Page 9 of Septembers

“Um, right. I’m not.” Dae’s eyes scanned the ground in front of him, as if afraid he was about to step on a crack and break his mother’s back.

Theo waited for more, but Dae stayed silent. “You don’t like talking?”

A shrug. “Just makes me nervous.”

Of course. It felt like Theo had drunk seven shots of espresso. It made so much sense. Dae wasn’t too annoyed to talk; he didn’t know how. This was social anxiety, wasn’t it?

“Jason and Caleb would underst⁠—”

“No.” He stopped walking. “Please don’t say anything.”

“Okay, if you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

Dae appeared to search for any hint of a lie, and Theo made his expression as honest as he could, which gave him a chance to notice the rim of light brown around the dark, almost black of Dae’s irises. They stayed that way for so long that his skin started to prickle with heat. Which was preposterous, of course. So Dae was objectively attractive; that didn’t mean Theo had to get all flustered about it.

He cleared his throat and backed up, absolutely not noticing the way Dae’s throat bobbed with his hard swallow. “Do you want to be friends with them?”

A nod.

“Then it’ll happen.”

Dae finally smiled in earnest. It was soft and brief, but it was real and unselfconscious. Theo thought he saw dimples, but the flash was too fast to be sure. He would’ve noticed them in school, right? Had he really never seen Dae smile? In all that time?

“You must know how to talk to people at least a little. You had a girlfriend in high school, didn’t you?”

“Oh.” His eyebrows came together as if he’d forgotten about the artsy girl he’d spent entire lunch hours with. “Um, Rayla did most of the talking.”

Theo nodded. “Makes sense.”

So, right, probably straight, then. And his roommate. Theo needed to nip this—who was he kidding, years old—crush in the bud before it became disastrous.

“Well, you can count on me. I’ll help you with friends, girlfriends, whatever.”

Dae’s nose scrunched, which was not adorable in the slightest. “I’m going to regret telling you, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely.” He bumped Dae’s shoulder with his and they kept walking. “But then you’ll thank me.”

This was good. Theo had never, not once, managed to mix romantic feelings with friendship without it ending in disastrous hurt. The last thing he wanted to do was turn their burgeoning roommate dynamic into something awkward and tense.

So. Yes. Good. Crush extinguished. All for the better. He felt great about this development, actually. So, so, great.

Everything was just really fucking great.

Learning is a Hoot!

The first day of classes was a mess. Theo and his roommates hadn’t worked out a plan for kitchen and bathroom use, resulting in knocked shoulders and yet another hip-check.

“Sorry!” Caleb put down the pan he’d been trying to flip a pancake in as Theo rubbed where his side had collided with the counter.

“It’s fine, but maybe use a spatula?”

“What’s a spatu⁠—”

Jason shooed him away from the utensil drawer and pulled it out, brandishing it like he was handing over Excalibur. “You have twenty seconds before I need this for my omelette."

His eggs were already sizzling in his own pan, the smell making Theo’s stomach rumble for something more than coffee. The hiss of the shower coming from the bathroom meant he had time before starting his own routine, so he sucked in his stomach, as if that would make a difference, and squeezed past them to grab a chocolate granola bar. Jason watched him, seeming like he was actively trying not to frown. He was taking a Bachelor of Kinesiology, which meant he knew exactly how unhealthy they were being, but Theo had made him pinky swear never to make this obvious observation out loud.

Caleb sputtered, spitting into the garbage as white goo oozed out of the middle of his pancake past the sad, melted chocolate chip smiley face.