Gab stayed over the weekend. When Monday came, John looked as skittish as ever. He caught up with Gab and I on our way to the entrance to campus. He nudged my shoulder with his, looked me in the eye, and gave me a funny look. I replied with a raised brow, “Good morning to you too.”
“Well??” he asked irritatedly.
“What do you mean ‘Well?’?”
“He meant ‘What happened to you two last Friday?’” Tristan clarified as he joined the triad.
Gab was awfully quiet this time. I looked over to him and saw a proud smile on his face.
“Well if you must know, Gab is no longer my friend.” I placed my shoulder over John to my left and Tristan to my right. Gab being forced to the far right as Tristan joined our group was shocked to hear my statement. They all suddenly stopped walking and stood there with their jaws dropped to the floor. I laughed at their conspicuous expression and looked at Gab as I added with a satisfied smile, “he’s my boyfriend.”
The boys shrieked in excitement.
“We actually knew that,” John said dismissively.
“Oh… How?”
“You really thought those fireworks were for the local holiday?” he laughed surprised at my ignorance.
“Since when can you recall fireworks at this time of the year? No! Gab paid for all of that.”
“We were on the phone listening to his proposal waiting for you to say ‘yes’,” added Tristan.
“There were so many fireworks, we had to get a permit to import it.” John recalled.
“But not all of them went off as planned,” Tristan explained further, “by the time we got the triggers to work again, it was already midnight and it seemed like a waste not letting it off. We knew you’d still see it anyway so why not?”
I looked at Gab demanding an explanation, instead all I got was a whistling man looking at the ceiling while scratching his head. The first bell rang to save his ass.
“I better go. Class is about to start,” Gab gave me a quick goodbye kiss.
I instead gave him the look letting him know he’s got a lot of explaining to do.
“What we wanna know is what happened after the dinner.” John wrapped his arms around my neck and dragged me along to the room.
Weeks came rolling in and my classes went by smoothly. We proceeded to the gym for a workout before studying again. Ever since midterms, I’ve never had the chance to read and nor have the three played. While reading from his iPad, Gab rested his head on my shoulder.
“We need to plan for defense. It’s scheduled next week already.” I informed the Godfathers while resting my head on Gab’s.
Everyone sat up straight but Gab. He only adjusted himself on my new posture but remained rested on me.
“There are a ton of possible questions the panel can ask,” exclaimed Tristan.
“But fortunately for us, we have two advantages.” I smiled, aware of my brilliant plan.
“What is it?” John asked with genuine intrigue in his eyes.
“No one knows our study better than we do. It’s only a matter of convincing them that this is the best position for us to take. And two, our limited faculty means we know exactly who will be in the panel. We can gauge their questions based on what we know of them. Being our econometrics professor, Prof. G. would definitely ask about the model. Prof. J would inquire about the implications of the study, and Chairman C. would be more interested in our literature.”
“New, you’re a genius!” replied John realising the potential of my plan.
Tristan nodded in agreement.
Being admittedly better than me in econometrics, Tristan volunteered to list down the anticipated questions in that subject. John picked the easiest one leaving me to deal with the planning the defense for our literature.
“Guys,” a tired voice came from my side, “after the defense, can we head out somewhere south? It’ll be the end of semester anyway. We deserve this treat.” Gab wanted a little escape from the stressful city life.
“Shouldn’t you be with your group planning for your defense as well?”
Gab looked both exhausted and irritated.
“There’s no point, they’re useless freeloaders expecting me to do the work.” I did notice he’s been studying harder even when it’s just the two of us spending time in my condo. I didn’t mind it, it gave me the chance to study as well, I just didn’t know he was carrying the entire load of their group.
“Oh.” replied Tristan.
“Where in the south are we going??” you could sense the excitement in John’s voice.
“My parents own a beach house down there. I can borrow the keys and let the caretaker know to expect us.” he laid out his plan.
“Alright.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’m in!” John caught the attention of everyone in the cafe. He bowed his head in every direction apologising for the commotion.
Intensively preparing for the defense required that we work in a place devoid of any other non-essential individuals and distractions. We agreed my quiet condo fits the bill perfectly. We bought a board for us to write down important reminders, post notes, and map the details of our plan. Gab would study in the confines of my room so he could concentrate better. I would occasionally come in to check on him, maybe give him a kiss for encouragement. Being the best at cooking, he was assigned with preparing our meals. We took care of cleaning up and everything else.
One night while writing down our answers to the questions we’ve anticipated, I didn’t realise Tristan and John were both already drooling on their papers and laptop.
“Jackasses.” I sighed while cleaning up their mess. These were important documents, we can’t afford to ruin them. I closed their laptops, unplugged their chargers, piled the papers neatly on the table, and left folded tissues under their mouth to catch the saliva.
I entered my room to the sight of Gab laying on my bed. His legs formed the number four, a book rested on his face, and his left arm stretched over the bed. I climbed over and hugged him. He woke to my embrace and adjusted to bring me closer to him. I rested my head on his chest, my arm around his stomach; I made him my bolster.
“I love you, New.” Gab kissed my head
The eve of our defense came, Tristan, John, and I were all rehearsing the sequence of our presentation. We then took turns standing in front of the other two and answered any possible question the pretend panel had. I think we’ve covered almost every possible loophole in our presentation. We felt confident.
But that confidence was short lived. On the day of our defense, we were the last in the schedule. I was pacing back and forth in the empty waiting room. John was staring blankly at the floor cowering, and Tristan was running the model one more time on the room’s white board making sure the math made sense. He would stand there, staring at work while biting, flicking, or resting the marker on his ear lobe.
Gab came in the room to express his support for us. His defense was scheduled in the morning whereas ours was the last thing in the afternoon. He was ever so dashing in his black suit. He wore a red tie that popped brightly against the neutral colors of his black coat and white dress shirt.
“How was your defense?” I was relieved to see him that day.
I hugged him tightly needing that reassurance that everything will be fine. He hugged me back aware of the warm encouragement I needed.
“It was fine. Piece of cake.” I leaned on his chest pouting my lips in envy.
“New, you and I both know who has a better group and which one prepared more. Yet here I am confident that I managed to pull my group up to meet the standards of the panel.” John couldn’t help it and came to join our hug, Tristan followed suit.
“You guys have been preparing hard for this. There’s not a question they’ll throw at you that you haven’t thought of already.”
“Thank you, Gab,” said John and Tristan in unison.
“You can do it,” he added.
“Thank you, Gab.” I let go and patted the fluff off my coat.
“New, Tristan, and John. If you could follow me please.” the usher called for us.
We took our laptop and laser pointer with us out of the room.
“New, babe, wait.” Gab took off his red tie and replaced mine with it.
“Just a little help. Red makes you more convincing. Not that you need it though.” he kissed me good luck waved me goodbye as I walked out of the waiting room.
We exited the boardroom with wide grins. We were proud of the work we’ve done and the reward that came with it.
Gab stood outside, crossing his legs and resting his foot on its toes as he leaned on the wall. He placed my tie in his breast pocket making it look like he had a pocket square on. He was so handsome with his unbuttoned look and his hands hidden in his pocket, it was casual but elegant.
“And?” He smiled when he saw the proud grinning triad exit the room.
“We did great.” I declared raising my elbows trying to be humble.
He hugged me immediately, spun me around, and kissed me in excitement and happiness.
“Only two points shy of perfect!” added John. Gab tousled his hair in affirmation.
“‘The best in class’, is what they told us.” Tristan shared.
“Atta boy!” Gab raised his hand for a high five to which Tristan complied.
“I think this means our trip to the south is a well deserved reward then.” he commented, happy at the success of everyone in the group.
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