Hunter begins to find his path while Charlie has the worst day of his life in the fifth week of Volume 5. Volume 6 launches on February 11!

CHAPTER 21 - FULL HOUSE


Ben looked at Fitz's shocked face. "You mean... you didn't know?"

Fitz took a sip of his coffee and leaned on the counter, looking out the window. "We didn't really talk about guys we'd been with before."

"It was something I intuited, you know?"

"I just never thought... I mean Charlie doesn't seem like his type."

"What's wrong with Charlie?" Ben asked defensively.

"Oh nothing. Nothing. Nice guy." Fitz said. "Maybe a little uppity sometimes... " he added, taking a long sip of coffee after to prevent himself from saying anything else.

"You should've seen Hunter when Charlie was in his coma. I don't think he left the hospital once. He told the supervising doctor that he was Charlie's partner so that he could take care of things while his family was on the way here."

"That's... wow." Fitz said. Tyler's door opened and a scruffy, fratty guy in his boxers came out. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked at Fitz and Ben, startled.

"Oh. Hey," he said.

"Hey," they said.

"Is there coffee?" he asked. Ben poured him a mug.

"I'm Ben, I'm dating Charlie," he said handing the guy the mug.

"I'm Brad. I'm... um... friends with Tyler."

"Hey," Fitz said, offering his hand. "I'm Fitz. Caleb. Fitzgerald. Everyone calls me Fitz. I'm dating Hunter."

"Oh. Um hey." Brad said, shaking his hand.

They stood in the kitchen in their boxers, sipping coffee, and at each other awkwardly.

"Wait," Brad said suddenly. "If you're dating Charlie and you're dating Hunter... why were they kissing on New Year's?"

Ben and Fitz both spit out their coffee. "Wait! WHAT?!"



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CHAPTER 22 - OFF AND ON


"Chadwick's not doing half bad," Mason said, getting a drink at intermission.

"Hmmm?" Bryan said, distracted by the handsome African American man with dreads working front of house.

"How much did you say he raise at that casting auction? He should have a bigger part!"

"It doesn't matter, he's been working really hard. He's been out of the house rehearsing for like two months."

"Really? That doesn't get lonely?"

"Oh... um... I've kept myself busy."

"Well come over some night. My condo feels so empty since Josh has moved out."

"Speaking of which... " Bryan said, averting his gaze across the theatre lobby at Josh, Tom, and Diego standing by the theatre door.

Mason groaned. "Why did we have to buy these tickets in bulk?! He was the last person I wanted to see!"

"I'm glad we did. Chadwick said the rest of the shows are sold out."

"Whatever, I'm just glad we don't have to sit with them." The lobby lights flicked off and on and the audience started to file back. Mason took a breath, stuck his chin up, and walked past Josh, his blockers firmly held in place to disregard his existence.

"Ouch," Tom said.

"Whatever," Josh said. "It is what it is." His phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked a text message while Diego went in ahead of them.

"Come on man," Tom said. "Show's about to start."

"Go ahead," Josh said. "I... um... have to take this. I'll be right in."

As Tom went into the theatre, Josh read a single text message from David: "Do you wanna hang out?"

Josh hailed a cab and set the destination to Andersonville.


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CHAPTER 23 - BEEFCAKE



"You're getting your books awfully late today," Raphael noted, ringing Hunter up.

"Yeah man, running from class," Hunter said, frazzled. "Gotta jet over to The Pitstop and open up."

"You're awfully light, too. ‘Avengers' and ‘Hawkeye'? That's it?"

"I've gotta lighten my recreational reading. Haven't been in school forever and my course load is freaking me out a bit."

"You've got to pick up ‘X-Treme X-Men.' Did you SEE the cover?"

Hunter chuckled. "I don't read the books for the beefcake."

"Right," Raphael smirked. "You read for the articles."

"Nah man, I blame Lifield. He gave gay geeks everywhere distorted body image."

"And if that failed, the Abercrombie catalog was right there to do the job. You sure you don't want to pick up anything else? How about ‘Superior... '"

"Stop right there. You know how I feel about that."

Raphael rang up his books and grabbed his bag from behind the counter. In his haste to squeeze in his weekly trip to Chicago Comics between class and work, Hunter had forgotten to zip up his bag properly. His class notes spilled all over the floor.

"Shit, I'm sorry." Raphael said, helping him pick up his papers.

"It's my bad dude."

"Looks like you're really paying attention in class," Raphael teased, holding up class syllabuses covered in doodles.

"Yeah. I mean, I know school's the right thing to do, y'know? To get my life back on track? But I have a hard time focusing, just like high school. I dunno. Maybe if I knew what I wanted to actually study I'd have a better time at it."

"How about art?" Raphael replied, holding up a doodle. "This is good Hunter. Like really good."

"That's just a sketch of the guy I'm dating... "

"Well if he looks anything like this in real life... I mean talk about beefcake. It's really good." He finished gathering up the papers into the bag and handed it to Hunter. "Maybe you'll draw your own comic book one day."

The whole way to work, Hunter wondered if it was too late to drop his Forensics class and late register into an art class.



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CHAPTER 24 - GIRLS


He hated having an OkCupide profile, but he was so fucking lonely he finally gave in. It'd been months since he'd moved out and it wasn't that he missed his ex so much as that they'd been together so long he didn't know how to be alone. And the breakup was so odd and abrupt that he lost all his friends because of it. The random hook-up situation he had going on wasn't optimal either. The situation was so foreign to him, so unlike anything he'd ever known, he didn't know if it was the best thing that had ever happened to him or scared the shit out of him. So there he sat, alone after a long day at work, sitting in his empty apartment, drinking a beer, and staring at the "Locals" feature on the OkCupid app. A bleach blond, overly tanned JPEG with perfectly bleached teeth popped up with an alert: "Anyone wanna grab drinks?" He chugged his beer, clicked on the profile, and responded.

*

His date was waiting at the bar at Avenue Tavern, wearing a red hoody as promised. "Wow," she said. "You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

He was taken totally aback. "Oh. Um... "

"Oh god! I didn't mean... see, my ex is five ten and your profile said five ten and you're shorter than him... oh god!" she said, covering her face. "Don't talk about exes on a first date. God, I'm impossible. Wait... um... .this is a date, right?"

He chuckled. "Kendall, right?"

"Wow, yeah, good memory. Can I buy you a drink? Or is that too emasculating? I don't know I don't do this a lot."

"Me neither. I haven't been on a date since college."

"Whoa," Kendall said, her eyes becoming the size of quarters.

"Yeah. Little rusty. See, I just broke up with... "

"Whoa. Stop right there. Didn't I just say we shouldn't talk about exes on a first date?"

"Well, I thought just putting it in context... "

"Great, so now I'm the rebound girl."

"Well there was someone between... "

"Oh good."

"Kinda during actually. The end anyway."

Kendall spit out her cosmo. "You're a cheater?! Great. Just great."

"Well I didn't meant to... he was just so cute and it just... "

"WHAT?! It was with a guy!"

"Yeah, it's... "

Kendall threw her drink in his face. "All that... should be in your profile." And she stormed off.

*

He thought about girls the whole cab ride. How much fuss they could be. How as soft and pretty and hot they could be, they were a huge headache at times. Guys just made sense. He wondered why he didn't see it before. Maybe he'd just been too scared to accept it all along. Maybe he was just confused. Maybe... he should just go back to the only thing that made sense in the last six months. The cab arrived to its destination. He got out and rang the buzzer. After a few minutes, the door opened.

"What are you doing here? It's late."

"I just... I wanted to tell you. I know that it's weird. But I think you and I... it could work."

"I don't know Brad. I don't know if I want to be part of your confusion anymore." Brad cut off the sentence with an abrupt kiss. They looked at each other.

"The only thing that I've been sure of all along is you. Please Tyler... give me a chance."






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CHAPTER 25 - JUST A KISS



"You ok?" Charlie asked, taking the last piece of hamachi. "You've barely touched your dragon roll."

Ben looked up from his miso soup. "If I kissed someone else would you want me to tell you?"

Charlie dropped his chopsticks. "What?"

"I know we haven't been dating very long and I know with our schedules lately it's been harder to see each other... "

"We find ways around it. Like today's school day lunch."

"It's not like we're official or anything. If we were to, you know, kiss other people... "

Charlie's heart sank. "Do you want to stop seeing me Ben?"

"Do you?"

"No, I don't. I really like you... "

"And if I were to kiss someone else, would that upset you?"

"Well, yeah, it would."

"Then why did you kiss Hunter?"

Charlie almost choked on his Hamachi. "Wait, what?"

Ben could barely look at him. "Tyler's friend Brad, he said he saw you guys kiss on New Year's."

Charlie took a sip of water. "It was just a kiss, Ben. Between friends. On New Year's."

"But you two... there's a past there."

"Hardly. It as one-time thing. I'm with you."

Ben took the napkin off of his lap and wiped his hands nervously. "I don't know, Charlie. When I like someone, I like them. When I'm with someone, I'm with them and only them, regardless of what's officially agreed upon. Until it's done, I'm with them completely. I guess I was just hoping the same from you."

Charlie took Ben's hand. "And you've got it. I haven't wanted to be with someone else... "

"But you were dating someone else at the same time when you started dating me."

"You said it didn't bother you. Because I chose you."

"It didn't. But now... maybe, this is some pattern. Maybe I'm just another notch or something."

"That's not... it was just a kiss, Ben."

"Maybe to you, Charlie. I just... I'm not so easy with that kind of stuff."

"But you kissed me the night we met."

"And it meant something to me."

"Me too."

Ben got up. "I don't know, Charlie. I've got... I need to think about it. About us."

*

Charlie hated that he cried on the walk back to school, but he couldn't help it. He wiped his eyes as he got to the main entrance, took a deep breath, and tried to put a brave face on for the rest of the day. He marched confidently and purposely towards his classroom as the lunch bell rang. The principal was there waiting for him at his desk.

"Close the door, Mr. Parker," the principal said.

"Is everything ok, Glenn?"

The principal handed him a print out of an email. Front and center was a picture of Robbie kissing Charlie.

"Can you explain yourself, Mr. Parker?"

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Volume 6 launches on Monday, February 11! Just joining us? Catch up here:

Volume 1 -
Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five

Volume 2 -
Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five

Volume 3 -
Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five

Volume 4 -
Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five


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