Part 3My Brother’s "Boyfriend" is Actually in Love With Me

The very first time I saw Ethan was on Austin's Twitch stream.

He was wearing a gaming headset, his side profile facing the camera.

His fingers were flying across the mechanical keyboard, his character racking up kill streaks on the screen.

"This is my roommate, Ethan," Austin introduced him, casually leaning back in his chair.

"Student Body President and Varsity Basketball Captain. Handsome, right?"

Ethan turned his head and gave the camera a brief, polite nod.

In that exact second, I clutched my iPad and literally rolled across my bed.

"Who are you getting so hyped over?" my best friend, Lily, peeked over from her side of the room.

I turned the screen toward her.

"Damn," Lily squinted.

"That's your brother's friend? Is he single?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get his Snapchat!"

I retreated to my bunk and opened my text thread with Austin.

I typed and deleted, deleted and typed.

Finally, I sent: [Hey Austin, about your roommate...]

Austin instantly replied with Ethan's contact card.

After I added him, my chat history for the first three months was entirely composed of academic questions I had frantically brainstormed just to have an excuse to talk to him.

"Hey Ethan, how do you solve this coding problem?"

"Hey Ethan, do you know how to use this statistical software?"

He always replied with incredible patience.

Looking back now, he was probably only doing it out of courtesy to my brother.