I bend down and give Devin a high five. “Hey little buddy, I didn’t know you came with your Uncle to see the game.”

“You skated like Wayne Gwetsy!” he shouts happily, and Sam ruffles his hair. They both pause and push their glasses up on their faces as I chuckle.

“Yeah I did. So, what are you up to now?” I ask.

“Uncle Sammy says he’s watching me for a couple hours while Momma does some stuff. I don’t need him to. I’m a big boy,” he pouts.

“Well, yeah you are, but sometimes even big boys need watching out for,” I state as Stevie and the rest of the J.V. team exit the rink and head in the opposite direction.

“I can skate,” he says simply like it’s a testament to how much of a big boy he is, as Sam looks apprehensively after the team. I watch as they head up the path, not having noticed us and blow out a sigh of relief.

“I know buddy,” I say as I turn back to him.

“So, erm, is it cool if he tags along with us for a couple of hours? My sister, Katie, has some errands and then will come pick him up, but gave him the choice of coming with me to see your game or going with her. I did tell her we’re supposed to study.” He looks wary like he wonders if I’ll be upset.

“Of course, it’s cool. Tell you what, let’s head down to that diner on Main Street for some dinner, and then we can drop little man off and head back to the library after. Unless you have plans later tonight with Shawn or something?”

“Umm, no plans,o. But the library is closed on Sundays.”

“Oh, right. Well, if your cool we can head back to my dorm and work on stuff there, my books are there anyway. My roommate, Jimmy, is cool. He’ll probably clear out to head to his girlfriend’s house anyway.”

Sam looks hesitant at first but then Devin begins tugging him towards the car. “I’m hungwy! I want chicken nuggets!”

“Alright, that sounds like a plan.” Sam averts his eyes as his neck reddens slightly. I shove my hands in my pockets and saunter after them, content that my plan is coming into place.

Dinner is an interesting event as I watch Sam struggle to remain in control over his boisterous nephew. He splatters ketchup all over everything when he makes his T-Rex shaped chicken nugget battle his stegosaurus chicken nugget and a glob of it flies across the table hitting my jersey. I wipe at it noticing Sam’s face flush almost as red.

“Devin, you have to cut that out.” He’s firm but not angry as he looks apologetically at my jersey.

“Why? T-Rex ate stegosaurus. So that’s what my chicken nuggets have to do,” Devin explains. I laugh at the thought process kids come up with. I’m not unaccustomed to them. I have some younger cousins whose rationale runs along similar lines as Devin’s does. It seems to fluster Sam who begins to babble at him, but Devin happily munches the head of the Stego. I lean back in the booth musing internally that Sam is the armor plated Stego and I’m the predator T-Rex and he doesn’t realize it yet, but I’m going to break down his armor too.

Later that evening, we drop off a very sleepy, happy Devin to Katie who greets me brightly as she staggers under the weight of her half-asleep son. We watch as they make their way back inside and then Sam pulls out of the driveway, heading back to the dorms. He is very quiet, and I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he struggles to say something.

“You should give me that Jersey. I’ll get it dry-cleaned and get the ketchup stain out,” he finally manages.

“It’s alright.” I lean back in the seat and relax.

“No, really, I insist,” he stammers as he checks the rearview mirror before turning off into the school parking lot.

As he pulls into his assigned slot, I step out of the car and wait for him and we progress silently back to the dorm. Once we get inside my room, I see another note from Jimmy that he’s gone for the night. I smirk as I see Sam hesitate in the doorway, like he’s not sure he should enter.

“Come on in. Roomie’s gone,” I explain. When he takes a few steps in, I reach around him, looking down at the side of his face as he resolutely refuses to look me in the eyes. I pull the door shut gently and then without him noticing, inhale the masculine scent of him before turning away. I whip the jersey up over my torso and my inner man growls triumphantly as I hear him gasp behind me. “Thanks for helping with this. Normally I’d just take it home but with playoffs and midterms coming up, I don’t know when I’ll get there.”

I toss the jersey to the foot of the bed and plunk down sideways as he stands in the center of the room. He’s trying so hard not to sneak glances at my torso but failing miserably, so I pull his attention back to the present.

“Ok, so your idea of the athletes is cool. I like it. I even looked at some of the statues. So, what should I do from here?”

I provide him with the anchor he needs to come back to reality. “Um, right. So, we should start to outline your paper. I picked up a few books about the sculptures last night after you left so we can start with the earliest time periods and work our way up as far as time progression and development.” He looks between my bed and Jimmy’s, contemplating which one he should choose.

I pat the free space on mine. “Sit here. That way we can look at the books together.”

He sits tentatively on the edge of the bed and I lean behind him, grabbing my backpack and pulling it towards me to grab a notebook. I scooch back even further which only adds to the gap between us.

“You might as well get comfortable.” I murmur from behind him, diagonally to his right and in the corner. I see him take a deep breath then ease himself onto the bed. Once he begins fishing books from his backpack, I flip open my notebook, pen at the ready.

“OK, let’s start with the Kouroi statues,” he tells me. I flip my book to the page about them and glance briefly at the nude male statue.

“What makes them so special?” I ask.

“Well, they developed from earlier models which were rigid, and the features not as pronounced. Some of the earliest models date back to ancient Egypt, but we’ll focus on how they developed to show muscle tone, facial features and details like hair and how their limbs became more relaxed, bent and articulated,” he finishes. I write all this in my notebook, making sure to note the text it comes from so I can do a bibliography later.

“What makes them so special?” I ask again. To me they look like almost faceless attempts at replicating the male form, but it must pertain to Humanities somehow.

“Well because, their development shows that the ancient Grecians had an appreciation for the workings of the male form and how the body moves and develops. If you think about it, in those times, the focus was largely on survival. Art and sculpture was of little consequence for a lot of people, but there were those who began to appreciate the functions of humans and the effect that has on humanity. So, they began to depict them in things like sculptures.”

I feel my chest tighten as I think about how much I had appreciated his form the other night in the shower, and I grab my pillow, placing it over my lap and propping my notebook on top, pretending like I needed the pillow as a kind of table top. Sam looks up from his book and takes a peek at what I wrote and nods in approval. He then begins to drone on and on about more periods of art and the significance of the artwork through the ages, finally coming to emphasize his point about how the athletes were beginning to be depicted as life size sculptures. I dutifully write this down, not fully understanding any of it and also wondering how I’m going to form all of this into a legible paper.

After what seems like an hour, he pauses as I begin rubbing my temples. I feel the effects of a headache coming on.

“Hey are you ok?” he asks. My eyes pop open and I catch his blue ones.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Just tired. It has been a long day,” I explain.

“You want me to leave?” he asks tentatively.

“Nah, it’s cool. Can we just take a break for a few?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says flipping closed the book. I grab the remote from my nightstand and flip on the movie channel, letting it play on whatever is on already.

“You want a beer?” I ask looking at the small fridge stuck in the corner.

“No, I’m good,” he says as he glances back at me seeing me in the shadows. The night had grown dark and so had the room, save for the images flicking across the screen. I’ve seen the movie before. The scene on top of the mountain between the two cowboys is a classic and the fact that it happened to be playing when I flipped the T.V. on was just fate or some shit intervening on my behalf.

“Does this movie bug you?” I ask quietly.

He clears his throat, trying to answer, but settles for shaking his head no. His eyes are enraptured with the two men on the screen, and he begins tugging at the collar of his t-shirt as things on the screen get heavy. I watch his slight jerks and attempts to relax himself as he watches the movie. Although I’ve seen it a few times before, I’m more interested in Sam. I lean up, easily so he doesn’t detect the movements on the bed.

“So, have you ever skated before?” I ask in a low voice right near his ear, dividing his attention between the movie and the sound of my voice. Again, he doesn’t answer, but shakes his head no. “We should skate sometime,” I whisper as I see his whole body grow taut. He turns his head to the side, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “Might help me better understand why the importance of male athletes need their bodies so defined in Greek sculptures,” I murmur. He bites his lip and I have to shift my hips, re-positioning the pillow on my lap. He nods his head a third time and I glance down at the lip between his teeth as the sounds emit from the screen above from the tent scene.

“We could try maybe tomorrow night after study time? I’m not very good.” His voice shakes as he stares at me. I give him a small smile of agreement but don’t trust my own voice this time. After a minute he says, “Jayden we…” I don’t let him finish. Hearing my name from him, I lean out and nip at his bottom lip myself. Very gently. He freezes in place and I pull back, giving him time to pull away. Shock registers on his face, followed by the full body shudder as it takes him a minute to register what just happened. He repositions his glasses on his face and stands, trembling. I make no move to follow him as my breathing has become labored and I would never force him to do what he doesn’t want to. He stops at the door, completely forgetting about his books or backpack.

“I…I…we…” he stammers.

“Sam,” I start but he whips out the door. I fall back on my second pillow and groan, painfully aroused and aching.

The next morning, I gather up my things and Sam’s and head out the door. I look for him at the cafeteria and the Gazebo. He must need his bag for classes, but I can’t find him anywhere. I go to the registrar’s office and ask what room he is in and find out he’s a floor above me, so I head back to the dorm and make my way past my floor and up the stairs to his level. I find his room number and knock on the door. No one answers.

“Sam it’s me, Jayden,” I call through the door. I hear shuffling inside, but no one answers. “Come on Sam, I have your backpack. Open the door. Please?” I tack on the end. I hear the shuffling grow louder and then the door creaks open. Sam’s disheveled appearance peers at me through the slit and he looks at me, then looks away. He sticks out an arm, grabbing for the backpack, but I keep it just out of reach, causing him to have to open the door wider. “Sam, talk to me,” I whisper urgently.

“Thanks for bringing my stuff back,” he mumbles to the floor.

“Look at me Sam.” I command. He glances up and I see in his eyes there is wariness as he glances up and down the hall. It is empty because most students are in classes. “Tell me right now if last night was wrong and I will never do it again. If you want I will even find a different tutor so it isn’t weird for you,” I tell him. He glances behind his shoulder and I wonder if Shawn is in there. I discover he isn’t when Sam opens the door wider and ushers me inside quickly. He shuts the door behind me and turns back around, leaving himself closest to the door and a possible escape, I notice.

I look around the room and it is a homage to Marvel and DC comics and characters. The posters, bedspreads, and even action figures and comics are spread, everywhere. He and his roommate have an impressive collection of geek paraphernalia going on and I see the D&D game that I had assumed they would be playing in the gazebo, lying on the floor between the two beds. There are gaming controls, a console, figurines, and pewter sculptures of dragons, fairies, and other mythological creatures that line the window sill. It’s interesting to note that he and his roommate are well matched and when they geek-out, they go full on geek not just a half a geek. It seems like they don’t subscribe to a particular aspect of the world either, there’s stuff here for every faction of the nerd world. It makes me smile as he pulls me back from my observations.

“I don’t want you to find another tutor,” he says quietly, confirming my assumptions that he isn’t freaked out, he just hasn’t admitted to himself or anyone else which team he bats for.

“Ok then. And the kiss?” I prod, testing to see his limits. He rubs his hand through his thick dark hair and toys with an action figure on his desk. I shove my hands in my pockets and wait, pretending like he is blocking my escape if I wanted one.

“It was…we just…” He trails off, not sure what to say.

“How about we go with, it was good, and it took you by surprise, so you didn’t know how to react?” I suggest. He glances up at me and shivers as he remembers. He clears his throat again before he responds, his face flushing.

“Ok.” I can tell it’s the first time he’s admitted openly to enjoying anything having to do with another man, but I don’t push him further.

“So, we still on to study and skate tonight?” I ask, and he nods his head. “Cool, let’s change it up a little and bring the books to the arena. I want to test the theory of how the muscles work when flexed in a certain way and how the sculptures developed the technique, you down to try it?”

“Yeah alright, if you think that’s best,” he answers.

I grin, “I think it’s a practical application of what you are trying to teach me, and student gets to teach tutor some stuff for once. Besides, I think better on the ice.” I walk towards him slowly and he crams himself into the nook between the bed and the desk in an attempt to back out of my way. I pause just near him, “eight sound good?”

“Yeah ok,” he replies. I open the door and saunter out, just as I hear him mumble, “You’ve already taught me some stuff.” I pull the door shut behind me and walk to class whistling.