Looking up, windows were already glowing with the light inside the house. Some were low blue and green lights that I heard paired well with smoking weed, others were plain, office white, and a couple of the windows radiated warm amber light that was much like my room. The one I guessed was Jason’s was amber. I only guessed so because half the window was covered by a plain rainbow flag.
Jason being gay still made my ears ring.Calling Colby Professor Chinos turned said ears red. Not that I hadn’t noticed that Professor Colby was hot. For someone who had neither the looks nor the confidence of most people on the campus, getting together with someone was a challenge. I’d overcome it a couple of times, but the results hadn’t been worth the effort of traveling so far out of my comfort zone. So I’d let myself look from a safe distance, never mistaking someone’s attractiveness and willingness to smile at me for genuine interest.
Professor Colby was too important to me to be examined in such a way. Not to Jason, apparently, who only knew our mutual teacher by the size of his ass.
I swallowed a growing knot in my throat, squeezed my fists hard, then wiped my hands on my jeans. Covering the last few steps between the safety of the outside world and the mysteries of a jock fraternity, I tried to remain impartial to everything and everyone. Prejudice had no place here, but it was hard to push these thoughts from theory to practice.
These were, after all, athletes who knew all about lifting techniques and absolutely nothing about human anatomy or, God forbid, the changes happening on the subatomic level in their own bodies. Plus, they were the people who put me and my kind into lockers all our lives.
Hard to forget or to forgive.
Finally, I told myself to stop being such a coward, and I pressed the doorbell. The second it rang, the barking made me stumble a step back. Paws thumpedagainst the wooden floor, then claws began to scratch the door on the inside like I’d woken up Cerberus himself at the gates of Hades.
Shouting followed until the door finally opened. Instead of a three-headed beast, a golden retriever rocketed through the door, zipping past me like we were in the Hadron Collider, zooming around a tree, and racing toward a huge pile of leaves, nearly reaching the speed of light that would make trips to the moon feel like less of a commitment than a normal New York City commute. The very good boy dived into the leaves and practically disappeared in the pile before scattering the day’s work all around the front yard.
“Jason didn’t tell you about the doorbell, huh?” a voice from the doorway asked, pulling my attention back from the spectacle.
I hadn’t even noticed the person in all this mess. “Huh?” I asked, turning around. Before me stood a dusty-blond guy in an oversized hoodie, his chin dimpled, neck long, and flat eyebrows resting over blue eyes.
“We don’t ring the doorbell,” he said, stepping aside and extending his arm into the house like a butler. “We just walk in.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I stepped inside. The house smelled like woodsmoke, cedar, nutmeg, and sweat. I’d been right all along. It wasn’t terrible, but it was unmistakable. “I’m here for Jason.”
“I know,” the guy said. “Taylor, by the way.”
I told him my name, then read on his face that he already knew, and we were just wasting our time. Truth be told, I was already tongue-tied because Taylor belonged less in a jock fraternity and more on a Paris runway, even if his style consisted of baggy hoodies and gray sweatpants. Not that I had anything against guys in sweatpants. They were one of the joys of fall on campus.
“Where is he?” a familiar voice called from the gallery upstairs.
“I’m here,” I said, looking up at the descending figure.
Jason also wore sweatpants, which was no surprise. What made my mouth dry was that heonlywore sweatpants. He raced down the stairs like his favorite football player had just entered the house, not the guy with a backpack full of statistics.
“Peanut!” he called, passing by me without a glance.
Well, that’s a way to make me feel stupid, I thought. As he whooshed past me, air moved, the scent of pines crawling into my nostrils. And warmth. Such ridiculous heat from a single, running source that it took me a moment to rein in my thoughts. Not that it was helping at all that Jason was all abs and defined pecs and perfect traps. His shoulders were broader than I’d realized from passing him by in the mornings, and his waist narrower.
He dropped to a knee by the pile of leaves and scratched Peanut behind the ears, then bribed himback into the house with treats he had in his pocket. Odd thing to keep in your pocket all the time, but I didn’t comment.
He led Peanut back inside, dusted bits of grass off his knee, then looked at me with a radiant smile that almost felt like it was there just for me. “Sorry about that.”
Peanut, however, wasn’t sorry at all. He jiggled busily around me, sniffing me all over, before propping himself up to his hind legs and giving me a playful push.
“Hello,” I said. “Hello, Peanut.” As I scratched him along his neck, he was even busier sniffing my jacket. I bent down to let him get to know me, but we were past the introductions, apparently, because he licked my face with all the familiarity of a third date post-wine. “Wow. Not even a dinner first?”
Jason rumbled with laughter as Taylor shut the door.
I’d proposed going to a café for this evening’s session, but Jason had insisted that he couldn’t concentrate in coffee shops. “Cute guys everywhere,” he’d said as if that explained it.
“Let’s get going,” Jason said, tucking his hands into his pockets. Even in a semi-slouch, he looked like he was made of the finest marble before being brought to life.
“Got somewhere to be?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, no. My date cancelled,” he said without any particular inflection.
Who the hell would cancel a date with Jason? “Oh. Sorry about that.”
He shrugged. “We were gonna see theSeeds of Soullessmovie. Do you know it?”