Page 105 of Talk to Me

“Are we in trouble?” I asked. “Because we didn’t do—”

He shrugged and cut me off. “They just asked me to tell you two to be there at ten o’clock for a meeting. They didn’t sound happy, though.”

I sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Dusty.”

He gave me an encouraging look, though it didn’t help, and walked away. So, I closed the door and turned to lean back against it. Theo was sitting on the edge of the bed now, looking completely defeated.

“Well,” I said, “after all of this, Collin and Ben have their final revenge. We ignored their bullshit, tried to take the high road. They lied and did creepy shit. And we’re still getting screwed. Midway’s going to boot us out of here to avoid a scandal.”

Theo closed his eyes tightly, as though in pain. We both waited in silence for the other to come up with something to help the situation. After a minute, it was obvious that neither of us knew what to do. So, I broke the silence first.

“Showers?”

Theo turned his head to look at me and nodded.

“Showers. I like to be clean before my execution,” Theo said. “I guess this isn’t the first university I’ve had to leave.”

I didn’t want to laugh, but what else could I do?

“Stay right there,” Theo said. “If you try to move again, I’ll tie you down. And not in the way you like.”

“Whatever,” I snorted. “Like you’d know that.”

But I didn’t move from the desk chair.

“I’m working on figuring out all of your nasty likes,” Theo said, waggling his eyebrows down at me. “And I’ll never get tired of the process.”

Flushing, I didn’t answer him, but I refused to play into his flirtation. I was already doing one thing to make him happy, so flirting back was out of the question. Though Theo was my first ever real boyfriend, I’d learned a few things over the last two and a half months. The list isn’t all that long, but the most important item on it is—you never want to be too agreeable. Then they expect that bullshit all of the time. You have to keep them on their toes.

Not to say that I tried being contrary to Theo for the sake of being contrary, but a guy has to make sure his boyfriend remembers he has a mind of his own. No matter how much you love each other, how much time you spend together, and no matter how much you agree, you still have to remember you’re two separate entities. So, being difficult at times only made our relationship better. That’s what I was telling myself, anyway.

Some people call that being a “brat,” but I stay it’s simply keeping things interesting.

Most of my closet was empty, a lot of my clothes and belongings were already packed in the suitcases lying open on the spare bed in our dorm. The dorm that once belonged to Collin and me, but had been mine and Theo’s for the last few months. I’d already taken half of my books to the student bookstore and sold them back for a tenth of what I’d paid for them. With the summer break coming before our senior year, packing needed to be done, class materials I no longer needed had to be sold or tossed, and the dorm room needed to be cleaned out.

Theo and I still had Thursday and Friday classes to take before we could call it a wrap on our junior year at Midway University. Our finals over the next two days were the easy ones, so we were spending most of our time packing and cleaning and goofing around instead of studying. After finishing up the activity I’d promised Theo I’d participate in, we were going to meet a group of friends at Pizza Insanity for, of course, pizza and soda.

Theo shifted the ring light and it suddenly came on, blinding me.

“Sorry,” Theo said sheepishly from behind the contraption.

“Turd.” I shielded my eyes for a second until they adjusted to the light.

Typically, Theo didn’t film his new “Talk to Me” series in our dorm room. He’d go to other students’ rooms with his ring light and phone to interview them. So, setting up in our room was taking him a few minutes. Being a part of the weekly series on his channel wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but even though I didn’t want to do everything Theo requested, sometimes I relented to his ideas.

“It’ll be just a minute,” Theo said.

“Hurry up,” I teased him. “Pizza is calling my name!”

He chuckled as he adjusted the ring light.

After Dusty had come to my room that fateful morning after Collin had illegally recorded us without our permission, things had changed drastically for Theo and I. As requested, we went to Student Affairs after showering and eating breakfast. Fully expecting to be kicked out of university over the scandal—that we had done nothing to instigate—we were surprised to find that administration had called us in to see what they could do to bury the scandal so as to avoid a lawsuit. From the second we’d walked into the meeting with the deans and president of the school, we were treated with kid gloves.

Apparently, so many of the people who had watched the live stream on Peepers had called and messaged the school about how violated Theo and I had been that administration had to act quick. The viewers of the live stream who called and messaged pointed out that we could have been caught on live being intimate, changing clothes, or doing any number of things that would have been highly illegal and violating. Administration knew a clusterfuck when they saw it.

Theo had told them that he was used to the nonsense, so he didn’t really know what to say. I considered their position and ours for a moment before responding. I told them that I didn’t care what they did to punish Collin, but I wanted the locks to my room changed immediately and for Collin to never have a copy. Then I told them that I wanted Theo to be able to move into my room from his. Lastly, I wanted them to make it clear to the student body that anyone screaming insults on campus would be punished for harassment. And anyone who interrupted our learning experience with points, whispers, or other kinds of distracting behaviors would be reprimanded.

Obviously, administration couldn’t keep people from talking or having opinions, or posting things on Peepers. However, they could ensure that we were safe on campus in our dorm and in our classes and that our education wasn’t impacted by other students’ behaviors. Additionally, I pointed out to them that the student code of conduct addressed bullying and harassment on and off campus. If students posted anything harassing or bullying us online, we expected them to address it with the student in question.