Chapter 04 #2
With my roommates bickering around me, my mind drifts to Mia and Mike.
I’ll have to answer eventually, or she’ll reach out again.
Mia doesn’t let you get away with ignoring her demands.
But ever since my talk with Seb, I’m torn.
There’s Mia’s subtle promise luring me in, and then there’s Seb in the car, scratching up his arms.
People are talking already.
“Micah? Hey, Micah!”
I jump when a hand waves in front of my face, the chair creaking beneath my weight again. These things weren’t made with people like me in mind.
“Huh?” I blink when everyone just stares at me.
“Dude, what’s up with you today? That’s the second time you’re zoning out on us,” Olli huffs.
“Sorry,” I mumble quickly, rubbing a hand over my eyes. “There’s just a lot of stuff on my mind lately.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Uhm…” The offer catches me by surprise, but my roommates look back at me with genuine interest. I’ve been living with them for almost a year now, and we get along fine, but we also don’t interact on a deeper level.
Sure, we regularly make an effort to sit down for dinner together or host movie nights.
Sasha and I have a standing gym date since our hours match, but I rarely discuss personal issues with them.
I’ve always felt like the pet jock they adopted because no one was desperate enough to rent the attic space our landlord turned into a crappy room as a money grab.
“Don’t want to drag you down with my shit,” I hedge, although I know this isn’t something I could talk about with Seb or my other teammates.
Contrary to what people assume, the football team is pretty accepting.
Coach Wagner has made it crystal clear he doesn’t tolerate any “bullshit” in his locker room and has run a tight program since he took over last year.
But Seb’s warning isn’t just paranoia. This is probably my only chance to get all of this off my chest without being judged, especially since Nicko is harboring his own—six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound, black-haired, and blue-eyed—secret.
“You don’t have to, but the offer stands,” Sasha chimes in, and I nod, holding my breath like I’m about to take a plunge in Lake Champlain.
“So, you guys know Mia, right?” I try to ease them into this conversation.
Next to me, Linden groans and hides his face in his hand. Sasha bursts into laughter.
“She’s kind of hard to forget,” she snorts while I gently nudge my knee against Linden’s in an apologetic gesture. Only Olli and Nicko look truly confused.
“The cheer captain? Kind of gorgeous?” I try to jog Nicko’s memory, but he just shrugs and slurps on his drink.
“Never heard of her.”
“You can show us a picture later,” Olli decides, impatiently tapping his foot. “But what kind of story is this going to be? Are we trying to get this Mia girl to go out with you? Are we taking revenge on her for crushing your tiny footballer heart? I need to put myself into the right mindset.”
“Neither. Mia asked me for a favor.” I sigh and drag a hand through my hair, knocking the cap off my head.
It’s the obnoxious orange one my teammates gave me when they named me captain.
The badger on its front was once meant to look aggressive, but the fabric is frayed from all the captains who wore it before me.
Linden reaches for it the same second I bend down. Our fingers knock together, and he draws his hand back with a soft laugh.
“She, uhm…she put together this list of things she’d like to do before graduating. One of them is a threesome.” My fingers trace the loose stitching on the cap. I wonder what happened to all the people who wore it before me. Some of them—like Leo Davenport—I know from TV.
Across from me, Nicko whistles. “Kinky.”
“Aw, cutie, you’re still so innocent,” Olli coos at him, then turns his attention to me again before Nicko can complain. “I assume she wants you to take part in that?”
“Yeah, she does,” I confirm with another sigh.
“So? That’s not new to you, right? Everyone knows about how you and Davenport are double-timing girls left and right.” There’s a small glint in Olli’s eyes as he says that, like he’s challenging me to contradict him, but Nicko beats me to an answer.
“Wait, what?! You and Davenport are fucking?!”
“We’re not fucking!” I say quickly. “I mean, not together. Not Seb and I. We’re not…doing stuff with each other.” I grimace. That just made me sound like a huge ‘no homo’ douchebag. “Not that anything would be wrong with that! But it’s not true, and I don’t want any rumors to spread.”
Olli’s lips curl into a grin at that. He’s fucking enjoying this. “Okay, just a piece of advice here: if you tough football guys don’t want to feed the gossip mill, maybe stop swatting each other’s asses on the field all the time.”
“Hush, people who do unpopular sports don’t know how it is.” Nicko elbows him, and Olli promptly scowls back.
“You’re getting a little bit too sassy for my taste, Nicholas. That boyfriend of yours is a terrible influence!”
“Guys, shut up, this isn’t about you!” Sasha interrupts their bickering with a stern look before reaching out to squeeze my knee. “Seriously now, though. What’s the big deal?”
I squirm in my chair, turning the shaker around in my hands. “There’s this guy Mia knows…I can’t tell you who it is,” I say this with a pointed look at our two gossiping divas, “but he’s another athlete.”
“But can you tell us the first letter of his na—”
“No,” I groan when Olli tries to fish for clues. “I won’t tell you his name; c’mon, that’d be shitty. Anyway, he’s curious about guys, and Mia thinks it’d be hot if we three…you know. Get it on together. In all…uhm. Directions?”
“Ha,” Nicko snorts, but Sasha ignores him.
“Do you like that idea?”
“I don’t know. I honestly never thought about it.
When Seb and I…met up with a girl? We never even considered getting involved with each other,” I admit.
It’s the truth. I’ve never thought about another man in that way.
Seb and I are close, but not like that. I don’t mind having a girl between us on the dance floor or sharing a bed with him when we crash out after a long night.
But the thought of kissing him makes me recoil.
Not because he’s a guy but because he’s Seb.
“But you're curious?”
“I’m not against it,” I hedge. I don’t know if I’m curious. I guess I wouldn’t mind trying if it didn’t come with consequences. Mia is right; college should be for experimenting. But I can’t afford to risk everything I’m working toward.
Sasha laughs at that, then shakes her head in amusement. “You know you can just tell her no, right? You don’t have to do that.”
“I…” I start, suddenly aware of how Olli fixates me skeptically. I detect the exact moment he catches on, his face lighting up with excitement.
“Oh my God, is she bribing you? What is it? Nudes? A sex tape? Expulsion?!”
“She’s not bribing me. Jesus, Olli, not everything is a dark romance novel!” I groan.
“Uhm, okay, but then I really don’t understand why you didn’t just tell her no? You don’t seem to be into the idea.”
I rub a hand over my face. Time to fess up. “She kind of hinted that the guy could introduce me to his father. Who’s like…huge in sports stuff. I mean, I’m graduating next year, and it would be a big help if someone like that knew my name before I enter the Combine.”
“Dude. Micah. That does sound like bribery to me,” Nicko points out dryly.
“Really, Nicko? You think you should be the one to judge how far someone is willing to go for their career?” Sasha rolls her eyes, but Nicko shrugs, visibly unperturbed.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck—” He doesn’t get very far before Olli reaches over to put a hand over his mouth.
“Shut up, I’m invested in this now!” he scolds him before putting his focus back on me.
“Just let me sum this up real quick: a hot girl asked you if you would take part in a threesome with her and a friend of hers because she wants to tick it off her sex bucket list, and the guy wants to have his first gay experience with you. You, on the other hand, are not really interested—”