4. Orion
Orion
Jordan strolls into the living room with a pleased-with-himself swagger. His gait is loose and relaxed. Carefree and happy. His arms swing smoothly at his sides, the right one a little more than the left.
It’s always a dilemma trying to work out the right thing to say in this situation.
I’ve studied interactions between straight guys for years to try to get to the bottom of it, but a lot of their behavior doesn’t make sense, no matter how I analyze it.
There are so many important things they don’t talk about, and then there are these weird, incredibly personal things they have no problem sharing with each other.
It’s a mystery. Still, history has taught me I have to say something to acknowledge that he got laid, or Jordan will start volunteering information about his hookup. And that’s worse. Much worse.
I glance over at him, offering him a congratulatory up-nod because straight guys feel strongly about cheering each other’s sexual exploits on. It’s a cultural thing for them, or something. “Good night, huh?”
“Mm,” says Jordan, tilting his head back and letting his eyes flutter closed. He doesn’t say a lot more, but he does things with his eyebrows to suggest he came close to experiencing the rapture.
He’s not wrong. He came three times last night. Don’t ask me how I know that.
“Are you going to see her again, or what?” Technically, this is a topic I try to steer clear of because I’m so close to being over him, but I haven’t had any coffee yet this morning, and it’s showing.
“Nah.”
He opens the fridge door and bends over to grab the milk.
He’s wearing sleep pants with no shirt, and as he bends, his waistband rides down slightly, offering me a clear view of his tan line.
The skin above it is a rich golden color.
The skin beneath is milky and several shades lighter.
My gaze follows the line of the seam of his pants down the crack of his ass and gets stuck there. I catch myself and look away quickly.
“She said she got everything she needed from our interaction.”
He looks entirely unoffended at the notion of being discarded after sex.
Some men would mind, but I’m not surprised he doesn’t.
Jordan mistrusts and despises the patriarchy.
Above all else, he feels strongly that women deserve to enjoy the same sexual freedom men enjoy. It’s a hill he’d happily die on.
“Nice,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.
Jordan pours a ridiculous amount of milk into a bowl and then pours cereal into the milk. I shake my head, stifling a groan like I do every morning. Milk first? Pouring cereal into milk? Why? Why not put the cereal in first so he knows how much milk to add?
I don’t bother asking why he does it because I know his answer will be, “Tastes better this way.”
I’ve given up trying to explain that there’s no possible way pouring milk in first can affect the taste.
As always, he ends up with way too much milk in his bowl. His cereal floats aimlessly in it, bobbing around like debris from a shipwreck. He holds the bowl near his mouth and shovels it in.
Ugh.
Jordan loves cereal.
Fucking loves it.
The entire time he eats, he makes these little sounds. Soft, happy sounds that aren’t markedly different from the sounds he made last night. My dick hears them and takes it the wrong way.
What happened last night rushes back, landing with a red-hot sting of shame.
It hits hard, like a punch, blooming in my chest near the site of the impact and traveling slowly up my neck and down my legs.
It’s such a vast, limitless feeling that it absorbs me headfirst into its shadow, as if it means to consume me.
As I watch Jordan eat, I shrink into a smaller and smaller version of myself until there are no parts of me left that weren’t born in shame.
I hate what I did last night. Absolutely hate it. I hate that I see Jordan in a way he doesn’t see himself. A way he doesn’t choose to be seen. A way he definitely doesn’t see me.
I hate that I’ve known him for so long, and I still do it.
I hate that I’ve tried so hard not to. I’ve done everything humanly possible not to do it, but I can’t make myself stop.
Jordan glances up at me and stops chewing. He puts the bowl down on the counter and looks at me harder. His eyes bore into me, stripping away layer upon layer until I’m naked.
My throat aches where it meets my jaw and something clicks when I swallow.
“Are you feeling low today, bud?”
There’s no smile in his voice. No humor, none of his trademark comicality.
Just the bare sincerity of someone who cares deeply about me.
The concern of a human being who reads my moods better than I’m able to explain them.
A person who’s more in tune with me than anyone I’ve ever met.
A friend who gets everything about me without me having to explain it.
Well. Not everything.
Almost everything.
Jordan doesn’t get everything about me because I won’t let him.
Because I hide parts of myself from him.
Big parts. Important parts. He doesn’t know everything there is to know about me because every day I wake up, smile and drink coffee, talk shit about unimportant things, and lie to him about a very big thing.
“I’m fine,” I say, holding my hands up to placate him.
I know him well enough to know what he’s going to do next.
I’m several yards away from him and the kitchen island separates us, so I have the tactical advantage of a physical barrier today.
I keep my eyes on him and take a couple of steps back to be on the safe side.
I’m quick, but he’s quicker. He’s also crazier than I have any hope of being, and he uses that against me.
He doesn’t hesitate when he sees me move.
He simply dives over the counter, arms out, eyes closed, rolling into a messy, dangerous-looking somersault as he lands on the floor with a spectacular crash.
My jaw drops. Despite knowing damn well he’s unhinged, I didn’t see that coming.
We’ve lived in this apartment together for over a year, and it’s the first time he’s ever resorted to dive-bombing over the island to get to me.
I didn’t even know he could do that without breaking something. It sure as hell doesn’t seem like a good idea. He was standing dead still before he did it. He didn’t even take a run-up.
Damn, he’s athletic.
He’s so strong and fit and—
No. No, that’s not the point.
He uses my shocked pause to close in on me, jumping to his feet and straight into a tackle that almost knocks me off my feet.
The impact is hard. Solid and strong. Muscle and bone slamming into me almost exactly how I want it.
I squirm out of his grip before my body has time to react, batting him off me with elbows and loosely clenched fists, and then I tear down the hallway toward the bathroom because it’s the only room in the apartment that locks.
He races after me, breathing hard, and catches me before I get to the bathroom door.
He grabs hold of the back of my T-shirt to slow me.
I turn, and we wrestle for a few seconds, grunting and swearing under our breath as we indulge in a very undignified struggle that involves a lot of open-handed slapping and poorly aimed punches that don’t really find their targets.
Confused pleasure centers light up at the site of each impact, prickling across my skin and causing something low in my body to catch alight.
Panic spikes.
I need to get away from him. Fast.
I spot an opening and take it, shoving him away with a hand on his chest. It’s a quick touch. Fleeting. There for less than a second and then gone. Unfortunately, it’s enough to remind me how ripped he is.
How smooth his skin is.
How warm it is.
I snatch my hand off him before he has time to swat it away. It doesn’t dissuade or slow him. He pounces again before I’ve had time to get very far.
This time, he attacks from the side and lifts me off my feet as soon as he gets his arms around me. I kick my legs out helplessly, unable to find something for them to connect with, and despite myself, I start laughing.
“Stop!” I yell, struggling in vain.
Jordan laughs too. A low rumble that flows from his core and bumps over each bone in my spine.
“Come here, goddamnit,” he grinds through his teeth as he tries to pin my arms to my sides. “I mean it, Orion. Get over here…I need this.”
He doesn’t.
He isn’t the one who needs it. I am, and he knows that about me.
He took one look at me this morning and knew I wasn’t feeling great. He took one look at me and knew that the darkness that often tries to pull me under was close. He knew without me saying a word that I needed something from him.
He doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with me or what I need. How could he? I’ve never told him, and I spend an inordinate amount of my time trying to make sure he doesn’t find out. In his world, the solution is simple. In his world, the cure-all for feeling less than perfectly happy is a hug.
A massive bear hug.
A hug that doesn’t need to be a hundred percent consensual to be effective.
He winds his arms tightly around me. So tightly that he squeezes a full breath out of me, and a lot of my common sense too.
At first, he holds me like that, with my arms pinned to my sides, as the last of my halfhearted resistance works its way out of my body.
Then, when I go still, he relaxes his grip and lets my arms escape.
He keeps his where they are, around my waist, fingers locked loosely at my lower back.
A cage with the door open.
A cage I could get out of if I was strong or brave.
I’m not.
I wish I could escape him, but I can’t. Not when he’s Jordan and he means things to me that I can’t put into words.
Not when he’s my oldest friend, who gets me better than anyone else does.
Not when I know things about him no one else understands.
Not when his body is so close to mine. So hot.
So male. So goddamn enticing that I physically can’t make myself push him away no matter how much I tell myself I should.
Defeated, I drop my head, resting my chin on the shelf of his shoulder as I breathe him in as quietly as possible. He smells like sleep and sex dreams. True, deep friendship and fantasies I’ll never act on.
My arms float up of their own accord, circling his neck as he squeezes me harder.
I stay like that for as long as I dare. My chest pressed against his.
The hinge of my jawbone touching his. His stubble grating against mine as he speaks.
The entire time he hugs me, he whispers things he thinks I need to hear in my ear.
Things like, “I’ve got you, Orion,” and “You’re not alone,” and “Nothing bad is going to happen to you today.”
He says it over and over until my fool heart not only believes him, but it can no longer recall why he’s only a sex dream and a fantasy I’ll never act on. The second that happens, I come to my senses and pull away.
“I’m fine,” I say again. This time it’s a little closer to the truth, but also a lot further from it.
Jordan cups the back of my head and touches his forehead to mine.
“You have class this morning, and you’re going to grab a bite at Crema for lunch.
We’re going to meet at the gym at three.
It’s leg day.” He waits for me to grumble or make my displeasure known.
When I don’t, he continues, “But if you’re not feeling it, we can do back and biceps instead.
” Because he knows almost everything about me, he knows that I hate leg day, and that having a clear plan for my day settles my anxiety.
He releases me and looks up. “Class, lunch, gym. Okay, bud? That’s it. One thing at a time.”
I nod and try to claw back a little dignity. “You’re the worst, d’you know that? Like seriously, how am I supposed to sink into a respectable depression when I have you dragging me out of it all the time?”
“You’re not, Orion.” My attempt at humor doesn’t land. Jordan’s expression is serious, bordering on severe. “Nothing’s ever gonna pull you down while I’m around, d’you hear me? I won’t let that happen to you.”
I nod again because I know that failure to do so will result in an immediate, even more exuberant hug.
He releases me at last, flicking a watchful gaze from my right eye to my left and back to my right again.
His eyes are blue. Bluer than blue. Clear sky-blue fills his irises like watercolor paint on paper, except for a tiny ring near his pupils.
For some reason, God—or whatever deity has a truly evil sense of humor—decided Jordan Slater wasn’t attractive enough with that face and that body.
No. Looking like a sexual awakening happening in real time wasn’t enough for him, so it deigned to give him bright-yellow rings around his pupils.
Flaming golden spheres that light up ocean eyes and make it so that no matter how many years pass, no matter how much I mature and change, one thing remains the same: when I look into Jordan’s eyes, I’m the same dumb kid I was when I was half a head shorter than him and had to look up to make eye contact.