TORPEDO ✓

kissing blondi was the easy part

KISSING GIOVANNI PRICE WAS THE easy part. Peeking at him from from the corner of Dorian's eyes and across the class where Gio cherry lips sucking on his pen, his eyes and mind out of the class, his almost silver hair in two high and low buns.

Dorian's heart is hammering his ribcage with every syllable Miss Shade utters. He can't bear this any longer. He was never ready for gay in the first place. Khalid was different because as far as Dorian knows, they were both horny and probably experimenting. That shouldn't count as been part of them queers.

Gio doesn't seem to notice his leering, which is good. All he has to do is wait for the bell, drop their finished project on his desk and disappear from the class without looking back. Or else, he turns to a pillar of salt.

And that's what he does. Running across the hallways, he can hear Gio calling after him but he's determined. He can't face the blonde right now. He needs time; whether to shed this queerness off him or admit his brand new existential position.

The latter sounds stressful enough.

But stressful has other meanings. The gods of romance just assigned him as their personal plaything today because of all people to crash into, it's Scarlett Jansens.

This time, he doesn't literally crash into her though. That'd be cliché and decisive in a comical sense.

"Arly!" Of all the playboy instincts Dorian doesn't know he's acquired, manufacturing nicknames out of the blue seems to now be one of them. "It's been a hot minute, don't you think?"

The fake grin plastered on his face is wide enough to nudge his eyelids.

"Yeah," she drawls. She's looking away, anywhere but his eyes and tucking some loose strands of burnt sienna behind her ears. "It has."

"I know what you're going to say but I missed your calls--"

"It's okay," Scarlett says in a not-so-okay-ly low voice. She hugs her books tighter. "I understand."

Dorian grabs her shoulders in fake sentiment. "No you don't, Arly. You don't understand anything!"

"Okay?" She raises a brow of slight derision.

"The truth is, that was my first time."

Scarlett perks up. "You mean--"

"Yes, I'm a virgin. I was, before the both of us--" he flits his fingers between them "--happened."

"Oh. Wow." Her cheeks go bashfully red and her lips struggling to hold a smug smile within her pout. "I had no idea."

These days, the manner in which Dorian spews lies is as easy as those automatic sprayers with the "Supreme" brand logo, spreading cash all over ass in the stripclub.

"And it's been so hard for me to come into terms with it," Dorian says also in a not-so-subtle-ly voice, removing his hands from her shoulders and now holding her hands to his chest. "But I just need more time, you know."

They don't say a word at that moment. Just Dorian looking all sober like a kicked dog, thumbing Scarlett's bangles; and Scarlett regarding his countenance like a concerned mom, as if she owes him that clarity.

"Okay okay. I'm not so mad anymore," Scarlett resolves, rolling her eyes.

"Thank you!"

"Still, dude! All the calls and all the texts, you could've at least excused yourself in words. I'm not some telepath."

"I know, I know."

She is not finished. "At one point, I even reflected on me seeming thirsty or something."