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September Sophomore Year
Pete wasn't here.
My thundering heartbeat finally started to slow down after I pushed open the door to the dorm room Pete and I were supposed to share this year and found it laying empty. I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and shrugged my heavy, water-logged backpack off my shoulders. It landed on the floor with a thud, and that was the only sound that broke the eerie quiet hanging over the room.
But even though Pete wasn't here right now, it was clear that he had been. One of the two beds in the room was neatly made up with his bedding, Pete's clothes were hung in one of the closets, and his laptop and speakers were already set up on one of the desks.
On the other side of the room, a sparse emptiness loomed in stark contrast. Two still-unpacked duffle bags piled in the corner were the only visible signs that I'd already been here a few days ago. But aside from those, there was just a bare mattress, an empty closet, and a barren desk on my side of the room.
I was disappointed Pete wasn't here right now, but I also wasn't surprised to see that he'd already settled in. I'd come back to campus earlier than most returning students because I'd volunteered to lead an orientation week backpacking trip for a group of this year's freshmen. But Pete's return had been delayed until a couple days after mine because his dad had insisted he tag along with him to a Republican Party retreat in Florida since they hadn't seen each other all summer. That meant that I'd known all along that today would be my first chance to see Pete since he'd come to visit in New Mexico. And that anticipation is what had set my heart racing a mile a minute as I walked up to our new dorm room when I got back to campus from the trip a few minutes ago.
Even without Pete in the room with me now, his presence was already palpable in here. I dropped down to a seat on the bare mattress of what would be my bed and stared across the room at Pete's, my stomach twisting into knots.
I'd tried to avoid this.
I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts in this room Pete and I were supposed to share. And to dodge that mental torture, I'd crashed with my friend Alex Hannon, the senior who'd led the orientation week backpacking trip with me, during the one night I'd been back on campus before our group hit the trail. Alex's usual gregariousness had provided a much-needed distraction that first night back, but there was no more stalling. I had to face it all now.
If this had been only a few days ago, back before Pete had come to visit me at home, I would've felt so different about this day. I would've been unable to contain my excitement and my impatience for this moment when I could be together with Pete again.
But I blew it.
I fucked everything up with Pete. Not just with what I'd done this summer, but with how I'd behaved before all that too. And now, after what happened with Matteo had dropped the scales from my eyes, I could finally see it:
I'd hurt Pete.
Ever since that very first time I kissed Pete, I'd been so hijacked by my own head trip and had retreated so deep into it that I'd failed at what had been most important all along. I hadn't treated Pete like I loved him. I hadn't treated Pete like I was serious enough about this to be in it with him. No, I'd shut down and shut him out, and I'd hurt Pete in the process. And because of that, Pete had backed away from us. If Pete wanted someone and something he could be serious about, I had shown him, over and over again, that he couldn't count on it to be with me.
I buried my face in my hands to block out the sight of Pete's things all around me.
It didn't matter that I'd never wanted to hurt Pete. It just seemed inevitable since I'd probably done exactly that at every step of the way. All my best intentions had only proven meaningless. All that they ever actually accomplished was ruining the best thing that had happened to me here.
I did this.
I'd taken the bond between us that had been so promising and then trampled all over it. I'd gotten everything wrong. And now, admitting that was the only thing that felt right.
I dropped my hands down to my lap and stared over at Pete's bed again, trying to exhale out the tightness I felt in my chest. I recognized Pete's bedding because it was what he'd had in his dorm room last year too. And that recognition hit me like a gut punch because it just reminded me of the last time Pete and I had been alone together here at school when I'd sucked his dick for the first time. I'd thought that night had been such a breakthrough. I'd thought that we'd finally gotten things to a solid place before summer and put all the bullshit behind us. I'd thought that by doing that I'd proven to Pete that he could trust how much he meant to me and how in this I was with him. But now, after everything this summer, I understood that night for what it really was: too little, too late. I'd hurt Pete too much leading up to that for him to put his trust in me, and I'd still fallen short of actually telling him how I felt. Then, with everything I'd done this summer, I'd just driven even more nails into the coffin of what could've been.
Thinking about it now, it was no wonder that Pete had concluded he needed to keep me at a safe distance and to not get in too deep with me. As I sat here alone in this room that I'd looked forward to all summer as a refuge for us to be together, this place only felt like a giant minefield now because of the mess I'd made of everything.
And now what I wanted more than anything was to make it up to Pete.
Some way, somehow, I had to do better. I had to atone for how I'd hurt him.
I just wanted Pete to be happy.
I didn't even fucking care about what happened to me anymore. If I could do something, anything, to make Pete happy, that's all I wanted.
But the problem was, I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust that I could actually figure out how to do better without fucking things up even more because I'd misjudged everything. I knew, now, that my own internal compass had proven useless for navigating through the last year. So that meant that following Pete's lead and putting my trust in his judgement about what would be good for him was the only play I could make. Juliana was right. What I needed to do was just listen to Pete and do what he told me he wanted from me.
And now at the beginning of another year at school, that was going to start with asking Pete about what I should do with the offer Alex had unexpectedly dropped into my lap on my first night back on campus.
As a senior, Alex had housing for the year in a dorm that was much nicer than what Pete and I had as sophomores. While Alex and some of his rugby teammates had a suite of single rooms surrounding a private common area, Pete and I were still doubled up together in this shared room. But at the last minute, one of Alex's other friends had decided to take the year off after a junior semester abroad to spend more time traveling around Europe, so Alex had offered that now-vacant room to me.
On paper, the decision was a no-brainer. Most sophomores would kill for that kind of upgrade and for the greater privacy of a single. But then again, most sophomores weren't secretly in love with their roommate. Most sophomores hadn't spent the better part of the previous year fucking with their roommate's head and heart. Most sophomores weren't as fucked up as me.
So I didn't know what to do with this offer. I didn't know if Pete would be better off with me here as his roommate or if he'd be better off with some distance and some space for himself. That meant my plan was to ask Pete what would be best for him and to let him decide for himself. And, whatever Pete wanted, I would do it. Pete didn't have to be stuck with me if that constant proximity to someone who had hurt him like I had would be bad for him. If I truly was a danger to Pete or an anchor that was weighing him down, then he could be free of me. But if Pete did want me here, I would stay.
I just wanted to stop fucking things up with everyone I cared about.
My gut twisted again when I thought about that. Sighing, I got up from my bed, dug out my laptop from my bags, and then sat down with it at my empty desk. My heartbeat picked back up as I turned it on and pulled up my email, bracing myself for the other thing I was dreading having to face today. I scanned through all the messages that had come into my inbox while I was out on the trail, and...
... Nothing.
No reply from Matteo.
My heart sunk, and I slumped back in the chair.
"Fuck," I cursed under my breath.
Still nothing.
I sat back up and then clicked over to the folder of my sent messages and reread the email I'd written to Matteo before my trip:
"Matteo,
"I don't know how to write this, and I hope you're not freaked out that I'm even writing to you at all. It's so much easier to just talk shit and to joke around together like we always have, but I want to be real with you. I want to apologize for how I left things.
"And first off, I want to apologize to you for what I didn't do that day. There were some important things I meant to tell you when we said goodbye that afternoon, but then I never did. I wanted to tell you that I'm so glad we met. I'm so glad we got to work together and hang out so much this summer. You're a great guy, Matteo, and I'm grateful I ended up in Las Cruces so that our paths could cross. Thank you for being my friend. I really needed that this summer, maybe more than you'll ever know. I know I didn't say any of this to you that afternoon, but I should have. And I'm sorry.
"I also want to apologize to you for something I did do that afternoon. I lied to you. When you asked me if I'd ever done anything like that before, I told you I hadn't. But that isn't true. I have, with one other person. And there's no excuse for why I lied to you and why I wasn't honest with you in the moment. I fucked up, and it was a mistake. I'm sorry.
"So you can be mad at me, and that's fair. You can not want to talk to me anymore, and that's fair. I just hope you're not mad at yourself. And I hope you're not ashamed of what happened. You didn't do anything wrong. I believe that, sincerely. And I hope you do too.
"I don't want to assume anything about you. And I don't want to assume that I actually know what you're thinking or what you're feeling after what happened. Chances are, I'd probably be wrong if I even tried to guess. I know I don't know how to talk about this shit, and I'm probably the worst example you could look to for how to actually do that. But I do know that not talking about it has led me to making mistakes and to hurting people who are important to me. So even though I'm no role model by any stretch, what I can do is listen if you want that. If you need someone to talk to, I'm here. I'll listen without judgement and with respect for your privacy. And if it's not me you want to talk to, then I just hope you will with someone. You don't have to carry it alone if there is something that's eating at you. And if you really don't want to talk to me, I'll take the hint. I'll stop calling you and bothering you after this if you don't want anything else to do with me right now. And even if that is the case, just know that my offer to listen doesn't expire. If you ever change your mind, I'll still be here.
"Whatever you are feeling right now and whatever you do from here, just know that my biggest hope is this one: I hope that you're okay. You're good, Matteo. And I hope you believe that too.
Max"
I cringed as I reread that message now.
Fuck, maybe there was a better way to say all this?
And maybe I was making it all worse for Matteo by even reaching out to him at all. He'd never once picked up to answer any of the times I called him in the days since that afternoon, so it'd already been clear that he didn't want to talk to me. Maybe I should've gotten the message from his radio silence. Maybe now I should just accept the fact that, whatever Matteo was actually going through, he didn't want to hear from me.
I wasn't helping.
More from me wasn't going to make anything better. Not for Matteo. And, as I looked back over at Pete's side of the room, maybe not for Pete either. Maybe Pete really would be better off if I weren't always around to keep salting his wounds over and over again.
"Fuck," I sighed out loud.
After what happened with Matteo, I had to admit that what I'd been discovering about myself wasn't only about Pete like I'd previously thought. It didn't matter that even after combing through all my memories of the summer a thousand times, I was still sure I hadn't ever thought about Matteo in that way before it all happened. And it didn't matter that I was sure I hadn't ever consciously signaled to Matteo that I wanted something like that from him.
And it didn't matter because I still went there, even if I'd never seen it coming.
Without question, my body responded to it fully with Matteo as it all went down. And it felt good too. So I couldn't say that this pull in me was only about Pete anymore. I had to admit now that it was something bigger than just that. And I also had to admit that this was something I clearly didn't have a grip on or know how to face.
I'd always thought I wasn't the kind of guy who just blindly followed his dick around, but I was wrong. And the problem was that all my dick ever did was lead me into trouble- trouble I didn't know how to handle. So now, I wished that my dick would just hibernate. Looking back on all the damage I'd caused, I had to conclude that the safest thing was probably for me not to be with anyone until I figured this shit out more. It didn't matter that I didn't want to hurt anyone if I kept doing it anyway. And until I was able to get my head straight, I probably wasn't going to be any good to anyone.
I shook my head and clicked back to my inbox and opened the email reply I saw in there from the Dean who oversaw all the dorms on campus. After Alex had offered me the spot in his suite on my first night here, I'd written to the Dean to ask if it would still be possible for me to transfer rooms at this point. And, much to my relief, the Dean's reply said that I could and that Pete wouldn't be stuck having to scramble to find another roommate if I did.
Pete could be free of me if he wanted. And at least now he could have that choice.
It wasn't enough to make up for the past, but it felt like a glimmer of hope at least. If Pete really was better off without me, then now he wouldn't have to be stuck here with me.
I got up from my desk so I could take a shower. But instead of heading straight towards the bathroom, my eyes wandered back over to Pete's bed, and I walked over to it first. I dropped down to my knees on the floor next to it, leaned forward, and buried my face in Pete's pillow, breathing in deeply.
God, it smelled like Pete.
"I'm so sorry, Pete" I whispered, the pillow muffling the sound of those words. "I just want you to be okay."
I stayed there with my face buried for a few more seconds before I started to worry Pete might walk in at any moment and find me like this. I rose back up to my feet, walked over to my bags, and then fished out enough supplies to take a shower. I stripped down naked and headed into the bathroom that adjoined our room. At least having this private one to ourselves here was one big step up from the shared bathrooms in the freshmen dorms.
I turned on the shower and stepped under the spray. The hot water washed away all the dirt and sweat from my days on the trail, and the steam made the air around me as foggy as my thoughts. I lingered in there, still numbed by the ongoing silence from Matteo as I thought about how fucking impossible it was to go back and undo all the mistakes I'd already made. And when I thought about the future, I didn't know what to hope for with Pete anymore.
I just wanted to fix this.
Eventually, the water started running cold, so I turned it off and grabbed my towel. I patted myself dry, wrapped the towel around my waist, and stepped back into our room.
Still no Pete.
I walked back over to my computer and opened up instant messenger. Tom's profile was listed as idle. I still typed him a message anyway asking how his orientation week was going so far, wanting to be a better brother than I had been lately. I also responded quickly to a message from Marissa asking how things were for me back at school. At least Marissa had been smart enough to have kept her distance from me. Maybe that's why she felt like the one relationship I hadn't fucked up too much lately.
As I was typing, though, I heard the sound of a key in the door behind me. I spun around just in time to see Pete finally walk in dressed in his tennis gear with his gym bag slung over his shoulder.
"Oh my God, you're here!!" Pete whooped when he saw me.
Pete's megawatt smile lit up the entire room as he dropped his bag by the door and bounded towards me. He immediately pulled me into a hug, and he smelled like summertime and the outdoors and exercise and... Pete.
Seeing Pete again, feeling his muscled arms wrapped tight around my bare torso, I felt a flip in my stomach that only affirmed that I would do absolutely anything I could to keep him smiling like that.
"You're here!" I grinned back at him when he released the hug, hoping that my own smile was just as big as his.
"Did you get here late on Monday?" Pete asked me, but I noticed his eyes were drifting down over my bare torso. The towel had sunk lower onto my hips when I'd let it go to return Pete's hug, and I was pretty sure he got an eyeful before he looked back up at my face. "I saw your stuff was here, but then you didn't unpack."
"Yeah," I nodded and tugged the towel back up a bit, wishing I were actually dressed for this moment. "It was already evening by the time my bus got to campus, so I just crashed over at Alex's for the night. And I didn't start unpacking `cause I wasn't sure how you'd want to set things up in here."
"Dude, who cares?" Pete grinned even wider at me. "We're finally here!"
I noticed Pete's eyes kept wandering down to my body as we were talking, so I stepped back from him a bit to give him some space. But when I did, I noticed an even more obvious indicator of Pete's mood than his grin: the bulge growing in the front of the thin tennis shorts he was wearing.
"How was Florida?" I asked, trying to distract myself from how my own dick was starting to stir at the sight of Pete's reaction to being near me again.
"Just another boring trip with my dad," Pete shrugged. "I never get out much beyond the hotel on those things, so it doesn't make much difference where we are. I mostly played tennis to get myself back into practice and avoid having to talk to people."
"But you just got here yesterday, right?" I asked, stepping across the room towards my bags because I wanted to get out some clothes to put on.
"Yeah," Pete smiled, his eyes following my every move, probably because the damn towel had dropped lower on my hips again as I crouched down to riffle around in my bag. "How was the orientation trip?"
"Soggy. Three straight days of rain and muddy trail."
"Good ol' New England," Pete laughed. And, God, I'd fucking missed that sound.
"Right," I agreed, finally finding some underwear and standing back up again.
"How's Alex?" Pete asked, watching me intently as I hesitated for a moment over what to do next. I'd have to drop the towel and be naked in front of Pete for at least a second before I could slip on the underwear.
"He's cool," I answered. I decided to try for nonchalant by keeping the conversation going as I let the towel fall around my feet, giving Pete a brief glimpse of my dick before I could step into the underwear. I noticed his eyes were still fixed down on my crotch as I continued talking: "And, umm, he actually surprised me with something."
"Yeah?" Pete asked, his eyes returning to my face.
"Yeah, you remember his friend Sean Michealeson?"
"From the rugby team?" Pete nodded. "He was abroad somewhere last semester, right?"
"Yeah, in London. But I guess he started dating this Danish girl he met out there, and now he's taking the year off to bum around Europe with her."
"Well good for him," Pete laughed.
"Yeah," I rolled my eyes. "Must be nice to have your parents just pay for that. But that means Alex has an empty single in his suite now, and he told me I could have it if I wanted to move over there."
"Oh, wow," Pete's eyes widened with surprise. "Do you want to?"
"I wanted to ask you what to do," I shook my head, but I kept my eyes steady on Pete's. "The Dean said I could. And he also said that means you could have this room to yourself without having to find a new roommate."
Pete nodded as he processed that news, and I went on before he could interrupt me: "But, Pete, I'll stay here with you if that's what you want."
"Well what do you want?" Pete asked, his expression turning serious along with the subject of this conversation.
"I mean it, I'll do whatever you want," I replied, trying to reiterate the choice I wanted Pete to have now. "I know you asked me to be your roommate before..." I shook my head as I noticed the sudden gravity on Pete's face and thought again about how much I'd probably hurt him in the last few months. "... Before everything. So I don't want you to feel pressured to have me around you all the time if that'd be too much now. You can have some space from me if you need it. But if you do want me here, then I'll stay. I just want you to have whatever you need, Pete. That's the most important thing to me."
As I said that last part, Pete breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Stay," he said, the smile creeping back onto his face.
"Yeah?" I smiled in return. And the wave of relief I felt in that moment immediately made it obvious to me what I'd been hoping Pete's decision would be all along.
"Yeah," Pete said, his grin getting even bigger. "It'll be way easier if we're roommates."
"Easier?"
"You know," Pete said, stepping closer towards me. "No more sneaking around."
"So you won't mind having me here all the time?" I asked, feeling a gravity pulling me towards Pete as he got even closer.
"No," Pete shook his head, his eyes slipping down over my still mostly naked body another time. "It'll be fun."
"So roommates?" I smiled, relieved to see Pete still smiling.
"With benefits," Pete grinned even bigger, his hazel eyes locking back onto mine with a spark that drew me in deeper.
"Then I'm not going anywhere," I said, stepping forward and closing the remaining distance between us.
And then Pete reached up, threaded his fingers through my hair, and pulled me into a kiss.
When our lips met again, our tongues raced back together, and the dam burst. I wrapped my arms around Pete and pulled him into me, pressing our bodies together. I could feel Pete's dick getting fully hard as his hips pushed into mine. And as my lungs started to burn for oxygen while we kissed, it all crashed over me like a flood: there was at least one thing I could do that reliably made Pete feel good. And the least I could do was to not fuck this up for him too by making it weird.
When we finally did have to break for air, I returned the grin I saw stretching across Pete's face while he panted for breath. I grabbed his shirt, pulled it over his head and off of him, and then I went right back in to kiss him again with the bare skin of his chest searing hot against mine.
Our lips locked, and we stumbled backwards blindly until we crashed into Pete's bed. I pushed him back, breaking our kiss as he fell to a seat on the edge of the mattress. I dropped to my knees between Pete's legs, and his eyes followed me and grew wide when I hooked my fingers under the waistband of his shorts and underwear. He pushed his hips up as I tugged down on his clothes, sliding them off his legs and then tossing them aside. Pete's rock hard dick sprung free, bobbing just inches away from my face. We locked eyes as I looked up at him across the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
I leaned forward and took Pete's dick into my mouth. And after the additional practice I'd had when he came to visit me, I knew exactly what to do now. I knew what to do to take in all of Pete. And I knew, now, how to use my lips, my tongue, my throat, and my hands to make Pete's breath quicken and grow even more ragged. I knew how to make Pete grip his fingers tighter onto the back of my head, how to make his hips buck and push himself deeper into me, how to make him sweat and moan out my name. And I knew, now, what that would do to me, too. I knew how Pete's scent filling my nose and the taste of his precum on my tongue would make my own heart race, how it would make my own dick leak, how it would all make me short of breath in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with how much I had to struggle to breathe around his big dick filling my mouth.
But that was beside the point. I wanted Pete to have this. I wanted Pete to have that feeling washing over his entire body that made him clutch onto my shoulder with one hand and pull my head down further onto him with his other until his dick was buried right to the hilt in my throat. I wanted Pete to have that feeling that got him to the place that sent the first shot of his load rocketing out of his dick and into my throat. And I wanted Pete to have that rush of each additional blast that followed.
I pulled up and nursed out every last drop of Pete's cum into my mouth, and then I swallowed it all down.
I just wanted Pete to know that he could have this now. Because Pete deserved this. And so much more.
But this, at least, was something I could give him.
And as Pete quickly reached down to pull me up onto the bed with him, I brought my lips back to his grinning mouth and kissed him, hard. Even though Pete was still panting for breath now, he dove right into that kiss with me. His tongue slipped into my mouth to meet mine again, and Pete rolled me over onto my back and on top of me.
I was hard, leaking, and aching for it even before Pete brought his mouth down to my dick, but that wasn't what mattered. No, what really mattered was that Pete looked happy again.
I wasn't going anywhere if this is what Pete wanted from me.
I'd made my bed. And now I had to lie in it, no matter how that would make me feel.
October Sophomore year
"How is your housing situation this year?" Professor Knowles asked, looking up at me from across the desk in her office after she checked some notes on her computer screen.
"My what?" I asked, my posture stiffening as she shifted the topic in our conversation away from just the courses I was taking this semester. Why would my academic advisor even ask about that?
"Your housing," she repeated. "There's a note in your file that you reached out to the Dean before the start of the semester to ask if you could move to another dorm. But then you didn't."
"No, I decided to stay where I was."
"Then why did you ask the Dean about moving?"
I shrugged, trying my best to appear nonchalant. "I have a friend who's a senior, and he had an empty single come up in his suite at the last minute. He asked if I wanted it, so I was just checking with the Dean to see if that would even be possible at that point."
"But then you decided to keep living with that Lyons boy as your roommate?," she asked, arching up an eyebrow as she studied the tension in my posture.
"Pete?" I swallowed, wary about where this line of inquiry might be going. "Yeah."
Professor Knowles nodded and then closed out the window on her computer that was displaying my midterm grades. She got up from her seat behind her desk and walked around it to sit on its edge close to where I was seated in my chair.
"You and Mr. Lyons come from different backgrounds, right?"
"I suppose, yeah."
She smiled and patted me on the shoulder. "Then I have a hypothesis about what's going on with your grades this semester."
"You do?" I asked, not following where she was going with this.
"Yes, I've seen this happen before to other students who come here from..." Professor Knowles paused and hesitated over her next word. I could feel my posture stiffen even more while I braced myself for whichever euphemism for "poor" she was going to end up using here. "... Schools like yours. Or several different schools as it were in your case, Mr. Soto."
"Seen what?"
"You arrive here, full of fire and drive, and you have a great freshman year just like you did, aside from that one economics course in the spring semester. But then in your second year you end up hitting a sophomore slump."
I squirmed in my chair a little, suddenly wishing I'd gone to a big university like Tom's where I could just be some anonymous number who slipped through the cracks. Going unnoticed by cold, unfeeling bureaucrats suddenly sounded a lot more appealing than sitting through this uncomfortable intervention from my academic advisor. Professor Knowles had summoned me to her office this afternoon to talk about why my grades were down across all my classes so far this semester.
"Look," I interjected, wanting to redirect the conversation away from anything that had to do with Pete. "I appreciate you reaching out to me. And I know my grades are off this semester, but it's not over yet. I still have time to bring them up."
"You do," she nodded. "And I believe that you can. But what I've seen happen to students like you in their second year here is that they end up having to make hard choices between their academics and their social life with their friends."
"My grades aren't slipping because I've been slacking off or partying too much if that's what you mean." And that was definitely true, at least. In fact, my friends kept giving me mountains of shit about how anti-social I'd become. I'd hardly ever show up for the parties or more casual hang outs I was invited to this year. More often than not, I would just hole up alone in the library instead.
"It's not," Professor Knowles shook her head. "Or not exactly, anyway. What I've seen happen with students like you is that you have a lot more friends here by your second year. And because this college is what it is, a lot of those friends probably come from high schools that prepared them better for the academics here. Like your roommate, for example."
"So you're saying it's a bad thing for me to have more friends?"
"No, but it can put you in a bind if those friends you're making are able to get by with a lot less work than what you have to do because your prior education left you with some catching up to do."
"But I'm not slacking off though."
"And I believe you," she nodded. "And I believe that this isn't fair, but you probably do need to work harder than a lot of other students here because you didn't have what they got before they even arrived here. It's a hard truth, but the students like you who end up succeeding here usually have to pass up on a lot of the things you'll see your friends from more privileged backgrounds doing. You can't burn the candle from both ends all the time like they can because they walked in here with much more to burn than you did."
"Okay," I sighed. It was pointless to argue with that, and I really didn't want to prolong this conversation since I'd already gotten the message. "I hear you. And I promise I'll focus on bringing my grades up."
"Good," she patted me on the arm and smiled. "You have so much potential. And I hope you know that there's always tutors and office hours and other help available to you if you need it."
"I know," I agreed, hoping that we could wrap this up.
"Now was there anything else going on that we should talk about today?" Professor Knowles asked, studying my face over the rims of her glasses.
"No," I gulped, and I started to wonder how much was listed in that file about me she had on her computer. "I'll just buckle down and focus more."
"Your coach said your performance has been down this cross-country season too," she pressed, apparently unimpressed with that answer. "So let me just remind you while you're in here that there's other kinds of help available to you too, if you need it. Counselors through the health center, for instance, if there are things weighing on you emotionally. Or, if you need to take something off your plate, I can talk to the financial aid office to have them drop your work study hours and replace them with some more loans instead."
"No, please don't do that," I shook my head quickly. "I need the money and the work experience from my job, and I don't want even more debt." Then I sighed as I considered how to respond to the other things she just mentioned:
"I think maybe there is some truth to your theory, though, so I just need to be better with my time," I continued. "And I'm just having a lousy season with running because of an injury that's been nagging me." If I wanted to get out of here any time soon, I didn't think it wise to mention that my hamstring injury was actually a minor one that mostly provided a convenient excuse for my lousy running times lately. I was pretty sure that the bigger cause for the drop off in my athletic performance was the fact that I'd barely slept in the last two months.
Professor Knowles's response to that reply from me was just another scrutinizing look. Apparently, she was still skeptical of my easy explanations, so I went on and tried something else before she could probe any further:
"I mean, thank you. I really do appreciate you checking up on me, but I think you calling me in here was enough of a wake up call. I'm fine, really. There's nothing big going on with me, and I'll figure out a way to pull out of this slump."
"Well, I'm here if you do need anything," she relented, getting up and returning to her seat behind her desk. "And please ask for it if you do. It's not a sign of weakness to need something, Mr. Soto."
"Thank you," I nodded, and I flashed what I hoped was a reassuring smile as I got up to leave her office.
It was late in the afternoon now, so I decided to skip going back to the dorm and headed straight to the dining hall to grab some dinner before I started studying for the night. I'd been dragging today even before this conversation with Professor Knowles further dampened my mood, and I knew I had a deep pile of reading to get through. I hoped some food and a temporary distraction from this additional push to work on my grades might help to give me a lift. But I also knew that it would probably be only a fleeting bounce at best.
Professor Knowles hadn't told me anything I didn't already know, nor had she introduced any new pressures that I wasn't already feeling. I knew I was slipping up this semester in ways that were increasingly obvious, and I already felt guilty and embarrassed about it. But I also knew that what I really needed wasn't anything that Professor Knowles, or the financial aid office, or my coach, or anyone else could really fix for me.
No, what I needed was to figure out a way to have energy left for anything else after how much it took, day in and day out, to keep hiding the fact that I was in love with Pete.
Once I got to the dining hall, I filled up my tray, made my way out to the dining area, and scanned around the tables for where I wanted to sit. Over on the far end of the room, I spotted Pete eating with a few of his teammates. They were all laughing about something, and a weight inside my stomach grew heavier as I watched Pete's face lit up with a levity I never felt these days.
Pete looked up and saw me as I was watching him, just standing there tray in hand. He grinned even bigger as his eyes caught mine, and he waved at me across the room. I returned Pete's smile and nodded over to him, but then I walked over to another table where I'd spotted some of my cross-country teammates. As I joined them, I intentionally took a seat where I'd be facing away from the table where Pete was. I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself from staring over there if I could just look up and see Pete being as funny and charismatic as ever.
As much as I wanted to be with Pete, I knew it always hurt too much to see him smiling and laughing with his friends. It only reminded me of what we didn't have anymore. Unlike last year when Pete and I had been joined at the hip so often that people joked we were evil twins, we'd now drifted into mostly separate lives and social circles this year. Pete had stepped up to be captain of the tennis team, and I'd gotten much more involved with my cross-country team and community service activities with the Latino student association. Combined with our classes and our jobs on campus, that meant we largely stayed out of each other's way. So this year, Pete and I really only ever hung out together in the privacy of our room.
But when I considered the very real danger that I might slip up somehow and make it obvious to other people that I was in love with Pete, I figured that this new distance between us was for the best. It was the only way I could be sure I was keeping Pete safe from me doing something stupid that would blow his cover. After all, I'd still never heard a word from Matteo, so I couldn't rule out the possibility that it was him seeing how I behaved around Pete that had tipped Matteo off about me. And I just couldn't risk doing that to Pete here if he wasn't ready for people to know about him.
I picked at my dinner and only half-heartedly joined in the conversation with my teammates before heading to the library in the hopes that I could get some work done there. I holed up in the quietest corner I could find, but I was worse than useless. In the span of a few hours, all I actually accomplished was listening to the few songs that seemed to fit my mood over and over again on repeat and then drifting off to sleep with my head resting on the table.
When I woke back up, I was groggy because that nap wasn't nearly enough to make up for not having slept at all the night before. I checked the time on my laptop, wondering if I should just call it on trying to read here and go back to our room now. Sure, Pete had wanted me to stay and be his roommate this year, but I knew he didn't need me hovering over him all the time. Pete liked the privacy of our room when he was studying, so I wanted him to be able to have it without distractions from me. Neither one of us seemed very good at focusing on work when we were there together, so I pushed myself to keep trying to concentrate here. The last thing Pete needed was me dragging down his GPA too.
Eventually, while I was forcing myself to get through at least a couple more chapters of reading, another student arrived and settled into one of the empty tables near mine. I didn't know the guy well, but, small school that this was, I did recognize him immediately: Sam Prentice.
And I recognized Sam because he was one of just a handful of out gay guys on this campus. He was only a freshman, but Sam was already way ahead of me. And ahead of Pete, too, for that matter. I noticed that Sam even had a small rainbow sticker displayed on his laptop right there where anyone could see. I wondered if maybe that's just how it was if you'd grown up in New York like Sam had. Maybe that sticker was a small thing for him, but it was unfathomable to me. And, probably, to Pete too.
I couldn't keep myself from watching Sam out of the corner of my eye as he settled into whatever he was typing on his computer. Focusing on my own book quickly became even more of a lost cause with Sam there because now I just kept wondering how things felt for him here. Did it bug him that people who didn't know him well just called him "gay Sam" as though that was the only notable thing to know about him? How did he feel knowing that's the label people had already casually attached to him here in just a couple of months' time on campus? Was he angry? Relieved? Proud? Lonely? And what about where he'd come from? How had it gone for Sam when he'd told the people he cared about back home? How much had he cared about what they thought? Had he come to this college to get away from anything or to try out things he couldn't have done back home? Had he found anyone here? And, fuck, would he ever in a school and a town as small as this?
Looking over at Sam, I had no idea what ran beneath the surface for him. I had no clue what things were actually like for him here. But I was still envious of Sam all the same. He at least seemed comfortable in his own skin in a way that I clearly hadn't been able to manage. And that meant he could be something for Pete that I'd never been able to pull off. Sam could, right from the jump, understand Pete in a way that I never could. And right from the jump, Sam probably would've realized how fucking lucky he was if he'd ever caught Pete's attention.
Pete would probably be so much better off with someone like Sam than he ever was with a headcase like me.
I remembered, suddenly, that Pete once told me that he worried he'd need some training wheels to be ready for a relationship since he'd never been in one before. And as I thought back about that now, it occurred to me that maybe that was me. I was the training wheels for Pete. I was just something that could help Pete be ready for a time when, away from this place and out from under the thumb of his father, he could be with a guy he actually loved. A guy who wasn't garbage like me. A guy who deserved him. A guy who could understand him and make him happy. A guy who was like him and wouldn't fuck up and hurt Pete in all the ways I had.
Pete could actually be with a guy like Sam.
Not me.
I was just Pete's training wheels.
I was the thing Pete needed to outgrow and then discard when he was ready for the real deal, and that was all I was good for. I was something Pete shouldn't keep around and shouldn't keep leaning on because it would actually just weigh him down for the long haul.
I knew I'd spoiled my chance to ever have what I wanted with Pete, but maybe I could at least help him to be ready for something better.
Just then, Sam glanced up at me with a look of visible annoyance. I realized abruptly that I'd been nervously bouncing my leg under my desk, and it was probably a distracting tic to anyone else who'd sought out this deserted corner of the library.
Fuck it.
I mouthed a silent "sorry" over to Sam, packed up my things and left, heading back to our dorm.
Back in our room, I found Pete sprawled out on his bed with a dogeared geology text and a comp book full of his scribbled notes. He was shirtless, so I tried but failed to keep my eyes on the broad grin Pete flashed up at me as he greeted me.
"Hey," I replied back to him, forcing a smile as I dropped my backpack onto my desk. "You're still up?"
"Practice went long today," he said, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head for a second. I noticed the flex in his pecs when he dropped them back down more than I wanted to. "So I didn't even start studying `til after dinner," Pete continued, his hazel eyes watching me over his book as I pulled off my coat and then stripped down to just a t-shirt and my boxer briefs.
"How was the library?" He asked while I was pulling on some gym shorts to get comfortable.
"Same old," I shrugged, starting to unpack my computer and books from my backpack. "Got a lot more to do tonight?"
"A few things, yeah" Pete nodded, still watching me. "You gonna keep working too?"
"Yeah, I should finish this," I yawned, settling in at my desk and flipping open the history book I should've been reading in the library. Pete nodded, and looked back down at his book.
I was bone tired, but I started flipping through the pages, keeping my back turned to Pete so I wouldn't get distracted by wanting to talk to him. Still, the words on the page jumbled in my eyes, and I absorbed nothing.
Then, sometime after midnight, the sound of Pete's voice interrupted my trance of staring down at the book:
"Hey, could you help me with my Spanish paper?" he asked.
"No prob," I shrugged, turning around in my chair to look at him. Pete was now propped up on his bed with his laptop open and chewing on his pen.
"Listen to this part and tell me if it makes sense."
"Okay," I got up from my seat and stretched a bit as I listened to Pete reading off a paragraph to me.
"Well, you still sound like a white boy from Montana," I joked, chuckling under my breath when he paused. I picked up the battered nerf basketball from the floor by his bed and started taking shots at the small plastic hoop we'd hung on the back of our door. "You gotta practice rolling your R's more."
I grabbed the ball in a rebound and demonstrated: "Agarro."
"Agarro," he repeated, watching me as I took another shot.
"Mejor," I replied, but I missed the shot. "Pero, you gotta watch your possessive pronouns. You messed up the agreement on those a couple times. Just read it back again. You'll hear which ones."
Pete repeated what he'd written, catching his mistakes this time before I had to call them out. I missed a couple more shots while I concentrated on listening to his words.
"You suck," he heckled when he looked back up.
"Go fuck yourself," I retorted.
Pete put his laptop aside on his desk as I took a shot. Another miss.
"Seriously," he said, jumping off his bed and grabbing the rebound before I could. He elbowed me aside, took a shot, and it swished right through the net.
We crashed into each other when we both went in for the rebound. Our hands gripped over each other's on the ball, and I locked eyes with Pete for the first time that night: Deep hazel magnets that didn't flinch. Our faces were inches apart, and my breathing picked up even though I hadn't been out of breath at all before now.
It was the only time I'd felt fully awake all day.
The familiar scent of the soap that always lingered on Pete's skin filled my nose. His muscled arm felt solid and warm pressed against my own. And my dick was rapidly stirring to attention inside my shorts.
Pete returned my stare, his mouth breaking into a grin as his eyes locked onto mine. But he didn't move. Pete never made this part easy. He didn't back off, but he didn't close the deal either. He waited and made the last choice mine.
I leaned in and pressed my lips against Pete's.
Electric. That's how Pete's lips felt. And once I'd brought us together, our lips were locked. We never broke the contact as we opened to each other, our tongues racing together and then dancing inside his mouth and mine. Deep, wet. Soft, slow. Relentless. We peeled clothes off of each other and stumbled backwards onto my bed. We rolled around, me over him over me. Our hands were everywhere, sliding over chests and abs, pulling shoulders, and gripping backs. Well, our hands were almost everywhere: we both left the ass alone.
Pete had me pinned on my back when he eventually broke his lips away from mine and nudged my head up so he could get at my neck, washing his tongue over the hollow of my throat and along my collar bone. I gasped for breath and moaned in appreciation, but my mouth missed Pete. I flipped us over and found his lips, dipping my tongue inside him again as my hips ground our naked and leaking hardons against each other.
I knew what I wanted.
I pulled off and sat back on my heels between Pete's thighs for a moment to look at the sight below: Pete buck naked in my bed, legs spread around me and hard as the day is long. He was fuckin' hot. No way around it. Pete was all messy flaxen hair, square jaw, built chest, hard nipples, tight abs, muscled arms, and an awesome dick that was long and streamlined, just like him.
Looking at Pete grinning back at me, it took my breath away.
I moved forward into a pushup position over him, found his lips again, and settled the length of my body on top of his. Then, bit by bit, I slid down, my mouth following my body, kissing the stubble under his chin, tonguing his stiff nipples, washing over his abs. I hovered over his dick for a moment, taking it in: The throbs that matched his heartbeat. The Pete scent. The soft skin under my hands.
I closed my lips around the head of his dick, and Pete's hips lurched forward. I swirled my tongue, bobbed, licked, sucked, strained to take all of him into my throat like I had learned how to do now. Every last inch.
Pete's hands were restless. His long fingers threaded through my hair, clutched my shoulders, rubbed the stubble on my cheeks. For a moment, I looked up at Pete across the muscled planes of his body. Our eyes locked again but my mouth, his dick, and our bodies didn't miss a beat.
There were no words. The little gasping sounds of Pete's breath, kept just quiet enough to not travel through the paper thin dorm walls, said all there was to say.
Sweat gathered on Pete's skin, and his breath grew more ragged. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off his dick and upward. Pete sat up in the bed, his mouth crashing into mine hungry and reckless. Then he was pushing me to roll over, and my back slammed up against the wall. Pete didn't even give me time to scoot down onto the bed before his hot, wet mouth was all over my aching dick, one hand gripping my hip and the other keeping me pinned on my side against the wall.
My head spun.
I fought as long as I could, but Pete was too fucking good. It didn't matter how many times we'd done this now. And it didn't matter how long it lasted. It could never be long enough. My balls tightened, my mind exploded, and I blasted my load right into Pete's mouth.
Pete stayed there, his mouth nursing my still hard dick until my body stopped shuddering and I relaxed the grip I hadn't realized I'd kept on his shoulders.
Pete slid up and kissed me. Our tongues wrestled deep in his mouth, tasting my own cum as I rolled back on top of him.
I broke our kiss and went back to Pete's dick, stopping first to tongue his balls. They were already drawn up tight against his shaft, and I knew all the signs that he was close. I licked my way up the length of his dick before I closed my lips around him and slid him back into my throat. Pete laced his fingers through my hair, and I lifted my eyes up and met his. Pete's hips pistoned in and out a few times before my mouth flooded with his cum.
After, we kissed slow and mellow, the taste of each other mingled together on both of our tongues. Eventually, Pete drifted off with his face nuzzled into that spot between my neck and my shoulder and his breath tickling softly across my bare skin.
Pete looked so peaceful.
But I laid uncomfortable and motionless for another hour, trying not to wake him as I watched his face. There was no point in us both going without sleep. I already knew that for me it was impossible with Pete here. I could never let myself relax enough to actually let myself sleep with Pete because I didn't trust what I might do or say if I let my guard down. I couldn't lie here with Pete and fool myself that I didn't love him.
Don't make it weird, I scolded myself. Don't fuck this up for him too.
When I was sure Pete was solidly asleep, I inched myself out from between his arm underneath my back and the one he'd draped across my stomach. I stood, fished my boxer briefs out of the trail of our clothes on the floor, slid them on, and then took a seat on the windowsill opposite the bed. I looked at Pete, his arms still sprawled out to where I'd just been in my bed, lips parted slightly, hair as wrecked as the sheets. I shook my head.
Outside, it was still dark. I rested my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes. My mind was mercifully blank.
Later, when I saw the slight glimmer out in the sky of the approaching dawn, I sat back up. I padded over to the closet, pulled out my running clothes and dressed with as little noise as possible. I kept my eyes on him the whole time, but Pete didn't stir from where he lay in my bed.
Before I headed out for my run, I paused with my hand on the doorknob and turned back, watching Pete sleep for a few more quiet seconds. I swallowed down the selfish words that almost bubbled out of my throat and then headed out the door.
To be continued.