My name is Jake, and I didn't know why my friend's door was locked.
He'd messaged me half an hour ago, telling me to come over and refusing to answer any of my why's. Which honestly...wasn't that weird for Marco. He's a really dramatic guy.
I was about to knock on his door when I felt someone tap on my shoulder from behind. "Excuse me, sir, but that's my room."
There was no way I could mistake that voice as anyone else's, even when Marco was doing a silly over-the-top 'nerd' voice as one of his (extremely unfunny) jokes. Looking down at him, I was about to follow up his remark with a quip of my own, when I noticed what he was holding in his arms. "Is that...?"
"Beer?" Marco replied with a grin. "Astute observation, oh fearless leader."
I couldn't stop myself from groaning. "Marco, we're not kids anymore, you have got to stop calling me that."
"Why? It's thanks to you we won the Unreal Tournament all four years of high school, despite the fact that Cassie can't play for shit."
"That's a bit harsh."
"Jake, she literally ran up to someone on the other team and asked if they needed any help."
"She was new to the game."
"That was senior year!"
Unable to rebut the point, I nodded my head and moved aside so he could unlock the door.
Marco's dorm room is...well, it was a dorm room, with just enough room for his bed, a minifridge, a small desk, and an old CRT TV connected to a game console. And fitting all of that in there was enough to make the place feel awfully cramped.
Still, it smelled better than the bedroom at my off-campus apartment. Which...wasn't really surprising. Despite the impression he gave some people, Marco has always been more put together than I am. The room was spotlessly clean...in fact, the carpet looked so nice, I had to wonder if he vacuumed it recently. How would he even have done that with the furniture there? Did he even own a vacuum?
He walked over and sat on the bed, so I joined him, looking at the case of cheap beer between us. "Marco...you do realize that we're under 21."
Marco smirked at me. "Oh, so now you're Mr. Dudley Do-Right? That's funny, because last week you were all too happy to plead for my help in pirating Heat."
"First off, I didn't plead. Second, Amazon was asking $5.99 to buy it with no rent option, my conscience is clean."
That made Marco snicker and...I noticed something. Marco and I have known eachother for most of our lives. We're best friends. And right now, he wasn't meeting my eyes, he was kind of sweaty, and he kept fidgeting. He was nervous.
It wasn't like I hadn't seen Marco get like that before, but never around me. Well, unless he'd done something he was worried about me finding out about. Otherwise, Marco usually got nervous about the usual kind of stuff. Cute girls, upcoming finals, family drama. But he was pretty clearly nervous about me.
"Marco?"
He blinked, seeming to realize something was up, and actually looked at me. "Yeah?"
I almost asked him what was wrong...but then I stopped myself. Marco was, to be frank, awful with emotions, whether they be his or other people's. A confrontation might make it worse. I just had to trust he'd tell me in his own time. Looking down at the beer case, I tried to look calm as I smiled, "Are we just looking at it, or were we going to drink some?"
That's how the evening actually started. The beer tasted terrible, but Marco kept assuring me that 'beer always tastes bad the first time'. We were playing a fighting game, and I wasn't sure the beer even had alcohol in it at first...at least, until I found my face getting warmer.
"Marco?" I asked, just before KOing the leggy martial artist girl he'd chosen for this match. "Why did you want to get drunk?"
He laughed. "Who said we're getting drunk? The rate you've been sipping yours, you'll never move past tipsy."
I blinked, and waited a little on the character select screen as I thought about his answer. Looking at the empty cans piling up, I realized he'd had almost twice as many as me. "Then...why do you want to get drunk?"
"Maybe...just thought I needed a little courage." His eyes were on the old screen, and there was a strange fear in his voice I couldn't understand.
I tried to defuse the situation with a laugh. "Marco, you're brave as hell. What would you need beer for?"
Marco looked at me, our eyes meeting, and he licked his lips. "This." Then...
...he leaned forward, and he kissed me.
It wasn't a super passionate kiss, it wasn't like he pressed himself against me and started to make out.
If anything, the kiss was quick. A press of his lips on mine that lasted maybe two seconds, before he pulled away. His movements were too fast, like he was recoiling from an expected blow.
Marco was scared.
Scared of how I was going to react, I realized dimly, as I tried to understand what the hell had just happened.
"Jake?" he asked, and it actually hurt me how...vulnerable he sounded.
Marco is never vulnerable. As long as I've known him, he's surrounded himself with walls made of humor, irony, and cynicism.
Which makes what I asked even worse. "Uh...Marco? What was that? Why would you...do that?"
I didn't mean for it to sound like that, for the words to fall out of my mouth sounding like an accusation. I was confused and freaked out and kind of in a weird fight or flight mode, but that's honestly no excuse.
Rather than answer the question, Marco stumbled up off the bed and ran out of the room. I didn't try to stop him.
My eyes found themselves focusing on the character select screen, as I tried to process exactly what had just happened. When I felt a little more like I could handle it, I pulled out my phone and sent Marco a message.
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:52pm: uhhh...this is your room, dude
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:52pm: not realy sure what to do
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:57pm: don't see your phone anywhere so
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:57pm: you still have that
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:59pm: guess i'll leave?
BigJake#0110 Today at 8:59pm: we can talk about what heppened when you're ready?
BigJake#0110 Today at 9:01pm: if you want to
BigJake#0110 Today at 9:02pm: if you don't want to, that's oka too
BigJake#0110 Today at 9:02pm: leaving now. have a good night
For a second, I almost added, "love you" in one last message. When things got rough, we could at least be emotionally honest enough to tell each other that. But after that kiss...it felt wrong to say it.
I fled his dorm room, thoughts of that kiss still dancing through my head.