“No,” Theo said.
“Please.”
“No, Auggie.”
Auggie slid out of the chair onto his knees. He was faster than Theo, and he caught Theo’s legs when Theo tried to back up. “Please, Theo. I’m begging you.”
“This is ridiculous. Will you get up, please? And let go of me.”
“Please. Please. I will literally do everything you tell me. I won’t question you. I won’t do stupid things like I did last night. I swear to God, Theo.”
He was staring up at Theo, his dark eyes bright, lips parted, the hollow of his throat exposed. Theo couldn’t help the thoughts. Theo couldn’t even hate himself for thinking them, even though he knew they made him a very, very bad man.
“Why do you care?”
“I want to help Orlando.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me.”
Auggie bit his lip. His fingers were warm and surprisingly firm at the back of Theo’s thighs. “I need the money. I didn’t take the two thousand; I couldn’t take money from them, not after we found Cal dead. But—but I can take money for this, for helping them find the truth. And I do want to help Orlando. He’s a total nutjob, but he’s—he’s actually kind of sweet once he’s not a psycho stalker, and you saw how his family treats him.”
“You can get a job at Dairy Queen. Hell, you can get a job doing jerkoff videos.” And where in the world had that idea come from? “You can make money a million ways, Auggie. I don’t want you involved in this.”
“I can’t do it without you. They won’t hire just me; I already asked.”
Theo opened his mouth to tell Auggie no.
Auggie’s eyes were very soft and very brown.
“Not until I talk to Cart.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not saying yes.”
“Oh my God, thank you, Theo. Thank you.” Auggie was trying to hug him around the legs, and Theo had his hand on Auggie’s head, pushing him away, because he was pretty sure he was heartbeats away from popping a life-ending boner.
When Theo finally broke free of Auggie’s grip, he said, “And you don’t do anything until I tell you what I learned from Cart.”
“Of course.”
“Swear it, Auggie.”
“I swear.”
“And you do exactly what I say. When I say it. No arguments.”
“Obviously. Of course. Exactly what you tell me to do.”
He was giving Theo crazily big, innocent eyes.
“Auggie.”
“What? I said I’ll do it. Whatever you say.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“This is just me. It’s just my normal way of looking.”
If anything, his eyes got bigger.
“I hate undergrads. I hate them. You and the rest of them. You all think you’re so goddamn funny.”
Auggie fell back on the floor, laughing.
“Go away,” Theo said. “I need more beer to deal with this shit.”
15
Thursday morning, Auggie woke up early. He wasn’t sure why he’d woken up early—it certainly hadn’t been the plan—but he couldn’t fall back asleep either. He lay in bed, watching the digital clock advance towards 7:00am, and checked his social media accounts. He didn’t post or reply because it was too early and he had a certain kind of image to maintain, but he scrolled through the feeds.
One platform that he’d never really managed to get traction on was Vine. It featured short, looping video clips that were no longer than six or seven seconds. Auggie had been noodling some ideas for the platform, but his best videos—until now—had been significantly longer than six seconds. In general, his most successful work relied on clear characterization that was established quickly, escalation, and a twist at the end. Six seconds just wasn’t enough time to do that. He lay in bed, thinking about that for a while, trying to figure out how he could condense his usual format. Then he tried scrapping his usual format and brainstorming something new. Then he thought about a guy with a bro flow of strawberry-blond hair and a phenomenal beard who was definitely, certainly, positively not Theo.
The thing about this guy who absolutely, completely, totally was not Theo, was that you needed like a million snapshots of him to really understand him. You needed a picture of that instant right when he was teetering on the edge between laughing and getting angry. You needed a picture of how his eyebrows drew together when he was reading Shakespeare—or something equally boring. You needed a picture of how he hooked one heel around his other calf to scratch his leg. You needed a whole series of pictures of him blushing. You could fill a museum with them. The very first hint of color beneath the beard, the crisp pattern of red as the blush solidified, the way he scratched his cheek or shook his head or pushed his hair behind his ears when he got flustered. The end of the blush, when he’d forgotten about being flustered, and his eyes were like watercolors.
Auggie pulled a pillow over his face, told himself no, and then proceeded to jerk off.
When he’d finished, he went to the bathroom, showered, and began getting ready for the day. He was staring in the mirror, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, trying to get the right amount of gel to get the right amount of texture to get the right amount of lift in his crew cut, when the idea hit him.
“Oh shit,” he said to the mirror.
Brock Spafford, who was squeezing zits at the sink next to Auggie, glanced over.
“Oh shit,” Auggie told him and then sprinted back to his room.
He grabbed his phone and opened up an app he’d been trying to figure out how to use. Snapchat was still relatively new, but Auggie’s gut told him it had a lot of promise. The idea of messages, videos, and images that self-destructed had a degree of intrinsic appeal, but more importantly, there was something about the built-in scarcity, the get-it-while-you-can nature of the app, that he thought was going to make it huge. And, of course, it never hurt to have people hanging on your next video because they knew it would be gone soon.
He messed up his hair so that it looked like bedhead, and then he set up his lights and climbed back in bed. He pulled the sheet to his waist, so that his abs and a hint of dark hair below his navel was visible. Nips out. Until now, he’d been safe, sweet, boy-next-door Auggie—no nips. But that had also been straight-boy, ultracloseted Auggie. And fuck that Auggie.
The first snap in his story was of himself in bed. The next was him just after the shower—water gleaming on his chest, wet hair hanging over his forehead. The next was brushing his teeth, making a ridiculous face. The next was trying to get his hair right. The next was picking out an outfit. The next was nominally picking out shoes, but he angled the camera to get his bare leg and a hint of underwear. The next was his backpack. The next was the front of the Sigma Sigma house. The next was Wroxall’s gothic silhouette behind him—he slapped on the geofilter for this last one, because he was still trying things, and the geofilter was new. Most of the guys in the frat didn’t pay any attention; they knew who he was, and they knew what he did. Auggie did see a couple of them check their phones, and one guy—a junior named Tripp—did some pretty vigorous adjustments while staring at the screen.