“Booker, no. You’re not wasting my time,” he assures me. “You’re—”
“A mess.”
Ian shakes his head. “No more of a mess than the rest of us.”
“I’m a coward.”
“Booker,” his voice is full of compassion that I don’t deserve.
“I need to go,” I say, and in my haste to leave I knock over a stool. Some athlete I am. I can balance on blades but I can’t exit a coffee shop gracefully.
Ian rounds the corner to right the stool just as I reach for it. Once again, his hand brushes mine, but I pull back as though I’ve been burned. And maybe I have. His touch is scorching. Tempting.
But this time, instead of looking at me with compassion or offering comfort, he looks at me with confusion. “Booker, are you ok?”
“No,” I answer. That’s all the honesty I can give him.
“Please, stay for a minute. I don’t want you driving if you’re upset.”
“I’m fine,” I say, faking a smile. The lie feels both familiar and unwelcome on my lips.
“You don’t look fine,” he says, his voice laced with concern.
“Fake it ‘til you make it, right?” I offer, but my line falls flat. I smile again before turning and walking out to my car. In a million different ways, I’ve been pretending since I was a kid—pretending it didn’t hurt when my dad would miss a game or talk about all the ways that football players are superior to hockey players. Pretending my family was just like everyone else’s. Pretending that my dreams don’t matter. Pretending to conform to whatever ideal was set for me, just so I could stay on everyone’s good side. And where has all this pretending gotten me?
Confused as crap and half-hard for a man who has no clue how I feel about him. Because once again, if I pretend those feelings don’t exist, maybe they’ll just go away.
It was unfair of me to come here tonight and dump my junk on Ian. Some friend I am.Friends. Is that what we are? Maybe. I thought so. But I’m not so sure I can be Ian’s friend. He’s so brave, so unafraid. And I'm a wreck.
What would Ian think if he knew the things I can’t say aloud? The things I barely let myself think. Because if I’m being honest, I don’t want to be Ian McBride’s friend. I want so much more.
Chapter 4
Booker
It'sthe last day of the drop/add period, which means I have until 5 p.m. to remove Psychology of Human Sexuality from my schedule. I don't even know why I'm sitting in this lecture hall right now. I'm dropping the class, especially after the way I word-vomited all over Ian in the coffee shop last night. Talk about embarrassing.
But I'm sitting here, anyway, listening to Ian talk about sex. It’s like someone devised this form of torture just for me. Today’s icebreaker was to list ten words that described our first sexual encounter. And Ian was quick to point out that “encounter” could be interpreted any way we wanted—from a first kiss to a fantasy to full-on s-e-x.
Everybody typed for a few minutes and then the conversation began. I heard my peers say sex was awkward when they were fifteen. Or that it was unfulfilling. Some described it as sweet or memorable. A guy said his first time getting a blowjob happened at a school dance and that the thrill of getting caught turned him on. One girl volunteered that her first time was a total letdown.
My journal sits on the screen in front of me—completely empty, which is fitting because I’ve never had sex. It’s a little crazy, being the lone virgin in a house of oversexed college students. I’ve always told myself that I balance out everyone else.
I did not plan to be a twenty-year-old virgin, but here I sit, in a sea of experienced young adults, totally out of my depth.
Lexi wanted to take our relationship to the next level, but it never felt right to me. Sure, she was beautiful, and holding her felt nice, but her virginity was a gift I didn’t deserve. And yeah, Ty and Whit would scold me and tell me virginity is a social construct. I get that. But they both lost theirs when we were sixteen, and I still have mine, so I feel like I have more to say on the subject.
I have no clue what to write. I could talk about the brief kisses I’ve shared with my handful of formal and homecoming dates over the years. I could talk about how nice it felt to hold Lexi close, her smaller body cocooned into mine. I could write about how it felt when Lexi and I made out—how unsure I was, how nervous. I needed to make it good for her, but her body was like a map with half the lines erased. I used to concentrate so hard on her face, her breathing, any signal that she felt as good as I wanted her to.
I could talk about kissing girls at parties and feeling nothing. Last fall, a girl was waiting for me in my room after we celebrated Ty’s birthday. I was so nervous I nearly pissed myself. We fumbled around on the bed for a bit, but I was slammed with that all-too-familiar feeling of being the wrong guy for the job. Luckily, I’d had enough to drink that I passed out before things went too far.
Or I could talk about the way it felt when Ian held my hand last night.
Heheld my freaking handand I could barely keep it together.
Dr. Bergman begins her lecture just as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I open the message app on my screen to see a text from my mom. It’s like my guardian angel is spying on me.
Mom: Hi honey. There’s another retreat for young men coming up in a few weeks, on the 20th. Dad thinks it would be good for you to attend, so I’ll sign you up later today.
