Chapter 6
brETT
Sunday morning, I woke up tangled in Miles. His arm was across my chest, his chin tucked toward his own shoulder, breathing slowly and evenly. Still asleep.
He was really quite cute. I’d registered that before in a way I kept shoving into a drawer and sitting on.
But up close in the early light, it was harder to be casual about.
Lean and fit, shorter than me by about half a foot, with the kind of quiet physical confidence that had nothing to do with the gym and everything to do with just being comfortable in his own skin.
His face was completely relaxed in sleep.
No flat calm, no controlled expression. He was just a person.
A person I was feeling a lot for lately.
My face had been nuzzled somewhere between his chest and his armpit.
I gave him one small, private sniff before I could stop myself. I smelled something sweet underneath the faint overnight sweat. Clean and warm, and distinctly him. I committed it to memory for later.
Then I slipped out from under his arm, and left.
I couldn’t face him in the daylight. Not with the taste of him still sitting on my tongue.
Not with the memory of his finger working inside me, that white-hot pressure against that spot that had made my whole nervous system short-circuit.
Not with any of it sitting that fresh and unprocessed in my chest.
I went back to my dorm and crawled into bed.
Occasionally, the memory would flash back, uninvited.
The weight of him in my mouth. The smell of him.
The low way he’d said “good boy” in the dark like it was the most natural thing in the world.
My cage registered its opinion about all of this immediately and thoroughly. I tried to ignore it.
Miles texted around noon.
You okay?
I tapped a thumbs-up emoji and put my phone face-down.
On Monday, he texted again. Same reply. I could feel him being patient about it on the other end. Somehow, that was worse than if he’d pushed.
By Tuesday, I was going stir crazy in my own skull.
When Dane texted about meeting up for pool with the guys, I responded with a yes immediately.
Anything. Anywhere that wasn’t my own four walls and the low, persistent thrum between my legs, and the memory of Miles’ ceiling at two in the morning.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out.
The guys were exactly what I needed. They were loud and easy, uncomplicated, everyone talking over each other about nothing that mattered.
Dane hugged me with one arm, and studied my face just a half second too long. I looked away before he could get a read.
We racked up and started playing. For a while, it was good. Just the crack of the break, and trash talk, and someone’s bad music coming from the corner speaker. It felt normal and safe.
Then Dane leaned on his cue and asked, “So, where’ve you been hiding all week?”
“Busy,” I said.
“Busy with what?”
“Just stuff. School.”
He let it sit. I thought I was clear.
Ten minutes later, lining up a shot, he asked, “What actually happened with that dare?”
I didn’t look up. “We ended up playing a drinking game. I drank him under the table. Of course.”
“You didn’t invite us over to help destroy the guy?”
“It wasn’t a big deal.” I took my shot. “Drop it.”
Here’s a fact about human nature I’ve confirmed repeatedly over twenty-one years of living: nobody has ever once dropped it when asked to drop it. Not once. Not in recorded history.
Dane didn’t drop it.
He kept picking at the edges of it, casual, the way he did when he already suspected something and was just waiting for a crack to appear. I felt the heat creeping up my neck, and focused very hard on the table.
“I gotta take a piss,” I said finally, setting my cue down.
I disappeared into the bathroom and stopped dead in front of the urinals. Three of them were in a row, and two other guys were already standing on both ends, minding their own business.
Not a chance.
I ducked into the stall, locked it, and unzipped.
When I pulled out my caged cock, I looked down with a sigh that came from somewhere deep and defeated.
With my dick packed tight in steel, small and useless, my balls looked bigger by a considerable margin.
Four days ago, I held a house record at this place.
Now I was crouching over a toilet like I had something to hide.
But I did have something to hide.
As the urine flowed, the relief was immediate and significant. Then, the bathroom door opened, and I knew the footsteps instantly.
I forced myself to stop mid-flow. My bladder screamed. I stuffed everything back into my underwear and zipped up with trembling hands.
“Why are you in a stall?” Dane was standing right outside the door.
I looked back and caught his eye through the slat. He was just standing there, watching me.
“What the fuck is your problem? Can’t a guy get some privacy?”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on. You’ve been different.”
I flung the door open, shouldered past him, and went to the sink. “Nothing’s different. Maybe I should be asking what’s going on with you. You’re the one following guys into the bathroom.”
I dried my hands and walked out.
He came in hot right behind me.
“You’re hiding something.” He said it loud enough that the guys stopped playing. Heads turned. I felt the attention land on me like a hand on my shoulder, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want it.
I turned and looked him dead in the eye. “That’s enough. Drop it, or I’m leaving. I don’t do this drama bullshit.”
“You know Miles is gay, right?” Dane announced it like it was some huge revelation.
“Okay,” I said. “And?”
“You’re hiding something.”
“Everyone’s hiding something.”
“Damn it, Brett! Stop playing games. I want to know why you’re hanging out with a fa—”
“A what?”
The voice came from behind me.
I turned around.
Miles was standing just inside the doorway, jacket on, hands in his pockets, looking completely in control of the situation. I knew that expression well by now.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Dane said, stepping into Miles’ space. His chest was puffed out, jaw set, the full physical intimidation package. It would have worked... on most people.
Miles didn’t move an inch.
“I think it does concern me,” Miles said. “You were just talking about me. I heard everything.”
“What, are you stalking us now?”
Miles laughed. “You think you own this place? I come here too, in case you forgot.”
“Guys.” I stepped forward. “Just drop it.”
Miles’ eyes flicked to mine. One quick look that said clearly and without words: I’ve got this. Stay out of it.
I stayed out of it.
“We don’t want you here,” Dane said. He shoved Miles hard into the brick pillar behind him.
Miles shoved back.
I couldn’t believe this quiet, precise, geometry-obsessed math student had just shoved Dane without a single moment of hesitation. No calculation, no fear. Just scrappy, immediate, completely fearless retaliation.
Dane’s face went dark. His arm pulled back, fist loaded, aimed straight at Miles’ jaw.
I stepped inside the punch and took it clean on the eye socket.
The impact was extraordinary. A white explosion, instant ringing, the specific deep pain of knuckle meeting bone.
I heard myself yell in pain. The room tilted briefly and then righted itself, and I stood there blinking in the sudden, strange clarity of someone who has just been hit very hard.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
Dane’s hand was on my shoulder immediately. “Brett! Brett, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
I turned and looked at him. Really looked. At his face, the crowd watching, the whole stupid mess of it.
“No,” I said. “I’m not okay. What is wrong with you?”
“I just—” He opened his mouth. Closed it. Nothing came out.
Then Miles slung his arm around my shoulder from the other side. He was shorter than I was, leaner, and somehow in that moment, he felt like the most solid thing in the room.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
I let him steer me toward the door.
Dane reached for my arm. Miles turned and looked at him. Just looked with that flat, patient, utterly immovable stare that projected all his quiet confidence without uttering a word.
Dane let go.
We walked out into the crisp night air, and the door swung shut behind us. I stood on the sidewalk with one eye already throbbing, and Miles’ arm still around me. I felt something shift in my chest that I wasn’t going to be able to shove back in a drawer this time.