Chapter 1
Eric
Six Years Ago
Until this exact moment, this very second of your life, I bet you didn’t realize that dicks could sprout two legs and walk around.
Who knew, right?
Certainly not me, and not until this guy.
Color me fucking shocked to find out that a giant phallus could grow a bunch of long, olive-skinned limbs and strut around like it owns the goddamned world. Toned muscles and devil-may-care attitude, with a perfect Colgate smile and thick, messy hair that somehow still looks put together.
Fucking Dmitri Belikov.
It's been almost a year since he flipped my whole world, and I’ve spent every day since pretending it never happened.
Immediate, white-hot anger surges through my body at the memory, and I narrow my eyes at the man in the doorway of my dorm room.
He's just standing there, leaning against the doorframe like he owns the place…
like he belongs. The light behind him frames his silhouette, casting an enormous shadow over me.
He’s an emo dream, all dark hair and black eyes, ripped jeans and old band shirts.
Tall—too tall, almost, as my six-foot frame has to tilt my neck to meet his eyes.
Broad but lean, and I’ve seen what hides underneath those clothes.
Bulging muscles and corded tendons that would even make Zeus pop an envy boner, and he doesn’t even have to work to maintain them.
It’s yet another thing that comes naturally to him, while guys like me spend five days a week in the gym and still carry too much around the middle.
To sum it up, life’s not fucking fair.
“What the actual fuck are you doing here?” I demand.
A smile spreads over his lips, just as carefree as his posture. “Hey man,” he says, and it’s honey-smooth and laid-back. The intensity of my glare deepens as his face lights up, highlighting the differences between us that have never been so glaringly obvious.
Light and dark.
Day and night.
He might look like darkness personified, where I’m blond-haired and golden-skinned, but don’t be confused about which of us is which.
His smile is dazzling, shining like the sun itself stands before me. His appearance may scream hot, troubled rocker boy, but his personality has never aligned with his looks.
Oh, no.
Dmitri is nice, syrupy sweet, always smiling and laughing with a group of his mindless cronies. They flock to him, following him around and hanging on to his every word.
Not me.
Not anymore.
Not after what he did.
“I asked you a question,” I say, not bothering to hide my irritation and ignoring the way his smile falters. “What are you doing here?”
He clears his throat and shifts his weight awkwardly between his feet. “Housing sent me here for my new room assignment.”
My cheeks scorch in an instant, and my fists curl into tense balls at my sides. “No.”
“No?” he repeats, tilting his head to one side in a very cat-like expression.
Last year I hit the jackpot. A brand-new dorm building meant excess rooms in the old ones, and I scored a double all to myself. Pure bliss. Naked whenever I wanted to be, showers on my schedule, jerking off with zero guilt. Now housing has ruined it with a roommate notice.
I was annoyed… until ninety seconds ago, when Dmitri showed up.
Now I'm pissed.
He's waving his new keycard like a white flag of surrender… or maybe it’s a sign.
Take me to your leader—I come in peace. He could be an alien.
It would explain the otherworldly good looks.
The hallway light catches him just right, rippling waves casting a glow around his frame like the universe decided to give him his own personal spotlight.
Yeah, well, motherfucker, guess who won’t be coming in peace anymore?
It dawns on me he’s still standing there, staring with his head tilted and eyebrow raised. A loud sigh heaves out of me as I scrub my hands down my face. A fresh argument brews on my tongue, but before I can spit it out, he breaks the silence.
“Eric…” He exhales hard, and his bravado fades with it.
His words tumble out, like they've been clawing at his throat for months. “What happened to us? We used to be inseparable. People literally treated us like one unit. Any invite I got, you were already included. It was always the two of us. And now you look at me like I’m contagious. I’ve been trying to figure this out for so long, man.
I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t kill me. ”
Self-preservation flares to life as I meet his eyes and cross my arms over my chest. “Seriously?” I sputter, the word scraping out as my throat tightens.
“Yeah, seriously.” He steps closer, cautious like he thinks I might attack.
“You blocked me everywhere and shut me out of your life, and you didn't tell me why. You disappeared for months, Eric! I kept trying to get ahold of you, thinking at some point you’d just…
reply. Explain. Anything. And then when I'd see you, you ran like I was the enemy. Like something was chasing you.”
My heart catapults into my neck, wedging itself between muscles that clamp down like they’re trying to strangle it.
I hug myself tighter, nails digging into my biceps as if I can physically hold the pieces together.
“I didn’t fucking run from you. Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around you.
Other people have lives. Concerns. Actual shit going on. Not everything is about you.”
Frustration etches deep lines into his face as he shakes his head. “That wasn’t what I—”
I throw a hand out to cut him off, and he blinks hard, mouth snapping shut like I slapped it.
“What, is the campus music god mourning the loss of one more disciple?” The words come out barbed, sharper than I intend.
“You’ve got a whole fan club lined up, like always.
I was just the idiot who thought he was special enough to stand in the front row. Don’t read so much into things.”
“Campus music god?” he parrots, like he doesn't understand the statement, and it irritates me further.
Dmitri is one of those people who excels at every single thing he attempts.
Throw him in a kindergarten class with a dozen cheap plastic recorders and he’ll have them playing Beethoven by snack time.
It’s like a Midas touch, except instead of gold, everything he touches turns into genius-level melodies.
Infuriating doesn’t even begin to cover it.
He plays instruments I can’t even pronounce, while I have to grind for hours just to sound decent on guitar. Singing is my one natural talent, and the single thing he can’t touch. It's my one pathetic little advantage over him.
His shoulders go slack as his lips pull into a frustrated frown. My eyes dart to the dimple that pits on one side, because of course—of course—he’d look just as good irritated as he does when he smiles. He sighs and crosses his arms, and his well-defined forearms flex.
I kick myself for noticing that, too.
“Look, man, I didn’t ask for this assignment.
” His voice dips into something softer now, like he’s afraid the wrong volume will shatter whatever’s left between us.
He gestures back and forth, hand trembling just enough to notice.
“I’m sorry… for whatever I did to cause…
this.” His face crumples slightly. “Whatever this is. It’s only until the end of the year.
Can we just… be civil? Until we get through it? ”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to calm the angry thump of my heart in my chest. How am I supposed to handle being alone with him after what happened? And why can’t I find the balls to confront him about it?
Seven simple words. That's all it would take.
Why did you do this to me?
“Besides,” he says into the silence, toeing his way in as I reluctantly step aside. “Senior year? We’ll both be busy. This place will only be a sleeping spot, right?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I mutter as I glance at the room. My stuff is strewn across almost every surface, and I storm over to the spare bed to gather the few items I’d scattered there. Having a roommate again was already going to take serious adjustment, but now this?
His hand lands gently on my arm.
A sick, electric wave rolls through me—nausea and heat at once.
My skin tingles violently under his fingers and my muscles seize like they’ve forgotten how to move.
Every inch of me feels branded by his touch as it sinks all the way into the marrow of my bones.
His nearness swamps my senses, and I hate—hate—the slow, insistent curl low in my gut.
I hate that my body still remembers him even when I’ve spent so long trying to forget.
“It's probably a non-issue anyway,” he continues, blind to the fact that I’m on the verge of a fucking existential breakdown.
“Looking like you do? The ladies always have been begging for sleepovers.” The words come out clipped, almost accusing, and the playful tone he was using is nowhere in sight.
“Hell, I bet this bed’s barely seen you at all.
Too many other places to crash, right?” His jaw flexes once, eyes flicking away for a split second before coming back.
The bitterness is unmistakable now as he drops onto the spare bed like he owns it.
His words make me pause as my stomach clenches again. My head rejects them, but this useless organ in my chest reaches out, desperate to latch on.
Looking like you do?
The phrase bounces around my skull like it’s mocking me. Back then, I would've believed him without question. Hell, I did believe him, every single time he complimented me.
But now?
Suddenly I’m hyper-aware of my own body in a way I haven’t let myself be in months.
I know what I’ve got, and I know most people appreciate it.
Sandy blond hair that curls more as the humidity rises.
Hazel eyes, and a nose that's broader than I’d like, with a noticeable bump on the ridge from where I had a surprise encounter with a rogue football a few years back.
There’s no mistaking my Southern corn-fed heritage when you see my build—tall and broad, with a genetic predisposition toward carrying a few extra pounds in my middle.
Sturdy.
Football was a natural choice for me, given my size. I had a decent run in high school but couldn’t quite measure up to the competition in college. Now I’m thick with no excuse for it.
But those words about my appearance aren’t the ones that catch my attention. It’s the others.
The ladies begging for sleepovers. It makes sense, because I am—and always have been—straight.
Straight like a ruler or framing level. An arrow with its razor-sharp point, flying for its hetero little future of a wife and kids and a white picket fence.
Straight, straight.
I am.
Or, at least, I always thought I was.
Until Dmitri.
Until the night that changed everything.
Last spring, he turned my entire life upside down. Rocked me to my fucking core, and made me question everything I ever knew about myself.
Right there, in the bed he just dropped to sit on.
The very bed he’s claimed as his own.
Then…
Then he broke my heart.
And now he's here in front of me like none of it ever happened.