Chapter 13
Jack
Nate
Have fun on your date, Micky Mouse!
Jack
Ugh, I don’t know. I think I should cancel.
I just want to stay home and watch your game.
Nate
Nooooo, come on. You watch hockey all the time, but you NEVER go out. It’ll be fun!
Jack
It’s weird that he even asked me out. Nobody does that.
EVER.
Nate
He asked you out because you’re a babe.
Look at all your cute freckles.
Jack
I’m pretty sure freckles are a skin disease, Nate.
Nate
Well, how lucky are you that your disease is so sexy, right?
Jack
Oh my god.
Fine, I’ll go.
Nate
Seriously, though. Just try and have fun. It’s just a date, nothing serious.
It’s nothing serious, it’s nothing serious, it’s nothing serious, I chant to myself, and about halfway through dinner, I actually start to believe it.
Christopher is nice. Or at least, nice enough to not laugh each time I stumble over a sentence, nerves making my tongue stupid and clumsy.
He’s also got brown hair, dark eyes, and is skinny, which means he looks just enough like Desmond for me to blush like an idiot the entire time we’re eating.
I do a good job keeping the conversation pointed in his direction, asking questions and barely letting him stop for breath or a bite of food before asking another.
I want to listen, not talk. Thankfully, Christopher seems all too eager to comply.
By the time we’re leaving the restaurant, I’ve learned enough about him to ghost write his biography.
“Want to come back to my dorm?” he asks, pulling his coat tighter around himself and smiling at me.
I don’t, particularly. I want to go back to my dorm; take a shower and settle in bed for a few hours of reading.
I want to relax, and be in my own space.
But, I also hadn’t wanted to come on this date in the first place, and it’s honestly been a pretty good time.
Not as much fun as hanging out with Nate or Desmond, but few things are.
I’ll probably never go on another date again, so I should make this one count.
I still can’t believe he asked me out in the first place.
When Christopher had approached me after class, smiling and chatting as though we already knew one another, I’d figured he was going to ask to borrow my notes.
Instead, he’d asked me to dinner, easy as anything.
I’d gaped at him in silence, too stunned to even blush.
I’ve only told one person I’m gay, and it sure as hell wasn’t Christopher.
Before I could even contemplate the offer, I’d sputtered a distracted yes and watched as he jotted his number down on my notebook.
“Sure. We can go back to your place,” I agree, because I might as well continue my streak of trying new things. Maybe we could put on some anime—he’d seemed like a fan at dinner.
We walk side by side, and I give hand-holding ten seconds of consideration before discarding it.
No way I’m doing that. My palms are probably clammy as hell, and then I won’t be able to think about anything else; the rest of my body will start sweating in response.
I stuff my hands into my pockets, because that’s the safest option.
“My roommate is gone,” Christopher tells me as we walk into his dorm. I glance back at him, watching as he takes off his coat. I do the same, clutching it in front of me awkwardly.
“Okay. Cool.” I’m not really sure why I care where his roommate is, although I suppose it’s nice to not have to talk to anyone else. He laughs like I’ve said something funny, and walks over to where I’m still standing uncertainly by the door.
“You coming in or are we doing this here?” he asks, grinning and coming to a stop close enough that his chest brushes mine.
I flush, suddenly realizing exactly why it’s important I know the location of his roommate. Welcome to your first hook-up, Micky , I think, as he takes my coat and tosses it onto his roommate’s bed.
The only thing that keeps me from flinching when he grasps my hips is how used to attention like that from Nate I’ve become.
But Nate doesn’t kiss me on the mouth, so I’ve got nothing to go off of when Christopher presses his lips to mine.
He’s a little bit shorter than me, and a lot slighter, but there is no question who’s in charge here.
He moves one hand to my neck, and this time I do startle, flinching away from that strange touch against my skin.
Anxiety squeezes my chest, my heart beating loud enough for me to feel it in my ears.
Maybe I’m just doing it wrong, but this isn’t how I imagined kissing would be.
Not at all. Christopher’s mouth feels strange and insistent, moving through a series of steps that I’m not privy to.
I consider trying to reciprocate, but it’s really hard to breathe and I can’t concentrate and I don’t want to do this. I don’t like it.
He pulls his mouth away, and I gasp in relief.
He makes a groaning noise and starts kissing my throat instead, like me gulping air is sexy and not a plea for life.
I still haven’t moved my hands—haven’t done much more than stand here—but my head is pounding and my skin feels two sizes too small and I just want to go home.
When I feel sure fingers at my waist, fiddling with the catch on my jeans, the fight-or-flight portion of my nervous system zings to life. Run , it suggests.
“Wait, no.” I gasp, struggling to breathe. “Stop. Stop. ”
“What?” he asks, tipping his head back to look at me. I push his hand away, my own trembling slightly.
“I don’t…sorry, I can’t. I need to leave.” I search for anything to use as an excuse, backing up a step and hitting the wall. I feel trapped. “I have to get up early tomorrow—I’m doing a 10k with a friend of mine.”
“It’s eight o’clock,” Christopher protests incredulously.
“I have to leave,” I repeat shakily, because while the 10k is a valid reason, it’s not the only one. Mostly, I just want to be safe at home and not doing this. I feel like I need to brush my teeth and take a shower.
“Are you serious?” he asks, the look on his face morphing from surprise to annoyance. “What the hell?”
He steps back and shakes his head. I glance over at my jacket on his roommate’s bed. It’s my only one—I can’t leave without it.
“Sorry,” I tell him, but all it does is earn me an eye roll.
“What was the fucking point,” he mumbles, grabbing my coat and tossing it to me angrily. I fumble with it, starting to put it on when he waves at the door. “Bye. Thanks for dinner.”
He adds the last part so sarcastically, I flush.
He paid for dinner. He also talked most of dinner.
And now, I’m leaving without holding up my end of the bargain which was apparently having sex.
The door handle is slippering under my damp palms, and the buzzing in my ears only seems to be getting worse as I leave the dorm.
The cold outside air is such a blessed relief, I decide to leave the jacket off for my walk home.
The only thing that could make my body hotter right now would be to actually light me on fire.
I walk quickly in the direction of my dorm, desperate to get there.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being chased.
Unfortunately, no amount of fast walking would keep shame from catching up to me.
By the time I’m halfway home, I’ve come to the embarrassing conclusion that I should never have agreed to going back to Christopher’s dorm.
Of course he thought that meant we were going to have sex—why wouldn’t he?
I shouldn’t have agreed to go, and I shouldn’t have let him kiss me if I wasn’t going to do more.
I gave him all the wrong signals, right from the beginning.
Probably, I should have just gone through with it instead of kicking up a fuss like I did.
I don’t understand why I can’t just do the correct thing one single time in my life.
Nate is barely panting even though we’re halfway through the 10k.
We’re jogging next to one another, elbows bumping every now and then, with mostly silence between us.
I glance at him, noting the damp areas of sweat staining his shirt.
He’s wearing the crop top I bought him, which shows off his trim waist, tattooed back, and muscled stomach.
It also makes him a danger to society. I’m pretty sure I saw someone accidentally run into a tree as they jogged past, too distracted by Nate to pay attention to where they were going.
A little way up the road, a water table is set up on the left side of the street. He makes a beeline toward it, beaming at the little girl handing out the cups.
“Thank you!” He takes two, throwing one back and handing the other to me. We toss them into the trash and get back onto the course, once more falling into a steady rhythm. Nate lifts his shirt to wipe his forehead.
“So?” he asks, nudging me gently with his elbow.
“What’s up? ”
“How was your date? You didn’t text me last night. It’s a good thing Marcos recommended we share our locations, or I might have been worried you didn’t make it home.”
I blush beneath my already warm, and likely red, face. Not mentioning the date had been purposeful. I should have known he’d ask.
“It was fine.”
He glances over at me. “So, bad, then.”
I’d laugh if I wasn’t needing all my extra oxygen for running. Nate—who’s not only beautiful, but also possesses a supernatural ability to make friends with anyone—has probably never had a bad date in his life. He probably rates closer to epic on that scale.
“Well…yeah, kind of. I fucked it up, of course.”
“You’re going to have to expand on that, Micky Mouse,” he requests.
“Dinner was fine, but then he asked if I wanted to go back to his dorm,” I admit. “And I was actually having an okay time, so I thought, ‘why not?’”