Unwrapping Hank (4 page)

The sneaky, gay-baiting bastard.

I yanked the notebook back and began to scribble.

*             *             *

Three days later, Hank and I were no closer to reaching a consensus. It was like the Tea Party and the Democrats trying to find common ground on a health care plan. We argued over it so much, there was metaphorical blood dripping down the walls of almost every room in the frat house.

Hank kept a Wheaties box with “HANK’S” scrawled across it in the kitchen cupboard. I spiked it with Metamucil. He switched the room key on my keychain with that of another guy in the house. I spent fifteen minutes trying to open my door and another half a day locked out before I found the other guy and we swapped keys.

I superglued his bath towels so he couldn’t unfold them.

He pulled the fire alarm while I was in the shower the first day it snowed outside.

I saw Micah in the hall one day, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so glad this has been a bonding experience for you and my brother. Maybe for the Christmas party, we can put you two in a ring and have a death match.”

“The man who puts strange dogs together in his bed should not be surprised when he wakes up without testicles,” I said philosophically.

Micah frowned, blinked a few times, and walked away.

On the good side, I was expanding my list.

The mystery of H.S.:

7. No girly pics in his room; calendar of Scotland

8. Flexible for a muscle jock

9. Fairly intelligent and creative practical joker

10. Neatnik room

11. Secretly hoards and drinks some hand-labeled mystery drink instead of the typical Red Bull

*             *             *

Hank

The time I spent with Sloane was like boxing with my frontal lobe. Still, time went by stupidly fast, and before I knew it, it was time to present our party plan to Micah. We didn’t have ‘a’ party plan, though, we had two—Sloane’s and mine. We never had reached an agreement on anything, and I’d started doing my workouts at the gym nights instead of mornings so I could avoid talking about it anymore. Because, well,
Sloane
.

He’d stroll into my room like some mob enforcer come to shake me down, like he owned the joint, wandering around looking at my stuff. Or worse, he’d sit on my bed and stare at me. Being the focus of Sloane’s attention was like having a record-winning fastball speeding toward your face. On the one hand, you had to marvel at how good the throw was. On the other hand, you were about to get brained.

Sloane had a wicked tongue. I kept up with him as well as I did only because I disliked him so much. Or rather, I liked the idea of disliking him. I supposed I really admired him in a weird, masochistic way, but it was more fun to hate on him. If you know what I mean. If I
actually
liked him in any way, shape, or form, I’d probably be tongue-tied around him. But since I
disliked
him, I could snark back and not give a crap what he thought of my ideas.

Mostly.

“What is this?” Micah asked.

Sloane and I stood in Micah’s office, our arms folded over our chests in what Sloane would call a ‘classic defensive posture’. I knew that because he’d called me on it more than once.

Micah picked up a slick black report binder and flipped through it. I caught a glimpse of a layout of the downstairs of the house done on some kind of CAD/CAM program. I knew it! I knew Sloane would trick his out. I was glad I’d spent all that extra time on mine. I had fucking
pie charts.
In color. And a full budget.

“Why are there two?” Micah asked flatly as he picked up my proposal and looked it over.

“We couldn’t agree, so we figured we’d let you pick,” I said.

“Because obviously,” Sloane added, “your priority will be whatever will make the Delts look the best. And not other factors. Like blood relations.” Sloane looked at the ceiling innocently.

“Good God.” Micah unfolded the redheaded centerfold in a bikini that I’d put in as visual inspiration for my beach theme. Micah liked redheads. “You guys spent
this
much time on this thing, but you couldn’t take ten minutes to collaborate?”

Ha! Little did my brother know the
excruciating hours
we’d spent collaborating. Or maybe just picking on each other.

Sloane looked at me. “There’s a native American legend. It says that one day a white buffalo will be born during a summer storm. The crows will nest with the eagles and salmon will spawn in the sea. Then, and only then, will Hank and Sloane find a common vision.”

I choked back a laugh. Sloane was funny. I had to give him that. He was even more amusing when he was busting someone else’s balls instead of mine.

Micah dumped both proposals in his trash.

“Hey!” I said. “I worked hard on that!”

“Here’s what I want,” Micah said in his nice-guy-about-to-lose-it voice. “You have twenty-four hours to put a joint plan on my desk. I don’t care if it has two words on it ‘charades’ and ‘lemonade’. I don’t care if it’s scrawled on a napkin in red crayon. But I’m not going to arbitrate your battles. You feel me?”

“So…” Sloane said slowly, “The goal here is not to actually have a great party to increase the fraternity’s reputation, but to be some sort of hugely ironic team-building exercise? Is this a research project for an ecosurvivalist class or something?”

“Wait. Is this because Mom always liked me best?” I asked.

Micah opened his office door and gave us a flat smile. “Have a good night, gentlemen. See you tomorrow at eight pm sharp.”

I headed for my room, Sloane on my heels. I tried to shut the door in his face, but he just pushed it open again and followed me inside.

“I’m going for a workout,” I said. I grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a ratty old T-shirt from the dresser.

“We have twenty-four hours, and I have a full class schedule tomorrow,” Sloane complained.

“Look, I’ll find you after, okay? Believe me, it’s better if I take my aggression out on inanimate iron first.”

Sloane cocked his head to the side, watching me as I stripped off my long-sleeved thermal and put on my T-shirt. “Do you actually
see
the testosterone pour out of you when you work out, or is it more of a mist?”

I ignored him and dropped trou to change, very purposefully mooning him. When I turned around, the coward was gone.

I loved working out. It was quiet. Like, you get into the zone and block everything else out. No one bothers you. It’s just you and your own body. I loved how I could affect my muscles, how I had the control. I could decide I wanted bigger biceps and work toward that, or I could decide to let them go down a bit. I didn’t have any ambition to compete, and I didn’t want to be a steroid monkey like the guys on the front of muscle magazines. I just wanted to be… fit-looking. Strong. Healthy. When I watched myself lifting weights in the mirror, I felt… alive. I could believe that I was fine—better than fine. I needed it, mentally. If I didn’t get to work out for a while, I started goin’ batshit crazy and my muscles ached like they were shrinking—slowly and with great resentment, like the melting Wicked Witch of the West.

That night while I worked out, I found myself looking in the mirror for a ‘mist’. I laughed out loud at myself. Fucking Sloane! I looked around, hoping no one had seen me chortling to myself like a psychotic hyena. But no one was watching me.

Weird that it didn’t feel that way. Why did I feel like Sloane was watching even when he wasn’t there?

         ~4~

Sloane

HANK went to the gym to burn some inner road rage or something, and I wandered around the house restlessly.

Micah was going to press this thing. He was a laid-back guy, but he was no pushover. Clearly, the leader of the frat pack had lockjaw when he got his teeth into something. I wondered, again, what Micah’s agenda was. It had to have something to do with the fact that Hank was his brother. It had a whiff of fraternal torture about it, that dysfunctional family
je ne sais quoi
. Somehow, I’d ended up in the middle of it.

The question was, what was I going to do about it? I admit, I enjoyed spending time with Hank, and I was going to be bored when that ended. We had a ‘frenemy’ thing going on that was more entertaining than any other relationship I’d formed at PSU. It was fun to pick on Hank, and I liked that he picked on me right back. And then there was the not-at-all-shabby scenery he provided and the fact that I hadn’t figured him out yet.

My parents had given me a big lecture about the ongoing physical, cognitive, and sociological development of a young man my age. In sum: people changed a lot during the college years, particularly as a result of the ‘first real separation from parental authority and caretaking’ and ‘a realization of adulthood as a socially-enforced but self-sustained burden.’ I wondered what my semi-fascination with Hank Springfield meant about my cognitive development. Maybe I was only interested in people I clashed heads with, like a wee pearl that needed the grit of friction to grow.

That was a depressing thought.

My best guess about the party thing was that one of us would have to just capitulate. Maybe we could rock-paper-scissors for it. I wanted to argue with Hank about it right then, a weird little itchy niggle in my stomach. But Hank wasn’t here. I wandered out to the living room to see what the guys were up to.

“Sloane!” Danny called out. There were five guys sprawled over the couches in the common room watching Arnold Schwarzenegger in sunglasses. “
Terminator
marathon, bro! Hang with us!”

“And make some popcorn,” a redhead named Will called out without looking away from the screen.

“Tempting. But I think I’ll pass. You guys have fun.”

I went into the kitchen and poked into Hank’s little shelf on the fridge. It contained a fat roll of Lebanon baloney—Pennsylvanians were big on meat products—and two glass bottles like the ones Hank had stashed in his room. The labels were facing the back of the fridge. I dug one out and looked at it. There was a Post-it note that read “HANK” conveniently hiding the label. I pulled it off. The bottle had a hand-written label that said “Grape Kombucha”. I got out my phone and googled it. It was a fermented tea beverage, supposedly a good detoxifier. Origin: Asia. Popular with the hippy health crowd and often homemade.

Had Hank made it himself? Did he buy it from someone who made it? And why did he cross out the labels?

“Hank, you wacky, muscle-bundle of contrariness,” I muttered. I put the bottle back.

I wasn’t in the mood to study, so I went back to my room and settled down to watch my secret vice on my laptop.

*             *             *

I was really getting into the video and just starting to rub my hand over my hardening dick, which was still in my jeans, when a big paw pounded on the door and then it flew open.

“Hey, Frenchie!” Hank bellowed as loud as he possibly could. His beard was damp, and he was in comfy sweats, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

I sat up quickly, discreetly hiding my boner and hitting PAUSE on the video.

“What are you watching?” Hank asked suspiciously, looking me up and down.

I turned the computer so he could see it. “Inspector Lynley.”

Hank huffed a laugh. “You jerk off to Masterpiece Mystery? Wait. Of course you do.”

I groaned and hid my face in my hands. “I wasn’t—”

“Guess Lynley is kind of cute.”

“It’s not—” Hank was Satan. The Prince of Humiliation. I could see that now. “I’m just a good multitasker, okay? I like watching mysteries, and I like… that. It’s simply an efficient use of my time to do them together. ‘Comfort layering’ if you will.” I waved my hands in the air in a vaguely descriptive manner.

“Sure. I get it. Like my mom knits when she watches TV.”

“Exactly.”

He plopped down on the bed. “What about Inspector Morse? He get you off? Or is he too old?”

I picked up a pillow and smacked him in the head with it. “I don’t actually recall inviting you in here, Hank.”

“Yeah, payback’s a bitch. I saw the first season of this awhile back. What’s this one?” He nudged his chin toward the screen and tried to sound all casual. But he looked like a dog gazing in the window of a chicken hatchery.

Really?

“It’s, um, the start of season three. You can, uh…” I trailed off, eyebrows in my hairline, waiting for the ‘ha ha gotcha’ to come. But he just avoided my gaze and looked around the room nervously.

“I can… turn this off, and we can talk about the party? Or you can… watch it with me?”

“Watch,” Hank said decisively. He shoved himself up against the headboard and thrust his legs out, which was a trick, because me and my laptop were already on the bed and he wasn’t small. “Anything to avoid talking about the party.” He made a gagging gesture.