Chapter 23 #2
The nickname I gifted him last semester slips out without permission, but I’m too far gone to care.
Jackson goes taut beneath my hands, every single muscle in his body locking up at once.
His roller skate thumps against the tile with this frantic, arrhythmic energy, and then he’s gone, lost in it, moaning hoarsely into the crook of my neck.
I feel the wet heat burst between us, and never has it felt so good. So…right. I can’t tell whose pulse is hammering harder right now, his or mine.
The knowledge that I shoved him over that edge—that I’m the one unmaking Jackson Monroe—turns my brain inside out.
I can’t hold back any longer. I rut against him, mindless, greedy, shameless about the way I grind myself into the heat of his body.
My whole self funnels into a pinpoint of sensation: the drag of his rough hands yanking my waistband down, the calluses on his palms scraping my ass, the way his spent dick is still pressed to mine, softening but refusing to give up.
There’s a split second before I come where everything goes white. My eyes roll back, my knees buckle, and I’m making these noises I’ve never made in my life—raw, needy, ugly.
I burrow my face into Jackson’s shoulder and bite down on the seam of his hoodie to keep from screaming, and yet I do anyway. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—oh, god—Jackson—I—FUCKKKK MEEEE!” My voice is wrecked beyond recognition.
I ride the wave until my legs threaten to give out completely. I only stay upright because Jackson wraps both arms around me and clamps down, his blunt, wet mouth pressed against my ear.
The world starts to fuzz at the edges. I’m vaguely aware of the stench of sweat and sex permeating the stale air.
I hear the faint slap of the stall door as it rocks from the impact of us, the distant thump of wheels on the rink outside, and—somehow, impossibly—Jackson laughing, this tiny, sated hiccup of joy.
His hands trace my spine in lazy, trembling lines.
I can’t stop shivering, though I’m burning hot and sticky and spent.
I want to say something—anything—but my mouth won’t work.
My brain fries every sentence before it can reach escape velocity.
I’m suddenly, brutally aware that if someone walked in, we’d be caught like this: my spandex pants just below my ass, Jackson with his hoodie rucked up, both of us looking like we’d just been hit by a bus.
But I don’t care. I can’t care. I want to live in this moment—this stall, this mess, this afterglow—forever.
When I finally have the strength to pull back, I take in Jackson’s eyes. They’re glassy and wild, and his lips are swollen from my kisses.
I should say something. Apologize, maybe, or make a joke. But my brain is still offline, and all I can do is stare at my best friend in wonder.
“Well,” Jackson says, voice rough. “That’s one way to work off performance anxiety.”
The joke breaks something in me, and I let out a shaky laugh. “I didn’t plan that.”
“I know. Me neither. But it happened. This will be great for making the Ice Queen believe what we have is real.”
Right. Because that’s what’s important—selling the lie.
He isn’t interested in me the way I am in him. To Jackson, this was a momentary lapse, a blip in his heterosexuality. Biology at work.
“Got any brilliant ideas for this?” He gestures to the large wet spot on the front of his spandex pants. The dark purple does wonders at hiding the evidence, but it won’t be enough under the rink’s bright lights.
I grab a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and wet them in the sink. “We clean up the best we can and hope no one looks too close.”
We work in silence, dabbing at the evidence of our mutual loss of control. It’s weirdly intimate, taking care of each other this way, and I have to focus on the task at hand to keep from doing something stupid like humping him again.
When we’re as presentable as we’re going to get, Jackson checks his reflection in the grimy mirror. “Do I still look like I just got dry humped in a roller rink bathroom?”
“Little bit,” I admit. His hair is a mess, his lips are still swollen, and there’s a mark on his neck that might be from my mouth. “But in a hot way.”
He rolls his eyes, but I catch the pleased flush on his cheeks. “Come on. They’re probably thinking we died in here.”
We exit the bathroom to find Gerard and Elliot waiting by the skate rental counter.
“There you are!” Gerard exclaims. “We thought you’d—” He stops, eyes narrowing as he takes in our disheveled appearance. “Oh, snickers. You totally banged in the bathroom, didn’t you?”
“We did not,” I say automatically. “It was just heavy making out.”
“How sweet,” Gerard says, ignoring Elliot’s eye roll. “Young love expressing itself through bathroom hookups. Tale as old as time.”
“Can we maybe discuss this later?” Jackson asks, taking his hand in mine and making my dick twitch, despite what it just went through. “It looks like the rest of the guys performed, and the judges are about to announce the winners.”
Glancing at the clock, I realize that Jackson and I were in there for way longer than it felt.
“Alright, party people! Our judges have deliberated, and it’s time to announce the winner,” says the DJ.
The crowd leans in closer, and I spot Sarah Piper with her phone out. Nathan appears on my other side, still shell-shocked from his performance with Gerard.
“The winners of the roller disco competition are…Oliver and Mason!”
No surprise there. The crowd goes wild as Oliver accepts the trophy with his typical captain’s grace. Mason stands beside him, grinning as though he’s won the Stanley Cup. They deserve it—their performance was a masterclass in how to have public sex without having public sex.
And then, the temperature in the rink drops about twenty degrees as Elliot turns on the judges with the slow, deliberate movements of a predator who’s spotted wounded prey. “Do you have any concept of technical difficulty? Of musicality? Of basic fucking competence?”
“Oh, shit,” I mutter to Jackson. “He’s going full Elliot.”
The college kids shrink back in their folding chairs. One even scoots backward with a screech that echoes through the suddenly silent rink.
“We based our scores on—” the middle judge starts, but Elliot cuts them off with a gesture so sharp it could slice bread.
“On what? Your three collective brain cells?” He advances on the table.
“The criteria clearly stated—” another judge tries.
“Don’t you dare spout criteria at me!” Elliot’s vibrating with rage now. “I’ve read every judging handbook from the International Roller Sports Federation.”
That’s when Gerard finally glides across the rink like some kind of pink spandex-clad superhero to the table where Elliot’s mid-rant about the history of competitive roller skating.
“—and the mere fact that you would prioritize cheap theatrics over genuine artistic expression shows a fundamental misunderstanding of—Gerard, put me down!”
Gerard, in one smooth motion, bends down and tosses Elliot over his shoulder. Elliot’s hands flail for purchase.
“Time to go, baby,” Gerard says cheerfully, heading for the exit.
“I’m not finished!” Elliot shrieks, but his position—ass in the air, face somewhere around Gerard’s lower back—somewhat undermines his authority. “They need to understand the gravity of their incompetence! You were supposed to win!”
What happens next is possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Elliot, in his fury, starts pounding his fists against the only thing he can reach—Gerard’s spandex-covered ass. But instead of having any effect, each punch only makes Gerard’s glutes jiggle and bounce like Jello molds.
“Holy shit,” I wheeze, grabbing Jackson’s arm. “He’s playing Gerard’s ass like bongos!”
“Gerard Anthony Gunnarson, you put me down this instant!” Elliot demands between strikes. “I have valid criticisms of their scoring methodology!”
“Keep going, babe,” Gerard calls over his shoulder. “The massage feels nice!”
The entire rink loses it. People double over laughing, capturing every second of Elliot’s bongo solo on Gerard’s ass with their phones. Even the judges have relaxed now that the immediate threat of death-by-Elliot has passed.
“This is quality content,” Sarah Piper shouts from somewhere in the crowd. “The Ice Queen could never!”
Elliot must hear her because his drumming intensifies. “Don’t you dare compare me to that amateur blogger! I’m making a legitimate point here!”
“Sure you are, baby,” Gerard says. “Wave bye to everyone!”
“I will not wave! I will sue! I will—” Whatever threat Elliot is about to make gets cut off as Gerard pushes through the doors and heads out into the parking lot.
“A shame we didn’t win,” Jackson says quietly.
I shrug, trying not to let my disappointment show. It was a long shot, but I had a smidge of hope.
“Does anyone want to go see a movie with me?” Nathan asks. “I need new memories to replace the ones from tonight.”
“You did great,” I tell him, trying not to laugh. “Really sold the whole thing.”
“I wasn’t selling anything! I was dying!” He shudders. “Do you know how close my face was to his…to that…?”
“We all saw, buddy.”
“I can still smell the spandex,” Nathan whispers, and now I do laugh.
The crowd disperses, and Jackson and I return our skates. As we push through the exit doors, I hear a distant shriek that sounds suspiciously like Elliot yelling something about proper scoring rubrics.
“Think Gerard needs backup?” Jackson asks.
“Nah. He’s probably already distracting Elliot with promises of letting him toss his salad or something.” The cold night air chills me to the bone the further we walk through the parking lot, quenching the burning within me.
What happened in that bathroom was reckless and stupid, exactly the kind of thing I shouldn’t have done with Jackson. He deserves better than quick fumbles in dirty stalls. He deserves romance and real dates and all the shit I don’t know how to give.
But when we stop in front of my car, and he kisses me on the cheek and says, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Drew,” I let myself fleetingly believe that this is real, and it doesn’t have an expiration date.
At least until the wet spot in my tights reminds me that I’m the same fuck-up I’ve always been, taking what I want without thinking about the consequences.