“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“I know. He’s a good guy in his own sick way.”

“It could be worse. Some of the guys are out of control. Maybe all of us are sometimes. Chug-a-lug broke a hole in his wall at the beginning of the semester. Busted it through to the next suite. He’s in a lot of shit about that. Another one of the defensive backs just shoved his hand through a glass door, did it yesterday. Cut his hand up bad. He said he just needed to hit something and he hit that door before and everything was fine.”

“Shit.”

“You said you heard from your mom?”

“She’s moving to Nevada and getting married. That’s why I had to get this place, I can’t go to Goldsboro this summer because she won’t be there.”

“This place is a room.”

“All right. This room.”

“You talk about it like it’s an apartment.”

“I only had it one night,” Ronny said. “I hardly talked about it at all.”

The tension had left Ben completely; he gave Ronny an easy smirk, and tugged at his hair, a tiny, dull pain that flared and subsided. “That’s what happens when they move out of the dorm. They get proud. Scoot over. I have to piss.”

Ronny held his breath while the door was open. When Ben was done he closed the door, came back to bed, and crawled in again. “Somebody else is home.”

“Is it late?”

“No.”

“What about you?” Ronny asked. “What’s up with you till summer school?”

“I told you, I’m not going to summer school. I go home. I take a trip to the beach. If I come back here it’ll be to see you.”

The trip to the beach would be with Jennifer, Ronny thought. But he decided not to ask.

“Jen’s not coming to summer session either,” Ben said, exactly as if Ronny had asked about her. “She’s got an internship.” Speaking as if it were normal, to have a girlfriend, to talk about her after sex with someone else.

“Yeah?”

“But I am taking her to the beach. I know you were wanting to ask.” He yawned. “You mind if we get quiet and sleep a little bit? Then maybe you can do me down there again.”

“Maybe I should put my back against you,” Ronny said. “To keep from getting distracted.”

Ben laughed. “You won’t be any safer that way, boy. I can get you from either end now.”

Five seconds of quiet and Ben was asleep, breathing peacefully, then snoring lightly against Ronny’s shoulder. Ronny was ringing inside, a peaceful open feeling, the covers torn off him, his boxes opened, his windows wide. Here was Ben, warm and bare; here was a moment that ought to linger, a feeling inside which he would float, joyous, the rest of time, so why would he want to sleep? The fact of Ben inside him. Light on the wall rose and fell as breezes arced through branches. But he was tired, too, and drowsed some, drifted to sleep in spite of himself, and opened his eyes to find Ben watching him.