Lucas Checks In (last part)

Lucas called me last Friday and we had a long phone conversation. We talked about a whole bunch of shit…and then he finally got to what was probably the main reason for the call.

“There’s something else I gotta ask you, Hunter,” he said.

“What is it?” I made a wild guess and said: “girl trouble?”

“Yeah.”

Ok, so it wasn’t such a wild guess lol.

“I’d ask Carter…but, well, I have a feeling you have more experience with girls than he does.”

And there’s still a lot Lucas doesn’t know about lol.

“What can I do for you?,” I asked. “I may be a horndog, but I’m not an expert in being a horndog in the days of social distancing.”

“See…that’s the problem. There’s this girl.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Yeah. Rosalind.”

Good Shakespearean name, I thought. So far, so good.

“We’re in the same math class and we were sitting next to…well, you don’t sit next to anyone these days…but she was checking me out from 6’ away and I was kinda doing the same thing.” Sounded a lot like me and Bridgit. “We caught each other doing it and burst out laughing right in the middle of class. We talked afterwards…and…well…I guess you say we hit it off.”

I’ve been close to Lucas for two years now. I know he hasn’t had too much experience with girls…so I knew this was coming. I was dang glad it was here too. Keaton thought Lucas was gay for a while, but I had a hunch he was just a late starter.

“So what’s the problem? Sounds like it’s a good thing.”

“Yeah…it’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing. I…I’m pretty into her. I don’t exactly think about her all the time, but I think about her a lot…”

“Do you know if she’s into you?”

“I think she is. She’s an artist, and she asked if she could sketch me without my shirt on. I said sure and she did. And…well…now she wants to draw me with everything off.”

“Aha,” I said. Remember: that’s the one I said I wouldn’t do when Sabrina was talking about painting me.

“Do you think she really wants to draw you…or was she coming on to you?”

“I think…well…I think it’s both. I feel kinda funny thinking about sitting with all my clothes off while she draws me…but, then…well…it also sounds kinda hot. And she did say that I looked like Michelangelo’s David”…” Yeah, she’s definitely into him. “And, well…yeah…I think it’s also her way of getting my clothes off so…”

“You want to know if I think that’s what she means?”

“Well…yeah…that…and…”

“There was one chick my freshman year who was into sketching me, but she never asked me to take my clothes off. Well,” I added with a laugh, “not so she could draw me. Mostly my experience with artists is with Sabrina, and she really did just want to paint me. But a chick in college who wants to draw you nude, yeah, bud, that sounds like she’s pretty fuckin into you. What’s she like?”

“She’s the artsy type. Hates sports.”

But she likes drawing jocks, I thought.

“Is she hot?”

“I think so. Although Todd says it’s one of those love is blind things.”

“Who’s Todd?”

“Oh, sorry. The Rays fan I was telling you about.”

“So you’re into her and she’s into you. What’s the problem?”

“It’s what you said. Masks and social distancing. We…haven’t done anything yet…but…well…I seriously want to…and I think she does too.”

I gotta admit, this horndog was stumped by that one.

“So what should we do? I want to stay responsible…but…well…”

“There’s this hot chick who’s into you and you wanna get laid.”

“She’s not a chick,” Lucas said. That’s when I knew he had it bad lol.

“They did just test all of us for COVID,” he said. “Week before last. The whole freshman class.”

“And?”

“And I was negative. So was Rosalind. And so was Todd. But there were a couple kids who had to be quarantined. I wish my roommate was one of them.”

“C’mon, man. He can’t be so bad that you’d wish COVID on him.”

“No, I guess not. But what do I do about Rosalind? I don’t even know if she’s my girlfriend or what or…”

“Whoa, relax, bud. I can tell you what me and Joyce are doing. We both got tested, both came out negative…and went back to being together normally. But we’re super careful about masks and social distancing and handwashing and everything so that we don’t get it and infect each other. I work with kids, too – so I need to be super super careful. I sanitize a shit ton of baseballs every week. And you can’t imagine how careful Maya is. Well…you saw us on TV trying to do baseball activities in masks.”

“So you think it’s ok?”

“If you know you’re both negative…I reckon…”

“But what about the President? He got it… That shows how easy it is.”

“I dunno, man,” I said after thinking hard about an answer, “it’s a real difficult question. I reckon I know what you want to do” – what any 18 year old would want to do with the first chick that turned his head, especially being away from home for the first time – “but maybe it’s safer if…” Me and Joyce are adults and we can trust each other to be super careful. There’s no way a couple of 18 year olds can be that responsible.

“I’d love to say go for it,” I said finally, “but I don’t think I can.”

“But you and Joyce….”

“That’s different. We’re adults.” Long silence. “C’mon man…you know as well as I do that it’s the right advice.”

“Yeah…I do,” Lucas said, “I was just hoping you’d say the opposite.” He sounded real disappointed.

“This’ll be over…”

“Yeah, I know…but will she still be into me then?”

I didn’t have the answer to that. But I did know that there’d be other girls even if this Rosalind didn’t pan out. And what’s to say that Lucas will still be into her when life gets back to normal? He’s got his horndog phase ahead of him.

“I know it wasn’t what you wanted to hear, man, but…”

“No, Hunter…you’re 100% right. That’s why I went to you instead of Carter. I figured you’d tell me the right thing rather than what I wanted to hear.”

That gave me the feeling that neither of the Carter Andrews – Jr. or Sr. – had The Talk with Lucas before he went away to college. I mean, I know he knew all the basics, but he didn’t know a whole lot about girls per se…and somebody had to clue him in sooner or later. So there I was trying to give him advice on the phone at 9 AM before I had my coffee and cheap cereal. I did my best. I went over just about everything, from condoms to how to get to be alone with a chick when you had a roommate in college. He might not need to know that this semester, but I can promise y’all it’ll come in handy once the COVID crisis is over. Of course, getting his current fucktard roommate and his lameass caterpillars out of the room for a couple hours would probably be impossible, but maybe if he got a normal roommate like he should they’d be able to make it work. My freshman roommate was as big a horndog as I was and we had a whole very successful system for sharing – and not sharing – the room.

“Let me give you one more great piece of advice,” I said, after giving him all that practical advice.

“Yeah?”

“Shakespeare. Chicks love it when you quote Shakespeare to them. You said she’s artsy…so this’ll go great. You’ve even got it tailor-made in As You Like It.”

“We read that in the 7^th grade. It was pretty fuckin boring.”

“Yeah, man…you gotta forget everything they taught you in school if you’re gonna enjoy Shakespeare. Let me see if I can remember the speech.” Turns out I could (I had a chick named Rosalind in my past too lol):

Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;

And thou, thrice-crownèd queen of night, survey

With they chaste eye, from thy [something] sphere above.

The huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.

O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character.

That every eye which in this forest looks

Shall see they virtue witnessed everywhere.

Run, run. Orlando, carve on every tree

The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.

“I think it’s the beginning of act 3, scene 2. You wanna go all out?”

“Sure, man.”

“Ok…write it out on a card and tie it to a small tree branch and give it to her.” That’s what I did with my fair Rosalind. Let’s just say my roommate spent the night elsewhere that night lol.

“That sounds kinda gayass.”

“Trust me, man.”

“Well…I guess you know what you’re doing. What kind of branch?”

So I had to explain the whole thing, down to getting ribbon to tie the card to the branch. Lucas really had no idea of any of this, so it was good that I was there to give him advice.

“Thanks, man. You’re sure it’ll work?”

“You’re just lucky that your first girlfriend is named Rosalind.” He really was. I then told him to invest in a complete Shakespeare – one that had the sonnets in it – and make good use of it. Yeah, that meant reading some of the plays too lol.

We’d been on the phone for over an hour by this point, so I finally told him I had to go.

“Thanks, man…this has been great.”

“No worries. Take care of yourself. Take good care of yourself.”

“I will. Thanks again. Bye.”

“Later, bud.”

So that’s the Lucas report. It was a good conversation or I wouldn’t have remembered it. It sucks that his roommate is a total jerkoff, but it’s awesome that he’s found his first girlfriend, even if the circumstances are kinda fucked up.

Friday’s my long day, with Jacob at 1:30, Matteo at 2:30 and my trip with Cody to the cages at around 4:00. It’s not a gym day for Matteo, but I did want it to be a pool day for Jacob. I wanted to get some practice in getting used to that giant pool and hanging out around it in boardshorts.

Yeah…I’m definitely feeling self-conscious about getting filmed tomorrow.