***

“Have you talked to Rusty?” Zoey questioned him while sitting on the bed opposite from Matty’s, a big container of ice cream in her lap, armed with an equally big spoon. “You know, ever since your tutoring session?”

“You know I haven’t,” Matty replied and tried to get back to his book. In fact, he had tried to stay out of Rusty’s way since his heart could only handle just so much. Only thinking of finding himself alone with the guy in close quarters made his stomach do backflips, his mind melt into a puddle… and the rest of him wasn’t doing that well, either.

“That means that tomorrow you’re going to see him again, right?” Zoey pointedly ignored his efforts to ignore her. “Are you prepared?”

“I’m trying to be.” Matty took the book and showed it to her and then slammed it down on the bed. “I have to know the lessons in advance and know them well if I want to maintain my reputation as a tutor.”

“I’m not talking about lessons, you nerd, duh.” Zoey dug deep into the ice cream and came up victoriously with a huge dollop which she examined with satisfaction before stuffing it whole into her mouth. “I’m talking about your plan to seduce him.”

Matty sighed and buried his head in the book, resting his forehead against the cool pages and closing his eyes. “I’m without hope, Zoey,” he mumbled. “He’s a straight dude who’s killing it with girls, and I’m just the guy crushing on him for lack of anything better to do.”

“Nah, you’re just talking out of your ass,” Zoey contradicted him and gestured with the spoon. “You’re the guy with a crush on him, who has finally gotten the chance to seduce him.”

“Nobody uses words like ‘seduce’ anymore, Zoey.”

“I can use others. All right, so you’re the guy who crushes on him and now can think up a way to whisper to his snake.”

“Whisper to his snake?” Matty turned his head to stare at his friend.

“Play his magic flute?” Zoey made another attempt. “Get him horned up?”

Matty knew better than to contradict her. So, he turned back to confessing his sins to the book in front of him and closed his eyes again. “I don’t have what it takes,” he said, trying to sound more matter-of-fact than complaining. “He likes girls, and I should have gotten it through my head that, whatever, nothing would ever happen.”

“And yet,” Zoey said in a motherly, patient tone, “you haven’t given up on your crush for the last three years. There must be a reason for that.”

“Yeah, only that I can’t explain it. It was crush at first sight, Zoey. Are there still people in the world to which stuff like this happens? Or am I the only one?”

“Don’t get so full of yourself,” Zoey scolded him. “People are crushing on people all the time. They might not hold that torch for three whole frigging years like you, but--”

“Thanks for the support,” Matty interrupted her quickly.

“Either way, you’re you. And you’re crushing on Rusty Parker. Now, tell me, how are you really getting ready for tutoring Rusty again? The day after tomorrow is Saturday, which means--”

“That he’ll go to some party and hook up,” Matty said fast.

“And that’s your chance to foil his plans to do that,” Zoey continued as if that was the most logical thing to think and say.

“By doing what? Giving him more homework? And it’s petty of me to even think of such a thing,” Matty pointed out.

“Nah, nah, nah, you have him in your clutches now--”

Matty let out a snort. “Yeah, right. If I have him in my clutches, he’s nothing but sand, slipping through.”

“Listen to me, Matty.” Zoey startled him by clapping her hands all of a sudden. “Stop it with this defeatist attitude. This isn’t you. I think you’re crushing on Rusty and haven’t given up because, somehow, all secretly and stuff, you know that you can turn him.”

Now Zoey was the one totally talking out of her ass, but that was her way of giving him a pep talk, and he appreciated it.

“I’m not going to do anything to stop him from partying like usual,” he said. “But I will try to get to know him better, because I also want to know why I haven’t given up on this stupid crush for all these years. I might discover that he’s nothing but a vacuous annoying character and be done with him.”

Zoey was scraping the walls of the ice cream container furiously now. “You’re such a cerebral creature, Matty, I swear. Only you would rationalize a thing as huge as your crush in terms like that.”

“My brain is my biggest ally,” Matty said. “Having a crush for three years is, sort of like, an error, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. You’re more than your brain, you big head.” Zoey hopped from the bed and gave Matty a sticky kiss on the forehead. “You’re also--”

Matty squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Please, don’t finish that sentence.”

Zoey laughed. “All right. I won’t. But only because I know you. Thanks for the ice cream. Did you want some, too?”

“No, it’s all right.” He couldn’t think of ice cream when he had to tutor Rusty tomorrow. His stomach was all tied up in knots.

***

Rusty was tapping the desk in a playful rhythm while observing his tutor across the table. Matthew was all buttoned up and had a gloomy expression on his face, which had to have a reasonable explanation. No one was usually that gloomy in his company unless someone had died or something equally horrific.

“Trouble with your girlfriend?”

“What?” Matthew stammered for a moment and quickly adjusted his glasses by pushing them up on his nose. Rusty had an inkling that it was a thing that had a calming effect Matthew did when he was nervous. He was willing to go the extra mile to establish what was what. “Have you finished?”

Rusty pushed the paper toward Matthew. “Don’t try to change the subject. I can help if you have girl trouble.”

Matthew grabbed the paper and began examining it, his eyes moving fast across it. “The only subject here is Ethics, Mr. Parker. And I don’t have girl trouble, for your information.”

“No shit,” Rusty said in his usual laidback manner and stretched with a yawn. Matthew stared at him for a moment, and then his eyes returned to the task at hand. What was with that look? It was halfway ‘I want to strangle you’, and the rest of the road ‘why the hell do you exist?’. Matthew Han didn’t like him, and that sucked. Of course, Rusty had every intention to ruin his cool façade and intellectual propriety, but that didn’t mean that Matthew shouldn’t like him.

“Language,” Matthew said from the tip of his tongue. “We’re studying Ethics, after all.”

“I don’t think cuss words have anything to do with morals. I mean, like you could swear like a sailor on a bad day before discovering America, or something, and that still wouldn’t make you as bad as corpos peddling shit to consumers while exploiting six-year-olds in third world countries,” Rusty said promptly.

Matthew gave him a longer, more thoughtful look this time. “You’re right.”

Rusty waited for two heartbeats. “That is all?”

“I suppose you don’t want a medal for spewing truisms now,” Matthew replied.

“I was talking about your girlfriend.” Rusty observed the stony façade going through small, underground earthquakes. So, there was something there; Zoey was giving poor Matthew a hard time. Oh, no. What a pity.

Matthew sighed. “There is no girlfriend. This is good,” he said and gave Rusty the paper back.

“Why is there no girlfriend?” Rusty pressed on.

“I’m here to tutor you, not to complain about my love life.”

“I’m totally fine with you complaining about your love life. It would make things a little less dull.”

“I see you’re doing fine. Soon enough, you’ll put me out of my job.”

“Not so fast. I can, too,” Rusty said with aplomb, “give you the gift of knowledge.”

“What exactly are we talking about? What gift of knowledge?”

Good, by the avid look in Matthew’s eyes, the guy was interested. Rusty grinned and linked his hands over the paper in front of him. “About chicks.”

Matthew had the nerve to roll his eyes. It made him even more obnoxious in a cute way. Rusty felt his fingers itching to ruffle his feathers and see if the kitty had some claws, too. Bad choice of a comparison. Straight-laced Matthew Han wouldn’t be caught dead in a cat boy suit, without a doubt.

“Who’s Zoey, then?” Rusty decided to show his hand, seeing how his opponent had no intention of saying anything.

Matthew’s widened eyes spelled surprise. “How do you know about Zoey?”

“What? Is she like some secret? Don’t tell me she’s your stepsister, and you’ve done some unpardonable--”

“Oh, gawd, stop right there,” Matthew moaned. “Zoey’s my best friend. Not my girlfriend, not my stepsister, or anything else.”

“I see,” Rusty said with satisfaction. “Wait, does she know?”

“Know what?” Matthew appeared quite disoriented.

“That she’s just your friend.”

“Trust me, she does.” Those words felt dry like sandpaper.

Hmm, was there some juicy story there or none at all? It made Rusty wonder. “All right, all right, so does that mean that you suck in the girl department?”

Matthew’s flawless skin reddened, making the heights of his cheeks look good enough to lick. Rusty shook his head. All right, so the guy was pretty and all, but that wasn’t sufficient for any proper gay feelings. It didn’t make his dick tingle; not a lot. Maybe just a mere twitch.

“Ah, you totally suck!” Rusty said with satisfaction. “I knew I had something to teach you back.”

Matthew was shaking his head, like he needed to wake up from some weird dream. The redness diminished, and it looked like that hard mask was about to fall back in place any moment now. Nah, nah, nah, not when he had just made a breach in those defenses.

“Look, the problem with you is that you’re not aware of your assets,” Rusty explained in a didactic manner.

“My assets?”

All right, Matthew was practically stuttering at this point. That was when Rusty knew he must have struck gold. “Yeah, like your abs. You need to show them.”

“Show them where? How?” Matthew asked.