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“A funeral ,” Lardo says flatly, a statement, not a question. It’d been a question the first ten times she’d repeated it, but it’s becoming less confused and more judgemental the more she says it.
“Uh,” Shitty says. “Yes?” Which had definitely started out as a statement but is becoming less confident and more ashamed the more he says it. “Well, a wake. The funeral’s immediate family only.”
Lardo pauses, probably mulling things over in her head. Either that or questioning why she’d ever become friends with Shitty in the first place. Not like Shitty could blame her either way. “And it’s… whose wake?”
“My great Uncle Bartholomew,” Shitty says.
“Bartholomew,” Lardo repeats. “And that’s who you’re -.”
Shitty cuts her off, holding up a hand. “We promised never to speak of that,” he reminds, simultaneously impressed, aroused, and pissed as hell that Lardo had managed to get him drunk enough to spill his real first name. “But yes.”
“Sorry, dude,” she says, holding her hand out for an apologetic fistbump. “Guess I’m still a little distracted by the fact that you just asked me to attend your great Uncle Bartholomew’s wake as your fake girlfriend.”
“As my girlfriend,” Shitty corrects automatically. Lardo’s eyes widen and Shitty’s not even going to pretend to take a stab at reading the emotions buried in their depths that all rise to the surface for a brief moment before she shuts them down hard. Lardo wears her kind, beautiful heart on her sleeve as helplessly as anyone Shitty’s ever met, but he thinks some things are worth more protecting than others. “I mean, my family would think you were my girlfriend, not my fake girlfriend.”
“Right,” Lardo says. “Poor syntactic choice on my part,” she concedes, then her breath hitches and she chews on her lip. “But it’d be fake between the two of us.”
Shitty exhales. He’s glad they’re in the kitchen in the Haus so he can grab a pie tin with a half-consumed chocolate mousse pie, two forks, and two cans of PBR to distract himself. “Here,” he says, pushing the second fork and beer can toward Lardo. “And yeah. It’d be fake.”
Lardo opens her beer can and drains half of it, nevermind the fact that it’s three in the afternoon and they both probably have shit to do. “Yeah, okay,” she says finally, voice tight.
All the nervous tension Shitty’s been carrying around for the past ten minutes drains out of him in a rush, leaving him this boneless lump of emotionally confused relief. “Bro, thank you so much,” he says. “Seriously, I owe you one so hard. I’m gonna smoke you up, like, every day before the end of the semester.”
“It’s fine,” she says, voice still doing that weird, tight, unfamiliar thing, brow creased with tension. “You don’t owe me anything, ‘s just a favor for a friend. I mean, we’re friends, right?”
*
Jack probably considers it the biggest personal failing of his life that he makes such an irresistibly snuggly cuddle buddy, but Shitty doesn’t make the rules, he just abides by them. It’s a little weird wrapping himself around Jack with so many layers of clothes between them since he’s in a full suit, all decked out in the nice shit he doesn’t break out for postgame or team dinners, the shit he saves for family functions, where the price tag on his clothes mercifully eases some of the endless veiled criticism about the rest of his life.
“I don’t understand why you’d bring a fake girlfriend to a funeral, anyway,” Jack says, voice sleep-roughened and arm tight around Shitty’s shoulders. “Why would your family care about your relationship status at a funeral?”
“It’s a wake, not a funeral,” Shitty says, as if that makes it better. “Let me tell you something about old rich people, Jack,” Shitty continues. “Specifically the old rich people that I’m related to. We don’t gather too often, you know?”
“Didn’t you just have Thanksgiving with them this year?” Jack asks.
“Dude, there were like ten of us there,” Shitty says, rolling his eyes. “Wakes, though. People show up in droves. It’s prime opportunity to steal someone’s shit before it can be divvied up in the reading of the will. My great Aunt Edna has a purse than can hold a full dishware set.”
“So you go to pickpocket precious family heirlooms,” Jack says. “Still confused about what Lardo has to do with this.”
Shitty sighs, cuddling even closer against Jack. His suit’s going to be wrinkled as hell, but oh well. He needs the comfort, Jack’s bare skin all blood-hot again Shitty even through the clothes and smelling like a fucking Armani ad or something. Shitty’s family would fucking love Jack Zimmermann. “We don’t gather often,” Shitty repeats, “But when they do, my relationship status is of great concern. Like, it’s enough of a disappointment that I’m a Women’s Studies major and that I haven’t cut my hair in a year, and that I’m going to law school. They worry I won’t find a suitable mate.”
“That is very disturbing,” Jack says, looking simultaneously alarmed and grateful that his family isn’t like this.
“Yes,” Shitty agrees.
“So Lardo’s going to pretend to be your suitable mate?”
“Yes,” Shitty says again. “One less thing to argue about.”
*
“Remind me again who, uh,” Lardo starts, gaze darting around frantically as they stand in the foyer of Shitty’s great Aunt Edna’s house, “Who everyone is?” She finishes weakly.
This is so not Lardo’s bag and Shitty is suddenly washed with an overwhelming feeling of guilt at his own selfishness. He fucking sucks, dragging her into this because he can’t listen to his family bitch at him one more time about settling down, because he knows Lardo’s the kind of bro who’d do anything for him if he asked and he’s taking advantage of it like a total asshat, because he’s too much of a chickenshit to ask her to be his real girlfriend.
Sometimes, Shitty closes his eyes and imagines what it would be like to call Lardo his girlfriend. He dreams about it, being able to touch the soft curve of her waist, brush her hair out of her eyes, kiss the hollow of her throat. He wakes and can feel the phantom sensation of her smooth skin beneath his fingertips.
It makes his whole body ache with the loss.
“I’ll introduce you as we go,” Shitty promises. There are over seventy people in this house right now and Shitty is only vaguely acquainted with about half of them. “Most of them’ll be too drunk to remember you by noon, anyway.”
“There’s alcohol?” Lardo asks, interest piqued. “It’s only ten am.”
“Oh, Lardo,” Shitty starts. “Lardo, Lardo, Lardo. Listen to Shitty.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Lardo says, rolling her eyes and biting down on a smile.
“All of the many, many hours you’ve devoted to beer pong, all the reps you put in to achieve a perfect kegstand form,” Shitty continues imperiously, “That was all preparation for this moment.”
“Finally, an aspect of my college education I can put to use,” she says.
“My only advice?” Shitty says, “Don’t try to keep up. These people are professional alcoholics.”
“Dude,” Lardo says, unimpressed. “I outdrink an NCAA men’s hockey team on the reg.”
Shitty shakes his head, finally leading her into the fray with a hand on the small of her back. relieved as all hell when she doesn’t question it. Her skin is burning through the cotton of her black dress. “Rans and Holster combined couldn’t keep up with my Aunt Edna,” Shitty says. “I’m only telling you this for your own health and wellbeing.”
He snags two glasses of champagne when a hired waiter walks by with a tray and doesn’t question how champagne might be seen as a little celebratory to be serving at a wake. Aunt Edna hated Uncle Bartholomew for the last ten years of his life - this probably is a bit of a celebration to her.
He drains most of the champagne in one gulp, takes a steadying breath, and guides Lardo in the direction of his father.
1
There’s not a lot that Shitty believes in beyond the basic tenets of life - hockey is good, Jack Zimmermann’s ass has its own gravitational pull, Lardo Duan is the unquestioned queen of beer pong - but right now he’s praying to every deity he learned about in his comparative religions class for mercy.
Shitty’s father reeks of old money and a hot new wife, twenty years his junior and nice enough from the handful of sentences Shitty’s exchanged with her over the past few years. His skin seems to be defying gravity purely from being plastered in place by the orangey spray tan he gets every other week.
“Dad,” Shitty says stiltedly.
“Bartholomew,” he dad says. Shitty rolls his eyes when he can physically feel Lardo trying to restrain herself. “I see you brought a friend?”
“My, uh. My girlfriend,” Shitty says. She tenses slightly and his body responds in kind. Jesus, and they're going to have to do this how many more times today? He cracks his neck uncomfortably. “L -”
“Larissa,” Lardo says, sticking her hand out for Shitty’s dad to shake. Shitty exhales. That name sounds weird coming from her mouth but Shitty has to remind himself that she's Larissa to a lot of important people in her life that Shitty doesn't know. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Knight.”
“Please, call me Allen,” Shitty's dad says. “Bartholomew’s never mentioned a girlfriend before.”
“Yeah, Barty,” Shitty's youngest older sister, Angelica, says, coming up to them and hip checking Shitty before swiping an entire tray of champagne glasses from a waiter and passing them around to the group. Shitty realizes that Lardo’s drained her first glass sometime within the past few minutes and takes it from her, setting it on a side table so she doesn't have to hold onto two glasses at once. “Why’ve you been withholding?”
Lardo is practically vibrating with suppressed laughter next to him. “Barty’s just a little shy,” she says, because she's the worst ever. “It's pretty new. He's been chasing after me for ages and he doesn't want to jinx it.”
Shitty feels his stomach turn with a mix of pleased surprise and anxiety because she’s so fucking ridiculous and hilarious and, yeah , Shitty’s been stuck on her for fucking ages .
“I’m Angelica, by the way,” she says to Lardo.
“Larissa,” Lardo says again.
“Lardo’s the manager of the hockey team,” Shitty explains, dropping an arm over her shoulders. He doesn’t know if it’s meant to comfort her or him, but she leans into it and he doesn’t pull away.
“Well,” Shitty’s dad says. “It’s nice to meet you, Larissa.”
“Please, Allen,” Lardo says. “Call me Lardo.”
Shitty tries, and fails, to hide an inelegant snort of laughter behind his glass of champagne.
“Lardo,” Allen repeats, like it’s leaving an unpleasant backwash in his mouth.
“So, Lardo,” Angelica echoes. “How did my brother finally sink his hooks into you?”
For a brief moment, surprise and panic cross Lardo’s face because of course they’d been too stupid to think of this bit. Shitty’d been so caught up in the high of her actually agreeing to go along with his dumbass plan in the first place that he’d forgotten that they didn’t actually have a plan. At all.
“Oh,” Lardo says, schooling her face into something resembling calm confidence. It’s the look she gets before she sinks one into the last cup on Rans and Holster’s sorry asses. “Well - have you heard of Winter Screw?” She asks, and Shitty is equal parts nervous and fucking stoked to hear where she’s going with this.
“Sure,” Angelica says with a shrug. “I went to Harvard, but I had a few friends at Samwell.”
“Shits set me up with a dude on the lacrosse team,” Lardo starts, leaning in close like she’s sharing a secret with Angelica. “Then punched him out on the front lawn of the Haus when he tried to make a move on me.”
“Oh my,” Angelica says, a little disturbed.
“That doesn’t sound like Bartholomew,” Allen says, lifting an eyebrow. “Son, I told you those hockey boys were no good for you.”
“What can I say?” Lardo says, snagging another glass of champagne. “Love makes you do crazy things, I guess.”
2
“Dude!” Shitty hisses after he and Lardo have managed to retreat strategically away from Shitty’s dad and Angelica. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“I dunno,” Lardo says, “Two glasses of champagne at ten in the morning?”
“I’m fucking unworthy,” Shitty says, holding his hands up in defeat. “You fucking goddess. I should worship at your feet.”
“Damn straight,” Lardo agrees, giggling.
“Shit, man,” Shitty says, shaking his head. “Thought you hated shit like this. You were a wreck on the drive over.”
“I mean, I do,” Lardo shrugs. “Turns out I like chirping you more than I hate engaging in small talk with strangers.”
“Definitely unworthy,” Shitty mutters as they approach the open bar. “Pick your poison, m’lady,” he says to Lardo.
“Uh,” Lardo says, scanning the bottles. “Bloody Mary?”
“Make it two,” Shitty tells the bartender, then leans against the bar, looking down at Lardo with way too much fondness on his face.
“How many siblings do you have, anyway?” She asks curiously. It’s weird to think that Lardo’s one of his top two favorite people in the world and she doesn’t know a thing about his family.
“Five older sisters,” he says.
She nearly chokes on her own spit. “Five?” She asks, taking a big gulp of her bloody mary when the bartender hands it to her. “Dude, that explains so much.”
*
Shitty is halfway through his bloody mary, leaning against a wall and watching as Lardo communes with a bunch of tiny people on the ground.
He was always the baby of the family until his dad married Maya, but now he has stepsiblings ages five, seven, and nine to compete with. They are a lot cuter than he is with significantly less facial hair and no controversial political views, so he’s pretty sure they’re winning.
“Why is your name Lardo?” Henry asks, all shiny blonde hair and blue eyes. He looks like goddamn Gap Kids ad with the world’s tiniest sweater vest and a miniature pair of khakis.
“Ask him,” Lardo says, jutting her thumb toward Shitty. “His idea.”
“Why is her name Lardo?” Henry asks Shitty.
“We don’t question the hockey nicknames,” Shitty says, all knowing and imperious. It’s actually successful since Henry and Eliza and James are the only members left of Shitty’s family who don’t think he’s a complete dumbass. They look up at him with wide eyes. “They happen organically.”
Lardo snorts. “Helped along by a bowl and a half of weed,” she mutters, just loud enough for him to hear. He knows they’re both remembering the first night she hung out at the Haus, hair long down her back and both of them high as hell and still demolishing everyone there at flip cup.
“Exactly,” Shitty says, waggling his eyebrows. “Organic.”
“Are you his girlfriend?” Eliza asks carefully. She’s the quietest of the bunch, thoughtful and patient. A lot like Lardo.
“Yep,” Lardo says brightly, smiling at her.
“Why?” Eliza asks. Jesus Christ, these kids just won’t take anything at face value, will they?
“He rear-ended me at a red light,” Lardo says without hesitation. “Do you know what that means?”
All of the kids shake their heads.
“It means your step-brother’s a really bad driver,” Lardo says. “Don’t get in a car with him.”
“Hey, now,” Shitty says, because that’s patently untrue.
“Anyway, he rear-ended me, we exchanged insurance information,” she says dreamily, gazing into the distance. “Let’s just say it was love at first love-tap.”
3
"He choreographed a routine to the music from Ice Castles and performed it for me at Faber," Lardo says, eyes wide and sincere as Shitty's grandmother gasps delightedly and squeezes her hand. "The ice was covered in red rose petals and just as the music ended, we saw the sun slip below the horizon through the big glass windows..."
"Oh, Bartholomew," Shitty's grandmother says, pinching Shitty's cheek.
"Then we just held each other and cried for a while," Lardo finishes, sighing fondly and glancing up lovingly at Shitty without ever breaking character. If Shitty moves one fucking muscle in his face, it's going to shatter into a million pieces. "It was so beautiful."
Shitty chokes on his drink.
4
“Great Aunt Edna’s the grieving widow,” Shitty mutters when they’re still out of hearing range.
“She seems…” Lardo starts. “Pleasant?”
“Delightful,” Shitty agrees. “Conservative as hell. Notttt necessarily a huge fan of mine.”
“So, par for the course,” Lardo says. She’s tipsy and her eyes are shining, bright and glittering and so fucking pretty that Shitty can’t stop staring at them. When he presses his hand against her back, she doesn’t move away and Shitty is almost positive he’s not just imagining the way she pressed back into him.
“You think you’re funny, huh?” He asks, lifting his hand to finger the hair at the base of her skull.
“Think you’re family’s fucking crazy for not appreciating your genius,” she says, elbowing him in the side.
“Hell yeah,” Shitty says, wrapping his arm around Lardo’s shoulder when they finally approach Aunt Edna. “Aunt Eds, this is Lardo,” he practically shouts at her. She never turns her hearing aides up around the family and Shitty does not blame her one bit. “My girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend?” Aunt Edna repeats, squinting judgmentally at Lardo. “Your hair’s too short,” she decides. “It’s unbecoming on a lady.”
“Um. Thank you,” Lardo says, which - really, it’s the only proper response to any comment from Aunt Edna. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she adds, frowning sympathetically.
“My husband had five open heart surgeries before he died,” Aunt Edna tells her. “But what kills him? Choking on a chicken bone at the dinner table.”
Lardo’s face is the definition of the phrase ‘deer in headlights’ when she turns to look at Shitty and he has a hard time stifling his laughter. He figures she’s been handling his family so well all day, though, that she’s on her own for this one and he raises a challenging eyebrow at her like a total asshole.
“How… tragic,” Lardo finally says.
“Hmm, yes. Very kind of you to worry, dear,” Aunt Edna says. “That’s enough nonsense about me, though. I want to hear all about you and my great-nephew. Tell me, does he court you properly?”
Shitty can see Lardo weighing her options in her head, exchanging the pros and cons of concocting a story for Aunt Edna like she’d done for his grandma and Angelica and the kids. “Yes,” she finally says. “Very properly.”
“Good boy,” Aunt Edna says to Shitty. “And you always have a chaperone on your dates, I assume?”
“Obviously,” Lardo agrees. “What college student doesn’t invite a chaperone on their dates?”
“I always have her home by eight, Aunt Edna, I promise,” Shitty says. “Cross my heart.”
(“Dude, you choked,” Shitty says when they’ve finally escaped Aunt Edna’s grasp.”
“Dude, your Aunt Edna is fucking terrifying ,” Lardo says, wide eyed. “Yeah, I fuckin’ choked. I’m pretty sure she killed your Uncle Bartholomew with a chicken bone .”)
+1
Shitty’s buzzing hard when he walks outside to smoke a cigarette with his Uncle Al. Al’s not his real uncle, but he went to Andover with Shitty’s father, and Shitty has yet to find a family photo that doesn’t include him.
He doesn’t take the cigarette when Al offers it to him because Jack has a nose like a fucking bloodhound and he would literally murder him, but he leans against the brick wall of the house, kicks one leg up and tilts his face up toward the sun.
“Lardo seems like a nice girl,” Uncle Al finally says, exhaled a plume of smoke in Shitty’s general direction. He wafts it out of his face with a lazy hand wave.
“Lardo’s the shit,” Shitty agrees. He knows he’s a better person being lucky enough to be her friend and he knows it’s going to hurt like a motherfucker to be away from her next year. Sometimes, he can’t believe he’s had three fuckin’ years to make his move and the best he could do was ask her to to be his fake girlfriend at his Uncle Bartholomew’s wake. Jeeeesus .
“How’d you two end up together anyway?” Al asks, taking another drag.
Shitty almost thinks about making up something extravagant and ridiculous the way Lardo’s been doing all evening, but he actually likes Al, and Al’s the only adult in the family who he can talk about law school and hockey with and he’s the only one who calls him Shitty instead of Bartholomew or, god forbid, Barty .
He can’t tell Al the whole truth, but he can tell him… shit, he can tell him what he wants to happen. How he wishes it had happened.
“Been in love with her forever,” Shitty finally says, eyes closed as he lets the warm sunlight pour over his face. “But it’s my last year in school. Harvard’s close, but. It’s not the same. Had to take the plunge, right? I didn’t want to have any regrets.”
“I see how she looks at you,” Al says, smiling softly. “Think it’s safe to say she’s been in love with you forever, too.”
“Nah,” Shitty says, flushing like mad. “Lardo’s too cool for that shit.”
*
Shitty takes a moment for himself in one of the guest bathrooms upstairs when he gets back inside. It’s empty up there, nice and secluded and perfect for him to splash cold water on himself and give himself a pep talk. He channels his inner Jack Zimmermann and tries to psych himself up for going back downstairs to face Lardo, but it isn’t working.
This has quite possibly been the worst idea Shitty’s ever had.
The casual touches all day, introducing Lardo as his girlfriend - it’s fucking with his head. It’s making him want too much. He just… he wants so fucking much .
He’s opening the door to head back downstairs when Lardo just appears directly in front of him and says, casual as can be, “Hey.”
Shitty screams.
“Not one of my finer moments,” he says after he’s collected himself. “My bad, bro. You scared me.”
“Nah, my fault,” she says. “I was lurking like a creeper.”
“True,” Shitty says. “So what up?”
Lardo tugs him out of the bathroom doorway and backs him against the wall.
“Whoa,” he says, breath rushing out of his chest in a huff and biceps tingling where she’s gripping them with her tiny, strong fingers. “What th - what are you doing?”
“Taking the plunge,” Lardo says, nonsensical until he remembers his conversation with Uncle Al. She was outside? Shit, she heard that? No way was Shitty a good enough actor to laugh it off at this point.
“What?” He asks, mind moving too quickly to formulate a better question.
“It’s your last year in school,” she says, standing up on her tiptoes and still so much shorter than him. “Even if you’re close, things aren’t going to be the same next year.”
Shitty tugs his lower lip into his mouth, biting down like the pain will help him focus. It does, and he’s suddenly, overwhelmingly aware of the fact that she’s repeating his conversation with Uncle Al back to him nearly word for word. She heard it and she knew it was real and she’s… what, making fun of him?
No, this is Lardo. This is his best bro, his ride or die. She wouldn’t do him like that.
“I don’t want to have any regrets,” she says, voice almost pleading. “Did I read this wrong?”
Their bodies are pressed so close together that their lips would be nearly touching if she were taller. As it is, Shitty has to duck his neck uncomfortably to tug her into a kiss, arm clamped tight around her waist and tugging her up to meet his eager, clumsy mouth.
It’s wet and messy and inelegant, brand new but almost familiar in how comfortable it is, and Shitty’s not sure how long it lasts, only that their mouths are swollen and red when they pull apart and they’re both breathing hard. Shitty wants to flip them around, get Lardo pressed against the wall and grind into her a little bit.
“I’ve been in love with you forever,” Lardo says, still breathing hard and flushed all over, eyes a little shy like she’s embarrassed. “Even if I am way too fuckin’ cool for your ass.”
And Shitty laughs and laughs and laughs.