The English Year - 17. Hey Fever

I spent most of that Sunday moping. I’m not going to lie, the Mike thing threw me for a loop. I sat down at my computer after losing focus on my English homework and dissected my boy issue for my latest column.

There were two kinds of sexually active people in the world, I surmised. Those who went crazy after sex, and those who didn’t. I had always prided myself on being the latter. I was able to separate raw emotion from the sheer physical need that human bodies had to hump.

But what I’d said that morning, what I’d felt, and how I still felt hours later, proved to me that I had crossed over into crazy territory. No, I didn’t expect Mike to get on his hands and knees and pop the question. Fuck, I didn’t even expect him to drape me with his pin or letterman jacket and call us steady. But I expected something to have changed.

And when it didn’t, when he said it hadn’t, I got upset.

The real question, I asked myself, was why? Why had sleeping with Mike made me such a wreck the next day? Was it because I genuinely liked him? Was it because I thought that, if things were different, Mike and I could actually carry on a relationship like normal people? Was it because there had been so much buildup between the two of us that I thought finally crossing the line would erase the line altogether?

I wrote about Mike in ambiguous terms, of course, but by the end of my 350 word expose, the answer was clear for my readers… sex drives people crazy.

“Hey bud, how’s it going?” Austin came in and asked me close to eleven. I had given up studying altogether and was curled up in bed, sitting with Mister under my arm, and watching Andy Sachs get made over by Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada.

“It’s whatever,” I sat up and closed my laptop. Mister immediately scurried off and started playing in my closet corner.

“You were pretty upset this morning,” Austin said, sitting at my desk and facing me. “Everything alright with Mike?”

“I mean, I said it all this morning. It just sucks that there will always be this wall, you know? I just need to date someone gay. And out. That’s what I need to do.”

“And how boring would that be?”

“Clearly not that boring. Adam did it his freshman year, and he’d been out of the closet for like a week. What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, you just enjoy the chase more than you do the catch.”

“Well, I’m tired of chasing.”

“You’re twenty, so let’s not give up just yet. And I was in a relationship for a long time, trust me. It isn’t that great,” Austin said, leaning back. He was right. He’d always seemed miserable while he was with Rachel, and I didn’t envy that. But I did envy the companionship. I envied his having someone to talk to whenever. The person who cared about his day, was a shoulder, an ear, a soundboard. I envied the attention and the caring. The touches in public, the fleeting kisses. I envied the little things, I decided. The things I couldn’t do with either of the guys I wanted to do them with.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I dunno,” I said, pursing my lips. “Hopefully I’ll get into Brown’s advertising intensive and I’ll be so busy next semester I won’t even want to date anyone.”

“That’s a plan, buddy,” Austin said. We shot the shit for a few more minutes until he said he was calling it a night and left.

My entire Monday was pretty much a blur. I was starting to be over everything and return back to normal. I showed face at both frat lunch and dinner; I met with Alexandria and Lilly and sorted through the applicants that would make the Fancy Ball committee; I was hardly snarky at all during the rush meeting, in which we decided which freshmen to give invites to for our Chi Beta Believe It Weekend.

The significance of getting a frat invite to a mixer was big as the semester reared on. It meant that a house was really investing in you, bringing you into a closed party and essentially, treating you as one of their own.

I barely listened as Hutch read off the list until he made it to Lee’s name. My head shot up. I knew I was in a better place with Lee, but I wasn’t sure when he’d shot back to the top of our rush list. It wasn’t that long ago he was trying to screw his way in to Chi Beta, but I guess that that fact had been long forgotten.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to stir anything up. Also, I was sort of preoccupied.

I hadn’t realized until I was walking up to the rush meeting after dinner that it had been exactly two days since I’d had any contact with Mike. In a couple of hours, it would have been forty-eight hours since he’d put his dick in me, and I hadn’t even received so much as a text message from him.

It reminded me how much things had changed since I’d given it up to him, and not in a good way. As Hutch and Dom prattled on, I wondered if sleeping with him had actually been worth it.

The next day, I walked to chorus with Pete and asked him how rowing was going.

“I haven’t actually rowed anything yet,” he said. I looked at him with a confused crooked eye.

“Training doesn’t start until spring,” he said. “Right now, the guys are just conditioning. Getting in shape. Lifting. I’m so far behind, and it’s only been a couple days.”

“Your arms look bigger already,” I observed with a smile.

“Oh, that’s not from working out, I assure you. It’s probably from masturbating too much.”

“Explains why the right arm is bigger is bigger than the left,” I squinted.

“Except I’m left handed.”

“There’s always ghost hand.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “It’s gross.”

“Now you have to tell me.”

“No, I’m not explaining it.”

“Come on,” Pete grabbed me around the neck with his arm and pulled me in. The next thing I knew, he was wringing the top of my head like an older brother.

“Okay, okay,” I said, squirming out of his grip as we crossed the street to the music building. “Ghost hand is when you jack off with your non-dominant hand, except you sit on it until it loses circulation and gets numb. That way it feels like someone else is doing it.”

“You’re right that is disgusting. And takes way too much foresight.”

“When you’re ready to go, you’re ready to go?” I laughed.

“Yeah, I’m not waiting for my hand to go cold, that’s for sure.”

I laughed. It felt good to laugh with Pete, and I realized while we walked into the building that nothing about that conversation had been awkward. Maybe I was getting over my feelings for Pete, I thought. We had gone through an entire conversation about jacking off and I’d managed not to envision him doing it until I was sitting down in my seat.

Wednesday was by far the year’s busiest day so far; I had meeting after meeting with different people. Dom wanted to sit down and talk about the double mixer going on that weekend. I had to make sure that the sophomores delivered the invitations to Theta and Kappa Delta. I had to go to the Dean’s offices and register our parties so that I could get drink bands and noise permits from the police station on Friday.

And it wasn’t until seven o’clock that evening that I realized another day had gone by and I still hadn’t heard from Mike. That made four full days of no contact.

I thought about telling Austin and Roberto on the way to the gym, but I knew they’d give me shit over it, so I kept it to myself. Instead, I took out my frustration on the treadmill.

It was during that work out that I realized why horny was a synonym for over-sexed. I had just been fucked four days prior, and yet I had all of this pent up adrenaline like a monk who hadn’t had dick in years.

And then I got it.

To Corbin: Hye.

To Corbin: Hey.

Back to back vibrations from Mike the Cadet as I went up the Stairmaster, ready to give my thighs a thrashing.

Hey? I thought. Hey. What the fuck was ‘hey’?

After they’d lifted to their muscle’s content, Austin and Roberto joined me on the machines for their cool down just as I was getting heated.

“Guess who just texted me,” I commanded.

“Who?” ‘Berto asked, showing only a little interest.

“Mike.”

“What did he want?” Austin panted.

“He didn’t want anything. All’s he said was ‘hey’.”

I looked at them with what I’m sure were crazy eyes.

“So?” ‘Berto replied.

“So. It’s been four days, no contact, and all he said to me was ‘hey’? What the fuck is ‘hey’?”

“It’s the start of a conversation,” Austin said.

“Not with me, it isn’t. He can suck my dick with his hey,” I said, probably louder than I needed to in a public building.

“That might scratch a little,” Austin quipped.

“Did you respond?” Roberto asked.

“Fuck no, I didn’t respond,” I answered, dramatically dropping my phone back into the water bottle holder on the Stairmaster. “If he wants to talk to me, he can explain why he was such an asshole on Sunday morning instead of buttering me up with some lame ass text message.”

I knew I was being irrational. But knowledge and caring are two completely different things. Instead of responding to Mike and finding out what he wanted, I tossed my phone down, bit my bottom lip, and kept climbing to nowhere.

“You’re being ridiculous about this,” Roberto said as we walked home some three thousand step ups later. I looked at him with fire in my eyes. I was pissed, and telling a pissed off person that they’re ridiculous is like putting fuel on a raging fire.

“How am I being ridiculous?”

“Besides having sex with you, what did Mike do to indicate that he was ready to move your relationship forward?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he invited you to his formal. He slept with you and all of a sudden you’re some crazy bitch expecting him to text and call the next day, come out of the closet for you, change his life.”

“First of all, it was more than just about us having sex,” I replied. “We sat there in his tub and talked forever and he said that he wished he could give me more than he can and that if things were different, they’d be different.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he does wish he weren’t a closet homo, but don’t guys get kicked out of the military for screwing other guys?” Austin chimed in.

“Not in 2008 they don’t,” I replied, not sure if they did or not. “Not with a black guy about to be elected to office, they don’t. This isn’t World War fucking One.”

I realized that I had verged into full on crazy territory, and I needed to pull back. I stepped on the brakes, took a deep breath, and explained myself to my brothers.

“Look, I’m not saying I need him to come out of the closet or go steady and give me his fucking pin. All I’m saying is he can’t go around playing the ‘I’m really straight’ card anymore if he’s going to put his cock in other boy’s asses. He can pretend all he wants with his friends, but not with me. Not after what we did this weekend, and certainly not after what he said.”

“Did you ever think that you scare him?”

“What?”

“I mean, think about it. His life has been one way for so long, and then you come along and you change everything. You open up this whole new world of possibilities. And he’s not ready to let go of the old world he’s lived in for twenty years. Fuck, he might never let it go. But having feelings for you, and wanting to fuck you… that might scare the crap out of him.”

I looked at Roberto as if he’d just cured cancer. He was totally right. He had hit the nail on the head. There was no other form of rationalization that would make any more sense. That was it.

And yet ‘hey’ still bothered me. For some reason, I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t get over how infuriated I was, and knowing the reason behind Mike’s apprehension didn’t help me.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, asshole,” I told him with a smirk as we made our way into our house.

“Oh, sorry, mi maricon. You’re right. Mike’s crazy. You are justified. And you aren’t crazy at all.”

“Better,” I replied.

I went upstairs and instead of hopping right into the shower like I usually did, I sat on my bed and looked at the phone. Should I text him back? I thought. Or should I let him realize that how he’d treated me was less than ideal?

And thinking that, I had to ask myself what was ideal?

What exactly did I want from Mike? What did I expect? Did I want to date him? Did I want to show him off to all of Clifton Hill and parade him around as my boyfriend? Did I want a commitment?

I could have been okay with Mike as a boyfriend, but I’d been fine with him not as one for so long. What had changed?

And then it hit me. Sitting there smelling my own sweat rise from my balls, I realized what had changed. It wasn’t the sex. And it wasn’t Mike. It was me. For two years, I’d known exactly what Mike and I were. I’d known what to expect from him. I’d got it. And knowing what to expect allowed me to remain in control of the situation. I was always in control of my feelings, my emotions, and my actions.

And then he fucked me, and that fucked me. All of a sudden, I wasn’t in control anymore, and that’s what I couldn’t deal with. It wasn’t the ‘hey’, and it wasn’t the way he’d treated me in the morning. It was me losing the control that I’d held on to for so long.

Instead of texting Mike back, I decided I needed a break to collect what thoughts were still swimming through my mind, so I put my phone down and took a shower.

Thursday was busier than Wednesday, and Friday took the cake as the busiest day yet. I had class first thing in the morning. After that, I had a meeting with my marketing group to discuss how we were going to break up the research for the first pass of our project. Professor Brown had wised up to last minute all-nighters a few years prior and instead of having her term project due at the end of the term, she’d broken up the report into three parts, each part with its own due date and each part worth twenty-five percent of our overall project grade. Our Robitussin background research was up first and it was due the following week.

After we’d hammered out plans for a Sunday all day affair, I called the social chairs of Theta and KD to make sure that they’d received the invitations. Everything was set on their end for the weekend, and I made sure to remind Theta that my and Meghan’s deal clearly included seventy-five percent attendance at the event.

After that, I walked through Clifton Hill to the police station with my party registration forms in hand to pick up noise permits.

“Mr. Crowley,” the cute blue-haired secretary greeted me as I walked in. Giving her a basket of cookies last year when Jackson delegated noise permits to me was the best investment I’d ever made. “How are things going over at 5 Lee Ave.?”

I smiled at her.

“They’re great, ma’am,” I said, putting on my best Texas drawl and flashing her a smile.

“I guess you need a couple noise permits,” she said, pulling out the forms before I even had a chance to pick them up. She scrolled down, filling them out with my information as if she’d memorized it. I sat across from her desk and continued to make small talk, asking her about her daughter who was due to have a baby at any point last time I’d been in.

After five minutes of cursive and conversation, she handed me two noise permits. I smiled.

“Actually, ma’am, I was gonna ask you for a favor. I’m not sure if this is possible or not, but we’re having a DJ play on our lawn tomorrow afternoon. I don’t think it’ll get that loud, it certainly didn’t last weekend, but just to be safe, I was wondering if you could give me a third permit.”

According to Dom, the cops had shut down two different day parties the prior weekend and they were cracking down on noise altogether. He’d made it perfectly clear to me that I needed to get noise permits for all three events this time around.

“Do you have a registration form for your afternoon party?”

“No ma’am,” I said. “They wouldn’t let me register the party since the DJ didn’t confirm until last night. I understand if it isn’t possible, but it would really help me out.”

I gave her another flash of the pearly whites, and I watched her reach into her little file drawer and pull out her little form.

“Thank you so much,” I smiled.

“Just this once, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am,” I promised.

With permits in hand, I walked home to oversee the rest of the preparation. Theta was up first for the Chi Beta Believe It weekend and the theme of that mixer was Millionaires and Trophy Wives. It was held in our library, which we decorated in green, gold, and white for their colors. When I got home, the first thing I had the sophomores do was start blowing up balloons to cover the ceiling. I had my class set the center conference table with a table cloth, the cocktail food our house mom had put together, and a hundred and fifty plastic champagne flutes.

“How long do we think this pyramid is going to last?” one of the guys that rarely helped out and always had something to say asked while they precariously placed champagne flutes on top of each other.

“Long enough,” I snipped. I wasn’t in the mood to be messed with, as my head was still spinning from Wednesday’s ‘hey’ fever.

“Where are the actual champagne glasses?” Roberto asked. We usually had real glassware, rented from Party City. And we usually had sophomores dress up in black suits and tuxedos and walk around serving the brothers and Thetas. We’d done it our sophomore year, and the sophomores before us. But this year, money was tight, and along with a band, Dom and Austin had made the cut.

“We don’t have glasses this year. We couldn’t afford them,” I replied. “Which is why this display has to be so cool. It’s our distraction.”

“Why the fuck are we so poor?” Brian quipped, stacking another glass onto the pyramid.

If I say so myself, the pyramid solution was fucking cool. I had planned for Dom or someone tall to pop open a bottle once a few of the girls were there and pour champagne down from the top. At that point, people could start helping themselves. I was optimistic, which wasn’t easy on a budget.

We finished the pyramid and the sophomores finished their balloons. I saw the whole thing coming together beautifully, and when we were done, I had everyone start clearing the great hall so I could roll out a green carpet that we’d saved from St. Patrick’s Day the year before.

As I moved an end table into the adjacent game room, I heard Hutch and Dom’s voices getting louder from outside. I put the table down and saw them, along with Ollie, the vice-president, carrying crates that looked like they were from Party City.

And then I saw their fourth musketeer, bringing up the rear. Lee was carrying a crate behind Hutch and wearing some sort of stupid hat.

The whole thing hit me in a flash, and I immediately saw red.

“Hey, Lee, why don’t you follow Ollie downstairs with those glasses and y’all can start unloading them. Newby, take that crate from Hutch. I need to talk to him.”

“Seriously, man? I’m carrying a couch.”

“Austin, grab the couch.”

I looked around as everyone did as I instructed. It was the perk of being social chair on a social weekend. You were pretty much boss. When the room was cleared, and Austin and Roberto were carting the couch into the next room, I squared off with Hutch. He pulled his fake Raybans off his face and grinned at me.

“What’s going on here?”

“With what?”

“Where’d we get those glasses?” I asked.

“From the party store, where we always get them,” he answered with enough cheek to fill a face.

“Don’t patronize me, Hutch,” I said, shifting my weight. I decided to spell it out for him by punching every single word. “Two days ago we couldn’t afford them. Where’d we suddenly get the money from?”

“Lee’s dad heard that we were making cuts to the mixer, and he offered to help.”

“You’re discussing our financial issues with a freshman?” I asked, squinting my eyes. I would have been bothered by him doing that with anyone that wasn’t in the brotherhood to begin with, but the fact that he was spewing our problems to a freshman I barely trusted to begin with was beyond reprehensible, no matter how desperate we were for pledges.

“It isn’t a big deal, trust me.”

“I don’t,” I countered.

“Honestly, Corbin, it’s fine. Consider it a donation from the Budweiser Corporation.”

“Or payola to get his son into a house,” I said, my voice raising just slightly. I heard the door to my left open and saw Roberto and Austin creep in to get the other couch out of the room. They eyed us, but kept working as if we weren’t having an intense conversation.

“It isn’t like that,” Hutch defended.

“Then what’s it like?” I asked. “We’re indebted to him now, Hutch. And come January, we’re going to owe that kid a bid.”

“And?”

“And you’ve stepped over every member of this brotherhood. You’ve bypassed bid ball.”

“What, are you planning on balling the kid?” he asked, as if he wasn’t aware of mine and Lee’s history. “Over one swallow?”

“Possibly, all things considered.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hutch asked, his voice growing hostile. “I thought y’all kissed and made up.”

His words were like spitfire.

“Does it even matter now? Or are you that desperate for a little that won’t get an HV his second semester.” It was a low blow involving Hutch’s little brother from the year before who had been escorted off campus after being caught cheating and was convicted of an Honor Violation. We Founders have never played when it comes to the honor code that binds us.

“Listen here, Corbin. If I stopped rushing every freshman boy that you decided to screw…”

“…You be very careful what you say to me next Chad Hutchinson,” I warned with fire spewing out of my eyes. “You select your next words very carefully.”

“…I would have a pledge class of one, maybe two.”

“Fuck you, Chad,” I said, spitting his real name in his face. I was a clench away from hitting him in the face. “And go to hell!”

“Okay, you two cool it,” Roberto said. I hadn’t noticed that they’d dropped the couch and were standing there looking at us, waiting for one of us to strike.

“Fuck you, you son-of-a-bitch!” I continued to yell. I lunged at Hutch, seeing my mind go black with rage. I couldn’t believe for a second that he’d said those words to me, and they set me off. Austin grabbed me around the waist, and I pushed back.

“Fine, okay. Fine. Sorry. Let me go.”

“Corbin…” Hutch tried to say, his voice lower and even.

“I cannot believe you just said that to me,” I breathed. I turned as Austin let go of my waist.

“Where are you going?” Roberto asked.

“We have a mixer to set up,” Hutch offered as I turned and walked up the stairs.

“Ask the Budweiser Corporation to send in some help,” I snapped without looking back. I didn’t take a breath until I was in my room, and the door was locked.

I pushed my hair back out of my face and sat down on my couch. I didn’t realize how much residual anger I still had for Lee until my outburst just then. It was like I’d put the reality of him becoming a Chi Beta so far out of the realm of possibility that I hadn’t even considered it. I had to admit, he was a genius for what he was doing. First screwing his way in didn’t work, so why not try to buy his way in? It was exactly what I would try to do in his position.

And the fact that his family was now co-sponsor of our Theta mixer left a bad taste in my mouth. I shook it off, grabbed my towel, and decided to take a shower before going downstairs.

My fight with Hutch reminded me just how unbalanced I’d been that week. It wasn’t just the one incident. It was everything, coming to a head. It was me making a big deal about glasses. It was my life, my emotions, being just out of my reach.

I went back downstairs and finished setting up without saying a word to Hutch. In a passive aggressive move, I pretended like nothing had happened, carrying on with the other guys, laughing and joking as I put out the cocktail food and helped drag in the beer and DJ equipment.

At ten to nine, while I was upstairs changing into my black suit and tie for the event, I heard a knock on my door.

“Hey Dom,” I said, fully aware of why he was there.

“I heard about your little tantrum this afternoon with Hutch,” he said, standing in the doorway but not stepping in. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured, especially minutes before a social event where I’d be expected to be the life of the party. I simply blinked and let him continue.

“I trust that you’re fully aware of our financial situation, and alienating Lee, as we’ve discussed, is not a good social move. He comes with baggage, and that baggage includes freshmen who want to pledge together.”

I pursed my lips, shifted my head from one side to the other, and let Dom read the full extent of my attitude.

“No more fighting over freshmen. No more fighting in open rooms where anyone could walk in. And no more being a prick in general, Corbin. Is that clear?”

I felt so small in that minute. I was being a prick, and I knew it. But I wasn’t going to back down. Not when there was a kid trying to manipulate an entire brotherhood. I knew something needed to be done, and if what Dom was saying was true, if Lee really did come with so much freshman baggage attached, I had to find a way to cut the chords loose and separate him from the so called pack that hinged on his pledging.

For my thoughts, however I didn’t buy just how close Lee was to his freshman class for one second. He spent all of his free time with either Steph Doleman or current brothers. I hardly ever saw him with the same guys he’d been with during O-week. And his so-called friend, David Marcossi, was the one who’d tipped me off to Lee’s game in the first place.

I didn’t say any of that to Dom. Instead, I just cut my eyes at him.

“Did you come here to tell me anything we haven’t discussed already?” I asked, my voice even, straight, and without an ounce of emotion.

“No. We’ve covered this all before.”

“And did you come here to fine me for something?” I asked, squinting my eyes and channeling all intensity towards Dom. He shifted his weight and I knew I’d gotten him.

“No.”

“Good.” I pushed my door shut and it closed, ever so slowly, in the president’s face.

As much as I wanted to deactivate in that moment, I couldn’t. I had a mixer to run, and Theta had promised seventy-five percent attendance, meaning there’d be about eighty girls walking through our door that night.

When I got downstairs, the library was still filling up. There were freshmen doing shots with brothers in the corner, and I immediately went to grab one.

“Cheers,” I said to no one in particular and downed what I’d thought would be vodka, but what ended up being gin instead. I picked up another one and tried my luck again. Gin again. I put both shot glasses down, shook my head off, and walked to the bar for a mixed cocktail.

“Hey,” Hutch tried to say to me as I poured myself a vodka and cranberry. I turned to him and gave him a wide eye.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier. It was out of line.”

“It was,” I replied, picking up my drink, and side stepping him.

I spent the entire hour of the mixer talking to Meghan and the Theta social chair about everything and nothing. Meghan and her friends wanted to see Mister, so I took them up to my room after the champagne had been opened and poured. We’d bought fifty bottles, almost one for every two people, and by the time the mixer opened up at ten, it was all gone, and I had had enough for four people.

I slowed it down the second hour, but the damage was done. I was beyond buzzed, and bordering on drunk, ready to forget my fight with Hutch, my feud with Mike, my beef with Lee, and how hard it was to stay friends with a guy named Pete.

And of all of the relationships that I was trying to balance that night, Pete was the first one that came to a head.

I saw him shortly after midnight. To my surprise, a lot of the Theta girls had stuck around, not wanting to go out into the country on a damp night. Our house was still full, bottles were still popping, and people were starting to fill up the Great Hall from other parties.

“Hey there, friend!” I shouted to Pete across the room. He walked towards me, and I stayed posted on the wall, not wanting to misstep and betray how drunk I was.

“Hello right back to you, friend,” he said, leaving Sacha and Amanda’s side to come say hi to me.

“You know, that right arm has doubled in size since I last saw you,” I flirted. “You must be ergging away.”

“To erg is divine,” he said, tilting his head and smiling at me. “How drunk are you?”

“Pretty drunk,” I smiled and nodded.

“I can tell. You’re pissed.”

I looked down at my pants.

“I didn’t piss.”

“No, you are pissed.” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Let’s just say I’m in a good place.”

“I believe it.”

“What’d you do tonight?”

“I went to an I-House party. Then to some hall crawl at Sig Ep.”

“Ew. You should have come here.”

“I might have. The difference is, they invited me.”

“Oh. Shot through the heart,” I said, pretending to pull an arrow out of my chest. “You know you always have an invitation here, my friend.”

“Is that so?”

“Unless I’m jacking off in my bedroom. In which case, no invitation for you.” I poked Pete on the nose like a jackass, and laughed like I’d said the funniest thing. He smiled at me.

“Besides, Mister probably misses his best friend.”

“Oh, don’t use your cat to try and bait me up to your room,” he joked. “Just be a man, and ask me yourself.”

I gave him a side glare and tried to understand what he was saying by that. Did Pete want me to invite him? How many times had I invited him up just for him to hang around until we fell asleep? At some point, I had to stop doing all the work, I thought.

“Maybe I will,” I said, pulling his collar. I felt Pete tense up. At first he took a half step backwards, as if I was getting to close again. And then he relaxed, and stepped back to where he was. He smiled.

“You’re wasted.”

“You should be.”

“I’ll need your help. You seem to be the expert.”

“Well then, Mr. Peterson, you might just have to come up to my room.”

“Oh, the invitation I’ve been waiting for,” he said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes, turned and concentrated on walking up the stairs. I noticed Amanda and Sacha watching Pete and I make our exit.

I went straight to my fridge and pulled out a bottle of tequila. Pete walked around looking for Mister, who was burrowed under my pillow.

“He’s probably tired of receiving guests today,” I explained. “It’s been a Theta pussy party in here.”

“I’m sure that was fun for you,” Pete smirked.

“Oh, tons.”

“Where did the Mr. Peterson bit come from?” he asked me. “I have several nicknames, but nothing like that.”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“My last name is Davis, so shouldn’t you call me Mr. Davis? If you have a here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson thing going on.”

“Oh, but Mr. Peterson rolls off the tongue so nicely. Should I call you something else?”

“Call me anything you want, killer,” he said, stressing the last word in the way that he did. I would take a million dropped English ‘r’s’ just to hear him say that to me forever.

“Does everything sound sexier with a British accent, or no?”

“Oh, everything,” he laughed. I was proud of how well I was flirting, considering how drunk I was and how mentally unstable I’d proven to be in the past couple of days. It almost felt like Pete and I were back to the place we’d started the year at. We were vibing, connecting, and he was giving me just enough to work with to keep the conversation light and going.

“Are we going to dance again tonight?”

“Possibly. But we just got here,” Pete replied.

“We could dance up here,” I joked.

“Okay,” he answered seriously. I looked up at him, took a sip of my drink.

“Okay,” I said, suddenly having a flash of brilliance. I was well aware that I was falling off the wagon, and I was falling hard. But I didn’t give a fuck. I was useless at the friend thing when it came to Pete, especially when he acted like he was acting that night. I could tell he was flirting with me. The subtext was so thick, it was pushing the real text out of the way.

“Do you know how to two-step?”

“No I don’t,” he laughed.

“You spent a year in Texas, and you didn’t learn to two-step? That’s how people get kicked out of the great state, let me tell you.”

“I lived to tell about it.”

“That’s a surprise to me. Here, help me move this couch,” I said, putting my drink down for the first time in three hours. I started pushing the couch over, and Pete helped me move it all the way to the wide wall. As if he was trying to help us, Mister scurried from the bed and hopped onto the moving couch.

I pulled out my laptop, relieved that I didn’t have any porn still on the screen, and queued up Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats on Youtube.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” he smiled. I pushed play. As the music started, I walked to where Pete was standing in the middle of the room.

“Okay, follow me,” I said. I grabbed his left hand and put my right hand on his waist. “It’s fast, fast, slow. Remember.”

“Okay. Are we going right first or left?”

I thought for a second.

“It’s left… no wait… yeah. It’s left, left right. Follow me.”

“I’m the girl?”

“Of course you’re the girl,” I laughed. He shook his head, and I could tell he was concentrating. At the turn of the first bridge, he still had a cerebral look on his face.

“Got it?” I asked.

“No,” he confessed.

“You’re doing fine,” I assured him. It felt magical, being so close to him again. It was like the last two weeks since our fight had never happened. I went back to that night we spent hours dancing in the basement. He was so warm. He smelled so amazing. I lost myself in his ergged up arms for that four-minute song.

“Want to go again?” I asked.

“I think that’s enough two-stepping for me,” he said. “Trust me, I managed to avoid any sort of country music for a whole year.”

“A miracle, I’d say. Drink up,” I said, handing him his glass, and conceding that this was the moment I’d lived through so many times: the moment Pete pulled back after getting so close.

Two full tequila and Sprites later, and Pete finally tore himself away from Mister to come back downstairs.

By then, Late Night was raging. It was almost one o’clock, and people were downstairs drinking beer like it was water. Girls were leaned up on walls, and boys had their arms leaned over them, like they were at the lockers during eleventh grade passing period.

“Hey,” Austin said, holding his glass high. “I need you to watch the door for me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs for just a second.”

“I’m hanging out with Pete,” I whispered right into Austin’s ear.

“So get him to help you. Ten minutes!” he shouted.

“There better be a naked girl waiting for you on your bed, you asshole!” I shouted, walking towards the front door. There had to be a brother posted at the doors at all times during a rager. The door remained closed at all times, unless a brother needed out, to keep sound from carrying to the street down below. Once cops could hear your music from the street, they had every right to shut you down, noise permit or not.

“Come stand here with me!” I shouted at Pete. He walked over to the door with me, and within a minute, we had to keep someone from going out the front.

Guarding door was fun because you had a full view of the entire Great Hall. You could hear the music from the basement wafting up, and on some songs, you could even feel the bass.

“Your hair is getting long,” Pete observed casually.

“Want to cut it for me?” I joked.

He pushed it back from my face in a way that someone who wasn’t a friend would have done. Why did he do things like that? Why did he always have to take everything a step further? Why did he force me to read into things that he didn’t want to be there? If he didn’t want me, why he was playing with my hair?

It frustrated me, and it made me want to say things to him that he didn’t want to hear.

“So, this friend thing is working out for us, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” he said, sounding more or less resigned than anything else. I looked up at him as he stared at the people in the Great Hall. It had been such a magical two hours with him, and here we were again, for the millionth time. I was in definite ticking time bomb mode, and so I asked the question before I had the chance to stop myself.

“What exactly are we doing here?”

“I think we’re guarding the door,” he replied, turning to look at me.

“No, I mean, you and me. What are we doing here?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked me in the eye. It wasn’t the look of a friend about to answer a friend’s question. It was the look of someone who was holding something back; someone who wanted to say something but couldn’t bring the words out.

“I don’t know,” he said briefly, honestly.

“I know Amanda told you that I like you.”

“She did.”

“But you’re not gay.”

“I’m not gay.”

“But you’re comfortable hanging out with a gay guy that likes you?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that?” I accused.

“I thought we decided to be friends with each other.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard.”

“Are you always this difficult on your friends?”

“The ones I like, yes.” I looked up at him and didn’t break our gaze. I wasn’t backing down this time. As accusatory as I was, it wasn’t meant to be malicious or hurtful. I wanted answers. I wanted to know how we could spend such perfect quality time together and yet I was the only one that wanted a kiss. How was that possible? In a week where everything was pissing me off, Pete was the one thing that put a smile on my face. How were we not together?

“Look, I don’t know what this is all about. All I know is I like hanging out with you.”

“And that’s enough for you?”

“That’s all I’ve got, killer.” I looked at him. It was the truth, or as close to the truth as we were going to get. I didn’t want to push the subject any further and make Pete any more uncomfortable than I probably already had. And then he dropped the ball.

“Besides, when is your Vmee going to come around next?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, buying time. He’d caught off guard.

“I mean, I’m not a fan of listening to those run rhymes that they have going on.”

“I guess you’re used to your soldiers keeping quiet,” I tried to joke. He turned his face towards me and I realized that he was being completely serious. “Why are you jealous of him? If we’re just friends, as per your perimeter, why are you jealous?”

“I’m not.”

“You so clearly are.”

“I’m not jealous. You’re just… you’re unpredictable. And I never know where I stand with you. One minute you say you like me, and the next minute… he’s here.”

“Pete, I have tried over and over and you…”

“No, Corbin. He’s here. Your Vmee is right over there.”

I turned to the hall, and in the middle of a crowd of people, Mike stood there, in full white dress, looking right at me. I felt like I was in the middle of a Nicholas Sparks movie and everything was moving in slow motion.

“Pete.”

“See. Where do I stand?”

“I didn’t invite him,” I said. I turned to Pete. It was copout, I decided. He was scared, for whatever reason, and he was clinging on to this me and Mike thing as his excuse for letting himself feel anything. I was suddenly upset that the whole night had happened. I should have kept my distance. I should stayed downstairs. I should have saved my flirting for someone who would reciprocate it.

And yet, against my better judgment, I wasn’t ready to let go of Pete. I wasn’t ready to write him off, call it a wash. I liked him. It was an anomaly for me to like someone more and more the more I got to know them. Usually, it was the other way round. And yet there I was, even more in love with him than I was the day before.

“We’re not done with this conversation,” I said as I stepped forward to greet Mike. “Stay here. We aren’t done.”

He shrugged at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Mike.

“Can we talk?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Then can I talk?”

I turned around. Pete was still standing by the door. I looked back at Mike and shrugged. I saw them make eye contact and decided that I wasn’t going to get rid of Mike before I heard what he had to say. And a room full of Founders wasn’t the safest place for a cadet.

“Let’s go outside.” I led him passed Pete and out into the cold.

“Corbin, I’m sorry about last weekend.” I shifted my weight. “But you started talking about changing, and what everything meant. I thought you and I were keeping things casual.”

“We are. And we can. I just… I had a moment.”

“Then why didn’t you text me back?”

“Because my moment isn’t over, Mike. I was on the same page with you. Fuck, I’d written our page. And then you went and you changed everything and you fucked me. And not in the sexual kind of way, which you did, but you fucked me over in the twisted mind, make me love you, kind of way. I was in control until you did that, and I lost control last weekend. I lost it to you. And I can’t talk to you and I can’t deal with you until I have that control back.”

“Killer, you took my control away from me ages ago. Do you think I’d be here if there wasn’t something here?”

“There’s something, Mike, and then there’s everything,” I said, my eyes wide. I looked him in the eye, and then quickly turned down and looked at the floor.

“So is there everything with that guy in there? That British guy?”

“I swear the two of you are the most jealous non-boyfriends I have ever had,” I snapped. “No, there isn’t everything in there with him. Fuck, there’s even less than there is out here with you.”

“Well, then…”

“Well then what? Mike, he has nothing to do with you and me. You have nothing to do with him and I. We have issues because we have issues. I didn’t run to him to get away from you.”

I realized I was shouting and I stopped. I shifted my weight.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said. “But I think we should take things back a couple of steps.”

“How many?” he asked as if I’d just broken up with him.

All of them, I wanted to say.

“I don’t know. I just need to clear my head and process everything. And I need to remind myself what your barriers are because I can’t afford to cross them again without you.”

It was the most honest thing I could have said to Mike, and I was frankly surprised it had come out of me. The real reason I was upset with Mike was because I’d crossed over, and he’d stayed behind. And all I wanted in the whole world was someone who would be willing to cross over with me.

And then, as if I wasn’t fucking spinning enough already, Mike did what Mike always did when he wanted to control my emotions. He leaned down and he kissed me. He pulled my head in with his hand, and I let myself fall into him. We stood there, our breath white against the black sky, and we kissed.

And then I heard the door close. I pushed Mike back.

“Fuck,” I said. I didn’t need to taste a donut to know it was sweet and I didn’t need to see who had closed the door to know who’d opened it.

“Bye, Mike,” I said. I realized that my voice sounded final, and I was okay with that. I wasn’t sure how long I would be off of the drug known as Mike Loggerman, but I intended to stay off of it for as long as possible.

I walked back into the building just in time to see Pete disappear downstairs like a bat flying out of hell. I thought about going after him, and then I thought better of it. Was it really worth it? What would it accomplish? He’d express his jealousy one more time and that would be it. I would get frustrated and angry and storm off and wish to God that I had someone, anyone, who wasn’t a basket shaped closet case. And I’d swear him off, and it would be a lie, and we’d do the same thing again a week from now.

Instead of running after him, I ran upstairs. I decided it was time to give up on both Mike and Pete. Both of them had filled my head with these crazy thoughts, and it was affecting my life, my friendships, and my sanity. I had lost it on Hutch earlier because my mind was clouded by two guys who were sleeping just fine through the night without me.

I went to my room and I closed the door. I put my headphones on, pulled The Devil Wears Prada up on my laptop, and went straight to bed with a rager blasting on below me.

I don’t know when exactly I fell asleep, but I do know when I woke up City of Blinding Lights was playing on the screen and Andrea Sachs was being seduced in Paris by Christian Thompson, a guy she knew she shouldn’t have slept with, but did anyway.

I heard the knocking at the door, and at first I thought it was coming out of my headphones. It took me a second to realize that someone was actually knocking on my door.

I got out of bed, pulled a pair of pants on, and went to answer the door. I half expected it to be Pete, coming to apologize for being a jealous lunatic. Part of me thought maybe it was Mike, escaped from barracks in another grand gesture to show me cared, just not enough.

I wasn’t prepared for who it was instead.

“Hey, Corbin. Can I come in?” Lee asked, dressed in his pajamas and looking at me like a kid who’d lost his mother.

“Yeah, um… sure, yeah,” I said, taken aback by the random visit. “What’s up?”

“I um… I think I broke up with Steph Doleman tonight,” he said. I gave him a look, wondering why he felt the need to come here after that.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said, more of question than a statement.

“Hutch said I could spend the night on his couch, but he’s… occupied.”

“Don’t you have a dorm room?”

“I just left there. My roommate is in there with five guys right now playing guitar. And I’m pretty sure they’re all mildly racist.”

“We have couches downstairs,” I replied, not trying to be rude, but far from in the mood to host.

“There are two people currently making babies on your couches downstairs,” Lee said. I chuckled and stepped out of the way.

“Well then, welcome,” I said as he followed me into my room. He looked around as if he didn’t know where he was, and then I realized it was because my couch was pushed to the side of the room.

“Sorry,” I said. “I had an impromptu dance party.”

I can’t lie and say I was totally comfortable with Lee being in my space. The way we’d left things, the way we’d walked on eggshells since everything came to a head, it was easier for us to maintain healthy distance.

He moved to the couch and helped me push it from against the wall back to its place in the center of the room. Mister didn’t stir an inch from his slumber in the corner cushion.

Lee took a seat and I handed him my Zac Efron blanket to keep him warm.

“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I know you’d probably want anyone but me crashing your couch for the night.”

“It’s cool,” I yawned. I sat down on my bed, not sure what to do next. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I wasn’t sure if Lee wanted to talk it out with someone. So I asked the question most people would have asked.

“What did you and Steph fight about?”

He turned to me, resting his elbow on the back of the couch.

“It was stupid,” he said. I looked at him with a look that said he could tell me if he wanted or I could be just as content not knowing. He decided to tell me.

“She thought I was texting my ex-girlfriend from home because she looked in my phone and saw all of these texts from Ryan,” he explained. “Only, I told her that Ryan wasn’t my ex-girlfriend.”

“Who is Ryan?”

“The guy I messed around with over the summer,” he confessed as if he were confessing to eating someone’s sandwich. “We were making plans for the reading days when I got home.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “I’m guessing these plans were pretty… graphic.”

“And specific,” he said. “I told him that I wanted to try anal. That’s when she asked me who Ryan really was.”

I nodded. I was amazed that girls still looked through their boyfriend’s phones. At the end of the day, was it worth knowing that he was cheating on you? And if you were that suspicious anyway, it was probably best to just end it, regardless of what you found.

“Anyway, she’s pissed. You came up in our fight, which, I’m sorry about.”

“It comes with the territory,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked at Lee. He looked genuinely upset over the whole thing.

“The thing that just pisses me off is that I really like Steph, but every once in a while, I have this urge to do things that she would never in a million years do. And I can’t help it. It’s not like I’m sitting there wanting a dick in my ass or some guy’s cock in my mouth. It’s just these fleeting thoughts, you know?”

Watching him talk about the dicks he craved and the cocks he wanted, I had the reaction any warm blooded twenty year old would have. I felt a stir in my pants, and leaned forward to cover what might have been a very visible penis line.

“I mean, I think it’s best that you were honest with her. She has a decision to make. Can she live with the fact that you’re bisexual?”

“I hope so. I love her,” he said. I thought it was really cute that this barely legal child was declaring love so definitively. It was almost like he meant it.

“Anyway, sorry to bother you with all of this. I know you probably have little sympathy for me.”

I leaned back and put my head behind my hands.

“Actually, I have more sympathy than you know. Complicated relationships happen to be my expertise,” I said, my own frustration and anger surfacing. I could feel my blood getting warmer as I remembered everything that I was frustrated about. Pete and his insecurity. Mike and his boundaries. Me and my inability to control my emotions. And how everything had come together to form the perfect late night storm.

And then there was Lee, who I was determined to right off as an O-week mistake. And yet there he was, a foot away from me, almost as vulnerable and pissed off as I was. And in that moment, I didn’t think about what I said next. I just let it come out of my mouth.

“You can come sleep over here if you want,” I said softly. “I know that couch probably isn’t very comfortable.”

I sat up.

“It’s fine,” Lee said. I faked a cough, and he sat up from where he’d been laying. He looked at me. I didn’t have the heart to say it. I didn’t want to say it. I wanted him to know what I was offering before I was smart enough to take the offer off the table. He cocked his eyebrow up, and I nodded slowly. He licked his lips and I nodded again. Every move was intentional. Every heart beat was calculated.

I watched Lee by only the shadow that my computer screen cast on the room. He stood up slowly and took three steps from my couch to the bed. Without saying a word, he knelt down in front of me, pulled my pants down all the way to my ankle and lunged onto my dick. I arched my neck back and looked at the ceiling, forcing the feeling of shame out of my mind. This was a one-off, I told myself. It had nothing to do with Pete and Mike and how I felt inside. It only had to do with raw emotion.

I didn’t like Lee. I borderline detested him. Yet nothing tempered hatred quite like hate sex. And nothing about his coming over had prepared me for how good his mouth felt on my rock solid dick.

I dug my fingers into his hair and pushed him down on my cock slowly. He pushed back, came up for air and sat up. With me sitting and him kneeling, we were almost face-to-face.

“Don’t be so gentle,” he whispered. I smiled. I pulled his hair in my fingers and violently pushed his head back down into my crotch. He moaned as he slurped my dick, taking the entire shaft, and gagging at the end.

“Oh fuck,” I said. “Gag on that dick.”

He moaned again, taking pleasure from my sense of control. I was surprised at how passionate he was with my cock. His hands were everywhere, massaging my body, and yet he never for once lost focus of what was in his mouth.

I pulled him up by the hair again, pulled his face into mine, and kissed him violently. I have expected to taste blood on my lip, but instead, I only tasted traces of my precum. It took Lee about one second to climb on top of me and roughly grind his cock next to mine. It was almost like he hadn’t felt another man’s cock in years. I continued to moan as he continued to kiss me roughly, banging our bodies together.

Without releasing his tongue, which I’m sure was bruising as we kissed, I reached my hand into Lee’s pants and yanked his cotton pajamas down. He did the same with my jeans, undoing them while straddling me and pulling them off my body like a pro. I released his mouth for a second, wrapped my hand around his neck, and pulled him back down for an even more violent kiss.

It was almost like I was taking out every ounce of my aggression on Lee’s poor lithe little body. I kept pulling him in, tossing him around, clutching his skin with my fingernails, and drilling our bodies together.

“Oh fuck,” Lee panted, sitting up and straddling me. He clutched my chest with his hands, and in that position, I could see dozens of scratches all over his body. I ran my hand up his stomach to his chest, and watched him arch his back. As he did, his ass rubbed against my rock hard dick, and I bucked up into him.

“I want you to fuck me,” he said softly. I looked up at him. I wasn’t prepared to go all that way, especially after he just declared that he was a virgin. Fucking a guy was a messy endeavor, and I wasn’t sure I had that much aggression.

“Are you sure?”

Without answering me, Lee reached behind him and grasped my dick like it was a bar of gold.

“Oh, fuck yeah. I want this cock inside of me.”

It was like I was living in my own personal porno. The kid was insatiable. I had no fucking clue what Steph Doleman had taught him, but I was turned on to the maximum. Without even thinking, I pushed Lee off me, reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a condom. Within seconds, I’d fumbled a rubber over my dick and I turned back to Lee. He gave me his best fuck me face, biting his bottom lip.

I thought about everything I was upset about and decided that the best course of action was to take it out on Lee and let it go, once and for all. He was there, and he was willing, and I had a lot of pent up frustration.

In one motion, I grabbed Lee by the hair, turned him around and slammed him into the wall that separated mine and Hutch’s bedrooms.

“Are you ready?” I whispered.

“Fuck yes. Fuck please, fuck me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” he begged. He arched his ass back into my crotch, begging for it like a little slut. I pushed in slowly, and with a surprising ease, I slid right into Lee’s ass.

There was no way the kid was a virgin, I remember thinking. My cock sank into him from tip to hilt in one motion, as if his ass was made for my dick.

“Oh, fuck,” he said. He arched his head back and I grabbed his neck from the front. I violently pulled his head into mine and kissed him from behind.

“Oh, fuck yes. Fuck me!” he shouted. I didn’t even care that Hutch was one plaster wall away. If I had a dollar for every time he and Hayley woke me up, I would have been able to solve our financial woes.

Instead of slowing down, I buried myself into Lee, drilling him harder and harder.

“Oh, oh, oh, fuck,” he kept shouting over and over, like a porn star working overtime. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”

I was blown away by how utterly kinky he was being. It drove me crazy in a way that made me want to plow him. Hurt him. Control him.

When I felt like he was getting too comfortable with my cock, I pulled back all the way, only leaving the tip in. I sat there and let him beg me to fuck him harder. He grabbed my hands and dug into my skin, forcing me to buck into him. I pulled out again, this time, all the way. Without skipping a beat, Lee turned around, kissed me hard, and pushed me back onto my own bed.

“Call me your bitch,” he whispered. My eyes opened wide, as I added that to the list of things I wasn’t expecting.

“Come on, bitch,” I said, pulling him on top of me. I laid there on my back and pulled him up. In one motion, I pushed him down on my cock.

“Ride my cock, bitch,” I said, spitting the words. I felt so dirty, so powerful. I watched as Lee bounced up and down on my dick, making me harder than I’d ever been in my entire life.

“You like that cock?”

“Yes!”

“You like my cock?”

“Fuck yeah!” he kept saying it over and over, and I kept giving to him. At one point, he was squatting as if he was taking a dump and I was doing upwards lunges all the way into his ass.

After what felt like hours, but was in actuality around forty minutes, I was spent and ready to cum.

“You ready for my load?” I asked like all my favorite porn stars asked their bitches. I wasn’t an aggressive guy, but for some reason, I was enjoying throwing Lee around. It was from weeks of feeling vulnerable and helpless that I enjoyed finally letting it out.

“Yes. Give me your fucking load,” he said, filthily.

I grabbed him by his hair, and before I even had a chance to kneel over his face, my cock was spewing cum all over my bed. He laid below me, mouth open and tongue out like a filthy little whore.

I didn’t realize until after I’d cum shot after shot onto his face, hair, and chest that I was sweating like I’d just run a marathon. My bed was drenched and I couldn’t separate the sweat from the cum.

“I need to cum,” he said like a little bitch. I looked at him, grabbed his cock and said: “You cum when I tell you.”

I then spent a good five minutes teasing his dick with my palm and tongue until he came all over his already sticky chest. Watching his cum fly like that reminded me of when I was 18 and could shoot loads over my head.

“Fuck,” I panted, spent. My room smelled disgusting, I was tired and sweaty, and the kid lying next to me unable to catch his breath was a kid I wasn’t very fond of.

But somehow, for some strange reason, I felt better. I felt good for the first time in a long time. I was ready to deal with Mike and Pete and file them into their respective corners. I was ready to apologize to Hutch, square off to Dom, and take on the world. For that brief moment, as I laid there in my own afterglow, I felt invincible.

“I think it goes without saying that this didn’t happen,” Lee said, bringing me crashing back down to earth. I couldn’t have agreed more.

“Oh, of course,” I said.

He had his reasons, and I had mine. And whatever they were for what had just happened, I was glad he was aware that they were simply between the two of us.