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Not for the first time this semester, Keith could hear the sound of singing coming from the bathroom as he punched in the door code. Something pop, upbeat and bright, light on the tongue of the boy singing it from the first stall.
Most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, this was his routine. Keith would return from his morning run or workout--which began when the sun was only just peeking over the horizon--and he was in the shower a half hour before his 8:30. It didn’t take him long to shower, thanks to his three-in-one shampoo-conditioner-body wash, and he was almost always out in ten minutes. This was, apparently, not long enough for the guy in stall number one, who was always still running the water by the time Keith left, and who was always singing the entire time Keith was in the bathroom with him.
The thing was, the guy was good. Like, really good. Like, maybe he’s a member of one of the school acapella groups or something, because it’d be a real shame to waste that sort of talent.
The other thing, though, was that Keith had no idea who Shower Guy was. He didn’t recognize the voice--since he lived in one of the single rooms in the middle hall of the building without its own communal bathroom, he was instructed to use the bathroom in the boy’s hall on the north side of the building. It wasn’t a huge deal; he only had to make trips a few times a day from his room, and could use other bathrooms in his class buildings later, but it meant he hardly spent any time in that particular hall, let alone got to know any of the other bathroom’s users enough to recognize this voice.
He caught himself a few times dwelling on this during his shower and tried to shake himself out of it. There was no reason to be so caught up wondering who this mystery dude was, after all--not with a paper due for his mandatory study of statute class, or any number of assignments for his free astronomy elective, or that painting he’d yet to finish for Art 201…
With everything looming over him in a never-ending cycle of homework and stress-fueled isolation in his own room or in a corner of the library, he definitely didn’t need to be so hung up on the singing shower guy. Keith continued his usual workout-shower-class routine three days of the week, adding “ignore singing guy” in whenever necessary.
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By mid-October, the chill in the air was strong enough to seep through Keith’s workout clothes. He cut through the parking lot of the next-door dorm to get back to his own a bit early one Monday, opting to head into the side door before doing his usual cool-down stretches. He’d much rather get into a nice, warm shower and kick off the rest of his mostly-indoors day. Keith swung by his room and grabbed a towel and his shower caddy, toeing off his shoes and socks to slip on his cheap flip-flops. He made his way to the bathroom, musing to himself that he ought to start making the trek to the student exercise center to use the indoor track in the morning from now on. There was that singing again--Monday, he remembered with a hint of amusement. It didn’t even matter that Keith was early.
The bathroom door was often a mess of posters for school events, campus fundraisers, mini-bulletins, you name it. Keith let his eyes sweep over for any new additions as he reached up to punch in the code and push the door open, so his gaze was occupied when he heard--
“ SHIT !”
Keith hardly had a moment to take in the sight before him as the singing stopped abruptly, and a form--a lean, very much naked form--all but streaked across the bathroom tile from the sink to the first shower stall.
“Oh, my god,” came the voice again. “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking--”
“No, no, I’m sorry, I was… early today,” Keith interrupted, finally finding his own voice after the initial surprise.
“You shouldn’t be! I was totally just spacing out up there, I, like, completely forgot this was a public bathroom for a bit? Oh, my god.” There was a bit of a lilt in the guy’s tone, and Keith was grateful at least that he could have a laugh about the situation. He deemed it safe to enter the bathroom now, opening the door again, and now that he could actually see the guy’s face, he felt that surprise hit him like a truck again.
Shower Guy was none other than that ridiculously cute dude from Composition I their first semester, the guy who borrowed a pen no less than five times in the time they’d been in there together--Lance, wasn’t it? He couldn’t just act like he recognized him after that, though, that would just be more awkward, surely. Keith schooled his face and waved a dismissive hand as he stood at the sinks to brush his teeth. Lance met his eyes in the mirror, peeking around the shower curtain. “Don’t worry,” Keith said around a mouthful of foaming toothpaste. “I get it. Sometimes you just gotta act like it’s your own bathroom, right?”
He wasn’t sure, but if he had to guess, the expression that flickered over Lance’s face after the initial embarrassment was… disappointment? But then it settled on relief, and Keith chose not to think too hard about it. He was good at that.
Lance tugged the curtain closed again then with a hummed affirmation, and Keith assumed that was the end of the conversation. He went back to brushing his teeth, falling back into his own thoughts. It almost caused him to miss the next words Lance said.
“I’m Lance, by the way. I live on this hall.”
“I know,” Keith answered, maybe a bit too fast, before he leaned down to spit. “I mean--I know you live here, you’re usually in the shower when I am on Mondays. Wednesday and Friday, too.”
Nice save.
“Oh, right,” Lance laughed. “I’m usually in by the time you come in, then, huh? I didn’t know you lived on this hall.”
“Oh, I’m in the middle in a single, actually. Maybe that’s why, I’m not in here too often.” He was a bit confused now, though--surely he would have bumped into Lance another time of the day, brushing their teeth before bed or coming in in the afternoon?
As if reading his mind, Lance continued. “Yeah, I get that. I like to use the bathrooms down on the first floor--the toilets for the staff, you know? It’s nice to have some privacy. Plus, no one gripes at me for hogging the sinks. Win-win.”
It was Keith’s turn to laugh, a bit incredulous that he was even still having this conversation. “That’s actually pretty smart.”
“It’s hard out here in a community bathroom. I grew up with three siblings, though, so I guess it’s not anything I haven’t dealt with before.” The shower in the first stall turned on with a squeak of the handle. Now, Keith had a difficult decision--should he take his usual place in the third shower stall, or take the middle one and continue their talk? He scooped up his caddy from the floor and glanced between his options, before shrugging it off and hanging his towel on the hook in the middle stall, pulling the outer curtain shut.
“Yeah? Sounds rough.”
“Oh, it was,” Lance insisted, not even seeming to mind the fact that it took a good few moments for Keith to respond. “The amount of times I was almost late for the breakfast because Veronica wouldn’t stop hogging the sink was ridiculous, honestly! And Marco always had to pee, like, twice before the bus came.”
Keith turned his own shower on, and steam began to pour out of the stall in waves. His workout clothes came off next, and he replaced his shower shoes onto his feet as he stepped into the stream. He’d gotten strangers’ hair on his feet enough times to have learned to leave the flip-flops on by now. The lid of his travel bottle filled with soap clicked open and he squeezed a good amount into his palm. “I know how that goes.” It slipped out before he really thought about it.
“You have siblings, too, huh?”
“... Not exactly. I was in foster care back in Texas for a while, though, so.”
“Oh. I gotcha.”
There was a lull in the conversation then, and Keith mentally kicked himself a bit for dragging the mood. That’s what you get for oversharing to strangers, he reminded himself, dunking his head into the near-scalding water and rinsing his face.
“So… Texas, huh? You don’t really have an accent, though.”
Okay, so, maybe not.
“Yeah, not really, I guess. My dad did, and I did as a kid, but it’s gone now, y’know? Unless I’m tired… or drunk.”
“That’s kinda cute, actually, I’d love to hear that sometime,” Lance laughed, and Keith froze for a moment, having to plunge himself back into the stream of water to prevent shampoo-conditioner-body wash from running into his eyes. How did his morning come to this? Having a normal conversation with Shower Guy, who he’d just seen naked a few minutes ago, talking over the noise of their respective showers?
Not surprisingly, Keith was the first to finish.
“Whoa, done already?”
“I mean, yeah.”
“You don’t condition your hair or anything?”
“I have that three-on-one soap.”
“ WHAT?? ” There was hardly a second before Keith heard the sound of the inner shower curtain in Lance’s stall screeching to one side, shower still running, and then Lance was in front of him with a towel around his waist, hair sticking out in all angles with a richly lathered shampoo and face green with some sort of mud mask. Keith tried his best not to either snicker at his somewhat silly appearance, or to stare at Lance’s smooth, dripping wet chest which was--yep, getting closer, and then Lance was grabbing for his hand and pressing something smooth and wet into it. His eyes snapped down and read the label, a bottle of conditioner.
“You better get back in there and finish your shower,” Lance prodded his chest with a finger, but it was light and teasing, the hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth from beneath the face mask. Keith just gaped at him for a second.
“You’re really going to make me get back in and condition my hair with--what is this, ‘Mango Madness?’”
“‘With nourishing oils for all-day shine,’” Lance parroted from the front of the bottle in Keith’s hand. And maybe it was the weirdness of the whole situation, or the determination on Lance’s face, or the fact that he did have a few extra minutes this morning thanks to his shortened run, that had him turning around and walking back into his shower stall. He popped the lid open with a press of his thumb and squeezed a tentative amount into a palm. Keith was no hair product expert, but this stuff looked expensive, and he didn’t want to use more than necessary since it wasn’t his. But it smelled nice, he guessed, and so he set the bottle down and rubbed his hands together.
“Make sure to condition the ends of your hair, not the scalp,” Lance called through the wall separating them. “The ends need it more than the roots.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Keith ran his palms down his still-damp hair, twirling strands through his fingers and bringing it back to form a little ponytail. He dunked his head beneath the stream again and rinsed out the sweet-smelling conditioner.
“Hey!!”
“What now? ”
“Are you rinsing already?? You gotta let it soak in for a bit, Keith!”
“I already conditioned it before,” he rolled his eyes, pushing bangs back from his forehead and into the flow of water. “It’s fine, I don’t wanna use up more of your stuff redoing it.”
“Okay,” Lance sighed, acquiescing. “Next time, then.”
Keith’s heart most definitely didn’t flutter at the prospect of doing whatever-the-fuck this was again, and he hummed loudly in answer. They shut their showers off at the same time this time, and emerged from the silence of drying off. Lance--fluffy blue robe tied neatly around his waist and caddy full of various jars, bottles, and face washes--offered him a smile, and Keith returned it along with the conditioner.
“So,” he said next, teasingly, because he can’t help himself. “Next time, huh?”
“I--I mean,” Lance stammered a bit at that, ears tinging the slightest bit red. “On Wednesday, right?”
“Sure.”
As Keith’s hand touched the knob of the door, Lance spoke up again. “Wait--do you maybe… wanna get breakfast or something? I don’t have my first class ‘til 8:30, so I was just gonna go down to the dining hall.”
“Uh. Okay, but I’ll have to get dressed first.”
“Right! Duh, I do too, huh--okay, meet you in the lounge in five, then?”
Keith already found that he had a hard time saying no to that face. “Sounds good.”