The Roommate Situation (13 page)

“So was there just Katie Duke in your life?”

“No. But the pressure kind of put me off it for a while. The internal pressure, I mean—I still have no idea whether Katie wanted to go further or not. It was kind of a relief when she broke it off. Over the summer after junior year there was Alexis Whitney, but it was just, like, a month. Senior year I was working and hanging out with Tay and Jamie, playing guitar and video games. There was a random date here and there, but not really anything.” I lean forward, propping my elbows on my knees. “What about you?”

“Me… I dated a girl named Selena for a couple years.”

“Years?”

“She’s the one who got me into leather burning. She got me drawing and then putting the drawings on leather. That’s how I learned to do flowers and birds. I fucked up a lot of leather getting the hang of that.” He smirks a little. “She’d always say she liked it anyway. We were going to have a business together, a shop where we sold handmade stuff. She knitted all sorts of things, and just…I don’t know, she was always coming up with new things to make. Painting panes in old windows so they looked like stained glass, making T-shirts, jewelry. She had artistic ADD, but it was pretty cool.”

“What happened?” I asked, wanting to know how you ended up not together anymore when you were apparently perfect for each other. Seriously, that sounded perfect. I could see them in their shop, sunlight streaming a rainbow through the painted windows, the two of them straightening the shelves, locking up at the end of the day, climbing the stairs to their apartment.

He shrugs. “We just kind of wandered apart. I mean, it got tense, a lot of stupid arguments toward the end, but that’s really what it was. She wanted something else, found it in someone else, and that was that. I dated some after I got here, but nothing more than a few dates to, I don’t know, about six weeks with this crazy chick named Zelda, who’s probably on her way to being a cardboard cutout of my mother.” He shrugs again. “Mostly I’ve got my head in my books or my eBay shit. I’m either here or in class or on my bike.”

“And
I’m
here,” I say tentatively.

“That is pretty convenient.”

I slump back. “Maybe I am gay. I didn’t think about it with you, whether it was the ‘right’ time or not, or whether I’d completely fuck it up. I just went for it. I was so fucking horny—” My face beats with a rush of blood. I cover for it by swiping the side of my arm across it, and while I’m doing that I say, “I just wanted it.”

“Caught me off guard for sure,” he says.

“So you’ve indicated.” I smile down at my beer.

“It was pretty hot,” he says.

“Glad you thought so.” My face isn’t getting any cooler. I think my scalp is turning bright red. It feels like there’s a sunlamp beating down on me. I take another sip; the beer’s getting warm.

He nudges me with his foot.

I have something else on my mind, and it needs a push to get out my mouth. I take a deep breath and take my chances: “What if it wasn’t, you know, that it was right with you—what if it wasn’t a person thing but it was because of the cuffs? I mean. Fuck. I didn’t expect them to make me pop a boner the minute I had one in my hand.”

“The minute you had one in your hand?”

“Is that terrible?”

“Don’t forget to put that in your testimonial when you write it.”

I laugh—it’s little more than an exhale of breath—and pull my fingers through my hair, looking at the foot he nudged me with. I’m kind of having trouble raising my eyes to look in his face.

“Anyway,” he says, “I don’t remember cuffs being involved this morning.”

“I’d been thinking about them.”

It’s his turn to laugh. I smile sheepishly before it widens into a grin.

“Well,” he says. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

“What’s that?”

“Keep having sex.”

“Right.” I grin all over again.

“I don’t know if we can technically call that a scientific way of finding the answer,” he says, “but it would be one of the more fun experiments I’ve had to do in college.”

“Yeah? And what’s your hypothesis?”

“Let’s see… If I tell Shane…” He pulls himself forward on his arms. “If I tell Shane that I’ll never lock him up again…” He’s looking me in the eyes as he crawls toward me. “He’ll still get a hard-on.” He looks down at my lap.

I burst out laughing and put a hand on his head to push him away.

Then I catch him by the shirt and pull him back.

His kiss is long, slow, and searching. I’m melting into it when another thought bobs into my head. I push against his chest, and he draws back, eyebrows pulling together.

“Does this mean I’m having sex now?” I ask. “I mean, does it count?”

“As sex?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he says, “my uncle told me once about this guy he’d dated who didn’t have any interest in fucking. I mean, he was definitely gay; he just wasn’t interested in pitching or catching. Never tried it, never planned to.”

Some of these words do things to me on a deep, dark level. My fingers curl and catch his shirt.

He says, “And I don’t think he considered himself still a virgin.”

“You have that kind of talks with your uncle?” There’s no way. No fucking way in my house.

“Not, like, around the dinner table. Or even that many. But, you know, between him and dad, they wanted to cover the birds and bees. I think my dad had a harder time with his end.”

“You want to see a hard time, have the talk with my dad. I thought we were both going to die of embarrassment.”

“I was pretty mortified getting a peek into Dan’s life too. But it’s cool he was open about it.”

“I would have dropped dead on the spot if I’d gotten a peek into my parents’ sex life,” I say. I don’t even want to be thinking about it. “I’m starting to feel pretty glad both my parents stuck to the ‘right time’ and ‘be a gentleman’ bullshit.”

“I’m sure that’s been very useful as you’ve gone off to face the world,” he says, smiling.

“Yeah, huge.”

Moving closer, pressing his chest against mine so that I can feel when he breathes in, he says, “You should call your mom and say, ‘I just wanted you to know that I have never slept with a girl.’”

“No, just my roommate.”

“And,” he says, his mouth nearly touching mine again, “it’s very hot.”

Then it
is
touching mine, and it is very hot.

Chapter Thirteen

“Yes!” I shout out.

“What?” comes Derek’s voice from the other side of the locker.

“Yard sale! Saturday morning. The list of items includes ‘musical instruments.’” I’m staring at the craigslist ad, rereading it, seeing if I missed anything.

He says, “Great.”

“I just have to find a way to get there.” I click open a new window to pull up the school’s shuttle map.

“I can give you a ride.”

“On your bike?” Holy shit.

“Sure.”

Holy shit. “I don’t have a helmet, though.”

His bed frame knocks the wall. I hear a shuffling and shifting of boxes on top of Derek’s locker. When his silhouette blocks the light coming through the windows, I turn to see him holding up a black full-face helmet with two fingers. “It might be a little bit of a tight fit.”

“Sweet.” I pop out of my chair and cram the helmet down on my head. “It’s not too bad.” The room’s gone a little dark through the visor. I look around, feeling like something out of a science-fiction movie.

Behind the visor, I’m grinning so hard my temples press against the padding.

“Let me know what time you want to leave,” he says as he heads back to his side.

I wrestle the helmet off. Holding it up, looking at it, grinning like a spaz, I say, “The sale starts at seven.”

“In the morning?”

“Yeah…”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“It runs all day, but I don’t want to lose out on the chance at a guitar.” I sit down, the helmet beside my laptop. I’d rather look at it than the computer screen. “I can take a bus, though,” I say.

“Seven it is.”

“Sweet,” I say, almost under my breath. I’m excited enough to switch over to my study notes and actually try to get something done. “Oh, hey,” I say. “There’s a party tomorrow night.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Want to go? Pete and his girlfriend are going, and I’ve been kind of promising to hang out with them sometime.”

“I don’t have any plans.” He taps at his keyboard. “Unless I don’t get this paper finished.”

“I’m shutting up now.” I flip back over to the yard sale ad.

* * * *

I’ve got a red plastic Solo cup in my hand again, half-full of beer I shouldn’t technically be allowed to have. Pete is rubbing Ally’s shoulder with his thumb, his arm draped casually across her back. I’m watching him stare at Ally with the trace of a smile as she relates what happened in her lab that afternoon.

“I totally thought Professor Morris was going to lose his shit,” she says, laughing.

“Nah, he’s unflappable.” Derek’s holding his cup in front of his chest, standing a foot or two away, the distance between us perfectly acceptable for two guy roommates.

“Hmm,” Ally says, a mischievous glint in her eye. “We’ll have to see about that.”

“Oh no,” Pete says, squeezing her against his side. “Watch out, Morris.”

I duck my face behind my cup, taking a long swallow of beer. As Pete and Ally try to top each other in outrageous ways she could fluster her professor, I trawl the room with my eyes. Packed and dark—people are lit up only by their phone screens, the LEDs on the stereo, and a lava lamp teetering on a windowsill. A few people dance, despite the crowd. I think they’ve had more than the couple of beers I’ve had.

In a doorway, a guy presses his body against his girlfriend’s and, smiling as he leans in for it, Frenches her—long and deep. His hands roam her sides; her arms are clasped loosely behind his neck. People squeeze by, and they’re oblivious.

I turn my attention back to Pete and Ally in time to see her give him a playful shove.

Pete says, “It’s true! You can’t argue with the truth!”

I finish my beer. It’s my third. I have to piss, kind of urgently. Rising up on my toes, I look over people’s heads to the bathroom line.

Derek leans over, bumps my shoulder, and says in my ear, “Guys are going out back.”

That explains why it’s all women in line.

“You want another beer on my way back?” I ask.

He glances in his cup. “Nah, I’m good.”

I clap him on the shoulder and make my way toward the kitchen. When I get outside, people crowd the porch, smoking, talking. I hear one complaining about Bronies as I squeeze my way off the steps. Beyond the bright halo of light cast from the porch, guys are pissing on a chain-link fence. I step up to it and unzip my fly.

Pissing feels amazing. I’d have felt awkward about how long I was doing it for if the guy next to me hadn’t already been going at it when I stepped up—and he shows no sign of stopping.

I zip up and head back inside and find Derek with his shoulder against the wall, watching the party.

“They’re in line for the bathroom,” he says.

“Ah.”

The couple in the doorway are still going at it, people yelling, “Get a room!” and knocking into them on purpose, and it only makes them laugh while they’re kissing.

“You want to get out of here soon?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I can go; I can stay.”

I turn my head, taking the image of Derek with me. Going over the details of his face as I stare, uninterested, into the crowd. His jaw’s dark with stubble from not shaving this morning—I might have had a hand in making him late getting out of the room. My gaze is sweeping across people, and all I’m picturing is his sideburns, the line of his nose, the little space that appears between his lips when he’s watching something.

“It could be hours before they get into that bathroom,” I say.

He switches his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

If I had more guts—if I knew my footing better in this—I’d slide that toothpick out of his mouth and kiss him like that guy’s kissing the girl. I’d drag him out of the house, my mouth on his, and take him back to the room.

Instead I say, “We don’t have to wait for them. I’ll tell them we’re taking off.”

“Okay.” He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “I’ll meet you outside.”

Having to get up for a seven a.m. yard sale makes a good excuse for ducking out early. Ally’s excited—she loves yard sales. I promise to e-mail Pete the link so they can check it out later in the day. And then I just have to make my way through the crowd to the front door.

Outside, the air is twenty degrees cooler.

It feels fantastic.

Derek, standing on the sidewalk, watches me come down the steps and walk past a gaggle of people grilling hot dogs in the front yard.

“I hope you weren’t bored,” I say as we start walking together, side by side but not touching—not holding hands the way Pete and Ally no doubt will when they leave.

“Nah. It’s good to get out.” The end of his cigarette lights up red as he takes a drag.

“Well, I was bored.” I jam my hands into my jacket pockets.

“Maybe a little,” he admits.

I smile.

“My first year,” he says, “I spent every weekend shit-faced and hungover. Then summer break came; I went weeks without anything more than a pleasant buzz. I kind of got to where I appreciate not waking up in my vomit or having to sit through a lecture with my skull threatening to crack open.”

“Um. Yeah. Those are good things.” I laugh. “I puked on my shoes once. I was wearing them at the time. I think that was the only time I was really plastered. We were drinking this stuff we called ‘cough syrup’—one of us would take a little out of each of the liquor bottles at his parents’ house so they wouldn’t notice any was missing. Mixed together, it was pretty bad.”

“Been there.”

I laugh again.

He stops just at the edge of campus, finishing his cigarette. I tilt my head and look at the moon, pale and round, with the dark edge of a cloud taking a bite out of it.

After he grinds the butt out, we start walking again. We’re at the Quaid end of campus; it isn’t long before we’re climbing the front steps and letting ourselves in the building. Music spills down the halls; people are running around; doors are propped open.