Chapter 7
7
“ S ee that guy over there?” Finn leaned in, his breath skating across my skin as he lowered his head to my ear. “The one with the Raiders cap?”
I followed his gaze. Directly in front of us was a guy in a baseball cap casually resting one elbow on the bar counter. His body was angled towards the girl next to him, perched on a bar stool, and he was saying something to her with a flirty grin on his face, making her smile in return.
“Look at his body language and then her body language. See how they’re open to each other? Leaning in? Honestly, half of flirting—for me, at least—is checking on the other person’s body language. If their posture’s all stiff or they don’t wanna look at you or whatever, I know there’s no point in taking it any further.”
“What if they’re just uncomfortable to begin with, though? Like I was with you?” I shifted on my feet. My intention was to turn so I could see his face, but I ended up with the back of my left shoulder pressed against his chest. I went to take a step away, but he reached out and gripped my waist, holding me in place.
“You were never uncomfortable with me, though, were you?” His voice was so low in my ear. “Not even when you found out that I knew who you were.”
“I-I guess it’s different with us. We’re not trying to flirt with each other, and we got to know each other online first. We were already friends.”
“Yeah.” He sighed against me before releasing his grip on my waist. I felt suddenly cold without his body heat to warm me. “So…watch the people around us…maybe listen in if we can get close enough, and we can discuss their techniques.”
“Okay.”
We spent the next hour roaming the student union, eavesdropping on conversations while trying not to seem obvious. Eventually, though, I had enough. It was clear to me from the actions we’d witnessed that I’d never be a natural flirt. I couldn’t even talk to anyone normally, let alone anything more. Finn’s advice was to just be myself and be friendly and listen to whoever I was speaking to rather than try to hold the conversation. It sounded simple, so why did I find it so hard?
“I’m done. Can we leave?” I said after our fifth circuit of the bar area. Finn glanced at me, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“What about a dare? I dare you to speak to one person. Not even flirt with them. Just speak. Then we’ll go.”
“Fiinnnn.”
“Leoooo.”
“Fine. But you’d better be there with me.”
“Course I will be. C’mon, little lion. Let’s go find someone.” He grinned and slung his arm around me, pulling me into a side hug. I was beginning to get used to how tactile he was. It would’ve been weird with anyone else, but with Finn, it felt normal, somehow. Nice. It reminded me of the way JJ and his friends were with each other.
We reached the room with the pool tables, and I smiled when I saw Charlie with Bennett, Levi, and Pete from the football team, playing a doubles game. Finn’s dare hadn’t specified who I had to speak to. Most of these guys were his teammates, and that fact should theoretically make it easier to speak to one of them.
Charlie was closest to us, chalking up the end of his cue while he watched Bennett taking a shot. He looked up when he saw us, greeting Finn with a lift of his hand and then giving me a polite smile.
Okay. I could do this. Licking my dry lips, I returned his smile with a hesitant one of my own. “H-hi. I’m Leo. Finn’s friend.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Hi. I saw you at that football practice with Sophie.”
“Oh. Uh, I wasn’t with her. Just sitting with her.” My stupid fucking face was heating again. I could feel it.
“Alright, bro?” Finn took over the conversation, giving Charlie a fist bump before dragging me around to be introduced to the others.
They made small talk for a few minutes, mostly about football, but Finn stuck to my side, glancing over at me every now and then as if he wanted to make sure I was doing okay. I appreciated him doing so, but I…I’d done it. I’d introduced myself to someone new, and it hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as I’d been building it up in my head. I had the feeling that a lot of my issues were due to my brain running wild and making me think things that weren’t true.
“We’ll catch up with you later. We’ve got an important date with Lesath Legends ,” Finn announced to the four of them when there was a break in the conversation. Lifting his hand in a wave, he backed away from the pool table. I followed his lead, giving a tiny wave of my own and receiving matching grins from them.
When I turned back to Finn, I found him watching me with a look I could only describe as fond. As we left the building, he pulled me into him again, ruffling my hair.
“I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“Thanks. I’m proud of me, too.” I was. It was such a small thing to most people, but it was a big deal to me.
Without even discussing it, we both headed back to Finn’s house, where his dad greeted us with warm hugs. “Evening, lads. Let me guess—gaming?”
“Always.” Finn opened the fridge, scanning the contents. “What do you want to drink, Leo? Beer? Coke? Juice?”
“Pass me a beer,” his dad said, holding out his hand expectantly.
“What am I, your waiter?” Finn tutted as he handed his dad the beer. His dad cuffed him around the head playfully.
“Less of your cheek, please. Follow Leo’s example. He’s the only one with manners out of the two of you.” He winked at me, and I felt a grin spread across my face.
“He’s right. You need to learn some manners,” I told Finn, and both he and his dad laughed. When we’d escaped to his room, beers in hand, he nudged me with his shoulder.
“You realise that you’re the favourite son now?”
“Maybe you should practise being more like me.”
His mouth dropped open in mock outrage. Grabbing my beer, he placed it on his desk along with his and then spun around to face me. “The betrayal!” He jabbed me in the chest. “I’m perfect, just the way I am.”
I shrugged, a smile curving over my lips. “There’s always room for improvement.”
“You—” Without warning, he shoved my chest, sending me falling back onto his bed, and then he jumped on top of me. We wrestled like how I imagined two friends would wrestle, not that I had any experience, laughing and playfully shoving at each other.
“I can’t…believe…you’re fighting me…because I told you…the truth,” I panted as he got me in a headlock. I threw my body back, trying to dislodge his grip, and everything came to a screaming halt.
There was something hard pressing against my ass, and I might’ve been inexperienced in all sex-related things, but I had a dick, and I instantly knew what I was feeling. I gasped at the same time Finn did, and we both scrambled away from each other. My face was on fire, and I didn’t dare to look at Finn, but I had no doubt his was, too.
“Shit. Shitshitshit,” he muttered to himself, all panicky breaths, making my heart rate go through the roof, and fuck, I needed to get out of there. It was the most awkward situation of both our lives.
“I…uh…essay. Forgot,” I managed, not even waiting for a response before fleeing his house like the coward I was. Was it a huge overreaction? Yes, but what were you supposed to say to your friend when they got a boner from play wrestling with you? Was it a normal thing?
Back in my student flat in my bedroom with the door safely locked behind me, I forced myself to look at the situation more logically. Of the two of us, Finn was probably feeling the most weird about it. He’d been the one with a hard-on.
I did what I usually did when I was at a loss—typed the symptoms into Dr. Google.
Is it normal to get hard when you’re wrestling ?
My panic receded further as I scanned the results, finding that yes, it was a normal reaction for some people due to the stimulation or friction or whatever. Now, I just needed to keep that in mind the next time I saw Finn. Fuck. It was going to be awkward either way. Maybe…
Switching on my computer, I loaded up Lesath Legends and then sent a text.
ME:
I’m online. Co-op battle for XP?
It took a couple of minutes, but then I received a thumbs up from Finn, and I jammed my headset over my mess of hair—speaking of, I seriously needed a haircut—and flipped on my mic.
“Hi.” Finn’s voice was low and more tentative than I’d ever heard it.
“Hi. Ready to go?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry about earlier. I-I don’t—I didn’t?—”
The urge to reassure him came over me instantly. Was this how he felt when I was struggling to find the words? “It’s a normal thing. It’s the friction.” That was, hands down, the most uncomfortable sentence I’d ever forced from my mouth, but it had to be said.
There was silence on the other end of the headset, and I busied myself with swapping out my character’s weapons, hoping I hadn’t made a mistake by directly addressing something that was clearly an incredibly awkward subject for us both.
Finally, though, Finn spoke. “Yeah. It’s…normal. I’m sorry if…if I made you uncomfortable or anything, though.”
“You didn’t. It was just a surprise,” I quickly said, wanting to reassure him, and he barked out a shocked laugh.
“A surprise. Right. Okay. Can we agree to never discuss it again?”
“ Please .” I could count on one finger the number of people I could actually have a conversation like this with, and even with Finn, I never wanted to mention it again.
“Good. Uh, so, which co-op battle do you want to pick? The sand arena gives us an extra twenty percent XP if we make it through.”
“You read my mind.”
We settled into the game, falling into our usual synchronised rhythm, and I knew we were going to be okay.