REN

THE FIRST WEEK back at school after winter break felt long and short all at the same time. I had more work than usual, which I didn’t mind too much. The classes I’d picked for this spring semester when I’d met with my adviser were a little more intense, workload wise, but more in line with what I actually found interesting, so it was a fair trade-off. But Maddy still hadn’t made a decision about the swim team, and I could tell it was weighing on him heavily.

By Saturday afternoon, his grace period of thinking was over. The winter swim meet was tonight. He hadn’t gone to practice all week, but he’d texted his coach and scheduled a meeting today, explaining he needed to talk. Glancing at my phone, I realized he was probably in that meeting right now.

Across the room at his desk, Aspen yawned, stretching his arms over his head. He was only wearing pajama pants, so most of his tattoos were on clear display. I hadn’t gotten one yet, but I thought I might like one.

“So what’s the plan tonight?” He asked.

I shut my laptop, pushing it away. My calculus homework was starting to all blur together anyway, so I needed a break. But my parents had gushed about my GPA over winter break, so I felt obligated to keep it up.

They’d also been asking more and more about Maddy, and when they’d get to meet him. I still wasn’t exactly sure what to tell them. Would he be willing to meet my parents? He’d been fine with me meeting his family, but that had been as friends. My parents knew we weren’t exactly just friends.

“Cyprian and I are heading over to the convention center in a few hours for Maddy’s swim meet.”

“Just going over to support him?” He wondered.

“Yeah, pretty much.” If he even ended up staying on the team, that was, but I didn’t mention that part yet. It was Maddy’s decision, and I didn’t want to spread his issues around. “He’s kind of going through some stuff right now, so he could use the support.” That was enough of a compromise in terms of revealing stuff.

“Is it free?”

“Free?” I repeated, confused. “You mean do you have to buy tickets or something?”

“Yeah.”

“No, you can just walk in. It’s free,” I said. “Well, there’s like food vendors and merch for the team and stuff. Nothing big.” I only knew that stuff from the videos I’d watched from his last meet.

He nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “Well, I might head over tonight too, then. I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “That doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.” Not that I cared or anything, but I was pretty sure his thick eyeliner and piercings would probably stick out like a sore thumb among the suburban moms and sports fans.

He shrugged a shoulder, keeping his eyes glued down to his phone. “Well, if it’s to support Maddox, then whatever. It’s only a few hours.”

I smiled, slowly, not saying anything until he finally glanced up at me.

“What!?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, but I couldn’t wipe it off my face fast enough. He kind of had that trait in common with Maddy, getting embarrassed over being nice, so I was very familiar with how to deal with it. “It’s just, uh… I thought you didn’t like jocks.”

He gave me a dry look, before shifting his gaze back down to his phone with a haughty sniff. “It’s possible that maybe there are a very small percentage of jocks that are somewhat tolerable. He may happen to be one of those aforementioned.”

“Very fair and valid of you.” I’d figured out pretty early on that Aspen was a genuinely nice and friendly guy, but he didn’t exactly like spreading that fact around. I was pretty sure he didn’t want anyone treating him like a doormat or talking down to him. His edgy emo boy look helped reinforce the leave me alone attitude he liked putting off, as a defense mechanism.

“Fair and valid are my middle names,” he said simply. “Anyway, it’s a good thing. I’ve heard a lot of people bitching and complaining about hating their roommate’s significant others. I’m just glad I haven’t had to deal with that.”

“Ah, but Maddy isn’t really my…” I trailed off. “I mean, we’re not actually boyfriends or anything.”

Aspen scoffed, giving me an incredulous look. “Sure. Whatever you say, buddy.”

“We’re not,” I insisted. “I mean, we never really talked about it. I don’t know if that’s what he wants.”

“You’re kidding, right? You guys are attached at the hip. And when you’re not together, you’re texting each other. You threw him a birthday party,” he reminded me. “You’re boyfriends.”

“But he never said we were.”

“Some things transcend verbal confirmation,” he said, smirking a bit as he tilted his head at me. “I guarantee if you asked him, he’d say yes, you’re totally boyfriends.”

“I…” I shook my head, feeling a twist of nerves in my stomach. “Or I could ask him and it freaks him out and makes him pull away from me. I don’t want that. He’s too important.”

“Do you want confirmation?” Aspen asked. “Does it bother you, that you guys can’t go public?”

“It doesn’t bother me, exactly,” I said, wiping my dampening palms on the thighs of my jeans. “I just… It’d be nice if we could be more open. I hate that I can’t kiss him or hold his hand when we’re out in public.”

“Aw, you want to show him off, don’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Abs and jawline. So just talk to him. You guys are pretty good about communication, right?”

“Yeah. Well, yes and no. We’re good at communication when I force him to communicate.” But he was getting better about that. Mostly. Maybe Aspen was right. Maybe if I talked to him about it, it wouldn’t be a big deal. We were doing pretty much everything that couples did, after all. “You really think I should bring it up?”

“Totally,” he said. “Even if he’s not ready to go public, I’m sure he’ll ease your concerns about the boyfriends thing. I mean, it’s so obvious he probably thought he didn’t even need to say anything.”

“Well… Maybe.”

“Dude.” He put a hand on my shoulder, giving me an encouraging look. “You got this.”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” I wondered. He scraped his tongue around his teeth, producing a sucking sound.

“No.”

“How come?”

“I’m still waiting to meet a guy that I don’t want to muzzle after I’m done fucking him.”

I blinked, clearing my throat. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“You want to play some Federation before we head over?” He asked. I wasn’t sure if he was changing the subject on purpose or not. But because I didn’t want to hit a nerve, I let him.

“Sure,” I agreed, opening my laptop back up and loading up the game client. “You think Che’s online?”

“Maybe,” Aspen answered. “If not, we can just text him to get on or come over here. If he isn’t busy with Arie or anything.”

But before I could even pull up my friends list in the game, my phone started ringing. It was Maddy.

“Hey,” I answered. “How did-”

“I need to talk to you right now,” he cut me off. He sounded slightly out of breath, like he was really worked up. “Where are you?”

“I’m just in my room with Aspen,” I said, surprised. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” he said, definitively. “Definitely fucking not. I’m heading up, so I’ll see you in a minute.” The call ended with a little beep and I pulled my phone from my ear, blinking at it.

“Everything good?” Aspen wondered.

“Uh, no,” I said. “He sounds really upset.” The talk with the coach seemed to have gone pretty badly. “He’s coming over to vent.”

“Got it,” he said, closing his laptop. “We can play some other time.”

It only took another couple of minutes before we heard knocking on the door. When I called for him to come in, it swung open to reveal Maddy, looking visibly livid. His chest was heaving with exertion and probably adrenaline, his fists clenched at his sides.

“I am so fucking pissed,” he said, needlessly. That much was obvious to anyone in a 5-mile radius, probably.

“I’m just, uh, going to find something else to do,” Aspen piped up, after pulling on a shirt. He slunk over to the door, eyebrows raised. “See you, Maddox,” he said, slipping past him out into the hall.

“See you,” Maddy answered, giving him a brief glance before coming in the rest of the way and closing our door behind him.

Standing up from my seat, I instantly stood and ushered him over to my bed so we could sit together and talk. My poor little emotional firecracker. I wished I could shield him from all the elements of the world that made him so upset.

“What happened?” I asked, raising my hand to rub over his back. To my surprise, he leaned his body into mine, pressing his face into my shoulder. Wrapping my arms around him, I laid my cheek on the top of his soft hair. It was definitely not the time to bring up the boyfriend discussion, or any other concern I might have had. All of that could wait.

He inhaled deeply, burrowing more snugly into my body, and then started talking.