Josh hurries across the quad toward the Math Sciences building, trying to remember if there had been some kind of assignment due today. In the month since the semester started, he’s discovered that his teacher never collects the assignments, but that he’s screwed if there’s a quiz when he hasn’t worked at least some of the problems. When he gets to class, only a bit late, there are just a few seats left—all in the front row—and the teacher is passing out the latest batch of graded quizzes.

Josh slumps down in his seat and fishes around for his calculator. The classroom smells like disinfectant and the walls are bare, so different from the sloppy mosaic of the theater department’s halls. Even the English department puts up a poster here and there, but the math building accurately reflects the essence of math; stark and uncomfortable and depressing. He taps his pencil on the desk and tries not to look up as his teacher approaches, a TA who’s about Josh’s age but acts like he’s forty, with his dorky glasses and suspenders and the way he writes equations across the whiteboard as though they’re the most important thing in the world.

Today, he slips a few quizzes onto Josh’s desk and stands there long enough that Josh glances up through his hair. “Yeah?”

“I do small group tutoring a couple mornings a week,” Professor Bell says. Or Drake, as he’s asked to be called. Most people just stick to his title, though, because he’s not their friend; he’s in charge of their entire grade, and Josh isn’t going to forget it. “Or one-on-one, depending who shows up. You probably want to think about dropping in. My hours are listed on the syllabus.” He gives Josh a polite smile and moves on.

Josh rifles through his quizzes, unsurprised by the failing grades on two out of the three. He hates this stuff, but he can’t graduate without it, which is totally unfair, especially since he’s the only one in the theater department who hasn’t already knocked out this requirement, so he has to make the bi-weekly trek over to the Math Sciences building all by himself. Not that it matters, because there isn’t any interaction in math; just a constant stream of letters and numbers, and Josh is lucky to catch even a handful of them.

He wonders if anyone actually goes to these tutoring sessions, especially since as he checks his syllabus, he sees that they’re at eight in the morning. What time does this guy get up, that he has time to iron his pants and make his hair look like that and teach math? Josh stares at him as he walks to the board and says, “Take out a piece of paper for today’s quiz.”

Josh doesn’t bother copying down any of the equations.

*

Fridays, he eats lunch at the student center. He always buys sushi at the Asahi Grill vendor and brings it to the table his friends occupy near the windows that overlook the quad, where they talk about their improv group, upcoming shows, and things they actually care about—definitely not algebra. So when Henry says, “You know this guy?” Josh groans, because here comes Professor Bell, wearing a brown sweater vest and carrying a carton of milk. A folder of papers is tucked under his arm, and he doesn’t seem to notice that Josh isn’t happy to see him.

“Josh, hi,” he says. “Look, I just wanted to remind you about the study sessions, I think I told you about them? Because your, uh.” He shakes the milk carton and glances around at the other guys. “Your last quiz.”

His friends snicker annoyingly, and he kicks as many of them under the table as he can manage without looking like an immature jerk. “Yeah,” he says, because this guy isn’t just in charge of Josh’s grade; he’s trying to help. And he doesn’t seem too eager; his body language is casual as he stands there with his folder and his milk, but Josh’s calendar is pretty full, so there’s no way he’s going to willingly drag himself to a classroom at the crack of dawn. “About that,” Josh says brightly, “I think I’m actually getting it. But thanks.” He stuffs a bite of salmon roll into his mouth and waves with his chopsticks.

Professor Bell nods, rocking on the heels of his ugly, girly shoes. “Good!” he says. “That’s good to hear.”

“Who’s your friend?” Cam asks, leaning past Josh. “Hey. Weren’t you in my Contemporary American Lit course? Drake, right?” He reaches out with his hand, which Professor Bell reaches over Drake to shake his hand.

“Yeah, I graduated last year, so now I’m teaching basic algebra while I get my MS.”

“Cool,” Cam says, and Josh doesn’t like the way this is going, because everyone is looking at Drake all dopey-eyed like they really do think he’s cool, and Diane is reaching for Drake’s hand now, and no no no no no.

“I should go,” Profesor Bell finally says, as Josh is chewing his last piece of sushi with all the anger he’s feeling toward his so-called friends, all of whom are inexplicably infatuated with his extremely lame math teacher.

As if to prove his point, when Professor Bell is gone, Diane says, “Hello, basic algebra,” in a tone that means a whole lot of dirty.

Josh screws up his face and crumples his napkin. “Can you not? That guy is a dork, and more importantly, he’s my teacher.”

“Not really,” Cam says. “He’s still a student, too. He’s our age, would you relax?”

Josh glances over at where Drake is chatting with some girls he recognizes as music majors. “He wants me to get tutored,” he says slowly. “I mean, you don’t trust somebody who does math for fun.”

“I told you to take it freshman year,” Henry laughs. “You’ve definitely killed all those brain cells by now; there’s no getting them back.”

“Har har,” Josh says, but it’s probably true. Before he can get too morose about it, he changes the subject. “So, where are we going tonight?”

*

Josh shoulders his way through the dense crowd, his drink lifted high. There’s bass thumping in his head and a sticky floor under his feet just how it should be on a Friday night, as he blinks in the neon lights that flash through the smoky haze. It’s hard to see as he moves through the hall that separates the back from the front. He feels his way through, pressed between sweaty bodies the entire way, before he reaches the back room where the bands play, and the techno beat from the DJ is eclipsed by the wail of guitar and the blurry rasp of a mouth pressed too close to the mic.

It sounds good, makes Josh want to see who’s on stage. He downs most of his drink as he pushes his way toward the front, because it’s so crowded back here it’s bound to be spilled otherwise. It takes a while, but he finally gets close enough to see the act. It’s just one guy working a guitar for all it’s worth; lean little hips in tight rockstar jeans and sweat gleaming on his neck. Josh likes his sound—hell, he likes his look, he thinks, feeling bold and reckless with a couple drinks in him—and he moves closer to see more.

“Hey,” Cam shouts against his ear, draping himself over Josh’s back. “You like?”

Josh nods. “Yeah,” he says softly. Maybe when the set’s over, if the guy’s not too swamped…he stops to glare over his shoulder, because Cam is shaking all over him—with laughter, Josh realizes. “What the fuck is so funny?” he yells into the din, but Cam just keeps laughing, slaps him on the back and disappears back into the crowd.

He turns his attention back to the stage. After admiring the fit of the guy’s t-shirt over his shoulders, his gaze travels upward, and there it is, the reason for Cam’s laughter and the last thing Josh had expected to see: the guitar guy is Professor Bell—or Drake, because there’s nothing professorial about the way he’s moving right now.

Josh stumbles forward, blindsided by the sudden, crushing want that rises up and then buckles in on itself. Like this, it’s easy to get why everyone had fallen all over themselves at lunch. Maybe they’re smarter than he is, and that’s why they’d passed algebra three years ago, because they’d been able to see that under those stupid glasses, Drake is not all numbers and grade books.

“Thanks a lot, you guys are great,” he finally says with a wave at the crowd, and lifts his guitar strap over his head so he can take a break.

It’s late and the place is spilling out onto the street, so it takes forever to get to the bar. When Josh finally gets there, Drake is leaning against the end of the bar and swigging from a bottle of water. “Heyyy,” Josh says, feeling suddenly, unaccountably shy. There’s no reason for it, because twelve hours earlier, Drake had been the one approaching him.

Drake lowers the water bottle and gives Josh a smile that’s sweet and refreshingly sincere.

“You were good,” Josh says. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Drake licks his lips, considering, and shrugs, which Josh takes as a yes. He orders a whiskey, which Drake sniffs when it comes, but drinks all the same. “You came for the show?”

A girl near the door vomits violently into a garbage can. “Nah, I came for the classy atmosphere,” he says, and Drake’s smile brightens his whole face as he ducks his head and laughs into his glass. His perfect hair isn’t so perfect anymore, Josh notices as he pushes his way into the spot next to Drake; it’s damp and tangled, and he’s exuding an energy Josh has never seen in the classroom; volatile and alive “But I did see you. I like your sound,” he says as Drake takes a long drink that nearly finishes his glass.

“Thanks,” he says, sweeping his bangs all to one side. “I’d stay up there all night, if they’d let me.” He smells of sweat, smoke and liquor when Josh leans past to order another round.

“I’d let you,” Josh says, a little appalled about stooping so quickly to flattery, but Drake is already sipping at his second whiskey and letting Josh stand so close their hips are touching, the edge of Josh’s shoe against the sole of Drake’s boot. Drake is wired from the show, his eyes so bright and dark that it makes Josh reckless. “I like the whole Clark Kent thing you’ve got going on.”

Drake glances up at Josh with a quizzical expression.

“You know, the glasses? You’re different without them, man,” Josh says.

“I just look different.” Drake turns back to the crowd, tapping his foot to the music.

“No, you’re like Clark Kent,” Josh says. “And I have discovered your true identity.”

“So I’m like a superhero,” Drake laughs, his shoulders swaying easily to the beat. “Cool.”

“Want to show me some of your superpowers on the dance floor?” Josh asks. It’s crazy out there, the way it always gets at the end of the night, with barely enough room to move.

Drake sucks on a piece of ice, shaking his glass in his hand. For a moment, Josh worries he’s overstepped his bounds—he barely knows this guy, outside the endless hours he’s spent watching him work incomprehensible equations. Drake sets his glass on the bar and looks up at Josh, studying him carefully in the darkly backlit bar. Sorry, professor, he has to fight saying, but then Drake pushes off the counter and says, “Why not?”

Josh follows him, not sure what he’d been thinking when he’d made the offer. His dance moves aren’t exactly smooth; he’s spent most of his life using his body for comic effect; the fat kid with all the hilarious moves. He has to remind himself that things are different now; that the attention he gets from people is genuine interest more often than not, and that once they’re out there in the crowd, there’s nothing to keep him from feeling the rub of Drake’s thigh against his own. Nothing to keep Drake from liking it, unless you count the fact that he might not be into Josh, or into guys, or worse yet--guys who routinely fail at solving for X.

He’s not sure if they’re dancing together or together, but the crowd makes that decision for him, Drake’s feet staggered tightly between his own as they move the only way they can; against one another, Drake’s arms in the air, head tipped back and swaying as though he’s in his own private world. He might be a little drunk, Josh realizes; the drinks had been strong and Drake is pretty tall but skinny. It would certainly explain why he catches himself with his hands on Josh’s biceps when he’s bumped from behind, laughing into Josh’s chest, and yeah, a dirty rock star in his arms, this is the way Josh always dreams his evenings would end.

“Want to go outside?” he shouts into Drake’s ear, daring to brush the hair aside first, and Drake agrees without breaking rhythm. Oh Lord, he’s one of those guys who feels the dance, who bounces in a relentless vertical jump with his fingers pointed toward the ceiling, but Josh has a fascination for guys with a complete lack of self-consciousness, so he follows Drake out, pausing only to grab two more beers from the bartender who looks like he’s about to yell for last call.

The air outside is chilly, the beginning of autumn in the northeast. Everyone mills around the sidewalk, breathing puffs of frosty breath and clinging to one another for warmth. Josh toys with the zipper on his sweatshirt for a second before he sees Drake huddled with his thin arms around his chest. It’s easy enough to shed his sweatshirt and hand it over to Drake, because Josh always dresses in layers, and he’s so wound up right now he might never be cold again.

“Thanks,” Drake says. As he slides his arms into the shirt, he smiles up at Josh with eyes that are deep brown in the streetlights, something Josh has never noticed. Drake tips back the beer, probably a bad idea with the state he’s already in. He’s likely one of those guys who doesn’t drink but never turns down an offer, which means Josh has gotten him at least a little drunk. “Feels good out here,” Drake sighs, sagging against Josh—not with any intent, but just a late-night gesture that doesn’t mean anything.

Josh risks a hand on the back of Drake’s neck, damp and overheated against his palm, and then he’s doing a lean-in, what is he doing? It’s way too soon for this and this guy is his teacher, but Drake’s hips had moved with his guitar as though they’d been fused together, and Josh doesn’t forget things like that. He can’t forget that voice, either, especially how it’s roughened by the smoke and shouting and whiskey.

“I never expected to see you here,” Josh says, dropping his hand from Drake’s neck. “Where’s your next gig?”

“Old Market Cellar,” Drake says. “Their big nights are Tuesdays, which is why there aren’t early study sessions on Wednesday.” Josh is trying to be careful, but Drake is so fucking friendly, keeping eye contact as though he’s into this conversation. “I do more of an acoustic thing there,” he says. “Some people actually listen. It’s a good gig,” he says thoughtfully, swaying on his feet and catching himself against Josh’s chest. “I get to do more covers. Lennon, Dylan, that kind of thing.”

Josh doesn’t care about either of those artists. He wants to hear Drake again, that’s all. “Maybe I can…” he begins, but that’s when Cam, Henry and a bunch of other guys come pouring out of the club, hooting at Josh when they see him with Drake’s hands wrapped tight in the front of his shirt.

“Hot for teacher!” someone yells, those assholes, and an outburst of rambunctious laughter that sends Drake back a step. “I should get my guitar,” Drake says carefully—too carefully.

“And then get a cab?” Josh asks.

Drake frowns. “Oh. I guess I…”

“I can give you a ride,” Josh says quickly.

“That’d be good,” Drake says, nodding thoughtfully, running his fingers through his hair as it dries askew. “If you don’t mind. You’re still probably gonna fail your quiz Monday, though,” he smiles. “Unless you come see me.”

Josh should be used to this frustration, but tonight it’s unbearable, the endless waiting for a signal that just isn’t coming. Just a few minutes ago, Drake had been folded against him, and now--nothing. “You want me to come see you?”

Drake squints at him. “I’ll teach you math,” he says, and clambers through the doorway. “But I’m probably gonna need that ride.”

*

It turns out that Josh knows Drake’s neighborhood. It’s right off campus, where streets of old rundown brownstones serve as housing for the students with a little more money to spend. “Nice,” Josh says when he pulls up, and shifts his car into park at the sidewalk’s edge. Drake just sighs and stretches his long legs out on the floorboards, smiling drunkenly at Josh, who hadn’t missed the way Drake’s drummer had set him up with three Texas Rattlesnake shots on their way out the door.

“Yeah, it’s nice. No roommates,” Drake says. “Well, sometimes. My bassist shows up every couple weeks.”

“I live in the dorms,” Josh says, turning in toward Drake with his arm across the back of the seat. The car is still running, a steady hum all around them, and warm air trickling through the vents.

“I know. I always see your bike outside Founder’s Hall. Drama, right?” Drake drags the word out so it sounds like drahhhma, and Josh is caught between annoyance and disappointment; he can’t tell if Drake is making fun.

“Theater,” he says defiantly. “I’m a theater major.”

“Yeah,” Drake says, and turns sideways on the seat. “That’s cool. I saw your improv group at the BowWow last summer. You’re funny,” he says slowly. “Josh Peck is funny, and he hates my class.”

“No.” Josh takes a chance and touches the edge of Drake’s wrist, a brush of warm skin that feels even more intimate than how close they’d been on the dance floor. “No, I don’t hate it. It’s just not my thing, you know?”

“I know. It’s not really mine, either,” Drake says. “I can do both for now, but as soon as I make it big, I’m outta here.”

“You’re gonna be a big-time rock star, huh?” Josh says softly, barely holding back from trying to kiss Drake right now, from tasting the fruit and tequila from those shots on his mouth. He seems sleepy and pliant enough that he might be agreeable to it, but it’s too soon.

“Yeah,” Drake says, and his gaze has drifted down to Josh’s mouth, so Josh hadn’t been entirely wrong. He fumbles for the door handle and wrangles his guitar out with him before leaning back in. “So listen, don’t forget to come by for that study session,” he says, and then he’s making his way up to his front door.

*

“What’re you doing back so early?” Henry asks over breakfast. “Didn’t the naughty professor ask you in for coffee?”

“No.” Josh tears his pancakes into pieces, unsure of their soggy texture. “I don’t think he’s into that kind of thing.”

Henry snorts and scoops half the pieces onto his own plate. “He looked into it last night.”

“That’s just how he is,” Josh says. “You saw him at lunch yesterday, and with those girls.” Now that he thinks about it, Drake is friendly with everyone. “He’s just…nice.”

“Probably too nice for you, then.”

“I’m nice enough to share my pancakes,” Josh says. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter. He teaches algebra, end of story.”

Henry smirks. “He doesn’t just teach algebra.”

Annoyance creeps over Josh so quickly that he realizes Henry is right; Drake probably is too nice for him. “So, he was good on stage; big deal. There’s a different band there every night of the week, and they’re all good.”

“So, you’re not interested?”

“Interested in graduating,” Josh says. “Now, can we talk about something that matters?”

“Like auditions for The Insomniac’s Letters.”

Josh stabs his fork toward Henry. “Like that. I was born to play that role, man.”

“You were born to do comedy.”

And this is where Josh thinks his aggressive pursuit of the comedy stage is coming back to bite him in the ass, because he’s always so busy making everyone laugh that they don’t want to see anything else. Even when he shares his material, his classmates latch onto the inanity, blind to the dark edges that bleed out from beneath the laughter. Or maybe they’re just sick of all the assholes who turn in all the feel my pain crap—not that Josh wants to be that. He just wants the chance to be something different; it’s why he’s an actor—or, wants to be.

“I think I want to do this,” he says, abruptly resolved, and in this moment, it’s impossible to believe that numbers could possibly matter.

*

He’s not exactly sneaking, but Josh does take care to remain quiet as he gets ready at seven-thirty on Tuesday morning. There’s a cool autumn mist outside, which means his hair will curl as soon as he starts across campus, so he just smoothes the whole mess back with a handful of extra-hold shine serum, and looks at his reflection. Not bad. His eyes are a little bloodshot, but they stand out enough to get noticed, especially with the blue button-down shirt he’s put on over a wrinkled black t-shirt.

He’s not sneaking, but he’d never hear the end of it if anyone found out he was getting up this early for a math lesson, especially since it involves Drake, who is clearly straight—and, Josh realizes as he walks in, still a dork.

Drake is sitting at a table in the back of the room making slow, careful notes in the margins of a book that looks like algebra, only a thousand times more complicated. He puts aside his work when he sees Josh. “You made it,” he says, surprised.

Josh puts his bag on the table. Jesus, Drake is wearing a bow tie, a tidy dash of color at the base of his throat.

“My chances of passing aren’t very good if I don’t get help,” Josh admits.

He sits next to Drake and shows him a page from his notebook where he’s tried to work a few equations Drake had assigned as homework. “I could only figure out a few of them,” he says, as Drake pushes his glasses up on his nose and scans Josh’s work. It gives Josh the chance to study Drake in the light, something he’s never been able to do before. He’s also never noticed the smatter of freckles over Drake’s face, the same freckles that trail up his forearm and disappears where his sleeves are loosely rolled.

Today, his hair lies clean and shiny across his head. He smells of soap, of something faint and piney, and when he turns to Josh, Josh is caught staring at the line of his jaw.

“Okay, I think I see what you’re doing,” Drake says.

Josh certainly hopes not.

“There are a bunch of different ways to solve quadratic equations, each one dependent on what information you have in front of you. Now, you know how to solve by factoring, which is good, but that’s not always the way to go.”

Josh nods, even though he’s not sure where this is going.

Drake points at some of the equations Josh has left blank. “For this one you’d need to use the square root property, and for this one, you need to complete the square.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve actually been over these quite a bit in class, Josh. And you haven’t been absent, and you’re usually late which means you sit up front, so... Is there some reason you’re having trouble? I just need to know, if I’m going to help you.”

Josh shrugs. “Some people say that a short attention span is the sign of a brilliant mind.”

Drake just raises an eyebrow, so Josh sighs.

“It’s just that when you’re talking about exponents and stuff, it gets a little boring, and… He gestures at his notebook, which Drake looks at blankly for a moment before reaching for it and paging through the semester’s worth of notes Josh has taken. Every page has some algebra on it, but is dwarfed by the blocks of scrawled ideas for his improv group; notes about illiterate librarians and neurotic pizza delivery boys, and in the middle, an entire section of a story for his screenwriting class.

Drake reads for a while, turning pages slowly enough that Josh knows he’s really reading. “I get it,” Drake finally says, and shuts the notebook. He slumps back in his seat and crosses his arms over his belly. “Sometimes when I’m up there and I get an idea, I want to stop working the problems and just write lyrics all the way across the board.”

“You do?”

Drake gives him a tentative smile. “Yeah. Sometimes it feels like everything else in life just gets in the way of my music.”

Josh’s heart thumps erratically in his chest. Yes. That’s exactly how it feels for him—all the math and his stupid part-time job shelving books at the library—even sleeping, sometimes—keep him from being on that stage, from trying on all the different personalities he wants to wear. “Dude, yes,” he says, knowing he sounds a little breathless. “No offense, but walking out of your class is like the best moment of my day.”

This time, Drake laughs, bright and genuine, with his head back. “All right, fair enough. But think about how bad it would be if you had to do it all over again next semester. I know it’s hard, but you’re smart, so if you pay attention then you can pass this class with no problem.”

That actually sounds worth considering.

“But first we need to get you caught up,” Drake says, tapping the notebook with his pencil. “So let’s turn to chapter four.”

And Josh would never admit this to anyone, but the math doesn’t seem nearly as boring with Drake sitting next to him.

*

“I saw you,” Drake says when Josh shows up on Thursday morning, ten minutes late and his wet hair smothered by a black wool cap. He gets up to open the blinds and let in the morning sun, which is white and painful where it reflects the morning frost.

“Uh,” Josh says, trying to decide whether he can handle the overload, or should keep his sunglasses on. “Huh?” It’s so early; why is he even here?

“At the Old Market Cellar,” Drake says. “Last night, when I was playing. That was you, right? Standing there, watching.”

“Sometimes I get a craving for a hot caffeinated beverage,” Josh says. He opts to keep the glasses on. “Just like you get the craving to sing Wonderwall.”

“Do you have something against Wonderwall?” Now, this is new. Drake’s expression has gone hard, his back rigid as he waits for Josh’s answer, as if Josh’s opinion of some old Oasis song could completely undo all the easy cool that Drake carries with him all the time.

“Not at all. After all, maybe you’re gonna be the one who saves me,” Josh quotes, lifting his glasses so Drake can see he doesn’t mean any harm.

Drake just shifts uncomfortably, toying with the buckles on the ridiculous purse slung across his shoulders.

“I said, maybaaay, you’re gonna be the one who saves me,” Josh sings, using Drake’s meticulously sharpened pencils as drumsticks on the table.

Finally, Drake huffs out a laugh. “I’ll save you from failing algebra,” he says, reaching for the textbook, and Josh is happy to take what he can get.

*

He goes to the next session, and then to both sessions the next few weeks; partly because it’s nice to not have to worry about his grade for a change, and partly because there’s something inexplicably appealing about sitting with Drake and working equations, or listening to Drake explain the way the numbers fit together, watching him wet his curvy bottom lip with his tongue every time he pauses to think something through. It’s quiet and intimate, different from all the other crazy parts of Josh’s life, and he wonders, sometimes, if Drake feels the same way or if it’s just part of his job.

On the mornings Drake shows up with the gift of coffee doused in cream and sugar, Josh thinks maybe he feels the same way.

On the days Drake passes him by in class as though he’s just another student, he thinks the latter.

“You missed Tuesday,” Drake says one morning as Josh is getting settled in, unwinding the thick green scarf his mom had knit him and hanging his coat on the back of his chair. Lately, they meet in Drake’s office, which is infinitely better than the sterile classroom. Plus, it’s Drake’s private space, with his books and snacks and sweaters strewn everywhere.

“Yeah, I was getting ready for an audition.” Josh forces a self-deprecating smile. “For a role everyone says is completely wrong for me.”

For once, Drake doesn’t even reach for the textbook. “Wrong how?”

Josh shrugs, but all the frustration he’s had to keep in check comes surging up to the surface. “Because if I make people laugh, I can’t possibly be good for anything else, right?”

Drake just looks at him, waiting. The table in the corner of his office is small, which Josh normally likes, but today it feels like there isn’t any space.

“I mean, I brought it. I brought it good; I…” He glances around at the shelves of books, reluctant to tell Drake how much he’d exposed of himself for the group that had been watching, judging, making their notes as he’d dug down deep and found everything he needed even though everyone had spent the past month telling him how far out of his reach it had been. “It’s easy to make everything a joke,” he says. “The Improv, the comedy, that’s—they say I’m a natural, or whatever. But with this role, it was. I had to really…” He makes a despairing sound and shrugs. What’s the point? Drake wants to keep this all distant and algebraic, anyhow.

But Drake scoots his chair closer. “I get it,” he says. “It’s like that when you put yourself onstage. I can hide behind someone else’s song, but once I’m singing my own words, especially when I slow it down, I’m letting people see things I might not want them to.”

Josh regrets not listening more closely, that night at the club. “Then why do you do it?”

“The same reason you do,” Drake says. He sounds so certain of himself, the way he always does. “I have to. I want to.”

“Yeah,” Josh says softly, and he knows they’ve been staring just a little too long, but Drake isn’t looking away. Instead, he seems interested, and Josh feels a little like he had in that audition room, but with Drake the intrusion is gentle, curious, and Josh is suddenly very aware of how alone they are in Drake’s tiny office. His eyes, Josh had noticed long ago, are brown and sympathetic and kind of serious even when they’re smiling.

“I want this,” Josh says, curling his fingers into a fist, and he’s talking about the role, but he’s talking about something else, too, and in that moment, he’s certain that Drake understands them both.

*

“How’s that algebra class?” Diane asks during one of their Friday lunches. They’re by their usual window, watching snow blow in a diagonal curtain of white. “Still managing to scrape by?”

Josh breaks his chopsticks apart. “How’s that bad perm you’ve been hiding under that cap for the past month? Still scaring small children?”

“Sensitive,” Cam says with renewed interest. “Word on the street is you’ve been spending some serious time in Drake’s office.”

“Yeah, studying.” Josh hasn’t seen him outside class or their study sessions since that night he’d spied on him at the Old Market Cellar—not that he hasn’t tried. Drake won’t have so much as a lunch with him, but he’s not going to give his friends any reason to think he’s being continuously shot down by the guy he’d proclaimed a dork just a couple months earlier. “I can do functions and domains, now. And what so-called street is this? The hallway between your room and Henry’s?”

“Pretty much,” Cam shrugs. “But listen, Drake’s playing The Red Light again this weekend. And we always go, so it’s not like you’d be going out of your way or anything.”

“In fact, if you don’t go, it’ll look suspicious.”

“Only to you. And why would I care about looking suspicious?”

“Because you either love algebra or you love Drake, and knowing you the way I do, it ain’t algebra.”

“Also,” Diane adds, “No offense, but you have no sense of humor about this subject. If we were talking about Professor Montgomery, you’d be pretending that onion roll were his face and French-kissing it until we puked, but it’s Drake, so you’re all…” She makes an expression that Josh is positive he’s never worn, except for right now, in which case it’s perfectly justified. His friends are jerks, he thinks on a wave of disgust, but still makes plans to meet them at The Red Light the next night.

*

Since he’s been such a compulsive liar about this whole situation, he’s forced to ditch them as soon as he gets to the club. He finds a place in the back room where Drake won’t see him, because he wants to listen this time, to hear the things that Drake gets nervous about people hearing. The first couple songs are purely crowd-starters, to get people on their feet and their hands in the air, but after the second song, Drake wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand and glances around, squinting into the lights. Josh is fairly certain he can’t see anything but smoke and faceless shapes, but just in case, he backs against the wall and digs in his back pocket for the cigarette he’d bummed off Diane.

“This next one’s new,” Drake says into the mic. “I just wrote it a couple days ago, and it’s, uh. It’s no Wonderwall, but it’s for…someone who’s kind of awesome.” He ducks his head, hair falling forward before he tosses it back and strums a few opening notes that make Josh’s stomach plummet, cigarette left unlit between his lips, because this is going to be one of those revealing moments Drake had talked about, and Josh isn’t always good at those moments when they happen in real life.

You were so clever, you kept it together today, by the way, Drake sings, his voice clear and open, with just a light stroke of guitar. It sounds painfully earnest to Josh, and the audience responds as though it’s for them alone, clinging to one another and swaying to the lazy beat. Josh watches Drake’s face, his downcast eyes and the flex of his arms as he plays, aware of the difference between this song and the others that Drake belts out as though he might burst open from the joy of it. Even his body language is different; vulnerable in a way he’s not, and if Josh hadn’t been along for this entire strange, halting relationship then he wouldn’t know what it was all about.

By the time it’s nearly over, Josh’s head is full of the chorus, the endless repetition of all I can say is you save me; the opposite of what they’d agreed about their relationship in Drake’s office; the opposite of Wonderwall, and so fucking beautiful that he just wants to hear it again. The way Drake says you and I threads its way through the center of Josh’s chest and makes him wish he had more than this crappy cigarette to distract him from how wrecked he feels right now.

Instead, he gets a light and blows smoke into the crowd as he listens to the way it builds to a climax where Drake uses his guitar to put all those endless walls back in place. A few hard drumbeats and they’re launching into the next song, which is good, because Josh needs to get away for a few minutes. He’s nearly to the door when he bumps into Henry, who gives him a puzzled look. “Dude, you’re not actually involved with that guy, are you? Because-“

“Can’t hear you!” Josh yells over the band, and pushes his way out toward the main room, past the DJ and his meaningless top forty playlist. He’s made it outside, where snow is floating down on the shoulders of laughing drunk clubgirls, when his cell vibrates and he picks it up, thinking Drake but getting an unknown number instead.

It’s not exactly unknown. It’s Britta Stevens from the theater department, and apparently while the rest of the world is out having fun, they’ve been deliberating about auditions and she wants Josh to be the first to know that he’s going to be Lyle the Insomniac. He thinks he thanks her, he vaguely remembers stomping out his cigarette on the snowy sidewalk, and then it’s all a blur, rushing back into the heated club and throwing his arms around Diane, the first person he recognizes. “I got it!” he bellows, shaking her until she slides off her barstool and joins him in a frantic victory dance that garners some hoots from the rest of the bar.

He makes the rounds of congratulations: ecstatic, sweaty hugs and a few rounds of drinks that he has no choice but to accept, until he’s abruptly face to face with Drake; skinny jeans and black t-shirt, as disheveled as he’d been last time he’d played a hard set. Josh fucking loves him like this; he loves everyone right now, and he hoists Drake up in a hug that spins him all the way around, pointy boots flailing dangerously toward strangers as Josh squeezes him, laughter shaking him as much as it’s shaking Drake right now, spreading between them like the smoke-thick air they’re sharing. “I got the part!” he says as he puts him down, the whole display daringly forward, but Drake knows what this means to him, so it’s gratifying to see Drake’s face light up as he launches at Josh again, arms around his neck, knees on a barstool as though he can fly.

Josh fleetingly thinks about Drake-as-superhero before the rest of it sinks in: the you deserve it murmured into his ear, and the way his right hand is pressed to the damp, bare skin of Drake’s lower back. He’s as warm as anyone else in this heat-trap, but Josh hasn’t let himself imagine Drake’s skin this way; not after being kept at arm’s length for so long. “You smell like you’ve already been celebrating,” Drake says, one last gust of breath against Josh’s ear before he climbs down and slaps a twenty on the bar.

“A beer for the star of the show!” he yells at the bartender, who rolls his eyes but slides another next to the one Josh has yet to finish.

It’s then that Josh remembers the song. “Outside?” he asks, already pulling his sweatshirt from behind the bar and offering it to Drake, who nods and takes it as though they’re friends who do this every day.

“I only have a few minutes,” Drake says once they’re outside, his voice startling in the city night, which has been quieted by the falling snow.

“S’okay,” Josh says. This time, he’s the one who’s half drunk. Maybe that’s how they’re destined to have these conversations.

Josh’s sweatshirt swallows Drake in a way that makes him want to adjust it, draw Drake to him and warm him in other ways. That’s definitely the alcohol, because he’s been practicing not wanting that for months.

Drake blinks up into the snow. “So, you were out here celebrating? I mean, you didn’t see…did you come into the back at all?”

“I heard your song,” Josh says softly, all I can say is you save me echoing through the silent streets. “Drake-“ He almost never calls Drake that out loud, and it gets his attention, Drake’s brown eyes on his, not showing any sign of nerves, but just waiting, like always. Waiting for what Josh will say. “I loved the song,” Josh says. “Maybe more than you wanted me to,” he admits.

Drake shoves his hands into the roomy sweatshirt pockets. “As much as I wanted you to,” he insists. “Josh,” he begins, but his drummer sticks his head out and yells, “We’re on in two, man!” and Drake kicks at the snow before he shrugs and follows the demand for his music. He only gets to do this a couple nights a week, and Josh knows he wouldn’t miss a minute of it.

Josh stays outside with his two beers and watches the snow in the streetlights until he can barely feel the cold.

*

He’s awakened in the most annoying way possible; with Cameron’s voice far too loud and his bed so uncomfortable he can tell he fell asleep with all his clothes on.

“Are you hung over?” Cam asks. When Josh cracks one eye open, the light looks late afternoonish.

“I will kill you if you’re waking me to ask if I’m hung over,” Josh moans. He’s not hung over, actually; just very tired. He remembers dancing in a truly embarrassing manner to some techno music up front, avoiding the backroom for reasons he doesn’t even understand, and piling into the back of Henry’s car at the end of the night. They’d asked where his coat had gone, and he’d just laughed.

“No,” Cam says, and there’s something in his tone that makes Josh sit up. Okay, maybe a little hung over.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t even know if this is that big a deal to you, but Henry said he heard you were…”

“You’re telling this story like a girl,” Josh interrupts.

“Fine. Drake was in a pretty bad accident last night. He’s at Mercy East, and he’s pretty fucked up.”

Josh’s stomach is already iffy, but now it feels as though it’s planning to do terrible things in the next two minutes. “Fucked up?” he repeats. “Like, dead? Dying?”

“No, no,” Cam says, “Maybe. I don’t know, Josh. They probably won’t let you see him,” he says, but Josh is already halfway to the bathroom, because he has to puke, shower, and brush his teeth, and then he’ll find out whether or not Cam is right.

The hospital reminds Josh a lot of the math sciences building, which Josh is certain has some kind of meaning. It’s plain and sterile and yet somehow confusing at the same time. He knows that Cam had been right, that they’d never let him see Drake if he were that bad off, so he sneaks around until he finds Drake’s room—intensive care, that’s probably not good—and slips inside.

The monitors are scary, but their steady beeping is reassuring. It takes a few seconds before Josh can step forward on shaky legs and approach the bed, where Drake is lying, motionless, and god, his face. Everything is bandaged but the center of his face, it seems, and even that is bruised and swollen beyond recognition. It doesn’t seem real. He’d been so gorgeous last night, on stage and off, solid and sweaty in Josh’s arms, and then shivering and honest out on the sidewalk…

“You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

Josh turns and sees an older woman in scrubs observing him.

“I’m…sorry,” he says. Even his voice doesn’t seem real. “I just, what’s wrong with him?” He cringes when his voice breaks, but she softens and sighs.

“His face took the brunt of a car wreck. He had surgery on that jaw last night,” she says. “It’s wired shut now, so he won’t be saying anything. He woke up this morning, but it was a little much, and he’s been sleeping, the poor lamb.”

“But he’s gonna be okay, right?” Josh asks, wishing he’d taken the time to comb his hair, or look less sloppy, more like someone who might be allowed to stay for a while.

“He’s going to have a lot of pain and probably more reconstructive surgery, but yes, he’s going to be just fine,” she says.

There’s a soft moan from the bed, and the nurse moves to Drake’s side. “Mr. Bell? Do you remember where you are? It’s important that you don’t try to speak or move your head now, all right? The doctor will be in shortly to check on you.” She turns to leave and says, “You have a visitor, but he’s not going to be able to stay long.”

When she’s gone, Josh leans over Drake so he can see through those unfamiliar swollen eyes. “Hi,” he says, even though he feels like he’s choking. “God, Drake, I hope they’re giving you the good drugs. I mean…when I heard what happened, I was so…” Drake blinks slowly, and Josh knows, somehow, that he’s listening. That he understands. “I don’t have much time, but we never got to finish what we were talking about last night, outside. I just wanted you to know that I’m…” He touches the soft center of Drake’s hand, which is lying open on the bed, a tube emerging from the back of his wrist. The fingers instinctively curl around his own. “I tell my friends I just want to pass this class, but I just want to spend time with you. I totally get logarithms; I just pretend not to so I can sit and do them with you, which is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever done, other than this. Every time we sit there, I want to kiss you. I wanted to kiss you last night at the bar, and now I wish I just would have, because that song…I mean, it meant something, right?”

“Young man, you can’t stay,” the doctor says as she comes in with a clipboard,, and Josh is almost relieved for the interruption, because without it, he might have kept going forever.

*

He doesn’t get to go back the next day. There are too many meetings, classes and the beginning of rehearsals for the play he’d worked so hard to get into, and Drake is probably sleeping most of the time, anyhow. Josh spends half his time thinking about how Drake had looked in that hospital bed and the rest of his time thinking about his song, which has faded into a vague memory of all I can say is you save me. If Drake hadn’t acknowledged it out there in the snow, Josh would think he’d imagined the whole thing.

The next morning, he drives to the hospital at the same time he would’ve been rushing to meet Drake in his office. Walking through the corridors, he tries not to think about anything at all, but the thoughts are there: something could have gone wrong with Drake and no one would have told him; death or paralysis or—oh god, amnesia, and Josh will have to teach Drake quadratic equations.

The same nurse from before is on shift, and she sighs again when Josh approaches her, as though she sees something in him that’s unbearably hopeless. But she’s nice to him and leads him to a new room that’s in a regular hallway.

“He’s out of intensive care? That’s good, right?” he says, and she nods with her mouth twisted to the side.

“He’s going to live,” she says. “All the other things remain the same,” and she sounds so negative, when this is great compared to how it could’ve gone down. Josh walks into Drake’s room with renewed optimism.

There are several floral arrangements around the room, which Drake probably loves, and he’s propped up slightly, so Josh can see the movement of his blackened eyes as he tracks Josh’s entrance. A beautiful brunette is sitting in the chair at his bedside, holding Drake’s hand in both of her own.

“Hi,” Josh says.

“Hi,” the girl says miserably, and everything skids into slow-motion as she brings Drake’s hand to her mouth to kiss the back of his pale knuckles. “I’m Melissa, Drake’s girlfriend.”

Josh grasps for his acting abilities, but his body is intent on betraying him, and he feels the blood drain from his face and pool in his chest where his heart overcompensates by swelling and tearing open at every seam. His hands are useless, his own jaw might as well be wired shut, and all he can do is turn his head away from the scene before him.

His sweatshirt is hanging on a hook near the bathroom, laundered but stained—with Drake’s blood, he realizes, and why would they think he’d want to ever see that thing again?

Then he remembers the things he’d said to Drake last night--I just want to spend time with you, I totally get logarithms, I want to kiss you--and humiliation is something he’s avoided fairly well since his awkward adolescence, but now he remembers how much it hurts.

“I hope your boyfriend feels better soon,” he says woodenly, and goes for the door before the prickling behind his eyes can turn into more.

*

“Dude, you missed screenwriting,” Henry says later that day, when he lets himself into Josh’s room. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Josh knows he’s being the cliché, but he can’t stop. His bed is the only place he wants to be, and hugging a pillow actually does something to soothe the cramping in his chest that won’t seem to go away. He doesn’t care that his hair is twice the size of his head, that his room is a mess, or that he’d missed all his classes after he’d come home from the hospital and cried into the pillow he’s still holding in his arms. It hadn’t been pretty, but at least he’d been alone, had been able to let out all the overflow of disappointment that had eventually dwindled, and now sits in his belly like something that had once been beautiful but has been charred beyond recognition.

“Go away,” he says. “I’m tired.”

Henry bounces onto the end of Josh’s bed. “Is this about Drake? I thought he was going to be okay.”

“He’ll be fine,” Josh says numbly. “After some surgeries. His face got messed up.”

“Oh.” Henry is looking at him a little too closely, so Josh turns his face into the pillow.

“Did you know he wrote me a song?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Henry says. “It was a cool song. But I’m not sure it was…”

“It was mine,” Josh says—yells, really, but his pillow muffles his voice. “He said so,” he adds softly.

“I know, I know,” Henry says. “But man, you may have misinterpreted it a little bit. I mean, when a guy starts a song right out with the line ‘I’m your friend,’ he’s being pretty clear.”

And yeah, Josh remembers that part now, but at the time, it had been overshadowed by everything that had come after it.

“He has a girlfriend,” Josh says bitterly.

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you kept saying you didn’t like him! You made fun of his shoes and his glasses and his suspenders, and you didn’t obsess about him at all, the way you tend to do.”

This is what he gets for keeping things from his friends. “I obsessed,” he huffs. “It’s not my fault you’re so gullible you’d believe my obsession is with math.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No problem. Now can you shut my door on the way out?”

Josh stays holed up the rest of the day before he starts to get angry, because maybe Henry is right and he’d misinterpreted the song, but there had been other things. Drake is friendly to everyone, but he’d changed after Josh had gotten to know him—maybe not with his physicality, because Drake stays very much within his own space at school, but the way he’d looked at Josh…it had meant something. You don’t look at someone like that unless you want them to look back.

And even if Josh had imagined all that, there’s no way Drake hadn’t known how he’d felt. Yet he hadn’t once mentioned a girlfriend, and that’s what keeps Josh’s anger alive.

One of the older faculty members takes over Drake’s class; a bored middle-aged guy who wears tan Dockers and button-down shirts, which Josh hates for the mere quality of not being more hate-worthy.

He works on the play, finds it remarkably easy to channel Lyle the insomniac, and doesn’t see Drake once. From what he hears—which he tries not to do—Drake is still in the hospital. He hears people talk about surgery and rehabilitation and all the things that make his chest twist with sadness, because it’s Drake, with the kind face and gentle hands, and is probably being kept in a bed while he goes crazy wanting to be on stage.

Then he remembers his anger, and it feels more like he’s pissed at himself.

Drake’s replacement teaches the material too quickly and the final drops Josh’s A down to a D, but he doesn’t care. The semester is almost over, he’s got his ticket to New York for Thanksgiving, and then for the winter break, and come spring semester, he doesn’t have to set foot in the math sciences building again.

*

It’s the end of January, Diane’s perm has grown out and the play is coming together like the piece of art Josh had known it would be, when during a Friday lunch he abruptly throws down his chopsticks and declares, “It was the way he sang it.”

He surprises himself more than anyone else, because he hasn’t seen Drake in nearly three months and has done a good job of pretending he’s past the whole thing. Or maybe not, because the second surprise is that he doesn’t have to explain himself; that everyone automatically knows what he’s talking about as though “it” and “he” aren’t from some vague left field of the past.

“This again?” Henry says, just as Diane says, “I knew it! You owe me so much fucking money, Cameron.”

“Well, it’s true!” Josh says, since they’re all on the same page. “Maybe he didn’t, you know, say anything outright. But psychologically speaking, he was using his voice to manipulate my emotions.”

Henry shakes his head. “But-“

“Shut up,” Diane says, giving Henry a sharp elbow to the ribs. She lowers her voice and touches Josh’s sleeve. “He’s not with her anymore. I saw him, Josh. He looks…” She shrugs and starts to gather her things.

“Wait, what? How does he look?” Josh asks, which is about ten steps further than he’d wanted to go with this.

“He looks like he got smashed up, broke up with his girlfriend, and…why don’t you just talk to him?”

Josh taps his head with his fingers. “Huh, there must be a reason. If only I could remember the crushing humiliation of confessing my undying love the day before I found out he had a girlfriend. But things like that tend to slide right off me.”

Diane pauses with her hood halfway up. “You didn’t do that.”

Josh purses his lips. “Did it.” Time has refined most of the humiliation down to a vague resentful feeling, which is the only reason he can talk about it without wishing he were dead.

“Maybe he didn’t hear you,” Henry says. “Maybe he has no idea why you walked out and never came back to see him. Maybe he hates you.”

Josh refuses to acknowledge Henry’s remark, because it seems like a betrayal that Henry has never believed there’d been a mutual thing between him and Drake. Just because Josh can’t come up with proof doesn’t mean they hadn’t been working toward something. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s too late.”

Henry is right, though, Josh thinks as he trudges across campus toward the library. Suppose Drake hadn’t wanted anything more than friendship; suppose he wrote that song out of a different kind of affection. Josh doesn’t want to believe either of those things, because if they’re true, then he’d pushed an unwanted confession onto Drake when he’d been at his lowest, and then left him to recover alone.

Well, not exactly alone. Drake has lots of friends, not to mention the girlfriend, who’d been secure enough in their relationship to hold Drake’s hand as though it had belonged to her. Josh has never been secure in anything with Drake, always stumbling along wondering where their boundaries really lie. But Drake could hate him, and even though Josh has spent the past few months hating Drake, the idea that it might be reciprocated leaves him uneasy.

The library is warm and golden, a refuge from the gray, drizzly day. Josh stuffs his hat into his pocket and puts his coat behind the checkout counter, where they’ve got him working this semester. The girl at the other end of the counter, a freshman with headphones permanently attached to her ears, scurries off for a bathroom break. The building echoes with the hushed sounds of people typing, walking, chatting quietly, but no one wants to check out books; they just want in from the rain. It’s gratifyingly peaceful, because the inside of Josh’s head is so crazy that he craves this type of quiet.

Josh sits down at the computer and reaches for a stack of returned books to scan. He’s done about twenty of them when someone steps up to the counter. He leans out from behind the computer screen the same time the other guy finishes pulling all the desired books from his bookbag, and they both draw back as though they’ve had a startling change of plans, because, oh. Josh hadn’t been ready for this.

Drake looks exactly how Diane had described; pale and unbearably thin beneath all the preppy wool layers he’s piled on to keep warm. If Josh hadn’t been ready, then Drake had been even less ready, judging by the way he holds the books to his chest and ducks his chin down behind his scarf—but not before Josh sees the scar. Josh’s anger dissolves until all he’s left with are traces of regret that he’d never had the right to be the one to hold Drake’s hand while he’d been going through all that.

People pass behind Drake, going to and from the coffee kiosk, but Josh only notices the little lines of distress between Drake’s eyebrows, visible from behind his glasses, and it just sucks that they’re stuck here like this, two images stamped indefinitely into this painful position, while the rest of the world moves on.

“Did you want to check those out?” Josh tries, lifting his palm toward the books Drake looks as though he’s trying to smuggle out.

And that’s when he knows he’s blown it, because what is wrong with him? He’d given some customer service line without so much as a hi, how are you, and he can see how wrong it is by the sag of Drake’s face, the way his eyes close for a second, gathering composure, before he opens them and looks directly at Josh.

Josh grips the edge of the counter with both hands, ridiculously flushed, his pulse jumping erratically against his skin. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “I mean, hi. I mean, I’m sorry. For that crazy stuff I said at the hospital. I was, uh.” I was crazy in love with you, and I still am, and you look so fucking cold. “I’m just sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Drake says softly. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I didn’t know you’d be so…” He doesn’t seem inclined to finish, which is good, because Josh really doesn’t want to find out how that sentence ends. “I saw you passed the class.”

“Barely,” Josh says, and then it falls quiet again. He points at Drake’s books. “But seriously, I wasn’t giving you special treatment, before. We do things like check out books around here, free of charge.”

This isn’t at all how it’s supposed to go, for Drake to hand over the books so robotically and Josh to scan them in exactly the same manner, reciting when they’re due and tucking the reminder slip inside the cover of the top book like he’s Drake’s fucking librarian. It’s as though they hadn’t spent over two months sitting shoulder to shoulder, talking about their lives and fitting algebra in between, as though Drake had never cared enough that his face would light up the way it had when Josh had gotten the role of his dreams.

He hadn’t known Josh would be so…what?

His legs wobbly with adrenaline, Josh gets up and follows Drake to the elevator, barely making it in time to pry the doors back open. Drake is slumped against the back wall with his bookbag on the floor as though it’s all too much effort.

“I’m sorry,” Josh says, because this feels weirdly intrusive, like he’s got Drake cornered, and the door is already sliding shut. “But I just needed to know what you were going to say, back there. You didn’t know I’d be so what?”

Drake makes a sad, laughing sound and drops his head forward. “So…self-aware, I guess. The things you said in the hospital, I was out of it but I remember most of what you said, and it felt like it came out of nowhere.”

“Oh.” So, Henry had been right. Josh really wishes this elevator weren’t so ancient, and that the crawling upward journey would just end already.

“But it wasn’t out of nowhere,” Drake says, meeting Josh’s eyes. “I thought I wrote you that song because I liked you so much. Because we were like, special friends or something.” He sounds so bitter, and Josh can that emotion reflected in his eyes, angry with himself in a way Josh hasn’t ever seen. “But then you weren’t around anymore, and I had a lot of time to think about the way I’d been acting. With you,” he adds softly, just as the elevator jerks to a stop.

The door opens, but neither of them moves to get off.

Josh can’t take his eyes off Drake, who he hasn’t seen in so long, and who’s so fucking pretty in his gray patterned scarf, yet somehow broken. Drake draws himself up to his full height, and only then does Josh notice the desperation on his face, how desperate his whole speech had been, and maybe he’s a bit slow to put these things together, but he’s suddenly right back the same place he’d been every time he’d thought something was about to happen with Drake; every almost-kiss, every unanswered question, but this time the answer is right there in the way Drake is saying please with every part of himself.

Josh tucks his hair behind his ear and licks his lips, double-guessing every signal. He’d thought he’d never get here, to a place where Drake might actually want this, and he hopes he doesn’t scare Drake away with how heavily his breath is coming, how quickly he surges forward and bends to fit his mouth against Drake’s. There’s reassurance in the clutch of Drake’s hands at his back, and Josh sighs, drawing back a little, gliding his mouth across Drake’s before he finally takes goes in for a real kiss and takes Drake’s lower lip between his own the way he’s been wanting to do for months.

He unwinds the scarf from Drake’s neck so he can get his hands on Drake’s face. He cups Drake’s face with both hands, keeping them gentle as the kiss deepens, a sharp gasp from Drake as Josh loses his cool, his mouth rough on Drake’s, seeking more and more as Drake’s fists press into his back, holding him closer.

Drake smells the same as he had all those times Josh had found ways to get close to him, and it occurs to Josh that he can get closer, so he draws back—it nearly undoes him seeing Drake’s wet, swollen mouth—and kisses a path down Drake’s throat, beneath his ear, anywhere he can reach, until he stops, his face pressed into Drake’s neck, Drake’s arms holding him there, breath ragged against Josh’s ear. “I don’t want to stop,” he moans into Drake’s skin.

“Then don’t,” Drake says, and Josh feels a hand slip under his sweater at the small of his back, Drake’s warm, callused fingers stroking small, experimental circles there, as though he doesn’t know if it would be all right to do more. Josh would be all right with Drake putting his hand anywhere, his whole body is aching to be touched, but then he remembers what Drake had just admitted. It had never occurred to Drake that he might want this, and whoa, this is all really new to Drake.

“There are books at stake,” Josh says, right against the edge of Drake’s ear, and feels the shiver that goes through him.

“And periodicals,” Drake adds shakily, just as the elevator, long idle, sounds a ring and shudders open. Drake stiffens, but doesn’t move away. When a couple of Indian exchange students walk in, they’re still holding one another upright, Drake’s bag and scarf in a pile on the floor. Slowly, Josh straightens and begins to put himself back into order, his hands lingering on Drake the whole time just because they can. Drake is surprisingly wrecked when Josh gives him a once-over, his throat reddened from Josh’s mouth and his cheeks pink, hair sticking out in pieces all around his ears. He wears it longer, these days.

The other students make deliberate small talk, their backs to Drake and Josh, while Josh smoothes Drake’s hair, feeling ridiculously sappy, but unable to stop himself. Drake seems open to it, smiling up at him so knowingly that Josh has to kiss him again, just once, pulling back when Drake tries to coax him into more with a hot curl of tongue. The rest may be new to Drake, but he’s fantastic at this, and Josh is glad the elevator finally settles on ground floor, because otherwise they might just stand here smiling at one another like giant dorks forever, and his reputation would be ruined.

Drake gathers his things as everyone exits, and headphones-girl glares from the circulation desk as soon as she sees Josh coming. “Nobody was watching my purse,” she accuses. “You’re not supposed to leave.”

“Sorry,” Josh says, “It’s just, my friend just reminded me of something I have to do.” He nods toward Drake, who hangs back and manages to look harmless and irresistible all at once.

“Is it important?” she asks, looking longingly at her watch.

“Yeah,” Josh says, already reaching behind the counter for his coat. “It really is.”

*