Page 108 of College Town

“Hi, yeah,” Tommy says. He’s adopted a friendly, disarming tone Lawson hasn’t heard from him…ever.

No, scratch that. It’s the tone he uses with Lawson’s parents. With the handful of teachers he really liked in school. His Making a Good Impression voice.

“Leo, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. You guys come around here, get a drink.” Leo plays host politely, if a little stiffly, too studious and quiet to make the gesture and the offer seem natural – he’s never going to be one of the guys – but Lawson likes him all the more for his little awkward moments. He’s genuine, Dana’s Leo, and that’s worth far more than any put-on frat boy bonhomie. “We’ve got beer,” he says, “and Dana ordered onion rings.”

“And cheesy tots,” Dana adds, standing to hug Lawson and kiss his cheek. “They’re taking a minute. The fryer’s backed up, apparently.” In Lawson’s ear, she whispers, “You sure about this?”

He nods as she pulls back, and shoots her what he thinks is a reassuring look.

Dana’s lips compress, but she nods back.

Then she turns to Tommy.

Her chin kicks up, and her hair shifts where it lays on her shoulders, and suddenly she’s a queen at court, instead of a pretty girl in a dress and a denim jacket at a grungy bar. Her lids half-lower, and she sends Tommy a withering look. “Hello, Thomas,” she greets in a rather bad attempt at a British accent.

Tommy blinks at her a moment, and thenlights up. His face transforms, all beaming smile and eye crinkles, then he quickly smooths it out, and mimics her expression. His accent is better than hers when he says, “Lady Edwina. It’s been quite some time.”

“Quite,” she returns.

It hits Lawson like a slap: the play! “Oh my God,” he says, laughing.

Leo steps in at his side while their dates stare one another down coolly. “Um. Are they–”

“It’s the play,” Lawson says, recalling it now in a memory spill of cheap lace, garish satin, and unwieldy stage mics. “This play we did our sophomore year. A bunch of us took drama thinking it would be a blowoff class, and Mr. Parkins made us write, produce, and star in our own original play. It was something Victorian, I think, right?” he asks the two of them. In an aside to Leo: “I was on the script writing and set decorating teams, so I didn’t have to put on a costume, thank God. But these two – Lord Thomas and Lady Edwina.”

Without her expression changing, Dana continues to glare daggers at Tommy and says, “It was Gothic. A love story gone wrong.”

“It resulted inmurder,” Tommy says, leaning hard on the accent, and Dana finally cracks.

She smiles, and says, “Hi.”

Tommy smiles, too, and his body shifts forward, so that Lawson thinks he’ll offer to hug her, but he holds back. “Hi.”

Dana reaches up and pets his fluffy hair. “ThisI remember well. Much better than that helmet head look you had going on yesterday.”

Tommy goes rueful. “Yeah, well…” His gaze slides to Lawson. “I thought I’d mix it up.”

Dana nods approvingly. “Right. So.” She claps her hands together and turns to the table. “Whose butt am I kicking first?”

~*~

When they were teenagers, Dana and Tommy were the pool sharks of their group. Dead-on-balls accuracy, trick shots, patience, and killer stares. They consistently wiped the felt with the other kids at Stardust until it wasn’t even fun any longer.

One night, Dana’s uncle – good old childless Uncle Trey, never opposed to sneaking them a beer or a joint or a handy excuse to feed their parents – brought them right in here to Flanagan’s, a memory that, like the play, assaults Lawson with savage poignancy. It was a Friday, the place packed to the gills, the air thick with cigarette smoke because the practice hadn’t been outlawed indoors yet. Trey offered to play a guy for use of his table, and then handed the cues over to Dana and Tommy, which inspired uproarious laughter from the guy and his friends.

“They’re just kids!”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble beating them, then.” Trey slapped a twenty down on the edge of the table, and clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “My girl here’ll break.”

Trey split the night’s winnings with them, fifty bucks a piece for Lawson and Noah, who hadn’t played, and a hundred for Dana and Tommy, who made mincemeat out of hard-drinking grown men.

Lawson’s better than he used to be, though. If nothing else, his long arms give him the reach he needs.

“Oh come on, that’s not fair,” Tommy says over the rim of his glass as Lawson sinks a perfect twofer. He’s on his third beer, pleasantly pink-cheeked and relaxed, lip smudged with grease from the cheesy tots and the bacon cheeseburgers they scarfed between rounds. He’s ditched his jacket over the back of a chair, and the fitted blue Henley beneath isdoing thingsto Lawson’s stomach, the way the top button’s undone, the way it clings to the narrowest part of his waist. “You didn’t say you gotgood!”

Tommy’s not the only one feeling a pleasant buzz. Lawson’s warm, and loose-limbed, and he takes delight in hoisting his cue over his head in an exaggerated stretch that draws Tommy’s gaze to the strip of stomach he flashes. He grins. “Nah, I didn’t, you just got worse.”

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