Chapter 24
Grogu's Honor
Sebastian
The thing about kissing Gavin is that time just disappears. One minute we're "just going to study," and the next his mouth is on mine, my back is against his pillows, and his massive body is pressing me into the mattress in the best possible way.
"Mm, Doc," he murmurs against my lips. "You taste like—"
BANG BANG BANG
"Gavin! Emergency house meeting! Get your ass downstairs!"
Gavin doesn't even lift his head. Just keeps kissing me like whoever's pounding on his door doesn't exist.
"Robins! I know you're in there! Drew's about to lose his shit!"
"Busy," Gavin calls back, then immediately returns to doing incredible things to my neck.
"It's a code red, dude!"
Gavin groans, finally pulling back. His hair's a disaster, and his lips are swollen, and he looks absolutely wrecked. "They have color codes now?"
"Sounds like it." I try to fix my own hair, which is probably just as bad.
More banging. "Gavin!”
"Jesus fucking… Fine! We're coming!"
"We really aren't," I mutter, and Gavin barks out a laugh before hauling me up off the bed.
He grabs my ass as we head down the hallway, and I swat his hand away. He does it again on the stairs. And again, when we reach the bottom.
"You're incorrigible," I hiss.
"Don't know what that means, but probably." He squeezes one more time before we round the corner. "Can't help it. You've got a great ass, Doc."
"You know exactly what that means." Glaring at him over my shoulder doesn't work; he just keeps grinning and trying to grab my ass. "I'm a medical student. I could make your death look like an accident."
"Kinky."
The common room is chaos.
Drew's pacing like a caged animal while Emily watches from the couch with a bowl of popcorn, like this is entertainment.
Tyler's trying to calm Drew down. James and Caleb are hunched over laptops in the corner, typing furiously.
And there are at least twenty other guys scattered around looking various degrees of guilty, amused, or confused.
I hover near the doorway, suddenly very aware that I don't belong here. "I can go—"
"You can stay," Tyler says firmly, not looking up from Drew's meltdown. "Ethan's staying too."
I spot Ethan tucked into an armchair, looking just as out of place as I feel. He gives me a little wave and a shrug that I interpret as, Frat boys, what can you do?
"Alright, Shut up!” Drew's voice cuts through the noise. The room goes quiet. "Someone want to explain why we're tagged in fifteen different TikToks from last weekend? Fifteen!”
"To be fair," someone calls out, "three of those are the same video reposted—"
"Not the point, Jeff!”
Drew pulls up his phone and starts scrolling. "Let's review, shall we? We've got Taj passed out with dicks drawn on his face, classy, by the way. We've got what appears to be drunk karaoke where someone is sobbing through 'All By Myself'—"
"That was emotional!" a guy I don't recognize protests.
"We've got Noah crying about his ex-girlfriend for four minutes —“
"She was the one, Drew!"
"And my personal favorite..." Drew's eye twitches. "Someone streaking across the frame with their entire ass out."
All eyes turn to a guy with messy brown hair who immediately throws his hands up. "Come on, guys, you have to believe me! It's not me this time!"
"Rex," Drew says slowly, "the video is literally tagged #DeltaPsiOmegaCakes."
"That doesn't prove anything!"
I glance at Gavin, who's trying not to laugh. He catches my eye and grins.
"It's definitely Rex," Gavin says casually.
Rex spins on him. "Dude! Betrayal!"
"What? That's clearly your Baby Yoda tattoo."
I sit up so fast I almost fall off Gavin's lap. "I'm sorry, his what?”
"His name is GROGU!" Rex shouts, which is absolutely not the defense he thinks it is.
"You have Baby Yoda tattooed on your ass?" I'm staring at Rex with what I'm sure is pure horror. "Why would you… who would… why?”
"Spring break sophomore year," Rex mutters. "I don't want to talk about it."
But I'm now glaring at Gavin instead. "And how exactly do you know about Rex's ass tattoo?"
The room goes "ooooooh" like we're in middle school.
Gavin's laughing, hands up in surrender. "Babe, no, it's not… Rex streaked the football field last year, and I happened to be at practice—"
"So you were looking at his ass!"
"It was running past me! At eye level! There was a lot of jiggling!"
Rex nods vigorously. "There was! There was significant jiggling! Very hard to miss!"
Drew pinches the bridge of his nose. "Can we please get back to the fact that I had to swear to the Dean lat year that we weren't involved in that streaking incident, and now there's video evidence—“
"The Dean doesn't have TikTok," Tyler offers.
"The Dean has a daughter, Tyler. A teenage daughter who definitely has TikTok and definitely follows campus drama accounts."
Gavin tugs me back against his chest, his lips brushing my ear. "Jealous, Doc?"
"Of Baby Yoda's placement? Absolutely not."
He chuckles, arms tightening around me. "Only ass I'm looking at is yours. Promise."
"Damn right," I mutter, but I settle back against him.
James looks up from his laptop. "Caleb and I are working on getting the videos taken down. DMCA claims for the ones with the house clearly visible."
"Can you do that?" someone asks.
"Technically, the house is private property," Caleb says without looking up. "And technically, I'm a law student who knows exactly how to word a cease and desist."
"My boyfriend's a genius," James says, completely deadpan.
Caleb's ears go pink, but he doesn't deny the boyfriend part.
Drew takes a breath. "Okay. Everyone agrees to be more careful? No more filming shit that can get us in trouble? And for the love of God, Rex, keep your pants on?”
A general murmur of agreement.
"Good. Now, does anyone else have anything to bring to the floor before I go drink myself into forgetting this meeting happened?"
Ian raises his hand. "Actually, yeah. Can we maybe talk about the, uh..." He gestures vaguely between the guys sitting around. "The excessive PDA in common areas?"
The temperature in the room drops about fifteen degrees.
Tyler's head snaps toward Ian. Gavin's arms tighten around me. Even James and Caleb look up from their laptops with matching glares.
"Excuse me?" Ethan's soft voice is ice cold. "The what?"
Ian's eyes go wide as he realizes he's made a terrible mistake. "No, no, not… it's not because you're… I'm not saying—"
"Because we're what, Ian?" Tyler asks quietly, which is somehow scarier than yelling.
"It's not a gay thing!" Ian's practically flailing now. "It's all the couples! Het ones too! It's just... some of us are single, and it's really depressing when you're all making out everywhere, and I just thought maybe—"
He doesn't get to finish.
Because Gavin turns my head with one big hand and kisses me absolutely senseless. Like, full tongue, hand in my hair, making me forget my own name, levels of kissing.
When I can finally see straight again, I realize Ethan has fully straddled Tyler in the armchair, and they're going at it like they're trying to win a competition. Tyler's hands are firmly on Ethan's ass.
And in the corner, James has abandoned his laptop to pull Caleb into what I can only describe as an aggressively passionate kiss. Caleb looks mildly surprised, but absolutely isn't complaining.
Ian makes a strangled noise.
Drew laughs so hard he has to sit down. "Sorry, man. We're not restricting the couples as long as clothes stay on. Same rules for everyone, gay, straight, and anybody else. You want less PDA, get a boyfriend."
"Or girlfriend," Emily adds helpfully. "I know some girls who think the sad single thing is cute."
Ian buries his face in his hands while the room howls with laughter.
Ethan and I exchange glances across the room, still half-glaring at Ian. Tyler catches it and grins at Gavin.
"I think our boyfriends are plotting Ian's demise," Tyler says.
"Probably," Gavin agrees cheerfully. "Doc holds a grudge."
"So does Ethan. Ian's gonna be finding glitter in his stuff for weeks."
"Noted," Ian mumbles into his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll never speak again."
"Smart choice," Ethan says sweetly.
Drew wraps up the meeting, and I'm ready to drag Gavin back upstairs when a freshman pipes up. "Hey, since everyone's already here... party tonight?"
Drew and Tyler exchange looks.
"House opens at nine," Tyler decides. "Ian and Rex, you're on the beer run."
"Why me?" Ian whines.
"Because you deserve it," at least six people say in unison.
"Rex because... well, Rex knows what he did," Drew adds.
Rex sighs. "Yeah, that's fair."
"Everyone else, clean your shit up! This place looks like a frat house!"
"It IS a frat house," someone yells.
"A classy frat house! Move it!"
Gavin presses a kiss to my hair and mutters, "Be right back, gotta help or Drew will have my ass," before joining the chaos of guys scrambling to make the place look less like a disaster zone. I find a quiet corner near the stairs and pull out my phone to call JP.
"A party?" JP sounds skeptical. "At the frat house?"
"You don't have to come. Just figured I'd invite you."
Silence. Then I hear a muffled conversation before JP comes back. "Max wants to know if they have beer pong."
"Almost certainly."
More muffled conversation. "We'll be there by nine-thirty."
I spend the next hour watching Gavin in his element, laughing with his brothers, effortlessly charming, pulling me into conversations as if I belong here.
By the time the house fills up with people and music starts thumping through the speakers, I've almost forgotten I'm supposed to be an outsider.
That comfortable feeling evaporates the second I see my housemates walk in. Leo looks like he might pass out from anxiety. Luca's mouth is moving like he's practicing his introductions again.
I have to look around to find Elliot, who has somehow already found a quiet corner, and Max is scanning the room with the intensity of a predator.
"Where's the pong table?" he demands.
Gavin points toward the back. "That way. But I gotta warn you, our guys are pretty—"
Max is already gone, dragging Leo behind him.
"Should we be concerned?" Gavin asks.
"Absolutely."
Twenty minutes later, there's a crowd around the beer pong table, and Max and Leo are destroying everyone.
"That’s physically impossible!" one of the frat guys yells as another ball sinks perfectly into a cup.
"Actually," Leo says, adjusting his trajectory, "if you account for the air resistance coefficient and the optimal parabolic arc—"
"Leo, less math, more throwing," Max says.
"Right, sorry." Leo sinks another shot.
"What the fuck!”
Gavin's cackling beside me. "Holy shit, Doc. Your friends are hustlers."
"Physics and Engineering majors," I correct. "Same thing."
Meanwhile, JP has gathered a small crowd of increasingly concerned-looking frat guys and is lecturing them about alcohol metabolism.
"The key is electrolyte balance combined with B-vitamin supplementation before you begin drinking. Your liver can only process approximately one standard drink per hour, so if you pace yourself—"
"Wait, go back to the hangover cure part," one guy interrupts.
JP sighs but pulls out his phone. "I'll send you the recipe. But you should know that excessive drinking causes significant damage to your—"
"Yeah, yeah, liver damage. Recipe, please."
I watch my worlds collide, awkward and hilarious, but somehow it works. The geeks aren't quite fitting in, but they're not being rejected either.
The frat guys are trying not to overwhelm them. I'm guessing they're aware that Gavin cares about this and are behaving because of it.
But it's still a lot. I can see Leo starting to wilt despite his beer pong victory. Luca's practiced conversation topics have run out. Even JP looks ready to retreat.
"We're going to head out," JP announces, finding me on the couch where I'm comfortably settled in Gavin's lap.
I start to stand. "I'll come with—"
"Hell no." Max appears out of nowhere, pointing at me firmly. "You stay. Sit on your man's lap and have fun."
"But—"
"Sebastian." Max's voice is surprisingly firm for someone who looks like a blue-haired pixie. "You finally have a hot boyfriend who's obsessed with you. Enjoy it. We'll be fine. We survived years without you; we can make it through the rest of one night."
"Rude."
"Accurate." He grins. "Text us when you're home. Or don't. We'll assume you're getting railed."
"Max!”
But they're already heading out, Leo waving, Luca giving a nod, JP herding them like a very tired sheepdog.
I settle back against Gavin with a sigh. "My friends are insane."
"Your friends are amazing." He nuzzles my neck. "And they really love you."
"I'm aware."
"Also, Max is terrifying. I respect that."
Before I can respond, Gavin stands, with me still in his arms, and starts walking toward the main couch.
"What are you—Put me down!”
"Nope."
"Gavin! You can't just pick people up!"
"Just did."
He deposits me on the couch, then sits and pulls me into his lap in one smooth motion. I'm sputtering with indignation.
"You can't just… manhandle me like… I'm a grown man—"
"A fun-sized man," Gavin agrees.
"I will end you."
Ethan appears, dropping onto the couch beside us. "Oh, is Gavin doing the carrying thing?"
"The what?”
"The carrying thing." Ethan's grinning. "He carried me across campus once when I really needed to get to Tyler."
Tyler settles next to Ethan, pulling him into his lap easily. "It's kind of a thing with us. Carrying our—" He pauses, smiling. "—our perfectly sized men around."
"Perfectly sized?!”
Gavin and Tyler fist-bump over my head.
"I hate all of you," I announce.
"No, you don't." Gavin kisses my temple. "You love it."
The worst part is, I kind of do. Being manhandled by a six-foot-four golden boyfriend shouldn't be this enjoyable.
"I'm only tolerating this because you're warm," I grumble.
"Sure, Doc." Gavin's smile is blinding. "Whatever you say."
Ethan catches my eye, and we share a quick look that says it all. Two small guys who are absolutely gone for their ridiculous, carrying-obsessed, oversized boyfriends.
"You get used to it," Tyler offers.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really, no."
Gavin's laugh vibrates through me. "I'll make it up to you. Promise."
"You'd better."
"Starting tonight." His hand slides down my back. "Multiple times."
"Damn right you will."
He opens his mouth to respond, but someone across the room drops a cup, and Rex yells something about Grogu's honor, and just like that, the moment's gone.
Gavin sighs against my neck. "Never a dull moment."
"Is it always like this?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
I should probably run. Instead, I settle deeper into his lap.
Idiot. I'm such an idiot.