Page 8 of Level Up

I rolled my eyes. “Sleep however you want,” I said. He pulled off his shirt and neatly folded it onto the pale wooden chair in front of his desk.

I glanced over and nearly rolled off my bed. His back was… majestic. Holy shit. Muscular and ripped, broad shoulders, with those two little dips of muscle that pointed down toward his ass. There was even a row of light brown freckles making a constellation between his shoulder blades.

Then he turned around, and it was truly game over.

I needed the Jaws of Life to pry my eyes off his perfect six-pack and firm chest. His dark little happy trail seared itself into my brain. I heard him unzip his shorts and drop them to the floor. It was like Pavlov’s dog, except instead of being conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell, I was conditioned to get hard at the sound of pants dropping. Especially when they belonged to a ripped jock with a sunshine-bright smile and emerald-green eyes.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

This was going to be way harder than I thought.

“Good night, roomie.” He got into his bed and turned off the lights.

“Night,” I said, palming my erection under the sheets and wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this while keeping all of my morals intact.

Chapter Four

Ryan

I took a big bite of my ham-and-cheese bagel right as my character got whacked in the face by a massive sword, the screen fading to red. Damn. I had to start this level over again. I leaned back against the wall, stretched out my legs on the bed, and focused on the handheld game in my hands.

Two weeks had passed, and I still wasn’t back in my dorm.

Not that I was complaining. Although Jay definitely was. Loudly. And frequently.

It was kind of cute.

No matter how much he fought it, he had to admit that we fit pretty well together. I respected his space; he respected mine. We kept the dorm clean, except for the occasional stray socks or boxers usually contributed by me. We even had some of the same class times on certain days, which I only knew because I’d walk a few feet behind him on the way to class. He had made it very clear that he couldn’t be seen being too friendly with me.

At first I thought it was maybe because I smelled, but a quick pit sniff test scratched out that theory.

Then I thought it was because he was a loner type, but that didn’t make sense from the snippets of information I was able to pull from him. He had come from a school in New York and had apparently been quite popular over there. He was majoring in Environmental Science, which did give me pause, considering my family wasn’t exactly one with the environment.

Meanwhile, I played my video games while occasionally dreaming of making them. I did join the rowing crew, which was a great way to get a daily workout in. Out of all the sports I’d played, I had to admit rowing was my favorite. Something about the camaraderie with my crew and the serenity of the water as we sliced through it always scratched an itch in the back of my brain.

The door to the dorm opened. In walked Jay, black backpack hanging off one shoulder, his light brown hair getting longer and slightly messier. He wore a pair of thin dark blue shorts that showed off those long and strong dancer legs of his.

“Hey, man,” I said, my attention being so consumed by those sexy-ass legs that my character died again. “How was rehearsal?”

“It was good. I’ve got pretty much all the choreo and blocking down.” He dropped his book bag on his chair and glanced at the television I had set up on my desk, aimed so that I could be lying down on my bed and still play. “What game is that?”

I perked up. Jay rarely ever took an interest in anything I was doing. It was usually the exact opposite. Guess rehearsals really did go great today.

“It’s the new Final Fantasy. I love this shit. I’ve played pretty much all of them.”

“Aren’t there like a hundred of them?”

“Fifteen, but if there were a hundred, I’d play all of them too.”

Jay crossed his arms and cocked his head. He looked over to the bathroom, and I figured he was going to go and shower, our conversation over. But he surprised me again by sitting down on his bed instead. “What do you like about it?”

“What don’t I like about it would be an easier question to answer.” I dove into a lecture about what made Final Fantasy so special. The different characters, the bonkers storylines, the action and adventure, the mix of sci-fi and fantasy, the romance, the chocobos.

“The choco—wha?” Jay asked, for once not interrupting me with an eye roll or a sassy little quip.

“The chocobos. They’re like big yellow chickens you can ride around the game on. They’re fucking iconic.” Jay chuckled at that. He took off his socks and bundled them together. I couldn’t help but notice how big his feet were, which made me wonder if everything else about him was proportional or not.

“So you ride around on Big Bird while you swing a sword and cast some magic spells?”

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