1
Ifreeze mid-combo, the controller going slack in my hands.
“Dude, why’d you stop?” Troy’s thumbs keep working his controller, eyes on the screen like he didn’t just say what he said.
“Wait, what?” I stare at him. “Run that by me again.”
“You’re letting me kick your ass.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Come on, fight back.”
The game sounds blur together. I’m staring at the side of his face, trying to make it make sense. Troy. My roommate Troy, who’s been through half the girls in our dorm. That Troy. I’ve known him for two years, and in all that time he’s never, not once, mentioned anything like this. He talks about pussy constantly. Shows me his Tinder matches. Had some Kappa Sig girl over two nights in a row last week. He’s a walking, breathing fraternity cliché.
I press a few buttons without looking, my character taking a fireball to the chest. “You’re bullshitting me.”
He finally turns to me, and the TV glow catches in his green eyes. There’s no joke there. No smirk waiting to break out. “It’s not that deep, bro.”
“Not that—” I set the controller on the couch between us. “Troy. What the fuck.”
“What?”
“You can’t just drop that and then go ‘what?’”
Troy shrugs his broad shoulders, pausing the game with a jab of a button. The screen locks in place, our two pixelated warriors caught in a standoff. “It’s not a big deal, Connor. I was drunk. I let a guy blow me. The end.”
His bare chest is red where he scratched it earlier, white socks hooked over the edge of the table like always. We’ve done this plenty of Sundays, sitting here in our sweats, playing video games until our eyes burn. Troy has become one of my closest friends over these two years. But right now, I feel like I’m looking at a total stranger.
“But you’re straight,” I say.
“Yeah. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Yeah, you know. Except when I’m balls deep in some dude.” He lets out a short laugh.
My eyes drop to the front of his sweatpants, to the outline bulging against the gray fabric. A shape I’ve never paid attention to before. I mean, why would I? You don’t clock another guy’s dick print and feel anything except the urge to look away. Right? But now that I know that dick has been inside a guy’s mouth…
“That’s fucked, man.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s so fucked about it?”
“It’s gay, Troy. It’s as gay as it gets.”
He lets out a loud bark of laughter that turns into a cough. “No shit, Sherlock. Did you miss the part where I said I let a guy blow me? Come on, Con. Keep up, bro. What are you, homophobic or something?”
“I’m not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s just… weird hearing it from you, man. You never said anything about this shit.”
Troy laughs again, scratching at the line of dark hair disappearing under his waistband. “You’re taking this way too seriously. I was just horny as fuck. Saw an opportunity. Took it.” He picks up the controller again. “Now are we gonna play, or what? I was about to whoop your ass.”
Whoop my ass.The words have a different ring to them now.
My eyes are still stuck on the print in his sweats. Why am I looking at it? I’ve lived with him for two years. We’ve changed in front of each other hundreds of times, showered with the bathroom door open. Our beds are close enough that I’ve heard him fuck girls while I was trying to sleep, heard him jerk off at night. There’s no reason for me to be staring at his junk.
“What kind of opportunity?” I hear myself ask. “Like, how does that even happen?”
“What do you mean, how does it happen? You go to a party, you drink a bunch of shitty beer, you get to talking. Next thing you know—” He gestures with the controller. “Boom.”
