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“There was after I got done with it.” He winked, mischievously.

“Oh,” I said, forlornly. “Oh, okay.”

He gave me a look, curiosity fighting against clear exhaustion.

“You’d never knowingly miss an opportunity to remind me I’m a slut for wrestler sweat, so there’s clearly something going on. Spill, Eoin.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Adam gestured at me, as he flopped back onto his bed.

“I’m tired, and my brain has melted, and I don’t have the energy to coax the details out of you. So why don’t we skip that part, and assume I won the argument, and you tell me what’s making your face look as grumpy as when you lose a competition.”

I couldn’t decide if it was galling to be so easily read, or weirdly gratifying to finally have a friend close enough to do that.

“I don’t have clothes that are sexy.”

“What about those jeans, the ones Brayden helped you get fitted for?” He licked his lips, as though suddenly happy at the memory. “I’m biased, as your friend, but they make your ass look great.”

“You’re biased because you’re a pervert,” I told him, half-heartedly. “Anyway, jeans won’t work.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Won’t work for what? You can’t ask me for my help if you’re not gonna give me the whole story.”

I resisted the urge to point out that I hadn’t asked for help, he’d just bullied me into talking about my problem.

“They need to be clothes for... well, for dancing.”

“Dancing?”

It was less insulting to assume his bemused expression was because I’d never mentioned dancing before, rather than Adam thinking I’d be terrible at it.

“Like, sexy dancing.”

He snorted. “You’re a table dancer now, are you?”

I blinked, considering the definition. It was a stage, not a table, but...

“For fuck’s sakes, Eoin.” Adam’s curse interrupted my over-thinking. “I’m exhausted, I’ve got two papers to write, and now you spring an interesting story on me? Are you trying to kill me, here?”

It was the sort of accusation which demanded protest, or a defense of some nature, but I was struggling to find the right words for that. So I figured the truth would just have to do.

“I’m kinda dancing. In a... club. Because Brayden can’t do it.”

Adam closed his eyes at the mention of the senior’s name. Then again, the two of them had some degree of history: the first time they’d met, Brayden had arranged for him to be double-fucked in the locker room showers. I was never quite certain whether Adam’s annoyance was down to Brayden’s presumptuousness - from the noises he’d made, my roommate clearly hadn’t hated the experience - or at himself for being so easily read as amenable.

“Explain more,” he told me, his eyes still shut.

And so I explained the whole thing.

It did, I conceded, sound fairly ridiculous when I put it into words. Even halting words. I probably didn’t need to include the part where Carlos fucked me at the end of our dance lesson, either, though by that point I was caught up in both the story and the way Adam was absently kneading his erection through his jeans. That reaction was probably more to do with the details than my talent as a storyteller, I figured.

“Y’know that saying, ‘too close to the forest to see the trees’?” Adam had sat up, as I brought the whole, weird tale to a close at the point where I’d been despondently looking through my closet. “I think being around that damn locker room half your life has dulled your sensitivity to what people wear in there.”

He stood, pushing me aside so he could dig into my clothes. Arms buried to the elbow in the big plastic crate I dumped most of my clean laundry into.

“This, and this, and, uh... okay, this.” He thrust a bundle of clothes at me. “This is the combination that will have grown men creaming their pants for you.”

I looked down, skeptical, at the shorts, jock-strap, and muscle-tee he’d picked out. It was the sort of thing I’d wear to work out in. Admittedly, the shorts were pretty short, and the muscle-tee left as much of my torso bare as it covered. The sign on the wall said you were meant to be dressed when you used the weights machines, but most people flew as close to the line as possible. There was nothing worse than a sweaty shirt and baggy pants dragging at your skin.