'The notebook. Duh,' I almost felt angry at myself for not realizing it. 'I put both of our pairs of shorts in my backpack before we left the pond last night.' The ink dried and I could see the bump in my backpack starting to rise again. Inside were both our shorts. I pulled his out first, they were completely torn to shreds. Ethan's face burned a little brighter, but I just tossed his phone at him. "Normally I still wake up with my shorts on..." he added. Then I pulled out my own pair of shorts. A long claw mark ran down the side.
"Did... Did I do that?" Ethan sheepishly asked. I nodded. "Oh fuck... Did I hurt you?"
"Nope. You were surprisingly gentle. I think this little love mark is causing me a bit more pain than anything else you did," I showed him my neck. His eyes went wide. I figured it was still a bit red. But I was more surprised about seeing him lick his lips. He almost looked like he was ready to do it again. At least the way he flexed his hands, it sure looked like he was trying his best to control himself. "Ready to go to the gym?"
The distraction was enough to get him to snap out of it. "Uhh... Yeah! Let's go." As we walked through the campus he continued to talk to me. "You know that Josh guy is quite the character."
"Oh yeah?" I nodded.
"Yeah man. He's just got so much energy. How do you stand it?"
"Well... There are the other benefits," a smile quickly wormed its way onto my face. Seeing Josh run around practically naked would have been enough for almost any of his shenanigans. And to my surprise, he seemed all the more outgoing as well. His energy only seemed to be positive. Maybe he was a bit of a jokester with the other guys, but with me I didn't feel any reason not to like him.
Ethan let out another growl.
"Don't be jealous," I leaned into his arm, squeezing it tightly. "Besides, we're not dating..."
"R-right... We're not dating," Ethan repeated. But he didn't pull away from my grasp. Even as my hand clasped his. Even as we walked through the quad, even with other people looking at us, and even when we entered the gym, Ethan didn't pull away. It wasn't until we saw Josh and Corey that he did.
"YO! You made it!" Josh came running up. Apparently the gym gave him a pair of shorts and a shirt with the school logo on it. "See man! He's a fucking giant!"
"HOLY FUCK MAN! YOU WEREN'T LYING!" Corey echoed. Luckily there wasn't too many people in the gym, but the few who were did turn their heads. It was hard not to notice as the two jocks celebrations bounced off the rubber cement floors and concrete walls. Corey may not have been massive like Josh or Ethan, but that didn't mean he was tiny either. At 5'9" he still had a decent amount of muscle that he liked to show off. The lean mass meant that he was able to be fairly quick. Not quite as strong as a typical jock, but he couldn't be too bulky if he wanted to wrestle.
"Yeah..." Ethan took a step back, almost like he was trying to hide behind me. His hand went behind his neck as he rubbed it uncomfortably. "I did."
"You brought your boyfriend too?" Corey asked.
Josh quickly interrupted. "Dude, they aren't dating."
The hairs on the back of my stood up. Somehow the tension only seemed to have doubled as Josh said it. I quickly elbowed Ethan. "So you guys can help Ethan get into shape? Neither one of us has ever been in a gym before."
"NO WAY!" Corey cried out.
"Bro! I know! Right?" Josh quickly echoed. "But he swears he's never been in one.
"Jesus Christ man, were you blessed by the gods or something?" Corey continued. "I can't gain size like that at all. I just look like a scrawny piece of shit."
"You're not that small..." Ethan said. "I used to be smaller than you."
Corey let out a bellowing laugh. "Sure man. Probably when you were starting like middle school or something." He added a playful punch to Ethan's arm. "C'mon man. Let's see if you really don't know nothin."