Sasha patted Ellie’s now-straightened locks. “I think this is a better look for you. But Victoria is really good with her—”
The door banged open, and Sasha’s roommate rushed in. “Wait, you can’t tell lesbian sex stories without me,” Brian panted. I sighed and dug out another bowl.
“You guys are going to owe us lunch tomorrow.” I shook a spoon at Brian. Brian’s family was pretty well off, so he could afford to take us all to lunch sometimes.
“Fine.” He shrugged and pulled out the last stool at our counter. He looked reprovingly at Sasha. “I thought we made a deal. I pay the rent and you pay me in stories.”
Brian, like Sasha, was a theater arts major. He declared he was straight, but we all had our doubts. I pegged him as bi-curious. He liked hearing stories about the boys far too much for a straight guy.
“Victoria. Tongue. Needy.” Sasha summarized for him.
“I’m going to need more details,” Brian said, picking up my sandwich and eating half of it in one gulp. He had a guy’s appetite, that’s for sure.
“What’d you do over break, Brian?” I got the soup out of the microwave, poured it into the two bowls, and started to eat.
“Skied. Tried to reclaim as much stuff from the little shit as I could.” Brian’s little brother was apparently enjoying Brian’s absence at college by taking everything of Brian’s—from his baseball card collection to his high-school girlfriend. Brian only cared about the card collection.
I’d thought I wanted siblings until I heard horror stories from Brian and Sasha. It seems younger siblings were the very devil. My two older half-siblings didn’t mix with my mother and me, so I never got to be the annoying younger sister. And after me, my mother never made another of those mistakes again.
“Catch me up. I had to stay late after class because I was busy sucking up to the TA,” Brian confessed.
“Ellie has a cute freshman lab partner, Sasha’s tired of Victoria, and I sat next to Bo Randolph in biology.” I conveniently left out mention of the note.
Three sighs of delight reverberated through the room at the mention of Bo’s name.
“Bo looks like he’s sculpted from stone by some master and skin was stretched over the form. Unreal,” Sasha declared. “I’d love to see him in a life drawing class.”
“The guns on that guy,” Brian concurred.
“Where are all of you seeing him?” I asked, surprised at their distinct recall of Bo’s body.
“I see him in the gym, lifting,” Brian said.
“Yoga,” Sasha offered.
“He does yoga?” My eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“No, while I’m doing yoga, I see him working out. He’s like all muscle. Last semester’s yoga class at 5 P.M. was packed once word got out that he and his buddy Noah lifted weights there before dinner. It’s like a burlesque show. They start out with their shirts on and then slowly unveil the package as they get sweatier and sweatier,” Sasha explained. “Then, when they’re super hot and super sweaty, they’ll run their discarded shirts over their chests. Bo’s got this huge tattoo of a bird on his back and Noah’s got some tree up the side. It’s indecent and delicious and ovary-clenching good,” she concluded. “See the things you’re missing out on with your Central campus exile?”
“I think my ovaries aren’t prepared for those kinds of scenes,” I replied dryly, but inwardly those private parts tightened at the visual of a nearly naked and sweaty Bo. Sasha regularly tried to entice me back onto campus, whereas Ellie was content to join me in my self-imposed exile. Unfortunately, being with me meant no lunch in the commons or the QC Café. No studying in the library. No hanging out at the campus Starbucks. And no group yoga classes where you tried to do downward-facing dog while still sneaking peaks at the jocks working out in the weight room next door.
Sasha just shook her head. “What’s your project for biology?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” I admitted. “It hasn’t been shared yet.”
“He must be rotating,” Brian said. “My bio project was determining which natural disaster would be most likely to result in the apocalypse here in the Midwest.”
“See!” Ellie shouted. We all jumped at the sharp bark of her voice. “I told you this was all about death and weather. He probably has flying monkey costumes in his office, the sadist.”
“Brian, were there any monkeys in your class course?” I asked.
He rubbed his chin, feigning thoughtfulness. “There was this one time when he mentioned that tornadoes were the result of monkey farts.”