The Roommate Situation (27 page)

“Okay,” I say, “is it…bigger than a breadbox?”

“How big is a breadbox?”

“I don’t know.” I rub myself slowly through the cotton of my pajama bottoms. “I’ve never seen one. Next question: did it used to be a cow once?”

“No,” he says. “I’ve taken up macramé. Been meaning to tell you.”

“Ahh…rope. I can get into that.” There’s nothing half-hard about me now. I close my eyes, picturing him again. Maybe his room’s dim, his blinds drawn. His hair twisted from sleep, his jaw dark with fresh beard growth. Maybe a few days’ worth. “What are you doing right now?” I ask.

“Trying to ignore my hard-on.”

“Mm. It goes away faster if you stroke it a bit.”

“Is that how it works?” His voice is warm with humor. I can picture him butting out his cigarette with a smile.

I say, “Mm-hmm.”

“Is it helping yours go away?” he asks.

“I don’t know, but it feels good. I’m pretending it’s your hand.”

“You can’t be pretending it’s my hand.”

“Why not?”

“You’d have come already.” The smirk transmits over the connection.

I roll onto my back, the blankets tangling under me. “Do you have a Wi-Fi connection there?”

“Yep.”

“Want to move to video?”

He laughs. “I look like I’ve spent the whole weekend in bed.”

“I can think of plenty to do over a whole weekend with you in bed, and I think you’d look just fine at the end of it.”

“Yeah, as if you could see straight enough to tell after spending a whole weekend in bed with me.”

“We should try it sometime,” I say. “Do some serious scientific research. Are you touching yourself?”

“Wow, that sounds cheesy,” he says. “But yes. I’m pulling my boxers down so I can wrap my hand around my dick for you. If you were here, I’d hold it out so you could lick it.”

“Mm. I’d do it. I’d swallow it whole, fuck it with my mouth like it’s never been fucked before.”

“You’re gonna have to demonstrate that when we get back,” he says.

I smile as I slip my fingers under my waistband so I can grasp my cock, pretending it’s Derek’s, pretending he’s sitting on my thighs with his cock jutting out over mine. Quietly I say, “I’m pretending I’m stroking you. You’re sitting on my legs, and I’m jerking you off, slowly, while you watch.”

“It feels good,” he breathes.

“You clasp your hand around mine, and our hands are moving together, both of us stroking you. Then you pull my hand off so you can say, ‘Not yet,’ as you lean down to kiss me.”

“I miss kissing you,” he says.

“I miss smelling you,” I say.

“I forgot your parents wouldn’t have any used ashtrays lying around.”

I struggle not to laugh. Phone sex is supposed to be serious business. “Shush. We’re supposed to be kissing.”

“I’m biting your bottom lip—speaking of things that taste good.”

I love him. I mean, just, really… I love him.

I say, “I’m reaching between us to touch your cock again.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

Grinning, I slip my thumb over the head of my cock, imagining Derek doing it to me. Imagining it’s Derek’s tongue.

“When do I get to touch
your
cock?” Derek asks.

“We should rub our cocks together,” I say. “Have you ever fucked a guy?”

He laughs, a short, quick syllable that tickles my ear. “You know I haven’t.”

“Do you want to fuck me?” I ask, stroking myself. “Right now? Put my legs on your shoulders and push your cock inside me?”

“God, yes,” he husks.

“Push it slowly, all the way in, like a plug in a socket. Until you can feel me stretched all around you. Feel my pulse from the inside. My breathing. My heat.”

“Later I’m going to ask you what kind of porn you’ve been looking at,” he says. “Later. Jesus.”

“Does it feel good?” I say, my voice like raw cotton, my breath hot and moist and coming back at me from the crease in the pillowcase I’m breathing against.

“Jesus, fuck yeah, it does.”

“Tell me about it.”

All I hear is breathing on the other end. The breathing fires a heat that’s nothing like being wrapped in comforters in the warm bed. It prickles down my jaw, and it throbs in my balls.

“I’ve never fucked anyone this way,” he whispers. “I’m looking down at your face now. Your eyes are closed. Your mouth is open, like there’s a gasp in there you’re trying not to let out. You’re gripping my arms. And a little smile comes at the corners of your mouth as I push into you. It feels like every time I pull back, your muscles are trying to drag me back in, drag me back inside you.”

My breath hitches.

“Like you can’t get enough,” he says.

I clamp the phone under my jaw so I can push my other hand under the blankets and stretch my waistband away, giving me more room. “It feels amazing,” I say. “I start stroking myself off while you fuck me. I can’t wait for you to finish. I have to come.”

“While I’m fucking you,” he murmurs.

“While you’re—” My words fall apart. Gasps come out of my throat. I dig my heel into the mattress and push, a choked groan coming out of me as I shoot onto the sheets.
God.

God. Even from a hundred or so miles away.

“I came,” I whisper, smiling.

“I heard.” His words are rushed. I can picture him, the crease just above the bridge of his nose, his brows drawn together, his eyes closed—Derek on the edge, concentrating.

Into the phone I whisper, “I came so fucking hard thinking about you fucking me. Thinking about you doing what no one’s ever done to me.”

“Don’t—”

“Claiming your territory. Marking it with your cum.”

“Fuck.” It was half word, half breath.

“Come inside me,” I say into the phone. All I get in response is heavy breathing. My cock’s shrinking in my hand, my fingers sticky with cum, and I say it again, “Come inside me, Der.”

The noise coming over the connection is anguished, like his orgasm is being ripped out of him.

My smile spreads. I flatten my hand on the sheet.

The breaths coming over the phone are the kind you do when you’re done with something or when something’s done with you—when it’s all over, and all you can do is lie there and catch your breath.

Finally he says, “Jesus.”

Rolling onto my side, pulling my knees up, I snuggle into my blankets with one bare foot stretched out into the cooler air of the room.

“Eighteen more days,” I say.

“I don’t know if this made that easier or a whole lot fucking harder. I had almost forgotten how much I like fooling around with you.”

“It’s a good thing we got that in before my parents stripped me of all my possessions and locked me in a bare cell to study for the spring semester.”

“I hope your big grade reveal goes okay.”

“I can always spend the afternoon creating a mock web page that makes it looks like I got straight As.”

“I guess it beats eating Froot Loops in your shorts in front of daytime soap operas,” he says.

“Which is what you’ll be doing.”

“Which is what I’ll be doing.”

I smile.

“Speaking of food,” he says, “I need to clean up and get some.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“Give me a call afterward if you need to.”

“Will do.” I hang up and lie on my back. Only nine more hours till I’m toast.

* * * *

Dinner’s subdued. Even Mom’s chatter has gaps in it, tense silences. I keep my head down, hoping they’ve miraculously forgotten grades came out. Knives clink plates. Ice cubes rattle in glasses.

“Did that big project get finished in time for the holiday, dear?” my mom asks my dad.

“There are a few loose ends. The team is working on it.”

“This late?” It’s after seven.

“May I be excused?” I ask, sliding my chair back.

“Don’t go far, honey. After I clean up, I’m going to make some hot tea and cut into that pie I picked up on the way home, and you can show us your grades.”

Damn.

“I’ll be upstairs,” I say. When I get there, I shut the door behind me and lean against it, my fingers pushed deep into my pockets.

My guitar’s propped against the desk. I’m taking that fucking thing back with me, whatever happens tonight. I’ve spent most of my break reacquainting myself with it. We’re not going to be split up again.

When she calls up the stairs for me, I’m sitting on the floor, my back still against the door, the guitar clamped between my knees. I feel like I’m nine again, awaiting the meeting about what I did wrong this time. I drop my head, both hands gripping the guitar’s neck.

There’s nothing to do but drag my laptop out from under my bed and carry it downstairs. It’s a lot like walking to my execution.

“Cherry,” Mom says as she sets down a warm plate of pie with vanilla ice cream turning liquid on top of it. “Your favorite.”

“Thanks. Where’s Dad?”

She sighs. “Checking his e-mail. Franklin! Your ice cream is melting! Sit down, honey.”

I lower myself into my chair, setting the laptop on the table, lid closed.

“Frank!”

He appears in the doorway. “I’m here. No need to shout.”

I stare at my slice of pie, the glossy filling spilling out its sides like horror-movie guts.

“Have you looked at your grades yet?” Mom asks before saying, “Of course you have. I know I would. Go on. Show us, honey.”

She’s so eager, so happy. So about to have her expectations bludgeoned by her completely average son yet again. Pushing the pie away, I slide the laptop in front of me and open the lid. It takes a few seconds to connect to Wi-Fi. Then I enter my credentials and bring up the page with my grades. Somberly, I turn my screen toward them.

She leans in, slipping her reading glasses on. The screen reflects in stereo in the lenses of my dad’s pair.

“Oh, Shane,” she says. “A
C
? I thought you’d aced that astronomy test.”

“I did. I just didn’t ace the one that counted for the better part of my grade.”

“And a C in introductory economics!” Her eyes flick up from the screen to admonish me.

“Yeah, I—”

“You
know
economics. You grew up around economics!”

My dad says, “A B in public speaking and English comp, and an A in History of Rock Music.”

“Which just further proves what I was going to—”

“Shane Alexander Hahn,” my mother says, frowning. “You are better than this.”

No, I’m not. These are the grades I got in high school, even with the fucking tutor they hired, even with spending hours sitting here at the fucking table with her going over my homework with me. Why, if college is supposed to be harder, do they magically expect I’m going to do better at it?

She says, “Is it those video games? That…what’s that ball game you play?”

“Foosball. It’s not—”

“You need to buckle down, son,” she says. “This is not acceptable.”

“Okay, first of all,” I say, “I thought astronomy was going to be an easy A—”

“Nothing’s worth anything in this world if it’s easy, Shane.” She twists one of her rings, squeezing it almost. “You’re at college to learn how to apply yourself, how to overcome challenges. Astronomy presented a challenge, and you barely rose to meet it. What do you think the real world is like, Shane? Someone to cook your meals for you and clean up after you and let you hide in your room—”

My dad’s phone buzzes. As he pulls it out of the pocket of his cardigan, Mom sweeps it out of his hand and lays it facedown on the table without even glancing his way.

“—all day and night playing that guitar and chatting away with your friends on your computer?” She turns toward Dad. “Can we not have one night not interrupted by your team? I swear, you’re worse than he is with your face in your phone. Don’t you have anything to say to your son?”

Drawing in a breath, he turns to me. “Shane. We understand that college is a new experience and that it may take a certain amount of adjusting to. You have that behind you now. There’s nothing you can do about these Cs; they’re on your record. But moving forward—”

“I don’t want to be an economist.”

His mouth slowly shuts.

My mom says, “Honey, we talked about this when you were preparing for college. It’s a solid career choice. Business will always need economists. The government will always need economists. Think tanks—”

“I want to be a musician.”

She sucks in her breath, and the room quiets enough for me to hear the hum of my MacBook.

“Well,” she says finally. “We’ve talked about that too.”

“The school has a music program. I’d have to apply to get in—”

“These grades aren’t going to help that case,” Dad says, lifting his chin to take another look at them.

I push the laptop’s lid down. The screen disappears from my father’s glasses. “I’d have to apply to the music program, but I think I have a decent chance of getting in, and in a program where I don’t have to take stuff like economics—”

“Chasing those easy As again, are you, son?” my mother says.

“That is so not what this is about.” I feel myself starting to unravel. “The music performance degree isn’t easy. Did you hear me when I said you have to apply to the program just to get in?”

“You just said it’d be no problem to get in, so which is it? Challenging or easy A?”

“I should have kept my fucking mouth shut about astronomy,” I say.

“Shane Alexander.” Her voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “If you are not going to have a civil discussion, we can continue this later.”

Jesus
Christ
. “Sorry,” I mumble.

“What makes you think you’ll get into the music program? Most people who try out, I’d imagine, have years of training—piano lessons, guitar lessons. Band in school, at the very least. Learning to read music, to play as part of a group. You’ve been playing your guitar for two years, Shane.” She taps the table with a manicured fingernail to make her point. “Two years.”

“I aced music theory in high school. I write my own songs. Jamie, Tay, and I had a band. We even played a few shows.”

“Mmhm. What happened to that band?”

“Uh…we went to college?”

“I don’t recall your doing much with it over the summer,” she says.