Page 32 of Teach Me
“Lingen is definitely into him.” Eric sounded so certain, it irritated me.
Nate snorted. “You’re seeing shit that’s not there. They’re literally sitting there drinking beer.”
“My superpower is seeing shit other people don’t see.”
“Oh yeah?” Nate challenged, and Eric gave him a cool once-over.
“Mmmmmm. Sometimes things they’re not even consciously aware of themselves, frat boy.” Nate’s mouth opened and closed as Eric smirked. “That’s what I thought.”
Unlike Nate, I didn’t have a doubt in my mind that Eric picked up on shit better than most. I’d seen him observing others enough to suspect he had a lot going on in his brain.That he and Nate were together in the first place still blew my mind because talk about unlikely pairings. Nate had seemed like the straightest of straight arrows since I’d met him, so I could only conclude Eric, with his perspicacious nature, had discerned otherwise.
“Bathroom,” Nate announced and then pointed a commanding finger at Eric. “You stay here.”
“Maybe.” Eric offered an unconvincing smile.
For some reason, that made the rest of the table crack up. Jesse, I guess taking pity on me, supplied, “Nate and Eric banged in a stall here once and didn’t have the fucking decency to tell anyone. And, well, I’m pretty sure Sam did a video jerking off in one, too.”
“No regrets.” Eric’s grin was smug.
“You never have them. It’s why we love you.” Jesse reached out and pinched his cheek. I was certain that was something only Jesse could get away with, too.
“Third stall?” Sam asked Eric, and then fist bumped him when he nodded.
“Jesus,” I whispered. Sometimes I felt like I was in over my head with this crew. They were just all so fucking coupled up, and even though they never made me feel like the fifth wheel, I perpetually stuck out as the solo flyer when Ansel wasn’t around.
“That’s exactly what I said.” Sam gave me a helpless smile. “You definitely want to wash your hands extra good if you use the restrooms here.”
I adjusted in my seat, angling for a better view of Grady and his companion, eagle-eyeing their every movement. The conversation continued around me, but I was attuned to every nuance between the pair.
If Grady had spotted me, which seemed increasingly unlikely given how intently he and Lingen were speaking, he clearly didn’t give a shit that I was nearby or could see them. Therewas absolutely no need for their heads to be so close together, though. It wasn’t like it was as noisy as a stadium in here. My mood soured further.
Nate returned from the bathroom and slipped back into his seat, eyeing Eric with a grunt that sounded almost wistful.
At the bar, Grady said something that made Lingen lean impossibly closer, and I squeezed the napkin in my fist into a compact ball, the pressure of discontent as I tried to resist the urge to go stand between them and declare a neutral zone of at least a foot. Was Grady not concerned about germs? I thought I remembered a recent rumor that Lingen had caught a stomach bug so bad that he’d been out for an entire week and lost twenty pounds, though I couldn’t detect any hint of that beneath the godawful blazer with leather patches on the elbows. Could he be more of a cliché?
“Cam?”
“Huh?” I blinked away from my squint-eyed examination of Lingen’s hairline, which was, unfortunately, not receding in the slightest.
“If we get another double order of nachos, you’ll help us eat them, right?”
“Yeah,” I said distractedly as Lingen patted Grady lightly on the arm. Again. This dude was clueless about personal space. I shoved to my feet. “Bathroom,” I announced and stalked in that direction, stewing.
I wanted Grady to be as fucking rattled as I was. I wanted him to be anything other than casually drinking a beer at a bar with the most boring fucking professor on campus, who no one liked. He was better than Lingen, he had to fucking know that.
In the bathroom, I caught myself right before heading into the third stall and rerouted to the middle one. I needed a minute to chill and focus, and then I could return to the table. Of course, the bathroom stalls made me think of Grady, which, let’s behonest, was all the more reason to forget about him. How many people wanted to answer the question of where they’d first met with “A quaint little glory hole outside of Silver Ridge.” A tale as old as time. Practically a Hallmark movie waiting to happen. No, a Hallmark movie waiting to happen was in progress at the bar. Two professors? How fucking sweet. How perfect. How…infuriating. I ground my molars and scrolled through my phone, searching for the motivational messages app I’d downloaded months ago at the tail end of a double shift. I’d had a midterm the next day and was convinced I didn’t have enough energy left to power through yet another cram session on my own. My gaze landed on the TextFree icon, and I bit my lip. I knew Grady had been into what we’d done, and there was no fucking way Professor Dumbledore had my, my…zestfor sex.
Maybe Grady deserved a reminder of that.
With the last stall leaching remnants of Nate, Eric, and Sam’s previous sexual provocations, I opened my camera and then unbuttoned my pants.
That I was already hard was also infuriating, a near Pavlovian reaction thinking about Grady in the context of my surroundings.
I reached down and squeezed my shaft. I’d been thinking a nice dick pic, but stroking it felt like the tiniest bit of relief. Like a pressure valve released. I decided maybe a short vid was an even better reminder. Sam probably would’ve agreed. I hit Record and closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the pleasure for a solid ten seconds before I ended the video and gripped my base hard, staving off the orgasm. It’d have to wait. I might be a sexually open dude, but I wasn’t about to nut alone in a stall while Grady was out there sitting at the bar with some other man. That was just pathetic, and I didn’t do pathetic anymore. I’d had enough of that for a lifetime.
I uploaded the video to our chat thread, Grady’s message thanking me for the Enigma maze the last communication there, and hit Send as soon as I exited the bathroom. Odds were good Grady wouldn’t even open the thing until later, if at all. But I knew it was there, lying in wait for him, and that satisfied me enough.
To my surprise, as I rounded the corner, Grady was reaching for his phone. He glanced up, eyes widening as his gaze latched onto mine. He quickly pulled a professional facade, and I gave him a cool upnod for his trouble.