Page 34 of Show Me
His bewildered expression morphed into a smile. “Should’ve known that, as detail oriented as you are. Hey, thank goodness you didn’t have a dildo in your backpack this time, right?”
“Ugh, please stop reminding me that you were there to witness my abject humiliation.” I handed him a pack of baby wipes so he could clean up better and glanced at my watch. “I’ve got ten minutes until class. You?”
“Same.” We headed in the direction of a stand of trees, intent on the shade beneath it. Sam cut me a sidelong look. “What I said back in the bookstore about liking when you talked to me, I—” He scratched his jaw, hesitating. “I just meant the direction you give me is helpful.”
“Oh, I know. All kinds of random stuff slips out when people are circling the big O. I can’t tell you how many orgasm-induced I-love-yous I’ve heard. They’re like little bugs, skittering away when you try to get a closer look. I didn’t think you meant anything by it.” I rushed to fill in his pause so he wouldn’t feel compelled to explain. “Want to see if there are any new comments on your SM?”
Sam nodded in assent, wiped himself down, leaving a pile of wipes beside him, and then stretched out on the fluffy grass, lacing his fingers behind his head.
I sat with my back to the tree and opened the last thirty-second teaser clip I’d posted to his Twitter account. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of likes and retweets on this one.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t sound as enthused as I’d expected.
I mm-hmmed as I scrolled through the comments, chuffed when I saw a few complimenting the camera work. I passed the phone over to Sam. “You’ve got a special request.”
“Wow. This is…intricate. Rope. Handcuffs. I’m okay with that. No to a ball gag, though.” He angled the screen and squinted at it. “Man, the requests for seeing me with another guy are really ramping up lately, too.”
“Yeah, just ignore those. They’ll keep watching. They’re just throwing it out to see if you’ll bite.”
Sam’s brow furrowed. “I’ve considered it.”
“Really?” My stomach flip-flopped on itself as I imagined Sam with another guy, which was totally ridiculous for multiple reasons—though the part where it was ridiculous because I thought Sam would never do that was starting to sound like less of an issue. “You’d do gay for pay?”
He sawed at his lower lip in thought. “Another guy I was chatting with early on who has an OnlyFans says it’s the way to go, that his subscribers really love it. And it’s not like it’s a hardship getting your dick sucked or jacked off I mean, unless you’re really homophobic or just very, very straight. I’m definitely not homophobic, and I wouldn’t be skeeved out by a guy touching me or vice versa.”
His gaze on me seemed careful, but he should’ve known I’d be the last person to judge him for confessing something like that. “I’d imagine not since you claim to have sucked a guy’s dick before. Didn’t you hate it, though?”
Sam shrugged. “It was just a thing I did. I feel ambivalent about it now, I guess. I didn’t really feel anything back then either. It was freshman year. Or maybe sophomore. We were both pretty drunk. Standard, right? There were a bunch of us, so it wasn’t like it was an intimate moment between the two of us. It earned the same level of enthusiasm as if I’d chugged a beer, except the aftertaste was definitely different.” His smile was wry, and he hesitated a beat, shading his eyes against the sun and peering over at me. “That’s just how it goes for me sometimes, even with girls.”
“Like…you’re not into it?”
“I’m just not very into stuff that’s only casual.” His expression was almost sheepish. “Ironic, right? Football dude with plenty of opportunities? Sometimes I do it just because. Other times, meh. It’s sexier to me when it’s someone you’ve known for more than five minutes. I guess I’m a little traditional that way.”
“Do you know what demisexual is?”
Sam waved a hand. “No, I definitely have a libido. And I get horny and like jerking off. I like watching porn and stuff, but when it comes to an actual human, I like it more if I know them.”
I laughed and shook my head when his brows pinched together. “You can be and do all those things and be demi. Or, whatever. You don’t even have to claim a label at all. You just said all of that like you felt guilty fornotwanting to sleep with people sometimes, and you shouldn’t. Like being good at football, or liking pineapple, it’s an aspect of you, but it doesn’t have to define you. I mean, unless you want it to. Sometimes people do.”
Sam passed the phone back to me and laced his fingers over his stomach with a thoughtful nod. His shirt had ridden up over his abs, and I tried to ignore the light fuzz of his treasure trail, a slightly darker mimic of the fur on his legs. It didn’t look wiry like some body hair, but like it’d be really soft to the touch.
He was quiet for a stretch, then shrugged. “Okay, yeah, maybe.” He angled a look at me. “Subject change. So did you ever hear back from John?”
“Yeah. We text a little here and there. We’re trying to find a date to get together that works with his crazy-ass schedule.” I wasn’t as excited as I thought I should be about it, though.
“Cool.” Sam rolled upright and dusted bits of grass off his shoulders. “I need to get to class, I guess.”
“Hang on.” I reached out and plucked a few stray pieces from his shoulders. “Hm?” I said when I noticed him studying me with an amused quirk of his lips.
“You’re pretty nice.”
“Oh god, lower your voice,” I hissed. “Don’t even speak it into existence. That’s the fucking kiss of death right there.”Nice.Nice was for kittens rolling around in baskets of yarn and grandmas who shared their Werther’s with you. Nice was undoubtedly how I kept getting shoved into the friend zone, even though I didn’t actually think I was all that nice, and even though the way Sam said it in conjunction with the sincerity in his expression made it actually feel like a compliment for once. A genuine one that buzzed in my stomach and made me warm all over.
Sam chuckled. “I don’t think so. I like nice people. Nice is underrated.” He rose to standing and extended his hand to pull me up, too, then shouldered his backpack. “So if I wanted to do this gay for pay, is it really as easy as going to a club or getting on Grindr and finding a guy?”
I dusted my hands off on my shorts. “Yeah. I’d stick with a club, though, so you can vet in person,” I said, even as my stomach sank. The thought honestly made me nauseated. “There’d be guys lining up for you in a New York minute. You’d just need them to agree to filming and sign an NDA. But trust me, when they see you, that’s not going to be a problem.”
Sam did something that I thought was supposed to be some kind of fashion pose. “You think I’m cute?”