There’s a tall, skinny bookcase he obviously brought from home. The shelves are packed beyond capacity with books, most of which look like they’re about to explode onto the floor.

I riffle through a few printout photos of his sitcom-ready, picture-perfect nuclear family, including who I’m assuming are his older brother and younger sister, and a few of him with another guy who looks our age. I can tell this other dude is very, very straight, but the way Jack stares at his friend is piercing. I know that look. On the backs of each, Jack and Callum 2021 is scribbled in pen. Looks like fancy script, too, the way my grandma used to write. So clearly his family is from the 1950s.

Tacked to the cinder block walls, there are three crooked posters: one of Years & Years, a queer pop band I’m vaguely familiar with, one of Taylor Swift’s folklore album, and one of Ernest Hemingway’s Winner Take Nothing.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Decent?” Jack asks before pushing open the door. He notices me staring at the Hemingway poster, and I feel him come up behind me. “Have you ever read ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’?” he asks.

When I tell him I haven’t, he says, “It’s life-changing. Hemingway is my favorite.”

“Really?”

“As far as classic writers go, anyway. Huge fan of The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, To Kill a Mockingbird. And Huck Finn. I love Huck Finn,” Jack explains. “There is nothing more beautiful than words.”

He catches me staring, but it’s not in awe. I’m pretty sure I have a very confused, fuck-you sort of look plastered across my face.

“What?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you just said a whole lot of stuff by dead, straight, white people, mostly men. Ever thought of diversifying?”

His cheeks turn a shade of crimson that makes him look sunburnt. “I, uh, yeah. Absolutely. Recommendations?”

I sit down on the chair at his desk; it’s the only thing not draped in dirty clothes. “James Baldwin, bell hooks, Janet Mock, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Elizabeth Acevedo, Roxane Gay, Toni Morrison, Angie Thomas, Tomi Adeyemi, N. K. Jemisin. Off the top of my head.”

“Noted, thanks.” Jack perks up. “You’re a reader? Writing major like me?”

Makes sense that he’s studying writing after witnessing his revelry over words.

“No, I mean, yeah, I love to read, but I’m not a writing major. Animation—I’m in the art and design school. I just love learning. Especially about stuff I don’t know personally. I have some books I can lend you. Real visual stuff that helps me with my art.”

“You’re a bit of a surprise, huh?” He tears his damp shirt off and shucks his shorts to the ground until he’s in nothing but his briefs.

My heart jumps all the way into my throat.

After digging through his dresser drawer, he pulls out a maroon-and-white striped Rugby shirt with a yellow collar and tosses it onto his bed. He leans against the wall and waits for my response. I’m trying not to look at his lean, toned chest, but it’s hard.