College went by just like that. Freshman year, sophomore, junior, senior... Who can even remember what happened during those years? Most of them were spent passing out at house parties after having too many tequila shots anyway.
Oh, and Leon. Oh Leon...
Maybe he was the reason why college was such a blur. The memory of our time together had been drilled so deep into the recesses of my mind that it obliterated everything else. I stroked and sucked that magnificent dick of his with such gusto that I could almost draw it from memory. I lapped up so much of his cum that I tasted it in my dreams. If I closed my eyes, I could feel the sensation of having him on top of me, thrusting deeper and deeper...
If only things didn't end the way they did.
Not long after our second encounter, I went for a weekend away with my family and came back to our dorm on a Monday to find all his things gone. There was no explanation at all, not even a note or a text. I tried contacting him several times but never got a response. A week later, I received an email from the school telling me that I had assigned a new roommate. You can imagine the huge jolt to my system when a fat guy entered the room later in the semester and began talking to me about Jesus.
I had no idea what happened. We lost contact altogether and he disappeared from social media completely. It was almost like he never existed. I'd convinced myself that he died. That was the only reasonable explanation for it.
Over the next few years, I hooked up with several guys here and there. I also went on a couple of dates, but all of them simply paled in comparison. Leon had ruined me for life. I just couldn't connect with anyone else sexually on the same level. Maybe their dicks were just too small. I don't know. I never thought of myself as a size queen until I met Leon.
Many months after graduation, I got my first job at a tech startup that helped politicians with fundraising. It was not an easy job market to enter. Numerous companies rejected me before I lucked out and landed this one. We were a small and lean company, but we managed to achieve tremendous success in just a year. I was so busy with work that I hardly had a life, much less any time to go on dates or even one night stands. One Friday afternoon, our CEO Emilia, called a company meeting to celebrate.
"I am so proud," she said while popping a bottle of champagne. "As a result of all your amazing work, I'm happy to announce that our company is growing and we are adding more people to the team. We have three new hires starting on Monday!"
After the cheers, celebrations, and even more champagne, Emilia called me into her office for a private chat.
"Nathan, one of our new hires is fresh out of college, so I'm going to need you to be his buddy for his first few weeks. Can you show him the ropes?"
"Sure, I'm happy to," I said. "Are we getting another designer?"
"No, he's going to join our engineering team."
"Oh! Wouldn't it be better for one of the other engineers to do that then? Not that I mind, it's just that I don't know anything about coding."
"Don't worry about that, Chrissy will be his manager so she'll take of all that stuff. I want you to talk to him and make him feel welcome, that kind of thing."
"So... you want me to be his friend?"
"Yes. You're about the same age as him so I figured you'd be the best candidate. Can you do that for me please?"
"Of course." I forced a smile.
After our meeting, I walked over to Chrissy's desk to complain. She was my office hag and our daily bitching sessions were usually the highlight of my day.
"Em is forcing me to befriend one of the new guys. Can you believe that?" I rolled my eyes. "Why didn't I get special treatment when I joined?"
"He just moved here from Texas and he doesn't know anyone here, so I think she's afraid he won't fit in."
"He's from Texas? Great, so I have to babysit some hick for a week? He's probably some ultra conservative nut who's gonna hate me."
I was in the foul mood for the rest of the day. Emilia probably sensed my annoyance and told me I could expense my lunches with the new guy next week. That helped a tiny bit.
Soon, Monday morning rolled around. I was still half asleep when I pulled up in the parking lot and lumbered over to my desk. I had been up late the previous night watching reruns of Project Runway after downing an entire bottle of wine. The only thing that helped in the mornings was a giant cup of Starbucks iced latte. As I took a large gulp, I heard Emilia's sing-songy voice echo from down the hall. She sounded like she was giving a tour of the office.
I turned to look and spat coffee all over my laptop.
It was him. Even with his newly acquired stubble and crew cut, there was no mistaking that gorgeous face. In fact, Leon looked even better than he did five years ago. How was that possible? Maybe it was that scruffy look - it was definitely working for him. But what the hell was he doing here?
And then it hit me. He's one of the new hires.
Oh my god. I looked down at my desk and realized that it was completely drenched in brown liquid. Crap! I grabbed a box of tissues nearby and tried frantically to clean up the mess as they made their way toward me.
"And here is our wonderful graphic designer, Nath-"
Emilia stopped and stared at me in surprise.
"Oh dear, what happened to you?"
I gazed up at them sheepishly.
"So sorry! I was having my morning coffee and felt a sneeze coming. Unfortunately I wasn't able to swallow in time."
Leon and I locked eyes immediately. He had one eyebrow raised and looked just as surprised as I was. Clearly, he had not missed a single workout over the last five years. I could clearly see the outline of his broad chest and enormous biceps underneath his overstretched black t-shirt (engineers never dressed up.)
"I guess we caught you at a bad time," Emilia stifled a laugh. "As I was saying, Nathan is our in-house graphic designer. Despite what you see in front of you right now, he is actually the one responsible for making our products look beautiful."
I caught a glance of my reflection in the laptop screen. I hadn't bothered to style or even wash it before leaving the house, so my hair was a greasy tangled mess. My cheek started to get hot and my stomach turned. This was not how I imagined meeting Leon for the first time again in five years. I had never been so embarrassed before in my entire life. How could this possibly get worse?
"Leon, Nathan will be your buddy for the week!" Emilia said.
Great. Just... great.
"Since you're new to town, I figured you would need someone to show you around," she continued. "Nathan is a native Angeleno, so he knows where all the good food is. In fact, he grew up-"
"- right here in West Hollywood." Leon finished her sentence. "I know."
Emilia's eyes lit up. "Do you two know each other?"
"Yeah, we met a couple of years ago when I did my first semester at USC," Leon said. "We were uh..."
"Roommates," I said. "We were roommates."
"Oh wow, what a coincidence!" Emilia said. "I am so glad. Well, this should work out perfectly. You will both have plenty of time to catch up. Now, let's keep going..."
They continued down the hall towards Chrissy's cubicle. I breathed a sigh of relief and sank into my chair. I never thought I would see Leon again, yet here he was, all six feet of him just casually strolling about at my place of work.
What happened to him all these years? Why did he stop contacting me? And why did he decide to come back to LA? What the hell was he doing here? I had so many questions.
It was the longest Monday morning I had ever experienced in my entire life. The newbies spent the first half of the day with HR and signing a bunch of paperwork, so I only got to see Leon again during lunch. He came walking towards my desk around noon, bringing that familiar aroma of sandalwood and lime with him. I guess some things hadn't changed - he still wore the same cologne.
"Hey man, how are you?" His tone was warm and friendly. "Haven't seen you in a while."
"Other than the fact that I've decided to stop drinking coffee forever, I'm doing good! How are you?"
"Hungry. You wanna go grab something to eat? Emilia said you're buying me lunch this week."
"Yep. You wanna try Hugo's? It's just down the street."
"Lead the way."
We started off with some small talk over eggs and sandwiches. After getting the pleasantries out of the way, he revealed that his dad had fallen ill during our first semester. It all happened really quickly and he eventually had to withdraw from USC and move back to Austin to take care of him. He ended up taking a year off and getting a job at a local gym to make ends meet. His dad made a full recovery, but Leon didn't want to be far away from him in case something else happened, so he applied to UT Austin and got accepted. He didn't have any plans to return to LA, but after a chance meeting with Emilia, who was an old family friend and happened to be in Austin at the time, he was offered a job at our company. As a result, he and his dad relocated to LA.
"I'm glad your dad is ok," I said. "How is he liking the city?
"It's a bit of an adjustment, but I think he's doing well. He loves the beach."
It only took one lunch for all the awkwardness I experienced earlier to dissipate. It was nice, but not once did either of us bring up what happened between us. I didn't think it was appropriate anyway, but he was acting like it never happened. Since we were coworkers now, I was happy to play along. Emilia wasn't fond of office entanglements, and I couldn't risk losing this job. But every time I looked into his intense brown eyes and caught a whiff of his intoxicating scent, I felt something stir within me. His new unshaven look made him even more irresistible. It didn't take much for all the old familiar feelings to come rushing back
This made the next few weeks even harder than I thought. Chrissy had to tend to an emergency, so I ended up being in charge of Leon's entire onboarding process. As a result, we spent a lot of time together. One afternoon, I was in the midst of teaching him how to use our HR system when he interrupted me.
"I just want to say thanks for showing me the ropes."
"Oh, it's no problem. Believe me, it took me awhile to figure everything out."
"I appreciate it." He smiled and placed his hand on my thigh for a microsecond before retracting it.