You Plus Me Equals - Chapter 4

His red and gray striped bed set was the only thing he could ever find that didn’t look dastardly with the old paint color. Well, that and the worn-out desk and chair that sat under the single solitary window. On the desk was his laptop and books, which only improved the room’s aesthetics minorly. Having a solo dorm room was a luxury normally everyone jumped at the chance to have especially in the new dorm building they had built less than five years ago. The new buildings were nice.

But Leo was in the old building, and no one ever fought for the dead-end rooms furthest from campus. Especially when that room was the smallest room, and all available space had unscrupulously shoved and cramped together with other old furniture that had been left in there to die. The attached bathroom was little more than a cage with a toilet, a sink and a tiny shower so small you had to hold your breath just to slide yourself in so you could close the door that opened inwards. Most of the time you wished upon a star, you wouldn’t run it over your toes while trying to shut it.

Leo was happy he spent most of his time at either classes or out with his friends doing activities. Because spending too much time here was depressing. Leo sighed, exasperated with himself.

‘How had he gotten into this mess?’

‘Was Max done? Or was he going to come back and accuse him of something else again? What was he going to do about Max and his key…?’

‘And that kiss! So confusing!’

It wasn’t his first kiss; he had gotten to kiss his crush Cass at a dance a few years ago. But it had ended up with his braces smacking her in the teeth so hard she never talked to him again. It had been uncomfortable, definitely an unfortunate experience.

Max’s Kiss had been squishy and wet too.

But much nicer…

Softer.

And he had already been so hard from when Max had grabbed him. When the kiss happened, he was sure it was going to jump out of his pants; he had immediately reacted everywhere. A hot rush of blood flew through all his veins like a jolt. He had grown so embarrassed the moment he realized he had expanded inside Max’s hand.

Leo blushed.

‘What are you thinking, Leo? Get a grip. Get your mind out of the gutter. It was just a small… Tiny… Little amount of physical touch.’

He sat up off his bed and grabbed his bag and started punching it.

“Why me!… Why me!… Why me! Why me…” He growled, annoyed, then sighed in frustration and punched the bag one last time.

Something small and silver fell from the bottom off with the final punch, and the force sent it over the edge of the bed to the floor with a gentle noise like soft chimes, you would hear at your grandma’s house.

Leo bent down and picked the item up.

His legs turned to jello, and he sunk back into the bed in shock.

“A key!” He strangled out the words around the shock.

“Maybe it’s not his…” Leo tried to lie to himself, but as he turned the Key with a broken jewellery chain ring hanging through the hole in his hand, he couldn’t deny whose it was.

‘A beautiful silver key with a large ornate M engraved into one side of it and gold plating on the other side.’

It was clearly expensive and one of a kind. And could only be “that” key. He groaned and bounced up and down anxiously.

Leo turned his bag overlooking for holes or places the key could have become tucked in. He flipped the bag upside down and saw it.

His face crumpled in a look of utter incredulity.

He and Evan had been goofing around earlier and making fun of the seniors who had been taking the freshman games so seriously. He had said something stupid and caused Evan to laugh so hard that the gum Evan had been chewing had spewed out of his mouth. They were both klutz’s such a ridiculous, idiotic klutz, Gosh, sometimes I hate being me. He groaned aloud as the realization that he carelessly flung his bag on top of the missing gum which, had with all the crappy luck of his world lately landed atop a precious key a large someone had left on the bleachers.

So this whole mess, the aftermath all of it, the… he caused it all.

‘He had stolen Max’s key.’ Leo groaned, instantly hating his carelessness.

Leo whimpered pathetically and kicked his bed frame, then swore.

“Why didn’t you just look for the stupid gum, you idiot!”

“Okay, this is not, god, how do I always get myself into weird predicaments all the time?”

‘Great.’

Now he needed to figure out how to not only get the key back to Max but also apologize to him for causing a scene. And he needed to do it without exploding from embarrassment the moment he even saw Max from a distance…

‘Or desire.’ he thought for a second, then scowled at his own dirty mind.

Leo sighed, and he threw the key down beside him on the bed.

“Stupid key!”

But then Leo realized he was grinning, and he shivered with annoyance.

“The guy is such an asshole!”

‘Just because he knows about Caspian. Just because he knows about, about everything.’ His heart seemed to fail to give a damn about his ethical injustice and anger and continued to beat harder at the thought of what had occurred, and the chance of seeing Max again. His thumb brushed the silver and gold key, the feeling of the engraving pressing into his skin and he realized he was smiling.

Like a freaking five-year-old at a lollipop.

He scrunched up his nose and threw the key onto the bed as if it were covered in something filthy. He lay back down with a sigh, and his thoughts steered towards Max again.

Max was in the year ahead of him. They didn’t share any classes, only their faculty and major were the same, they even had opposite schedules.

‘How the heck am I supposed to give the key back?’ Freshman games finished today, i wish they had never happened and even if they weren’t over now, he hadn’t been in Max’s group, or had any chances to run into him through any games, there had been no crossing into each other’s paths naturally before, especially since Caspian was gone now, he didn’t even need to run into one of Max’s friends.

He would actually have to plan to meet up with him somehow.

The thought of it made Leo suddenly blush.

‘Why did it matter if he was going to see Max again? He had seen him around the campus many times before in the past six months.’

‘Sure in just a quick passing.’

‘But now he would see him again in person.’ He flushed.

‘Maybe, he could give it to him at the short track race tonight.’ He heard Max was supposed to be competing in the long jump and short 500 meter run tonight.

‘I think… I will go watch him do his race, then just casually mention the key and slide it into his hand like nothing big happened.’

Leo groaned. “Better add running away as fast as you can from the person with the best track record in the school as another one of your stupidest hair brained ideas.”

‘Yeah, no, there was no scenario where he just saw Max buying that lame excuse nicely, and just saying thank you then walking away.’

A part of him felt defeated.

‘What do you want from the guy? You just expect him to be like, wanna be friends. I think I felt something strange I would like to explore further with you at a later date.’

Now that he had figured out what he was going to do. He realized he had a little time before he would need to go, and he had barely slept last night because of studying for exams and practice with his team for the games, not to mention Evan had been here all night whining about the lack of understanding from his ethics professor on why his exam mark was unjustifiably wrong.

“Shower and take a nap? Or nap, then shower? Or just Nap?” He asked his stuffed bear.

The tattered bear stared at him, lips sealed.

Leo sighed with a smile. It really didn’t matter either way he had an hour or two before it, there was no rush.

‘He was going to see Max again.’

‘Thanks to that little key.’

And that thought left him feeling like he was being ripped apart then strung back together repeatedly inside.

Whether it was fear, butterflies, or just plain nausea from overworking himself he really couldn’t tell.

But the feeling was a sort of pleasant hell, he was okay with experiencing.