After Gay Chapel had ended, he had seethed with fury. Fury towards the school for their bigotry. Fury towards Colton Langley for having triggered Gay Chapel.
Fury towards William most of all.
Matt felt like he had been set up. Betrayed. By William. He needed to find him and confront him.
Matt parted company with Paul, the only other gay freshman remaining on campus. The shared trauma of Gay Chapel had forged an unlikely bond between them. He felt bad abandoning Paul like this, but there was nothing more he could do for the kid at this time.
He asked Paul for his phone number, promised to call later. He reminded him that if anyone asked, Paul was tutoring him. Tutoring provided a plausible way for them to stay in contact.
Paul blinked awkwardly in the bright sun. He pushed his glasses back on his nose as a sort of farewell.
Matt skipped his afternoon classes and ditched soccer practice. He set out in his Jeep, Don Quixote tilting at windmills, searching for William off campus,when William was most likely to be in class. There was a certain madness in Matt’s method. Confronting William on campus would be messy and could have dire consequences. It was safer to search for him where he wasn’t than where he was.
Matt drove to Johnnie’s, site of their first date, looking for William among the elderly patrons and empty tables. He went to the country road where they had hooked up, aching at the memory of William inside him. Despondent, he showed up at the clubhouse at #24 Shadowood Court.
William wasn’t there either.
Evan was. Evan Montaigne, who had worn the Pirate mask during Matt’s interview for membership in the GM.
Evan was vacuuming, languorously pushing and pulling the machine in long, slow arcs. He was shirtless, wearing only swim trunks.
Matt remembered those washboard abs.
“Hey,” Evan said, looking up. He reached down and shut off the noisy machine.
“I didn’t peg you as a housekeeper.” Matt tried, but failed, to sound lighthearted.
“It’s on the schedule.” Evan jerked his head towards the entertainment center, inside of which was the binder with the club rules. “Something tells me you haven’t read those yet.”
Matt shook his head impatiently. “I’m looking for William. Do you know where I can find him?” He had not had time to read the rules. Now he didn’t want to. The rules had been written by William.
Evan studied Matt’s face, surely seeing the dried tears, surely sensing the hurt. “Is this about Gay Chapel? This year’s was the worst I’ve seen.”
Matt shook his head. “I made it through that because I was warned it was happening. No one warned me about Colton Langley and SGA—certainly not William.”
That was not even the worst part. Less than two days earlier, when they had all been in this townhouse celebrating Matt’s birthday and presumed election victory, William had told them Colton had been the person who ratted out Adam to the dean. That would have been an opportune time to tell Matt that Colton was president of the SGA!
No reasonable person could have expected Matt, a freshman who had been a student for all of two weeks, to know that information. Not telling him felt like betrayal.
Evan’s eyebrows rippled with expression. They were dark brown and punctuated his face like longer, wider versions of the hash marks the French use to denote pronunciation (l’accents aigu et grave). “I’ll get us somewine,” he offered.
He reappeared a minute later with two glasses of white wine. He handed one to Matt.
“Follow me.”
Evan led Matt upstairs, to the larger of the two bedrooms. It had its own fireplace and a king bed, which Matt had seen on his hasty birthday tour of the townhouse.
Matt guessed where this was heading. He steeled himself to rebuff Evan’s advances. Shaking hands was not on today’s menu.
Evan breezed past the bed, opened the French doors, and stepped out onto the balcony. He sat in one of two wicker chairs and motioned for Matt to take the other.
Matt sat, careful not to spill his wine, peeved by Evan’s disinterest in the sex he would have refused.
“I’m supposed to attend my first SGA meeting tomorrow evening,” Matt fretted. “What if Colton figures out I’m gay? Won’t he try to get me expelled too?”
Evan sipped his wine and savored it, mulling an answer.
“There’s no ‘if’ here,” Evan eventually said. “Colton will sense that you are gay.”
