His Muse

A lesson on miscommunication

Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved

The next morning was a Thursday, and Nic woke up groggy, a slight heart attack rendering him momentarily useless when he realized his eight AM was now... nine AM. It wasn't until he sat up in a panic that it became abundantly clear that he, in fact, did not have an eight AM. The lie he fed to Kieran somehow managed to make his brain freak out for almost no reason at all.

Nic groaned, hands over his eyes as he realized Leo was up and about, stuffing things into his backpack for the day. "You're up. What time did you get back?" Leo asked him.

"Like, two in the morning..." he moaned aloud, and flopped back down on the bed. He double-checked to make sure his alarm was still set to go off in another hour.

"Seriously? What'd you guys do over there?" Leo asked, incredulously, and Nic scowled at his ceiling. That was certainly one way for Leo to suspect that Kieran wasn't ace at all.

"We just ate banana bread on the floor for, like, two hours. We hung out with his friend Bev and stuff," he explained, and remembered vividly those photographs taken of Kieran and Ellen in the bathtub. He slapped his hands over his face, and began to realize that the whole thing was probably a set up. No wonder Kieran was so insistent on having Bev show him the photographs. He wondered if they planned to have Nic go into Bev's room, take off his shoes, and act like he was settling in for the night. He wondered if they planned to show him those oh-so intimate photographs in an attempt to convince Nic that No, Kieran isn't ace at all! Maybe we could fool around, he'd be cool with that, right?

Now he knew that Kieran planned to ask Nic. It was the entire reason he probably invited Nic over at eleven at night. Eleven at night meant one AM would come in a jiffy, and it'd be a hassle to go back to the dorm. It would have been so easy to spend the night in the same bed as Kieran.

"They tricked me," Nic mused aloud, causing Leo to pause in the middle of zipping up his coat. Nic rolled over, sitting up a little to stare at Leo. "They tricked me. To make sure I wouldn't take advantage of Kieran. Holy shit—the only reason I passed was because I was afraid of throwing off my night routine of washing my face and shit! I didn't deserve to pass the test..."

He flopped back with a groan, pushing his hands into his eyes. "I'm so weak. I totally would have stayed the night if I had my face wash and stuff. Shit. I don't deserve him..."

"Okay, I'm kind of lost. What does your face wash have to do with not deserving Kieran?" Leo asked.

"Because he asked if I wanted to stay the night and I lied and said I had an eight AM but really I just didn't want to wake up with greasy skin and morning breath. But they took it as me not wanting to take advantage of Kieran and make him uncomfortable. Shit. Shit, shit, shit..."

Leo was quiet for a moment before asking, "Well, would you have taken advantage of him?"

"Not sexually! Gross, no, I wouldn't do that. But sleeping in the same bed is basically the same thing," Nic said, panicked at the thought of it. "But what matters is the fact that I totally would have, and they don't know that."

"So don't tell them. You learned your lesson, apparently," Leo said, slinging his backpack onto his shoulders and heading for the door. "I'll see you later. Try not to stress out about it too much."

"Yeah, see ya," Nic murmured, thinking to himself, Kieran is too pure for me. I don't deserve this... He couldn't stop thinking about the smile on Kieran's face after Nic confessed that he couldn't stay the night. Maybe he knew Nic lied about his eight AM class—that just made it seem like he was intentionally coming up with an excuse not to stay the night. But the truth was this: Kieran thought Nic was looking out for him. And did Nic deserve that title at all? The title of someone worthy of dating Kieran?