Page 2 of The Jock Next Door

“Yeah?” His eyes are wide, unfocused, pupils blown. He has one of those faces you’d want to draw. Dark skin, strong jaw, stubble that’s almost a beard but not quite. A clean fade, lined up sharp like he just walked out of a barbershop.

I open my mouth to say the thing I rehearsed in my head, the polite and reasonable thing, but what comes out is, “Um.”

His impressively thick eyebrows draw together. “What’s up?”

“Hi,” I manage. “I’m Nico. I live next door.”

2

The guy sizes me up. Then his whole face changes. A wide, lopsided grin spreads across it, and the sharp angles soften. His eyes focus on mine.

“Oh shit, neighbor! What’s good?” He pulls the headset off his neck and tosses it somewhere behind him. “I’m Trey.”

He sticks out a hand. It’s massive, almost twice the size of mine, and his palm is clammy, his grip firm enough to rattle up my arm. When he lets go, my fingers are tingling.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. My voice comes out higher than usual.

“You just move in?”

“Last week.”

“Cool, cool. Well, welcome to this shithole.” He leans against the doorframe, totally unbothered about standing there in his underwear. The muscles in his stomach tighten when he crosses his arms. “Was I being too loud? My bad, man. I get in the zone and forget there’s a whole world out there.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” I lie, my brain defaulting to people-pleasing mode. “Don’t worry about it.”

“So you didn’t hear me yelling?” He tilts his head and cocks an eyebrow.

“Barely. I mean, maybe a little.”

Trey knocks on the wall next to the doorframe with his knuckles. “Huh. Thought these walls were paper thin. Guess they’re thicker than I figured.”

They’re not. They’re really not. But do I say that? No. Because apparently, when faced with a giant, half-naked, ridiculously good-looking guy with a disarming smile, I lose the ability to say what I came here to say.

But he’s not a jerk. That’s the thing. He’s being nice about it, and he’s already apologizing, which he didn’t have to do. It would be rude to press the issue now. I built this up way too big in my head, as usual.

“Yeah,” I say, taking a step back. “Well, I just wanted to say hi. I’ll let you get back to your⁠—”

“Nah, it’s all good. I needed a break anyway.” He pushes the door open wider and jerks his head toward the room. “Come in.”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding, you’re my neighbor.” That grin again. “You play? Apex? CoD?”

He steps aside to make room, and I find myself walking in before I can think of a decent excuse. “I, uh... I don’t really play games.”

His room is the same layout as mine, flipped. That’s where the similarities end. Clothes cover every surface. Sweatpants hang off the back of his gaming chair, socks litter the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs. The bed’s unmade, sheets tangled into a messy ball. Two monitors glow on a desk buried under energy drink cans and protein bar wrappers. A pair of cleats sits on the windowsill next to a tub of creatine with the lid off. The trash can in the corner is overflowing, and a couple of pizza boxes are stacked next to it.

“Ignore the mess,” he says, kicking a towel out of the way. “I know how I live.” He drops into his gaming chair, and it groans under him. “So what’s your thing then?”

“I draw.”

“For real?” He spins the chair to face me. “What, like, comics and stuff?”

“Portraits, mostly. I’m an art major.”

“No shit.” He leans back, looking at me with something like genuine interest. “That’s cool, man. I couldn’t draw to save my life.”

“It’s just a skill,” I say, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. There’s nowhere to sit that isn’t covered in clothes. “Like anything else. Takes practice.”