“Good morning, gays,” Corbin singsonged at them once they were within earshot.
Al wished to destroy him.
Jude, it seemed, did not feel all that dissimilarly. His body language mirrored Al’s, his shoulders tense and his smile forced. He tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, and Al’s anger lit up like a lightning strike.
“Hey,” Jude said, either failing to sound friendly, or not trying to in the first place. “What’s up, how are you?”
“Terrible,” Corbin said with an accompanying dramatic sigh. “Have you checked your email?”
“Not this morning, no. Why? Is there a surprise test or something?” Jude immediately opened his cellular phone to pull up his electronic mail, which made Al’s anger turn to pure fury for just a brief second. Not at Jude or Corbin, but at the reminder that electronic mail was a thing that existed. The engineering professor had forced Al to make one in order to communicate, and there were so many stupid rules when it came to sending messages. There needed to be an adequate number of exclamation points to be polite, but not so many that the message sounded “unhinged,” as Jude had put it. You always had to conclude the messages with vague signoffs, such as “best,” which—bestwhat? “Best wishes” was what Jude had said, but that wasn’t any more specific, and Al felt so much hatred toward it that every time he wrote an email, he vowed to improve his telepathy skills so that he would never have to resort to something so inefficient again.
But he digressed.
“Our model for figure drawing class called in sick,” Jude announced, skimming through an undoubtedly vague and stupid electronic message from his professor. He looked at Corbin with a raised eyebrow. “So what? That just means we’ll have studio time to work on projects. What’s the crisis?”
“Thecrisis,” Corbin said emphatically, “is that our model for today was supposed to be Darren Roberts. The football player. He plays quarterback or running lineman or whatever, I don’t know sports, but he’sbeautiful, and now we’re never going to get to see what’s underneath his uniform. It’s atragedy.”
“Why do you care? You’re not even an art major. Last time we had a model you drew a stick figure and tried to convince our professor it was ‘minimalist.’ Did you pick figure drawing as an elective just so you could get off to hot strangers? Because that’s creepy as fuck.”
“Of course not. I’m not a pervert, Jude.” Corbin huffed. “I took it as an elective becausesomebodytold me it would be an easy A—which, by the way, was a goddamn lie, I hate drawing so much, it’s witchcraft—and the only reason I didn’t drop it was because it would be my chance to appreciate all of Darren Roberts’ muscles.Artistically!” he added when Jude scoffed.
“If it’s any consolation, he’s probably more upset than you are. I heard him bragging in the dining hall about how he couldn’t believe he was going to get paid to be ‘hot on main,’ and how he was probably going to give a bunch of art nerds a heart attack because we’ve never seen someone as ‘built’ as him that close in person.” Jude rolled his eyes.
“God, he’s such an asshole. I want him carnally.”
“Your taste in men is terrible.”
“I like my boys pretty and mean, what can I say?” Corbin shrugged. His gaze then landed on Al, and a suspicious grin slowly spread across his face. “You, however, Mr. Adler, like your boys sweet and sexy. Very, very sexy, with lots of curvy muscles that I’m sure nerdy art kids wouldloveto get a chance to draw.”
Jude looked at Corbin, to Al, and back again, and said, “Absolutely not.”
“What is absolutely not?” Al asked, frowning at the two men.
“We’re not bringing Al to figure drawing class to volunteer him as the model,” Jude told Corbin sternly.
“But you read the email,” Corbin said with an innocence no one would ever believe. “It said that if we had any friends that felt comfortable enough being a last-minute model, they’d pay them double.”
“Al doesn’t want to get naked in front of a bunch of strangers.”
“Looking likethat,Al should have the self-confidence to walk bare-ass naked through downtown Manhattan.”
“Al does not understand this conversation,” Al interjected.
Corbin snickered.
Jude sighed. “In our figure drawing class, the professor pays models to come get naked and stand in different positions for us to practice drawing them. It’s not as creepy as it sounds—it’s actually really technical, and most of the time you forget you’re even drawing a real person because you’re so focused on your art. It’s not that exciting, you wouldn’t be interested.”
“Hewouldn’t be interested, or do you just not feel up to sharing?” Corbin asked.
“It’s not that. I just know Al, and I know that he wouldn’t find it interesting, that’s all.”
“You do not always know what I feel interest toward,” Al heard himself say. “You told me the thesaurus was not an interesting sequel to the dictionary, but I felt very much interest about it.”
“We’ll unpack that one later, but see, Jude? Your weird boyfriend knows what he’s about.”
Jude made a face at Corbin that conveyed his wish for Corbin’s imminent death, making Corbin snicker again.
“Do you not feel desire for me to be naked for your class because you do not wish others to see me the way you do when we mate?” Al asked earnestly. Ignoring Corbin’s howl of laughter, Al fiddled with the end of his lanyard and searched Jude’s face for any sign that he felt—what, exactly? Possessiveness? Or anything that would prove he might feel a fraction of love for Al.
