Well, this is going to be awful

Okay, not a contract, and Jude cringed. He was speaking too quickly, tripping over himself.

"It's not a contract," he corrected. "This is... this is me doing that thing I do. Where I obsess over something. You know I'm a virgin, I'm not even going to try and... pretend this is something else. Someone can't even make a joke about sex without me getting flustered about it, and part of me is obsessed with wanting that to be perfect, only you're never going to do perfect on your first time, and-"

Jude cut himself off, reaching up to rub at his forehead. It was a loop. It was a loop and Broen seemed to actually genuinely not get why he was even doing it.

"If it's going to be with someone, it might as well be you. You meet all the criteria."

It wasn't quite the reaction Jude was expecting, but then Jude couldn't quite make up his mind on what he was expecting. He'd gone into things expecting Broen to just declare 'sure I'm down, when do you want to fuck?', only then he'd tried to... what, warn him off?

Something that felt a lot like warning him off, anyway.

"Not today," Jude said. "Janelle could be back any time, and I don't know when Rory's off work." That wasn't worrying, he told himself. That was just... being aware. He did not want someone walking in on them. Absolutely fucking not.

"And, uh, being honest? This probably isn't the best place anyway." It was kind of small. And, if Jude was being honest with himself, he didn't really want to do anything in his bed. If he did, and something went wrong, it'd just be a constant reminder of his own screw-up.

His place. Not his dorm? Jude actually squinted at that. He had a new place? Just how well was the sugarmama of his paying him exactly?

God, had she given him an apartment?

"Alright," Jude said. "I'll text you. Sometime this week."

He was setting himself a hard deadline on that. Friday at the latest. Only even right then he started catching himself, second guessing.

"Tomorrow?"

Tomorrow. He could do tomorrow. And tomorrow was a lot harder to wiggle out of.

Wednesday. That wasn't too far away. That was time enough for him to worry about things, but not time enough for him to conveniently break his leg or anything like that. And even if he did? Broen would know. And Broen wouldn't let it sit, either. That was kind of... well, that was kind of his thing.

Life coaching or whatever.

"Alright," Jude said. "Is there - uh, anything I should be doing? Aware of?" God, it sounded awkward in his head, and it sounded worse out loud.

It was almost, if you squinted and looked at it just right, like Broen was trying to be comforting. Whether or not it'd work remained to be seen. Slightly drunk. Bring his own condoms.

Jude nodded along, as if he hadn't already planned to do exactly that.

"That was... that was what I was going to ask. The privacy and all," Jude said with a gesture to the door. "So Wednesday. And I'll... I'll text you ahead of time."

That had already been said. He was a mess, but being honest? Things had gone better than Jude had expected. Broen hadn't pulled the it's right here and now or nothing, boyscout he'd worried about. "Unless you've got, uh, anything else..."

He'd show him the door, in other words.