In Love w/ Friend, getting mixed messages...

So I kindof have a little dilemma. Earlier this year, I started to fall for my best friend, let’s call him Derek. Derek always maintained a pretty straight image, but little things here and there would have me questioning, so I held on to that pretty tightly until by the end of the summer I realized how miserable I was making myself, and that our friendship was suffering, so I came out to him, which he told me made no difference to him and he’d always be my friend.

For about a month, things were pretty normal, and then I started considering the idea of my other friend, who we’ll call Scott. I always found Derek attractive - he was muscular, had some cute five-o’-clock shadow, pretty eyes, and was a little chubby which I thought was really cute. On the other hand, Scott is like a whole different level - he’s maybe an inch shorter than I am, but really tan, muscular and lean, gorgeous green eyes, perfect teeth.

The whole time I’d liked Derek, I’d kindof known in the back of my mind that Scott was a more realistic option, but until I got over Derek, I hadn’t really taken the idea of Scott as an option seriously.

First day of junior year, I saw Scott was in my Physics class. He flashed me one of his perfect smiles and I sat next to him and probably blushed. The beginning of the year was normal - just regular friend stuff, but then things totally changed on the weekend of my birthday.

My 17th birthday fell on a Saturday, about 3 weeks into the school year. I had Physics as my last class of the day on Friday, and Scott and I were both getting back our first physics tests of the year as we left class. He’d done better than me, expectedly, because he’s naturally good with math and science, where my strengths are in writing and arts. As we were walking out of the classroom he told me regrettably how he wished he could celebrate with me on Saturday, but he couldn’t because he’d already committed to babysitting. I was naturally a little disappointed, but at this point I hadn’t really started to fall for him so it didn’t crush me. He then asked me if I was going to the football game that night, as it was our first home game of the year, against one of our school’s biggest rivals, and because of injuries he was poised to get his first varsity start at running back. He lit up when I told him I definitely would come, and then, because we had school off on Monday, told me he wanted to get shitfaced with me on Sunday night. I accepted, but didn’t really start to think much of it until I realized how many times I’d asked to do the same thing with Derek, never truly getting the results I’d hoped for.

Friday night was better than I could have ever imagined - Scott got his first varsity start at running back, and scored three touchdowns en route to our first defeat of our school’s rival in three years. I probably cheered louder than anyone.

Saturday night was also great - I got drunk with a few of my friends, went to a hibachi restaurant, and then afterwards got blindfolded, driven about 30 minutes in the backseat of my friends’ car, and thrown into a surprise party, which I also had a great time at, despite Scott not being there.

Sunday was when things got really interesting - my mom went out to dinner with her boyfriend, and I called her bluff successfully that she wouldn’t end up coming home until tomorrow morning. My sister was at a friend’s house, so I had the house to myself. Scott came over around 9, dropped his stuff upstairs, and then things started normally - I brought out the half-full bottle of Jack Daniels and the water bottle full of coconut rum I’d saved from the night before, and we each took a shot for every touchdown scored against us in the football video game we were playing. Suffice to say, after the 3rd or 4th shot the game wasn’t dictated to well by defense, so we ended up polishing off the jack and the rum by the end of the game. By this point, we were each mildly drunk, a little bolder than we normally would be, and pretty bored. I showed him the four beers I’d saved for us in my refrigerator, and asked him to come with me so I could teach him how to shark tooth a beer. He followed me outside, as we walked barefoot through my backyard and onto the 8th green of the golf course which was right outside my house. We both stripped off our shirts so they wouldn’t get sprayed with beer in our endeavors, tossed them to the side, and started.

I was at a really good level of drunk at this point - I knew what I wanted, had a few ideas of how to pursue it, but being drunk didn’t cloud my judgement or make me act stupidly, only a little more bold.

I went first, explaining where on the can to bite into, and which tooth to use, seeing him out of the corner of my eye shyly staring at me as I slowly ran my tongue over the point of my canine tooth, biting my lip, and then sinking my tooth into the can and chugging it.

I’m about 6’0”, not as muscular as he is, but toned from soccer. We both have the spiked coif hair thing goin on but mine’s a little longer and lighter. Generally we’re both kinda baby-faced, we both look 17 but probably not old enough to get fake ID’s. I kind of wish I had greenish eyes like him, but one of my friends when she was drunk once said I have really pretty honey-colored eyes so I guess that’s cool. We’re two of the more attractive guys in our school, and girls both really like us, but neither of us really get much action, so that’s usually a pretty good indicator to go off of when assessing the possibility of being gay I guess?
Anyway, so because I’m thin I’m not a heavyweight when it comes to drinking by any measure. I’m also not great at chugging, but in that moment I did pretty admirably.

He grinned as I looked back at him afterwards, and handed him his can. I drink more often than he does, but without hesitation, sank his teeth into the can and chugged it faster than I probably ever have. At this point I was a little hazy, probably a little too obvious in my staring at him as he threw his head back and chugged the beer, noticing every little detail- the way his adams apple bobbed with each gulp, the way he rubbed his stomach with his free hand and groaned as he took each of the last remaining gulps, spilling a few drops that slowly worked their way down his chin and the maze of lines that were his torso and abs. He grinned sheepishly at me afterwards, asking if he’d done a good job but knowing that he had.

The perfection of the moment was ruined (temporarily), until we saw a car drive past in the distance, irrationally fearing it was a cop, and then panicking and sprinted towards the sand bunker near us, both loosing our footing and stumbling into each other at the bottom of the pit. And that’s when I started to really realize how perfectly everything was going- I was lying on top of him, both of us shirtless, quietly giggling as we laid at the bottom of the sand trap under the moonlight, completely still as if moving would suddenly catch the attention of the cops that didn’t really exist.

We got up a few seconds later, brushing ourselves off and heading back inside. We’d killed the harder alcohol and finished off the two beers apiece, and were now out of alcohol, which left us at a perfect level of drunk. We stumbled back to the couch, both of us not sensing any need to put our shirts back on, and fell back into the cushions with an exaggerated sigh. At this point we weren’t sure what we wanted to do, but then when Scott suggested we go on the random-online-videochat site ############# , I sensed opportunity and took it. On #############, you’ll find three types of people, their frequency in this order-
1.) Disgusting middle age men jacking off praying for some girl to flash their tits
2.) A pre-recorded webcam of a girl flashing her tits, offering more if you click on the link below
3.) A group of 12-13 year old girls at a sleepover trying to find cute boys to talk to

Not really sure what either of us were hoping for when we logged on, but I was pleasantly surprised when he clicked past the girls flashing tits without paying much notice. We stopped at a cute guy, probably a couple years older than us, who then proceeded to laugh and ask us if we were gay, because to be honest, two attractive, shirtless teen boys stumbling over each other drunk definitely suggested the idea. Scott continued to maintain that we weren’t gay, then (semi?)-jokingly kept asking the guy to exchange dick pics, to no avail. That caught my interest too.

We logged off of the website, both of us exhausted, and probably going to fall asleep soon. He went to the bathroom, and then when he came back tried to explain to me he found a birthmark on his dick, and then pulled it out right in front of me, so I blushed and looked away, not really knowing how to respond. A few minutes later I went to the bathroom, and specifically made sure that I was still pulling the waistband of my sweatpants over my semi-erect dick (although I still had briefs on), as I walked back to the couch where Scott was still sitting. He giggled and said, “that was hot”, and then went back to searching through his phone absentmindedly. Then, I couldn’t remember anything. I woke up two hours later dazed and freezing, Scott passed out on the couch next to me. I gently ran my hands over his back to wake him up, and he gladly took my suggestion when I said we should sleep in my bed, and that it would be more comfortable. We walked to my room, as he took off his sweatpants, wearing nothing but a pair of tight briefs, and threw himself into my bed, both of us groggy and tired. I was still freezing, so I tentatively slid myself next to him, hoping he’d warm me up a little bit. And he threw his arm around me and tangled his bare legs with mine. He was practically radiating heat, and he was completely wrapped around me, and I was sooooooo goddamn hard right then. I subtly ran my hand over his abs, and he nuzzled my neck, whispering in my ear about how good I smelled. I wish so much, that for how being drunk had put me in that situation in the first place, I could have remembered the night a little more clearly.

The next morning I woke up, still in his arms and moved faster to get dressed than I ever have in my life as I started to hear the sound of the garage door opening, which meant my mom was home. I miraculously got dressed and positioned myself perfectly to sleepily stumble out of my sister’s room to greet my mom, claiming that’s where I’d slept while Scott slept in my bed. Scott woke up shortly after and left quietly, both of us a little awkward, but not out of regret at what had happened the night before.

Things went well from that point - Scott maintained his starting role on the football team, eventually being named Offensive MVP at the end of the season. Interaction between Scott and I picked up a ton. We started out just having casual conversations discussing the physics homework, but then we began to text all the time. He’d subtly rest his foot against mine during Physics class, pressing his whole body against me while reaching to pick something up for a lab activity, I’d brush my hand against his as I’d demonstrate how to use the software we were using for data collection, and mostly just really deep, prolonged eye contact when we're talking, or me catching him staring at me and vice versa - stuff like that. And unlike how it’d been with Derek, there was never any reluctance or pulling away on either part, although neither one of us wanted to be the one to acknowledge it.

Because of how busy he was with football, we didn’t get to see each other on the weekends again for weeks and weeks, although in that span we’d now began to text each other every day. My drunk “i relyv like yououuuuuu” snapchats on the weekends to him weren’t met with any judgement, and from time to time my subtle flirting with him over text was reciprocated. Things were going well.

Then this weekend happened. He was away visiting his sisters at college, and both of us got drunk Saturday night. I didn’t drink too much, maybe 2 or 3 beers, but I did smoke a lot. I was excited when I saw I had an unopened snapchat from him, hoping maybe he’d accidentally let slip that he thought I was cute or something. And then my night fucking fell apart.

He’d texted me he was completely shitfaced, and about to fuck his sisters’ roommate. I started to panic, and didn’t respond. He texted me that he’d done it, and lost his virginity. At this point, yeah, having a little panic attack, I told him “picscx or it didnt happpppen”.
He then responded “want me to send you a picture of my dick?”. Possibly a lifeline.
Then followed it up with a picture of a grey piece of fabric with some kind of wet stain on it. Still at this point not entirely sure what it was, but he claimed that “I don’t know, she did it”.

I was completely panicked. The suffering of creating an ideal in my mind and then having it crushed was something that had happened to me once, and I couldn’t handle happening to me again - especially because I was so sure this time I wasn’t misinterpreting things. After a series of illegible drunk snapchats with him in bed with his sisters’ roommate, I simply snap chatted him and told him I missed him and I love him, and he responded with a heart emoji and and “I miss you too”.

The next morning I had time to calm down and assess the situation - are things as hopeful as they were yesterday? No. But are things completely hopeless? No. We texted the next morning, telling us about each others’ nights, me trying to avoid the subject of him fucking the roommate as much as possible, and then started to trail off and talk about where we wanted to go to college, or end up after college - stuff like that. I told him about how I want to end up in California, which he already knew, and said he’d definitely consider college in California if he got into USC, UCLA, or Berkeley. UCLA’s my dream school, but realistically I probably won’t get in. I then asked him about where he wants to be after college, and as I was expecting, because of how close he is with his family, and the steel company he’s going to inherit from his dad, he’d stay here. I told him about how other than my sister, I don’t think I’m close enough with any of my family to keep me here, and I started to remember why I fell for him in the first place when he told me that he understands that he probably has a different perspective on it than I do, but that he feels bad I’m not close to my parents like he is, and that he doesn’t ever want me to feel sad about it. We continued to talk for a while.

So here I am now! I like him so goddamn much. He’s gorgeous, he’s sweet, he cares about me, we talk all the time, and I feel so much like there’s mutual interest. Like so fucking much. We text every day, I tell him I miss him or I love him and he tells me he misses me and loves me too. We send heart emojis and shit. Like I understand some of that is bromance stuff but bros don’t call each others dick’s “hot” and cuddle half-naked with each other and occasionally flirt with each other and text each other every day? So I don’t know where things stand right now. I’m hoping next week we can hang out and I can get drunk with him and probably just go in for the hookup. He keeps telling me as soon as we're both free to hang out with each other he wants me to make him a playlist of really good music and get drunk with me again. I mean I love him but our friendship was solid but not at a best friend level before this whole mess started up, so it's not like I'm losing someone who im like best best friends with if I hookup with him and he isn't down. He also has gay uncles so I know he’s not homophobic and wouldn’t end our friendship or anything if I came out to him. At the same time, a lot of me just wants to say fuck it and go for it, and I honestly do have very good judgement most of the time and I feel strongly that’s what I want to do.

At this point, I’d just really appreciate some insight into like interpretation of what you guys think is going on, especially considering last night’s little bump in the road. So yeah, any and all feedback would be awesome.