[This story contains elements of dubious consent. If that's not your thing, read elsewhere.]
I was midway through my second cup of coffee, and a second load of sheets and towels, when there was a loud rap at the door. I opened it to a guy in his mid-20s dressed unmistakably like he worked in the Athletic Department, flanked on either side by two exceptionally well-built guys, one a couple inches shorter than me, the other towering over both of us. Both sporting two large duffel bags.
“My doorbell works,” I stated, sardonically.
“So does my fist.”
I stared blankly at him, at a loss for words.
“I’m Coach Jacobs. These are two of my champion wrestlers, Nick and Dean.” The two teammates just grunted neutrally.
“I’m Justin,” I offered, stepping back from the door.
“Go on,” the coach prompted, as he entered my house like he owned it. “Introduce yourselves.” The smaller of the two dropped his bags on the floor and stuck out a hand. “Nick.” The taller, no, check that, massively larger one shifted one of the bags to the other hand, grabbing hold of my hand with startling agility and force. “Dean.”
“Good to meet you.” I managed to extract my hand without damage.
“Guys, why don’t you head upstairs and put your stuff in one of the bedrooms,” suggested Coach Jacobs.
“The rooms at either end of the hall are taken. The two doubles share a connecting bathroom.” I called after them. “I’m confused,” I said, turning to Coach Jacobs. “Pedro told me his buddy Rico and his roommate were coming.”
“They are. I’ll be collecting them from their dorm later today. Nick and Dean had to vacate their dorm first. I appreciate you’re letting them all stay here. You’re gonna have to stick to your bubble, but they’re all good guys. Pedro says you’re a good landlord and housemate.
“We’ll do a direct deposit for their rent, just like we do with his. But also a stipend for groceries and upkeep. They all have scholarship money that will continue while we’re locked down, so they can chip in for things like pizza, delivery food. Although the wrestlers are very careful about what they eat. I expect them to keep making weight, and working out.” He looked around.
“Any chance you have a finished basement?” he asked, neutrally.
“It’s vintage, but yeah, there’s shag carpeting and wood paneling and some old couches. Large-screen TV and a Playstation. I even have a weight set with a bench.”
“Mind if I take a look?” I led him to the door beneath the main staircase that led downstairs to the basement. I turned to see if he was following, and caught him looking at my ass. I have to say, he was pretty tasty himself. His workout clothes seemed tailored to his body, he had an appealing scruff on his face, and dark cropped hair underneath a ballcap. When we hit the bottom of the stairs, he looked around.
“This can definitely work. I’m gonna get the guys to help bring over some more weights and equipment, and some wrestling mats, which could go at that far end without disturbing your setup. It’ll be good for them to have some room to spread out. Jocks take up a lot of space.” Okay. Not mad at watching some wrestling practices while playing Fallout.
“If you’re looking for the laundry room, it’s off the kitchen, upstairs,” I pointed out, helpfully.
“Great. Well, that’s that.” He looked at me soberly, studying. “You look after them, and they’ll look after you. I’ll check on you all once a week or so.” He then cupped his hand around the back of my neck, without pressure. I suppose it could be considered avuncular. Coaches are all about that sort of one-on-one emphasis when they’re making a point. But it seemed slightly intense for a perfect stranger, even if circumstances had united our purposes unexpectedly.
“I’m sure we understand each other. I’ll be back later with the other two athletes, and I’ll organize the equipment for down here. Talk to you soon.” With that, he jogged off up the stairs, effortless yet powerful in his strides, like coiled springs were hidden in his strong legs.
I looked around, somewhat bewildered. “What is happening?” I wondered aloud to myself.
Upstairs the two wrestlers were exploring kitchen cupboards and closets, getting a lay of the land, laughing and joking excitedly. They were like young kids exploring a holiday home, so it didn’t feel invasive to me. If it had been my bedroom, it would be a different matter. I got caught up in the spirit. It was like a holiday. An escape of some sort.
Nick the smaller one, turned to Dean, saying “We need to do a major beer run.” He was compact, but built solidly, with muscular arms, prominent pecs and abs visible under his skintight Under Armour compression shirt. And at the risk of sounding creepy, his ass was sublime. A perfectly rounded bubble butt with a shelf I could put a library on.
“I can take us shopping,” I offered. “We probably need a lot of stuff. Or we can wait for the other guys to show up.”
“How come there’s all this chick shit in the bedrooms?” Dean piped up. He had an olive complexion, probably some Italian heritage. As I’d noted before, he was massive, much bigger than I imagined a wrestler would be. His shoulders were broad and rounded, like bowling balls. I’d rarely seen larger arms on anyone close to my age.
“That would be because my two housemates who chose to go home for the rest of the semester are planning on coming back in the fall,” I explained. “What weight class do you wrestle in? I thought wrestlers tended to be smaller dudes.”
“Know a lot of wrestlers, do you?” asked Nick. And before I could even register any movement, he had me off the ground and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then tossed me onto the couch. “Don’t underestimate ‘smaller dudes,’ my friend.”
“Um, I’ll be sure not to,” I gasped. I’d landed on my fist, and had the wind mildly knocked out of me. He’d lifted me like I was a pillow. I’m pretty sure he could’ve deadlifted me above his head. When I could speak again, I asked Nick about his own weight class. He was 5’ 8”, I would have clocked him at 140 or so, but then, muscle had more mass, more heft.
“154,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I’d put you at 134-140. You’re what, 5’ 11”? Fit, but lean.”
It was true. I alternated between running and swimming to keep in shape. Maybe I would have to put in more time downstairs with the weights. I might even be able to turn to my new housemates for pointers.
“I try to weigh in under 203 lbs,” Dean explained, happy to elaborate on the topic. “But that’s not an Olympic class. For that I can go to 214 lbs. Above that, I’d be wrestling beasts.”
“I’m not sure that would put you at much of a disadvantage,” I mused, blatantly looking him over.
“Thanks, little buddy.” Dean beamed. “So you normally live here with two girls. Damn. I never thought about the advantages of living off-campus. You get to live with chicks.” He looked to Nick for confirmation.
Nick chuckled. “Shame one of them didn’t stay. We’re gonna have to get creative about getting off.” He shot me a speculative look and winked. Seriously, is there something in the air?
“Well, I assume you work things out in the dorms, somehow,” I countered.
“Something like that.” Nick put an end to the discussion by declaring that we were going shopping.
We ended up going to Costco, apparently the Athletic Department had a group membership of some kind. We bought a gross of ribeye steaks, about six dozen eggs, more protein powder than I thought four guys could consume in a year, a bunch of frozen pizzas (not on the coach’s authorized wrestler fare sheet, I suspected), and a shit ton of bulk spinach, broccoli, edamame (huh), pasta, tomato sauce, hamburger, apples, oranges, bananas and blueberries. I guess there was a new sheriff in town.
Nick paid with his card, saying we’d work out the details later. Fortunately I had a second refrigerator in the laundry room, which I’d designated the “party fridge” for beverages etc. But it would serve well for all these extra provisions.
When we got home, there seemed to be 6 or 7 guys carrying a massive amount of gym equipment and mats down to the basement. Coach Jacobs was overseeing the work. I was a little distressed by the number of people tramping through my house. It was a pandemic, after all, and we were supposed to be limiting our social contacts.
“Who are all these people?” I asked the coach, a little petulantly.
“Don’t worry. They’re all staying together nearby and will be quarantining just like you. They’re going to be part of your bubble. I need for them to have access to your basement gym." Things were spiraling completely out of my control pretty quickly, but Coach Jacobs seemed to be more than happy to be in charge. And I wasn’t assured enough to contradict him.
I went downstairs to survey the impact. They’d been very efficient. They’d pulled the couches and entertainment center a little tighter into one corner, but it still left ample room for gaming, tv-watching or just hanging out. Along one wall for the length of the house they’d laid down those interlocking puzzle mats that you see in gyms. My weight bench had been supplemented by four more, parallel in a row that filled out that space with 4 or 5 feet between each bench.
Against the wall were 5 racks with a full range of dumbbells, kettlebells and weights for the barbell. There were medicine balls and those large gym balls that looked like a jumbo version of a child’s bouncy-ball, but without the handle. And in the far corner on the opposite wall, a set of wrestling mats had been set out into a decent sized square, certainly big enough for sparring. Shelves that had been filled with junk and boardgames were now lined with dozens of clean towels, not as big as bath towels but larger than hand towels.
I felt a presence next to me and turned to see Coach Jacobs. He placed a strong, beefy arm around my shoulder. “We’ll have to take most of this back when lockdown is over, but if there are some things you want to keep, we can talk about it.”
They’d even put in a row of lockers, 6 up and 6 down, with a large metal cabinet next to them, on one side of the door to the bathroom. “What’s in the cabinet?” I asked.
“Jump ropes, first aid stuff, athletic tape. That sort of thing,” answered the coach. He squeezed his arm around my shoulder, tightly. It was forceful, almost suggestive. “It’s great that you have that bathroom and shower down here. It’s utilitarian, but helpful. I’ll get some more gym towels and bath towels brought over.”
He gave me that intense, unsettling look for a full ten seconds, then abruptly said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Then he bounded back up the stairs. I followed, but he was gone by the time I got there, and so were all the extra bodies.
Pedro came down from the second floor with two new people. I was vaguely aware of having seen Rico before with Pedro, out and about on campus. He was a Black Brazilian. An inch or two shorter than Pedro, but with a soccer player’s ample curves and with tight curls on his close-cropped head.
He had an appealing chunkiness, but with solid muscle beneath. Everything rounded and bulging. His arms, his shoulders, his crotch, his ass, his thighs. You almost immediately wanted to get into a hot tub with him, and wrap yourself around him. I stopped in my tracks. I’m not usually this superficial, this hungry. I was definitely experiencing a sea-change with all these turbo-charged jocks around me. I needed to reign myself in.
Pedro smirked at me. We hadn’t seen each other since the previous night. “Guys, this is Justin. He’s an okay guy for an English major who’s not on any of our teams. Not to mention for a landlord.” I thought I saw Rico give Pedro a complicit nod, and wondered how recently they had talked. Was Rico read into this Brazilian bisexual business?
The other fellow, presumably Rico’s roommate, was introduced to me as Riley. He was the epitome of a lacrosse player. Perhaps with a little more muscle, a little broader, more solid across the chest and thighs than some, but with floppy dirty blond hair and a certain arrogance. I wouldn’t have pictured him and Rico particularly clicking. Riley probably went to a fancy day school in Seattle, while Rico had gone to some hard-knocks public school just outside a favela in Rio.
Riley spoke up. “What team does Justin play for?” I rolled my eyes and left the room.
Pedro and Nick seemed to take over, preparing a huge amount of Caesar’s salad with grilled chicken and shrimp for dinner. Rico and Riley had settled into Susie’s room, despite the girlie traces, while Nick and Dean had taken up in Pedro’s old room. People withdrew to their respective quarters, while I washed dishes and Rico dried.
Pedro and Rico most definitely had exchanged notes, because to say that Rico was frisky was an understatement. He sidled up against me, found any excuse to grind his crotch into any part of my body he could reach, primarily my ass, and gave new meaning to the term “handsy.” And I wasn’t hating it, although I was questioning when my life became so patently sexual, and my body so undeniably available.
When I’d put the last dish on the drying rack, Rico “guided” me over to the door to the laundry room, then muscled me beyond and into it.
“Pedro was right, you are a pretty garota.” His accent was stronger than Pedro’s, his English less fluent. He pressed my face into the crook of his left underarm. I can’t say that’s been a fetish of mine, but his sweet musk was not unpleasant. Then he shocked me by kissing me full on the lips, thrusting his tongue into my mouth for a full minute, and then pushing me over into the other underarm.
“Gostoso,” he mumbled. I was gonna need to brush up on my Brazilian slang. Next thing I knew, through some combination of soccer tackle and ballroom dip, he had me on my back on the ground, and he was straddling my chest. Furry balls resting just under my chin. A turgid cock rubbing against the side of my cheek. It was not hard to see where this was going.
I can’t say I have a lot of experience with deep-throating, but Rico was determined to prove the contrary. He wasted no time pushing his thick cock as far down my throat as he could get it. And he didn’t stop there.
“Isso,” he moaned, as he pushed further. I was beginning to understand that word meant ‘that.’ As in, ‘Like that. That’s good.’ He gripped my head like a basketball and thrusted in and out unmercifully. I felt his dickhead lodging comfortably/uncomfortably at the back of my throat. Briefly blocking my breathing. I tried to get the measure of his cock as it filled my throat, but I was not in control.
Then he pulled out and started to slap my face with both of his hands. Not gently. What was it with Brazilians and their ‘love taps?’ It must have triggered something in him, because he plunged his cock back into my mouth, as far as it would reach, and I felt the shaft surge and pelts of cum splashing against the back of my throat in thick ropes.
He quickly bent down and gave me a deep kiss once again, perhaps seeking a trace of his load.
“Good bitch,” he praised me, before walloping me with a slap across the face that made me howl in shock. Fucking Brazilians! He then caressed my cheek tenderly, sprung to his feet and was gone before I could register what had happened. Pedro had clearly given his permission, but Brazilians do seem to be truly bisexual at the drop of a hat.
* * *
We settled into a reasonable rhythm. The guys spread out in the house, and there were telltale signs that it had become a ‘jock house,’ but it was manageable. A lacrosse stick here, a stray sock on the floor. Hoodies and compression shorts left on the back of a chair. Riley caught me sniffing a pair of shorts one time, but in fairness, I was just trying to tell if they needed to go in the wash.
He smirked but said nothing before heading out on a run. I thought I saw his groin twitch before he turned away out the door, showing off his firm bubble butt and wide, muscled thighs.
There was an element of team discipline to our routine, despite the fact they were from different sports. The guys naturally traded off kitchen duties, spent hours working out in the basement, and even led some form of wrestling practices that seemed much more surgical and grueling than erotic to me. And a half-dozen or so guys sharing a duplex owned by the school a few blocks away availed themselves of our basement gym and Playstation.
These included a couple more guys from the wrestling squad, another lacrosse player and two or three football players, though it never seemed to be the same grouping at any one time, and I had trouble getting their names straight. Online teaching resumed, in a slightly haphazard fashion, so that also occupied our time. Coach Jacobs looked in on us once and seemed satisfied with the setup.
Pedro was the soul of discretion during the first week or so, staking no claim. He was pleasant, familiar, but not possessive. Rico was as handsy as ever, finding ways to grab or jostle me in the kitchen at breakfast, to corner me in the hallway and give my face an affectionate slap.
Occasionally I would come home from a run and hear the loud soundtrack of some porno playing in the basement, but I wasn’t tempted to explore. I sensed exchanged looks between Dean and Nick, the occasional sneer from Riley. But for the moment, they hadn’t manifested in more explicit ways.
Until after dinner, one night during the second week, we were sitting around the dining room table, talking. Rico and Dean were in the kitchen cleaning up and putting away dishes. Nick and Riley had been complaining about the lack of available pussy since lockdown. Pedro just stared at me meaningfully.
Nick shot a glance at Riley. “Hey, speaking of which, are you still on coach’s No Fly list?”
“Total bullshit,” Riley exclaimed, bitterly. “I didn’t even touch that bitch.”
Nick turned to Pedro, quoting in the monotone voice of a college administrator. “’Riley needs to better acquaint himself with how consent works.’”
“Fucking coach told me to take a break from dating chicks. Or risk getting cut and losing my scholarship. Told me to find a fag if I needed a sexual outlet.”
“Talk about fucking bullshit!!” I exclaimed, indignant.
Nick cut in. “He didn’t really say that. Said that guys could help each other out. Less risk of misunderstanding with a gay guy.’
I interrupted. “Did he say ‘gay guy’?”
Nick ignored my question. “And less distracting for athletes than dating a girl.”
Pedro weighed in. “It’s true you can go much rougher on a guy. Work out your aggression. Gay guys rarely say no.”
I looked at him somewhat aghast. And felt my face going red.
“You’re saying that fags have to let you? That’s kind of fucked up.” You could see the gears turning in Riley’s head.
“What’s fucked up is you tossing the f word around,” I said, icily.
Riley looked at me blankly, then clocked my objection. “Um, sorry?” He did not appear terribly contrite. “I meant, gay guys have to let you?”
“They don’t have to let you,” Nick said, darkly. “That’s kind of the point. You just do it.”
Riley considered this. “So like a free-use bitch. That could be kind of cool.” He looked over at me, his face clouding with something slightly predatory.
“I mean, obviously we’re not talking about anybody here,” he hastened to add, trying unsuccessfully to hide his visible thought process.
Nick’s voice was still icily calm. “That’s not at all obvious.”
I was starting to get slightly alarmed. But also turned on, infuriatingly. “Speaking from experience?”
Nick chose not to answer, and I decided to get away from the table before my arousal or my anger betrayed me. It was Riley who broke the silence.
“Fuck, I’m getting kind of boned up thinking about it. What??? I’m horny.”
* * *
Pedro came to my room and slipped into my bed and took Hardy’s Return of the Native out of my hands and set it on the nightstand behind me. He turned me on my side and snuggled up behind me, spooning me.
“Are you worried about living with all these horny jocks? Afraid that they’re all gonna rape you?” he teased.
“Mainly you, if I’m honest,” I said, reprovingly,
“Você ama isso. You love it.”
“I kind of do,” I admitted. “But I trust you for some reason. You’re forceful but not threatening. But I’ll admit you were right about me. I kind of want to try something rougher, with someone meaner.”
“Someone like Riley?” Pedro suggested.
“Ugh. He’s hot enough. Not sure I trust him not to lose control. I think Nick is more methodical, but I sense that he’s also got a dark streak.”
“You’re describing CNC. Consensual non-consent. That requires a lot of back-and-forth and discussion of limits,” Pedro explained. And blew my mind.
“How do you know about this? Is it something you’ve tried?” I couldn’t hide my astonishment.
He laughed. “I’m Brazilian, putinho. I’ve tried everything.”
“But you and I never negotiated anything,” I protested.
“I’m your OG housemate, safado. I know you better than you know yourself. Now go to sleep, I’m tired. We’ll fuck tomorrow.”
The next afternoon, as I was leaving my bedroom to grab a cold drink from downstairs, Pedro and Rico were just coming up the stairs after kicking around a soccer ball in the park a few blocks away. They were drenched in sweat, laughing raucously, smelling faintly of weed and musk. They blocked my path and were playfully pushing me back and away from the stairs.
“Come on guys,” I protested. “You’re gross and I’m not in the mood.”
“We’re gross? Which part of us?” With both of them still boxing me into a corner, Pedro took his shirt, which was tucked into the back of his shorts, and used it to mop up the sweat on his chest and under his arms. He even wiped inside his shorts below his asscrack. He then shoved the damp shirt into my face, smearing it around and pushing it into my mouth.
“Yuck,” I tried to broadcast my outrage, but it was muffled.
More forcefully, they hustled me down the hall and into Pedro’s bedroom and closed the door behind us. Rico had me in a half-nelson, his thick arms looped under mine with his hands clasped around the back of my neck.
Pedro was grinding up against my stomach and crotch, partly marking me with his sweaty body, partly expressing the state of his arousal. He shoved four fingers in my mouth, and spat into it.
“We’re in the mood, cachorro. That’s what matters.”
Of course my body betrayed me, along with my lofty principles that I got to decide when I wanted sex. Pedro grabbed my sprouting boner. The two of them worked off my shirt and shorts in no time, and sandwiched me while they removed their own shorts. They lifted me and tossed me onto the bed (Lexi’s bed, a voice in my head reminded me. Probably should leave out some details if I later tell her about any of this). My stiff cock bounced against my stomach, while theirs loomed menacingly out and up, as the two crowded into me on their knees on either side of me.
“Chupe.”
Those instructions were simple enough. In the imperative mode, I suspected. While Pedro forced his cock down my throat, Rico slided the sweaty mass of his own shaft across my eyes and face, in a promise of things to come. I hadn’t yet sucked Pedro’s cock. It was a little salty, but somehow tasted like him. I knew his shaft was thick, and if I’m honest, I enjoyed the feel of it plunging up and down, fitting, strangely enough, perfectly. It seemed like very little time before Pedro was shooting down my throat.
Rico wasted no time replacing him, while Pedro, whose dick hadn’t softened one bit, told me that he was ready to fuck for a long spell. He positioned himself at my ass, which he’d hoisted up into an upright position on my knees after flipping me over, as Rico continued to saw away at my mouth. Pedro filled me up masterfully, while they showered me with Brazilian insults, or terms of affection, depending on your point of view. To be honest it sounded hot to me, despite myself.
“Quer ir comigo? Nós dois juntos?” There was only one thing Pedro could be asking about, and juntossounded to me like “together.” To say I was alarmed was an understatement.
The next thing I was aware of, Pedro flipped us over so he was under me, and positioned my ass up above his crotch, while continuing to thrust into me. And yes, Rico came forward and zeroed in on where Pedro was filling up my hole. And didn’t hesitate to aim his torpedo just above Pedro’s girthy member. And slowly pushed in.
To say I was cooperative would be exaggerating. I moaned, I may have yelled, and Rico slammed his big, sexy hand right over my mouth. At some subliminal level, I agreed that we didn’t want all the housemates to know I was taking my first DP. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Fucking Brazilians.
I was aware of the two shafts working separately. Pedro under me stroked my cheeks and rubbed my belly, occasionally tweaking my nipples, which were far more sensitive than I would have guessed. Rico kept his hand clamped over my mouth, nestling his head into the crook of my neck, whispering to me.
“Leve nós dois.” I knew dois meant two. Nous deux is French for “both of us.” I had taken French all four years of high school and done a foreign exchange semester in Lyon the fall semester of my senior year. It’s when I’d first become interested in cooking. Pedro had his lips pressed to my other ear and was nibbling while commenting on the action.
“Eu posso sentir você, mano.” Rico reacted to this. “I can feel your dick.”
“Vadia do caralho.”
Pedro echoed him. “Fucking whore.”
Weirdly, I stopped feeling the huge girth plowing my backside. I just felt myself sandwiched between two insanely hot guys who were focused exclusively on me, even as they worked out some kind of semaphore in thrusts and counterthrusts. At some point, I was aware of them unloading in my ass. Rico rolled to one side, sighing. And then I passed out in a blissed-out fog, crushed between two sweaty, musclebound Brazilian studs. And woke up between them. Which was kinda nice.
I felt like I was receiving a message from outer space when Lexi called later that night. I stared at the caller ID blankly for a few seconds. So much seemed to have changed since her departure only a week ago. I hit talk.
Lexi squealed. “Hey bitch, how’s lockdown?”
Now ‘bitch’ was a term of endearment we used frequently with each other, but it had acquired a much darker resonance since I last saw her.
“It’s a lot, but it’s been an eye-opener. The Athletic Department pretty much requisitioned our place to house stranded athletes after they closed down the dorm. Pedro moved into your room, there are two dirty boys staying in Susie’s and two more in Pedro’s old room.”
“Pedro’s old room?” she shrieked. “Pedro’s new room again if he knows what’s good for him.”
“I told him,” I reassured her. “I may just move him into mine when the time comes…”
“Wait, are you and he… SHUT UP!” she shrieked again. “Details!!!!”
“It’s complicated. He talks dirty to me in Portuguese. It’s like we suddenly have a litter of kittens. You get to keep one also, if you want,” I said, giggling. “I’ll send you photos.”
“So who’s staying there? Are they hot? Are you surrounded by muscly jock boys walking around in boxer briefs all day?” she teased.
“Compression shorts. It’s definitely a gay porn fantasy. Rico, you may know him, he’s Pedro’s buddy on the soccer team. Also from Brazil. And his roommate from the dorms, Riley, a laxman—”
Lexi cut me off. “Since when do you say laxman?”
“Since I live with douchey guys who play lacrosse,” I retorted.
“Wait, is he really douchey?” she inquired.
“Let’s just say he’s been strongly advised by his coaches to stay away from women until he’s better versed in the concept of consent. But he’s also seriously hawt.”
“Ewww, David!!!” she rebuked.
I continued. “In Pedro’s temporarily old room, there are two wrestlers, Nick and Dean. I kind of like Dean for you. He’s big.”
Lexi squealed again. “Eww a wrestler.”
“Believe me, you wouldn’t say that if you saw him. Plus he’s a decent guy. They all are, for the most part. And the Athletic Department transformed the basement into a Gold’s Gym. You wouldn’t recognize it.”
“That’s insane. What happened to all our stuff down there?” she asked.
“It’s still there,” I replied. “They just redesigned the space, a little. I’ll send you photos, I promise. They’ve also put six other athletes in a duplex the college owns a block and a half away. Another laxman, two more wrestlers and three football players. I’ve only seen them in passing, they’re in our bubble for the purposes of weight training and wrestling practice in the basement—”
Lexi interjected, “WTF. Wrestling practice?”
“Gurl, there are resistance bands and gym balls and jump ropes. You name it, we’ve now got it. The other house doesn’t eat with us though. Not yet. And these guys all take turns cooking and shopping and cleaning. And for the most part they’re not pigs. We may have to burn sage in Susie’s room…”
“Hah!” Lexi chuckled.
“So how is it being home? How are you folks?” I queried.
“They’re good. It’s fine.” She sighed. “It’s like a prolonged vacation with the emphasis on family time. I’m climbing the walls a little, but we’re finding our own spaces, and finding things to do that forge new connections, or new interests.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I’m finding that too. I was seriously kind of harsh about judging Pedro, and am having my eyes opened a bit about other people in general, and jocks more specifically. Plus Pedro is seriously smart. Most of these guys are.”
I could hear Lexi muffling the phone and talking to someone else. “I gotta go. It was great catching up. Love you so much.”
“Love y—” I started, but she’d already disconnected.
