Chapter 11

HARRISON

If nothing else comes from my friendship with Benny, at least I'll walk away a grade A texter. My message game is strong, and somehow, we're up until 2:00 a.m. trading stupid response after stupid response, and I have to pry myself away from the damn phone.

I have no idea if he drinks coffee or not, but I swing by Bean Necessities on the way to class anyway and go for a hot chocolate. They're usually a safe choice, right? Fucked if I know, though I'd take a wager that he's not a green tea guy.

I'm at class early and take a seat where I have a prime view of the room. Students trickle in, and a couple of them I know send me waves or smiles, but most of them are complete strangers to me.

Just when I think Benny won't make it, he steps inside.

I picture him running late again, and the image of him all frazzled makes me soft.

He looks around for a second, hoodie pulled up over his head, and when his gaze lands on me, he upnods and heads my way.

It wasn't the stupid, cocky smile I was expecting, but hey, it's still early.

Before he can say anything, I plop the cup down on his desk. "Morning sugar."

"We're getting each other drinks now?" He drops his bag and slides into his seat. "What is it?"

"Hot chocolate."

"Huh. Nice." He takes an experimental sip, and it mustn't be hot because he goes back for more. "Cheers, Bowser."

"It's the least I can do for?—"

Professor Brooks slams the door and locks it, cutting off our conversation. "Silence. Calm down, please, we have a lot to get through today."

Don't we ever? I roll my eyes Benny's way, but he's already paying attention, sitting straight, gaze locked on the young professor like he's worried about missing something. Other than the few times I need him to break something down for me, we don't talk like last time, which is a bit disappointing, but I get it. It's a hard class to begin with, let alone if you miss something important, and by the way Professor Brooks talks, you'd assume everything in this class is important.

"Some days, I swear he wants to put us to sleep," I mutter, getting an immediate laugh from Benny. The sound lights me up. "It's not the math and science that's the hard part. It's resisting his hypnosis." I glance over at him, but he's not looking. It … bristles me a little bit. Usually, I catch him looking all the time, so this should be an improvement. Should be but isn't.

I want to see his eyes. I like his eyes.

He's smiling softly toward the front of the room. "This is his first semester teaching, right? He's still green. Give him time."

"What'd you do last night?" I ask him, even though I know he watched a movie at one point.

Benny's back to typing intently though. "Sorry, what?"

Okay, okay. I get it. This isn't the place. Benny is trying to focus, and it's not fair of me to distract him.

But damn is he distracting me.

I can't stop watching the way he's typing. He's got these long, nimble fingers, but he keeps hitting the wrong keys and is punching them hard, almost hunched over the keyboard he's concentrating so intently. He's got a prominent vein running along the back of his hand, a thin wrist, and then the rest is hidden by the hoodie he's wearing. The weather has cooled off a bit, but not that much.

His dirty-blond hair is flicked over to the side, giving me a good view of his neck, strong jaw, five-o'clock shadow, and those fucking lips. The lips I imagined sinking my teeth into the other night.

That same unexplainable feeling builds in my gut, and for the first time ever, it starts to form into something recognizable. Something that feels a lot like want.

What kind of want, I have no idea, but it's the type that makes my fingers want to meet his jaw, the type that makes me want to tell him to look at me, the type that very strongly responds to the way his mouth is moving along with the words he's typing.

I pull my gaze away and try to tune back in to the class.

Even with all that want, there's still nothing going on between my legs. It doesn't have me convinced that I'm not so desperate to give things a try that I'm tricking myself into feeling what isn't there. Surely if I was into the guy, my dick would know.

Maybe it's slow on the uptake?

Because my gut seems to think I'd like kissing Benny. Even considering that makes me a delicious kind of light-headed.

"You have a free period next, right?" I ask. "Want to do something?"

"Sorry," he whispers, sending my hope crashing through my ass. "Can't. I've got a class to study for."

Other than last week, he always has studying to do, and if we hadn't been up all night texting, I'd worry he's cooled on me already. Clearly, he's trying to protect himself or maybe even trying to prove to me that he respects my straightness or whatever, so I suppose I have to play along. The longer we're friends, the easier it'll be for him to realize I don't run scared from a little flirting. Fuck. Some of the shit we both said last night should have proved that by now.

Five minutes before the end of class, Benny sighs and slumps back in his chair.

"Do you ever get the feeling you're too dumb for school?" he asks.

I chuckle. "You're a junior. You've made it through fifteen years of schooling already. You have less than two to go. I'd say you're good."

He doesn't look happy about that response, and it hits me a second too late that he's serious. Serious. He's taking college-level statistics, understanding it all, and he thinks he's dumb?

"Benny, look at me."

He's reluctant, but he does. There's none of the usual warmth. None of the teasing. None of the feeling that he's seeing too much of me. "Yeah?"

Shit, what was I going to say? "You're not dumb. I can't believe we're even having this talk when you're one of the most confident people I know."

"I am?" He looks at me like I'm confused, and I give it right back. Benny is never lacking in anything.

"It's one of the things I like most about you. I mean, fuck, I'm auditing this class. I might have passed the first time, but it was by the skin of my teeth, and this time, I want to really wrap my head around it. Understand it. You're way better at that than me, so if you're dumb, I'm dumb, and I don't think of myself as dumb at all."

He processes that for a moment. "Thanks, Bowser."

I smile, glad we could at least clear that up. I'm hoping he'll hang out for a minute after class anyway, but as soon as Brooks wraps everything up, Benny stuffs his laptop into his bag, cuffs me on the shoulder goodbye, and then is out of there like his ass is on fire, hood pulled up firmly over his head again.

I have no idea what that was about.

Instead of heading to one of the study carrels like I'd hoped, I head to the science buildings and take the stairs to the top.

There's a class happening in the greenhouse that I bypass as I head down the back to check on my babies. Rich looks like he has a case of rust, but thankfully, I've caught it early and cleared the two leaves it had started to grow on away. I'm heavily monitoring him after his baking soda spray bath, so he should be okay, but if the rust keeps coming back or spreads deeper, it will be bye-bye, Rich. I haven't had the heart to tell him that.

All of my other babies are growing perfectly, and I can't help feeling a little guilty that I've exposed Rich to something.

Would Benny like him? Or Stacy. Or any of them. He was interested in the microorganism fact, and I have a lot of other plantoids I could share with him. I pull out my phone and send him a photo of Stacy.

Me:

Did you know the fire lily is poisonous enough to kill a human, but has been used for ages in treating everything from acne to cancer?

Benny:

Did you know … you're a nerd?

Me:

Sure did.

Benny:

If it's so poisonous, who the fuck was like, "Yeah, I reckon this will fix all the problems I have?"

Me:

That's how people had to do it before Google.

Benny:

Cool fact, grandpa. Makes me not miss having one.

I grinand send him back a slew of middle finger emojis, relieved that at least through text he acts like he always does. Then I close up my plants, sneak past the class in session, and head out onto the rooftop. Before I leave, I get a random idea.

I cross over to the spot I like to use to look out over campus, turn my back on the view, and then take a selfie.

Me:

You have your attic window; I have my rooftop.

Benny:

You also have a sunburned nose and look hideous. Don't send me selfies ever again.

A smile tugsmy lips because I'm ninety percent sure he's joking. Except about my nose because when I look at the picture again, it is a bit pink. The rest of me, though, looks exactly like I always do. Backward cap, hair sticking out the front. Ehh, I look more freckly than usual because of the light, but if Benny thinks freckles are ugly, he never would have been interested in me in the first place.

Benny:

Because I'm not allowed to jerk off to them, so it isn't cool, bro.

I wantto write back that I never actually made that rule, but I stop myself. This is where the shaky ground is. The thought of him jerking off to me is one I kind of like, but saying that, opening up the possibility that maybe I want to test my straightness out … I need to tread carefully. So instead, I do what he does when the flirting gets too much and he wants to smart-ass his way out of it.

I send him a kissy face emoji.

Then I tuck my phone in my pocket and try not to think about the weekend.