Chapter 3
Felix sat at his desk in class, deciding whether he wanted to fist-pump the air or throw up.
He was going to have sex with Jacob. The guy he’d been in love with since before he knew what love was. The first guy he’d ever jerked off to. The guy he was going to pine after forever, never knowing what his lips felt like.
Except now he was. And not just his lips, he was going to know everything.
How could he not be fist-pumping, nervous-puking excited about that?
How could he not dread it with every bone in his body?
He was going to introduce Jacob to sex and then live the rest of his life knowing how Jacob’s cock felt inside him, only to never have that again.
Felix was so distracted by what was waiting for him after class that he got up and slammed straight into a guy who looked incredibly familiar.
“Shit, sorry,” Felix said automatically. Then he registered the guy frowning down at him and paused. “Oh, hey. You were the TA for a bunch of creative writing classes, right? Jack something. Since when do you TA for English?”
“Since I’m doing a minor in it,” Jack said, looking just as exhausted as he always did. He started to walk away, but Felix—desperate to think about anything except the shitstorm he was about to put his heart through—jumped in the way.
“I thought it was cool you talked Nate into doing that love poetry confession last semester,” he said. “Shane’s my roommate. They’re pretty unbearable now, but they’re good together.”
Jack snorted, rubbing his stubbled chin. “I didn’t talk that kid into shit.”
“Kid?” Felix looked him up and down. “What are you, twenty-five?”
Jack sighed. “Do you need help with the coursework?”
“No.”
“Then get out of my way. And quit looking so twitchy.” Jack didn’t wait, just nudged him aside and started walking. Felix took a moment to enjoy being moved bodily out of the way by a muscly man, then whirled around.
“Wait! I do need your help!”
Jack sighed louder and turned back. “Shane can give you my email—”
Felix cut him off. “Do you know how to cook? Or clean?”
Jack’s annoyed expression morphed into pure confusion. He looked around like he was worried they might be on a secret game show, found the classroom empty, then looked back.
“Uh,” he said. “Yeah? Not great at cleaning, but I can cook, sure.”
“And you need money,” Felix said, relieved. “Right? Shane says you have at least three jobs.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “What are you asking?”
“How much would it take for you to teach me to cook?” Felix asked. “Like, one recipe a week for the whole semester. We’d have to do it at your place, obviously. I don’t have a kitchen.”
Jack folded his bulky arms over his chest, considering. “Forty bucks a week. And you buy the ingredients.”
“Done!” Felix beamed and grabbed Jack’s hand, shaking it vigorously. “I’ll get your email off the syllabus. Ninety percent chance I won’t burn your house down!”
He took off, ignoring Jack’s cry of you’d better fucking not as he vaulted out of the classroom.
Felix ran down the hall, triumph taking over the knot of anxiety in his gut.
He had one semester to turn himself into the perfect roommate.
Cooking was set—now he just needed to find someone to teach him how to clean.
Once he had finally learned enough, he would show Jacob and convince him they could live together.
But before that, he had to take Jacob’s virginity, he reminded himself as he headed for his dorm. One step at a time.
Felix rushed through a shower, blow-dried his hair with the disgusting communal hairdryer and headed back to his dorm.
He’d considered stretching himself in the shower, but one: he hated doing that in the communal shower and two: he was determined to start slow.
Jacob was already so flighty about this; Felix wasn’t going to spring anal on him on their first night together.
He fought down a spasm of butterflies as he dabbed the smallest portion of glittery shadow on his eyelids.
Their first night together. He couldn’t let himself get attached, but a guy could dream, right?
He’d thought about tonight so many times.
It wasn’t happening the way he’d hoped—a love confession was always a prerequisite when he’d let himself think about it—but he was going to take what he could get.
Jacob knocked on the door at exactly three p.m.
“One second,” Felix said, twisting his eyeshadow closed. He wanted to add some lip gloss, but as he was getting up to grab it, the door opened.
Jacob came in fast, slamming the door closed behind him like they were doing something suspicious.
Then they just… stared at each other. Jacob had changed his shirt, which was good, since it had been pretty sweaty the last time Felix had seen it—the same reason Felix had showered after classes.
It was a loose shirt, the fabric hanging off his neckline.
A glimpse of his clavicle made Felix panic.
They were really going to do this. He wanted it so much. He was going to be devastated by it.
He did what he always did when he was overwhelmed: he joked. “Ready for some fisting, guv’na,” he croaked, in a terrible British accent that he’d never heard out of his own mouth before.
Jacob’s face twisted. He turned to leave.
“Wait, fuck,” Felix blurted. He lunged across the room and plastered himself across the door, blocking the handle. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Why are you nervous?” Jacob demanded. “You’ve done this a million times.”
Not with anyone I’m in love with, Felix thought.
“Even the fisting,” Jacob continued. “Which we are not doing for my first time.”
“Aw, and here I was all excited.” Felix pulled up a cheeky smile and forced his posture to relax. “No first-time fisting. But since we’re both nervous, I thought we’d start out with something else on your list. A not-sex thing.”
“Okay,” Jacob said suspiciously. “What?”
Felix beamed. “A Felix shenanigan.”
Jacob groaned. Felix covered his mouth, unsurprised when Jacob licked his palm. Some habits never changed.
“You know that won’t stop me,” Felix said. “Especially now.”
Jacob stopped licking his palm and shoved it away instead. “What are you dragging me into?”
“Dragging? Excuse moi, you’re the one who wanted a whole new Jacob by the end of the semester.
” Felix grabbed Jacob’s shoulders, his heart skipping a beat when he realized he was going to touch them later without making an excuse about it.
“You’re going to do something fun. And I’m gonna be there to help. ”
“Fine,” Jacob said flatly. “What are we doing?”
Twenty minutes later, they were standing under the fluorescent lights of the bedroom section of a Macy’s.
“This isn’t fun,” Jacob said, pushing back the bowler hat Felix placed on his head when they walked through the accessories section. “Why are we here?”
“It was the closest fun I could find without paying bus fare,” Felix explained.
He’d done the math in the shower—his parents couldn’t afford to send more money for his cooking lessons, let alone the fee he’d inevitably have to pay when he found a cleaning guy, so his thin spending money was almost nonexistent this semester.
Jacob took off the bowler hat and set it down on one of the dozens of beds surrounding them. “People will stare.”
“People don’t care,” Felix argued, throwing out his arms to indicate the absolute lack of shoppers populating a Macy’s at three-thirty p.m. on a Thursday. Then he adjusted the scarf he’d taken when he was grabbing the bowler hat. “Now go on and role-play. Don’t pretend you didn’t love drama class.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did! You got really into it, but only when you thought no one was watching. Which made you useless in that production of Mamma Mia,” Felix said.
Jacob glanced nervously around the empty bedroom section. Felix sighed, plucking the bowler hat off the bed and placing it back on Jacob’s neat hair.
“I’m basically no one,” he said. “You don’t have to be embarrassed around me.”
Jacob gave him the kind of look that was so exasperated it was only possible from someone who had known him forever. The look lasted so long Felix started preparing another motivational speech. Then Jacob sighed and stepped back to mime opening a door.
“Hi honey,” he deadpanned. “I’m home.”
Felix jumped back into his theater kid roots immediately, adopting a Southern accent that rolled in all the wrong places. “Oh my god, Bernard! Where have you been? You left home for cigarettes eight years ago, why come back now? I’m remarried! My husband will be home any minute!”
Jacob’s mouth hung open. “Uhhhh. Um. Who’s your new husband… Gwendyl?”
Gwendyl, Felix mouthed. What the fuck?
Jacob shrugged, his eyes gleaming in a way that meant that if Felix was going to pull stupid shit, Jacob was going to do it right back at him.
Felix swished his scarf dramatically. “Well, I’d rather not say.”
Jacob’s mouth twitched. “Gwendyl.”
“No, I mustn’t!” Felix laid a hand on his forehead and stumbled back against a bedpost. “Oh Bernard, my poor heart… and your temper… you’d only jump to conclusions!”
Jacob huffed, picking up a sudden Irish accent that was just as awful as Felix’s. “Don’t tell me it’s Harry.”
Felix wailed so loudly Jacob glanced around again, unable to keep the grin off his face even as he shushed Felix.
“Oh, it’s true,” Felix cried. “I just couldn’t help myself! All alone in this empty mansion… I just have so many beds, I couldn’t get it out of my head!” He gestured at the dozens of beds lined up around them.
Jacob snorted, then tried to hide it. “I can’t believe you, Gwendyl,” he said, the Irish accent falling apart with every word. “All this time I was trying to get home to ye and our mansion full of beds and ye were shacking up with my best friend!”
“Eight years!” Felix said. “A woman has needs, Bernard!”
“Just tell me it didn’t start until after I left for the cigarettes.”
Felix froze, employing all his theater kid skills in an effort not to laugh. Then he slung his scarf off and threw it at Jacob’s head, running around the side of the bed.
Jacob spluttered a laugh, clawing the scarf off his face. “Okay, that’s it.”
Felix pretended to flee. Jacob caught up easily, the long-legged, track-running bastard, and tackled Felix into the bed.
Felix fought back, because this was how this went. His protests were ruined by the giggling, but eventually it ended how it always ended: Jacob on top of him, pinning his wrists to the bed. For a moment it was the same as it had always been.
Then the energy changed. Jacob’s grin faded, his hair flopping down onto Felix’s forehead. They were so close it made Felix’s teeth ache.
How many times had he imagined this exact scenario happening? Jacob wrestling him into the bed, then pausing to look at Felix’s lips… only in his fantasies Jacob would look at him with desire, not with nerves.
Felix couldn’t help it. He leaned up and kissed him.
Jacob gasped. It wasn't his first kiss—he had gotten that out of the way during a game of spin the bottle with Jackie Matthews while Felix sat next to him and cheered through his nausea—but he hadn’t kissed many people. Felix had to make it worthwhile.
He kissed Jacob as deep as he dared. Jacob tasted like Chap Stick and awful cafeteria coffee. Felix couldn’t get enough. His head swam, his heart beating hard as Jacob kissed cautiously back.
Felix’s hands shook. He buried them in Jacob’s hair so he wouldn’t notice. Jacob was still pressing down on him, his hands twitching around Felix’s wrists. It was so good Felix couldn’t help but moan, dragging Jacob closer.
Jacob made a noise into his mouth and pulled back. “Okay. I don’t care how much I’m changing this semester, I’m not doing this in a Macy’s.”
Felix laughed. It was shaky. He did it again until it sounded just as careless as he wanted it, then took Jacob’s bowler hat from his head where it was already threatening to topple off.
“Coward,” Felix said, pulling off his scarf. “Let’s go back to my dorm.”
He pushed Jacob up and hopped off the bed. Jacob sat back, but didn’t follow. Felix turned around to see him kneeling on the bed, staring after him.
“What?” Felix asked, heart still pounding. Were his emotions showing? They couldn’t be, he’d put a lifetime of effort into hiding them.
Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know. Just… that’s it? Let’s go back to my dorm?”
“What were you expecting?” Felix sidled up and flicked his shoulder. “Bet I can find a maid costume in here somewhere.”
“No, I…” Jacob grimaced. He suddenly looked like he regretted ever opening his mouth. “Never mind.”
“What?” Felix kicked his shin. “What, what?”
“Quit it! Jesus.” Jacob kicked him back, then stood up and straightened his hair. “You’re so flirty with the other guys. That’s all.”
Felix’s mouth went dry. A tidal wave of fantasies washed over him, so close to what he really wanted that it made his hands start shaking again.
He slid them into his pocket and leaned up, brushing their noses together and watching Jacob’s pupils swell.
“You want to get seduced?” Felix asked, his voice low. “I can seduce.”