that, he shoved a five into the machine and pushed the button for the French vanilla. “I drink these sometimes when I miss home.”
Xan cocked his head to the side and waited for his turn, rolling his eyes when Luca refused to let him put money in. He punched the button for black, then watched a little cup fall behind the plastic door and begin to fill. “Do you go back there a lot?”
Luca smiled and shook his head. “Nah. My parents moved to Boca Raton like two years ago. Sebastion and I go visit sometimes since his parents are dead. He likes to get mom’d every now and again and mine doesn’t get to do it enough these days.”
Xan’s stomach twisted, and he rubbed his hand over his chest where his dad’s dog-tags were hanging. “Mine are dead too.”
Luca’s face fell a little, but Xan ignored it as he reached for his coffee and pretended to be busy testing the temperature. “How long ago did it happen?”
“Six years,” Xan said with a sigh. After a beat, he pulled the chain out from the collar of his shirt and rubbed his thumb over the letters, which were more smooth than bumpy after so many years. “My dad was in the military. Then my mom got pregnant with me, so he got out and started working for the electric company.” Xan licked his lips and was surprised it didn’t hurt as much to talk about it as it once did. “They got hit by a drunk driver.”
“Fuck,” Luca breathed out.
Xan shrugged and glanced around, but there was no one nearby and going back into the library suddenly sounded like the worst idea in the world. Luca seemed to get the message because he started up the stairs, and Xan breathed out a sigh when he realized the rain hadn’t started back up.
“They left me the house and all their life insurance. I was eighteen. I still had a couple months of high school left, so my aunt and cousin came to stay with me until I graduated.” He shoved one hand into his pocket and grimaced at how burnt and bitter the coffee was, but it was better than nothing. “I took a year off before I applied for school, and it just made sense to go here. I kind of regret it now,” he said, his voice even softer.
Luca let out a quiet hum. “Why’s that?”
Xan swallowed thickly and waited until they were a few feet down the sidewalk to answer him. “I met Max here.”
Luca hummed softly and directed them toward the commons’ hill where students would normally be congregating, but everything was soaking wet. “I have to assume he wasn’t such a massive dick when you first met.”
Xan laughed and gave him a sort of embarrassed shrug. “No.” He hesitated after a second, thinking about Nick. “Actually, someone warned me off him a few weeks after we started dating. This guy flagged me down between classes one afternoon and told me Max had a pattern of fucking people up and leaving them.”
“You didn’t believe him?” Luca asked.
Xan huffed, feeling a little defensive. “He seemed like the disgruntled ex, you know? And he said the longest Max had ever dated someone was like six months, so when we hit our first-year anniversary, I figured the guy was full of shit. Or,” he added, even quieter because the truth was a little more gutting, “I thought I was special enough to change him. The classic trap,” he finished with a bitter laugh.
Luca offered him a sympathetic grin as he led them to the little collection of pergolas, and he found the driest one under a massive tree. They both sat on the bench, closer than Xan would have done on his own, but he didn’t mind the way Luca’s knee brushed his every time he shifted.
“Is he in school with you?” Luca asked when they were settled.
Xan stared down at his hands and shook his head. “He works at this tech place downtown now.” Xan picked at the edge of the cup. “I probably should have been wary that he was so interested, but my self-esteem was really shitty, and I was still dealing with the grief of losing my parents. I felt so alone.” He wasn’t brave enough to look up, so instead he stared down at his shoelace that had come untied. “And he acted like I was the only thing in the world he wanted.”