Page 93 of Forever Relentless

“Noah cheats at pool,” Dustin declared loudly. “Did you make tea?” he asked Dante.

“Hot chocolate.” He put his mug down. “My brain was too sluggish, or the book I’m trying to concentrate on is incredibly boring.” He reached for another mug. “You want one?”

Dustin considered it. “No. I had a beer and two sodas. I take any more liquid, and I’ll be up all night.”

Dante lifted the mug a little higher in the air, looking in my direction. “Noah?”

“Hot chocolate puts me to sleep.” I thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll take one. If you don’t mind?”

“Only takes two minutes.”

Dante made me a hot chocolate, and I kicked off my shoes, fighting my yawn.

Dustin went into his room and came back with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. He leaned against the counter and carried on brushing.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. “You scared you’ll miss something?”

He flipped me the finger, taking the brush out of his mouth. “I’m cleaning my teeth, or I’m going to want a hot chocolate, and I’ve had enough to drink. So I’m resisting temptation.”

“It makes more sense to me why you were single for so long,” I muttered.

Dante laughed, and Dustin gave me a two-finger salute. The microwave pinged, and I dodged Dustin’s kick as I went to get my drink.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Dante murmured. “Hey, Dust, if you have time, will you come look at my paper?”

Dustin spat in the sink, rinsed his mouth, and ignored both of our protests about hygiene as he washed out the kitchen sink.

“What’s it on?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Macroeconomics.” Dante looked between us both. “We have that paper due next Friday, and I don’t know. I think I went off on a tangent.”

“Sure.” Dustin waited for him to walk into his room.

I hesitated for a second before I spoke up. “Hey, Dust, can you look at mine too? Not tonight, but—”

“Sure,” he said easily. “I’ll check yours tomorrow. Not saying I have it right, but I can definitely look.”

I said goodnight to both of them and took my hot chocolate to bed. Once I was done, I got ready for bed and slept right through to my alarm at five thirty.

I hit snooze one too many times, and then Dustin was in my room telling me to get up.

“Hot chocolate puts me in a coma,” I grumbled as I got out of bed.

“Five hours of sleep puts me in a coma,” he said, sitting on my unmade bed and immediately closing his eyes. “Today will suck.”

Once I’d splashed my face with water, ignored the whole ‘toner reminder’ and grabbed my gym bag, the two of us jogged to the stadium in the hopes it would wake us up.

It was somewhat gratifying to see a few of our teammates were as bleary-eyed as we were.

Coach Sutherland took one look at us and raised his eyebrows. “You too?”

Dustin nodded. “Yes, Coach.”

“Drinking?”

“Beer.” I didn’t say ‘each’ because Dustin wasn’t legally old enough to drink. Sutherland let the omission slide.