Binge

The One That Got Away - Part 1

I'm so excited to be giving you an exclusive sneak peek of BINGE on Wattpad! I'll be releasing a new snippet of this chapter ("The One That Got Away") from BINGE every Monday until the book comes out on October 20th. You can't find these snippets anywhere else, so you're welcome in advance. And even though it's Wattpad, this ain't fanfiction but it DOES get juicy... enjoy!

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"I think I might not be straight," Adam said.

Smiling and tilting my head, I looked up from my Scrabble letters and into his hazel eyes. Hazel is how you describe the color of someone's brown eyes when you're in love. Hazel is the dreamy kind of shit-colored you could get lost in forever. "Oh?"

I could see the weight lifting off his shoulders, as if now, having said those words out loud, he was finally, literally unburdened. This is no surprise-that's typically the feeling gay people experience once they come to terms with their sexuality. For me, the surprise came instead from the fact that he was saying these words to his boyfriend of six months. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

"I'm straight," Adam said.

Frowning and not tilting my head, I looked up from my computer screen. Who does this twink think he's fooling? I thought.

"Oh?" I replied. I turned to our two female coworkers and gave them knowing looks.

They grinned, convinced that they had found for themselves a straight, eligible, athletic, charming guy with ambition and the perfect amount of chest hair (judging by his Facebook pictures, which all three of us had already stalked). "Told you," one of them whispered, as she put her headset back on.

I rolled my eyes and returned to my shift as a telemarketer, my relatively new job of calling alumni to ask them to donate money to the university. As I dialed my phone, I spaced out. I was distracted and annoyed that the one guy I had a crush on at work identified as straight. There's nothing worse than sitting across from a charming, hot, straight boy. Nothing. Except maybe being a telemarketer.

After my shift, I walked home bundled up against the cold, shuffling across campus back to my dorm room. I thought about Adam. From the little curls in his hair, to his dumb, monotone voice, to the arch of his eyebrow when he'd tease me and my coworkers, to his brown eyes that were almost more of a hazel? This boy was cute.

As the semester went on, Adam became my work bestie, the person with whom I shared most of my inside jokes and sideways glances. In between calls, we'd lean over the divider separating our adjacent cubicles to eavesdrop and distract the others from their work. Despite his tragic sexual orientation, we treated each other like work boyfriends. Yet, despite their surprisingly transparent efforts, none of our female coworkers surrounding us seemed to be exactly his type. His charm attracted them into constant orbit, but his attention always wandered back to me.

"He's beeeeeeeeeeeautiful," sighed my best friend, Ilana. I had just spent a full minute scrolling through Adam's Facebook profile pictures, before deciding the perfect one to show her.

"Right?! And he says he's straight, but he's so playful with me, and I don't know, it's just, like, why would he give me so much attention if he was straight? Also, he's in ski club, and how cute is that?"

"That's great and all, but is he Jewish?" Ilana was in the market for a nice Jewish husband. I could relate because my first boyfriend in high school introduced me to the culture, and ever since, I always dreamed of someday having a Jewish mother-in-law.

"I don't think so?"

"Well, feel free to invite him on Monday, regardless."

Due to the school's colors (green and white) and obsession with drinking, one of the biggest holidays at Michigan State University was, not surprisingly, St. Patrick's Day. Between drinking green beers and green Jell-O shots and green vodka, all while wearing green wigs and hats and shirts and leggings, MSU did St. Patty right, and this Monday would be no exception.

Because it was a holiday, Ilana and I decided to branch out from our typical plans of partying in the dorms to attending a real-life frat party. I knew no men in frats, so obviously we went Ilana's route, and we prepared to attend the Jewish fraternity's annual St. Patrick's Day party. What if I met someone? What if I met . . . the one? I could see it now: we'd all be sitting in the dark, wood-paneled, strangely musty basement, chasing our Popov shots with cherry Smirnoff sips, complaining about professors and asking each other our majors, when all of a sudden, he'd arrive. The one. We'd fall in love, and his parents would like me more than him, and we'd fight over who had to lint-roll the couch after I let our golden retriever lie on it from time to time, and we'd grow old together, all because of one chance encounter in a Jewish fraternity's drunken celebration of an Irish saint. A quintessentially American love story.

After the next day's classes, I went into work, sat down, and logged in to get started with my calls.

Before the first ring, up popped Adam, practically jumping out of his cubicle, wide-eyed and grinning. "Hey, boy. Whatcha doin' on St. Patrick's Day?"

I held up a finger as the alumna on the other side of the call answered. I went into my memorized script as Adam slumped down, leaning onto the divider, never breaking eye contact, making faces at me with his head resting on his folded arms. The boy was going to be the death of me.

Adam's eyes widened as he began to hear the surprisingly high volume blasting from my headset, as the alumna screamed at the top of her lungs, demanding to know if I appreciated how much student debt she was still in. As I tried to talk her down, I was cut off midsentence by a dial tone. She was done with me, and I could get back to Adam. "I'm going to the Jewish frat. They're having a big party. Will you be around?"

"Yes. Let's pregame at your place," Adam suggested with a smirk as he picked up my long-outdated flip phone, glanced back and forth between it and me, clearly judging both phone and owner, before putting his number into my address book. Well now, it seems a boy just gave me his number. I was so heart-eyes emoji, and this was before the heart-eyes emoji even existed. Monday night couldn't come quickly enough.

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Whatcha think? If you like it, let me know by clicking HERE to share it with your Twitter people. Part 2 comes Monday, October 5th! Visit to preorder BINGE at http://tyleroakleybook.com/ & see if I'm coming to your town for my Book Tour!