Chasing Rusty Parker - 3. The Gift Of Knowledge

Chapter Three – The Gift Of Knowledge

His research so far had led him nowhere. All the girls he had asked about Matthew Han had given him a blank stare. Some did remember about a dude with whom they shared some classes, but they couldn’t give him anything meaty to work with. His supposition that Matthew was a lady killer had been completely off the mark, and that wasn’t like him. Did most people lack eyes these days? The dude was a looker; yeah, a nerd and a bit on the obnoxious side, but he had seen plenty of chicks going for a lot worse. Rusty couldn’t help thinking of those nice lips and what they could do, stretch in a thin line of disapproval, pout in thought, and even… wait, did the guy even smile? All right, so maybe that was the problem. Matthew Han had no idea how to smile, and that chased all the chicks away. Somehow, those chicks who were into the sulking type had yet to meet him. Maybe he even had trouble landing dates and whatnot. Good thing he had Rusty in his corner. A little bit of help didn’t hurt anyone.

Lost in thought as he was while walking through the quad, his hands in his pockets, it took him some time to realize that someone was calling his name. “Hey, Ray,” he said when he saw Jonathan’s roomie and bestie. Hanna, his girlfriend, was with him, and they were holding hands like two lovebirds, which they totally were. “Hey, Hanna. What are you two up to? Some engagement party or something?”

“Not today,” Ray said frankly. Hanna grinned and pushed into his shoulder. They were cute in a nerdy way.

Then it dawned on him. “Do you two happen to know Matthew Han?”

“Your tutor?” Ray asked. “Yeah, but not very well. I heard that he uses a wooden ruler. What’s the deal about that?”

“Yeah, did he use it on your bottom or something?” Hanna asked, with a smirk that announced she was up to no good.

Rusty sighed from the depths of his soul. “Unfortunately, no. Way to get a guy’s hopes high.”

Ray and Hanna laughed. “Well, he must still be one hell of a guy if he managed to convince you to study,” Ray pointed out.

Rusty made a gesture with his arms and pointed his fists against each other. “It’s a battle of wills. I need some dirt on him.”

“Dirt?” Hanna asked. “I doubt you’ll find anything like that. One of my friends shared a lot of classes with him, and by what she said of him, he’s all about studying.”

“Does he have like a girlfriend or something?” Rusty continued to fish for info.

Hanna seemed to ponder while her eyes darted up. “Yes, I think he’s always with a girl. Yeah, it must be his girlfriend.”

For some reason, Rusty felt a bit deflated. If Matthew played the field, scoring with chicks who were into his nerdy looks, he would dig it. But a girlfriend? Like a longtime girlfriend? That sounded so boring. And annoying.

“Has he been with her long?” he asked.

Hanna shrugged. “I don’t really know. But they seem to be a good fit.”

“A good fit, like how?” Rusty questioned.

“You know, they both wear glasses and look like the studious type. And they’re practically joined at the hip.”

“It’s that girl with the long curly hair, right?” Ray asked. Hanna nodded. “Yeah, now I remember that I’ve seen them together. They always seem to have some secret to share. And they laugh together. I guess that’s practically the recipe for a solid relationship,” Ray added in an academic tone. “But wait, why do you want to know about Matthew’s girlfriend, Rusty?”

Rusty shrugged. “No reason. I mean, as I said, I wanted to learn if you guys knew some unsavory things about him. So that I could use them to defeat him.”

“Unsavory? Defeat him?” Hanna repeated. “I pity the guy. What did he do to you?”

“He’s trying to make me study.”

“But I thought you accepted that he won, and in the most gracious manner, even,” Ray reminded him. He had to know all that from Jonathan.

“That was only a battle. The war is long,” Rusty declared and pointed at an invisible point of interest, somewhere in the distance, making Ray and Hanna turned their heads and then stare at each other in confusion. “Do you happen to know what his girlfriend is called?”

Hanna had to search her database again. “I think it’s… oh, yes. Her name is Zoey.”

“Hmm, is she cute?”

Hanna gasped. “Rusty Parker, are you planning on stealing your tutor’s girlfriend?”

“Nah, I won’t play that dirty,” Rusty replied with emphasis. “And it would be too easy. All the chicks dig me anyway. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Hanna shook her head and rolled her eyes. Ray grinned. “I don’t think you’d be able to steal Zoey from Matthew, Rusty.”

Rusty stared at Jonathan’s bestie, his eyes narrow slits. “Are you trying to get me into trouble, Ray? You know I can’t say ‘no’ to a challenge.”

“Nah, although I bet there would be some people who’d love to see the mighty king of Sunny Hill getting rejected once in a blue moon,” Ray pointed out.

Rusty crossed his arms. “Well, I do get rejected on occasion. It’s nothing new. But don’t let Xpress know. I need to stay the king.”

“Don’t worry. Our lips are sealed,” Ray promised.

He waved the duo goodbye and continued his routine of getting lost in thought with Matthew Han on his mind. When others called to him again, he ignored them on purpose.

So, Matthew had a girlfriend. A girl named Zoey, with long curly hair, nerdy like him. They laughed and shared secrets. Yeah, it sounded so, so boring.

And so annoying.

***

“Have you talked to Rusty?” Zoey questioned him while sitting on the bed opposite from Matty’s, a big container of ice cream in her lap, armed with an equally big spoon. “You know, ever since your tutoring session?”

“You know I haven’t,” Matty replied and tried to get back to his book. In fact, he had tried to stay out of Rusty’s way since his heart could only handle just so much. Only thinking of finding himself alone with the guy in close quarters made his stomach do backflips, his mind melt into a puddle… and the rest of him wasn’t doing that well, either.

“That means that tomorrow you’re going to see him again, right?” Zoey pointedly ignored his efforts to ignore her. “Are you prepared?”

“I’m trying to be.” Matty took the book and showed it to her and then slammed it down on the bed. “I have to know the lessons in advance and know them well if I want to maintain my reputation as a tutor.”

“I’m not talking about lessons, you nerd, duh.” Zoey dug deep into the ice cream and came up victoriously with a huge dollop which she examined with satisfaction before stuffing it whole into her mouth. “I’m talking about your plan to seduce him.”

Matty sighed and buried his head in the book, resting his forehead against the cool pages and closing his eyes. “I’m without hope, Zoey,” he mumbled. “He’s a straight dude who’s killing it with girls, and I’m just the guy crushing on him for lack of anything better to do.”

“Nah, you’re just talking out of your ass,” Zoey contradicted him and gestured with the spoon. “You’re the guy with a crush on him, who has finally gotten the chance to seduce him.”

“Nobody uses words like ‘seduce’ anymore, Zoey.”

“I can use others. All right, so you’re the guy who crushes on him and now can think up a way to whisper to his snake.”

“Whisper to his snake?” Matty turned his head to stare at his friend.

“Play his magic flute?” Zoey made another attempt. “Get him horned up?”

Matty knew better than to contradict her. So, he turned back to confessing his sins to the book in front of him and closed his eyes again. “I don’t have what it takes,” he said, trying to sound more matter-of-fact than complaining. “He likes girls, and I should have gotten it through my head that, whatever, nothing would ever happen.”

“And yet,” Zoey said in a motherly, patient tone, “you haven’t given up on your crush for the last three years. There must be a reason for that.”

“Yeah, only that I can’t explain it. It was crush at first sight, Zoey. Are there still people in the world to which stuff like this happens? Or am I the only one?”

“Don’t get so full of yourself,” Zoey scolded him. “People are crushing on people all the time. They might not hold that torch for three whole frigging years like you, but--”

“Thanks for the support,” Matty interrupted her quickly.

“Either way, you’re you. And you’re crushing on Rusty Parker. Now, tell me, how are you really getting ready for tutoring Rusty again? The day after tomorrow is Saturday, which means--”

“That he’ll go to some party and hook up,” Matty said fast.

“And that’s your chance to foil his plans to do that,” Zoey continued as if that was the most logical thing to think and say.

“By doing what? Giving him more homework? And it’s petty of me to even think of such a thing,” Matty pointed out.

“Nah, nah, nah, you have him in your clutches now--”

Matty let out a snort. “Yeah, right. If I have him in my clutches, he’s nothing but sand, slipping through.”

“Listen to me, Matty.” Zoey startled him by clapping her hands all of a sudden. “Stop it with this defeatist attitude. This isn’t you. I think you’re crushing on Rusty and haven’t given up because, somehow, all secretly and stuff, you know that you can turn him.”

Now Zoey was the one totally talking out of her ass, but that was her way of giving him a pep talk, and he appreciated it.

“I’m not going to do anything to stop him from partying like usual,” he said. “But I will try to get to know him better, because I also want to know why I haven’t given up on this stupid crush for all these years. I might discover that he’s nothing but a vacuous annoying character and be done with him.”

Zoey was scraping the walls of the ice cream container furiously now. “You’re such a cerebral creature, Matty, I swear. Only you would rationalize a thing as huge as your crush in terms like that.”

“My brain is my biggest ally,” Matty said. “Having a crush for three years is, sort of like, an error, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. You’re more than your brain, you big head.” Zoey hopped from the bed and gave Matty a sticky kiss on the forehead. “You’re also--”

Matty squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Please, don’t finish that sentence.”

Zoey laughed. “All right. I won’t. But only because I know you. Thanks for the ice cream. Did you want some, too?”

“No, it’s all right.” He couldn’t think of ice cream when he had to tutor Rusty tomorrow. His stomach was all tied up in knots.

***

Rusty was tapping the desk in a playful rhythm while observing his tutor across the table. Matthew was all buttoned up and had a gloomy expression on his face, which had to have a reasonable explanation. No one was usually that gloomy in his company unless someone had died or something equally horrific.

“Trouble with your girlfriend?”

“What?” Matthew stammered for a moment and quickly adjusted his glasses by pushing them up on his nose. Rusty had an inkling that it was a thing that had a calming effect Matthew did when he was nervous. He was willing to go the extra mile to establish what was what. “Have you finished?”

Rusty pushed the paper toward Matthew. “Don’t try to change the subject. I can help if you have girl trouble.”

Matthew grabbed the paper and began examining it, his eyes moving fast across it. “The only subject here is Ethics, Mr. Parker. And I don’t have girl trouble, for your information.”

“No shit,” Rusty said in his usual laidback manner and stretched with a yawn. Matthew stared at him for a moment, and then his eyes returned to the task at hand. What was with that look? It was halfway ‘I want to strangle you’, and the rest of the road ‘why the hell do you exist?’. Matthew Han didn’t like him, and that sucked. Of course, Rusty had every intention to ruin his cool façade and intellectual propriety, but that didn’t mean that Matthew shouldn’t like him.

“Language,” Matthew said from the tip of his tongue. “We’re studying Ethics, after all.”

“I don’t think cuss words have anything to do with morals. I mean, like you could swear like a sailor on a bad day before discovering America, or something, and that still wouldn’t make you as bad as corpos peddling shit to consumers while exploiting six-year-olds in third world countries,” Rusty said promptly.

Matthew gave him a longer, more thoughtful look this time. “You’re right.”

Rusty waited for two heartbeats. “That is all?”

“I suppose you don’t want a medal for spewing truisms now,” Matthew replied.

“I was talking about your girlfriend.” Rusty observed the stony façade going through small, underground earthquakes. So, there was something there; Zoey was giving poor Matthew a hard time. Oh, no. What a pity.

Matthew sighed. “There is no girlfriend. This is good,” he said and gave Rusty the paper back.

“Why is there no girlfriend?” Rusty pressed on.

“I’m here to tutor you, not to complain about my love life.”

“I’m totally fine with you complaining about your love life. It would make things a little less dull.”

“I see you’re doing fine. Soon enough, you’ll put me out of my job.”

“Not so fast. I can, too,” Rusty said with aplomb, “give you the gift of knowledge.”

“What exactly are we talking about? What gift of knowledge?”

Good, by the avid look in Matthew’s eyes, the guy was interested. Rusty grinned and linked his hands over the paper in front of him. “About chicks.”

Matthew had the nerve to roll his eyes. It made him even more obnoxious in a cute way. Rusty felt his fingers itching to ruffle his feathers and see if the kitty had some claws, too. Bad choice of a comparison. Straight-laced Matthew Han wouldn’t be caught dead in a cat boy suit, without a doubt.

“Who’s Zoey, then?” Rusty decided to show his hand, seeing how his opponent had no intention of saying anything.

Matthew’s widened eyes spelled surprise. “How do you know about Zoey?”

“What? Is she like some secret? Don’t tell me she’s your stepsister, and you’ve done some unpardonable--”

“Oh, gawd, stop right there,” Matthew moaned. “Zoey’s my best friend. Not my girlfriend, not my stepsister, or anything else.”

“I see,” Rusty said with satisfaction. “Wait, does she know?”

“Know what?” Matthew appeared quite disoriented.

“That she’s just your friend.”

“Trust me, she does.” Those words felt dry like sandpaper.

Hmm, was there some juicy story there or none at all? It made Rusty wonder. “All right, all right, so does that mean that you suck in the girl department?”

Matthew’s flawless skin reddened, making the heights of his cheeks look good enough to lick. Rusty shook his head. All right, so the guy was pretty and all, but that wasn’t sufficient for any proper gay feelings. It didn’t make his dick tingle; not a lot. Maybe just a mere twitch.

“Ah, you totally suck!” Rusty said with satisfaction. “I knew I had something to teach you back.”

Matthew was shaking his head, like he needed to wake up from some weird dream. The redness diminished, and it looked like that hard mask was about to fall back in place any moment now. Nah, nah, nah, not when he had just made a breach in those defenses.

“Look, the problem with you is that you’re not aware of your assets,” Rusty explained in a didactic manner.

“My assets?”

All right, Matthew was practically stuttering at this point. That was when Rusty knew he must have struck gold. “Yeah, like your abs. You need to show them.”

“Show them where? How?” Matthew asked.

“Good thing you have the teacher of all teachers in the same room as you are right now.” Rusty grabbed the glass of water on the table and threw its contents straight at Matthew’s chest, making him gasp in shock and outrage.

“Rusty, what the fuck?!”

“Language, my dude,” Rusty said with satisfaction.

“Am I supposed to stay here, with this cold, wet t-shirt on?” Matthew asked and stood to his feet. He pulled at the hem, trying to air the wet spots.

That was the moment Rusty had been waiting for. He also got up and walked over to Matthew. “Lesson number one. Pretend to be helpless and a bit dumb. Let’s say that some chick just walked into you and poured all her green disgusting smoothie on you.”

Matthew stopped his attempts to dry his t-shirt and stared at him, wide-eyed and mouth a bit slack. Rusty felt a sudden impulse to push Matthew’s chin up to make him close his mouth and then pull it down to see how he looked with it opened wider. “Why does it have to be a green disgusting smoothie?”

“Chicks who are into health stuff are always ready for a new project. You could be theirs.” Rusty flicked a finger over the tip of Matthew’s nose.

“Ouch!” Matthew protested and grabbed his nose.

“Geesh, stop being such a baby. So, this chick just made a mess out of your t-shirt. What do you do?”

“Um, apologize for walking into her?”

“Yeah, right. She walked into you.”

“Am I supposed to wait for such an opportunity?”

“No, you create it.”

“So, I did walk into her,” Matthew concluded.

“Goals justify means, or something,” Rusty countered. “Don’t apologize. What do you do?”

“I..., um, say that it’s fine? In case she feels guilty about it?” Matthew continued down the same road of guys never getting laid.

Rusty pursed his lips and stared at Matthew for two long moments, until the other squirmed under that intent gaze. Then, he quickly grabbed the hem of Matthew’s t-shirt and pulled it up, hard and fast. Matthew squealed but, finally, he was naked from the waist up, and those perfect abs showed. Rusty let his assessing eyes wander briefly; pecs were nice and defined, too, and the shoulders weren’t bad. The dude was working out. “This is what you do. You take off your t-shirt and pretend to be completely lost about what to do about it.”

“Like any girl with a head on her shoulders would think anything else but that I’m a douchebag for undressing in front of her,” Matthew said, without forgetting to glare. He crossed his arms over his chest, as if he could hide the goods.

Rusty took pride in being patient where it mattered, but Matthew Han looked like he needed a bit of a hands-on approach. So, he took him by one shoulder. “You take your t-shirt,” he said and handed the thing back to its owner until Matthew felt forced to accept it, “and you start wiping your abs.” He made a rubbing gesture, just to be clearer.

Matthew just stood there, the t-shirt limp in his hand. “Does this really work for you?”

Rusty shrugged. “Totally. Congrats, my man. You just showed the girl the goods. You have her drooling, I’m telling you.”

Matthew shook his head. “Or I’ll have her shouting ‘creep’ and summoning campus security.”

“With abs like these?” Rusty’s itchy fingers needed a bit of release, so he touched Matthew’s belly with only one and only briefly. A sucked-in breath was the immediate reaction. “Why are you acting like a total virgin? We’re just role-playing here. Hey, are you really imagining I’m a chick?”

Matthew held the t-shirt close to his chest. “That’s none of your business!”

“Oh, no, don’t tell me,” Rusty said slowly. Was he about to strike gold or what?

“I’m not a virgin!” Matthew shouted. “I’ve had sex. Lots of it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you sound really convincing. I bet you don’t even know how to kiss.”

Matthew sputtered with indignation. “I’ll have you know that I’m an extremely good kisser.”

“Words are only words,” Rusty chanted in falsetto. “Come on, show me. How do you hold your mouth when you kiss? What do you do with your tongue? Do you even have one?”

“What do you mean how do I hold my mouth? What kind of question is that?” Matthew continued, more and more absorbed in his own obnoxious righteousness.

“Ha, you don’t even know how to kiss. No wonder chicks around here don’t even know you exist.” Rusty crossed his arms, pleased with his findings.

“Do you want to know how I hold my mouth? What I do with my tongue?” The cute hamster was no more. Yeah, that was a kitty and he had claws, too.

Rusty grinned and basked in satisfaction. “Yeah, I totally want to know.”

Matthew threw him a deadly look. Then, he opened his mouth slightly and licked his lips. Rusty looked on in disbelief. No way was this virgin boy going to rain on his parade. Matthew darted his tongue out, and his eyelids dropped. Now that looked nice. Rusty could feel that nifty tongue wrapping around somewhere inside him, giving a perfect spot of him small, craze-inducing licks.

“You look like a fish,” Rusty said with rancor. “Are you frozen, too?”

That earned him another flash of the lethal kind from the hazel eyes. Yet, it didn’t prepare him for what followed. Matthew threw his t-shirt on the floor and then grabbed Rusty by the front of his shirt.

And then, he put those soft inviting lips on his and snuck his tongue into his mouth, taking him totally by surprise.

Rusty took a step back and his ass hit the table, but Matthew followed, turning those flicks of the tongue into something very much real, exploring deeper and deeper.

That moment, there was a short knock on the door, and someone entered. “Guys, I thought you’d need some refreshments--”

Matthew pulled away and turned his back. Rusty turned the other way, to witness Jonathan standing in the door with a tray in his hands, and a completely shocked expression in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, I should have waited for you to tell me to come in,” Jonathan said quickly and looked away. “I didn’t see anything,” he added and made a one-eighty, disappearing behind the door, taking the tray with him.

Rusty swallowed. He was thirsty, in all honesty. Too bad Jonathan had taken off so quickly. He could have used some freshly squeezed juice.

“We’re done for today,” Matthew’s voice brought him back to reality.

The guy was already dressed, the wet spots still visible on the front of his prim t-shirt. The bag was safely on his shoulder and he was quick to make a beeline for the door.

Rusty knew he was supposed to say something to keep Matthew there. Only that, a first for him, his mind was a pristine blank canvas. No, not quite so pristine. The shape of a kiss could be seen on closer inspection.

***

Matty maintained an indifferent face while walking down the stairs and through the open space shared by Rusty and his friends. Jonathan was there, along with his boyfriend, and Matty felt that if the ground opened under his feet it would be too little to save him from embarrassment. He made an awkward wave with his hand in their direction, hoping against hope that Jonathan wouldn’t tease him.

“Too bad you’re allergic, Matthew,” Maddox said while gesturing with a tall glass filled with orange juice.

“Yes,” Jonathan added quickly, “I should have asked first. If there is something else you prefer to drink when you’re here, just let us know.”

To Matty’s ears, Jonathan sounded a bit nervous. There was no way Maddox couldn’t tell his boyfriend was hiding something. Nonetheless, he was thankful that Jonathan had been tactful enough not to tell on him.

He apologized meekly and slunk out the door like a thief. Once outside, he drew in a big gulp of air. What on earth was he thinking lately?

Rusty would never want to have him over tutoring. Ever again.

***

What the hell had just happened? Rusty wasn’t in the business of ‘cannot compute’, but this was one such situation. So, for a good few moments, he had been completely in control, teasing Matthew and getting closer to his goal of punishing the obnoxious prick for being a ‘know-it-all’.

And then? Then it happened that Matthew had taught him a lesson in an area that Rusty didn’t believe that there was anything left for him to learn.

He had taught him that a boy’s lips could be pretty sweet, too.

Who would have thought that? Rusty patted his lips and considered the situation.

Matthew had nice lips. Rusty liked nice lips.

Matthew knew how to kiss. Rusty liked being kissed.

Matthew had kissed Rusty.

What did that make them?

“Pretty damn gay,” he concluded with a shrug.

Just the situation, though. Not either of them or anything. Because Rusty had all the chicks he wanted, and Matthew wanted all the chicks if he had no girlfriend and was willing to go that far just to prove that he could kiss.

And damn, the dude could kiss. Rusty closed his eyes for a moment. It was easy to go gay for that kind of kiss. His dick twitched at the recollection of the earlier challenge. Yeah, yeah, dudes could go in and out of gay, and he was the living example. Like dipping your littlest toe in a pool of gay and then taking it out.

***

Can there be some other greater embarrassment than what I just fucking did? Matty took in breaths and released them, pondering over a proper punishment for his transgressions. If Rusty learned he was crushing on him, he would laugh forever.

Yeah, like who crushed on a guy who could go to bed with every girl who happened into his path, and also did that?

Probably a moron. One who didn’t know where and when to stop so that he would save himself some embarrassment. Matty checked his phone. Oh, he had a package.

Well, he considered philosophically. There was always room for more embarrassment.

His cat suit had just been delivered.

TBC

So, this was also about levels of embarrassment... do you think Matty has reached the highest level possible?
Until next time
Laura.