Tyler is my roommate. He’s also six feet of Black guy from Atlanta who wears his hair in twists, plays NBA 2K like it’s a second job, and has a laugh that you can hear from the floor below us.
Tyler is also, importantly, the most emotionally intelligent person I know. Which means he noticed before anyone else did.
He noticed the way I’d “accidentally” be in Marcus’s room every evening. He noticed the way Marcus — glasses, anime t-shirts, the kind of guy who apologizes to automatic doors — started standing up straighter. He noticed the way neither of us would look at each other in the kitchen when his friends came over.
He didn’t say anything for two weeks.
Then one night, Marcus was in the shower, and Tyler and I were the only ones in the room. Tyler was on his bed scrolling his phone. I was at my desk pretending to do homework.
“So,” Tyler said, without looking up.
“So,” I said, also without looking up.
“You and Marcus.”
I froze. Not dramatically. Just… a micro-freeze. The kind that says oh, here we go.
“What about us?” I asked.
Tyler put his phone down. Turned to face me. And I want to be clear — Tyler has what I can only describe as “resting big brother energy.” Even when he’s sitting on his bed in sweatpants eating Takis, he looks like he’s about to give you the talk.
“I see how you look at him,” Tyler said. “And I see how he looks at you. And I see how neither of you will look at each other when I’m in the room.”
I said nothing.
“And I need to know,” Tyler continued, “because I love Marcus like a brother, and if you’re playing with him —”
“I’m not playing with him.”
“—then what’s going on.”
I turned in my desk chair to face him. He was looking at me with those big, serious eyes. The kind of eyes that said I will end you if you hurt him.
“Tyler,” I said. “I’m not playing with him.”
“Then what is it.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Try me.”
I thought about it. Thought about what it actually was — me and Marcus, whatever we were doing, whatever we had. It wasn’t dating. It wasn’t a relationship. It wasn’t nothing.
“We hook up,” I said.
Tyler blinked.
“Regularly,” I added.
Tyler blinked again.
“Consensually,” I said, because at this point I was just listing words.
“Consensually,” Tyler repeated.
“Yes.”
“And he’s… okay with that.”
“Tyler. He’s more than okay with that.”
Tyler leaned back on his bed. Crossed his arms. Processed. I could see the gears turning — the way he was rearranging every interaction he’d ever witnessed between me and Marcus into a new configuration that suddenly made a lot more sense.
“So when he was ‘studying’ for three hours last Tuesday—”
“We were not studying.”
“And when you were ‘helping him pick out clothes’ for an hour—”
“We were not picking out clothes.”
“And when he came out of your room that one time and his glasses were crooked—”
I smiled. “His glasses were crooked.”
Tyler covered his face with his hand and laughed like it was being pulled out of him.
“HOW LONG.”
“Two months.”
“TWO MONTHS.” Tyler’s voice went up an octave. “I’VE BEEN LIVING WITH THIS FOR TWO MONTHS.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I DIDN’T KNOW TO ASK.”
“Well now you know.”
Tyler sat up. Looked at me. Really looked at me. And I could see something shifting in his expression — the big-brother protectiveness softening into something else. Something like… curiosity.
“So,” Tyler said slowly. “What do you see in him.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean.”
“Marcus is… Marcus. He’s great. He’s my boy. But he’s not— I mean, you’re— you’re you. You could have anyone. Why him.”
It was a fair question. And the answer was simpler than Tyler expected.
“Because he’s the only one who looks at me like I’m exactly what he wants,” I said. “No pressure. No expectations. No ‘what are we’ conversations at 2 AM. Just… want. Pure want. He wants me. I want him. That’s it.”
Tyler processed this. Nodded slowly.
“And he’s okay with that? No feelings? No—?”
“Tyler. We talked about it. We’re both on the same page. It’s physical. It’s fun. It’s good. Neither of us wants more.”
“Neither of you,” Tyler repeated.
“Neither of us.”
A pause. Tyler looked at the door to the bathroom, where Marcus was still showering. Looked back at me.
“Huh,” Tyler said.
“Huh,” I agreed.
Another pause. Tyler picked up his phone. Opened NBA 2K. Resumed his game.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” He didn’t look up from his screen. “Just… be cool about it. Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m never weird.”
“You’re ALWAYS weird.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re literally sitting in a soccer jersey and knee-high socks at midnight doing homework you’re not actually doing.”
“That’s called a uniform, Tyler.”
“That’s called a lifestyle.”
I laughed. Tyler laughed. The bathroom door opened and Marcus walked out, towel around his neck, glasses fogged from the steam, looking like the most lovable dork on the planet.
“Hey,” Marcus said.
“Hey,” Tyler and I said at the same time.
Marcus looked between us. “Why do you both look like that.”
“Like what,” I said.
“Like you’re sharing a secret.”
Tyler looked at me. I looked at Tyler.
“We are,” Tyler said. He looked back at Marcus. “Your glasses were crooked that one time.”
Marcus went pale.
“TYLER.”
“What. It’s relevant information now.”
Marcus looked at me. I gave him my best I’m sorry not sorry smile.
“I hate both of you,” Marcus said, and walked to his room.
“No you don’t,” Tyler called after him.
“I DO.”
“You literally don’t.”
Marcus’s door closed. Tyler looked at me. I looked at Tyler.
“He’s gonna be embarrassed for three days,” Tyler said.
“Probably four.”
“Want me to leave for a bit?”
I smiled. “That would be great.”
Tyler grabbed his controller. Stood up. Paused at the door.
“Hey,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“He’s a good dude, man. Treat him right.”
“I always do.”
Tyler nodded. Walked out. Closed the door behind him.
And approximately thirty seconds later, Marcus’s door opened just a crack.
“He’s gone?” Marcus whispered.
“He’s gone.”
The door opened wider. Marcus stepped out. His glasses were clean now. His hair was damp. He was wearing that oversized anime t-shirt that I loved, the one that hung off one shoulder just enough to—
“You told him,” Marcus said.
“I told him.”
“And he’s… okay?”
“He’s more than okay. He asked me what I see in you.”
Marcus’s eyes went wide. “What did you say.”
I stood up. Walked over to him. Put my hands on his chest, right over his heart, right where I could feel it beating a little faster than normal.
“I told him you’re the only one who looks at me like I’m exactly what you want,” I said.
Marcus swallowed. His hands came up to rest on my waist.
“And?” he asked.
“And I told him the truth.”
“Which is.”
I pulled him close. Felt his breath on my face.
“You’re it for me, Marcus. Not forever. Not in a ‘relationship’ way. But right now. Tonight. Every night this week. You’re it.”
His grip tightened.
“Tyler’s at the library,” Marcus said. His voice was lower now. Different.
“I know.”
“He won’t be back for three hours.”
“I know that too.”
“Then—”
“I know.”
I kissed him. He kissed back. His glasses were still slightly fogged and I could feel the frames pressing against my face and I didn’t care.
Marcus walked me backward into his room without breaking the kiss and kicked the door shut behind us, and after that nobody said anything for a long time.
Marcus apologizes to automatic doors. He narrates his own sneezes. He has never once in two months let a silence go by without filling it. In bed he goes completely quiet, and the quiet is how I know.
He pulled the jersey over my head and his glasses caught on it and went crooked. I fixed them. He took them off and put them on the nightstand himself, and looked at me without them, squinting a little, and I put his hand on the waistband of my knee socks.
He took them off one at a time, slow, kissing my ankle, the inside of my knee, the ticklish spot behind it that made my leg jump. He knelt on the floor at the end of the bed and pulled my shorts off and looked up at me with his glasses already fogging, and I nodded, and he put his mouth on my cock.
He’s gotten good. Two months ago he was all enthusiasm and teeth. Now he takes me slow and deep, all the way to the back of his throat, and holds there until I grab the sheets, and comes up, and does it again. Every time I make a sound he does the thing harder, like it’s a game he’s winning. “Keep going,” I said, and put my hand in his damp hair and pushed, just a little, and he moaned around my cock, and the vibration of it nearly finished me right there.
I tugged him up by the anime shirt. Pulled it off over his head. He was hard in his sweatpants and I palmed him through them, the whole thick line of his cock under my hand, and his eyes closed and his mouth opened, and still neither of us said a word.
I rolled him onto his back and got the lube out of his drawer, the drawer where it has lived since September between a Gundam model and a stack of unopened mail, and slicked his cock up with my hand while he watched my face. I got two fingers into myself kneeling over him, his hands on my thighs, his thumbs pressing in every time I flinched, steadying. Then I took him off his stomach and held him there, and sank down on it.
All the way. Slow. He threw his head back into the pillow and his whole body arched off the bed and he bit his own knuckle to keep quiet, even though Tyler was at the library, even though nobody was there to hear.
I rode him like that. Not fast. I wanted to watch it happen to his face. He kept trying to keep his eyes open and losing the fight, and every time I came all the way down on his cock his fingers dug into my hips a little harder. When I leaned over him and kissed him he wrapped his arms around me and planted his feet and started fucking up into me, and I stopped being in charge of anything.
The bed hit the wall. Over and over. Somewhere in the building somebody yelled at somebody to shut up. Marcus laughed, breathless, into my neck, and didn’t slow down.
I came first, with his hand around my cock and his mouth on my shoulder, shaking, and I felt myself clench around him. He held me through it and kept going, a few more deep hard strokes, and then he came inside me with his face pressed into my neck, and the sound he made was the only sound either of us had made in twenty minutes.
Afterward he reached blindly for his glasses and put them on and looked at me, still inside me, flushed all the way down his chest.
“Hi,” he said. First word.
“Hi.”
My thighs were shaking. There was sweat cooling on my chest, and his come was leaking out of me onto his sheets, and I could not have cared less about the sheets.
“I’m so embarrassed about the glasses thing.”
“I know.”
“Tyler knew about the glasses.”
I kissed him until he stopped talking again.
When Tyler came back, he took one look at the closed door to Marcus’s room, shook his head, and went to his own bed.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
The next morning, there was a Post-it note on my desk. In Tyler’s handwriting, it said:
“glad you two figured it out. also: buy earplugs. - T”
I smiled. Marcus, who was making coffee in the kitchen, yelled: “Tyler says we need earplugs!”
Tyler, from his bed: “I ALREADY BOUGHT THEM.”
Marcus laughed. I laughed. Tyler groaned.
It was a good morning.
