“And you know, maybe get laid. It’s not like you to go on a cold spell. Come with me to Tish’s party this weekend. Have some fun, get back toyouwhile you move on from this.”
I let out a sigh because I know he’s right. There are so many things I need to be focused on, and pining for someone who isn’t interested is a distraction I can’t afford. I have a handful of weeks left before everything changes. Darryl flies out for the Midwest the day after Tristan, Qi, and I leave home to move in here. After that, I’ll have football, classes, parties, and plenty of distractions. And maybe he’s right. Maybe I won’t be so hard up about this whole thing if I weren’t so hard up in general. It has been a while since I blew off some steam, and it probably isn’t the worst idea.
“Yeah,” I nod at Darryl.
Darryl’s face spreads into a wide grin. “Yeah, you’re in?”
I chuckle a bit at his enthusiasm. “Yeah, I’m in.”
“Do you think we should invite Tri-” Darryl starts to ask, and I vehemently shake my head.
“No!” I interrupt him.
Tristan and Qi aren’t big partiers to begin with, and Tish’s parties arewild. I don’t think Tristan would forgive us if we invited them to one of her parties.
“There will be plenty of mixers and parties that will be more Tristan and Qi-friendly without having to invite them to one of her parties.”
Darryl grimaces. “Fair point. We’ll make it up to them then and have a bro night with just us guys another night.”
A heaviness hits my chest at the reminder of what this summer represents to us. The final paragraphs in the chapter before we turn the page and start a new one.
“Lots of bro nights this summer,” I breathe out with a bit more melancholy than I meant to.
Darryl snorts. “It’s just during the semester. I’ll still be back for holidays and breaks and shit,” he reassures me.
I shrug at that. “Yeah, but with football schedules and practices, those visits will dwindle until it’s just a few weeks in the summer.”
Darryl turns and faces me, his eyes snagging mine with a probing gaze. “You’re being pessimistic; it’s not like you.”
“I’m being realistic, which is completely like me,” I counter.
Darryl frowns. “Whether you’re right or wrong. We’re gonna always be the same, man. No time or distance can break this bond.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I know that. I just– it’s not gonna be the same.”
“No, it’s not. It’s called growing up. Life changes, we change, but there are parts of us that will always be the same, and this is one of them,” he points out logically, and I know he’s right.
I don’t know why my head is such a mess. I think I’m just overwhelmed with everything changing and moving, and I don’t know if I’m ready for all of it. But I also don’t want to bog him down or make him feel guilty for leaving either, so I shove it down.
“Since when are you the wise one?” I tease.
Darryl just snorts and rolls his eyes. “You can’t be wise all the time.”
I laugh at that and nod my head towards the door. “Come on. Let’s go scope out the campus a bit since Barry won’t be back until the morning. Might as well kill some time and have some fun.”
The summer played out exactly as I hoped it would. The guys and I hung out every moment we could spare. Sometimes it was just the three of us. Sometimes Qi joined in, sometimes Pax and Owen too, and on a few rare occasions, Qiang would join us.
There’s a firm barrier between Qiang and me now. The easy conversations that flowed in the beginning are long gone, and it’s rare for us to be close to each other. Even when the group got together, they made sure to keep a solid distance between us, which I’m not sure if that helped or made things harder.
The nights Tristan stayed at Qi’s, Darryl and I scoped out parties. It was good times, and I wish I could say the distractions helped as much as I’d wished. But Qiang’s face crept in during moments they shouldn’t have… far more often than they should have.
A fleeting thought passed through that maybe this went deeper than just sexual attraction, but I knew I definitely needed to tamp that down even harder than the desire to just sleep with them.
They don’t want either, and while getting over losing a lay should be relatively easy, I don’t think I’m ready to face anything deeper than that, especially knowing it’s one-sided.
So I threw myself even harder into the distractions. They didn’t always work, but it got easier as the summer progressed. Honestly, I didn’t see much of Qiang, and it helped clarify and solidify my resolve as far as moving forward was concerned, knowing we would be roommates and, hopefully, at the very least, friends.
But now the part of the summer I got to spend at home is over. It’s time to start a new journey. One that’s several hours from home. I know I’ll be just fine, but I’ll miss my parents just the same, even though they’ll always be just a phone call away.
