I wake up and the sun is trying to burn my eyes out of their sockets. My head is killing me, it feels like someone hasdropped a sack full of bricks on me. God damn. What is this? Did I get run over by a truck last night or something?
Wait a minute. Where the hell am I? I look around with half-open, swolleneyes, completely puzzled and more thana little bit blind without my glasses. This looks like my dorm room: same layout, same generic wooden bunk beds. But there's no stupid poster of Santa Fe, and no gross, framed picture of Pam Anderson. Oh, and there's no one in here that snores like Spot does. Jeeze. That kid sounds like a freight train. I cringe just thinking about it.
Something's weighing me down on the bed, and I turn my head toward the wall to see what it is. I barely recognize the face at first, me without my glasses and he without his, but then I realize it's Dutchy. Dutchy! Slack-jawed in sleep and snoring ever so softly, and he's got his arm and leg thrown over me. Oh, hell yes! Daniel Weinberg, you slick son of a bitch! I don't remember a damned thing from last night, but maybe we can have a re-run this morning. I'd love to have him jog my memory.Oh, man. I can't believe my luck. Befriending and bagging the cutest guy I've ever seen, all in one--
"Oh, shit. Sorry, man." Dutchy rolls off of me, climbing over my feet to get out of bed. I'm apparently looking at him funny, so he laughs as he puts on his glasses and runs a hand through that perfect blond hair. He's in that white undershirt from last night (that I couldn't forget)and boxers. Dutchy slept next to me in his underwear. Wherein God's namewas I for this? "You kinda passed out last night, and I wasn't gonna sleep on the floor just 'cuz you can't hold your liquor," he says with a wink.
I put on my glasses and look at the clock. It's one-thirty. In the afternoon. "What the hell did we do last night?" I rub my hands over my face. I feel like death warmed over.
"Well, you got completely tanked on jungle juice and puked on my floor. The rest of us had a party." He laughs. "You ever have alcohol before last night?"
"Not exactly," I say, looking over my rumpled clothes. By "not exactly," I mean not ever. At all. Well, except for wine my parents let me have now and then. But that doesn't count.
"You gotta learn control, my friend." Dutchy pulls jeans on and digs a clean shirt out of his dresser. "Now come on, let's go get something in you."
Damn straight, let's-- oh, wait. Right. Food. Damn. I get up and grab my shoes, pull them on as we walk out the door.
"So what are your plans for the day?" He looks at me while we walk to the cafeteria, smiling.
I put a hand to my temple. "Curling up and dying." Dutchy laughs.
"Some food and maybe some ibuprofen'll help with that hangover. A shower wouldn't hurt, either."
"You telling me I smell?" I look over at him, pretending to be angry.
"You ain't exactly a basket of roses, pal." I laugh and punch him in the arm. "Hey, only a true friend would tell you that to your face!"
We eat breakfast and part ways for a little while, with plans for me to teach him how to do laundry later. God, he's the cutest thing ever.
I take a shower and head back to my room, yawning. As I walk in the door, I find my roommates (and Racetrack, of course) sitting about lethargically, attempting to study. "Hey, fellas," I say, heading to my dresser for some clean clothes.
"What the hell happened to you last night?" Jack asks, setting aside his textbook. "We thought Snyder had caught you or something and you were in deep shit."
"Oh, I crashed in Dutchy's room." I pull a T-shirt over my head, then rub at my still-damp hair with the towel.
"You did, did you?" Spot leans over the side of his bunk and looks down at me, smirking. "And what did you and Dutchy do?"
"Um... nothing?" I sit down on my bed, confused by his creepily curious tone. I grab my sketchbook and start working on my art project. We're supposed to draw something that defines our personality, and so I'm making a collage of various aspects of my life. I'm working on a particularly complicated (and undeniably awesome, if I do say so myself) menorah when David pipes up.
"You know he's straight, right?"
I very nearly drop my pencil. Slowly, I raise my head from my drawing and look at David, trying to appear nonchalant. "What?"
"Dutchy. He's straight." David is typing up an article on political-corruption this or social-obligation that for the school newspaper and doesn't even bother to look up from his laptop as he speaks. Like completely shattering my hopes and dreams is an everyday occurrence and isn't worth interrupting his work for.
"What does that have to do with anything?" I'm trying not to get defensive. I hope it's working.
"I'm just saying, don't get your hopes up."
"Don't get my hopes up? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Please, Specs. Fucking Blink could see your hard-on for Dutchy from a mile away with his eye closed." Spot flops onto his back and opens up a super-macho-man-I'm-not-gay-I-swear! magazine.
"Spot, don't be an asshole." Racetrack scolds him and throws a pillow at him. As if Spot Conlon can stop being an asshole. It comes as naturally as breathing to him, I swear.
"I just... Well, I guess I was really drunk last night and Dutchy just let me crash there." I go back to my drawing, concentrating harder than normal on shading a portion of it. "It's not a big deal, really."
David makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort and gets up to print his article.