The Roommate Situation (8 page)

He says, “What are you doing hanging shit on my locker?”

“What?” I wrinkle my brow. “You have shit on
my
locker.”

His face spreads into a grin. “You ready to play some foosball?”

“Yes!”

“Gimme five minutes.” He heads to his side of the room to get rid of his helmet, his hair both flattened by it and sticking up in places from pulling it off. I kind of think it’s a shame helmets are necessary—imagine all that wind in your face, whisking your breath away, reddening your cheeks, rushing through your hair.

I turn down my music and close the browser.

After a minute, he says, “Shit, the harness sold.”

“Serious?”

“Yep. Give me a few minutes to pack it up so I can put it in the mail on our way.”

“Are you gonna list another one?” If I can make five bucks a day, that shit could add up. You know, for not having to do any more work for it. And once we do a few cuff listings and some of the other stuff…

“I have to make another first,” he says. “I hadn’t bothered making more, since this one wasn’t selling.”

“How long’s that take?” I’m on my feet, standing between the lockers.

“If I’ve got everything I need, I don’t know, a couple hours, tops.” He glances at his computer screen. “But right now I’ve gotta get this one to the mail center before they close.” He fishes through a box of mailing supplies to get a padded envelope. While the listing info prints, he slides the tissue-wrapped harness into the envelope. He adds the listing printout and a simple keychain, just a ring with a narrow leather strip for a fob. I watch his hands as he seals and addresses the envelope. His fingers are slender, ending in blunt tips, his nails flat. Around a few of them, the skin is ragged, like he’s been chewing while he studies.

As we cross campus with the package, I say, “So do you want to do photos for something else?”

“Sure. Maybe this was a fluke, or maybe you’re onto something. We’ll try something else and see what happens. But first, foosball.”

“But the light,” I say. What little’s been breaking through the pale gray clouds is already starting to fade, thin shadows creeping toward Quaid from the other side of the quad.

He tips his face toward the sky. “All right. First photos, then foosball.”

“You want to do a pair of cuffs?”

“Why not?”

We get through the mail center in record time and head back to Quaid. Having been through the one photo shoot, I’m actually more nervous about this one, just because posing had been more awkward than I’d expected. Usually I just have to worry about my smile and not closing my eyes at the wrong moment—that, or my parents snap photos while I’m doing stuff: soccer, guitar, getting in a soapy water fight with my cousin Jess when we’re washing a car.

In the room, I ask, “Shirt on or off?” I’m wearing long sleeves.

“Off. Just in case your scrawny body is what sold the harness.”

“Hey, fuck you too.” But I’m smiling as I pull the shirt over my head.

When I head into his half of the room, he’s freeing the low-end cuffs from their tissue paper.

I try to frame this in my head in a businesslike way: it’s just a product—like a watch or a bracelet—that we’re going to grab a few photos of. I roll my shoulders, take some breaths.

I look at his blank laptop screen while he puts the cuff on my wrist. It’s not as snug as the one he put on before, but when I clench and release my fist, I definitely notice its presence.

“Just a sec,” he says and slides open a desk drawer.

The sun’s found a break in the cloud cover. It shines into the room with the richness of late afternoon.

He turns with a small padlock. “Don’t let me forget to add
Locks not included
to the listing,” he says as he slides the lock through the buckle’s pin and snaps it shut.

At the click, something thick and primal starts to move slowly inside of me.

“Model not included either,” I say and jerk my chin toward his wall of road pictures. “You should start taking pictures of places you ride.” He’s fastening the other cuff. The lock on the first rattles as I scratch my neck. “You have a camera. Why not use it?”

“I guess I’m too busy riding to take photos.”

“I guess I can’t blame you there. If I had a bike, I’d probably sleep on it.”

He laughs as he reaches into the drawer again. I don’t even watch. I can’t. They’re just accessories, I tell myself. Accoutrements.

Restraints.

“You have the keys for those, right?” I ask just as the second lock clicks.

“Nah. I was gonna put in the listing that the cuffs come with a college student because I can’t get him back out.”

“Funny.”

“All right.” He whips a piece of poster board from between his locker and the wall. “Let’s get some shots of just your forearm with a cuff on. Then we’ll hook ’em together and take a few more.” He lays the poster board on his bed.

“Hook ’em together”
echoes in my head.

I have to get on my knees to rest my arm on the paper. We arrange ourselves until neither of us casts a shadow into the shot. Derek snaps a few pics, then backs up and sets the camera down.

“In front or behind?” he asks.

“In front or behind what?”

“Should we lock them together in front of you or behind you?”

“Oh.” Behind. Definitely behind. The thought of behind feels very, very good. “We should try it both ways, I guess.”

He digs another lock out while I get to my feet. When he heads my way, I bring my wrists together in front of me, as much because that’s what he’s going to need as to distract from the effect it’s having on me:
Behind. Definitely behind
. I can see it in my head, feel it like a memory in the muscles of my arms.

He digs another lock out while I get to my feet.
In front. Definitely in front
—so my wrists can cover what’s going on in my crotch. I look over his shoulder as he grasps a cuff and slides the lock into the D-ring. His finger nearly nudges my half-hard cock, and my face prickles with heat as my cock responds by getting even closer to hard. I tip my chin up, pretending to find the top of the wall interesting.

If Derek’s noticed, he’s not fazed. He probably hasn’t noticed. He snaps a few shots, moving nearer with each one, closing in on my crotch. The attention heats things up more. I could use an Off switch. Instead I stare harder where the top of the wall meets the metal support for the acoustic ceiling.

“Okay,” he says, matter-of-fact, lowering the camera to his side as he fishes for the key. I drop my head, looking at the floor, Derek’s boots. Slowly my gaze climbs the side of his leg to the hem of his faded dark blue T-shirt, to the bare arm rummaging in the drawer, all the way up to that lock of hair dangling over his forehead.

“Got it.”

I sweep my gaze to the window, then look at him like I’d been staring out it all along. He has the key; I give him my wrists.

The lump in my jeans feels like it’s swollen to the size of a loaf of bread. I keep my eyes on his hair, lifting my wrists a little higher—a little farther away from me—so he can flip the lock toward him and slot in the key.

As soon as my wrists come apart, I swing around, putting my back to him, and bring my wrists behind me.

There’s a tug at my cuffs as he collects the D-rings together.

And then I can’t pull them apart. He lets go, and my arms drop. I twist my hand, tugging the cuffs against the lock.

I’m smiling a little. Smirking. This is at least as hot as I’d imagined it.

“Move over a bit,” he says.

I take half a step toward the window, my mind going in all directions. I’m defenseless here. Alone in the room with Derek. What if he puts a hand over my mouth? What if he forces me onto the bed? His color printouts of road photos are three feet in front of my face, and while he steps back to frame the shot, I feel like I fall into one; I’m rushing down a road with my arms locked behind me, going so fast it takes my breath away.

I jump at a light touch on the sides of my shoulders. He shifts me over another few inches and holds me still while he nudges my heel with the toe of his boot. I shift my feet a little apart.

His fingers uncurl mine. “Relax,” he says, his shirt brushing my bare arms as he turns away.

I look at his bed as the shutter snaps. Then again. And again.

“I think that’ll do it,” he says finally.

I can still feel the ghost of his body behind me—that light static activity moving against my skin, just like the day we passed in the hall. When I work up the words, “Do you want to do the other cuffs too?” they come out sounding like I’d shotgunned a can of gravel.

“Let’s see how this set does.”

“How about one of the cuffs locked to something?” I’m looking over my shoulder. The light is fading. The moment’s about to slip away. I twist my wrists in the comfort of the leather. I’m not ready to let it go so soon.

On the other hand, I’m ready for it to be two in the morning with Derek sawing logs in his bed, so I can relive the situation in my head, with my hand giving me some satisfaction for it.

“I don’t think we have anything small enough for one of these locks to fit around.” He comes up behind me again. I look down at the bed. He draws the cuffs away from my back and pushes the key into the lock. The shackle pops open. After he unhooks the lock from the D-rings, my arms fall free, heavy and light at the same time.

“What about a chain or something?” I don’t want to turn. My dick is raging. I almost feel like I’d knock him off his feet with it if I turn. But he’s already unlocking the cuff on my right wrist, standing a little off to the side now. Close enough that the electricity of his presence skims through the thin layer of air between us.

“Just lay them on the paper when you get them off,” he says. He pops the lock on my left wrist before walking away.

With my back still turned, I work a buckle loose, my fingers thrumming. My cock aching. I don’t think I’ve been this turned on before, not around Katie Duke or Alexis Whitney or…well definitely not around Jamie Douglas or Taylor Kennedy. I need to get to my side of the room and open my astronomy text. If reading about the principles of light doesn’t calm my dick down, I can always try slamming it in the book. I pull the leather tongue free, after what feels like an eon of struggling with it, and unwrap the cuff.

The room’s air cools the newly exposed skin.

When I have the second cuff laid out on the pile of tissue paper, Derek is bent over his chair, cropping an image.

“How’d they turn out?” I ask, staying out of his immediate line of vision as I look over his shoulder.

“One’s too blurry, but for the most part, not bad. I’m gonna have a hard time deciding which to use.”

One of the behind-the-back photos is on the screen. He switches over to the image folder to scroll through the others as I watch. I can’t detect the bulge in my jeans in the ones with my wrists in front, even the close-ups. That’s kind of a relief—because if I can’t see it, he didn’t see it either.

“I think the ones from behind look the best,” he says. “The ones with your wrist on the poster are kind of lame.”

“Too fake,” I agree.

He flips back to his image editor and the photo of my wrists locked behind my back.

So much for my hard-on going away anytime soon. I run my hand through my hair, check the progress of the sun. It’s just about lost to the clouds again, turning them orange.

“Let me throw a couple of these into the listing. Then we’ll go play foosball.”

“Okay.” It’s almost a croak. I clear my throat and try again.

He’s too busy clicking around his screen to notice.

It’s my opportunity to fade to my side of the room and think about the properties of light until the swelling ebbs.

Chapter Eight

Derek’s just okay at foosball. He spins the rods too much instead of controlling them. He serves into the middle of the field instead of taking the advantage of giving it to his own guys. I beat him three or four times, and he takes it with a laugh.

His laugh makes me laugh. I play sloppier. I’m having fun.

I think I look at him a little too long when we laugh. I feel like I’m reluctant to pull my attention back to the table.

When I look up again, he’s looking back at me, a smile cocking one side of his mouth, his toothpick jutting out.

“Well, you gonna serve or what?” he says, and I laugh again and pop the ball through, not caring whose rod it rolls toward.

* * * *

Lying on my side in the dark, I’m waiting for sleep, which must be doing its rounds in other rooms right now, because I feel anything but tired.

An itch creeps onto my back, and I reach under my arm to scratch it. My fingers stop on my bare skin, feeling the bumps of the scar. A thought streaks through my head: the tickle of Derek’s breath, the light touch of his lips.

I pull my hand away and roll onto my back.

Half a minute later, his blankets rustle as he rolls over too.

“You awake?” I ask, quiet enough that I won’t wake him if he isn’t.

“Yup.”

I don’t actually have anything to say. Since I started it, though, I feel obligated to come up with something. My mind is still tracking back to my scar; it’s itching against the sheet. “What’d you mean when you said, ‘Convenient timing’?” I say. “About my bike.”

An exhale comes from his side of the room.

“Tell me,” I say.

“It’s nothing. Just me being cynical.”

“Tell me anyway.” I shift onto my side, facing the middle of the room. From here all I can see, thanks to the way the lockers and bed are lined up, is the part of the blankets that cover his waist.

“Your parents came up with the extra chores for you to do, right?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“And they decided how much each one was worth, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And the time frame for them.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And so it works out that you finally get together enough money for a new bike at the time of year you’re least likely to give a shit about having a bike.”

I let that turn in my head a few times before saying, “That’s just how it worked out. I crashed it in, like, June, and it took seven or eight months to save up.”