SPRING SEMESTER
JANUARY 2016
1
Auggie got back to Wahredua tired and in a bad mood. It was mostly the travel—they’d taxied back and forth from the gate twice before finally taking off, and the extra time on the plane had made an unpleasant experience even worse than usual. The shuttle had been crowded with Wroxall students getting back from break. Auggie had recognized several of them, and he’d exchanged greetings with them, but he couldn’t join in with the excited chatter. It was dark by the time the shuttle dropped him at his apartment. The night had a cut clarity, buzzing with the orange smears of the sodium lamps, and the snow banked along the sides of the road was black and crusted. He humped his bag toward the stairs as he texted Theo.
In the apartment, Ethan was playing Xbox—Halo, again—and noises from Orlando’s room suggested that winter break hadn’t slowed Orlando down at all. For a kid who, the year before, had still technically been a virgin, Orlando had definitely made up for lost time. Auggie thought it had something to do with his family’s overall shittiness toward him and, more specifically, the tragedy from the year before. He thought maybe he needed to talk to Orlando about it. But why was it his responsibility? And what would he say, anyway? You’re having too much sex, Orlando. Have you ever considered having less sex? A guy was yipping, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” so Auggie added, Or at least having it more quietly?
“Is that my blanket?” Auggie asked as he hung his coat in the closet near the front door. His was the only one—presumably because his roommates had tossed theirs on the sofa or left them in their rooms. He hopped in place as he took off the boots from Theo.
Ethan glanced down at the enormous, fuzzy blanket across his lap. It was stained red in places, and red Takis flavoring coated the controller and Ethan’s hands. “Oh, sorry, my feet were cold—”
“Are you kidding me?”
Not waiting for a reply, Auggie grabbed the blanket off Ethan’s lap and dragged it behind him as he continued toward his room. He stopped when he got to the doorway. The door was open. The bed was a mess, and not only because Ethan had stripped the blanket off. Clothes and a heavy winter coat and a medium-sized duffel bag covered the bed. None of it belonged to Auggie.
He tossed the blanket on the floor and turned back to the living room. Ethan was blasting an alien in the face.
“What is that stuff on my bed?”
“Huh?”
“What’s on my bed? Whose stuff is that? Ethan!”
“I don’t know.” Some sort of missile was incoming, and Ethan twisted on the couch, as though he were the one in danger of getting killed. In a way, Auggie thought as he picked up the empty Takis bag, he was. “Ask Orlando.”
Orlando was currently being told to “Give me that cock” and “Load me up, yeah, fucking load me up.” Maybe if there’d been a secretary, or at least an intercom, Auggie would have buzzed in and tried to schedule an appointment between fuckfests. But since that wasn’t an option, Auggie settled for hauling the bag and clothes and coat out into the living room. He was about to head back when he spotted his Cardinals hat, the one Theo had given him, wedged between the sofa cushions.
Auggie stalked over to the sofa. He yanked the hat free and held it out at Ethan. If Ethan noticed, he gave no sign. He was tapping the controller manically, his face contorted with effort.
“Ethan,” Auggie said quietly.
Missiles exploded. Lasers pew-pewed.
“Ethan!”
“What, bro?”
“Did you take my hat?”
“Oh, shit. I was just about to put that back.”
“Don’t take my stuff without asking.” Auggie gave him a five count and said, “Ethan?”
“Got it. Totes.”
Auggie took the hat back to his room. He tossed it onto his desk. He dragged his bag inside. He dropped onto his bed, took out his phone, and glanced at it. No message from Theo, so he tapped out: I’m going to kill my roommates. Then whoever Orlando was giving it to began to yip again, so he pulled a pillow over his face.
His phone buzzed with a message from Theo. He inched the pillow back to see: I’m downstairs.
Great. You can kill them for me.
Theo didn’t reply, but a moment later, a knock came at the door, and it swung open. Theo stepped into the room, pulling off his watch cap to smooth back his hair, smiling. He hung his coat on the back of the chair, and then he sat down on the bed next to Auggie and kissed him.
“You’re cold,” Auggie said.
He kissed Auggie again.
“Hi,” Auggie whispered. “Are you here to do some killing?”
Laughing silently, Theo shook his head. His fingers worked through Auggie’s hair, and his voice was surprisingly thick when he said, “God, it’s good to have you back.”
Auggie nodded. He’d told Theo a story to explain the fight with Fer, and it had been partly the truth. But he hadn’t told him all of it, and so he couldn’t tell him now what it meant to be here again, with Theo. He just smiled.
“Hungry?” Theo asked.
Auggie shook his head.
“Thirsty?” Theo asked in a whisper, a hint of a smile under the beard.
“God, you have no idea.”
“I know classes start tomorrow, but I thought maybe you’d want to stay over. We could get breakfast at Big Biscuit before we go to campus.”
“You did not plan a sleepover because you were thinking about Big Biscuit,” Auggie said.
Theo got the most amazing blush, but all he did was shrug, and the smile got a little bigger.
“Could we do it tomorrow?” Auggie asked. “I’m so sick of living out of a suitcase, and I need to do laundry, and I’ve got to wash my blanket because Ethan apparently ate an entire bag of Takis while he was using it, and I’m going to be dead in class tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep.”
“You did tell me you sleep better at my place.” Orlando’s guest let out an ear-splitting squeal, and Theo winced. “Because of the noise.”
“Maybe you could stay over here,” Auggie said. He put his hand on Theo’s thigh and rubbed his thumb back and forth over the denim. “I missed you.”
Theo didn’t quite make a face, but it was there, under the surface. All he said was, “I didn’t bring any of my stuff.”
“You can borrow my toothbrush, and we’ll leave early in the morning.”
“Ok,” Theo said slowly, “but you did say you have to wash your blanket.”
Auggie sat up. “Fine.”
“Hold on—”
Scooting off the bed, Auggie shook his head. “No, you’re right. We’ll go to your place.”
“Auggie, jeez.” Theo pushed his hair back. “Let’s start over.”
Auggie knelt and opened his suitcase. Suitcase funk floated up around him as he tossed dirty clothes into a pile.
“Hey,” Theo said.
Auggie pitched a Jordan at the closet.
“Hey,” Theo said again, more firmly this time, one hand closing around Auggie’s arm.
Auggie looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” Theo said.
Auggie shook his head, but after a moment, he managed to say, “I’m sorry too.”
“Let’s wash the blanket first,” Theo said. “Then we can start the clothes and get some sleep. How about that?”
Auggie nodded. Then, in a small but hopeful voice, he asked, “Just sleep?”
Another squeal of pleasure crested in the next room, and Theo rolled his eyes. “Do I have to compete with that?”
“Definitely not.”
Theo smirked, squeezed Auggie’s arm, and stood. “Then I’ll see what I can do.”
He gathered the blanket and carried it to the laundry closet. Auggie finished unpacking, and he had grabbed his toiletry bag when Theo reappeared in the doorway.
“So,” Theo said, “you know how the worst sentence starter in history is ‘Don’t be mad’?”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Oh my God.”
“Your bathroom is kind of a mess.”
Kind of a mess didn’t begin to describe it. Auggie stared at the disaster. The mirrored medicine cabinet hung open, and everything on the shelves lay in a jumble. Auggie’s and Orlando’s toiletries were scattered across the countertop, mixed in with other items that Auggie didn’t recognize. Auggie’s hair dryer was on top of the overflowing trash can, and it looked like the cord had been ripped from the base.
“What the actual hell?” Auggie asked.
Orlando’s door opened, and Orlando stumbled out. He was naked, his dick red and only halfway soft, and bite marks and hickeys covered his chest and neck. One nipple looked like a chew toy. He stared at them, and then he said, “Hi, Augs. Hey, Theo.”
“Get some clothes on!” Auggie snapped.
With a soft smile, Orlando ducked back into his room. He emerged a moment later wearing a pair of black modal trunks that, stretched around his massive thighs, were almost sheer. In some ways, it was worse than being naked.
“I just gotta grab a washcloth—”
“There are no washcloths,” Auggie said, and he could hear his voice veering toward a scream. “This place is a fucking mess! What the hell happened?”
Orlando shrugged. “I was going to clean it up tonight, but, um, Jake—”
A waspish voice from the bedroom called, “Jay.”
Nodding, Orlando corrected himself, “Jay hit me up, and we’ve been trying to meet up forever, and it was perfect timing.” He scratched his chest and looked over his shoulder and then asked quietly, “Were we too loud?”
“No way, bro,” Ethan called from the living room.
Theo covered his face.
“You don’t even know his name,” Auggie said. “Great.”
“Hey,” Orlando protested mildly.
“Why don’t you walk this off?” Theo said, hand on Auggie’s shoulder. “I’ll straighten it up while you get settled.”
“No, Theo. You shouldn’t have to straighten things up. And I shouldn’t have to come home and find that my roommates have been taking my shit—”
“That was Ethan,” Orlando said quickly. “You know I don’t use that stuff.”
Auggie turned his full attention on Orlando. Each syllable brittle, he asked, “What stuff?”
“Uh.”
Theo looked at Orlando.
Orlando got a little paler. This time, he tried, “Um.”
Auggie did a quick scan. “Ethan, for the love of God, that hair clay costs thirty dollars.”
“Bro!” came the outraged cry from the living room.
“You’re buying me a new one!”
A wordless protest floated back.
“And a hair dryer!” Auggie shouted.
“That was, uh, Denise? That was totally Orlando!”
“She forgot it was plugged in,” Orlando said. “And she wanted to show me something, so she ran into the bedroom, and—”
Auggie held up a hand. He wrestled his voice down from a shout and said, “Stop. Just stop.”
“What time is it?” Ethan asked, which appeared to be a rhetorical question because then he shouted, “Oh shit!” and steps pounded toward the door, and the door crashed shut.
Auggie opened his mouth. He had a speech half-composed—the word himbo featuring prominently—and then horror washed through him.
His coat.
He squirmed past Theo and sprinted toward the front door. He didn’t even bother checking; the coat closet door was ajar, and Auggie knew his thieving roommate wouldn’t have hesitated an instant to grab Auggie’s coat. Later, he’d say it had been because he was in a hurry or because he wasn’t paying attention, and he totally understood that he was supposed to ask for permission, and he knew he needed to stop taking Auggie’s things without checking first.
In stockinged feet, Auggie launched himself down the stairs. He was vaguely aware of Theo calling after him, but in that moment, his frustrations had fused into this single, one annoyance. He couldn’t do anything about the fact that Theo didn’t want to spend time at his apartment, and he couldn’t do anything about the fact that Orlando was clearly having much more and much better sex than Auggie was, and he couldn’t do anything about Fer or Chuy or his mom. But he could get his goddamn coat back. And he was going to get it back, even if he had to club Ethan over the head, caveman-style.
He hit the rail on the last landing hard enough that he knew his hip would be bruised, but he rebounded and got down the final flight of stairs in time to see Ethan turning the corner at the end of the block. He could have been anybody—average height, slim, college-aged, dark hair—but the Arc’teryx coat was a dead giveaway.
Auggie hurtled after him, barely noticing the cold concrete under his socks. As he got close to the turn, he shouted, “Ethan, get back—”
Ethan screamed.
Auggie skidded around the corner, his feet burning with cold, and froze. Someone in a ski mask and black winter gear stood there. It took Auggie a moment to recognize the crumpled form on the ground as Ethan. And it took another moment to spot the knife. In the dark, covered in blood, it looked unreal, like a toy or a gag.
Theo called Auggie’s name.
The figure—Auggie couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, not in the dark, not dressed in those bulky clothes—turned and ran.
“Help!” Auggie shouted. He sprinted toward Ethan and dropped onto his knees. He couldn’t tell how bad the wound was, but there was a lot of blood. Auggie pulled out his phone and placed the call to 911.
“Auggie, what the—Jesus Christ.” Theo crouched next to him. Then, Theo turned himself out of his shirt and began wadding it up. He used the light from his flip phone’s screen to inspect Ethan. Auggie had only a glimpse of a deep, savage cut before Theo began packing his shirt into the wound.
“We need an ambulance,” Auggie said into the phone. “Someone tried to kill my friend.”
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