Unspoken(54)

“What’d I miss?” he asked, directing the question toward me but handing the beer to Ryan. Ryan took the beer and swallowed about half of it.

“Just me, fucking it up,” Ryan said, swiping a forearm against his mouth.

The stranger held out his now-free hand to me. “Erik. Ryan’s roommate.”

“AnnMarie. Ellie’s roommate.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of our table. Erik peered past me.

“The goddess from geology?” Erik asked. Both Ryan and I nodded.

“She thinks Ryan’s gay and was asking her out to be his beard,” I told Erik, avoiding Ryan’s gaze.

“Why’d she think that?” Erik asked.

“Lacrosse connection,” I said. “She doesn’t like them.”

Erik raised his eyebrows at this and tilted his head questioningly toward Ryan. Ryan just put his head in his hands.

“She has good reason,” Ryan mumbled, but loudly enough so that we could hear. “The lacrosse club is filled with a bunch of assholes.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “I’m surprised you’re even standing this close to me.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t seem like an asshole to me.”

“I’m not,” Ryan said, standing up and looking at me. “I swear it, and I’m not trying to have a beard.”

“It’s true,” Erik piped up. “Not gay. I can tell.”

“Dude, everyone can tell he’s not gay,” another guy next to us leaned in to say. Yep, we had quite the crowd.

“It just took Ellie by surprise,” I said in her defense. “Plus you did act all caveman on her.”

This made Ryan put his head down again. “I know. I can’t think right around her. She messes me up bad. I’ll probably be the only one to ever fail Rocks for Jocks because I can’t focus on anything but her.”

“I’ll, ah, go put in a good word for you,” I offered. A few people clapped. I turned to go and then swiveled around. “Just out of curiosity, how do you all know he’s not gay?”

“Oh my God, girl, did you see the hair on his chest? It’s obviously not manscaped.” Erik said this with obvious horror at my ignorance. I looked at Ryan’s chest but saw nothing wrong with it. I met Ryan’s eyes, and he just shrugged as if he didn’t know what was wrong either. Soon we were all staring at him, and Ryan, for all his amazing confidence, became flustered and dragged his hand across his upper chest. The motion made me giggle a little. The whole scenario was kind of hilarious if you thought about it.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised and headed toward my table. This time, a small entourage of interested people, led by Erik, followed me. Ellie stood by the table, throwing back another shot and glaring daggers back toward Ryan.

“Ellie, this is Erik, Ryan’s roommate,” I introduced them. Ellie reluctantly held out her hand.

“I’m sorry you have to live with him,” she sniffed.

“Me, too,” Erik replied. “I was hoping for a gay roommate who’d either fall totally in love with me or go trolling for men with me. Instead I got a sporty lacrosse straight dude who likes to read Shakespeare and won’t wax his chest.”

“You’re a pretty awesome wingman,” I said to Erik after the recitation of Ryan’s assets.

“I know,” he said, without any faux modesty. Ellie’s pissed-off look turned to uncertainty. As she nibbled on her lip, one of our entourage piped up, “Why don’t you give the poor boy a chance?”

“Yeah, just a dance,” another voice said. Pretty soon the crowd was chanting dance, dance, dance. We all looked back to Ryan who, buoyed by the crowd support, no longer had his head in his hands but was walking toward us. Ellie threw her hands up in surrender and pushed through our crowd. Halfway across the dance floor, the two stopped a foot away from each other. The music spun down and there was a lull. Someone else yelled out, “Now kiss!”

Ryan placed his arm around Ellie’s waist and waved his other arm in the air, gesturing for the DJ to spin up another song. He yelled out, “Play that funky music, white boy.”

The crowd erupted in cheers, and Sasha and I dissolved into laughter. The dance floor was mobbed as everyone moved toward it to revel in the little drama that had played itself out. Sasha and I threw ourselves into the crowd, pushing until we found Ellie and Ryan draped around each other like they were trying to absorb each other. We pulled them apart and danced, jumping and grinding and swaying to the strange mix of K Pop and hard rap. As the night wore on, Ryan and Ellie became inseparable. Erik and Ryan had abandoned their table and taken up residence at ours. Sasha’s ex showed up, looking magnificent in pink, her hair teased out and standing a good four inches in a halo around her head. Victoria must have had her own invitation, as Sasha’s fourth went unused. Brian was off with some girl tonight, the opportunity to get laid by one girl outweighing hundreds in their underwear. One shake of Victoria’s hips and Sasha was back in her arms. It seemed like everyone was pairing up.