Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
We strip out of our clothes and sleep against each other naked. His body started curled up next to mine, but sometime in the middle of the night, he shifted on top of me, his head resting right over my heart.
He’s heavy, but I refuse to move him. I just hold on to him, my dreams moving from sultry to sweet. All featuring him. His eyes, his lips, his body.
When I wake, I stretch and realize he’s not there.
I scramble up, throwing on a pair of sweatpants, before dashing out into the kitchen.
He better not have left. He better stay.
He needs to stay.
My breath leaves my lungs when I see him sitting there at the island surrounded by my mom, Maya, and Desiree. Paulie and Hailey are both absent. Not that I care. I’m just glad Colton didn’t run away.
He glances over his shoulder and sees me standing there, panting, not even wearing a shirt. I didn’t have time to grab one.
“Good morning,” he says softly, and Maya waggles her eyebrows at me.
I flip her off as I make my way forward, lowering myself into the chair next to him. He’s drinking the latte my mom made him, and an empty plate sits next to his elbow.
“Why do you look stressed?” he asks, and I shake my head, unable to speak. “All right, you can tell me later, but uh, I was just telling your family how we met…” That makes my cheeks burst into flames, and he winks at me. “…at a party. You kept watching me, and I just had to say hello.”
“So romantic,” Desiree says, and I hook my ankle around the leg of his chair and drag him closer. If that’s how he remembers the events of that night, so be it. It was more like he tackled me onto the forest floor and made me cum my brains out.
Colton smirks at me, almost as if he can read my mind. Right now, he looks much more like the cocky Colton I know. So fucking hot.
Everyone notices the way my eyes linger. I know they’ll mock me for it, for how smitten I am, but I don’t care. My hand lands on the back of his chair, and I slide my fingers up to the nape of his neck, squeezing it lightly.
He shivers at my touch, taking a sip of his coffee, trying to play it off, but it doesn’t work. I see it.
I want it.
Fuck it.
When he sets his mug down, I reach over, hands encircling his narrow hips, and drag him onto my lap.
A shocked gasp leaves my mom’s lips, and Maya laughs loudly as Colton settles right against me.
“Not a fucking word,” I murmur to everyone, including Colton, but I know it won’t work. Desiree is already gushing, pulling out her phone to take a video of us.
“Look at my brother and his boyfriend. So cute.”
This whole thing is ridiculous. He’s not my boyfriend, but neither of us corrects her, and I don’t move him away from me. He doesn’t try to leave my lap either, just seems to sink into me.
My mom leans forward and hands him his drink, and then meets my gaze.
“You want one, gay son of mine?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then let my thumb sneak under the shirt he’s wearing and touch the warm skin beneath.
I may be gay.
Bisexual? Pan? No clue. I just know I like this guy on my lap.
We spend the rest of the day inseparable.
After a family inquisition around the kitchen island, my mom discreetly hands me a list of things she’d like me to work on outside. I stare down at the note.
The damn vine again. Rip it out like you love your mother.
I sigh and move outside, hearing Colton offering to help. My mom insists he doesn’t need to move a muscle, but he follows me to the shed anyway.
I can feel his eyes on my ass, on my lower back, and I can’t help but ruck up my shirt and drag my shorts down slightly so he can get a better view.
“Fucking tease,” he murmurs. Yeah, I fucking am. But when we get to the shed, he peels his shirt off over his head, and I have to chug water because my throat is so damn dry at the sight.
Those tattoos, the muscles on his abdomen. Each one pops out with a flex, and I wheeze loudly.
How did I not realize that the reason I couldn’t look away at that party was because he was so fucking hot?
There was no other explanation than that.
I was obsessed even then.
“This weed keeps coming back?” Colton asks, pulling me from my thoughts, his gaze landing on the snaking vines moving up the fence. They’ve come back full force. Maybe it’s witchcraft.
“Yeah, we don’t know how the damn thing survives. But it’s the cockroach of plants. I dig it out, and two weeks later, it’s back looking like this.”
He runs a hand over his face and then kneels down, his face right near my cock. It perks up at the sight, but Colton doesn’t look its way. Instead, he sinks his fingers into the soil and pulls at the roots.
“Sounds like someone is planting this. Or at least fertilizing it.”
“What? Who would do that? That’s weird.”
“It is, but there’s no reason it should be coming back as often as you say it does. Maybe your mom is growing it on purpose to get you home?”
My mouth drops open, and I stare down at him.
“Why would she do that?”
“Dunno,” he says, standing up and brushing his palms on his pants. “Maybe she just wants you to feel useful when you come home, or she wants an excuse to get you here.”
That makes my heart twist. Fuck, is that really what it is? She has to know I’d come home anytime. I mean, I could visit more often, but still.
The whole idea is wild to me and something I need to ask her when I have a chance.
But I don’t get one, not right away. When we’re done pulling the vine, my mom calls us over for lunch, a spread of food on the small patio table.
She’s showing off her culinary skills to Colton, and I’m so incredibly proud of her.
When he compliments her on how good everything tastes, it makes me like him ten times more.
This is getting dangerous. So much is at risk.
My heart, my fucking mind.
Everything is on the line.
Colton is oblivious, just spreads his legs as he leans back against the lounge chair, and then points between them.
“Fuck off.”
“Come here, Myles.”
I roll my eyes in defiance, but still grab my plate and sink between his thighs, tilting my head back against his chest.
This. Right here. Feels completely right.
“So, tell me about your major?” my mom asks Colton.
I glance up at him, his fingers brushing against my lips as he feeds me a grape.
I know Maya is smirking, but I don’t look at her. Don’t wanna see her smile.
“I’m in school for business, but I plan on going pro for soccer.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yeah, I’ve been scouted. They want me to start next year. I told them my one stipulation was graduation.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” my mom coos.
“Yeah, I think so. Pretty cool that they think I’m good enough to make it in the big leagues.”
“You are pretty good,” I murmur, and he pinches my side.
“You know I’m better than good. So are you. You could go pro if you wanted to.”
“Nah, I don’t wanna. Just want to get a job and live my life. Play rugby in my free time. Maybe coach it or something.”
“He likes it,” Maya interjects. “But never loved it enough to do it professionally. We all knew this.”
My mom bobs her head, and I close my eyes, just feeling Colton behind me.
He feeds me between different conversations, and after a while, Hailey and Paulie wander out and join us, their eyes tired, their hair a mess.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they spent the night in the same bed, but no one asks them about it because they’re too busy interrogating me, teasing me.
But I take it like I always do, just happy Colton is here, so solid against my back, his skin warm, his hands gingerly touching my shoulders, my chest, and arms. Like he can’t get enough.
When it’s finally time to head back to real life, I loathe that the day is over.
That the bubble we’ve created here will disintegrate the closer we get to campus.
I’ve enjoyed existing without having to worry about people’s lingering glances, their whispered words.
Because I know that is what will happen if people see us together on campus.
Colton Cavanaugh and Myles Witkoff. But even so, it’s time to return to reality, to the place where we belong for the time being.
“Let me know if you find out anything more,” I hear Colton tell Maya, and she salutes him.
So I guess that he’s giving her permission to continue digging.
Thank fuck. Because if what he told me was true and his stepdad is trying to off him while he’s sleeping, then I want the creep placed somewhere he can’t get to him.
Locked up, no key in sight.
Fuck, it makes me rage, possessiveness flooding through me.
No one gets to make him feel small like this, afraid. No one.
Maya’s hand drops to her side, and then she murmurs, “Fuck it,” and pulls Colton into a hug, whispering something into his ear. He swallows roughly and pulls away. A small smile tilts his lips up.
“Thank you.”
“Anything for my brother’s boyfriend.”
That long-drawn-out word makes me blush.
Fuck, why did she have to frame it like that?
She knows I’m unsure about what this is.
I don’t even know if we are boyfriends. Friends even?
I don’t know anything at this point. But as we all embrace, my mom holding on for a little too long, I find Colton’s eyes on me.
That word sits heavily between us.
Boyfriends.
I need to talk to him about what this is when I have a chance. When there are no prying eyes or ears around us. When it can be just us. No pressure. Just the truth.
“Come back soon,” my mom says, pulling me from my thoughts.
I squeeze her tightly and manage to reply, “You don’t need to keep planting the vine to get me home. I’ll come anytime you want me.”
She says nothing, just huffs a small laugh.
I take it as an admission.