TJGrand: No, I’m the guy on the right. Troy’s my roommate. I’m Theo.
The bubbles again pop up and then disappear…for a solid minute.
BlueBelle2001: But Troy’s your roommate?
TJGrand has left the conversation.
I take a better look at my new profile pic and see I used the same damned picture. I judged it on my smile, but by the two hundred or so matches I’ve gotten in the last hour, I can see the mistake of using my short name—first and middle initials—and Troy’s, whose are the same. The picture I chose displaying the two of us equally, only adds to the confusion. To any outsider, it might look like I’m catfishing.
Way to go, Theo.
I delete my profile and then the app and run my hand down my face just as Troy passes me a beer. “Dude, heard you guys killed it tonight.”
“Thanks, you didn’t do so bad yourself,” I say, downing the cool suds.
Troy clinks bottles with me. “Guess you won’t come to the party since you’ve got someone coming?”
“Nah,” I kill the screen, “didn’t work out, she’s too eager.” For you.
“Grab your shit then,” he flashes me his all-American grin. “Let’s get you laid.”
Standing, I grab my keys off the coffee table and study myself in the entry mirror which hangs below the Live Nudes neon sign that Troy brought in to even out the Feng Shui.
Prepping for the night, and a better outcome than my first fail, I run a hand through my wavy hair and grab my light, black sweater from the lip of the couch.
“Yeah,” I counter, eyeing him through the hole of my sweater, “because it’s that easy.” Six years of striking out, endless hand jobs and a half-drunken blow-all from my ex later, I’m still trying to break the seal. “And can we not make my sexual status a public service announcement?”
Troy gives me a pointed look while he gathers our empty bottles from the coffee table. “Sorry, bro, but you’re picky.”
“Standards? You mean, I have standards.” Which I was willing to push aside for BlueBelle2001 just to rid myself the burden of being a twenty-one-year-old virgin. Heading to the kitchen for a glass of water for preliminary damage control, I grimace when I open the cabinet to see the waiting Smirnoff Ice.
“Damnit!”
“You’re too predictable, Houseman.” Kevin chuckles behind me. “Take a knee.”
I’ve been Iced. No one really knows who started this torturous ritual, it just is, like a lot of other Grand traditions. The trick is to hide it cleverly and stand in wait for the bottle to be seen. If you’re caught, no matter the time of day, you kneel and drink. Taking a knee, I twist off the cap and toss it back with a groan.
Troy towers over me, satisfied with my chug until it’s drained. Even when I’m on my feet again, he’s got me beat standing 6’3 to my 5’11. He grins down at me with the smirk that’s incinerated half of Texas Grand University’s thong population. “I have a feeling about tonight.”
“I did,” I mumble before I follow him out the door with Kevin hot on our heels. Kevin’s of similar build, a hulky-looking linebacker and not much for mincing words. Luckily for me, tonight he’s decided to pipe up and kick me when I’m down.
“There’s a girl at this party, I know she will take you on,” Kevin adds as a means of shitty support, totally oblivious to the insult.
“No thanks,” I mutter while locking the door to the house. The house is an older, light blue two-story on a mostly quiet residential street, fifteen minutes away from campus. It’s what anyone else would call a fixer-upper, but it’s my sanctuary. I secured the rental a month before school started in an attempt to live the full college experience. Though I didn’t want to be stuck in a dorm anymore, I didn’t want shit to do with fraternities either. I take my education and personal space seriously, so instead, I opt to attend their parties.
Troy is a wide receiver for the Rangers and was the first to answer my ad for a roommate. In the beginning, I considered myself lucky because he secured the invites to said parties and attracted attention of the female sort. The decision to let him have a room has turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. My other roommate, Lance, rarely comes out of his room, and we can never tell if he’s home because he doesn’t drive. As if reading my mind, Troy speaks up.
“Is Lance asleep in there?”
I lift a shoulder. “No clue. He’s on your team, not mine. You don’t talk to him?”
“Not really,” Troy says. “He hangs with a different crowd.”
Kevin speaks up next. “He’s always hanging out at that coffee shop with Dorman, but at home, he’s like the dude in…what’s that movie?”
“No idea,” I say, knowing damn well what movie he’s referring to.
“Half Baked,” Troy supplies.