SEBASTIAN
Chapter Thirteen
If I had expected to wake up the next morning a changed man, I was wrong.
What happened instead was a slow dive into the greatest days of my life.
Spring winds took the last memory of winter away.
Cherry trees blossomed, grass grew taller and greener, and flower beds around campus were rich brown with soft dirt feeding the newly planted flowers.
Sunshine arrived at Northwood and a winning streak filled the Titans with optimism.
It was almost too easy to believe that nothing could ever be wrong again.
Tyler was never too far from me. As it had become a custom years earlier, whenever we traveled out of town for a game, he and I shared a hotel room.
For the first stretch of time that I had stopped measuring, Tyler and I were incapable of taking our hands off of one another.
Doe-eyed looks were hard to conceal in bars and locker rooms, so we didn’t linger for too long with the crowd.
We had only just discovered some wonderful things we could do to one another and our bodies screamed that we were running out of time.
It took us weeks to remember that it wasn’t the case.
But before we learned that lesson, we were in a constant hurry to be on our own.
And that earned us a few noteworthy looks from our teammates.
Some of them had gone through a similar period.
Beckett and Caden, just last year, had begun missing group parties.
Avery, who had been lowkey seeing the enemy captain, the notorious Blizzard Breaker, Grayson Reed, had acted in a similar manner.
And Sawyer, who was comfortably deep into a relationship that promised to last a lifetime, was scanning the tables in bars with significant looks between all the couples and suspected couples.
The number of single guys around us was dwindling.
Jordan seemed wholly uninterested in people whatsoever; Asher was leaving the house but never spending the night away; Paxton, Kieran, and Phoenix kept their cards close to their chests.
The hotel rooms we were assigned usually came with two single beds, but only one of the beds ever got used.
Neither Tyler nor I minded narrow sleeping spaces.
Even as boys, we had always had a way to make room for each other.
Only now, we learned that wrapping our arms around one another was a great space-saving method.
We flirted with the idea of swapping roles since the first time he topped me.
Tyler wasn’t completely sure if he should try it and it was a feeling I recognized and remembered all too well.
However, it was me who was more reluctant to change the things that worked.
Just now, for a while, I lived for bottoming.
Having my best friend and official boyfriend wrap his arms around me and hold me down, enter me, fill me, and bite the back of my neck while throbbing inside of me was immeasurably better than anything I had done in my life.
Tyler’s interest was growing, of course, the longer he saw the kind of pleasure I was experiencing from my role. He floated the idea as something that was obligatory in an undefined future. “Perhaps,” he’d said. Or, “One of these days.”
I wasn’t going to press him on it. Each new day proved to me that we weren’t actually running out of time. We didn’t need to hurry and get to everything now. The more we found quiet corners in the shadows to kiss one another, the clearer it was that a lifetime of these kisses lay ahead.
So as days turned into weeks, we started returning to the old normal.
Tyler would kick my ass at the soccer table one night and I would kick his the next.
Then we’d take it to our room and resettle the score privately.
And the more time we spent returning to the society of the team house, the stronger my bond with Tyler felt.
It was the opposite of what I’d expected would happen.
Somehow, with the two of us being surrounded by friends, it felt like a silvery wire of connection glowed between our hearts, marking us as a unit the very same way it marked Beckett and Caden.
New habits entered our lives. Kissing Tyler when leaving the room was something I did by instinct.
Leaving otherwise seemed unimaginable. And it was the impulse that I had to remind myself of when we were surrounded by other people.
Taking his hand at random was a reflex, not a conscious decision on my part.
Once, I narrowly escaped revealing us as a couple when we were having beers at the Thinker.
I’d had my first one too quickly and my hand randomly traveled to the back of Tyler’s head.
That was nothing unusual, we’d both reminded ourselves from time to time, but when the beer made me sway, I rested my head on his shoulder.
Still, we’d acted like that in the past, so nobody paid too much attention to it until I caught a faint whiff of Tyler’s cologne, and it catapulted me into the memory of being in his arms, kissing his neck and chest, licking his body wherever I wished.
The flash of images made my face red with heat and I lifted my head to claim the kiss that was due, remembering at the last moment that three joined tables were witnessing my foolishness.
I had avoided the disaster that night, but a new thought was worming its way into my head.
It was Tyler who voiced it a week later when we lay in the lazy slumber after sex. “I wonder if the guys are starting to notice something different.”
I licked my lips and allowed my heart to stumble with fear before gathering my thoughts. “If they are, nobody’s saying anything.”
Tyler looked into my eyes. “They’re good people.”
I nodded my agreement.
“If they know,” he said carefully. “I mean, it’s not like they’ll want to out us, right?”
“It’s not our teammates I’m worried about,” I admitted. “Them knowing isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”
Tyler silently agreed with me and we drifted off to sleep for a while.
Whether it was just a careless blunder, the trust I had in our teammates, or, most likely, the sprout from the seed Tyler and I had planted on that night, the moment came on its own.
And the reasons for it changed nothing. Tyler and I were playing table soccer while Asher and Phoenix took turns competing at the vintage Flipper we had in one corner with the rest of the arcade games.
Beckett and Caden were playing something on the gaming console that only they cared about, and Avery had brought an intruder into our basement, to everyone’s surprise, even though we didn’t have any rules about who was allowed.
Gray and Sawyer were chatting like old friends, a quiet air of respect for one another radiating for the whole room to see.
We both care about Avery, it said. That’s all that matters.
The exchange between the two distracted me for long enough to be a nanosecond too late in my defense.
Tyler scored the winning point and cackled victoriously as I pushed away from the game.
I circled the table and sat on its edge, sipping my beer.
The can was in my left hand and my right was around Tyler’s shoulders.
“Laugh all you want,” I growled. “I’ll make you weep when we’re alone. ”
Tyler looked into my eyes with all his natural naughtiness on full display.
“If you’re threatening me with a good time, think again.
” He pushed into me with his chest, and I threw my head back and laughed out loud, almost completely oblivious to the fact that we were surrounded by people.
“I’ll make you beg before I’m done with you,” Tyler said.
“Holy shit,” Phoenix cried. “Get a bucket of water, they’re on fire.”
My cheeks burst into flames as Tyler and I simultaneously seemed to recall that we were in the basement and that seven guys surrounded us.
“What the hell was that?” Sawyer demanded.
I looked around the room, mouth open and eyes wide and unblinking. Even Beckett and Caden had stopped playing and Asher lost his ball in the Flipper machine while staring at us.
“You two?” Caden asked in a voice that was an octave higher than his natural one.
Phoenix wore a grin. Sawyer’s mouth was hanging open. And Avery blinked once, which probably translated into great shock.
“Is it the house, do you think?” Beckett pondered. “Some ancient hex turning us all gay?”
My heart pounded so hard that I had to hold onto Tyler’s shoulder. It wasn’t fear, though.
“How long?” Asher asked.
“Yeah,” Caden echoed, his tone returning to a more normal, deeper range. “How long have you been…?”
“What’s up, babe?” Beckett teased him. “Can’t say it?”
“Sleeping together,” Caden said, his chin high with indignation.
Beckett snorted. “We’d all like to know, lover boys.”
I gritted my teeth. Tyler squeaked awkwardly because I couldn’t get my voice through. “Two…”
I cleared my throat. “More like three.”
Sawyer’s mouth hung for a heartbeat. “Three whole weeks and nobody noticed?”
Tyler and I exchanged a look, biting our lips guiltily.
“Hold on,” Beckett said, jumping from the seat of the sofa to sit on the back of it. “Are you telling us you’ve been fucking for three months? You better, though. If you say it’s been three years, I’ll denounce you.”
Guilt at hiding it from them motivated me more than the friendly banter with which they accepted it. “Uh, since Jennifer cheated on me, more or less.”
Beckett looked at Caden in shock. “It’s definitely the house,” he said.
Sawyer threw his head back and laughed. “Who’s next? Jordan?”
Asher snorted with contempt. “He’s too full of himself to be horny for anyone.”
When I dared look at Tyler again, I found the reflection of what I was feeling displayed on his face. It was mostly surprise at our own carelessness, but a strong current of pure joy was there too.
“Why were you keeping it a secret?” Caden asked, cocking his head. “You realize everyone in this room is queer, right?”
I shrugged. “It’s all so new.”
“We could have helped,” Beckett said. “It’s a real mindfuck, discovering a new favorite flavor.”
Tyler found my hand and squeezed it.
“Leave them alone, guys,” Avery said. “You all kept it hidden for as long as you could.” He scanned the room.
“You with your tutoring and coaching,” he told Sawyer.
“And don’t let me start in on you two.” He pointed at Beckett and Caden who had been secretly banging for months before kissing in the middle of the rink.
“And nobody even knows what you two are up to,” he told Asher and Phoenix, and each turned a shade darker.
“Good job, A,” Gray said. “You tell them.”
Avery smiled. It was a strange thing to see, but it suited him well.
“He’s right,” Sawyer admitted before looking at us. “Well, we’re glad you’ve joined the fun side.”
“I think we finally have the votes we need for Murray to coach us in full drag,” Beckett said.
“I was thinking how nobody can stop us from throwing a ball upstairs,” Caden mused.
Grayson hooked up his phone to the sound system. “This calls for Dancing Queen,” he announced before blasting the song from the powerful wireless speaker. Phoenix killed the big lights and threw his arms high, catching the dancy rhythm of the song while Tyler and I stared at each other in horror.
“What the fuck is happening?” he asked me, half-scared to death.
I looked around. Seven sculpted athletes ranging from big and buff to slim and quick were dancing horribly to the song that was about to blast the house out of its foundation.
“I…I think they’re throwing a coming out party,” I told Tyler. Was that a thing? We hadn’t thrown any parties for Beckett. Not officially at least.
“Do you think they got that when they came out to their friends and family?” Tyler asked, leaning close to my ear.
I shook my head. If my family was anything to go by, I doubted it.
“I think they’re doing it for all of us.
” Beers were spread around the basement and Gray was in charge of music.
A few other guys joined us downstairs and Sawyer invited Noah to the party.
What was a little slip of our guard in one moment became the biggest party this house had seen in years.
I enjoyed it as much as any of them even if my heart trembled every time I remembered that we were out as a couple now.
I could hardly make sense of what attracted me so much to Tyler after all the years of not even considering that as a possibility, yet I gave up thinking about it.
If all of them cared so little about the details, why should I?
It was confusing, messy, and weird, but it felt so much better than all the years of chasing something that only existed in my head.
And that ideal I had built up in my mind was nothing compared to what I felt when I kissed Tyler.
Especially when I kissed him in front of all our friends.