“This is for Hannah. You can Venmo me,” Logan said, dropping a grocery bag next to Garrett, who was sitting at the kitchen island watching Tucker cook. He’d offered to help and had been told in no uncertain terms that he was a menace in the kitchen and he could scrub the pots and load the dishwasher. Logan had done the food shopping, as usual, because he was the best at getting stuff on special and using the store circular, not bringing home random snacks because they were funny. Logan was unpacking the other bags, pulling out sweaty gallons of milk, a net bag of tangerines, some cartoonishly yellow bananas, and family packs of chicken breast, ground beef, and the pork butt Tucker wanted for a big batch of pulled pork. Dean was sitting on the couch, playing a videogame lefty. He’d taken some extra hits to his right shoulder and was supposed to be resting it. He and Logan were barely speaking after the fight at Malone’s, so Garrett wasn’t about to pester him to get off his ass to deal with putting away all the pantry shit.
“She’s upstairs,” Garrett said. In his room, in his bed, wearing his freshman year Briar U sweatshirt. Thinking about her that way felt like how Tucker talked about saying the rosary with his grandma, though Garrett did not have any grandma-ish feelings about Hannah.
“Yeah, I know,” Logan said. He lined up boxes of cereal on the island like the first level of Jenga. There were Rice Krispies because Hannah had said she wanted to make Rice Krispie treats and no one was upset about that. Logan had said he and Jules would make Lucky Charms treats to prove they were better but there was no red Lucky Charms box on the counter-top, no winking leprechaun catching anyone’s eye like one of those freaky old portraits that followed you wherever you went in the room.
“She asked you to get stuff?” Garrett said. He’d hit you too hard but Logan only rolled his eyes.
“No, dumbass. I’m helping you be a good boyfriend.”
“What the fuck?” Garrett said, starting to go through the bag. Three different king-size chocolate bars, two dark, one milk, an enormous bag of salt and vinegar chips, Doritos, the fancy ibuprofen gel caps that looked like blue raspberry candy, some boxes of herbal tea, a multipack of tampons, a big squishy pink plastic brick of maxi pads and a heating pad covered in mint-green silky fake velvet.
“She got her period yesterday and she feels like shit, but she doesn’t want to say anything to you and you’re clueless,” Logan said.
“There’s heating pads at Stop and Shop?” Garrett said, which was obviously the stupidest question he could have asked that had anything to do with what Logan had just said.
“I went to Costco,” Logan replied.
“That’s like thirty minutes out of the way,” Garrett said, frowning. Gas prices were up and Logan was careful about that kind of thing.
“I didn’t—she’s, well, I figured there’d be better choices for the meat,” Logan said, sounding a little flustered. Garrett had heard Logan rant about how you didn’t save that much going to Costco over Stop and Shop if you weren’t a moron and sometimes there had been a weird moment when Hannah was laughing or gesturing at the dinner table, her eyes bright, when Garrett caught Logan looking at her, fucking gazing at her before he shook his head and took a big swig from his water bottle.
“Okay. Whatever. How do you know she wants this stuff?” Garrett said.
“She needs it, man. And I know because I don’t like under a fucking rock,” Logan retorted.
“Jules, dude. Logan grew up with someone who went through this,” Tucker offered. He turned towards Logan. “You get any Midol?”
“She won’t want that,” Dean called from the couch.
“No? My mom and my aunties swear by it,” Tucker said.
“No one on TikTok’s using Midol. The heating pad’s a good idea though and she’ll probably like it better than those stick-on heat patch things,” Dean said.
“I didn’t think she was a hot water bottle kind of girl, but if she is, you could probably get a cute music themed cover for her on Etsy,” Logan said.
Garrett was confused. Or something. His closest friends, guys he thought he knew inside and out, had all this secret knowledge and he was a fucking ignorant moron.
“Don’t start spinning, G,” Logan said. “You were an only child, you weren’t that old when your mom died. There’s like no way you would have learned this stuff. They don’t teach it in health classes—”
“That’s true,” Dean said, which was the first exchange with Logan that was close to civil. It wasn’t much but it was a start.
“How is this going to make me seem like a good boyfriend, you buying all this stuff for her when it didn’t even occur to me to ask any of you for advice. Or check with Allie,” Garrett said.
“You don’t have to tell her that part. You don’t have to say you went out and bought it, but you can kind of imply you asked me to pick the shit up for her while I was out. That’ll make her happy,” Logan said. His voice definitely softened when he said make her happy but what was Garrett going to do, call him out for liking Hannah? She was likable, lovable, goddamn adorable and if Logan wanted Garrett to act like Logan liked Hannah as a good friend or a sister, who was Garrett to grill his best friend to make him confess something none of them wanted to be aware of?
“You can say the Ghirardelli bar was my idea,” Dean said.
“But it was my idea,” Logan said.
“Yeah, she’s not going to know that and she’ll like, never believe it was Garrett’s,” Dean said, shrugging and then wincing. He had to be in real pain to let them see anything.
“You’re not wrong,” Logan said.
“I can put the kettle on. For tea. Or we have some hot chocolate mix with mini marshmallows,” Tucker said.
“We have a kettle?” Garrett said.
Dean laughed.
Logan smiled.
Tucker shook his head, his curls bouncing.
“Yeah, Garrett, we have a kettle. Go bring your girl the goody bag and offer to rub her back or her feet. And don’t be weird about her period, don’t dance around it or use some weird slang,” Tucker said. “Hannah’s a sweetheart, but she might fucking kill you if you annoy her.”
“Anything else?”
“Sometimes orgasms help with cramps,” Dean said. He could have sounded sly, but he mostly sounded practical.
“I should offer to fuck her?”
“You say that and I wonder about you, man,” Tucker said.
“She might be into it. Or you could just make her come,” Dean said.
“Or she might only want to cuddle,” Logan said.
“Okay, enough. This is officially crossing the line into weird,” Garrett said.
“I’d take some hot chocolate with mini marshmallows,” Dean said. You could count on him, on the ice, in the group, to keep things moving. It was one of the reasons why the Davenport thing was so hard to deal with.
“Me too,” Logan said.
Tucker, to his credit, didn’t razz either of them. And Hannah ate the Milky Way Dark first with the heating pad cranked up to six, “Chariots of Fire” on her laptop, having declared Garrett the best boyfriend in the world.
“My body feels warmer than usual, and I become aware of the sweetest smell. Strawberries maybe? No, cherries. Definitely cherries. And something tickles the bottom of my chin, something soft and hard at the same time. A head? Yup, there's a head nestled in the crook of my neck.
My eyes open gradually and I find Hannah snuggled up against me. I'm on my back with both my arms wrapped around her, holding her tight to my body.”
