Wrapped Around Your Wrist |Virgato|

Chapter 5: Week 3 Day 6

The shrill ring of Christopher's phone cuts through his dreams. He groans, turning on his side to reach out to his nightstand. Joels face is on the screen, so he picks up and puts the phone to his ear.

"Joel?"

"Why won't you kiss me?" Joel slurs on the other end. Chris puts together the pieces of the question in his head. He rubs some of the sleep from his eyes, waiting for Joel to say something else.

"Do you, like, not think I'm hot? Or is it still the age thing? You should kiss me. It would be fun." There are loud noises in the background and Chris is one hundred percent sure that Joel is at a party at one of the frat houses on the outskirts of campus.

"Joel, are you okay? How drunk are you?"

"Pretty- yeah, I'm pretty drunk," Joel hiccups and someone shouts behind him. Chris sits up in bed.

"Are you with someone? Can you get home?" Chris looks to the clock on the wall. It's passed the time that buses run. If Joel wants to get back to his dorm, he's going to need to walk a mile or two.

"Uh-" Joel mumbles to someone near him before coming back to the phone, "I don't- I haven't seen Erick in a while."

"You want me to come get you?"

"Can we make out?"

Chris puts his head in his hands, "Where are you, Joel?" Chris is standing up and putting on a pair of jeans before Joel can answer.

"Zeta house," Joel pulls the phone away from his mouth and yells to the people he's with, still loud in Christopher's ear, "Chris is coming!" A shout comes from the other end of the line.

"Joel?"

"Yeah?"

"Give me ten minutes, okay? I'm coming to get you," Chris walks down his stairs and grabs his keys from the hook.

"See you soon, Christopher!" Joel hangs up on him.

Chris looks down at the phone, one foot out the door. It's 1:45 on a Saturday morning. It's the weekend. It's his two days of sanctioned time off and away from students. Yet here he is, jumping at the chance to rescue his One. Maybe Joel will swoon, and Chris will look like a hero.

Chris lives close to campus. There are a few neighborhoods only a few miles from the imposing entrance to their school. The Zeta house happens to be in one of them, on a large plot of land in the back corner of the development. No one on staff can figure out why a neighborhood association would allow it, yet the frat has lived there since before Chris started his masters.

He pulls up at the end of a long line of cars. If he sees anyone with keys who has even looked at alcohol, he's taking them. The weather's still nice enough that a few scattered couples and a large group of brothers are sitting on the porch. Chris went to college; he knows what weed smells like.

"Hey," a Zeta, a student from last semester Chris is pretty sure, calls out as Chris approaches. "You can't be here."

"Yet I am," Chris proclaims, walking through the huddled group of men, "Did no one teach you the first rule of drugs?" Chris grabs the joint one of the kids is holding, "Hide it." He drops it to the porch and rubs it out with his foot.

"What the fuck, dude?" One of the other guys stands up.

"Sit back down," Chris uses the full weight of authority he's gained with teaching hundreds of kids per semester, "And be thankful I'm not calling the cops." The kid sits back down, dazed expression on his face.

Chris was cool in college. He was gay when it was still considered edgy, and he could scare half the football team away just by making jokes about them catching it. His favorite pick-up line, one he could only use after two shots of tequila, went something like, want to practice in case you end up with someone like me? Half the time he got clocked and the other half he got lucky.