Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
PERCY
“I’m not going to tell you what’s on next week’s test, but I would strongly advise you to be prepared to write a short essay on the religious practices of the Yuka,” I announce loudly over the din of students packing up their laptops and chairs squeaking as they drag against the tile floor.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice John, another PhD student and TA in the anthropology department, lingering just inside the classroom door with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.
When he sees that I’ve spotted him, he weaves past the flow of students going the opposite direction to get to me.
“I can’t decide if it’s extremely generous of you to give them that hint, or evil to do it while none of them are paying any attention,” he says with a chuckle, his gaze roaming down to linger over my body for a few seconds before returning to my face.
Is he checking me out?
A small thrill goes through me. Not because I’m interested in John, but because it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who can tell that my biceps are bigger and my ass is firmer. I deleted the M4M app after Butch and I hooked up, but I’ll take a little ego stroking where I can get it.
I laugh in response and finish tucking my notes into my bag, right next to my gym clothes, which are wadded up inside. Then I sling it across my shoulders and wait for him to say something else, like why he stopped by my class when we’ve never had more than a passing conversation before.
“What’s up?” I prompt when he doesn’t offer an explanation on his own.
“Oh, right, well I was wondering what you’re up to next weekend.
” He rubs the back of his neck, and I’m pretty sure my face is full-on Shocked Pikachu before he goes on.
“A bunch of the Anthro grad students were thinking about going out for drinks to blow off some steam and celebrate making it through midterms.”
I let out a relieved breath. He’s not asking me out, he’s just inviting me to a group outing.
Of course he is. Why would he be asking me out?
Just because I can now run three miles without needing to call an ambulance and I’ve been walking around with a fuckton more confidence since Butch and I hooked up last weekend doesn’t mean every guy in the world is suddenly clamoring to date me.
Butch hasn’t even brought up the whole “taking me out sometime” thing again.
It’s been a week, and I’ve seen him just about every day at Sweat, but it’s still just this nebulous, nonspecific thing hanging between us.
Maybe it was just his way of distracting me in the middle of trying to quit the gym.
“Percy?”
That snaps me out of my spiral, and I give him a polite smile.
“Um, yeah, maybe. Email me the details and I’ll see if I can make it.”
“Cool, I’ll do that.” Another beat of awkward silence falls between us before he nods and turns to leave.
I fiddle with my bag and pretend to reorganize some things, giving him a minute’s head start, and then I head out too.
My mind goes straight back to Butch as I make my way outside and towards the bus stop.
Maybe I should be the one to bring it up again.
Was I enthusiastic enough when I said yes?
He might think I was just being nice. Or maybe he just changed his mind after he asked.
I groan inwardly and pick up my pace when I see the bus pulling around the corner.
I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life.
Coming out wasn’t a picnic, all the surgeries were excruciating, and even all the milestones I’ve hit with Butch’s coaching felt impossible until I pushed myself and made them happen.
So why does telling Butch I have a massive, full-blown crush on him and that I desperately want to go on a date with him feel harder than anything else on that list?
I make it to the bus and plop down in the first open seat, then pull my phone out of my bag, planning to doomscroll until my stop, but there’s a text notification from Juno waiting for me.
JUNO: Are you coming home after class or pulling a late night at the library?
PERCY: I’m on my way home. Ugh, I do need to make some more progress on this paper though. You’d better not spend the whole night distracting me.
JUNO: Trust me, I won’t be a distraction.
PERCY: What does that mean? Are you going out or something?
It’s a Friday night, after all, and Juno really isn’t one to spend a Friday night with a History Channel documentary playing in the background while doing schoolwork like I am.
I wonder what Butch is up to tonight. I actually had excited knots in my stomach this morning on my way to the gym, thinking he might ask me to do something. Stupid.
I should have asked him.
I sigh again. The message I sent is on read, but it doesn’t look like they’re planning to respond, so I switch over to my text thread with Butch.
He’s not a big texter—at least not with me.
He’s sent me a few articles about exercise techniques, and we’ve traded a couple of stupid memes, but that’s about it.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard and I try to work up the guts to text and ask what he’s doing tonight.
What if he says he has a date?
My stomach roils and I stuff my phone back into my bag. I spend the rest of the ride staring out the window until we get to my stop, and the short walk home berating myself for being such a coward.
When I stop outside my apartment door to fish out my key, I hear laughter inside.
Does Juno have someone over? Maybe I should have planned to hunker down at the library tonight after all.
I’m not about to turn my ass around and get back on the bus now though, so I slide my key into the door, already prepared to beeline for my room, put on my headphones, and give them their privacy.
I step inside, ready with a quick, polite smile, but I stop in my tracks instead.
“Butch?”
BUTCH
I choke back laughter as Percy’s face goes from shocked to delighted and back to shocked again in the space of half a second. He blinks rapidly at me, looks at the pizza and beer on the coffee table, then glances at Juno for an explanation.
“Well, I have places to be,” Juno says, standing up and brushing their hands over the front of their pants. “People to see, holes to have filled.”
Percy pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
“Lovely, Juno.”
Juno grins unapologetically. Percy was right, Juno and Fender might be too much alike.
Not just their crude sense of humor, but that they were willing to let me in and clear out for the night, no questions asked, is proof enough.
And I definitely owe them one. They stop by Percy and lean in to whisper something to him, then kiss him on the cheek.
“Later, gators.” Juno waves at me over their shoulder before leaving us alone in the apartment.
“What…” Percy shakes his head and lets out a quiet laugh. “What is all this?”
I shrug. “What’s a Friday night without pizza and beer?”
I spent all week racking my brain over the perfect date.
The problem is, I’ve never actually dated.
And nothing I came up with felt good enough to impress Percy.
It was Friday again before I knew it, and it felt wrong to leave it hanging, to just let him sit at home alone…
or worse, leave him free to go out with someone else.
“Alright, let me change real quick. Do you want to pick a movie or something for us to watch?” He picks up the remote from the little table next to the couch and tosses it to me on his way past.
I catch it and stare at it as his bedroom door clicks shut behind him.
What do smart guys like Percy like to watch?
Normally, I would throw on a baseball game or the new John Wick movie, but neither of those seem right.
This is the same problem I had trying to come up with a date idea.
A guy like Percy doesn’t want to go to a sports bar for a couple of rounds or hit the batting cages, but I don’t have the first clue what he would want to do.
I flip through his “recently watched” for clues, but it’s a mishmash of different genres and I can’t tell if he watched them or if Juno did.
His door creaks open again and my stomach squirms. I feel like I failed some kind of compatibility test that’s going to tip him off to the fact that I’m all wrong for him, even if we do have insane chemistry between the sheets.
“Decision paralysis?” he guesses with a chuckle, sliding onto the couch next to me. The khakis and polo he walked in wearing have been replaced by a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair looks a little less tidy, like he ran his fingers through it a few times. “Oh, how about the new John Wick?”
A few of the knots in my stomach loosen and I smile.
“You like John Wick?”
“I like badass action heroes and explosions.” He grins.
“Hell yeah.” I hold up my hand for a high five and he slaps it.
The line between date and bro hangout is blurry, but it feels right for me. Does it feel right for him or am I friend zoning myself by dropping the ball on the romantic shit? I’m never this insecure and I’m not loving it. But, fuck, I want to impress him. I want to get this right.
Percy rents the movie, then grabs a slice of pizza and settles back on the couch to get comfortable. He’s close enough that our shoulders bump and our knees brush when he lets his legs relax and fall open a little wider.
“What did Juno whisper about me before they left?” I ask curiously, grabbing a slice and then slinging my arm over the back of the couch so it’s kind of around his shoulders. “Giving me a good review, I hope?”
He chuckles. “What makes you think that what they whispered was about you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he admits, taking a bite of his pizza and chewing it slowly.
“Are you seriously going to leave me hanging?”
He waffles his head back and forth like he’s really considering it. His eyes meet mine and I can see a hint of shyness in them. It’s different from the way he looked at me last weekend before we hooked up though—less guarded and more hopeful.
“They told me not to let my insecurities screw this up because you seem like a great guy.”
He swallows nervously and then takes another bite of his slice.
I laugh again and settle a little closer to him.
“Funny, that’s the same thing Fender said to me before I left our apartment tonight.”
He shoots me a skeptical look. “What could you possibly have to be insecure about?”
Percy looks me up and down in an exaggerated way. That “not good enough” place inside me twinges. Does he only see me as a piece of meat? Am I just his Captain America Sex Doll until he meets someone who’s a better fit?
“Picking the wrong movie, for one thing,” I say lightly, and he snorts, settling a little closer to me and putting his free hand on my thigh.
“Well, I guess we’ll both just have to work on our insecurities.”
He tilts his head towards me and I dip closer, bumping my nose against his and feeling the warmth of his breath on my face.
“I guess we will.”