Chapter 11 #3
Maybe two.
Enough.
The waistband of his khakis gaped slightly, and there, visible for maybe three seconds before he settled back into his seat, was a strip of fabric that was definitely, absolutely not white cotton.
Charcoal grey.
The grey ones.
He was wearing them.
My brain completely short-circuited. Because intellectually, I'd known there was a chance he might actually wear them. I'd hoped he would. That was the entire point.
But knowing it and seeing the evidence were two catastrophically different things.
Jesse Miller was sitting across from me in the library, discussing the Bill of Rights, wearing underwear I'd bought him. Had chosen them this morning, put them on, made that decision.
"Adrian?"
I blinked. Jesse was looking at me with that confused expression that meant I'd been staring into space too long.
"Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you agreed with Kennedy's framing in Lawrence—that the case doesn't involve whether the government must give formal recognition to relationships."
Right. Constitutional law. We were discussing constitutional law.
Not the fact that Jesse was wearing my underwear.
Not the fact that I'd seen proof.
Not the fact that he'd made that choice.
"Yeah," I managed. "Kennedy's trying to thread a needle there. Striking down sodomy laws without opening the door to marriage equality. Which obviously didn't work long-term, but—"
Jesse shifted in his seat, adjusting his position, and I lost my train of thought completely.
Was he aware I'd seen? Or had it been unconscious, his body more comfortable now, less rigidly controlled?
He looked good. Relaxed—or as relaxed as Jesse got. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. His hair was slightly mussed from running his hands through it. And he was wearing the underwear I'd chosen for him.
I was in serious trouble.
"But?" Jesse prompted.
"But the logic was always unstable," I continued, forcing myself to focus on his face.
"You can't say people have a fundamental right to intimate association and then say the government has no obligation to recognize those associations.
The conservative justices saw it coming. That's why the dissents were so—"
Jesse leaned forward, elbows on the table, completely engaged. "Do you think Kennedy knew? That he was setting up Obergefell?"
"I think Kennedy's a romantic who believes in dignity and liberty, and he was willing to take incremental steps."
"That's not really an answer."
"No," I admitted. "But it's what I believe."
Jesse smiled, small and genuine, and my heart did something complicated.
He had no idea what he looked like right now—arguing constitutional law with actual passion in his voice, wearing underwear he'd chosen for himself.
No idea that I was completely gone for him.
We worked in silence for a few minutes, Jesse taking notes in his careful handwriting, me pretending to read the same paragraph repeatedly.
I shouldn't say anything. It would embarrass him. Make this weird. He deserved to have this private choice without me making it into a thing.
But apparently my mouth had other ideas.
"Grey's a good colour on you," I said quietly.
Jesse's pen stopped moving. He didn't look up. "What?"
"Just saying. It's a good choice."
For a moment, nothing. Jesse sat perfectly still, face angled down toward his notes. Then, slowly, colour crept up his neck. Not his usual full-face flush. Something subtler. More aware.
"You saw," he said. Not a question.
"Accidentally."
"Adrian—"
"Hey." I kept my voice low. The library wasn't crowded, but there were other students around. "I'm not making fun of you. I meant it. Good choice."
Jesse finally looked up, and the expression on his face was complicated. Embarrassed, yes. But also something else. Something that looked almost like pride.
"I wore the black ones yesterday," he said, so quietly I almost didn't hear him.
The air left my lungs.
"Yeah?"
"And the navy on Tuesday."
Jesus Christ.
"Haven't tried the burgundy yet," Jesse continued, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Saving those."
"For what?"
Jesse's smile widened fractionally. "Haven't decided yet, a special occasion probably."
We stared at each other across the table, constitutional law forgotten. The library hummed around us—keyboards clicking, pages turning—but all I could hear was my own heartbeat.
Jesse Miller was flirting with me.
About underwear.
In the library.
And he knew exactly what he was doing.
"You're killing me," I said.
"Good," Jesse replied, and went back to his notes like he hadn't just destroyed my entire world.
I tried to focus on Lawrence v. Texas. Really tried.
But all I could think about was Jesse standing in his apartment, trying on different pairs. Making choices. Choosing grey for today. Saving burgundy for something undefined.
Learning to want things.
I grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote carefully:
Burgundy would be worth the wait.
I slid it across the table.
Jesse read it. Blushed properly this time, that full-face colour I'd come to recognize. Looked at me with wide eyes that were half-scandalized, half-delighted.
Then he carefully folded the note and tucked it into his textbook.
"We should get back to work," he said primly.
"Absolutely."
Neither of us got anything done for the rest of the session.
When we packed up to leave, Jesse's shirt rode up again as he reached for his bag.
This time, I was certain it wasn't an accident.
He caught me looking and smiled.
I was so completely fucked.
"You're being responsible," Elijah observed Thursday evening, looking up from his psychology textbook as I walked into the living room. "I'm impressed and concerned."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you've been spending three nights a week in the library with Jesse Miller for two weeks, and you haven't once tried to seduce him with your considerable charm. You're actually helping him learn constitutional law instead of using it as elaborate foreplay."
Phoenix looked up from where they were painting their nails electric blue. "Wait, you're really not trying to seduce him? What's the point then?"
"The point is helping him think critically about legal issues so we can give a good presentation," I said, dropping into my usual spot near the window.
"Bullshit," Sam said from the kitchen doorway. "The point is that you're gone on him and you know pushing too hard will scare him off."
They weren’t wrong. Over the past two weeks, I’d catalogued every seismic shift in Jesse—the way his laughter burst free now when something genuinely amused him, how his arguments developed teeth as he learned to trust his own mind.
And God, the touching. The brush of his knee against mine under the library table, the way his fingers would linger when passing me a highlighter, that electric moment when he’d laced our hands together and held on.
But I’d also memorized the aftermath—how his breath would go shallow after each contact, like he’d sprinted up five flights of stairs.
The way he’d compulsively straighten his collar or adjust his watchband afterward, as if recalibrating his physical boundaries.
Even now, after all this, his fingertips still trembled when they skimmed mine.
He wanted. But wanting wasn’t the same as being ready.
"He’s not ready," I said finally, pressing my thumb against the condensation on my Dr Pepper can—anything to ground myself.
Phoenix flopped onto the couch armrest. "For what? A torrid library makeout session? Because I’ve seen the way he looks at you. That boy is—"
"For the consequences," I interrupted. My voice came out sharper than intended. "Every time we touch, he’s not just deciding to touch me. He’s deciding to betray twenty-one years of doctrine. Every glance, every laugh—it’s another brick pulled from the wall his entire life is built on.
" I dragged a hand through my hair. "He needs to choose when it falls. "
The room went quiet. Diana set down her knitting needles with deliberate care.
"You’re saying..." Elijah frowned. "You’re actually stopping yourself? Even though he’s initiating?"
I thought of Jesse’s hand gripping mine under the table—equal parts desperation and wonder. How he’d stared at our joined fingers like he was simultaneously horrified and enthralled.
"It’s not about stopping," I said quietly. "It’s about not being the one who pulls him over the edge. When he jumps—and he will—it has to be because he chose to." I met their eyes one by one. "No one gets to decide that for him. Not even me."
Especially not me. Not when I wanted it so badly my hands ached with the restraint.
Elijah closed his textbook and looked at me with that penetrating stare. "What changed? Two weeks ago, you were talking about strategic manipulation and forced intellectual confrontation. Now you're worried about his emotional well-being and moving at his pace."
I thought about Jesse's laugh on Friday night, about the way his eyes lit up when he understood a complicated constitutional principle, about the courage it had taken for him to research opposition arguments and admit they were weaker than he'd expected.
"I got to know him," I said simply. "And he's not who I thought he was. Or maybe he's exactly who I thought he was, but buried under so much programming that it took time to see it."
"But?" Elijah prompted.
"But he's also fragile. Not weak—fragile. Like someone who's been holding themselves together through sheer force of will, and one wrong push could shatter everything." I looked around at my friends, these people who'd become my chosen family. "I don't want to be the person who breaks him."
Diana was quiet for a moment, then said, "You're in love with him."
"I'm—" I started to deny it, then stopped. Because was I? Was this feeling in my chest, this protective tenderness mixed with fierce admiration and overwhelming attraction, love?
"Maybe," I admitted. "Maybe I am."