“I wasn’t watching her like that.”
“Sure you weren’t.” North finishes his Coke in another long swallow and crushes the can in one fist. The aluminum shrieks. He tosses it toward the wastebasket by the door. It bounces off the rim, rattles around, and drops in. “Three points! And the crowd goes wild.” He cups his hands around his mouth and makes a roaring sound. Then he scans the stack of boxes by the wall and finds the one labeled TV. “Let’s get this bad boy set up. There’s gotta be a game on somewhere.”
I shove the box with my underwear into the bottom of my closet. Maybe he’s right, and I should buy some boxers. Or boxer briefs. A compromise. Something that says I’m willing to let things breathe but not so much that anything’s flopping around.
He’s wrong about Staci McPherson, though. Yes, she’s pretty. But she’s way out of my league. And I wasn’t looking at her likethat. I was just watching. Observing. That’s what I do. I watch people. It’s why I’m good at drawing. I see things other people miss. The way she chewed her thumbnail between routines. The little furrow in her brow when she missed a catch. The slump of her shoulders when she thought no one was looking. That’s what I saw. Not her ass.
North is already wrestling the flat-screen from its cardboard prison, humming to himself. He hums when he’s excited. It’s like a human barometer for North’s happiness. Right now, he’s humming some pop song, completely off-key.
The room is small. Two beds, two desks, two closets, one tiny bathroom. Once the TV is mounted above my desk, we’ll be able to see it from both beds. I picture him with a girl in here, watching some action movie, his arm slung around her, her fingers tracing lazy circles on his chest. And me on my bed with headphones on, trying to read, feeling like a third wheel in myown room. The thought makes my stomach clench. Maybe this was a bad idea.
Maybe North and I are better in small doses.
But then he catches my eye and grins, that big, stupid, infectious grin that crinkles the corners of his eyes, and he says, “Dude, help me with this cord before I electrocute myself,” and the knot in my stomach loosens a little. We’ll figure it out. We always do.
2
The TV is mounted. It took longer than it should have because North insisted he didn’t need the instructions, and I insisted he did, and we spent ten minutes arguing about anchors before he just drilled straight into the drywall. “It’s fine,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. “It’s not like we’re hanging the Mona Lisa.” It seems secure. For now.
He’s sprawled on his bed, remote in hand, flipping through channels. Every third one is sports. He lingers on a women’s volleyball game. “Whoa. Look at the tits on number twelve. Damn.”
I don’t look. I’m unpacking my books. I have a lot of them. Fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels. I line them up on the shelf above my bed in alphabetical order. It’s satisfying. Orderly. The covers pop against the bland beige of the dorm wall. I could pull one down and get lost for hours.
“Seriously, Gav, look at this. They’re like two bald men fighting in a bag.”
I sigh and glance over. Number twelve is a tall, athletic brunette, and yes, her chest is impressive. I give a noncommittal grunt and turn back to my books.
“You’re the weirdest dude I know,” North says, clicking past the game. “Most guys would thank me for that.”
“I’m not most guys.”
“And that’s why I love you, ya beautiful weirdo.” He settles on some monster truck rally. Engines roar and crowds scream. “But seriously, you need to get laid. It’s not healthy to bottle it all up. You’re gonna explode.”
“Not everyone’s libido is running at a hundred percent, all the time,” I say, placing my copy of Dune next to Ender’s Game. “Some of us have other interests.”
“Like what? Sorting your books by color? Alphabetizing your spice rack? You’re like an eighty-year-old woman in the body of a nineteen-year-old man.”
“Reading,” I say, a little sharper than I mean to. “Drawing. Things that require imagination.”
“Hey. I have an imagination,” he protests, sitting up. “I’m imagining Staci on that monster truck right now, wearing nothing but a helmet. Her nipples would be so hard from the wind. It’s a beautiful image.”
I shake my head, but a small smile escapes me. “You’re a pig.”
“I’m a simple man, Gavin. Simple needs.” He throws a pillow at me. It’s a clean one, still in its plastic. It bounces off my shoulder. “Come on, take a break. We’ve unpacked the essentials. You know what we need to do now?”
“Unpack the non-essentials?”
“Nah.” North grabs his laptop off his desk and props it on his stomach. “Let’s see if this thing connects to the TV.” He messes with it for a minute, clicking through settings, swearing once under his breath when the Bluetooth won’t pair. Then the TV screen blinks and mirrors his laptop.
“There we go,” he says, triumphant. He navigates to a folder labeled “North’s Greatest Hits.” A few clicks later, a woman in a bikini top opens a front door. She’s blonde and tanned, and her smile is a little too wide. A guy in a baseball cap is holding a pizza box and looking confused. “Ma’am, did you order the extra large?”
“You bet I did,” she purrs. “But I’m not sure I can pay for this.”
“The fuck, North?” I stare at the screen.
“Classics, my friend. They don’t make them like this anymore.” He settles back against his headboard, hands behind his head.
“Are you seriously going to watch porn with me in the room?”
