Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
THEN
December, Freshman Year
C ollege was awesome, Zayn thought as he walked to his dorm room. He hadn’t been a fan of high school, definitely would not recommend.
Well, okay, he’d recommend it, but only in the same way he’d recommend regular dental cleanings. Necessary, not enjoyable. The educational equivalent of standing in line at the DMV. Maddening at the time, but required if you wanted to get to the fun destinations further down the road.
Because college? College was fun . And he hadn’t even gotten to the truly fun classes yet. Those wouldn’t happen for another year or two, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy Calculus for Science or Physics or Intro to Astronomy, even if that last one was a bit easy and too many non-astronomy majors took it. Plus there were the clubs and events, the colloquia and seminars, the paper discussions and guest lectures. Not to mention the research opportunities that’d be available after freshman year.
Then there were his fellow students, who were intelligent and interesting and tall and muscular and possessed the brightest smiles known to mankind and perfectly sculpted arms and… Okay, some of those might not be all the students. Or most of them, honestly. They might be statistical outliers and anomalies, in fact, but so what if his new friends didn’t have those things? They got him. Their eyes didn’t glaze over the moment he started talking about how much he was looking forward to solving differential equations.
And even better, he had people interested in him . People who thought he was funny and maybe a little attractive. People who invited him over for study sessions he’d assumed would be academically stimulating, only for him to find out his theoretical prediction had a mere fifty percent accuracy rate. Not that he was complaining when his lips were still tingling and his body was still buzzing from the less academic parts. Though he really should have been studying for finals.
He was smart enough to recognize that over the last few months, he’d begun to fill out and lose the gangliness of his high school growth spurt. Like his body had realized growing up wasn’t just about getting taller. And while he wasn’t, for example, a walking wet dream with… assets that had the kind of curvature that would make spacetime weep, he also wasn’t entirely asset-less. Some people, at least, seemed to quite enjoy his assets. And it was important to carry out thorough experimentation, even if the absolute ideal test conditions were unavailable.
As Zayn opened the door to their room, the sight of Aiden sprawled out on his bed, reading their Intro to Astronomy textbook, greeted him.
Speaking of ideal test conditions. Zayn repressed a sigh. Some celestial bodies were light-years out of reach, but that didn’t make them less beautiful to observe.
Aiden glanced up, set his textbook aside, and grinned. Then he froze. He inhaled through his nose, his brow furrowing. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he asked, “How… how’d the study session go?”
Zayn’s cheeks burned. “Um. Good. Really good.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
For the first time in the months they’d lived together, the silence between them could have made space seem loud.
“So…” Aiden said, looking past Zayn. “I never asked. Are you, uh, seeing anyone?”
“Ah. Maybe? Sort of, I think?” They hadn’t discussed labels, but they did have another study session planned for next week, and Zayn was fairly certain the amount of studying they’d be doing would be minimal.
Aiden stood abruptly. “Oh. That’s cool. Yeah. Very cool. Right. I’m going to… Um. I think I forgot my copy of Astronomy Essentials in the library. Hopefully someone turned it in.”
He slipped out the door before Zayn could point out that Astronomy Essentials was their Intro to Astronomy textbook. The one Aiden had been reading when he’d come in.
Zayn blinked at the door. What had just happened?
He picked up the textbook from Aiden’s bed and set it on his desk, frowning.
Tomorrow was the full moon, and while every comprehensive study Zayn had ever read found no evidence of a link between lunar phases and human behavior, Aiden did seem to get twitchier in the days leading up to the opposition phase. And he was always gone the night of the full moon. Zayn hadn’t noticed it at first, but a pattern appeared to be emerging.
He shook his head. No. He was imagining things. Anything else was sheer unscientific lunacy.