Page 5 of Down My Chimney

“Yeah, unfamiliar concept,” Taylor said. “Almost as unfamiliar as this chick of yours.”

“She’s not gonna be his much longer,” Matty said with a snicker. “You should have seen how fast he hung up. Didn’t even say goodbye to her.”

“Dude.” Dev shook his head at me in disappointment. “I know you’re used to girls throwing themselves at you every chance they get, so this has maybe never occurred to you before, but you’re kind of supposed to be nice to them if you want them to keep liking you.”

He reached out to steal another potato, and I parried him with my fork.

“Blake doesn’t have to worry about things like that,” Taylor said as Dev and I continued to swordfight. “He can get a new girl any time he wants.” His eyes narrowed. “Though that begs the question, why is he going to all this trouble for this one? Phone sex, hiding her identity—I mean, what’s so special about her?”

“You know,” Matty said thoughtfully, “he kinda pulled back on the man-whoring last semester. Maybe he met her then, and she was all,Oh, I’m saving myself for marriage,and now he’s like, trying to reform.”

“Oh shit, good point,” Taylor said. “You think she’s got one of those purity rings? She won’t put out for real, but she’ll bend the rules enough to accommodate a little video vixen-ing?”

“I’m literallyright here,” I burst out. When Dev looked up in surprise, I used the distraction to grab his fork and toss it onto the table behind us.

“Uncalled for,” he muttered.

“You’reuncalled for. You all are.”

“Aw, is someone grumpy because he’s not gettin’ it on the regular anymore?” Taylor asked. “Sour because you’re dating the Virgin Mary?”

“Don’t worry, Blake.” Matty slung an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll wear her down soon enough. No one can resist your charms.”

I shrugged him off, but Dev used that opportunity to steal my entire plate. He brought it to his face and rapidly shoved five potato chunks into his mouth before giving it back.

“You look like a chipmunk,” I told him.

“Alow-carbchipmunk,” he said with a grin, a piece of potato falling out into his lap.

* * *

I tossed and turned later that night, trying to get to sleep. It was weird, actually, sleeping in a room by myself. Matty snored, and Taylor, who I’d roomed with last year, talked in his sleep. I wasn’t used to quiet at night anymore.

Henry didn’t snore or talk in his sleep, but he was who I really missed. Winter break felt like years ago, instead of just a few weeks. More like a dream than a memory. This thing between us had blossomed so quickly, it almost seemed impossible.

But it was real. Henry liked me. And I liked him. Because I was…

Gay.You’re gay, I thought to myself.You have to get used to saying it.

I liked guys. There was no denying that. The whole reason I’d stopped sleeping around last fall was because I’d started having sex dreams about guys, which set off a sexuality crisis that led me to plumb the depths of the internet’s gay porn offerings before finally accepting the fact that I was into men.

And that, in turn, had led to me making a profile online, looking for an anonymous hookup, which had led to me falling for someone who had, against all odds, turned out to be my childhood best friend, Henry Waterstone. Who I’d been head-over-heels for, without realizing it, for years.

I couldn’t have been happier about how things had ended up. I just wished that everything that came after was a little easier.

This fall had been hard enough, trying to maintain my grades while keeping up with our soccer season. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I loved soccer, and my athletic scholarship was the reason I was even at this school. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten in otherwise.

But the terms of that scholarship had changed last summer, and suddenly I was responsible for keeping a B average when I’d been scraping by with Cs before. And English lit might not have had multiple-choice tests, but it hadendlessreading assignments and papers, and it turned out I was worse at those than I was at filling in bubbles.

Add in the fact that our new coach was determined to improve our record next fall by conditioning us this spring, and I was barely getting any sleep. Throwing Henry into the mix—finding the time to talk to him, and keeping my roommates from finding out—was enough to make me feel like I was losing my mind.

I wanted to talk to Henry more, not less. Everything seemed easier around him. But in the past week, we’d only been able to really talk twice, and I was getting twitchy, trying to keep the guys from noticing who I was messaging all the time.

I’d texted Henry when we got back from dinner, telling him what had happened and apologizing. He’d laughed and told me it was fine. Or, well, he’d written,Hahahaha, figured it was something like that, which was kind of the same thing. But still, I missed him.

It’ll be better when he’s here,I told myself.Stop worrying so much. It’ll all be better once you’re together again.

* * *

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