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“Great timing,” I say. “I was just telling the guys about how I’m messing around with Ty Lancaster.”
“Why wasn’t I invited to the coming-out party?”
“This is not my coming-out party.”
“Yeah,” Ash says. “His coming-out party will be epic. What kind of best friend do you think I am?”
“So, this is like the committee meeting where we organize it? Cool.”
This is one of the reasons I love my guys. As I’ve shared this with the gang, there’s no judgment. No hate. Even Marty, who’s the most high-strung of the group, is still here for me, even if he’s pretending to be weirded out by the details.
“But wait, why you fucking with Ty Lancaster?” Payton asks.
“Come on,” I say. “We’re rivals, and we get onto each other when we can, but you know we don’t actually wish harm upon anyone at Sigma Alpha.”
“Speak for yourself,” Payton says.
“I get that,” Marty adds. “But I just don’t see you and Ty together. Like at all.”
“Don’t be homophobic,” Payton insists.
“What? That is not what I meant.”
And Payton’s snickering, since we all know that’s not what Marty meant.
“Man, you all are the worst,” Marty says. “Really, the least surprising thing in Alpha Theta Mu seems to be someone getting together with another dude. At this point, it’ll be more shocking if Payton and I can graduate without getting some man-on-man action.”
“You never know,” I assure them, which gets Payton laughing, though it seems to make Marty think for longer than I would think he’d need to about that.
Marty shakes his head. “Well, just know, if that guy hurts you, we’re gonna come down hard and destroy him and his asshole buddies.”
“Us and what army?” Payton asks. “You’ve seen Ryan and Keegan, right?”
“We’ve got Colin, and we can call in Troy.”
Colin and Troy, our beefy jock alums, could definitely rival Ryan and Keegan in that department.
“Those guys can easily take them on,” Marty says.
“We’re really talking about summoning alumni to fight our battles for us?” I joke. “But there’s not any issues. Ty’s cool, and we’re having fun, and that’s all there is to it.”
“It sounds hot,” Ash says.
“Yeah, I can see it,” Payton adds.
“What do you mean you can see it?” Marty asks.
“Oh, come on. We’ve seen them all sweaty and in Speedos. I can imagine their bodies rubbing up on each other, getting all steamy…one of them teasing the hell out of the other until they blow…” Payton has this far-off look in his eyes, like he’s considering my sex life way too much. As he notices us looking at him, he shrugs. “Not like I’m the only one thinking it.”
“It’s probably very hot,” Marty concedes. “But this doesn’t mean we’re suddenly cool with Sigma Alphas, right?”
“Fuck no,” I reply. “Rivalry continues, from the prank we’re gonna pull on their asses to make up for what they did to us at the start of this semester, and then we also have to kick their asses in the TaskFrat challenges.”
“That’s good,” Ash says, “because we still have to get them back for that prank. And actually, that was something I was gonna talk to you about.”
“What? Why?”
“Last night, Colin and I were brainstorming ideas, and we got a good one, but I’m not sure we can pull it off.”