We were back in those dimly lit bathroom stalls. Robbie stood before me again, hurriedly shucking his jeans to the floor. He was pulling that thick cock from his underwear again and I felt like a magnetic force was drawing me forward. I sat with my back against the cool surface of the porcelain, grabbing Robbie's dick by the base and guiding it to my lips. As soon as our skin made contact, almost as if we'd set off a hair trigger, there was a thunderous rapping at the stall door. "Fuck!" Robbie whispered, pulling his pants back up. The fucker wouldn't quit though, and slammed against the door again in three quick knocks.
My eyes fluttered open in gasping panic and I was staring up at shitty white popcorn ceilings. My dick was residually hard but coming down when my door flew open and Henry poked his head in, grinning at me.
"Quit jerkin' off. You can't dodge me for another day, man." he said, sauntering in and perching on the edge of my bed as I stared at him in stunned silence. "Look, if you're avoiding me, you might want to give Dean more strict instructions on your visitor's policy, my friend."
"I'm — I wasn't dodging you!" I exclaimed, sitting up and thanking God as my boner receded. Henry had clearly come from the gym and was wearing a stringer tank so I could, from my angle, see his light-brown nipple slipping out. If it weren't for the power of my sheer force of will, this could be disastrous.
"Well, I've got three unread messages that would seem to indicate otherwise..." He said, smirking at me so I knew he wasn't serious.
"Dude, I met up with Alex last night," I announced in exasperation. Henry's eyes were immediately alight.
"You did?! That was fast. So you're saying your ass is sore, then?"
"What? No. I'm not sore," I justified, partially to him and mostly to me. In reality, I was hurting a good hurt.
"So he's sore?" Henry prodded.
"No. Nobody is sore," I said, clamoring out of bed and picking up a shirt. Henry wolf-whistled as I bent over. I turned to him and gave an exaggerated eye roll. "Yes, stuff happened. I don't kiss and tell."
"Even for me?" He gave me a puppy-dog frown.
"Even for you," I said, pulling socks and shoes on. "So remind me again why you're invading my privacy on this fine day?"
"I need breakfast and you're the only person who can be bothered to get out of bed before eleven. This is a visit out of necessity."
"Necessity, huh?"
"Yes. This is dire," hesaid as he steered us out of my room.
"Sorry, Connor! He said it was urgent!" Dean called to me from the couch, laughing. He wasn't sorry.
Henry was apparently considerably hungry, as we walked through the cafeteria and he loaded his plate. He wore a classic pair of black sweatpants and a backwards hat, succumbing to one of those grimy college days. Thin facial hair had grown over his jawline, softening his rough features. Watching Henry, even if all he was doing was loading up a plate, was a hobby in itself.
When we sat down though, morning light from the window framed his face perfectly. Not that he was acting particularly angelic, shoveling breakfast potatoes into his mouth and talking in quick and wild sentences about this girl and another girl. My chest tightened when he glanced up from his plate and grinned at me, having made some silly joke about pussy that I discarded immediately.
That boyish smile. In my mind's eye, I thought of these two interesting men in my life - like two photographs. Alex was a streak of light and color, flitting in and out of the frame in motion. No way, Alex Owens could hardly be described by vocabulary, let alone bound to a single, static moment. Last night, I laid awake in bed trying to pin Alex down to one person but he'd slipped through my hands like water. In my life of order and predictability, Alex was neither.
But Henry, he was a snapshot of life. He was your memory of a goofy fifth grade sleepover, or late-night bike rides on the Fourth of July. That was the feeling he could put in your stomach, and it was perfectly describable. You could throw him in an old cardboard box, dig him out three years later, see that friendly face glaring out of water-stained paper. Then you'd call him on the phone, and he'd bound out like a golden retriever to meet you.
My reverie was broken when Henry, mouth full, interjected, "Dude, your head is in the clouds lately. It's bumming me out."
"Ah- I'm sorry, Hen. Just have a lot going on right now," I muttered, sipping OJ to avoid the involuntary guilty grimace. And I did feel this real, raw, achey guilt. I owed Henry a lot more than absentmindedly eating breakfast and nodding my head. I really did.
"You know, I was going to tell you something really, really interesting but if it's not your priority..." he trailed off, goading me.
"What? What do you know?"
"Ah no, no it's fine. You probably wouldn't even care."
"Henry, don't jerk me around. It stresses me out."
"I know you're like, obsessed with Alex or whatever, but I heard an interesting rumor."
"A rumor? Not about me?" My mind was racing by now, and Henry was milking it. What would people even say about me?
"Well, I was sitting right in this very spot yesterday," he said in whispered tones, looking around, "when a strapping young lad rudely interrupted my dinner."
"What? Henry, you're killing me here."
"Oh and that's not all, he was looking for you. He said he might have written his number down wrong and wanted to meet up."
"What? And what did you say?" I smacked my forehead dramatically. Robbie. I'd forgotten to text Robbie.
