threesome,” he blurts out, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make my heart jump into my throat and start knocking at the walls of my neck there.
“Oh?” I say faintly.
“It’s… I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. My life. I really am boring.”
“You’re not.”
“I am! My stories of my wild youth will be about how I stayed in the library past its closing time and got kicked out by the security guard.”
“Security? You rebel, you.” My attempt to lighten the mood fails as Gray shakes his head.
“Don’t mock.”
“That’s not what I was trying to—”
“Is it too soon to have a midlife crisis at twenty-eight?” he speaks over me. It’s like a dam has been broken. “Because I distinctly feel like that’s where I’m headed. I’ve let the best years of my life go by, and all I’ve got to show for it is an apartment and a job I’m frankly not even sure I like that much!”
A genuine hint of panic is creeping into his tone.
“Life is not supposed to be this unfulfilling,” he says, and I don’t know how I haven’t noticed that Gray feels that way. My only excuse is that I’ve been away for a long time, and it’s easy to hide the turmoil inside when your only point of contact are phone calls and text messages.
“I don’t want to be the boring asshole who hasn’t experienced life at all.” His voice has lowered to a whisper.
“You’re not,” I say fiercely, and I know he doesn’t believe me, so I lean over him until I’m practically on top of him. His eyes seem black in the darkness of the room. “No, listen. You’re twenty-eight. Not eighty. Not to mention, if we count your age in leap years, you’re seven, so if you want to try different things and have more fun, then you have plenty of time to do that. You’re not done yet. So you spent your twenties building your career and rocking law school. That’s a good thing. Nobody says you have to do life in a set order. You just got the responsible parts out of the way first, so now you can take some time to do other stuff, too.
“And stop with the best years of your life crap. The best years are the ones you’re currently living. Also, so what if you haven’t done a keg stand? I mean, we can if it’s been a lifelong dream of yours, but a lot of the dumb shit people do when they’re in college is not that great in reality.”
He just stares back at me, so I go on.
“Keg stands, by the way, suck. So do body shots. No sane person should do them. There are better ways to get drunk.”
“I can honestly say body shots have never been on the top ten list of things I’d want to try.” Gray sounds more like his usual self.
“Good. That means we can remain friends.”
“You would have dropped me just for doing a body shot?” He chuckles, and I can feel his chest move beneath me, the rumbling sounds of his laughter vibrating in his body, and suddenly I’m very aware that I’m halfway on top of him. My very naked chest is pressed against Gray’s very naked chest. I start to pull away to a safe distance, but I’m still more than a little buzzed, so my coordination is not something to write home about, and instead of successfully migrating to my side of the bed, I do a face-plant on Gray’s stomach.
Gray grunts, but a moment later, his whole body starts shaking, and then he starts laughing out loud.
“Graceful,” he manages.
“Oh fuck you.” I pinch his side, and the yelp he lets out sounds pretty damn satisfying, so I poke my fingers into his side as revenge and snicker as he squirms away from me, but I lean over him and hold him in place for better tickling access.
It reminds me of the play-wrestling we did when we were younger. Gray tries to retaliate, but I catch his hand and trap it in mine. He huffs and tries to look stern, which is hard to do when you’re laughing. And in the end, it’s hard to hold him in place because I’m laughing, too, so he manages to push me off. I land on my back next to him, and it takes a long time for me to get myself under control. Even after a few solid minutes, huffs of