Word Count: 2048

After a couple of weeks of moping around, and then another week passed at the beach, Chris decided it was time to get down to business and do what he’d intended when Paris had offered to change the limits and boundaries of their relationship. Part of him felt bad for it because he couldn’t squash the feeling that it was like cheating on Paris, but he told himself he was being ridiculous because Paris had said he could do this, and he and Paris weren’t exactly complete boyfriend and boyfriend anymore in the first place—they were sort of boyfriends but also really good friends with some awesome benefits who cared for one another, and who had the potential to be monogamous boyfriend and boyfriend again once Chris finally got his act together and figured some stuff out.

He was very aware that he’d never had much of a crisis in sexuality, and he didn’t know if this made him extremely secure in himself, distinctly weird, remarkably lucky, or a combination of the three. The most discomfort he’d felt so far had been a little embarrassment over his mother’s need to bring it up in a public place, but that had little to do with what people would think of him and more to do with the fact that he just didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss things of such a private nature where just anyone could hear. He wouldn’t have been any more appreciative if the topic of their discussion had been a girl. His private life wasn’t any stranger’s business, and he didn’t care to let them make it their business.

Looking back now Chris could acknowledge that he’d probably had somewhat of an interest in men before Paris had come along. Realizing it and admitting it to himself might have come a bit more suddenly, but he figured the interest had always been there, perhaps occasionally concealed beneath a sense of general admiration instead of outright lust. It didn’t diminish his interest in girls at all. He could appreciate the male body just as well as the female body, though he would concede (under duress) that his experiences with either were limited to a select few people—the first, a girl at camp when he was fourteen; the second, one Skye Fortescue; and the third was, of course, Paris.

Now that he was back on the market (so to speak), this left him with a bit of a dilemma. He wasn’t quite sure how to label himself, or if he should even bother with labels at all (something told him he should probably just throw all that out the window). After all, he didn’t have a particular preference when it came to gender. He just liked people, pure and simple. The parts didn’t matter to him (although the legs might) so long as they were mostly considerate and marginally intelligent, and had at least one thing in common with him.

He didn’t think he had a type. He thought his three flames had each been markedly different from one another. The first had been a little bit older, sweet but spontaneous, the adventurous sort of girl who didn’t mind roughing it outside and getting dirty. Skye had participated in physical activities, too, but Chris liked to think of them more as “snob sports”; she had definitely appeared to be more of the high maintenance trophy girlfriend some people might expect a guy of his social standing to have hanging on his arm. Paris, he thought, was sort of a weird mix of the two—definitely sweet, spontaneous, and adventurous on occasion, but he’d developed standards and opinions that made him appear to have something of a snobbish attitude, though he’d walk around in sweatpants and messy hair just as soon as he’d don a cute shirt and nice shoes.

The only thing he could think that the three of them shared was that they were all naturally fair haired (though Skye, of course, dyed hers), so maybe he had a thing for blondes.

In any event, once he’d made the decision to get out and try to go on a few casual dates, he had to admit he didn’t quite know where to start. “I like sweet but fun blonde people with some standards” didn’t seem like much to go on, as he imagined there were countless people just like that in Destiny City.

So, for lack of anything better to do, Chris decided to wing it.

Lauren (he was embarrassed to admit that he didn’t know her last name) was a girl he’d met in his spring semester French class (which he hadn’t dropped because Christopher Gallo didn’t drop classes, he struggled through and whined about them and somehow passed with a low A at the end). He’d partnered with her on a few exercises before and they’d talked a little bit here and there, so he knew she was available and he suspected she might even be interested, because she’d broken up with her boyfriend four months ago and she used to eye him whenever Monsieur Charpentier turned his back on the class to write on the board.

They ended up in the same math course during the first of the summer semesters, and she seemed like a decent enough choice. She was fairly pretty, with long strawberry blonde hair and a pair of black-framed glasses that he found attractive in a ‘sexy librarian’ sort of way, and her legs scored a high eight. He knew her grades had to be good, because she’d caught on to the grammatical concepts in French much quicker than he did, and she was always reading something or another when he walked in each class period (either a book or some news article on her phone), so Chris assumed she was of moderate intelligence and valued keeping an open mind.

On Wednesday afternoon, he asked her out to dinner on Friday and she agreed with a delighted smile and a twinkle in her eye.

Chris began to suspect that he may have rushed into things when they somehow ended up at her apartment while her roommate was out after their casual dinner date had ended. He couldn’t remember how it happened, but he was ashamed to admit that it might have been a case of chivalrously walking her to her door that had turned into her inviting him in for a cup of coffee which he may or may not have gullibly expected he would receive.

Well, he did receive it, so maybe he wasn’t so gullible after all.

But they also ended up making out on the couch.

It wasn’t terrible (far from it) as she was a very good kisser and he thought he could end up liking her quite a bit if they took the chance to spend some time together, but after a while a little voice cropped up in the back of his head, raging at him for being an idiot. He couldn’t just establish different relationship boundaries with his boyfriend because things were getting too serious and then start making out with the first person he went on a date with—who, in this case, was a girl he barely even knew.

Talk about getting too serious much too fast.

“Wait, we shouldn’t be doing this,” he said once he managed to pull his mouth away some fifteen minutes later. He might have laughed at how cliché the situation was if it had been happening to anyone but him. Instead, it just seemed sort of sad and pathetic and he started to hate himself a little bit.

Lauren looked at him in a mix of surprise and confusion. “Why not?” she asked.

“W-Well,” Chris tried, wracking his brain for an excuse. “It’s just… not a very good idea.”

“Why not?” she asked again. She didn’t look hurt, but she was definitely bewildered by the haste with which he’d pulled away when he was sure he’d seemed pretty into it while all the kissing had actually been going on.

“B-Because I don’t really do these sorts of things,” he told her.

Except once—that first time he’d really done anything intimate with a girl beyond kissing their cheek, but that girl at camp had totally come onto him first and he didn’t really think anyone could blame him for sitting back and letting it happen when he was fourteen and curious and she was clearly all for it. After that, he’d been a bit more careful about who he made out or slept with (not that he assumed that he and Lauren would actually end up having sex if they continued to make out, though a different, tinier voice in his head that he did his best to squash because it was sleazy and inappropriate was seriously gunning for that very thing). He happened to think that if he was going to do things like that with people, then it should mean something, like it’d meant something with Skye and meant something even more with Paris.

Lauren looked as if she understood. She wore an expression of comprehension on her face, but she also didn’t seem too bothered by what they’d been doing so far. “What, you don’t like to make out?” she wondered with a tiny, teasing smile.

“Er… well, no, I do like to make out,” he clarified, “but not on the first date.”

She laughed at him lightly but beyond that she didn’t act as if he were crazy for saying so. Chris didn’t think he was crazy—just a gentleman, and if that made him crazy when he was sitting next to a girl willing to make out with him right then and there, well… so be it.

“I mean, don’t you think this is kind of fast?” he asked.

“We’re just making out,” she said.

“But we both just spent a lot of time with other people. I mean… they were pretty serious relationships, weren’t they?”

“I broke up with my boyfriend four months ago. You broke up with yours-”

“Three weeks ago,” Chris finished for her. He winced and corrected himself. “But we didn’t really break up. We’re just… trying something different.”

“Taking a break, right? Isn’t that the same thing?”

Chris had a feeling most people would think it was, but he decided he didn’t want to answer that question at the moment and get into the rather complicated mess that was he and Paris.

“Look,” he said instead, “I had a good time and all, but I’m just not ready for this yet.”

He didn’t really know what he meant by being “ready.” It wasn’t like making out was such a big thing (it was actually really fun at the right time and place, and he had much more experience with it than he had with… well… sex), and a casual relationship did seem much more manageable at this point in his life than anything too emotionally serious, but there was still that little nagging voice in his head telling him that sitting there in Lauren’s apartment with his face attached to hers at the mouth was a bad idea.

“Okay,” she eventually agreed, and shifted on the couch to put a safe amount of space between them—close enough to be at least mildly intimate, but not so close that it seemed inappropriate.

“Okay,” Chris repeated, feeling suddenly awkward.

He twiddled his thumbs and looked around the living room. Part of him wondered what he was even doing here. He should be at home. He should be leaning against the bathroom counter, watching Paris wash his face and brush his teeth and apply his moisturizer. He should be climbing into bed, pulling Paris against his chest and breathing in the scent of his long, soft hair, touching his pale, pale skin, kissing his shoulder, his neck, and whispering good night against the shell of his ear.

“Do you want more coffee?” Lauren asked.

Chris looked back at her. He thought she was a nice girl—level-headed, understanding. But that was all, really.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I think I should probably get going.”

He left before he could ruin their evening even more.

He and Lauren never went on a second date.