REN

I GOT TO the library early, only because I didn’t really have anything else to do. Arie had some studying to do too, so he came along with me, his laptop in a bag at his hip. As we walked, we chatted about our plans later that night with Aspen and Che. Just a casual hangout with snacks and board games and a movie.

I’d gotten used to these easy little social gatherings. I was actually starting to feel like I belonged somewhere, a feat I’d never quite accomplished in high school. My anxiety still messed with me sometimes, making me worry that people didn’t really like me or that I was bothering everyone with my presence. But it felt like all of that was slowly fading out. Slowly.

I sat at a table and started unpacking my textbooks and stuff out of my bag, while Arie propped his butt up onto the table in front of me, still on a tangent about the horror movie series he wanted us to start tonight.

“Listen, it’s not about the gore,” he promised me, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. When I first met him, his hair had been pink, but it was currently cotton candy blue. I was pretty sure he’d said he was going to try lilac or something next time. Which I was pretty sure was purple? “The storyline is so good across all the movies. I swear.”

“I don’t mind gore,” I told him honestly. “I think the movies sound kind of cool.”

“Take my word for it, you will love them,” he promised, putting his hand lightly on my shoulder. Arie was definitely a touchy-feely kind of person, which I’d had to get used to at first, but now I didn’t mind. It was nice, and I was pretty sure it was a good sign he didn’t secretly hate me.

At that moment, Maddox walked into the library. He scanned the area until his eyes landed on me. When they did, I smiled and gave him a small wave. I expected him to smile back at me, but his eyes flickered to Arie and then down to where Arie’s hand was on my shoulder. He definitely didn’t look thrilled. Did they know each other? When Arie saw who I’d waved at, he looked over at Maddox and then whipped his face back toward me, eyebrows raised.

“Uh, you didn’t tell me you were meeting Zac Efron Jr.,” he said, giving me an odd look.

“Huh?” I asked, confused. “No, his name is Maddox.”

Arie stared at me for a few seconds, unblinking. “Oh, Ren,” he sighed, giving me a pat on the head like I was a braindead puppy. When Maddox got up to us, he didn’t bother waiting for me to introduce him. “I’m Arie. And you must be Troy Bolton.”

I didn’t have a clue what he meant by that, but when Maddox rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, I figured he must have.

“Not quite,” he answered, looking a bit wry, like he’d heard this bit before. “I’m on the swim team, not basketball.”

“Well, you know, we’re all in this together,” Arie answered sagely.

“Yeah, yeah. Wildcats,” Maddox answered him flatly.

“What the heck are you guys even talking about?” I finally asked, completely lost.

“You haven’t seen High School Musical?” Maddox asked, sounding incredulous.

“Oh,” I realized. I kind of vaguely knew what it was, but I’d been more into stuff like anime and comic books. “Uh, no.”

“This guy’s hopeless,” Arie said to him, once again patting me on the shoulder. “I’m doing my best to introduce him to civilized society, but he makes it hard.”

Maddox’s eyes darted to where Arie’s hand was resting on my shoulder, narrowing a little. Maybe he thought it was weird that Arie was so touchy with me? Maybe he thought I was weird for being okay with it?

“Well, anyway,” he said. “We have to work on our project.” He sat across from me at the table and set his bag on it, pushing it into Arie’s butt with just enough pressure that he had no choice but to slide off and stand on the floor.

“Well, excuse me,” Arie said, with a comically shocked look on his face. I could tell he wasn’t really mad, though. “I’ll just study over here and leave you guys to your super secret ultra important project, then.” He set up his laptop a couple seats away from us, opening it and putting earbuds in his ears.

“So… Hi,” I said. Now that the chaos of Arie’s introduction was over, it was too quiet.

“Hi,” he answered. It was funny, we’d just seen each other the night before. It’d barely been over 12 hours, but I’d still gotten excited to meet him again. I wasn’t totally sure why. I mean, I liked him and all but it’s not like we had particularly deep conversations or anything.

“Did you, um, get a chance to think of any new ideas since Monday?” I asked. I’d jotted down a few ideas here and there, but nothing impressive or concrete.

“Not really,” he admitted. “Between classes and swim club and trying to be social, I don’t really have a lot of free time.”

“Be careful not to burn yourself out,” I said, frowning a little. “I mean, I know we’re supposed to be working hard and all that, but…”

“I’ll be fine,” he said quickly. “I’m used to it.” But he was looking at me strangely, like I’d said a combination of words he hadn’t known was possible in the English language.

“Well, okay. But remember to take care of yourself, too!” I finished, giving him a smile that I hoped was encouraging. He didn’t return it, but nodded slowly, still looking somewhat confused. I wondered why he thought that particular concept was so strange, but I tucked it away in my head for later.

We’d pretty much gotten nothing done that first day in class, so we had a lot to talk about. Luckily, we agreed that we wanted it to be something simple and light, nothing too deep or emotional. After a good bit of brainstorming ideas, we decided our story would be about a paranormal investigator and a skeptic real estate agent who get locked in a supposedly haunted house overnight. Some of the stuff we planned was pretty funny, with a bit of slapstick humor thrown in for good measure.

I’d write the first 1000 words, send it to him, and he’d write the next 1000. And we’d go on like that until we hit the word count goal, then go back and edit. I was so engrossed in typing out my part that I didn’t look up from it for a long time, until the sound of guys talking and laughing snapped me out of it. To my surprise, when I glanced at the clock, nearly three hours had passed.

“Whoa!” When I looked around, I saw Arie and his laptop were gone. “Arie left?”

“He left a while ago,” Maddox informed me, but he wasn’t looking at me. When I looked over to the entrance he was staring at, I saw some other guys from the swim team coming in. They were being loud. At least, loud for the library. The librarian shushed them, but they just snickered and elbowed each other in the ribs before sauntering further in. “Hey, do you want to get out of here?”

“Um, yeah. Actually, I have plans tonight.”

“With Arie?” He asked sharply.

“Well, yeah,” I answered, a bit taken aback by his tone. “And my roommate Aspen, and Che. Che is Arie’s boyfriend,” I tacked on. “Do you have a problem with him or something?”

“No,” he answered, for some reason instantly more relaxed. I’d thought maybe he found Arie weird because of the makeup and nails and stuff, but now I wasn’t sure. “He seemed alright. I’ve had a few people mention the Zac Efron thing but I don’t really see it. Maybe from one angle, kind of,” he added. “Anyway, I-”

“Holmes!” The swim team guys had finally noticed Maddox. The one who’d called for him was taller than the other two, with his dark hair buzzed really short. None of them looked anything alike, but they all had kind of a stereotypical jock look. “Weird party last night, right?” he commented, once they’d reached our table.

“I wouldn’t know,” Maddox answered. His voice sounded controlled, like he didn’t want to show any emotion. But it didn’t appear like he was all that fond of these guys. Then again, that kind of seemed to be his default emotion. “I left after someone got a little too close to playing pyromaniac.”

Yeah, after someone got a little too close to playing pyromaniac. Someone with really nice hair and really blue eyes that was weirdly nice to me and was sitting right across from me. Not to name anyone specific, though.

The taller guy sighed, but he was grinning. “Drunk chicks. What are you going to do, you know?”

I was just a little shocked to see Maddox shrug a shoulder, and give a completely straight-faced grunt in response. There was no way I could have played it so cool if I’d done what he did.

“Anyway, we were just leaving,” Maddox said, standing up from the table and gathering his stuff into his bag. I quickly followed his lead, standing as well. When I did, they all looked over to me like they’d only just noticed me. The one with red hair and freckles scoffed a little, before giving me a condescending head nod.

“What’s up, BTS? You have fun at the party last night?”

“I’m Japanese,” I responded. “BTS is Korean.”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself, O’Conner?” Maddox suggested lightly. Picking up his bag off the table, he deliberately swung it around so it smacked the red-haired guy’s arm before resting the strap on his shoulder. I didn’t follow his lead on that one, but I scurried behind him, as close as I could get. As we exited the library, I heard the other guys kind of scolding the one that Maddox had called O’Conner.

“Not cool, dude.”

“Yeah, to be honest that was kind of lame.”

“What!? How the hell was I supposed to know?”

Once we were out in the hall, Maddox stopped and turned to me. He looked pretty pissed off.

“It’s not a big deal, you know,” I told him. “People make that kind of mistake all the time.”

He shook his head, huffing out a breath. “Well, whatever. I don’t fucking like it, so…”

“Thanks for saying something, anyway,” I said.

“It’s fine,” he said. He looked awkward suddenly, but I wasn’t sure why. “Well… Anyway, have fun tonight.”

“Wait!” I said, scrambling a bit. “Um, I mean, so feel free to say no because I’m not sure if maybe you would think this kind of thing is lame, but you could come hang out tonight, if you didn’t have anything else to do.”

He stared at me for a few moments before responding. His eyes always looked really intense when he was doing that and it made my stomach feel weird.

“Really? You want me to hang out with your friends?”

“You’re my friend, too,” I said, before remembering that maybe we didn’t know each other well enough yet for me to say that. At any rate, after last night, it was pretty much out there and couldn’t be taken back.

He cleared his throat a little bit, and glanced into some empty corner. “Whatever. Sure. I’m free.”

“Oh!” I said, pleasantly surprised. I’d expected him to turn me down. Guys like him had never wanted to be friends with the kind of people I hung out with. “You know it’s just, like… We just play board games and watch movies and stuff, right? It’s not really exciting or cool or anything. Are you sure you won’t get bored?”

He shrugged, still not looking in my direction. “Not if you’re there.”

I laughed. He had to be kidding. No one in the history of humankind had ever thought of me as exciting. But it was such a nice compliment, and gave me such a nice, fluttery feeling that I decided I didn’t want to know if he was kidding or not.

Planned hangouts consisting of more than just two or three of us were usually always done in Arie and Che’s dorm room. They had more space than the rest of us because they’d converted one of the beds into a kind of makeshift entertainment center with a flat shelf covering it with a TV and gaming consoles and stuff hooked up onto that. For obvious reasons, they only needed one.

I’d texted Aspen that I was bringing someone when Maddox had ducked into a bathroom to pee. He’d responded positively, teasing me congrats about finally finding friends on my own. I didn’t tell him it was the jock he’d made fake gagging noises about just the other day when we’d talked. I could understand his aversion. But Maddox was different. If I’d had any doubts about that, the clapback he’d made to his teammate about me had assured me.

When we got there and settled in, I could tell Aspen was mildly annoyed, but he wasn’t enough of a dick to make it obvious to Maddox, at least. Arie was friendly, like he usually was. He was one of the biggest extroverts I knew, not a shy bone in his body. Che was quiet, but didn’t seem to have any issues with an unexpected guest. To me, it seemed like as long as Arie was happy, Che was happy. I wondered what it would be like to have a bond like that. Truthfully, it made me a little jealous.

“I thought you said Kelani was here, too?” I asked, noting her absence.

“She realized she had something to do,” Arie answered quickly, and in a tone that made it clear I shouldn’t ask any more questions. Had she left because she’d suspected I was bringing Maddox? Or was I completely over-thinking it? I glanced over to him to see if he looked suspicious, but it didn’t seem like he’d even registered it.

Aspen dumped a bunch of individually-wrapped pastries onto the low table we were all seated around on the floor. “We’re supposed to throw these away, but they’re still good. I hate wasting food.”

“You’re such a rebel,” Arie commented, before unwrapping a donut and biting into it.

That might have been part of it, but I happened to know that Aspen hadn’t had exactly the same upbringing as the rest of us, in terms of financial security. He’d grown up in a trailer, and he was the first person ever in his family to even go to college, which he’d only been able to do with lots of financial aid and a few scholarships.

“And I made sure to grab some for you, vegan boy,” Aspen said to Che, handing him over a couple.

“Thanks,” Che answered softly, looking grateful. Like Arie, he had a very particular style but I wasn’t exactly sure what to call it. It was weird and alt, but colorful with bows and clips and hearts and stars. Like goth, but in pastels. They both got a lot of weird looks, but honestly, I thought Che was really cute. He reminded me of a cartoon character or something.

I unwrapped some chocolatey bread thing and started eating it, but Maddox didn’t take anything. When he noticed my questioning look at him, he explained.

“I’m not really supposed to have stuff like this.”

“Oh, live a little, Michael Phelps,” Aspen said sarcastically. “A couple extra calories aren’t going to kill you.”

“I’ll split one with you, if you want,” I offered. I’d seen my dad do that for my mom when she didn’t want to eat a whole dessert. His eyes widened instantly with a hopeful spark in them, before darting down to the table.

“Well… If you don’t mind, I guess.” He shrugged a shoulder, like he tended to do when he wanted to downplay something, but the corner of his mouth was perked up just a bit.

“I don’t mind,” I promised. It was odd and hard to explain, but just the fact that I could do anything to make him smile, even a little, gave me this incredible sense of accomplishment.

“I’ll just work it off tomorrow at the pool,” he said decisively. I wondered what it would be like to be so devoted to something that I could barely convince myself that a single treat was okay. Did swimming really make him that happy?

He picked up an eclair with a thick layer of chocolate on the top, ripping it half and handing me my piece. After I took it, he brought his thumb to his mouth to lick the frosting off. As I watched his tongue slide over the surface of his skin to sweep the sugary substance off, I felt the muscles in my stomach clench right before my cock twitched, suddenly half hard.

Shocked at my own reaction, I subtly adjusted myself behind my zipper, glad that no one could see me through the table. Maybe I wasn’t jerking off enough? But I was already kind of doing it a lot, so…

“Aw, you guys make such a cute couple, sharing food like that,” Arie crowed, yelping a bit when Che elbowed him in his ribs, giving him a dry look.

I knew he was joking, but having the statement follow the weird boner I’d just popped watching Maddox, it hit a little too close to home. Maddox froze, mid-chew, looking extremely uncomfortable with the statement. I felt heat flood my face and was immediately grateful my skin tone was pretty good for hiding my embarrassment.

“Christ, Arie,” Aspen said, rolling his eyes. “Stop trying to convert our token straight guy. If you mess him up, we won’t be able to get another one until Old Navy’s Fourth of July Sale.”

Arie laughed at that, dissolving the tension that I’d felt form in the air at the couple joke. My heartbeat slowly returned to normal as Che asked Aspen a question about his job at the bakery, where’d he brought the pastries from.

Gathering up my courage, I locked eyes with Maddox again. He looked relieved that the line had come and gone with no real intent behind it. Had he felt as embarrassed as I had? Or had he just found it annoying to be referred to as in a couple with someone like me, even as a joke? Forget the fact that we were both guys. Even if I’d been a girl, someone like him probably wouldn’t have been caught dead as the boyfriend of someone like me.

When it came time to watch the movie, we all settled on the floor in front of the TV, with Maddox and I on the end. In the dark, with the only light coming from the screen, I found myself hyper-fixating on the sensation of his arm pressed into mine.

When the screen flashed with a jump scare, I heard him let out a tiny gasp and jerk, grasping onto my forearm. I swallowed hard, trying not to move an inch. I didn’t want to make him think I wanted him to let go. My skin felt like it was a billion degrees where his fingertips were digging into it. When I couldn’t take it anymore and had to drag my gaze over to him, he was completely focused on the screen, entranced. Biting down on my lip to keep from grinning, I ended up staring at him for way too long, glad that he didn’t glance up to catch me in the act.

When it was over and the credits rolled, he finally realized he’d been death gripping my arm. He let me go and cleared his throat, shaking his head.

“Sorry,” he said, looking awkward.

“It’s okay. I barely noticed,” I lied. “I was just so… Um, I mean, the movie was really…”

“Yeah,” he finally said, sparing me the agony of trying to complete my sentence. “Yeah, it was really good.”

“Ah!” Arie let out a little squeal of delight as he flipped the lights back on. He ignored all our groans of pain as our retinas were blasted by the sudden change. “You guys liked it!? We absolutely have to watch the rest of them! They’re so good.”

“How many more are there?” Maddox questioned.

“Six! Plus some spin-offs that aren’t necessarily canon.” Arie answered, lifting a hand and resting it on his hip at the flurry of shocked exclamations. “No, no, no. I’m not letting any of you chicken out now. You’re all finishing them, even if I have to hogtie you and drag you in here. Although some of you might like that, you naughty little freaks.”

I didn’t have a problem with finishing them. I actually had liked the movie, even if it had been a little hard focusing on it with Maddox so close to me.

When Maddox said he had to go because he had swim practice early in the morning, part of me felt like I needed to walk him out or walk him home or something. But I reminded myself we weren’t on a date or anything, and we’d already gotten teased once about being a couple, so I forced my butt to stay glued to the floor as he walked out.

But I worried until about twenty minutes later, when I got a text from him, identical to the one I’d sent him the night before, minus the emoji. He’d made it home safe. Then when he sent another one saying he’d had fun and he’d do it again anytime, it felt like my heart was pounding overtime against my ribs.

What was wrong with me? Did I actually… Have a crush on a guy? Not just a guy, but a guy like Maddox Holmes? Was I that much of an emotional masochist? Or was I just happy to make such a cool friend? It was impossible to tell. I’d never liked a guy like that before, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t feeling weird stuff about him.

My ex-girlfriend Gwen’s criticisms of me, my social skills, my hobbies and interests, and basically every aspect of my personality echoed mockingly in my head. During our relationship, I’d been at such a low point that I’d actually believed her assertions that no one but her would tolerate having me around. I didn’t believe that anymore, but she did have a point about some things. I wasn’t cool or charming , and I never would be. Even if by some bizarre twist of fate Maddox was into guys, he’d be into someone like him, not awkward guys like me. And anyway, I wasn’t even completely sure how I felt.

I wished I could talk to someone about it, like Aspen or Arie, but the idea of that was borderline humiliating. So for now, I’d just keep it in the back of my head and try to make sure I didn’t do anything too crazy until I figured it out.