Tuesday Teaser: Ass Prints and Chinese Gymnasts

This one is from Academic Pursuits:

I kept my eye on Bryan. He was the deadly serious sort—good thing considering he was pre-med. How he’d ended up roommates with Marcus, the party animal, was beyond me. As flashy as Marcus was with his carefully maintained three-day stubble and persistently “hip” T-shirts, Bryan was plain, subdued, and studious. I found the whole package very sexy. Of course, I found many things sexy.

“You going?” I asked Bryan very casually, referring to the Friday night plans.

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” he replied with equal casualness.

“Cool. See you there.”

Bryan and Marcus shuffled off, and I returned to my food. Or would have if I hadn’t had the odd sensation of being a butterfly pinned to a cork board under Jo’s sharp gaze. All the women in our family have it: her mom, my mom, even Grandma Adler. It’s like the beam of a laser boring straight through your skull. I had twenty-two years of practice of dealing with it, but it still made my brain itch.

I gave Jo my most innocent look. She dismissed it with a flicker of her eyes.

“I can’t believe you!” she erupted.

“What?”

“Hollins’s ass-print is still warm in your bed and you’re already chasing after another straight guy!”

Oh, hell, and I’d thought I was subtle. It’s not like I didn’t confide in Jo about most things, but Bryan was a tricky one. I kept him to myself. Too late, though: the cat was out of the bag.

“You’re wrong on two counts. One: I’m not chasing after Bryan. Two: he’s not straight,” I explained.

“What the hell do you mean, not straight?”

“Bryan Grant is bendier than a Chinese gymnast.”

“Oh, I didn’t know he was gay.”

“Neither does he.”