Izzy and the Right Answer Page 6

  “I—Sorry.” Rocco moved the glass of water out of Iz’s way, but then retreated back to his original position.

  Iz sank down into the oversized jacket. It was heavy like arms around him. “It’s okay.” He didn’t think he was lying, but the warmer he got, the harder it was to speak, and to think, and so maybe he was and just couldn’t tell. “Nothing says you have to sit with me,” he reassured Rocco. “Don’t need to like me more than you like anyone else. Nothing special about me.”

  “Says you, O Oracle.”

  If that was more teasing, Iz didn’t like it.

  “Says me,” he agreed. “I don’t know everything. I don’t know so much.”

  “Are you picking at yourself again?” Rocco wondered. “Maybe give yourself a break.”

  That was very funny coming from him.

  “If I don’t know things, what good am I?” Iz leaned harder onto his hand to study Rocco sideways. He whispered, “I don’t expect you to have the answer to that. It’s not a real question.”

  “When was the last time you slept, Iz?” Rocco crossed his arms over his chest. One of his hands was curled tight around his sweatshirt sleeve. “Your friends don’t only like you for your brain, or whatever it is you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not sexy like the rest of you,” Iz informed him, since Rocco didn’t seem to know this. “I don’t have ‘it’.” He made lazy air quotes with one hand for the word. “I’m a spectator who makes good guesses. You are sexy, and you understand people, and you win things. You work hard and you’re not wasteful, especially not of your own gifts. Of the two people in this room, you are the catch, sir.” Iz smiled gently. “You’re the laurels and the trophy and the ribbon.”

  Rocco didn’t move for several long seconds. Then all he did was take a breath. His eyes were wide open, his mouth soft. “Izzy.” His voice was rough as a brick.

  “I’m bothering you again.” Iz yanked his scarf up over half his face and shut his eyes. “You need to study. Give me a pillow and I’ll be fine here. Sorry for the fuss.”

  “Izzy.” Rocco’s voice was still rough but his tone was soft. “You don’t have to apologize for being you. You can’t help it.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Iz told him truthfully, muffled.

  “It means a hit, even when I know better.” Rocco nearly sighed it. And then, as though he could see Iz’s internal question mark, he added, “It means I don’t mind that you’re here, and I’m sorry we don’t sit together more. I had reasons, and I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “I will accept not being minded.” Iz nodded to support this. “I will accept it very much. And it matters. You. Are. Good.”

  “That’s—you can’t—” Rocco’s words floated down from the moon. “You can’t sleep there. You’ll wake up sore. Or fall over.”

  “Happy,” Iz answered, toes tingling, tongue thick. “Warm. Don’t worry. Good.”

  “Good,” Rocco repeated, worrying anyway. “Iz?”

  Iz let out a long, easy breath.

  Iz woke up to pale blue predawn light in his face and a slight chill along one leg. He’d kicked off the blanket covering that particular leg, he discovered after a short investigation. He was also in a strange bedroom but it wasn’t hard to figure out whose. Boxing or sparring gear took up the surface of the only desk, and a sword, an actual sword, leaned against one side. Textbooks had been relegated to the floor. Three large hoodies had been thrown over the chair.

  The nightstand—or end table used as a nightstand—held a lamp, a pair of what might have been reading glasses, and a bottle of lubricant.

  Everything smelled faintly of instant ramen, except the pillow beneath Iz’s head, which smelled like Rocco in a way his jacket had not.

  Iz considered the lubricant with one eye, half of his face still buried in the pillow. He was on top of the covers, with a blanket thrown over him. He wore his sweatshirt and his jeans. Rocco must have pulled off Iz’s gloves and scarf, and taken back his jacket before putting Iz to bed. In his bed. Which he should not have done. Iz would have been fine in a chair.

  He dug a hand out from under the blanket to cover his mouth. Displacing Rocco shouldn’t make him smile. Neither should knowing that Rocco had probably used that lubricant in this very bed. Probably with someone else, but also probably by himself.

  Iz jacked off too. It felt nice and fantasies gave his mind a singular focus for a time. Rocco would be different, though. He’d be—Iz hesitated over the term but thought it anyway—normal about it. That was okay. For the moment, Iz liked being aware of Rocco’s pleasure, liked the scents in his pillow, and the softness of his mattress, and the idea that Rocco had fantasies, whatever and whoever they were about.

  But thinking about it too much was wrong, probably, or something to be done when he wasn’t in Rocco’s bed, so Iz reached for his phone. Rocco had plugged it in and left it on the nightstand too.

  The trip in Iz’s heartbeat was familiar now.

  He sent texts to Patricio and Ronnie: Thank you. Then checked the time before getting out of bed. He pulled his clothes straight and looked around but didn’t see the rest of his things anywhere.

  With extreme care, he opened the bedroom door and poked his head out. The other bedroom doors were closed. The living room was dark except for the early morning sunlight sneaking through the curtains.

  Rocco was in one of the lounge chairs, which he’d lowered to its reclining position. He had a blanket, but the heat in the room was still going, and he must have gotten too hot and pushed it down so it only covered his legs.

  He was in a t-shirt and sweats. His face was softer in sleep, his lips fuller as if his tongue pushed them out a little.

  Iz waffled on waking him up to send him to bed or letting him sleep. If Rocco had just fallen asleep, waking him would be cruel. But he couldn’t be comfortable, squished crookedly into a chair that wasn’t large enough for him.

  In the end, Iz left him there and found his gloves and scarf by the door. His bag and coat as well, along with Rocco’s leather jacket. Iz’s hair was a mess. His clothes were wrinkled.

  It would be a long, cold walk to his apartment. He might as well cover up.

  He pulled the leather over his sweatshirt and zipped it closed with a hum of contentment. He’d return it in a few hours.

  And with that, he took his things and slipped out in the freezing early morning air.

  He dropped the jacket off at the bookstore just after noon, when he knew Rocco would be gone. He put a handwritten note on top, because his mother would have demanded it.

  Hesitant in a way that made Patricio nudge him, he folded the note so no one else would read it. Although it only said, Thank you. Jamie Islington.

  Patricio had nudged him for that too, but bought him an extra coffee before walking him to class. He seemed to understand that the idea of talking to Rocco was too much for Iz today.

  “Lots of people sign their whole name and leave thank you cards for their friends,” Patricio lied gently.

  Iz stayed flushed through the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter Four

  “What should I have said?” Iz sat across from Patricio and picked at what was left of his burrito bowl. He had studied and gone to class and called his parents to check in and catch up. He had spent two days with this problem at the back of his mind and had reached no conclusions, except that he should have reached a conclusion.

  Patricio looked up from his book, a tortilla chip halfway in his mouth.

  The food was cheap and good in the tiny restaurant just off campus, probably because it served so many starving, broke students. It was also always crowded for that reason. But today, Iz liked the noise since it meant he could say whatever and even Patricio could barely hear him.

  Patricio finished the chip while he backtracked and figured out Iz’s non-sequitur. “You mean in your note?” He picked up another chip and poured hot sauce directly on it. “Thanks for the sleepover? For having me in yo
ur bed? For letting me steal your jacket? Let me take you to dinner and eventually marry you? The possibilities are endless.” He crunched down with a satisfied air, amusing himself. “Or you could have texted him. But a paper note has a certain charm. A very Izzy charm.”

  “Enough charm to make up for stealing his jacket?” Which Iz definitely had, at least the second time.

  “Enough charm that you probably could have added, ‘P.S. Your bed is very comfortable. Feel free to invite me over to sleep in it again, preferably not alone this time.’”

  Iz’s stomach did something it hadn’t done since the one time he had ridden a roller coaster. He had thrown up shortly afterward.

  “To sleep,” Patricio added, watching Iz closely. “Nothing says it has to be sex if you don’t want it. I mean, in this hypothetical future dating-slash-sleeping arrangement.”

  “Do you think—” Iz licked his lips nervously. “Do you think he would want to have sex with me?” He received a long look that he wasn’t sure he appreciated. “I know people find me attractive.” Iz was slightly oblivious, yes, but drunk men at parties tended to be blunt. “But would he?”

  Again, Patricio stared at him, although this time he continued to slowly eat chips. “Iz, how many times have you fallen asleep on a couch or a chair at a friend’s house, half-draped over me or Ronnie?” He didn’t let Iz answer since they both knew Iz could fall asleep on almost any surface—and had. “And Ronnie covered you in a blanket or a coat or the others left you there? And how many times have we slept next to each other in my bed or yours? He’s seen all of that. He knows how you are—and yet.”

  “Are you saying it’s of some significance that he let me sleep in his bed?” Iz stirred the leftover corn and rice in his bowl.

  “Let you?” Patricio snorted. “He had to have carried you there, which of course you slept through like a lump. And I’m saying it could be of some significance, yeah. It’s worth thinking about. Try asking him to hang out over something other than coffee. Friends do that too. And think about it. Think very hard about what you want and what he wants.”

  Iz met his stare. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Yes.” Patricio did not hesitate.

  “The boy with the tattoo on his calf… the one the others run with.” Iz paused delicately, silently inquiring. “He’s nice for you to look at. He’s also in my friend Tia’s Statistics class and she says the tattoo is Totoro. Would you like him? He looked back at you, and if he is friendly with Ronnie and Rocco, then he might be friendly with you too. But I have only observed from a distance so far.”

  “I might,” Patricio answered seriously. “You are good at that for everybody but yourself.”

  Iz put his hands flat on the table. “Just noticing things.”

  “Then notice some more—about your lovelife.”

  “Rocco’s very thoughtful,” Iz insisted, irked and stubborn. “It doesn’t mean he wants to sleep with me.”

  “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t.” Patricio shrugged. “Lots of people think about sleeping with their friends… even people you know. Like I said, think about it. Then consider whether or not you want to sleep with him.”

  Iz’s stomach swooped all over again, and he got so heated that it itched beneath his arms and his cheeks burned. “I have thought about it,” he confessed very quietly.

  It wasn’t how it was in stories, not for him. No overpowering storms of sweeping, fiery lust. This desire was warm in his chest and a little embarrassing. Intimate, because he wasn’t thinking abstractly about a porn actor but about someone he knew. His fantasies were still based on no real experience, but they got him hard and left him breathless.

  “I think I do,” he went on tentatively. “For sleep and for something possibly beyond kissing. But I also think—no, I feel—something else. I talked to him. We’ve never been alone and talked, just the two of us. I thought it would make me feel good to know him more, to see if he didn’t want to be closer friends with me. Then I took his coat and haven’t seen him, and I feel… something. Heavy? Like sadness? But I’m not sad. Being his friend means more chances to be around him. So I should be happier, except for the sting when I remember the jacket and the smell in his bed.”

  “Feelings are very real and upsetting,” Patricio said sympathetically, then frowned. “Did you buy me lunch to bribe me to talk about this? We could have talked about it anyway. That’s a bad thought, Iz. I’m not your friend to get answers out of you.”

  “He said that too.” Iz was finding it easier to talk about Rocco if he didn’t use his name. “He also wanted to know if I would think his interests were so great if he didn’t win anything. Humans are funky, broken creatures, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe that’s what you see in him. A nervous kindred spirit.” Patricio’s smile was gentle. “Shared gifted child syndrome or something.”

  “Humans are a collection of chemicals. So it follows that feelings, which are also chemicals, are real too. Not abstracts, but tangible, in a way. To be feared or at least respected.” The words left Iz’s mouth in an anxious rush. He paused to breathe. “My chest is tight. Thinking about seeing him again makes it hard to think. I am supposed to be able to think. Do I owe him an apology? Is that what’s wrong? Is it because we talked? It wasn’t like this before. I could breathe before.”

  Patricio carefully pushed aside what remained of his basket of chips. “You like him and admire him. You’re worrying about his reaction to something you did because if he hated you, it would hurt. All of that points to something, Izzy Iz. Do you need me to say it?”

  “No,” Iz replied in a small voice. “Yes. No. It’s more than a crush. There is visceral longing.” He sighed. “Is trying to be closer friends with him the wrong thing to do? Should I try to keep our interactions to a minimum to save myself trouble? That seems sensible… but when have I been sensible?”

  “You already want him. It’s not the end of the world.” Patricio considered him. “One, people live with broken hearts. They just do. You would understand that if you stopped to really think about what that looks like. And two, maybe it will help him like you back. Hmm, and three, it might help with the feeling you’re refusing to name.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to date anyone,” Iz complained in a mumble.

  “It’s not innate knowledge. Everyone who wants to has to learn.” Patricio reached for the basket again to eat the crumbs. “It’s scary, though. And I admit, it’s not like I’ve tried dating since everything.”

  “You’re saying I should?” Iz asked slowly.

  “Saying you could.” Patricio ran out of crumbs and finally sat back. “Someday, if not now. With someone, if not him. There are other candidates. Good ones.”

  “Not now,” Iz agreed softly. “Not with him. I don’t think I could win him.”

  Patricio coughed harshly and paused to drink some water. He looked closely at Iz, then glanced away and made another strangled noise. “Iz, uh, there is no way to say this without sounding like an asshole, so I’m getting that out of the way now. But—I know you’re in love because only to you is he out of your league. You are literally the only one who thinks that.”

  “In love?” Iz echoed, then jerked his head back in annoyance. “Are you talking about how he looks? I can’t be the only one who watches his hands and how he moves. His smile is a lightbulb. He touched me only out of concern but I still felt it—a burn in my skin that didn’t hurt. Warmth. Like his coat. Like his bed.”

  Iz collapsed into his seat like a falling soufflé.

  “My baby’s in love,” Patricio remarked after a while.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Iz asked with long, low sigh and skip in the beat of his heart.

  Chapter Five

  Getting intoxicated was the thing to do in his situation, according to many people. Getting drunk and trying to hook up with someone else was also common, though Ronnie had explained seriously that he was not pressuring Iz to do that.

  Iz decided that he’d been
mistaken before, and that Ronnie was most endearing when he was earnest and concerned. This was possibly why Iz had agreed to come out with him for a night of partying. That, and how Ronnie was in a similar situation. Ronnie hadn’t said so directly. He had quirked a funny smile and wondered quietly why things like this kept happening to him when he wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Then he’d announced that he should probably try to get laid.

  Iz had leaned against his arm and patted his knee and Ronnie had gone quiet for a while before pulling out his phone. Iz didn’t apologize for not returning Ronnie’s feelings back in their first year. He couldn’t and shouldn’t. But he did feel terrible that Ronnie was suffering again, even though that was not his fault either.

  Well, he had connected Rahim to Hot Nurse. Which Rahim had told everyone about during the past week. Which was possibly why Patricio had stopped when they’d walked past Ronnie in the library and talked to him for a while. And now why Iz had agreed to keep Ronnie company as he drank his way down a street of frat houses and student apartments full of weekend parties.

  Iz privately didn’t think Ronnie was out to get laid. There were faster ways. He might not have even had to leave his apartment. He didn’t need to do this, so Iz suspected Ronnie was out to get wasted and he didn’t want to be alone. Iz was tempted to do the same. He didn’t drink much, but a sudden influx of alcohol could slow his thinking down.

  So he had accepted a plastic party cup filled with something red and watched Patricio disappear with someone, and he was now leaning against the wall of someone’s kitchen, looking out the sliding glass door to a grassy communal area for all the apartments around them.

  The drink was sickly sweet with a burn at the end, and Iz drank half the cup waiting for Ronnie to come back from standing in line for the bathroom. If they had been at the frat house down the street, people might have just peed in the yard.