Chapter 8
OLIVER
Present Day
What do you get when twenty hockey players creep across a moonlit campus in various stages of buffoonery? The world’s worst special ops unit.
Gerard trips over a decorative shrub and face-plants into a bed of petunias.
“Shhhh!” Drew hisses, even though Gerard’s muffled faux-swearing is echoing across the quad.
“I’m fine,” Gerard whisper-shouts, spitting out a mouthful of mulch. “The bush attacked me.”
“The bush was stationary,” Kyle mutters, hauling Gerard upright by the back of his hoodie. “You attacked yourself.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and do a quick headcount. Everyone’s accounted for. “Move out,” I whisper, gesturing toward the science building. “Stay low, stay quiet, and Gerard, stay away from the landscaping.”
We advance with Kyle stumbling into Drew, who trips over Mason, who’s too busy making finger guns at Francisco to notice that Will has stopped dead in his tracks to tie his shoe.
Meanwhile, Sebastian has decided that military hand signals are necessary.
Jordan does dramatic combat rolls between the trees, his towel flapping behind him like a cape.
Nathan army-crawls across the grass for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.
Drew falls into step beside me as we pass the library, his eyes scanning the darkness ahead. Ahead of us, Gerard is now leading a subset of freshmen in what appears to be an interpretive dance representing “sneaking.” It involves a lot of exaggerated tiptoeing and jazz hands.
“Gerard,” I hiss. “What are you doing?”
“Being stealthy!”
“You’re being a Looney Tunes character.”
“Same thing!”
Kyle materializes at Gerard’s elbow and physically redirects him away from another decorative shrub.
“Do you think Ryan is going to skinny-dip?” Drew asks. “Or will he be a silent observer with Alex?”
I glance back at Alex—Kyle’s perpetual shadow and the shyest member of our family.
“You know Kyle won’t let Alex participate even if he wanted to,” Drew adds. “That man guards him like he’s made of spun glass.”
“Kyle guards everyone like they’re made of spun glass. It’s his love language.”
We round the corner of the humanities building, and the rec center looms on the horizon, a hulking shadow against the night sky.
Blue light ripples through its glass walls, casting watery reflections across the lawn.
The emergency lights inside transform the pool into something both forbidden and beckoning.
Behind us, someone—I’m pretty sure it’s Mason—starts humming the Mission: Impossible theme.
“Can you not?” Kyle snaps.
“It’s atmospheric!”
“It’s annoying.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Wow. Devastating comeback. Did you workshop that?”
Pivoting on my heel, I face my ragtag band of hockey misfits while continuing to move toward our target. “Okay, listen up. Security passed twelve minutes ago. It’ll be a while before they loop back. We will go in through the side entrance, single file.”
Francisco produces a student ID card with a flourish. “Borrowed from a friend who works maintenance. Should get us in.”
We approach the side entrance in something resembling order. Francisco swipes the card, and the lock clicks open with a satisfying beep. One by one, we head through, bare feet and flip-flops slapping against the tile floor.
“Holy shit,” one of the freshmen breathes. “It’s beautiful.”
“Less talking, more stripping,” Drew announces, already yanking his shirt over his head. “Last one in has to mow the lawn next week.”
That gets everyone moving. I hang back slightly, watching my friends shed their clothes with a casual shamelessness that only comes from years of locker-room camaraderie.
Within seconds, Gerard’s naked and cannonballing into the deep end, his whoop of joy reverberating off the walls.
Drew follows with a running dive that’s more splash than form.
Kyle positions himself near Alex, arms crossed, like a bouncer at an exclusive club.
“You can sit on the bench if you want,” he tells him.
Alex glances at the pool, then at Kyle, then at his own feet. “Maybe just my feet?”
“Feet are fine. Feet are good.” Kyle’s expression softens in a way he’d deny if anyone pointed it out. “I’ll sit with you.”
My heart swells at the sight. Kyle’s prickliness hides a core of pure protectiveness, and watching him take care of Alex reminds me why I love this team so much.
I finally start stripping once everyone else has made the plunge. My hoodie goes first, then my shirt, both folded neatly on a nearby bench because I’m not a complete heathen. My shorts follow, leaving me in my boxers as the cool air raises goosebumps across my skin.
The water churns with splashing bodies and muffled laughter. Gerard’s synchronized swimming routine with Sebastian involves way too much hip movement. Drew’s floating on his back, staring up at the ceiling with a blissed-out expression.
I hook my thumbs into the waistband of my boxers and bend down to shuck them off when a low whistle cuts through the air behind me.
I spring upright and whip around to find Jackson and Ryan standing five feet away. Jackson’s wearing a shit-eating grin, and Ryan is red-faced and desperately trying to find anywhere else to look.
“Damn, Jacoby,” Jackson drawls, crossing his arms over his chest. “That hockey butt’s looking bigger than the full moon outside.”
I’m suddenly very aware that my boxers are around my ankles and everything God gave me is on full display. My hands fly to cup my junk with what I hope is casual confidence.
“Jackson.” I clear my throat. “Glad you could make it.” My eyes slide to Ryan, who’s now studying the ceiling tiles. “You too, Ryan.”
“Thanks for the invite.” Jackson’s grin doesn’t waver. “Even though it was technically Drew.”
“Jackson!” Drew’s voice echoes from the pool. “Get your pretty ass in here!”
Jackson doesn’t need to be told twice. He strips easily, comfortable with being naked around us, thanks to the Ice Queen’s scheming last semester. He launches himself into the pool, sending a tidal wave crashing over Gerard’s head.
And then it’s just Ryan and me.
Yin and yang. Nude and not-nude.
The silence stretches between us, broken only by the splashing in the pool and Gerard’s indignant sputtering about chlorine in his eyes.
“So,” I say, because someone has to break the ice, and apparently, that someone is going to be the naked guy. “You came.”
Ryan’s gaze drops from the ceiling to my face. His cheeks are still flushed, the color spreading down his neck and disappearing beneath his collar.
“Jackson insisted.” His voice comes out strained. “He said it would be good for me to…participate in things.” He swallows hard. “Though I’m starting to question his judgment.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes me. It’s the most words Ryan has said to me in two years, and they’re happening while I’m standing here with my hand on my junk like some kind of obscene garden statue.
“You don’t have to get in,” I tell him, nodding toward where Kyle and Alex are sitting with their feet dangling in the water.
“Kyle’s keeping Alex company. No pressure. ”
Ryan’s eyes flick to the guys, then back to me. Something shifts in his expression—determination, maybe, or resignation. It’s hard to tell in the blue-tinged darkness.
“I didn’t come all this way to sit on a bench,” he says quietly.
My heart skips, then races, then seems to expand against my ribs like it’s trying to reach him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He reaches for the top button of his shirt, and his fingers tremble slightly. “Just…maybe turn around? Please?”
“Oh! Right. Yeah. Absolutely.” My body whips around, heels skidding across the slick surface with a sound like a dolphin's squeak.
Behind me, a button pops free. Then another. A zipper's teeth. Shoes tap against tile.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“I know I’ve been avoiding you.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
I want to turn around and see his face, to understand what’s happening in this moment. But he asked me not to look, so I don’t. “You don’t have to apologize. People change. Lives go in different directions. I get it.”
“That’s not—” Ryan makes a frustrated sound. “It’s complicated.”
“Life usually is.”
A splash from the pool draws my attention. Drew has climbed onto Gerard’s shoulders, and they’re attempting to play chicken with Jackson on Sebastian’s shoulders.
“You can turn around now.”
I do, slowly, and my heart stutters at the sight before me.
Ryan stands at the pool’s edge, his lean frame pale in the underwater light.
He’s hugging himself slightly, shoulders curved inward in that familiar protective posture I remember from childhood.
But he’s here. He’s present. And choosing to be vulnerable in a way I never expected.
And that’s when I notice them. The underwear.
They’re not boxer briefs, not trunks, not any of the standard-issue undergarments that college guys typically wear.
They’re tighty-whities. The vintage kind, with the thick elastic waistband and the Y-front, which went out of style sometime during my parents’ formative years.
They cling to Ryan’s narrow hips, riding high on his thighs.
Something twists in my gut. Not judgment, but recognition.
I flashback to a ten-year-old Ryan in swim trunks with anchor patterns.
To the kid who buttoned his shirt to the second-from-top button because that was as rebellious as he got.
To the boy whose socks were always pulled up to mid-calf, whose every article of clothing was a uniform in a war he never enlisted for.
Ryan’s dad didn’t just pick his underwear when he was a kid.
He’s still picking it. Or, more accurately, the man drilled his preferences so deep into Ryan’s psyche that even at twenty, away at college, standing half-naked in front of his peers, Ryan Abrams is wearing the underwear his militant father deemed appropriate.
As my eyes trace the clean lines of those ridiculous, old-fashioned briefs against Ryan’s pale skin, something stirs. And I don’t mean emotionally. I mean physically. South-of-the-border physically.
What the fuck?
The white cotton hugging Ryan’s hips shouldn’t be doing this to me. It’s underwear. It’s dad-approved underwear. It’s the least sexy garment in the history of undergarments. So why has my brain decided that Ryan Abrams in tighty-whities is the hill it wants to die on?
My hand, which was providing modest coverage a moment ago, is rapidly becoming insufficient for the task. In approximately three seconds, I’m going to have a situation that no amount of casual hand placement can disguise.
Pool, Oliver. Now.
“Be right back!” I blurt, and before Ryan can respond, I pivot and launch myself into the deep end. The water hits me in a full-body slap, cold enough to make my lungs seize but not, tragically, cold enough to solve my seven-inch problem. I surface, gasping, and shake water from my eyes.
“Smooth entrance, Cap,” Drew calls from across the pool, where he’s still perched on Gerard’s shoulders. “Real elegant.”
“Shut up.”
I tread water for a moment, letting the chill work its magic.
My heart is hammering, and not just from the plunge.
I chance a glance back at the pool’s edge.
Ryan hasn’t moved. He’s watching me with an expression that’s equal parts amusement and uncertainty.
The blue light from the pool dances across his skin, and his glasses are slightly fogged from the humidity.
He looks small and absolutely terrified.
He also looks unfairly good in those tighty-whities, but I pull a Daniel Torrance and shove that thought into a mental lockbox, welding it shut.
I swim to the edge closest to him, the water lapping at my chest, safely concealing everything below my collarbones. I rest my forearms on the pool deck and stare up at him.
“Hey,” I say, as though I didn’t just fling myself into the water like a man fleeing a crime scene.
“Hey.” His toes curl against the wet tile. His eyes ping pong around the room before settling on me.
I remember a July afternoon from a decade ago. A kid who couldn’t swim. A promise I made on sun-bleached concrete.
I pull one arm out of the water and extend my hand to him, palm up, fingers open. Water drips from my wrist onto the tile between us.
“Come in with me,” I say. Simple. No pressure. Just an invitation.
Ryan stares at my hand. His throat works, and I watch the war play out across his face—the fear, the want, the years of distance compressed into the three feet of air between my wet fingertips and his dry ones.
“The water’s not bad once you’re in,” I add. “And I promise there are no sharks.”
Something flickers in his eyes. A memory, maybe. A ten-year-old on pool steps, gripping a railing, thinking the world was ending.
“You remember that?” he whispers.
“I remember everything.”
His arms uncross. One hand drops to his side. Then, slowly, carefully, he reaches down and places his hand in mine.