The List - 13. Chapter 13: Riley

Specimen’s Name: Riley

Height: 5’9’’

Build: 145, slim

Age: 18, freshman

Occupation: Student (English)

Measurements: 6” cut

The bomb dropped on Monday afternoon and I remember it like it was yesterday. After falling asleep at Kyle’s on Saturday night, we woke up, cleaned his house before his parents got home, packed up our cars and had dinner with his family. I remember being extremely nervous at dinner, thinking about how much I loved hanging out with the Wriggs clan— I didn’t want to screw it up. His parents were really nice and sweet. His brother was a politician in the making and Kyle seemed right at home with them, once his nerves softened, courtesy of a glass of wine.

As we drove back to campus, Kyle and I in my car and Jason taking back Kyle’s BMW, we decided that the next two weeks before Christmas break would be big weeks for school, so we talked through when we’d hang out during our busy schedules. I had exams starting the Monday after school resumed, so I’d probably be hustling all weekend to get ready.

“The Sigmas usually have a midnight breakfast as a study break before exams start,” Kyle said as we were pulling into University Park. “I think it’s Sunday night, if you want to go.” I didn’t say anything. I had my reservations. My interaction with the Sigmas up to now had been kind of weird, especially with three different ones saying that they’d heard great things about me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend too much time at the frat house until I figured out what they were all talking about and why.

“Yeah,” I finally responded. “Let me know.”

When we parted ways to go back to our rooms, we’d decided to have lunch on Wednesday, dinner on Friday and to spend Saturday ‘studying’ together. The rest of the week would be a master class in cramming.

When I got to the room and saw Spencer, I was reminded that I was annoyed with him. He was on his computer watching Hulu and I immediately grilled into him.

“We need to caucus,” I said, putting my duffle bag down and sitting on his bed.

“How was the weekend at la casa de sus novio?” he asked me, closing his laptop and turning to face me. I noticed he had his Spanish textbook out next to his computer. “Did he fuck your face blue?”

“We’re not talking about me and Kyle right now, amigo,” I said, looking at Spencer. “We’re talking about you, and how you told Kyle about you and me.”

“I didn’t think that was a big deal,” Spencer said cavalierly. He reached into our fridge and pulled out a Gatorade. “It was before ya’ll started dating.”

“I know that, and it shouldn’t be a big deal,” I said to him. “But Kyle is… you know. He was bothered by it.”

“Hmm,” Spencer said, taking a drink of Gatorade. “Not my problem.” I gave him a look with my eyebrow raised and my lips pursed. “Ok, ok. I’m sorry. Listen, I didn’t mean to upset him or anything. What did he even say to you?”

“That it was wrong of me to not tell him that you took my virginity,” I said. “As if we’re still hooking up or whatever. It was just awkward and stupid.”

I lay back onto Spencer’s bed and crossed my hands behind my head.

“And then when I asked him who he’d slept with before we started dating, he acted like he was already asleep or something, which probably means he’s hiding something he doesn’t want to tell me.” Then I had a thought. These two were old childhood friends. Of course Spencer would know more about Kyle’s sexual past than I did, even if he didn’t realize he knew anything at all. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“About what?” Spencer had gotten up and was putting a pack of popcorn into the microwave.

“No, never mind,” I said, pretending like it wasn’t a big deal. “It’s just that Kyle said he’d had sex with two guys before we started dating. Of course you wouldn’t know any of them because I’m the first guy you found out about.”

“Yep,” Spencer said, popping some popcorn into his mouth. He sat down next to me on his bed and offered me some. I shook my head. “Of course, I always sort of suspected when we were in high school.”

Bait bitten, I thought. “Oh yeah?” I asked casually. I had to let Spencer slip out whatever he knew. I’d process the info on my own.

“Yep,” he said. “He’d always come out here and visit his brother our senior year. He thought he was a real hotshot. He’d be out here like every other weekend at a Sigma party, or whatever. I always thought, you know, who the hell is he driving down here to see? Him and Jason are close, but come on, you know? That’s a little excessive.”

“Yeah,” I nodded along just listening. “Did he ever talk about anyone?”

“I guess I had conditioned myself for all of the girl stories,” Spencer said. “Be he did almost always talk about hanging out with this guy named Rusty at Sigma parties. I just thought the guy had taken Kyle under his wing, or something.”

My ears perked up. He’d always go back to Colleyville with stories about Rusty? What kind of stories could those be? Did Kyle come all the way down to Dallas every other weekend just to hang out with Rusty? ‘He has a thing for younger guys,’ Michael had said when he was rubbing me down. Did that ‘thing’ start with my boyfriend?

“Any stories in particular?” I asked Spencer.

“Oh hell no,” he said to me. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. If you want to know if he’s hooked up with Rusty, you should just ask him yourself.”

“You owe me this, Spence,” I said sitting up and looking at him. “You’re the one that started this whole thing. I don’t want to know that much; I just want to know if he slept with Rusty.”

“Why does it matter?” Spencer asked, looking at me square in the face. He was asking a valid question. Why did it matter to me? Probably for the same reason it mattered to Kyle that I’d slept with Spencer and didn’t tell him.

“It doesn’t,” I said with feigned nonchalance. I lay back down. “I’m just curious. He knows about everyone I’ve been with now. I just want to even the score.”

“One, you’re a liar and you’re bad at it. I know the thought of your tiny little boyfriend writhing around with a hot and sweaty frat stud, his cock all over Kyle’s ass, just pumping in and out and in and out just drives you crazy,” Spencer said. He stopped describing it just as I was getting ready to lose my cool. “Two, he doesn’t know about everyone you’ve been with. Should I pull out the list to remind you of all the guys you’ve fucked that Kyle has no idea about?”

“Not necessary, I think I’ll remember on my own,” I replied, tartly. Neither of those reasons negated the fact that Spencer owed me this and when I reminded him of that, he agreed to meet up with Kyle for lunch tomorrow and ask him about Rusty.

“I want verbal confirmation,” I reminded Spencer when he’d turned out the light and we were both in our own beds. I wasn’t even pretending to be sly about it anymore now that Spencer had agreed to go on this fact-finding mission for me.

That night, I slept as though my brain had been bitten by a mosquito. The idea of Kyle and Rusty screwing each other nagged at me all night, and the more I thought about it, the bigger the brain itch got. Kyle was so svelte and put together. Rusty was so rugged and fratty. The image that kept popping in my mind was of David riding on Goliath’s dick and I couldn’t shake it.

On Monday, I went to my three classes as usual, still itching at the idea of Rusty and Kyle in the back of my mind. Why was I so bothered if they had hooked up? Was it a game changer? I couldn’t answer that question honestly until I knew for sure what I was dealing with.

I was phoning it in all day long, zoning out and not really paying attention.

“Can you pass those down?” I heard someone say in my English class. I knew they’d spoken the words to me, but I wasn’t paying attention.

“Hey, pass those down, please.” The voice talking to me got a little bit more agitated.

I turned to my left and said, “Huh?” I looked down and saw a stack of papers sitting in front of me in the lecture hall bench desk.

“Sorry,” I said, looking at the guy next to me. He held his hand out and I took a sheet of paper and passed the stack. Embarrassed that I’d missed the entire line of conversation so far, I looked down at the sheet and saw groupings of four names each. I scanned the paper for my name and saw it was paired with two girls and guy. I had no clue who Kim, Samantha and Riley were, but for some reason I was grouped with them.

“Locate your group on the paper. Each team of four will be responsible for coming up with a ten minute presentation on any of the assigned literary works we’ve read in class, coupled with a corresponding literary term. For example, Symbolism in Frankenstein would be a good pairing. Break up the work in the group however you see fit, but fifty percent of your grade will be based on peer evaluation as well as the finished product,” the TA finished. “Presentations will be next Monday and I need a list of your topics and works in my email by five o’clock tonight.” As soon as the TA was done talking, people were shifting around and shouting out names.

I heard a girl shout Cooper from the back of the lecture hall. I’ve never actually met another Cooper before in my life, so I just looked up, assuming it was me. She repeated my name; I spotted her and headed up the stairs to the back row.

“Hi,” she smiled at me. “I’m Kim.” We shouted around until we met Sam and Riley. We decided to just meet there really quickly since no one had class right then. We began to decide what our term and piece of work would be and how we wanted to divvy up the assignment. Kim was a really cute Asian girl who looked like she came from money. She was tall and thin, almost model-esque, wearing clearly designer clothes. I noted she was wearing high heels on campus; I’d always judged those kinds of girls. Sam on the other hand was down to earth, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and clearly wasn’t part of the plastic sorority crowd. Riley had similar dimensions as Kyle, I noticed right away. He was about an inch shorter than me, slim, with a cute face and hair that sort of spiked up into a faux-hawk that looked like he’d just rolled out of bed with it. One thing I did notice right away, however, was that his eyes were jet blue against his darker features. I’d never seen anything so interesting before.

After meeting for half an hour right there in the lecture hall, we decided to use the short story “Everything in This Country Must” from the Irish literature unit of our class. The term we chose to focus on was mood, seeing as to the story was dripping with it. To me, mood was the most abstract literary device we’d studied, and therefore the perfect one for a presentation in which I didn’t want to focus too much energy. We also decided that the girls would read the work, write up the bullets and Riley and I would get together over the weekend, compile the girl’s research into a paper and construct the Powerpoint presentation. We agreed to meet back up on Sunday to rehearse.

“Sucks that Richards is springing this on us in the last week, huh?” Riley said to me as we packed up and headed out of the room. A couple of groups were still lingering around.

“Yeah,” I replied. “As if I don’t have enough work already.”

“Right,” he nodded. “Say, there’s this really great study spot in the study abroad resource center that loud and obnoxious freshmen haven’t discovered yet. If you’re ever looking for a quiet place...” He smiled at me as we walked down the stairs towards the exit.

“Thanks,” I said. He told me where it was and I considered it. It beat studying in my room— I always fell asleep. And, it would save me from having to go back to Drip and explain to Ben why I couldn’t take ‘study breaks’ with him anymore, now that I was standing at the border of love-island with Kyle— population two.

I meandered around campus for another couple of hours, pretending to read but not absorbing anything. After dinner on campus, I walked home in the cold to find Spencer reading shirtless on my bed.

“I thought you had practice?” I said to him.

“Nope,” he said, flipping through a physics text book casually. It was unreal how easily this kid could pick things up. I’d have to be taking endless notes to understand what was going on in physics. “Freshmen are on a morning schedule until after exams. You get to spend your afternoons and evenings with yours truly,” he said. He patted the side of my bed, I took my jacket off and sat down next to him. It was weird. We had two beds in our room, but Spencer and I, whenever we needed to talk, always ended up on one bed, laying down and facing upwards. Today was no different.

“So what’s the skinny with Kyle,” I asked, trying to sound like I hadn’t been thinking about the possibility all day long. Spencer put the book down next to him and turned his face so he was looking at me. I was sitting upright, taking my shoes off. He propped his head up on his elbow as if he was about to deliver some news. And then the bomb dropped.

“Kyle said at lunch today that yes, he and Rusty did mess around both at the beginning of this year and a lot last year,” Spencer said. I lay down next to him, propped my head up so that we were facing each other and listened. “He did say, however, and I feel like a douche telling you this after he specifically told me not to, that it was over as soon as he developed feelings for you.”

“And when was that?” I asked.

“Will you let me finish?” Spencer said. “Apparently, Rusty showed some interest in you the first night you went to a Sigma party. I don’t know the deets, I wasn’t there, but he asked Kyle about you and then a week later, Kyle said he set you guys up or something.” The phone call in which Rusty ‘demanded my presence,’ I thought. I went over there with almost every intention of hanging out with Kyle and ended up hooking up with Rusty instead. After that came the bizarre, “I’ve been waiting for this,” line that I just didn’t understand. What was crazy was that before that phone call, Kyle and I had been on a great date and were heading in a solid direction. After the phone call, it was like he’d changed his tune and was suddenly open to an open relationship.

“Who was the second guy?” I asked, thinking maybe someone else fit into this as well.

“The second guy was someone Kyle played tennis with at the country club in high school,” Spencer replied. “No big deal.” Ok, I thought. That one isn’t a big deal, but the Rusty thing had to be. Why wouldn’t Kyle say anything? Why would he knowingly fix me up with Rusty and then turn around and date me right after that. And then why would he pretend to be asleep when I asked him about it?

I sat there, quickly wracking my brain through the first couple of weeks Kyle and I were a thing, wondering what about it I was missing.

As I thought about mine and Kyle’s relationship, two things began to annoy me. First and foremost, how dare he get upset with me for hooking up with Spencer and not telling him when he was guilty of the exact same thing? I was also irrationally upset that he’d hooked up with Rusty in the first place. It just seemed like an odd pair. Plus, the first few weeks of our relationship were so Rusty-filled, I couldn’t help but be annoyed by it.

The second thing that struck me was how none of Kyle’s actions seemed to make sense those first two weeks we were dating. At first he was into me and talking about dating and seeing where we were going and then he was pulling me over on the side of the road saying that neither of us had the capacity to remain faithful. It just seemed like an odd flip-flop and I couldn’t help but think that his relationship with Rusty might have had something to do with it.

Finally, I thought that maybe Kyle was just willing to sleep with anyone in Sigma, including the President, because he thought being related to Jason Wriggs wasn’t enough to get him in. After all, he hadn’t pledged the Big 4. All that stuff about family lines that Kyle had said after the auction kept rolling around in my brain.

As I was mulling over my thoughts, it finally hit me. The auction. Kyle spent the first few weeks we were together flip-flopping about the two of us. He was probably still messing around with Rusty at that point. And then the auction happened, and Rusty was supposed to dress me, but he didn’t. He sent Michael up instead. And Michael had heard of me from Rusty, and so had Dixon who bid almost a thousand dollars to get into my pants. But why, if Rusty liked me so much, did he not contact me after we hooked up? And why, when he had the chance to hook up again, if it was good enough for him to babble on and on to Michael and Dixon, did he not even bother to show up on auction night? There were more questions than answers and more inconsistencies than certainties at that point.

I got off the bed and put my shoes back on. “Where are you going?” Spencer asked me, sitting up.

“To talk to Kyle,” I said. I thought I had put all of the pieces together, and the conclusion I’d come up with was so unreal I had to talk to Kyle right away. If what I was thinking was correct, it was definitely nearing deal-breaker territory.

“You can’t do that,” Spencer said to me. “You can’t tell him I told you.”

“It’s too late,” I said to him. “He’s the liar who’s been stringing me along all of this time, and I need to hear it from him why.” I had both of my shoes on, grabbed my black pea coat and walked out of the door, ignoring Spencer’s protests. I didn’t care if Kyle got mad at Spencer for telling me. I just needed to confirm what was itching away at my brain.

I hustled across the quadrangle to Kyle’s dorm room, bound up the stairs and knocked on the door. He answered it, wearing jeans, a wife beater and his glasses. He smiled at me before he saw my expression and then asked, “What’s the matter?”

I let myself in, keeping my hands inside my pockets because they were freezing and shivering. I could only imagine what I looked like barging into his room at eight o’clock when we didn’t have plans to hang out for a full day.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” I said to Kyle. “Are you fucking Rusty?”

Kyle’s eyes got huge. A tear drop immediately formed inside of his eye well and I had my answer. “That’s ridiculous,” he said softly. I cocked my eyebrow up at him.

“Then why do I feel like you are? And have been for a really long time, now?” I asked him. I was moving in closer to him and he was backing away. He sat down on his bed, facing me with his huge eyes.

“What did Spencer tell you?” he asked. I told him that Spencer had said everything. “So he told you that I stopped sleeping with Rusty when you and I went official, right?”

“Did you?” I asked.

“Yes, I did,” he replied. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I want to believe you,” I said to him, trying my best to keep my voice strong. “I really do, babe, but I’m going over everything in my mind and I know you’re hiding something from me and it doesn’t make any sense. I just know it, and I wish I could figure out what and why, and why you won’t just tell me, but I’m afraid that if I know, if I find out, then I’ll—“ I didn’t want to say I’d dump him, but we both got the picture.

“You have to trust me,” Kyle said assuredly. “It isn’t what it seems like. Rusty and I are long past over.”

“Ok,” I said to Kyle. “Then tell me why you set me up with Rusty in the first place?”

“Why does it bother you? I made that call for Rusty ages before I had serious feelings for you,” he replied. “He liked hanging out with you that one night, I let it slip that we’d gone out and he asked me to call you over.”

“Okay, but why would Rusty tell all of his brothers how great I was in bed if he didn’t have any intention of coming after me again? If he had such a good time, why not call me or Facebook me or pursue me in some way, shape or form? Why pimp me out to Michael and Dixon instead?”

“As soon as you hooked up with Rusty and he told me about it, I got jealous. I told him that I had feelings for you and he agreed to back off,” Kyle replied. “That is all.”

“No, it’s not,” I said to Kyle, the wheels finally turning in my head. “That night at the auction, you said to just go with it. Whatever happened, I was just supposed to go with it. And I did, with Michael, who said he’d heard so much about me, too. I automatically thought he’d heard about me from Rusty, but it wasn’t from Rusty, because if it was, Rusty would have just gone up there himself.” The big picture was finally all there in my mind. If I was right about this, then I was prepared to be crushed. If I was wrong, then I just looked plain crazy for coming up with this conspiracy theory.

“What exactly are you accusing me of here, babe?” Kyle asked me stoically, as if I had already fallen off of the deep end.

“You set me up with Rusty,” I said to him, figuring it out as I went along. I felt like I was playing the board game ‘Clue’ and I was making my final guess as to what was in the envelope. “And then you orchestrated the whole auction thing with Michael. You got me into that auction so that Michael would come up and fluff me and then Dixon would bid on me and win. Why would you want me to hook up with everyone in Rusty’s family? Why would you tell them each about me and then orchestrate this big thing so that I had to hook up with all of them? And all along the way, you made sure I fell in love with you.”

“I think it’s the love part that we should focus on,” Kyle said.

“I’m such an idiot,” I said, realizing that my theory was at least in part, true. Kyle had put everything together, but the question still remained why? The only thing those three guys had in common was Sigma and their family line. Why in the world would Kyle want me to hook up with all three of them? What did he get out of the whole deal?

“Ok,” he said. “Sit down.” I did. “It started out as a sort of, assignment thing. It was really stupid and you were never supposed to link anything together. After we hooked up, I made the mistake of telling Rusty about you. He and I had a casual thing, no big deal, but I told him that you and I were going on a date. He said that you must have been a good lay, and I said yes you were. So he asked me if I could broker something between him and you, and I said ‘fuck that’. That was the first time I felt like I had any feelings for you whatsoever. Then, the weekend after that, my brother gave me a card. And on the card was an unofficial tap to Sigma. Every freshman that they’re looking at gets one at some point. And on it, Rusty had given me some instructions. It was stupid for me to agree to it, and if I could go back and spare you all of this, believe me, I totally would.”

“What was on the card?” I asked, sifting through the bullshit and only hearing the story.

“The card had conditions and instructions. It said that I would be extended a full bid if I completed the following task.”

“I was the task.”

“Getting you to sleep with the entire family was the task,” he said cautiously. “Rusty wrote it up as soon as I told him I wasn’t going to hook the two of you up. Jason was clear that the only way I would get a tap next year was through the current president’s family and the only way Rusty would sign off on my bid was if I completed the task.”

“So you spent the entire first half of our relationship trying to get me to hook up with as many Sigmas as possible? Like I’m some cheap slut to you?” I had gone from suspicious to angry to furious to livid in a few short minutes. I stood up, wondering what I was even still doing there; I had the urge to throw things.

“It isn’t like that,” Kyle said.

“Then what’s it like?” I shouted to Kyle. “You used me to get into some fucking fraternity.”

“And you have every right to be upset, babe,” he said.

“No, no, fuck no,” I replied. “You don’t get to do the babe thing anymore. You lost that thing when you agreed to whore me out to your future brothers like I’m Pretty-Fucking-Woman.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining when you were having sex with all of them and then telling me just how much you loved me on the side,” Kyle said with enough attitude to sink a ship.

“Not fair,” I replied.

“It isn’t?” he countered. “At least I had a reason for what I was doing. You slept with Rusty and Michael and Dixon on your own, sir.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said to Kyle, opening his door. “God, I can’t believe that I— you said that my heart was safe with you, sir,” I shouted, turning around and facing Kyle. The tear that had been lingering in his eye had finally fallen. “I guess that was just another part of the lie to get into Sigma, wasn’t it?”

As I was leaving, Kyle said to me. “The card didn’t tell me to fall for you, Coop; I did that on my own. Cooper,” he called, but I’d already walked out. My plan was to be gone for good.

I walked back to my room feeling so angry, I could have killed anyone that looked at me the wrong way. I felt like the world’s biggest fool. This whole thing had been a stupid prank to Kyle and I’d fallen for it. I felt like I was stuck in the middle of a bad 90’s romantic comedy.

When I got to the room, Spencer was on his laptop typing away and listening to music. He asked me if everything was alright and I just waved him off and got into my bed. He asked me again, this time getting up and sitting next to me. I turned away from him, wiped my face and just lay there, too angry and too sad to say anything. I felt Spencer crawl under my covers like he had during the first couple of weeks of school and lay next to me. He put his arm around my waist, pulled me in close to him and let me fall asleep, crying as silently as possible into his nook.

I stayed in bed the next day. I had two classes on Tuesdays: theater appreciation and political science. I emailed both professors and told them that I had come down with something. My theater teacher was an ass about my email and said that I’d better be ready to perform on Thursday because it was the last day he was seeing monologues. My poly-sci teacher was cool since it was my first absence of the term.

After Kyle’s third phone call, I turned my phone off and went back to sleep. I woke up at four in the afternoon and watched Lifetime movies in bed until Spencer came home with Chinese food.

I felt like I’d been hit by a truck and I didn’t know when or how I’d ever feel better. What angered me the most wasn’t what had happened. Sure, that part sucked balls and I was pissed off at everyone who’d been involved, including myself. The part that really made me cringe was that I’d actually fallen for Kyle and he’d betrayed me. Forget about the fact that I’d cheated on him a couple of times. The second I said the “L” word to him, everything changed for me. But I wouldn’t change for someone I couldn’t trust.

The other thing that I kept dwelling on was how I’d allowed myself to fall for him so hard in just a few months, that I was literally unable to get out of bed because we were done. I’d never moped around and cried like this for anyone else. What made Kyle so special— the most special person I’d been with… ever?

I rallied on Wednesday, got out of bed, and went to all of my classes. I figured that my moping around period was over and that if I got out of the room and faked it, I’d eventually start to feel better.

As I was leaving my English class at the end of the lecture, I heard someone say, “You look like hell.” I turned to my left and saw Riley packing up his bag next to me. “Don’t tell me you were up all night working on this final presentation.”

“No,” I said. I sort of wished I had a distraction like a pending presentation, but my prep work before Thanksgiving had eased my exam study load for the next two weeks.

“Well whatever’s got you down, you look really rough,” Riley said. I wondered how long I had to listen to him before I could politely pull down the stairs and make my exit. I hadn’t even wanted to be out of bed this morning, let alone get accosted by a group partner I didn’t even know. “But it’s nothing that can’t be solved by a little bit of frozen yogurt. Bowl’s on me.” I could hear Riley’s words, but I had no idea what to make of it.

“Look, I appreciate that, but…” I started to say. Riley interrupted me.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. My dad owns Mango right off of campus, so it’s really just a courtesy ask. I’ll go without you,” he said to me. He slung his book bag over his shoulder and looked at me as though I didn’t have a choice but to follow him. So I did.

“So, Gilbert Grape, are you gonna tell me what’s eating you up?” he said to me when we got outside. I buttoned up my jacket and followed him down the sidewalk towards the north side of campus. “I figure if we’re going to be pulling an all-nighter together this weekend, we may as well get to know each other a little bit.” He sounded genuinely interested in hearing what I had to say, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t in the mood to talk about it— especially to a virtual stranger.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it,” I said to him truthfully. I could see Mango up the street and was grateful we’d be able to switch the subject to fro-yo in a few minutes.

“Not a problem,” he said, cheerfully. “Wait until you get a taste of this frozen yogurt. My dad has been working on the ultimate palate cleanser— a new ginger flavor that’s literally to die for. You might actually die.

I chuckled. “Let’s hope not,” I responded. “Do you always crave fro-yo when it’s twenty degrees outside?” I asked, shivering just thinking about how cold iced yogurt would be at this point. Couldn’t he have asked me to coffee?

“It’s not like we’re eating it outside,” he said. “And it’s kind of in my blood, so what can I say?” He opened the door for me and I followed him in. The place was a nicely decorated frozen yogurt bar with dispensers lining one wall and a serving bar set up with fresh fruit, granola and candies. It was by far the biggest yogurt spot I’d seen in my entire life.

“Let me show you how it’s done,” Riley said, noticing my overwhelmed look. “Cup for you, cup for me.” He handed me a cup and began walking down the aisle of flavor dispensers. He described each one to me from the tart Crème Fresh flavor to the javafied Cappuccino flavor. I settled on sweet cream, mixed in some fresh strawberries, mangos and granola and topped it off with condensed milk. I’d be lying if I said that when we finally sat down at a table in the back with our bounty, I wasn’t salivating over what I’d gotten.

“Your dad owns all of this? This is pretty cool,” I said. There were a few other people in the store, apparently craving frozen yogurt in the cold as well.

“Yep. He has like six or seven in California, but he’s a Dallas boy, so he wanted to open one up here,” he said. We talked about his family for a while. Only child, SMU legacy, mom was a dentist and dad was in love with frozen yogurt. He grew up in San Fransisco, but the whole family packed up when he started school in Dallas this year. “Yogurt was all my dad got to eat growing up because he had type 1 diabetes.” I wondered if Riley had type 1 diabetes too, but thought it was inappropriate to ask. While we talked, I forgot all about Kyle and how pissed I was and how sad I was, and I just focused on seeing Riley. It didn’t feel like a date, which was good. It felt good.

Riley said something that I had apparently zoned out while thinking about how good it felt to be around him. I muttered, “Huh?”

He smiled at me warmly. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” Riley asked. How’d he know? Was I that obvious? I didn’t care, but it made me curious. I just looked at him blankly. “I mean, I’m assuming it was a ‘he’. I guess it could have been a she, but you were kind of on my radar, so I just assumed.”

Great, I thought. Now I’m tipping off radars. At least my radar got me a free yogurt date; if felt like Riley considered it that even if I didn’t know exactly what it was.

“Um,” I said cautiously. “Yeah, he did. He did a real number on me.”

“Well,” Riley said casually. “The guy’s an idiot.” He picked up my empty cup and threw it away along with his. He returned just as I was standing to leave.

“I know we can’t work on the presentation until this weekend, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to study together or something tonight,” he said to me.

I considered it, I really did. But I was still on the mend and it wouldn’t be fair to this guy with gorgeous eyes to drag him down into my pity party of one.

“Actually, I was just gonna go back to my room and, you know, just wallow and digest that yogurt,” I said with a sigh, realizing I had no real reason for not wanting to hang out with him. I sounded lame, even to myself. “I’ll see you in class on Friday,” I replied, thanked him for the frozen yogurt and walked back into the bitter cold.

As soon as I was outside, I realized two things. Why the fuck did I need to be wallowing anymore than I already had? I’d had two good days of bitter sadness, not helped by the cold very much, and what did Kyle get? He got to fall back on his future Sigma brothers that he’d sold me out to. Why the hell was I still punishing myself?

I decided that the mourning period ended today. I walked back into Mango, saw Riley talking to someone behind the counter. He smiled when the bell rang and he saw that it was me. I smiled back.

“Um, so I have this monologue to do in front of my theater appreciation class tomorrow and I just realized I haven’t practiced it in front of anyone yet,” I said to him. He walked around to the door to meet me. “And I happen to know that you have nothing to do tonight, so would you maybe like to be my test audience?” I tried to be charming and I was almost certain it was working.

“How do you know I have nothing to do? I happen to have a very full dance card,” he responded.

“Your dance card isn’t full,” I said. “I just rejected your dance card two minutes ago.”

“You’re right,” he said, smiling at me. He reminded me of a young Scott Foley. “And it’s your lucky day. I happen to be a great test audience.”

The coolest thing about Riley, I realized then, was that when he looked at you, he really looked at you. He had an earnestness that was endearing and childlike, but really cute. I wouldn’t call it sexy, just cute. I’m not sure I would have even been attracted to him had I not been on the mend. But I was, and right now, he was the perfect ginger flavored palate cleanse for my heart.

We hung out in the yogurt joint for another hour, tasting flavors and talking until it got dark. He told me he had a single in one of the dorms on the north side of campus, not far from where we were, but a world away from where Kyle lived. As we walked back to his place, I kept seeing Kyle’s face in the people that I passed. I pushed him out of my head and focused on staying in the moment with Riley. I remembered thinking on the way to his dorm room that if I got Riley to sleep with me, I might forget about Kyle permanently. And then I shook the thought off. There was no way to forget Kyle, and I wasn’t going to whore myself out just to try.

When we got to Riley’s room, he moved his desk chair to the wall opposite his bed so that I could stand on it for a ‘stage’. When I was up there, I chuckled and said, “This is too high.”

“Well I like the view from here,” he said, laying back on his bed and crossing his arms behind his head. I noticed his shirt ride up, revealing a slim treasure trail just like Kyle’s. I shook off the thought and started reciting my final monologue. David had given me Angels in America to read and I picked one of the long winded monologues from there. He’d told me that the professor was a sucker for Kushner and AIDS.

“But still,” I started. I coughed into my hand, shaking the nerves, and continued. “Still bless me anyway. I want more life…” I continued reciting Prior’s words, thinking that they were so extremely depressing. If this was what other people were dealing with, I’d definitely be able to get over my first major college break up.

“Is it bad that you made a monologue about AIDS and death sound so sexy?” Riley asked when I was done. I was thrown by the question. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” he said, covering his eyes. I hopped off the chair and walked to the bed. I sat next to him, trying to make the split decision: would I kiss him or would I just sit there? I would have loved nothing more than to fuck the brains out of this kid as a final ‘fuck you’ to Kyle and all of his shenanigans. But there was something about Riley that was too cute and precious for me to use him like that.

“I just broke up with my first boyfriend ever,” I said softly, lying down and facing Riley. He looked at me with his intense blue eyes and I felt like I was under a heating lamp about to melt. “And I really liked him, a lot. I even told him that I loved him. And I’m really messed up about it because I didn’t even think I was gay until I fell for him, you know. And I don’t think I want to drag anyone else into this mess just yet.”

“Yeah, ok,” he said softly, making me wonder what he’d been thinking since he met me. For the past two days I’d been wrapped up in myself, I’d forgotten that other people were living.

“You know what it sounds like to me?” he asked. I waited for him to say something extremely profound.

When he didn’t, I asked “What?” And as soon as I did, he craned his neck up to me and kissed my lips something extremely sexy.

At first I was jarred. I didn’t expect or anticipate that he would just attack my face with his lips like that. It wasn’t a hard kiss or a particularly passionate one. It was soft and warm. And just what I needed. I leaned back, getting another gaze down by the blue eyes.

“Do you always just kiss guys like that?”

He laughed. “Not always,” he smiled at me. “Not ever, really.” He paused and looked at me. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” How nice of him. The problem was, I didn’t know whether I wanted to or not. For the most part, I just didn’t want to be alone. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with someone, either.

While I was still debating, getting lost in Riley’s eyes, he made the decision for me. “There’s a movie I have to watch for my psychology term paper, so you can help me stay awake.” He got up and walked over to his TV and DVD player. This was a welcome compromise. No pressure to hook up and still I didn’t have to go home and feel alone.

“I’m not watching a bunch of shrinks on TV with you,” I said scooting into his bed and getting comfortable.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m doing my paper on co-dependent relationships. So we’re watching… Twilight,” he said turning around and giving me a grin.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said, perking up. “I’ve never actually seen Twilight.”

“No, you’re kidding,” he said to me getting back into the bed with me. He pulled a throw blanket from his feet so that it was covering us. He scooted back so that he was the little to my big spoon and I marveled at how perfectly he fit with my curved body. Within a minute, the Twilight credits were rolling and Riley and I had maneuvered into a perfectly comfortable groove.

Two hours, one vampire and one werewolf later, the screen went black and names scrolled upwards on the screen. Riley turned around and smiled at me. “Still awake?” he said. His face was so close to mine. This time around I had no hesitation. I leaned over and kissed him. He scooted in closer to me and I put my arm around him to hold our bodies close together. There was a heat that radiated off of Riley and, even though we were both fully clothed, I felt it.

His kiss couldn’t have been more different from Kyle’s. It was like drinking Coke all of your life and then all of a sudden tasting a sip of Pepsi. It was similar enough that I wasn’t bothered by it, but it was still different. Whereas Kyle enjoyed making out long and deep and hard, so that you could feel his tongue inside your mouth, it was almost as though Riley was pulling me into him. There was something magnetic about his kiss and I found myself being the one to press into him harder and deeper, and more passionately.

After a few minutes of lying side by side, making out like eighth graders, I rolled over and climbed on top of Riley. He had his hands on my side, pulling at my shirt. I sat up, straddling his midsection and pulled my own sweater off. A second later, I was back down on top of him, kissing him some more.

I have to admit once and for all that Riley was the perfect Kyle-eraser. As soon as I had my shirt off and was kissing Riley again, the guy really got going. It was as if something bit him. He wasn’t taking it slowly anymore. He dug his nails into my back and ground our bodies together so that I could feel every inch of him, including the hard-on that was pressed between us.

Riley was aggressive in a strange way. I was clearly in control of the situation, taking it at my pace and doing the heavy lifting top work, but he was reacting in such an aggressive manner. I could feel his nails dig into my back every time our cocks rubbed against each other. I wondered if those claws would leave a mark.

Before long, I had Riley’s shirt off and our grinding had turned into full on dry humping. My cock desperately wanted to get out of my pants. As hard as it had gotten, keeping it confined was no longer an option. I had the mental debate about whether or not I was going to go all the way with this guy two days after breaking up with Kyle, but the debate didn’t last long. Riley did something that ended the debate once and for all. While we were kissing, he bit the bottom of my lip and tugged me further into him. After the lip nibble, he sucked my tongue into his mouth so hard, I actually thought he might swallow it. The feeling was so intense and raw and good that I thought, for the first time, that I could cum just from making out.

I cocked my head back and asked him if he had any condoms. Without missing a beat, he opened a drawer next to his bed that had two video tapes— not DVDs, but actual video tapes— a bottle of Slick, a dildo and a pack of condoms. I was about to fuck my first power bottom and the thought of it literally riled me up.

Before I knew it, Riley and I were both naked. I was still lying on top of him, rubbing my rock-hard dick back and forth near his ass. He was making a sort of panting sound and digging his hands into my arms. It was like he never wanted to let go of my mouth, and for that moment in time, I was ok with that. The less we talked and just fucked, the easier it was to have my “Revenge on Kyle” sex without thinking about Kyle.

When my teasing his ass with my cock had gone on long enough, Riley let go of my lips, leaned his head back so that I was kissing his neck and panted, “Oh fuck yeah, babe. Stick it in me.” It was so pornographic and filthy, I couldn’t help but be turned on. Where did this guy learn to sex talk? The Rusty Stevenson School of the Sexual Arts?

If I thought his pre-fucking dirty talk was sexy, it’s ‘cause I hadn’t heard what he sounded like once I was inside of him. From the moment my condom covered cock slid into his warm, wet hole, the guy was shouting insatiabilities at me that would’ve made a sailor plug his ears.

“Oh, fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck yeah,” was the beginning of it. It was like he was trying to keep my thrusts on beat with his moans, and I did my best to do so. I thrust in and out to his “fuck yeah” cadence, feeling my cock bury him to the hilt. Thinking I was doing a pretty solid job, he switched his shouts to “Harder, harder, harder.” Fuck, I thought. I thought I was going hard enough. I guessed not, bucked up, and plowed him faster than I thought possible.

I pulled back, slowing down for a second. I grabbed Riley by the thighs and pushed his legs towards him so that his thighs were a centimeter from touching his chest. He helped by grabbing his legs by the back of the knee and pulling them down, leaving his ass extremely exposed for me to plow in.

And plow I did. Turned on by my inner rage towards Kyle, and coupled with the fact that I couldn’t fuck hard enough for this guy, I dove into his ass and pulsed as hard as I could as fast as I could. Riley did all of the classic maneuvers to indicate that I was doing a standup job. His eyes rolled back. He continued to slur “Fuck yeah, fuck me, fuck yeah, please…” over and over. He tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes. As I started to break a sweat, I moved him so that his body was lying on its side and I had one of his legs sticking straight up in the air. I hugged his leg close to me and humped his ass like I was a dog in desperate heat.

The words quickly turned into orgasmic slurs every time my cock quickly grazed across his prostate and I could tell that Riley was going to come soon. A minute later, I pulled him back into the missionary position, bent down as far as I could go and kissed him. I thrust in one last hard time, and as if we had choreographed it, Riley came all over our chests as I let my load rip into the condom.

I kept my cock buried inside of him for a minute, kissing him. He grabbed a tuft of my hair with his claw like hands and pulled me hard into his face. This guy was just as aggressive post-orgasm as he was pre-orgasm.

I lifted my head away from his, feeling my sweat drip down my face, chest and back. I smiled at him and he very weakly smiled up at me. I pulled my cock out of his ass and collapsed next to him, my arm draped across his chest.

He turned to me and said, “It’s only nine. We can go another round.”

I smiled at him, closed my eyes, and whispered, “I’ll need a little break first. That was just unreal.”

He leaned over and kissed me, getting some sticky cum on the side of my arm. I knew if I stayed there, I’d fall asleep. It was nine, meaning if I got up, went by the U and got some coffee, I could still put in a few good hours of studying before tomorrow. I told Riley I’d see him soon, got dressed, and walked across campus in the biting cold.

“I got you coffee,” I said to Spencer when I entered our room, holding two cups of coffee. He turned around and gave me a suspicious look. I set one cup down next to Spencer and sat down at my desk chair next to his.

“You look surprisingly chipper today,” Spencer said, taking the hot coffee, getting up and crossing the room over to his chair. “Where have you been?”

“I didn’t know I needed to check in,” I said with a tad bit more attitude than I had planned. I started to get undressed as I looked at Spencer and told him that I turned my phone off because Kyle kept calling and I needed to study. I pulled my sweater and shirt off and tossed them into the hamper.

“Yeah,” Spencer said. “He’s been calling me too. He’s worried about you.”

“Well,” I said, taking my pants off and walking towards my bed in just my boxers. “Next time you talk to him, you can tell him that he can stop. I’m doing fine.”

I sat up at the head of my bed and pulled my history notes out of my back pack.

“Tell him yourself,” Spencer said. I didn’t know what he was talking about until he stood up and opened the door that led to the restroom that we shared with our neighbors. Before I even saw Kyle step out of the bathroom, I moved to get up and then remembered I was in my own bedroom.

“Cooper,” I heard Kyle say. I went flush and my face got hot.

“What is he doing here, Spencer?” I asked, deliberately taking a sip of coffee and flipping through my notebook.

“Cooper, I just want to talk to you and explain the situation,” Kyle said softly. I noticed that Spencer wasn’t even standing there anymore.

“What is there to explain, Kyle?” I asked, looking up at him. “I know everything I need to know.”

“You don’t know everything, Cooper,” Kyle said. He walked slowly over to my bed and sat down next to me. I almost involuntarily shouted for him to get out, but controlled myself. I feared that the grip I had on my coffee cup would burst the cup, it was that intense. I looked at Kyle with a look that challenged him to tell me something I hadn’t figured out on my own. “I um, I saw Rusty today.”

“Wow. Well, all is forgiven, then.”

“I told him that even though I finished his little task, I wouldn’t be taking a bid from Sigma next year,” Kyle said.

I looked up at him. He’d dropped the Sigmas, the legacy his brother had built, and his entire pre-ordained future as a grandeur gesture for me? When he was right, he was right… I didn’t know everything.