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Adam rolled his eyes. “So, how did it go?”
I shrugged. “Pretty good. Kinda weird, but the lights are so bright, you can pretend nobody else is there.”
“Apart from Jefferson,” he suggested, a teasing note to his voice.
“He was there for moral support,” I said, tightly. “And to give me a ride home.”
“And to watch you jerk off under the spotlights,” Adam added.
“If you wanted specifics,” I told him, airily, “you should’ve come along.”
He rolled over, onto his side. Head propped on one bent arm. The room was warm, not that I was complaining about that. Warm enough that Adam had decided to strip down to his underwear at some point.
“Come along to a twenty-one-or-over club,” he said, with a look. “You think they’d have let me in?”
It was, I knew, a rhetorical question. Just like I knew - like we both knew - that had Harvey been aware that I was a not-quite-nineteen-year-old freshman, he’d have told me I couldn’t perform in Brayden’s place. Or, at least, that’s what he should’ve told me.
I had my doubts about just how much of a stickler for the rules Harvey would be.
Still, easier to allow everyone the plausible deniability that came from letting them think I was a senior, too. A peer of Brayden’s, not just his lil bro on the team. What Harvey didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
“How did the outfit go down?”
I had to smile at the forced casualness of Adam’s question. Maybe, if you hadn’t lived with him in a tiny dorm room for months - or, maybe, if you hadn’t come back to that room more than once to find him jerking off with your wrestling singlet clamped across his face - you’d be taken in by that thin veil of innocence.
“Oh, it seemed to work out.” I busied myself on my side of the room, slyly glancing over at my roommate where he bit his lip.
“The... the jock was a hit, then?”
I figured I’d answer him, but only after pushing my shorts down first. Not even pausing after that, as I pulled the shirt up over my head.
When I looked over again, it was to find Adam’s eyes were locked on me.
“People seemed to like the jock,” I confirmed. “It was a good choice.”
He nodded, clearly distracted.
“Wish I could’ve been there. To... I mean, for moral support, y’know.”
“I know.” I grinned at him; his gaze at my crotch broke just long enough for his eyes to flit up and see it.
“And Jefferson...”
So many ways to end such a question, and some of them landing on my own, still-unaddressed annoyance that he’d sent me to bed like a kid past curfew. The fact that I knew he was right - that when my alarm blared in just a few hours time I’d regret every minute longer I spent not sleeping now - only made it more galling.
“I’m gonna quickly shower,” I said, opting to bypass altogether the array of answers possible. A quick shove sent the jock strap tumbling to pool around my ankles. I kicked it up into the air so that I could catch it, then tossed it at Adam. “Put this in the laundry basket for me?”
Without another glance - mainly so he couldn’t see, and be left indignant by, my amused smirk - I pulled a towel around my waist and set out for the bathroom.
Chapter Eleven
There were six bedrooms on our corridor, each a double. And unlike Clay - whose small room in the international dorms came with the luxury of an en-suite - that meant sharing a bathroom with eleven other guys. It was late, and a weeknight, but past experience meant I knew I might not have the room to myself.
The air was still thick with lingering steam when I pushed the door open. All four of the shower cubicles empty, but the floor still wet. Clearly I’d not long missed one of my floor-mates.
Hanging my towel on the row of hooks, I twisted the faucet in the first cubicle. For all the morning bottleneck that the shared bathroom could become - depending on who cut it too close, their alarm to their first class - the seemingly-endless supply of hot water meant I didn’t feel too profligate simply standing there underneath the spray. Needles of it pounding into my shoulders and along my upper back, as the sweat and grime of the club - and whatever else might still be lingering from my performance there - began to rinse away down the drain.
There was shampoo in the dispenser on the wall. I preferred the scent of what was in the locker room showers, though I had to concede that the company there was probably putting a thumb on the scale.
