On Monday Peter brings the Pablo Neruda book to class, and he and Shawn exchange thoroughly unenthused glances at the prospect of learning to divide fractions. Peter tells him that Jeremy has agreed to meet them in the library on Wednesday, but if they're going to dick around like they did with imaginary numbers, he's going to make them start paying for tutoring. They both pretend the awkward kissing incident never happened, then at their Friday afternoon tutoring session, Jeremy makes a crack about Peter running around tonguing the freshman. All three boys laugh, and Peter loosens up a little bit. He gets a little less cynical and a little more affectionate than Shawn is really comfortable with, but after a week or two of hanging out with Peter, Shawn realizes that's how he treats everyone, and his original standoffishness was probably part of his crush. Shawn stops noticing.
Topanga finally calls Cory, and they have a very long, pleasant conversation about her rehearsals, their detective show and college in general. Cory lightens up. He joins pottery club, and starts coming to dinner in the cafeteria with Shawn, Peter, some of Peter's friends and a small amalgamation of people from their classes.
But it's still hard to get Cory away from his phone, out of the room, and he still has the occasional snit about not being able to get a hold of Topanga for days at a time. Sometimes Shawn tries to help, sometime he avoids Cory until he chills out. He hates it. Cory's refusing to move forward and Shawn can't stand the thought of holding back just for him… but the idea of outgrowing Cory terrifies him to his very roots. He finds ways to distract himself.
One of these ways is Jessica, a friend of one of Cory's pottery friends. She's short and curvy, "ample" being Peter's primary adjective for her (a word he uses while drawing a crude hourglass in the air), and Shawn misses a lot of math class while daydreaming about her underwear.
"She's by the pop machine," Peter says in his ear after class one day, "Go ask her out."
"I don't know. I'd rather talk to her when she's-"
But Peter's already gone, striding toward the pop machine. Shawn watches him flutter a hand at her, (Peter has a tendency to play up the gay thing a little around girls, Shawn teases him about it) point at him, then lean in conspiratorially for a moment. Jessica laughs as he pulls back and Peter shrugs. He starts back toward Shawn, Jessica following along beside him.
"So…" Jessica starts, as Peter slips around behind Shawn, "I hear that you're done with class for the day. You want to go get a cup of coffee in the union?"
"Yeah, I'd like that," Shawn answers, a little stunned. He hasn't asked a girl out since Angela, he didn't expect things to just come together like this.
"Have fun," Peter says, slapping Shawn on the shoulder and kissing him on the back of the head before taking off.
"He's affectionate."
"Yeah, and I'm not sure what he told you, but, be warned he's also a filthy liar."
"He said you look skinny in that T-shirt, but it's all muscle underneath," Jessica smirks.
"Oh, yeah, well that's true."
Jessica turns out to be excruciatingly boring. Shawn gets halfway through his cup of coffee before wondering if stabbing his wooden stir stick directly into his eye would stop her monologue about her very technical and thoroughly uninteresting biology project. Shawn offers the one interesting thing he knows about science- the video of the guy that brought a severed dog's head back to life with some sort of blood pump- as an attempt to break into the conversation. This just starts Jessica off on a rant about animal cruelty and when Cory calls to see if he's coming for dinner Shawn leaps from the couch in relief and does his best not to run to the cafeteria and away from her.
His luck with girls doesn't improve. He asks out Jenny from his literature class and that lasts three dates before she just doesn't have time for him anymore because of her class and work load. Then Ashley from the student union, who he goes to two parties with and then dumps because she pregames both of them to the point where she stumbles into the house, then spends most of the party hurling in the hosts back yard. Then Theresa, who "suddenly has to leave" when she finds out that he grew up poor.
He's getting ready to swear off girls for the rest of the semester and concentrate on school when Angela calls from out of the blue a couple days before fall break. She's going to be in Philly for a long weekend, she was hoping they could get dinner or something.
It's a relief to talk to a girl that actually likes him, Shawn realizes as he and Angela have a comfortable conversation over a burger at Chubbies. She doesn't give him that appraising look he's sick of getting, she doesn't challenge him on points he knows nothing about, and they actually have enough in common to talk about.
"So… Cory's in Connecticut," he says as they pick up the check, "I've got the room to myself."
"Actually…" Angela starts guiltily, "I'm kind of seeing someone."
Damn, the longer they'd talked the more he'd been hoping this really would be like old times.
"Oh, okay," Shawn says, "You kept that one close to the chest."
Angela shrugs, "Sorry. It just didn't come up."
It's about to get awkward when Peter calls. Apparently things are getting awesome on the third floor, and Shawn invites Angela to forget the thing about the empty dorm room and come along.
Peter's in the hallway without a shirt when Shawn and Angela get to the dorm, and he rushes right up to Angela with a cry of "You've got to be her, you're even prettier than he said you were." Shawn makes a "cut it out motion" behind Angela, but Peter ignores it and reaches out to grab both their hands, pulling them upstairs with him.
There's a three table game of drunken strip poker going on in one person's dorm room and the loser is going to have to eat a habanero pepper while completely naked in front of everyone. Angela rolls her eyes, but stays to hang out for a while. Shawn gets roped into the game. He's not great at poker, but he's the only person in the room in full possession of his faculties so he does all right. Angela and Peter howl at him when he loses his shirt, which he peels off with just a little bit of flare. He spends the next hand watching Peter and Angela giggle together and finds himself wondering where he'd been right now if Cory was in town. Probably in their room, doing nothing. It's the kind of thought he's been having lately, and it upsets him. His lack of concentration costs him his pants, and then Angela decides she should go home for the night, excusing him from a painful and embarrassing fate. He gets dressed to general booing and takes her home.
"This was nice," he tells her in her driveway.
"It was," she agrees, then laughs, "A little odd, maybe, but yeah."
"We should get together the next time you're in town. Do something a little less…"
"Frat boy stupid?" Angela supplies, "Yeah. That would be fun. I'll call you."
She kisses him on the cheek and gets out of the car, giving him a small wave as she ducks into her house. Shawn goes back to the party, which apparently ended after Olson lost.
"He tried to eat the whole thing in one bite. He's still crying and puking in the bathroom," Peter shivers sympathetically.
"You can come hang out in my room," Shawn offers. It's only midnight and seeing Angela's given him kind of a charge. Peter shrugs and follows him downstairs.
"So, Angela seems pretty cool. And I'm not the best judge, but I'd also go with freaking beautiful," Peter says as Shawn turns on some music and flops down on his bed. Peter plops down with him, touching shoulders and hips, "Sorry about her boyfriend, man."
"Should've seen that coming," Shawn sighs.
"Well if it helps any the only thing she and I talked about was you. She kept talking about how you were sweet and charming and a great boyfriend."
Shawn scoffs.
"I bet she dumps him by the time she comes back for Christmas. You could email her."
"Peter?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you… lose track of your high school friends when you left for college?"
"Yeah," Peter says, "I did. But you know, Gary and I just didn't have anything in common anymore and Linda just got swept into her new life. She was in Peru with her fiancé the last I heard from her."
"I think tonight's going down in the record as the "First Time I had a Friendly Night with Angela", even though that was not the plan, and I don't think I was ever actually friends with Topanga either. I've known her forever, but I don't think I've ever spent time with her that didn't directly involve Cory. So I think Cory's really my only high school friend."
"Well, he lives here," Peter offers, shifting onto his side and propping his head up on one arm, "You know. In this room. You're still pretty in touch with him."
"I didn't tell him that Angela called before he left," Shawn said, "He was such a pain in the ass about us not trying to do the long distance thing, and about how she's great and I should hang onto her and all this stuff. I think he feels like my deciding not to try long distance with Angela is like… a condemnation of him trying to stay with Topanga."
"I'm sure he doesn't think that," Peter says, tapping his fingers lightly against Shawn's stomach before returning his hand to his own side.
"I shouldn't tell him that I went out with Angela."
"Really?"
"I don't need to hear the speech about how I shouldn't have let her go," Shawn sighs, his voice a little ragged, "Cause I didn't. She left. She let me go," Peter replaces his hand on Shawn's stomach, "And I… I like college. I'm having a good time. I like everyone I've met. And Cory's just still… all about high school. What happened tonight was Angela and I in college. And that's okay. That's better actually."
"Yeah," Peter agrees simply.
"Plus I feel like if I tell him that something else changed he'll just flip out. If Angela moved on then he'll freak out about Topanga doing it. He'll call her more. Or he'll start harping on me about how I should get a girlfriend."
"You date all the time," Peter said.
Shawn blows a little raspberry, "Back in high school I was king. I mean really. I once racked up eight dates in a weekend," Peter laughs and his hand moves just a little, "But after Angela, back in high school and tonight, it's just not… This makes me sound like a jerk- but I could go out and date most of the girls I meet, get coffee, get Cory to actually leave the room, and finally get some action in it," Peter laughs, just a tinge of discomfort in the laugh and starts brushing his fingers against Shawn's belly, just a little back and forth as Shawn continues, "And not really worry about whether I like them or not, but I don't want to do that over and over anymore. I want someone I actually like, someone I can hang out with and talk about stupid things, or important things. I'm not really finding it. I don't really even have it with Cory right now and I miss it."
Shawn admits this and is suddenly aware of Peter's face above him, his hand set on his belly, fingers toying with his shirt, skimming over him. Peter's watching his own fingers, seemingly entranced by them. Shawn can't tell from his expression if he's surprised that he's still doing it, or if he can't believe Shawn hasn't stopped him.
"Talk about things kind of like how we're talking right now?" Peter asks.
"Um. Yeah. I guess," Shawn says. He should really stop him. There's affectionate and there's intimate and Peter is crossing that line. It's been a while, more than a month since Peter kissed him, and Shawn's certainly gotten over crushes in less time than that, but still… in case he's leading him on, he should stop him, "You know… I want someone that I can just be… comfortable with."
"Sure."
"Yeah."
Peter's slipping his fingers down Shawn's middle now, a fraction of an inch further up and further down with every stroke, slowly and cautiously and still… with just a little bit of shock in his face. Shawn needs to stop him. Having another dude gently pet your stomach should be weird and uncomfortable. Half the stuff he doesn't really notice Peter doing should be weird and uncomfortable. He's been writing it off because he and Cory have always been demonstrably affectionate and he figures Peter's just been doing the gay version of that. Peter's roommate rolls his eyes resignedly and half-heartedly swats Peter off when he gets kissed on the hair or the temple, but he never says anything about it. Shawn's just never registered it as weird.
Now Shawn and Peter are both watching Peter's hand skim back and forth across Shawn's stomach. It occurs to Shawn that if Peter was a girl he'd be kissing her by now. Someone he's totally comfortable with, someone who shares his interests and gets his sense of humor and is fun to be around… someone he's told things that he hasn't even told Cory… who is sitting on his bed, tracing a glowing warm line up and down his body…. Yeah he'd definitely have kissed that person by now.
He reaches one hand out to Peter's shoulder, and traces a finger to his neck. It's an uncomfortable, awkward movement given that Shawn's lying on his back, and he covers it by settling his palm against Peter's neck. Peter tears his gaze from his hand and looks Shawn in the eye. His pulse jumps under Shawn's palm. Neither of them moves for a moment and then the memory of reading the book Peter lent him flares up in Shawn's chest, just above Peter's hand, and it occurs to him that he could let go, sit up and they could talk about the book and it's perfect words and it's wonderful sentiment and not jump into this can of worms. In the same flare Shawn remembers one of the books most shimmering, tingling perfect sentiments- "Love. Love until the night collapses."
He slips his hand around to the back of Peter's neck, and exerts just a hint of pressure on it. Peter's face cautiously eclipses the ceiling.
Peter's hand spasms against his stomach when their lips first touch, then relaxes and smoothes over his body up to his shoulder, Peter lets his weight rest on Shawn's chest and works the kiss open a little bit, adjusting the angle as Shawn continues to slowly, experimentally kiss him.
Now it should be weird. Peter's a big, solid, masculine guy. But the slight scratch of a five o'clock shadow is just interesting, and the weight of him is unexpectedly exciting. Shawn figures, given the circumstances of the night, he can be forgiven for comparing Angela's birdlike frame and soft pliant lips and silky skin against the way Peter's hair rasps along his hands and the way his bulk is pressing Shawn down into his cheap, school-supplied, plastic mattress and the way he's gently taking charge, slowly but insistently rubbing his tongue against Shawn's and inching more of his body on top of Shawn, sliding a hand behind Shawn's head and brushing his thumb into the tender spot behind Shawn's ear.
Shawn expects him to pull back, make sure, ask the appropriate questions, but it was his book that started all this anyway, maybe he's staving off the collapse of the night too. Shawn hopes that's the case. If Peter stops then he'll have to justify, and rationalize, and label, and explain. If they just keep kissing, then everything will be fine.
He can feel Peter hard against his hip, and himself getting hard against Peter's and wonders for a second if it'll get weird if Peter undresses him. Then Peter sucks Shawn's bottom lip suddenly and Shawn's no longer that worried about it. The only sound in the room is the crinkle of the mattress underneath them and the unsteady sound of breathing.
Peter doesn't undress him, barely touches him under his clothes, and then only in response to Shawn's finger's hesitant forays across the hem of his shirt. They just kiss, sometimes faster and harder, teeth and stubble, then soft and slow, over and over until they're each watching the other, stealing a couple more kisses while they wait for something to be said and kick their tube sock feet against Shawn's pillows.
"You're a good kisser," Shawn finally offers in a husky whisper.
"Thanks. I don't exactly have your practice," Peter replies.
Shawn traces a finger along his jaw, "Maybe you're a natural." Peter smiles.
They lay there together for a little while longer, brushing fingers and lips, until Peter yawns.
"I think I'm going to go home," he says quietly.
Shawn wants him to stay, but just says "Okay."
"Okay," Peter says. But he doesn't move.
"Okay."
Peter tugs the front of Shawn's t-shirt, and kisses him again, "Okay. Really this time."
He gets up, flattens his hair down a little bit, grabs his back pack and looks around the room to see if he's forgotten anything. Shawn, feeling a little exposed now that Peter's walking around and he's still lying on his back, sits up.
Peter stoops down to kiss him again, just quickly pressing their lips together.
"Night, Shawn."
"Goodnight."
Peter leaves and Shawn makes the mental note: "First Person I Made Out with in College- Peter MacDonald- Sophmore."
Now it's kind of weird.
