4
Trevor
I was proud of Gabe.He was doing his best to not snarl at the constant stream of people in and out of our suite. Between Seth’s lost puppy dog routine and the fact it seemed like one of the guys on the other side of our suite?—Ayden, I think his name was?—knew half the student population, there hadn’t been much peace and quiet. Heck, he’d even relented last night and gone down to the welcome party for a while, even though he’d been pushing to stay back because the suite would be empty and we’d be uninterrupted, finally. But I wanted to get to know the guys who were going to be our neighbors, so he’d humored me.
The full college experience mattered to me, and it would also be easier to calm my mom’s nerves if I could assure her I was trying to be a bit more social now that I was away from home. I’d never quite qualified as the weird loner at school, only because Gabe made it clear to everyone that he and I were a package deal. I suppose that was meant to make me feel included, but in some ways, it made me feel even more pathetic. Like I was so lame I couldn’t make friends of my own and Gabe took pity on me.
I’d promised Mom and Dad I’d make my own way this year, that I wouldn’t fall into the security of letting Gabe make all the friends for us. And I wanted that. I needed to be my own man with my own life.
But how could I do that without Gabe thinking I was trying to push him away? All he’d been able to talk about this summer was how amazing it’d be to get to Wilmington so we could be together without worrying who knew we weretogether, but that didn’t fit with my plans. I wanted to be with him, but not all the time.
Like today. He wanted to hit the beach, but there was too much left to get done in the three days before classes started.
“Come on, Trev,” he whined, flicking the back of my head so I’d quit ignoring him. “We can go to the bookstore later. I wanna get down to the beach before it’s crowded.”
“We’re supposed to head down there tonight, anyway,” I argued. Tonight was a beach party for all the students. Each residence hall had activities planned for their residents, then the rest of the time was a big mixer. No way was I game for the beach twice in one day. Going now meant napping the afternoon away, and then I’d hate myself tonight for not getting anything done.
“Seriously? I thought we were going to stay in tonight,” he complained. I’d promised him we wouldn’t doeveryorganized activity the school had planned for welcome weekend, but this sounded fun. He loved the beach. I loved the beach. And it was a chill way to unwind and have a little fun.
“We don’t have to stay until the end,” I promised him.
Someday, you’re going to meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with,Mom liked to tell me. When that happens, the first lesson you need to learn is you’ll never be truly happy unless you both learn to compromise.My parents had been married twenty-six years, so there had to be some truth to her wisdom.
“Let’s go, have fun for a bit, and when we get back, you can help me wash off the salt and sand I’m sure will be everywhere.” Shower sex was one of those weird things Gabe used to fantasize about. I wasn’t sure it would work, logistically, but if it got him to quit sulking about being forced to socialize, I’d try just about anything.
“Promise?” Gabe sounded like a little kid angling for the toy he’d been coveting. “If you’re serious that we don’t have to stay the whole time, fine. We’ll do this your way.”
“Thank you.” I stood and kissed him softly before retreating to the bathroom, now that it was empty. I wasn’t sure who, but one of the guys from the other side of the suite seriously needed to learn that you couldn’t hog the can for an hour when you shared that toilet with seven other men.
The bookstore wound up testing my patience, both with the archaic process and with Gabe. The longer we stood there, the more restless he became. The more restless, the more he felt the need to point out he’d told me it was going to be a madhouse today and we should’ve come later. A haggard-looking store clerk opened another line seconds before we started sniping at one another in the middle of the store.
We handed the clerk our schedules and she wrote down where to find everything. She noticed Gabe’s impatience and retreated when he groaned about how this was taking forever. “Next semester, I recommend ordering online. That way, you can go to that line over there and they’ll have everything ready for you to pick up. It’s much easier.”
“Thanks, good time to find out we could’ve done that,” Gabe grumbled.
“Gabe. Chill,” I hissed under my breath. “Let’s get our books and then I promise we’ll go find you some caffeine.”
“Coffee can’t fix everything. I’m all peopled out. I want to go back to the room, turn out the lights, and forget there’s a world past our bedroom door.” He must’ve been in rough shape if he wasn’t pushing me to head to the beach. He was always at peace surrounded by the water.
“Soon. Promise.” Rather than the space I typically put between us, I inched closer until our shoulders brushed together as we walked. I wasn’t stupid; Gabe was just as frustrated as I was, but for different reasons. He wasn’t a patient man in any situation, and I’d been opening up to him at a glacial pace.
“You’re making an awful lot of promises today.” He chewed on his bottom lip, the unasked question clear in his narrowed eyes. The glimmer of hope that I wasn’t going to keep checking the brakes.
“And I intend to keep every one of them.” I was still nervous, but I needed to trust Gabe to take care of me the way he always had. When I thought of it that way, I was more than ready to say goodbye to my virginity. And sharing that moment with Gabe, knowing that it was just the two of us and neither could compare it to anyone else… that was everything to me.
Gabe reached for my hand, practically pulling me through the rest of the store. If I’d come alone, I would’ve browsed a bit to find some gear and trinkets to send back to Mom with our school colors, but I was pretty sure Gabe would have a coronary and drop to the ground if I deviated from the textbooks section. I hurried to get everything both of us needed for our classes and headed to the cashier. Gabe protested when I said I’d pay for everything, but calmed a bit when I promised he could give me cash later. Our books were all jumbled together and I was trying to get him out of the store quickly.
There was one more task I wanted to complete before we headed back to the dorm. This one, I was pretty sure Gabe wouldn’t complain about too loudly. I’d searched online last night and found a few thrift stores close to campus.
“What’re we doing here?” Gabe asked as I pulled into the parking lot of the first one. This was one Chris had confirmed was awesome for students trying to pick up furniture for the dorms. They worked with the university to host donation drives at the end of every school year, then cleaned the furniture and set it out when the new students moved in.
“Trying to make you a little less grumpy,” I told him as I pulled the keys out of the ignition. “The sooner we find a chair or something for the room, the sooner we can start having movie time.”
“You do realize, from this point forward, movie time is going to be a euphemism for sex, and that’s gonna be hella awkward when we go home for breaks and Dad asks if we want to hang out in the den and watch movies.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive,” I deadpanned. “Come on. The sooner we find a chair big enough for both of us, the sooner we can get home and test it out.”
Those were apparently the magic words, because Gabe raced to the door and was already halfway through the store by the time I walked inside. I shook my head and laughed, following at a languid pace, just to mess with his head. Along the way, I stopped to look at a set of storage containers that’d be good for reheating leftovers in our kitchenette, grabbed a few knickknacks that’d serve as a constant reminder of the beginning of our real relationship, and started browsing the racks of T-shirts to see if there were any I absolutely needed to add to my collection.
