“I assumed you just wanted to do well in the class.”
“I did, but I was totally into you. We’d be in bio, and I’d feel some biology working up on me, especially when you’d come in wearing one of your tight button-up shirts.”
“I don't think I want to hear this,” Mikey says.
I can tell he's getting a little jealous, which I kind of enjoy.
“Come on,” I say. “I want to hear how your brother had a crush on me.”
Jordan blushes. “Oh my God. I shouldn't even be saying anything. I'm just so relieved. You really have no idea how long I've wanted to tell you about this.”
Mike stirs his cocktail in his hand as he says, “I just wish you didn’t have to find out the way you did. Wasn’t the best of circumstances.”
“Not the best of circumstances? I'm pretty sure those were theperfectcircumstances. I definitely did not have any questions about you judging me when I saw you sitting on the floor of our sister's house penetrating one of my best buddies in the world. Making him scream out. Roll his eyes back. And don’t think I wasn’t thinking about joining in.”
“Oh my God!” Mikey exclaims.
“Kidding! Kidding! Relax, Mikey.”
But it does make me consider something I hadn’t before. “How long were you standing there?”
“Just long enough to figure out what was happening.” Although, judging by the guilty expression on his face, I suspect he was there perhaps a few moments longer than he needed to be. “But, sorry,” he goes on. “I've been monopolizing the conversation and making it all about me. What about you guys? This has been going on now for, I guess, three months since you’ve known each other. Talking to each other. Doing other things with each other. So what’s the deal?”
“What do you mean?” Mikey asks.
“Like, what’s seriously going on? Is this just friends with benefits? Or is there something more?”
We're silent. It feels like we're both waiting for the other person to say something. I look at Mikey, but he doesn't look back.
“That wasn't a trick question.”
“I really like Scott,” Mikey finally says, and it feels like there’s abutto that.
“I really, really like Mikey, too.”
“Can we define ‘like’?” Jordan presses. “As in, you… would-date-each-other 'like'?”
“We've kind of already gone on dates,” Mikey replies.
At this point, we’d be lying if we didn’t call them dates.
Finally, our gazes meet. Mikey smiles. It feels so good and nice knowing that as much as we haven't talked about it, we really have been on the same page about where we stand.
“So it's kind of serious at this point?” Jordan asks.
Mikey nods. “I think we can both agree that it did get serious.”
“So what's in the books for you guys after this is all finished? Will you try to make this work long distance?”
It's something I've thought about, that’s lingered in the back of my mind, this idea that maybe we could find a way. But at the end of the day, from everything Mikey’s told me about his past—about his long list of sexual escapades—he’s not like me. Yeah, I could sit around and be fine and happy texting or Skyping him, but I've seen what happens with other couples who’ve tried that approach. When one of them is as hypersexual as Mikey, it’s a hard reality.
I'm not stupid or delusional about that.
“I think it just ends once he leaves,” I blurt out.
Mikey shouldn't have to say it. I don't want him to feel bad or like he's hurting my feelings.
And I’ve needed him to know for a while now that I’m not a kid. I didn’t have these big dreams of the kind of couple we could be. Admittedly, there were the usual sort of fantasies I have when I'm messing around with someone, especially for as long as we were, but I'm a realist, and I know no guy as amazing as Mikey could ever really wait around for someone like me. I would never expect him to.
