Chapter Twenty-One
Noah
I was lying on the sofa reading when the flat’s buzzer sounded. I lowered my book and frowned, wondering who it could be. Alex was still at work, and as far as I knew neither of us had ordered anything.
And if it was Alex, and he’d done something like forgetting his keys again, he’d have messaged me instead.
With a soft groan, because I’d been lying down for too long in one position and everything had gone to sleep, I heaved myself off the sofa and headed over to the intercom. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me!” Spencer’s voice was instantly recognisable, and the bounding, happy note in his voice made me grin from ear to ear. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, pressing the button to open the downstairs door. “It’s open.”
“Awesome! Thank you!”
I reckoned I had about thirty seconds before Spencer came careening through the front door, which wasn’t enough time to do more than run my fingers through my hair and tug the ratty, old t-shirt I was wearing back into place.
I wasn’t exactly the epitome of style and glamour at the moment, more exhausted teacher halfway through half-term, realising they had to go back to school on Monday.
I’d been aiming to get more of my work done than I had, and I really needed to spend the end of the week putting some conscious effort into it. Otherwise the start of next term was going to smack me in the face and send me staggering.
There was the briefest of knocks on the front door of the flat before it opened, and Spencer’s face appeared. He was beaming, his grey eyes practically dancing, and he looked about two seconds away from exploding. I wondered what had made him so happy.
He bounced across the room and swept me up in his arms, kissing me deeply before I’d even had a chance to say hello.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I missed you.”
“I only saw you yesterday.”
“I know, but I still missed you. Didn’t you miss me?”
“I did,” I said, almost embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want Spencer to think I was clingy.
But he’d already said he missed me, so that should have nullified any of my worries.
I decided to just keep talking and hope my brain decided to shake off whatever early relationship worries it was dreaming up. “You seem happy?”
“I am!” He kissed me again, and I could have sworn he was vibrating.
“I went to see Will and asked him if he’d come play football with us.
And he said yes! It’s going to be so awesome.
” He stroked my cheek softly, gazing down at me with such a fierce intensity I thought I might melt.
“Thank you for talking about it with me yesterday. Even just acknowledging everything helped, especially because you don’t think I was being weird or silly about it. ”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “You definitely weren’t being silly. And I’m glad Will’s joining you. He needs to get out more.”
“Right? That’s what I said! He seems to think that if he leaves for, like, five minutes something’s going to explode. He needs to chill out a little. Maybe get laid.”
I chuckled. “You’re not going to go on some outlandish quest to find Will a boyfriend, are you?”
“Nah,” Spencer said. “Although… my mate Andrew is single… You never know, they might hit it off.”
“Didn’t you say he’s always really busy, though?” I thought back to last night when Spencer and I had lain on the sofa together, and he’d told me all about his friends from the gym. He already wanted me to meet them all and had insisted we’d all have to get together for pizza or something.
“Yeah, that’s true. I’m not even sure how he’s fitting football in to all the other stuff he does.”
“I think Will needs someone to be there for him, not someone who he’s going to feel like he lets down or hardly sees.
” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It sounds weird saying it, but Will basically needs someone who’s going to slot into his life and help him pick up the slack.
Farming is more a lifestyle than a job, and he needs someone who’ll understand that. ”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Spencer said with a nod. “By the way, Will knows about us.”
“Oh? Did you tell him?” We hadn’t really talked about telling people, only that we wanted to keep it on the down low until we’d figured things out.
I knew Alex had sort of guessed, and Theo and Laurie knew because Spencer had confessed to telling them, but I hadn’t realised he wanted to tell everyone else.
“No. He guessed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, apparently he thought it was bleedin’ obvious.” Spencer laughed. “He asked me if it was supposed to be a secret, then laughed at me. I don’t think anyone else knows, though. Will’s the only really observant one.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Lane told me Will said it was obvious how hung up on Oliver he still was before he’d figured it out for himself. Apparently, Will told him he was in denial.”
Spencer nodded seriously. “Will’s clearly psychic or something. He’s definitely got superpowers.”
I chuckled softly. We still stood nose to nose, and every so often Spencer would punctuate his sentences with quick, soft kisses like if he didn’t kiss me he’d somehow suffer for it.
“God, you’re so amazing,” Spencer said. “I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world.”
“B-boyfriend?” I felt my skin heating. One single word seemed to have reduced me to nothing more than a puddle on the floor.
It was like all my wishes had suddenly come true—all the things I’d dreamt about finally manifesting themselves in reality.
Which was either sweet or disturbing depending on your point of view.
“Yeah, is that okay? Don’t you want to be my boyfriend?”
“I do,” I said. “More than anything.”
“Good, then be my boyfriend,” Spencer said, pulling me even closer to him as he claimed my mouth in a passionate kiss that made my head spin and my heart race.
My arms wrapped around him, holding him against me as one kiss melted into another.
We’d barely been apart for a day, but the heat in his touch made it feel like it had been months.
I took a step back, then another, walking Spencer towards the sofa. It was harder than I’d expected, but neither of us wanted to let go and actually focus on moving, so we hit a few things along the way.
I was pretty sure I’d have a lovely bruise on my thigh tomorrow morning from where I’d hit the edge of the table.
Eventually, we made it to the sofa and collapsed onto it, half-laughing to ourselves but still kissing as if the world might end if we didn’t.
Our hands slid under clothes, reaching for every available bit of skin we could find.
Spencer’s lips trailed across my jaw and nipped at my earlobe before moving down my neck. I tilted my head back and groaned.
His cock was hard against my hip, and I ground up against him, teasingly offering him the chance at more.
Spencer growled and sucked a mark onto the base of my neck, leaving me gasping and laughing and desperately hoping the collar of my shirt would cover it up if it was still there on Monday.
My students would never let me forget it if they saw me with a hickey, especially after I’d told them to cover them up before.
“Spencer,” I groaned as my nails skimmed over his back.
“Yeah? What do you want?” His voice was soft with a delicious underlying note of eagerness like he needed to know what I wanted so he could please me.
“You. I want you.”
“Mmm, you want me to fuck you?” he asked. “Want me to make you come on my cock?”
“Fuck, yes!” I gasped as Spencer ground down against me, his hand sliding underneath me to squeeze my ass.
“I’ve been dreaming about it. Can’t stop thinking about how perfect it’s going to feel around my dick.” He nipped my neck and pressed another sucking kiss to the skin. “You’re going to look so fucking amazing riding me, Noah. You’re so fucking sexy. I can’t wait to watch you come all over me.”
I moaned because I wanted that more than anything.
Spencer lifted his head and grinned at me. It was clear he knew how much he was riling me up and that he was loving every second.
“Kiss me,” I said, and Spencer obeyed.
If I could, I would have lived on his kisses.
We were utterly lost in each other with no thought of anything else. Which was why the front door opening and Alex’s disgruntled “For fuck’s sake!” was the equivalent of being shoved headfirst into an icy pool.
Spencer and I leapt apart like startled cats, our heads clattering together as we tried to sit up. Pain ricocheted through me, and I yelped.
“Shit, are you okay?” Spencer asked.
“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes in the hope it would dull the pain as I tentatively touched the spot on my temple. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
I glanced over Spencer’s shoulder to see Alex looking at us with folded arms and pursed lips. He didn’t look upset, just more annoyed. Or like he was vaguely contemplating disowning both of us.
“Hey,” I said with a forced casual air, like he hadn’t just caught me getting hot and heavy with his older brother on our sofa. “Good day?”
Alex raised an eyebrow, but his lip twitched, and I knew he was trying not to laugh. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with. ‘Good day?’”
“Well, y’know, just being friendly.”
I knew then that he wasn’t mad at me because he laughed. “Yeah, okay, let’s go with that.” He looked between Spencer and me and sighed. “God, this is weirder than I thought it would be.”
“Sorry,” Spencer said sheepishly. “Are we making you uncomfortable?”
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes but also no. Like I’m happy you’ve sorted your shit out and I don’t have to put up with either of you moping around, but that”—he waved a hand in our general direction—“that I’m not so comfortable with.
I don’t think anyone wants to see their best friend and their brother dry humping on their sofa. ”
“Sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time.”
“It’s fine,” Alex said. “Maybe next time you could just, I don’t know, find a bedroom or something? I’d rather not stumble into a live action porno starring you two in my living room. That would just be next-level fucked up.” He turned and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to go and get changed.”
“Sorry,” Spencer called after him. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” Alex said.
As soon as he’d gone, Spencer and I looked at each other, unable to stop ourselves from grinning like naughty kids. “Fuck,” I said with a laugh. “At least we know he’s okay with us.”
“Yeah, it could’ve been worse,” Spencer said. “He didn’t start yelling or anything.”
“Nah, if he was proper mad, he’d have been silent,” I said. “We would’ve just gotten glared at.”
Spencer nodded. We both sat properly on the sofa now with several inches between us. Neither of us seemed to want to risk shuffling any closer just in case Alex suddenly popped up behind us.
“So,” Spencer said, “what do you want to do now?”
I pretended to think for a minute. “Do you want to go and find a bedroom? Pick up where we left off?”
“That sounds like an awesome plan. Do you wanna come back to mine? I think it’d be a bit awkward trying to have sex with my brother downstairs. Like, we can try to be quiet, but he’s gonna know.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Although, I do have to come back here later. I promised Alex we could start watching the Underworld series tonight, and I don’t want him to feel like I’m abandoning him for you.”
Spencer nodded. “I don’t want him to feel like that either. I don’t want this”—he waved his hand in between us—“to get in the way of your friendship.”
“You’re so sweet, you know that?” I leant over and kissed him. “I’m just going to tell Alex I’ll be back later, then we can go.”
“Don’t be too long,” Spencer said. “Or I might get lonely.”
I laughed. “Really?”
Spencer grinned. “I don’t know. I might. I do get lonely sometimes.”
His words were meant as a joke, but I felt the real pain behind them. “Don’t worry. You’ll never be lonely as long as I’m around. I promise.”
I kissed him again, trying to pour as much affection into the gesture as possible.
Because I never wanted Spencer to feel like he was alone.
This relationship might have been new, but it was already clear to me that I was developing deep feelings for him.
My childish wish had been for us to be together, whether we were compatible or not, but now it was becoming increasingly obvious just how well we fit together.
I knew we were still in the honeymoon phase where everything was rose-tinted, and I knew I shouldn’t rush. But deep down, I got the feeling Spencer really was the only one for me, and that I’d never find another man as perfect, even if I searched for a thousand lifetimes.