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Someone behind me grabs my attention by shouting my last name across the room. “Hey, Smith! Get your shit and come sit down.”
I glance back toward the voice and see one of my teammates, Mason Richards, hollering at me. There’s an empty seat next to him, so I toss him a quick wave before jogging down to the front to grab the packet from the professor without looking him in the eye. Then I hightail my ass up to the third row to sink into a seat next to my friend.
“Too early for you or something?” he asks.
“Way too fucking early,” I reply.
I have to keep my head down to keep from glancing back at Thomas. What if he says something or flirts with me? My skin is crawling, and I’m tempted to just bolt now. I can go straight to my advisor’s office and change my schedule. It’s not too late.
“Stay out too late?” Mason asks.
“Nah. Just worked all weekend.”
“That sucks.”
I sneak a glance up at Thomas, and he looks nervous, maybe a bit more now that he knows I’m here. How the fuck did I not notice he was a teacher here? My dumb ass had to go and fuck a professor without even knowing it.
Pulling my hood farther over my head, I sink into my chair while Thomas goes through the syllabus. I feel eyes on me, and I glance to the side to see a girl at the end of the row in front of us staring at me. I press my lips together and nod in her direction. Mason knocks me on the arm and lifts his eyebrows suggestively.
He thinks she’s flirting with me.
He’s an idiot because he doesn’t realize a few very crucial things.
First of all, she’s not flirting. Girls don’t flirt with me. They stare because they’re curious, and in her mind, I'm sure she’s envisioning herself with me and wondering what it might be like.
Secondly, neither Mason nor any of the guys on my team know that I’m gay. It’s bad enough being this ugly. I don’t need to be given shit for anything else. Not that I think the guys on my team would call me a faggot for liking dick. It’s more that I’m afraid they’ll just treat me differently. Like they’ll actuallystopcalling me ugly and Leatherface and worry about hurting my feelings. I’d much rather have guys who can crack jokes with me and treat me like any other player on the team.
I make it through the whole class without incident. Thomas does a decent job of focusing on teaching and I focus on taking notes and being a regular student. After class, Mason lingers a little too long and he gets stuck talking to one of the girls behind him.
I tap him on the shoulder, say a quick goodbye and dart out of the lecture hall. Thomas doesn’t stop me. He does watch me go though, and it’s so fucking awkward, I hate it.
I only have one more class today. Then I work at the garage for a couple hours before rugby practice at five. My packed schedule leaves me barely enough time for lunch, so I grab something fried and greasy on my way to work. When I get there, I find the parts for Thomas’s car locked up in the back.
“Fuck,” I curse out loud. I’m not an actual mechanic, so while I can do things like oil changes and tire rotations, full radiator repairs have to be done by a couple of the senior guys. So when I find them working away tirelessly on his car, I know it won’t be long before I have to call him to pick it up.
“Hey,” I say to Ivan as I cross the bay heading toward the office where I can sit down and eat my lunch.
“Hey, Pax,” he replies. “I’ll be done with this car today. You wanna call the customer and let him know?”
“Umm...can you call him? I have practice at five.” My cheeks burn and my blood turns to ice as Ivan glares at me like I just kicked his dog.
“Calling the customers is your fucking job, man. Are you saying you can’t do your job now?”
Fuck. “No. I can do it,” I reply, stalking grumpily toward the office. His invoice is waiting for me, and I stare down at his name that I scribbled there yesterday. What a fucking idiot I was to even lay a hand on a customer. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my job. It’s not the first time I’ve been thankful the cameras don’t work in the shop. There’s no going back now.
Picking up the office phone, I quickly dial the number listed on the yellow paper. He answers on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Litchfield…” I say, making my voice a touch deeper than it usually is. “This is Pax with Olympus Auto Shop. Your car is ready.”
“Oh, Pax,” he replies as if he’s just realizing who I am. We never did properly exchange names yesterday. “Will you be around this evening? I can come by to get it.”
“I have practice until seven.”
“After seven works.”
I wince.
