Elvis launches into the title number, all swagger and snarl, and I settle deeper against the headboard. Oliver’s room smells like him—deodorant and laundry detergent and something warm underneath that I can’t identify but want to bury my face in. His bed is unmade, the sheets twisted into a nest that suggests a restless sleeper, and there’s a framed photo on the nightstand of a younger Oliver with his arm around his mom. She has the same vivid green eyes.
“Pause,” Oliver says suddenly, reaching across me for the spacebar. His forearm brushes my chest, and I momentarily forget how to breathe. “Bathroom break. Don’t let Elvis do anything important without me.”
“He’s about to punch a guy.”
“Then definitely pause it. I love a good punch.”
Oliver rolls off the bed with athleticism and disappears through the door. His footsteps thud down the hallway, and I’m suddenly aware that I’m alone in Oliver Jacoby’s bedroom.
The realization comes with a curiosity I can’t quite suppress. I’ve been in this room a handful of times now, but always with Oliver present, always focused on him. Now, with Elvis frozen mid-sneer on the laptop screen and the hallway quiet, I let my eyes wander and take in more of the room.
The room is larger than I expected for a house that holds an entire hockey team. A full-size bed dominates the center, flanked by the nightstand and a wooden desk that’s buried under textbooks, loose papers, and a coffee mug with the BSU Barracudas logo. The walls are mostly bare, save for a poster of WayneGretzky that’s been taped up with athletic tape, and a small corkboard near the door pinned with ticket stubs, receipts, and—my heart stutters—a photo of the two of us. It’s from the fair, taken by Nathan. Oliver’s arm is around my shoulder, and I’m looking up at him with an expression so transparently lovesick that I want to crawl into the floorboards.
I swing my legs off the bed, my loafers touching down on the carpet. The desk draws me first. I don’t open drawers—I’m nosy, not invasive—but I study the surface. A sports management textbook, dog-eared and highlighted in three different colors. A spiral notebook with Oliver’s handwriting, which is still as atrocious as it was when he wrote our names on cardboard boxes turned space helmets. A small jade plant in a terra-cotta pot that’s somehow still alive despite what I suspect is an irregular watering schedule.
The bookshelf next to the desk holds a modest collection: a few hockey biographies, a dog-eared copy ofThe Shining, a book on cooking techniques, and—I pull this one out—a field guide to North American constellations. I flip it open. On the inside cover, in Oliver’s terrible handwriting:So I can keep up with Ryan.
My chest aches.
I slide the book back into place and move toward the closet. It’s a standard dorm-style closet with folding doors, partially open, revealing a row of hanging shirts—mostly polos and flannels—and a jumble of shoes on the floor. Hockey skates sit in the corner, their blades gleaming dully.
I’m about to turn away when something catches my eye. Tucked behind the skates, half-hidden by a fallen hoodie, is a small cardboard box. It’s plain, unmarked, the kind of box that could hold anything from old photos to spare phone chargers.
I should leave it alone. This is Oliver’s private space, and whatever’s in that box is none of my business.
I pick it up.
It’s light. I lift the lid.
Inside, nestled in what appears to be a clean washcloth, is adildo. It’s a bright green, made of silicone, smooth and curved, with a flared base. It’s not enormous, but it’s not small either. Somewhere in the range of five inches, maybe six.My size, I note.
My brain short-circuits.
I’m standing in my boyfriend’s closet holding his dildo. Hisgreendildo that he purchased, brought into this room, and used on himself. I try to imagine Oliver—my Oliver, the guy who holds my hand during walks and kisses my forehead—lying on this bed, legs spread, working this thing inside himself.
The image hits me so hard my knees almost buckle.
“Hey, so the toilet is making that noise again. I swear if Gerard flushed another?—”
Oliver stops in the doorway. His eyes drop from my face to my hands to the unmistakable green silicone object resting on my palm. The color drains from his face, then rushes back in a violent flood of red that starts at his neck and climbs all the way to the tips of his ears.
“That’s, um.” He swallows. “That’s not a—I mean, it is, but?—”
“It’s a dildo, Oliver.”
“Yeah.” He closes the door behind him with exaggerated care, as though the latch might detonate if mishandled. “Yeah, it is.”
I should be embarrassed. I’m standing in his closet holding his sex toy, and every social convention I’ve ever internalized is screaming at me to put it down, apologize, and change the subject to something safe. The weather. Elvis. Literally anything.
Instead, what comes out of my mouth is: “When’s the last time you used it?”
Oliver’s eyes widen. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. He looks at the dildo, then at me, then at the ceiling, as though divine intervention might save him from this conversation.
“Ryan—” He scrubs both hands over his face, the blush even more prominent. It’s cute, if I’m being honest. “Last night,” he mutters into his palms.
“Last night.”
“Yes.”
