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Nic stuck around Ryce Hall at the end of the week trying to catch up on classes. He dedicated this particular day to color theory class, because he was swamped with all of the painting he refused to get done sooner. He was always shit at mixing ratios of color, and this assignment just seemed to prove it. It wasn't his fault that he just liked to go with the flow and let the colors be what they wanted to be... Okay, maybe it was his fault. Whatever the case, it meant that he had to remix and repaint an entire CMYK scale from scratch. The only swatches he was able to salvage were the ones with the actual, untainted paint.
He was messaging Bev at the time, which just felt stiff and awkward because he inadvertently made it that way. It was just ridiculous at this point—how much he was stressing over Bev—when he really should be focusing on other, more pressing matters.
Music was playing on the speakers of the studio room, and there were a few other students from his class redoing their paint scales as well. One thing Nic liked the most about Arnette was the fact that his classes were relatively small in size compared to the other major programs at the university. It's because of this that the fine arts students tended to suffer together as a team, which meant sharing studios and arguing over what music to play.
Either way, Nic's hips were swaying to whatever came on, and since he couldn't stand to sit still, he was on his feet, leaning to and fro to the gentle sway of the intro. It was a classic—something they all heard at least once in their lives whether it be from a wedding reception or Dirty Dancing. So they were all singing to each other, a sensual swing to their shoulders as they all belted out:
"So I tell you something—This could be love—because—!I—had—the time of my li-ife,No I ne-ver felt this way be-fore..."
Above the sound of the music and their incessant, giddy laughter and singing, Nic heard a familiar, "Man, I'm in the wrong major," from behind.
Nic froze over his painting, and turned around. The last place he expected to find Kieran was in the color room. "Wh-What are you doing here?" Nic stammered, hastily dunking his paintbrush into his mason jar of water. "I mean—not that I'm not happy to see you here. But this isn't exactly near the Co-Op." As he said it, Kieran pushed off the doorway and wandered over, and smiled when he met the eyes of the other student sitting at Nic's table.
"I know. But it's, like, five and Bev said you were here so..." Kieran said, and hopped up to sit on one of the tall, colored stools beside Nic. His knees bumped into Nic's legs as he swung around in the chair.
"You hungry or something? Wanna go out to eat?"
"Well, that, and also we gotta get to class later. Figured we could hang out for a little bit."
Nic stayed quiet for a moment, his brain divided between Wait, how many drops of white did I put in the previous batch? and What the hell is Kieran talking about? At last, it clicked. "Oh, shit, I forgot about that! Sorry, I've been here all day, and—"
His stomach was already kinda twisted into knots, so it gave out a distinct growl for food that had Kieran grinning. "Here's the deal: You keep working, I'll get food, and then we eat it on the way to the Co-Op," Kieran suggested as Nic pouted, hands over his stomach. "Okay?" Kieran insisted, laughter in his voice as he reached out to tug on Nic's sweatshirt.
"Yeah, that sounds good," he said, and continued to mope over the fact that his stomach hurt so terribly. He hadn't even realized he was hungry until Kieran mentioned something. Stupid Kieran, for making him aware of his current State of Suffering.
Kieran mimicked his frown, but with his model-status face, it just came off as incredibly adorable with an added mix of Nic instinctually whining, "Aw, don't do that! Makes me feel like I did something wrong!" Kieran's puppy-dog look broke out into a smirk, and a quick roll of his eyes. His legs swung to the side and he hopped off the stool. "Kiiieran!"
"Hm?" he said distractedly, "I'm just gonna get food. I'll be right back."
"Promise?"
Kieran punched him in the arm for it, which left Nic in more of a disaster than Kieran found him in. "Don't get sappy with me. Get to work, lazy-ass."
After Kieran confirmed Nic didn't have an allergies before leaving, Nic set to work finishing up his project, but that didn't stop his studio friends from badgering him about who Kieran was. It just caused Nic's ears and cheeks to turn pink, and a collectively suggestive "Ooo!" to go around the room. It seemed that even college students were just as ridiculously immature as high schoolers.
By some miracle, he managed to finish a strip of his color scale and run it under the blowdryer to dry it out just as Kieran sauntered into the room again. The only reason he knew it was Kieran was because the girl at Nic's table cooed out, "Niiiiic, your special friend is here—!"
"Shut up! Don't make it weird," Nic whined.
"What, are we not special friends or something?" Kieran remarked, to which Nic's table-buddy giggled at, and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Nic.
Nic scowled at Kieran. "Don't encourage them. They've been badgering me since you left," he complained.
"Oh come on, you love the attention," his table-buddy said, hands on her hips. "If you want me to wash up your side of the table after this, you might as well just let me pick on you a little bit longer."
"Tough payment. I like it," Kieran whistled, smirking devilishly. He stepped up to their table—pointedly avoiding the paint splotches left behind—and set a bag of Potbelly sandwiches in front of Nic. "You wouldn't believe how hard it was not to devour this entire bag on the way here."
"I'm guessing you love Potbelly's then," he commented, leaning over to take a whiff of the bag. It just made his stomach ache more, and made him work faster to scoop up everything he brought with him into his art box. He swung the latch down and secured it before heaving his backpack straps onto his shoulders, and turning to where Kieran was making smalltalk with Nic's table-buddy.
Before they left, Kieran fist-bumped her before grabbing the bag of food and heading out, resting his forearm against Nic's shoulder. They were nearly equal in height—Nic supposed that only posture and shoe size differentiated them in that respect—so it wasn't a far reach. It felt natural despite the fact that they often tiptoed around each other like a middle schoolers just starting to date.
Kieran reached into the bag and tore open the bag of chips. As they wandered towards the Co-Op, he busied himself with feeding Nic chips along the way until the bag was emptied, and they went to eating the still-warm sandwiches. The hand Nic held his art box with was turning bitter cold, so he swapped hands and held his warm, toasted sandwich for a while. A delighted hum escaped him at the taste of food at last. He didn't even care what exactly was in the sandwich so long as it filled his stomach and set his tastebuds on a magical journey to the realm of not-starving. Pure bliss.
"You like?" Kieran laughed, because Nic was making semi-orgasmic sounds as he ate his sandwich.
"Do I. I wish I could have thirty of these," he blurted out, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he talked. No need to show Kieran the half-eaten food in his mouth. Not exactly his most attractive look. "How's your's?"
"I don't know. I haven't tried it yet since I got distracted by all the noise you're making. Unless you want me to jab you in the throat, you'd better knock it off," he laughed, and Nic nudged him in the side, chuckling all the while.
***
Nic really should have expected something to happen when it came to the tension between Leo and Sav. He just didn't expect it to happen the way it did—at the Co-Op that night when Kieran and Nic came back from the modeling session to a party in full swing. Nic knew briefly about the party, just from all the preparations that were going down when Nic showed up to stash his art box in Kieran's room. The yellow-and-white kitchen was a disaster at the time, and it was still a mess when they came back at nearly nine thirty to find liquor and booze littering the countertops where some of the older, legal residents were playing bartender.
Nic internally told himself, "Yeah, this is normal. They live on frat row—of course they have parties every now and then." He just... hadn't really been up to date with what that meant.
It meant that Nic would either stay for the party, or scurry home to the safety of his dorm room where Leo was probably pouring over yet another manufacturing indesign textbook with his desk lamp and quiet music on. And with only a little suggestion from Kieran, Nic caved. He was weak through-and-through. There was no tough-guy about him—especially considering he couldn't seem to stop himself from tracking down Kieran at the first party he ever went to.
Of course, Nic couldn't go to a party without his ultimate wing-woman AKA Sav Gunderson. And yeah, maybe Nic didn't need a wing-woman these days, but he still needed a wacky dance-partner, or someone to retreat to on the edges of the fray. So naturally, Nic called her up from the muffled safety of Kieran's room while Kieran changed out of his athletic gear, and Nic stood pointedly facing the door, an arm crossed over his chest.
"Shalom, noob," Sav greeted.
"Sav! Hey, hi," he blurted out, phone tucked to his ear. "Uh, yeah, quick question: Would you be interested in coming to the Co-Op for an hour or so? There's a party going on and we don't have to stay long, but... Kieran said it's better than the frat parties. And I know you trust Kieran."
"Yeah, I trust him more than you."
"Right, so we'll talk about that later. But are you in or out?" Nic asked, rolling his eyes.
The bass downstairs was humming through the floorboards, vibrating against the rubber soles of his shoes. A group of girls went giggling past the door, talking loud and drunkenly, and Nic hoped Sav hadn't heard them. From what he could tell, there was a haze of something in the air akin to a misty, bad-smelling fog that clouded all other senses. He hoped that was just the muffled chatter on the other end of the line.
Sav came back to him. "I'm studying with some people in the lounge. Could they come too?" she asked.
He pulled the phone away and turned to Kieran to ask, but the words just sort of shriveled in his mouth and died along with every last lingering thread of sanity. Kieran wasn't exactly shirtless or pantsless at the time, but he definitely wasn't decent. His button-up was open and the fly of his pants was wide, exposing his red-plaid boxers and the happy trail that Nic just did not need the image of at this very moment.
Nic shrieked, voice pitching high as he slapped his hands over his eyes, aware that Kieran had just looked up at the alarmed noise. "Ah! Sorry—S-Sav is wondering if some of our friends from Kingsley could come."
"Yeah, but they gotta pay. It's a five dollar entry," Kieran said, and continued to laugh. "Dude, it's fine. I strip in front of Ezekiel all the time and he doesn't even bat an eye. What are you, twelve?"
"Kieran's stripping?!" Sav shrieked. "I'll be there in two minutes!"
He heard a distant, "Yeah right!" from Nora while he turned all shades of red. In his flustered rage, he blurted out, "W-Well—Ezekiel's, like, sixty years old! His hormones are probably shriveled up to the size of a walnut!"
"Old people have sexual desires just like we do, nerd," someone shouted from the other end of the line, and Nic slapped his hand over his face, covering his embarrassment further by falling face-first into Kieran's bed.
"I'm on speaker, aren't I?" he whined through the blankets.
"Do you expect anything less from me?" Sav sang. "We'll be there in half an hour with cash. You better still be alive or else I'll kill you."
Nic hung up on her and groaned into the blankets. After a few seconds, he deemed it safe to look at Kieran, who had a faint shadow of an amused smile on his face. He was finishing up the buttons on his shirt when a knock sounded on the door. Kieran called the visitor in, and soon Ellen was strolling through.
"Hey sluts," she said, arm trailing lazily behind her to the girl she dragged in with her. "Bev said you'd be here."
Nic pushed himself up and tucked a leg underneath him, observing the strangers that crowded the door, chatting aimlessly with Kieran as he stepped over to his mirror and combed his hair back from his face. Their words all sort of blurred together into this murky pool of drunken clarity, so Nic couldn't quite follow along to anything beyond the basic details of the party.
Eventually, they were suddenly leaving Kieran's room and locking it behind them. Kieran grabbed Nic by the wrist and towed him along like they time they burst through the back door of the Co-Op and made a beeline for Bev's room—the first time Nic ever met Ellen. Now Ellen was the leader of the group, paving a path down the stairs with her heavy blonde hair in two tight buns on top of her head as the start of twin ponytails falling over her shoulders. She had bright red eyeshadow on to compliment her lipstick, and her jet-black crop top. The collar of her shirt was completely mesh, and at around her bellybutton, her harem pants started with wildly patterned elastic fabric, and baggy bottoms.
Nic felt severely underdressed, considering the day started with messy painting in a studio.
They wandered around the house and introduced Nic to people he immediately forgot until his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he and Kieran hurried to the front door to ensure that Sav and the others were welcome in even if they weren't on the list. Kieran vouched for them with the lead people of the house, and they all had their hands stamped.
Sav had a nervous smile on her face as Leo followed after her, hands in his pockets and a soft smile on his face. He hardly seemed to be regretting anything about coming.
"I thought RAs weren't supposed to stay at parties if their residents ran into them," Nic accused, raising an eyebrow as Leo shrugged.
"Yeah, but I accompanied you guys to make sure you don't get too out of hand. If anything that should be fine. I plan on leaving at eleven anyway," Leo reassured him, smiling nervously as if the thought of finding his manager here would actually send him to an early grave. Nic couldn't even imagine the consequences of that happening.
Somewhere in the middle of talking with everyone from Kingsley—even Flo, Nora, and Wes were there—Kieran disappeared and hurried off with Ellen to grab a drink for themselves. Nic took that as the cue to just hang with the Kingsley Gang for a while, which resulted in an impromptu dance-session in the basement with everyone else partying to the music pulsing through the speakers.
Nic often forgot how much fun it was to just dance. He and his siblings used to dance a lot, or sway to whatever music their Ma had playing at the time. Though his music taste was rather mainstream, he flowed with anything, and could dance on command without breaking a sweat. Who cared if he looked ridiculous if he was having fun?
Kieran and Ellen showed up to their group with red solo cups, and smiles on their lips. They jumped up to sit on a wooden shelving ledge on the far side of the dance floor. Nic tried his best to ignore the fact that they were blatantly studying the Kingsley Gang. He went to pull Sav around, lifting her arms up and spinning her. She threw her head back laughing, her hands still in Nic's as they shimmied back and forth, leaning forward, back, shoulders shaking.
A line dance song came on, so they jumped to the rhythm in sync. Nic added a flare to his that Leo and Sav picked up on from either side of him, and by the end of the song, they were all laughing and sharing the new-and-improved dance with everyone in their group.
They dissolved into pairs and smaller groups. Flo and Nora met with some strangers across the floor and went to dance with them. Wes and some of the other guys went to check out the upstairs. Kieran and Ellen finished their cups and came to join them on the dance floor.
Nic never saw Kieran dance before, but he and Ellen were perfectly in tune with one another. They new the songs, the lyrics, the moves to make them shine on the dance floor. People from the Co-Op came to gather around—their friends coming to dance along with them and joining in a massive circle of clapping hands and arms raised.
Kieran dissolved into the edges of the circle, bumping off of Nic's shoulder with a wild smile on his face, his arm going around Nic's back. "How're you?" he asked, tipping his head towards Nic so he could hear.
"Great! I didn't know you could dance."
"It's all an illusion," Kieran explained, "Ellen's the good dancer. She's the one who makes me look good."
"It might be the other way around..."
"You're biased, that's why. And you're supposed to say that. You're my boyfriend," he laughed. Even with the music, his laughter was crystal clear, and it made something in Nic's chest flutter. It really should have been a painful sensation, but he reveled in it all the same. Maybe when he thought back to this moment later that night, he'd remember it as a desperate ache, but for the moment, he loved it.
He and Kieran danced for a while. It was nothing miraculously special aside from the closeness of being shoved against on all sides. It wasn't disgustingly sweaty like the frat, with the slick, slimy floors and the awful, wretched smell of vomit in the air. This was... fun, and all his friends were there, dancing their hearts out to music they may or may not have heard before.
The way Kieran danced was intoxicated—not because of the booze, but because of how his head just sort of swayed and lolled on his shoulders. His eyes remained on Nic's, his shoulders tipping side to side. The movement they both followed caused Nic to feel as though they whole world was rocking to and fro while their eyes remained constant. There were Christmas lights strung around the ceiling, flickering in bokeh circles across the edges of Nic's vision where Sav and Leo stood.
It took a moment for Nic's gaze to break away and look towards his friends. He realized that they were stationary in the middle of the dance floor, which caused dancers to bump into them, or avoid them entirely. Nic stopped dancing, and by default, so did Kieran, who asked, "What's going on? What is it?"
Nic was entirely aware of the guy Leo tried to keep near them, but eventually the stranger just sort of... ran off with a lame apology. Leo turned to Sav, annoyed, "C'mon, you didn't have to be rude to the guy! Why didn't you just dance with him?"
"Because I didn't want to!"
"Yeah, but you didn't have to be a bitch about it—"
"So what?! I have to dance with every guy who asks?" she snapped, jabbing him in the chest. Nic was just about to break them up when Leo waved his hand dismissively at Nic to spout off again.
"No. I'm just saying that how do you know you don't like... dancing with guys if you haven't tried it?" Oh no, Nic thought dreadfully, watching Sav's face burn red, hands half-raised as if to strangle Leo. Instead, they turned to fists.
She cranked her elbow back and in the next second, Leo tripped against the people behind him, staggering to keep on his feet. His hand went to his cheek where Sav managed to nick him. It might not have been the most powerful punch, but the look on Leo's face was enough to tell that it hurt.
Nic was so startled that he shrieked, hands going over his mouth. He ran over to Leo and steadied him, pulling his hand back to check the pre-bruise on his face. "Are you okay?" Nic asked, but Leo's eyes were unfocused, on the ground as he pressed the back of his hand to his cheek. He was acutely aware of all the faces turned towards them now, and he looked up and aggressively met the gazes of the people watching them before he was startled by Kieran standing beside him, tapping him on the shoulder.
Kieran's brows were furrowed, distressed. "Where'd Sav go?"
By the time Nic looked behind him, he saw that Kieran was right: Sav was nowhere in sight.