I Think I Love You | Randy

track 10. we can work it out - stevie wonder

Try to see it my way, only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong. While you see it your way, there's a chance that we may fall apart before too long.

***

I was elbow deep in toner, Brook's hair a completely slick mound of blue goop beneath my hands.

"Now we wait," I said tentatively.

"You don't sound confident, Andy, I'm worried," Brook fretted, turning around to look at me.

"Well I told you to get it professionally done. I'm not responsible if you end up ginger," I warned him, putting my gloved blue hands up in the air to absolve myself of responsibility. Brook laughed at the sight, making me laugh at him because he looked ridiculous.

We'd been dating 'the normal way' for a few weeks now, and I was definitely enjoying the time we spent together. It was little things like this that I realised I'd missed about having a boyfriend; the movie nights, the hand-holding, the lazy Sunday afternoons when Brook spontaneously decided to dye his hair blond. The girls in the musical were basically obsessed with us, Olivia pulling me aside whenever she could to get the latest gossip, making it known that in her eyes we were the perfect couple. Her and many of the others let out little squeals of delight anytime Brook showed me even the slightest bit of affection; with the notable exception of Jack, who had returned to being as icy as he was when I first met him.

The sex was another thing though, and while it felt good to be touched in that way again, it wasn't entirely enough. Brook had told me he was 'getting there' with the versatile thing but I wasn't going to push him when he didn't seem to be capable of any form of dominance in bed whatsoever. Brook also lived in a large party flat off campus, with ten other people and hardly any room to breathe, meaning we mostly hung out at my place where we were constantly walking on eggshells around Rye. We had to keep quiet as per his new rule, which didn't come very naturally to Brook, and perhaps the sex would have been better if I wasn't always so worried about restraining myself and him to avoid pissing off Rye.

Or maybe I just missed being a bottom, getting too good at biting down on my pillow on the nights when I was alone, moving Boris in and out of me while I imagined everything I shouldn't, guilt exploding within me with every orgasm.

So, as much as Brook and I worked on paper, we weren't quite as perfect as they all wanted us to be. As I wanted us to be. I could tell Jack was giving him a hard time, catching them more than once conversing in heated whispers and throwing glances in my direction, breaking apart as soon as they noticed I was in earshot. Things were no less easy on my end, as although Rye was always civil with Brook now, there was still an obvious tension whenever we were together while he was home. The inappropriate thoughts I couldn't seem to shake only made me distant from both him and Brook, feeling guilty for two different reasons. Eventually Rye just started disappearing with Sonny all the time, coming back home dead stoned more often than not. I wasn't allowed to have an opinion on this, nor was he allowed to have one on my love life with Brook, so instead of fighting we acted like strangers, passing each other in the apartment like ships in the night.

Brook went to the bathroom to rinse and dry out his hair, while I found myself getting lost in my thoughts as the sound of the blow-drier whistled through the wall. We were good together in most ways, and I didn't understand why I was feeling so uneasy. The uneasiness had nothing to do with Brook himself, but it was enough to stifle some of the excitement that should have come from being in a new relationship. 

"Not half bad, I reckon." Brook's voice brought me back to the present as he walked out of the bathroom. I looked up at him, grinning in his boxers, his hair now fluffy and clean and actually a very pretty shade of golden blond.