Chapter Text
Hannah Bondalo is not as oblivious as she leads people to believe; she knows Anthony didn’t invite her to an outrageous 60’s-themed diner to ‘work on math homework’. She knows men don’t pay for her meals unless they are looking for something in exchange. And she absolutely knows that Anthony did not ask for her number at a party last week to be platonic study buddies. But she also knows that underneath Anthony’s fraternity-fueled, blinding confidence is something genuine, and kind, and maybe even gentle.
She peers at him over her nearly empty strawberry milkshake and across the table, distinctly bereft of any math homework. Their conversation about possible mixer themes between Kappa Phi and Delta Nu had petered out, and now he’s pretending to be busy fiddling with the strap of his watch. It’s a clunky metal thing she’s never seen him wear before.
Hanbon has known of Anthony since her freshman year, but always been a background character in her life: the ever-diligent co-president of Kappa Phi who she only saw briefly at mixers and parties and charity events; the extrovert in her calculus class who was always surrounded by hordes of friends; the guy with a mullet and an infectious smile who introduced himself to her during orientation week only to disappear from her life and reappear in front of her at a party last Friday, reintroduce himself, and ask her to solve integrals with him. Despite her agreement with Coy, she gave Anthony her number and agreed to meet up. It’s not a date, she told herself. They’re just study buddies.
Study buddies who are enjoying a very platonic brunch.
(She tries to ignore the affection in Anthony’s eyes when he notices that she’s watching him. And she definitely doesn’t smile back.)
He returns to his stupid, chunky watch. At the same time, her milkshake finally gives up the ghost, but the dregs at the bottom of the tall glass remind her that she’s no quitter. Stirring with her straw, she slurps up the rest, watching to see Anthony’s expression. Unfortunately for him, it’s kind of cute when he’s annoyed.
After a couple of seconds, he finally takes off the damn watch and puts it on the table with an audible clink.
She slurps a little bit louder. The woman at the table next to them clears her throat loudly.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head indignantly. “Can you please stop that?”
“Just drinkin’ my drink,” she says, stirring the meager droplets of milkshake with her straw.
His cheeks get a little flushed when he’s truly peeved. She’s only seen that level of Annoyed Anthony at a party where one of his frat’s ex-brothers was caught spiking the drinks. Right now, he’s only slightly miffed, possibly even amused—he’s certainly not the one to be embarrassed about being loud and boisterous in public. Hanbon just likes it when he looks at her. In a friend way, of course.
“You could drink it quieter,” he suggests, cutting into his enormous waffle. Hanbon ordered an omelet. Now she kind of wishes she ordered a waffle. “Or stop drinking it. There’s nothing in there.”
She hums in response, sucking the rest of the milkshake from the bottom of the straw before dropping it back in the empty glass.
Her omelet is dripping. She pokes at it with her fork, and it oozes out some more grease. She definitely should have ordered the waffle.
“So,” she says, pushing aside the uneaten omelet.
“So,” he repeats, shoving a forkful of waffle into his mouth.
She sits up straighter, clearing her throat. “So…when are you planning on telling me that this is a date?”
Anthony nearly chokes on the waffle.
Hanbon watches him for a minute as he coughs into his fist, and stutters out something incomprehensible before she decides to take pity on him. “Stop, stop. It’s fine. It’s really sweet, actually. And don’t get me wrong, you’re really nice, and I would go on a date with you but…”
Now his face is red. All the way from the bottom of his neck to the top of his forehead. Still, admirably, he attempts (desperately) to compose himself. “But?”
She sighs heavily. “I promised my best friend that I won’t date until he finds a boyfriend too.”
“O-kay,” he says, slowly nodding, his eyes squinting in confusion.
“It’s like a blood pact, and I can’t betray him like that,” she says quickly. “We can be friends in the meantime, if you’re, um, okay with that. I like hanging out with you.”
At that, he smiles a shy, toothy smile. “Yeah, I like hanging out with you too.”
Before Hanbon could respond with something cute like, I like hanging out with you more, her phone buzzed, frantically vibrating on the table. Coy’s face appeared on the screen. She gives Anthony a quick apologetic look and picks up the call.
“Hey, Coy!”
She hears some shuffling in the background and then a muffled voice: “Oops, looks like I have to take this call.”
Another muffled voice says something she can’t quite make out.
Then Coy’s voice finally comes through clearly. “Hey! Bon! What’s up?”
From the tone of his voice, she immediately knows she needs to lock into the script for Protocol: Fucking Horrible Date. “I need you for a very, very urgent thing. You need to be here right now.”
“Can’t it wait?” He asks.
“No, no. It’s super urgent. And I can’t tell you what it is on the phone.”
A dramatic sigh floats through the phone speaker. “Okay, okay. I’ll be there.”
She hears the phone move away far enough so that she can still hear Coy when he tells his date, “Sorry, this is really important.” Then the line drops.
“Seriously?” Anthony asks, looking between her face and the phone still clutched in her hand.
“Sorry,” she says, removing herself from fake-urgency mode and sliding her phone into her handbag. “That’s the friend I was talking about. He’s been having some really bad luck with dates recently.”
“No, no,” he says, pulling a hand down his face. “The friend you’re in a pact with is Coy?”
“Yeah…so?”
“Coy ‘I-destroy-other-people’s-houses’ Piso?”
“Come on, that was an accident!”
“He seemed pretty proud of it to me.”
In Coy’s defense, he was really drunk. And high. Everything was funny at the time. In Anthony’s defense, Coy did laugh after it happened. Even while he was escorted from the party.
“Well, he did ask me a while ago to ask you to unban him. And he apologized!” It was only after Coy finally sobered, took a very, very long shower, and had a brief episode where he did not leave his own room for days on end. Hanbon had dragged him to the edge of Kappa Phi and made him apologize loudly from the sidewalk. At least one brother noticed. That counted. “He feels really bad.”
“We just got the ceiling fixed.”
“He did offer to pay for it.”
“Yeah, after we told him he was banned.”
Hanbon threw her hands on the table. “Aw, that’s not fair. What about Chris….Chad…or Whatever-His-Name-Is? He broke a table! He should be banned!”
“Not the same.” Anthony shakes his head exasperatedly, but she can tell he’s holding back a grin. “Also, it was a shit table.”
Hanbon leans back into the padded booth. Maybe Anthony was right to be harsh on Coy, but most times, ninety-nine percent of times, he doesn’t act that way. He’s the best friend she has ever made at this school, and if Anthony could see that, she’d feel a little vindicated at least. “Well, maybe if you spent some actual, real, quality time with him, you’ll see that he’s really sweet, caring, funny—”
“I’m not interested in Coy,” he interrupts.
His lip twitches. He’s definitely holding back a smile.
“I wasn’t going to say that!” Hanbon says, her own smile betraying her. She deflates again, crossing her arms matter-of-factly. “Also, I know that. You’re interested in me.”
“Sure, whatever. Sure.” The eyes again. It’s always his dumb, blue eyes. But they’re really only nice in a friend way. Because Anthony is just a guy-friend.
A brilliant idea strikes! Anthony is a guy. He has guy friends. Many of them, actually. “But if you know someone who might be interested in Coy…”
“I’ll ask around,” he offers offhandedly.
“Okay, but, like, don’t talk to too many people. I don’t want Coy knowing that I’m trying to find him a boyfriend.”
“Why? Isn’t that, like, the whole point?”
“He’ll think I’m being pushy! And he knows that I know that he’s really picky, so if I try to set him up with some guy, he won’t like it.” Coy loves complaining to Hanbon about his love life. He hates when she meddles in it. She’s very aware of this from experience. And yet…there’s no harm if he never knows.
“Okay…” Anthony says, rolling his eyes dramatically. “I’ll talk to a couple of people who aren’t just ‘some guys’.”
“Yay!” She nearly flings herself across the table, but instead she just slaps his forearm in gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Ow. Why are you so excited? This is for Coy.”
“Well, and for me,” Hanbon says with the most friend-flirtatious smile she can manage as she reaches over to steal some of his waffle.