Page 62 of Forever Yours

I pressed a hand to my aching ribs as I laughed at the story Ash was telling everyone about the senior prank he and his best friend, Arjun, pulled off at their high school graduation. I felt sorry for the goat.

“Stop. Uncle, uncle.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Ash asked, getting another slice of pizza.

“I have no idea,” I replied.

Jayson got tired of waiting for Julien to come home from practice and ordered delivery. Dad and David left a little while ago. David to go back to the dorms, and Dad said he needed to do‘something’and would check in later. I knew that something had to do with Fallon and the guy whose name I still didn’t know. Like I said, willful blindness.

Jayson lightly jabbed his finger at Ryder. “I told you we should have done something against Highland.”

“We would’ve ruined Elijah’s graduation, dumbass.”

In my drugged-up state, the overlapping conversations were getting hard to keep track of.

Ryder read from his phone. “According to worldwidewords.org, ‘crying uncle’ may have come from a late nineteenth-century joke.”

“What’s the joke?”

Ryder swiped his screen. “Um, hold on. Okay, here it is. A guy told his friend he could get his parrot to repeat what he said. He tried to get the parrot to say ‘uncle,’ but the parrot refused. The guy got angry at the parrot and threw it into a pen with other birds. When he came back, he saw that the parrot had killed the other birds and was standing on the neck of the last one alive, screaming: ‘Say uncle!’”

We burst out laughing whenJayson’s face contorted.

“That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Ash offered me the last slice of meat lover’s, but I was full and indicated for him to have it.

“You know what we should do?” he asked.

I waited while he shoved the entire slice of pizza in his mouth. Ash consumed food like a garbage disposal. He was always eating. What I would give to have his metabolism. When I swam competitively, I had to eat five to ten thousand calories a day to maintain weight. Couldn’t do that anymore.

Ash’s question went unanswered because a sweaty, gorgeous Julien came walking in.

“You guys suck,” he said when he saw the empty pizza boxes littering the coffee table.

He walked over and kissed me hello. He smelled of grass and hard-earned sweat.

“How was practice?”

Jayson pulled his T-shirt up over his nose. “Holy shit, Jules. You stink. Why didn’t you take a shower after practice?”

“Bite me. I wanted to get back as soon as possible.”

“Go take one now.”

Julien flipped off his brother. “I will. Hey, Ash.”

Ash got up from the floor. “I’ll get out of your hair. And no need to look that one up,” he joked with Ryder.

“Thanks for dropping off my stuff.”

Ash and I touched fists. “No prob. Get some rest. I’ll come by tomorrow. Text me anything else you need me to bring.”

Ryder walked Ash to the door and locked up.

Jayson collected the pizza boxes. “Want me to zap the leftover chicken and broccoli?”

“And a bag of microwavable rice, please,” Julien added.

---