Out for the Night (Browerton University #4)(20)

"I'm glad I'm here." Matty smiled into orange juice.

Linh leaned in. Her hair fell in her face. "Kelvin may be a total jack-ass, but this is a great party space, and at least he isn't stingy with the top-shelf liquor."

"And name-brand orange juice!" Matty raised his glass. Linh raised her empty one and went to get a refill. 

"Matty!" Another classmate shouted from across the room and gave him a "rock on" sign.

Matty blushed from the attention. Coop nudged him to let him know he could enjoy it.

"You are the hit of the party, and you just got here," Coop said.

"I think everyone's just so shocked to see me outside of class."

"They're happy you're here." Coop studied the onlookers. He detected admiration in their gazes. Yes, this was an unusual sight, but one that they all hoped became more frequent.

They claimed a spot in front of the TV, which nobody was watching anyway. Linh returned with a refreshed glass and quickly launched into a conversation about robots. She used very long words Coop didn't know and namechecked professors with names Coop couldn't pronounce. Coop downed his screwdriver quickly. He enjoyed watching Matty be social. His face was full of life as he talked, eyebrows squiggling all over his forehead.

Coop shook his empty glass. "I'm going back to the bar. Can I get anyone anything?"

They shook their heads no. A relief, Coop thought. He didn't have to try balancing multiple glasses in his hands. These weren't plastic cups. They were the real deal.

In the kitchen, he poured himself another screwdriver, being a little more generous with the vodka than Kelvin had been. He smiled as he watched Matty chatting away. It was like there was all this conversation rumbling inside of him, ecstatic that it could finally see the light of day.

"It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" Kelvin joined him at the bar and grabbed two fresh glasses from the cabinet. "Matty, being a friendly, sociable person. I don't know how you did it, but you are a miracle worker, my friend. Thanks to your work, the curve is back in play. All of our grades are up."

"Fantastic. Let's throw a parade." Coop tasted his drink, then wound up drinking half of it.

"Why so glum?" Kelvin shook himself a martini. Of course he did.

"This is over. Tonight," Coop said, making Kelvin stop mid-shake.

"But you're doing such a great job. I mean, look at him. Did you ever think Matty would be at a party?"

"Matty is here because he wanted to come, not because I made him." The high that Coop felt from watching Matty enjoy himself was cut by the false pretenses that brought him to this moment. "You have your curve back. My work here is done."

A smile came over Kelvin's face that made Coop's skin boil. "You like him."

"It's none of your damn business who I like." Coop clenched his jaw and held back from causing a scene.

"Wow. Who knew anyone could be attracted to Matty?"

Fuck causing scenes. Coop grabbed Kelvin's shirt and slammed him against the fridge away from public view. His eyes bulged with a barely contained fury that finally registered with Kelvin. "Matty's a good guy. A great guy. Our business is over, Kelvin. You and I don't know each other, and we never did."

"I get it, I get it." Coop let go, and Kelvin straightened out his shirt, pretending to be perturbed when Coop knew the guy nearly crapped his pants. "It's patient-client confidentiality, or something like that. Your secret's safe with me and vice-versa."

"Good."

Kelvin held up his martini for a clink. "Thank you for your work. Seriously, you saved my ass and everyone else in here."

Kelvin could go clink himself.

Coop returned to Matty and his friends, who were now talking about the more earthbound subject of weird professors.

"Do you and Kelvin already know each other?" Matty asked. "You guys seemed to be having a serious conversation."



       
         
       
        

"No. Just met him tonight. He was just asking me about New Jersey. It seems that everybody on earth has at least one relative who's from my state." Coop raised his hands in a what can I tell ya gesture, but inside he felt a pang of guilt that left a mark.

"Funny." Matty turned back to the weird professor conversation. That hurt even more, how easily Matty trusted him.

It's over. You're not a job anymore.

And with that, Coop was able to relax and enjoy himself. It was a new day, or night. He had Matty, and some extra cash. Life was good. He did his best to join the techie conversation of Matty and his friends. The conversation thankfully steered to terrible high school teachers, and Coop was able to join the fray.

"I had this one teacher in high school. My junior English teacher Mr. Todd Malmuth. You think English teacher, the guy can at least spell, right?" Coop shook his head no. He wrapped his arm around Matty's waist, right where it belonged. "He had the worst grammar. The worst. He mixed up 'they're' and 'their' all the time, which I guess anybody could do. But he spelled Hamlet with two m's, Heart of Darkness as h-a-r-t."

Matty and his friends laughed into their drinks. Coop was back in his saddle, playing his regular party part. Coop stifled a laugh so he could give the punchline to this story.

"And on more than one occasion, he spelled his own name wrong. He would write Tudd Malmuth on the board."

"Tudd?" Matty let out a high-pitched cackle, the kind of laugh that relinquished all social control. It was another thing of Matty that Coop found irresistible. He pulled him closer against his waist.

"What can I tell ya? The Totowa school system for you." Coop shrugged his shoulders.

"Did you say Mr. Malmuth? From Totowa High?" The guy was burly with the matted down hair, idiot face, and the stocky build that screamed jock. He left his circle of friends by the window. "Totowa, New Jersey?"

Coop's body tensed up, like he was in a car headed for an accident.

"That's where I went," the guy said.

"Small world!" Matty said. "Do you go to Browerton?"

"No, I'm visiting friends this weekend. We're supposed to go to a party at Kappa after this." He kept looking at Coop, observing him.

"Cool." Coop turned back to Matty and tried to get back to his story, if he could concentrate.

"What year were you?" But before Coop could answer, the guy pointed at him with recognition. He stared deep into Coop's face, like trying to decipher a secret code. "Wait, are you String Cheese? Holy shit. Is that you, String Cheese?" 

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Coop growled. He forgot about his muscles and tattoos. They all dropped away, a mirage blinked away in the sun.

"That's really you." The guy looked him up and down, and Coop couldn't move. He had no strength, no power. "String Cheese went and bulked up."

"I don't know who that is." The words were barely audible. He was shrinking down to Lilliputian size.

"It's totally you." The jock cracked up with a loud, raucous laughter that was like punches to Coop's face. "Tattoos and everything. Real badass. Are those things real?"

Coop wanted to beat the shit out of him, wipe the floor with his gross grin and red cheeks. But he couldn't move. His arms hung at his sides completely useless. Like fucking string cheese.

"Actually, he is a badass." No, no. Matty, stop talking. Coop knew what he was going to say next, but he couldn't stop it, like an accident in slo-mo. "He raps, too."

The jock lost it. He could barely breathe as he held the couch for support. Now the whole freaking party was looking at them. At Coop.

"Holy shit, String Cheese." The guy took out his phone. "I got to take a picture. The guys back home are never going to believe-"

Coop whacked it out of his hand. The guy stopped laughing, and a fire brewed behind his drunk eyes. A twist of a smile fell on his lips, like he was going to enjoy this.

"You starting something with me?" The guy asked.

Coop sized him up. He knew on some level he had a similar build to this guy, but the guy's frame loomed large over him, and Coop felt like he was a scrawny nothing all over again. All the bench pressing and reps in the world meant nothing right now.

"Let's go, Matty." Coop put down his drink and strolled out of there slowly, to show he wasn't scared, even though every system inside him was on PANIC mode.

Fucking String Cheese.





Chapter 18





Matty





This was starting to become a pattern. Matty and Coop would go to a public place together, and Coop would leave in a huff. Matty had seen this in robots that go haywire from the tiniest circuit malfunction.

"That guy was an asshole," Coop said as they walked down the street, his hands in his pockets when Matty really wanted them around his waist like before. That had sent Matty levitating above the hardwood floors, knowing that he was wanted.

"He was an asshole in high school, and he's still an asshole," Coop continued.

"Okay. And now you never have to see him again."

"It's not that simple."

"It's not? He doesn't go to Browerton." They passed a row of storefronts, closed for the night. Matty was getting used to the quiet of the nighttime streets, as if he and Coop owned them. "Are you worried he's going to tell everyone back home? Your friends won't care."