Page 12 of Josh’s Play

I imagined the scene as I walked, pushing him down, kissing him, feeling his hesitancy turn to urgency. Maybe I’d suck him off or take us both in hand. Quick and dirty either way, our sounds drowned out by the party below, our time together fleeting and hot and impersonal, just the way I liked it.

Impersonal.

That was it right there. Much as I considered myself a player, I didn’t want to play with Campbell. He was such a unique character. He had a vulnerability to him while at the same time he exuded a centered focus and confidence. His soft smile felt like it lit up the whole room, or hell, the whole of the outdoors when we were hanging out in his backyard. It went without saying that his body was smoking hot, but if it had been just that, I think I could have shoved him onto that bed and had my way with him. Actually, I know I could have, if he’d wanted that.

Fuck me, for the first time, it appeared that I didn’t want to just fuck some guy at a party.

Was it possible I wanted more?

I shrugged off the notion because it didn’t matter. I’d passed up the opportunity, and unless I ran into him again at physical therapy, or if I actually took it upon myself to go to a hockey game, which is something I had never done before, I would likely never run into number fifty-nine again.

I walked along Windmill Road until I could cut across a tucked-away corner of Hampstead University that my family called the forest even though it was really only a patch of trees that buffered our property, and that of our neighbors, from the campus. I pulled up a hookup app on my phone and scrolled for a few minutes, sitting in the gazebo that was located just on the other side of our forest. I stared at the icons on the map, some of them rather close, until my eyes blurred.

Eventually, I decided against reaching out to any of the anonymous pictures of six packs and hard dicks. I got up and walked along the path that had been carved out of the woods over the years.

I would be picking Devon up at the airport shortly. We’d have one last year to hang out together, to party, and to one-and-done a whole two semesters worth of willing guys. So what if I wasn’t feeling it that night? I had a whole school year to tear my way through my matches on that app and the myriad others like it.

I’d been looking forward to my senior year all summer, and I was sure there would be plenty of things to distract me from one sweet, handsome hockey player once Devon and our other friends got to town and the semester kicked into gear.

I filled the rest of the summer following Hunter around to travel ball and not running into a certain hockey player with an injured ankle at physical therapy. I did run into Diane there once; she went on and on about the hockey player she’d hung out with the evening of the party. I smiled politely, but hearing her effuse really didn’t help. I assumed she meant the other guy, Noah, but she never said his name, and a part of me wondered if Campbell hadn’t stormed back downstairs after I left and hetero’ed all over that party.

I was thrilled when Devon was back in town, and we moved into the dorm. He was as eager to make the most of senior year as I was, and we started the semester off right as soon as he returned, calling some friends to meet us at The Valley, the queer-friendly bar near campus. Devon and I were both hit on that evening, and Devon left with his new friend while I sat at the bar, chatting up a cute twink who asked me to go back to his dorm room with the highly romantic come-on line, “My roommate isn't back in town until tomorrow.”

I opened my mouth to say yes. I always said yes to hookups unless I got a weird vibe from someone. I’d sent Devon away earlier when he texted to make sure I didn’t need a save. I’d known then where the night was leading; my bar mate hadn’t been subtle, and neither had I.

But as I opened my mouth, I caught the bartender running his fingers through his hair, and it reminded me of a lumbering wall of a man with chestnut hair, and dark-chocolate eyes, and a complicated smile that was kind and sweet and haunted and confused and …

Fuck me. I let the twink down gently. He took it just fine, chatting up the bartender even before I had tucked my phone in my pocket and was heading for the door.

I was utterly confused as I walked back to the dorm. I’d given up a perfectly fun evening, for what? My pocket buzzed with a text from Devon that had just our room number on it. It was our code for when one of us had someone in our shared dorm room. So what I'd given up the cute twink for was a night crashing in the dorm’s common room until Devon came to fetch me and let me know the coast was clear.

I was still convinced it was going to be a great senior year, and I pushed thoughts of cute twinks and cuter hockey players out of my head the next time Devon and I planned an evening out. So what if one hookup hadn’t panned out? I shook off the strange feeling that random hookups weren’t doing it for me anymore and decided I just had to find the right hookup.

The day classes began, Devon was texting me before I’d even made it to my first lecture.

Dev: Drinks at Lefty’s again tonight? Some of the finance guys are going.

Dev: Thinking I might try and hit up that waiter. He seemed into it last night, right?

Josh: Until you left with someone else.

Devon sent a shrugging emoji before continuing.

Dev: I’ll charm him. You can have the room if you need it. Might be fun to see the stockroom at Lefty’s.

That text was accompanied by a winking emoji. I thought about the group of finance guys Devon and I had been hanging out with, guys Devon knew from his classes, trying to decide who I might take back to the dorm room that night.

Josh: Sounds like fun.

I pulled my course schedule up on my phone and switched gears to think about the class I was headed to, my sports journalism class. I wasn’t much of a sports guy, but spending time watching Hunter excel in baseball had made me want to learn. I’d been to any number of games over the years and found myself not only wanting to understand them, but thinking it might be fun and interesting to write about them. I hoped the class would help me learn about sports and determine if I could do anything with the spark I’d felt sitting in the stands at Hunter’s games.

I swear that was the only spark I was thinking about as I approached the door to the Cooper Building, looked up from my phone, and found the door being held open by a floppy-haired, brawny man with a soft, shy smile on his face and a Hampstead-red flush to his cheeks.

I didn’t think it possible that he could be more adorable than he’d looked right before I hadn’t kissed the fuck out of him the other week.

“Hey there, Shelley,” he said softly as I walked past. “How’s the hand?”

“Shelley?”