Chapter 10
RYAN
Drew, ever the showman, grabs two handfuls of pool noodles and flings them at the nearest guard, who shrieks and ducks behind the towel bin.
Nathan, moving purely on instinct, hurls himself across the wet tile and body-checks the alarm button, triggering a banshee scream that sets off every car alarm within a two-block radius.
A couple of freshmen, who had been arguing over towels, sprint away, their bare butts glowing in the disco strobe of red emergency lights.
Gerard barrels into the push-bar door and vanishes into the night. The rest of the Barracudas follow in a stampede of sweaty, glittering athletes, their feet squeaking, junk flapping, and not a single one remembering to grab their clothes.
Oliver’s arm hooks around my waist. “Hold on,” he grunts, and before I can protest, I’m airborne.
He tosses me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and my face ends up approximately two inches from his ass. I can’t help but notice how even more impressive it is up close, pool water hanging on to those massive cheeks for dear life.
“Oliver, I can run.”
“You’ll slow us down. No offense.”
We burst through the emergency exit and into the cool night air, and that’s when the absurdity of my situation crystallizes with painful clarity. I am being carried across campus by my childhood best friend, who is naked. His large hand is gripping my ass.
Do not get hard. Do not get hard. Do not get hard.
I chant it like a mantra as Oliver’s muscles flex beneath me with every stride. His palm is warm against my cheek, and his fingers are splayed, digging in ever so gently.
“Left!” Drew screams from somewhere ahead, and the naked horde obeys his command in a surprisingly coordinated maneuver.
From my upside-down vantage point, I see Jackson keeping pace beside us, his quarterback legs eating up the distance with ease. Unlike most of us, he seems to be actively enjoying this.
“This is amazing!” he howls into the night. “I feel so alive!”
“Jacky, shut up!” Drew hisses.
We thunder past the library, where a custodian presses their face against the window, mouth agape.
Oliver’s breathing is steady despite the exertion, his stride never faltering. Meanwhile, I’m bouncing against his shoulder like a rag doll, my nose periodically bumping against his lower back. Every impact sends a jolt through my body that my dick is interpreting as encouragement.
Think unsexy thoughts. Professor Schmidt’s mustache. Expired milk. The time I walked in on my brother while he was clipping his toenails.
“You okay back there?” Oliver asks.
“Peachy,” I manage. “Just figuring out my defense.”
We pass the science building, and I spot two students on the steps, phones out and recording.
“They’re still following!” Sebastian shrieks from somewhere nearby.
“Diversion!” Drew screams, and in a move that would make hockey coaches weep with pride, he peels off from the group, windmilling his arms and howling like a coyote. Two of the guards take the bait, veering after him as he zigzags between lampposts with his dick helicoptering in the breeze.
But the quad is a trap.
We pour onto the open grass and skid to a collective halt. Security golf carts ring the perimeter. Headlights blaze across the lawn, illuminating twenty-something nude hockey players in high definition.
“Oh, fuck,” Oliver breathes, his grip tightening on my ass.
“Put me down,” I whisper.
He sets me on my feet, and the grass is cold and wet between my toes. I straighten up, momentarily dizzy from all the blood rushing out of my head—or into it, depending on how you look at things.
A security guard with a megaphone steps forward.
He’s a stocky man with a mustache and the resigned expression of someone who’s seen this exact scenario play out before.
“Berkeley Shore University Campus Security. You are all in violation of at least four codes of student conduct. Hands where I can see them.”
“They can already see everything,” Gerard mutters.
“Hands!” the guard repeats.
Twenty-something pairs of hands rise slowly into the air. Drew, who somehow circled back, raises his hands with theatrical flair, wiggling his fingers.
“Single file,” Mr. Mustache orders. “Into the vehicles. Now.”
What follows is the most humiliating scene in the history of higher education. Naked men shuffling across the quad, single file, while a growing crowd of late-night students gathers at the edges with their phones held high.
Oliver stays close, his broad frame partially shielding me from the cameras. Regardless of whether he’s doing it intentionally or not, I’m grateful. His hand finds the small of my back and guides me toward the nearest cart.
“In,” the guard says gruffly.
Oliver climbs in first, the cart groaning under his weight. I follow, pressing myself into the corner. Our bare thighs touch, and I focus very hard on the headrest in front of me, and not on what’s resting on the seat.
Gerard, Drew, and Nathan pile into the cart behind us. Jackson ends up in a third vehicle with Mason and a group of freshmen who are either about to cry or about to laugh.
The ride to the campus security building takes four minutes. I know this because I count every second, hyperaware of Oliver’s skin against mine, and the quiet rumble of the cart as it ferries us to our doom.
BSU’s campus “jail” is nothing more than a holding area in the basement of the security building. A row of cells with concrete benches. They herd us in groups, and by some stroke of luck—or cosmic cruelty—Oliver and I end up in the same cell with Gerard, Drew, Nathan, and Jackson.
The metal door clangs shut behind us, and the sound reverberates through my skeleton.
“Well,” Drew says, settling his bare ass onto the concrete bench with a wince. “This is a first.”
Oliver lowers himself onto the bench beside me. His knee bumps mine, and he pulls back slightly, leaving an inch of space between us that’s simultaneously too much and not enough.
“Ryan.” His voice is low, meant only for me. “I’m sorry.”
His green eyes are heavy with genuine remorse, brow furrowed, jaw tight. Water still clings to his dark hair, and a droplet slides down his temple, tracing the line of his cheekbone.
“For what?” I ask.
“For this.” He gestures broadly at the cell, the concrete, the collection of naked athletes arranged in various poses of defeat. “For getting you arrested. You came tonight because Jackson asked, and I should’ve made sure you got out before—”
“Oliver. This is what college is about.” The words leave my mouth, and I’m startled to realize I mean them.
Not the arrest specifically or the fact that if they decide to take a mugshot, mine will presumably feature my bare chest and a dazed expression.
But this—the recklessness, the camaraderie, the kind of story you tell at reunions decades from now.
The kind of night my mother would have loved to hear about, laughing until she cried, asking me to repeat the part about the pool noodle javelins.
Oliver blinks. “Did you just say ‘this is what college is about?’ You? Ryan Abrams? The guy who irons his socks?”
“I don’t iron my socks. I steam them.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, and the tension bleeds out of his shoulders. “You’re not mad?”
“I’m cold, I’m in my underwear, and I’m fairly certain that the bench is going to give me an infection. But no. I’m not mad.”
Am I slightly unnerved? Absolutely. The cell is small, the air is thick with the body heat of naked athletes, and Gerard’s bouncing on his heels now to stay warm, making everything jiggle.
Oliver is here. Sitting beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his ridiculous body. And that makes the whole thing almost tolerable. “Hey, Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For accepting my friend request.” The words tumble out before I can second-guess them.
“That was a no-brainer, Ryan.” He says it like reconnecting with someone who vanished from your life for a decade doesn’t require deliberation. Like the answer was always going to be yes, I’ll accept.
“I was surprised you did it pretty quickly,” I point out.
“I was browsing the web. Your request was the best notification I received.” He nudges my knee with his. “Honestly? I’d been hoping you’d reach out. I just didn’t want to push.”
Across the cell, Drew wolf-whistles. “Are you two having a moment? Because I’d like to remind everyone that we’re in jail, and Gerard’s balls are in my peripheral vision.”
“My balls are in everyone’s peripheral vision,” Gerard says proudly. “They’re very prominent.”
“Nobody asked, Gerard,” Nathan says.
Oliver ignores them, his attention still fixed on me.
The underwater lights of the pool have been replaced by the harsh fluorescent glow of the holding cell, but somehow, he looks just as good.
Better, maybe, because there’s nothing to hide behind now.
No water, no darkness, no ten years of distance.
He leans back against the concrete wall, large hands resting on his spread thighs, eyes closed. The pose makes him devastatingly, irrevocably sexy.
And I will never admit that aloud. Not to Oliver. Not to Jackson. Not to the cold concrete bench currently numbing my ass. That particular confession will die with me, buried alongside my dignity.
“You’re staring,” Oliver says.
“I’m not staring. I’m assessing.”
“Assessing what?”
“Whether the bench can structurally support you. You’ve gotten…large.”
One green eye opens, and the smirk that crosses his face is lethal. “Large, huh?”
“Muscularly speaking.”
“Uh-huh.” Both eyes open now, and the amusement in them is infuriating. “You know, you’ve changed too.”
“I’ve barely changed at all.”
“That’s not true.” His gaze sweeps over me—quick and respectful, but thorough enough to make my skin prickle. “You’re still you, but…more. More confident. More present.” He pauses. “And you filled out.”
“I weigh a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, Oliver. I haven’t filled out.”
“You have.” He says it with such quiet certainty that I don’t know how to argue further. “You just don’t see it.”
“Where are Kyle and Alex?” I ask, partly to move the spotlight off me, and partly because I’m realizing I didn’t see them in any of the golf carts or being ushered into the row of cells.
Oliver glances around and notices the same. “I guess they managed to get away. Kyle’s good like that.”
“Think he’s good enough to bail us out?”
Oliver snickers. “Depends on his mood. We should try to sleep and worry about that in the morning. They’ll probably release us around nine a.m. with a slap on the wrist and a call to our parents. But you can give them my parents’ number if you don’t want them to call your dad.”
I gawk at him, disbelief warring with something I’m too afraid to identify in my chest. Even after all this time, he’s still protecting me.