Chapter 2

No phone. Fuck.

Had he lost it somewhere between the dorm Friday night and his bedroom now? Left it in someone’s car, or given it to Holly to hold onto, or dropped it in the bathroom at the club? And it was an iPhone, too, the latest model, not some cheap-ass dumb phone he could do without. All his stuff was on that phone—banking apps that saved his passwords so he wouldn’t have to type them in all the time, email accounts that checked for messages automatically, even his class schedules. Everything. Gone.

Suddenly it was too much to think about; it made his head hurt worse. So he turned back around, placed his head on the pillows, and pulled the covers up under his chin. He’d deal with it when he felt better. Right this moment he was going back to sleep.

Two seconds later, he rolled over again, this time to put his back to the window. If he couldn’t be bothered about his iPhone, he sure as hell wasn’t climbing out of bed to fix the damn curtain.

* * * *

When Jake woke up a second time, he felt a little better. His head no longer felt as if it were caught in a vise, but pain still pierced behind his eyes and, when he rolled over, his stomach churned nauseously. He couldn’t remember when he last ate—there couldn’t be much in his belly if he threw up—but he’d rather not puke first thing in the morning. Or rather, early afternoon, judging from the way the light filtered through the gap in his curtains.

What time was it anyway?

He fumbled on the bedside table for his phone and remembered it was missing. Probably somewhere on the floor, under his clothes or in the back pocket of his jeans. Or in Holly’s purse. Had he asked her to hold it for him? He couldn’t quite remember…

But moving had jostled his bladder, and suddenly he had to piss. The urge hit him like a train, jolting him out of bed, hands cupping his naked crotch as if that might keep everything inside long enough to make it to the toilet. His feet hit the floor and he lunged for the bathroom, but he stepped on a bottle that skittered away beneath him and almost sent him sprawling on his ass. “Holy fuck,” he cursed, reaching for the nearest wall. He felt a tell-tale dribble on his upper thigh and threw himself at the bathroom door, barely making it inside before his bladder let loose. He didn’t quite reach the toilet in time, though, and aimed for the bathtub instead.

When he was finished, he ran the water into the tub, then said the hell with it and stepped inside, pulling the shower curtain closed behind him. He cut on the shower, and hot water pelted down around him. He rested his aching head against the cool tile and let the water wash away the past two days. The heat and the spray revived him a little, and by the time the water began to turn cold, he felt good enough to lather up a washcloth with soap and scrub off the stench of the club.

He rubbed the washcloth over his body and head, using the soap in lieu of shampoo. Sights and sounds from the past forty-eight hours came flooding back to him. A crowded dance floor, his body rubbing up against strangers in the dark, his cock so hard in the confines of his jeans that twice he went to the restroom to jerk off. Then finding Holly at the bar, and meeting the hot young guy she was chatting up. Jake knew he knew the guy. Was he a student at State? Had Jake seen him around campus?

I wish.

Taking the keys to Holly’s car—promising they wouldn’t drive, but Jake wanted a little privacy and the guy he’d been with hadn’t minded the cramped back seat. A hot mouth on his, eager hands rubbing beneath his shirt, his fly unzipped, his dick straining through the gap…

What was the guy’s name? Jake couldn’t recall. Had he even said?

“Must’ve,” Jake mumbled into the flow of the shower. He wouldn’t have left the club with someone he didn’t even know. Sam? Thad? Evan?

Jake snorted into the water. No, not Evan. That was Holly’s BFF, a scrawny little queer nerd she met through the campus ministry. What did she call it? Gay for God.They met after mass every Sunday, and she’d been trying to get Jake to come along since they met two years ago, but he wasn’t into that religious shit. Bad enough his parents used to make him go as a kid. The minute he got to college, he put all that behind him. He had better things to do on a Sunday morning.