Page 115 of Ours
“Only because you would alwaysgo out of your way to embarrass me.” Gabby narrowed her eyes at her older brother. “You told everyone I wasborn with a tail!”
“Enough. Gabby, you’re driving your sister to school,” Luciana ended the fight. “Nic, stop tormenting your sister.”
“Hey, I don’t even go to the same school as them anymore!” Nic held his hands up in defense.
“Thankgod,” Dani added, glad to not have to repeat her sister’s high school experience.
“Did you pick out a school yet, Nic?” Gabby asked before taking another bite.
“No, but, I’m close…” Nic was. There were just a few … extenuating factors he needed to consider. “I’m actually gonna try to talk to the guys about it tomorrow.”
“Aww, wanna get your boyfriends’ opinions before you make any big decisions?” Gabby teased far closer to home than Nic was comfortable with.
“Shut up.” Nic threw his napkin at his sister, which he hoped seemed like the appropriate reaction to have. That was a different conversation that Nic wasn’t ready to have with anyone yet. “Maybe before I leave, I’ll show Dani where youthinkyou hid all the embarrassing baby pictures.”
“MOM!”
The next day, Nic and Derek headed to Cory’s house to hang out. With Derek’s parents home, Cory was the only one with a place where they could get any privacy for the afternoon.
“Hey, boy,” Derek greeted as they walked in, Nic ruffling Cory’s hair as he closed the door behind them.
“Hey, sirs.” Cory instinctively led them back to his room. “Wanna play some Smash Bros.?”
“Sure, Cor. Set it up,” Derek requested. As Nic took a seat on Cory’s bed, Derek sat at his desk. While Cory got the Switch ready, Derek took notice of the envelopes stacked on his desk—Cory’s acceptance letters. None of them wanted to think about the future, their inevitable separation, but they really needed to. Time to put on his daddy pants, as Carl would say.
“So … colleges,” Derek started.
Nic’s head perked up, and Cory stopped in his tracks at Derek’s words.
“Yeah…” Nic mumbled as Cory turned around sheepishly.
The three sat in an awkward silence for a moment, the background noise filled with the video game’s soundtrack.
“Look guys, I know it’s hard, but not talking about it isn’t gonna change anything,” Derek said with a sigh. “We need to figure this out or at least let each other know what we’re gonna do, right?”
“Okay, well…” Cory nodded, then took a seat on the other end of the bed. “Where are you guys thinking about going? Everyone applied and got insomewhere, right?”
“I, uh, have it narrowed down to four schools,” Nic started first. “They’re all offering me a football scholarship, but outside of that, they’re pretty similar. Virginia State, UConn, John Adams, and Oklahoma. All have decent athletic majors, which is what I think I wanna do.”
“I haveno ideawhat I’m gonna do in college,” Derek confessed. “I just applied to a bunch of random schools that seemed good, really. FCU, MassU, some school in New York, and John Adams, too.”
“My acceptance letters are right there on the desk.” At both boy’s mention of John Adams, Cory’s heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up.
“TIM, San Diego … and John Adams.” Derek picked up the stack of three and thumbed through it before looking back and forth between Nic and Cory. “So, we all got into John Adams?”
“I guess we did.” Nic was smiling.
“Does that mean…?” Cory let the question hang, still too worried about jinxing things.
“Guys…” Derek hated being a downer, but they needed to be realistic. “It would be awesome, but maybe picking out a college just because we can all go there together isn’t the smartest idea?”
“Maybe not,” Nic started reasoning. “But is there any reason weshouldn’t? Is there a school either of you really had your heart set on? ’Cause I don’t.”
“I mean, living in California might be cool … but I really did like all three schools,” Cory responded.
Derek watched as his two friends rationalized what he was still sure his parents or Carl would say was a bad idea. A bad idea he very much wanted to try.Maybe we could…
“Okay.” Derek took a breath before outlining his plan. “I still think picking out a school just because we can all go together isn’t a great idea.” Cory opened his mouth to argue, but Derek cut him off. “But… What if we all drove up and checked out the campus together? Road trip?”
