Chapter 7
RAFE
My last final is for a marketing class. We have to produce an entire marketing plan, complete with numbers, designs, and sample products. My entire pitch is something like sixty pages, and we give a ten-minute presentation to the class before turning it in.
Since my family owns a vineyard in Napa Valley, and that’s where I plan to work upon graduation, I chose wine as my product. When I visited for Thanksgiving, I brought back a bottle of wine without a label so I could use my own pretend branding for the class.
The feedback was along the lines of my already knowing how to create a marketing campaign.
The instructor wasn’t wrong. I’ve been involved in my family’s business since I was a kid.
I began learning the wine-making process when I was eight.
I started hanging around the office when I was eleven, and marketing has always fascinated me.
So yeah. I took this course not only because it’s a requirement for my degree but also because I want to be part of my family company’s marketing team, and this class helped me with the details and how to use current tools available.
I’ve had the beginning of the idea that I used for my pitch in my head for quite a while. I’d been formatting the final since the beginning of class; fine-tuning it as we went along. I’m not an overachiever, but I want to bring this home this summer and see if we can put it into action.
Brent is in our room when I get back. His last final was earlier this morning, so he’s probably been here most of the day. A smile splits my face because he’s doing exactly what I thought he would be—cleaning.
My roommate is a neat freak, and whenever he has a day mostly free from classes during the week, he’s deep diving into the corners and baseboards of cleaning our room.
“How rebellious of you,” I tease as I set my bag on my desk chair.
He gives me a crooked smile. “The room doesn’t clean itself. I hate dust. It makes me congested.”
“Ah, that’s the truth of it, then. Not like you give the room time to get dusty.”
Brent shrugs. “Meh. I’ve always liked a clean space. It helps me concentrate.”
I’ve always kind of wondered if his need for a spotless space is a byproduct of his childhood.
I didn’t realize until recently that I don’t know anything about his family.
He’s never shared. In the years we’ve known each other and shared a room here, I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on his avoidance of his family life in conversation.
It still makes a pit form in my stomach because I can’t believe I’ve been that slow.
“You about done? I want to play video games.”
“Yeah,” he answers. “Help me move the bed back.”
We shove the massive bunk to get it pushed against the wall again. It’s heavy with real wood. Not the kind of particle board you see most furniture made out of today.
“How did you move this on your own?”
“I didn’t,” he says once it’s back in place. “Kapri and Hayden helped me before. I snagged them as they were walking by.”
“Ah.” I spend the next several minutes helping Brent put our room back together. “Okay, go get us some drinks and I’m going to see who’s around to play.”
I walk down the hall and start hitting doors on the way to see who opens up. Hayden and Presley. “Game time,” I announce.
“Sweet,” Hayden says. “I need a break from studying.”
“You still have another final?” I ask as they follow me to my room.
“Yes. Eight in the morning. They chose the last possible day to give us one instead of letting us leave with the rest of the damn campus.”
“That’s shit,” Presley says. “Yet I get it. I’m sure tomorrow is included in the number of days of class time.”
“Still shit,” I agree.
“What’s shit?” Brent asks as he walks into the room with an armful of drinks. “Also, there’s chaos in the kitchen right now, so unless you want to be roped into cooking everything that’s left in the fridge, freezer, and pantry, stay out.”
“Noted,” I say.
“Shit that I have a final in the morning,” Hayden says.
Brent makes a face. “Ew, why?”
Hayden shakes his head. “Dunno. If I were an instructor and my class’ last day was two days before Christmas Eve when everyone will be packing and leaving, I think I’d schedule my final the week prior and not force my students to stay.”
“Maybe he’s giving you the extra time to study,” Brent says.
“Look at all the studying I’m doing. I wasn’t even studying in my room, though I was pretending to. At this point, I can’t cram anymore.”
“That’s why we’re taking a video game break,” I say.
“You going to leave after your final?” Presley asks.
“Yep. I had to adjust my flight to the afternoon. I wasn’t the only one, and when someone else asked if they could take the final earlier because of their flight, he was denied because we know the dates of the class as soon as we sign up for it, so…” Hayden shrugs his shoulders.
“I suppose he’s not wrong,” Presley says.
“That’s why I just changed my flight instead of asking. Simpler that way.”
“My flight’s at seven in the morning. So I need to either sleep at the airport tonight or get up at the ass crack of dawn to make sure I can get through the traffic,” Presley says.
“I can’t decide if you’ll have a break from traffic that early or there will be more traffic because of the holiday,” I muse.
“At four a.m.? I really hope the time of day will mean no traffic. What the hell is open that early?”
“Bakers get to the bakeries to prepare their breads and pastries,” I say.
“Oh yeah?” I’m met with skeptical looks.
“We have a great bakery on-site, so yeah. Their hours are monstrous as far as I’m concerned.”
“What about you?” Presley asks. “When do you fly out?”
I shake my head. “I have a seven-hour drive north. I can leave whenever we get up.”
“We?”
“I’m dragging Brent home with me,” I say, not sparing Brent a glance though I can feel him looking at me.
“I didn’t agree to that,” he says.
“Sure you did. You just don’t remember.”
Brent sighs.
I won’t actually force him home with me, but once the guys leave, we’re having a damn conversation.
He doesn’t want sympathy or pity, and that’s fine.
But he’s my best friend, and I don’t want him to spend the holiday alone.
That’s a shit deal. He was given an even shittier deal by having the parents he has, whose love is conditional on their son’s sexuality.
It’s not fair, and I want him to have a good Christmas. My family is going to love him.
Besides, it’ll be a blast to have a friend around. At the very least, he can voice that I have a boyfriend or something. Even if he doesn’t agree to be my fake boyfriend.
We’ve been racing for a while, bantering and throwing pillows at each other.
I bought them specifically to throw when playing video games.
One, because it’s the softest, least expensive thing to throw, and if I have to replace them, it’s not a lot of money.
And two, they’re called throw pillows. What else are you possibly supposed to do with them?
The bedroom door is cracked, so the four of us turn our attention to it when it opens further after a brief knock.
“Four in here,” Mario says. He comes in with two plates, one in each hand. Behind him is Zeke with two more. “Here. Eat up.”
The four plates are set on the table in front of us, no two the same. I have rice, meatballs, mixed vegetables, applesauce, a slice of buttered bread, a whole kiwi without the skin, potato salad, and three gummy worms.
Beside me, Brent has roast turkey, macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese, a dinner roll, a slice of bacon with some scrambled eggs, a banana, and a whole broccoli head—cooked and seasoned.
Hayden has a giant pancake stacked with weird shit like a slice of ham, pasta salad, and roasted onions.
Presley’s by far looks like a regular meal—a large bowl of salad greens with a bunch of shit on top.
Zeke pulls a bottle of Thousand Island dressing from his hoodie pocket and sets it on the table for him.
“Gee… thanks,” I say. “This looks tasty.”
Mario chuckles. “It’s not the weirdest plate. Trust me.”
“You could have gotten one of the ones with cereal,” Zeke says. “There are a couple more of those on the tray if you’d like to swap out.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Brent says.
“Five stars, right here,” Hayden agrees.
Zeke flashes us a smile and closes the bedroom door as they head down the hall. I stare at my plate, and weirdly, it still smells good.
“I didn’t realize we were being fed,” I say. “I was going to order pizza.”
“Most of the guys will be gone for a month,” Brent says, shrugging. “It makes sense to get rid of as much food as possible so nothing goes bad or gets freezer burnt.”
“That’s such an oxymoron—freezer burn,” Presley says as he sits back to eat. “Freeze and burn are opposites.”
“We can look up the etymology behind the word choice,” Hayden suggests.
I glance at Brent as he eats, watching Hayden and Presley with amusement. He meets my eyes, and for some weird reason, the other day from the glory hole orgy pops into my mind, and I imagine those lips around my cock.
Wow. What the hell is wrong with me?
We’re quiet for a few minutes as we eat, the pause music of the racing game quietly filling the room with gamer ambiance.
I try to shake the glory hole thoughts away by concentrating on the game music.
I’ve never thought of Brent in that way.
Friendship is incredibly important to me, and I’ve always thought crossing a line and fucking a friend is the quickest way to break a friendship. So I’ve never gone there.
“Hey, you never said how the party went the other day,” Hayden says.
I glance up to meet his eyes as I swallow my meatball, with a hint of applesauce, wrapped in bread. It’s strangely good. I can’t say I’d voluntarily make this meal again, but it’s not bad.
“It was good. I think we ended up maxing out the predetermined occupancy limit for a couple hours, and then people trickled in and out for the last couple hours. I think Kapri slept like a rock the day after from all the stress he carried organizing it.”
Presley shook his head. “I can’t determine if it’s just because he’s a little high-strung anyway or if he was truly that stressed over it.”
I shake my head and look at Hayden. “Did you go?”
He raises one shoulder. “Yeah, for a while. But fucking in an orgy pile doesn’t truly tell me how it went overall.”
Snorting, I shake my head. “Fair. By my determination, I think it went very well.”
Presley agrees. “It did. Kapri did a great job. If you see him, tell him so.”
“Cool,” Hayden says, turning his attention to Brent. “You went, didn’t you?”
I’m surprised at this. He was right where I’d left him that morning when I came back.
Brent shrugs, nodding. “Yeah, for maybe forty-five minutes.”
“Enough time to get off and get out,” Hayden says, laughing.
Brent snorts. “Yeah.”
“You do an orgy or a glory hole or both?” Presley asks.
His cheeks heat, though he tries to ignore it. “Glory hole.”
“Yep, I tried one too,” Presley says. “They’re ridiculously hot and also maddeningly frustrating since you can’t get to the whole dick.”
“Exactly,” Brent says. “But I think cutting off all contact except dick truly heightens the experience.”
It’s difficult not to imagine him on his knees at this point.
He went to a glory hole. That totally could have been him on my dick.
It wasn’t, couldn’t have been, but now my brain is completely hooked on the possibility that it was.
There were more than a dozen stalls to choose from, so the odds that he’d been in mine are slim.
Besides, I don’t know what time he came and went. I didn’t see him there. Which means he arrived in the hour before I took door duties or in the hour after when I had my dick in the hole. It’s so damn unlikely.
And yet…
Seriously though. Why am I so hung up on this? You don’t mess around with friends unless you want to fuck up a friendship. I’d rather not do that.
“Rafe.”
I’m shoved from my thoughts. Physically. Hayden pushes my shoulder until I’m refocused on them. “Sorry.”
“Party that good for you that you’re still thinking about it?” he teases.
Is that what this is about? Was the orgasm really that good? Even if that’s the case, why is my mind so determined to imagine Brent as the one on the other side of the wall? I can’t figure out how they’re linked.
“I guess,” I say. “Dunno. Just got lost in thought.”
“About the party? You have that epic of an orgasm?” Presley’s grinning at me.
My eyes flicker to Brent. He’s watching me. So are Hayden and Presley, but I can’t figure out why my mind is being so weird. It tells me that my answer matters to Brent. The answer is personal to him. But what does he want me to say? Which answer is the correct one?
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Something about it plagues me.”
“When you use the word plague to describe a sexual encounter, that doesn’t give it a positive connotation,” Presley says, laughing.
“No.” I shake my head. “It was good.”
“Is there such a thing as a bad orgasm?” Hayden muses.
“Yes,” Brent says immediately. “If you’re not into it and get off as quickly as possible to get it over with, I’d consider that a bad orgasm.”
Hayden tilts his head. “The way you answered that makes me think you’re talking from experience.”
“I’m not convinced all your hookups were amazing,” he retorts. “Are you telling me there was never one you’d like to forget or you wanted to end quickly?”
Hayden hums. “Yeah, but it’s still an orgasm.”
“Okay, then I’m going to counter that maybe you haven’t experienced a really good orgasm to compare it to,” Brent says.
Presley nods in agreement. Maybe he’s right. I’m not sure I ever thought about it. This is how we spend the rest of the evening—eating, playing video games, and talking about hookups.