It takes a lot for me to say, “I guess I need to be honest and tell you I don’t believe any of that.And if you expect me to start using WISP to spread that around, it’s going to be a hard no from me.”
This time, it’s Fields who waits.
“But,” I say, “if you want to know that I’m not who I was a year ago, or two years ago, or five years ago, well, I’m not.I didn’t like that person.I didn’t like a lot of what he did.Not for the reasons you gave, but that probably doesn’t matter.What matters is I’m trying to be a better person.”
Sam is clutching my arm.
“I’ve spent the last year cleaning up my act.I’m good at my job.I’ve got a great boyfriend.Fuck, Mr.Fields, I’m a fucking upstanding citizen, and let me tell you, nobody is more shocked than me.”
He laughs at that, and I’m surprised that I’m laughing too.
“WISP is important,” I say.“I hope you’ll support it.”And my throat is unexpectedly tight when I say, “I’m not perfect, but I’m trying to do better.”
“Invite him,” Sam whispers, and he pushes the stack of papers toward me, all his planning materials for the Greek Life outreach.
“We have an event coming up,” I say.“It’s at Wroxall; I know you already do a lot of good work there.Why don’t you join us?See what Sam and I are doing.Then you can decide.”
His breathing is soft and measured.And then he says, “I think I’d like that.”
I give him the details, and he disconnects, and I stare at Sam.
“Holy crap,” he says.
“Holy fucking crap.”
And we both start laughing.We laugh so long and so hard that it’s hard to tell—for me, anyway—if I’m actually crying.When Robin comes to check on us, the look on his face sets me off all over again, and when he slams the door, I actually slide out of my seat to lie on the floor.Sam’s right there too, his head on my stomach.
It’s a good night.
But it’s not just WISP.It’s not just the fact that somehow, against every reasonable expectation, we’re actually pulling this off.
Sam’s there for everything, all of it.Like he’s hardwired into my life.
We start going to the gym together.It’s an experience.Sure, because Sam is hot and because spotting him means standing over him, my dick hanging in his face—or for that matter, that big old donkey dick hanging overmyface when he spots me.And sure, because lifting weights gets all sorts of crazy endorphins going, and there’s something about Sammy with a pump, Sammy with a light layer of sweat, every muscle popping, that turns my crank.It’s not the first time I’ve had to adjust an inconvenient semi in this gym.But it’s definitely the longest.
It doesn’t help that I’ve been going to this gym for a while.That there are guys here, other guys, from before I’d stopped catting around, who liked it—in the showers, or in the sauna, anywhere we could find a moment of privacy.A few of them ignore me.Others, though, swim around me and Sammy like sharks, and all I can do is pretend not to notice.When Sammy finally asks me if I know one of the guys because he won’t stop looking at me, I play dumb because, for some weird reason, I’m embarrassed, and I don’t want Sam to know.I mean, heknows; it’s not like he’s an idiot.But I don’t want to have to tell him.I want both of us to be able to keep pretending.
There’s one day when we’re at the gym, and everything has been shit, everything, all day.Work has been shit—a woman who was trying to escape the station pissed herself, and pissed all over me in the process, and Palomo was riding my ass about some paperwork, and I hit a curb and blew out a tire because I was answering a call about WISP and I wasn’t watching the road.That wasn’t all—we had a mini-meltdown at WISP, too, with some mid-level Wroxall bureaucrat throwing a fit that we weren’t paying enough rent for the space they were loaning us, and one of our crisis-counselors-in-training breaking down during a call, and some micropenis must have followed his girlfriend to our offices because he came back with an airsoft gun and shot out half the windows.You want to see people freak out, start shootinganything—even a water gun—on a campus.It’s the worst day I’ve had in a long, long time.And that’s saying something.All the walls and rules and restraints I’ve put up for myself, I can feel how thin they are.Dysregulated.That’s the word.I am very fucking dysregulated.A year ago, that would have meant fucking or fighting—preferably fucking.And now it means—well, now it means trying really fucking hard not to do that.
But Sam still drags me to the gym, and there’s this part of me that wants to be angry with him, wants to be pissed off, wants to be grumpy.It’s hard, though, because all it takes is about five minutes of watching him for me to forget how shit everything else has been.He’s a fanatic about tracking everything.He’s got this packet he carries around with him—regular copy paper, with a workout tracker he’s printed off his computer at home, and he folds it up into eighths to fit it into the tiny pocket on his tiny shorts.He carries around a pencil too.Not a regular pencil.One of those little stubby things.A golf pencil.God only knows where he got it, but he’s got it with him every time we’re at the gym, and after every set, he takes out that little pencil and his packet and he makes a note, and then he sticks that pencil behind his ear and God help me, I amweakfor this nerdy White boy.I find myself wondering if he’d be even hotter in glasses.
When we finish working out, I’m not sporting a semi; I’m horny as fuck.All that bad mojo is trying to find an outlet, and apparently, it’s my dick, and I follow Sam’s tight ass to his truck.
He’s asking me something about dinner, and then he stops and looks around and says, “Wait, where’d you park?”
I give the handle on the back door a few suggestive tugs and say, “Open up.”
“Why?”
“Sam.”I tug on the handle a few more times.“Come on.”
He presses a button on the fob, and I climb into the back and call for him to follow.A moment later, Sam’s getting in next to me, a goofy grin on his face like he’s starting to suspect where this is going.
I barely give him time to shut the door before I’m pressed up against him, kissing him, kissing a line down his neck, rucking up his shirt so I can get my hands on his body.He’s laughing a little, squirming a little, saying my name.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” I say and then I attack his ear.Sam makes that little noise and melts under me.“God, even that stupid pencil.How the fuck do you make me so horny with that stupid pencil?”
“What pencil?”he tries to ask, but the words get cut off when I start playing with his nipples.I’m straddling him, and that big dick is starting to get hard.His breathing is rougher, and he’s not laughing anymore.When I bite his collarbone, he jolts, and then he moans.
