Page 35 of College Town

“He sells insurance! What the fuck. He can justnot do thatif he’s unhappy. Marry a blonde instead of a brunette. Go sky-diving, whatever.”

“Insurance,” Noah parrots, dumbly, face going slack.

“Yeah. The family business or some shit.” Doubt plucks at the edges of his mind, looking at Noah’s slapped-silly expression. “Right?”

“He told you he sells insurance.”

“Yeah.” Lawson’s pulse quickens. “Does he…not?”

In a blink, the angry, square-jawed man who threatened to put Lawson in the hospital deflates into the boy Lawson remembers, big, but awkward and uncertain. The color drains out of his face, and his mouth works soundlessly a moment. “Shit.” His voice reverts, too; Lawson expects it to crack like it used to in middle school. “Did he not tell you…? Shit, hedidn’t tell you.”

“Tell mewhat?”

Noah sits back hard, broad shoulders slumping. He wipes a hand over his mouth, and his throat jerks as he swallows. “Oh my God.”

“Tell me what?” Lawson repeats, wildly curious now.

Noah doesn’t respond. His gaze shifts off to the side, glassy in the middle distance somewhere. “He didn’t…” he says, hushed, to himself. “But it’s you, so I thought…and he said he was…oh, holy shit. Nevermind.”

He stands so suddenly he catches his hip hard against the edge of the table. Coffee leaps through the mouth hole on the to-go cup.

“Forget what I said. Just…yeah.”

“Noah.Noah,” Lawson calls, but Noah power-walks out of the shop and across the parking lot.

“Dude,” Melissa says, when he’s gone.

An older woman sitting in the far corner of the shop, bent over a laptop and seemingly ignoring the proceedings, says, “He’s cute. One of you girls should get his number.”

15

He meets Dana at Quarter Moon after work. It’s right at five, and the place it packed – in a respectful, upper-middle class way, of course, no one would jostle or shout here, no sir – but Lawson wants to call it an early night so he can help with Dad. He debated the wisdom of calling and asking to meet at all, but he can’t get Noah’s wild behavior out of his head, and he has to tell someone. He’s counting on Dana’s current living situation with Leo to power her through whatever old, buried feelings she might still carry for Noah, and prays he’s not making a mistake.

When he finally wends his way back through the crush and arrives at their high-top table with their wine, she’s got her elbows braced on the tabletop, head stuck forward on her neck, expression sharp and eager. She looks like a predator lying in wait, and Lawson’s brows jump as he climbs onto his own stool.

“Okay, so, you look like a serial killer,” he says conversationally, and slides her Chardonnay over.

“I could become one,” she says. “Take out both Cattaneos at once.” She makes a gun with her fingers and mouthsbang-bang.

“Yes, but who will I tell all about Noah Cattaneo’s apparent insanity if you’re in jail?”

Her brows jump and she takes a fast sip of her wine. “Okay, yeah. Spill.”

He recounts his oddball conversation with Noah verbatim; each word is burned indelibly in his brain. He wrote Noah’s name on his last customer’s cup by mistake, because he was so preoccupied with recapping the story to Dana.

By the end, her eyes are huge, and her mouth keeps twitching like she wants to smile. “Shit.”

“Go ahead,” he sighs, and takes a deep slug of his wine.

Her grin breaks loose, along with a chuckle. “Oh my God! What an asshole.”

“I know, right?” Lawson breathes an internal sigh of relief. She doesn’t look lovelorn; looks instead like she’s completely over him.

“But what the hell was he talking about? What did he think Tommy told you?”

Lawson takes another swig of wine. “That’s the thing that’s been bugging me all day. The way he was like, ‘He said he sellsinsurance?’”

“Clearly, he doesn’t sell insurance.”

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