Chapter 2
ASH
Ash probably should have counted himself lucky that Ryder waited until they were in Noah’s borrowed car before calling him out.
“Should I start worrying about this little crush?”
Ash scoffed, immediately defensive. “Are you talking about my crush or yours?”
His question was met with silence. Typical, typical.
They’d turned on the car for the sake of air-conditioning—August in Phoenix really was the worst—but they hadn’t started moving yet, and Ryder seemed willing to wait him out rather than rising to the bait.
“I know you think he’s hot,” Ash pressed. He really should leave it alone and not take his sudden turn of mood out on Ryder, but it was hard to resist when he knew that the worst Ryder would do was give him a glare.
People thought Ryder was the asshole of the two of them because he was quiet and he looked the way he did, and when he did speak, he didn’t exactly spare feelings. But underneath all that, Ryder was pretty unflappable. Ash was the one with a temper.
“Everyone with eyes thinks he’s hot,” Ryder countered evenly.
Well, yeah. Spencer’s trail of brokenhearted one-night stands was evidence enough of that.
He had bad-boy-in-a-wholesome-boy-band good looks.
He was lean but tall and broad-shouldered, with the kind of defined muscles that belonged on some billboard selling men’s underwear.
His messy dark hair was always falling in front of his blue eyes in a faux-careless, sexy way, and he had piercings that gave people … ideas.
Most people thought he was weirdly charming but kind of an asshole, which Ash could appreciate. People thought the same thing about him, except without the charming part.
And Spencer riled Ryder up, which was always a good sign.
Everyone was so afraid of pissing Ryder off, but it was really his apathy they had to worry about.
If Ryder didn’t like someone, they didn’t even register on his radar.
He basically acted like they didn’t exist. So the fact that Spencer got to him sometimes …
Spencer had no idea how rare it was, that Ryder snarled at him the way he did. It tickled something in the back of Ash’s mind. Something he didn’t know how to categorize yet.
He was familiar with indefinable stuff though. Like, case in point, his whole fucking designation, still a mystery in his sophomore year. Just because something couldn’t be put in a neat box didn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile.
So yeah. Spencer was hot as fuck. But that was nothing special in itself. Ash didn’t give a fuck about hot. He didn’t give a fuck about most people, really. What was interesting about Spencer was his irregularities.
Spencer was a fuckboy but not a sleaze. He loved sex but had zero interest in dating.
He didn’t seem to have a preference for omegas, betas, or alphas.
He also seemed to be equally in love with both of his best friends but didn’t begrudge either of them having found their forever partners.
He had a tendency to say something charmingly asinine and then immediately follow it up with something completely devastating, and he was equally flippant about both.
And despite being kind of self-centered and bro-ey, he wasn’t emotionally closed off.
There was instead a certain … vulnerability there.
One Spencer didn’t even try to hide. One that made Ash kind of want to—
Ash didn’t know what, actually. Kiss his forehead? Kick him in the shin? Suck his cock?
It was a real conundrum, and it hadn’t gotten any clearer over the past few months.
Ash and Ryder had started hanging out with him more often kind of on accident at first, and then more and more on purpose. Neither of them could seem to stay away, and Spencer was so unselfconsciously pleased about it that it made it doubly hard to create any distance.
So yeah. A conundrum.
But Ash wasn’t in the right headspace to figure it out this exact second. Something was up. His head was foggy, his skin was all hot and too tight for his skin, and his reactions were all over the place.
Like when Spencer had opened the door. Holy shit.
Ash and Ryder had stopped by to return Noah’s car keys—failed fucking mission, by the way—and maybe stay for breakfast and grace Spencer with their presences for some gaming.
But then Spencer had shown up at the door shirtless, in threadbare boxer briefs that left absolutely zero to the imagination, and Ash’s brain had kind of … broken.
Which made no fucking sense, because Ash had seen Spencer in various states of undress plenty of times. Soaking wet in the pool. Bare-chested over a bowl of cereal. Fresh out of the shower, a towel barely hanging off his hips.
Ash swallowed at the memories, his throat dry and aching.
So Ash had frozen or whatever, his whole body burning up, and he’d felt the strangest moment of devastating loss. Over what, one might ask? Over the fact that he couldn’t smell Spencer’s pheromones.
Like. What the fuck?
Ryder had already told Ash when he’d asked a while back that Spencer smelled like a hot cup of chai tea.
And Ash could kind of … sense pheromones, on an unconscious level.
He knew when Ryder had smothered him in them, because it was heavy and comforting, soothing Ash’s oft-ruffled feathers.
But since Ash was unpresented, he’d never been able to scent them himself.
It had never bothered him before. Not really, other than a vague annoyance at missing out on something so common for the rest of the population.
Now he leaned back in the passenger seat, sighing his irritation. Ryder had banned him from driving for the foreseeable future after Ash had almost gotten them a speeding ticket last week.
Whatever. It wasn’t Ash’s fault the speed limits around here were so fucking arbitrary.
“I don’t feel so hot,” Ash mumbled.
“You coming down with something?”
A broad, calloused hand landed on Ash’s forehead. He sighed again, this time with pleasure. Despite the heat of the day, Ryder’s touch was cool. Soothing.
Ryder let out a low rumble. “You’re burning up.”
“Mm.”
“Home,” Ryder said succinctly. “We can stop at the pharmacy on the way, get some meds.”
“Ugh.” Ash batted that soothing hand away in irritation. “Don’t wanna.”
“Too bad. Once we get home, you’ll bitch at me for leaving. You get clingy when you’re sick.”
“I never get clingy.”
It was a lie. Or, if not a lie, a secret.
A side of Ash only Ryder got to see. Growing up one of too many siblings hadn’t left Ash much room for clinging.
There was always something for his parents to be doing, someone that needed taking care of.
Even Noah had been parenting everyone, leaving only snippets of time for him to play the big brother.
It was one of the advantages of attending the same university now, that Ash got to see him so often and spend time with him without the whole gaggle getting in the way.
Before that, it had been only Ryder. Always Ryder. Ever since they’d been kids and Ash had locked onto the sullen, undersized, clearly malnourished twerp the other assholes kept bullying. Little had Ash known just how well Ryder would fill out down the line.
And Ryder was right. Ash didn’t want him leaving now.
“We can get them delivered,” Ash argued. “The meds.”
He sounded whiny, which was annoying. He was never whiny. Pissy, yes. But not whiny.
Ryder clocked it too. Obviously. He knew Ash better than anyone. He clucked his tongue. “You do feel like shit, huh?” Ash gave him a pitiful look, and Ryder nodded. “Straight home. We’ll get delivery.”
It was a splurge for no reason other than Ash’s uncharacteristic neediness, but Ash was pleased with Ryder’s acquiescence. It was like another cool palm on his forehead, that willingness to do whatever Ash needed.
Ryder always gave him what he needed. He was Ash’s best friend. His pseudo-brother. Except, then again, sometimes they jerked each other off or whatever, so maybe brother wasn’t a good word to use in this context.
Heh. Speaking of undeclared and indefinable.
Something swirled in Ash’s belly, a weird heat that had first appeared on seeing Spencer in all his practically nude glory. Ash frowned down at his dick, which was threatening to thicken.
We’re ill, he reminded it. Settle down.
It was all so weird. Ash had a low sex drive on the best of days. The fever must have infected his dick.
“Yeah,” Ash murmured, letting his head loll back against the headrest. “Straight home.”
Straight to bed too. Maybe things would make more sense when Ash was horizontal.
Things did not make more sense when Ash was horizontal.
After enduring the indignity of an entire year of dormitory living, he and Ryder had rented a one-bedroom in a decent apartment complex close to campus for their sophomore year.
Ash’s parents were willing to pay for his housing as long as it wasn’t too above and beyond what he’d be paying on campus, and Ryder’s part-time gig as a mechanic covered the rest.
Their bedroom was spacious, easily fitting two full-size beds, but they usually switched off sleeping together in one or the other, unless Ash was feeling prickly, and then Ryder gave him space.
Right now, Ash needed anything but space. He needed that cool palm back on his forehead. Or maybe his dick.
Yeah, definitely his dick.
Ash squirmed in the bed. He’d stripped down to his boxers, and he still felt too hot. But he wanted the sheet covering him anyway. Fucking confusing.
Ryder had gone into the kitchen to get Ash juice for his meds, and Ash was all …
irritated about it. He was supposed to be winding down to sleep whatever this was off, but he wasn’t actually tired.
He was hot and fuzzy and very awake. A little restless, even.
And when Ash was feeling restless, Ryder’s stoic presence was soothing.
So why wasn’t he here? Soothing Ash?
Ash frowned, flipping over for the thousandth time.