Page 59 of The Understatement of the Year

I didn’t have to ask which school lay in that direction. “I wish there was such a thing as trading at the college level. We could just trade Big-D to Saint B's.”

“I could get behind that,” Rikker snorted.

“How do you walk past him every day and not punch him in the teeth? The shit that comes out of his mouth…”

Rikker sighed. “Yeah. See, even though I think he’s a moron and a giant, gaping asshole, I don’t think it’s curable. He’s squicked out by me, and that comes from somewhere deep inside. That’s why I don’t punch him. Because he can’t help being a dick like I can’t help being gay.”

“You can’t use the word ‘deep’ with his name in the same sentence.”

“Fair enough.”

“And I don’t buy it, anyway. Because if he’s squicked, that means that in order to be your friend, he has to be able to picture you having sex, andlikethat image. Sonowwho’s the pervert?”

He laughed. “That is a hell of a point, G. Did you ever think about saying that to his face?”

Fuck, no. Because I am the biggest pussy that ever was.

“Never mind,” Rikker sighed. He knew already that I was a coward. I’d been proving it to him all my life. “Maybe you’ll find this funny. Big-D got up in my face in the locker room once, asking me how many girls I fucked before I decided I was gay.”

“Christ. What did you say?”

Rikker got that slow grin on his face, the one that always made it hard for me to think straight. “I asked him how many dicks he sucked before he decided he was straight.”

“Get out of town! And he didn’t take a swing at you?”

“Too many witnesses,” Rikker shrugged. “The funny thing is that Iama little squicked out by the idea of having sex with a girl.”

I laughed. “You ever try it?”

He shook his head.

“Aw, Rikker is a virgin,” I teased.

He shook his head. “If you say so. Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” I said. But then I qualified my answer. “When I’m drunk and very horny. It helps if she’s really into it.”

“You get off?”

“Usually. Unless I’m really wasted.”Too wasted to remember the finer points of whatever gay porn I’d watched earlier in the evening. I’d never shared this crap withanyone. But alone with Rikker in that car, I couldn’t stop spilling my guts.

“What’s your plan?” he asked, his eyes still on the road.

“What do you mean? For today?”

He chuckled. “No, moron. For life. Girls? Guys? Girls and guys?”

“I don’t plan.” And that was certainly the truth. “But I do hope. I hope I meet some girl who really does it for me, you know?” God knows I’d been auditioning them the last three years at Harkness. There was just one girl who had always been able to make me hot for her. And that was only because she was game to do some things with me that most girls didn’t like to do.

Andthatmeant that I’d had to stop sleeping with her. Because my enthusiasm for her extra-credit activities gave away more clues about me than I was comfortable revealing.

My phone chimed with a text from Bella.Where R U?

Think of the devil, and she appears.

I didn’t answer Bella’s text. Because my story was going to be that I’d flown into Hartford today. Every truly enjoyable day was one that required a lie to explain. How depressing.

A minute later, I heard Rikker’s phone chime. “That will be Bella. I think she’s trying to figure out if anyone is going to be late.”