The List - 17. Chapter 17: Patrick

Specimen’s Name: Patrick

Height: 5’8

Build: 155 (Slender)

Occupation: Student (Unknown/Undeclared)

Age: Unknown

Dimension: 6.5’’

I woke up, with a headache, to the sound of chatter from across the room. I opened my eyes to see that the sun was coming up and Bryan was sitting in a chair in the corner and talking in a low whisper.

“Everything was great, babe,” I heard him say. I kept my eyes closed while listening to the conversation. “Yeah, the presentation was worth the trip, the speaker was amazing. My boss was thrilled with how our group did in the simulation, it was great. Yeah, we have a closing session and breakfast in an hour and then we head out. Ok, I’ll see you tonight. I’ll call you when we board the plane. Kiss Haley for me before she gets on the bus. I love you too.”

The whole thing was just unbelievably bizarre. Who was this guy talking to? Who was this little Haley who was riding the bus? How was I going to get out of here gracefully?

Bryan hung up the phone and walked over to me. He shook me a little bit and said, “Hey, buddy, you’ve got to get up.”

I played up my grogginess a little bit to pretend like I hadn’t been listening in on his conversation. I opened my eyes and saw that Bryan was standing in nothing but a pair of damp shorts right in front of me. He looked even sexier in the morning than he’d felt last night. Still, the sight of ripped abs and nice pecs didn’t make me feel any less like a hooker with a heart of gold.

“What time is it?” I asked, pretending to focus my gaze but actually just looking at his physique.

“It’s eight,” he said. “I thought you’d be awake after my run, but you sleep like a brick.”

“Did I snore?” I asked. Sometimes Spencer would get on to me for snoring, but I’d never heard or felt it happen.

“No,” he smiled. “Not that I heard. Listen, I have a meeting to be at in an hour and I was gonna hop in the shower and get dressed. It was nice to meet you, but I think you should go now.”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting up. I stretched and yawned. “Let me just pee first, and I’m out of your hair.”

I walked to the bathroom and took a leak, picking up my pants and shirt along the way. I came out dressed and ready to go.

“Mind if I text my brother before I go wandering around this hotel?” I asked.

“Take your time,” he said. “I’m gonna hop in the shower. Good to meet you.” Part of me had hoped he was going to ask me to join him for a quickie in the shower. Real ladies of the night don’t stay for seconds the next morning, so in a way, me jonesing for another feel of his body was me actually upping my class quotient.

The shower started. I texted Dylan that I was awake and needed to meet him stat. As I waited for his reply, I looked around at all of the stuff I’d missed last night. There was a folder that had ‘Be the Perfect Salesman’ written on it. Great. I’d slept with Joe Schmuck. I opened the folder and read the first page.

‘You are the product! How to sell you before you sell your merchandise!’ There were way too many bullets and exclamation marks for me to bother reading on. As I was scanning down the page, stopping to check out the four FUJI’s of effective sales, my phone vibrated.

From Dylan: Let’s go.

I assumed he was heading to the car, so I picked up my jacket and was about to leave when I saw Bryan’s wallet on the table. I thought about passing it by, but I honestly couldn’t. The curiosity of what was inside got the best of me. I opened it.

Forty bucks in cash and a couple of bank cards. No big deal and no indication of what kind of guy he was. His driver’s license revealed that his name was, in fact, Bryan, and that he lived in New Mexico. I flipped to the folded part and pulled out a piece of paper with an address and a phone number on it. At the top of the scrap sheet of paper was the name Bobby. Classy, I thought.

And then I saw the wedding ring. Tucked into the fold was a gold band that he’d probably leave off until he landed in Albuquerque and met his unsuspecting wife at the baggage claim turnstile. In the same fold, there was a picture of a woman holding a small child. The lady in the picture was gorgeous. She had blue eyes that looked right at the camera and soft blonde hair. And the kid was the spitting image of Bryan, down to the hazel eyes.

Not wanting to get caught snooping, I folded the wallet, put it down and left. As I rode the elevator down the eight flights of stairs, I thought about how ridiculous it was that this guy was living a crazy double life. He had a wife and child at home with boys on the side.

Part of me wanted to feel bad for his wife, but I wasn’t the one who had cheated on her. And then part of me wanted to feel bad for Bryan. He was forced into sneaking around with dudes on the side, lying to himself about who he was while never developing any real relationships. I told myself I would never live that way. If getting married meant weekend hookups in strange cities while my wife nursed our newborn child, I wasn’t on board— I’d rather opt out altogether. There had to be a better business model.

When I got to the car, I noticed immediately that Dylan looked ten times rougher than I did. Last night had kicked his ass, and from the look of the hickie on his neck, so had that girl.

“You can’t see it, can you?” he asked.

“If by it, you mean the California sized love bite on your neck, the answer is no. Can’t see it.”

“I just want it to clear before the New Year’s Bash tomorrow,” he said. “Downtown Dallas, bottle service, I got us the hookup. You’re coming with me.”

“I’m not going with you,” I said. “One night out with you was enough craziness for me.”

“Not buying it,” he said, sounding just like Spencer when he was trying to convince to go out with him. “This is going to be epic, I swear to you. And you’re a really good wingman.”

“I did nothing to help you,” I replied.

“On the contrary. You were you. And by being you, you took two eligible bachelors off the market.”

He had a point. I had tipped the ratio in his favor, even if just a little bit. I shrugged off the invitation. I knew I’d probably end up going and that I’d probably end up having fun, but I resolved that I wasn’t going to hook up with any old random stranger in a dingy motel again. I didn’t like how low I felt this morning. This was definitely going into the list with a red pen.

“You want to get married, right, Dyl?” I asked, out of nowhere. Thinking about the hookup and Bryan’s life had gotten me wondering about marriage.

“Um, I mean, sure,” Dylan replied. “Eventually, at some point. You’re not crying over this Kyle again, are you?”

“No,” I said. “No, not at all. I just, for the first time this morning I thought that I might not ever get to get married. I mean, assuming I meet and fall in love with a guy. It just doesn’t seem like marriage is in the cards, even if we love each other. Not like it does if you meet and fall for a girl, you know? And what are the chances two guys ever get to get married?”

I remember my brother’s response as if he’d said it, recorded it, and played it back to me a thousand times. “Marriage is a word, killer. And regardless of the pomp and circumstances surrounding it, it’s simply a word that means one thing: commitment. You don’t need a judge or a church to tell you that; got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said. A commitment. That’s all that it was. So far, I had a terrible track record with commitment. In one week, I’d run away from mine and helped a complete stranger break his. I might be ready for whatever my brother was talking about at some point, but this wasn’t that point.

I wasn’t going to admit it to Dylan, but going out with him had substantially improved my mood. Despite my colossal mistake, I had a great time. And sleeping with Bryan had taught me that other people have more complicated drama than splitting up with a first love.

In a roundabout way, however, I felt bad for feeling better. I was sure Kyle wasn’t feeling better just six days later. It felt disrespectful to be moving on when I knew that he was still most likely crushed. I was looking forward to a time that he wouldn’t consume my thoughts, but I didn’t see that happening in the near future.

As soon as I got home, I hopped in the shower, hoping to wash the smell of Bryan off of me and climbed back into bed. I woke up a few hours later to the smell of pancakes and decided to go down and see what my mom was whipping up. Before I put pants on and went down the stairs, I decided to check my Facebook to see what everyone at school was up to.

I clicked through, reading a bunch of people’s statuses and recent comments. Everyone had added new holiday picture albums to their wall, so it was fun flipping through those. Eventually, I stopped fighting the urge to check in on Kyle and I typed his name in the search bar. Because he was one of my most frequent searches, his name popped up immediately, but instead of going straight to his profile, Facebook redirected me to the search page.

Next to the name Kyle Montgomery Wriggs was a blue “Add Kyle as a Friend” button. Kyle had actually defriended me on Facebook. At first I felt really bad. What a huge mess I’d created for myself. What a big whopping mistake I’d made. Defriending someone on Facebook was the ultimate diss and here I was staring at my ex-boyfriend’s page, unable to get in to it.

I searched for Spencer’s Facebook page to see if I could somehow juge my way around Kyle’s block to at least check out his status, but when I clicked on Spencer’s name, I got the same search page. At that point, my sadness morphed into anger. This was actually unfair. Where did Spencer get off acting like a two year old towards me? What did he think was going to happen if Kyle and I broke up? This was childishness at its finest and it infuriated me.

Unable to get the annoyance out of my mind, I went downstairs to get food. Dylan was telling my mom about our New Year’s Eve plans over pancakes and she was giving Dylan a scolding eye.

“I want you looking out for your brother, not getting him drunk every night.”

“Okay,” he said. “I will look out for him. Promise.” He kissed her on the cheek, grabbed his plate and went to the den.

I had no desire to sit and talk to my mom, mostly because I didn’t want to hear her ask me what was wrong, so I wordlessly made a plate and went to eat it in my room.

I hid out all day, watching all the Tivo’d Jeopardy episodes that had stacked up while I was at school, still bothered by being defriended and wondering exactly how I was going to go back to living with Spencer when school started next week. It just felt so juvenile the way he was treating me, first over the phone and now over the net. I thought about calling him and telling him and his little friend that they could both grow up and S my D.

Instead, I had to celebrate a brand new year. For me, January 1 never felt like a new year. I always associated the new year with the first day of school, because as long as I could remember, that was the natural marker of a new start. But here I was, stuck in the middle of a rock and a new start.

Thankfully, I had Dylan to cheer me up. We spent the evening drinking my whiskey with my dad, who was impressed that I had a friend at school with such a sophisticated palate in Irish spirits. Of course, Dylan and I didn’t tell him why we were hitting the expensive sauce, but instead reveled in the rare sighting of my father drunk.

On New Year’s Eve, I had lunch with Cody and Ricky, the stories from Thanksgiving running wild and making me nervous. As soon as Ethan’s name came up, I flagged over a waiter and ordered a Bloody Mary using Dylan’s old ID.

“Since when do you drink Bloody Mary’s?” Ricky asked.

“Our big college boy is all grown up,” Cody joked.

“Anyway,” Rick said. “Ethan. The morning after the party he was all smiles and giggles and I was like, who the fuck did he hook up with? And so I asked him and he said he hooked up with a college guy.” I almost choked on my ice water. I needed this drink to get here ASAP. “I was blown away that A. he was coming out to me, just like that, no big deal. And that B. he’d hooked up with someone at the party. I mean, I didn’t think I even knew any gay guys.”

“Any idea who?” I asked, trying my best to sound casual. I wasn’t actually ready to have this conversation with my friends, but if it led to it, I’d just tell them. If a 17 year old high school kid could blurt it out, why couldn’t I?

“I should be asking you, Cooper,” Ricky said, just as the waiter arrived. I took a sip of the drink, choked it back a little and asked him why. I was praying that I hadn’t turned as red as my cocktail. “Well, you were hanging out with him all night. You must have noticed him sketch off at some point.”

“Umm,” I said, innocently. “No. I didn’t. Actually, I didn’t see him after we lost to ya’ll in beer pong.”

“Hmm,” Ricky said. “Well, whatever. The point is, my cousin is a slut and apparently a catch in the gay community.”

That was the end of the conversation at lunch, and I hoped it was the end of it forever. That wasn’t the case. As I drove Cody back to his house, he brought it up again.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he said out of the blue. We’d been discussing how relieved he was that Nicole hadn’t told Ricky the two of them had slept together and were seeing each other on the sly. We both knew that Ricky would flip if and when he found out.

“Me who what?” I asked.

“You forget that I know you like a brother, right?” he was right. We’d been best friends for as long as I could remember.

“Okay,” I said, rounding the corner to Cody’s street. I was glad we were almost at his house so that this conversation wouldn’t have to drag on forever. “Yes, it was me. And yes I hooked up with Ethan. And yes, I hook up with guys now. Occasionally.”

“And you just weren’t going to say anything?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It kind of is, Cooper,” he said. I could tell there was a slight irritation in his voice. I was just on a roll, pissing everyone off these days. “You’re my best friend, dude. And I know you’re up in Dallas living a completely different life, but it would be nice if you would include me in some of the small stuff, like you being a raging ‘mo now.”

He was right. There was no reason not to include him in my life just because I didn’t see him on the daily anymore.

“I’m sorry, Codes,” I said to him. “The truth is, I thought it was a phase. And then it turned into more than that and now, I don’t know.”

“So what, do you have a boyfriend now or something?”

“No,” I replied quickly. I pulled into his driveway. “Not. Not anymore.”

“So this is what happens at these overpriced schools? Guys get roommates, start messing around with them and then before their old friends can shake a stick at them, they’re full on homosexuals,” he said, jokingly. I was glad he was cool even if he was making a big deal about it.

And then it hit me why everything with Spencer had changed. Cody and I had this bond that time and separation couldn’t really break. I mean, we’d practically grown up together and even though I didn’t see him all the time, it was still there. It was the reason we could have this conversation so effortlessly.

That was Kyle and Spencer. Even if Spence and I had gotten close since we’d moved in, the fact was his loyalty would always lie with Kyle. That was just how childhood friendships worked.

I answered a few more of Cody’s questions, including but not limited to: “Do you give it or take it? How can you stand the taste of semen? How did you even know? Are you afraid of getting ‘the HIV’?” I tried not to gross him out with my answers, said I’d talk to him later, and then dropped him off.

That night, I got dressed to the party nines: black jeans, the tightest button down shirt I owned and one of my brother’s skinny ties. As we pregamed in my room, getting down to the last of the whiskey, my brother commented. “You look… well, pretty gay.”

“This is your tie, bro,” I replied, laughing.

The party he took me to was a swanky club affair in Dallas’ West End district, just south of Victory Park. Dylan and I agreed that he’d most likely go home with the girl he’d screwed two nights ago (and our ticket into the party to begin with), and I would cab it to campus, which was luckily still accessible by swipe card. I wasn’t feeling a one night stand again. The taste of Bryan’s married cum was still a bad one in my mouth.

We checked our coats, dropped Lisa’s name and were ushered to a private balcony overlooking the dance floor at one of Dallas’ most exclusive clubs. From the window behind us, you could see the American Airline Center, the Reunion Tower and all of the people hanging out in Victory Plaza. I felt extremely ritzy with the table and bottle service. This was the kind of place Kyle would love.

And as soon as I thought that, I kept expecting to see him everywhere. This was his pinky raised cup of tea, I thought, taking my second cosmo from our personal bartender.

Instead of dwelling on it, I hit the dance floor. I was just drunk enough not to care how I looked, and took in the club beats like a crazy person. As I danced, I saw him and stopped dead in my tracks.

He was a couple of inches shorter than me, about 5’8. He was impossibly skinny but had a good muscle definition. I could tell because he’d taken his shirt of and had flung it over his shoulder. He had dark brown hair and green eyes and the second he smiled at me, mouthing the words to whatever pop song the DJ had remixed, I almost melted. He was gorgeous. I had to get his attention.

The problem was he was surrounded by women vying for the same attention. I was just drunk enough to think that the eye contact we’d made briefly meant something, so I decided to dance closer to him and see for sure.

Without being obvious, I scooted across the dance floor, still working my moves as if no one was watching. I decided to talk to him and just go for it. When I was within striking distance, I grabbed his shoulder and yelled, “They’re all over you tonight.”

He looked at me, smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I had no clue what that meant, so I continued. “Let me get you a drink?” I shouted over the music. I could see some of the girls around him looking at me, wondering where my nerve to talk to their man had come from.

I gave the guy my best smile and then cocked my head towards the bar. He smiled at me and followed me off the dance floor.

“You have some killer moves,” I said to him when we got to the much quieter bar. I wanted to say that he had a killer bod, but I figured that wasn’t the most appropriate thing. I hadn’t even snuffed out whether he was gay or not yet. So far, he was just a guy who I’d offered to buy a drink.

“Thanks,” he replied. “You aren’t a bad dancer yourself. And those girls are digging you, too.”

“Oh please,” I said. I was going to make the leap. “All eyes are on your body tonight.”

“All eyes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Bingo, I thought. I waved over the bartender, told him I was with Diaz upstairs and that I needed two cosmos. A minute later, the bartender returned with two martini glasses.

“We can’t dance with these,” he said, indicating the tall drinks.

“Good,” I said. “I had to get you away from the competition.”

I figured a midnight make-out with this guy wouldn’t be a bad idea. First of all, he was as cute as they came. He looked to be around my age and I wondered if he was a student at SMU that I hadn’t run into yet. We toasted our drinks, and then started chit-chatting.

“So which one do you have your eye on for your midnight kiss?” I asked him.

“Well considering one of those girls is my sister and the other two are her friends, I didn’t have my eye on anyone just yet. I still have another hour to figure it out.”

“They’re going fast,” I said, taking a sip of my drink and trying to look as sexy as possible.

“I’m worried about you,” he said back to me. “It doesn’t look like you’re making any headway.”

“I’m sure I’ll find someone,” I said, scooting a little bit closer to him.

He finished his cocktail, gave me a look and then said. “Well, the clock is ticking, Cinderella. I’d better go back out there.” And then as quickly as he’d said it, he went back to the dance floor, leaving me with a half drank cosmo and a twist of confusion.

Did I miss something? I thought we were flirting. I thought he was digging it. Why did he sketch off right as I was getting more forward? I felt awkward for a second and then thought maybe he was playing hard to get. I wasn’t the easiest chase and guys still managed to seduce me. I’d have to turn up my game, I thought. They aren’t all that easy.

I knocked back the rest of my drink and went back out to the dance floor. This guy wanted a chase? I’d give him a chase. I danced around him for a song. I quickly found one of the girls he’d mentioned was with his sister and pulled her in to dance with me. As I was grinding with her, I kept my eyes off of McHottie, knowing that he probably had his eyes on me.

I danced sexier and sexier, lower and lower, trying to get this dude’s attention. I stole one glance and saw that my plan was working. Even while he was dancing with a girl, he had all eyes on me. I noticed him try to slide over closer to me and I pushed my way around my dance partner so that she created a buffer.

At the end of the song, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and then walked slowly to the bar where I intended to expense another two drinks. Just as I’d expected, the guy showed up behind me right as I was flagging down the bartender.

“Oh, hello there,” I said casually. Probably too casually. He knew I was on to his game.

“So what’s your deal?” he said.

“I don’t have a deal,” I replied. I turned to the bartender and ordered another cosmo. One this time.

“You buy me a drink, and then you throw in the towel? With ten minutes to go until midnight, let me remind you,” he said.

“I don’t play Tom and Jerry,” I replied with a smirk. “Now, my friends and I have a box right up there where we’re going to watch the ball drop in ten minutes. You’re welcome to join me if you want to.”

“Do you want me to?” he asked. Oh, how the tides had quickly turned.

“It’s up to you…”

“Patrick,” he said. “My name is Patrick.”

“Well, it’s up to you, Patrick.” I started walking slowly towards the black rope that led to the VIP boxes. I turned around, and Patrick was one step behind me.

I’m not going to lie, I was really proud that my first full on seduction had gone smoothly. It had looked for a minute like I was going to lose it, but apparently playing indifferent is what my secret weapon had been all along and I was beginning to realize it.

We got up to the balcony box and I introduced him to Lisa, my brother, Lisa’s friend and her boyfriend, Diaz, who had sponsored this entire trip to the big life.

“You never told me your name,” he whispered to me at 11:58, hanging off of me. “I never kiss guys whose names I don’t know.” I’d snagged me a classy one.

“Cooper,” I said. He smiled at me and two minutes and one midnight toast of champagne later, I was making out with Patrick on a balcony. I didn’t pull out my best moves, not wanting to get too carried away in front of my brother and everyone else. Instead, we kept the kiss respectful, but nice. Our bartender poured everyone a Patron shot after that, and I was nearing the edge of coherence.

“Let’s dance,” I shouted to Patrick. And we did. We slipped downstairs and hit the floor with a crowd of people who were just as drunk as we were.

Patrick already had his shirt off and somehow convinced me to follow suit. I couldn’t imagine what the two of us looked like: the only two gay guys dancing together, shirtless, in a room full of gawkers. For some reason, knowing we had an audience really turned me on and before long, Patrick and I were grinding on each other.

There was no stopping us. The second I turned around to grind on him, I felt that he had a hard pop in his low hanging pants. I turned my head around and smiled at him. I thought about making out with him right then, but I decided a dance floor make-out in a crowd full of people would take us from sexy to slutty in a split second.

Instead, I shouted over the music, “Let’s get out of here.” I walked off before he had a chance to answer and I knew he would follow me.

I led him through the black rope to the stairwell and once we were in the dark corridor, I kissed him. “Let’s get out of here,” I repeated.

“I’m with my sister, I can’t just leave,” he said. I kissed him again. “I paid 75 dollars for our tickets and it’s only 12:30.” I kissed him again. “Where would we even go?”

I kissed him a last time and then said, “Are you done?”

“Yeah, I think I’m all done,” he replied.

“Good. Follow me.” I led him up to our box, told Dylan I was heading to the dorm and then went back down to coat check. He texted his sister that he’d call her in the morning and I smiled. I had come out not wanting another one-night stand, but something about Patrick had magnetically drawn me in. I had gone from Midnight make-out to my first hookup of the year in T-minus 32 minutes.

I hailed us a cab, gave it the address to the dorms and a second later, we were making out in the back of a yellow car. I liked that this guy didn’t care at all.

One thing that was cool about Patrick was that he was a little more feminine than any of the guys I’d been with. Up until then, I had attracted the more masculine, manly types, but change is always good. For my first full on seduction, I’d gone for the waifish, feminine type.

When we got to the SMU campus, I handed the driver a bill and led Patrick up to my room. We were both just drunk enough and had been fore-playing just enough that when the door to my room clicked behind us, our hands were all over each other.

Patrick felt warm from dancing all night and our bodies already had a thin layer of sweat on them and so our torsos glided together effortlessly. It felt weird being in my room with a different guy, remembering that the last person I’d had sex with in there was Kyle. Still, today was a new day and Patrick was a new guy.

We were going at it so hot and heavy by my door that I didn’t even lead him to the bed. Instead, once our shirts were off, I turned him around and pushed him against the wall. He ground backwards into me, feeling my cock pulse through my jeans.

“Let’s let that out, shall we?” he purred. I started with his pants, unbuttoning the five buttons from behind him. The whole time, his back was arching into my chest and putting pressure onto my nipples. I felt in total control over him and I liked the feeling.

He kicked his pants off while I undid mine and panted as I bit into his shoulder a little bit.

“Mmmm,” he said in front of me, tilting his head back as I worked him over. I was developing a style that was equal parts Kyle and Riley. Passionate and sexy, like Kyle, but raw and sort of dangerous, like Riley. And Patrick was digging the hybrid. One reach around and I felt his hard cock responding to my touch.

“I want you in me,” he purred. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I walked over to where Spencer and I kept our condoms, and had one pulled, peeled and rolled over my cock before I got back to the door.

I started working Patrick’s neck again, keeping my nibbles low so that he could cover whatever mark I left behind with a collar. Meanwhile, I used one finger to open up his hole and the other hand to guide my cock right to it. In order to slip in, I pushed Patrick forward, bent him over the wall and popped my cock right into his ass.

“Ooooh,” he said sexily, writhing his back at me. I’d never seen a bottom respond to getting penetrated so effortlessly and it really turned me on. I bit my bottom lip, arched Patrick’s back and started fucking him.

His response to my cock indicated to me that he liked being fucked, and so that’s exactly what I did. I bent him over, first against the wall and railed into him as forcefully as I knew how, not worrying about my speed.

Eventually, I felt like we needed a change and so I pushed him to my bed. I bent him over, pulled one of my legs up so that I could drill right into him. I fucked quickly for a few minutes and then slowed down. Sometimes I pulled all the way out, waited for his reaction and then slammed right back in. I had no clue where I’d gotten these moves, but it was almost like his body was guiding my actions.

Finally, we knelt down on the ground over the side of my bed. At this point, we were both drenched with sweat and Patrick had a dozen little hickies all over his shoulders. I took his hands and wrapped my fingers between his and stretched our hands out as far as they could go. I thrust in a few more times and then let my load rip right inside of him. I could tell that he was coming on my floor from the vibration of his body underneath me and I let out an animalistic growl as I felt both of our loads go.

Spent, I stood up, tossed Patrick a cloth and got one for myself. I figured a little make-out and we’d be ready to go for another round. I looked at the clock and saw that it was barely three.

“Can I use your bathroom?” he asked me. I pointed to where it was and then got into my bed to wait for Patrick.

I heard the click of the bathroom door and the turn of a key happen at the exact same time. As the door to our room opened, I pulled my sheet over my naked body and watched Spencer walk into the room, followed by a nicely dressed Kyle.

“Shit,” Spencer said when he saw me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked back.

“I’m leaving,” Kyle said, shaking his head and trying not to look at me.

“No, you stay,” Spencer said to him. To me he said, “You have to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied. “I live here.”

“So do I.”

“Kyle has a room right across the quad.” I wondered why he was bringing Kyle back to our room to begin with. My first thought was that the two of them were going to hookup and it enraged me. They weren’t allowed to hookup. Kyle was mine. And so was Spencer in a way. I realized that if Kyle really wanted to punish me, that’s what he could do. And then I saw the two Redbox movies in Spencer’s hands and I figured there was a logical explanation for all of this.

“With a roommate who’s having sex with his girlfriend,” Spencer replied. “Now get out so that we can watch ‘No Country for Old Men’.”

“I’m going to let you two sort this out,” Kyle said. He crossed Spencer toward the bathroom. I watched him walk to the door like I was watching a train wreck happen right before my eyes. I almost died the second I saw Kyle reach for the door, only for it to open right before he could. I put my head down and prayed I could disappear a million miles away.

The door opened right in front of Kyle, revealing a very naked and very hard Patrick.

“Cooper,” Spencer whispered, tilting his head in disappointment.

“Oh my god,” Kyle said, turning around quickly. Patrick reached for a towel as quickly as possible and covered his junk. As if I wasn’t trapped in my own hell already, I noticed that the towel was Spencer’s and monogrammed.

I was speechless. I thought about a million things I wanted to say but couldn’t. Instead, I sat up and just looked at Kyle. He put his head on Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer wrapped his arms around Kyle the same way he’d wrapped his arms around me when I’d finally figured out Kyle’s part in the Sigma fiasco. This was a disaster.

“I think maybe I should go,” Patrick said, coming in and reaching for his pants.

“Yeah, that would be wise,” Spencer said, sounding more threatening than I’d ever heard him sound before.

As he was putting on his clothes, stupidly starting with his shirt, he said, “You wouldn’t happen to have any extra cab fare to get me back, would you? Just, I hadn’t planned on this whole thing going down.”

I got up, realized I was naked too and grabbed my jeans. I pulled them on, pulled out my wallet and handed him a twenty— a fifth of the Christmas money my grandmother had sent me.

The whole thing was happening to someone else, I thought. And it was happening in slow motion. Even though it had taken Patrick less than a minute to go from jay bird to fully clothed, I felt like the whole thing was a slow motion torture.

“Kyle, go downstairs and call us a cab,” Spencer said to my crying and shaking ex-boyfriend. “We’ll check into the W or something.”

Kyle took the movies from Spencer and left the room, not once looking at me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Spencer asked when the door clicked shut. He was pissed. Way pissed.

“This isn’t fair,” I said. “I had no clue ya’ll were going to be here.”

“And does that matter, Coop? A week ago, you were calling him nonstop and now you have strangers walking in and out of our dorm room?”

“I don’t need a lecture from you,” I said. “It is more than clear where your loyalties lie.”

“Loyal—“ he began. I could tell he was fuming and it was the first time I’d ever seen Spencer truly angry. “Are you kidding? Loyalties? I’m taking care of a friend. If you’ve forgotten I stayed up nights during exam week to be with you. You would have no clue what loyalties were if they smacked you in the ass.”

“We broke up, Spencer,” I said. “I can’t sit around waiting for him to get over it.”

“You’re right, Cooper. You are dead right; you can’t sit around and wait a decent amount of time before you hit the field again. You are seriously not the guy I thought you were, you know that?”

I felt like a jackass, but I honestly didn’t think this was my fault. An unfortunate situation? Yes. My mistake? Absolutely not.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry that this happened, I really am. The whole thing, Spence, and you have to believe me, if I could be with Kyle, I totally would. But it’s not that easy.”

“I’m not gonna have this fight with you right now, because I think this fight deserves a fight of its own,” he said. “But it is quite easy, Cooper. You love someone, you be with them. And you don’t bring hooker call boys around your bedroom.” He looked at me pointedly, his eyes boring into mine. And then he turned around and walked out, slamming the door as he left.

I lay down on my bed and involuntarily started crying. I was tired of being made into a villain. It wasn’t my fault that Kyle wanted to zoom to a place I wasn’t ready for. It wasn’t my fault he’d asked me to it sooner rather than later if I wasn’t sure, while I still had Riley on the backburner. None of that was my fault. It wasn’t my fault that we’d broken up in the first place— if I remembered correctly, his deal with the Sigmas was what had caused that riff and now I was being made to look like the bad guy. I understood that Kyle was hurting, but honestly, how was any of this my fault?

After an hour of thinking that way, I thought about apologizing. I could go to the W and ask for Wriggs or Davis and just go up there and apologize. We could talk it out and come to some sort of term about how we were going to proceed, and how we were going to split Spencer. It would have been great to have a friend right now, but instead he was out with the ex I was evidently supposed to care more about than myself.

And then I thought about what a huge mistake I’d made for myself. I was crazy to let Kyle go and sitting there, I realized it. Why not just date him and date him alone until I was sure? I mean, let’s think for a second. If Kyle was the real deal, like I felt he was, what was the harm in acting like it? If we ended up spending the rest of our lives together, we’d have a great story to tell, no? And if he wasn’t, well then it would devolve at some point, but we would have known we gave it our best shot. This, right here, was not our best shot.

But I couldn’t help but think I’d made the right choice. It was this hard after four months. Imagine if we dated for four years, how hard would it be when we asked ourselves the hard questions then? I told myself that Kyle would get over it and that if we were meant to be, we’d be. If Kyle and I were meant to be, then somehow, whenever it mattered, we would be. I fell asleep that night saying that over and over to myself. I barely believed it.