Sam didn’t go to urgent care; he went to the cafeteria and got coffee.Then he sat down and stared off into various spaces, thinking.
Unrequited love.The bane of the romance novelist.Although it led to a hell of a lot of successful plots.
Actually, it wasn’t so much the bane of the romance novelist as the bread and butter.
Not a plot one wanted to undergo in one’s own life, though.It never seemed to work out quite the same way it did in books.Sam had a lifetime of experiences that told him that.
He was pretty sure he was supposed to want a guy like himself.An awkward, intellectual not-quite-twink who knew nothing about sports and everything about Proust.A guy who was skinny and washed out and maybe even soft-spoken (they couldn’t be alike in every way, after all).The kind of guy who was versatile in bed and didn’t have any domination or submission fantasies.
Okay, well, that part wouldn’t be much like him.Sam had plenty of kink-laden fantasies.
He’d tried to love a guy like that—a guy someone like him was supposed to love—when he first came out.Bryce had been in the same dorm Sam’s freshman year.He was tall and gangly (although not quite as much of either as Sam) and only mildly effeminate (making Bryce the butch one), with hair the same shade of bland as Sam’s, that color somewhere between blond and wet sand.Bryce was a philosophy major to Sam’s English.They’d been a matched set.Salt and pepper.Well, salt and salt, actually.Sea salt and iodized salt?
After about the third month, Sam realized he’d more or less forgotten Bryce’s existence for the past week.So he went down to Bryce’s room in a guilt-induced dither and knocked frantically on his door.Bryce took a while to answer, and when he finally did, the room was cloudy with pot smoke and there was a naked, stoned, African-American guy on Bryce’s bed.Bryce had a sheet wrapped around his hips, and not another scrap of fabric on.
What a relief.
Later, Bryce admitted he hadn’t set out to cheat on Sam.He’d just sort of forgotten he had a boyfriend.And that was before he’d smoked any of the other guy’s pot.
Overall, Bryce hadn’t been a bad experience, really.Not a good experience, either.Sort of just an experience.When Sam had lost his virginity to him, it was an awkward, slightly painful, but mostly boring ten minutes.Later he returned the favor.
Just the year before last, Sam had tried to love a guy who was the opposite of Bryce.Controlling and imposing.A little like Ian the Highlander, maybe—a little, teeny-tiny, infinitesimal bit.
Marley had dreads and was (gasp) shorter than Sam.He drank a couple six-packs a day, collected unemployment, and generally mooched off the world.He had the necessary domination fantasies, but he didn’t particularly care if Sam got off or enjoyed himself.
Not so successful for Sam, in the end.
In the future, Sam planned on loving guys who deserved to be loved by him.Preferably just one guy at a time.One he deserved to be loved by.He stared out the window of the cafeteria.The Highlander would make a nice candidate.Not that his scarred Highlander was interested.
Sigh.Unrequited love.Hello, old friend.
Fortunately, before Sam could go mooning off on his personal Fabio (just an expression, because Fabio?Shudder.That man’s hair looked like straw and his eyes were too close together), his cell rang.He looked down at it, and Nik’s cheesy grin glowed up at him.
Sam didn’t even think about not answering.He’d hardly seen Nik since last spring when Nik had graduated and moved to Whitetail Rock with Jurgen.
He really needed to talk to his best friend now.
“Hey,” he said.
Nik dispensed with greetings when he called Sam.He said it impeded his flow.“You remember when I told you about that Miller Harpe guy from town?”
“The guy with jungle fever?”
“Oh,that’snice, Sam, very sensitive.He was just ...sheltered.He’s not the stupid, ignorant redneck I thought he was.Well, he is kind of ignorant, but I’m planning on fixing that.I guess he’s still sort of a redneck, too, come to think of it.I’m not sure I can really do much about that, but I can help him with the gay thing.”
“He’s gay?”
“Keep up, Sam.Yes, he’s gay.The fact that he came around while I was in high school trying to get me to pop his cherry was my first clue.”
“There’s no reason to be a bitch about it.”
“Sorry.”Nik actually sounded it, too.He reallyhadchanged since he’d met Jurgen.
“It’s okay.You weren’t, exactly.So you’re calling me because of something to do with this guy, Miller?”
“How astute of you.”Clearly, Nik still had a few rough edges Jurgen hadn’t managed to smooth.“Yes, I have a plan.”
“A plan,” Sam repeated slowly.
