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“Neil! It’s Friday, and we have no game for once. Are we going out?”
Neil shrugged. “Ask Andrew.”
Nicky rolled his eyes and piled his lunch tray with pasta, potatoes, and tacos. “You know that doesn’t get me anywhere, Neil! You’re a tease. An Andrew tease. Ask him for me.”
Neil put his tray down on their usual table and picked up a piece of broccoli with his hand. He looked at it disdainfully and chewed on the end. “Maybe I’m done picking up the broken ends of your failed relationships."
Nicky put one hand to his chest, jaw open. “You wound me, Neil. Like, ouch.”
“What did he do?” Matt asked, appearing with Dan and Aaron, sitting opposite.
“Neil implied I’m a bad mother.” Nicky pouted.
Matt patted him on the shoulder. “Um. Nicky, you’re not even a mother.”
“Way to kick me when I’m down.”
Aaron threw a potato at him. “What are you going on about.”
Nicky dodged the potato and muttered, “No one respects me in this house…”
When it seemed like he wasn’t going to explain and Matt was giving Neil a curious look Neil shrugged and said, “I’m bored running messages between you guys and Andrew. Don’t you think it’s time you actually learned how to talk to him?” Neil gave Nicky, Matt and Dan stern looks, but ignored Aaron entirely, as per their agreement.
“Um, Neil, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s not like we haven’t tried,” said Dan.
Neil pointed his fork at her. “No,” he said, “you haven’t tried.”
“Neil,” started Nicky, looking like he regretted this conversation now.
But Neil felt annoyed suddenly, more annoyed than the situation really warranted, it bubbled up out of nowhere, and he said, “No, I’m sick of this. He’s just a person. Just talk to him like he’s a person, and maybe you won’t have such a hard time.”
Matt and Dan looked at each other like, there he is going off again on things he doesn’t understand, so Neil looked to Nicky instead.
“Andrew is not a person…” said Nicky, all slow and dramatic, the beginnings of a smile on his face, and Neil tried to relax a little, knowing Nicky was going to say something stupid like he’s a tiny storm cloud, because the thing was however frustrated Neil got with the Foxes, he knew that Nicky out of all of them actually really cared about Andrew. It’s what got him so many free passes. It’s why Neil was waiting patiently now for whatever the dumb line was going to be.
Someone above his head scoffed. “You talking about Andrew Minyard?” Neil looked up. Two baseball guys who he vaguely recognised from seeing around the lobby of the Tower had paused by their tables, trays in hand.
The other laughed. “Damn right he’s not a person, have you seen that psycho? He never smiles! It’s fucking creepy.”
There was a pause. Matt said, a little awkward, one hand on his neck, “Um, you might want to check your audience here, buddy. Several members of his family are like, right here.”
“I know,” said asshole number one solemnly, nodding his head. “I feel so sorry for you guys.” As he spoke he looked at Aaron, assessing. “Is it only the midget that’s genetic or did you catch the freak gene too?”
Neil, half-turned in his seat, leaned his elbows over it, and looked the guy up and down. Nicky went a little tense beside him, and said, “Hey man, those are my cousins you’re talking about. Maybe just fuck off, yeah?”
But asshole number two had caught on to the joke, and elbowed his friend, and said, “I hear that’s not the only gene they share –”
“Don’t you play baseball?”
They stopped, looked at Neil, as if they hadn’t even realised he was there.
Nicky was fidgeting and Matt had put his head in his hands. But asshole number 2 just shrugged and said. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”
Neil said, “Oh I don’t know, I just kind of figured that since baseball has the lowest watch stats out of all the college sports you’d be less, I don’t know, sure of yourself.” Asshole opened his mouth but Neil waved his hand like he wasn’t done. “You know we’re on the exy team? We won the championship last year. Don’t know if you heard. I mean you probably did because we were the only team at PSU to do so. Unless – did you win your whatever the fuck you do in baseball? No, wait, I seem to remember you didn’t even make it to finals. Woops. That’s embarrassing.”
Asshole number 1 clenched his fists and said, “You think you’re tough, huh?”
So Matt stood up, and said, “He does. And he isn’t, but I am, so consider carefully whatever it is you’re about to do next.”
Neil stood too, and looked up at the ‘baseball’ player and said, casually, “Andrew is the best goalie in college exy, in the country, probably the world, I don’t know, it’s not like I’m an expert or anything. I don’t know if you’ve ever stood in front of a goal five times your size and guarded it from balls the size of your single shared braincell like your life depended on it, but it’s way harder than what I do, than what Kevin fucking Day does. And you know he does it because he actually cares about protecting people. What do you care about? Oh sorry, I forgot, ‘baseball’. Right, right. Tell me, who’s your best player? It doesn’t matter, I don’t mind, let’s call him Joe Baseball. What does Joe do? Hit and run? Like, really really fast? Yeah, ok, sounds hard.”
Matt had actually physically moved at this point and had positioned himself next to Neil, one hand on asshole number 1’s chest. Nicky was just grinning and Aaron had his phone out, Dan leaning over to see what he was doing.
“Are you serious? I’m gonna fucking end you,” said asshole number 1, but he was unmoving, Matt’s hand a warning. Asshole number 2 hovered behind him, looking half-way between bored and concerned.
“Good luck,” said Neil, sitting back down. “I don’t know if you’ve heard but my boyfriend is a psycho, he’ll probably retaliate or something.” He shrugged and picked up his fork.
Nicky just burst out laughing and one of the assholes must have taken a step forward because Matt was shoving them away with his hands, and Aaron was clicking something on his phone, and Dan sighed and said, “Move along, baseballs.”
Nicky, struggling to talk through laughing, said, “Dan! They’re not baseballs, they play baseball.”
And Dan waved a hand, unconcerned. “I don’t even know what that is.”
Neil high-fived her, and Aaron put his phone away.
Only a minute later, Nicky still laughing and repeating back to Neil his favourite bits, Andrew turned up at the table, phone in his hand. Neil looked up, surprised. “Oh, hi. I thought you were having lunch out with the others?”
“I was,” said Andrew, dropping his phone in Neil’s lap. “Why can’t you be left unsupervised?”
Neil frowned in question, as Renee, Allison and Kevin appeared behind Andrew. Allison sighed and said, “Way to ruin my meal you crazy tiny asshole.”
Neil looked at the phone as Andrew removed his backpack and sat down next to him.
The others pulled up extra chairs and squashed in, and Neil was pushed flat against Andrew’s side.
Kevin said, “Aaron video called us.”
Andrew picked up Neil’s knife and started cutting up his already mini potatoes into small Andrew-sized flakes. Neil shoved his tray in his direction and glared at Aaron, who just shrugged.
“We still have a few deals, this is one of them,” he said, looking entirely unapologetic, returning to his food.
That was news to Neil. He looked at Andrew cautiously, who was quiet, eating his food in small bites, pressed warm and hard against his side. Neil leaned back in his chair, and Andrew did too. He sighed, and watched as the others chatted through lunch.
Later, when Andrew had dropped his keys in a jaw-dropped Nicky’s hand and shoved the others out the door behind him, and Neil into his bed, and his lips against Neil’s, Neil – with one of Andrew’s hands casually up his hoody, eyes watching him carefully – said, “You have a deal with Aaron?”
Andrew’s hand didn’t still, continued its path picking a route over Neil’s abs, just said, “Yes.”
Neil tried not to shiver, but it was hard with Andrew’s light touch, his focus. He melted underneath him and said, “Ok.” But then reconsidered and pinched him lightly in the arm. “Could have told me.”
Andrew scratched a little down Neil’s waist, and Neil did shiver. Damnit. “Fine. I asked Aaron to let me know if it seems like you are about to get yourself killed.” He paused, and Neil frowned, processing this. Andrew’s finger found its way to the hair below his bellybutton and scratched through it. “But it isn’t a deal. I just asked him. Aaron is just being difficult.”
“You – just asked him?” Andrew nodded, and Neil said, “Huh. And he said yes? Just like that”
“No,” said Andrew, looking boredly down at Neil’s revealed stomach, hoody hitched up to his chest. “He said he would agree to it if I stopped threatening the cheerleader.” Neil grinned. “I think this means I need to up my game.”
“Your cheerleader threatening game?” Neil clarified. Andrew nodded and pulled at Neil’s underwear, letting it snap back into place. “That sounds a lot like a deal to me.”
Andrew glared at him. “It was not a deal. We don’t do that anymore. And I did not agree to stop threatening her.”
Neil shrugged. “But you have done anyway, you have become lax in your old age, and now Aaron is helping you keep me alive.” He paused, Andrew’s fingers pushing beneath his waistband. “Not that it helped. I wasn’t doing anything.”
Andrew removed his finger and pointed it in Neil’s face. “You are a liability. Stop picking fights with people twice your size.”
Neil grabbed Andrew’s finger and grinned. “No. He was being an asshole.” He felt awkward then, and stopped mid-thought, unsure how early on Aaron had started filming.
Andrew flicked him in the cheek. “You’re an idiot. I don’t need defending.” Neil opened his mouth to disagree, but Andrew muttered, “Particularly not from baseball players.”
And Neil grinned, and tilted his face up for a kiss, and was kissed. “Baseball players are the worst,” he said, and Andrew hummed against him.
Neil, eyes closed, hands in Andrew’s hair, lips still touching Andrew, Andrew’s hand making it’s way back down his body, said, “I said I’d kill anyone who called you soulless. Did you think I was lying?”
He pulled away a little to see Andrew avoiding his eyes, hand and gaze lingering around Neil’s hip. “I think you’re an idiot.”
“You kind of like me.”
“Shut up,” Andrew said, bending and touching his lips to Neil’s hip, kissing his skin gently, and staying there just a moment too long.