by Rhys Everly
“Jesus, guys!” I shouted as soon as I stepped in the bathroom. “Can you at least clean your spunk off the shower before you come out.”
I tried to rinse the white substance with the showerhead while Martin cracked the door open and popped his head in.
“That’s definitely not ours. We swallow,” he giggled and looked down at me.
I covered my bits and aimed the showerhead at him, splashing him with water.
He shut the door, giggling.
“TMI, Martin. TMI.”
The mystery of the sticky spunk would have to wait another day because if I didn’t get out in two minutes, I’d be late for class, and I didn’t do late.
I met Kyle right outside the dorms, and we made our way to Espresso Blues.
I hoped to God Hudson wasn’t working today. Obviously, I was meeting him later, and I had to mentally prepare myself for that. And I definitely didn’t want to see him before it was time.
Just to be on the safe side, I sent Kyle for provisions, and I waited outside behind a tree.
And no, I wasn’t hiding.
Much.
MrRomantic: God I need a coffee. Do you like coffee?
I mean, there was no reason why I couldn’t tick some more boxes on Sweet_Peaches’s list while I was not-hiding-much.
Kyle came out a few minutes later holding two cups, and he passed me one.
“Good thing you didn’t come inside. He was there making coffees. He could have poisoned you,” he said.
“Didn’t he recognize you?” I asked.
Kyle grimaced.
“He only saw me once, and I think he was too busy staring at you at the time,” he said.
We took a sip and looked at each other.
“He’s definitely poisoning us,” I said.
“Well, I always wanted to die young and pretty.” Kyle shrugged and sucked on his straw even though our coffees were not to the usual standard.
"I wish he didn't have to work here. As if it's not enough that I have to see him every other day, I don’t want to have to avoid Espresso Blues, too. And he’s ruining some real good coffee.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow and stopped walking.
"See him every other day?"
I huffed a chuckle and scratched the back of my head.
"Oh yeah, did I forget to tell you? He's the guy that messaged me about his GED.”
“Why am I only finding out now? And why do you have to see him every other day? You said yes?"
Kyle wouldn’t stop staring until I gave him an answer. An answer too embarrassing to speak out loud.
“I need the money?” I said full of uncertainty.
"I thought you hated the guy?"
I sighed. Loudly. It was the only way to let out my disappointment.
"I know. I do. But… he said something strange when I met with him and then he sent me that almost sweet message last night. Apparently, I’m his last hope. So I said yes.”
I failed to mention Sweet_Peaches’s part in my decision.
Kyle rarely showed any interest in the guys I was chatting with on that app unless I went on a horrible date, in which case, he wanted all the gory details.
“You’re such a sap. You felt sorry for him? Your high school bully?”
I shrugged with some hesitation.
“Gee, Nate. You’re too good for this world,” he said. “If that were me, I’d have punched that guy in the face and blocked his sorry ass.”
"I know. I know,” I said. “But just because I said yes doesn’t mean I’m stuck with him. If he’s a dick, I'll walk out on him and that’s that.”
“Good to see you haven’t lost your entire mind. Just part of it.”
I smiled and batted my eyelashes at him.
“Not even part. I don’t know what possessed me to say yes.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a crush on the guy? Because, yeah, he’s a dildo, but jeez, I’d climb that tree, too.”
I didn’t answer. I chose to drink my coffee and let Kyle go on about one thing or the other.
Was I doing this because I wanted to climb Hudson?
I mean, it wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.
People swore by hate sex, so maybe that was why I couldn’t get those silver eyes off my mind?
I’d never been driven by sex, though, so there must be more than that.
People deserved second chances, right? I mean, it’d turned out great for Uncle Leo. He’d given his college boyfriend a second chance, and not only did they bury the hatchet, but they were together and in love now.
Not that I could ever see me falling in love with Hudson.
He’d been my friend once upon a time.
Yeah, that was it.
He’d been my best friend. And I wanted to know if there was any good inside him or if he’d been faking it all that time ago.
“That's me,” I said when we got to the main building. “Do you have time for lunch after class?”
"No can do. I'm going to Cedarwood Beach to help out your dad at the bar," he said, and I nodded.
"I guess I'll catch you later," I said, and Kyle took the corridor behind him while I headed the other way.
I got to class on time, and just as the lecturer entered the room, I shot another message at Sweet_Peaches.
MrRomantic: Time for a snooze. Lol. #CantWaitToGraduate
Most of the classes were a snoozefest, to be fair. But it wasn’t the lecturers’ fault. I was just a nerd who liked to study on his free time—when not dating—and I was smarter than your average guy.
Not that I’d tell that to anyone.
I’d been bullied enough for my geekiness, thank you very much, and I had no desire to relive those “epic” years.
My phone buzzed, and I checked for Sweet_Peaches’s response.
It wasn’t him, though. It was Maya.
“Lunch after class?”
“Sure. Kyle is ditching us for Dad though. Meet me outside the James Madison building,” I responded and tried to convince myself I wasn’t addicted to my chats with Sweet_Peaches.
After lunch with Maya, I made my way to the library.
Sweet_Peaches still hadn’t replied to my previous messages, but I didn’t let that deter me.
MrRomantic: Here goes nothing.
I sent him the message and entered the library.
I walked across the spacious atrium and found a corner table away from everyone, then messaged Hudson that I was there.
He still had ten minutes to show up, but it already frustrated me that he wasn’t there already.
If he really cared about his GED and I was his last hope, wouldn’t he have made an effort to get to the library early and start ahead?
Twelve whole minutes later, my phone buzzed with an incoming message, but I didn’t get a chance to check it because he arrived, out of breath and sweaty.
“You’re late,” I told him.
“I’m sorry. My manager wouldn’t let me go early. She hates me. I just finished work,” he said and plonked his ass on the chair across from me.
“Fine,” I simply said.
I mean, I couldn’t blame him for working, could I?
It made sense now why he hadn’t been here earlier, but still. I couldn’t shake off that gnawing feeling on the back of my head that wanted to stay mad at him.
Especially because he was being reasonable and I wasn’t.
I slipped my phone in my bag wondering if it was Sweet_Peaches who had messaged or Kyle checking in on me.
"I didn’t think you’d come," he said, taking textbooks out of his backpack.
"I almost didn't," I lied.
I might have agreed to this for my own stupid reasons, but he didn’t need to feel confident in me, or he might take advantage of it.
We sat there for a long moment having a stare-off for no apparent reason. At least none that I could think of other than the fact I didn’t know how to be in his company after all this time.
Se
veral seconds later, he smiled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head.
“You okay?” he asked.
I shook myself and dry-coughed to realign my head.
“Yes. Right. First things first. What subjects are you struggling with?”
“Mainly? Math and Science. But I might need some help with Reasoning and Social Studies.”
Okay. Not what I was expecting.
I mean, who struggled with Reasoning through Language Arts?
But the first rule of tutoring was to not judge.
So I put my tutor hat on and focused on what I was being paid for.
“Okay. Then let’s start with those two. I took the liberty to print some mock-tests of all the subjects. Why don’t we start with the Math one and I can see which topics you struggle with.”
“Cool,” he said, and I opened my file folder to pass him the print-out.
Good thing I’d thought this through and prepared as I would have done for any other student.
Hudson took it and picked up his pen to start on it, but immediately put it down.
“I forgot,” he said and reached into his bag to retrieve a see-through plastic box. “I brought you these."
He took the lid off to reveal some large strawberries and two ruby red apples.
I chuckled.
God, did this bring me back. I hadn’t had any Bell Farm fruit since high school, which would be a shame if Hudson and his dad hadn’t been raging homophobes.
I couldn’t even count the summers I’d spent in their farm, helping pick fruit, learning all about crops and pesticides, and sneaking into Hudson’s attic room to eat all the fruit we’d snuck out from under Jack Bell’s nose.
"Oh, thanks,” I said and made to pick up a strawberry just as Hudson picked up his pen again, but stopped short before it touched my mouth.
If I took his figurative olive branch, I’d be letting him win. Erasing what he’d done to me. Letting him know it was okay.
Besides, I couldn’t, shouldn’t trust anything that came from this man.
Sure, I’d trusted his words, but I couldn’t let anything else through.
I dropped the strawberry back in the box, and Hudson’s smile sank.
“I had a big lunch,” I muttered, even though I didn’t need to offer an excuse, and he certainly didn’t need his feelings protected.
Hudson nodded.
“Should we get back to the test?” I pointed at the print-out under his wrist.
“Sure. Sure. I’ll just…leave them here, I suppose. Or you can take it home. If you want,” he said.
“We’ll see.”
Hudson dropped his head and started filling out his test.
I tried to study one of my food science books, but I couldn’t help sneak glances at Hudson and his answers.
I could read upside down with relative ease. And I could tell already that Hudson was flunking this test.
He’d never been a great student, not even in elementary school, but I never realized he struggled so much.
Although, to be fair, I didn’t know he hadn’t finished high school, either. I always assumed he’d arranged something with the school or taken his exams out of town.
It couldn’t have been easy going to school with the rumors stronger than any truth.
Well…
It wasn’t easy.
I should know.
I had first-hand experience of the rumor mill making it unbearable to go out in public. Thanks to the guy opposite me and his friends.
Especially that douchewaffle, Derek.
He always thought he could do anything he wanted just because he was the mayor’s son.
When his dad wasn’t reelected earlier this year, I threw a party in my dorm to celebrate.
Especially because Mayor Torres wasn’t just the complete opposite of Mayor Carlson, he was everything Carlson always stood against.
He was a second-generation Mexican immigrant, he was single, and gay. Everything our small town needed after the Carlson family’s decades-long run.
When Hudson finished the test he passed it over, I started marking while also realizing his areas of strength.
He was good with basic math and geometry. It was algebra and graphs he needed all the help with.
Hudson took his phone out and started typing on it while I went through the test. For some reason, it annoyed me even though he was doing nothing wrong. Technically.
“How is it?” he asked over his phone.
“Not as bad as you think probably. You really can’t do graphs and functions, can you?”
“It’s all Greek to me,” he said.
“Quite literally.” I chuckled.
“Is that why you can understand it better than me?” he laughed.
The white teeth he flashed me made me gasp for air and the lock of hair that dropped in front of his eyes made me want to reach out and tuck it back over his head again.
See? This was easy. Simple.
Why couldn’t high school be like that? Why did he have to go and ruin it for the both of us?
I looked through the test again, and he typed something else on his phone.
“Can you not do that?” I said.
“Sorry,” he apologized and put the phone to the side of the table.
“Thank you,” I said. “Since I haven’t prepared more specific stuff, want to get the Science test out of the way so that I can get some study materials for next time?
Hudson nodded and started filling in the second print-out I gave him.
Again, I tried to read my book, but my gaze was drawn to him.
Only this time, not to his answers.
I watched his muscles flex as his hand glided over the paper.
His lip under his teeth when he took pause.
His eyes running through the same question over and over trying to find the correct answer.
His other free hand tightening into a fist and then loosening up the minute his mind focused on the test.
Hudson had most certainly grown, but I could still see splotches of the old Hudson. My friend.
The awkward kid who sprouted taller than me in a single summer and who wanted to play video games every day after school.
The kid that would sleepover our house and play with Maya while trying to teach him sign language.
The young boy who literally slurped anything Yaya served him and who’d spent more than enough time in the kitchen with her learning how to cook so that he didn’t have to rely on his dad and his frozen meals.
When he was done, the hour was almost up, but before I let him go, I wanted to grade his test so he knew what we’d be doing next time.
Of course, as soon as I took the paper off his hands, he got back to his phone and his incessant typing.
Who the hell was he texting so much? Was it a girlfriend? Was it a friend?
There was no reason why I should care, but I’d be damned if I didn’t want to find out.
“Can you not use your phone while we’re in session? It's rude," I said without looking at him.
"I'm sorry," he said and set his phone down again.
"So you keep saying. But I’ve yet to see you mean it," I said. Still not looking at him. Still going through his answers.
“I know. I’m sorry. Really. See?” he said, and I looked up at him putting his phone away in his bag.
He offered me a silly smile that I had to fight to my core not to laugh at.
I dropped my head back to the paper before I did something stupid.
Hudson grabbed a strawberry and sucked on it, the juices of the fruit and the slurping of his mouth making me cringe.
He reached for a second one and this time I glared at him.
"You know eating isn’t allowed in here right?" I asked.
He shrugged.
“It’s a stupid rule. What harm can some fruit do?” he said.
“A lot,” I snapped at him, and someone shushed me. "The rule exists for a reason, and all you have to do i
s respect it.”
“Okay! I’ll put it away,” he said, and he closed the lid putting the plastic box in his bag.
He sat back in his chair and watched me.
I could tell because my entire head tingled under his watch.
“Can you stop doing that?” I asked, and someone shushed me. Again.
I snapped my head around to find the culprit, but I didn’t see anyone looking at us.
Then I looked back at him, and he put his hands up in surrender. That didn’t stop me from glowering.
“What did I do now?”
You breathed. You existed. You betrayed me.
“Nothing,” I said and forced myself to finish the print-out so I could get out of here.
Hudson was getting under my skin.
I wasn’t being myself around him.
He put me on edge, and it was probably a big mistake that I agreed to tutor him.
But I couldn’t go back on my word now. Especially not after seeing how much help he needed.
He needed me.
And damn it, I was a sucker for being needed.
Eight
Hudson
I was such a jerk.
Nathan had agreed to do me a huge favor, and how did I repay him?
By being my usual stupid self and disrespecting him.
I should have known using my phone would annoy him.
Why wouldn’t it? I needed his help, and instead, I was messaging MrRomantic. I was a fucking idiot.
Although, to be fair, I was only messaging him because I’d missed so many of his messages through the day. I didn’t want him to think I was ghosting him.
It sounded stupid. I didn’t even know MrRomantic, but I knew Nathan, and I’d hurt him, so you’d think he’d have priority.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I hit my forehead with the heel of my palm several times. “An online friend is more important than mending your relationship with Nathan.”
“Shhhhh,” someone hissed behind me.
I picked up my bag to stuff everything inside, but the fruit box was in the way, so I took it out.
I thought he’d appreciate the gesture.
He used to love going around the farm and “stealing” fruit with me to consume in the safety of my room.