The English Year - 30. The Talk

My mind went blank as I wrapped my arm around Nick’s neck, and pulled him into my bedroom. I pulled my door shut behind us, and in a moment of pure instinct, I pushed Nick against my door, kissed him as hard as I could, and pressed my body against his.

I heard him moan as I felt his entire body vibrate against mine, the two of us driving each other crazy as we continued drawing ourselves closer and closer together.

“Ouch,” he said softly, pushing me back. I stopped suddenly, hesitated, and looked him in the eye.

“Doorknob,” he smiled, clutching his back. I smiled back at him, and as he lifted his arms, I reached for the bottom of his green elf tunic.

The reveal of Nick Person’s chiseled body was halted when his one size too small tunic got caught in his own elbow. I had to turn Nick all the way around in order to twist the fabric out of his arms before he turned to face me. He had a grin on his face that made the effort instantly worth it.

“Okay,” I sighed, winded by the exercise involved in undressing what had to be Santa’s sexiest elf.

I took a moment to survey what stood before me. Nick Person’s body was ridiculously chiseled; that was an undisputed fact. His stomach was completely flat with four small abs ridging through, all culminating in the classic runner’s V that led down to his torso. I took a step towards Nick, draped my arm around his shoulder, and traced one hand down the side of his body.

And that’s when he giggled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, taking a step back.

“Nothing, I’m just… I’m extremely ticklish right there I guess. I just…” he laughed again. I watched his face contort as he bent over laughing, apparently from the ghost of where my hand had massaged him earlier. “I’m sorry. Okay…. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, shaking the fit of laughter out of himself, and as he stood tall to face me, I took another moment to eye him up and down.

Even in those ridiculous green tights he’d worn for his costume, Nick was a sight to see. Part of me couldn’t wait to ravage his perfect body, while another part of me didn’t want to even start. It was like looking at a plate of food at a 5-star restaurant… where to even begin?

“Where were we?” Nick whispered sexily, stepping towards me, slowly lowering his lips to meet my lips. And that’s when I felt his foot come down on top of mine.

“Oh fuck,” I shouted, jumping back and grabbing my foot. I hopped twice, and could feel myself losing balance before Nick caught me.

“Are you okay?” he asked with the concern of someone who knew he was fucking things up. I bit my bottom lip to stop from crying out again, and instead lowered my leg to the ground and turned to face Nick. I tilted my head as I tried to ignore the shooting pain in the top of my foot.

“We’re sucking at this,” I observed. Nick smiled. If I thought that I was going to get rid of him by giving up that easy, I was completely wrong. He took a step towards me and slowly began unbuttoning my shirt.

His eyes penetrated me, not letting my gaze go as they did, and in that moment, I felt like everything would be okay.

“Are we the kind of guys that let a little mishap slow us down?” Nick asked, his voice low and sultry. Every ounce of his West Virginia slur came through when he was trying to be sexy, and I can’t think of a sound that’s ever made me quite so horny.

“I certainly hope not,” I replied, licking my bottom lip and letting Nick pull me into his chest. From the second our bodies touched, I knew that all I needed to do was clear my head and focus on the specimen in front of me.

Nick Persons was hot, that couldn’t be denied. And if I had any hope of clearing the British stained cobwebs out of my brain, I needed to focus on the hotness that was right there, undressing me slowly and kissing me deeply.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Fuck that text message, I thought, as I tore Nick’s tights down and revealed what had to have been the most significant cock I’d ever seen in my entire life. It curved slightly to the right, mesmerizing me as I wrapped my hand around it. Nick tensed up firmly from head to toe as I gave his dick a squeeze, and before he could even moan from my touch, he bit my bottom lip ever so slightly, driving a tingling sensation down my entire spine.

It was at that point that all bets were off. I dug my fingers into Nick’s shoulders and pulled him towards the bed with me. Like two dancers finding our rhythm, Nick crawled on top of me, used his knees to spread my legs wide, and slid our pelvises together. The choreography was far from perfect, and at one point I had to scoot his knee out from poking my ass too hard, but the commitment to trying was there, and as I ran my hands up and down his rock hard abs, I realized that that commitment was well appreciated.

I noticed as Nick and I continued to make out that the only time things got awkward was when I wasn’t fully engaged. When I wondered where my phone was or if it would vibrate again or what the text message from the Brit had meant in its entirety, I felt myself giving only half a mind of passion to Nick.

But when I let that go, when Nick pulled me back into the moment with his tongue, and his hands, and his abs, and his slightly curved cock that rubbed against mine, when I let myself feel what was right on top of me, everything was magical.

And so I made the conscious decision, the concerted effort, to let my phone go, and only pay attention to one vibration for the rest of the night: the vibration of Nick Person’s tongue against mine.

Our tenacity began to pay off when Nick knelt in front of me and peeled off my slacks. He did so with the grace that I’d expected out of someone so handsome, and when he slid back down into the nook created by my spread legs and our cocks rubbed against each other’s, I knew that I’d made the right choice to ignore my phone and focus on the easy road.

That choice was reaffirmed with every glide of Nick’s body, every moan in my ear, every swipe of his tongue perfectly pressed against the most sensitive nerve in my neck. At one point, Nick lifted my arm, breathed in deep, and licked the side of my ribcage, up my underarm, and back to my shoulder, before pulling my rolling head back to meet my lips, and letting me taste the salty sweetness of my skin against his tongue.

It took a while to get me there, but when I did, I melted under his touch,

“Are you ready?” Nick asked, his drawl pulling me back to reality. For a second, I’d let myself slip, wondering if me lying under Nick Persons’ body was some sort of a dream. I watched as the six foot tall Sigma Chi lithely stood up from my bed and asked where I kept my condoms.

“In the drawer,” I panted, winded from all of the kissing. I pointed to the desk where my laptop and books rested. He fished around until he pulled out a pre-lubed rubber, and then turned to me with a wicked smile.

“You mean you didn’t keep any hidden away in your elf tights?” I asked, watching him tear through the wrapping like a man on a mission.

“You saw what I was hiding in those tights,” he replied with a smirk. “Was there room for anything else?”

I smiled, sat up and ran my hands firmly across his chest as he unrolled the condom onto his cock. Part of me wanted to question his assumption that he would top me, but in that moment, feeling as vulnerable as I did, I decided not to. I wanted to escape my mind, and if that meant taking every inch of Nick’s impressive dick inside of me, that was exactly what I was going to do.

And so with no objection, and with my hands careful not to tickle his sensitive side anymore, I held Nick firmly against my chest as he spread my legs further and slowly lowered himself inside of me.

There are two kinds of attractive guys in the world: the kind of guy that grows up attractive, is used to being admired, and develops into a rather lazy lover. And then there’s the kind of guy that grows into his looks, has to work hard for admiration while he’s in his teens, and grows up to be an attentive, caring lover. The former expects approval while the latter still craves it, and therefore does everything he can to earn the admiration, and orgasm, of his partner.

Nick Persons fell firmly in the latter camp. From the second he slid into me, I could tell he was acclimating himself with my reactions, making sure that I was comfortable, and enjoying his maneuvers. He went in slowly, and only pushed in further as I arched my back and dug my nails deeper into his shoulders.

He held his dick in me about an inch to start, and with his ever limber torso leaning down, he planted a mind numbing kiss against my lips. When I say that his tongue had the power to erase every cloud in my mind, I mean just that. Not only did I forget the pain of his girth stretching me open, but I also forgot the pain of Pete breaking my heart twenty-four hours prior as if it had never happened.

When Nick could feel my body relax, he pressed in further, filling me up even deeper. It was like he could read my body like a book, and just as soon as I got used to feeling him inside of me, he turned a page and pushed in further. He was patient, without being passive. He was in tune with how I felt without resorting to the ever dreadful phrase: “How does that feel?”

After a few minutes of relaxing under his touch, I wondered how much more of his dick I could take inside of me. Every time I felt like he’d pushed into me as far as he could go, another inch slipped in, stretching me out wider and probing me even deeper.

And then with a final sigh, I finally felt his balls slap against me, and I knew that I’d taken everything in. I exhaled, kissed him softly, and then pulled my head back to look him in the eye. Nick smiled down at me as if I’d accomplished something great; and before I could react, he retreated, pulled out until only the head was left in me, and then firmly thrust back inside.

“Oh holy fuck,” I exhaled, digging my fingers into his shoulder and breathing into his ear. I wasn’t in control of anything. Not my mind, or my body. In that moment, Nick did everything I needed him to do: he made me let go.

To say that the sex with Nick Persons was perfect would be an overstatement. There was something about him that understood rhythm, but in trying to creating a continuous motion in and out of me, sometimes Nick would falter… hesitate. There were times when I expected him to slide all the way back in and fuck me gently, but instead, he’d pop out of me, fumble, and then pull himself together. It was almost like I made him nervous in the same way that he made me nervous, only he was the hunk, and I was just Corbin Crowley.

It was those imperfections, however, that softened me to Nick and allowed me to relax. He stopped being Nick Persons, Sigma Chi from West Virginia, and became a guy that was giving me a decent lay. The jolts and the nibbles, the inconsistencies in his thrusts could have been distracting, but instead they drew me in to him, endeared me to him. They humanized a guy that was up until then nine and a half inches away from perfection.

Nick continued to pulse in and out of me, ridding me of any of the stress I’d felt throughout that day. With every plunge of his cock inside of me, he pushed everything that had happened with Pete further and further away. And for a second, while I moaned into his ear, I wondered if that was what I wanted.

There was a text on my phone that said the words I’d been waiting to hear from Pete for months. They were within arm’s reach. But the fact that I had no clue what they meant rendered those words meaningless. They were simply words, strung together with no discernible purpose.

I’ve been unfair to you. I love you. Let’s talk.

From anyone else, I would have sworn that was the most straightforward statement, but from Pete, from hot and cold Peter Davis, those words could have just as easily been a piss off as they were a come-on. I’d wanted those words, I’d begged him for them, but I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d expired on me. Were those particular words too little, too late? Was I fucking Nick to escape the words or because I feared the words?

I shook my head, sweat beads falling into my hair, and decided that all I could do was finish, enjoy myself, and deal with Pete and his cryptic text messages at a later time.

Inside of me at that very moment, ready to expel himself all over me, was a guy that liked me. A guy that had made it clear that there were no mixed messages. A guy that had only one message for me; and that message came loud and clear across my chest as I heaved, stroked my cock, and came with him.

“Oh my god,” Nick collapsed beside me. We were both glistening with a mixture of sweat and cum. My chest rose and fell to meet his, and both of our breathing was shallow. I turned my head to look at him, smiling at him. I pulled his face in for a quick kiss, unable to do any more until I caught my breath.

“Wow,” Nick said again, his reaction to fucking me bringing me even higher than I’d been before. He draped his arm across my chest. “That was incredible, Crowley.”

I didn’t know what to say. Part of me was still distracted, reeling, but part of me had just come with a guy that was everything I’d been asking for on paper.

“That was beyond,” I replied, turning to him, and smiling again.

I’m not sure how long Nick and I lay there panting in each other’s arms before we fell asleep. I do know that when I woke up, Nick Persons, was sitting on my desk chair wearing one of my old Colleyville Tennis t-shirts and holding a cup of coffee.

I opened my eyes, unsure what I was seeing in that moment. It took a second for me to remember everything that had happened last night, from running into Nick, to pulling him up to my room, to the awkward start of hooking up with him, to finally finding our groove and falling asleep. It all seemed so surreal.

And yet he was sitting right there. He hadn’t gotten up and crawled home in the middle of the night, or done the walk of shame in one of my sweatshirts that morning. He’d put my shirt on, gotten us coffee, and had come up to wait for me to wake up.

“Good morning, Crowley,” he said softly, extending a cup of coffee towards me. It was in one of the off white mugs that our house mom left out for us in the morning, so I knew that Nick had gone to our basement kitchen to fetch it.

“I wasn’t sure how you liked your coffee, so I got you a buffet of condiments, if you’ll look right here.”

I looked at my desk behind him to see milk in a small plastic cup, every kind of sugar that we kept in our pantry, and two different flavors of pop tarts. He presented them like Vanna White presenting the winning clue, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re here… this morning,” I grogged, sitting up, tucking my morning wood in, and facing Nick.

“You thought I was going to sketch off? I prefer to do my stride of pride mid-afternoon, you know?” he replied. “That way I could just as easily be walking home from the library.”

I smiled as I breathed into my coffee.

“Unless you want me to leave, in which case I will. I just thought we could hang out for a little while… so I don’t feel so cheap about last night,” he had a smirk across his face and I raised an eyebrow.

“Shut up, Nick,” I replied. “I’m just not too used to guys spending the night, that’s all.”

It was a vulnerable thing to say, but in the moment, I didn’t even think about it. Something about having him there softened my guard, lowered it, and I felt safe.

“Would it be cheesy of me to tell you to get used to it?”

I smiled at Nick, still unsure of what to make of the whole situation. I felt like there was something that hadn’t crossed my mind yet that morning. There was something that I was missing, that I hadn’t put together yet. I looked across my bed at Nick, shifted in my seat, and tried to make myself comfortable as he watched me readjust.

And then I saw it, lying there next to my pillow. My telephone. And I remembered why I had mixed feelings about what had happened last night. Every part of me wanted to let go and enjoy a guy that had stuck around, that wanted to hang out in the morning, and that had brought me coffee with every variety of condiment that I could possibly need.

But then a sliver of me wanted Nick to leave so that I could get on my phone, and see what the Brit had meant by his text last night. I felt Nick watching me process everything, and I instantly let out a sigh.

“You seem distracted,” he said. He stood up, and I noticed that he was wearing my sweat pants as well as my shirt. My clothes fit him tightly, and watching him move in them reminded me of just how sexy his body was underneath that fabric.

I watched as Nick pulled up behind me in my bed and grabbed my shoulders with his strong arms. He kneaded them firmly, forcing me to relax as I breathed into my hot coffee.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Does it have anything to do with you yelling at me the other night? Which, you never sent that text to apologize for acting petty and dramatic, by the way.”

I took a deep breath, and let out a single chuckle.

“Let’s just say that it’s heavier than I’d like to discuss with you after our first night.”

“Okay,” Nick exhaled behind me. “But can I take a moment to acknowledge that you just promised me a second night?”

“What?” I asked, turning my head.

“I mean, at least one more night. You called what we did yesterday our first night, so… I’m just going to assume that you mean we’re bound for a second.”

“You know what they say about guys who assume, right?” I asked coyly, trying to keep the mood light. Nick had gone out of his way to make me feel comfortable after last night, and I owed him the satisfaction of playing along.

Besides, flirting with Nick Persons came easy. We’d been doing it for years, and unbeknownst to me, it meant more to him than I could have imagined. There was a calming quality to having him there, and I almost forgot about the phone that was sitting next me that was itching to be checked.

“What do they say?”

“That when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” I turned my head to look back at him. He chuckled, smiled, and kissed me on the lips. It was a quick peck, but even then, sitting in my bedroom with just the two of us, it meant so much.

I remember thinking that this is what a relationship should be like. Should. There was the chemistry, the banter, the familiarity that made me comfortable enough to sit there in between Nick’s legs and talk to him, morning breath and all. There wasn’t the uncertainty about how he felt, the rush to get home before curfew, the tensing of his entire body when I leaned into him. There wasn’t the difficulty of my other two relationships, if I could even call them that.

And then I remember thinking that if things could be this easy, why did I still find myself looking at my phone, wondering what from last night was still hidden inside.

“I mean, didn’t you assume some things about me too?” Nick asked, jolting me out of my pensiveness.

“Huh?”

“Assuming? You made your own assumptions about me, didn’t you Crowley?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you came barreling in here the other night, you assumed that I was straight. One of those straight guys that gets off on toying with your emotions. Pretty presumptive on your part.”

I shrugged and stretched my neck, unsure how to answer him. He immediately grabbed my neck with three fingers and slowly massaged a kink I didn’t even know was there.

“I guess you’re right,” I replied. “But seriously, how did I miss the boat on knowing that Nick Persons spoke fluent fag?”

“Beats me. I mean, I’ve been trying to flirt with you pretty consistently since I was a freshman last year. I just always thought that you weren’t interested.”

I let out a soft chuckle and continued to revel in the feeling of his hands against my neck. I thought back to every single one of my and Nick’s interactions since we met a year ago, and while there had always been something there, I had never placed that something in the sexual category.

“I guess I thought that the Corbin Crowley, author of The Signature on the back page of The Founder was someone that you wanted but never got. It’d be like meeting Bradley Cooper and him not going home with you. Disappointing but not altogether surprising.”

“He’s pretty fucking hot.”

“That he is, Crowley.”

“Are you calling me a regulation hottie, Nick Persons?” I asked, smiling beside myself.

“I might be,” Nick replied, bending into me and planting a firm kiss on my lips. This time I didn’t retreat with a neck roll. I let him kiss me. I let him take me away. I let someone want me for a just a few more seconds.

“Okay, I get that,” I replied, leaning forward and putting my cup of coffee on my desk. “I might’ve been the local celebrity with the column in the paper, but you were the funny, charming, confident freshman. That could’ve bought you quite a bit a whole lot sooner.”

“I guess my mom was right about good things coming to those who wait,” Nick shrugged behind me. I felt awkward realizing that Nick had seriously crushed on me for over a year and I was just now putting the dots together. I’d been that oblivious in all of our interaction that I hadn’t even realized that his flirting was something more. Part of it flattered me to no end, and part of it made me blush to consider.

“Still,” I continued “Nothing ever happened with you and me until now; why have I not heard a single rumor about you and anyone else?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I’m pretty good about keeping it my pants, I guess.”

And that’s when it hit me. For Nick, fun wasn’t the moments that two guys were holding each other, inside of one another, making love to the other. Fun was this: sitting together, sharing stories, laughing together. His way of showing me he liked me didn’t involve jumping my bones in the basement of Sigma Chi. It was inviting me up to his room to listen to the latest songs he’d downloaded, or handing me a drink that no one else had access to.

Our ideals of what built a relationship were different. For me, love had to hurt. It had to be complicated. It needed to involve a chase, something you could pine over. Something you could write a weekly column about. For Nick, it was much simpler.

“I should probably get up and do some work,” I stretched, putting my cup of coffee on my desk, and then sitting back down in the same position that I had just vacated.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re all that interested in getting up,” Nick observed. He took his hands that had been on my shoulders and gently ran them down my chest, pulled me in, and kissed the back of my neck. It mesmerized me that this was the same guy that couldn’t take his shirt off without elbowing me in the chest. But it was, and I was enjoying myself for the first time in a very long time.

“Here,” he said, sitting up, standing over me, and pulling my laptop to the bed where we sat. He crossed his legs around me and pulled himself in close, putting the laptop on my lap, but controlling it from behind me. “Let me show you something.”

I watched him navigate to the start screen on my computer.

“What’s your password?”

“I’m not telling you.” I faced Nick to see him raising an eyebrow and giving me a look. “I’m really not telling you.”

“Oh, come on. What is it?”

“Swear you won’t judge me. I’ve had this password since I was twelve years old.”

“On my honor, no judgment.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Aguilera88.”

“As in… Christina Aguilera?” I could hear the judgment in his voice, and my head dropped as he typed in the letters. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It logged you in, didn’t it?”

“Well thank the Lord Jesus our God that I was sent here this morning to show you this. If nothing else happens between us, at least I was able to leave you with a better taste in music.”

“Harsh,” I replied, aware of what my computer password revealed about me. In my defense, Aguilera88 had been my very first AIM password, and I’d used it for everything ever since. I watched Nick as he got online and quickly downloaded a song titled in a language I couldn’t recognize.

“What is this?” I asked as he waited for the download to finish, me nestled perfectly in his legs.

“Just listen.”

I felt Nick stretch comfortably behind me, spooning me perfectly, and wrapping his legs around me like that was exactly where they belonged. I started to think about how perfectly our bodies fit together as I easily moved into his nook. The music played softly at the beginning, just strings at first. After about four measures, with Nick’s chin rested on my shoulder and his chest pressed firmly on my back, I heard the swell of woodwind instruments as clearly as I felt his chest rise and fall against me. I recognized a clarinet and a bassoon, I thought. Mixed with the simple floating melody of the strings, the music lifted, almost off the speakers of my laptop, and into the air like clouds high in the sky. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to get carried away by the sound, allowed myself to float into the air with it.

I remember hearing a percussive beat, a heavy one, and with it, I felt Nick’s fingernails trail up the inside of my knee. It was the first time I connected his hand movements with the crescendos and decrescendos of the music. As the intensity of the sounds picked up again, I felt his hand travel up the inside of my thigh, moving the fabric of my sheets with them. I let out a sigh, and in perfect harmony, Nick and I exhaled together.

From that moment, I knew it was over. The music continued to build, and without much more than his hands gently rubbing me, his left across my chest, and his right inside my legs, I felt myself fall deeper and deeper into Nick’s spell.

I’d never felt the way that he made me feel, admittedly. It was like he was forcing me out of my comfort zone, not taking no for an answer. For a guy who was barely knocking on twenty years old, he knew how to impart whatever feeling he wanted onto someone else like a pro who had been doing this kind of thing forever.

As I sat there, moving with him, moving with the melody of the song, I felt myself slipping past the point of using him for a rebound to the point where I could have seen more Sunday mornings like this is in my future.

It took only a second, a measure, a beat for me to go through a million thoughts at once. Was this what it was all about? Was this the kind of connection that people were searching for? Was this the kind of chemistry that kept poets up late at night? Was this what I was looking for in all of the wrong places, thrown into my bed from the unlikeliest of sources?

Was this happiness?

I felt Nick’s hand graze the base of my shaft, and in that split second, I decided to allow myself to do something I hadn’t done since I’d stepped foot on campus for that junior year and met Pete Davis… I allowed myself to feel.

It wasn’t an uncontrolled emotion. It wasn’t me begging for an assurance that wasn’t there. It wasn’t me wanting for a guy whose affections lay hidden away in the closets of his heart. It was me suppressing my desire for him, my love for him, in an attempt to save face.

I chose to feel. I allowed myself that right. I let myself go and enjoy the feeling of Nick’s hands on my body, the music floating around us, his cock pressing against me, and his heart beating on the other side of mine. I chose to do what felt right at the moment, and no text message on the other side of the bed, a million miles away from where Nick and I sat, could come between that feeling.

And it wasn’t until I woke up from an orgasm induced nap with Nick Persons pretzeled in my bed, that my choice to feel evaporated and my irrational desire to check my phone returned.

“What did you think of that?” Nick asked me softly as I stretched out of bed, waking him up in the process. I wasn’t sure how long we’d slept, but from the sunlight pouring through my windows, I knew it was well into the afternoon.

“The sex or the song?” I turned and faced him.

“Both.”

“I prefer my songs with lyrics,” I smiled critically, thinking back to how easily Nick had used the movements of the orchestra to dictate the movements of his dick deep inside of me, bringing me to the brink of orgasm time and time again, before we both climaxed with the final crescendo of a song I didn’t know. “But other than that, I have no complaints.”

Nick looked into my eyes and read me. I’m not sure what he saw, or what he felt, but after a second of looking at me, he sat up in my bed, revealing the entire length of his body as he pulled back my sheet and stretched like a cat.

“I should leave,” he sighed. I watched him stand up and pick up the pair of my shorts he’d been wearing all morning.

“Do you mind if I borrow these?” he asked, putting them on before I had a chance to answer.

“Only if you promise to bring them back,” I said, trying my hardest to remain in the moment while watching the guy who had just made me feel all morning get dressed and leave. Part of me didn’t want him to go. Part of me wanted to explore this new side of Nick’s and my relationship. Part of me wanted to continue bathing in our undeniable chemistry. Part of me wanted to continue forgetting and keep on feeling.

But a bigger part of me couldn’t wait for him to be gone so that I could check my phone, and go back to obsessing over everything Pete had sent.

I’m sure it was that part that Nick had seen in my eyes, and like a houseguest who realizes they’ve overstayed their welcome, no matter how pleasant the visit, I was glad to see Nick pick up his things and go.

“I will bring these shorts back to you. Or next time you can come to Sigma Chi yourself and pick them up.”

Without hesitation, and the confidence of someone who was secure in his sexuality, Nick bent down and kissed me goodbye.

“Better than Dorian, isn’t it?” he asked, licking his lips after letting go of mine. I feigned a shrug as I sat up in my bed.

“Eh… kissed one Persons, kissed them all.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, pretending to be offended by the comparison to his brother.

“You’re a heartbreaker, Crowley. I’ll see you later.”

I watched his lithe, sexy frame exit my room, and it wasn’t more than a second before I threw off my covers and sat up in my bed.

The first thing I did when I picked up my phone was check the time. It was after four, and I was in dangerous territory of pissing my entire day away. The next thing I did was reread the text message that Pete had sent the night before; the text message that had sent me spiraling into Nick’s arms.

I’ve been thinking a lot about last night. I’ve been unfair to you. I love you. Let’s talk. –Pete

I read each sentence, one phrase at a time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about last night: meaning our kiss. Meaning everything that had led up to our kiss. Meaning everything that Pete had done to encourage a kiss from me. He had been thinking a lot about those actions, my reactions, and what had happened after. He had been thinking over and over, the way I thought about our every single interaction. He had been thinking about last night, I thought. It was about fucking time he did some thinking.

I’ve been unfair to you: That phrase, isolated from the rest, was probably the most loaded in the entire text message. Unfair how? I thought. In leading me on? Was he finally taking responsibility for my feelings towards him? Was he admitting that I wasn’t a crazy person for falling in love with him? Of course he’d been unfair. He’d encouraged me to let my heart go one artery at a time, and then as soon as I did, every time that I did, he pulled back and made me doubt everything we’d been through.

Unfair was an understatement, I thought. But at least he was admitting that there was a fairness there that had been breached.

I love you: This is where my mind went reeling. I love you. I love you like a brother? I love you as a friend? I love you like a lover? How many ways was there to love someone, I thought? A million. People loved books, pets, parents, friends… our hearts were filled with love for millions of things around us.

To me, wanting to read deeply into his words, I decided that there was a preposition missing from Pete’s meaning. I had told him before that I was in love with him.

In. Love.

There was a huge difference, I thought between loving someone and being in love with them. Did he love me? Or was he in love with me? I stared at my phone trying my hardest to make that distinction and every time I thought I knew what he meant, I realized I had no fucking clue.

Let’s talk: the only portion of the message that was straightforward. We needed to talk. That much was clear. We needed to talk sober, and we needed to talk soon. I needed to know what every other phrase in that message meant before it tortured the living shit out of me.

Let’s talk. Absolutely, I thought. And just as I came to the realization that talking was the only way I’d figure out what the rest of his words meant, I got irrationally afraid, and decided to spend some more time analyzing the first three phrases instead of going to him and actually talking about them.

I knew that a talk with Pete would be final. I’d either hear what I had been waiting for all semester, or I would leave disappointed, with a certainty that Pete’s initial reaction to my kiss was his final reaction. I would leave either hopeful or hopeless. All in, or with nothing at all.

I wasn’t ready for that talk, I thought. But it was a talk that needed to happen. It was a talk that had needed to happen for a while, and if I planned on dragging a guy like Nick through the wringer because of my obsession with Pete, I needed to have that talk as soon as possible.

And so at 5:07 on that Sunday afternoon, after sitting in bed analyzing four phrases for over an hour, I replied to Pete’s text message.

To Pete: Got your text. You’re right. Let’s talk.

I put my phone down and waited.

I leaned over towards my laptop and clicked open my iTunes, and pressed play on shuffle, and then I laid back down and waited.

I lay there listening to song after song on my iTunes, waiting for a vibration next to my left hand. I knew that finals began in less than a week, but to study would have been futile. I knew that I could analyze his text message a thousand more times, but if we were set to have the talk, then what was the point? I could have laid there and reminisced about a perfect night with a perfect Sigma Chi, but how would that have been productive? I could have plotted and schemed more ways to take over my own fraternity, but in my distractions, I was uninspired.

And so I just waited. I didn’t do anything else but listen and wait.

And then a song came on that jolted me out of my near coma. I heard the first chords of Kelly Clarkson’s Beautiful Disaster, and I remember thinking that I loved the song. It was simple, and underrated, personal and honest. But as I listened closely, I couldn’t help but think that the lyrics were pulled straight out of my current situation.

He’s as damned as he seems. More heaven than a heart could hold. And if I try to save him, my whole world could cave in, and it just ain’t right.

I sat up and immediately pushed repeat. My mind connected with every lyric and I needed to hear the song again.

I don’t know what he’s after… but he’s so beautiful. Such a beautiful disaster.

I’m not sure when the first tear fell down my cheek, but I remember listening to that song over and over, wondering how a situation that felt so uniquely mine could be so universal. It was almost like the melody was speaking directly to me, narrating my every feeling.

He’s magic and myth. As strong as what I believe. A tragedy with more damage than a soul should see.

It was like the lyrics and the melody had both been pulled from my brain, and every word I’d thought about the Brit over the course of the last five months was being played back in the key of A minor.

Do I try to change him? So hard not to blame him…

As I sat there waiting for Pete to respond, I asked myself that question over and over. Should I try to change him? Should I try to be the catalyst that drives him out of the closet? And what if he wasn’t gay… what if this whole thing, these mixed feelings, what if they were just about me?

I must have listened to that song a dozen times in a row before I finally felt it. My hand jolted and tensed up when I felt the vibration rock my entire bed, and within a split second, I’d grabbed my phone and I read the message.

To Corbin: I’m in the library basement by your carrel. Come over.

I read the message and took a deep breath. I couldn’t very well go to the library in the same clothes I’d had on after fucking with Nick Persons all afternoon, so I took a quick shower, put on a clean pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and my Abercrombie and Fitch zip up sweater, a pair of boots, and a beanie. I listened to Beautiful Disaster two more times while getting dressed, letting the lyrics sink into me again.

I don’t know… I don’t know what he’s after. But he’s so beautiful… such a beautiful disaster. And if I could hold on through the tears and the laughter, would we be beautiful, or just a beautiful disaster?

As I walked towards the library, I resigned myself to the fact that this talk was happening, and there was nothing else I could do to postpone it. I needed the clarity straight from Pete’s mouth, or else I would have driven myself crazy all week trying to figure it out. It was better this way, I thought, as I got closer to the building. Even if things went a completely different way. It was better this way.

A beautiful disaster.

“Hey,” I whispered when I reached the bottom floor of the library, turned the two corners to the left, and saw Pete sitting on a couch directly in front of the row where my carrel was. It was almost like he’d set up camp there for the day, with a pile of books, notebooks, and at least three cups of dining hall to-go coffee strewn about. It made me think he was hoping I would come to my carrel to study, and that I’d find him sitting there, ready to talk.

I’ve been thinking a lot about last night. I’ve been unfair to you. I love you. Let’s talk. -Pete

“Hey,” he stretched, standing up to meet me. My hands were lodged deeply in my pockets, and as I stopped about five feet away from where Pete stood, I asked myself if everything was worth what I was about to put myself through.

“How was your day?” he asked nonchalantly, breezy, like there wasn’t a text message sized lump lodged directly in my windpipe.

“Not bad, considering,” I replied, tilting my head. I tried my best to remain even, in control. There were a million ways my emotions could have pulled me, and so the only thing I could do to avoid a colossal meltdown was to stay as even keel as possible.

“Want to go outside and talk? I’m not sure the studiers down here would appreciate us making noise.”

“Whatever you think is best,” I answered. I kept my hands as far in my sweater as possible and followed Pete outside. The evening air was cold but still. With no wind, it didn’t feel quite as cold, and so I didn’t object as Pete led me to the coliseum style seating that faced Gentleman’s Green from the bottom of the hill where the library was built.

“So you got my text message,” he began.

“I read it, yeah,” I answered, implying that I had seen the words, but was yet to understand the meaning.

When Pete didn’t say anything, waiting for me to start I presumed, I pursed my lips and shrugged. What did he want me to say? What was I supposed to ask? How was the talk supposed to go?

“What’d you think?” he asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Honestly, Pete, I don’t know what to think. It’s like a yo-yo with you. Do I have YoYoJam stamped across my forehead?”

“You don’t,” he squinted, as if he was actually trying to read the yo-yo company’s name physically stamped on my forehead.

“Two days ago it was ‘Corbin, I don’t love you.’ Yesterday, it was the exact opposite. What am I supposed to do with that?”

There was another long pause. This time, I wasn’t going to speak. This wasn’t going to be a talk in which I aired out my feelings and Pete sat there like a member of the Coldstream Guard on a coffee break. He wasn’t getting off that easy. I didn’t care how uncomfortable it got for him. He’d asked me to talk, and so I waited for him to talk.

“Look, I don’t know a lot of things about this. And I don’t know why I said what I said on Friday, and I did what I did last night. I just… I don’t. But I do know that when I’m around you, I feel ways that aren’t… that are… I feel ways that are new for me, and I don’t know where to file or sort those feelings.”

I looked at Pete, watching the steam from his voice waft into the air. I let his words sink in for a second. It was the closest he’d ever come to admitting he had any sort of feelings for me. But even in his vague admission, there wasn’t any assurance. There were still uncertainties. Uncertainties had led me to do what I did on Friday night. Uncertainties would always lead me to make the wrong decision when it came to the Brit.

And so I skipped past uncertainties and asked Pete the tough question that had floated through my mind a million times since I read his message.

“Do you love me?” I asked. I watched his left eye squint just a little. It wasn’t quite a twitch, but it was more than a casual spasm. It was big enough that I could see it, and I knew he was searching for his words carefully.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to date me?” I asked, giving him no time to rationalize his answer.

“I don’t know.”

I marveled at his honesty. That must have taken guts, considering where the two of us had come from in the months that we’d known each other.

But we still hadn’t gotten anywhere. “I don’t know” was still too vague for me. Too noncommittal. A month ago, I would have taken his answer straight to the bank and held on to the hope of a possibility. But after that hope had failed me time and time again, I needed more than “I don’t know” from Pete.

“You don’t know?” I shook my head. “And if you don’t know, who does?”

I let the word linger on my tongue. I didn’t mean it as an attack, but I felt the bite of my words escaping my lips with a little more crispness than I anticipated.

“Because I certainly don’t know how you feel. I think I know, and then you completely change things around on me. But I do know when I’m being manipulated, Pete. And you did it when you went to DC, and you did it last night. And so if you don’t know if you love me, and if you don’t know if you would date me, and if you don’t even know if you could date a guy or not, then who the fuck knows? Because I don’t know; and if you don’t know, and I don’t know, then who does?”

I felt my voice crack, and I felt a tear go down my face. I tried to stop it by looking up quickly, but it was too late. I sniffed in, and when Pete didn’t respond to what I’d said, I swiped the tear from my cheek and continued.

“Let me tell you what I do know, Pete. I know that I have feelings for you. And I know that you want to have feelings for me too because you think that that’s what you’re supposed to do. That because I have feelings for you, and because you think you might possibly maybe like me in some way, that you’re supposed to have feelings for me in return. And I know that it’s killing you inside because you’re not sure what your feelings mean; I know that. But I know that I can’t change you. I can’t force you; I can’t make you into someone you’re not, or that you’re not ready to be, just to be with me. I can’t do that. I know that you could try, and you probably would for me, I get that. I know that. But I know that eventually you’ll want something different. Eventually, I won’t be enough. Eventually, you will wonder why you changed your life for me. I know that, Pete. I also know that I can survive you right now. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. I know that. But I know for a fact that if I fall any deeper than I already am, if you give me any more hope than you already have, I know that I won’t survive you then. I… I... I know that this is supposed to be easier than it is. And I know that some things are meant to be fought for. But I know that if I keep fighting for you, I will lose. And if I lose… I just… I know that I can’t afford to lose.”

By the time I was done talking, tears were rolling down my face. I felt heat under my skin, embarrassed for losing myself in front of him, but relieved for sharing my honesty. After hours of agonizing, I summed up how I felt in a minute long soliloquy that would have made Emily Bronte proud.

I felt Pete’s arm around me, and I shook as he held me. I don’t know how long we sat like that, and I don’t know if it was only my crying that was causing our shoulders to shake, but I knew that Pete had to have been as emotional as I was on some level.

After a few minutes, the shaking stopped. The crying stopped, and I regained my composure. Pete let go of my shoulder, and I looked at him with blood shot eyes.

“So what now?” he asked me, squinting his eyes like he was trying to hold back tears of his own.

This was the part I wasn’t sure of. I had spewed out all of the things I knew to be true, but where Pete and I went from that moment was one thing I didn’t know. It was one thing I couldn’t predict, or rationalize. It was one thing I couldn’t make a decision on. And so without thinking, without trying to know, I answered with the first thing that came to mind.

“So now you figure yourself out,” I sighed, releasing myself from him. “You figure out the kind of life you want to live, and the kind of man that you want to be, and if that decision leads you back here and these feelings are still what they are, then we go from there.”

“And if they aren’t?”

I looked him in the eye. Neither of us moved as we contemplated the possibility that Pete and I could eventually live a life that didn’t include one another. We had done it for twenty years, I thought in an attempt to keep me from considering the real possibility.

“If they aren’t, then it was never meant to be, was it?” I chewed the words slowly, afraid of how final they sounded. But they weren’t final, I decided. If Pete ever came back to me with a certainty, with a willingness to try beyond the up and down he’d put me through before, I would have dropped everything to be with him. I knew that for a fact. I didn’t say it; I couldn’t bring myself to say that much to him, but I knew that if it ever came down to Pete and someone else, he would unequivocally win out.

And so with that conversation, with that resolution between the Brit and me, we said our goodbyes. He went back to the library to study, and I went back to my house to try and get some much needed work done before I fell too far behind.

Armed with a clarity I hadn’t felt in months, I decided to focus my efforts on things I could control: exams in less than a week, rush in less than a month, and the second semester of the school year that was proving to be the year that would change my life forever.