#TeaserTuesday: College Town

It's a bit of a mafia story, and a bit of a coffeeshop story, and neither of those things actually. It's not what you're expecting, I'll say that. Coming 2/14!

 

Noah’s unimpressed. “He was really trying last night to make things right.”

Lawson snorts. “He didn’t try very hard. And again: it’s twenty years too late for that shit.”

“F**k you,” Noah says, without any real heat this time. His brow crimps and he looks more worried than anything, now. “Things have been really hard for Tommy ever since we left here. It’s been – it’s been bad, okay?” He checks over his shoulder, and leans forward after, lowering his voice. “He didn’t have a choice back then, and he was trying to look out for you, the way he left things.”

“Look out for – no, okay, see, now you’re just saying nonsense sentences. You understand I don’t believe anything you say, right? If last night was him trying, I’d hate to see what he’s like when he half-asses something. If he’s hoping for some sort of absolution so he can marry a beautiful woman without guilt, he’s not gonna get it from me. I don’t forgive him, how about that?”

“He didn’t – he doesn’t – have a choice, Lawson. This isn’t the way he wanted his life to turn out, and you’re making it harder.”

“He sells insurance! What the f**k. He can just not do that if 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 quickened. “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, he didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

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.”