Page 86 of The Hookup Mix-up

I take the hood from Theo and lower it onto his head. He’s shirtless too, both of us just in jeans other than his hood and my harness. This shit ain’t cheap, so we didn’t go all out.

“Such a cute puppy.” I smack his ass.

“How did I let you talk me into this again?”

The rap music has the floors vibrating, and it gets louder as we make our way downstairs. People are drinking, smoking, and laughing.

“Holy shit!” Casey says as soon as he sees us.

“Hot, right?” I reply, motioning to Theo, who is probably rolling his eyes at me.

“How come Casey gets to be a ninja and I’m a puppy?”

“Are you forgetting this was your idea?” I can’t see his cheeks, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s blushing.

“Aw, you look cute, Theo,” Casey says, then turns to me. “Some of the DIKs just got here. Looks like things are gonna start getting wild.”

He slips away as I cock my head at Theo… “DIKs?”

“It’s a frat. They’re really delta something or the other.”

“Convenient excuse. I think really everyone who goes to FU is just really fucking queer and they don’t know it yet.”

A group of loud guys storm the living room, quieter and to the back I see… “Is that guy a tree?” He’s a big dude with arms like branches. Beside him is another guy with curly hair and pouty lips who’s some kind of leaf or something. He keeps tugging on his green shirt and pushing his own leaves out of the way.

“It appears so.”

“See? Our costumes are way cooler than theirs. Dance with me.” I pull Theo to me, the two of us moving to the music together. We’re at it long enough to slightly get sweaty before we stumble against the wall where the tree guy has his arms around the leaf guy, the two of them talking. “You guys lost a really bad bet,” I tease.

“Perry!” Theo elbows me. “His brain-to-mouth connection is broken.”

The tree chuckles. “I have one of those too.” His branch arm wraps around his man again. “And plants are cool.”

“Or…you know…dorky,” the leaf says.

“What are you?” I ask.

“Poison guy-vy.” He grins, clearly proud of himself for this idea.

Both Theo and I laugh, because I have to admit, it’s a good one.

“I mean…I think plants can probably be pretty cool,” Theo replies, poison guy-vy crossing his arms.

“Slow your roll, doggie. No hiking your leg on him. The only one who gives my man golden showers is me.”

“Oh my fucking God,” I snort. “I love this guy.”

“Uh, yeah. Just to be clear, we don’t do that. I’m Harrison and this is Benny.”

I shake the branch he holds out to me. “Perry. This is my boyfriend, Theo, and no worries from him, the only territory he marks is me.”

“Um…we don’t do that either,” Theo says. “Well…not with pee… Maybe with other stuff…I guess we have with cum but—” His words cut off completely as he realizes what he said.

The tree and poison guy-vy crack up laughing while I pull him close. “Silly puppy. I love it when you word vomit embarrassing shit.”

We hang out with Harrison and Benny for a little while longer, but I have to admit, once Harrison starts talking about pollination it’s hard to keep my mind out of the gutter…then when he goes into all of the cool things plants can do, my attention starts to fade. They’re both cool guys but I don’t get the plant thing.

“Don’t you work at Shenanigans? I think I’ve seen you there,” Benny says, and the way he’s looking at me, I’m pretty sure he knows he just saved me.

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