Yeah, I was officially bi-curious, physically at least. But I’d never felt an emotional pull to a guy … until now.
I’d spent weeks getting to know Benji, bumping into him around campus — sometimes by accident, but most times not. I was just doing Jeremy a favor and looking out for his little bro … until I wasn’t anymore. At some point, I started doing myself the favor. I started wanting to spend time with Benji for my sake. Exactly when that had changed, I couldn’t be sure.
I didn’t know what it said about me. Didn’t know how I wanted to feel. What to do. I only knew that Benji brought up all kinds of confusing emotions in me and I had nowhere to put them.
Or I didn’t.
Until I saw that smile.
Finally, I had an outlet for my emotions. I’d only wanted to cheer up Benji and convince him that he was worthy of better than a loser who didn’t appreciate him. But I’d gotten so much more than that. I’d gotten a smile from Benji, something I’d treat as my own special gift.
“Who could it be?” Benji mused.
“Who knows? Just enjoy the kisses.”
He smiled again, and it was even brighter than the first surprised expression of pleasure. “You’re right.” He dug his hand into the basket and pulled out a handful. “I do love chocolate.”
I smiled. “Who doesn’t?”
Benji grinned. “You want some of my kisses, don’t you?”
My mouth went dry. “How’d you guess?”
“Here.” He placed three candies in my palm. “Never thought I’d share kisses with the great Ace Collins.”
I laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, just don’t tell your brother. He’d kick my ass.”
Benji rolled his eyes. “As if he’d ever believe that happened. I’m more likely to be struck by lightning.”
If only he knew…
“You’re not going to get hit by lightning,” I scoffed as Dre came into the room and dumped his backpack onto his bed atop a pile of laundry.
“Is there a thunderstorm coming?” he asked.
Benji snorted. “Nope. Just a metaphorical one.”
“I cannot with you liberal arts majors,” Dre said.
“Want to come to lunch?” I asked Dre.
“Nah. I’m gonna nap until my next class.”
He kicked off his shoes, and the smell wasn’t great. I caught Benji’s eye and nodded toward the door. “Lunch?”
Benji’s nose wrinkled. “Good idea.”
Benji
I was still thinking about my secret admirer when I sank into my usual seat near the back of the lecture hall in art history. The massive class had overwhelmed me in my first weeks. I felt like an inconsequential bit of dust in a universe of strange faces.
Until the day Tracy sat next to me.
She’d chosen me, said she’d needed to sit near someone who wasn’t obnoxious or deluded, and I looked like I might qualify. Like any good introvert, I’d grabbed onto the lifeline and held tight. Any port in a storm, right? And it turned out, Tracy was a pretty good ally, with her great note-taking and ability to focus on even the most boring topics. My eyes tended to glaze, my mind wandered, and next thing you knew I was drawing. I tried to keep it to the margins of my notebook, but sometimes I wandered, drawing on the inside of my textbook, or once, my own arm. It wasn’t a conscious decision, I just went with the flow, but it wasn’t great for my comprehension skills.
“God, I had the worst weekend.” Tracy sighed as she dropped into the desk beside mine. “I went home to visit my parents, and they bugged me about making more friends.”
Tracy was blond, pretty, and outgoing. I gave her a puzzled look. “Don’t you have friends?”
She shrugged. “I don’t, really. I just don’t care.”
Wow. What would that be like, not to care?
She brightened. “Oh, maybe next time I should bring you!”
“Me?”
“We’re friends, right?”
“Sure…” We were friendly. In art history. We didn’t really hang out outside of class, but I wasn’t opposed to it.
“Anyway, how was your weekend?” she asked as she pulled out her notebook and three gel pens in pink, purple, and teal. She claimed writing in different colors helped organize her notes better. I thought it was just an excuse to use pretty colors. Tracy seemed to be fighting pretty girl stereotypes, which was fine by me, but she still drew hearts over her i’s. I found it charming. If your heart desires bright colors and bubble letters, then go for it, I say.
“My weekend was worse than yours,” I said morosely, struck again by the awful feeling of rejection I’d felt when I’d realized Kaleb was blocking my calls. He was such a … a … well, I couldn’t come up with a bad enough word for him, but it was bad.
“What happened?” Tracy asked, but right then the professor stepped up to the lectern. “Hold that thought. We’ll talk after.”
I slid down in my chair, got out a pencil, and wrote down the first few bullet points that appeared on the whiteboard. By the end of the class, my brain felt sluggish.
“So what happened this weekend?” she asked when the torture was over and we began shoving our notebooks into our bags.
“I got stood up by a date.”
“Ugh, that does suck. You win the worst weekend award.”
“But this morning I found this gift in my room…”
“Yeah?”
“It said it was from a secret admirer.”
“Aw, someone likes you.” She nudged my shoulder. “Go, you!”
“I guess? Kinda hard to believe.”
“No, it’s not. You’re adorable.”
“Shut up.”
She laughed a little. “Who do you think it is?”
“No idea.”
I stood, swinging my backpack onto my shoulder. Tracy followed me out of the room and into the hallway. “You must have some idea. It’s got to be someone you talk to, right?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t have many friends either. I really don’t know.”
She tapped her lip with one finger. “Okay, here’s your homework assignment. Make a list of everyone you see on a regular basis. We’ll narrow it down to likely suspects.”
“We will, huh?”
She grinned. “Yep. I love a good mystery!”
Tracy walked away before I could argue. It was a decent idea, I guess, except I didn’t really know where to start. I hung out with my brother’s best friend, who saw me as a little brother, and my roommate had a girlfriend. There were a couple of guys in the dorm who said hi in passing. All in all, my social circle wasn’t that wide.
I started the walk back to the dorm. I had a list to make, apparently. I’d add a few of the guys from my dorm, the one or two classmates I’d worked with on projects — but not Kaleb. Ace was right; it made no sense for him to stand me up and then give me an anonymous gift, no matter how much I wished it.
Figuring this out wasn’t going to be easy. I just couldn’t imagine anyone who liked me enough to go to the trouble.
Ace