Page 24 of Love is Strange
Finally, Van looks up at me.
“I don’t care that you’re gay. I could deal with that, no problem. The fact that you’re hooking up with yourbrother? That’s something that I will never understand or be okay with.”
He gets up and walks over to the door. He places his hand on the door knob but doesn’t open the door. He turns around and looks at Graham and me.
“I’ll keep your secret, mostly because I don’t want to have to think about or talk about this ever again. But I can’t be friends with you, either of you, anymore.” He stands by the door, shaking his head in disbelief once again, before opening the door and leaving.
I exhale a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding in after he shuts the door behind him, but I am anything but relieved.
“God damn it!” I scream. Graham gets up and walks over to me.
“Hey, Griff. It’s fine. He’s not going to say anything.”
“Nothing isfine, Graham.Noneof this isfine! Whatever this lapse in judgement was, is over.”
“Griffin, you can continue to deny this-” he moves his hand back and forth between the two of us, “deny what we just did and how we made each other feel as much as you want to, but you that’s not how you truly feel.Bothof us know that.”
He reaches his hands up and cups my cheeks. I am red in the face and my body feels like it’s on fire. I swallow and take a deep breath.
“Just let yourself feel, Griff,” he says.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t feel a damn thing.”
Graham looks like he got punched in the face. The idea that I hurt him makes my heart twinge, but I’m not sorry. That’s exactly what this was. A huge mistake.
Chapter Seven
Graham
If I could have gottenout of our mixer this evening, I would have. The last thing I feel like doing right now, when my whole world has just been flipped upside down, is partying. However, since our frat is the host, there is no way of getting out of this.
Sitting on a stool at the bar on the main floor, I look out at all of the other party-goers. I see how happy they are. How horny they are. They’re dancing. They’re drinking. They’re making out. One girl has her hand down a guy’s shorts on the dance floor. Just like I did earlier in the bathroom with Griff.
Just thinking about it again gets me hard, but the shattering pain of heartache is like jumping into a pool filled with ice water. As I continue to gaze around the room I notice Chuck, a guy who I used to hook up with, standing in line for the keg. I haven’t seen him in a while. I thought maybe he dropped out or something. There is a large group of people around him, all waiting for their turn to do a keg stand.
My attention gets drawn into a different room where several guys are going shot-for-shot. One of them just puked on himself and fell off his chair. Everyone around him begins shouting “ewww!”
I start to feel bad for the guy, but all of a sudden Griffin comes into view. He’s drunk and making out with some red-head. I watch as he runs his hands over her back, down her sides, over her ass, squeezing it hard. White hot jealousy runs through my veins as I see Griffin take her hand and lead her up the stairs. My eyes continue to follow them as they head toward our room.
Fuck. No.
I am out of my mind with anger as I get up off of the stool and wobble slightly. All of the beer that I’ve had that evening finally kicking in now that I’m standing. I make my way over to the keg.
“Chuck, good to see you man,” I say to him as I clap him on the back with a slight squeeze. He looks surprised to see me.
“Graham, wow. You look great! How have you been?” he asks.
“I’ve been okay. A little lonely… where have you been? I haven’t seen you around recently.”
“Oh, I was in a study abroad program in Spain last semester. I just got back two weeks ago.”
“Dude, that sounds awesome. I’m sure there were some amazing sights over there,” I wink at him and glare into his eyes, flirtatiously. I run my fingers down from his shoulder to his waist and finger the little sliver of skin that’s showing under his t-shirt.
His face goes red and he moves his hand to cover his hard-on. He’s out, but he’s always been extremely conservative when it comes to his sexuality.
I lean in and whisper in his ear, “Want to go upstairs and make up for lost time?” Then I nibble on his earlobe a little.
He looks around to see if anyone is watching. His pupils are dilated and I can imagine the zipper of his pants lightly scraping the skin of his erection as his cock grows harder. He grabs my hand with his and squeezes.
