Ethan waited until the guys left for the shower. He took off his sweat-soaked shirt and placed it in a plastic grocery bag before putting it in his locker. He slyly turned his head to glance behind him, wanting to make sure they both were fully gone.
Behind him, Greg strutted to the showers, taking wide steps that would’ve moved any guy to get out of his way. He removed his towel, and Ethan viewed the nicest ass he’d ever seen. Round, firm, everything he expected and more. You could bounce your entire piggy bank off that thing. A buzz of energy surged through Ethan’s body, giving his heart a real workout compared to the elliptical.
And then Greg looked over his shoulder.
Their eyes locked, and Ethan felt a police spotlight shine on him. He’d been caught! Was he staring?Oh crap! How long had that glimpse lasted?
Greg had no smirk, no eyebrow raise this time. And just as quickly as he’d turned around, Greg entered the shower. That two seconds stretched to an hour in Ethan’s mind. He couldn’t gauge Greg’s reaction. He’d seemed to be just as surprised as Ethan.
Heat burned up Ethan’s face, and all air escaped his lungs. He’d broken the number one of the locker room. There’s no way he could ever come back here. No way he could return to Constitutional Law. He might as well move out of state.
He changed into his clothes in a matter of seconds, shoved everything into his backpack and dashed out of there while Greg, thankfully, was still in the shower.
CHAPTER SIX
Ethan ran through the gym lobby and out the double doors. He almost knocked over an old man, presumably there to use the sauna. Why couldn’tthatguy have been in the locker room? Ethan never would’ve given him a second glance. Why had it had to be Greg? Of all eight thousand undergrads and five thousand grad students, why him?
The inner-campus shuttle stopped at the curb, but Ethan needed to walk this off. He forced one foot in front of the other at a clip, traveling down the riverfront path that ran through the heart of the North Campus.
He felt a tsunami of relief when he got to his dorm, safely nestled within South Campus. He bumped into a student in the lobby by the dorm lounge and exchanged quick hellos. If Ethan had been in a better mood, he would have gladly kept talking, but he used the “just came from gym/exhausted” excuse and charged up the stairs to his room.
And he locked the door.
He was home. Away from the gym, from Greg, away from the pitchforks and punches that were sure to come his way once it got out that Ethan Follett gawked at naked guys in the locker room.
“I wasn’t gawking!” he said aloud. It was a one-second glance to check if the coast was clear. And Greg’s amazing ass got in the way.
Amazing ass. Awful person attached.
He collapsed onto his bed and took deep, calming breaths he’d learned from a brief flirtation with yoga last year. He thanked the housing gods he’d gotten a single this year, the last one available in his dorm. Had he been one number lower in the lottery, he would’ve had to share a room with Malcolm Czerny, whose body odor entered a room three seconds before he did.
Ethan reached for his iPad under his pillow and searched for Greg online. He only had a little information, but that was enough to pull up the guy’s social media profile.
Greg Sanderson. Senior. From Short Pump, Virginia. A few seconds in Google Maps assured Ethan that Short Pump wasn’t hick country, but instead a well-to-do suburb of Washington, D.C. His profile picture was him skiing with his friends. He wore wraparound shades that somehow brought out his pronounced jawline.
Ethan made his way to the rest of the photos. They were all very typical pictures. Greg didn’t break the mold of rich fratboy; hewasthe mold. Ethan clicked through pictures of him at parties, him doing a kegstand, him on the beach. In all of them, he was in a group of at least five people.Lemmings.They travelled in packs. And to Ethan’s secret dismay, Greg was fully clothed in all of them.
One picture did stick out from the monotony. Greg was in an elementary school classroom, squatting next to the pint-sized desks and posing with two little girls. It was a sweeter side that Ethan didn’t know Greg was capable of at all.
He laid back on his bed. It was that four o’clock lull in the day, and he let his tiredness creep over him like a blanket. His mind flooded with different images, but they all came back to one.
Greg’s ass.
Ethan kept thinking about it, thinking about doing more than thinking about it. When you had a body like Greg Sanderson’s, it was meant to be ogled and objectified. Straight guys did this to girls all the time; now it was their turn.
Ethan’s lower half tingled, a sensation flooded through him. To one part in particular. Greg’s profile stared back at him from the iPad, and Ethan got lost in those brown eyes for a moment. They were dark and deep, like black holes that couldn’t help but suck Ethan in immediately.
Maybe Greg hadn’t even noticed Ethan looking at him at all.
What if he knew I was looking at his profile now?Ethan turned off his iPad just to be sure.
Φ
A burst of gold and orange setting sun flooded through his window, waking Ethan from his nap. He decided to go to the dining hall solo. His friends were busy with newspaper stuff on Thursday nights, so he was on his own. He wasn’t a fan of eating dinner alone. It brought back too many memories of lonely lunch days in the high school cafeteria. At least in college, kids drifted into the dining hall over a two-hour period, and many of them ate while studying or checking their phones. College dining halls were a place to eat, not a social scene.
He scooped pasta Bolognese onto his plate but then imagined his less-than-impressive physique next to Greg’s. He opted for salad and grilled chicken instead. And a caramel brownie. He could indulge alittle.
Ethan scoped out the scene in the half-empty seating area. This was college, he reminded himself. Nobody cared where you sat. He spotted some guys from his dorm at a table in the center, guys he knew and said hi to in the bathroom, but was he good enough friends with them to just walk over and join their table? Ethan wasn’t sure of the etiquette, and he didn’t want to risk the awkward looks if he asked.
