Page 17 of The Step Don't
Colin turns to the garage door. “Big Troy, why don’t you come in here and take me? Take me, Troy. I’m all yours.”
“He might hear you.” I can tell this isn’t gonna deter Colin, so I snatch his phone off his leg, keying in his passcode. “Maybe I can text that Phi Kappa girl you hooked up with.”
“Hername’s Hannah.”
“You remember her name? Oh, you must be in love.”
“I always remember girls’ names.”
It’s true. He’s very much that kind of guy, but if he’s gonna give me hell, I can give him some too.
“Bet she’s in recent messages,” I say. “Wonder what I could tell her.”
“Two can play at this game.” Colin reaches into the front pocket of my jacket, grabbing my phone. “I’ll hop on Grindr and maybe start chatting up your last trick.”
I know he’s not intending to follow through with this any more than I’m intending to invade his privacy, but he keys into my phone and scrolls through my apps like he’s about to, when his brows tug closer together.
“What’s Manzturbate?”
I freeze.
The blood in my face drains.
My throat’s dry.
I’m struggling to think straight.
“What? No, it’s nothing,” I say so defensively, I know now Colin won’t have a choice but to question further.
“Is it a hookup app? Like Grindr?”
It would be so easy to say yes, but “don’t lie” is about as big a Step Don’t as “don’t keep secrets.”
I don’t lie to Colin.
Ever.
I hand him back his phone. “Seriously, just let mehave my phone back.”
He hands it over, eyeing me like I’ve grown a third eyeball, which makes total sense because this is not me.
Not us.
Like, at all.
Since we were kids, I’ve told him almost everything. He’s the first person I told I was being bullied in middle school, who talked me into going to administration, and who confronted them with enough force that I was never bothered again. Hell, he knew when I had my first bi impulses, the moment I started feeling attraction toward guys as well as girls. I’ve told him about hookups, break-ups…
But not this.
I’m struggling to think how to make sense of what I just did without revealing the truth, when the garage door opens and Troy says, “Okay, looks like it’s a bad starter. Common issue. I can get you set up in a few days, once I get the right part in.”
I head to the main desk, and Troy and I go back and forth about the price because he’s trying to give me labor for free, which doesn’t sound fair, but he finally convinces me.
This whole time, there’s this tension in my chest. Colin’s trying to play it cool with his bestie, but he’s looking like the time he was at the bottom of a tackle in the fourth quarter against the Bulldogs—out of it, in adaze.
I’m running through my head what the fuck I’m gonna tell him about that app…
That I’ve live streamed myself jerking off for people?