oat327

Thanks so much--it's always nice to get complimented! More reviews would be excellent, but really, I'm just happy *someone's* reading this story. I started writing it literally to get words on a page, since my fiction output had slowed so much since college, and I actually didn't anticipate anyone ever reading this. But it became such a big, time-consuming project that I just had to get it out there. Glad you're enjoying it!

Thanks! Hopefully will be much shorter between chapters moving forward. This story was never very far from my mind. Adam's relationship with Kevin is always interesting to me because it really became so much more of a focal point than I was anticipating. But they had this weird chemistry that kept drawing them together. I'm excited for you guys to see all the twists and turns.

Thanks for reading--definitely still continuing this story, but it's been a hectic few months. I've actually written all the way through the beginning of senior year at this point (though it requires heavy editing, which I've been doing as I post on here), so it'll all make it on here at some point. But yeah, it's been fun looking back on this time in my life too: it's funny how necessary sneaking around in college seemed at the time--and how ridiculous it all actually was, in retrospect.

"I will be entirely honest," Erik said, as we walked down St. Charles Avenue to the parade route, "if I don’t see some tits tonight, I’m going to be pissed.” Tripp looked at me, skeptically, then took a long sip of his Natty Light. Highly amusing fact about Tripp, which despite months of friendship I hadn’t realized until we began this particular trek: Tripp couldn’t walk and drink at the same time. He caught back up to us. “I know they don’t have Mardi Gras up in Ar-Kansas, but this is

“No, no, of course you can have it back,” giggled a still-drunk Jackie Hughes, when I went to her dorm to confront her about the pilfered pledge pin later that evening. She pulled open the door, ushered me inside, without me saying a word. She lived in Josephine Louise House, on fourth floor of the all-girls dorm, a floor above Jordan and Michaela, who swiped me into the building. She’d switched out of her white sundress by this point in the evening--it was curled into a ball on the foot of

7 o’clock on the dot, we were all standing next to the girthy trunk of Old Elmer, the house’s live oak. The doors opened to the Iota Chi house, and Morton stepped out. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit, his hair neatly combed, his expression stern and sour. The anti-Morton. “Four lines,” he barked. “Four people in the first two, five people in the second two.” We arranged ourselves as quickly as possible. We were all in suits, too--for the most part, the suits we were in for the date

Patrick ManFind did not register any emotion when he looked at me. None. It was irritating how he could not have been more cool. Infuriating, and I couldn’t exactly tell why. Maybe because I, on the other hand, felt my heart accelerating, my breathing get heavy. I could feel the veneer of pleasantness melting away from me, I could feel my secrets bubbling up to the surface, laid out like a yard sale, in front of everyone. He had absolutely no business being here, at Iota Chi. This

Erik got his bid to Iota Chi on the Monday of rush week. “Well, of course Erik would be the first,” Brett Morton told me, as if I was an idiot for not figuring this out. Morton was on bar duty; I’d been lingering, but he promised to take me around to meet a few of the other guys during the barbecue. Barbecue was what it was officially called--enough girls had infiltrated the event, so it was pretty indistinguishable from their actual parties. I hadn’t seen any food either, which meant we we

I landed at DCA at 11am, looking homeless. Without a doubt, I was still a little drunk, but just tottering on the edge: my mouth was beginning to feel arid and cottony, my body bowing down to the starting gambits of hangover. I was wearing the same polo I had worn the night before, the same one that had been strewn recklessly across the white carpet in Kevin Malley’s room just eight hours before--underneath it, on my stomach, was still Kevin’s dried deposit. That made me feel a little

Ah, glad I managed the awkwardness: that's always what sticks out to me when I read gay fiction, versus reality--how gawky and messy (and not sexy) it actually really is at the beginning. But thank you so much for reading, and for your continued feedback. Hope you keep enjoying it!

Haha, oh yeah, 2006 was a rather decisive election. I'm pretty political nowadays, but I actually don't even think I watched them--definitely one of my more research-intensive chapters.

Actually, it is late 2006 in the story--they're there the year after Katrina, which was August 2005. My apologies on any typos, though: I'm editing as I can, but I'm the only set of eyes, so sometimes things get by. But so glad you're enjoying it! It's been a fun story to write so far.

Thanksgiving had fallen right into the last week of classes, and then finals. Tripp was practically living in studio by this point, finishing his semester projects--I’d only see him at night, when he’d come back, harried and irritable, to collapse in bed for three or four hours. Archi-torture. Social life, though, had skidded to a halt. For all of the raucous partying at Tulane, there was always an undertow of studiousness that ran through the student body--especially when it came to t

My mom didn’t seem to understand why I didn’t want to go Nevada for Thanksgiving. “You haven’t seen us,” she said, not angry so much as wounded--a far worse prospect, “in three months.” “I’ll be home two weeks after Thanksgiving,” I told her. “It’s stupid just to fly back for a couple days when I’ll be back for a whole month.” Thanksgiving was by far my least favorite holiday, because we spent it at our ranch in Pahrump. A week in Pahrump was a punishment by itself, but having to

The next afternoon, we were in mourning for our fallen third roommate: Tripp's TV died, right during the third quarter of the Saints-Ravens. "It's only two months old," he said, more annoyed than anything, as he redialed Michaela for the third time. "You bet I'm going to return it." He held the phone to his ear for about twenty seconds, then flipped his phone shut. "She's still not picking up." "She's in a dance rehearsal, I told you," Jordan said, mouth full of Doritos, cocooned in th

Haha, we've all been there. Glad you liked it!

The night of the Iota Chi Halloween Party was the first brisk night we’d had, which was strange to think about--that it could be so late in the year. I’d gotten spoiled with New Orleans weather, because I’d already be well into coat season back in Hamlet. I was going as a cowboy, because I owned a plaid shirt and I’d managed to order a cheap cowboy hat off eBay at the last minute. Erik was going as a mildly more creative pirate, which involved a baggy white button-down and a hat, both

Thanks for your review. Plenty more to come--hope you enjoy it!

Thanks so much for reading (and leaving feedback!) I was always a little nervous about the pace at the beginning of this piece, but I'm glad you like it so far. As things fall into place, plot will start to move faster. And New Orleans (and Tulane) was quite the place, especially back in 2006... glad I was able to paint the picture!

“She’s just smoking, man,” Erik was telling us the next afternoon, as he loaded up Facebook pictures of Erica Strout on Tripp’s laptop. After Tripp had gone back from The Boot with his girl--whose name no one could remember, Tripp included--and I had gone back with Michaela, Erik stayed out with the Iota Chi guys. And somehow met and successfully seduced Erica Strout, a knockout sophomore from Psi Lambda, because it was Erik and the living was easy. “It was awesome.” He held up the laptop, so we

Erik was sitting cross-legged on my bed, as Tripp and I played Battlescar 3. "I'm seriously going to kill him," he hissed, his eyes bulging with unadulterated rage. He was holding my pillow between his clenched fists, like he was going to strangle the feathers out of it. "I'm literally going to kill him." He had finally torn up Barry's masking tape line in their room, after nearly a month of trying his best to respect it. Apparently--and I hadn’t been able to pry the full story out of

Hi everybody--new guy here. I'm an admitted former lurker and reader, finally got an account! Not really sure exactly what to say about myself--I'm in my mid-20s, I'm a marketing writer by day (and, too often, by night), I live in D.C. I've been writing basically my whole life. But, with the exception of submissions for creative writing classes back in college, have never really been read by an audience. So I figured I'd finally bite the bullet and join you lovely lot, to help myself grow both as a writer and as a reader. Anyway, I just started posting my first story, "The Best Four Years of Adam Becker." Started writing it about a year ago after I spent a weekend back in New Orleans with all of my good friends from college, now scattered across the country, reminiscing and retelling stories. It's loosely based on our stacks of misadventures, so it's been a lot of fun writing this one! It's nearing completion now, and I really wasn't sure what to do with it--it's a personal project; even the close friends who inspired characters have only read brief excerpts--so figured I'd throw it out there on the internet and see what happens. At any rate, glad to be part of the community!

I waited down on the corner, in front of Tropical Isle. Brandon from Loyola was not there--I couldn't pick him out of the crowd either. I knew tourists still hadn't returned to the city, at least in the numbers that had flooded in before the storm, but it looked crowded enough to me. Out in front of the bars were Christian picketers, holding up melodramatic signs: "Go to hell fornicators, sodomites, abortionists." "Jesus hates you, sinners." The like. Two blonde girls, drenched in beads and

I got back from my Psych 100 lecture at around 11:30am. Erik and Justin were both sitting on our floor, playing my copy of Battlescar 3, a first-person shooter that Grant Prendergast and I had mastered during senior year, on Tripp’s PlayStation 2. It was a pretty standard tableau, as I was learning over my first two weeks: Tripp was the only one with a PlayStation on our floor, so our room was a tourist attraction. Erik, who never seemed to be in class, was a constant fixture, but we’d get

By eight, our room was starting to look like home: a shag area rug was rolled out across the carpet, beds made, the last of the Target bags had been unpacked. At around eight-thirty, our parents filtered out, amid the obligatory hugs and encouragement that seemed to take forever. It’d been a tremendous day--freshman move in. Hours of unpacking. Maybe twelve trips out to Metairie, to Target, buying too many things, most of which were purchased over my protests. But even so, the only dustup m