“Vegan?”
“Hell, Ro, I’m a pescatarian, which sounds just as pretentious.”
“So, vegan.”
“Yeah. With a man bun.”
He laughs as I sit in traffic at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning. “I swear, Ashley is the only vegan I know who isn’t an asshole.”
I nod to myself. “You might be right about that. Anyway, I offered to order something else, but he said it was fine.”
“I’m guessing it wasnotfine.”
“Nope.Invited him back to my place and we got about thirty seconds into… you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Yeah, well, thirty seconds into that and he pulls away from me, saying that I ‘smelled like flesh,’ and that he’d just discovered that he couldn’t handle dating a non-vegan.”
“Like the guy who decided he couldn’t date a big guy after he’d let you take off your shirt.”
“Yeah, thanks forthatreminder.”
Ronan lets out another snort, saying, “Still not as bad as that first guy.”
I shudder audibly, and his laughter shakes me out of my bad mood. “We didn’t know what we were doing!” I protest on a smile.
“No shit!” Ronan pauses, then cracks up. “Well, that’s not true…”
“Oh god, stop talking about it.”
I mean, I’m glad that I technically got my first anal experience out of the way, but… the less said about it, the better. “You know, I sent him flowers after that.”
“You did? What did he say?”
“Nothing. He totally ghosted me.”
“Can you blame him?”
“Ha, nope. Anyway, running into Roly after all ofthatis…”
“…perfect timing, as usual.”
My laugh quiets down as I remember the first time I’d met him. My shitty stepdad had already more or less ruined my morning, but it was the first day in a new school in a new city, and Ronan was trying to make me feel better as we walked through the quad, a big open area with lots of trees and places to hang out. Roly was there on the benches with the rest of the cheerleaders, so damned sexy with his defined cheekbones, full lips, gorgeous brown skin, and that popped eyebrow of his. We made eye contact, and I held my breath, hoping I wasn’t too obvious.
“Oof. You’re cute, but you’reheavy.”
Technically, it was nicer than what my stepdad’d said that morning.
The entire cheerleading team laughed along with him, and there I was, before the first period bell, a big guy with an embarrassing secret, already saddled with a new nickname that would take years to shrug off.
I’d wanted to melt into the ground, and that feeling never went away, even when I joined the cult of Texas high school football and became a record-breaking defensive end. Everywhere I went, every single practice, every single game, there he was, five and a half feet of bullshit in a nut-hugging cheerleading outfit, cracking jokes at my expense.
I didn’t dare tell anyone I was bisexual; it was years before I’d admitted it to Ro and Ash. That made Roly an even bigger problem because I couldn’t tell if I wanted to pound him in the ass or into the ground.
I was forever in fear of someone catching me looking at him and figuring it out, and every time he’d lead the whole stadium in chanting his little nickname for me, I wondered if that was the day I’d snap and either kill or fuck Rolando Martinez in front of the entire school.
One thing’s for sure, masturbation was confusing as hell.
