

He nodded. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”

“Backing a new president for Omega just means you’ll have more time to figure out what to do next.”

He nodded and made a sound of agreement. “Will be nice not to have a houseful of people watching my every move.”

Something in his voice made me pause. I sat back, abandoning my food, and reached for my glass. “Someone there giving you a hard time?”

“No.” He sighed. “It’s just been a long week. Being the president, hell, being a football player too, is like an entire identity, you know? Everyone expects you to be a certain way.”

I nodded. “It’s a lot of pressure. Especially when you aren’t sure the identity you have is the one you want.”