Leo’s eyes fluttered, and for a second he couldn’t think.

Then he couldn’t stop thinking.

‘It was soft.’

‘It was a guy.’

‘The hottest guy on campus.’

‘He smelt nice, like peppermint.’

‘What!’

‘... What am I thinking?’

Leo pushed Max away, who, until that moment, hadn’t moved either.

“What are you doing?” Leo could hear his own voice crack under the strain as he tried to compose himself. He tried to keep calm and not draw any more attention than the few people who had still been observing the encounter and were now chuckling lightly and pretending they hadn’t seen a thing.

Leo flushed.

‘Oh, my gosh!... Why me?!’

“You moved your head, sorry I didn’t know you would move it so quickly.”

“I guess I reacted kinda slow, right?” Max said, smiling and chuckling, awkwardly.

‘He’s laughing? He’s Laughing! This is funny to him?!’ Leo thought, annoyed.

“Goodbye Max,” Leo said, he turned back, grabbed his bag and stormed out of the room too shocked to do anything else but walk away. Yet, he couldn’t help it and twisted back to see what Max was doing after shaking up Leo’s entire world in a single moment.

Max was shaking his head and rubbing the back of his hair with his palm, a confused yet relieved expression on his face.

Leo glared. But hurried out of there.

It wasn’t until he was a full building away before he realized he had left his book under the chair.

Leo stopped and growled out loud, then took a deep breath, and sighed in defeat. He would have to get it later. Because there was no way in hell he was going back there right now!

✥✥✥

Max lay back on his bed in his dorm room and threw a tiny red squeeze ball up at the ceiling of his dorm room.

He had come back here as soon as he had finished lunch. Max was doing his best not to look at his bag he had thrown down onto the hardwood floor of his room. Because the moment he did, was the moment he would think about the book inside it. The book with “that guys” name on it.

Instead, he concentrated on watching the ball; he threw to relieve stress. He watched as it fell down; He loved his red, squishy stress ball, he would throw it and catch it whenever anything weighed on him, anything his overactive brain gnawed at him to solve. So now was the perfect time to throw and catch it while he got lost in thought...

‘About the key, of course...’

‘Not that guy, or that book in his bag that belonged to him.’

He had lost his only house key.

‘Sure, he could always get another one.’ But it annoyed him he lost this one. This one was some, like fancy thing his mom had gotten specially engraved and plated for him. And she had made some sort of big fuss about it having to be special to him because she had gotten it.

She had given it to him so that once he was in college, if they were away on some trip he could still get home whenever he wanted to. ‘But now it was actually gone, and he really didn’t want to have that conversation with her when she got back from her trip.’

He sighed. He really was the worst at keeping his things. But the guys who had been cleaning up after the afternoon games had said the key had been on the bench where he had left his things. And the only other people who had used that bench outside of his friends and himself had been Leo and his friends. He had already asked around his group, which left only one conclusion. Leo had come and sat down, and then it had just vanished.

‘So... Didn’t it make sense he took it? Even if that was such a random thing to do. He didn’t even want to think of how rude he had been when he just suggested…’ such an awful thing of anyone, and Leo gave off the sense of such a sheltered, fragile, innocent person. Someone an old lady would trust her entire fortune and all twenty of her cats she treated like actual children too. Yet, I had the nerve to just be like, you, you’re the thief. I am an idiot. God, he probably thinks I am such an asshole.’

‘Why does it matter what he thinks?’

‘So what!’

‘We don’t know each other.’

“Ughhhh!!” He sighed, his frustration bursting out of him into the stiff air around him, his body ached with annoyance, at himself.

The door to his room opened, and his friend walked in. A cheerful look of mischief plastered across his face as usual. Max didn’t even have to guess who Sam’s next victim was about to be.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, find it yet?”

“No.” Max groaned, deflated.

“How are we going to throw that sick party at your house next weekend if you don’t have the key to get inside? We need to celebrate the end of the freshman games.” He said cheerfully.

“I’ll find it.” Max sighed.

“Sure... So we are planning an outdoor barbecue, then instead? Because... You... And, you know, your track record and all.” He gestured at Max and snickered. Most of the time, if Max misplaced something, you had better get a new one of whatever it is. Because it would be months before he found it again.

Max scoffed at Sam’s enthusiasm for teasing him.

“What are you doing here, Sam?”

“I came to see how your lips were doing.” Sam snorted. Sam watched him examining his reaction. 

Max groaned at that punch in the stomach, he had been not, not thinking about it.

Sam snorted hard at his reaction until his laughter was rolling out of him.

Max had the decency to blush before he turned annoyed.

“Get out!, you’re such a pig.” He snapped and threw the ball at Sam’s head. Sam ran across the room laughing. He tripped on Max’s bag on the floor, and the bag fell open spilling its contents.

“Oh, come on... Can’t you share the details?”

“I am so sad I missed it! I know you must be dying to tell me about it.” Sam stayed on the other side of the room in a safe zone.

Max groaned. “Didn’t the guys already tell you all about it?” Max commented frustrated.

“Are you kidding, of course, they did. Like several times! And each time it was more exaggerated!”

“They are a bunch of idiots, though. And I want to hear it from my bro, also first hand juicy details are always better, just how juicy was it?” Sam wiggled his eyebrows, then bent down and picked up Leo’s notebook. He raised an eyebrow.

“What’s this?”

Max sat up, and his eyes widened. “Nothing... He... Uh, left it behind by accident.” He said flushed.

“You mean when he ran away from you after you stole his innocence,” Sam said snickering.

Max glared at him.

He reached down and grabbed the large basketball and pretended to throw it at Sam.

Sam squealed and ran out of the room laughing.

Max sighed and fell back on the bed. He tried very hard not to be too upset.

‘It was just, Sam.’ 

He was pretty sure Sam was hard-wired to tease everyone.

And the kiss wasn’t really a secret. It had happened in front of the entire cafeteria.

‘But that had been one hell of a moment.’

‘His first kiss... And with a guy too.’