A Year Changes Everything - 1. Chapter 1

It all started at the beginning of College.

I arrived a day early and was all unpacked before the majority of students had arrived. The following day they began arriving and I waited in anticipation to see who my roommate would be. I hoped we would have stuff in common, that we could go to parties and he could be my 'wingman'. Knowing my luck, I figured he would probably be a nerd.

That was pretty much my only concern in terms of my roommate - that he would be a geek. I had no qualms about sharing a room with another guy; after all I had shared a room with my brother Casper since he was born. We'd shared a bathroom with our two younger brothers Billy and Ben since they were born.

As the day wore on, I admit I began to feel nervous. Finally, in the mid-afternoon the door opened and my new roommate walked in.

My first thought was that he was tall. Taller than me. I'm 6ft 2' and he had to be a good inch or two taller than me. My second thought was he looked like he'd stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. He had white blond hair cut in a preppy style, blue eyes and a golden brown tan.

My third thought was that my second thought was about the gayest thing a straight man could think.

That happened in an instant at the same time as we shook hands and introduced ourselves.

"I'm Ryan," I said.

"Hi," he smiled. "I'm Andrew. Andrew Van Buren."

Over the next hour as he unpacked we chatted although I did most of the talking. He was shy, which surprised me. I had assumed that all WASPs were the self-confident, if not to say arrogant types that you saw on TV and in films.

The little I got out of him was that he'd gone to an all boys private school on the East Coast, he'd been in a few sports teams, but wasn't the star quarterback or anything, which was pretty similar to me (except I went to a public school in California). It turned out that we were doing quite a few of the same courses.

I liked him and I figured I could have done a whole lot worse in terms of roommates. I'll admit, however, that I was a little jealous of his good looks.

That's not to say that I'm bad looking. On a good day I reckon I'm an '8', but Andrew, he was a '10'. Easily.

I figured that it was me who would be the wingman, but then I also reckoned that there would be plenty of hot chicks swarming around him and that getting his cast-offs would be no bad thing.

The truth is, I was looking to score with as many women as possible - doesn't every straight guy aim for the same thing when they start college? I'd slept with 3 women (2 of those at the beach over the summer), which I thought was a pretty good start, but I hoped there'd be many more in the months to come.

Anyway, after I'd told him about as much as I could about myself and got about as much as I thought I could out of him, I thought I would broach the topic of room etiquette.

"If one of us brings a chick back we ought to agree a sign so that the other doesn't walk in," I said, cutting straight to the point.

"Oh," he said, coloring a little. "Sure. It probably won't be a problem for me though," he said, coloring a little more.

"Sure," I said, figuring he was either being sarcastic or very modest.

"How about if we are 'entertaining' anyone we tie this tie around the door knob outside?" I suggested, going for a not-so-original method.

He agreed and I left the tie on the table by the door.

We chatted a bit more, again, I did most of the talking and I mentioned the big party for freshmen that was being put on and we agreed to check it out.