Chapter 29
Boyfriend
“Ethan, I was wondering if you—” Josh paused, slack-jawed, the door to my room half open. Whatever he’d been about to ask was clearly driven from his mind as he saw the naked bodies intertwined within my room.
Thankfully, the throes of passion had been over for quite some time. We just hadn’t felt the need to get dressed yet.
“Get out!” I heard myself screeching as if from far away.
Somehow, my hand found a pillow and launched it across the room. It bounced ineffectually off the door.
“Oh my God.” Josh choked through a laugh as he backed out of the room. Then, through the door, he called, “It’s nice to see you, Grey!”
I groaned into Grey’s shoulder. “We should’ve gone to your place.”
Any embarrassment Grey must’ve felt was hidden well behind the grin tugging up the right corner of his mouth. “Might’ve run into a similar issue with Dae being back already.”
Cursing the very concept of roommates, I got to my feet and pulled on my clothes.
A quick glance in the mirror told me that my hair was a tousled mess.
My neck was flushed from exertion and embarrassment and the beginnings of what looked suspiciously like a hickey.
I blinked at that. I’d never had a hickey before in my life.
My neck wasn’t typically a place any of the girls that I’d been with had gone for, and I’d never particularly craved lips there. Until now.
My eyes darted across the room to where Grey was still shirtless, buckling his belt.
I fought down the urge to rip his pants off him again and dive straight back into bed.
There would be time for that later—I was convinced for possibly the first time that a “later” would assuredly happen—and I wasn’t super comfortable with the idea of fooling around with my boyfriend with my roommates aware of our presence.
Boyfriend. That was such a foreign concept to me. I had a boyfriend. And I’d entered the school year with the full intention of hitting on girls and remaining single and going to parties. I let out a snort of laughter. So much had changed in so short a time.
When Grey was decent, we went out to face the wolves—roommates.
I knew we should’ve stayed in bed the moment I saw Kellan’s smirk. He sat on the couch, barefoot and holding a book he hadn’t even bothered to open to pretend to read. And he looked particularly pleased with himself.
“I take it last night went well,” he said smugly. “It was because of the outfit I picked out for him, wasn’t it, Grey?”
Josh smacked Kellan’s arm. “What Kellan means to say is…” He trailed off. For the first time since I’d known him, Josh was at a loss for words.
“Smooth, guys.” My face burned despite the fact that they hadn’t managed to say anything too embarrassing. “Um, I’m just going to go now.”
“I do have band practice in a few,” Grey said gently. “And as much as I’d love for you to be there…”
He’d told me about that at some point last night. Not that I’d managed to remember anything important after Grey had spent the rest of the night and this morning scrambling my brains with sex. “Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll walk you out.”
We left the room, trying our best to ignore the chorus of Josh and Kellan’s oohs that followed us.
Grey turned to me in the hallway. “Last night was probably the best night of my life.”
My cheeks, already warm with embarrassment, flushed with a new wave of heat. “I bet you say that to all your dates,” I said, trying to play coy.
Grey snorted. “You’re impossible sometimes.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you like me.”
“And that you’re cute,” he said with a playful spark in his eye.
That had me leaning up to kiss him. This kiss was different from the others.
It was simple. A goodbye. Something that both of us knew we couldn’t deepen no matter how much we may have wanted to.
And God did I want to. But he had to go, and I could practically hear Kellan and Josh waiting by the door, salivating for details. We pulled away an instant later.
“Have a good rehearsal,” I said.
Grey gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Can’t wait to see you again.”
I smiled. “I don’t suppose you have any plans tonight?”
My roommates were indeed waiting for me on the other side of the door. I’d barely closed it behind me when they assaulted me, grabbing me by the elbows and throwing me into the living room armchair.
“Spill,” Kellan demanded.
The only sound I could produce for a moment was a flustered squawk.
Josh jumped in. “Last night, you made it sound like he was ghosting you, and this morning he’s in your bed. What happened?”
That was enough to launch me into my story about the previous night—from the restaurant, to the ice rink, to the bedroom.
I skipped the more gory and mushy details, but Josh and Kellan read between the lines.
They gasped when I told them how Grey said he wanted to court me and laughed at us kissing as we danced.
“You know, I almost can’t believe it,” Kellan said. “I thought for sure you’d be at best his secret fuck. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d break up with a fake girlfriend so he could be with you in public.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I grumbled.
“Don’t take it like that,” Josh said. “Grey’s life is just way too chaotic. It’d be perfectly reasonable for him to hide parts of his life. How would being with a dude affect his rise to fame, if it happens?”
I flushed. “I guess I didn’t think about that.” And now that I was thinking about it, I worried that Grey had made a huge mistake to be with me. Shit, am I already second-guessing my relationship? It hadn’t even been twelve hours.
“He would’ve left her anyway,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “He basically said as much. He was tired of hiding.”
“Even if that’s true,” Josh said, skeptical and gentle in the same breath, “I wonder if he’s thought this through.”
I bolted to my feet, suddenly heated. “Can you guys just leave it alone for two seconds?”
“Sorry!” Kellan held up his hands at the venom in my voice. “We worry about you, but you’re right. It doesn’t help to speculate on what’s going through that gorgeous head of his.” He winked at me, and my body relaxed. I hadn’t realized how tense my back had been until then.
Josh reached out to grab my shoulder. “I’m sorry too. This is a good thing. No guy would do all this for someone unless he really cared about them.”
Their words eased the anxiety that had begun to bubble up in my chest. “Thank you,” I said, nodding.
They were right. Grey wouldn’t throw his reputation away on a whim.
“Now, go shower,” Kellan said. “I hate to say it, bud, but you smell like sex.”
It was all I could do to suppress an audible groan.
The next few weeks with Grey passed in the most perfect montage.
As the new semester began, we fell easily into the rhythm of classes, followed by one of us meeting the other when they were done, followed by naps or lunch or whatever we decided for that day.
We even spent nights studying together. Outside of class or occasional rehearsals, we were always together.
I often joined Grey when he practiced with his band then at his shows when he performed.
I was always given backstage access—something much less daunting when everyone knew who I was.
I got to know all of Grey’s bandmates pretty well.
Dae, who I’d actually had conversations with before, was the bassist. Lance was the drummer and most chaotic of the bunch.
And Henry played keys. Carina was at a lot of the shows as well since she knew not just Grey but everyone else.
After a few encounters with her, I had to grudgingly admit she was pretty cool when she wasn’t standing as an enormous obstacle between me and Grey.
Time flew by like it does when you want every moment to last forever.
Before I knew it, it was the week before spring break, and we were both in the middle of midterms. True to the new routine we’d established, we were taking the time to study together.
As was becoming more and more common, as my English classes grew increasingly demanding, Grey was finished with his studying before I was even halfway through the mountain of flash cards I’d created for myself.
He sat next to me in silence, scrolling through his phone while I grew increasingly distracted by his proximity.
My eyes kept flicking from my boring cards to the curve of his arm muscles then to his chest and the crook of his neck.
My mouth watered as memories of the taste of his skin flashed to the surface.
Would it really be the end of the world if I flunked my test tomorrow?
“I think I’m done,” I announced, setting down my flash cards.
The corner of Grey’s mouth tugged up into that crooked smile reserved for the times when he was trying to hold back the expression. Somehow, he always seemed to find me unintentionally amusing. “Are you sure? I couldn’t help but notice that you haven’t quite gotten through your deck of cards.”
“Yeah, but it’s mostly fluff. I think I’ve got the majority of it locked in.” I tapped my temple. “I mean, I’ve read all the books, so there shouldn’t be too many surprises.”
“Still, you should probably actually study,” Grey said, still with that crooked smile that made me want to kiss him.
“Is passing even that important?” I asked innocently. “I’d much rather spend the time doing something else.”
“Oh?”
My face went hot at Grey’s question. “Well, yes.”
He leaned closer. “And what did you have in mind?”
His lips were barely an inch from mine, and it took all my self-control not to close the distance. But I had a feeling he was testing me and that he would pull away should I dare to attempt such a move.
“I don’t know.” I knew damn well what I wanted, but I tried to play innocent. “Kissing could be fun.”
A mischievous gleam shone in Grey’s eyes, and he snatched the stack of flash cards from my hand before straddling me.
My throat went dry in an instant as I stared up into Grey’s deep brown eyes.
A shiver ran down my spine. Once again, I questioned if his touch would ever lose its effect on me.
At this point, the answer was probably no.
I strained, trying to reach up and kiss him, but Grey pulled away from me, placing a finger on my lips. Parts of my body still rose to meet him, but neither of us could do much about that outside of a cold shower.
“I’ll tell you what. How about I read the cards to you, and if you get the correct answer, you get a kiss?”
“Or we could just, you know, kiss.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you flunk out of school,” Grey said, momentarily serious. Somehow, he was even sexier that way.
“Ugh, fine,” I said. “Though I’m not sure my brain has the adequate blood flow to think clearly at the moment.”
His smirk was back. “I guess we’ll call this studying on hard mode. No pun intended.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d made a joke out of it, but the truth was that an intense heat was rising in my chest and neck, and a very primal desire weighed heavy in the back of my mind.
My muscles were taut to the point of trembling as adrenaline slammed through my veins.
The room felt hot and cold at the same time.
Focusing on anything other than sex would be… difficult.
“All right.” Grey cleared his throat, suddenly very serious except for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.
How can he focus? Shouldn’t he be as flustered as I am? Maybe he was just better at hiding it.
“The first question: ‘In The Invisible Man, which phrase does the protagonist accidentally say during his post-battle royal oration?’”
My mind was vacant except for the static of white noise and desire and the dull knowledge that my cock was currently pressed against Grey’s thigh.
“Um,” I said stupidly as I realized I needed to actually know this information.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, the answer came to me. “Social equality?” I half guessed.
A mischievous glint sparked in Grey’s eye. “Is that a question?”
“I don’t have a better answer.”
He cupped my face with his hands, the flash cards pressing into my skin. “Luckily for you, that was correct.”
The air was hot between us, and I tilted my face up to meet his lips. Grey gave me a quick peck before pulling away.
“Next question,” he continued, and I stifled a groan of disappointment. This was going to be the longest study session of my life. “In The Invisible Man, how does the protagonist get out of the battle royal?”
My lips quirked into a smile. I knew the answer to this one. “He’s knocked down while debating whether to throw the match.”
“Right again.” Grey leaned in to kiss me, and the kiss lasted a few seconds longer than the first.
My lips parted, and before I could really start kissing him back, he pulled away, all business again.
“Back to The Invisible Man,” he said. “What does the protagonist’s grandfather tell his family on his deathbed?”
I didn’t remember what my answer was. Whatever I said must’ve been correct because Grey kissed me again.
This time, he didn’t break away. His lips parted mine, and he let out a sigh of relief as he relinquished the control he’d been exerting by keeping me on track with studying.
It wasn’t until his sigh that I realized just how much self-control it must’ve taken him.
I knew how hard it had been for me, but he’d made it seem so easy. It turned out he was just a good faker.
His tongue traced my bottom lip as I fell back, Grey on top of me. It looked like studying would have to wait a bit.