***

“This Saturday, it’s on us,” Dex announced as they sat around the kitchen table with beers in front of them. “I’ll make sure we have all the booze we need. You three will be in charge of the rest.”

“I’ll handle the snacks,” Kane replied right away.

“I’ll bring the strippers,” Rusty said in the most innocent manner possible.

Both Dex and Kane stared at him until Rusty grimaced and looked away. “You’re no fun. Should I bring some nuns, then?”

“Did you buy something weird from the sex shop again?” Kane narrowed his eyes as he examined their mutual friend. “I’m sure your definition of nuns cannot be found in any dictionary.”

“Yes, it can,” Rusty retorted. “The dictionary of sex.”

“You’re not bringing anyone,” Kane decided. “You’ll be the DJ.”

“Boring,” Rusty said and pouted.

“So that means that I’m the promoter of our little event,” Maddox said once his roommates were finished shooting daggers at Rusty from their eyes.

As the most popular guy in their group, he always made sure practically everyone attended their events. However, this time, he had a special guest in mind. Jonathan was avoiding him again. In all truth, since their majors were so different, they didn’t have any classes together except Statistics, but that didn’t mean that the feeling that he was being avoided was farfetched. Jonathan must be incredibly shy, Maddox had decided, and he would apply a cure for that the soonest he could, which was exactly what this party would serve for.

“Are we going to meet the mysterious girl who keeps on breaking your heart?” Kane asked.

Well, Maddox pondered for a moment. His homies needed to learn about it sooner or later, and that moment was as good as any. “Have you guys ever crushed on a dude? It’s for research purposes,” he added quickly.

Too late. His question made all his three friends stop and look at him with curious eyes. It was easy to tell Kane was dying to start asking questions himself while Dex examined him all-knowingly. Rusty was as clueless as ever, and he was probably considering Maddox’s question for real if he were to take after the focused frown knitting his dark blonde eyebrows together.

Dex spoke first. “I think I might have crushed on our math teacher in sixth grade. Or, I just fell in love with math. Hard to tell. I was pretty confused at the time,” he said with a shrug and then burst into laughter as Kane elbowed him hard.

“Thank you for your input, Mr. Solomon,” Maddox said and pretended to push imaginary glasses up his nose. “How about you, Mr. Dubois?”

Kane seemed eager to add his thoughts. “So, you want to know if we had, like gay experiences?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, when I was ten, my sister’s girlfriends dressed me up as a girl, and one of them kissed me. Does that count as gay enough? It was practically a lesbian kiss.”

“Not by far. Sit down, Mr. Dubois. By next time, you better learn the difference between lady parts and dudes’ parts, ‘cause damn, you’re even more confused now than Dex in sixth grade learning about equations and thinking them sexy.”

They all snickered except for Rusty, who seemed so deep in thought that Maddox was starting to wonder what could be on his mind. It was good that everyone took things so well. His news wouldn’t count as such a big bomb then.

He didn’t have to repeat his question for the third time.

“I’m into dudes in latex,” Rusty said with confidence and grinned broadly.

Maddox didn’t have to look at his other two friends to know that they were as shocked as him. Rusty was their resident kinkster, but that kind of confessions blew anything else out of the water.

“What?” Rusty stared back at them. “I just like the costume. You know, complete with cat ears and a tail.”

Dex blinked a few times and raised one arm, pointing at Rusty like he was some lunatic, which wasn’t that far off the truth, seeing what came out of his mouth or his bedroom regularly. “Wait, wait, wait, is he talking about cat boys?”

“Yeah,” Rusty replied like it was the most natural thing in the world to admit in front of this friends. “What’s wrong with that?”

Kane smacked his forehead and groaned. “You know, all this shit would sound a lot less weird if it were Catwoman getting you into latex and cat ears and whatnot.”

“And tails,” Rusty corrected him. “And what’s so weird about it?”

Dex snorted. “Maybe the fact that you’re not gay. Not even bi. Wait, do you have something to confess, Rusty?”

Rusty froze, and his eyes ping-ponged between his friends frantically for two heartbeats. “Not me, Maddox has something to say.” He pointed with his finger at Maddox to divert everyone’s attention from him.

Now, three pairs of eyes were on him. His friends were waiting, so Maddox took a deep breath. “I want to kiss Jonathan Hamilton,” he said in one go.

He closed his eyes and waited for the chaos to unleash. When nothing happened, he opened one eye, then the other. His friends were just staring at him in utter shock.

“Weren’t you in hate with him or something?” That was Rusty, who, of course, had to ask something off-topic.

“We made up since then,” Maddox said with a little wave. “We’re even working on a project together for Statistics.”

Suspiciously enough, Dex and Kane were completely silent.

“Well, no one has anything to say?” Maddox asked, unnerved by the silence.

“Do you want to, like, give him a man hug and kiss him on the cheek like a bro?” Rusty asked.

Maddox groaned. “Someone else got anything to say?”

Dex offered him a small smile. “All right. Just give us a little moment here, Maddox, ‘cause you dropped a real bomb on us. So, you want to kiss him?”

“Yeah,” Maddox said and shrugged. “Nothing weird about it, right?”

Dex scratched his head. “Not weird, no, just surprising. So why haven’t you kissed him already?”

Rusty mumbled something about how everyone thought his obsession with cat boys was weird, but Maddox’s sudden desire to kiss a guy wasn’t.

“I tried. He punched me in the face.”

“What?” Rusty looked ready to fight. “He punched my bro?”

“But he kissed me after,” Maddox said quickly to curb Rusty’s belligerent enthusiasm. “Which was freaking amazing.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kane intervened. “Was that when you came home looking like someone had just punched you in the face and also happy like crazy?”

“Yeap,” Maddox confirmed.

“That’s so confusing,” Rusty intervened again. “How much time passed between the punch and the kiss?”

“Dunno. Five minutes or so,” Maddox said quickly. Suddenly, he didn’t want to share how Jonathan had offered his t-shirt, or called him ‘baby’, or kissed his nose. That stuff was pretty private.

“And you’re crushing on him from that only?” Dex asked.

“We also jerked off together once,” he replied.

Kane began scratching his head in a dramatic fashion. “That’s one weird order of business. Is this like an unwritten rule for gay relationships?” He turned toward Dex.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Dex said and raised his hands. “My dads had only awkward talks about sex with me, like all parents have. I was definitely happier to learn on my own than sit down with them ever again.”

“Wait,” Rusty jumped into the conversation again, “first you two jerked off, then he punched you, and then he kissed you? Man, you’re making me envious. That’s one weird example of rough trade.”

“The jerk off stuff didn’t happen the same time as the rest,” Maddox explained.

That only appeared to make Rusty even more confused than before. “So, are you gay now?” he asked.

Maddox shrugged. “I have no idea. But, man, I need to kiss Jonathan again.”

“So, you’re not my best gay friend? Or my gay best friend? Or --”

“Rusty, Rusty,” Kane took their confused friend by the shoulders, “don’t burn all your brain cells in one place. Maddox is just figuring things out. Right?”

Maddox nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. So, I’m going to invite him to our party if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure thing,” Dex said promptly. “But, Maddox, this thing... You sure?”

“Totally. Never been surer.”

However, he wasn’t sure what the surreptitious glance between Kane and Dex was supposed to mean.

“Okay, just don’t toy with him if you’re not,” Dex said. “What I learned from my dads is that boys are not that different from girls when it comes to stuff like that. They can get hurt just the same.”

“I don’t intend to hurt him,” Maddox replied.

“Then how about that rough trade thing?” Rusty asked. “Or you’re the guy who likes to get it?”

Kane gave Rusty a tight hug and squeezed him until protests emerged. “Rusty, my man, you just need another beer, right?”

“Sure.” Rusty wasn’t the kind to refuse that. “Can you let go of me now?”

Kane shook his head. “Not until you shut your mouth and stop asking Maddox weird questions.”

“All right. Just one thing. Make sure you decide on a safe word first, Maddox,” Rusty said. “Don’t make it too long, though.”

Dex snorted, and Kane groaned, but Maddox was strangely curious. “Why shouldn’t it be too long?”

“You might not be able to squeeze in ‘winner winner chicken dinner’ while you have your -- you know what? Just pick a word from the dictionary, and you’ll be cool.”

At least, it looked like Rusty had a slight sense of self-preservation and did not share with him all the strange sex practices he was indulging in.

“So, we’re cool, right?” Maddox asked his friends again. “No teasing and all that.”

Dex snorted. “For real? This is the juiciest thing since Rusty forgot to tell us about his special weekend with that Amanda chick, and we came home to find them both licking whip cream from each other’s bodies.”

Rusty groaned. “I was sick for days. I’ll never have whip cream again in my life.”

Kane squeezed Rusty in his arms again. “Someone needs to understand moderation. You two weren’t supposed to get covered in it up to your eyeballs.”

Dex snickered. “They looked like two very weird ghosts.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rusty bristled. “And you were the ghostbusters, then.”

Kane kissed Rusty on the head and released him. “That wasn’t really an insult, Rusty. You need to work on it more. Sure thing, Maddox, bring your special friend to the party. I’m definitely curious to see how this plays out.”

“All right. Dex?” Maddox turned toward his other friend.

“All fine by me, of course. Just don’t let him break your heart or something.”

“Hey, I thought you were worried earlier that I might do that to him.”

Dex shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought a little, and the dude looks like a heartbreaker to me.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Maddox asked.

“Yeah, really,” Rusty joined him. “What makes this Jonathan dude a heartbreaker?”

“Maybe the fact that he’s throwing random punches? Maybe he’s a nose breaker, and I just got it all wrong,” Dex offered and winked at Maddox, making him groan. So the teasing was starting already.

“Thank you, guys, then, you’re all awesome,” Maddox said.

“Wait, why aren’t you asking me, too?” Rusty complained.

“Okay, do you have something against it?”

“No,” Rusty replied promptly. “Was that kiss with tongue or without?”

“I’m not going to kiss and tell, punk,” Maddox said defensively.

“You just did, though,” Rusty pointed out and smiled broadly. “It was definitely with tongue.” For some reason, this asshole of a friend of his found that extremely funny. “Guys, Jonathan Hamilton put his tongue inside Maddox’s mouth.”

“Oh, gawd, you’re really starting to pull my leg, aren’t you? Couldn’t you wait until after the party or something?”

“Why? What do you intend to do then?” Rusty asked, and his grin grew even wider if that was possible. “Are you going to --”

“Kane, please, restrain Rusty ‘cause I want to punch him in the face,” Maddox warned.

This time, Rusty didn’t allow Kane to catch him and moved deftly out of the way. Maddox shook his head and left, leaving Kane in charge of chasing Rusty around the table.

Well, that had gone pretty well, teasing aside. Now, he only needed to convince the guest of honor to drop by.

***