DISCLAIMER: This story is based in truth. Some events/persons have been altered for the purpose of the story. There may be scenes of unsafe practices which are not endorsed by this author. All other usual warnings and precautions should be considered here. Feel free to write with any comments, corrections, etc. Think of this as a Gedankenexperiment. And remeber to donate to Nifty to support all of these great stories.
I was a mystery to myself. That evening I returned to my apartment and locked myself in my room. I didn't even think about what had transpired earlier, I simply did math problems. These weren't even homework problems. Math always served as a way for me to fully immerse myself in one thing and forget the rest of my existence. After my two hour math session I decided it would be time for me to go to sleep.
Friday afternoon in the middle of my discrete mathematics class it hit me. I kissed Cole. I kissed him. It was like when someone suffers a horrible accident their mind just blocks it from their memory. My mental fortitude had failed me right when I was learning Bayes' Theorem. The emotion was a lot to handle and I did everything I could not to telegraph that to my classmates or professor. I kissed him.
Cole was a mystery to me. For some reason he picked this calculating guy who had never done anything overtly sexual before as the one person he would pursue. The more times I saw him the less I felt I knew about him. It was like my life was some bizarre inverse function with the sole purpose of tormenting me. He liked comics and he played basketball, he kept everything so orderly but he chose a restaurant by flipping a quarter. Was he thinking about me right now?
"Lucas can you tell us the joint probability of two independent events?" my professor must have noticed I stopped taking notes a while ago.
"The joint probability? Wouldn't you just multiply the two events?" I think I came across this during my two hour math crisis.
"Yes," my professor went back to the lecture.
Class finally ended and I was ready to head back home and see what my roommates were up to. For some reason I decided to take a route home which would lead me past that corner again, the one where we kissed. As I went to cross the street I heard someone calling my name behind me.
"Lucas," it was Cole.
"Hey Coleton," I turned around, sometimes I liked using full names.
"Umm I guess that is my name. You just getting back from class?" his arm briefly lightly touched up against mine.
Today he was wearing some clothing I was used to seeing him in. His glasses were on and his hair was in order, and the stubble remained. The shirt he had on was a plain sort of short-sleeve khaki button-down and he had on some flat camo print shorts which stopped just above his knee. He looked cute.
"Yeah I had an interesting session of discrete mathematics."
"Interesting how?"
"I was thinking of you."
"Oh," he smiled, "well there's something I've been wanting to ask you. Some of my friends are having a party on Saturday. Wanna come hang-out before and then head over with me?"
"Sure. What time?"
"How about come over at like 8?"
"See you then."
"See you Lucas," he turned down the corner and was gone.
At the apartment there wasn't too much going on. Kyle and I sat and watched The Price is Right. Television was a way for me to lose faith in humanity. It served its purpose.
"Wouldn't that be cool?" Kyle commented.
"Winning a new set of luggage?" I admit I was being kind of an asshole at this point.
"No you ass, being on TV," Kyle could tell I was trying to bug him a little.
"Why do you want to be on TV?"
"I don't know. I just think it might be kinda cool, plus you might get to win something."
"Or in Lisa O'Connor's case you could switch and walk home with canned tuna for life"
"Eww that stuff is nasty"
Thankfully Lex walked in at this point to dissolve the otherwise pointless conversation Kyle and I were having.
"Who's down for the first alcohol purchase of the year?" Lex was clearly ready for the weekend.
"This guy," Kyle pointed to himself.
"Yeah I could do that," I needed to get some alcohol for my party tomorrow.
Within minutes we were ready to head out as our game show was finally over. The liquor store was nothing new or exciting. I decided that if I was going to buy something it might as well be strong. Much like my taste in coffee I liked my alcohol serious. I settled on 101 proof whiskey and a six pack of Killian's Irish red beer. Lex picked up a handle of gin and Kyle had one of rum. We were all carded and made our purchases and were back at the apartment.
"Ready for the bars tonight?" Lex asked.
"Yeah sure," I went to gather some things to cook dinner.
"Wow. Are you feeling alright? You don't usually just agree like that," Lex snapped his fingers to make a point.
"Hey man I'm fine. This year is going to be better than the last," I started to cook my food.
"Well alright then," Lex went into his room to prepare for the bars, or so I assumed.
Once we had all eaten and changed we pre-gamed a little. I was saving most of my alcohol for tomorrow so I merely conceded to have a whisky ginger and later do a shot of whiskey before the bars. Kyle and Lex drank a little more heavily than I did.
The bars were generally entertaining. I spoke to some people who seemed interesting and had a few drinks. I would say I was enjoying myself. Lex and Kyle looked to be enjoying themselves as well. For most of the night I found myself thinking of Cole, but I never saw him that night.
At around 1:30 that morning Kyle and I were heading to a pizza place near our apartment. Lex was last seen leaving with a girl and was likely already home with her. While we sat and ate pizza I decided, under the influence of alcohol, that I should send Cole a fun picture of my evening. So I managed to take a picture with my phone of myself eating pizza. I attached a message of, "Having fun tonight. Hope tomorrow is even better," and sent it away.
"Hey I want to take pictures too," Kyle was feeling left out I guess.
"Yeah let's take one. Lex will be jealous," I would entertain his notion.
"Yeah he will be. This pizza is better than that chick he had with him," Kyle was really enjoying his pizza.
Kyle and I took our photo and he went back to munching on his pizza. I decided maybe Cole would like this picture too so I attached a message of, "Kyle is also having fun. He's my roommate," and sent it on its way. Once we finished our pizza we were headed home. At home it was clear that Lex was indeed having sex but I was too tired and drunk to care. I think I passed out at around 2 that morning.
The next day I woke up at 10:30 and was feeling absolutely fine. I saw that my phone was alerting me to something and I figured it was a message from Cole. I was correct, there were two messages in fact.
Cole: Haha looks like a good time. I hope we have fun tomorrow too.
Cole: Kyle seems like a good kid. You have a good night Lucas and don't be too tired for tomorrow. Good night.
Well those were pretty neutral messages, but he definitely made a point of wanting to have fun today. I decided now would be a good time to take a shower and eat some oatmeal or something.
The rest of my day went by relatively quickly and was full of recounting some of the events of the night prior. We had all enjoyed ourselves. Lex may have gone a little too far into detail about his night but Kyle made a point of showing him our photo and attempting to make him jealous. Lex did admit to being bummed that he didn't hang out with us more. Eventually we headed to sit out in a field next to the apartment building to enjoy the nice weather we were having. I brought my laptop to read up on some new comics online.
When 7:30 rolled around I had eaten dinner and was picking out my clothes for tonight. I decided on some burnt orange khaki shorts and a white v-neck. If we were going to be heading to a party I wanted to look presentable but like I wanted to have fun.
For me this mentality was a little weird. Anticipating something exciting and enjoyable and not caring about having to hang out with people I didn't know. Cole really was something special.
Once I had sufficiently prepared myself I took two shots of my whiskey, it was slightly horrible, and grabbed my beer to depart. My roommates did not question my departure and I was heading to Cole's with my beer in hand. When it came to carrying alcohol around outside I really didn't care what the established laws were. I wasn't disturbing anyone.
I arrived at Cole's house at 8:03, and by 8:04 I was beginning to feel those whiskey shots.
"Hey," I greeted Cole, and to my surprise he gave me a quick kiss on the lips there in the doorway.
"Hey yourself. Damn, you taste like ethanol. You started early?" Cole gave a smile as I walked in the door.
"Yeah you could say that," I noticed that this time his roommate was home but didn't look like he would be going out with us.
"Lucas this is my roommate Fish," Cole introduced me.
"Steve Fisher, but everyone just calls me Fish," it was the swimmer from the library.
"Well Fish is a bit more unique than Steve I guess. Good to meet you," I shook his hand.
"So we were just going to hang around for a little bit if you wanted to open one of those beers," Cole handed me a bottle opener and I took a seat on the couch.
We sat around and talked for a while and eventually I did confirm that Fish was the swimmer from the library. I learned that he and Cole were friends from high school and he was one of the reasons Cole transferred here. The reason Fish couldn't go out was that he had swimming practice the next morning.
Soon enough it got to be 9:30 and I was about to start on my fourth beer. Cole had been drinking some sort of mixed soda and something drink, I think he told me it was a rum and coke.
"So I think we will head out when you finish that beer. I'm going to go get changed in the meantime," Cole got up and went to his room.
"So you know he likes you, right?" Fish said when Cole was gone, that made me choke a little on my beer.
"Yeah I think that has been made adequately clear," I wasn't sure if Cole was the type to go around telling everyone about his sexuality but I guess he was close with Fish.
"Okay, Cole told me in tenth grade that he was gay and I haven't blinked once about it since then," Fish had confirmed that Cole was gay and that they were pretty close as friends.
"Yeah that's good that you guys are close friends," what was I supposed to say in this situation?
"Are you out about it too?" Fish asked.
Now thing were sufficiently awkward. Was I about to just say that I was gay to some guy I had just met? I hadn't even said that to myself yet. This guy did not deserve to be the first to know. I would never betray my friends, or myself for that matter.
"Ready to go," Cole could not have chosen a more perfect time to have said that.
"Yes definitely," I stood up and finished off my beer.
Cole managed to put together an outfit that made us seem like we coordinated or something. His shoes were an orange that matched my shorts and his shorts were white and of a similar style to mine. However he was wearing a black tank-top. He looked more than cute tonight.
We walked to the party and honestly I couldn't keep track of whatever I was doing. I was certainly feeling intoxicated. I remember Cole was laughing and smiling a lot and that made me happy. His laughter probably came from me making a fool of myself, but I didn't care at this point. The house party I remember being rather loud but not too crowded. I only resigned myself to have one cup of their punch and then stopped drinking for the night. Cole I think had somewhere around three cups. I spoke to a few interesting people on topics ranging from math to news to the strangest thing I have ever eaten. The whole night I remember I just could never keep my eyes off of Cole, even if I was supposed to be talking to the person in front of me. Overall I had a great time that night.
The next morning I woke up and immediately I knew I was somewhere foreign. Immediately I recognized the surroundings to be Cole's room. I was in Cole's bed, and next to me was Cole.