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Rody got along well with most of his classmates. So long as they stayed casual acquaintances and nothing more, he could keep them comfortably at arms length. In exchange he helped them out from time to time. It didn’t hurt that a good chunk of them were girls, and pretty ones at that. They greeted him every morning before class with voices like a chorus of angels, practically begging to look at his notes. A lesser man might swoon just from the thought.
Yep, life was good for Rody Lamoree. As far as he was concerned, he was on top of the world. Sometimes it felt like high school all over again – this would be a piece of cake!
… Is what he would say if not for one small matter of contention.
There was a thorn in his side that popped up whenever he rested on his laurels. A constant, nagging, unrelenting thorn named Vincent Charbonneau.
Rody knew Vince was a freak from the very first moment he saw the guy. Vince had a deep voice that didn’t match his waifish frame, coupled with a tendency to stare unblinkingly at whatever caught his attention. His dark hair swayed slightly with every movement, a stark contrast to his white collared shirt, which Rody would bet a month’s allowance that his closet was full of identical white shirts and black slacks and nothing else (considering he never saw the freak wearing anything else to class).
Vince’s hair hovered barely a centimeter above his shoulders, just long enough for people to mistake him for a woman from behind. Something that Rody himself, of course, had not done on the very first day of class, and would kill whoever told anyone differently. Rody’d be lying if he said he never fantasized about hooking his fingers around every lock of hair he could reach and pulling hard enough to make him shriek.
The way Vince walked, like he was ready to start booking it at the first sign of danger, the way he talked with an unnerving lilt that sent goosebumps up your spine, the way he looked at Rody like a bug that’d gotten stuck on its back and could only flail helplessly and hope it wouldn’t get squished; every grating reminder of his existence made Rody want to punch the fucker’s lights out. Rail thin and probably not even one hundred pounds soaking wet, Rody could snap him like a toothpick.
And boy, did he want to.
Every day that went by without him actually doing it was a miracle of God, because Rody knew himself and he did not have enough restraint to deal with this unsettling motherfucker’s snide remarks and snippy one-liners for a week let alone a full month.
To put it in the simplest terms possible, Rody didn’t like the guy. He pissed Rody off with every little thing he did and never apologized for it and that was simply the way of the world.
But in Rody’s defense, there were no shortage of things about Vince to dislike.
Ugh. Fuck that loser for real. If he was going to continue living in Rody’s head, he better start paying rent.
Things had been going smoothly at first. All his professors seemed to like him well enough, and with his insistence on finishing assignments early enough to get to bed on time, his rigorous attention to detail regarding both class participation and homework remained consistent with the routine that scored him straight-As in high school.
And then the first round of tests were handed back.
After seeing everyone else’s carefree attitude, it didn’t take long for Rody to deduce that he was the only person in his Communications class to fall short of a B. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the D in Business and the big fat whopping F in Home Economics.
He tried to brush it off. The worst thing you could do when your grades sucked was psych yourself out – that just made everything worse. But after the second and third round of tests, projects and essays only resulted in a plateau of increasingly mediocre scores, Rody began to fear the worst: his grades were slipping.
On the mornings of test days he dreaded going into class. It got to the point where, by the time he dragged himself out of bed, he didn’t have time for breakfast, which meant he’d be grouchy and miserable until lunch rolled around, and by then he’d somehow manage to lose his appetite again.
It was hell. And worst of all, he couldn’t blame any of it on Vince and his skinny little arms or his stupid girly hair.
Everything came to a head when someone started a rumor that Vince had the highest grade point average of anyone in their year.
It wasn’t true, of course, there was absolutely no fucking way it could be true, and Rody would die on that hill even if it killed him.
But as midterms loomed over him and its shadow swallowed him whole, he had to face the facts: the way things were going right now, he wouldn’t last a year before flunking out. He needed help, and not just any help – help from the best. Rody’s subconscious mind had revolted against him, starting to consider the unthinkable.
And so, much to his own chagrin, one day after class when everyone else had left, Rody blurted out, “I want you to tutor me.”
Vince paused in the middle of scribbling down notes. Glanced up at him with those dead eyes, then over his shoulder, like he was checking for who else Rody could possibly be addressing, like he couldn’t believe the star student had fallen far enough from grace to associate with a freak like himself. It took several drawn out seconds for him to realize there was nobody in the room but the two of them.
For the smartest kid in their class, he seemed pretty fucking stupid.
Everyone had trouble figuring out what Vince was thinking just by looking at him, but to Rody, he looked unmistakably bewildered and mildly impressed, like instead of hearing out a classmate’s asinine request he was watching a dog stand up on two legs and ramble about the weather in perfect French.
God, Rody hated him so much.
“No thanks.”
Vince’s words came out clipped in the cold, flat baritone that never failed to send a shiver up his spine. Rody managed to suppress the urge this time.
‘No thanks.’ He felt his hands clench into fists. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Seriously?”
Vince tilted his head to the side, ever-so-slightly in a way that made shadows shroud half of his face. Curtains of dark hair swayed with the movement.
“Hmm. Lamoree, was it?” His eyes raked across Rody’s body before landing on his face, like he was sizing up a piece of raw meat, like he had learned everything he needed to know about Rody, more than enough to make a judgment about his character. “Sorry, but I can’t help you.” He didn’t sound very sorry.
“Rody. It’s Rody , but you already know that.” Rody said through gritted teeth. Didn’t say, because we were lab partners on the third day of class and you spilled coffee down the front of my brand new fucking vest and had the audacity to tell me I should’ve brought a spare .
Rody took a deep breath, calming himself by imagining what it would be like to leap over the desks between them and throttle him. “Look. Everybody talks about you like you’re- like you’re some kind of once-in-a-generation culinary prodigy, you know your way around a kitchen, which means you shouldn’t have any trouble showing me the ropes. If you’re as good as they say you are, that is.”
There was no change in Vince’s unsympathetic expression. Go away , everything about him seemed to say. You’re just embarrassing yourself. Rody started grasping at straws.
“You might think that keeps you safe, but you’re not. I’ve heard what people say about you behind your back. The nickname ‘Le Petit Boucher- laureate de Montpellier’ didn’t come out of nowhere – they think you’re ambitionless, a loose cannon who’s one bad day away from snapping and slaughtering us all. Yesterday I even overheard Mr. Chauffre say you might as well pack up and go home because you’re a failure who’s never gonna amount to anything, no matter how hard you try or how good your grades are. So if the reason you won’t tutor me is because you think it’s too hard and you’re scared of failing, you’re proving them right.”
Something like amusement glittered in those dead black eyes.
“Hmm… pass.”
Rody’s pulse kicked up from andante to allegretto, heartbeat coming in short bursts, blood thrumming through his veins like someone just plugged an amp into his chest. He had to fight to keep his breathing level. He glared down at his feet as if it would make his next words come out any easier.
“Look, I get it, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you either, but believe me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent. I need to prove myself and I can’t do that if everyone thinks I’m just average when I’m not. You of all people should understand that. So… please.” Just help me, you asshole.
When he gathered the strength to look back up, Vince’s arms were crossed. He looked pretty damn satisfied with himself; he was smirking – smirking! Rody changed his mind, he was going to strangle the bastard after all–
“Fine.”
Rody blinked. “Pardon?”
Vince snorted. “What, you’re deaf now? I don’t like to repeat myself. Bear that in mind during our trial session tomorrow.”
“Wait, so you’ll do it? You’ll teach me?”
Vincent rolled his eyes. “Meet me at the café at 14:00 sharp. You’re buying.”
Rody’s heart soared. He didn’t have to lie to his parents! He wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life living in a cardboard box! Things were finally looking up for him.
Rody was wrong. Very wrong. Things were horrible. It was all going to shit.
“I don’t understand!” He sobbed as Vince smacked his knuckles with a ruler. “What’s wrong with cooking eggs in the microwave? It’s faster!”
“It’s no wonder you’re failing your classes if you think that’s acceptable,” Vince sneered. “Are you sure you don’t want to change studies? It’s not too late, you know.”
“Fuck you,” Rody spat.
Vince just grinned at him with a sadistic glint in his eye. “You wish.”
After half an hour of painful corrections done with the amount of support a dead fish could provide and in an exceedingly questionable teaching style that was all stick and no carrot, Rody was spent. At this point the only thing that kept him from stopping, and possibly quitting his academic career altogether, was spite. He needed to show this asshole what he was capable of even if it meant crashing and burning so hard he had a mental breakdown and stripped naked on the quad. (Which he may or may not have already done on a dare while drunk, but it was at night and he was pretty sure nobody else saw, so it didn’t count.)
So he stuck it out for another hour on top of that and didn’t ask for a break until he was running on fumes. He thought Vince would be more judgmental about it but all he did was glance at his mug and mutter, “Yeah, this is a good stopping point. I needed a refill anyway.”
Rody had the displeasure of watching him pour unfiltered Robusta straight into a cup and chug it down. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Vince plucked a lemon from his bag, sliced it open, and squeezed its contents directly into the brew.
“Jesus, man, you like bitter stuff that much?”
“The flavor has to be strong. I can’t taste it otherwise.”
“What, is your tongue broken or something?” Rody joked. He immediately wished he could shove the words back down his throat the moment they left his mouth.
Vince fixed him with an unimpressed stare. He looked like he wanted to bite Rody’s head off, and for a moment, Rody thought he might actually do it. But Vince just sighed and leaned back in his seat, sipping his godawful concoction without so much as a grimace.
“Something like that.”
A halfhearted “damn” was all he could muster. He cringed at himself for it. The silence between them after that felt so loud he thought his eardrums might burst.
“So, uh…” Think Rody, think! Say something. Anything . “That must suck.” Anything except that. “What happened?” Or that! “Wait, aren’t you trying to get a degree in culinary arts? How does that even work?” STOP TALKING!
Vince was scribbling something down in his notebook, but stopped halfway through writing a letter to fix Rody with the most scathing stare he’d ever had the displeasure of being pinned down by. Oh god, there really was no recovering from this, was there?
“I don’t understand you, Rody. Tell me, what possessed you to study hospitality when you’re as charming as stale bread and you learn new skills at the pace of a salt-covered snail? Surely you’re at least smart enough to know you’re not cut out for this.”
Maybe Vince was right. Maybe Rody wasn’t cut out for this. It still stung to hear those words. Face burning, lump in his throat, all Rody could do was dare daggers at him like a sad pathetic little idiot. Vince was staring at him again, but this time he looked… perturbed. Like he’d been caught off guard right when he was ready to start laying into Rody.
That was when Rody noticed the world seemed a lot blurrier than he remembered. Hot, angry tears carved a river down his cheeks and no matter how hard he tried to blink them away, they showed no sign of stopping anytime soon.
He wanted to say so many things. “You’re a real fucking asshole, you know that?” or “No wonder you don’t have any friends” or at the very least “Shut up.” But in the end, he only managed to choke out, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Furiously wiping his face with his sleeve, he tried to sniffle as un-pitifully as possible. Why had he thought this would be a good idea? And why had he thought studying hospitality of all things was a good idea? He couldn’t change any of that now, so why was he crying about it?
Rody eventually gathered the strength to peek out from behind his jacket sleeve. Vince’s expression was unreadable. He looked the way he often did during mathematics class when he was trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, focused so intensely on what was in front of him like nothing else existed – nothing that mattered, anyway.
When Vince finally spoke, his voice was the softest Rody had ever heard it. “There must be something you’re good at. Even the most useless of idiots are good for something, and you wouldn’t have been accepted here if you were one of them.”
In spite of himself, Rody laughed, a thin, watery sound. The only thing that could make this conversation more awkward was if Vince leaned in to pat his shoulder with the same stiffness he did everything else with.
“It does make me feel a little better to know you’re not good at everything. I mean, even if you’re good at everything else, you’re really bad at comforting people.”
Vince cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms, almost looking like his typical standoffish self, a maneuver that got completely undermined by the small smile creeping up one half of his face. “That’s not an answer.”
Rody sighed. Like a dog with a bone, this guy. “I dunno. I’ve been told I’m a pretty good kisser.”
Vince rolled his eyes. “I’m not asking what your high school sweethearts thought you were good at, I’m asking you what YOU think you’re good at. Did no one ever teach you how to follow directions? Because if not, that would explain a lot.”
Rody stuck out his tongue. “I’ll have you know I was valedictorian of my class. I got an A in every subject, Vince. Every subject . I haven’t gotten a B or below since I was 9. Well-” He didn’t have to say it, they both knew what he meant: until now .
God, this was so weird. Not even twenty four hours ago he hated Vince’s guts and now he was trying to cheer Rody up – and Rody was letting him.
Vince plucked a napkin from the table and handed it to him. “Clean yourself up. Your eyes are still leaking and your nose looks like a slab of raw meat.”
“Do you always speak in metaphors?” Rody muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, chef! A-Anyway, you were telling me about something called a passoire?”
“... This is going to be a long day.”
Rody couldn’t sleep.
He spent most of the night tossing and turning, fading in and out of sleep only to be roused every hour by chirping crickets or someone slamming a door down the hall. He tried meditating. When that didn’t work, he tried thinking, even though his mind was running on fumes. And when that didn’t work, he gave up altogether. But staring up at the ceiling got boring after only a couple of minutes.
Rather than wake up his roommate by trying and failing to play music as quietly as possible (like last time), he slipped out of their room and made a beeline for the bench right outside the dorm. It was kind of hidden away from the path to the doors, tucked behind a wall of ivy-draped trellises. He had a lot to think about, a lot he needed to think about, and he did his best thinking when he was playing. Thoughts tended to flow more freely when they were accompanied by the strum of a guitar.
He didn’t really remember the first time he ever played. Maybe it was at home, surrounded by family. Maybe a teacher brought a guitar of their own into school one day and was nice enough to let him try to play it.
People seemed sad when he told them that, but Rody didn’t mind – it didn’t really matter that much. The way he saw it, if he couldn’t remember the first time he picked up a guitar, it was like music had always been in his life.
Maybe it sounded dumb to most people, but Rody would rather not remember a time before that. It felt like being asked to remember a time before you’d seen the sun, or heard laughter, or felt a gentle breeze on your skin: pointless on so many different levels.
Right now, he didn’t have to be Rody the straight-A student or Rody the prodigal son, it was just him and his guitar in the dark. Part of him wished the night would last forever just so he could bask in the glow of the sinking moon while his fingers plucked at the strings, creating beauty that no number of bad grades or failed tests could ruin for him.
When was the last time he had done this? It felt like it’d been years, but that couldn’t be the case. Could it?
Rody didn’t have the energy to be surprised when thoughts of Vince trickled in through the crack between his conscious and subconscious mind, completely unprompted. His silky hair, his vacant eyes, the bored expression he wore everywhere he went, the infuriating way he smirked when he knew he had the upper hand, the strangely soft and unguarded smile he gave Rody at the café out of nowhere, it all blended together into a puddle of … something. A feeling that felt both new and familiar at the same time. It made his heart ache. It made his hands ache. He hadn’t kept track of time, but he had been playing for a while. His fingers would be covered in angry blisters soon if he didn’t stop. He would have to wait another week just for them to heal.
Rody kept playing.
He played until his fingers went numb.
He played until the warmth of sunlight prickled across his skin.
He played until there wasn’t a single thought in his head to think, no stone left unturned.
Rody played with so much focus and intensity that he didn’t notice someone approaching him, and when they cleared their throat, he jumped out of his skin.
“WHO-”
Standing there, all dressed in black and looking vaguely alarmed, was Vince. Because of course it was Vince. Rody groaned and put his head in his hands.
“You can’t just fucking sneak up on people like that, dude, it’s creepy .”
Vince, for whatever reason, took this as an invitation to sit down on the opposite side of the bench.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Rody glowered at him through the gaps between his fingers. Something told him that was the closest thing to an apology he would get. He sighed, slumping back against the wooden slats. “What are you doing out here?”
“I came out for a smoke, not that it’s any of your business.” Vince raised his cigarette with an air of condescension that made Rody blush for not noticing sooner. “I didn’t know you played.”
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
The corners of Vince’s mouth quirked upwards as if to say touché . It made Rody feel all warm and tingly on the inside. He didn’t want to think about the implications of that right now, so he decided the best course of action was to change the subject.
“It’s the only hobby that’s really stuck with me.”
Vince’s eyes found Rody’s hands, clasped tightly around the guitar. “You play well.”
“Uh, thanks. I think.”
And then, just like that, there was nothing else to talk about. Seconds of silence stretched into minutes. Weirdly enough, it was the calmest Rody had felt all month. Not at all like the uncomfortable silence in the café. This silence felt… Right. Like even with so much life and greenery around them, it was the most natural thing in the world. He was almost disappointed when Vince broke it.
“Why aren’t you studying music?”
Rody didn’t answer right away. Vince stared at him anyway, expecting an answer all the same. Like he wanted to know the answer to this question more than anything else in the world. Like he had no intention to stop bothering Rody until he was satisfied.
Best to play it casual, then. Rody shrugged. “I dunno. Didn’t seem like a very practical career path. I’m not gonna be a rock star or anything like that, so what’s the point?” He stared up at the last few stars in the sky, still holding steady with dawn fast approaching. “I don’t have any training. I’ve never even taken a band class in my life, it’s just a dumb hobby. Plus, I’m already on the hospitality track. If I changed studies now, I’d have to stay for a whole extra semester, I wouldn’t even get to attend graduation with my class. It’d be a waste of my time and my parents’ money.”
Vince raised his eyebrows expectantly, gesturing for Rody to continue. It took a few seconds for his sleep-deprived brain to catch up. “Wait, yeah, no, even if I could free up my schedule and swap classes, that’s a bad idea. I mean, I don’t even know how to read music. I’d make it like two days before getting kicked out of the program.”
Vince’s face scrunched up like he’d just bitten into a lemon rind – something Rody had witnessed him do yesterday, stone faced and without so much as batting an eye. It was the most passionate expression Rody had ever seen on his pale, impassive face.
“You’re such an idiot sometimes.”
This asshole– “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re being an idiot. Honestly, I don’t know how you manage to be so dense sometimes, it’s almost impressive.”
“I beg your fucking–”
Vince clapped a hand over Rody’s mouth, cigarette falling somewhere in the dewy grass, and Rody had to use every ounce of strength in his body to keep himself from biting it. His fingers stained Rody’s lips with the stench of sour ash. They were colder than they should’ve been.
“Shut up, I’m not done. You’re going to sit there and listen until I’ve said my piece. Do you know how rare it is to be blessed with a talent like yours? I was certainly never that lucky. It took me years to create a passable dish. Years , Rody. But I kept cooking. Because I wanted to rise to the challenge. Because I gave more of a shit about food, about flavor, than anything else in the world. That is why I am good at what I do. That is why I know I am not capable of studying anything else – I would rather die, or spend the rest of my life in a gutter. But you .”
Vince glared at the pavement, balling his hands into fists. He took a shaky breath before fixing his eyes on Rody, rounding on him and jabbing a finger at his chest. “You barely even know what you’re doing with that–” he gestured to the guitar– “and yet you’re still somehow better at it than half the fucking idiots studying music theory, and you’re sitting here playing shitty love songs from memory, probably by ear, because you don’t know how to read music .”
All Rody could do was gape like a fish. An extremely baffled fish that had gone to sleep and woken up to find itself in the desert, writhing around on the hot sand. Yeah, no, he was too tired to think of a clever and biting retort. But once he finally got some sleep, it was over for this insufferable little twink.
One small shred of indignance worked its way up through his skin like a splinter and he finally found the words he’d been fumbling for: “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Do you know how ridiculous you sound? ‘Who do you think you are.’ I know exactly who I am, Rody. Can you say the same for you?”
Rody frowned down at his beaten up sneakers. He thought he knew who he was. If you’d asked him yesterday, he would’ve said the same thing he always said: “I’m the smartest student here.” But now he wasn’t so sure.
“I’m surprised you even care. What’s it to you, anyway?”
Vince flicked him in the forehead.
“Ow! What the hell, dude?!”
“If you really want to be a host someday, you need to learn some manners. There’s no way I’d let someone who mouths off like that run my restaurant.”
“... You don’t have a restaurant. Is this some kind of trick question?”
Vince flicked him in the forehead again, harder this time.
“OW, Jesus, fuck, can you stop it with the-”
“ When I have a restaurant, I plan to hire the most skilled and charismatic staff I can find. Any well paying restaurant owner with half a working brain is bound to do the same. You may dress nicely and speak properly–” Vince pointedly raised an eyebrow at Rody’s disheveled hair and clothes– “most of the time anyway, but your sorry excuse for a poker face doesn’t fool me and it won’t fool paying customers. If you can’t play the part, not even a third rate fast food joint will hire you. So, I suggest you read up on proper dining etiquette and learn how to keep that temper of yours in check.”
Well.
That was probably the closest thing to an invitation Rody would ever get from Vince.
It’d be a shame not to take it.
Rody smiled a genuine smile, blinking back the sunlight in his eyes. It caught in his hair, tingling with warmth like a hand. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”