Page 12 of Wait for Him

I love them for that.

These are the only two real friends I have in this city, which makes it sting a little that Bennet and I are about to leave Derrick behind. Not leave him behind in the dramatic sense. Nobody's dying or disappearing. But tonight is graduation, and tomorrow the shape of our lives changes, whether or not any of us are ready for it.

Four years of college compressed into just under two because Bennet and I tested out of enough foundational coursework to make our academic advisors visibly uncomfortable. Placement tests, independent study, overloaded semesters, and a combined refusal to sit through anything we'd already taught ourselves. Derrick, being a normal fucking person, took one look at the pace we'd set and informed us that he enjoyed sleep and occasionally seeing daylight.

So, he still has school left. Bennet and I don't.

We're not even fully out the door yet and we're already ass-deep in building a business. What started with the two of us throwing ideas around between classes has become real enough to have contracts, clients, invoices, and an office we can barely afford. We've spent the last several months going from lectures to meetings and then working until two in the morning because finishing college in half the normal time wasn't enough stress for either of us.

It feels strange to be excited about leaving and already miss something that isn't over yet.

I don’t care if it’s just Bennet's name on the door. It’s accurate. He's bringing the capital, the concept, the proprietary app, and the kind of business instinct that makes grown men in boardrooms feel like they've been called on without doing the reading. The fucker is a genius. Legitimately. Mensa card and everything. I've seen him do things with code that I didn't know were legal, and we've had more than one professor pull me aside after class just to ask what the hell is wrong with him.

I'm just bringing my pretty face along for the ride.

Okay, that's bullshit. I know what I bring to the table. Bennet can build almost anything he can imagine, but eventually someone has to convince another human being to buy it. That's where I come in. He builds the thing; I make people believe they need the thing, and somewhere along the way we realized those two skill sets might actually make us dangerous.

Assuming we don't bankrupt ourselves first.

And tonight I'm also bringing a humiliating amount of feelings about a woman I met four days ago in a hotel bar.

“You're seriously not going to try to find her?” Derrick asks.

“I did try.” I start racking the balls again. “Her profile was gone when I went back to look.”

Bennet doesn't even glance up as he chalks his cue. “Because you were probably a horrible fuck. You came in your pants, dude. No woman wants a redo of that.”

“And she's six years older than you, fuckface,” Derrick adds. “Maybe she realized she'd accidentally fucked a child and deleted the app out of shame.”

“She didn't know how old I actually was. She thought I was twenty-four.”

“Because of a fake ID that barely looks legal.”

“It looks very legal.”

Derrick stares at me. “It looks like you made it in Microsoft Word.”

“I paid seventy-five dollars for that ID.”

“You got robbed.”

“Regardless.” I steal Derrick's beer before he can stop me and take a drink. “We fucked four more times that night. She was absolutely feral for it. I more than redeemed myself.”

Bennet finally looks up. “So you say.”

“So the neighbors say. So the front desk calling at two in the morning to ask us to keep it down says.”

Derrick points at me with his cue. “Okay, that part I believe.”

“Thank you, Derrick.”

“You're welcome.” He takes his beer back and tilts it toward me in a mock toast. “You're a howler when you come.”

Bennet's face twists. “Why do you know that?”

“Thin walls.”

“We shared a dorm for one semester,” I remind him.