Off Campus

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “You know what’d help people figure out that you’re different now? If you left our fucking room and went out and talked to them.”

  “I told you—”

  “Yeah, low profile. I got it.” Reese’s sigh was huge, gusting out of him, his breath blowing in Tom’s face. A shot of adrenaline hit his veins, his heart jumpstarted and every muscle down to his fucking toes clenched in a moment of panic that the words about to come out of Reese’s mouth would be some version of, Sorry, buddy, no can do.

  “Okay.” Reese threw a leg over Tom’s hip. “Two things. One, if you feel like you need to be punished for having been a jerk, how about you let me do the punishing, ’kay? ’Cause I’ll take it out on your ass, no problem.” He pushed his hips forward until his dick pressed up against the front of Tom’s track pants, rubbing himself against the silky stuff. Tom arched his lower back, pushing against Reese, and shivered. Images from porn he’d only ever dared to watch after learning how to clear cached memory on his laptop flashed through his brain. What did Reese mean, take it out on his ass?

  The possibilities made his head spin. He didn’t know if he was thrilled or terrified, but either way his heart was racing.

  “What’s the second thing?” His voice was thready. He hoped Reese didn’t notice.

  Fat chance. Reese grabbed his hip and squeezed, a small smile on his face, before pushing Tom to roll over on his back. Tom scooted a little bit in from the bed’s edge as Reese settled onto his stomach.

  “Second, I’m not giving you an ultimatum.” The air in his lungs gusted out of him, his belly sinking under Reese’s ass until it felt as if Reese was sitting on his spine.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “Not yet.”

  Tom nodded, willing to agree to anything right now, knowing he wasn’t fighting for the good guys in this one. But he kept his eyes lowered, because he didn’t want Reese to see in them that he couldn’t find a way out of this tangled knot. He wanted to keep on being the good guy in Reese’s eyes, as long as he could.

  Hard fingers under his chin pushed up until he couldn’t hide. He focused on the skinny muscles of Reese’s arms, the delicate slash of his collarbone, but Reese’s thumb pressing on his lip and shaking his chin made it clear that paying attention was not an option. “Not yet. But we don’t have forever to figure this out either.”

  He looked up at Reese, who was serious but somehow not mad, eyes crinkling at their outer edges as he rocked his butt on Tom’s stomach. Tom slid his hands up Reese’s thighs, feeling the drag of hair against his palms until he hit the smooth skin of Reese’s hips.

  “I know we don’t.” Saying the word, we, made it easier. He wasn’t alone in this one, trying to figure out where the fuck he was going. Someone was down here in the shit with him, trying to figure it out too. “Got it.”

  He let his thumbs drift in and lower until they brushed against rough hairs. Reese leaned forward, slinking over him until he planted his hands above Tom’s shoulders and held himself in pushup position over him.

  “So. I’m your new boyfriend, huh?”

  Tom fought back a smile.

  “Was wondering if you missed that.” He dug his fingers in until Reese yelped and laughed and grabbed for his hands, wrestling with him until they were both breathing hard and Tom let him pin his hands above his head. The heat of Reese’s body lay flush against him from shoulders to hips.

  He closed his eyes as Reese trailed the tips of his hair over Tom’s face, sliding his mouth around to bite at the edge of Tom’s ear. His words vibrated against Tom’s skin.

  “Not likely.”

  He tilted his head back, opening his neck to Reese’s mouth, tugging lightly against the hands braceleting his wrists from time to time, to feel the restraint. He opened his mouth, tried to slow his breathing.

  “You’re stuck with me, boyfriend.”

  And though he knew that the real sentence should have finish with for now, Tom ignored it, rolling his hips under Reese’s assault on his skin and gasping with the desire to stay under Reese’s control for as long as he could.

  He’d take it. For now. For as long as Reese let him.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the end, they pushed and pulled and argued (politely, because they were still at the stage where they mostly wanted to get naked and get off every night and it was really hard to get mad at or disagree with the guy who had your dick in his mouth) their way to a compromise.

  Tom refused to budge on increasing his exposure on campus and Reese was on lockdown on the need to be open about the two of them being together. But half an hour into the tenth rehash of the same argument in one week, on a library break between blowjobs and other naked playtime fun stuff, one of them, they couldn’t remember who later, said the one thing that unlocked the door to a different option.

  Whoever it was who said it had just tossed his bag, heavy with books, onto the end of one of their beds before following it with a full-body flop and a loud groan.

  “Thank God we live off campus and don’t have to deal with those assholes all the time.”

  At which point someone had pulled the other person’s pants off and helped him forget the outside world with a blowjob. Now, sweat cooling on flushed skin, heartbeats returning to a slow and steady thump, the threat of losing the hottest fucking sex of his life because he wouldn’t walk across campus holding Reese’s hand hanging over his head…

  He couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t walk on campus with…

  Wait.

  “We live off campus.”

  Reese looked up from playing with the fine blond hairs on Tom’s fingers. His hair was a tangled mess, matted between his head and the pillow. He raised his eyebrows.

  “Off campus.”

  “And?”

  “What if.” The butterflies in his stomach became kickboxers. “What if I was out, but only here?”

  “Tell me more.” Reese squeezed Tom’s fingers between his own, their knuckles rubbing sharply against each other.

  He was still figuring this out himself.

  “Here. At Perkins. We could be more, I don’t know, like everyone else. Leave our door open when we study. Talk to our neighbors.”

  “Hang out in the living room.” Reese got where he was heading with this.

  Jesus. The idea of heading back to that room where everyone in the house had last watched him walk out hand-in-hand with Reese.

  Fuck.

  “Right. The living room. And we could be, you know.”

  “Together.”

  “Yeah. I could be out, here, and keep my head down on campus.”

  “You know there’s no guarantee that someone here at Perkins wouldn’t take your picture, right? Sell it to a tabloid. You, hand-in-hand with your boyfriend.”

  He knew that Reese said the word boyfriend with a curl of his lip and a lick of his tongue, like he wanted to make out with that word, every time. That’s what Tom knew.

  “Yeah. But that’s already a risk. And nobody’s taken any naked pictures of me in the shower yet, so maybe I can try not to worry about that.”

  “Except me.”

  “What?”

  “Nobody’s taken any naked pictures of you in the shower but me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying.” The Groucho Marx eyebrow wiggle was a nice touch. “Don’t think you’re safe here.”

  Tom groaned and smacked a hand over his eyes. Told himself Reese was almost surely kidding.

  “Jesus, shut up.” He was heading out in the morning for another weekend of nonstop driving and he didn’t think he could do it if he was afraid the whole time that he was running out of days where Reese would be patient with him and his fucking hiding. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think about everyone here at Perkins knowing that I’m your
boyfriend and seeing us, I don’t know, snuggling on the couch in the living room on movie night?”

  Shit. He’d never gone to one of the house movie nights.

  Yeah, like that was the part making him nervous.

  “Yeah.”

  Reese tugged at Tom’s fingers, peeling them off his face and then framing his eye sockets with fingers and thumbs that pried his lids open until he had no choice but to look at his freaking boyfriend.

  Who was grinning at him.

  “I think we have a winner.”

  The wash of relief was so intense he thought he’d choke on it.

  “Oh thank God.”

  His voice broke on the muttered words and he closed his eyes again because it felt as if Reese could see right into his brain when they looked at each other. And the inside of Tom’s brain was a funky mess of little boy crying after a big scare and grown up boy shaking at the knees because he could see the scares coming. Nobody should see that mess.

  It didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

  “Hey. What? What’s that?”

  “I figured—” He cleared his throat with a rough cough. “You were probably getting pretty tired of my bullshit.” Reese pushed his fingers through Tom’s short blond hair and scraped his fingernails gently against his scalp. Tom shuddered with relief and pleasure. “I’m, uh, happy. You know. That you can be happy. With me.”

  He pulled Reese’s hand down over his face and opened his mouth against Reese’s fingers, breathing on them, inhaling the sharp clean smell of this guy. This guy who he hated the idea of disappointing. Even as he knew he would, over and over again.

  But for a little while, he could be the right guy. The good guy.

  He’d try.

  For as long as he could.

  Which didn’t mean that things weren’t fucking weird and awkward as hell for the next week or two. First, Tom had to stomp on bouts of hyperventilation that hit him every five minutes, all weekend long, as he cruised the twisty farm trails that had been paved over into Boston streets. He’d stayed on campus again Friday night, putting off his departure until the following morning and blocking thoughts of how much income he was losing. Now, instead of freaking out about money, he couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean to be out, even the little bit he’d offered Reese as a compromise and his sense of self-preservation was trying to crawl out of his body via the back of his throat and a puddle of vomit.

  After tying his brain up in knots for most of twenty-four hours, he caved and called Reese.

  “What is my fucking problem?” His cab was empty. The pre-dawn hours were deader than shit and he should be catnapping at the airport instead of stalking Comm Ave and Faneuil Hall for non-existent tourists on a post-bar drunken search for Paul Revere’s grave. “I swear to God, I don’t give a shit if people at Perkins know I’m gay. Or bi. Or what the fuck ever. I’m not ashamed, I swear. So why am I fucking freaking out about this?”

  Sleep hung heavy on Reese’s voice, barely awake but keeping a one-finger grip on consciousness for Tom’s sake.

  “I think, ahh…” Tom heard the yawn that interrupted him, “…I think you can be okay with something in your head, you know? And still not be easy with it in your gut.”

  “Hunh.” He grunted. Maybe.

  “Your brain knows there’s not a damn thing wrong with you. With us. But that doesn’t mean the rest of your body is a hundred percent on board. And don’t you even tell me that your dick is,” Reese shot out before Tom could open his mouth.

  He grunted again. Kid knew him too well already.

  “Maybe.”

  The pause before Reese spoke again was long enough that Tom thought he might have fallen asleep on the phone. They’d already done that once tonight.

  “What would your dad say?”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “He wouldn’t care?”

  “No. I don’t give a shit what he would say.”

  But he knew. Even as he was answering Reese, Tom could hear his father’s voice, so reasonable, a whisper in the back of his brain.

  There isn’t anything wrong with it, son, but it makes people uncomfortable. No one wants to do business with the guy who makes them uncomfortable. It’s like having a woman in your foursome for golf. Nothing wrong with it, she’s probably a fine golfer, but no one’s going to smoke cigars and talk about the girl they’re seeing on the side when she’s there. No one can relax. I don’t care what a man does in his private life, but I wouldn’t hire an out gay man for a million dollars.

  The sound of a complicit chuckle and the sweet stench of a Cuban cigar rolled over him like a wave crashing on shore. He could see his father’s wink.

  Well, maybe for a million. Greases a lot of wheels, kiddo.

  “He’d say, ‘Keep it on the down-low, kid.’”

  Reese sounded skeptical.

  “Your dad knows what down-low is?”

  Tom pictured his patrician, ever-charming father.

  “Maybe he wouldn’t use those words exactly.”

  “Yeah, I bet. So, if that’s what you grew up with…”

  “Seriously. I don’t give a shit what he’d think.”

  “Brain. Gut. Not the same thing.”

  “I’m not ‘torn in two by my homosexual urges’, Reese.” Tom knew Reese could hear the air quotes in his voice. He was aware that he was coming close to snapping at the one person who absolutely was not going to give him shit about this, well, shit. “I’m not that deep and this ain’t General Hospital.”

  “God, you’re totally gay. You used a soap opera as a pop culture reference.”

  Tom wondered if Reese could hear him rolling his eyes too.

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Everyone knows General Hospital.”

  “Your mom watch it?”

  Even before he got the words out, a hot flush raced up his neck and blew off the top of his head.

  “My nanny.”

  “Your nanny?”

  He held the phone away from his ear, hoping he had an ear drum left to save after Reese’s piercing shriek.

  “What? My mom died when I was little and my dad worked a lot. Of course I had a nanny.”

  “Of course I had a nanny. Ow.” He heard a thump and a thunk and knew Reese had flung himself onto his bed and missed the pillow again, smacking his head against the wall. “You know how weird that is, right?”

  “It’s not weird. Tons of people have nannies.”

  “Yeah, tons of rich people happy to pawn their kids off on total strangers. God, didn’t you have grandparents or something who could’ve watched you?”

  He wished they were still talking about how uncomfortable it made him to be out and proud.

  “No.”

  After a silent moment, Reese didn’t hesitate to show how far he’d open up his world for Tom.

  “Wanna borrow mine? Fair warning. They’ve got a thing for smoked fish. And ice fishing. Haven’t been to Sweden in four generations, still think we’re Vikings.”

  God, he really liked this kid.

  He barked a laugh and sped past another highway sign ticking the exits off between Boston and home. He didn’t remember it happening, but the locus of his awareness, the magnet to which his heart would drift and turn like a compass, had moved west from Boston and lodged itself in the Connecticut River Valley, at the edge of campus. Perkins House was home and every mile he counted down on the Mass Pike brought him closer to the one place in the world he could relax and feel safe.

  Or as close to safe as he got these days.

  At the door to their room, Reese met him with a stack of library books and his laptop. Which, face it, was way less likely to be an invitation to get naked than a bottle of lube would have been.

  “Study in the living room tonight?”

  Tom had
read a science fiction book once where a decontamination chamber was used to make sure scientists who had visited a dangerous planet didn’t bring anything back with them. One step of the decontamination involved closing your eyes while a millisecond of intense heat incinerated the surface layer of skin, leaving everyone hairless—which had seemed weird once he thought about it…no eyebrows, no eyelashes? Geeks were strange—and dusted with dead skin cells.

  Peculiar how he could have a detailed memory of that entire story in the time it took for heat to flash over his body and leave him dizzy.

  “Right.” He laid a hand flat for the books and held them as Reese pulled the door shut, a little breathless. “Wait!”

  He pushed past Reese and tossed his bag on the end of his bed. Ran his hands through his hair and tried to figure out what he wanted.

  “Tom.”

  He didn’t turn around. “Give me a second. Fuck. It’s not a race, is it? They running out of couch space downstairs?”

  No answer.

  He let a deep breath fill his chest, lift his ribs, and hissed it out slowly.

  “I want to get out of these clothes, okay? I’m not not going with you. Just let me get my shit together.”

  The huff of laughter that floated to him from the doorway released some more tension.

  “I don’t think we have that kind of time.”

  He looked over his shoulder to make sure that the bird he flipped was aimed with precision.

  “Ha ha.” He stripped off his jeans and button down shirt. He didn’t know why he kept on dressing up for his driving hours. Some sort of fucked up pride, no doubt, totally unobserved by anyone who sat in the back of his vehicle for twenty fucking minutes.

  But doing this—whatever this was and it occurred to him that they hadn’t exactly discussed the details…did Reese expected them to make out?—called for a different uniform. Comfy clothes, nothing that had ever had an ounce of starch sprayed in its general direction.

  His oldest, softest T-shirt. The one from high school track with the holes along the neckline. And a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants washed so many times the hems were falling out.

  “You bringing your pillow too?”