The Hookup Equation: A Loveless Brothers Novel

by Noir, Roxie

  I drink the wine and watch. It’s very clearly amateur and looks like it was made by propping a phone up on a dresser or something.

  Not that I’m an expert. I’ve watched porn on occasion — hi, I’m human — but overall I find it so chemistry-less and mechanical that I may as well be watching a video of someone putting legos together.

  A man climbs onto the bed behind the woman, both their faces blurry and in shadow, his dick fully visible. I take another sip of wine.

  I hope Dad doesn’t have some sort of tracker set up on the wifi here, I think.

  The man inserts his penis into the woman. She makes a theatrical noise. I make a face.

  No, if he had a tracker set up he’d know Bastien was gay. I’m good.

  “Oh, daddy, I like that,” the woman says. I am unconvinced by her performance.

  “Yeah, you like that?” the man says, pumping harder.

  “Wait,” I say, bells going off in my head, leaning closer to the screen.

  “Mhm,” says Harper, in her I told you so voice.

  “I like it, daddy,” she moans again.

  “You like that?” the man says, repetitively, and I gasp.

  Not because of the bad dialogue, but because I know that voice.

  “No,” I tell Harper and Victoria, scandalized. If I had pearls, I’d clutch them. “No fucking way.”

  “Fucking way,” Victoria says.

  “The money shot is about thirty seconds in,” Harper says.

  “That fast?” I ask, trying not to wrinkle my nose.

  “Not that money shot!” she says. “Ew.”

  “Harper, you are literally showing me porn!”

  Victoria is laughing hysterically in the background.

  “I mean the regular kind of non-porn money shot. Ew.”

  “You do know the term money shot originated in porn? That’s what money shot means.”

  Now we’re both giggling. I can hear Victoria snort-laugh.

  “Just pay attention for like ten more seconds, okay? There’s a non-literal money shot.”

  I take a long drink of the wine and watch my laptop screen through the glass. Frankly, it improves the experience.

  Then, suddenly, something shakes whatever the camera is on, and the camera tilts until nothing’s visible but the ceiling.

  “Shit,” the man’s voice says.

  “Thalia!” Harper says. “Here. Right here.”

  Despite my better judgement and serious reservations, I lean in.

  A few seconds later, Nathaniel’s face fills the screen.

  I yelp and slam my laptop shut, then just stare at the closed lid in horror. It takes me several seconds, first of slow, controlled breathing, and then of gulping the rest of my wine, to process what I just saw.

  And what I just saw was my quiet, polite, and utterly nondescript co-research-assistant nailing some girl on the internet.

  “What was that?” I ask, the only question I can get my mouth to say right now.

  “Well, Thalia, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they set up a camera —”

  “That’s the reason that Nathaniel is no longer a Madison Scholar at the Virginia State University,” Victoria interrupts. “He’s got a whole RedTube channel. Username NastyNatty.”

  The wine sloshes in my stomach, and there’s one second where I honest-to-God think it might come back up.

  “NastyNatty?” I ask, weakly.

  “It’s all been pulled down, of course,” Victoria goes on. “But the internet remembers everything.”

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “Her name is Allison or something, she’s not a student,” Harper chimes in. “I guess she’s his girlfriend, she’s in most of the videos.”

  I narrow my eyes at TV across the living room, staring into its blank space like it can provide me with an explanation.

  “Most? How many have you guys watched?”

  Victoria’s laughing again, but Harper huffs.

  “We fast-forwarded through several of them out of curiosity,” she says. “I’m not sure he lives up to his moniker. It’s all very straightforward.”

  “Not nearly nasty enough,” adds Victoria, still laughing.

  “Ew,” Harper tells her, but then they both start giggling.

  I stand and head into the kitchen, my phone still with me as I open the cabinet and pour myself the rest of the wine. I haven’t drunk at all this week — as far as coping mechanisms go, I prefer long showers, sleeping too much, and binge-watching bad period dramas — but this is it. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back and drove me to drink.

  “This is why he got kicked out of school?” I ask, watching the red liquid glug into the glass. “For having the wrong side hustle?”

  “He was kicked out for sexual misconduct,” Harper says, very officially. “At least that’s what I heard. You agree not to do it when you sign the papers accepting the Madison Scholarship.”

  I shake the last few drops of wine off the bottle, then place it carefully in the recycling bin next to the trash.

  “I thought that meant actual misconduct, though,” I say, leaning against the counter, glass held in front of me. “Like sexual assault or something? I never want to see that again, but it looked consensual.”

  “Well, we also agreed to comport ourselves with the highest degree of moral and ethical standing, and also to represent the Scholars program well, and I imagine that uploading your dick onto RedTube wasn’t what the founders had in mind,” she says.

  “Though you can bet your ass they’d have loved internet porn,” Victoria offers.

  “Everyone loves internet porn,” Harper says.

  “Are we even sure that he uploaded it himself?” I ask, still trying to wrap my brain around this. “What if it was someone else trying to get him kicked out of school?”

  I did not enjoy the video. I’m already dreading having to open my laptop again, because I know the video is still pulled up.

  But it’s two adults having consensual sex, for Pete’s sake. It’s not illegal or anything.

  “Oh, he did it himself,” Harper says. “They’ve been investigating for months. One of the other TAs for Roman History was on the ethics committee that got the job, and I finally got her to talk about it the other night. It’s him. He did it. Apparently they were considering giving him a year-long suspension and just pulling the scholarship until he uploaded a video that’s got a VSU sweatshirt visible.”

  There’s a long, companionable silence over the line. I can just imagine the two of them, on our couch, feet up on the coffee table. I stare at the wall in my parents’ kitchen and drink the wine I poured and try to remember anything besides vague feelings and blurry images from the past week.

  It has been a week.

  “Anyway, don’t make porn and if you do, don’t put your face in it and if you do, don’t put it on the internet,” Harper says.

  “And if you do, don’t put a VSU sweatshirt in it,” Victoria adds. “The real crime is making the school look bad.”

  “The real crime was a total lack of screen presence,” Harper objects.

  “There were a lot of crimes,” I say. “Including you two for showing this to me, because now I’ve seen Nathaniel’s dick and I didn’t want to see his dick. Not even a little. I barely even realized that he had one.”

  “Sorry,” says Harper.

  “I’m not,” says Victoria. “You’re still coming back tomorrow night, right?”

  “As long as everything goes according to plan, yeah,” I say. “Barring further emergencies.”

  “Good. I miss your face.”

  “I miss your butt,” says Harper, and I snort.

  “I miss you guys, too,” I say. “I’ll be back. Tell Margaret I said hi. She with some new conquest?”

  “Something like that,” Victoria says. “She called it a date but I watched her put a condom in each of her pockets and like five in her purse.”

  I wonder, briefly, whether it�
�s my virginal status, or whether having a condom in each pocket really doesn’t quite make sense. How hard is it to reach across your body, even in the throes of passion?

  “Attagirl,” I say. “See you dorks tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  From: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  To: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  Subject: Absence due to family emergency

  Professor Loveless,

  I hope this email finds you well. Unfortunately, I’ve had a family emergency come up, and I will be unable to attend class on Monday, September 20, and I may also be absent on Wednesday, September 22.

  I would be happy to provide doctors’ notes for my absence, and to discuss making up any missed classwork when I return.

  Thank you for your understanding.

  Best,

  Thalia Lopez

  * * *

  From: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  To: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  Subject: Re: Absence due to family emergency

  Dear Thalia,

  Thank you for letting me know. We can discuss your coursework when you return to campus, and your absences will be excused.

  Best wishes to you and your family.

  Sincerely,

  Caleb Loveless

  * * *

  From: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  To: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  Subject: Re: re: Absence due to family emergency

  Professor Loveless,

  Apologies, but I’ll also be absent on Friday, September 24. I expect to return to school the following week, however.

  Best,

  Thalia Lopez

  * * *

  From: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  To: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  Subject: Re: re: re: Absence due to family emergency

  Thalia,

  Take all the time you need. How’s your mom doing? How’s the rest of your family?

  Best,

  Caleb

  * * *

  From: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  To: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  Subject: Re: re: re: re: Absence due to family emergency

  She’s much, much better, and expected to make a full recovery. We still haven’t been able to take her home, but it should only be a few more days. There’s nothing I can really do here, so I’m coming back to campus.

  My dad and Bastien are as well as can be expected.

  Love,

  Thalia

  * * *

  From: clloveless@mathematics.vsu.edu

  To: tylopez4nb@vsu.edu

  Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: Absence due to family emergency

  Glad to hear it. See you in class on Monday.

  Caleb

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Thalia

  The tile floor is freezing. I didn’t take that into consideration when I planned my outfit for the day. In my head, I just knocked on the office door, Caleb called out ‘come in,’ and I waltzed into office hours.

  I should have known better. Office hours are never waltzed into. There’s always a wait, and it’s usually a long one, and more often than not I get tired of standing and wind up sitting on a cold tile floor, trying to get some reading done.

  Currently, I’m trying to read an article in Neuroplasticity Bulletin about brain cancer survivors who forgot their first language but learned a second, and I’m not having much luck.

  Instead, I’ve read the same paragraph at least five times, but the only thought I’ve managed to have is Love, Thalia.

  I didn’t mean to sign my most recent email to Caleb that way. I meant to sign it Best, Thalia, or Sincerely, Thalia, or Professionally and Platonically, Thalia, but I’d been at the hospital all day, then come home and watched The Tudors for four hours straight, and then finally, at two o’clock in the morning when my brain was fried and filled with nonsense, I’d emailed Professor Loveless.

  And I signed it Love, Thalia, sent it off, and didn’t even realize what I’d done until he responded.

  With any other professor, I’d feel awkward for a few minutes and then shrug it off, because I’m sure people sign their emails without thinking all the time.

  But given that the last time I saw this particular professor, he’d just dried my tears and driven me across the state and I’d repaid his kindness by kissing him, this feels more awkward. A lot more awkward.

  His door opens. A girl I don’t know comes out, clutching a textbook in front of herself and looking slightly worried about math.

  “Next?” Caleb’s voice calls from inside, and the guy sitting across the hall from me stands and goes in while I try to get back to my reading, butt freezing on the floor.

  I’ve been back on campus for a week. It’s currently almost five on Friday evening, which means I’ve spent three class periods trying to fight off thoughts of Love, Thalia. I feel like that student in Indiana Jones who wrote on her eyelids, and that thought doesn’t make me feel good.

  I sit there for ten more minutes, then fifteen. I finally make some headway with the Neuroplasticity Bulletin and when the guy comes out of Caleb’s office, I’ve finally read three entire pages.

  “Anyone else out there?” Caleb’s voice calls.

  I clear my throat, getting to my feet.

  “Just me,” I say, and push his door open, heart beating faster than I’d like.

  “Thalia,” he says, and he smiles a smile that makes my heart skip a beat.

  I’ve imagined this moment several more times than strictly necessary, and in those imaginings, Caleb didn’t always smile. Given that the last thing I did was kiss him without permission, I couldn’t blame him for any other reaction.

  “Have a seat,” he says, gesturing. “I’ve been wondering all week whether you’d come by.”

  “You have?” I ask, heart thrashing again as I sink into one of the chairs opposite him.

  The building may be new, or at least newly revamped, but the chairs are clearly a holdover from its former life, old wooden things upholstered in avocado-colored leather.

  “I have,” he confirms, sitting himself, his chair creaking slightly as he looks down, grabs a pen from his desk, holds it between his fingers. “You’ve got a fair amount of homework and a quiz to make up, and you seem like you prefer to have your ducks in a row.”

  “I do,” I say, and the knot in my stomach unwinds.

  Apparently we’re taking the simplest approach to what happened: we’re pretending that it didn’t. I can do that. Much better than talking about it.

  He’s wearing his glasses. He’s worn his glasses every day since I’ve been back, at least that I’ve seen, and because I’m a chronic overthinker I wonder if it’s about me.

  I know it’s probably because he’s been running late in the mornings, or hasn’t gotten his contact prescription renewed, or his eyes have been bothering him, or one of ten thousand reasons a person would wear glasses instead of contacts.

  But I can’t help but wonder whether it’s got anything to do with the fact that I said there, now you’re Caleb before I kissed him.

  “And I apologize for not contacting you or coming to office hours earlier,” I say, spine straight as I pull a notebook from my bag, along with my day planner. “To be honest, I’ve had a lot of work to make up and I’ve also gotten slightly behind with grad school applications, so my ducks aren’t as in a row as I’d like.”

  “Understandable,” he says, turning the pen in his hands end over end. “Do you want to start with any questions you’ve had about the lectures or the homework? I trust you got the notes from a classmate.”

  “I did,” I say, and I look down at the problem sets I brought with me, and I make myself focus on them and only them.

  Together, we go over the homework that I’ve managed to get done so far. He stands from his chair and walks to a whiteboard against one wall of his office, erases a set of symbols that I don’t even pretend to understand, and answers my questions simply, thor
oughly, and completely.

  He’s a very good teacher. He’s probably the best math teacher I’ve ever had, and I’m not just saying that because he’s hotter than an August heat wave. Unlike every other math teacher I’ve ever had, he can understand why something doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m not getting one approach to a problem, he can approach it from another angle, explain it a different way.

  Admittedly, I’m not bad at math. I’m perfectly fine at math; it’s not my favorite subject, but I’m not terrified of it like so many people seem to be.

  But Caleb is very good at math, and he’s very good at teaching math, so good that in a purely professional, non-sexual way, it’s a pleasure to watch him do it because it’s so rare that you see someone doing exactly what they should be in their life.

  I don’t know how long we’ve been talking about integrals and limits when his phone goes off several times in a row.

  “Right, so that will be the asymptote as the limit of that particular function approaches zero,” he says, pointing with one hand and pulling the phone from his pocket with the other. “Which, actually, is what we’re covering Monday, so you’re officially all caught up. Is it really seven-fifteen?”

  “That’s gotta be wrong,” I tell him, reaching for my own phone, since he doesn’t seem to have a clock in his office.

  My phone says it’s 7:16.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I swear, I thought it was maybe six.”