Page 6 of Advanced Chemistry

“Have I led us astray yet?”

I wasn’t going to jeopardize our business, especially since I knew how much we’d sacrificed to give it a shot.

While we initially bonded over being the two gay guys on the South Rock High wrestling team, our real bond formed around our love of business. We devoured business and sales podcasts on drives to and from school. We read stories about successful startups. After listening to a podcast about how easy it was to start a vending machine business, we purchased our first junior year. We had a nice, small business going, but after graduation three years ago, we decided to hold off on college and pursue it full-time.

That was more of a no-brainer for me since school was never my strong suit. Sebastian was smart, though. Really smart. Watching the gears in his mind turn was like peeking inside a Swiss pocketwatch. Sometimes, I didn’t know what he saw in me as a friend. The last book I read for fun wasGoodnight, Moon. He had gotten a partial scholarship to a school upstate, which he turned down to operate vending machines with his knuckleheaded friend. I would never forget what Sebastian gave up to pursue our business. I wouldn’t have been able to do this on my own. I was eternally grateful for our friendship.

And best of all, we never let the fact that we both had hot bodies get in the way of that friendship, even though there were times when I definitely got curious about what he looked like naked.

Kids at school always wondered about us, but we were just friends who happened to be gay. Yeah, Seb was hot. I knew it. Anyone with functioning eyes knew it. But we never crossed that line. Seb needed a guy with brains, not just brawn. A guy who could keep up mentally, not just on the treadmill. Even when I hooked up with guys and knew they couldn’t measure up to Sebastian, that was their problem for being lacking, not mine.

“You must be hungry after that intense workout,” Sebastian said.

My stomach growled in response. “Yeah. I could go for something.”

“Here you go. You can eat my dust.”

Sebastian kicked up his speed to 5.0. His power walk was now a brisk jog.

“Oh, shit. Seb with the throwdown.”

Two could play that game. I kicked up my speed to 5.5. My power walk was now a full-fledged run.

Sebastian responded by bumping his speed up to 6.0, which I beat with a 6.2. Very soon, our cool down walks morphed into intense sprints, and we were huffing and heaving to fill our lungs with much-needed air.

Who was going to quit first?

Were we not out of breath, we would’ve been shit-talking each other.

I decided to take the L this time. I lowered my speed back to a walk, wiped my forehead with my shirt and my towel. Both were needed.

“You are a machine,” I said.

Sebastian shrugged and lowered his speed, yet the thrill of victory flashed on his face.

Just in case calling prospects backfired today, I wanted Sebastian to experience at least one victory.

But for the record, I totally could’ve outrun him.

* * *

After the gymand grabbing omelets to go from Caroline’s, we headed to our office to hit the phones. We shared a small office just off the warehouse where we housed our vending machines. For our first year, all it had were two desks, two chairs, and one mini-fridge. Our moms came in and forced us to add a picture to the wall and an indoor plant by the window.

Sebastian and I pulled up our call lists and got to it. There was nothing quite like the thrill of the cold call. Yeah, we might’ve been living in the age of email and texts and social media DMs, but the phone still reigned supreme. The phone lets two people connect live in real time. It was easy to reject someone via email, less easy to do so via phone—though not impossible. I’d received tons of hang ups.

We were on fire, passion and confidence infusing every call, even if all we got were rejections.

“Oof,” I said, hanging up the phone after a brutal rejection.

“What happened? Looks like you were having a good conversation with him.”

“This guy listened to my entire pitch, asking me questions. It was going well. Then he said ‘not interested.’ He was just talking with me to pass the time while he was on the can.”

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Sebastian said, crossing off another prospect on our shared document. “I’ve been getting voicemails and hangups all morning.”

“Patience, young grasshopper.”

“I’m two months older than you.”

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