Chapter 2
“Where’s home?” I ask. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in Utah, but I don’t remember where I heard that, and I don’t want to look like a stalker.
“Utah.”
See?
“Kinda by Green River,” he goes on. “Almost to Colorado.”
“That’s where I’m from,” I say.
“Utah, too?”
I shake my head. “Colorado. Boulder.”
“Nice.”
The idea hits me so hard it almost knocks me out of my chair, but I struggle to play it cool. I help myself to another couple French fries, buying time for my heart to settle back into my chest. I’m a little intimidated by the discovery that such an idea can be formulated; I can’t believe I scrounge up the nerve to say, “Actually, yeah, I could take you.”
“Huh?”
“Home, I mean. I could drop you off.”
“In Utah?”
“On my way. You know, home. To Boulder. For Christmas. Green River’s like right on the way—I’m pretty sure I drive right through it.”
“But I thought you said the other day you weren’t going home for Christmas.”
“Right. Well, I wasn’t going to. But then it got to feeling kind of lonely once finals were over and everybody started leaving. I mean, I think I’m the only one on my floor in the dorm. Who wants to be that guy?”
“Aren’t your parents like on a cruise?”
He remembers that?
“Yeah, well…they come home tomorrow. Christmas Eve and all that.” Would he notice if I swiped at the damp on my forehead with a napkin? “It’s just…all very last minute. Which is why I’m driving instead of flying.” Sounds reasonable. “So, it’s a piece of cake. You know, to drop you.”
“I don’t know.” He’s hedging. I’ve overplayed my hand. I’ve flung myself at yet another straight guy just because he’s not such a raging homophobe that he shoves me every time I walk past him on the quad. Our choir director makes everybody give backrubs, it’s not like we have some Deep Connection just ‘cause I know he has hairy shoulders. God, how embarrassing. “You don’t have to do that,” he goes on.
“Honest, it’s no big deal. Be nice to have the company. And the gas money,” I toss in as an afterthought, because it sounds like something a casual acquaintance would ask for if he wasn’t trying to get into your pants.
He thinks about it, scraping the last of the Ranch from the second of the three little plastic cups he filled with dressing for his mountain of fries. “That’d be really cool,” he eventually says. “‘Preciate it.”
“Sure thing,” I say, nodding enthusiastically. “I’ll pick you up in the morning. Say like seven?”
“I’ll be ready,” he says. “That’s like way cool. You sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well then, cool.”
“Cool.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. “First box of road donuts on me. I live in O’Donnell.” The high-rise party-jock dorm, across campus from Chambers, my own shady enclave of music majors.
I of course know this is where he lives—and who he lives with, and on what floor, although not which exact room—but I simply say, “Cool. I’ll swing by about seven.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
I get up from the table while he’s still got a pile of potatoes to pack away. Mostly because I don’t want him to see me shimmy through my Dance of Joy all the way back to my dorm.
* * * *
I wasn’t prepared for the glasses. The plaid flannel jammy pants are no surprise—I’ve long since noticed all the jocks who pick up more-to-love in the buffet-style dining hall favor the elastic waistband—and he’s wearing the zip-up version of the same maroon-and-gray Inland Empire sweatshirt I’ve got on. His hair looks slept-on and his cheek-fuzz looks prickly and he’s generally doing his usual Adorable George routine when I swing into the parking lot behind O’Donnell Hall at six-fifty the next morning.
Except I’ve never seen him in glasses, and the Clark Kent of it all has me second-guessing this plan. Even if they are the dopiest-looking gold-rimmed aviator frames and take up half his face, he looks so sexy-librarian in them I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to go six seconds without begging him to toss them aside and kiss me cross-eyed, never mind six hundred miles. But he’s seen me—he’s waving me over, bless his little heart, like we’re not the only two people awake on campus on Christmas Eve—so I’m just gonna have to keep my eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel all day and hope the stress of not reaching over to massage every part of his ripe-peach body I can reach doesn’t hurt my shoulder.