Check, Please (Book #2)

Ten.

Sometimes I really wondered how Parker did it.

Between his duties as president, his major, and attending black tie galas with Sophie, I couldn't understand how he also found the time to dash off to his internship and work a part-time job on campus. Honestly, I didn't even want to know where he got the energy to drag himself to all of the house's parties on top of everything else. But, if Parker was tired, he certainly hid it well--at the very least, I never heard him complain about his workload other than to lament that there weren't more hours in the day.

Part of me suspected that he was a robot. Either that, or he'd built a time machine and hadn't bothered telling anyone about it. In fact, the more I thought about Parker's schedule, the more confident I became in my belief that he had a flux capacitor hiding somewhere in his room. It was the only explanation that made sense; no ordinary human could do what he did on a daily basis.

There was just no way.

What impressed me the most, though, was that he always found a spare hour or two during the week to grab dinner with me. I knew he felt guilty for the slight distance that had developed between us while he was working last year, but if he'd asked, I would've told him not to worry about it. I personally didn't think our friendship was strained at all but I could tell that Parker felt out of the loop whenever the other guys joked with me about events he'd missed. Although I tried my best to fill him in on the important stuff, we both knew that it would've been impossible to recap every stupid thing that our friends had done while he was pushing papers in my brother's office.

It had actually hit me sometime during the spring that it was really hard to keep in touch with someone you didn't see everyday. Even though I'd known Parker for almost twenty years, I sometimes wondered how close we'd be after graduation--how close I'd be with any of the people that I called my friends now.

It was a sobering thought, but tonight I had no interest in thinking about the future. Parker had picked me up after my last class and driven us to our favorite neighborhood pizza place. A cozy hole in the wall that boasted discounts for students, we'd eaten our way through quite a few of Vito's deep dish pies since discovering the restaurant as freshmen.

Leaning my forearms against the red and white checkered tablecloth, I watched while Parker wolfed down his third slice of pepperoni, the grease from the cheese leaving a tinted sheen around his mouth. He frowned as he chewed, swallowing quickly. "Stop watching me eat."

"I'm not."

"Yeah, you are." Parker reached for another piece. "It's killing my appetite."

I laughed and passed him the shaker filled with parmesan. "I don't buy that for a second."

Parker had always been able to eat like a wolverine without gaining any weight and, frankly, it kind of pissed me off. I'd tried to keep up with him for a while in middle school, partially convinced at the time that his eating habits had prompted the growth spurt that sent him rocketing past six-foot in eighth grade. I ate everything that he ate--maybe even more--in my never ending quest to grow until, one day, Michael pointed out that my stomach was the only thing getting bigger.

Since then, I'd learned to pace myself whenever I went out to eat with Parker, though that usually meant I spent most of my time waiting for him to finish. I'd also come to accept that, at just under five-eleven, I wasn't going to play for the NBA, though I found some comfort in the fact that I'd never lost a game of H-O-R-S-E to my much taller best friend.

Wiping his mouth with his napkin, Parker glanced up from his plate to meet my eye. "How's kinesiology going?"

I pulled my empty glass towards me and rested my chin against its rim. "How do you think?"