I held my phone loosely in my hand. The screen: a dark picture of David's ass taken from over his shoulder, it's perfect curve and the slight dusting of hair. To put it shortly, it was a hot ass.
But somewhere in my chest, I felt more than just the regular excitement of getting snapped a sexy picture (which, albeit, was still a new experience for me anyway.) It was reminiscent of David and I's last encounter, where I was suddenly compelled to have him over and gave an incredible, quick blowjob. It was that feeling not just of excitement, but an immediate welling of courage to "go with the flow" - which was so against my natural instinct.
I followed that instinct as fully as I could. "Be there in 10?" I responded. Even just a few weeks ago, I'm sure I would have flaked and said something like "Oh, I forgot I have a project due tonight." But that newfound courage stopped me, and now I was turning back around and out of my dorm to make the trip to David's dorm. I was going to fuck some ass tonight, apparently.
I passed through the quiet lobby of The W, which per usual hosted a few clusters of boys and girls talking and laughing. I briefly wondered if that was supposed to me, but buried the thought as I headed out into the cold fall evening to meet my Grindr hookup for the second time. When did it stop being a hookup, anyway?
Zipping up my jacket and flipping the hood up, I walked out and followed the well-lit path towards David's dorm. Down the path though, I saw a familiar six foot body headed towards me before remembering that Henry had gone home to his parent's for the weekend. But as we were just about to pass each other, we met eyes and it looked just like Henry. Wait, it had to be Henry?
"Connor? Dude, I almost missed you. You look different with your hood up." Henry reached up and pushed my hood down, ruffling my hair. You can picture the feeling that gave me.
"Hen! I thought you would be halfway home by now." I was genuinely confused to see Henry, but delighted all the same.
"It's a long story, but basically I got an hour down the road and decided to come back. I can tell you about it over a late dinner, yeah?" Henry turned to walk beside me, and I scrunched my face up with the pain that was about to be turning him down. I'm not sure if I had ever turned him down before. For whatever reason though, I knew I'd have to pick David this time. Call it instinct from the harsh pain of lessons learned.
"Actually..." and I hesitated, considering again if I could bail on David, "I was going to meet a friend."
I saw in that moment the many times I had been hopeful and turned down before. I remembered asking a girl to homecoming my sophomore year of high school and she had answered in the same template: Ah, I'm actually going with a friend. There were more mundane times, like with Porter: Ah, I'm actually going camping this weekend...
I remembered that hurt feeling that I knew wasn't right (people could have other plans, it wasn't personal, it wasn't against me) - and I looked into Henry's eyes in that moment and didn't see any of it. None of the hurt or insecurity, just warmth.
"Hey, well, don't stay up too late and stay out of trouble." Henry winked at me. Who winked anymore? Was this still something people were doing outside of television? Should I start winking charismatically more?
"I'll try. Text me later? I'm interested in this family drama." I answered, still in awe of just how different Henry and I were.
"You know it. See ya, Connor." And with that, Henry was off into the night. I only stole one glance back at him. Just one.
David's dorm wasn't terribly unlike mine, a much newer building, but with shared rooms instead of a suite. The fanciness of a secured building meant that I was waiting in the lobby for him to come collect me to buzz me up to his floor.
Basically, just enough time for my stomach to turn in knots and wonder if it was still too late to just go home, watch a movie, and pretend I'd never even heard of the boy named David. With a few more minutes time, I might have even turned tail and run to find Henry, but then David peeked his head out of the stairwell.
"Over here! I'm up on three." David called to me. I saw a glimpse of half of his torso around the door frame. He was shirtless and showing off shallow pecs and a fine outline of dark hair. He held the door open for me as I approached, smiling. I took to heading up the stairs ahead of him.
"How's your evening going?" David asked, like we were making casual bar conversation or something. I actually loved that about him. Somehow, we were able to hook up like this and he never allowed anything to slow down long enough to cause friction.
"Oh, just fine. Just fine, I need to get some homework done tonight and..." I trailed off, realizing David probably wasn't too interested in my busy homework schedule. Taking my first few steps up the stairs to his floor, David laid a rough hand around my ass cheek and grabbed.
"You horny?" He asked, letting go of me as we walked up the stairs.
"Yeah. You wanna get fucked?" I asked. I had no idea where in my chest those words had come from, but they were there.
