Caelyx
THE NEXT DAY, after my last class, Aspen stayed true to his word and let me take him on a little walk.
Cool weather was definitely starting to roll in, so I wore my Gucci nappa leather bomber jacket.
It was one of my favorites. Not that it mattered to Aspen.
I was pretty sure he couldn’t tell the difference between leather and pleather.
We didn’t really plan on a destination, so it was chill and casual, just aimless meandering as we talked.
We decided to pass on the boardwalk, since when we walked up it was already packed with people, mostly families with shrieking children.
Heading past it up to the downtown district near our work, we wandered into a smoothie shop neither of us had ever tried.
Once we’d gotten our orders, we ducked out of the shop and headed off toward a little city walking trail.
I let Aspen lead, as he seemed to like to do, until finally he stopped on a large bridge in the middle of the trail.
He leaned over the thick wooden railing, peering down into the water for a bit before taking a sip of his smoothie.
“This is pretty good,” he remarked. He’d gotten a semi-healthy one with a lot of fruit, probably because Maddox was in his ear lately about macros or whatever, but I’d indulged and gotten a dessert smoothie, with peanut butter and chocolate mixed into it.
“Mine too,” I said. “Do you want to try it?”
When he nodded, I held out my cup to him, tilting the top toward his mouth.
Leaning forward to take a big sip, his gaze flicked up to mine while his lips were still wrapped around my straw.
The sight of that alone was enough to have my blood draining down below my waist, but when he let out a sinful little moan at the flavor, my cock jerked up against my zipper.
“Oh, wow,” he commented. “Yours is good. I might have to get that one next time. What?” He finally asked, when he noticed my expression.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “It’s just that I have to hobble around town with a boner now until it goes away.”
He snorted, but shook his head and averted his attention back to the water beneath us. “You have a serious problem identifying which thoughts should stay inside your head instead of coming out of your mouth.”
“I guess I just don’t have any shame,” I admitted. When I sidled up next to him, making sure he was looking before I made a big show of adjusting the outline of my cock in the front of my pants, he didn’t even pretend not to look.
“Don’t bring that thing over here,” he ordered, but the corner of his mouth was perked up into that cute grin I adored. “I’m not going to fix it for you.”
“But you caused it,” I argued, blinking my lashes at him, before leaning my forearms down onto the railing with him, lining up my shoulder with his shoulder, so we were as close as possible. “Shouldn’t you take responsibility?”
His brows furrowed a little bit as he stared at me, then tilted his head. I worried I’d gone a little too far with my joking suggestion, but then he finally spoke.
“Your freckles show up a lot more in the sun,” he noted.
“Oh, yeah.” My hand flew up to my face, my fingers automatically dragging over the bridge of my nose, where I’d always had a dense splash of freckles. “They were a lot worse when I was a kid.”
“Worse?” He echoed, like he didn’t necessarily agree with the assessment, and I smirked.
“Why, you like them?” I goaded him, chuckling when he cocked an eyebrow. “Admit it, Cupcake. You find me attractive.”
“You think I find you attractive because I have functioning eyes and noticed a visible feature of your face?”
“I think you find me attractive because you keep hanging out with me.”
“I hang out with a lot of people I’m not attracted to.”
“You looked down at my dick when I said I had a boner.”
He raised his eyes up to the sky before shrugging his shoulders. “I guess I don’t have an argument for that one.”
Unreasonably pleased with his response, even though he’d cleverly wriggled his way out of actually admitting it, I decided to take what I could get and quit while I was ahead. It seemed like that was going to be a recurring strategy with him.
He seemed to like giving me just enough positive attention to keep me feral and drooling for him, while simultaneously keeping me at arm’s length.
I didn’t think he was doing it on purpose, so I couldn’t be offended.
I had a feeling it was his automatic defense mechanism to keep from getting hurt.
I didn’t have any plans to hurt him, but he didn’t know that about me yet. I could be patient.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I wondered, after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
“Ah, nothing, really.” He answered. He still hadn’t moved away from when I’d wedged up next to him, and all the places we were pressed together felt really warm. “Someone called out at work, so I’m going in to help open before class. Other than that, I don’t have anything going on.”
“Why do you have to help open?” I asked, irritated on his behalf. He worked enough as it is, let alone waking up that early to cover for someone else, before we even had to be up for class.
“I don’t have to,” he corrected, giving me an odd look. “I volunteered. I need the money.”
“For what?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Aren’t you on a scholarship?”
“Yeah, so?”
“I never even see you buy anything. What do you need that’s so important?”
He scoffed, nudging away from me. “That’s not your business. I just need it.”
“I can help,” I offered automatically, before my brain even let me consider who I was talking to.
Aspen, the king of I don’t need help, I’ve never needed help, and if you even suggest that I might at some point ever need help, then I’m going to chew you a new asshole, only regarded me with a wry look.
“First of all, no. Secondly, you couldn’t help me even if I would let you. In case you forgot, you’re not lounging in the lap of luxury anymore. You work the same broke boy job I do.”
My dad was still paying my tuition, my car insurance, and an automatic payment for my portion of rent for the house I shared with Maddox and Cyprian came out of his bank account every month.
I knew I wasn’t exactly roughing it, especially compared to other people.
But for anything else I needed to continue living and functioning, like food and textbooks, I was on my own.
But Aspen was right. I couldn’t help him with whatever financial problem he was having. I really, really hated that feeling.
Before I had the chance to try and undo the part where I’d pissed him off, he pushed off the railing and paced a few feet away before turning around to face me.
“Look, I get that your instinct when it comes to me is to… I don’t know, be protective or whatever. But you don’t need to. Seriously.”
I cleared my throat, deciding it was time to address one of the many things that had set us off on the wrong foot the year before, basically all of which were my fault.
“I’m sorry I punched that homophobic ginger in the face when he shoved you into the side of your car.” I wasn’t sorry, not even the tiniest bit. But I was sorry that Aspen had taken it as an insult.
My deadpan delivery of the apology seemed to amuse him a bit, at least enough for him to snort, before he covered his face with his palms and groaned.
“He didn’t shove me into the side of my car! He shoved Maddox into the side of my car, and Maddox very lightly brushed me as he fell back.”
That wasn’t how it had looked to me, but arguing my reasoning for why I’d gotten so upset wouldn’t help my cause whatsoever.
“I didn’t do that because I thought you couldn’t take care of yourself or anything,” I insisted, and he peeked at me from between his fingers.
He was so cute, and he didn’t even have to try.
Actually, I was pretty sure he put more effort into trying not to be cute, which was a totally futile waste of time on his part.
“Yeah, I know that,” he finally admitted. “You thought you were helping, defending my honor or whatever dumb shit was going on in your head.”
Well, of course when he put it that way, it would sound stupid.
“Sorry,” I said again. It was the only safe response I could think of, or else he might discover that I was totally unrepentant and I’d punch anyone who caused him even the slightest twinge of discomfort.
“You want to know what I really need?” He said, stalking back over to the railing, though now with a fair bit of space between us, and leaning his back against it.
“What?” I asked, hoping the desperation I felt wasn’t obvious in my voice. Part of me worried he’d say something like for everyone to leave me the fuck alone, especially annoying ex-rich coworkers who think they’re funny, but he’d sounded just a little too wistful for that.
“I just… I wish I could figure out a way to shut my brain off sometimes, so I don’t have to think about all the shit I have going on. Just… Tune everything out and stop thinking, you know?”
The brief flash of vulnerability in his voice alerted me to the fact that he’d been stressed out for a while about something, something more than just work and classes, but I knew it wasn’t the time to ask about it. We’d get there.
“I actually can help with that,” I pointed out, and he gave me a sideways glance.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I shifted back from the railing, hooking my thumbs into the belt loops of my jeans, and tried to think of how to phrase it without making it seem like I was just perving on him like usual. “You weren’t thinking too hard the other night behind that barn, were you?”
He blinked, pursing his lips a little as he considered. “I guess I wasn’t.”