Page 14

14

AUSTIN

W hat a week. I’m exhausted, but it’s a good kind of exhausted. One that feels productive and like I actually learned a lot. In high school, I honestly felt bored most of the time. It probably makes me sound like an asshole, but there was no real challenge there.

The classes I’m taking here—they challenge me. They force me to really think, and I’m loving every second of it. Okay, almost every second of it because my mind always goes back to Vaughn.

He looked so sad on our video call on Wednesday. So lost. That’s not at all what I want for my best friend. I need him to be thriving too. Hopefully, he’ll get there and really soon. He did seem to be in a much better mood when I talked to him that night.

“You heading to the dining hall?” I look over at my roommate, Evan, and nod as he grabs his duffle bag from his closet and starts to pack.

“Yeah, I think so. You?”

“Nah. I’ll just grab dinner at home.”

I grin, but then there’s a knock on our door that gets my attention. “Expecting someone?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. Already told Lisa goodbye.”

“Well maybe she wants one last kiss,” I tease, and he tosses a pair of his socks at me. I catch them and throw them back as I pull open the door, certain I’m right about it being his girlfriend—the two are disgustingly and adorably in looooove.

But instead of Lisa standing at our dorm door, it’s Vaughn, looking kind of like an excited puppy, bouncing on his feet with a bag slung over his shoulder, his eyes bright and happy. “Hey.”

“Vaughn?” I can’t keep the bigass smile off my face. He’s here. “What are you doing here?”

“I um...” Now he looks adorably nervous, as if I’d be mad about him showing up here. I watch as he shifts from foot to foot, playing with the strap on his bag. “I thought we could hang out.”

“Cool,” I say, even though I’m kind of bursting inside. He looks good—but he always looks good. Tall and confident, with a hint of nerves. His hair styled perfectly, even though I doubt he did anything with it. “Come on in.”

I move out of the way, and his eyes lock instantly on Evan, who’s just now zipping up his bag, “Hey, man.”

Vaughn doesn’t return the greeting right away, his eyes still sizing up my roommate in that protective way I’m used to, but most aren’t. Evan raises his brow at me as if to say, what’s his deal? I want to tell him that’s just Vaughn, but with my best friend’s hackles already up, I don’t want to make it worse.

“Evan, this is my best friend, Vaughn. Vaughn, this is my roommate, Evan. You almost missed him. He’s going home for the weekend.”

“Home?” Vaughn questions, still watching Evan like a hawk.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, but Evan is a pretty confident guy and doesn’t have a problem walking toward Vaughn. “Yeah. My dads live about an hour from here, so I’m going home to do laundry and to get a home-cooked meal.”

“D-dads?” Vaughn asks, clearly a little shaken, and I hold my breath a little that he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth. Obviously, Vaughn doesn’t have an issue with that, but it’ll probably take his brain a second to catch up. We didn’t know anyone with two dads or two moms growing up.

“That a problem?” Evan asks defensively, and I’m about to jump in, but Vaughn raises his hands in surrender.

“No. Not at all. Why would it be?” He looks over at me, and I grin.

“Don’t worry, he’s not like the people I told you about.” Evan and I have had some pretty good talks already in the three weeks we’ve been rooming together. He knows about Big Bend and the shit I had to deal with coming out. He grew up in the city, but his dads still have to deal with the occasional asshole.

He knows I’m gay, and it was kind of a relief when I spit that out day one and he immediately told me that, and I quote, “Hey, so are my dads.” We’ve been pretty close since then.

“Good.” Evan still eyes him warily, but then swings his bag over his shoulder. “You two have fun.”

“You too. Still think you should take my laundry,” I tease.

He cackles and then reaches his hand out for Vaughn. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” Vaughn doesn’t sound like he means it, but he does shake his hand, so I guess... progress.

Evan leaves and closes the door behind him before I look over at Vaughn as he observes the small dorm room. “You both live in here?”

I chuckle as I take a seat on my neatly made bed. “We do. He’s working on being a little bit less of a pig, but I can’t complain about much else.” I motion toward Evan’s side of the room, where his bed is left unmade and there are books and socks on the floor.

Vaughn puts his bag by the door and then runs over to my bed, bouncing down next to me and then wrapping his big arms around me. “I’ve missed you.”

I laugh, but I also relish his arms squeezing the life out of me and his warmth. God, he smells good even after two hours in the car. “I missed you too. You could have told me you were coming.”

“Why? Would you have told me not to?” He pulls back a little, his eyes looking uncertain and a little scared.

“No, dummy,” I say and playfully shove him. “But I’m glad I was here. I was just heading to the dining hall to get something to eat.”

“I would have waited for you.”

I laugh. “I have no doubt. You hungry?”

“Yeah.” He hugs me tighter. “Just a minute.” My stupid heart skips a beat as one of his hands goes to the back of my head, and he holds me there.

“Vaughn, you okay?”

“Yeah.” He pulls back. “Show me this place. I want to see all of it.”

I chuckle and stand up. “You staying the night?” He nods. “You won’t get in trouble? Don’t you have a game tomorrow?”

I watched the first game on television last week—yes, my best friend is on television every weekend during football season now. So weird. But I was definitely proud and pointed him out to my friends when they caught me watching a State football game. “Yeah, but not until the evening. It’s not like I play anyway.”

“Hey, you warmed that bench last week so well.” It’s not unusual for a freshman to sit out in college football, but I know, without a doubt, it’s driving him insane. Vaughn is a hands-on sort of guy.

He shoves me, and I nearly knock into the wall from the full force of his big body. He immediately feels bad and grabs for me, but I only laugh. Having missed his misjudgment of me being able to take a hit.

“Let’s go eat.”

I show him around campus, pointing out the buildings where I have class and of course, the library. He’s a good sport as he oohs and ahhs at each place before we go to the dining hall, and I grab him a guest pass.

We eat and then go for another walk back to the dorm just as the sun is setting. He doesn’t talk too much about college, so I try not to push. We get back to my dorm and hang out. He texts with Vanessa a little before I decide it’s time to go to bed.

I’m going to take him to the coffee shop on campus tomorrow and introduce him to a couple of friends, hoping maybe that will put him at ease.

I strip down to my boxer briefs, and he does the same. “You can take Evan’s bed. I know for a fact he changed his sheets yesterday at my insistence.”

He wrinkles his nose, and I laugh. “Trust me. It has to be cleaner than your bed.”

“Hey, ever since you shamed me sophomore year for taking too long to wash my sheets, I’ve kept up with it.”

I give him a knowing look. “Even in college?”

He snorts, but he looks really sad as he walks over to Evan’s bed and pulls back the covers enough to climb into it. I know he probably wanted to share a bed, but I’m trying to have healthy boundaries here.

He gets settled under the covers, propping his head up on his folded hands on Evan’s pillow, his puppy dog eyes looking nearly distraught as I climb into my own bed and mirror his position.

“These beds are too small,” I say, trying like hell to remind myself why he can’t sleep in the same bed as me. My body has missed his way too much, and just him being across the room from me, nearly naked, is doing all sorts of things to my dick. It wants to say hello, and that’s just not going to work.

Vaughn is straight, dick . Why can’t it understand that?

“They aren’t too bad,” he says sadly, his eyes still zeroed in on me, hitting me right in the heart. “Mine is bigger though.”

I snort. “Jocks.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I can’t take it anymore. He looks so lonely and lost, even being in the same room.

I huff and scoot over toward the wall, lifting my blanket in invitation for him to join me. “Come here.”

He doesn’t hesitate, nearly tripping over the blanket that got wrapped around his feet and falling into bed with me. I laugh and pull the blanket over his bigass shoulder. He’s hanging nearly off the edge of the bed but totally unbothered as he snuggles into me. His bare skin is warm, and I can smell the toothpaste on his breath.

I try like hell to will my body to not react to his closeness, but it’s a lost cause—my dick is fully hard, and I can only hope he’s oblivious.

“Are you okay?”

His head rests on my shoulder, and I feel him nod his head against it. “It’s just all so weird, you know?”

“College?” I wrap my arm around him, trying to provide comfort while I keep my lower half as far away from him as I can.

“Yeah. I don’t know anyone except Vanessa. Everywhere I go, it’s just total strangers.”

That’s... odd for him. I always thought Vaughn never really met a stranger in his life. He always made friends so fast. Always the life of the party—maybe it’s because in a way he kind of knew everyone in town—or knew of them. Or knew someone they were related to. I guess that would be a big adjustment for someone like Vaughn.

“And that’s a bad thing?” I try to joke because it’s no secret, I’m not a huge fan of where we grew up.

“Yes.” He tickles my side, and I laugh, struggling to keep him from doing that anymore. “It’s weird. I go to something on campus, and it’s nothing like back home. No one knows me, and I don’t know anyone.”

“It takes time, Vaughn. You’ll make friends. What about the guys on the team?”

He shrugs. “They’re fine. Most of them can’t be bothered with freshmen though.”

“So make friends with the freshmen.”

“Yeah. I guess I can.” He sounds so resigned, and I hate it. I can’t help but feel like this is my fault, but then I feel his lips morph into a smile against my skin. “Tell me about you. It seems like you’ve made a lot of friends. I barely got a word in at dinner.”

I laugh. We ran into two people I knew and sat with them, but he’s being dramatic. I didn’t even know them that well, and we barely chatted. “I like it here,” I say, still feeling a little pang of guilt. “It’s a whole new world for me, and while you hate that no one knows you, I kind of love that.” I cringe, waiting for that hurt, but it doesn’t come.

He lifts his head, and he’s genuinely smiling at me. “That’s good. It’s great to see you so happy, Austin. I hated seeing you sad.”

“I know you did. I want you to be happy too though.” And it’s true. I think—I know—that if he doesn’t cheer up soon, I’m going to have to do something. I can’t stand the thought of sacrificing his happiness for my own.

“I will be.” He snuggles into me, holding me close, and I close my eyes, relaxing into the moment. “So, any dates?”

I laugh. “You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the p in an obnoxious way I, of course, find endearing.

“I actually have a date next Friday.”

I feel his entire body tense, and his eyes lift to look at me when I open mine. “Really?”

“Yeah. He’s nice. You’d like him, Vaughn.”

“Your type?” His jaw is tight, and I know he’s worried, but he doesn’t need to be. The guy is actually smaller than me—not that I think guys on the smaller side can’t be dangerous, but I feel safe with Justin.

“He’s great. Kind of on the nerdy side, which has me intrigued.”

Vaughn snorts. “He taking you to a museum?”

I laugh. “Close. Bookstore.”

“Gag.”

I laugh. “Shut up. I’m excited. First date and all that.”

I watch his throat bob, and his eyes cloud over with more worry and tension, but thankfully, he doesn’t ruin it for me. He just nods his head. “Call me after and tell me all about it.”

I smile. “Promise.”

And that’s it. There’s no more interrogation, and I’m relieved—but okay, maybe a little surprised he doesn’t have more questions.

Disappointed?

Not like I wanted him to grill me, but I thought there would be more to it.

But this is good. We’re finally getting to a healthier relationship.

This is good.

Good. Good. Good.

Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll believe it too.