Out for the Night (Browerton University #4)(17)

Akash pursed his lips, and Tim and Tom had similar reactions. "That's not good."

"But what if we had a really good night together?"

"Has he reached out to you?" Akash asked.

Matty shook his head no. "It's only been two days. Maybe I should email him?"

"Nope," Tim said firmly. "The ball is firmly in his court. He said he wants to be friends. It's up to him to make that happen. My ex-girlfriend said the same thing to me after we broke up. 'Hey, let's stay friends.' I was like 'Okay.' Never heard from her again. I even tried texting her to see if she was going to the Iron and Wine concert on campus. Nada."

"When did you have a girlfriend?" Matty asked.

"In the fall. We broke up right before Christmas break."



       
         
       
        

"Huh." He never knew Tim had a girlfriend while they were playing. It never came up. Nothing ever came up except for Catan. "That does suck."

"Friendship is about action," Tom said. He tossed his empty can into the trash. "I remember during freshman orientation, I met a ton of people, and they all said that we should hang out, and then we never did. If you really want to stay friends with Coop, then maybe you should take some action."

"But the ball isn't in his court," Tim argued.

"Maybe there is no ball," Akash said, and relished his Morpheus-like wisdom.

Matty slumped in his chair. That did not bode well for him and Coop, which sucked because he had a great night with him well before the pool.

"Have you seen this guy since you two said you were just going to be friends." Tom leaned forward, elbows on the table.

Technically, Coop was the one who said that they should be friends, and Matty had no choice but to go along with it. Matty shook his head no.

"Have you talked with him?" Akash asked. "Maybe seen him around campus and did one of these?" He did a head nod you give to someone across the street.

"If you want to be friends with him, be friends with him," Tom said. "And if he doesn't want to hang out, then that's on him."

"But the ball is in his court," Tim said.

Matty wasn't any closer to having a definitive answer, but he felt better just talking this out. Talking it out with his Catan opponents. "Thanks for helping me with this."

"Anytime," Tim said.

"You know, you don't have to organize a game in order to do this," Akash said. "We could all just hang out and … talk. Like, about non-Catan stuff."

"Just talk?" Matty asked. It seemed like such a foreign concept to him, but one he wouldn't mind getting used to.

"Yeah. We have Playstation up in our suite, so we can play that, too," Tom said.

Matty had heard kids talking about it in class growing up, but was never invited to play with them. It was for the best, since his free time had been used for studying and working on his latest computer programs.

"Do you want to play?" Akash asked.

"Hey, we should order pizza, too," Tim said.

"Sure." A smile stretched across Matty's face.

I am hanging out. With Friends.





Chapter 15





Coop





Coop booked another client for tonight. This senior was going to a networking event and needed a wingman to introduce him around. For fifty bucks and an open bar, Coop was all his. He looked at the email again to make sure he had all the details, and to waste more time. 

There was one thing he could actually do before class: write Matty a damn email. But what the hell would I say? I really liked kissing you. It's a damn perk of the job? Coop didn't know what to do next after the pool, after their amazing night together. He had to keep spending time with Matty, for the money and because he genuinely wanted to. He didn't know which was the bigger problem.

He shut his laptop and headed for class. Coop collided with Kelvin in his hall.

"They've invented this new fangled thing called email. You should try it out."

"Do you have a second?" Kelvin had a smile on his face meant for punching.

"Barely. Talk fast." They returned to Coop's room. Kelvin shut the door.

"I wanted to thank you." Kelvin dropped a wad of folded up twenties on the bed. "Matty got his first B. It was glorious. He barely finished his test. He had to run it up to the professor. He's never done that!"

Coop didn't share in Kelvin's good news. He imagined Matty scrambling to finish, and he hated to think he was the cause.

"Don't worry," Kelvin said, reading his mind. "Because he got a B, the curve kicked in finally. So he still got an A, and I got my first B-minus."

"Everybody wins," Coop deadpanned.

"They do. Why do you seem upset by this?" Kelvin adjusted the shiny watch on his wrist. He was an ugly Polo shirt and a motorized cart away from a golf course.

"Matty's a good guy. I don't want to see him fail."

"Matty doesn't care about anyone else except Matty. You should see him in class. He's practically staring us down like we're on a battlefield. I know he wants that precious research position. If that'll make him happy, go for it. But my future isn't going down in the process."

Coop scowled at him, his blood a watched pot waiting to boil. He knew this was how the world saw Matty, but they weren't looking hard enough. They didn't know how much it meant to Matty to be the smartest kid in the room. Coop appreciated that Matty made people work to get through his tough exterior. He didn't want to waste his time being fake friends or trying to be everyone's buddy.

"He's not going to fail," Kelvin said. "Just keep doing what you're doing. After one more test, he'll get hooked on the power of the curve in no time."

Coop felt better. Kelvin, despite his intentions, was right. Matty would never let his grades drop far enough to actually risk failing. Because of Coop, he did slightly less well. He had a good time on Saturday night. That was worth a few points on a test.

He handed Kelvin back his money. "I don't need these little bonuses."

"You sure about that? That's sixty bucks right there."

He thought of Matty and his family, two forces pulling in his mind. He stuck the cash in his pocket, which he planned to mail off in another envelope immediately. "You can go now, Kelvin."

"Keep up the good work." Kelvin gave him one more punchable smile and a thumbs-up before leaving.



The networking event was held in the atrium of the graduate business school building, a place Coop had walked past and never set foot in. He always saw stressed out MBA students smoking in front and checking the stock ticker on their phones. I'll pass on that.

Inside, the building resembled a swanky office lobby that belonged in Midtown Manhattan. High ceilings, lots of marble, and elevator banks you couldn't access unless you had a pass.

His client, who seemed too nervous to work at a Denny's let alone a Fortune 500 company, would nod at somebody he wanted to talk to, and Coop would make the introduction. After almost two hours of smalltalk about Chinese expansion and organizational management, Coop was ready to claw his eyes out. He zoned out during conversations and thought about how Matty was doing. He wanted to make sure the guy was okay and wasn't spiraling from getting a B pre-curve. And he just, well, wanted to see what was up with him.



       
         
       
        

Fuck, I do have a crush.

Coop didn't have any interest in dating all year, and then the one guy he was paid to hang out with, the nerd who nerds, made him lose his mind. He checked the large clock hanging in the lobby, and the second it hit nine, Coop tapped his client on the shoulder. "My two hours are up."

His forehead creased with a fault line of worry. "Can you stay for a little bit longer? I'll pay overtime."

"You got this. You've talked to a bunch of people tonight. Just be you."

"Do you ever feel like an impostor?"

"All the time. But we all are. Every person in this room is faking it." Everyone was faking it, except for Matty. He was the most genuine person Coop had met at Browerton, maybe ever. Coop clapped his client on the shoulder. "You'll be great. Fake your heart out to these people. Text me later about how it went."

Coop whooshed out of the double doors of the mixer and jogged up to Matty's dorm. His body fizzed with excitement. .

"Hey, it's Coop." He said into the buzzer. "Can we talk?"

Coop bounced on his toes waiting for an answer.

"Sure. I'm room 312." Matty buzzed him in.

Barely a minute later, Coop was at his door. He took in the glorious sight of those big, curious, brown eyes and full lips.

"Did you mean what you said at the pool?" Matty asked, not wasting a second. "Do you see us as being friends? Or were you blowing me off?"

"No, I do." Coop didn't know what he meant that night. The words came out as a stop gap, but he knew that he didn't want Matty out of his life.

"Good. We can't just say we're going to be friends."

"Do you have a single? As a freshman?" Coop poked his head inside to glance at Matty's room with new bed and an air conditioning unit that could cool an entire floor.