"Thanks! You're the best, love ya man!" Blaise gushed as he took the study guide from his best friend. "If you wrote it down anywhere near as well as you explain it to me, I'm sure to understand!"
Xander shrugged. "It's College Algebra. It's pretty straight forward."
Blaise chuckled. "So you say! It always turns into a tangled mess in my head!" He turned his head to check the time via the clock on the wall. "Oh, looks like I'm running late. I'll see you later."
Xander watched him shove the study guide into his bag and run off. Then he frowned and lightly shook his head. "If he'd literally waited one minute, I could have just walked with him."
Now done with the last problem he'd been working on, he also shoved his homework in his bag and left the room. He was actually not running late for his next class, and actually, come to think of it, Blaise didn't even have a class after this. Was he talking about work?
Xander lightly frowned as he thought this over. Unless Blaise had agreed to cover someone's shift, he normally didn't go to work until after dinner, so, what was he running late for? This was a minor puzzle that occupied Xander so much that he wasn't really paying attention as he walked. When he passed the bathroom about halfway to the cafeteria - which he'd apparently wandered toward instead of his next class - he went in and made use of a urinal.
"Mmm," someone moaned from the stall that had an actual wall as one of its sides.
"Mmhm," someone else agreed.
"Oh God, right there," came a whisper.
After a couple of seconds, another whisper asked: "Are you ready, can I put it in?"
"Condom?"
"Yep, no worries."
"Alright."
After that, there was a series of gasps and moans that left no doubt in Xander's mind that two guys were in the stall having sex. Out of sheer curiosity, when he was done with his slash, he turned and bent just a little bit to look under the door of the stall. Sure enough, there were two sets of feet, and they were spaced just about how you'd expect them to be if sex was in progress.
Straightening back up, Xander went over to the sink and washed his hands. Then he dried them. After he was done, he stroked his chin in thought as he left the bathroom. At this point, he was so preoccupied that he headed to the cafeteria, unintentionally skipping his class.
The thing was that he hadn't ever had such a close encounter with a gay person - that he knew of. He'd been raised to be tolerant and accepting, so he always thought that if he ever met an openly gay person, he'd take it in stride. However, something about that encounter had bothered him, and he wasn't sure if it was because it was clearly gay sex, or if it was because it was in a public bathroom that literally anyone could have gone into. Maybe it was because he would now have to wonder if there was anything iffy on the wall of that stall. Yeah, he'd definitely have to avoid that particular stall in the future, and come to think of it, ANY stall with an actual wall that they could lean up against.
Were there others who did the same thing? Did EVERY bathroom have such things happen in them? The more Xander thought about it, the more he realized that THAT was what was bugging him. The fact that now he was going to be paranoid about using public bathrooms because he didn't want to accidentally touch the aftermath of someone else having sex.
Shaking his head over the sheer nerve of some people, he turned back to look at the bathroom just as he'd reached the entrance of the cafeteria. To his surprise, the door was just opening, and unless someone else had managed to go in and do their business in just a minute or so, then this would have to be one or both of the lovers coming out after they were done. Must have been a super quickie because they were in public.
A moment later, his blood felt like a cold fire was swimming around his body. His mouth dropped open in sheer gobsmacked shock as Blaise and a guy he didn't know exited the bathroom. They were clearly happy and very subtly flirty. They both also looked a bit sweaty and lethargic.
"So, same time next week?" Blaise asked.
"Oh, actually, I was wondering if you had a class on Thursday? I was thinking during lunch, we could head out to my van and take a bit more time," the other guy suggested.
Blaise pressed his lips together and tilted his head to the side as he thought this over. "I only have an afternoon class on Thursday, but I suppose I could always come to school early."
"Awesome! Can't wait!" The other guy cheered. "But now I've gotta head to class."
Blaise grinned at him. "I'm actually done for the day."
"Lucky!" The other guy exclaimed with a pout.
Blaise covered the guy's mouth with a hand when he leaned in a bit. "No kissing."
"At all? Ever?"
Blaise shrugged. "Well, I mean when I'm into it, I'll kiss, but otherwise, no."
"Ah, well alright. See you later."
"Later!" Blaise called after him as he rushed off.
A few seconds later, a different guy rounded the corner the first one had just sped around, and when he saw Blaise he grinned. "Hey man, you busy?"
"Not at all," Blaise said with a grin. "Well, I mean I have to study and try to figure out my stupid Algebra, but other than that, I'm free until I go to work tonight."
"Great, wanna have a little fun with me?"
"Wanna go to my place?" Blaise invited.
"Don't you stay in the dorms?"
"Yeah, but my roommate won't be back for a couple of hours," Blaise said with a flirty half smirk.
"Alright then, lead on!" The other guy agreed with a stupidly happy grin. The two of them walked toward the nearest exit, which was in the opposite direction from the cafeteria.
Still standing there in shock, Xander felt faint. First of all, being new to college and coming from a small town, this was the first time that he knew of that he'd met or seen a gay person. Secondly, it was the guy he'd met basically his first day here and had hung out with so much that he considered him his best friend. Third - and last for now -
he'd had no idea
! How in the HELL had he been best friends with a gay person for MONTHS and had literally NO idea?!
Did... Did Blaise not trust him? Did Blaise think he was prejudiced or something? Was he afraid that Xander would assume that Blaise was constantly hitting on him? Honestly... wait, he might actually think that since Blaise was constantly telling him he was awesome and that he loved him for various reasons.
This made Xander frown as he thought over all the times this had happened so far. WAS Blaise hitting on him??? After all, Blaise seemed to have at least two guys he had sex with.
And! AND! That was actually the fourth thing that was bothering him! How could ANYBODY - gay or not - have sex with two different people in a single hour? Like... wasn't there a rule or something that said to limit new partners to one a week? More like one a month. You know, try to stick with one person long enough to see if you liked them enough to work on forever.
Hmm...
Unhappy, Xander decided to go to class even though he was definitely late at this point, JUST to try to get his mind off Blaise and the whole concept of gay men. As he walked, he rubbed the spot between his eyes with a finger. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain that the biggest problem was that he found out about it in the most shocking way. Had Blaise just told him at some point: "Hey man, just so you know, I'm gay and I tend to sleep around," Xander was pretty sure he'd have been a little taken aback and concerned, but not so off kilter and nearly betrayed feeling.
"Seriously," he muttered under his breath. "Why didn't he just tell me...?"
Sighing, he tried his best to shake the entire thing off.
***
"You're a life saver, I love you so much!" Blaise gushed as Xander finished carrying in the last box.
