SAWYER #2
“Lucky me,” he said softly, and the piece everyone wanted stirred until my underwear grew tight.
The drive I felt after battling on the ice was through the roof and I wanted to tackle Noah to the ground this instant and then kiss every inch of him.
Again, I had to calm myself down and let things go slowly. “Straight to my place?” he asked.
“Uh, actually, we could go to my place,” I said. The house was going to be empty for a long time now. And Noah had never been there. We could use a change in surroundings, I figured.
We made our way quietly but quickly across campus, through the student center, and to the other side, where the residential blocks were. Music pounded from the frat house where we’d been two weeks ago and its quality changed as we passed it.
“Fun fact,” Noah said, then proceeded to tell me about the sound waves and how they traveled in different directions, so things like music or a speeding motorcycle sounded different when they approached you versus moving away from you.
I struggled to keep up, but he boiled it down in his Feynman technique for me like I was a toddler, and I fucking loved it. It made me laugh.
“You should pursue teaching,” I said.
Noah snorted. “And stab my dear parents in the back one last time,” he said.
My blood curdled. “Do they know you’re gay?” My worst fear was that he hid from them because it would be perceived as another stab in the back.
Noah chuckled dryly. “Oh, they know. I gotta give them credit where it’s due. They don’t care who I’m with. Straight, gay, bi, trans. That’s not the condition of their love. Success is.”
I struggled to understand that. My dad nearly wept when I told him about the physics exam, and, by right, nobody should have been that happy. Hell, I hadn’t been that happy. But that was the way with my parents. Always had been.
Noah needed someone who would look into his eyes and tell him: “You’re amazing just the way you are. You’re everything I could have wished for and more. The day you change, the stars will go out.”
I blinked twice, quickly, and then cleared my throat. “That sucks,” I said. It wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped to say, but the words that had crossed my mind were suddenly far too large to leave my mouth.
“I’m ruining the good mood,” Noah said, then clapped his hands. “Let’s stop talking about my parents. I’d much rather see your room.”
That tugged on the corners of my lips. It wasn’t my room’s interior design he wanted to see. I’d already described it to him once before. It’s a pretty lifeless place without much charm—nothing like the room he had made his own just a few blocks away.
I marched us into the team house to Noah’s pleased sighs. “This is sweet,” he said, looking around the ground floor.
“You think?” I asked. “We’re never here.
Only for breakfast, I think. The real deal is down here.
” I extended my arm until he put his hand in mine and pulled him gently to follow me.
The secret den beneath the house was dotted with arcade games, couches, a large soccer table, a gaming console, bookshelves nobody went near, and a kitchenette with a mini-fridge that packed enough beer to keep a hockey team satiated on a Saturday night.
“Holy shit,” Noah blurted.
It made my heart dance when he cursed. It was a small rebellion of his own. Living his life under his parents’ scrutiny, he had to vent somehow, and Noah’s sailor-like language rounded him in my eyes.
When I shut the basement door and let the silence fall, Noah was still looking around. He made a few steps ahead, his back turned to me and nodded. “This is so cool. Is that the original Flipper? Can I?”
I nodded, and Noah grinned, then went to the arcade game against the far wall on the right side of the basement.
The orange glow of lamplights and the dim bulbs in the ceiling set the atmosphere just like I wanted it, and I made my way to the fridge to fetch a couple of beers for us.
By the time I hooked up the surround system with my phone and found the most recent playlist — one of Noah’s Atompunk oddities that made my heart skip and throb — Noah was immersed in the game.
He was so focused on the game that he wasn’t even looking around. I knew there were several things in here that Noah couldn’t care less about. The soccer table, team flags, old jerseys hanging on the wall, and even the mini-fridge full of beer. But it thrilled me that he found one to his liking.
I leaned against another arcade game, just next to the Flipper he was playing, and watched him as he failed to keep the little marble-like ball from falling through the gap at the bottom.
The sci-fi noises pinged from the worn-out speaker, and the lights flashed below the protective glass.
Noah made frustrated grunts when the Game Over sound played.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” I said. “It takes a bit to get used to it.”
“You’ve played it a lot?” he asked.
I gave him my cockiest smirk and scooted against him. “Watch and learn, kiddo.”
He snorted and crossed his arms on his chest. The sweet scent of his cologne lingered in the air where he had just stood, and I lost all focus.
He was everything I thought of, though my muscle memory served me well when I began playing.
The commands were a little slow to react with the machine’s age, but I’d gotten used to it when I first started playing against Sebastian.
I scored double the points Noah had and was still well below the record a mystery legend had set on the machine an unknown number of years ago. “We have this thing going. Whoever beats the record becomes the king of the house that semester. There was no king in the history of the house.”
Noah laughed at that. “I guess living with a crowd of people you like has its positive side, too.”
I shrugged. “The privacy of the room you get to decorate just how you like isn’t all that bad.” I looked into his eyes and watched how his lips worked when he spoke next.
“That’s true. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But you guys are a team. Believe it or not, I actually watched the game tonight. You’re all so…I don’t know. Team-like. Like brothers or old-timey comrades. It was really cool.” His lips stretched into a smile, and the tip of his tongue crossed them.
“Christ, you’re so beautiful,” I whispered, leaping toward him. For a moment, I thought I was about to scare him with such an abrupt move, but he stood still and welcomed me, sliding his arms under mine and wrapping them around my upper back.
Our lips pressed together, and my chest tightened.
No. It wasn’t exactly like that. It was more like whatever filled my body grew so big that I couldn’t contain it.
It wanted to burst out of me and keep growing, rising, expanding until it enveloped every trace of us.
It was so powerful that it scared me, but I pushed that fear aside and focused on the sweetness of his lips and the warmth of his tongue as it slipped into my mouth.
I clutched his light spring jacket and pushed his tongue back with mine, exploring his mouth like I had countless times before, but I was never bored of trying it again.
“You brought us a victory,” I said, pulling back just enough to speak.
We both moved enough apart so that I could yank his jacket down his arms and then throw my own on the floor. “I knew you would.”
“Oh, fuck,” he grumbled, pulling me back against his body. “I’ll have to come to all your games, now, won’t I?”
“Every. Single. One.” My grin split my face, and I leaned in, kissing him despite my stretched lips.
I kissed him harder as he laughed softly over my lips.
God. He really was amazing just the way he was.
He really was everything I could wish for.
I prayed he would never change. Doubtless, he would outgrow me and his first little fling someday, but that wouldn’t dim the joy I felt when I was near him.
And it wasn’t going to slow me down now.
I touched the small of his back, pushing our bodies tightly. He moaned as my crotch pressed against his, my hard abs rubbing against his flat stomach. As my hands traveled lower, I took a moment to appreciate his sweet, round butt and give it a firm squeeze.
The gesture must have pleased him. He bit my lower lip and growled against my mouth in reply, then kissed me smoothly.
He was getting so damn good at this. Not that I minded him clumsily bumping his teeth into mine or overthinking every move he made.
I liked him no matter what. I liked his growing confidence as he dragged his hands down the sides of my torso and to my hips.
He clutched them, pulling me in, rubbing his front against mine.
Despite the denim pants we both wore, there was no mistaking his excitement.
He was hard and ready to play. And tonight, I wanted to do things a little differently.
But one step at a time, I reminded myself.
Slowly, gently, I navigated us around so that he leaned against the edge of the pinball machine in standby mode.
When he was there, I leaned into him harder, sure he wouldn’t topple down under the pressure.
Just the proximity to him excited me enough to be hard as all hell, but kissing and touching him, knowing I was the only one who’d ever done it, made him all the more special.
He was mine, and nobody else’s. There was something magical about knowing that.
He was like a treat everyone else missed out on, unaware he was the sweetest kind.
Mine.
The possessiveness soared through me.
Mine, mine, mine.
To play with.
To take care of.
To pleasure and torment and make happy. Every experience under the sun was new to him, and I could paint a whole damn canvas of them just for him.
I could show him everything there was. I could teach him never to be ashamed of himself or his kinks and interests.
I could make him fly high and dive low. Ah, so many things I wanted to do to him.