Chapter 13
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The heat isn’t on when I get home from work the next morning, and I find Roo curled into a ball on his side of the bed, blankets pooled on the floor.
I laugh a little as I pick them up and tuck him in before going and setting the room temperature.
It was a quiet shift at the bar, and I’m certainly not about to complain about working in a sleepy town like Sunbury.
Still, I grab my shit and go shower more out of habit than anything before climbing into my side of the bed next to Roo.
My side. His side. I’m not sure when staking territory became a thing in my bed, but I don’t hate it.
Roo’s bed should be here in about two weeks, so things will go back to normal, but …
sleeping in different rooms has never really been normal for us.
And I’m not sure how I’ll cope if he really does leave again.
I grab my phone to scroll through social media while I try to convince myself to sleep. If I can get to sleep soon, I’ll wake up around the same time as Roo and be alert enough to enjoy spending time with him.
Circus has posted a few times. I pause on a photo of him with insanely long eyelashes captioned with the word glamour and wonder how I never noticed the makeup thing before. His other posts are too long for me to attempt to read, so I keep scrolling.
Posts with one or two lines are completely fine. Anything longer than that, I get all mixed up and start to forget what I’d read.
Roo twitches and lets out a weird kind of breath that sets me on high alert.
I drop my phone and push up to look at him.
He’s breathing through his mouth and looks as peaceful as when I first walked in, but that sudden twitch has flooded my body with adrenaline.
The amount of times I’ve seen Roo have a seizure has hardwired me to react to the smallest changes with him.
He likes to joke about me watching him sleep, but the truth is, I do it a lot. I’m always waiting for the next time.
Our high-school years taught me how to exist on little sleep. His nightly seizures, combined with my early swim practices, made sleep nearly nonexistent.
Thankfully for right now, Roo’s body looks relaxed. I let out a trapped breath and lean down to kiss the hair over his scar.
“Morning,” Roo murmurs with a tiny smile.
I’m not sure if he’s half-awake or sleep-talking, but I kiss him again so he knows I’m here, then settle back on my side of the bed.
I tuck my hands behind my head and look around my shadowy bedroom.
I’m naturally a pretty happy person, but this deep contentment coursing through me is extreme even for me.
As tempting as it is to drag Roo over for a hug, to share all this happiness with him, I let him sleep and remind myself it can’t be like this forever.
In two weeks, he’ll be in his own room. Next month … next year … I let out a long, measured breath. Seeing him at the club the other night drove home the fact that while I wish Roo were mine, he’s not actually mine to keep.
I glance back over at where he’s snuggled up, and my heart feels warm. It feels right. But what does that even mean?
What does it mean when I look at him and see our friendship lasting forever? That I can picture us going halves on a house, and living together so I can hug him and kiss his hair whenever I want? Where I can make him happy always …
There’s something hot and thick growing in my stomach that makes my mouth dry. That magical, imaginary scenario seems almost too perfect for words, and the thought of it not happening feels like I’m eighteen again and Roo is telling me he’s leaving.
Not this time.
This time I will do anything to make sure he stays.
I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I do know that this time around, something’s changed. Not only in our list of differences about the other—something inside me has shifted. Now all I want in my future is him. Even if that means committing myself to a life of celibacy, I’d do it.
But …
I clear my throat and glance in his direction again.
The other night, well, I’d been faced with something about myself that put a few things together.
Have I ever identified as anything other than straight?
Nope. Truthfully, I’ve never considered the option.
Whenever I found myself staring at the hard chest of a guy on my swim team, or watching a cute guy with a tight ass pass me on the way into the bar, I’ve always put it down to a weird moment. A blip. A loss of concentration.
But the other night I finally let myself look. And my cock really liked what it saw.
I rub the rough stubble on my chin as I try to push my swampy thoughts along. If I can get hard over a guy, what would it be like to touch one?
The thought seems too big to be confronted with this early in the morning. It was never a question whether I’d have sex with a woman, so the attraction I felt didn’t take me by surprise. This is totally new and makes me a bit uncomfortable to think about.
There’s a really quick way to test out if that one night was a fluke, though. Checking Roo’s still asleep, I open my phone and search for gay porn.
I really don’t know what I’m looking at here, but as soon as I find a video that catches my interest, I hit Play. I’m not sure what I’m expecting. A boner? That’d be a solid sign.
Except, trying to watch it on low so I don’t wake Roo makes it a little hard to concentrate. I switch it off, close my eyes, and instead, picture the club the other night.
The toned bodies, the muscles, the solid jawlines and shaped, hairy calves.
A sheer black shirt stretched over a tight chest.
Toned, freckled legs and a ridiculously round ass.
My dick starts to thicken as the image of Roo’s bare ass cheeks flashes through my mind. The feel of his hard cock pressing against me.
Fuck. I reach down to squeeze my erection. The plan had been to see if I was interested, not to get turned on. Though I guess this answers that question.
I swing my legs out of bed and head to the bathroom to take care of my problem. The whole time I’m jerking off, I’m thinking of hazel eyes, light-brown hair, and a mess of freckles under my lips.
I shudder as I come, and almost as soon as I’ve milked my dick dry, what happened sets in.
Oh God.
Did I just jerk off over Roo?
Okay, well, that was unexpected, but it’s not like it has to mean anything.
Even knowing that doesn’t help convince me to go back into my bedroom. I glimpse the lump under the covers that is Roo, and it makes me feel slimy.
What the hell would he think if he knew the thoughts I’d had?
It was supposed to be a test for men in general. Not … him.
Yet even through the guilt, I can’t shake the thought of how it would feel to kiss Roo. To touch him, for real. Not friendly touching—or our version of it—but actually getting more intimate with him than we’ve ever gone before.
Is that something I’d even want?
And if I did, would Roo be totally disgusted?
After all, it hasn’t been me all these years playing the platonic card. Out of the two of us, Roo has definitely been the more vocal.
I head for the living room instead and spread out on the couch.
I know I love Roo. I know I want to make him happy.
But at what point do those feelings cross a line?