Chapter 14 Liam
Igrabbed my keys off the desk and was out the door before Noah could ask where I was going.
The parking lot behind the dorm was dark. My car—a twelve-year-old Civic with a cracked windshield and a heater that worked when it felt like it—started on the second try. I pulled out too fast, tires chirping on the cold asphalt.
The bridge was a quick drive, running the yellow at the intersection. The river moved beneath me—black and indifferent, catching fragments of streetlight from both banks.
Kingswell's campus opened up on the other side. Stone buildings. Brick pathways. The ornate lampposts casting their romantic glow like this was a movie set instead of a place where people actually lived.
I hated this side of the river. Hated the way it looked at night—beautiful and cold, everything designed to remind you that you didn't belong here. Every building named after someone's grandfather. Every pathway laid by money older than my whole family tree.
But Alex was here. Drunk and alone and spiraling because of something I did.
Sycamore Street was three blocks off campus.
I knew the general area—Kingswell upperclassmen rented the Victorians that lined the residential streets east of the quad.
The houses were all the same breed: tall, old, painted in muted colors, porches with columns.
Rich-kid housing that pretended to be bohemian.
714 or 716. Columns.
They all have columns. Fuck. Alex.
But one of them had noise spilling from every window and cars lining both sides of the street, and that was enough.
I parked crooked behind someone's BMW and killed the engine.
The front door was open. Music and heat and the smell of beer hit me before I was up the porch steps. Inside—bodies, noise, and college-level chaos.
Nobody noticed me at first. Then someone did.
A guy near the entrance—Kingswell rower, one of the novices whose name I didn't know—gave me a look. The kind of look I'd been getting my whole life from people on this side of the divide. What are you doing here?
I ignored him.
The living room was packed. Couch full. People standing with cups, talking over the music. A flip cup game in the dining room. I scanned faces. Collins. Mason. A few guys from the eight.
No Alex.
I pushed through the living room toward the back of the house. Kitchen—empty cups on every surface, a vodka bottle on the counter with maybe two inches left. The sight of it made my stomach drop.
"Moore?"
Derek. Standing in the kitchen doorway with a glass of water. Not beer—water. Because Derek was the kind of guy who stayed sober at team parties.
"Where's Alex?" My voice came out harder than I intended.
Derek's expression shifted. "He ended up in the back living room. Back corner of the couch. He's—" He paused. Chose his words. "He's had a rough night."
"I know."
"Do you?" Something in Derek's tone. Not accusatory. Questioning. The senior who'd been watching the Liam-and-Alex situation unfold since last year.
"Yeah. I do."
Derek held my gaze for a beat. Then nodded. Stepped aside.
I went back to the living room.
There he was on the back corner of the couch. Half-hidden behind two guys arguing about something.
Alex.
His head was tipped back against the cushion. Eyes closed. A red cup on the floor beside him, tipped over, whatever was in it soaking into the carpet. His jacket was still on but unzipped. His face was pale—wrong kind of pale, the kind that came from too much alcohol and not enough food.
He looked small. That was the thing that got me. Alex Harrington never looked small. He was six feet of composure and control and legacy pressure, and right now he looked like someone had reached inside him and scooped out everything that held him upright.
I crouched in front of him. Put my hand on his knee.
"Alex."
Nothing.
"Alex." Harder. Squeezed his knee.
His eyes opened. Glassy. Unfocused. It took him a second to find me, and when he did, something crossed his face that I couldn't name. Relief and anger and exhaustion all at once, colliding behind his eyes.
"Liam." His voice was wrecked. Rough and slurred at the edges. "I told you not to come."
"Yeah. I came anyway. We covered this." I got my arm under his. "Come on. We're leaving."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
He didn't fight me. That's how I knew it was bad. But he just let me pull him up. Let me get his arm over my shoulder. Let me take his weight.
We moved through the party. People noticed. Of course they noticed—Liam Moore, Riverside scholarship kid, hauling Alex Harrington off a couch at a Kingswell house party. Heads turned. Conversations paused. Someone said something I didn't catch.
I didn't care. Let them look. Let them talk. Let them add it to whatever story they were already telling themselves about me and Alex and the double and everything else.
Derek was by the front door. He held it open for us without a word. Just a nod.
The cold outside was brutal. Alex flinched against it, his body curling into mine. I tightened my grip around his waist and we moved down the porch steps. One at a time. Careful.
"Where are we going?" he mumbled.
"Your dorm."
"That's far."
"I drove."
He didn't respond. I got him down the sidewalk to the Civic. Opened the passenger door. Guided him in. He slumped against the seat and closed his eyes before I'd shut the door.
I got in. Started the engine. The heater rattled to life—cold air first, then nothing useful. We drove the three blocks to campus in silence. Alex's head against the window, his breath fogging a small circle on the glass.
I parked in the Langford Hall lot. Killed the engine.
"Come on." I got his arm over my shoulder again. His feet were steadier on flat ground but not by much. The cold air burned my lungs and I could see both our breaths—mine steady, his shallow and uneven.
Second floor. I'd been here enough times to know the way—up the stairs with the creaking wood, down the hallway with the crown molding and the portraits of dead alumni, third door on the right.
"Key," I said.
Alex fumbled in his pocket. Dropped it. I picked it up. Unlocked the door.
His room was exactly how it always was. Organized and perfect.
I guided Alex to the bed. He sat on the edge. Swayed.
"Water," I said. Found a glass on his desk and filled it from the mini-fridge's filtered water thing—because of course Alex had filtered water."Drink."
He took the glass. Drank. Some of it ran down his chin and he didn't wipe it. His composure was gone—stripped away by hours of vodka.
I knelt down. Untied his shoes. Pulled them off one at a time. Set them by the desk—lined up, the way he'd want them when he was sober enough to notice.
"Lie down," I said. "On your side."
He didn't. He sat there on the edge of the bed, swaying, watching me with those glassy blue eyes. Underneath them was something I'd never seen before. Not the guarded Alex. Not the performing Alex. Something younger. Unfiltered.
"You came," he said.
"Told you I would."
"I told you not to."
"Yeah. You did."
He reached out and caught the front of my hoodie. Not pulling. Just holding. His fingers curling into the fabric like it was the only solid thing in a tilting room.
"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
My chest seized.
"Alex—"
"I mean it." His eyes were wet. Not crying—just the glassy sheen of someone who'd drunk enough to dissolve every wall they'd ever built. "You're the best thing. And I ruined it. Two years ago. At the lake. I just—cut you off. Like you were nothing."
"You were scared."
"I was a coward." He shook his head. Slow. Like even his neck was too tired to hold the weight. "I've regretted it every day. Every single day since. I'd lie in bed thinking about you. What you were doing. If you hated me."
"I did hate you." Honest. Because he deserved honest. "For a while."
"You should still hate me."
"I don't."
His hand tightened on my hoodie. Pulled me a half step closer. I could smell the vodka on his breath, the cold still clinging to his jacket.
"I can't stop thinking about you," he said. "Even when I'm angry. Even tonight. Sitting on that porch with Braden in my face—all I could think about was you."
Something hot and tight was building behind my ribs. Not anger. The other thing. The one I spent most of my time pretending didn't exist.
"You need to sleep," I said.
"I need you." His eyes moved over my face. Down. The shift was sudden—the vulnerability giving way to something darker. Hungrier. "Do you know what you look like right now? In that hoodie with your hair all—" He bit his lip. "God. You're so fucking hot."
My whole body responded. Instant. Involuntary. Heat flooding south before my brain could intervene. Because Alex Harrington telling me I was hot with that wrecked voice and those glassy eyes was doing things to me that no amount of self-control could override.
"Alex. You're drunk."
"I know." He tugged my hoodie again. Harder this time. I stumbled forward—caught myself with a hand on the mattress, one knee between his legs. Close. Too close. His face tilted up. "Kiss me."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you've had enough vodka to kill a small horse and I'm not doing this while you can't—"
His hand slid from my hoodie down to my jeans. Found me. Hard. His palm pressed against me through the denim and my brain whited out for a full second.
"Seems like you want to," he said.
Fuck.
I grabbed his wrist. Pulled his hand away. Held it. My grip was firm but careful—the way you'd hold something that could break.
"Yeah," I said. My voice came out rough. Wrecked. "I want to. But not like this."
"Like what?"
"Like you won't remember it tomorrow."
Something shifted in his face. The hunger fading. Something softer taking its place. He looked down at my hand holding his wrist. Then back up at me.
"Gentleman," he said.
"Don't get used to it."
"Fine." He let out a breath. Long. Shaky. Then flopped backward onto the bed with the gracelessness of a man who'd given up on dignity hours ago. "I'll just have you fuck me another day then. In front of everyone. On the quad. Noon. Who cares anymore."
A laugh cracked out of me. Surprised. Real. "Jesus Christ, Alex."
"I'm serious. We'll make a whole thing of it. Invite Braden. Invite Eldridge. Invite my father." He waved his hand at the ceiling. "We're just two gay boys, Liam. That's all. Just two gay boys who row a boat and can't keep their hands off each other. Who even cares."
The words were slurred and ridiculous and underneath them was something so raw it made my throat ache.
Because he was joking. But he was also telling the truth—the version of the truth that only existed at the bottom of a bottle, when every defense mechanism had been stripped away and the only thing left was the thing you actually wanted.
Just two gay boys.
I never thought of it like that. Just simple. Never without the weight of consequence and calculation and fear.
"You're going to be so embarrassed about this tomorrow," I said.
"Probably." His eyes were closing. "Worth it though."
"Yeah?"
"You're still holding my wrist."
I was. I let go. Carefully. Pulled the blanket up over him. Tucked it around his shoulders the way my mom used to do for me when I was sick—careful, firm, the kind of tucking that said stay put.
"Liam?"
"Yeah."
"Stay."
"I'm staying."
"Promise."
"I promise."
Alex's eye's closed and he passed out.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my hoodie. Climbed in behind him, my chest against his back, and my arm around his waist.
Alex shifted. Not awake—just his body recognizing mine. He pressed back against me. His hand found my forearm and pulled it up against his chest.
My heart was still hammering. My jeans were still tight. And my head was full of everything he'd just said—the confessions, the want, the casual devastating honesty of just two gay boys.
I was bi. But when I was with him I was definitely gay. When I was holding him like this, there was no confusion. No question. Just him. Just this.
He wouldn't remember all of it. Maybe not any of it. But I would. Every word.
The quad was silent through the window. His heartbeat slow against my forearm.
I closed my eyes.