Chasing
Rusty Parker – Ch. 1
By
Laura S. Fox
Copyright
© 2022 Laura S. Fox
All
Rights Reserved
Gay
Erotica
Intended
for Mature Audiences Only
This
story will contain graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, strong language
and it is not meant for readers who are less than 18 years of age.
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making a donation to Nifty by clicking the little blue button on the front
page, as they help us all enjoy so many great stories, while aiding authors
like me to display their work.
Summary:
Rusty
Parker has one big-ass problem, unlike any other big-ass problems he has ever
had in his life. No, it's not the impending sense of doom that comes with
senior year and the fact that he has no idea what to do after or that he's
running out of kink ideas. No, it's a very peculiar issue.
Ever
since Maddox Kingsley, his bestie and the most awesome guy alive – nine out of
ten college kids would agree – got all mushy over Jonathan Hamilton, one
perfect GPA score and amazing cook wrapped in the same sexy package, and the
two became joined at the hip, Rusty has been experiencing certain... twingling feelings. It's not about what they do in bed or
whatever, `cause he has
already tried everything (except that! – at least not with a dude).
No,
the reason why he dreams of sneaking between those two while they lie in bed
and stare at each other with stars in their eyes is not... very clear. It's not
the sex stuff; no, Rusty's sure. It's just something
worth chasing and that Rusty's also sure about. Just
that he has no idea what it is.
That
is until he gets the most insufferable tutor in the world. And meets a cat boy.
Yeah, finally.
*
Chasing
Rusty Parker is the sequel to my story Good Guys Don't Date Bad Boys that you
can also find here, on Nifty.
Chapter One
- It Must Be The Gay
Up. Down.
Right. Left. Repeat. Rusty swung his head around, but the landscape didn't
change. Yup, it was the first day of the last year of his life, as he knew it.
After that, it was all a blank, so you could say that it had to be a different
life, one he had no idea what it was going to be like. So, senior year was like
the last year of his life as Rusty Parker, the king of Sunny Hill.
"Would you
stop that? You're making me dizzy," Dex complained.
To piss Dex off a little more, Rusty began swinging his head faster
and then stopped abruptly. "Better?"
Dex shrugged
and shook his head. Kane, as usual, rushed to his bestie's help. "How about you
go get us some sodas from the counter?"
"Am I your
errand boy?" Rusty declaimed out loud, making heads turn. A few laughs here and
there, and the usual. The interested looks from all the freshies and the others
alike. So, business as usual.
He smirked
and got to his feet.
And, after
just a couple of steps, he promptly smacked into someone, who seemed to be not
that well acquainted with his own feet because he landed on his ass. Rusty
looked, slightly horrified, at how the guy's glasses slid on the polished
cafeteria floor like a curling weight.
Quick
thinking was one of the main perks of the king of Sunny Hill. Without hesitating,
Rusty threw himself on the glasses, protecting them with his body, and
preventing any walkers from crushing them under their feet. Without changing
his position, he turned his head toward the dude sprawled on the floor. He
looked slightly dizzy and confused, but what truly registered with Rusty were a
cute as a button upturned nose and a pair of the most hazel eyes in all hazel
eyes history. He smiled. "Are you all right?"
The hazel
eyes finally landed on him. "My glasses," the guy stuttered.
"Safe,"
Rusty replied. "They're right here."
More
confusion rolled from the hazel eyes. "Um, could you please give them back?"
Rusty rolled
to one side, gracefully uncovering his protected charge. Then, he slid them
cautiously over the floor until he bumped the other's hand with them. A sigh of
relief left the guy's lips, and Rusty found himself staring. Too caught up by
the upturned nose and hazel eyes, he had missed that perfect Cupid's bow arch.
The dude
quickly put on his glasses, with the cautiousness and hurry characteristic to
people whose proper navigation in the outside world depended greatly on such accessories.
Then, the guy finally looked at him.
Rusty
expected a `thank you', but the hazel eyes just turned bigger, or maybe it was
the glasses. Their owner pushed himself backwards on his ass, eventually bumped
into someone, jumped to his feet and ran away.
"What the
fuck?" Rusty asked himself out loud.
"Do you need
a hand down there, or is the floor your most recent best friend?" Dex called
for him.
Hadn't
anyone noticed that weird thing with the boy with glasses? Rusty turned toward
Dex and Kane, but they seemed to be engrossed in something on their phones.
Probably the class schedule for the semester. Nerds.
Disappointed
that his valiant act had gone unnoticed - not by the freshman year and/or most
girls around - Rusty dragged himself to his feet and sauntered toward the
counter. He searched for the boy with his eyes, but he had already been
swallowed by the crowd.
***
Matty put
his palms over his ears and kept his head down while rushing toward the table
in the corner where Zoey was already seated. He plopped himself down across
from her and breathed heavily like he had just run a marathon.
"What's with
you?" she asked, scutinizing him with keen eyes.
Zoey was
petite, but she packed a punch. Everyone who didn't know them thought they were
a cute couple. Probably they thought so the same way they thought of a pair of
hamsters being cute. Just like him, Zoey wore glasses, and had what people
called a harmless pretty face. In his case, the harmless comment was right on
point. In hers, not so much.
Matty leaned
over the table, causing his best friend to do the same. "Zoey, you won't
believe it!" Overly conscious of his voice being too loud, he dropped it to a
whisper. "I crashed into Rusty Parker."
Zoey didn't
look impressed. Her brown eyes inspected him, like he was a bit of a lunatic.
"Matty, you've been crushing on," she emphasized each word, "Rusty Parker since
freshman year."
Matty waved
desperately. "Any louder and this will end up in Xpress. Ah, wait, maybe I
shouldn't bother shushing you. Xpress doesn't even know I exist." He deflated
considerably. "Just like Rusty Parker has no idea I exist."
Zoey pushed
her glasses up on her nose. "Are you going to tell me what happened or should I
hit you with the list first?"
Matty knew
all about the list. After confessing, complaining, and wallowing in semi
despair, Zoey had forced the list on him at the end of sophomore year. It
served as a wakeup pill or whatever. "Hit me with the list first," he admitted
morosely and sank back into his chair, arms over his chest.
Zoey cleared
her throat with importance and leafed through an imaginary document in front of
her. "Rusty Parker is a shallow, good for nothing, popularity chaser," she said
in a sing-song voice and waited for Matty's reaction.
Matty bit
his bottom lip. "He's not," he protested right away. "I can tell that he's not
shallow," he continued. "His popularity is due to the fact that he has natural
charm. And I can see in his eyes that he's very smart. Who would think of a
butt slapping contest and manage to win it?"
Zoey
grimaced and shifted in her chair. "Don't remind me of that. I could only take
like five with that paddle. And then I couldn't sit for a week."
Matty nodded
in understanding. "That's why I gave you that new pillow."
"Shut up,"
Zoey mumbled. "You were such a scaredy cat you didn't even come with me to that
party. Now, just for the sake of argument, why would such a completely moronic
contest would make Rusty Parker smart?"
"You know.
Because he thinks of all kinds of things no one else thinks about." Zoey was on
his side. She didn't want to corner him, but he was the one asking for it.
"Yeah. Like
having a luau party. In December. Even Judy Dartwood said she froze her tits
off. And she has some melons." Zoey gestured surreptitiously to make a point.
"You know, there's a lot of protective fat there." Part admiration, part envy commingled
in her voice.
"Zoey, I'm not
talking to you about melons," Matty said in resignation, knowing that it wasn't
entirely up to him if they did or did not.
"Melons are
a perfectly healthy fruit," Zoey commented. "So, we concur that Rusty Parker is
super smart, right?"
Matty
nodded. He was feeling a bit better already. "Next."
"All right,"
Zoey agreed. "Rusty Parker is a complete meathead," she recited from the
invisible list.
"That's not
true," Matty protested again. "That's not where the meat of Rusty Parker is."
Zoey grinned
and her eyes glinted with mischief. She pedantically lifted her long hair and
wrapped it into a bun on the crown of her head. Then, she pushed a pencil
through it to keep it in place. "Am I rocking the sexy librarian look yet?"
That was random. That was Zoey.
Matty looked
at her and made a suffering face. "Wrong dude to ask, Zoey. But, if it helps, I
think you might be able to scare off some crows if you choose your location
well."
She threw a
French fry at him. "Shut up, virgin."
Matty
grinned. Since they were considered hamster-weight, it was okay for all of their
matches to consist of hits below the belt. They could hardly hurt each other.
"Really," he said with a sigh, "even if Rusty Parker plays basketball, that
doesn't mean he's a meathead."
"As you say,
my friend," Zoey said with a shrug.
"Hey, you're
supposed to be the devil's advocate here," Matty reminded her.
"Right,
right. Let's continue. Rusty Parker is a total womanizer."
Matty
deflated considerably. Yeah, he could extol on Rusty's amazing looks and
intellect - which the guy used mainly for throwing some of the hottest parties
on campus - all he wanted, but he couldn't deny that. "You really had to go
there," he said, but without any real reproach.
Zoey offered
him a sympathetic smile. "Come on, Matty, you know what to do."
"Zoey, I'm
not putting on a cat boy suit. Xpress is talking shit."
Zoey groaned
in frustration. "Could you at least try? Maybe, just maybe, this one time,
Xpress is not talking shit. If he's into cat boys, and you dress up as a cat
boy, that's your best chance."
"Of making a
fool of myself? And where would I even wear such a costume? While attending
Mrs. Lane's class on human resource management?"
Zoey took a
long sip from her soda. "That's some really forward thinking there, Matty. I
like it."
"Oh, come
on," Matty groaned and rolled his eyes. "Not even in a cat boy suit would Rusty
Parker ever acknowledge I exist."
Zoey
narrowed her eyes. "He totally would. Come on, you have the perfect body for
wearing a cat suit. Wait, didn't you just say that you crashed into Rusty? How
did that go?"
Suddenly,
Matty felt less in the mood to share, mainly because he knew what Zoey would
say.
"Come on, was
all this build up for nothing?" Zoey insisted.
"All right,"
Matty admitted reluctantly. "I bumped into him by mistake, I landed on my ass,
and he gave me back my glasses."
"Did you
introduce yourself?" Zoey asked, this time with wide excited eyes.
Matty sank
low in his chair. "I ran away."
Zoey didn't
say anything but let her hands speak for her. Her small fists cut through the
air, mimicking a strangling motion, then they shook up and down, only to spread
into open palms as if she had just dropped Marty into a heap of self-loathing.
"That's it," she said. Marty shrank in his chair at the determined look in her
eyes. "This year, you're going to get Rusty Parker to know who you are. You'll
wear a cat boy suit, a bear boy suit, a pelican boy suit, I don't care. You're
going to do it."
"Um, says
you?" Matty asked cautiously.
"Come on,
Matty, do you really want your college years to end on a `what if' note? And
what are you afraid of, anyway?"
Matty knew
very well what he was afraid of. But could Zoey understand him? Once he learned
for a fact that Rusty Parker would never be interested in knowing good ol' plain Matthew Han, was there anything else left? Sure,
he was cute, Zoey said that much, he took care of his body, lifting weights and
whatnot, but his genes could only do so much. He had a feeling that even if he were
ever into guys, Rusty Parker would like some muscle god or someone like that.
Zoey snapped
her fingers in front of him to bring him back to reality. "Matty, no one says
you have to do it all in one step."
"What steps
are we even talking about when it comes to cat boys? Should I start
communicating through meows of varying intensities?"
"No, but you
could start getting out of your nerdy clothes more, and into cooler ones. You
really have a nice body."
"Yeah, if
you're into Korean boy bands," Matty mumbled.
"Which I
totally am," Zoey said. "Do you have any idea how much I envy you? It's because
of your grand-grandfather that you have perfect skin. Don't make me want to
kill you in your sleep so that I can peel off your skin and dress myself in it."
"Wow, that
turned into Silence of the Lambs fast," Matty commented.
"Silence of
the what?"
He wouldn't
go on a tangent now and talk about old movies. "Never mind. Come on, Zoey, it's
my curse. I'm just pretty enough for girls to like me. It would be so much
easier if I didn't like guys, right?"
Zoey leaned
back into her chair and crossed her arms. "Matthew Han, you're not saying what
I think you're saying. Grow some guts, or some balls, or whatever. Get a cat boy
suit. Try it on, study in it, until, you know, it feels like a second skin."
"It sounds
to me more like a recipe for a descent into madness," Matty said and buried his
face in his palms. "But I suppose you're right. This year is now or never. Who
knows if I'll ever get to see Rusty again once we finish school?" The answer
was pretty obvious. "All right," he said, trying to sound as determined as
possible.
"For real?"
Zoey clapped her hands in glee. "Look, you'll have to dish out some real cash.
You'll also need a wig, okay? None of that cheap stuff, not when it comes to
something as important as this."
"Great."
Matty let out a sigh. "I suppose I can continue to tutor, at least for some
time."
"Do that. It
will be money well spent."
"Make sure
my folks never hear about it. They'll blow a gasket."
"Does it say
`traitor' above my head?" Zoey pointed to an invisible point up in the air.
"I'm
counting on it, okay? They told me `no tutoring' this year. They want to make
sure I graduate with a good GPA."
"They shouldn't
worry," Zoey said. "You're like only second to Jonathan Hamilton in this
place."
"Yeah, don't
remind me," Matty murmured. "Why does that guy have it all? Looks, intellect,
and a boyfriend like Maddox frigging Kingsley? I can't even hate him. He's too
nice."
Zoey
shrugged. "Yeah, together, they're any fujoshi's wet
dream."
Yeah, Zoey
was right. Jonathan and Maddox made an amazing couple, but how would he look
side by side with Rusty Parker? No, he couldn't even picture it. He was in a
very public place and couldn't afford letting his heart beat faster. Zoey might
threaten him with mouth to mouth resuscitation.
"Put up
those ads for tutoring. And let's go shopping. I won't take `no' for an answer,
and I know about your hefty cash stash you put away for such occasions."
"That money
is not for such occasions," Matty argued, but then he sighed. "Where are we
going to shop for a cat boy suit? Hopefully, in another city. Or country. I
would never live it down if anyone else, except you, finds out about my
unlikely hobby."
"Online,
obviously. And I told you, no cheap stuff. So our best bet is to have something
custom made. You know, it needs to look great on you."
Matty put
his head on the table. "Will that make a difference?"
"Of course."
Zoey ruffled his hair. "Rusty Parker is a perfectionist. You must make a good
impression on him."
"How do you
know he's a perfectionist?" Matty asked, always hungry for hearing other people
talking in admiring terms about his crush.
Zoey gave
him an all-knowing look. "How many people would take thirty-seven swats with a
paddle after turning his underwear into a self-inflicted wedgie?"
"What? Wait,
you're talking about that ass-slapping party? You didn't give me the details!"
"I didn't want
to give you more wet dreams than you already have. Yeah, Rusty pulled at his
boxers until his butt cheeks were as good as naked, then bent over and took it on
his bare ass."
"And who
gave him the spanking?"
"He wouldn't
have anyone else but Dex, of course, just to make sure that he had the dude
with the heaviest hand give him the spanking.. You know, so that no one would
say he cheated or something."
What if
Rusty was crushing on Dex? He was a muscle god, and everything Matty wasn't.
But they were both straight guys...
Zoey chatted
away, unaware of the new mental torture Matty was giving himself. "Even Dex got
tired around twenty-five, though. Kane took over, and he really made Rusty cry.
It looked like Dex was going easy on him."
"Rusty
cried?" Matty couldn't believe it.
"It was a
sight," Zoey assured him. "He was also laughing his ass off, so you didn't know
whether to feel terrified or laugh your ass off, too. But overall, it was very
sexy. Rusty has a very sexy ass. Wanna know more?"
Matty shook
his head energetically. "You could have taken a picture."
"It didn't
cross my mind," Zoey said airily.
Matty didn't
press further. For all he knew, Zoey might just have a picture of Rusty's
reddened ass on her phone, stashed away. But, as long as he didn't ask for it
directly, he was safe.
***
Rusty threw
himself on the bed. It was still early in the afternoon, but he felt like
taking a nap. He closed his eyes and willed himself to chase away the dream
that had recurred so often lately. Maybe he was to blame, because he never let
go of something if it irked him or made him curious.
The fact
that he was willing to revisit it although he knew it wasn't doing him any good
said a lot about his penchant for self-flagellation. Yeah, those were the kind
of words he liked to look up in online dictionaries. Since he enjoyed a bit of
pain in his sandwich, he didn't see a lot of harm in self-flagellation, which
was a bit like going in a roundabout, or fucking yourself in the ass with your
own dick. If he could do that, he'd totally go for it.
Maybe that
would cure him of this dream constantly torturing him. Every time, it was the
same. The door to Maddox's room would be open, and he would first sneak a peek.
He would see Jonathan and Maddox sleeping on their sides, facing each other,
doing that thing that Rusty couldn't define or understand. Maybe Maddox would
rest one hand possessively on Jonathan's hip. And Jonathan would smile in his
sleep, as if he knew his boyfriend was feeling him up.
If he were a
sane person, he'd close the door and go about his own business. If. Oh, what a
big if. But dream Rusty couldn't be too different from real Rusty, or else he'd
be somebody else. So, in the dream, he would sneak into the room and walk close
to the bed, so close that he could see their big peepees,
busy seeing each other eye to eye. Then, he would slowly climb into the bed,
pushing himself slowly between them, making sure to gently maneuver their peepees so that they stopped smooching each other while the
owners were asleep. Sure, he'd be tempted to play a little Ken and Barbie or,
better said, Ken and Ken with them, but this wasn't about dicks and what people
usually did with them.
So, the next
thing he would do, he would stay there, between them, feeling their breathing,
steady and content. He wouldn't even look at them; no, he would close his eyes
and try to feel whatever it was that they were feeling for each other.
And he'd
fail every time. Sure thing, the sex thing would be easy to imagine. Sometimes,
he would imagine being Jonathan and having Maddox call him `babe' and make
doe-eyes at him; or he would imagine being Maddox and having Jonathan kiss him
hard and firm. That would make his dick hard every time.
But it
wasn't the sex, though. No, sex had no secrets for Rusty Parker. That other
thing, though, the one they called `love' and all that. Nah, that one he
couldn't get. At all.
He'd dream
the same dream anyway.
Rusty didn't
realize when he fell asleep, but he could tell he was dreaming. It was the same
thing – he had trained his mind well to dream of whatever he wanted – so he
knew the drill. He walked up the stairs, stood in the door for a few moments,
and then walked into the room.
Only that,
this time, his dream just wanted to play a prank on him. When he snuck into the
bed, between Jonathan and Maddox, he realized something was different. He
turned his head to look at Jonathan. What the hell? Was he wearing his glasses in
bed, now? But no, those weren't Jonathan's glasses. Actually, that wasn't
Jonathan at all.
There was no
point in freaking out. Rusty calmly turned his head toward Maddox. Then, he
looked up. That wasn't Maddox, either. No, left and right, he was flanked by
the boy in glasses from earlier today, and a cat boy. Okay, this dream was
getting sexual, after all.
But why a
threesome with the boy in glasses and the cat boy? He knew where the cat boy
was coming from, but the other dude? This was one weird-ass dream.
All right,
he got this. He turned toward the cat boy. "Hey," he whispered, "can I touch
your tail?"
There was no
answer. Quite disappointed by that, Rusty turned toward the boy in glasses. He
looked really pretty with his eyes closed like that. Why was he wearing glasses
in bed? Whatever, weird-ass dream. "Sorry for asking, but why are you here?" he
asked.
The boy
shifted in his sleep and, as he did that, he threw one arm over Rusty's belly.
"Are you
going for the Mighty Thor?" Rusty asked. Finally, the dream would make some
sense.
The boy did
nothing. Rusty continued to examine him. Too bad his imagination didn't have
much beyond cute nose, eyes, lips, and glasses. He didn't remember much else,
at least not in his sleeping form. Deciding that he was the one who was
supposed to do something after all, Rusty took the boy's hand and pushed it
downward. "Do you mind if I do that?" he asked courteously.
The boy
moved again and this time he slapped Rusty by accident. Not hard, but enough to
count as a surprise.
"Now that
was a bit kinky," Rusty commented.
The dream
boy seemed to have a life of his own, and without opening his eyes, he moved
and placed his soft lips on Rusty's mouth. He tasted nice. Rusty smiled and
decided that he could allow himself to be molested in his dream. The stranger
had a nice, lithe body that pressed to him hard. Rusty could feel the Mighty
Thor getting ready for action.
"It must be
the gay," Rusty commented, not stopping to wonder why he was getting hard over
a dude kissing him all of a sudden. A dude who wasn't either dream Jonathan or dream
Maddox, obviously.
"Hey, hey!"
Rusty
squirmed, annoyed by the intrusion of another voice into his dream. It couldn't
be the boy in glasses, nor the cat boy. "Go away!" he said sharply.
Whoever it
was, he was bent on messing up his sex dream and didn't stop. Rusty opened his
eyes abruptly. Maddox was shaking him and grinned when their eyes met.
"What the
fuck, dude?"
"Really,
dude? I'm saving you!" Maddox replied.
Rusty
blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Saving me from what?"
"You were
thrashing in your sleep and crying out `it must be the gay'," Maddox explained.
His smirk was starting to get a bit annoying.
Rusty pulled
a blanket over himself and put on an offended face. "Why did you have to barge
into my room like this?"
And stop my dream just when it was
getting good.
Maddox
laughed and pulled at the blanket. "Seriously, dude? You're in my room. My
bed."
Rusty looked
around. Yeah, something was very wrong. This room was too neat. Just as primly,
he threw off the blanket and got to his feet.
He didn't
miss the look of amused and very much fake horror in Maddox's eyes.
"Why do you
have a stiffy, Rusty?" Maddox pointed down between them.
"I don't
have to explain shit," Rusty declared and walked toward the door as stiffly as
his stiffy. He could practically feel his dick swinging to and fro. Then, he
remembered that he could do something. He turned, grabbed the blanket and threw
it over himself like a cloak. Whatever, as long as he could get out of the room
without losing any more face, he'd save his dignity.
"Could it be
the gay?" Maddox called out after him.
Rusty
flipped the bird at Maddox without a backward look. "Screw you, Maddie."
He even
closed the door without giving Maddox a full-frontal of his stiffy again. Phew,
now that had been close or something. Close to what, he had no idea. But what
the hell, was he walking in his sleep now?
Or maybe he
had just walked into Maddox's room without thinking twice. Whatever. That could
have happened, only that it needed not to happen again. Not because Maddox
would ever get mad at him for something like that, but because it would be
freaking humiliating to shout in his sleep `it must be the gay' again and be
heard by his best friend.
Maddox would
just get the wrong idea.
Nah, he
wouldn't. He was a cool guy.
***
Eventually,
he had managed to find his own room, only that sleep was elusive now he had
just had a weird gay dream. He had seen that boy in glasses for like, what?
Half a minute? So why was he walking into his dream like there were no better
places for him to be?
Rusty looked
around his room. Damn, he was getting bored already. Maybe he could convince
those nerds downstairs to do something fun already. Everyone was behaving like
the end of the world was near. It was just senior year, end of college,
yada-yada.
Wait, Maddox
had just entered the picture, and Jonathan must have come with him, too. The
least Rusty could do was to continue his research on whatever those two shared.
They had gotten engaged at the end of summer break, and that party had been
uber lit. Rusty was sure he would remember it forever, despite being the tamest
thing he'd ever attended in his life.
So, being
engaged meant that they would also get married, and in the world of the living,
normal beings, and all that, it was the most serious shit ever. Not even Kane
had fast-tracked like that with Louise.
Therefore,
the questions still remained. Sure, Jonathan Hamilton was sexiness incarnate
despite fighting it with every fiber of his aristocratic self. Of course,
Maddox was the man, cool and handsome, and everything, but why, oh, why,
couldn't they live without each other? What was that all about?
Not that he
was jealous or anything. Not in that sense of the word. No, Rusty just couldn't
understand it, even if he had heard – and even provoked – Jonathan into saying
the words out loud. He could get liking someone. Yeah, that was fine. Rusty
himself liked his friends enough, maybe even to the point of giving them all a
hand if they found themselves in casts with both arms broken or something.
Hmm, more
research was needed. With a little bit of luck, he would find Jonathan all over
Maddox when he went downstairs. But first, he needed to check for Dex and Kane.
Already, without him provoking them in any way, they had started piling on him,
telling him that this year was no joke, and he should study, and all those
things that could make him want to kill himself from boredom, Deadpool-style –
like in the sense that he couldn't really die, just take a break from their
incessant droning.
Making sure
to tiptoe to the top of the stairs so that he could examine the troops from a
superior vantage point, he walked over to the rail. Clearly enough, the large
living room was populated, and voices could be heard.
"I don't
mind tutoring Rusty."
That was Jonathan.
Wow, Dex and Kane had moved like really fast.
"Babe,"
Maddox intervened, "Rusty would have you wrapped around his little finger in no
time."
"It's worth
a try," Jonathan insisted. "You are all saying that you've tried in the past.
We are not giving up on him, are we?"
"That's
true," Dex admitted.
Now that
gave Rusty a bit of a sense of triumph. What did Kane have to say about it,
though?
"He's
pigheaded and annoying." Kane would never disappoint him. Rusty felt a grin
threatening to go around his head. "If he doesn't want to do something, he just
doesn't do it."
"There must
be a way," Jonathan said. "At least for a few of his classes where he might be
struggling."
It was a bit
touching that Jonathan didn't want to give up.
"Should we
find a cat boy and ask him to tutor Rusty?" That was still Jonathan.
Rusty
thought that he liked the guy more and more. Just in a bro way. What happened
in dreams stayed in dreams. There should be a saying for that.
"That's a
difficult call, don't you think?" Dex asked, always the unbeliever. "I doubt
cosplayers are necessarily excellent tutors. And that any of them who are
attend Sunny Hill. The probability of finding someone like that is pretty
dismal."
"Maybe we
could convince the tutor to dress as a cat boy?" Jonathan offered.
"Rusty would
smell foul play right away," Kane said, sounding pretty much convinced.
He totally
would. Yeah, Kane knew him well. But he was starting to take a little pity on
the guys' predicament. He understood they wanted to do him a boatload of good
or something, but he just didn't like studying boring stuff.
Hmm, he
needed to think of a solution before they started banging their heads against
the walls. So, he nonchalantly began walking down the stairs, making everyone
turn their heads to stare at him.
"Yeah,
before anyone asks, I heard you," he said.
"Look,
Rusty--" Jonathan began.
Rusty put
one hand up. "All right, all right, you're good people. I get it. I'm just not
the kind that can be tutored."
He expected
some denial, but Dex, Maddox, and Kane all looked at him like they totally
agreed with him.
"What if,"
Jonathan continued, not knowing Rusty as well as the rest, or just being
stubborn, "we find someone who can tutor you?"
Rusty
considered the question. "Like a contest? A contest for all the tutors on
campus?"
Jonathan
smiled. Ha, let him believe that he had something there. "I'll personally offer
to triple the fee if anyone gets past the first lesson with you. What do you
say?"
"I'm in,"
Rusty said brightly. The prospect of driving a few people mad who dared to go up
against him sounded pretty swell. It would only be one session with the bravest
on campus. It would be fun. "Wait, what if no one manages to do that? What do I
get?"
"Nothing,"
Jonathan said naturally. "Isn't it the fact that you want to win enough
motivation?"
"True,"
Rusty admitted. "Still, Hamilton, you could have thrown me a bone, you know."
"I'll make
sure to make some treats for you shaped like that," Jonathan promised.
Rusty
shuddered for a moment. He didn't even have to close his eyes to imagine cool
and collected Jonathan enticing him with dog treats while Rusty knelt at his
feet. Jeesh, this fucking imagination could be a
nightmare at times.
"Did you
just think of something dirty involving my boyfriend?" Maddox asked.
Rusty
bristled. "Totally not," he denied. Maddox squinted and stared at him. "No, I
didn't," he insisted. "Bring on your best. I have some tutors to put in their places."
He cracked his knuckles for show. They had no idea what they were going to be putting
those people through.
TBC