Rollercoaster [Discontinued]

Chapter Five: Fair Point

Nick pushed open the door to his dorm, feeling rather apprehensive. Sure, Jeff and Wes were just next door, but he'd never slept in the same room as someone he didn't know. It was stressing him out a bit as there was less and less of the day left, therefore less time to get to know them.

He wasn't the last person in the dorm, only two of his roommates there already.

He was awful at this part. Jeff always greeted people super enthusiastically, but that wasn't really Nick's style. He'd never had to worry about it before; Jeff was always with him, so he handled the greetings.

Wow, he was overthinking this. He just needed to say hello. Or hi. Hello was a bit formal. But hi sounded a bit careless.

"Hey, I'm Blaine," one of the boys greeted him.

Hey. How come he didn't think of that?

"I'm Nick," he said, nodding to him slightly. What the hell was up with that? Hello, I'm going to nod to greet you. It was weird. "Are you new? I don't think I've ever seen you here before."

"No, I started here freshman year."

Shit. Nick mentally cursed himself for asking. "...Oh."

The other boy laughed. "This is the most awkward encounter I've ever seen. I'm David, and I'm short-circuiting that before it gets worse."

Nick chuckled while Blaine laughed with David, so glad he interrupted it. He had a southern accent- not something Nick expected. It was almost... Soft. Was it weird to describe a guy like that? Something about his voice, his manner, his facial features... He was just soft.

"Sadly, that's not even the most awkward encounter I've had," Blaine said, still laughing.

"What was?" David asked, looking interested.

He blushed. "Probably when my friend was congratulating me for coming out, and I asked if he was thinking about coming out soon... He told me he wasn't gay. Then a girl asked me if I could pass her a sugar packet in the awkward silence, completely oblivious."

"That's the best thing I've ever heard," David said, laughing.

"What about you?" Blaine asked.

"Well, I'm generally an awkward person, so that's a hard one." He chuckled. "Oh, I remember this one time a girl asked me out and I got really flustered. Instead of saying 'I don't want to go out with you' or 'I'm sorry, I can't go to dinner' I somehow combined the two and said 'I don't dinner' before leaving as fast as I could."

That had both of them laughing hysterically. "What does that even mean? You don't dinner?" Blaine asked between laughs.

"I don't know, and I don't think she did either," David said. "Nick?"

Nick tried to think of something. He was always socially awkward whenever Jeff wasn't around, it was hard to come up with just one. "Um... There's so many. The most recent one I can think of was when my now-boyfriend," the words gave Nick a fuzzy feeling in his chest, "and I were alone in my room and kissed for the first time. He had me pinned down to my mattress and we were just kinda... Staring at each other, trying to figure out what happened. Then my mom walks in, wondering why we went quiet all of a sudden. He quickly gets off of me and I think both of us were so red that it was ten times more suspicious. She didn't even ask, she just looked amused."

They both laughed at that. "Do they know you're dating?" Blaine asked.

Nick smiled sheepishly. "Um, no? Not yet, at least. It's pretty much just us, you guys, and Wes right now."

"Montgomery?" David asked, almost immediately after he had said 'Wes.'

He raised an eyebrow, curious. "Yeah, Wes Montgomery. Is there another Wes at this school?"

"I mean, I don't think so. Just curious."

Blaine chuckled. "You sound awfully curious, though."

David blushed, shocking Nick. This wasn't happening. "Shut up," he mumbled.

"You like him, don't you?" the words jumped out of Nick's mouth before he could do anything about them. He immediately winced. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked that. It's not my business."

"It's okay. And... yeah, I do," he admitted, blush deepening. "But I know he doesn't date, so I'm going to wait until either I'm over it or one of us dies. And I don't even know if he's gay."

Nick shook his head. "Yeah, I don't think Jeff's going to let him get away with not dating anyone. And-" Nick paused, words registering. Wes was open with his sexuality with them, but did he not tell other people? He'd never thought about it.

Maybe he wasn't out to his family- that could be why he didn't date.

"You don't know if he's gay? Have you seen his skinny jeans?" Blaine asked.

David chuckled. "Fair point."

That managed to pull Nick out of his thoughts, but it didn't make him any less confused. "Wait, what? He doesn't wear skinny jeans. They're just normal jeans."

They didn't look like they could quite believe it.

"Well damn, then," David mumbled under his breath.

"You're sure?" Blaine asked Nick.

He nodded, confused by one more thing: their reaction. "Yeah, he says they're too uncomfortable."

That's when he realized what they mean, what they were talking about. He buried his tomato-red face in his hands. "Oh my god, no. I just got it, and no. I'm burning this conversation from my memory."