by Felix Brooks
“Good for you,” Paige said.
Brent chewed his lip. His brain couldn’t keep up with this woman. While he formed a response, Niels jumped in and said, “I’m in civil engineering. It’s not like that here at all. About a third of the engineering students are women. It’s awesome.”
Glenda nodded enthusiastically. “I’m majoring in geology, and I haven’t seen any problems there, either. Coastal is actually committed to diversity on a daily basis. They don’t just hand out scholarships and think they’ve ‘done’ diversity.”
“The business department is pretty evenly split, too,” Brent said.
“I just think it’s super important to attract women to the STEM fields,” Claire said. “Technology is the future. We can’t waste talent if we want life as we know it on this planet to survive.”
“I want to specialize in building infrastructure in a way that respects nature,” Niels said. “Highways that allow wildlife to pass under them, for instance. City buildings that provide nesting space for raptors. Hotels and apartment buildings with garden space on the roofs. We could do so much more to make cities eco-friendly. It’s really just a change in mindset.”
That was pretty much how the evening went, with Niels and Claire dominating the conversation. Brent tried to speak but kept getting drowned out. He did talk to Glenda a bit, but her attention kept getting drawn back to Niels or Seth.
Which wasn’t surprising, since she clearly had more in common with the two of them. Brent had an interest in science, but the pace of new discoveries and technologies overwhelmed him a bit. He liked things that were practical and predictable.
Brent had found he was able to succeed as long as he knew what the rules were. It was when people changed the rules without telling him that he got into trouble. Like Karen deciding she didn’t want to stay celibate anymore, and not letting him absorb that information before breaking up with him.
Or that time in high school, when he had turned in an assignment early, only for the teacher to change the assignment without telling him. He’d been out sick the day she’d announced it, but apparently it was his responsibility to get the information somehow. When he’d come home with a C–, his dad had been pissed. Brent always got straight A’s, always. That was his job, his dad had told him. Mediocrity was unacceptable.
Brent hated feeling like a loser, and that was how he felt now, unable to find a way to talk to these women he barely knew. Halfway into the meal, he gave up trying. Instead, he spent the rest of the evening talking to Paige and Waseem, and they had a great time. He’d missed Paige’s dark humor during the break, and Waseem’s kindness.
“I’m too sober to be sitting here at a table with Niels,” Paige said, her tone low, but Brent figured she didn’t really care if Niels heard her. It was kind of a running joke that people talked shit about Niels to his face.
“I don’t care if he’s an asshole,” Brent said, “as long as he’s a good quarterback. I can’t catch passes if he doesn’t throw them straight.”
“I’m having trouble picturing you as a pro football player,” Paige said. “Not because I don’t think you’re good enough, but because you’re Brent, my best friend. Watching you on TV will be really weird if that happens.”
“You’ll have to learn how to talk to the press,” Waseem said.
“I’ll just play dumb. ‘Football, you bet.’ ”
“He’s been perfecting that since freshman year,” Paige said to Waseem. “I don’t know why he doesn’t want people to know he’s smart.”
“I’m not smart. I just work hard.”
Paige’s spine lengthened, and her eyes narrowed. “Fuck you. If you say that one more time, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
Waseem laughed. “Tell us how you really feel, Paige.” His whole face lit up, and Brent had to stop himself from staring into Waseem’s eyes. They were the darkest he’d ever seen, but they glinted in the candlelight. Brent’s heartrate quickened, and his breathing grew heavy.
That tickling feeling in his stomach came back. Maybe he needed an antacid or something? But that would have to wait until after the meal.
He stared at the tablecloth, lightheaded and profoundly aware of Waseem’s presence. He looked up again, and Waseem looked back. Suddenly, Brent didn’t feel alone, or like a failure. He felt special.
Waseem, at least, believed in him.
***
Brent stood at the forty-yard line waiting for the signal. The flag lowered and he sprinted at top speed, sucking in air to keep his muscles oxygenated.
He crossed into the end zone puffing, a split second ahead of Emmett and Demonté. Niels was just behind. Waseem looked at the stopwatch and shook his head. “Y’all need to pick up the pace. Emmett will have to shave off a tenth of a second to place well in the trials.”
Emmett scowled. “I’m a quarterback. Why I gotta be fast?”
“You ran in four touchdowns last season,” Waseem said. “You know why you gotta be fast.”
“He’s getting cranky,” Brent said.
Niels laid a hand on Emmett’s shoulder. “Do you need a Snickers bar?”
“Fucker, I will whoop your ass if you don’t shut that mouth.”
“He needs more than a Snickers,” Demonté muttered.
Emmett wasn’t normally so irritable. He was the best football player North Carolina Coastal College had ever seen. If he did well in the trials, he could be a second round draft pick. The pressure was getting to him, and Brent almost felt sorry for the guy.
Working alongside the senior superstar was helping with Brent’s conditioning. Brent was hoping to turn pro himself in another year. Waseem was doing a good job making sure they progressed without pushing themselves too hard.
Brent kind of resented Niels’ presence after the way he’d made dinner the previous night all about him. But the fact was, Brent hadn’t felt a spark with either Claire or Glenda, so did it matter? Probably not, but he still hadn’t liked the way Niels had elbowed in.
The February wind penetrated Brent’s track suit. The warm spell had broken, and temperatures had dropped into the forties, below normal. “Let’s move this inside to the weight room,” Brent suggested.
Emmett looked dejected, but Waseem puts his arm around him as they walked. “Don’t get down on yourself. Most of your scores are right on target.”
Emmett and Waseem had been best friends for as long as Brent had known them. But they couldn’t be more different. Where Waseem was boisterous and outgoing, Emmett was serious and cool-headed. Well, most of the time.
Inside, downstairs in the weight room, it was pretty busy. But the guy on the leg press gave way when Emmett stood next to him without saying a word. It was cool to see what superstar status could do for a guy. Brent wanted that.
Not like he was an egomaniac or anything. He just wanted to be noticed for a change. Truth was, Brent’s football career could go either way. Without Emmett’s leadership, the Pirates wouldn’t have won a championship that season.
Emmett raised the level of the whole team, Brent included. Brent’s stats compared favorably with junior wide receivers at big-time schools. If he kept working hard, he had a shot at the pros.
Waseem added weight to the leg press while Emmett stripped down to a charcoal gray T-shirt and navy shorts. Lying on the bench, his muscles bulged as he did his reps. Emmett was a good-looking dude, with chiseled features and blue-black skin. Waseem, by contrast, didn’t have Emmett’s sharp edges. But with a constant smile and soulful dark eyes, he was every bit as appealing.
Not that Brent was gay or anything. He could appreciate guys from an aesthetic standpoint, but he’d never been attracted to one. It didn’t bother him that Waseem was gay and Emmett was bi, but Brent wasn’t interested in dudes that way.
His stomach tensed. He needed some activity to take his mind off the empty feeling that rose in his chest. Karen’s words just kept gnawing at him. How could he say he wasn’t ace when he was still a virgin? How could he
be sure she wasn’t right?
Brent headed to the bench press, and Waseem spotted him. Quarterbacks weren’t really judged on how many reps they could do, but wide receivers were. Brent got in ten, and Waseem stopped him there. Didn’t want him to strain anything. Brent’s goal was to reach twenty eventually. But Waseem told him not to be an ass, and to aim for fifteen instead.
Niels and Demonté were coming out of the showers by the time Brent, Waseem, and Emmett got to the locker room.
“So did you hit that?” Demonté asked Niels.
“Claire? Not yet, but that girl’s got what I like. You know I’m not into skinny chicks. I prefer a little meat when I bone.” He laughed at his own dumb joke.
“Me, too,” Waseem said with a lascivious grin.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
Emmett shook his head. “That sweet little girl who can’t even find her way around campus? You’re trying to get into her pants already?”
“She’s only a year younger than me,” Niels said, arching his brows, “and she’s trying to get into mine.”
Brent hated coarse talk like that. He’d been taught that women should be put on a pedestal. But Paige had said that attitude was another form of misogyny. It denied women the right of sexual expression. Which made sense. But the way Niels was talking sounded disrespectful to him.
He could just imagine what Niels would say if he ever found out Brent was a virgin. Brent had kept that tidbit carefully to himself.
As Niels and Demonté dressed and left the locker room, the other guys stripped out of their sweaty clothes. Usually Waseem hung apart from the rest of the football team to keep them from feeling uncomfortable, but not when it was just the three of them.
Brent came out of the shower and toweled off. For the briefest moment, Waseem’s eyes wandered in his direction. Brent wondered if the guy liked what he saw.
Not that Waseem was ogling him—it was the farthest thing from that—but Brent’s face heated and he felt that weird tickling in his stomach again. And then he noticed Waseem, his bronze-brown skin stretched over taut muscle. Brent didn’t look at other guys, but when they were naked, it was impossible not to see. At that moment, he had to fight not to look at Waseem.
And Waseem, being his usual playful self, was messing around, waggling his ass, taking his good old time about getting dressed while Emmett was fully clothed and tapping his foot. “Dude, I’ve got a date with Jake tonight. Put on some damn clothes so we can get out of here.”
“Yes, your highness.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re being an ass.”
“You sure you don’t want some of my ass?”
“You wish.” Emmett grinned.
Brent’s body heated as some strange feeling—embarrassment, maybe?—rushed over him at the thought of Waseem being intimate with a guy. Not that anything would happen between Emmett and Waseem. Emmett was committed to Jake.
Waseem finished dressing, and the three headed out. The sky was beginning to darken, and the temperature had dropped further. “Any plans tonight?” Brent asked Waseem.
“Probably head to the Parrot around nine,” he said, referring to the local gay bar. “You?”
“Hang out with Paige, most likely.”
“My frat is having a party,” Emmett said. “You should come.”
“Probably,” Brent said. And normally, he’d be into that. But for some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about Waseem picking up some guy, and it kind of pissed him off.
Waseem had dated someone the semester before, but the guy turned out to be a tool. Now Waseem was on the prowl, and Brent didn’t like it. Didn’t like the idea of him with a stranger.
Not that it was any of Brent’s business.
But this gnawing in his gut wouldn’t stop. He didn’t know what was going on with him. He’d been irritated lately whenever he’d been around Waseem, ever since that night in the hotel room. And the way he felt when Waseem looked at him in the locker room, when there was nothing even sexual in the look? That was weird.
The three football players parted ways, Emmett heading to his frat and Waseem to his dorm. Brent went to Paige’s room. Maybe she would have some idea what was going on in his head.
***
Brent lay on Paige’s bed staring at the ceiling. The white quilted bedding provided a canvas for silk throw pillows in various shades of purple. Her room was in the sole women-only dorm on campus.
She pulled up a chair, tablet in hand, and said, “Help me decide what to get Holly for Valentine’s Day.”
“I was planning to send Karen flowers and another stuffed animal to add to her collection, like I always do, but apparently I suck as a boyfriend. So don’t go by me.”
Paige grinned wickedly. “I thought the problem was that you didn’t suck.”
“That’s what I get for treating a woman with respect.”
“Honey, I’m sorry she did that to you.” She pushed his legs to one side and sat next to him on the bed. “I know it hurts, because you guys were together for so long. But, I’ve got to be honest with you, you’re not grieving the way a person in love would be. I think you’re madder about the whole ‘ace’ thing than the fact she broke up with you.”
He sat up. “I am! She says she doesn’t want sex, then says I’m ace for not giving it to her? What the fuck kind of logic is that?”
“Okay, but poor logic aside, she does raise a good point. It seems to have hit a sore spot with you. And I can’t help wondering why that is.”
“Maybe because she asked me to stay celibate for five years, and now I’m a twenty-one-year-old virgin? How am I going to explain that to the next girl I date?”
“Tell her the truth. Some women might be turned off by it, but others will think it’s sweet. Like that Claire girl.”
“Claire’s not into me. Did you see how Niels played her and Glenda off one another? I think Glenda was sick of it by the time dinner was over, but Claire really seems to like him.”
“Claire really seems to like everything.”
He nodded thoughtfully. Claire’s enthusiasm could be tiring, but it was also contagious. “She’s cute, but not my type. Not really.”
Paige drew her brows thoughtfully, a cute little line appearing between them. “What about Glenda, then?”
“I like Glenda, but I’m not attracted to her.”
“Then who are you attracted to?”
Brent remembered the eyeful of Waseem’s ass he’d gotten that day, but forced his thoughts to move on. “No one, really. I guess I shouldn’t force it. Freshman year, before people started thinking you and I were a couple, I had to chase women off with a stick.”
Paige chuckled. “I remember that.”
“So what do you want to do tonight?” he asked. “Emmett invited us to the party at his frat, but Waseem is going to the Parrot—”
“What’s with you? Since last semester, it’s like you’re obsessed with that place.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of Waseem going alone. He used to go with Jake, but now that Jake’s with Emmett…”
“Waseem is a friendly guy. I’m sure he doesn’t have any trouble striking up a conversation. And if he’s there to meet someone, he doesn’t need a babysitter.”
“Yeah, but his ex-boyfriend still goes there. That must be weird for him.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I forgot about that shithead.” She tapped her heels against the floor, then shrugged. “If you want to go to the Parrot, I’m up for it. Their martinis are killer.”
Brent’s gloom fell away like the first beam of light was rising over the horizon. He’d get to see Waseem. And Waseem always made him happy.
Chapter 5
Waseem entered the Parrot, his gut churning with a combination of sadness and excitement. The lights were low but not too dim to see people’s faces. The place had a kitschy beach feel, with weathered wood and a mural of a pirate on one wall. An ample ba
r was to the left, with circular tables to the right and a dance floor toward the back. Hip-hop music played through the speakers, the bass rhythm vibrating through his body.
He looked for an open seat at the bar. He liked to start there, order a soft drink, see if anyone approached. It didn’t usually take long, because he was young and athletic and not too hard on the eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned far enough to show he was ripped.
“Your usual?” the bartender asked, and Waseem nodded. Some places didn’t appreciate him taking up space at the bar when he didn’t drink alcohol, but the staff there was cool. They liked knowing he was the designated driver when he came with a group, so they didn’t have to worry as much.
He noticed Garon, his ex, at a table with some guys but didn’t look over. He wasn’t going to avoid the guy, but he wasn’t going to make eye contact, either.
But of course, Garon couldn’t just let it be. He came and ordered a drink, leaning on the bar right next to Waseem. He looked as good as ever, high cheekbones and a strong chin, umber brown skin and piercing gray eyes. Dreadlocks hung below his shoulders. “Haven’t seen you here in a while.”
“Been busy,” Waseem answered. The truth was, he’d stayed away because he hadn’t forgiven Garon, and the sight of him still made Waseem queasy. The bubbles in his club soda didn’t mix well with the tightening in his stomach.
“I’ve missed you,” Garon said.
“And you can go on missing me.”
“Be that way, then. It’s not as if I’m the one sitting here alone.”
The bartender handed Garon his drink, and the guy went back to his friends. Good riddance. Only now Waseem felt like a loser—which was Garon’s intention, right? He knew he’d screwed up. If he couldn’t win Waseem back, he’d get his revenge through snide comments. What did I ever see in that guy?
Maybe going to the bar had been a mistake. He should go to Emmett’s frat party instead. He was about to signal the bartender for his tab when Brent and Paige walked in.