Chapter 2
Grant Newman
Ten minutes later we’re in the isolated hot tub in the men’s locker area of the rec room. A side door was unlocked, as it usually is, and as long as we don’t make too much noise we should be fine for a few hours.
Eric stops at the edge of the tub and frets, staring into his gym bag.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“In all my speech-giving, I forgot to pack my bathing suit. And I’m not going back now, not in that cold.”
I shiver. “Well…oh. I’d say to just get in, but you’re wearing jeans. Maybe your underwear?”
He bites his lip. “You know I don’t wear any.”
“Oh…okay.”
“Yeah. Mind if I…well, just get in naked?”
I stop moving. “Um…I mean, sure. We’re both guys. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
I try to look away as he slides out of his jeans, but I can’t. His dick is a little bigger than mine, and he’s trimmed his hair all the way.
That’s interesting, actually, because I only do that if I know I’m going to have sex with someone…otherwise, if nobody’s going to see, I don’t give a damn.
He wades into the water, then relaxes and sighs.
“See?” he asks.
“What?”
“Isn’t this nice? You’ve just gotta get out of your own head sometimes. It’s a slippery slope to let yourself spiral like that. If you don’t yank yourself out of it eventually, you never know what could happen.”
“Yeah,” I say, a curious warmth spreading up my back. “I guess. I don’t know. Sometimes I just want…”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes…sometimes I just wish I could un-meet her, un-know her, un-live all those moments. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get the memories out of her out of my head. Just to know she’s out there, moving on with someone else, without me – it’s torture.”
“You don’t know about torture,” he mutters so low, I almost don’t hear him.
“What?” I ask, and he freezes.
“Oh, um…I didn’t know you heard that.”
“Well, I did. What did that mean?”
“It means…it means I need more tequila.”
I take a shot, letting it warm my stomach, and then he takes the bottle and swallows probably three times the amount I did. My eyes grow as I watch. He slams it down on his jeans and then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Do you really want to know?” he begins.
“I mean, I asked, didn’t I?”
He stares into the bubbles for a long time. Finally he turns to me. “Okay. You just have to promise me that whatever I say, doesn’t leave this room, and also will never change our friendship. Ever.”
My face softens. “Eric. I’ve known you for years. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Nothing would ever change any of that.”
“Okay,” he says soon. “Torture is…torture is starting to fall for someone you should never fall for, and having no idea what to do about it. Torture is watching that person fall for someone else, and being powerless to stop it. Torture is watching that person become single again, but being too afraid to make a move. Torture is loving someone who doesn’t love you back, and actually has no idea you love them in the first place. That’s torture.”
I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say. “Really?” I ask soon. “Really? I can’t believe you’re saying this. You fell in love with my ex-girlfriend? No wonder you were so weird about the whole thing!”
He glances over at me. “Okay, now I know you really are an idiot. No, numnuts. I didn’t fall in love with Ella. I fell in love with you.”
For a long time I just stare at him. It can’t be true, it can’t be real, but…somehow I know immediately that it is.
Soon the pieces start adding up: he always hated Ella, and he’d act curt and dismissive towards her any time they crossed paths. Sometimes, in the night, I’d catch him starting at me, too. And we’ve always had a weird sort of friction between us – maybe that’s why we never became close friends until we ended up as roommates in the random lottery system.
Or wait – was that random at all? He followed me to school, he ended up in my frat, he ended up in my bedroom…
“Please tell me I didn’t ruin us,” he says soon, in a way that is so vulnerable it hurts my heart.
“Eric,” I say. “My brother is gay. I would never care about that. You know that.”
“Hey, I didn’t say gay – not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What else is there?”
“Are you for real?” he says, and I just blink. “Okay. Look at it this way. In modern times, people have come to look at sexuality as an either/or, this-or-that type of thing. You’re either gay or straight. But Sigmund Freud saw it as a spectrum – some people are in the middle, some people are on the far end, some people are in between those two. With me…I like women romantically, and guys sexually. It’s always been that way. Well, until a certain person came along…”
I still don’t know what to say. One of my best friends might be in love with me. If I handle this wrong, I might lose one of my oldest relationships in my life. Not to mention the fact that he’s my roommate, and I’d be in for some seriously awkward situations in the months to come…
Whatever happens, I’ve got to handle this delicately. I know how it felt when Ella rejected me, left me flat on the floor. I would never do that to him. He is too special to me. Friend, or…more than friend.
“So…you like me?” I ask, and he looks away.
“Maybe I don’t know anymore,” he sighs soon. “Maybe I just don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because my brain is as peaceful as these waters are right now,” he says, pointing at the whirling chaos of the Jacuzzi, bubbling and churning.
I frown. Suddenly I feel so bad for him. I can’t believe I paraded around my grief in front of him for all this time, when perhaps he liked me the whole time.
But then again, how was I supposed to know?
As I sit there I remember, once again, that he is naked below the bubbles. It lends something ridiculous to the atmosphere, to be talking about such serious things while he is butt-ass naked.
It also lends something sensual. Very sensual, and I can’t even explain why, or how. I just know what I know.
“Eric?” I ask, and I can’t deny that something in the air has changed – it feels tense, electric, but not awkward at all. Just…different.
“Yeah?” he asks, peering over at me. I hold out my hand.
“I think…”
“Yes? Just say it.”
I hold out my hand. “I think I’m gonna need some more tequila.”