Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins

examination each time.
    Reese snaked out from under her arms and gave her a push toward the door. “Leave him alone. Jesus. He’s not gonna buy you beer.”
    Steph peered around him, hands on Reese’s hips as he walked her backwards toward the door, pushing against each step.
    â€œI’m not an alcoholic, you know. But four hundred pages of Proust on a Thursday night instead of the Living Dead concert? Deserves a beer.”
    â€œLet’s go. I’ll come study with you. I’m better than beer.”
    â€œOkay. You can crash on my couch again if you want. But don’t text anyone to come over. And no fucking!”
    â€œWhat? I never—”
    â€œOh, please. Don’t lie to me, you slut. I totally saw you give that guy a hand job under the blanket when you were ‘snuggling’.” She made air quotes and Reese stuck his tongue out at her as she laughed.
    Tom spoke without thinking. “So it’s not just me who gets to watch.”
    Two heads turned slowly and stared at him, both with eyebrows lifted.
    He flushed, face running hot with the sudden awareness of what he’d let slip. Holy shit. What the fuck should he do now?
    Steph’s mouth opened, which seemed to wake Reese out of his paralysis. He clapped a hand over her mouth and shoved her out the door, leaning into it with his shoulder to close it behind her.
    â€œI’ll be out in a sec.”
    â€œYou’re watching him fuck—?” Her shriek echoed down the hall.
    Tom winced. His neighbors heard that.
    Reese shuffled back into the room, ending up next to his desk, staring at the floor. The long sleeves of his black tee hung over the first knuckles of his hands, like a little boy in his older brother’s clothes. Tom didn’t get it, the shy thing, since the blush on his own face made it clear who was the asshole in the room.
    â€œSorry.” Reese glanced up through his hair.
    â€œNo way. Your friend is nice.” Tom was at a loss. That was a lie. He could do better. “Sort of. She’s looking out for you, you know? Not like Cash.”
    That got a snort and an eye roll.
    â€œNah, it’s the same thing. But still.”
    â€œYeah.”
    He knew what Reese meant. They’d both taken to hiding away in their room even more now that the semester was truly upon them. Somehow Reese’s late night boys didn’t count, but the loud, room-filling personalities of Cash and Steph crowded them in their space.
    â€œKinda nice when it feels like no one knows how to find you.”
    Tom nodded. True that.
    â€œSo maybe she can meet me next time. You know, at the library or something.”
    â€œIf you want, man. But not because of me, okay?”
    â€œNo worries. I just, you know, like it. When it’s just us.”
    Reese was pulling at a frayed edge on his cuff, splitting it further, but his eyes darted to Tom on his last words.
    What the hell. He’d already admitted in front of a near-total stranger, and to Reese’s face, that he’d been indulging in a little voyeurism, watching his roommate fuck random guys. Reese had brought three more people back to their room in the past weeks, with Tom either listening or watching bodies move in the dark each time. His sense of being complicit in Reese’s weird sex habits was both a turn-on and hugely uncomfortable. The entire thing felt like a surreal dream in his waking hours. Admitting he actually liked Reese’s company when awake couldn’t be any more embarrassing than that .
    â€œMe too.”
    The kid’s face flushed pink and he looked down again. Tom could see his cheeks curve from smiling, just a little.
    The blast of noise from the hall when Reese left, Steph having transferred the blazing focus of her attention to whomever had stumbled upon her in the hall, was enough to make him wince. But Reese’s last look back at Tom, still stretched out on the bed with a book he wasn’t