He sighed softly.
“You coming out of there at any point?” I asked gently. “I got wine, too. We can still have our Netflix Night.”
“No.” Teagan’s small, quiet sniffle made me want to beat down the door to get at him, but I refrained, and after a moment, he added, “I’m not coming out. I’m going to stay in the tub until I die of exposure. They shall find my corpse here in the water, like Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott.”
As usual, I had no fucking clue what he was talking about. And also as usual, Teagan knew it. But the very fact that he was saying anything at all was a relief. I forced myself to sound casual.
“Was the Lady of Shalott kinda pruny and wrinkled, like grapes that have been sitting in the fridge for a week? Because that’s kind of how I’m imagining you.”
An outraged noise was followed by a loud splash and then the sound of water gurgling down the drain. The door opened so quickly I nearly fell forward into the bathroom, and my roommate, my best friend, my… myTeagan… emerged in a billowing cloud of steam, with one enormous towel wrapped around his hair and another, much smaller towel wrapped around his waist.
“You make a compelling point,” he said in a dignified way.
I nodded.
To be perfectly honest, I’d forgotten the point I’d been making the second I’d laid eyes on him. The smooth, creamy perfection of his skin where it flared over his hip bones, his high, sharp cheeks and pouty lips, the long, lean muscles of his body that I’d been salivating over while he was dancing with another man, were way too distracting. I wanted my hands on him. I wanted to know what the precise texture of his nipples was if I sucked on them. I wanted…
I am not going to have sex with my roommate.
I swallowed hard, praying for my cock to deflate, and the two of us stood in the hallway staring at each other in our first-ever awkward silence.
“Well.” Teagan cleared his throat and folded his arms over his chest. “I really could have gotten home on my own, but thanks for the assist. I think I’ll go to bed early. But if you leave now, Goodman might still be up.”
“Huh?” I lifted my gaze from my focused non-contemplation of Teagan’s nipples. “Who?”
Teagan rolled his eyes impatiently. “Gage, then. The guy you were dancing with.”
“Oh.” I shook my head and managed to say, “No, I… I’m staying in. With you.”
“Suit yourself.” He uncrossed his arms and went to slide past me, toward his room. “G’night.”
“No, wait!” I blurted. “Are you… is your hand okay? Did you hurt it when you fell?” I reached for his wrist, but he snatched his arm behind him.
“It’s fine. It hardly stings anymore.”
“Good. That’s… good. Did you, um… did you want to talk about anything? Anyone?” I gritted my teeth, determined to be supportive if it killed me. “Like the guy you went out with last night? I caught his texts to you when I was shutting off your alarm earlier. He seems very… passionate.”
“Yeah, right.” Teagan huffed out a half laugh. “No, I don’t want to talk about him.”
“T, please. Are you mad at me for leaving earlier? I was being selfish, and I’m sorry?—”
“I’m not angry,” he said bleakly.
“Thentalkto me!” I demanded. “Yell at me. Sing Sondheim at me. Recite haikus. Make today a holiday so you can refuse to celebrate it. Pour all your emotions into baking a pavlova, like you did that one time, and then drop it out the window. Give me one of your Teaganisms, like you usually do when you’re feeling sad. ‘I may never feel joy again, John!’ Or ‘Why are mortals born only to suffer?’ That one’s a classic. Anything, Teagan. Doanything?—”
“Jesus Christ, John!” He clapped a hand to his head to hold his hair towel in place, blushing furiously. “You make me sound deranged. I’m trying to deal with this situation rationally and not be as fuckingextraas I usually am. I’m trying to be normal for once.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” I yelled back. “You’re not normal, you’reTeagan.”
“Thank you! Delightful. It’s good to know what you really think of me.” He sniffled. “Jerk.”
What?
“T, that’s not what I?—”
“You want to know what’s wrong with me?” He threw back his slim shoulders and his lovely eyes filled with tears. “I’m broken,” he said, as serious and sorrowful as I’d ever heard him. He swiped at his nose. “And I don’t know how to fix me.”
He looked so small and sad that my stomach plummeted and I reached for him with both hands, heedless of all thereasons why that was a terrible idea. I drew his damp form against my chest and held him there, where he belonged.
