My new roommates are all lesbians. Pete is outnumbered 4-1.
Jacky frowned down at his phone. He had forced himself to wait until he was actually in line at Dunkins to read Ryan's message, which he'd sent as a chat and not as a video message. Had Ryan meant to send this message to someone else?
His mind tried to connect the dots. Does Ryan use SnapChat with someone else? How long has this been going on?
Then he saw that he had sent Ryan a message to prompt this. A video message. The screen was nearly dark and Jacky was absolutely not going to play that out loud. He had sent Ryan a message last night after he blacked out. A drunk text, basically, but worse. A drunk video. What had he said? He looked up at the ceiling and groaned out loud.
"That bad, huh?" came a voice behind him.
Jacky turned to find Braedyn, looking not hungover at all. Nope, Braedyn had perfectly tousled hair and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to look like he could be heading off to the beach. Jacky averted his eyes. "Drunk-texted my ex," he mumbled.
He wondered if Braedyn remembered Jacky's drunk coming out statement, but only for a moment before Braedyn said, "Oof, that sucks. Is your ex a total douchebag?"
"No," Jacky said with a laugh, because in no universe would Ryan ever be described as a douchebag. "He's... great, actually." I'm the douchebag, he thought darkly. I dumped him the night before he left for college.
"Oh." Braedyn's voice had gone high. "Why'd you guys break up then?"
Jacky shrugged, inching forward in a line that seemed to be how fast coffee lines moved in his own personal hell. "You know, the usual... breaking up before college thing."
"Wow, you sure he's not a douche?" Braedyn said. "I mean, you guys could have at least tried long distance."
"It was mutual," Jacky lied.
Ryan's eyes, shining in the porch light that night: Are you saying you want to break up with me? The way Ryan couldn't even seem to have imagined this was a possibility.
Braedyn squinted his eyes and nodded in an unreadable way. "Hey, are you going to the..."
But Jacky's mind was so far down the black hole of self-loathing that he wasn't listening. He had blindsided Ryan, when they could have had a conversation about it at any point over the summer. Instead Jacky had just assumed Ryan would be better off without him and slammed the door. Ryan didn't deserve that. Jacky deserved to be alone and miserable.
It wasn't until Braedyn nudged him with an elbow to his back that he realized that the cashier was waiting to take his order and probably had been for quite some time.
"Sorry," he said, and then his mind went blank.
"So what can I get you?" the cashier asked, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.
Jacky could barely focus enough to read the menu board. "Coffee," was all he managed to say.
"A large." Braedyn came up to stand beside him. "My man is very in need of caffeine."
After Braedyn helped Jacky get his drink ordered, Jacky pulled out his new debit card and said, "I'll pay for this guy's coffee too."
"Nah, man, you don't have to—"
"Shut up," Jacky said, and plunked his card down.
Holding up his hands in surrender, Braedyn laughed a little nervously. "Okay, fine. Pay for my coffee. See if I care."
"I will!" Jacky snapped, but grinned.
Marina didn't stop asking him questions the entire time they were in line at the coffee shop. It was like being interrogated. "Where are you from? Did you go to a big high school? Have you ever lived in a city? What was your class rank? Not like your GPA, but were you in the top ten? I heard you have to be in the top ten of your class to get into Tufts. Do you have any pets?"
At the front of the line Ryan placed his order, a simple iced coffee with cream and sugar, then moved far away while Marina ordered the most complicated drink he'd ever heard of. He peeked at his phone, both to check the time and to see if there was any response from Jacky. "Trying to get away from me?" she asked when she joined him near the pick-up area. Then she continued grilling him.
By the time they'd gotten their coffees, Ryan had told Marina his life story and he was ready to get back to class. He hated interrupting but it seemed to be the only way to get her to stop. "Do you know where Dowling Hall is?"
"Oh sure! Do you have your next class there? English 101?"
He did his best not to sigh out loud. "Yeah, how did you know?"
She linked her arm through his and tugged him along. "Because I'm in the same class!"
Between his second class of the day and lunch, Jacky raced back to the dorm to swap out his books and to finally sit down with his phone. He winced his whole way through watching his slurred message about his roommate being Billy. Now Ryan's reply made more sense, although Jacky was surprised Ryan hadn't commented on Billy directly. Ryan had known Billy. Ryan had known Jacky and Billy had dated back in middle school. Hell, at one point Ryan had admitted to Jacky that after watching Jacky and Billy dance together at the eighth grade formal, he had fantasized about himself and his crush, Alex, doing the same.
Jacky supposed his drunk self had been hoping Ryan would be jealous. Of course Jacky knew Ryan would be inundated with possibilities of hot guys to date. Bombarded with masses of gay guys who didn't have a chip on their shoulder or past traumas.
Secretly Jacky was glad Ryan didn't have any guy roommates other than Pete.
He still wasn't sure how to respond to Ryan's message. The fact that Ryan had responded gave him a tiny glimmer of hope that Ryan didn't hate him.
But he was sure Ryan would go for some other guy if he had the choice and the chance and wasn't burdened by Jacky. He had to make sure Ryan took that opportunity, even if Jacky's drunk self clearly still wanted Ryan. Jacky had to stay strong. They'd only been broken up for two days. Jacky needed to keep his drunk self in check.
Considering, he tapped out a response.
Haha Pete doesn't stand a chance of staying straight with you all
He hadn't mentioned anything about his own message, or about how Ryan's apartment was probably going to be full of gay people all the time. He kept it safe. Jacky nodded and hit send.
Then he exhaled, and the weight of being alone settled onto his shoulders.