“Trev, hurry up!” Gabe yelled across the store, earning him a few startled looks and a couple of glares from other shoppers. I nearly hollered back but then remembered we were adults in public and acted like it. I ambled back to the furniture section, still playing it casual. Gabe was spread across an oversized chair, scrunching his nose when he took a whiff of the upholstery. “It’s gonna need some spray, but I think it’ll work.”
The chair was ugly as sin. Burnt orange with what I really hoped where soda stains all over. If this had been cleaned before being put on the sales floor, I didn’t want to know the condition it was donated in. “Gabe, it’s hideous.”
“We’ll order a slipcover for it,” he suggested. Like it or not, the chair was going home with us. “A bit of Febreze and a cover, it’ll be perfect for movie nights. Come on, try it out with me.”
“I’m not cuddling with you in the middle of the store, you idiot.”
“Why? Too good to snuggle?”
“In public, yeah. Just because we’re away from home doesn’t mean we need to put on a show wherever we go.”
“Hey, you’re a poet.” Gabe chuckled, mistaking himself for a comedian.
“Let’s go, Joker.”
“Man, you keep calling me names. Keep that up and I might start thinking you don’t love me anymore.”
“You’re assuming I loved you to begin with,” I teased, doubling over when he stuck out his bottom lip and acted all sad. I knew he was playing around, but those three words had been off-limits before, and the first time either of us put a name to what we felt for one another, I didn’t want it to be a joke in the middle of a thrift store. I pulled him out of the chair and yanked the tag off the arm. “You’d better hope that thing fits in the back of the Jeep. And wewillbe covering it with a blanket until we find something better.”
“Trev, we’re college students. I think it’s a rite of passage that we’re supposed to have shitty, ugly furniture. Years from now, we’ll look back at the pictures of our first dorm and it’ll be a mark of pride to see how far we’ve come.”
“Awww, you’re getting all sappy. Better be careful or people are going to start saying you have a heart.” Gabe elbowed me in the ribs, jostling me into a little old lady with her shopping cart. I reached for her elbow before she could fall over. I tried to apologize, but she was already storming off, well, as much as little old ladies with canes hanging off the edge of their shopping cart could, muttering something about damn kids having no respect for their elders. “Great, you know we’re going to run into her when our parents are down for a visit and she’ll tell my mom what a disrespectful twit I am.”
“Trev, for some reason, I don’t think she runs in the campus circles.” We waited for our turn in the checkout line. Gabe stilled my hand when I reached for my wallet. “You grabbed all my textbooks for the semester, I think I can handle the smelly chair. Take it off what I owe you.”
“Deal.” I loaded the rest of the stuff I’d picked out onto the conveyor and told Gabe I was going to bring the Jeep up front. It only took a quick look in the back to realize we’d made a huge mistake buying the chair. There was no way it was going to fit, even with the seats folded down.
Gabe bounded out of the store with my bounty in one hand and a huge grin on his face. “Good news. They’re used to stupid college kids and offered to deliver the chair this afternoon. I told him I’d give the driver a twenty if he can get it there within the hour.”
“That’s mighty generous of you.” He may not think ahead often, but it seemed he was more prepared for this shopping trip than I was. He had to have figured anything we bought would have to be delivered.
“Nah, I just have a good reason to want that chair in our room and set up. Someone promised me cuddle time this afternoon.”
“Uh, pretty sure that’s not what I said,” I argued, though there was no strength to my protest.
“If you’re expecting me to be civil to people tonight, I’m going to take a nap this afternoon. And that chair won’t be any worse than the bed.”
“Still failing to see what this has to do with me,” I quipped as Gabe got behind the wheel. Dad freaked when he found out Gabe drove the Jeep more often than I did, but that didn’t stop me from preferring the passenger seat. I drove when we were likely to hit traffic, only because I was more patient than Gabe, but I preferred riding shotgun most of the time. That way, I could get lost in my thoughts without accidentally plowing into a pack of pedestrians or something.
Gabe placed his hand over my knee and slid his fingers up my thigh. This new, more affectionate version of Gabe wouldn’t take much to get used to. I’d often wondered if he’d be as restrained once we moved out. Turns out, he had absolutely no problems showing?—and telling?—me how much he wanted me. Last night, we’d lay in bed doing nothing other than cuddling while we talked about our plans for this semester.
I’d expected him to want more, but I think we were both wiped out from the long day and savoring the fact that wecouldlay tangled up in one another’s arms without having to listen for Mom or Aunt Gwen coming to check on us. It was entirely possible all our sneaking around was for nothing and they at least suspected there was something more going on between us than friendship. How could they not realize it when every day became a bit harder to keep our hands to ourselves? Had they not mentioned it to us because they didn’t want to put ideas in our heads? Would they be disappointed when they found out we’d been lying to them for the past year? Would they think it was unnatural?
Neither set of parents had ever tried to fill our heads with hateful ideas about homosexuality, but that didn’t mean they were accepting, either. My own mom was very much the type who kept her thoughts to herself if she felt they were uncharitable. And even if they were cool with people being gay in theory, that was much different than finding out your son is gay and shacking up with someone you view as a son. They’d always joked how we were more like brothers than friends, which made it that much harder for me to fully embrace how I felt about Gabe.
“You’re doing that thinking thing again,” Gabe pointed out when he pulled up to a red light. He gave my knee a gentle squeeze and I offered him a weak smile. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer. Just close your eyes and try to not think about anything until we get back to the dorm.”
“Okay.” I took his suggestion and quickly drifted off, waking up to Gabe gently shaking me. We walked from the parking lot to the dorms close, but not quite holding hands. I wondered if we’d eventually reach the point where it felt natural to lace our fingers together the way other couples did. Iwantedto be like everyone else, but it was easier when Trevor took the lead.
* * *
Followinga nap in the cramped bed because the delivery guy couldn’t make it out until late afternoon, we headed down to Wrightsville Beach. I wasn’t fully prepared for how many people would be there. Being the more introverted of the two of us, it didn’t take long before I grew overwhelmed and suggested we head back to the dorms. It shocked me when Gabe asked if we could stay a bit longer before disappearing into the sea of coeds.
By the time I caught up to him, he’d found his people. It didn’t take a genius to realize the guys he was chatting up were athletes, with their proudly displayed abs and backward baseball caps. Gabe stilled, turned to me, and he grinned broadly as he waved me over. In the middle of the pack, I saw a friendly face.
“Trev, you remember Chris from move-in, right?” I nodded, awkwardly reaching out to shake his hand. “He was telling me about the intramural softball league, trying to get me to join.”
“You should,” I encouraged him. He’d dreamed of getting a baseball scholarship, but that hadn’t panned out. It sometimes concerned me that he’d pretty much hung up his glove following his last high school game.
