NOTE: This Kindle edition of Hard For My Boss ends at 60%, as it also includes two bonus Brazen Boy novellas (M/M) completely for free! Make sure to continue reading after the epilogue of Hard For My Boss to enjoy the two complimentary Brazen Boy novellas - Dorm Game and Straight Up – as well as some sample chapters from my other series.

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Hard For My Boss

Copyright © 2017 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Model / Photographer
Nathan Hainline

Cover & Interior Design
Daryl Banner

OTHER WORK by Daryl Banner

The Brazen Boys (M/M Romance)
Dorm Game  ∙
On The Edge  ∙
Owned By The Freshman  ∙
Dog Tags  ∙
Commando (Dog Tags 2)  ∙
All Yours Tonight  ∙
Straight Up  ∙
Houseboy Rules  ∙
Slippery When Wet  ∙

New Adult Romance (M/M)
Hard For My Boss  ∙
Football Sundae  ∙

A College Obsession Romance
Read My Lips  ∙
Beneath The Skin  ∙
With These Hands  ∙

The Beautiful Dead Saga
The Beautiful Dead  ∙
Dead Of Winter  ∙
Almost Alive  ∙
The Whispers  ∙
The Winters  ∙
The Wakings  ∙

The OUTLIER Series
Rebellion  ∙
Legacy  ∙
Reign Of Madness  ∙
Beyond Oblivion  ∙
Five Kings  ∙

OUTLIER: Kings & Queens (A Series Of Prequel Novellas)
The Slum Queen  ∙
The Twice King  ∙
The Queen Of Wrath  ∙

NOTE: This Kindle edition of Hard For My Boss ends at 60%, as it also includes two bonus Brazen Boy novellas (M/M) completely for free! Make sure to continue reading after the epilogue of Hard For My Boss to enjoy the two complimentary Brazen Boy novellas - Dorm Game and Straight Up – as well as some sample chapters from my other series.

1

Trevor is determined.

First days on the job are never easy. But when you work for someone like Benjamin Gage, who happens to be CEO of his own built-from-the-ground-up multimillion-dollar PR company, every day is a deeply challenging endeavor to prove your mastery by overcoming the greatest of life’s obstacles.

Like fixing this jammed-up copier, for instance.

“Please be nice,” I beg the afflicted machine, then gently poke the button a twelfth time. The thing beeps at me in protest, then flashes that same dick-shaped icon on the screen. One of the other interns—some hot punk with a slim checkered tie who’s totally not my type—didn’t exactly explain how this evil thing works.

“You got a boner?”

I jump at the voice. It’s yet another intern with perfect hair who carries a stack of his own paper to feed the copier. What’s with all the hot guys at Gage Communications?

“E-Excuse me?” I sputter back.

“You got any toner?” he repeats with a nod at the machine. “It needs more toner.”

My cheeks flush red as I deliberately don’t acknowledge what I thought he said. Also, I refuse to note his distractingly tight dress shirt that encases his big pecs. The hiring department clearly had a certain type in mind when they interviewed applicants at my university. Are hot young college men Benjamin Gage’s type?

“More toner,” I murmur with a self-conscious nod, drumming a little nervous rhythm on my thighs. “Yeah, of course. I knew that.” I pop open the side of the machine and stare into its mechanical guts like I have a clue what I’m doing.

The intern sets down his stack of papers, pops open the front of the machine, slips out a long dildo thing, struts to a neighboring cabinet where he retrieves another, returns to pop the new one in, slaps shut the front, then taps a button. The copier hums to life and produces the copies I need.

I recall his name from the introductory meeting we had a few hours ago at the start of our day. “Thank you, B-Brandon.”

“It’s Brady. Brandon’s the one with the beard,” he informs me with a tiny roll of his eyes, then proceeds to take over the copier for his own task.

I give him a tightened smile, humiliated even further, before grabbing my papers and stumbling out of the room.

This place is filled with distractions, and they all take the form of striking faces, built bodies, and tight business clothes.

What in gay office hell is wrong with me today?

Really, this is so not me. I’m supposed to be the driven and studious one. I’m not the kind of guy who drools over hotties and mourns my abysmal lack of a sex life. I’ve never even noticed until today how insanely repressed I am sexually.

I can’t let it distract me. Besides, none of the others seem to like me anyway. Stop showing them so much damned attention.

I clutch my papers tighter to my chest as I walk past another hot guy. Naturally I notice his rosy cheeks, cute thick glasses, jaw that’s perfectly square, broad shoulders … then narrowly dodge a wall I almost crash into face-first.

I think I’m just nervous because I haven’t actually met the boss yet. Benjamin Gage, the self-made millionaire, is a powerful man whose reputation for success and perfection is known from one end of the country to the other. His multimillion-dollar PR company has represented countless celebrities. He “makes people look good”, as his unofficial slogan promises.

Of course, I’ve also heard Mr. Gage is intimidating as hell, a royal dick, and apologizes to no one.

And now he’s my boss.

“He’s not a man you want to cross,” Rebekah had warned us. She’s our direct supervisor—a woman in her thirties, despite her makeup doing everything in its power to convince you otherwise. Her auburn hair’s pulled back so tightly, it gives her half a facelift. “Mr. Gage does not conduct his business in … the conventional way. His methods skirt the lines of the law at times, but you didn’t hear it from me. Never question him. Just keep up. And if you get on his bad side, well … you might as well kiss your career goodbye.”

What a pair of sweethearts, this Rebekah and Mr. Gage. I’ll be sure never to cross either of them, I had promised myself, making my fifty-seventh mental note for the day.

One more mental note and I’ll need another brain.

When I’m sorting through the papers I just copied, stapling them to corresponding packets a different employee prepared, a hand swats my ass so hard, I shriek and lose hold of the unstapled packet in my hand, the papers flopping onto the floor.

I spin and face my assailant, scowling. “Damn it, Elijah,” I hiss.

My straight best friend and fellow intern grins his dumb grin as he leans on the table. “You’ll need a chiropractor after today.”

“Chiropractor??” I crouch to gather up my fallen papers.

“Yeah. With all the neck-bending you’re doing, bro. I see you checkin’ out the other interns.”

He knows me way too well. “I’m not checkin’ out anything.”

“Wait ‘til you get a load of Benjamin Gage in the flesh. I hear he’s the hottest shit in town.”

I hug all the papers to my chest and shush him, my face going red. “If someone overhears you calling our boss the ‘hottest shit in town’, I swear I’ll permanently disown you as my best friend, Elijah.”

“Trevor, bro, you are way too uptight. You need to loosen up. Besides, boss man isn’t even here ‘til next week.”

My heart sinks. “Really? Where’d you hear that?”

“Rebekah. So don’t worry about being on your game yet.”

An intern walks past our table—another Adonis with buzzed blond hair and a sharp green tie—and I have to peel my eyes back to the packet I’m trying to salvage. With so many hot guys around me all day long, how am I supposed to complete tasks, impress my superiors, and still manage to do a good job?

And if strapping muscular men are Mr. Gage’s type, then how the heck did I fit in here? I mean, I know I’m not exactly the ugly duckling, but I’m certainly nothing like the others. Except for maybe my best friend Elijah, who is sort of my straight twin with a few minor differences. I have short, dusty blond hair while Elijah’s is dark and messy. He has dark brown eyes that almost appear black and beady while I have grey-blue. My build is slender while Elijah has more meat on his bones, having gained (and kept) the freshman fifteen—and the sophomore and junior fifteen as well. He calls it his “all the more to love” weight. I told him once that I think he looks more attractive now than he did in high school, but all he did was make some joke about his nuts being off-limits … while secretly Googling diets. He thinks I don’t notice him ordering a salad whenever we eat out.

But I notice everything.

“Chiropractor,” mumbles Elijah with a teasing smirk after the blond disappears around the corner.

I shove him lightly (he doesn’t budge) then retrain my eyes to the task at hand. “I do my work even when the boss isn’t here, and that means I have more integrity than you, slacker.” To that, Elijah just snorts, but then he joins me in stapling packets together. “How do you even know Mr. Gage is … hot? He keeps himself out of the press so well, I’ve noticed. The only images I found online were suited up and … strangely sterile. He looks forty-something.”

“Try thirty-three. And I heard he’s hot by word of mouth. I’m already picking up on the office gossip. This is good for us.”

“Sometimes, Elijah, you’re gayer than I am.”

“Yeah? Oh, and Pauline at the front desk is having a potluck on Saturday, and the interns are invited,” he adds jokingly, using his sassiest Southern twang. I just shake my head, chuckling.

I wonder sometimes if I was crazy to agree to all of this. I’m not a spontaneous person, yet I suddenly uprooted my safe and quiet life on campus and chose to move in with my straight, beer-guzzling buddy Elijah for the summer in the heart of big, scary, lit-up downtown. I didn’t hit up a tropical beach with sunlight and seagulls like a normal person, nor did I run off to a sweet, peaceful lakeside cabin for weekly barbecues.

No, I opted for Hell.

That’s right; I actually chose to live in Elijah’s cramped, one-bedroom shoebox, which comes with an ugly orange-and-white cat named Salamander who hates me.

But I did it for a good reason. See, Elijah and I both happened to land the same opportunity of a lifetime: being interns for Gage Communications. The campus where I live—sorry, lived—is exactly an hour and nineteen minutes away, so the commute would have been hell for me. Apparently it’s no big deal for Elijah, as he’s been trekking from his place to the campus for years. He lives just two blocks from Gage Communications, so he offered me his “guest room” (i.e. spare storage room full of old, rusted computer parts and Star Wars memorabilia) and I quickly accepted.

“It’s gonna be so much fun,” Elijah had told me a week ago on the car ride to his place with my things in the trunk. I could hear everything rattling around back there, which worried me the whole way. I clenched up every time he ran over a pothole, and dear Elijah seemed to hit all of them. “You and I in the big city. Interning together. Kicking ass. Those other wannabe interns don’t stand a chance of impressing Mr. Gage like we will.”

I sure hope Elijah was right about that last part. I’m eager to prove myself to Benjamin Gage, whenever I finally get to meet him. First impressions are the most important thing. It can make or break an intern; that much I know. I have to impress him come next Monday. If I don’t, the summer and this opportunity will be a total waste. It’ll be back to the university—and back to my daily neck-tightening tedium, long classes, and tasty little helpings of disappointment in my morning cereal.

That can’t happen. No slacking off. No tardiness. No half-assing.

Another intern struts right past my table. I avert my eyes and staple the next packet with conviction, grinding my teeth.

And no distractions.

2

Benjamin has it all under control.

Well, isn’t this a shit storm.

“Mom, really, you’re overreacting,” calls out the half-naked girl from the bed. Her nightmare-black mane of hair dances down her shoulders as she searches the sheets for her top.

“You’re only sixteen!” cries her mother Melena, the woman in the silk robe at my side with a cigarette pinched between two long, pale fingers—who also happens to be my client.

The girl sighs demonstratively. “Yes, Mom. Everyone does it.”

“And you are not everyone, Angelina Marie! You live a life in the spotlight. You have to set an example for other girls your age, and I swear on my grandmother’s pearls, you will not be an embarrassment to this family like your father was!”

“Oh, so we can all suffer damaging our precious public image when it’s your divorce we’re talking about. Yet I’m not allowed to do something in the privacy of my own room …”

“It won’t be so ‘private’ when your boyfriend sells that video you just sent him to the highest bidder!”

After finally managing to put on a top—which does little to actually conceal anything at all—the petulant girl huffs and rolls her eyes, rises from the bed, then proceeds to brush past us on her way out of the room.

“Angelina Marie, you will not walk away while I’m—!”

“Screw you!” calls her daughter from halfway down the stairs.

Melena shakes her head, dismissing her daughter’s attitude with a careless wave of her hand. “Lord help me, I can see the headlines now. ‘Divorced Hollywood Actress Can’t Control Her Own Daughter Amidst Sex Tape Scandal With Horny Boyfriend.’ Hopefully it’s more artfully written than that, at the very least. Any press is good press, right?” she asks me flippantly, then proceeds to suck on her cigarette like she’s trying to draw blood from a stone.

This isn’t the worst case of rebellious-teenager-mess I’ve had to clean up by far, but it’s still a pain in my ass. “Thankfully it wasn’t an actual sex tape,” I point out. “It was just your daughter putting herself in a compromising state of undress … which she happened to proudly share with her boyfriend.”

“Teenagers,” moans Melena with a roll of her eyes, as if every teenager in the world suffers this exact same situation, like it’s some expected rite of passage.

My phone buzzes. I slip it from my pocket and squint down at the screen.

JAZZ

the friend may become a problem.

advise me.

I hide a pinch of annoyance from my eyes with a tightened smile. Always the damned boyfriends stirring shit up. I can’t show any concern on my face, not when Melena’s career could explode on account of her daughter’s boy-toy wanting to make a buck. Melena is counting on me and my team to handle this swiftly and cleanly, no matter how blasé she’s pretending to be about it all.

I may come off as cocky to some—maybe even arrogant—but if I don’t appear to my clients to have everything under control at all times, they start questioning whether I’m really worth the cash they’re putting down for my services. They’re quick to read even a flicker of doubt on my face as a sign that everything is going to hell. In this industry, I have a reputation to uphold, and if it takes exuding a constant air of confidence to reassure my clients, then I’ll wear that mask with pride, keep my chin up, and never falter.

Even if I’m shitting my pants right now.

I face Melena again. “It just happened this morning,” I remind her assuredly, “so we’re still ahead of the game. I have my team watching the network traffic on Angelina’s phone while blocking the outgoing data packets from her boyfriend’s to ensure the video—or videos—don’t go anywhere.”

Her eyes lock onto mine as I speak. The look in them is pretty unmistakable, and I’ve seen it a thousand times. Her hair, as dark and voluminous as her daughter’s, flows over one shoulder and leads the eye to the slit of her robe, which plunges far too deeply down her cleavage to be decent. Recently divorced, starved for affection, and filthy rich, this woman is clearly hungry for something more than just my help in cleaning up this situation.

“You think you can fix this?” She raises one of her pencil-thin eyebrows and crosses an arm over her stomach, which pushes up her breasts ever slightly. Her whole demeanor has changed, as if the outrage with her daughter was all an act and she was just waiting for us to be alone together. “You can make it better?”

“My team and I will handle everything,” I assure her again, my voice like steel. “None of this will get out.”

“You really … know what you’re doing.” She takes another long drag, lets it out languidly in a twirl of smoke. “You’re saying you have the whole situation … under your control?”

Her voice bleeds with unapologetic innuendo. All I can smell is cigarette smoke and lavender. I almost feel sorry for her. She should know I’m gay by now, but denial is a powerful thing. “In a matter of hours, your daughter’s short-lived career in sex taping will never have happened.”

She bites her lip, her eyes drifting to my chest. “You never let me down, Benjamin. Thank you.” Like a finger along flesh, her gaze slides up my body and meets mine.

My cue to leave. Time’s ticking. “I’ll be in touch with you.” I make my way for the door.

She intercepts me with the swiftness of a panther, then leans against the doorframe suggestively. “What’s the rush?” Her lips purse as she hooks a finger into the waist of my pants. She is nothing if not totally to-the-point and utterly shameless.

“Every minute counts,” I tell her smoothly, as if I don’t even notice her finger caught in my waistband.

“You must be so stressed. Why don’t you let me do some of the work?” Her eyes flick down to my crotch.

There is a fine line I must walk of treating my clients with respect while also setting strict boundaries. I have never messed around with any of them—male or female—and certainly won’t be starting today. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not—”

“I have just the right idea,” she insists, then leans in and adds in a whisper, “I really like having a big, swollen cock in my mouth.”

I lean in just the same and reply, “So do I.”

Her body stiffens. Then she pulls away to get a look at me, as if I’d suddenly become a two-headed leprechaun. “I … I thought they were just rumors. You mean …?”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“N-No. Not a disappointment.” Flustered, Melena crosses her arms. After some thought, she tilts her head, reconsidering. “Now it sort of makes sense, actually.”

“Does it?”

“You’re too well put-together to be straight,” she decides. “I have never seen a man’s clothes fit as well as yours do. Plus, you are just too damned good-looking. And also you’ve never been married—I checked.”

I have no idea what to make of all that. “I just do what my company promises: I make people look good.”

“And you start with yourself,” she notes with a suggestive lift of an eyebrow, pursing her lips. She takes another long drag, then lets it all out. “If you decide you’re lacking a woman’s touch, you know where I live.”

“I think I have all I need. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Surely there’s something more you want,” she persists.

“Good day, Melena.” I give her a reassuring wink, then turn to leave.

Her voice catches me halfway down the stairs. “What could a man like you—a man who has everything—possibly want?”

I stop at the foot of the stairs and turn, seeing her standing over the banister, her robe half-open to reveal her nearly-nothing bikini underneath. She poses the question like a riddle.

A riddle for which I have not, in many, many years, had an answer.

“He’s got to want something,” she sings. Then, with a quirk of her eyebrow, she turns from the banister and disappears back into her room, leaving me with that last, lingering thought.

What do I want?

The fresh air outside slaps me in the face as I don my shades and rebutton my suit. I slip into the back of the black Jaguar out front. Ian, my driver, kicks the car into gear and burns rubber.

Just as my flight lands back home, I get another text, this one from Rebekah back at the office.

REBEKAH

Are you still returning Monday?

Or are you able to come in tonight?

Topher Sr. AND Jr. need to meet with you, plus Benson’s lawyers.

I check the date, then tap a quick response.

ME

Call them in for Monday.

Tonight is Lance & my anniversary.

REBEKAH

I’ll schedule them for Monday then.

Side note: I’m fairly certain you’ll like this batch of interns. They’re all very hard, dedicated workers.

I smirk. Interns. They’re the bane of my life. I should really be more appreciative of what Rebekah does for me, hiring the interns every year, but she seems to think she’s serving me by choosing good-looking young hotshots with muscles in their arms and nothing in their heads—or worse, their hearts.

Every summer, it’s the same story. I see the same dreamy look in their eyes when they approach me. I see the wants and the needs and the urgency behind their every movement. The desire for me to help them rise up to whatever great thing they dream of is so palpable, I can taste it like smoke.

And it always burns me just the same.

When I push open the door to my penthouse, the love of my life rushes across the smooth tile to embrace me, sliding and slipping excitedly along the way.

Lancelot, my Jack Russell Terrier, crashes into my legs, then tries to climb up my body as he licks and licks, his tongue eager for my face.

All the stress I was feeling a second ago drops to the floor like a sack of shoes. Or maybe that’s my luggage. I crouch down and let him have his way with me, chuckling as I rub his white-and-brown spotted coat. “Miss me?” I sing to him as he licks my face over and over. “I was only gone for a day and a half. Quit bein’ silly.”

He’s a rescue, and a damn near close call, if you ask me. Had I found him one day later, I’m certain he would have been dead. It was one really bad night after a really shitty week when I turned to the bottle and strolled down 8th Avenue, lost in heavy thoughts and despair. I stumbled over his emaciated body in the alley by King Arthur’s, a restaurant, and face-planted right next to him. Then there lay the sad pair of us that night—two thrown-away, lonely, damaged fools. It was seven years ago today.

“You know what day it is?” I ask him as I make my way to the kitchen, ignoring the luggage I’d left at the door. He pads along behind me, panting excitedly. “Our anniversary, Lance! I bet you knew that. Dinner for two, comin’ right up.”

An hour later, I’m eating at one end of the table while Lance sits in the chair beside me. Yes, he sits at the table with me. This is perfectly acceptable behavior in my home, as Lance is part of my family. In some sense, he’s my only family. He’s even eating his favorite meal from an ornate blue-and-white china bowl.

He’s the only creature on Earth—human or otherwise—I’ve ever let close to my heart. I’m not even sure my parents have earned such a place in it. When Gage Communications struck its first success, it wasn’t a call of congratulations I got from my mother; it was a lecture in morality, integrity, and how I’m throwing away my life on the spoiled rich brats of Beverly Hills.

I’d built this multimillion dollar business out of cents in my pocket, but my parents will never see it that way. I might as well be cooking and dealing crystal meth out of a white, unmarked van in Albuquerque. Considering how much damned weed my father smokes, I figure I’m ranked even lower than that.

“We started from the bottom,” I say to Lance across the table, “you and I. We started with nothing, and now look at us.”

Lance pants his response, then resumes licking his bowl clean with overflowing excitement.

Yeah, he gets it.

“Happy anniversary, Lance!” I lift my glass of bourbon in a toast, despite Lancelot totally ignoring me, as he’s six-hundred percent committed to licking every last bit out of that bowl. My words echo through the big empty condo, echo off the baby grand in the living room, echo off the ten-thousand dollar backsplash on the kitchen walls, echo off the crystal chandelier above us, echo off the floor-to-ceiling eighteen-foot-tall windows and down the giant archway into the hall and through my four guestrooms and my giant king-size bed, which I’d sleep in empty every night if it weren’t for that special canine at the foot of it.

So much space for my voice to echo off of. So much room.

So much nothing, if it weren’t for Lancelot.

What could a man like you—a man who has everything—possibly want? asked Melena over that banister.

The question still plagues me when I’m lying in bed hours later and Lance is already kicking in his sleep, his paws rubbing along the soft comforter as he chases dream bunnies.

Her voice keeps fluttering around my mind, taunting me. He’s got to want something. I stare at the ceiling, swallowed in cool white sheets and wearing nothing at all. A man who has everything …

For a man who has everything, my life sure feels like it’s full of nothing.

I put my hands behind my head and close my eyes, but even in the dark peace behind my eyelids, the question still haunts me.

Then Lance kicks me in his sleep and jerks himself awake, his big watery eyes searching for his imaginary assailant in a panic, confused.

I grin. At least I’ve got him.

3

Trevor needs to let loose.

“I’m not hungry,” I try to tell him, stumbling over my shoes, “and I still have to pick out a tie for Monday.”

“We’re not going out for dinner, cupcake,” Elijah teases me, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “You, Trevor, need to loosen the hell up. I promise, you can plan your week’s wardrobe when we get back, down to your matching underwear.”

On a Friday night like this, the streets are crowded with partygoers, friends meeting up, and drunken laughter. The city is alive, and its inhabitants never sleep. Elijah has been one of these inhabitants for two years now. Amidst the city noise, he’s totally at home.

And then there’s me, obsessing over whether a red tie will indicate a sense of desperation over a mauve tie.

Listen to me. Using words like “mauve”. I lean into Elijah with a heavy sigh, my safety net. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

When we finally arrive, I do a hell of a lot more than seeing. I do some coughing, some gagging, and a bit of squinty-eyed ear-covering. Elijah’s brilliant idea of how to loosen me up is visiting a nightclub we’ve passed every morning on our way to the office and every evening on our way home. I’ve never been to a bar, let alone a seedy downtown hangout with thumping music and throngs of sweaty, half-clothed people everywhere you turn.

Making our way to the bar, I witness a woman grinding her body against a shirtless hunk, whose eyes are glued to her breasts. I witness another guy gyrating his hips against a girl who grasps his hair in a fist as she hungrily pulls his mouth to hers.

This place is a den of sex, sweat, and slippery skin.

And then there’s Elijah and I ordering a pair of Cokes. Neither of us will be twenty-one for three more weeks. Did I mention our birthdays are just four days apart? We’re so stinking cute.

Shoot me now. I grab Elijah’s sleeve. “Over it already.”

“This place is exactly what you need. Just let it happen.”

“Yeah. A loud nightclub where I get to watch a bunch of men and women grope each other drunkenly.”

“Hey, there are gay people here, too,” Elijah assures me. “You aren’t all alone. In fact, that’s sort of the point.”

“The point?”

“Yeah. I want you to get laid.”

I blink at him—and not just due to the eye-watering smoke drifting through the air I’m desperately trying to breathe. Also, I’m trying not to notice a bearded guy getting what I presume to be a lap dance from a woman in a miniskirt halfway down the bar. The sight is very distracting and not in the spank bank way.

“Don’t give me that face, Trevor. You are too uptight, and this internship is going to break you unless you untie those panties—”

“We’re going home. Now.”

“Nope. Denied.”

“Then I’m going home.”

“Half an hour,” he begs me. “Give me just half an hour, and if Trevor’s not having even a tiny bit of fun by then, we’ll go home and order a large pizza with lemon garlic wings.”

“Ten minutes. Teriyaki wings.”

“Fifteen. Half-and-half.”

“Deal.” I cross my arms and sit on the stool next to him.

This is a little game he won’t win, and my unfinished planner waiting for me on my desk at home is proof of that. Even sitting here at this bar where we each nurse a totally-innocent Coke—which takes ten of our precious fifteen minutes to even get—all I find myself thinking about is which color tie will go with my slate-colored slacks. Maybe red is too desperate, too “look at me”. Do I go for a pink one to indicate sophistication, or something more saturated to convey my focus and passion?

Looking good is hard work.

“That one,” Elijah says, pointing.

He’s been doing this too for the past ten minutes, pointing out every guy in the club who seems to not have a half-dressed woman rubbing their lady bits all over him. “Straight,” I blurt back, just like the last four.

“How about that one?”

“Straight, too.”

Elijah smirks at me. “How can you tell?”

“They’re all straight or taken. All of them. Can we go now? I think I left your stove on.”

“Four minutes. You promised. And no, you didn’t.”

I slurp on my Coke. “We really should be spending tonight and tomorrow researching marketing strategies and preparing for—”

“We have a whole summer to do that. Tonight, all we research is dude butts.” Elijah lifts an eyebrow. “That’s what gay guys are into, right? Butts? You’re a bunch of puppies running in circles smelling each other’s holes, right?”

I shove Elijah for that, earning a hearty laugh from him as he nearly falls off his stool.

Then, across the room, I catch sight of a man standing at a tall bar table all by himself. He looks strangely out of place wearing a clean, fitted blue suit jacket with a slight shimmer to it and crisp slacks. Through the haze of people and smoke, his eyes are aimed my way.

Oh. At me.

He’s looking right at me.

Damn, his eyes can pierce like a spear. His hair, golden brown, is sharply combed, save for a chaotic tuft in the front. His chiseled face sports a bit of beard at the chin that tapers off like a razor’s edge down his strong jawline toward a set of smooth, shaven cheeks and high cheekbones.

Fuck, what a gorgeous face …

And his body. Wow. Even through the haze, I spot a button-up shirt beneath his sexy blazer that hugs a big, muscular chest. The sleeves of his jacket enwrap arms as thick as footballs, which immediately makes me think of him doing naked pushups for some reason. Even his legs are big and strong. The shape of his body is present through the thin material of his clothes, which hug his form exquisitely. I can only imagine what those slacks are doing to his ass. I kinda wish he’d turn around so I can know.

And all of that smoldering sexiness is looking right at me.

Then, quick as a storm rolling in, the aisle of nothing that existed between me and that man closes in, filling with dancing bodies and half-fucking couples on the floor.

My view of the sexiest man in the world is obliterated in the blink of an eye.

“Besides,” Elijah is going on, oblivious to any of this, “you do realize we’ll probably be gofers for a good portion of the summer. I hope you’re good at taking coffee orders.”

I lean one way and then the other, desperate to regain eye contact with the man. Too many people are in the way. “I’m sure we’ll be put to much better use than that,” I retort distractedly.

“Doubt it. How about that one?” he asks, gesturing.

“Straight.” I didn’t even look. “And I don’t doubt it. You and I were chosen for a reason.”

“Yeah. We’re local. We’re young. We’re gofers.”

“We’re smart,” I state, “and we’re qualified, and we’re driven. And we got recommendations from our professors.” I give him my full attention suddenly. “I mean, have you really considered what this’ll do for our fourth and final year at the university, Elijah? Working for Mr. Gage?”

“The Gagency,” he quips.

I elbow him hard. “Gage Communications. Don’t be caught dead calling it anything else, dude. You saw how strict that supervisor is. Rebekah. She’ll whip you in half. Two minutes.”

“If you think she’s strict, she’s got nothin’ on Mr. Gage himself. He’s a downright bossy control freak with an attitude. Or so I hear. Three minutes.”

“So you hear. Two minutes.”

“Two and a half actually, according to my iPhone. Gotta pee. Hold my seat.”

As Elijah gets up to go, I call after him, “Better not take longer than two and a half minutes!” But the words are lost to the storm of loud, hypnotic music and screaming chatter already washing over the room.

I push away my watered-down Coke and continue staring through the crowd, wondering if I’ll find that man again. When I finally manage to get a view of the table he was standing at, however, I find it sadly unoccupied.

I slouch, deflated. He left. Maybe he was actually staring at a girl near me before. Or he was lost in a thought and wasn’t even looking my way at all, staring off into space. Or some hotter guy or gal snatched him up while I sat over here discussing minutes.

I shouldn’t be discouraged. It’s not like I had an actual shot anyway. I’m not seriously considering Elijah’s advice of hooking up with someone here. What he doesn’t realize is that I’m not the casual-sex kind of guy.

In fact, I’ve never even had serious-sex before.

Like, at all.

That may seem a bit hard to believe, considering I’m twenty, have three years of college under my belt, and while my looks may not rival a six-foot-four beauty on the runway, I’m certainly not the least attractive guy in the room.

I crane my neck once more, searching the club for the man in the sexy suit. Again, my search is in vain.

I can’t even begin to think about what would happen if a man like that actually approached me, told me I was hot, and had his way with me. How would I react? Would I seriously tell him, “No thanks, Captain Dreamy. See, I have this big important finally-meet-my-boss thing Monday morning and totally need to keep a clear mind for it. You were going to fulfill my every fantasy? Oh, well, thanks, but no thanks. The only thing I fantasize about are studies on whether social media compromises the very fabric of our humanity.”

No. I wouldn’t tell him any of that. I’d likely not be able to say a damned thing as he took my body and pulled it up against his.

Oh, that’s a nice image. I chuckle to myself, my thighs pulling together as I feel blood rushing below. Let’s think of another.

Wish granted. I’m choked for words as I imagine him standing over me, commanding my attention. He’d have every ounce of it. Statistics and staples and bewitched copiers would fall right out of my mind, replaced by a throbbing in my fast-tightening pants and a desperate, hungry need for my hands to be all over his body—and for his hands to be all over mine.

He has to have strong hands to match those bulging biceps.

I cross my legs suddenly. I’m getting so stupidly hard just thinking about what those muscles might feel like beneath my gripping fingers. I wonder what the meat of his body would sound like if I were to push him against the brick wall over there.

No, scratch that; he’d be the one doing all of the pushing into brick walls. Definitely him.

I close my eyes, the noise of the nightclub far, far away as I imagine my hands on his chest, sliding down his rippling abs. Let’s face it: Mr. Hot Stuff definitely has rippling abs to go with that huge chest. And in my dream, I can put my hands anywhere I want.

Even in his pants.

I bite my lip, my crossed legs squeezing harder to conceal my throbbing, aching boner.

Then at once, I flip open my eyes. What the hell am I doing? Am I really this pent up that I’m going to sit here in the middle of a bar and fantasize about some random guy who might or might not have been staring at me across the crowded room?

Maybe Elijah is right. Maybe I really do need to get laid.

But not tonight. I lift my chin, take a deep breath, and try to coax my furiously cramped hard-on to go away.

No hot man with muscles in a bar, nightclub, or anywhere for that matter is going to distract me from my goal. That includes the dumb, sexy boys at the office, none of whom like me, I’m quite convinced. And they don’t have to like me, I’ve also decided. I’m there for only one person: Mr. Gage. He’s the only one who matters. Not my coworkers. Not Elijah and his quipping. Not even our immediate supervisor Rebekah.

And not a hot guy in a bar. I’ve worked too hard and for too long to be addled by some muscled man in a tight suit who’s giving me tight situations in my pants. That’s a fact.

“Were you looking for me?”

I turn at the sound of that deep, sultry voice right behind me, and my eyes fall on a beautiful man.

It’s him. The man. From across the room.

Yes, I’m still hard as a rock. And now I’m getting harder. He’s twenty times more gorgeous this close-up. Oh my gay gods. Now my fantasy has relocated to right in front of me, and for a countless amount of excruciating seconds, I can’t say a damned word.

And then …

4

Benjamin has his eye on the prize.

“E-Excuse me?” the boy squeaks.

I hide a smirk of amusement. This kid just might be the cutest damned guy I’ve ever seen at this bar, and I’ve been here so many times, I can’t count. He’s got this cute, slightly upturned nose, and lips that are frustratingly kissable. I say “frustratingly” because I’m fighting a nagging doubt that this guy, in fact, wasn’t looking at me, and maybe he’s yet another one of those hot dorky straight guys I keep going after.

But from the panic my mere presence just struck in his eyes, I think I might be talking to my sure-thing midnight snack.

I repeat myself. “I asked if you were looking for me.”

He seems to have trouble speaking, which surprises me, since he seemed so confident sitting here at the bar by himself. It’s kind of adorable, how instantly flustered I’ve made this kid. He’s got dirty blond hair, a sexy little body, and a mouth I’m pretty sure can take every inch of my cock. He’s simply perfect.

He’s gonna need to take a lot of inches, by the way.

Fuck, I’m gonna peel you like a sweet, ripe, tasty banana.

“You … were staring at me,” he insists with an annoyed crease of his brow, his voice like liquid silk and cream.

I keep my face strong as I appraise the package that is this kid, my gaze severe and my expression hard. “Is that so?” I love toying with him. He’s so easily ruffled; I can tell. “I’m not so sure.”

“Well, I am,” he chokes out, a delayed response, but there’s a touch more assertiveness about it.

This kid is stubborn. I’m pretty sure that means he’s going to be a cum rocket and a few attitude grenades in the bedroom, which is the exact brand of hot I need after the week I’ve had.

I tilt my head and prop an elbow on the bar, letting my mere presence overwhelm him. “So what’re you doing over here all by yourself?”

He lifts his chin. “Having a drink,” he answers firmly. “As you can clearly see for yourself,” he adds, then his eyes go wide and he looks away, as if his own words just scared him.

Now he’s blushing five times worse than he was when I first approached him. I love this game he’s trying to play with me.

I clear my throat. “Let me get you another. What is it you’re having? Jack and Coke? Rum and Coke?”

He presses his lips together tight and clasps his glass like it’s about to grow legs and run away from him. “Just Coke,” he finally confesses, trying (and failing hard) to act all cool and flippant, “and I don’t need another. In fact, I … was just about to leave.”

He fidgets, his legs nearly squirming.

He turns his head away, but not completely.

I smirk knowingly. This kid is so into me, I have no doubt now. I can tell he’s concealing a boner. I swear, if he squeezes his thighs together any tighter, he’s going to turn his cock into a diamond.

“So no drink?” I fish one last time.

He doesn’t look at me, forcing himself to stare at the ceiling. “Nope.”

Hard to get is a game I know well when it’s played by cuties like this one. And it’s a game two can play. “Alright, no prob.” I let my gaze drop to his lap, give him time to notice, then flick my eyes back up to meet his, my forehead wrinkling innocently. “I hope you find what you’re looking for tonight, stud. Excuse me while I go … lick my wounds.”

He parts his lips as if to say something, then freezes. I don’t give him another chance. Turning, I saunter off to a table near the door where it’s a little less damaging to the ears, then claim a seat and stare at my phone. There’s two messages sitting there from Rebekah, but I ignore them, as I’m not really paying attention to the phone; I’m paying attention to whether or not my little ploy is going to work. When you play hard to get, you need complete and utter focus. To be fair, this game of mine has backfired before.

A shadow covers my screen. I look up.

There he is.

He folds his arms. “So you’re gonna leave? Just like that?”

“Do you see me leaving?” I counter.

He bites the inside of his cheek and stares me down. Then he says, “I don’t see you licking any wounds.”

“I’m a fast licker,” I quip back.

The joke doesn’t land. In fact, his crossed arms tighten and he looks off, as if searching for someone. Then, surprisingly, I see a genuine desire in his eyes to get the hell out of here. His whole face and body is tensed with discomfort. Why didn’t I let myself see it sooner? Maybe I was too busy entertaining the dirty thoughts wrestling through the bed sheets of my mind.

He isn’t like the typical cutie who churns through this place. He’s a fish out of his fresh water pond, and he’s drowning in air. The look in his eyes strikes me, reminding me of the first time I ever went to a club. It was long before I started working out, long before the tattoos, and long before the success of my company. I remember how terrified I was. I remember the constant feeling that I didn’t belong, that I should go home, that I wasn’t gay enough or hot enough or naked enough. Every single guy I looked at would turn away like I was nothing, and I hated them all for it—all those elitist queens who wouldn’t give me the time of day.

Am I doing that to this guy?

Am I now one of the elitist queens?

As fast as I see that glint of discomfort in him, I’m on my feet. “It’s really loud in here.”

My voice pulls his focus back to me. “Oh? Is that so? Nice observation. Next you’ll tell me it’s sweaty and smells like straight sex everywhere.”

I fight the laughter in my chest. This boy’s got a lip, and I love it. “You want to go somewhere quieter?”

His expression changes, softening.

He seems hesitant, perhaps weighing it over in his mind. He looks off toward the bar, fidgeting, then glances down at his phone. Just when I’m about to say something else, he looks up suddenly and blurts, “Yeah. Y-Yes. Let’s … get out of this place.”

Just what I wanted to hear.

5

Trevor is totally not freaking out.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

I have to pay very careful attention to where I step. The last thing I want to do is trip over my own foot in front of this hot, gorgeous man who radiates with strength and control. Leave it to me to be the only one in that bar who wasn’t drinking—and then eats concrete on his way out.

“You a coffee guy?” he asks me. “Want to grab a coffee?”

No, I’m not. It makes me jumpy. But this man is definitely the takes-his-coffee-black type, and maybe I feel like I should match him somehow, like a competition. Do all dates in the gay world feel like emotional arm wrestling? I would be surprised if he didn’t hack a log in half every morning before he eats breakfast.

I give him one quick, nervous nod, my lips pressed together.

Apparently I can’t talk.

“Sounds good.” His voice is so deep and sexy. Every single word of his literally feels like it’s pulling on my balls, which is not helping the still-semi-hard situation in my pants. “One of my favorite coffee spots is just up the street.”

I return a tight smile, then glance down at my phone. Elijah’s last text is still sitting there. It’s just a thumbs-up emoji with a bunch of drooling faces and then an eggplant.

I might have told him that I left with a guy. He’s so proud of me. He’s like my beaming away-from-home mother. Get ‘em, tiger.

“So … do you go to that club often?” he asks.

I lick my lips. It doesn’t help. “No,” I admit. “Never, actually.” I cross my arms. Then I uncross them. Then I shove them into my pockets like they’ve done something wrong. “Uh … you?”

He nods. “All the time. Never seen you there.”

All the time.

Maybe this is a routine for him, hitting up the bar and picking out the first boy he likes. Maybe I’m just his little toy of the week and nothing more. That seems to marry well with what I’ve always thought of the dating scene—that it’s just a big confusing mess of sweat and sex and nothing nice.

But maybe doing something totally reckless tonight—like running off with the hottest guy at the nightclub—is precisely what I need. Maybe, for the first time in my life, I should take my best friend’s horribly irresponsible advice.

Maybe I should get laid.

Am I crazy?

“Are you alright?” he asks me suddenly. “You seem kind of nervous.”

I stop at the next corner. For some reason, I can’t get my feet to move anymore.

“I think I should go home,” I blurt out.

He opens his mouth, then shuts it again, baffled. Then he nods at the building across the street. “The coffee place is right there. You sure you don’t feel like just—?”

“I hate coffee.”

He lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, shit. Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I don’t know. I’m nervous. I don’t usually do this.”

“Do what? Get coffee on a Friday night with a total stranger?”

“Something like that.”

He glances across the street and squints. “Well, it doesn’t look like the coffee shop is going to be much quieter. Looks packed as hell.”

I don’t respond, finding myself caught in staring at him again. Up close, his chest muscles appear even bigger in that crisp, tight dress shirt, and his biceps are just ridiculous, still hugged in the shimmering blue fabric of his fitted blazer.

I can’t believe this guy is even talking to me.

And his face—handsome, chiseled, and intensely smoldering—causes me to flush all over again. I have never been struck so hard before by simply how a man looks. He was intense enough to watch from across the dim nightclub. Up close, he’s downright stunning.

I can’t explain the next thing I say except that all of the suppressed sexual energy inside me is bursting to the surface in front of this man. I want him to do everything to me and more. I feel a tightness in my chest that doctors say is a sign of cardiac arrest. Yeah, this man is breaking my heart just by standing there looking gorgeous, and every second that goes by where my hands aren’t on him is killing me.

“Do you have somewhere else in mind we could hang that’s more … private?” I ask him, out of breath while standing still.

He returns his handsome gaze back to me. My heart is racing away just from that look he gives me. Sweat gathers in my pits. I can’t seem to blink properly. Or breathe.

“Well, not to be too forward, but … we could go back to my place,” he suggests. “I live fairly close by.”

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

I give a quick nod, my chest feeling hollow as my heart beats feverishly to pump all the blood down to my cock. I’m thankful for the tight pants and underwear I have on; they’re concealing my excitement for the most part. “I … g-guess we c-could do that,” I finally get out, despite the embarrassing stutter.

He takes a step toward me. Just that little movement closer is overwhelming, what it does to my body. “It’s down this street.” He nods at the road, then proceeds to lead the way.

I follow.

We’re walking in silence for some time, which disturbs me worse than the noise of the nightclub. Unlike before, there seems to be no one on this street. Everyone who passes by is quiet or on the other side of the road. Why am I so nervous?

I push myself to say something. “I’m not really the club kind of guy. It was my roommate’s idea. He thinks I’m too uptight … or something.”

What am I saying? Shut up, Trevor!

He chuckles once breathily, then nods. “Yeah, I gathered that much about you.”

I frown at him. “What do you mean?”

“That was the first thing I thought when I saw you across the club. ‘What’s a guy like that doing here?’ I asked myself.”

His question catches me off-guard. “A guy like … me?”

“Yes.” He nods at me, like it’s obvious. “You seem a bit out of your element, kid. You look terrified.”

“I am not terrified,” I reply, terrified.

Just the way his mouth moves when we have this dialogue, I find deeply erotic. To my utter mortification, my cock responds to that observation by flexing—hard—in my already too-tight pants. I literally can’t control myself right now. I’m a teenage boy with sex hormones flooding me, hormones I’ve almost never acted upon, hormones that are totally changing who I am, messing with my head and chasing my heart away.

This scorching man has succeeded in doing precisely what my fantasy version of him promised: he commands me with just a few words, owning me with his charm, and making me forget the bumbling fool that I am.

Mostly. “So you think I’m uptight?”

“No.” He gives it a moment’s thought, his bottom lip pushing up as he thinks. He has one seriously magnificent jaw encased in that epic chin-beard. He constantly exudes strength with every word uttered, with every movement. “I think you’re cautious.”

“Cautious?”

“Yeah.” His forehead wrinkles up as he glances over at me. Piece by piece, I feel all my own strength breaking apart under his gaze. I’m growing weak in the knees, succumbing to him.

Am I making this chase too easy? Have I yet to pick up my proverbial jaw from the proverbial floor?

“I’m not sure I’d call it … cautiousness,” I reply.

“What, then?”

I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself, but all I inhale is his spicy cologne, his strong masculine scent, and whatever sexual voodoo he’s deliberately and pointedly emitting in my direction. I’ve never throbbed so hard in my pants and managed to somehow still walk like there’s totally not an enormous boner in my pants. I deserve a freaking reward.

“Well?” he prompts me. “If you’re not cautious or uptight, then what are you? This way.”

We turn a corner. The buildings are starting to look a lot nicer, taller, and fancier. I haven’t been in this part of the city. I do realize it’s only seven blocks in the opposite direction of the office and Elijah’s apartment, but it feels like a whole other world.

“Well, the sad thing is,” I tell him, “I’ve spent pretty much every minute of my life behind a desk studying for classes and living up to my ‘overachiever’ title I so valiantly earned after four years of straight A’s and Honors classes in high school.”

“So you’re a nerd. Congrats. So was I back in school.”

I snort and look away. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Oh really?” I hear the hint of laughter in his voice. “What kind of guy do I look like to you, then?”

The answer comes quick. “Like the popular guy everyone in the school knew and wanted to be around. You worked out six days a week. You were probably captain of some … team. You get what you want, you woo all the girls, and you make the nerds like me feel like we got no business lusting after boys like you.”

My eyes go wide and I stop. Did I really just say all that?

He turns to me, stopping as well. When I look up, I find a firm, stern, smoldering expression on his handsome face. His eyes are burning and dark with need. Did my answer turn him on?

Am I imagining all of this, or is this walking wet muscle dream actually into me?

“Guess you hit the nail right on the head,” he murmurs.

“I … was just channeling my own dumb angst.” I shrug it all off. “I don’t really think that’s who you are. In truth, I don’t have the first idea who you are. Or what you are. Or …” My face flushes. “Or even what your name is.” My jaw drops. Oh my God.

I’m going to his place and I don’t even know his name.

He leans my way, his muscular body eclipsing the light from a nearby streetlamp. “You can call me Ben.”

“Trevor,” I say right back. “My name is Trevor.”

He extends a hand. Considering how close he’s standing to me, he doesn’t have to extend it very far. “Nice to meet you, totally-not-uptight-nerd Trevor.”

I chuckle once, then straighten my face. I can’t let my guard down too quickly; I still don’t really know this guy. “The pleasure is all mine,” I return, “Mister Cocky-Popular-Guy Ben.”

Our palms kiss and our fingers meet in the firmest, strongest, most sensual handshake I’ve ever known.

My insides are wrung like a rag when his skin touches mine. My cock aches desperately, urgently begging to be freed. My heart is in my throat. My pits are sweating so bad, they feel cold.

Ben lets go of my hand, then tilts his head a bit and nods across the street. “We’re here.”

After gathering my guts, I follow the beautiful man into the building. I don’t even know what it looks like on the outside. I’m completely blinded by him as my eyes train on his tight, firm ass in those sexy slacks of his as he leads the way into the big, tiled lobby, which I’m all but ignoring as I become lost in how tightly his pants encase the big, chiseled muscles of his thighs that lead up to the two beautiful globes of his butt.

I’m so ashamed of the thoughts I’m having of burying my face between those beefy, beautiful cheeks.

After we pass a desk with a security guard—Goodness, this place is fancy—we stop in front of an elevator where he hits the button and turns around. I flick my eyes up from his ass too late. A cocky smirk curls the corner of his full, sexy lips.

I’m pretty sure he caught me staring.

I swallow hard. This isn’t gonna be easy. I might come in my pants if he smirks at me like that one more time. I’m not exaggerating.

In the elevator, I’m staring at my reflection in the mirrored wall. “Nice building you live in,” I note dreamily.

“Nice …?”

“Really nice,” I amend. The night breeze did something to my hair. I brush a few strands off of my forehead, then note how nervous my eyes look. Maybe I should text Elijah. That would put me at ease. I pull out my phone and quickly shoot him a message, telling him what I’m up to and that I’ll be home later. Then I wonder if that’s even true. Will I be expected to stay over, or will I be kicked out? How does this work? I have no idea about anything at all.

When I look up from my phone, Ben is watching me with a knowing smirk.

I hate how he acts all cocky, like he knows everything.

I love how he acts all cocky, like he knows everything.

The elevator doors part. There’s a short hall that leads to one single door. Strange.

Ben strolls right up to that door and punches in a code. Then, like an afterthought, he turns to face me. “I ought to warn you. I have a dog, and he’s not very fond of strangers.”

“Th-That’s okay. I’m used to animals hating me,” I inform him with loving thoughts of my roommate’s evil orange-and-white cat Salamander, who peed in one of my three pairs of work shoes on Thursday. “I’ll keep my distance.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean he’s dangerous. Far from. He won’t bite. He never bites. Just don’t take it personally if he doesn’t warm up to you all that fast, alright?”

I nod and thrust my hands in my pockets.

He opens the door, and in we go.

To say his home is spacious would be a gross understatement. It is staggeringly big, breathy, and open. The brief front entryway spills into a humungous living room lined with floor-to-ceiling windows twice as tall as I am, and a hall that goes off somewhere. Up above, I spot a long chrome banister that reveals a second floor accessible by a spiral staircase at the entryway. A kitchen throws dim, pale light across the clean space, its bar counter open toward the living room. There’s a dining area by the kitchen, which has a table long enough to seat three whole families and their plus-ones, likely. In the semidarkness, the shiny marble tiles below glimmer as they drink up and reflect whatever crystalline bits of light they find—their only source, the kitchen at the moment.

Like a moth to a flame, I follow Ben into said kitchen with my jaw all but dragging along the floor. I don’t want to seem shocked, so I maintain a cool expression of indifference, despite feeling like I’d just stumbled into some celebrity’s secret palace in the sky.

Ben—somehow freed from the sexy tight confines of that blue blazer, which he likely took off while I was busy drooling over his less-than-humble abode, and now sporting just his distractingly tight white button shirt that showcases every muscle in his body—turns around from the counter to face me. “Red or white?”

“I think that shirt’s f-fine,” I stammer. “White suits you.”

“Wine,” he clarifies, giving the side of a bottle that’s suddenly in his hand a hearty tap. “Unless you’re more of a beer guy …?”

His pecs look so amazing in that shirt that it’s the only place my mind and eyes went to.

“Red or white … or beer?” he asks patiently.

I blink away the image of him that’s scorching me, my face burning red. “Oh. Sorry. Red. White. Beer. Any. I don’t know.”

He lets out one breathy chuckle. “Relax. I’m more of a wine guy, so we’ll go with that. I’ll pick for you.”

“You have a really big—” Ben turns back to the counter to get the wine open. His white shirt is still tucked into his slacks with a belt, which shows off his beautiful tight glutes in all their glory. My eyes instantly flick to them, my heart racing with desire. “B-Big place,” I finish, my eyes glued helplessly to his butt.

I’ve never wanted to grab something more in my life.

Shamelessly. Feverishly. Greedily.

I literally might be salivating.

“It’s comfy,” he replies nonchalantly, his back still turned as he coaxes the cork out of the bottle. I watch the tight shirt revealing all his back muscles going to work as he screws and twists and pulls the corkscrew. His butt does a little wiggle when the cork is finally freed, which is as sexy as it is adorable—and it does nothing to lessen my insane, growing desire to grab that ass. I’m hypnotized.

“So … you live here alone?” I ask, still staring.

He reaches up and fetches two glasses from a shelf—his place is so modern and fancy, his kitchen cabinets don’t have doors—then turns around with the bottle in one hand and the two glasses pinched in the other. I look up just in time to not get caught staring again. “Just Lance and I.”

I blink. “Lance?”

“My dog. Lancelot.”

He sets the glasses on the kitchen island between us and proceeds to pour a little bit of red wine into each glass. He sets the bottle down, then gently starts to roll up his sleeves. Just the act of watching him remove his shiny cufflinks and meticulously fold the sleeves up—as the strong cords of his forearm muscles dance and tighten and flex—makes my breathing shallow with need.

I thought I’d just calmed down. I thought my teenage-caliber boner had finally gone away, allowing me the privilege of being an actual adult tonight. Nope. Ben won’t allow it. It’s returned with a great and throbbing vengeance.

He takes a glass. I peel my eyes off of his muscular forearms and clumsily snatch my own, nearly knocking it off the counter in the process. “Bottoms up,” I mutter for a toast, then belatedly think to add a, “Th-Thank you for the wine,” before bringing it to my lips and chugging.

Yeah, I don’t daintily sip. I don’t taste the wine at all. I don’t appreciate the fine hints of blackberry, grape, or clove.

I treat it like a shot and chug it down frat-boy style.

When I set down my empty glass, Ben is staring at me, still not having taken a sip of his own. His eyes are wide, eyebrows raised.

I frown. “What’re you looking at?”

He chuckles, shakes his head, then takes a little sip of his own glass, not answering.

I don’t know if, due to the limited amount of times I actually partake of alcohol, my head is already spinning from that one big gulp, or if my tipsiness is just a fluke of psychology. No matter the reason, I’m equipped with a sudden stroke of courage. I reach for the bottle. It’s cool to the touch, strong as the man who poured from it.

Ben watches, studying me over the rim of his glass as I refill mine—twice as much as before—while keeping my stony gaze on him. I feel superior suddenly with his attention caught—powerful. When I glance back down, feeling cool as shit, I panic and stop pouring suddenly, wide-eyed; my glass is nearly overflowing.

“Ambitious,” notes Ben when he sets down his glass, which still contains half of his first helping. “Hope you plan to drink all of that. Can’t let this wine go to waste.”

“Oh, this old stuff?” I throw at him, feeling smart, patting the bottle. “You can pick this up for ten dollars at Wal-Mart. Big deal.”

“Ten dollars a bottle … or six hundred and ninety-nine dollars a bottle. Yeah, big deal,” agrees Ben with a shrug and a smirk.

I freeze. I was about to pick up my glass and resume chugging without a care, but suddenly I’m staring at the amount I’ve poured and approximating how much each sip is worth. Is he messing with me? Now I’m wondering how practical it is to pour it all back in.

“Don’t worry,” says Ben. “That bottle was just a gift. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to open and drink the damned thing.”

“Picking up a twenty-year-old at the bar was your excuse?” I tease back, though my voice reflects a certain nervousness.

His eyes flash. “You’re twenty?”

“Twenty-four,” I blurt, lying, watery-eyed. “Twenty-f-f-five in four weeks. Birthday soon. The wine’s making my head spin.”

Ben’s eyebrows pull together pensively as he stares at me like he’s trying to figure me out. “Twenty-five …?”

“Yeah. And what’re you? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

To that, Ben only bellows out one solid, gutty chuckle, then takes another sip, perhaps to avoid answering the question.

I’m such an idiot. Why did I lie? Was I afraid he’d ditch me the moment he realized how young I was? Wouldn’t my young age be more of a turn-on than a turn-off?

This, right here, is proof that I have no business dating. I don’t know the first thing about anything, as is evidenced by my incessant bumbling and stupidity. I went home with a random guy. Okay, a very, very hot random guy. Now I’m guzzling his billion dollar wine and pretending to know what the hell my plan here is.

Am I seriously expecting to hand over my V-card to this man tonight?

More importantly, would he even want it?

“Eyes are bigger than your stomach,” he teases, eyeballing my glass.

I straighten up. “Speak for yourself.” Figuring myself to be committed to what I’ve poured, I grip the glass carefully, ready to lift it to my mouth. Then I realize that with the wine dancing right at the brim of the glass, I’ll probably spill it if I try to pick it up. So I bend over and carefully sip from the brim while it still rests on the counter. The wine burns as it goes down, gulp by gulp.

“Smooth moves, stud,” murmurs Ben, egging me on.

Something about his voice makes my cock flex yet again. I squeeze my legs together tighter and shake away all my dirty thoughts. Maybe the wine is keeping the thoughts ever there, like an evil friend with bad ideas. Does wine work that way?

“So what did you see when you looked across the club?” he asks me.

I rise from my awkward bent-over position, having sucked down another half glass of wine. I decide to make a joke. “I saw a man in a cheap suit,” I answer, lifting my eyebrows superiorly.

Seriously?

He appears amused by my insult. I don’t know whether I find that relieving or annoying, how difficult it is to ruffle him.

“Cheap?” He chuckles. “A two thousand dollar suit is cheap?”

I have to bite my tongue to keep from gawking. He has to be toying with me. There is no way his suit costs that much.

Six hundred dollar wine … big fancy apartment … Then again.

Blaming the liquid courage of a few gulps of wine, I decide to play right back with him. “I have high standards.”

The corner of his lip curls. “Guess I should’ve worn my three thousand dollar suit, then.”

I run the back of my wrist over my mouth, but it comes back dry. My eyes linger on his until I realize he’s not looking away.

His smile has faded, too.

I swallow. The wine, I’m late to realize, isn’t doing anything to calm my system like I thought it would. It just continues to spin my head around and around, and my heart races just the same.

And my eyes lock on his—on Ben’s.

He comes around the island and stands by me. His gaze is so intense, I feel myself shrinking in my shoes—while something else grows in my pants, tighter, tighter, throbbing and aching and desperate to be freed.

The closer he gets to me, the dizzier I feel.

He’s stunning. He’s a god. How can a man like that possibly be into me? I don’t deserve this experience—if that’s what I can call it. I don’t deserve—

Oh, God. He’s unbuttoning his shirt.

I breathe so heavily, I can hear my own breaths as they fill the space between him and I.

The buttons keep popping open, one by one, and his wicked smirk continues to melt me by the second. I feel heat coming off his body, the heat of his intent.

What is his intent?

His shirt slips off, but not easily. It’s a very muscular effort, yet he makes it seem smooth as a cat, considering how desperately his tight sleeves cling to his enormous biceps and thick, muscled shoulders.

This man is of a caliber I am not equipped to handle.

The panic comes to a boil within me. I can’t contain it. “Stop,” I beg him, the word jumping out of me like an alarm. “Please. Stop. I … I can’t. I—”

“Oh, I can stop,” he assures me. His hands drop to his sides almost lazily, his every movement slow and sensual. His white button shirt now hangs from one of his strong fists, balled up. His shoulders are cocked slightly to one side as he observes me with his fierce face and piercing eyes.

I open my mouth to thank him, but find myself in a trance as I stare, mesmerized, at his broad and muscled pecs. Ink decorates one half of his chest and shoulder, crawling down his arm partway and skipping down the side of his ripped, tanned abdomen. This man, this wealthy, sexy man has such an air of mystery around him. I have no idea who he is, where he comes from, why he’s here—and most importantly, what he wants to do with me.

I’m drawn into the intense and striking mystery that is Ben, helpless to escape the hold he has on me.

“Question is,” he goes on, his voice silky smooth and languid, “do you want me to stop?”

I lift my eyes to his. “No,” I confess, one little word to seal my fate, before his lips descend on mine.

6

Benjamin goes for the gold.

When our lips crash together, all the anxiety of this past week drops to the floor, and the only thing I know is how fucking sweet this boy tastes.

He’s sugar to me.

I slide a hand around his lower back and pull him against my body with force. He’s so hard, I feel him through both the fabric of his pants as well as my own.

And if he knows anything by what’s pressing against his waist right now, it’s that I’m just as hard for him.

He moans deeply, every one of his breaths crashing like ocean waves against my face and drowning the room. He smells so sweet, like a thousand calorie delicacy I shouldn’t have, but it’s too late; I’ve already spooned my first taste.

Now I can’t get enough.

His hands—cool and soft—are on my firm, warm chest. While he might have placed them there initially to brace himself or push me away, he’s certainly making no effort to break free from the muscular, bodily prison in which I’ve entrapped him.

My hand slips under the hem of his shirt and slowly—very slowly—starts to draw up his slender body. I let my fingers tickle his smooth, soft skin as I bring the shirt up, revealing inch by inch his sexy abdomen.

Goosebumps decorate his arms. He shivers, eyes closed.

I love every little bit of what I’m doing to him. It gives me such pleasure to have this much power over a horny young man like Trevor. I already know that every bit of his relief and joy is at my utter mercy. I can deny him cruelly and never touch his cock if I wanted, stroking and teasing and exploring every other part of him all night. I can be meaner yet and shove him to his knees, giving him a closer look at the bulge he’s been eyeing all night, or my ass if I turn around and make him worship it.

The more I kiss this pretty boy’s full, delicate lips, the more my desire to own him deepens.

He starts to lift his shoulders as I bring the shirt up his chest, revealing the tightest, smoothest, sexiest set of pecs I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t have a lot of muscle, but he’s surprisingly toned, slender and lean, with just an adorable light patch of hair in the middle of his chest and a dusty happy trail cutting down his belly button, disappearing into his seriously swollen pants.

His nipples are small and perfect, and I let my thumbs graze lightly over them as I draw the shirt up his body. It doesn’t go unnoticed, as he squirms under my touch.

I own this boy.

The thin fabric of his shirt crawls up to reveal his lightly-trimmed pits, and then I pull from our kiss to get his shirt up over his head. The next instant, the shirt is pitched to the side.

And for a second, our eyes lock on one another. He’s out of breath, panting as he searches my gaze for something. It strikes me, the way he’s looking at me. What’re you looking for, boy?

Then I’m back on his mouth, and our shirtless bodies collide, this time with his hands going around my back and pulling me in.

I let my hand slide down to cup his tight butt cheek.

It fills my palm perfectly.

I give it a firm squeeze and pull his hips into mine, crushing our bulging crotches against one another. I want this boy so badly that it aches below my waist. When I squeeze his ass again, tighter, he starts clawing at my backside and groaning, which has no effect on the firm, hard muscle his fingers fruitlessly dig at.

He pulls from the kiss. “B-Ben …”

I don’t let him speak. Chasing an impulse to have my way with him, I grip under his thighs and lift him up. He gasps, then hooks his legs around my waist reflexively and clings to my neck. With his ass and the backside of his thighs cupped in my hands, I lead him out of the kitchen and across the den to the long white couch of the living room.

When I drop him like a sack of meat onto the soft cushions, he stares up at me, open-mouthed. He looks lost, like he just woke up from a trance that our kissing put him in.

He better be ready for another.

Slowly, so he can watch my every move, I unbuckle my belt. Trevor watches unblinkingly with the absolute, unbroken focus of a cat to a laser pointer. The belt clinks as I slip it from my pants. With a smirk, I fold the belt and pull outward fast, giving it a firm pop like a crack of thunder that ripples over the room.

Trevor jumps.

My smirk deepens.

I toss the belt aside and move my fingers to the button of my pants. Trevor stares again. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing as he watches my every move. He almost looks terrified.

Maybe he should be.

“Like what you see?” I ask him.

Trevor looks up at me, then looks back down at my pants, like he can’t process another thought beyond why I’m taking so long to undress and what I’m packing. He doesn’t answer.

The button lets go. I grip the zipper and slowly slide it down, then I let go of my pants, letting them hang half-open for him to admire.

I note with a victorious smirk the yearning in Trevor’s eyes.

Got him.

My pants sag, loosened as they are, revealing the waistband of my tight, baby blue boxer briefs, but my thick thighs keep them from falling. I let the fly of my pants stay wide open, giving him the smallest, cruelest hint of the top of my monster cock bulge.

Yeah, I can be evil. I know how to take my time and build the tension so thick, he’s popping in his pants. I want to drive him so crazy that he’s begging for it.

Trevor’s eyes change. He lifts his chin and brings his gaze up to meet mine.

A stroke of defiance enters his eyes.

I quirk an eyebrow.

He sits up slowly, then brings a hand to his chest. The simple movement seems awkward at first, but when his fingers reach his nipple, he seems to relax. Trevor shuts his eyes and gives himself a gentle pinch. “Mmm,” he moans.

I lick my lips, watching, my cock throbbing its need.

What’s he doing?

He lifts up onto his knees, the white cushions compressing beneath his weight, and he brings his other hand up to his other nipple—because he wouldn’t dare leave it out of the fun.

Now I’m the one in a trance, staring fiercely, breathless.

After massaging his nipples briefly, he slowly draws his hands down his body—slowly, methodically, hungrily—until they arrive at his pants. My eyes track his movements like a hunter.

“L-Like what you see?” he asks, his voice almost timid. “Ben?”

My gaze flicks up to his. The look on his face is a cautious and reluctant one, like he’s waiting for me to growl my approval.

I don’t growl. I just give him one short nod, my eyes hard as diamond, before saying, “Take off your pants.”

He freezes. “Take … off …?”

“Take off your pants.”

All that smoothness he was exhibiting is suddenly gone. He’s a terrified boy all over again. He’s only undone the buttons, but now his hands hover distractedly, unsure what to do. Maybe he’s even forgotten how to take them off. Maybe I should show him.

Slowly, I saunter right up to him until my shadow towers over his frozen face. He doesn’t move a muscle.

“Get up.”

He turns his face toward me, but doesn’t look up, his gaze hovering at my stomach. He licks his lips, then says, “Ben …”

“Trevor.” The way I say his name, I’m mocking him constantly saying mine over and over. “Trevor. Trevor.” I smirk over him, feeling powerful. “Get up. On your feet.”

He finally complies, slipping a leg off the couch and rising. He comes up to my nose, which I oddly haven’t noticed until just now. Even when we were kissing, I leveled my mouth to his and knew nothing else of the world. My whole place could’ve been on fire, and I wouldn’t have known.

He opens his mouth. “I—”

“What is it?” I ask him, interrupting. “You turned on?”

“Y-Yes, but—”

“You hard?”

“As a rock. B-But I—”

“So what is it?” I tilt my head, burning him with my hungry stare. He’s so fucking delicious standing right in front of me, it’s getting more and more impossible to keep my hands off of him by the second. I have to taste him again.

He looks up suddenly. “W-Where’s your dog?”

I blink. Really?

“He’s … uh …” I’m seriously thrown by his random question. He could’ve asked how big my cock is. He could’ve asked to touch me. He could’ve asked to grab hold of my ass he thinks I don’t know he’s been staring at all night.

Instead: dog.

“It’s just that you w-went through all the trouble of warning me about him,” explains Trevor in a rapid firing of nervous words, “a-and he’s … he’s not here.”

I slouch, staring at him stupidly. I bite my lip and muster up a big bucket of patience, despite my cock throbbing so hard that I might fuck a hole through my pants if I don’t get my release soon. “When he hears that I’m not alone—as he clearly heard before I even opened the door—he hides. It’s what he does.”

“He hides?” Trevor’s eyes soften. “Oh, that’s so sweet. I can relate to that, actually.”

I purse my lips. Great. Trevor can relate to my dog. A second ago, I had all of his attention and commanded his every sexual thought and feeling. Now, I might as well be wearing a hotdog costume slathered in mango salsa for all he’d notice.

“Oh? Can you?” I ask lamely.

“Yeah,” says Trevor, sexy, shirtless, and totally talking about my dog when we both have erections as hard as granite. “I’m kind of weird around people I don’t know, and so I go and just … hide in my work. I’ve always been like that. I just started a job this week, in fact, and … and I’m not making friends.”

I study him carefully. His breathing is still tightened, and he certainly doesn’t look at ease. Is he really this damned nervous about sex? Is he stalling? I knew he was totally out of his element at that club but had no idea how much.

I take a breath. “You … can’t force people to like you.”

Still not looking at me, his brow furrows. “But I’m a nice guy.”

“And you can’t expect everyone to like you, either,” I go on. “Some, you can’t win over. It’s a job. Be civil with your coworkers. You only have to get along, be part of the team—” I can’t believe this is happening right now. I am so fucking hard, it aches. “—and do your job. Keep it low, keep it cool, and let them come to you.”

And let me come inside you.

“That makes sense,” he mumbles. “I guess I’ve just been—”

“You wanna keep talking about dogs and jobs and feelings?” I cut him off. “Or do you want to grab hold of my ass you’ve been staring at all night while I slide my dick inside you so hard, every nerve in your body sings?”

He freezes. He’s no longer blinking. His mouth can’t close.

I fight a victorious smirk, then slip my hands around his back, bringing his hips against mine where they belong. “You feel that throbbing in my pants, boy?”

“I’m not a boy.”

I look down at him, boring my eyes into his face. “You feel that throbbing in my pants … Trevor?”

At the sound of his name, he shuts his eyes and bites his lip. Then, without a word, he just nods.

“That’s how bad I got it for you,” I tell him, “and it’s so bad, my pants can’t contain it anymore. Big Ben wants to come out and meet you, Trevor.”

“It’s funny,” Trevor blurts suddenly, all nervous and rambling again. “All through school, I never had time at all for a boyfriend, let alone some hook-up in a seedy downtown nightclub. Really, I’m sort of wondering who I am right now, and what he’s done with Trevor, the guy whose only goal in life was to get good grades, impress his mentors, and secure himself a successful future. You know, so as not to let down Mom and Dad. Always Mom and Dad. But what does Trevor want? I don’t know. I don’t drink wine. I don’t drink at all, actually.”

There’s a whimper at the foot of the stairs. Both of us turn. Lance stands there with wary eyes, not moving. He stares at the two of us, deadpan.

I guess he heard us talking about him.

“Lance,” murmurs Trevor thoughtfully, staring back.

I take the world’s biggest mental sigh, willing myself to be patient. Is it physically possible for a dick to explode from lack of stimulation or release? I might need to Google this in the next five seconds before I break my own balls. Four seconds … Three …

“Don’t have a lot of boyfriends?” I get out, my throat tightened and my words clipped.

In the next instant, Trevor separates from me and lifts his hands in surrender, shaking his head. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

I grab my junk, forced to adjust myself from all the tightness down there. “What? Why?”

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” I’m staring at him, completely at a loss.

Trevor backs into the coffee table, flips over it, and in his effort to regain balance, the back of his hand smacks into a candy dish, sending it flying off. The dish shatters with a loud crack that sends my dog running away. The raucous noise is replaced by the soft sounds of little candy pieces rolling and tapping along the tile.

“Oh my God!” Trevor’s hands go to his mouth. “I’m so sorry! Oh my God!” He gets up. “I-I’m sorry! It was a total accident!”

“Accidents happen.” I stare at the mess on the floor.

“I’ll replace it. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for—” He stops, bites his lip, then adds, “It was five billion dollars, wasn’t it? That bowl? I’ll owe you my whole week’s pay. Oh my God.”

“Wal-Mart.”

He lifts his eyebrows at me. When he sees that I’m teasing him, a flicker of relief hits his eyes.

It’s short-lived. He takes a step, discovers his pants came loose somehow, and they drop to his ankles at once, thwarting the step he’s trying to take. Trevor goes nose-diving into the floor.

I’m at his side in seconds. “Trevor. You alright?”

His eyes flash as he curls onto his side. “I fell on my dick.”

“Huh?”

“I broke your cute glass bowl, and I fell on my dick.” He cups his crotch. “I think it’s okay. I’m not. This was such a mistake. I shouldn’t have followed Elijah’s stupid, stupid advice.”

My face wrinkles. “Who the hell’s Elijah?”

Trevor reaches to pull his pants up with one hand while keeping his junk gripped firmly by the other—not that I would have seen anything with his briefs still on.

His tight, sexy black briefs.

Yes, even in this situation, I’m still fighting the urge to tackle Trevor right back to the floor, rip off those briefs of his, and take him. I can’t ignore the beast when it’s been let out to play.

But apparently Trevor can. He’s already halfway to the door, and I still don’t know what the hell I did. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not the guy you were looking for tonight,” he throws over his shoulder, half-looking at me as he walks. “Sorry for being a big waste of time. Really. If I led you on, I’m sorry. I’m just not … I just can’t—”

He crashes into the door.

I sigh. “You planning to go home on a stretcher?”

He turns and scowls at me, rubbing his rosy cheek. I guess the crash sounded worse than it actually was. Then, as if he literally wasn’t aware of the fact that he’s still half dressed, a hand flies up to his chest, a look of alarm on his face. “My shirt,” he exclaims.

I fetch it from the floor, then hold it in front of me, waiting. No, I don’t bring it to him; I make him come to me.

And he does. He stands before me now in all his pretty boy glory, his expression turning sheepish when he takes the shirt.

But I don’t let go. “Why are you fleeing, Trevor? Tell me.”

He scowls again, trying to pull the shirt from my powerful grip. “Let go. Please.”

“Why are you running off like a scared cat? Did I scare you?”

“I hate cats.”

“You honestly telling me you don’t want any of this?” I give a demonstrative gesture down my body with my free hand. His tug-of-war efforts with his shirt do nothing to budge me in the least.

He stops struggling and stares me down, angry at once.

I lift an eyebrow. “Looks like I struck a nerve.”

“A nerve?” He takes a step closer, coming nearly nose to nose with me. “You must think awful highly of yourself, Ben. You throw around all your money in my face, like that’s supposed to impress me or something.”

“Huh?”

“Six-hundred-dollar this. Two-thousand-dollar that. You think that’s all some guy like me cares about? Money? Ass? Wine?”

“No. I’m pretty sure you care about at least one other thing.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like what I’m packing in my pants.”

He huffs so hard, I have to fight a smile. I can’t get enough of this dude. The battle’s not lost yet. I’ll get him to stay.

Using the shirt as a tether of sorts, I yank him closer, then slowly lean into his ear. “It’s big,” I promise him in a whisper.

He pulls away and scalds me with his glare. “You looked at me across the club, and all you saw was an easy lay. You didn’t see—or care to see—anything deeper. Maybe all the other guys you’ve fished out of that dirty hole of a nightclub were quick to bite and quicker to … to fuck.” Now it’s his turn to lean into my ear. “But I’m not one of those pretty boys. And I’ll never be.”

I shut him up by pulling his face against mine and forcing a kiss on his lips. He resists for only a split second before, with a tiny sigh of delight—we’ll say it’s delight—he succumbs to my kiss.

When it ends, our hips remain pressed against one another. We’re still gripping the shirt tightly, a thread or two popping from the tension. I watch him lick his lips, as if tasting me on them.

Then I flex my cock. His flexes in response, which causes him to look up at me with a glint of surprise in his eyes.

I smirk superiorly. “I knew you still wanted me.”

Trevor rolls his eyes, lets go of the shirt at once, and heads for the door.

“Hey,” I call out at him. “Your shirt.”

He stops with the door half open and turns to me. “I know exactly what kind of guy you are,” he decides. “You, Ben, are just another rich, cocky prick who thinks he can purchase a guy like me and make him fall to his knees in front of your big, manly cock.”

“Oh, so you’ve noticed?” I counter, my shirt still off, my pants still open, and my bulge in plain view of this sexy young man—this sexy young man who still hasn’t left, who lingers at the door, who I still have a chance with.

His face reddens. “That’s not what I—” He shakes his head, flustered, then shuts his eyes. “I-I was saying—”

“Look at it, Trevor. All big … and manly … and also hard.” I start to approach him. “I need someone sexy to stick it into.”

“Make a fist and stick it in that,” Trevor retorts. Then, with a small, dignified lift of his chin, he adds in a gentler tone, “Sorry about the bowl.”

The door shuts behind him.

In the silence left by his departure, I lift his shirt to my face and inhale deeply. Then I pull down the waistband of my boxer briefs and free my swollen cock. I do exactly as he suggested: making a fist, sticking it in, then jerking myself raw. Every breath is Trevor as I keep the balled-up shirt pressed against my face.

And when I come, the only thought on my mind is: I don’t give up that easily, boy.

7

Trevor can’t stop thinking about him.

The arrogant rich prick, that is.

“Dude, what the fuck happened Friday night?”

“Not now,” I state to Elijah as I pour myself a mug of coffee, then bring it to my face to give it a gentle blowing.

“You hate coffee.”

“Not this beautiful Monday morning, I don’t.”

“C’mon. You held out on me all weekend. You wouldn’t even go to the potluck Saturday.”

“I thought you were kidding about a potluck,” I shoot back.

“You came home freakin’ shirtless on Friday,” he goes on like a scolding mother, “and you wouldn’t talk to me then. You had ‘sad rejected date’ written all over your face. All Saturday and yesterday, you looked like someone sat on your donuts. Now, you’re hopping around all bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed this morning like you’ve got a family of frisky squirrels in your pants.”

I return with my mug to the kitchen table—cluttered with my roommate’s dirty cups, empty beer cans, a stack of big sci-fi novels, and a PlayStation controller—and continue reading an article about one of Mr. Gage’s clients that I started on last night. I need to be prepared. Today is the day we finally meet him.

“Talk to me, bud,” he tries again. “Was it really that bad?”

He’s not going to give up until I let it all out. Besides, I do tell Elijah everything. We never keep secrets from one another. Even when we were kids, we’d share everything—good and bad. He was one of the first people I came out to, even before my own parents.

“I went home with him,” I start, my eyes still glued to the article on the screen of my laptop.

“And … what? He saw your third nipple and kicked you out?”

I roll my eyes. “No, he didn’t see my imaginary third nipple that I don’t have, you punk. He didn’t kick me out, either. I kicked myself out, more or less.”

Elijah lifts an eyebrow. “Why? He lived in a shithole? His dick looked like a thumb? He had a wife?”

“Quite the opposite. A dog. And he lives in a gorgeous, upscale high-rise eight blocks in that direction.” I point without looking. “Y’know, where all the other rich pricks live up in their big fancy towers.”

“Rich pricks, huh?” Elijah drums his fingers along the table. “Not hearing the problem yet. Dogs are amazing. I mean, cats are better, but—”

“No, they’re not.”

“Dude, he could’ve been your sugar daddy. You said he was an older guy, right? In that text you sent me on the way to his place?”

I’m not really reading the article. I’ve been aggressively trying to choke away the memory of Friday night, and my roommate is making it impossible. Every second, I’m assaulted by yet another image of Ben’s striking face, his fierce eyes, and the look of his muscles in those perfectly-fitting clothes of his.

And that beady-eyed look of hunger he gave me just before I shut the door on his face.

That look alone fueled my jerk-off session last night.

And the night before. And the moment I got home Friday.

I give my mug of coffee another gentle blow. How can one love the smell of something, yet hate the taste of it? Maybe that’s a perfect metaphor for my love life; delicious to dream of, ghastly to know.

“You realize what today is, right?” I ask him, trying to shift the subject. “I will be on-time, and by on-time, I mean fifteen minutes early. I’m not gonna wait on you.”

“Oh, I’m ready. Hey, which tie?” he asks suddenly, lifting two options to his chin. I give him half a look, then nod at the one on the left, a black-and-grey striped one. “Good choice.” He flips up his collar to put it on without the assistance of a mirror.

I go to take a sip of the coffee, but the burning sensation at my upper lip before I even reach the menacing liquid makes me recoil. Again, the metaphor. “Ugh. It’s like mystery lava.”

“That’d be a nice name for some hipster coffee joint. ‘Mystery Lava Java’. Seriously, though, if the guy was that loaded—”

“Did I mention the prick part? He’s a prick.” I shut the laptop, giving up on reading the article, and head for the bathroom to check my hair one last time.

“How much older are we talking?”

I bite my lip and consider it, trying to judge Ben’s face. It doesn’t take much concentration to think of it; his perfect eyes and chiseled jaw are still permanently burned in my memory. How can anyone possibly forget a face so striking and strong? I still feel his fingers on me if I close my eyes. I’ve been closing my eyes a lot since Friday. “Late twenties, I’d say.”

Elijah snorts. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? He’s just a few years older than us—”

“It’s still six or seven years,” I point out. “Maybe eight.”

“—and he’s loaded, and you hightailed it out of there? On account of him being a ‘prick’? Did he insult your pretty hair or something?” I shoot Elijah a look. He chortles and parries, as if I’d physically swung a hand at him. “Just joshin’ ya!”

“We leave in five minutes,” I remind him.

Elijah picks up his little demon—sorry, I mean cat—from the floor and leans against the doorframe, petting the tiny monster. “You know, Mr. Gage might be in the office today, but it doesn’t mean we’re gonna meet him. We’re just interns.”

“I’m well aware what we are.”

“I heard from Tyson that Mr. Gage didn’t even speak a word to his last batch. Like, not one word. The man keeps to his office … goes to meetings … We may never even see him.”

Oh, I’ll make sure he sees me. I stiffen up and fix some rogue strands of hair right at the top of my head—my evil cowlicks. “You’re gonna have cat hair all over you,” I warn him.

He ignores the warning. “At least tell me you got a little bit of ass that night.”

Yes, this is how my straight roommate and I actually talk. And I’m sure he’s getting a thrill with the fact that his totally clean, never-dates, by-the-book best friend finally had the potential to get some tail.

And then freaked out and bolted for the door.

And didn’t drop to his knees in front of that steamy mountain of muscle.

And didn’t latch his mouth onto that man’s sculpted, meaty pecs, his tongue lapping over his sexy, hardened nipples.

And didn’t spin that beefy man around and bury his face in his glorious, pert ass.

I lean against the bathroom counter to stifle the boner I just gave myself. The pressure only succeeds in making me harder. I swear, my cock is a total rebel punk lately. Something is very wrong with me, and it’s all Ben’s fault.

“Uh …” Elijah’s eyes are wide. “I’m gonna take the ringing silence to mean that you did get some ass, and it was so bad, you can’t even bring yourself to talk about it. Was his wiener, like, two and a half inches hard or something?”

His cat Salamander, comfortable in his throne of Elijah’s arms, glares at me through the mirror; I feel his evil little feline eyes resenting my existence. “For a straight guy, you’re pretty damned caught up in the size of my date’s penis.”

“Hey, I know you gay dudes. Size is important.”

“No, it isn’t, actually. I don’t care how big or little his … dick is.” Even to Elijah, speaking so openly makes me uncomfortable, as if I’m afraid some imaginary principal or parent or boss lurks around the corner, ready to scold me for my unprofessionalism. “Besides, from the tiny glimpse I got of his package, he was big.”

“Oh, damn.” Elijah laughs, finding that funny apparently. “A rich guy with a big dick, who is a dick. Isn’t that a recipe for hot?”

“I’m done discussing dick with you.” I decide my hair isn’t getting any less cowlicky. “Better be ready to go. It’s time.”

“Some of the interns and I might go out for a drink after our shift today. Just one little drink.” When I stare at him dubiously, his hand freezes on the cat’s head, an eyebrow lifting. “Hey, you’re welcome to come, buddy. It’s why I’m telling you.”

“You and ‘some of the interns’?” I throw back. “You’re already making friends at the office, are you?”

“It’s important to get along with your coworkers.”

He sounds exactly like Ben, who threw that same exact advice in my face when I couldn’t stop blubbering to him about my own work problems. My face reddens, recalling all that awkwardness of Friday night. “I guess you’re right. Too bad they all hate me.”

“Nah, they don’t hate you.”

I move past him—his cat glaring at me the whole way—and with a pat on Elijah’s shoulder, I whisper, “Put on your game face, buddy. Today, we’re gonna remind ourselves what we’re doing all of this for,” before throwing my messenger bag over a shoulder and heading for the door.

I have a boss to impress.

8

Benjamin won’t wring a neck today.

“This would be a lot easier if you’d give it to me straight,” I state into my phone in the back of the car. “Has he—or has he not—posted the apology we sent him?”

“Yes. And also no.”

“He cannot have done both. If he altered the apology in any way, then it was not the one we crafted for him.”

“He made a revision or two. Y-Yes, sir.”

I shut my eyes and pinch my nose with a couple fingers. “Tell me the revisions.”

“Before the bit about his actions being f-foolish …” Rebekah’s voice falters. She swallows hard, then resumes. “He suggested that if any of his loyal f-f-fans thought he was out of line with what he said, then h-he …” She sighs, then clears her throat. “H-he … um.”

“Then he …?”

“He … would like to formally request that they … I quote … ‘go suck his parakeet’s dicky-licky’. Err, a’hem … sorry: ‘Dick-a-lick’. I read that wrong.”

I massage my forehead. Fucking pop stars. “And that whole bit about his actions being foolish … did he ‘revise’ that, too?”

“He cut it completely from the apology, sir.”

My eyes flash. “That was the apology.” I keep my cool. I always do, no matter what. “Get with Jessica and the others. Tell him the ‘Jersey boy’ needs serious damage control. It’s very important we act fast. I can’t be there for three more hours, as I have to meet another client for lunch, but I’ll write a response in the next ten, then shoot it through Mimi and Vick.”

“Do you want to speak to Haw—s-sorry—the Jersey boy?”

“No. I’ll rip off his dick and make him suck his own if I do,” I answer coolly, helping myself to a drink from the minibar. “Get Patrick to speak to our Jersey boy Hawk. Pat’s from Jersey, he’ll get through to the punk. We need him to delete the post. Maybe we come at this from another angle. Dick-a-lick. He used a silly word, we can pass it off as his unfortunate sense of humor that gets the best of him. We can’t use the off-his-meds thing again because, like meds, the effect of that excuse has long worn off. Plus, we don’t want to make light of those with real mental illnesses. He mentioned his parakeet as well. Might want to follow any trending activity on animal rights activists, avian activists, and the like.”

“Got it. Noted all that.”

“Tweet out about his last leg of the tour, how many sold-out shows he has, et cetera. Oh, how about we rerun the story of that orphan kid he brought up on the stage with him during his show in San Diego. That’ll warm hearts. Flood out the negative, every outlet, and replace it with good.”

“Will do. Anything else, sir?”

“Yeah. Make sure my office is stocked with hard liquor by the time I’m in.” I hang up my phone with one curt tap, then toss it onto the long, empty seat by my side as I kick back the shot of brandy, which doesn’t so much as stir under the smooth, skillful driving of my faithful chauffeur.

I’m not completely focused right now and haven’t been the whole damned weekend. It’s unfortunate timing, considering that every celebrity my company represents seems to have had some sort of crisis or another this weekend of all weekends. One client, an athlete from Michigan, slipped and said a gay slur during a radio interview. Another client punched a tooth out of a persistent super-fan with a camera. Then there’s another client, a beautiful Broadway actress in New York, who was caught on camera cussing out a restaurant manager for putting onions in her soup. The video went viral Saturday night—seven million views and quickly counting—and now she’s the Onion Wench.

And despite all of this chaos, hysteria, and social media hell swarming around me, my mind is stuck on just one thing:

Trevor.

Every single minute of my Saturday was spent trying not to think about that sexy boy from Friday night. But every time I sat down to eat, my mind wandered to the way his plush lips tasted. Every time I sit in the back of this car—like I’m doing now—my hands inevitably rest in my crotch, and by just shutting my eyes, my hands turn into his, and he’s massaging me the way I wanted him to that night.

Yeah, I did lots of “self-massaging” this weekend, pretending it was his hands.

Self-massaging with a happy ending, every time.

I glance over at the dividing window between my driver Ian and I. It’s shut. There’s still thirty minutes before we arrive.

That’s thirty minutes of relief I’m gonna need right now.

I sink into my seat and bring my hands to the button of my pants. With a flick and then a little pull, my pants are opened and my bulging underwear, revealed. Just that little act gives me such needed relief today, I sigh with pleasure.

My hand slides up the inside of my thigh, closer, closer.

It reaches the prized destination. Squeeze.

“Mmm,” I moan.

A minute or two of pure, firm, unrelenting rubbing ensues. My cock is fast to respond, pushing against the thin fabric of my boxer briefs and tenting them with desperation.

What the hell is it about this Trevor kid? One thought of him, and my cock turns into a marble column. I keep seeing the look on his face, over and over, when I finally got his shirt off and made him sigh into a kiss. He was like food in my hands, and all I needed to do was lap him right up.

I pull my cock out and start to stroke. Up every inch, down every inch. Even dry, my hand runs smoothly enough to bring me so much satisfaction that within seconds, my breaths grow short.

I went back to that damned nightclub Saturday and Sunday. He wasn’t there either night, and I waited for hours.

Keep stroking me, I tell Trevor, pretending my hand is his. Do it nice and slow. Make me want it. Make me fuckin’ crazy.

I was approached endlessly both nights. Women. Men. Boys. Girls. Everyone from one dim wall of the thumping nightclub to the other. And every single one of them got shot down.

I was convinced he would walk through that door looking for me. I was certain of it. There’s no way he felt nothing that night. I cast thunder through that boy, and I could see it in his lit-up eyes.

He wanted me.

And now that I’ve had a taste, I want more. Not just any pretty guy in a club is going to do it for me.

I’m getting close, I warn imaginary Trevor. You’re going so slow, it’s torturing me. I’m close and you won’t put me over the edge. Speed up.

Trevor looks down at me, his eyes darkened with a sexy mean streak.

Oh, I see. Now you think you’re the one in charge. Such a stubborn boy …

That stubbornness is what turned me on and frustrated me at the same time. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met at a club before. This Trevor kid, he has a mind of his own. He questions the world. Even his eyes poured with self-awareness and yearning.

Maybe I see him as a challenge. Maybe I’m ready to put my thumb on him, squish down his self-important attitude, and watch with amusement as he tries to fight to resist me.

Jerk me faster. Jerk me harder. I need to come. I have to come.

Trevor smirks down at me, stroking me so slowly that I tense and flex every muscle in my body, desperate for him to take me over the edge.

“We’ve arrived, sir.”

The sound of Ian’s voice jerks me out of my fantasy so hard, I sucker punch myself in the face with the back of my wrist.

“Thank you, Ian,” I state while unceremoniously stuffing my tender, stiff cock back into its ruthless, microfiber confines. I close my eyes as the racing of my heart subsides, cursing Trevor for trapping me so expertly in this position. If he wasn’t so cute and doe eyed, I’d think he planned this whole evil scheme on me.

Because now, I am going to have to go to that club every damned night this week, torturing myself until I see his face again. And this time, I won’t let him run away.

9

Trevor is working. Hard.

The atmosphere in the office is so different, I hardly recognize it from last week. Even the non-interns are acting stiff and wary, like they’re anticipating a great, scary thing to happen. The front receptionist’s smile looks pasted on, a mask. Even the sound of the wizards typing at the cubicles is reluctant, like they’re afraid to disturb someone’s nap. The break room is spotless, free of any stray Tupperware containers or crumpled-up napkins.

I spend my first few hours organizing folders, as per my cold, rigid supervisor Rebekah’s orders. She seems utterly unchanged, assigning each of us our tasks and then disappearing to her office to “take a call” every five minutes.

When it’s noon and I’m taking a quick fifteen in the break room, there’s still been no sign of Mr. Gage. Three employees are gathered at the counter by the fridge whispering to each other. I pick up a few of their words as I eat one half of the peanut butter and honey sandwich I’d made myself at Elijah’s.

“He is totally here,” the dimply redhead tells the two guys whose names I confuse—Brady or Brandon or whoever. “He’s just in his office dealing with that one client from New Jersey we keep having to redo paperwork for. The punk singer.”

“No, no. His office has been dark all morning,” insists the handsome one with the beard. “He’s not even here. If he comes in, he might just—”

“I’m the one Rebekah keeps handing the Lynette Torrington files to,” asserts the third, the annoyingly hot one who replaced the toner into the copier for me on my first day. “She whispered to me that one summer, Mr. Gage actually used a couple interns as personal assistants during a tough time with a client whose image was going to shit. It was his worst client ever.”

“You mean that young homophobic politician and his ‘tryst’ in a public bathroom with an underage boy a couple years back?”

“Anyway,” the third one goes on, not answering, “I’m certain that Lynette—from what I’ve read and researched—might be his big problem this year. I can just feel it.”

“Oh, I see. You think you’re gonna become Mr. Gage’s little pet protégé and reap all the glittery benefits,” sasses the redhead, turning his nose up. “Well, why don’t you tell us what wonderful successes those quote ‘personal assistants’ unquote are up to today after their time with Mr. Gage years ago? You think they’re making six figures with their own firms? Or maybe I should go check the local fast food joints to see which of them has been promoted to manager yet, or if they’re still nuking french fries and frozen fish patties.”

“No shame in working in fast food,” quietly mutters the other blond, the bearded one. “That was my job all through high school. Learned a lot. Manager was a dick, though.”

The other two give him one look, then roll their eyes. “You can flash your Lynette files in his face all you want, Brady,” the redhead tells the cocky one, “but in the end, we’re all just peons in a big office soup. You’d be lucky if you’re just standing in the back of a conference room filled with sixty-six other wannabes, all their heads blocking the dry erase board on which Mr. Gage writes.”

The one named Brady, king of toner, leans toward him. “I’ll be in the front of that room, Jimmy, guaranteed. I’ll be the one whose name he actually remembers after this shit summer. I’ll be the one he calls up when there’s a client in need of someone reliable and smart. I’ll be the one who brings the bacon, boys.”

Satisfied with himself, Brady smooths out his tie, deposits the trash from his lunch into a waste bin, then saunters out of the room. He pays me as much mind as a breadcrumb when he passes.

The redhead Jimmy and the bearded hottie Brandon look at one another. “More like he’ll bring the Starbucks order,” mumbles Jimmy, and the two of them share a laugh.

As for my face, it’s straight and unsmiling as steel. I’m focused on finishing my sandwich so I can get back on the floor, because when Mr. Gage comes in, I want him to see me busy. I want him to see me dirty with my efforts. I want him to see me hard at work.

“I need six copies of this program for Mr. Gage’s conference meeting,” Rebekah instructs me ten minutes later.

I accept the sheet of paper from her and head for the copier. Once I insert it in, tap the “6”, then push the red button, I wait as the machine gently hums. One copy, two copies, three, four, five …

Then it stops. No sixth copy.

Shit.

And right then: “Mr. Gage is here,” hisses a lady nearby to a dude buried in the files, who perks up at the words like a deer in the filing cabinet forest. “He’s just come in. He’s here.”

Crap. And I’m stuck waiting on the sixth copy to spit out of this machine instead of preparing myself to meet the boss. I set my jaw and examine the copier, only to find the screen blinking at me: a dildo-shaped icon. Toner.

I won’t let this thwart me.

I move to the shelf right by the copier and produce a new box of toner, then set it down on the long table by the copier with the cutting board. With the finesse of a skilled technician, I pop open the front of the machine—per Brady’s example a week ago—and then pull on the old toner.

And it’s stuck.

I don’t scowl. I don’t grunt. I don’t let out an under-the-breath expletive. Instead, I calmly pull harder in an attempt to free the old toner. Still stuck. I pull harder yet. Still stuck.

“Dude,” comes the voice of Elijah off to my side. “Boss man’s here. Interns are gathering at the table to meet him. Like, legit! Rebekah is even going to introduce us all.”

I answer him in a calm, not-freaked-out, totally-got-my-shit-together voice. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Drop all of this and come, dude. He’ll be there in seconds, and if you’re not—”

I give the toner another tug. Nothing. “Just go, Elijah.” My tone is sweet and patient. “I’m making these copies for him.”

“Alright, bro!” And he’s gone.

I peer into the machine to see if there’s some kind of latch or something. Nothing. I clench my teeth one last time and pull hard, then harder, then even harder.

And it finally comes free—along with a thick cloud of inky, black toner all over me.

With the burden of a clock counting down, I ignore the mess and shove the new toner in its place, then slap the machine closed and let it finish its job. Swiping the six copies and the original from the machine, I hurry off in the direction of the long table toward the backs of all my fellow interns. Rebekah’s nasally voice is introducing us one by one to Mr. Gage, whose squared shoulders in a tight black blazer are all I see through the crowd.

“And where is he?” comes Rebekah’s voice. “He has the copies of the programs.”

“Here, ma’am!” I call out, slipping through the crowd. “I have them right—!”

My foot catches the edge of the table leg just as I come out from between two blonds. My tripped-up footing turns into something of a sad, awkward tap dance as I, for one glorious second, truly believe I can save myself from falling.

The maneuver swiftly becomes an Olympic dive into the swimming pool of grey-white tile right in front of everyone.

The six copies fly into the air like unfolded paper pigeons.

When I open my eyes, I’m staring at the shiny dress shoes of Mr. Gage, who looms over me.

“S-Sorry. I’m sorry.” I climb to my feet and brush myself off, only to discover that the little “cloud of toner” at the copier was more like a detonation of darkness all down the front of my shirt and slate pants. I look like I wrestled with an octopus and lost.

“That was quite an entrance,” states Mr. Gage. “And you are?”

I look up, prepared to introduce myself.

Then I freeze.

His beautiful eyes meet mine, then turn to stone as recognition dawns in them.

10

Benjamin starts to sweat.

“This is Trevor,” Rebekah announces, introducing the pretty boy standing terrified in front of me, the pretty boy with the giant explosion of copier toner all down his front.

The one I took home Friday night.

The one I haven’t stopped thinking about all weekend.

The one who called me a rich, cocky prick, then left me high and dry with a boner in my pants.

“Trevor,” I state simply, keeping my face absolutely untelling and blank.

Impressively, he takes just one solid second to regain his composure before extending his own hand. “The p-pleasure is mine, Mr. Gage,” he gets out, eye contact never breaking.

I accept his handshake firmly. Our hands linger a second too long before finally letting go.

“And that is all of them,” explains Rebekah. “Now what I’ve had them prepare for you—”

She goes on to explain a bunch of things, but all I do is watch as Trevor reluctantly bends over to collect the six copies of the program he just made. Those tapered pants are doing so much for his ass right now, it’s taking everything in me not to grab him and pull his tight, sexy body against my hardening crotch.

I want to punish him for being such a cock tease—working a man up all night, then ditching him. I want to punish him right now.

Oblivious, Trevor rises off the floor with the six copies—and then doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. He moves to hand them to Rebekah, changes his mind, and takes a step toward me. Then, with his eyes clamping shut and snapping back open, he finally extends the copies to Rebekah—who takes them without so much as a second of interruption in her endless self-important rambling. Trevor slowly backs into the crowd of interns with a sheen of sweat over his forehead, then stands there with his arms folded and his head hanging, staring at the floor and wide-eyed.

Well, this summer just became a whole lot more interesting.

“I am going to my office now,” I declare, cutting off Rebekah midsentence, “as I have a lot to catch up on. Rebekah, call a team together in the conference room. I’ll be there in five.”

“Yes, sir.” Rebekah’s smile is flat as she gathers her folders and nods at the interns. “Dismissed back to your duties.”

Trevor looks up from his daze and returns to his duties at the table without so much as a glance my way. The poor kid looks like he’s shitting bricks. I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

When I reach my office, I shut the door behind me and lean against it. The silence and darkness of the office offers me no peace of mind.

Because my mind is too busy screaming: Holy fucking shit.

How is it that, in a city of over two million people, I happen to hook up with the one cute boy at the nightclub who happens to be a newly hired intern of mine?

I have a higher chance of being struck by lightning. Twice.

Which is exactly how I feel right now, by the way. I can’t move. I can’t even blink, my eyelids stuck open and my fingers tingling with anticipation. What do I do? Do I act totally normal? Do I go about my day pretending like there isn’t some kid out there who I just opened up my soul to—as well as my pants? I brought him to my home. He half met my dog.

There’s a knock on the door, which I feel through the three loud raps at my back. “Mr. Gage?” comes Rebekah’s voice.

I grab hold of my worries, stuff them down, then turn around and pull open the door. “Rebekah.”

“Raymond’s wife is in labor,” she tells me right away, “and Emilio is still in the city taking pictures. So we have the option of a meeting without them, or I pull—”

“Replacements,” I state, answering her before she’s asked the question. “Notes will be taken and forwarded to both of them. We need to handle the Jersey kid, and now.”

“Got it. I’ll get stand-ins for Raymond and Emilio. Your team will be in the conference room in five, as requested. And don’t forget about Benson’s lawyers at four.”

She’s gone as quickly as she’d come, and I shut myself in the darkness once again, eyes closed, my breathing strictly controlled. With a sudden lift of my chin, I decide to dismiss my worries about Trevor. Besides, judging from the look in his eyes, he’s probably as freaked out as I am.

Except I’m not freaked out.

I have everything under control.

I put myself at my computer and start to sift through all the email. Twice, I accidentally delete a message I mean to file away, cursing myself as I fish them out of the trash folder. I see a subject line with the word “Texas” in it and all I read is “sexy”. Then there is an email with the phrase “acute warning” and my eyes tell me I’m reading “a cute warm boy”. I’m seeing the word “blond” where it doesn’t belong, and “boner”, and “tight firm ass”.

An email titled “Re: on-the-clock” becomes “Re: on-my-cock.”

In the five minutes I gave myself, I get absolutely nothing done on account of my horribly perverted mind.

And it’s all that damned intern’s fault.

Or is it? Is it my fault for succumbing to the emptiness in my soul Friday night when I decided to hit the town for the first time in ages? Maybe if I had been stronger and chose to stay home with Lance and binge Netflix while catching up on emails, I wouldn’t be caught in this situation.

I whip off my blazer and fling it over the back of my chair. I’m working up a sweat thinking about all of this.

But if Trevor and I didn’t hook up Friday night and I was meeting him for the first time today, would I still have the same reaction? Would I see him among my crop of new employees this summer and think: That one stands out. That one is curious, driven, and focused. That one has something special about him …

I shouldn’t worry. The interns never meddle much directly in my affairs in the office anyway. Rebekah keeps them occupied with organizing files, running errands, taking calls … busywork, more or less. I decided years ago that my summer internship program would be a way to “share the wealth” of my company, bringing new, bright faces in every summer from all the local universities so they can work in a real office, gain experience, and get to jot my name down on their little résumés when they go off into the big world. Sometimes, I even take a few of them under my wing when there’s a big enough client who needs extra attention.

Yeah. Sometimes I’m a really hands-on kind of boss.

But I never let the interns get close—and certainly not as close as I let Trevor Friday night.

Friday night …

Wait a second. Trevor worked in the office for a whole week before we met, right? And he was chosen months ago after all of the interviews. He’s known about me all this time.

Doesn’t that mean he already knew what I look like?

Does that mean he knew who I was at the club?

I drop back into my chair, staring at the wall in a stupor. Was this all just an elaborate plan of Trevor’s? Did he know who I was at the nightclub, targeted me, then went home with me in hopes of gaining some advantage here in the office?

My jaw tightens up at the realization. Of course. Like every other desperate guy who waltzes into my life, he’s just another hot boy who wants something from me.

Just like all the others.

Well, he’s going to learn really fast who’s boss within these four walls. I’m in control of everything. I have to remind myself of that very important fact. Things will remain under my control as long as I maintain my control, no matter how sexy Trevor is.

The interns never work directly with me—not unless I request it. And so I simply won’t request it. As it’s of utmost importance to enforce an air of absolute professionalism, it’s completely within my power to maintain appropriate workplace behavior, to keep him busy away from me, and to salvage my brand of peace and tranquility I can only find here.

Hell. When I put it that way, it sounds downright easy to keep my peaceful atmosphere.

Another knock at the door. “Mr. Gage?”

“WHAT??” I shout out, exasperated. Then, I blink away my anxiety—shit, I’m jumpy—and run a shaky hand down my tie. I go for a calmer tone. “What is it, Rebekah?”

She slips her head inside. “Urgent memo. Just forwarded it to you from an Irene Kingston,” she tells me, her voice turning into a near-inaudible rasp on the last two words.

I quirk an eyebrow. “From who?”

“She put that it’s very urgent in the subject line. Isn’t she one of your secret clients? Never mind, not my business. Just thought you’d like to know before the meeting,” Rebekah finishes, all in a raspy whisper, before excusing herself, the door shutting as softly as a secret.

After a thought, I push my worries of Trevor to the side and pull out my personal tablet from my briefcase, then tap it to life and log into my private account—the secret part of my business I keep completely off the mainframe network. As I suspected, “Irene Kingston” is really Jazz using a fake name. Jazz is my totally off-the-books partner-in-crime hacker assistant who no one knows exists except me. Since she didn’t text me, I figure something’s up with her phone and it may be somehow compromised. I open a VPN client and connect to her through an encrypted IP tunnel.

Her face pops up on my tablet, but it’s half covered in shadow at the top by a wide-brimmed hat and the bottom by a puffy knit scarf. The only part of her face in focus are her eyes in high-contrast black and white. The way she looks is so comically mysterious that even I sometimes wonder how she doesn’t see herself as a caricature ripped right out of some 90s crime flick about the technological revolution.

“Sound check,” mutters Jazz in her German dialect through the screen—or rather, just her eyes, as I can’t see her mouth.

“Check,” I mutter back. “I have a meeting I’m already late to, Jazz, so give it to me quick.”

“Angelina Marie and her friend Lukas Pulaski split up.”

I squint at her. “Angelina Marie—Wait a second. Melena’s daughter’s boyfriend? The one who received the nude video?”

“Videos. More than one. I suspect he has a computer savvy friend of his own, sadly, because the hold I had on his cellular traffic is broken. I cannot regain control—I am being blocked—but I am still able to watch.” Her words are clipped and cold, made sharper by her thick dialect. “He contacted some John Doe—that is the literal screen name this man goes by—who is more than interested in buying the nude videos. There are two. Lukas is just awaiting payment.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head. “And you even warned me he’d be a problem. Damn it.”

“I just call the things by what they are, my friend. One of the videos involves chocolate syrup.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“But no leather cuffs? No nipple clamps?” She rolls her eyes. “Boring, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t. Can you block Lukas’s account? Buy us some time?”

“I can block his PayPal and Google Wallet easy,” she confirms, “but I cannot make any guarantees if they do a direct deposit through his bank, though I doubt even he would be so bekloppt.”

I won’t pretend to know what that word means. “Do what you can, Jazz. We can’t let those videos get out. Not one. Forward me Lukas’s information again, keep your eye on him, and tell me at once if those videos ever leave his phone.”

“Already doing so.”

I start rubbing my temple. “And explain to me again why you couldn’t just hack in and delete the videos?”

“Too complicated to explain.”

“You mean you think I’m too dumb to understand.”

“Correct. Are all of your clients such … sexual disasters?” she asks, her eyes pinching half-closed. “Like you?”

I snort. “Me? I’m not a sexual disaster. The hell you mean by that?”

“I have known you nine years now. No boyfriend or girlfriend. No long-term lover. No wedding. Is there something you are not telling, dear Benjamin? Has your sweet cock broken off?”

Jazz has a way of putting things. “Nope. It’s in working order, thanks for asking.”

“And you surround yourself with pretty young boy-men,” she goes on, her dialect growing thicker by the syllable. “Benji Boy, you are thirty-three years old, but your cock is twenty-three.”

“Jazz …”

“Young men, all around you. Why only young men? Why not men your age?”

“Blame Rebekah who does the hiring.”

“Hiring that you approve,” she counters.

I sigh into my palms, then lift a warning eyebrow at her. “This sort of prying isn’t the kind I pay you for, y’know.”

“I do not pry on friends,” she states, feigning innocence. “I am simply curious.”

“So I’m your friend, then?”

“Perhaps. Maybe. Shut up about it.” She shrugs, the subject making her uncomfortable. “I will get a new number and contact you, Benji Boy, my friend, as the old one is compromised.”

“Aww. I hit a note with you. How about your love life, Jazz? You know everything about me, probably up to and including the flavor of my toothpaste, and I know next to nothing about you.”

“I like it this way.”

I smirk. “Then I guess I’ll be alone dreaming tonight of how miserably single I am and wondering what’s wrong with me.”

“Not enough chocolate syrup in your life. That’s what.”

I choke on a laugh. “Keep in touch, Jazz. Or Irene. Or whatever your real name is.” I give her side eyes. “Nine years, huh?”

“Nine years, two months, sixteen days. Hmm. Now I have a craving for chocolate donuts.” The tablet goes dark, Jazz’s face vanishing.

With a shake of my head and a smile, I swipe the tablet off the desk on my way out of the office. I’m really glad I have Jazz working with me, despite the trouble my clients often cause. Since the start, Miss Melina and her spoiled daughter have been nothing but a general pain in my ass. Seriously, how many damned world-shattering crises can one celebrity have in a week? She’s a soap opera actress with a soap opera life.

And maybe so am I.

I push open the door to the conference room. My team sits at the long table chatting with one another—Julian, Samantha, and Quentin. At the opposite end of the table are two interns, awkward and silent as the chairs they sit in. One is bearded and handsome.

The other is Trevor.

Of course it is.

11

Trevor is still working. Harder.

There’s a great big marching band in the room.

Wait, no. That’s just my pulse.

My terrified, humiliated, mortified, panicking pulse.

Like, it’s literally pounding in my ears so loudly, I don’t even hear Ben’s first words of greeting.

His name’s not just Ben, I scold myself. It’s Mr. Benjamin Gage. Your boss. He is your totally untouchable boss and nothing more.

“Julian. Samantha. Quentin.” The boss says each of the names of the others at the table in a tone that’s detached and cool. Whatever banter they were having is now replaced with piercing silence as Benjamin Gage strolls by on his way to the dry erase board at the front of the room.

Which gives me a very unfair, perfect view of Ben’s ass. If anything, it has gotten five and a half times more epic since the last time I saw it. You know—at Ben’s place. With his pant buttons undone. And his junk on display in those tight, bulging boxer briefs.

And I almost caved.

In the next instant, I hear Ben’s voice fill the room, deep and dominant. “And you two are here for…?”

My eyes flick up from his butt—to find he’s not even looking at us. He’s at the board, calmly fishing a marker out of its tray.

“I’m Brandon,” states the bearded one at my side. “We were sent to take notes for R-Reynold and Emilio.”

A corner of Ben’s mouth curls upward. “You’re taking notes for Raymond, not Reynold,” he corrects him. “If you are chosen as the assigned note-taker for someone, I recommend you know the person for whom you’re taking notes.”

Brandon’s eyes flash wide. “Y-Yes, sir.”

“And keep up,” Ben goes on. “I don’t go slow. And you were sent to take notes for Emilio, I presume?”

I’m staring at him, surprised at his complete coldness and lack of acknowledgement. Are we really going to pretend like we didn’t meet each other at all this past Friday? Is he going to ice me out like I don’t exist?

And then I realize that last question was directed at me.

“Yes,” blurts Brandon, answering for me. “He is, sir. And his name’s Trevor.”

Benjamin Gage—chiseled jaw, breathtakingly handsome, cold in the eyes—continues to write on the board without once looking our way. “And did Trevor somehow lose his voice between the introductions and this conference room, or is it possible for him to answer me himself?”

My mouth parts. The whole room looks my way. I feel the eyes of the three at the other end of the table and Brandon at my side. Their stares bore into me like aiming archers.

But not Ben. The pompous, arrogant, cocky, powerful, cold-as-can-be Ben only continues to squeak that marker on that board, not even allowing me the simple dignity of a glance.

It’s infuriating. Couldn’t he at least treat me like a human being who’s worth the air he breathes? He doesn’t have to announce to the room that I drank his wine, or took off my shirt in his home, or eye-fucked him across a smokey nightclub.

But he can at least acknowledge my damned existence.

“Perhaps he has lost his voice,” muses Ben, taunting me worse as he continues to circle, squiggle, and draw arrows across his big board.

I squint heatedly, lift my chin, and use my voice. “I’m Trevor,” I state, “and I’m taking notes for Emilio. And no, I did not lose my voice. It is very much here. Obviously. Sir.”

Piercing silence is all that is returned to me. After it persists for a second too long, Ben finally pops the cap back onto his marker and faces the room.

Namely, me.

And the look on his face is not the indignant one I expected.

He looks … amused.

The subtle twisting of his striking eyes to convey how very funny he must think this whole situation is makes me angry. Doesn’t he know how much effort I put into preparing for this internship, preparing for the workload I would have to endure and the expectations I would have to live up to, and preparing to meet him and get in his good graces?

His “good graces” are all I wanted to get in. I didn’t count on almost getting into his bedroom before my first damned day in his office. That wasn’t part of the plan.

And damn it, neither is this.

“You know,” he says at long last, “that kind of attitude you just threw my way would have me kicking any of my interns to the curb without so much as a sticky note of good riddance.”

The blood drains from my face.

“But …” He crosses his arms and squints at me, questions and curiosities in his eyes. “You’re not just any intern, are you?”

Despite the glint of defiance in his gorgeous eyes—those same eyes I poured into, even if briefly, Friday night—I don’t find myself angered in the least by how he’s looking at me.

Instead, worse, I’m turned on.

Really, Trevor? Turned on? Right now?

Yes. Right now. Turned on by the heat in his eyes. Turned on by the bulges his biceps make when his arms are folded in that tight shirt. And I’m finally looking upon those lips of his again—those full, lush, heart-shaped lips that I had just one little taste of.

And I’m imagining those lips on mine again.

I feel my own lips everywhere on Ben’s body—from the nape of his wide, strong neck, to the peak of either of his big, firm pecs where a sensitive, pebbled nipple awaits on each, to the ridges of his six-pack abs, down to the base of his quickly swelling cock, where I’ll be sure to stay for hours and hours and hours, working him to the edge.

Suddenly, I have a totally different situation to handle, which inspires me to quickly—and tightly—cross my legs.

Fuck.

“N-No, sir,” I manage to reply, despite my “situation”. I can’t believe this is happening. “I’m not just … any intern.”

“No, you’re not. You were picked to take notes for Emilio. And you have a voice, we’ve discovered.” He gives me a curt nod. “So use that voice, and don’t you ever let me catch some other guy speaking on your behalf again. Got it?”

I choke on whatever words I could possibly say. Brandon has frozen at my side, every part of him turning to ice under the cold words of Mr. Gage.

My face sets, my jaw tightening. “Got it. Sir.”

“Very well.” He swiftly turns back to the dry erase board. “Let us focus on the living hell that is our favorite boy band renegade from New Jersey, shall we?”

His question is returned with a grunt of agreement from the non-interns at the table, and then the imaginary spotlight that just inspired a nervous sheen of sweat on my forehead mercifully wrenches away from us, and he begins talking.

I should be taking notes now. The pressure is off and all of the attention is on Benjamin Gage as he talks about his plans.

But I’m not listening; I’m watching. Benjamin’s writing hand moves with quick, sensual finesse as he draws charts on the board. It’s hypnotizing, the sexy, muscular way in which his body moves. All of his back muscles dance tauntingly as he writes, revealing themselves to me through his tight shirt as intimately as if he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all.

Oh great. Now I’m imagining him not wearing anything.

Get yourself together, Trevor. Take some damned notes. It’s literally the only reason you’re in this room.

But then I notice even his meaty butt wiggles as he covers the board with squeaky ink. That is the sexiest, squeakiest ink I have ever heard to accompany the show that is his sweet, sculpted ass.

Today is torture Trevor day.

Yeah, that ass is a whole other act of hypnosis I have to suffer. I’m fixated instantly on that shelf—that fucking shelf—of muscle in those fitted pants. His ass cheeks sing sweet symphonies of desire to me. I catch my mouth parting, as if I’m literally deciding whether he’s got an ass in those pants, or two juicy humps of meat I want to chomp my teeth into.

Great. Cannibalism. My horniness has led to cannibalism.

Before I completely lose my mind, I should probably, really, seriously, actually jot down a note or two. Emilio is going to need to be filled in on something from this damned meeting—whoever the fuck Emilio is.

“We got him to take down his incendiary post and issue a kind apology in its place,” Ben is explaining, waving his marker in the air as he talks. “An apology that we worded. But let’s discuss—”

Ben’s marker swings around like a conductor’s baton, guiding the music of his sexy, silky voice as he addresses the room—you know, saying whatever really super important thing he’s saying. My eyes drink in the sight of his biceps as they flex and bulge with his movements, pulling on the thin fabric of his tight white pinstriped dress shirt. When it returns to the board, the marker squeaks as he makes circles, draws arrows, and dots every “i”.

Yes, pretty man is still talking. “… putting good stories out in the fray to combat the negative …” I take notes, sneaking glances up at him every second—up at his ass, more like. “… and taking control of the conversation. What I need from you is …”

Tell me, Ben. Tell me what you need from me. I start taking notes in such mind-numbing autopilot, I’m not really paying much attention to precisely what I’m writing down. I doubt it’s coherent. Might even just be the alphabet over and over for all I know.

And yes, my legs are still crossed tightly. And I’m not going to uncross them until this totally-out-of-control cock of mine learns to behave professionally during a business meeting, damn it.

“Commit the interviewers to certain questions only,” throws in a guy at the other end of the table. “Control the questions, you control the interview.”

“Obviously. That’s politics 101,” Ben states. “Think bigger.”

Think bigger? If I think any bigger, my dick’s gonna turn into an eggplant.

A woman, freckled and mousy, throws in her two shiny cents. “Deflect, deflect, deflect. Why not put out news about one of our other clients? Someone lateral? Frank Tank, maybe. Doesn’t he have a tour coming up?”

“Hmm, yeah,” chimes in the guy, wrinkling his blunt nose upon which his bifocals rest. “Give some other newer story a chance to trend on Twitter, filling up those column inches. Oh, that’s also politics 101, huh?” he adds sheepishly, biting his lip.

Everyone second guesses themselves in front of Benjamin Gage. Everyone cowers beneath his know-all and his piercing gaze, even when they suggest to fill up columnist’s inches.

And here I am, writing nonsense notes so fast and sneaking so many glances at Ben that all I’m thinking of are my own inches.

The ones growing in my pants from all of this staring.

“Good points, but that’s elementary stuff,” states Ben. He fists his marker tightly. “I have some more permanent fixes in mind. Pay attention and learn, boys and girls.”

And of course the only thing I pay attention to is his body as it sings a totally different song than the one coming from his mouth. My mind and soul are on fire, pleading and begging for that man to pay me a speck of attention.

I clench shut my eyes. What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m so pathetic.

It’s only a brisk twenty minutes later that a course of action is settled on and the team disperses before I even realize we’ve been dismissed. My daydream is broken when Brandon rises from his seat abruptly and beelines for Mr. Gage to shake his hand. A whole slew of words of admiration spill from his lips as he plays every card in his deck to the boss. Speaking of pathetic.

But I won’t stoop to that level. I simply gather my notebook and tuck it under an arm before heading toward the door, refusing to drown myself in any more of Benjamin Gage’s hotness.

Despite my efforts, I succumb to a moment of weakness, lingering at the door for just a second too long. In that second, Mr. Gage’s gaze detaches from the intern in front of him and connects with mine, potently and deliberately. The deep, bleeding urgency within that scalding stare of his makes all of my insides come apart. My heart rate, which I had just managed to return to normal, flings itself right back into the race in one instant.

And this instant is all I need to remember—vividly—what it felt like to be in Ben’s home drinking his wine, staring into his eyes expectantly, and wondering what in the hell was about to happen. The excitement, the anticipation, the terror …

He’s your boss, whispers a voice. He’s untouchable. Turn away.

Turn away.

That’s precisely what I do. The eye contact breaks, though I can’t say whether it’s me who looks away first or him. I’m out of the conference room and crossing the office space. Every person I pass is a blur. Every face is every other face. Every tie is every other tie. Despite trying to push away thoughts of Ben, he’s the only damned thing I’m thinking about. I’m stony-eyed and lost in so many thoughts, I stumble twice on my way, almost walk into an opened filing cabinet, and literally forget where I am.

What a crap-tastic situation.

I finally make it back to the round table where the others are sitting. Elijah’s lit-up face sobers me. “Dude! How was it?”

I blink, completely lost. “H-How was what?”

“Getting to sit in a meeting with the man himself,” he answers, like it’s the most obvious thing. He wears a permanent smile of excitement that bunches up his cheeks. “You gotta tell me. What was it like, seeing him work his brilliance in the flesh?”

When I let my bewildered eyes drift from Elijah’s, I realize three of the other interns are also paying attention to me, having stopped their tasks to hear my answer. I haven’t quite had the pleasure to meet these three yet—including a pretty girl with short curly black hair, cute dorky glasses, smooth rich russet skin, and bright green eyes that seem to drink in everything. I notice her especially, since she’s standing right next to Elijah.

I shrug. “It … was interesting, I guess.”

“Don’t hold out,” teases Elijah, nudging me.

“I was just sent in there to take notes for Emilio, since he’s not here. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Elijah gapes at me. “Dude, that’s not even the point. You do realize everything has an ulterior motive, right? Rebekah chose you and Brandon to go in there and absorb. You weren’t supposed to just take notes, dummy. You’re learning the business! You’re picking up on his technique, watching the master at work!”

The other interns are still staring at me. I press my lips together and shuffle uncomfortably, not liking all the attention.

“Alright, alright.” My roommate lets off his tough, pressing demeanor. “I get it. You can tell me later,” he adds in a whisper. “I’ll order some teriyaki wings from the local wingery. That oughta loosen your tongue.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I state aloud, “and ‘wingery’ isn’t a word.”

“Sure it is.” He gives me another obnoxious nudge, chuckles, then adds, “You missed a spot,” with a poke at my belly before he returns to his work.

I glance down and notice a tiny smudge of toner I must’ve missed when I went to clean myself up before the meeting. In a haze of questions and frustration, I make my way back across the office to the restroom. In the quiet, offensively fluorescent-lit tiled room, I stand in front of the mirror and quietly scrub the last bit of toner off my shirt. Unlike the rest which came off easily, this bit only seems to smear, much to my jaw-tightening chagrin.

The door sweeps open suddenly. For some reason, I expect to see Brandon waltz in all smug and proud. But it’s not Brandon.

It’s Ben.

When the door closes, he just stands there, all six feet of him. His muscular shoulders fill that pinstriped white dress shirt. His sculpted pecs pull the thin fabric of his shirt across them as though the material was painted right on his body. His sleeves are rolled up slightly, giving a hint of his thick, muscled forearms. For some reason, I also happen to note how big his hands are.

Maybe because I want them on me right now. Maybe because I regret cutting off our Friday night so abruptly. Maybe a part of me secretly wishes we had gone all the way, since I now realize that the opportunity will never arise again.

Especially not in the office restroom. I turn away from him and face the mirror as I continue to scrub away, but now with more fervor than before.

“Trevor.”

In stark contrast to the dominant, powerful way in which he addressed me in the conference room, his voice is soft and sends a chill of sensitivity up my spine, feeling not unlike a pair of gentle, teasing fingertips tracing along my naked body. I feel goosebumps everywhere just from the sound of it.

And then I instantly resent the tingly, sexy feeling. “What?” I shoot back rudely, not looking his way.

He comes closer to the sink where I stand. The scent of his spicy cologne fills my nostrils. I fight an involuntary desire to drop against his meaty body, succumbing to the way he makes me feel when he’s in my presence.

He’s like a mean, potent drug that talks to me.

How cruel, when your addiction can talk to you and convince you to give in some more.

“I know what you’re up to,” he says to me, low and gravelly, “and I’m telling you now, it won’t work.”

I freeze. What the hell does he mean?

“Yeah,” he goes on, nodding with conviction. “You think I’m not on to you and your plan? Seducing me Friday night? Gunning to get the boss under your thumb so you can … what? Get some special treatment? Get a promotion?”

I drop my jaw. “I am not …” I can’t even look at him. I can barely make sentences. “I would never have—”

“C’mon,” he cuts me off. “You knew your boss’s name. That’s my name. Surely you had seen pictures and knew what my face looked like, too.”

Finally I face him, indignant. “Do you have any idea how you look online and how you look in the flesh? It’s not even the same person. Your online pics make you look like your own sanitized, imaginary uncle who owns a law firm in Connecticut. You don’t look a thing like …” I gesture my hand at his body, momentarily distracted by the way his shirt tapers perfectly to his form and disappears in his butt-hugging, thigh-squeezing slacks.

An amused smirk crosses his face. “That so?”

“Yeah!” I bite back. “You think I would actually …? You really thought I was trying to … to f-fuck my way to the top?” I can barely say the word.

His piercing, sexy stare is the only answer I get.

I scowl at him. “Then you don’t know me at all,” I spit back. “I was preparing all spring to be able to show off my skills to you. I wanted to work to impress you. I even studied your past clients! I’ve had my nose buried in books on marketing, on public relations and scandals and image …”

I let go of my tie. There’s no way I’m going to get the stupid smudge out anyway. I’m stained permanently. And I won’t try to draw symbolism out of that right now; I’m too angry.

“You expect me to believe that?” he presses on, stubborn.

“I … Y-You just … You believe whatever you want to believe.” I’m stammering now. It’s just too distracting to try and keep up my anger in front of Ben when all I’m doing is flooding myself with desire the longer I keep my eyes on him.

Control yourself! My heart is not racing because of how close he is to me. My legs are not squirming because of the blood flowing to my staff of destiny, which has to be conjuring up some kind of wicked, fiery dark magic down there, for all the inappropriate images racing past my eyes.

His smirk not letting up any, Ben takes a step closer.

I take a step back. It’s too overwhelming, being so close to him while wanting him this badly. I don’t trust myself. And clearly he doesn’t trust me. So why is he advancing on me still?

He takes another step.

My heels kick into the wall. My back presses flat against the cold tile.

Ben towers over me—masculine, powerful, reeking of sex and hunger—and his eyes, smoldering.

“Impress me?” he echoes tauntingly, practically sneering like a schoolyard bully. “You’re working to … impress me?”

I don’t know why, but I find the mocking tone in his voice to be so hot. I’m always so uptight and in control every second of my life. Having him tear all of that down—and force his way straight into my horny, repressed, starved psyche—is almost more than I can take. I’m desperate with yearning for him.

And I’m still angry at his accusation. Horny and angry is a deadly combination. “Yes,” I whisper.

He doesn’t move. His chest rises and falls slowly with his firm, measured breathing. Ben is always in control.

“You really didn’t know who I was?”

I can only lift my chin halfway to him, unable to meet his eyes, for fear of what they’ll do to me. “No.”

His muscled chest keeps rising, falling, rising, falling before my eyes. “Really?”

“Really.” I lick my lips. “And … I think I still don’t.”

“You still don’t,” he agrees. “But let me enlighten you, Trevor. I’m your boss. You’re my intern. There’s nothing more going on between us, and there won’t be.”

“Nothing more going on between us,” I force myself to agree as I continue to stare hungrily at Ben. His arms shift ever slightly, and I revel in the creasing and pulling of his shirt fabric over his biceps. I have never been so hypnotized before by the simple way in which a man’s clothing fits so perfectly to his sculpted body. I see every inch of him in such tortuous detail.

“Eyes up here,” he demands with a snap of his fingers.

At once, I flick my eyes to his, then cower under the weight of his magnificent, steely gaze.

Yeah, he seriously just snapped his fingers at me—like I’m his new obedient dog, trained and housebroken.

“Professional,” Ben states for a reminder in that firm yet silky voice of his.

And all the while, I’m leaking pre-cum like no one’s business in my fast tightening underwear. It is official. I feel it. My cock throbs, wet, and my breath quickens, and my eyes are trained.

“Boss,” he states, lifting one of his big fingers and pointing to his massive chest. Then he moves his finger to my chest, poking me with enough force to pin me to the wall if I wasn’t pinned here already. “Intern.”

He really knows how to put a boy in his place. “Understood.”

After lingering for far too long on my chest, he finally drops his hand. I wait for him to turn away and leave me to finish up in the restroom, or perhaps to give me a big long spiel on the grave importance of keeping it appropriate in the workplace, or how he still thinks I knew who he was Friday night and just wanted to fuck my way to the top.

Instead, he grabs me by the tie and yanks me into his face, then plants his firm, wet lips on mine.

12

Benjamin takes a bathroom break.

I work Trevor’s mouth powerfully and without relent.

My hands grope him everywhere without a single reservation. I slide my hands behind his back, holding him against me like my possession. I consume his lips as if I’m never going to have this chance to taste Trevor again.

And he doesn’t hold back either. I feel his grip strengthen as he claws down my back. He cups my ass greedily, then moans when our hips press firmly together, our mutually hardened cocks throbbing at each other, a contest.

Our lips separate long enough for him to say, “We shouldn’t do this. We shouldn’t be doing any of this. This is wrong.”

“Really wrong,” I agree.

And then our mouths crash together again.

He tastes sweet and sugary, and I can’t get enough as I move a hand up to the back of his head to pull him against me stronger, as if there’s any way I can possibly kiss him harder. My mouth aches in the space of seconds as I express more fervently by the second my desire for him.

Anyone could walk into this restroom. Anyone could pull open that door right now, and there would be no way for either of us to separate or catch our breaths fast enough. We’d be caught, gossiped about, and exposed to the whole office.

I clean up scandals for a living. I’d have one of my own.

I know exactly what could happen, since I’ve seen it happen to countless other celebrities over the past several years. Do I really want to risk it? And for what? The delicious taste of this boy I barely know in my arms? This boy who might or might not have known exactly who I was at the nightclub?

Not just any intern …

Regardless of the reason I’m trying to appeal to in my mind, I just can’t stop.

I’m unstoppable.

Suddenly we’re off the wall, stumbling across the room and spilling into one of the stalls, its door slamming shut and locking behind us. I don’t know whether it was my feet that led us into here or his, but our mouths never disconnect.

I slam him against the back of the door, pressing my weight into him as we kiss. I don’t give him a second to catch his breath.

I grip his hand and thrust it to the front of my pants, showing him how hard I am for him. His eyes flash wide open, and then the message is received. He fumbles for my pant button. When it pops open, he wastes no time in pulling down the zipper too. I sigh with relief when my hardened bulge, encased in the thin blue microfiber of my boxer-briefs, spills out.

He cups it greedily, then pulls away from my mouth and glances down, as if surprised. Trevor seems to make a discovery.

“Told you it’s big,” I grunt at him.

He looks up at me with wide eyes. I can’t tell if it’s thrill or fear I see in them.

Suddenly, the dreaded sound we were likely both hoping we’d not hear echoes around us: the restroom door opening. We stand perfectly still while staring into each other’s stony faces.

Now I see fear in his eyes.

There’s the sound of a zipper unzipping. Then a soft sigh. And then: pee.

I bite the inside of my lip. Trevor wrinkles his face, annoyed.

We wait. And we listen. And we still don’t move.

The guy keeps peeing.

Like, literally, this guy pees forever.

Trevor lifts an eyebrow at me, as if wondering whether I have some kind of plan, or if he’s expecting me to do something. What the hell does he want me to do? Am I supposed to march out there and demand that the man stop peeing so that I can continue doing very inappropriate things with one of my interns?

Then the peeing stops.

Thank God.

And then it resumes.

I gape at Trevor and mouth the words, “Oh my God,” to him. Trevor fights a smile, straightens his face, then looks away with his face burning red.

By the way, his hand is totally still cupping my junk.

Well, there’s really no reason to stop the party, is there? I bring a finger to the bottom of his chin and give it a strong push, directing his attention right back to me. I nod down at my cock. “Get to work,” I mouth at him.

He parts his lips, shuts them, then parts them again. “Now??” he mouths back at me.

I grab his hand and proceed to guide him in massaging my swollen cock. Trevor’s mouth hangs open as he starts to follow my lead, kneading my tool muscularly with his whole hand. I bite my lip and grin, suppressing the moan in my throat.

Meanwhile, the peeing miniseries is still going on.

Trevor’s eyes snap to mine. “The hell did this dude drink?” he mouths at me, half-whispering now.

I shrug. “I should really revise my strict break schedule for my loyal employees, the poor things,” I return in a whisper. “You stopped.”

“Sorry,” he mouths, then continues to knead my crotch.

It feels so good that my eyes rock back. His hand starts to pick up pace as he massages me. Soon, he begins a stroking motion, his smooth palm running up and down the length of my cock, still encased in the thin, tight fabric. This underwear is so thin, I might as well not be wearing any at all; I feel every glide, twitch, and squeeze of his fingers as though he were stroking my cock itself. If only he was brave enough to pull it out …

I bite my lip and lean my head against his shoulder, a deep growl issuing from my throat when his innocent stroking grows in strength and speed. His breath crashes against my ear. His free hand strokes my side, groping its way across my muscle toward my backside, encouraging me.

Suddenly, I want to tear open his clothes and retaliate by making him as crazy as he’s making me right now. Why should I be the only one to suffer?

The peeing stops almost abruptly, which causes us both to freeze. The whole restroom is suddenly twice as silent as it ought to be without even a bit of evidence that the other guy is still there. The tiles make this room echoey. Did he hear us? Can he see our feet? The stalls are separated by actual walls with only the door giving half a foot of visibility at the ground and coming up seven feet to nearly touch the ceiling with no way to peek over the door unless you happen to be in the NBA.

Trevor is clinging to me tightly now as we stand perfectly still so as not to alert our friendly bathroom mate of our existence. His grip on my cock through the thin, slippery material of my boxer-briefs has gotten so tight, I feel my own pulse throbbing into his palm. I lift my head from his shoulder, licking my lips slowly as I stare down at Trevor, suddenly finding myself more turned on than freaked out by this situation we’re caught in.

Then, mercifully, the sound of a flushing urinal fills the room, I hear footsteps, and then the sink turns on.

Trevor’s eyes show relief as his nervous vice-tight grip on my cock relaxes. By reflex, I reach around and grab one of his butt cheeks, filling my hand. Trevor lifts his eyebrows in surprise as I give it a hearty squeeze, smiling devilishly down on him.

When the sink cuts off and the crinkle of a paper towel is heard, the man at last speaks. “Dude, is that you?”

We freeze again. Trevor stares into my eyes. I stare into his.

“Trevor. Seriously. I recognize your shoes. I helped you pick them out. Oh. And … someone else’s shoes.”

Trevor’s mouth parts. Terror strikes his eyes.

“I get it. Sorry.” The man chuckles. “Already moving on after that random rich prick from Friday night, huh?”

I smirk at Trevor. He shrinks, his face burning red and his lips scrunching up with frustration. “Rich prick?” I mouth at him, to which he just rolls his eyes and looks away.

“No problem,” the man goes on. “I’ll let you boys have your fun. But y’know, if the boss man catches you two in there messing around, he’s gonna have your asses.”

A paper ball slaps into the trash bin. Footsteps. Door opens, door closes. Then, silence.

I smirk at Trevor. “You heard him,” I tease. “Boss man’s gonna have your ass.”

Trevor’s face darkens, an unexpected flicker of anger chasing across his eyes. At once, he pulls his hand away from my crotch and starts smoothing out his tie, which I’d pulled loose when I yanked him into me before.

“Hey.” I try to stop him. He swipes my hands away. “What’s the problem? I don’t hear the boss man coming.”

“Boss man’s right here. And that’s the problem.” Trevor eyes me with severity. “This may be some big joke to you, but this is my career you’re toying around with, and—”

“I’m not toying with anything,” I insist innocently. “You were the one toying with my cock, to be fair.”

He rolls his eyes and pushes out of the stall door, unimpressed with my humor.

Of course that only eggs me on worse. “You have a great grip, by the way.”

“Wasn’t much to grip,” he shoots back.

I grin. Now he’s really egging me on. “Maybe you need another grip to remind yourself, intern. I doubt you can wrap your whole hand around it.”

He ignores my taunt. “I’m going to go out there and … and just do my job,” he states calmly. “What happened between us after the nightclub was just a passing, nothing … thing. We’re in a new setting here—”

“Never done it in a restroom,” I confess with a light nod.

“Do you take anything seriously??” he half-growls. “I meant in the new setting of the office, and therefore, we have rules.”

“Rules?”

“Yes. And you laid them out already.” He points at me. “Boss.” He points at himself. “Intern. That’s the beginning and the end of this. I don’t want any special treatment. And I don’t want any … not special treatment, either. Or whatever.” He shuts his eyes and shakes his head, his face flushing. “I just … just want to be another one of your employees. Nothing more, nothing less.” He flaps his eyes open and stares somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.

“No special treatment, then.”

“I’m going back to work now,” he announces to the floor.

“You’re doing an objectively really great, unbiased, totally impartial job, by the way. Top marks.”

His eyes seethe when they meet mine. I’d like to think they’re seething with lust, but he’s a touch too pissed off to tell. The sight gives me more pleasure than I ought to admit.

I smile innocently, then add, “I’ll be sure to put a note in your monthly eval.”

To that, Trevor puts on a super serious, totally professional, impressively straight-lipped business face. “Goodbye, boss.”

“See you around, intern.”

And then he gives me the gift of his tight tush as he spins around and marches out the door. I tilt my head and watch, a crooked smile spilling across my face.

13

Trevor needs to let off some steam.

The rest of the day is a big horny haze.

I should jot that down in my journal.

Today: a big horny haze.

When I leave the office, all I want to do is go home and bury my face in a pile of pillows and a bowl of hot fudge-glazed cookie dough ice cream.

Instead, I’m roped against my will into Elijah’s plan of hanging out with some of the interns. “I’m tired,” I lie.

“You’re not wigglin’ out of this, bud.” Elijah hisses all of this into my ear as he walks right by my side like a bride down the damned aisle. He wears a weirdly smug smirk too, like he’s super proud to be my best friend suddenly and wants the other interns—none of whom are looking our way at all—to see that.

Plus, he gave me so much shit when I refused to name which “intern” I was getting busy with in the bathroom. I still haven’t even confirmed it was me, but Elijah knows better, and I can’t hide a damned thing from my face when he’s pressing me the way he does—aggressively and without relent.

He did insist that he won’t press me in front of the other interns, since he doesn’t know who it is and doesn’t want to embarrass me, but he expects me to cave one of these days.

If only he knew.

Hopefully he never does.

It turns out to be some nauseating hipster coffee hangout that the interns were so dying to go to. Color me a tart shade of yippy when we stroll through its doors. Triple espresso macchiato is just my favorite. And the ratio of guys wearing fake designer glasses they don’t need is ten to one. And the amount of man buns, suspenders, and skinny jeans is enough to put every thrift store from here to Canada out of business.

And they’re playing fucking Lana Del Rey.

“Really, though,” starts Elijah when we and the three other interns plop down at a booth. “Spill the deets. Did boss man make anyone feel two inches tall? I heard he’s really good at that.”

Not sure about two inches tall, but he made me six inches hard. “Not really, Elijah.”

He furrows his brow at me. “Don’t say my name like that. It’s like you’re annoyed that I wanna ask you questions. Like … Elijah,” he sings, mocking my tone. “Like—Not really, Eliiiijah. C’mon. I’m your bud. Throw me a bone.”

Mr. Gage threw me a bone, alright. He threw me a boner, led my hand straight to it in that bathroom stall, and he commanded me to make hand-love to it.

And it took everything in me not to just sink to my knees right there in that stall and wrap my lips around whatever he was packing.

“Coffee pop?” offers the redhead Jimmy, producing a lollipop from thin air. I suppress a grimace and shake my head no. He slaps it right into his mouth with a shrug.

His lips around the lollipop definitely don’t make me think of the “lollipop” I felt in Mr. Gage’s underwear. And when Jimmy starts to less-than-decently suck on that lollipop like he’s trying to make it come coffee bean babies down his throat, I don’t think of the sound of Mr. Gage’s cock spanking my tongue.

Oh, great. I’m thinking about spanking now.

“So?” prompts Elijah, pulling my attention back to him.

I sigh. “His methods are pretty straightforward. He’s …” I clear my throat. “He can be aggressive when it comes to … handling his clients.” I picture him slamming me against the bathroom wall. Aggressively. “He … acts fast.” Ben’s face darts at mine, an animal latching onto his prey, consuming me. “He acts … intelligently …”

I don’t have an image of Ben for that last one.

Because what he did was stupid. And what he said to me, even stupider. Really, how in twenty gay hells could he possibly believe that a guy like me planned some great seduction of the one and only Benjamin Gage? If I was that cunning, I would have ten CEOs wrapped around my fingers by now and a mansion in the Fijis.

At least, I think I might. If I was a master flirt, maybe. Which I’m not. I’m as flirty as a spatula.

And there’s nothing sexy about a spatula.

If Benjamin was smart, he would have apologized for all the weirdness, acknowledged how we both made a mistake in not knowing who the other one was Friday night, and then shook hands and agreed to be professional.

Instead, he chewed me up like salt water taffy and spat me into a bin of gay sugar. That’s all I am now. I’m sugarcoated in longing, frustration, and a desperate, mounting need to get off.

I hate you, Benjamin Gage.

Now everything is complicated, and I don’t know what to do. This was the dream opportunity that thousands of other students would have killed for, and my chance got ruined before it even started. The boss man himself, who I’d anticipated meeting and impressing for months, turns out to be nothing but a controlling man who wants to use me like a piece of meat.

That last sentence shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does.

I’m just his piece of meat.

My face flushes with my inner humiliation.

“Well, I think he’s going to need some help with this client,” chimes in the bearded, blond Brandon sitting next to Jimmy. “I stayed after a bit to poke Mr. Gage’s brilliant brain. Really, you have to wonder if a man like that was just born with his talent, or if he developed it meticulously over time and experience …”

“Oh, God,” groans Ashlee, the green-eyed intern with the curly dark hair and silky russet skin. “If your nose was any farther up the boss’s butt, you’d smell his last three ex-boyfriends.”

Jimmy spits out his coffee pop and Elijah spurts out his drink, guffawing so loudly that we draw the (annoyed) attention of two nearby tables, who I’m sure were busy discussing the intricacies of green tea and its political influence on western civilization.

Brandon narrows his eyes at Ashlee. “Go ahead, make your little jokes. You’re just jealous that I was first to get picked to sit in on a conference room meeting.”

“Taylor over here was picked, too. I don’t see him gloating,” she returns with a challenging lift of her eyebrows.

I lick my lips. “I-It’s Trevor.”

She eyes me, her green irises flashing. “Oh, I’m sorry. Shit. This whole time I thought your name was Taylor.” I smile and give her a shrug. “You and Elijah are good friends? He was telling me.”

“Yeah, childhood friends,” I confirm, looking back and forth between the pair of them. Elijah watches as she speaks, a weird little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Ashlee sucks in her bottom lip as her legs squeeze together, like they can’t decide whether to cross or not.

I’m pretty sure what I’m witnessing is a straight world mating ritual, but I leave it alone because I’m suddenly thinking about a strange mating ritual of my own: the one where Ben thought it was a good idea to plunge into a bathroom stall with me and make quick work of my mouth after accusing me of being a scheming ho, more or less. God, if he was anyone else in the world, I would have welcomed the opportunity to drop before him and pull that big cock of his free.

Side note: the bathroom stall was exceptionally clean. I totally could see my reflection on the shiny jade toilet seat.

“So why aren’t you gloating?” fires the bearded Brandon suddenly, his eyes squinting my way.

I’m probably committing public relations blasphemy here, but I give him a shrug and wrinkle my face. “It was just a note-taking job. Rebekah will probably rotate through our whole lot, one at a time. What’s the point in gloating?”

Brandon draws his wide lips to one side, thinking, then shrugs too. “I guess you have a point. But I wouldn’t play it off so much. It’s still a big deal. If you get onto Mr. Gage’s radar …”

How about into his high-rise apartment? Or his pants? “There’s far, far more important experience to pick up,” I interrupt him, unable to hear any more about Mr. Gage or his big … radar. “We learn enough just by clocking in and performing our duties.”

“You mean our busywork,” groans Jimmy, rubbing his temple.

“Dude, you can’t be so flippant,” Elijah spits at me, giving me a nudge. “Hands-on experience with the boss is freakin’ priceless.”

You can say that again.

Brandon points at me suddenly. “I see what you’re doing.”

I lift a startled eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“You’re playing it cool,” he decides with a nod. “You’re acting like none of it is a big deal. Trying to throw us off the scent. Trying to act like you don’t want it, like you’re above it all, like you’re too cool for school … but you’re not fooling me.” Brandon chortles. “I’ll tell you, if Brady had gotten chosen …”

“Oh, fuck me, we are not talking about that insufferably self-absorbed penile implant,” Jimmy exclaims.

“He’s hot,” mumbles Ashlee under her breath.

“And he knows it,” Brandon tacks on. “He probably thinks he can bat his eyes, strut his shit, and steal Mr. Gage’s attention that way. What a tool. And he’s straight, on top of it all.”

Elijah crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t buy it. He might be a total douche, but I doubt he’d stoop so low as to cock tease a gay man.”

“Doubt all you want,” mumbles Brandon, “but that’s exactly what he’s doing. And he’s shameless about it. That dude will stoop to any level, I swear it.”

“Still doubting.” Elijah sips his drink.

Suddenly I picture the annoyingly cocky Brady as he popped the toner into the copier with ease, making me feel like the biggest fool on my first day. Sure, he was trying to help, but I’m also fairly certain his inner dialogue went something like, “Loser. Can’t even replace the toner. I bet he’s checking me out, too. Homo.”

Now I have to picture him flirting with the boss, doing the exact thing that Benjamin just accused me of doing. Gaining favor. Playing the seduction. Being … dirty.

Suddenly Brady’s all I’m thinking about, and there’s nothing good there at all. Except his hair. Maybe.

Brady just became every high school bully I used to deal with my whole childhood, every straight guy I secretly longed for who only returned my nerdy, loser attention with a sneer, a scoff, or a derogatory word. My craving for their negative attention got so pathetic, even the three-and-six-letter F words became a hot (yes, a hot) part of my nightly fantasy when I was alone jerking off to an imaginary jock bully. “Hey, fag,” he’d grunt, his hot breath on my face as he’d shove me against the wall of the locker room wearing his varsity letterman jacket, tight jeans, and messy teenage hair. “Saw you staring at me all day, homo.” Of course I’d deny it over and over in a pathetic half whimper, my heart racing from desire and excitement rather than fear, and then he’d pull off my clothes in an attempt to either further humiliate me or get me off. I was never sure which way the fantasy would go; they so often went a hundred different ways every night, but they always started with an unattainable hot guy and a bunch of teenage aggression.

And they ended with a sticky mess in a wad of tissues or the end of a tube sock. How romantic.

But the time for bully fantasies has passed. The hot, off-limits jocks of my childhood don’t own my brain or my dick anymore. I’ve been proudly free of their influence since I went to college and found myself. Now Brady thinks he can be one of those unattainable cock teases? He thinks he can manipulate the boss with his model boy looks and his stupidly perfect hair?

I feel anything but turned on by him. That asshole is going to spend the summer trying to seduce my boss, and there’s nothing I can do about it. My boss, my idol, my Ben.

Wait. My Ben?

Did I … Did I really just say that?

Just then, my phone buzzes with a new text, scaring me for a  second. While the others explode into laughter at some joke Elijah shares that I obviously missed, I glance down at the screen.

It comes from a blocked number, but in reading the text, I need no hints as to who it’s from:

I believe you, Trevor.

We were just two men that night.

You had no ill intentions.

It was wrong and unfair of me to make such an assumption, and for that, I apologize.

This will be the last time I speak to you in such a personal manner.

We will keep things professional from here on out.

Thanks for your understanding.

14

Benjamin plays by the rules.

With my feet kicked up on the ottoman and Lance asleep on the couch by my side, I stare at the text I just sent.

Worry spears through me.

He wouldn’t be vindictive and run around tomorrow showing all the other interns my message, would he?

Stop being paranoid. Stop thinking so little of people.

But I work with the world’s worst for a living. The privileged princes and princesses of Beverly Hills. The filthy rich and entitled celebrities of the highest standard. The asswipes of humanity who shit diamonds and eat gold-flecked pigeon mousse for dessert.

I can’t help but sometimes suspect the worst in people. I’m paid to seek that worst part of them and minimize it, hide it, kill it, twist it into some safe lie to feed the public.

Essentially, the central tether of my whole existence is lying.

Maybe my parents were right to admonish me for my choice in a career. What am I giving the world, really? What value am I adding to a world already so full of pretention, falsehoods, and gimmicks? If people like me keep perpetuating the social media lie, it’s only a matter of time before the world’s lined from one end to the other with nothing but tweets, cat memes, and Ray-Ban ads.

In my endgame, there will be nothing real left in the world.

I stare down at the text.

Trevor was real.

And I just told him it’s over in a word or two—over before anything had a chance to even begin. That’s like stopping halfway through a hand job. Who’s the cock tease now?

I set my phone down on the couch next to me, forcing myself to feel satisfied with my decision. It’s the only way to go, if we want to really be adults about this. He is an adult, after all.

A young adult. Youngish.

Why is he so worried about being professional? I own the damned company. Fuck professionalism. I can schedule an orgy day and let everyone climb each other naked if I wanted to.

Well, maybe not. Unless I care to also add the lawsuits that’ll follow to my bar tab.

Am I seriously discussing office orgies with myself?

No, of course not. Because it’s not what I want. None of those other interns are what I want. Trevor is the only one I have my eye on. Ever since that moment in the nightclub and all of the tasty, perfect, nuanced moments that followed, Trevor has consumed my mind in every way.

What is it about him? What does he have that all the other hot young men Rebekah shoves at me don’t?

He’s innocent, yet smart. He looks up at me with big, curious eyes, but behind them is a fiery furnace of thought. He cares. He’s aware. He sees more than what’s on the surface—which is what I feel whenever he looks my way: he sees beneath my surface.

I can’t even shake him off when I masturbate, which is pretty much as pathetic as someone of my stature can get. No matter the fantasy I try to generate that doesn’t have him in it, there’s Trevor and his crystalline eyes, popping in somewhere.

His crystalline, stubborn eyes.

When I’m trying to picture some hot hunk bent over a desk awaiting my dick, he’ll look back at me with Trevor’s face.

Trevor’s possessed me.

Am I stuck on him because I didn’t quite have him? Did he hook me like a big hearty bass, then toss me back into the lake without a damned care? Or maybe the better analogy is that he’s keeping me trapped in his aquarium, and I’m the idiot swimming around it in endless laps, pouting my lips every time I pass that tiny castle with the bubbles wiggling out of it.

My world is so cold like that aquarium.

I need someone like Trevor to heat it right up.

“No, you don’t,” I state out loud, startling Lance out of his dream as he lifts his head, alarmed. “You don’t need him to heat anything up except a seat at your office where he’s firmly planted and working. Like a good worker. Completely professional.” I turn to my dog. “Am I right, or am I right?”

Lance swipes his tongue over his snout once, then drops his head back onto his paws and shuts his eyes.

I grin crookedly and put a hand on his head, giving the backs of his ears an affectionate scratching.

A tinny, glassy sound emits from my phone—a text message. Despite the jump of excitement in my chest, I play it cool as I take the phone into my palm and smoothly lift it to my face.

T

Thank you for the apology.

I understand and will cooperate by maintaining a professional manner in the office. See you tomorrow.

I read the message twenty times, my mind scrutinizing each and every word that Trevor took the time to choose, type, and then send my way.

Thank you for the apology.

So carefully, guardedly worded for a timid young man. So strict. So respectful.

I understand and will cooperate by maintaining a professional manner in the office.

In the office? Only in the office? Is that a hint at something, or am I simply desperate to read something secret between the lines of his text?

Maybe a part of me is disappointed in his compliance.

Maybe I wanted him to say something like, “Fuck you, boss man. I’m going to act however I want around you. I can’t resist you, and you can’t resist me.”

“Professional,” I state, quashing out all my dirty thoughts with that one word. “Professional.” I’ll say it again and again until I get that damned kid out of my head.

And Trevor’s last line: See you tomorrow.

Indeed, he will. My cock throbs in reply.

I’m so fucked.

15

Trevor is employed at Horny Hell.

Professional.

I take the stapled packets to Rebekah and smile curtly when she thanks me in her clipped, nasally voice. I keep my posture, walk with a purpose from one end of the office to the other, and staple twenty more packets with conviction.

Professional.

Elijah asks me how I’m doing, and I give him a polite nod and help him with his task of cross-checking names against contact emails, because two sets of eyes are better than one, and we need to strive for perfection here at Gage Communications.

That’s right. I’m a walking, talking infomercial for the ideal employee. I’ve become that bubbly morning person with too much caffeine who everyone probably can’t stand.

But this is who I have to be to maintain my professionalism. Because deep down beneath this pretty face of perfection, there is one seriously repressed individual.

A seriously repressed—horny—individual.

And he’s losing his mind.

When Mr. Gage arrives, everyone whispers, as they always do. The computer wizzes straighten their glasses. The buzzing birds with memos fly much more determinedly. The employees in the break room cut their break by fifteen minutes just to hop back to work and put on an ear-to-ear smile that reads: I love working here.

And I don’t even lift my face from the computer screen where I’m tallying comments from Facebook posts to gage how well the client’s fans react, since Mr. Gage’s team wrote them.

Nope. I don’t even flinch, in fact. I’m so proud of that.

When Mr. Gage passes so close that one of my elbows feels the breeze of his passing body, I simply recount the number of likes from the post I was just staring at without so much as a tiny glance in his direction.

Professional.

I can do fucking professional.

Ben keeps his promise too, if a text message on a phone can be called a promise. Other than his first entrance, I don’t see a bit of him for the rest of the day. Even when I pass by his door, I find it shut and the blinds of his floor-to-ceiling office windows drawn.

“Really keepin’ to himself,” notes Elijah with a smirk.

I jump, not having noticed Elijah sneak up to me. “Who?”

“Boss man. You’ve been staring at his door.”

“No, I haven’t.” I shrug him off and return my focus to the article I’m analyzing about one of Mr. Gage’s clients.

“Don’t worry,” Elijah assures me with a nudge. “You’ll get your chance to impress him. I’m pretty certain you’ll get picked to sit in on another meeting.”

I sigh. “What are you even busy doing, Elijah? Staring at me all day?”

“You’re just so dang pretty,” he shoots back, poking me in the cheek teasingly. I swat his hand away, annoyed. “So I was thinking we could grab some Thai tonight on the way home. There’s this place—it’s just a block out of our way—that Ashlee told me about. She goes there all the time.”

Now it’s my turn to play with him. “Ashlee and you seem to be sharing a lot of … secrets … lately.”

“Nah,” he grunts, shaking his head. “She’s not my type.”

I snort. “She’s 100% your type. She couldn’t be any more your type. She’s smart, pretty, and has green eyes.”

“Well, then, I’m not her type.”

“She doesn’t like her guys good-looking but kinda dumb?”

He shoves at me for that, then straightens his face right up after swallowing his chuckles. “Honestly, I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“To get involved with someone in the workplace,” he finishes.

I train my eyes to the article in front of me, unblinkingly. My throat stiffens, as if suddenly incapable of swallowing at all.

“I mean, I’m not judging you for whoever you were gettin’ it on with in the bathroom,” he quickly adds. “Like, you totally need some tail, no joke. But I—”

“It wasn’t me,” I insist for the twelfth time since yesterday.

“Dude, I could pick you out of a lineup by just your ankles. That was totally you in the bathroom. And I don’t care who it was you were doing the porky-pork with.”

“Elijah!” I hiss, my face going red.

“Unless it was Brady.” He cringes. “Then I hope you porked him good and that’s the reason he’s walking bowlegged today.”

“Good God, no.”

“Alright. Then I hope he porked someone else and got crabs.” Elijah pats me on the back heartily. “Anyway, workplace romance never works out. Bad idea. Hope it was just a one-time thing. Besides, we don’t want to look bad in front of the boss.”

I close my eyes, feeling my chest tighten with frustration.

“Again, no judgment,” he adds, “but if you want to squirrel up some sexy nuts for the winter, I’ll take you to the club again. If you promise to keep it out of the office, I will too. No Ashlee for me. And no Brandon for you.”

“Oh my God, it wasn’t Brandon,” I hiss at him, lowering my head.

“Hah! I knew it was you in the bathroom. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.” He slaps my back again, then calls out over his shoulder as he walks away, “Get ready for Thai in an hour, bro!”

For the next however many minutes, I’m cringing over and over again as I replay my roommate’s heavy words in my totally-not-guilty brain. Keep it out of the office. Workplace romance never works out. Hope it was just a one-time thing.

… Bad idea …

I’ve never kept secrets from Elijah. Not once. Not ever. And now not only is my secret about Benjamin and I sitting on me like a sexy heavyweight wrestler folding me into a Boston crab, but Elijah’s made a deal with me not to pursue anyone in the office.

Except I’m not seeing Benjamin. We’re being professional. There is nothing happening anymore.

I straighten my posture. There’s nothing to feel guilty about, I tell myself. You just have six and a half more weeks of this glorious place to endure, and that’s six and a half weeks where I’ll keep my hands to myself and prove exactly how disciplined I am.

The clock taunts me minute by minute.

Tick tock tick tock.

The second the clock hits five, Rebekah poofs into existence in front of my desk. “Trevor. I need you to do me a very important favor, and I am not asking this of you lightly.”

I blink. My messenger bag is already over my shoulder. “Yes?”

“I was asked to drop these files off at Mr. Gage’s,” she explains while patting a small box, “but I have something of a little family emergency and can’t swing by his place. I have to leave now. You are the only intern who doesn’t give me the creepy vibe. Can you please drop these off to him?”

I’m frozen in place, my thumb still hooked on the strap of my messenger bag. “I … um …” I gesture at his office. “You want me to leave … this box … on his desk?”

“No, hon. He left half an hour ago. I need you to drop this off at his apartment. Here, I’ll leave the address,” she says, picking up a pen and scribbling on a nearby post-it.

My heart is in my throat. I stare, wide-eyed, as she proceeds to jot down the address—the address which I totally don’t need.

Rebekah slaps the post-it atop the box. “Just leave it at his door. He’s the only one on the top floor. He owns the whole thing. Thank you, Trevor.”

And then she’s off in a hurry, her heels clacking along the tile as she goes. I stare after her for a full minute, my protests dancing on my lips, unspoken.

“But …” I finally say, no one there at all to hear the tiny word.

My phone vibrates on the desk. I look down at it.

ELIJAH

You coming down, dude?? I’m waiting.

And very, very, very starved.

I bite my lip, my insides turning to ice. Is this really happening? Is the universe playing a joke on me that a ton of little scheming demons and Cupid-like half-gods are laughing hysterically at? I feel like the butt of some joke no one’s ballsy enough to say to my face.

I glance at Mr. Gage’s office, which I just now notice is dark. I didn’t even see him leave. I must have done a really great job at actually ignoring him for these past thirty minutes.

I clench shut my eyes, giving myself a second to think. Then, snapping them open, I decide to keep yet another secret from my dear, loving roommate. I open my phone and proceed to construct another lie for my childhood friend to believe:

ME

I have to stay late.

Rebekah gave me an extra task.

Go without me. I’ll see you

back at home later.

He texts back a crying emoji, a thumbs-up, and then the flag of Thailand. I take a deep breath—perhaps to choke out the guilt that’s bubbling up from my chest—and then grab hold of the box.

Cue the Mission: Impossible theme.

When I get outside, though, the last thing I hear is music. It’s all noise and car horns and shouting while I hug the box to my chest like a pool floatie and wade through the crowds and cars and smog of the city on my way to Benjamin Gage’s building.

For the second time in my life.

Really, this isn’t that big a deal. I don’t even have to see him. I can just go right up the elevator, drop the box off in front of his door, and leave. He doesn’t even have to know I was there.

Suddenly, I’m standing in front of his building, and I spend a second genuinely considering whether I magically teleported here or not, because I don’t recollect walking the distance at all. It was all a blur of noise and car exhaust fumes and crossing streets.

And sweat marks I’m likely leaving on this box, which I have not stopped hugging since I left the damned office.

I push inside the building and give a nod at the security guard, who I pray isn’t the same one from the night I was here. Honestly, I didn’t get a good look—distracted as I was with the hot stranger I was going home with. I tap the button for the elevator and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Ding.

When the doors shut behind me, my throat is so constricted I can barely breathe. I’m tapping one foot like crazy, bouncing as I ascend the nine thousand floors.

Ding.

That was quick. I force myself out of the elevator on legs as stiff as stone. The hall is longer than I remember. Benjamin Gage’s door—the only door—looms at the end of it.

Each of my footfalls is heavy and ringing. My ears fill with the thumps of my shoes against the floor as I carry the box to its fateful destination.

I stop at the door. Should I really just leave the box? Should I knock? Should I shoot him a text? No, I decide, because then he’ll know you were here, and things will get weird again. I nod, assured, and set the box on the ground in front of the door. I make sure it’s perfectly in place, parallel to the door and exactly one foot away from it. Yes, that looks nice.

Then I glance up at the door again. The peephole stares back at me suspiciously.

Maybe I should just tap on the door and run away. He might not see me as I slip back on the elevator. I could run, maybe.

I’ll just leave it, I decide. With a resolute nod, I turn away from his door and leave the box where it is, determined.

Until I hear his door open. “Trevor?”

I stop. Hairs lift on the back of my neck. My hands jab into my pockets at once. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Just … dropping off the box of files,” I explain without facing him. “Rebekah had an emergency. She sent me in her place. I’ll be on my way now.”

“What’s the rush?”

I sigh and roll my eyes. Now he wants to play with me? I spin around and paste on a fake smile, prepared to answer him.

Until I see him shirtless and speckled with droplets of water all over his muscled, tatted torso, wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel hanging low at his waist. Tiny diamonds drip down from his hair, messy and wet.

Oh my Good Gay God.

“You caught me stepping out of the shower,” he says lazily, leaning against the doorframe. “I was just about to sit down for some dinner. You hungry?”

I can’t close my mouth. “I … I’m …”

“Nothing unprofessional,” Ben promises with a crooked smile that only touches half his face, a dimple popping out. “Totally innocent meal, that’s it.”

There is nothing innocent about that body. There is nothing innocent about any of this whatsoever.

“Well?” He nods at me. “You gonna keep me waiting?”

16

Benjamin is clean, yet feeling dirty.

What the hell am I doing?

“I’m …” He shuts his eyes and swallows hard, standing there in the hallway looking adorable as fuck.

Behave, I order myself. I told him it’ll be an innocent meal, and I meant it. Professional, remember?

Professional. Yeah. And here I am answering the door wearing just a towel. As if I didn’t totally plan this.

“I really … I should be going,” he insists.

But his feet tell a different story, planted in place and totally not directing his body back toward the elevator.

“You just came from the office,” I point out. “You haven’t eaten anything since your lunch, if I had to guess. Which I imagine was something like … a sandwich and chips …?”

“How’d you know?”

“So you can’t tell me,” I go on, ignoring his question, “that the sound of Bistecca Fiorentina over buttered fresh-made pici pasta from Da Lena Cucina E Vino doesn’t make you salivate like crazy.”

“I … don’t even know what half those words mean.”

“Then stay and find out.” I give him a lopsided grin and push my door the rest of the way open, then turn away to head upstairs.

When I hear the door close, I glance over my shoulder.

Trevor’s inside, the box hanging in his arms.

Score.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

He gives me a tightlipped nod, then slowly comes farther in to set the box down on an end table by the couch. I leave him be, disappearing into my bedroom where I discard the towel and face my closet to dress myself.

The trouble is, with Trevor downstairs suddenly, my mind is going twenty thousand dirty thoughts a second, and all of my clothes look like a blur. Where do I keep my shirts again? My pants? Do I own any?

I catch sight of my naked form in the mirror of my walk-in closet. I must stare at myself for a solid minute, my breath slowing back down to a normal pace.

I shake my head at my reflection. “The hell you doing?” I ask myself quietly, my voice hardly a whisper. “Why did you invite him inside? What were you thinking?”

What am I thinking?

I’m thinking Trevor isn’t like any of the guys who’ve passed through my life. I’m thinking I know when someone special comes along, someone who needs to stick around, someone who makes me feel changed just by being in his presence.

Trevor is every guy I didn’t approach back in high school.

Trevor is not only adorable, but he’s intelligent. He’s trapped in his head, an intellectual, a thinker—much like me.

When I look at him, I see kin. I see a likeminded friend. I see a person who I want in my corner, a person I know won’t betray me, a person who regards me like another human being and not like a gold mine.

You are thirty-three years old, but your cock is twenty-three. I hear Jazz’s words echo in my head and cringe.

Keep it platonic, I swear to myself. Respect him as much as he’s respecting you. You owe him that much, at least.

I shake away my worries and pick out a pair of comfortable faded jeans, slipping them right on without a care. Then I swipe a matching tee to go with them, pulling it over my head in a hurry. Can’t keep him waiting.

Lance stares at me the whole time, perched on the end of my bed with half-lidded, uncomfortable eyes.

I smile at him. “Don’t worry, buddy. You can hang here if you want, but I promise, Trevor won’t bite ya.”

Lance stares back, unresponsive.

“Hey, I ordered food for you, like always. It should be here any minute now. The chef made you something special.”

Lance continues his deadpan stare. He’s clearly not happy about my company downstairs.

I let out a breath, then give him a gentle rub on the head, which he seems to dodge with an annoyed snort. He gets like this. “Alright, buddy.” I decide to forego any socks, padding along the wood flooring on my way back to the stairs.

Over the banister, I see poor Trevor seated on the couch as awkwardly as I could ever imagine him. His legs are pulled tightly together as if he was bound by rope—shush, dirty mind—and his hands rest in his lap, drumming along his kneecaps. He’s rolled up his sleeves, which was probably his nervous way of trying to act relaxed and calm down. He didn’t take off his shoes. He’s still got his tie on. One of his legs is hopping in place.

If there’s anything I can help him with, it’s relaxing. This boy is wound up tighter than a camel’s butt in a sandstorm.

I need to help this poor guy chill out.

When I come down the stairs, his head spins, eyes glued to me in an instant. I see him take one quick glance at my chest before lifting his gaze to mine. His cheeks burn.

I can’t help but admire him for a handful of minutes. He’s so damned nice to look at, especially all uptight and cute with his tie still on and his slacks bunched up at his crotch.

Just when I feel my cock stir, I realize with horror that I forgot to put on any underwear.

If I bone up, it’s going to show like a proud flagpole.

Fuck. So much for being decent.

“It’s voice activated,” I blurt out suddenly, distracting myself from my ill-timed discovery. “If … If you want to watch anything.”

“Voice …?”

“Yeah. Like this.” I face the flat-screen. “Play some National Geographic.”

The TV comes on. The sight of two lions fucking fills our eyes.

Trevor gets out one laugh before slapping a hand over his mouth.

I cough, my face going red. Nicely played, flat-screen. “Go up a channel,” I command it.

The volume increases instead.

The male lion howls its release, its tail thrashing as my whole living room fills with the unapologetic roar of wild life ecstasy. We’re witnessing the circle of life up in here.

“The male lion is performing his duty with pride,” states the narrator of the show. “The female exudes such impressive regality even during the act. Observe closely as she begins to—”

The remote is in my hand the next instant. I jam a thumb into it, and then there’s an innocent food traveling show on. A bald guy excitedly slurps down a bowl of noodles with a set of chopsticks pinched between his fingers. “Gelatinous and tasty!” he exclaims with glee to the camera.

“You can say that again,” murmurs Trevor. Then he looks up at me. “You’re blushing.”

I toss the remote into his lap. It lands with a distractingly meaty sort of sound, making me instantly think about what he’d look like with those pants off. Stop it. You’re getting hard. “Go to town,” I tell him, my voice strained, “before I … change my mind about inviting you to enjoy my tasty Bistecca Fiorentina.”

“Still don’t know what it is.”

“Let’s just call it fancy steak over a bed of thick, hand-rolled pasta.” Not trusting my dick to stay soft, I head off to the kitchen and pull down an extra dish from the cabinet. “I’d ask red or white again, but seeing as you’re likely underage …”

“I … oh.”

“Yeah. Kinda figured, since you’re my intern, you can’t be—”

“Twenty-five,” he finishes in a low, tired voice.

“I haven’t had time to check your file.” I totally did earlier. He’s a journalism major with a minor in psychology. His name is Trevor Woodard, and he’s just a few weeks short of twenty-one. I just want to hear him admit his age. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Sixteen,” he answers sarcastically in a toying voice.

I chuckle, then peer over my shoulder. He’s thrown an arm over the back of the couch, his adorable face in view.

My dick stirs at the sight of him.

Down, boy.

Trevor smiles innocently. “I gotta be home before ten or my parents are gonna be so mad at me,” he teases.

I clear my throat. “Well, damn. I guess I’d better give you some time to finish your homework, too.”

“It’s the summer,” he reminds me, acting all clever. “We don’t have homework. Are you okay? You look jumpy.”

“I do? No, I don’t.” I hurry to the table with glasses and silverware, setting his place with my back to him while trying my best to hide my crotch. I have no protection whatsoever from shamelessly revealing my hard-on. It’s maddening, having so little control over it. I’ve never felt so much like a dumb, sex-crazed teenager, not since I—well, since I was a dumb, sex-crazed teenager.

And he watches me the whole time, his eyes drifting down my body. That does nothing to soften the serious case of wood I’m nursing downstairs. “You know,” I force myself to say, “it was only four years ago that you really were sixteen.”

He frowns. “Well, if you already knew how old I am, then why’d you ask?”

“Wanted to hear it from your lips, I guess.”

“I guess it doesn’t make a difference, does it?” he retorts, then crosses his arms, looking smug and satisfied with himself. “You let me believe you were in your late twenties.”

Still behind the table, I let out a chuckle. “How’d I do that?”

“I guessed your age, and you just—” He blinks, remembering. “Oh. You … You just laughed at me then. You didn’t confirm it.”

“Didn’t I?”

Trevor’s eyes narrow in that same cute, indignant way they always do. I’m already getting to know him so well. “You’re thirty-three,” he announces unnecessarily. “I know that fact because I know Benjamin Gage, my boss, my employer. But you?” He gives his head one shake. “I don’t know you at all, it seems.”

“On the contrary, I’m the only one you do know,” I counter, “and for that, I’m thankful.”

“Why?”

I meet his bright eyes, finding them genuinely curious for my answer.

Feeling confident enough that I’m no longer tenting my jeans, I come up toward the back of the couch. He visibly tries not to sink into the cushions as I draw near, holding his posture steady.

“Because,” I explain, my voice calm and small, “I’m used to guys getting to know the Benjamin Gage. I’m used to people only seeing me for my name, for my influence … my connections … my whatever. It’s refreshing to just be Ben for once.”

Trevor nods and bites his lip, digesting my words.

“You know me rather well already,” I point out. “I’m the guy who brought you here to his home. The guy with the dog who hates people. The guy whose six hundred dollar bowl you broke.”

“I said sorry,” he sasses at me. Then, after a beat, his eyes shrink. “S-Six hundred dollars, you said?”

When I grin to reveal my cruel humor, Trevor’s cute attitude flashes over his face all over again. This adorable boy is so easy to play with and torment.

“Let me ask you a question, then,” Trevor starts.

I come around the couch and take a seat, lifting my eyebrows to listen. He seems to freeze up when I sit, his body turning rigid despite the fact that the couch is extravagant and long with more than enough room for five people. As it is, there’s space for two linebackers to be sitting between us.

Keep it professional, right?

“Yes?” I prompt him. “You wanted to ask me something?”

He swallows, then meets my eyes. “If I … If I wasn’t your intern at all, and we happened to meet at that … that club …”

“Which is pretty much what happened, if I’m believing that you really didn’t know me, and I really didn’t know you …”

“My p-point is,” he stammers on, his features hardening, “if things were different, are you saying you would have actually entertained the idea of …” He swallows again, then averts his eyes and finishes, “of doing … things … with me?”

I prop an elbow on the back of the couch, considering him.

“What I mean,” he persists, rambling on, “is … is that … Listen, what I’m asking is—”

I cut him off. “Are you asking if I’m into you?”

Trevor rolls his eyes and looks away. “Never mind. I’m being dumb. Forget I asked.”

I bite my lip to stop myself from grinning with amusement. He is a professional squirmer, this poor guy. I wonder if I should do anything to ease his torment or just kick back and enjoy the show he’s putting on.

Then my eyes drift to his crotch, which I discover to be totally exposed, his legs having opened up as he continues to stare off. He’s likely caught in a storm of self-doubt and insecurity in his mind. His crotch looks so fucking inviting in those work slacks of his, bunching up in just the right way, fitting his form so perfectly that I could bury my face in there for hours.

Fuck. There goes my dick again.

“The answer is yes,” I tell him. “I think you’re attractive.”

He doesn’t look back, but his eyes flash and his lips part as if to say something, yet he remains silent.

“Take off your tie,” I say suddenly. “Kick off your shoes.”

“Wh-What?” he stammers, alarmed.

“Make yourself at home. You’re not at the office, y’know. You can take off that tie you’ve been strangling yourself with all day.”

He chuckles at that, desperate to laugh at something, but his face still stiffens with tension. “A-Alright.” He starts loosening his tie, as if my offer for him to relax was an order he needs to follow. His fingers fumble twice as he works it off his neck, like he doesn’t remember how he got it on in the first place.

It’s so fucking adorable. Even the tiny, subtle movements and second-guessing of his nervous fingers is sexy somehow.

He licks his lips a lot too when he’s nervous. His eyes look wet, like he’s about to cry or freak out, or like he just downed a gallon of liquor.

“Yeah,” I answer him again. “I would have spent the whole evening with you, no question. But … we’re being professional,” I remind him. “I’m not gonna pursue anything, since we’re—”

“But w-would you with someone else?” he cuts me off, half-turning his face toward me as he sets the tie on the coffee table in front of him—coiled up neatly. “Like, if one of the other interns—”

“Really?”

The hard, abrupt tone of my voice startles him. He meets my eyes, then his brows pull together.

“W-Well, I think it’s a good question,” he states defensively.

“You think I’m that much of a skeeze? To let any guy who hits on me into my life like I’ve let you?”

“I … well, I don’t know.” He swallows hard. “Are you?”

I feel my face heating up. Is this really what he thinks? That my employees are just a bunch of treats in a candy bowl that I can sample all summer? Is that how others picture me, too?

And even while I’m getting all hot and angry, the only thing I’m really thinking about is how far away from him I’m sitting on the couch. Why is my only concern wondering what subtle move I can make to get closer to him? Am I really that pathetic and starved for another guy’s attention?

Seriously, I just want to put this adorably bumbling guy in my lap and play show-and-tell with his butt so he can know intimately the tent I’m making in my pants for him.

Fuck. Again?? I cross my legs tightly.

Really, I’m always the man who takes charge in situations like this. Why am I letting him get to me so easily?

“You’re surrounded by hot guys all the time,” Trevor pushes on, oblivious (or uncaring) of my quickly angering expression—and tenting jeans. “It was the only thing I noticed my first day. Each intern I saw was hotter than the last. All of them young. All of them college guys. All of them muscled and sexy and clean-cut. I must be blind to not notice that. Is that your type?” he finishes, arriving at his point. “And if so, how the hell do I fit in to that? Why am I the one you’re inviting to your stupid penthouse?”

My stupid penthouse.

Humor floods back into me, washing away the anger. Even all riled up as he is, Trevor doesn’t realize how totally irresistible he is—and that makes him so much hotter to me. I have seen a thousand guys pass through the doors of Gage Communications who look like all the other dolled-up, greased-up, starched-up interns—muscular, modelesque, tall and strapping—but no one like Trevor. In a lot of ways, he reminds me of myself when I was his age.

Y’know. Thirteen years ago.

Fuck. He’s such a kid. I keep forgetting that.

“I suppose I don’t really have a type,” I admit to him, “despite the people Rebekah keeps hiring into my office every summer.”

He bites his bottom lip—his big, plush lip—then looks away.

I want to be sitting so much closer to him right now. I want to put my arm around him, pull him against me, and resume right where we left off. I want to be the one biting that lip of his, feeling it pressing against mine, soft and wet and sweet.

You can’t, a stubborn voice reminds me. You’re his boss. You ought to be his mentor, not his sex-thing. You need to behave, because you know damn well that if you don’t, he won’t.

Yet that last word of warning in my head does more to turn me on than ward me away. I know if I slid over on this couch right now and put my mouth to his, he would not resist.

It would be so easy.

So easy.

“But … I like what I see in you,” I finish, my words slow and certain, my eyes drawing a line up his sexy body. “You’re smart. You’re insightful. And you work. Hard.”

He lifts his gaze back to mine. His teeth let go of his bottom lip, leaving his mouth parted, ready for a kiss, ready for a word of encouragement, ready for fucking anything.

Then the door buzzer rings.

I smile ruefully. “Food’s here.”

17

Trevor is craving steak. His steak.

I stand by the back of the couch, clinging to it like a life raft, watching as Ben sorts through the food in the bags.

Or, more accurately, watching Ben’s ass as it hypnotically moves in those loose, low-hanging light blue jeans, showing a hint of his ass crack.

Yes, he’s not wearing underwear. Yes, I noticed the second he came down the stairs and headed to the kitchen. Yes, it’s all that’s been on my mind: sex, butt, and Ben.

It has to be deliberate. He is trying to drive me crazy, and it is working. Just that little tease of his crack makes my cock swell in my already too-tight underwear.

This is not a healthy combination to endure if I want to honor my plan of behaving and treating him like my boss, nothing more.

Not to mention my stupid freak-out about him checking out other guys. Really? I just agreed to be nothing but boss and intern with him, and then I go off like a jealous boyfriend?

I shake off all of my worries (or pretend to) and decide to play it cool. I think about what an actual, totally-platonic situation with an employee at his boss’s place might be like. With that in mind, I calmly stroll over to the kitchen counter where he sorts the two bags of food the delivery boy dropped off.

“If you had ordered already before I arrived,” I ask, “then how do you have enough for both of us? I don’t have to stay, really.”

“I always order too much. You see these two bags?” He lifts his gaze to me, his eyes piercing and bright. “Besides, I can … put down a lot of food.”

Everything he says bleeds with innuendo. Like, does he mean that he literally eats a lot of food? Or is he actually talking about being able to sexually “take” a lot? And why is either answer as sexy as the other?

“Sit down,” he tells me, his voice deep. “I set a place for you.”

Yes, he did. And I had watched with hungry eyes as he set that spot for me, placing the silverware. When he did that, I watched with such focused attunement on his backside, the toned muscles of which showed in excruciating detail through that fitted t-shirt of his. His bulging biceps are seriously torturing those sleeves so badly, I’m surprised they haven’t torn yet.

And his ass. Oh my God, his ass. The loose, light blue jeans he’s wearing are already hanging low enough to show the top of his firm, pert cheeks—his shirt mercifully cut just above his waist so that his butt is on perfect display for me. But when he had reached over the table to set down a fork and knife, I got such a generous front row seat to his butt as it moved. I mean, I could see the tops of either cheek like two perfect, sculpted humps of smooth, inviting muscle.

How the hell am I supposed to focus on anything else??

I’m like a preadolescent all over again, hunting jock butts in the locker room after gym class. I feel so out of control and primal, the way I yearn for him.

It’s almost too much to take.

I blink away my dirty thoughts and give a distracted nod at the table. “Who’s the, um … third table setting for?”

“Lance.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “Who?”

“You’ve already forgotten? My dog. Lancelot. Trouble is,” he goes on, smirking as he nods toward the stairs, “I don’t think he’s going to be up for coming down to eat. He’s not very trusting or social, I think I warned you. Lance!” he calls out, his strong, sexy voice booming. “Food’s here! Your favorite!”

We both look up at the banister. No dog appears.

“He eats steak?” I ask incredulously.

“No. The chef makes him a special plate. I’ll bring it up to him later,” Ben decides with a shrug, then turns halfway toward me. “Go ahead. Either of the other spots are fine.” He turns back to the counter, slowly filling our plates as his sexy wide back faces me. Naturally, I become quickly hypnotized once again, watching him longingly. Ben must sense it because after a moment, he looks over his shoulder, catches me staring slack-jawed, then teasingly adds, “Nothing to be afraid of. My forks don’t bite.”

It’s not the forks I’m afraid that bite. I keep my thoughts in my head, give him a curt nod, then take a seat at the table. The chair is a ridiculously comfortable improvement from the stiff wooden ones that creak at Elijah’s apartment.

Seconds later, Ben brings two dishes of the most gorgeously plated pasta and steak I have ever seen. The aroma is intoxicating, rich, and eye-rollingly succulent. Like Pavlov’s dog, I salivate the second the plate is set before me.

It’s astonishing, how he’s so instantly forced me to trade one appetite for another.

Of course that appetite is traded right back when he takes his seat and my eyes meet his. There’s nothing decent about his dark, hungry gaze. He undresses me with his eyes, stripping me of everything I have and know. Ben grins crookedly, gripping his fork and knife like he plans to eat me for dinner instead.

Then, in a voice deep and gravelly, he says, “Bon appétit.”

“Th-Thank you,” I choke out.

And we begin to cut into our steaks.

The first bite explodes with flavor in my mouth. It’s so good, I can’t help but close my eyes as I chew, savoring every bit of the juice that coats my tongue. I swallow it in seconds. When I cut and help myself to a second bite, it’s twice as good as the first, and an involuntary moan hops out of my throat. A third makes its way to my fork, then past my lips. Oh my God, this is some kind of heaven.

When I look up, Ben’s eyes are all on me, watching, amused, and his first tiny square of steak remains speared at the end of his fork, uneaten.

I smirk at him. “Well, go on and eat your steak, too,” I tease him. “This isn’t the Trevor show.”

He grins. “I beg to differ, but alright.” He brings the bite to his teeth—yes, his teeth before his tongue—and then I watch that lucky bite disappear past his lips. When he chews, his whole jaw moves slowly and sensually, its muscles flexing and tightening. He closes his eyes too, savoring it. It’s entrancing, the way his lips squirm, showing evidence of his tongue as it wrestles and works the piece of meat in his mouth, devouring it skillfully. He seems like an expert in … working pieces of meat with his mouth.

And now I’m thinking about blowjobs. Perfect.

I pull my attention back to my plate like yanking the leash of a stubborn dog, cutting myself another bite, then another. The meat is tender and falls apart in my mouth. The bed of pasta beneath is coated in the delicious juice from the steak, and when I twist a helping onto my fork and bring it to my tongue, a whole new set of flavors, mouthwatering and savory, crash through my body and fulfill cravings I didn’t know I had.

And I can’t stop.

It isn’t long before I’m scraping an empty plate, putting every little bit of broken pasta and scrap of meat I can find past my lips.

“Good?”

I lift my chin, alarmed, as if his one spoken word just yanked me out of some trance I was caught in. Ben watches me with his elbows on the table and his chin propped up by his fists. He’s probably been like that for a while, judging from the amused glint in his eyes and the upward quirk of the corners of his lips.

I set my fork and knife down, my face going red. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Got a bit carried away there.” I wipe a spot on my lips, not sure if there’s sauce there or if it’s my sudden self-consciousness playing tricks. “I’ve … never eaten steak like that before.”

He nods. “It’s a favorite place of mine. I’ve known the owner for years.” He starts cutting another piece of steak, barely halfway through his meal.

I watch for a moment. My hands are in my lap suddenly. I’m wringing them, fidgeting, picking at my nails, chewing on my lip and still tasting the oil from the pasta.

Watching him eat is like an encore of the meal I just downed. Except my mind is going everywhere but the food. His lips, how they move. His jaw, how it works. His eyes, how they savor.

“So,” I exclaim abruptly, forcing myself to talk and fill the silence, “I remember this one time I had steak—I was thirteen, maybe fourteen—and this big piece got lodged in my throat. I didn’t even know what was happening because my eyes were so watered up, everything looked stretched like a funhouse mirror, and I couldn’t breathe. All I could hear was screaming. My mom’s screams. My dad’s yelling. And y’know what I was thinking the whole time? Shut up. I just wanted them to shut up. Really, was the last thing I’d hear in my life going to be the shrill sound of my parents’ screams? I mean, we’re talking the same kind of scream my mom makes when a cockroach scuttles up the wall. So there I was, being screamed at like an insect because I couldn’t properly chew and swallow my dinner. That’s how I was gonna die: choking on a chunk of some dead cooked cow.”

I interrupt myself by bringing a glass of water to my mouth so fast, it splashes my face. Not that I seem to care, chugging away like I’ve been stranded in the Sahara for a month, water droplets letting loose from my chin. I set it back down way too fast—it splashes again—and then I continue rambling.

“One of the thoughts that went through my head—yeah, of all possibly profound things to occur to me during my maybe-last-minute-on-earth—was whether my English paper on Socrates was due that Monday or the next.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Socrates. Y’know. I’m choking on dead cow only because I know I’m choking on dead cow, and I am what I know, and blah, blah, philosophy. The irony made me want to laugh, but of course I couldn’t laugh, because I’m choking to death, right?” I’m telling the story with my hands, gesturing in front of me. I’m never like this. Someone hit my nutty switch and I don’t have any red wine to blame this time. “So then my mom starts trying to reach down my throat—no joke, I almost bit her finger off, and then I would’ve been choking on steak and my mother’s finger, what a lovely image that is, and yes, that would have included her diamond wedding ring—and my dad yells at her to back off while he bear-hugs me from behind like a WWE wrestler. My dad squeezed me so damned hard, I could taste my ribcage. Up I went, then back to the ground. Up, then to the ground. Up. Ground. Up. Ground. I started to see stars. And then: boom. Out. Chunk of cow cannonballs over the dining room table like a brown, lumpy pigeon and lands right into the aquarium with a cute plop.”

I press my lips shut when I realize Ben is staring at me, wide-eyed and slowly chewing his last bite, his plate emptied.

After swallowing, he offers me a tiny smile, then quietly asks, “And the moral of your story is … don’t bite off more than you can chew?”

I let out one light, nervous chuckle—thinking about the clubs I headed in high school, my strictly laid-out four-year college plan, my ambitious class schedule, the amount of hours, the credits …

Thinking about Ben, the gorgeous man sitting in front of me. Thinking about being here at all. Thinking about whether I’ve spent my whole life biting off more than I can chew.

Ben, my latest too-big bite of steak.

I swallow, then murmur, “Story of my life.”

He sets down his silverware, then leans back in his chair. His eyes drift down my chest for a moment. We just ate a full meal of steak and pasta, yet somehow he still looks starved.

Starved for something else.

Like me.

I rise from the table so fast, my thighs bang into it. He lifts his eyebrows, startled. “I’ll … I’ll get the plates,” I announce, my voice unsteady and an octave too high, before taking both our dishes away and moving to the kitchen too fast.

I count my breaths to calm myself and quickly run through a roulette of different things I can say to excuse myself home. If I’m here a second longer, I’m seriously going to give in to impulses we both promised we’d resist. With every passing glance, my resolve is crumbling.

And then I go and talk for an hour about my near-death experience with red meat. What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m just nervous. I’m doubting my tenacity, here. I’ve resisted Ben for so damned long, and I know for a fact that I won’t be able to take the high-and-well-behaved road much longer.

And I’m supposed to survive a summer of this torture?

The faucet turns on too strongly, and a spray ricochets off a dish and covers my front in water and pasta oil.

“Fuck!” I cry out, dropping the dishes into the sink.

“It’s alright,” comes his deep voice—from directly behind me.

I spin around to face him. My whole front is transparent now from the water, my nipples hardened from the cold. And now Ben towers over me, the deep resonance in his unassuming words pulling me in. It’s alright. Everything about him has me trapped, roped up like a prisoner. Even literally, I feel like I can’t pull my arms away from my body nor make my legs bend.

I’m all his. I’ll do anything he wants. He owns me.

“I was thinking,” he says, his voice soft, the sound of it casting goosebumps up my arms, up my back, up my neck, “that maybe we’ve left a little room … for dessert.”

18

Trevor realizes he is the dessert.

I swallow hard, then meet Benjamin Gage’s eyes—his sharp, scorching eyes.

“D-Dessert?” I whisper.

Slowly, he brings a finger to the collar of my shirt and hooks it inside. Then he gives it a tug, the top button coming undone with surprising ease.

My heart hammers away. My knees quake.

He pops open the next button. Oh God …

“B-Ben …” I whisper.

He ignores me. His other hand comes up, and then the two of them work the rest of my wet shirt off from the top, down. Button by button, I feel it loosen, yet see none of it, my eyes glued to his.

“Ben …”

Still, he says nothing. He watches his own hands as he peels my shirt off, slipping it over either of my shoulders. The cool air of the room kisses my skin, and then the wet fabric falls away.

His fingers slide down my arms slowly, like he’s never seen them before. Every ridge of muscle, the bumps of my elbows, he touches them with curiosity. Then his fingers drift softly inward, their rough tips unhurriedly running along my ribcage until they dance over my chest.

When his fingertips reach my hard nipples, I suck in air.

They’re so sensitive, I squirm under his touch.

I’m so hard right now. My cock is swollen and aching, and it throbs inside my underwear. His hips so close to mine, I feel an automatic pull toward him. I might be humping him, our crotches grinding against one another. The pressure down there builds.

“B-Ben …” I breathe. “Please … W-We … We shouldn’t …”

But I want him to. Badly. I want him to keep touching me. I want his hands everywhere. I want his lips on me next, doing all that his fingertips are doing—and more.

I don’t want him to stop.

And he doesn’t. His hands run down my sides smoothly, palms against my skin, and then he’s pulling my belt open, freeing it from my pants. It hits the floor buckle-first, loud and clanging.

I open my lips to whisper his name in protest once more.

But then his mouth is there instead, shutting me up. When I try to moan a word one last time, his tongue is there to stop me yet again, and then all my desire to protest is gone with my voice.

And our kiss.

Fuck, does Ben know how to kiss.

All that’s left of what I know is twisted tongues, breath, and our wet lips.

And his fingers as they open my pants and pull them down.

Underwear, too.

My cock freed, it swells even more. I gasp, feeling the cold air all over my body. My skin exposed, goosebumps rush across every inch of me. Instinctually, I step out of my pants as he works my mouth muscularly and with power, dominating my face. I kick away my underwear too, desperate to be freed of my clothes and open to him—and to whatever wicked things he plans to do to me.

And I want him to do everything to me.

When my hands come up to his chest, I’m surprised all over again by how built and muscular he is. He is as firm as brick, and his pecs, round and shapely. I grasp the bottom of his shirt and slip my fingers underneath.

I only get a fingertip or two on his skin before he pulls away, our kiss ended in an instant.

Meeting my eyes, he grabs the bottom of his own shirt and, with his big arms crisscrossed, slowly slides it up over his head. And oh boy, does he take his time. His gorgeous abs are revealed to me all over again, one by one, ever slowly, along with his big, statuesque pecs I just a moment ago had in my palms. His body tapers perfectly from his big broad shoulders to his slender waist. He pitches his shirt aside like it means nothing to him, then fixes his smolder on me, his jaw quirked, its muscles flexed tensely.

He looks dangerous in this moment. Deadly. Dark.

And devastatingly hot.

I crumble before him. I can’t believe this is happening.

In one quick motion, he grips the backs of my legs and hoists me up onto the kitchen bar counter, completely naked except for my socks. I gasp as the cold marble surface bites my cheeks. A tall plastic container falls over and rolls off, plummeting to the tile. A stack of papers on my other side are brushed away, too.

He grips the tops of my thighs with his big, powerful hands, then spreads them apart.

My cock points up at his face, desperate, throbbing, a bead of pre-cum on its firm pink tip.

Ben doesn’t even look up at me. I’m just another juicy helping of high-dollar steak to him, an object for his pleasure, a piece of meat.

Saying that about myself has never felt hotter.

Slowly, he moves his mouth to the base of my cock. I watch, desperate to feel him on me, whether it’s his lips or tongue. I yearn for his touch so badly, I fight my instinct to buck my hips upward and force my hard cock into his mouth. I’ve never wanted something more badly than I do this.

He parts his lips at last, sensually, then lays the flat of his tongue on my cock. Taking his time, cruelly, he runs it up the entire length from base to tip.

I groan, driven crazy by his tongue. I cling to the hard counter as best as I can, legs spread, nipples hard, cool air all over my skin. I’m so overwhelmed with sensations, I feel like I’m falling apart.

When he reaches my cockhead, his tongue disappears, and he perks his lips to kiss it tenderly. His lips work with sweet finesse, the way one kisses his lover during a slow dance, the way one tastes the cool water from a drinking fountain, the way one savors the nippled tip of a perfect swirl of ice cream.

Consider dessert served.

He opens his mouth and lets in my cock, inch by inch. I arch my back, overcome with the warm feel of the inside of his wet mouth and tongue as it slides down my cock, swallowing it whole. His mouth is the only warmth I know.

And then he starts to suck it, the pressure building. He pulls back, then swallows it all over again, inch by inch.

The suction makes me crazy. I watch him, my mouth unable to close, my eyes alight and drunk with ecstasy.

Every experience I’ve had with an ex-boyfriend has just been obliterated. In this instant, I realize I’ve never had a blowjob.

Not a proper one. Not like this.

Each time he pulls up and then slides back down my cock, the suction builds. His warm wet lips and slippery tongue work me to a throbbing, aching, desperate edge of imminent explosion.

Yet he keeps his pace torturously slow, twisting up my cock, then slowly easing down, sucking me like the world’s tastiest lollipop, the flavor of which he wants to enjoy every lick of.

All at my tortured, impatient expense.

I can only wait, tighten every muscle in my body, and suffer the agonizing, throbbing enjoyment of it.

Make an end of it already, I beg him through my clenched teeth, through my jagged gasps, through my clinging hands—which have since taken hold of his firm, muscular shoulders at some point that I don’t remember. Let me come and make an end of it, please, please, Ben, please let me come.

His mouth slides right off my cock and then his hand replaces it, stroking me slowly, slippery, and smooth. He looks up at me with wet, glistening lips, a devious smirk twisting them.

“Goddamn, Ben,” I breathe, quivering. “I gotta come. Please. Fuck. I gotta come.”

He rises up from between my wide-open thighs, his muscular form towering over me even as I’m on the counter. Light spilling in from the dining room catches every ridge of his muscles, giving a glow to his six-pack and the sides of his pecs. His biceps shine spectacularly as they flex with his every slow pump of my dick.

He opens those wet lips of his. “I’ve only just begun, boy.”

Then his pace picks up. I gasp, clinging to the back of the countertop as he races me right back to the edge. Already, I’m seconds from my point of no return.

“Look at me.”

I bring my gaze back to his, locked on, unblinking, gasping for breath as he pumps me relentlessly.

I’m so looking at him.

“Ask me for permission,” he demands.

There’s something about a hot man like Benjamin Gage with my dick in his grip that makes a somewhat meek and clueless guy like me totally submissive and desperate to obey him. It’s beyond the boss-intern thing, really. I want to serve him. I want to feel beneath him somehow. I want to feel used, teased, and taken full advantage of.

I have been my own insufferable boss every moment of my life since my days of rigorous studying and zero straying from the perfect, faultless path. Now I’m desperate—and long overdue—to let go of that control and submit, for once, to someone else’s whim instead of always my own.

I want to be Benjamin Gage’s toy—his only toy.

“Please let me come,” I beg.

“Again.” His gaze is dark and wicked. He wants to torment me. He wants me to be all his. He enjoys being totally in control.

“Please,” I beg again. “Please let me come. I’m so close.”

“Not yet,” he states, drawing his lips closer to me. “Not. Yet.” His whispered words crash over my face in two hot breaths. “Hold out for me, Trevor.”

Then he takes my mouth with his. Unable to protest anymore with words, I simply moan against him, my legs tightening as I struggle to keep from coming. I bring a hand up to the back of his head and cling to him as we kiss. Our lips gain strength, our breath growing more out of control.

“Please,” I whimper against his lips as we kiss. “Please …”

“Say my name,” he breathes against me.

“Ben.” The name comes out in a jagged whisper and at once, without hesitation. “Ben.” It gives me such power, such pleasure, such pride to say his name. “Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben—”

“Trevor.”

I feel everything inside me squeeze with my release, and then I come so hard, I feel spots of warm wetness hit my chin and chest while our lips lock, feverish and animal.

Good Lord, it’s endless. All of the absurd tension I’d felt between us releases with this powerful, explosive orgasm. I melt against his muscular chest, kissing him as I come, ignoring the wet mess I’ve shamelessly made between our bodies.

And he keeps kissing me, but gentler now. His lips tease and caress mine, softer and softer, until he finally pulls away and looks into my eyes searchingly.

I can’t fight the smile that spills across my face, drunk with chemicals chasing their way through my body. “W-Wow …”

He grins. “Wow? Is that all you got for me?”

I peer over his shoulder. With a lift of my eyebrows, I realize we’re no longer alone. Lance, his dog, sits at the foot of the spiral staircase. He stares back at me with half-lidded eyes, unimpressed.

I put my lips to Ben’s ear. “Your dog’s watching us.”

19

Benjamin enjoys working overtime.

Trevor leans awkwardly against the back of the couch, his arms folded. And he’s caught in a staring contest.

With my dog.

Lance sits at the foot of the spiral stairs. It’s as close as he had dared to come, apparently, so I moved his dish in front of him so he could eat. He’s taken exactly one lick of his gourmet dish, and now seems more committed to staring suspiciously at Trevor than eating another bite. That, or my trusty chef has lost his touch.

“He’s not even barking,” whispers Trevor, still staring.

I chuckle. “He doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t bark? Like, at all?”

“Nope. He’s a quiet, humble knight.” I smile, drinking in the sight of Trevor suddenly. “You look good in my shirt.”

That brings his gaze back to me. His cheeks warm and his eyes turn light with laughter. In truth, he’s not wearing my shirt, but rather his own—the one he left at my place the night we first met.

“Your shirt?” he returns. “Interesting. Your shirt looks an awful lot like a shirt I wore to some rich prick’s apartment on a night not too long ago.”

“A rich prick, you say?” I take a few steps toward Trevor. “Is this some guy whose ass I need to kick?”

“Probably.”

“How’d your shirt end up at his place?”

“He took it off of me, the greedy man he was,” he answers.

“Hmm.” I come to his side, leaning against the back of the couch with him. “He probably kept it and did dirty things to it.”

Trevor frowns at me. “You didn’t even wash it.”

“And get rid of your sexy scent?” I bring my nose to his pit in one quick movement, nuzzling my face inside, then inhale deeply. “Yeah,” I growl, pulling away with a drunken grin. “Still got it.”

Trevor laughs, then folds his arms tighter, blushing. “You’re just like a dog. No wonder you have one.”

I look over at Lance still sitting at the foot of the stairs. He still hasn’t touched his food since that first lick. Maybe I should bring it upstairs for him so he can eat in peace.

“I mean, I’m sure he’s a nice fellow,” Trevor adds suddenly. “I didn’t mean to sound like a dick just now.”

“Oh, no. I’ll totally own that. I’m a fuckin’ dog.”

He laughs, then faces me head-on suddenly, his expression turning serious. “What are we doing, Ben?”

I lift an innocent eyebrow. “We’re hanging out after dinner.”

“After you blew me on your breakfast bar,” he adds. “Let’s not leave out the crucial details, here.”

“In that case, I blew you and jerked you off until you came all over our bodies. Then we cleaned off our sticky chests in my bathroom, and I put on a new shirt because I used mine to wipe up our mess on the counter.” I smirk superiorly. “Crucial details.”

He stares at my chest for a second, as if forgetting that all of that just happened. “I … like your new t-shirt. I didn’t take you for an oldies fan.”

“Oldies?? Dude, it’s Guns N’ Roses. I’m a huge fan of all types of music. I have a whole room of band memorabilia, in fact.”

Trevor blinks. “A whole room?”

“Yes. I own this whole floor. Come, I’ll give you a tour.”

Trevor reluctantly follows as I move around the couch toward the hall that runs off from the side of the living room. I also figure this tour might give Lance an opportunity to eat his meal in peace, if the presence of this “stranger” in our home was filling him with too much anxiety to stomach anything past that first lick.

And considering I finally got my first lick of Trevor, it’s only fair that my dog is afforded the same chance with his food.

The hallway is lined on one side with doors and the other with the same floor-to-ceiling windows from the living room. I show him the enormous guestrooms—of which there are no less than four—each of them with themed décor, and each with a window and door that opens to the terrace with plants, chairs, and tiny lights that turn on in the evenings. The building is L-shaped, and it’s at the end of this leg of the “L” that we arrive at the final room, which is my music-themed gym—completely lined with floor-to-ceiling windows (with the exception of one wall of mirror) and a big glass door emptying onto the end of the terrace.

“Holy crap,” breathes Trevor as he wanders around the machines. “You have your own personal 24-hour gym in here. You could sell memberships.” He runs a hand along the bench press, upholstered with a Metallica logo, then strolls up to the dumbbell station, the rack of which has a giant red-on-black Nine Inch Nails logo painted up its side, the second N backwards.

Of course, all I’m really looking at is his ass. Sure, I made him come good and hard, but I abstained; I want him to see how much of a gentleman I can be, even if it means blue-balling myself for the night—assuming I don’t lose my resolve in the next ten minutes.

“Nine Inch Nails? Sounds familiar. Is it referring to the ones used to crucify Jesus? Is Nine Inch Nails a Christian rock band?”

Oh God, he’s so young. My heart aches. “You’ve seriously never heard their music before?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t listen to much,” he admits.

I suppress a laugh, not wanting to mock him. “I’ll play a song for you sometime and let you come to your own conclusion about how Christian and wholesome Nine Inch Nails is.”

He smirks, picking up the tone of my voice. “No need to tease me for my … naïveté.”

“No teasing here. Just admiring the view,” I say to his butt.

He turns around and gently leans against one of the machines. “What view?”

I come up to him. “The one you just hid from me.”

Trevor looks up into my eyes, then takes in his bottom lip with his teeth. He lets it go with a pop—which does nothing to ease my animal desire to descend on those plump lips and suck them until they’re cherry red—then suddenly volunteers a factoid. “I’ve never really had a boyfriend.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Never?”

“Not a real one. Not one who’s lasted for more than, like, a month, tops. And it’s not that I haven’t wanted one,” he adds. “It’s just that I’ve been so busy with school. My priority is always … A’s, studying, and getting enough sleep for a test in the morning.”

He lowers himself onto a bench in front of the dumbbell rack. I sit on another across from him. “I bet your GPA thanked you.”

“Yeah,” he mutters glumly. “And so did the CEO of Kleenex for all the feverish masturbating I did all those high school years.”

I laugh. “You underestimate how much others jerk off, too.”

“I’m pretty sure I have them beat.” Trevor lets out a chuckle finally, then leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “The thing is, I’m not used to boyfriends and dating … or to what you’re supposed to do when things start happening. Like, I could count on one hand the amount of times I’ve tried anything with a guy. Same goes for how many times I’ve kissed one.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “You’ve kissed only five guys before?”

“Less. Maybe three. Two if you don’t count a weird game of spin-the-bottle I was trapped into playing my freshman year of college.” Trevor gives me a tiny smile, his cheeks going rosy. “I’m not proud of it. I just … I just feel obligated to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“I’m … a gay virgin.” He wrinkles up his face as it flushes even more. “Is that a thing? I’ve never … done anal.”

He finally arrives at his point. I nod slowly, then lean forward myself and meet his eyes gently. “Is that what’s got you freaked out? Do you feel like I’m pressuring you at all?”

“No, no. Well, not exactly. Maybe.”

“Let’s be adults about this, Trevor,” I tell him, speaking calmly and keeping my tone light. “We’re both adults. We’re having a good time. I’m enjoying what’s happening here.”

“Me too,” he throws in quickly.

“Good. So let’s not sweat too much about what we should or shouldn’t do. This is a first for me too, in a way,” I remind him. “I’ve never … been in this situation before. With an intern. Who … works for me.”

“Good point,” he agrees, nodding anxiously and fast.

I put a hand on his knee. He stops nodding and meets my eyes with surprise. “So it’s okay to relax a little. You don’t have to worry about doing the right or wrong thing around me. And to be quite frank,” I point out, “I’ve been a bit apprehensive about what exactly is right and wrong lately, myself.”

“Have you? Yeah?” His eyes are bright and hopeful, latching onto my words like they’re the golden thing he’s been waiting to hear for days. Maybe I’m saying exactly the right thing right now.

The idea is as cathartic for me as it hopefully is for him.

“Yes,” I affirm with a tiny crooked smile. “I think my only conclusion so far is that we both like what’s happening, and we both want what’s happening. Do you?”

“I do,” he answers at once.

“Me too.”

Trevor’s face visibly lightens as his posture relaxes. I’m happy as fuck to have provided him that bit of comfort, even if I’m quite sure it’ll be short-lived. With an uptight guy like this, any island of relief is just that: a tiny island in the middle of an unfathomably deep ocean of worry and terror.

Let’s hope I can turn this island into more of a mainland, lest we both drown in the cold, unforgiving sea.

“Oh! Aerosmith!” he exclaims suddenly, coming to life as he ditches the bench and rushes up to the painted Aerosmith guitar propped up on a stand. It sits in the corner near the balcony door. His eyes grow big when he sees the ink. “This is autographed!”

I get up and cross the room, smirking appreciatively. “I met Mr. Tyler at a party in Las Vegas. Used to represent a close friend of his back in ‘09. The autographed guitar was a gift.”

“Back in ’09. Wow, back then I was …” Trevor’s eyes turn to glass. “I was … twelve going on thirteen. Junior high. While you were … meeting Aerosmith.” His gaze drifts off.

I watch him for a bit. “Trevor?”

He lifts his eyes back to mine suddenly. “What are we doing again?”

“Why do you keep asking that?” I give him a reassuring smile. “We don’t have to know what we’re doing, do we? I want to do it, whatever it is. You do, too. So let’s just … let it happen.”

“But we can’t let it get out, can we?” Trevor wags a finger between his chest and mine. “This intern-boss thing? Me screwing around with my boss?”

“It’s a bit more than screwing around, don’t you think?”

After I say the words, the reality of what I just said hits me. Is this thing between Trevor and I more than screwing around? If I had brought any easy piece of ass home that Friday night, would it have been a quick burst of cum in the bedroom followed by a note on my nightstand, never to hear from them again? Was I really just looking for someone to get off with at that club?

And if I was, why did my mind and heart suddenly change so fast when I gazed into Trevor’s eyes and saw something there?

Something deeper than dicks and racing hearts? Something that touched me? Something that reminded me of the scared, excited feelings I’d get around a cute boy back in school?

The craving inside me ever since I met Trevor has only grown. The idea of him leaving my place hurts me. When he’s not around, I feel like I’m missing out on something—a chance to get to know him better, a chance to reveal more of myself to him, a chance to connect with another human being.

A chance to feel his lips touching mine.

A chance to feel the weight of his body on me as we hold each other close.

And unless I’m crazy, I see something stirring in Trevor’s eyes as well. He seems knocked back by my words, like it didn’t occur to him that this might be something more than just a fling.

“You mean you … really want this to keep going?” he asks, his voice small and unsure. “You’re not just saying it?”

“Yes. I want this.”

His eyes detach as he stares at my chest, thinking. Then he raises his brow, all his cute forehead wrinkles showing, as he says, “We … can’t let anyone know. I can’t be the intern who’s involved with my boss.”

I nod resolutely, getting his point at once. “I can’t be the boss who plays favorites, who meddles openly with his subordinates.”

“My roommate and best friend will hate me. He’s an intern, too,” he volunteers suddenly. “Elijah. He’s the one who recognized my feet in the restroom.”

“Oh, I see.” I’m putting two and two together, remembering the first time he mentioned an Elijah—also that first night we met. “It was his idea to take you out to that club,” I recall.

“Yes. He can’t know.”

“No, he can’t,” I agree ruefully.

“We have to keep this completely professional at work. No little sexy side-eyes or inside jokes,” he states. “No secret little rendezvous in the bathroom stalls. We’re above that.”

“Way above that.”

Trevor’s eyes search for more things to say, his lips working without words, until he draws his gaze back up to my face. Then he stills, his lips parted.

I slowly close the distance between us and open my arms to let him in for a hug.

He hesitates for a second, then slowly falls into my arms to return the embrace. I stroke his back soothingly.

The act of hugging him so tenderly feels twenty times more intimate than anything we’ve done so far—even the blowjob, or sharing dinner, or spilling our hearts. Suddenly, I feel fear, like maybe I’ve just made things way too serious between us. As if this hug is some unspoken pact we’ve just made, to hide whatever this is that’s happening between us.

What is happening between us? It doesn’t have a name yet. And maybe that’s the most unsettling thing of all.

He lets go suddenly. I do, too. His face is unreadable, blank as a stone, and I wonder if perhaps he just experienced the same sort of fear course through him.

“I should get back to my place,” he tells me. “I’ve lied to my roommate. Told him I was asked to stay late at the office.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I … was tasked with dropping off the box of files to you.”

I’d nearly forgotten that was the reason he came here at all. “Of course. Sure.”

“Thanks for the tour.” Trevor turns, takes two steps away, then spins back to face me. “And for dinner.”

“We’ll do this again,” I tell him quickly, then experience an inner cringe at how desperate my words sound, like I’m afraid that when he leaves, I’ll never see him again. Do I really think he’s going to freak out the moment he gets home, quit the internship, and move to Canada?

Well, logic might say no, but my emotions tell me anything is possible.

This thing between us working out is also possible, I realize. We just need to keep it all a secret from everyone.

Secrets and lies are what I built a multimillion-dollar business upon, after all.

“I’ll walk you out,” I tell him, moving ahead to lead the way.

Trevor follows, quiet and wordless. When we pass the stairs, Lance is gone. Either he gave up and went back upstairs, or he heard us coming back down the hall and took off running.

Trevor reaches for the doorknob.

“Wait,” I blurt out.

He turns, his eyes widening expectantly, his lips parted.

I crash into him, slipping an arm around his back and tugging him in against my body as our mouths unite. I tilt my head, angling my lips right onto his. I kiss him like it’ll be the last time we ever kiss.

Look who’s all dramatic now.

When I let go and look at him, his eyes are wide and his lips, parted and reddened. I smile, satisfied, then pull open the door. “See you tomorrow, Trevor.”

His legs stiff, his face still stretched with surprise, he lets out a breath of a laugh before nodding. “Tomorrow,” he agrees softly, drawing a hand to his cheek as if I slapped him silly with that kiss.

Once the door closes behind him, I hear the soft, unmistakable pitter-patter of Lance at my back. I turn to find him at the foot of the stairs devouring his meal at long last.

Boy, do I know the feeling.

20

Trevor is full of sexy secrets.

Keeping secrets isn’t such a bad thing.

Actually, it’s kind of fun.

“What exactly did she need you to do?” Elijah persisted.

He’s asking me in the break room. Two unnamed interns I’ve never quite gotten to know are sitting together at a table on the other side of the room, so I try to keep my voice low. “Just a little errand. Nothing much.”

“Rebekah sends you on an errand? And that’s nothing much?”

“Nope.” I take a big chomp of my PB&J.

He snatches the sandwich out of my hands, inspiring a flash of indignance from my eyes. “The hell?” I exclaim, muffled by the giant bite of bread and peanut butter in my mouth.

Elijah takes his own chomp—of my sandwich—then says a few muffled words of his own. “You are being really weird with me lately, and I’m not sure if I should like it because it makes you a tiny bit more interesting, or hate it because you’re not telling me something big. Something I know is super juicy big.”

From across the room, one of the guys butts in. “Did you say something super juicy big?”

Elijah looks over his shoulder. “None of your business, Caleb!”

“Anything juicy and big is my business,” he shoots back over his bag of red-hot Cheetos.

Elijah faces me, rolls his eyes, then leans in and mumbles, “There’s a joke about my big, juicy wang being his business that I’m having trouble putting into words, so if you laugh really loud, it’ll have the same effect. Please help your buddy out and laugh.”

After a second of steeling myself, I fake a laugh for him, loud and exclusively coming from my throat, not my belly. It sounds like a rhinoceros trying anal for the first time.

Elijah winces. “Nice try. ‘A’ for effort. You’re not off the hook about the real big and juicy thing.”

I snatch my sandwich back and stuff my face with it, rolling my eyes at Elijah and finishing up my lunch.

He’s not going to make it easy for me. But the joy of the matter is, no one is going to know anything as long as I continue to keep my lips sealed. It sounds so easy, really. The whole sexy situation is completely under my control.

I have nothing to worry about. In fact, it gives me a strange sense of power. All I have to do is sort of lie all the time.

Lie by omitting the truth.

And as I stroll about the office clutching folders to my chest, or humming to myself as the copier groans while it works, or going on a coffee run, I feel like the most interesting person in the whole building. Standing in that line waiting to order drinks for all the higher-ups, I bite my lip and feel like a super secret spy among mortals, sent on some mission to keep a prized treasure protected from unwanted eyes.

There’s power in the mystery I keep.

And power is sexy.

Even Brady gives me suspicious eyes when he passes by me on his way to the supply closet for some staples. I just keep my chin up, ignoring him and his annoyingly perfect hair, and continue toward the computer terminals to resume my task of separating positive and negative reactions to some client’s recent article. I even have fun while I work now, no matter how tedious the task.

And the supervisor Rebekah, for some completely separate and unknown reason, adores me. “Really great report on those reaction numbers,” she murmurs over my shoulder. “You’re the only one who didn’t manage to destroy the Excel formulae. Can I send a couple more your way to process before end of day?”

I give her a curt nod. “Thank you very much, and yes.”

“I can always count on you,” she whispers, then sashays away, her hips swaying as she goes.

Something must be going right for me. Even Rebekah the Ice Queen has melted in my presence.

I didn’t see him come in at all, so engrossed in my subversive and sneaky act of pretending that nothing subversive or sneaky is going on behind the scenes. But when five o’clock comes around, I happen to be caught in a daze, staring across the office as I decide whether a comment I just read can be classified as positive or negative, and my eyes catch Benjamin Gage’s office door open.

He wears a grey fitted dress shirt with black slacks. He strolls right out of his office with his briefcase at his side, and he moves with his usual brisk speed and curt demeanor.

I’m drawn completely out of my daze, watching as he moves along the perimeter of the office. He couldn’t be farther from me unless he chose to scale the outer windows of the building with a harness and suction cups.

For a moment, I picture exactly that. And it makes me smile. He’d look sexy in a harness with suction cups on his palms.

But then he rounds a corner and is gone for the day.

Just like that.

I remind myself that we agreed to this secretive arrangement. I lift my chin. He told you he wants this, too. Ben looked you in the eye and said he wanted to pursue this thing between you and him.

Just because he doesn’t look at me or acknowledge me or act like I exist at all doesn’t mean anything bad.

I stare back at the screen, trying not to scowl.

Positive or negative?

I narrow my eyes, then mark the comment as negative.

My back is slapped the next instant, scaring the crap out of me. “Buddy! It’s time to go,” comes Elijah’s loud voice. “No workin’ overtime for you. Dinner awaits at Mi Casa De Pizza!”

I snort. “You mean we’re going back to the apartment and ordering Papa John’s.”

“Hell no. You crazy? Dominos all the way.”

“I just have one more page of comments to sift through,” I tell him, “then I’ll meet you out front.”

Elijah sits on the desk by my keyboard. “Yeah, and then you’ll be kept late for some other ‘extracurricular task’. Sure thing. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—”

“Then shame on your choice of pizza. I’ll see you downstairs.”

He punches me in the arm. “I’d better, bro. See ya.” Then he takes off, leaving me to my last handful of work.

In a matter of minutes, the office is eerily quiet, all the other interns and half the staff having gone home. And then there was one. When I finally complete my numbers and turn them in to an uncharacteristically cheery Rebekah, she thanks me, then says, “See you tomorrow, Trevor. Good work today.”

I hesitate before leaving, then ask her, “Why me?”

She blinks and looks up from her computer. “Excuse me?”

I may be riding a wave of coolness lately, but I still cower a bit in her presence. She’s used to cracking the whip on dozens of interns every summer, anyway; she’s got the icy eyes for the job.

“What I mean is, you compliment my work a lot,” I clarify. “And you chose me to sit in on that meeting. And then there was the errand of dropping off the box of files to Mr. Gage’s—”

“Trevor Woodard.”

I jump, lifting my eyebrows with surprise. “S-Sorry. I just—”

“It’s a good thing,” she cuts me off, lowering her glasses to ensure her eyes are on me completely. “And when you have a good thing going, why question it? Accept it.”

I swallow hard, lick my lips, then give her a short nod. If only she realizes how poignant and relevant her words are to me, in more than just the way she intended.

“Thank you, Rebekah.”

“No need for thanks. Just keep doing the good job, and it’ll keep being a good thing. See you tomorrow.” She returns to the computer and clacks away, her long fingernails scraping the keys.

“Tomorrow,” I agree with another nod, and then I’m off.

Halfway out of the building, my phone buzzes. It’s a text:

B

Dinner. My place. 7 PM tomorrow.

Totally appropriate work meeting.

Attire: business casual, or naked.

I bite my lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.

21

Benjamin likes secrets, too.

Obviously I’ve thrown all logic out of the damned door.

It’s clear that I don’t care what we swore we’d do, or not do. I clearly have no desire to honor a damned thing tonight.

Except my dick.

And my desire for Trevor, a desire I cannot deny myself a second longer.

I hear the buzz that indicates someone is coming up to my floor. I give myself one last glance in the mirror, fixing a strand of hair that’s fallen onto my forehead. I give my shirt a tug, smooth out my jeans, then quickly check my breath.

Of course, Lance watches all of this from the foot of my bed through his unamused, half-lidded eyes.

I smirk and peer over my shoulder at him. “Don’t judge me. I know what you’re thinking over there with your doggy brain, and it’s not going to stop me from inviting Trevor over.”

Lance slaps his snout with his tongue, chomps down with his jowls, and continues to stare at me.

“You’ll get used to him,” I promise my Lance. “You may even start to like him. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a regular guest over. Not since …” And then I can’t think of the last time I ever had anyone over more than once. Have I ever?

There’s a knock at the door.

“Be good,” I warn Lance before departing the room.

When I sweep open the front door, Trevor stands there in a crisp, plaid red-and-blue button-up shirt, the sleeves folded up to the elbows. His light pair of jeans have a tiny slit cut at the bottom on either hem, giving them a boot-cut appearance to allow for his high-top red Converse. His hair, appearing slightly darker than its usual blond due to him having just fixed it up, is swept to the side, only one or two cowlicks defying him in the back. A bag hangs over his shoulder with a store logo I don’t recognize pasted on the side. His eyes are bright and eager, and before I’ve even had a chance to say anything, he’s already blushing like the very act of being here makes him shy.

And he carries before him, held close to his chest, one single red rose.

Oh. Maybe that’s why he’s red-faced already.

“Hey,” he murmurs meekly, then extends the rose to me. “I, uh, just thought, like, maybe …”

I pull him against me and kiss him right there, shutting up all the rest of the words he probably spent the whole elevator ride planning in his head to say. He tastes so sweet, like some sugary fruit, which is all the more fitting. Trevor is, after all, something like my forbidden fruit—a forbidden fruit I can’t stop tasting.

I let go of him so as not to suffocate the poor guy, then pull open my door the rest of the way. “Welcome,” I greet him, moving aside to let him in.

He chuckles awkwardly, out of breath, then steps through the door. His bright eyes search around, as if he’s entering my place for the first time all over again. I love how curious and aware he is all the time. There’s something about him that always seems to be processing his environment, sorting his thoughts, calculating …

I’m getting addicted to just watching his brain work. Does that make me a sapiosexual?

“Right on time,” I note. “Impressive.”

He straightens his posture, still gripping the rose tightly like a microphone. “Can’t let down the boss,” he states smartly. “I dress to impress and work to …” His face wrinkles slightly, searching for the rhyme. “… also impress.”

I chuckle. He’s so damned adorable, even when he’s nervous and fidgety. “Have a seat,” I tell him. “Kick off your shoes. I have something decent on the TV tonight for a change.”

“Oh? No animals frolicking in the wild?”

“Nope. Just humans. On a boat.”

Trevor stands by the couch, observing the TV for a second. He smiles when he recognizes the movie. “Titanic. Aww. Jack and—Hey, Rose!” he says with a cheery lift of the rose he’s still holding. He tries to make some kind of connection between the two as he stutters through a few words, his face reddening more in the effort, and then he gives up, returning his attention to the TV.

I still can’t believe he brought me a damned rose. I’ve never been the flowers and chocolate, make-a-guy-swoon, wooing kind of man, even when I was his age. But the gesture softens my heart a bit, admittedly. Maybe I’ve never been that kind of guy because I’ve never met anyone who’s been that way toward me.

Trevor’s the first.

“It’s a nice movie,” I state with a shrug. “Kind of timeless, in a way. Especially for a 1997 classic.”

“1997. Hey, I was just a baby then!” Trevor exclaims—and then immediately shrinks up, his face going red again. He returns all his attention back to the TV, as if pretending he never spoke.

I press my lips together to stifle a laugh. “I’ll … fetch a bud vase for the rose,” I tell him, turning toward the kitchen.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” He twists around suddenly and reaches inside the bag he was carrying, then pulls out a small wrapped package. The paper is silver and tied with a black ribbon.

I stare at it. “You … brought me a gift?”

“Open it.”

With a pinch of reluctance, I take it from his outstretched palm and pull the ribbon, which comes loose at once. The paper opens to reveal his gift, which I squint at, confused.

“A toy sword?” I say, lifting it up to my face to inspect it.

“It’s a dog toy,” he explains. “A squeaky sword. For your little knight of legend, Lancelot.”

I look up at Trevor’s face, surprised by his thoughtfulness. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised; this seems exactly like something he would do. Yet still I find myself staring at him as if he’s a guy I just met for the first time, as if I don’t really know him.

“You’re smiling,” he observes, his face flushing slightly.

I didn’t realize I was. My expression hardens, then I brandish the sword before me as if it was real. “En garde.”

He chuckles once nervously, then lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m defenseless!”

That, you are, I secretly quip to myself before lowering the toy and giving it another tossing in my hand. “He’s gonna love it.” I give it a second thought. “Well, I mean, I hope he does. He doesn’t have any toys.”

“Really?” Trevor holds the rose with both his hands, fidgeting with it. “Why not?”

“He’s not exactly the playful type.”

“Oh.”

“But I’ll give it to him. He does have his moments. Like when I come home after a long day, for instance.”

“When you come home alone,” Trevor amends, not blind to the fact that Lance is nowhere to be found. He gives the rose a tiny wiggle. “Bud vase?”

“Bud vase,” I agree, smiling tightly.

Twenty minutes later, the single rose stands proudly in a tall, crystalline bud vase at the center of my dining room table. The food has also arrived—another succulent option from Da Lena Cucina E Vino—and we’re eating together once again.

He looks so damned irresistible, chewing like he’s got heaven caught in his mouth. Unable to contain myself, I tap his foot under the table, then gaze away and play it off when he looks up. I see Trevor grinning in my peripheral, and then he starts gaining a bit of courage, bumping my foot back. I fight a smile, spear a bite of broccoli, then slowly let my foot trail up his leg. He stops eating and closes his eyes, feeling my toe as it gently trails up his shin, slides over his knee, then slowly moves to his inner thigh.

It’s right about then that my phone emits a glassy noise—a very particular glassy noise that denotes an emergency: Jazz.

Trevor lifts his eyebrows. “Ooh, I like that sound,” he moans lightly, as if he doesn’t have my foot halfway to his crotch.

“I don’t.” I pick up my phone and read the message. It’s not good. I bring my foot back down to the floor. “Ugh. Fuck me.”

Trevor sets his fork down with a clang. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah. Work.” I bite my lip, unsure how to respond. I stare at Jazz’s message, my thumb fidgeting on the screen. It’s urgent enough to send Trevor home and cancel this night I planned.

“You need to run to the office? Or …?”

“Not the office. But I do have to leave and … do something. Or someone,” I amend, wishing like hell I meant the words sexually—and about Trevor—but my real meaning couldn’t be farther from anything remotely sexy or related to him.

Disappointment pulls on Trevor’s features. I’m sure he had his own vision of how tonight might go, and it wasn’t like this.

Then, in a flash, he wipes away his frown and meets my eyes. “I could just hang here, if that’s safest. Or … Or if you need me to go home … then I … I could do that, too,” he reluctantly suggests, clearly not liking his own second option.

That’s when, at once, I think of a third. The corner of my mouth pulls up, inspired suddenly. “Or …”

“Or?”

“Come with me.” My smirk turns into a full-on grin from the sight of his stunned eyes. “You’re my intern, after all. I can take you as my assistant. You up for a little fieldtrip?”

22

Benjamin works well with others.

The answer is yes, Trevor is up for a little fieldtrip.

What at first was fear has quickly converted into excitement. “Where’re we going?” he asks impatiently from the passenger seat before we’ve even made it two blocks.

“I have a high-profile client prone to drama,” I explain as I drive, “and her sweet teenage daughter has created one of her own involving an ex named Lukas who wants to sell vids of her chocolate-syrup-glazed lady cavern for a shit ton of green.”

Trevor snorts. “I, um … wow.”

“Thankfully, I have a secret contact who was able to thwart all of the ex-boyfriend’s attempts at being paid online for these vids by anyone. She also locked the content so it can’t be transferred or copied off of his phone.”

“A secret contact? Like … a hacker? Ooh, fun!”

“Something like that.” I smirk; Jazz has never liked the word “hacker”, as if such a term of endearment is far beneath her, even offensive. “Sadly for us, this ex-boyfriend is more persistent than we counted on. He’s befriended a tech-savvy buyer willing to pay a lot of money—in cash, and in person—to purchase the phone itself. For all we know, the man can and will find a way to unlock the videos and make all his money back and then some.”

“So … what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Easy. Intercept the transaction.”

“Intercept? A-Are you serious?”

“My contact has already spooked the buyer into not showing up, but sent the ex-boyfriend a confirmation that he will. It isn’t a tech-savvy pervert our troublemaking Lukas is meeting anymore. It’s me. I’m the buyer now.”

“Oh. It’s like … like a switcheroo!”

I grin at the sound of his excitement, giving him a nod. “That it is. So easy, it’s like taking anal beads from a mule.”

“I … don’t even know what that means.”

“You wouldn’t want to. My business isn’t always a clean one.” Trevor gives in to a fit of nervous tittering suddenly, drawing my eyes to him. “Something about that tickled you?”

“Yes. All of it. This. I feel like …” Trevor giggles even more. “I feel like I’m caught in the middle of some government espionage action movie. Here we are, racing across the city on the way to stop some super villain’s evil plan!”

“Unfortunately, he’s not a super villain. Just a pervy teen.”

That only succeeds in making Trevor laugh harder.

At least one of us is having fun.

Until we reach my private airport and he realizes he’s getting on a plane. “W-Wait,” he stammers when a man greets us by the car. “We’re flying?”

“On wings of steel.” I shoot him a crooked smile. “Still up for the fieldtrip?”

He stares at me, his jaw half dropped. “Do I have a choice?”

“Nope,” I answer with a wink.

Trevor is glued to his seat on the plane, and my eyes are glued to him, amused, watching as he experiences his first flight—on my privately-owned jet, no less. After the initial terror of ascension, he relaxes surprisingly quickly, then can’t seem to stop talking. He tells me about this one time he almost flew, then his family decided to turn their vacation into a road trip when the plane tickets proved to be too pricey. “Had to save up for college,” he explains. Then he tells me how he was always afraid to fly for no reason at all, and is surprised by how much the take-off felt like a rollercoaster. “Is that what it’s like to land, too?” he asks eagerly. I just smirk his way and answer, “You’ll find out soon.”

And he does. The landing is soft and painless, like the flight.

In just ten minutes, we’re in a rental car on our way to the drop-off location. Jazz sent the address to my phone, which guides us via a soothing, unpanicked voice. Though the flight was just under two hours, we also hopped two time zones west, so it’s nearly the same time of night as when we left.

And now, in the car, Trevor starts to get cold feet. “Wait, wait. What’s my role in this? Is the boyfriend dangerous? Or the buyer? Should we be armed? Oh my God. What am I doing?”

“In half a mile, make a left,” my phone calmly directs us.

“I’m just here for moral support, right?” Trevor asks, wiping his forehead. “I sit in the car while you go meet with this guy?”

“And miss all the fun?”

When I park along the curb, I pull my phone from the dash and text Jazz, since she’s tracking where Lukas is somehow. I never question how exactly she’s able to do what she does; I’ve just learned to trust her over the years because she’s never let me down. It has to be nearly morning over there in Germany by now, but Jazz never seems to sleep. I have a legitimate concern that she may be a vampire.

“I should probably hide,” whispers Trevor, his eyes wide.

“I’m taking care of this,” I assure him. “I’m just here to teach this stupid kid a lesson, fulfill my client’s wishes, and then we’re going home. Simple as that.”

“Yeah, it’s all ‘simple’ until he turns out to be a black belt.”

“I’ve dealt with morons like this before, and worse.” I incline my head toward Trevor. “Much, much worse.”

“Like what?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.

I give him a onceover. “Like a particularly obstinate intern.”

Trevor narrows his eyes at me, not appreciating my little joke. “And what did this particularly obstinate intern do?”

“He asked too many questions,” I tease.

Trevor snorts, but still isn’t calmed in the least. He fidgets endlessly, muttering his worries out loud, but the only thing that has my attention now is how his crotch looks in those formfitting jeans he chose to wear tonight. The sinewy muscles in his smooth forearms flex and twitch as he picks at his fingers, still rambling.

“You’re sexy when you’re freaking out,” I tell him, cutting off whatever he was going on about.

Trevor faces me, pink lips parted and eyes hollowed with fear. “Wh-What?” he gasps, thinking I’d said something else, clearly.

I put a hand on his leg. “I said you’re sexy …” My hand slowly slides to his inner thigh, which tightens. “… when you’re freaking out.” My fingers move farther in, reaching his crotch.

Didn’t take long; he’s already hard and flexing his response. Maybe he was hard already. Maybe he’s a thrill-o-sexual, like me.

“Your dick likes the excitement,” I note in a whisper.

“My dick isn’t very smart,” he whispers back, “and obviously doesn’t know better. Are we in danger?”

“Maybe.” I give his crotch a squeeze.

Trevor groans as he gets harder, his eyes rocking back, and then he snaps them to me, his full lips parted. “B-Ben. Really. Are we in danger? Shouldn’t you have goons who do this for you?”

A smirk of amusement twists my face. “Goons?”

“Y-Yeah. Big muscly bald dudes with shades who—” I squeeze again, interrupting the poor guy. He grunts, bites his bottom lip, then resumes with a strained voice. “—who look like Shrek and do the shakedowns for you?”

“Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.” I lean across the seat, bringing my mouth right up to his ear. “I am the shakedown.”

He squirms under those words. “Ben …”

“I want to taste you again.”

He turns to me, his face right in front of mine. “What?”

“I can’t get enough of you. I want your hard cock in my mouth right now. Every inch of it.” I still have Trevor cupped in my palm as he swells bigger by the second. His cock keeps flexing and throbbing against my grip, like it’s trapped and wrestling to get free. “It’s obvious you want it, too.”

“I also want to survive tonight, thank you,” he breathes after a nervous glance out the car window.

With a twist of my fingers, his pant button opens. Then his zipper comes down. I descend over his lap, intent to swallow him whole.

“Ben …” he warns me.

His cock slips right out of his sexy black briefs. We meet again, I think to myself with heart-thrumming joy as my eyes feast on the sight of his perfect cock—not too big, not too small, and throbbing desperately for my warm, wet tongue.

“Someone’s approaching,” he hisses.

I lift up so fast, my head hits the rearview mirror. Nursing the back of my head with a soothing rub, I wince and peer out in front of us. Sure enough, I see a teenager in a backwards red cap, black polo with the collar popped, and khaki shorts cut off above the knee. He stands under a nearby streetlamp, fidgety and stiff.

He came alone? He seriously came totally alone to a trade-off of cash—presumably lots of cash? I almost feel sorry for the kid.

Almost. “Show time,” I murmur.

“W-Wait. My pants are—are—” He zips himself up at once, out of breath. “Do I come, too? What do I say? Can I stay here?”

I give a nod at the teen under the light. “You think that little sixteen-something shrimp can take me? Sorry, have we met?”

Trevor frowns at me. “Don’t get cocky.”

My phone buzzes. I glance down at it to see a message from Jazz telling me “the friend” has arrived. A bit late, my kinky cohort.

I slip out of the car, then let the door shut softly behind me. I have the teen’s attention in an instant, his eyes so wide, I see the whites of them from ten feet away. I approach calmly, but keep a casual air about myself, walking the way I’d advance on a half-spooked cat. I don’t want Lukas to find me threatening; not yet.

Closer up, Lukas is quite modelesque, his features chiseled and his cheekbones high. A small tuft of bleached blond hair sneaks out the front of his backwards red cap, almost eclipsing the two chips of sapphires he has for eyes. Fake. Contacts, likely. Though his popped collar and general appearance give him the look of some arrogant spoiled Beverly Hills brat, his face registers nothing but wariness at the moment.

I stand before him, just a hair above eyelevel. He’s a tall fucker, this teen. “Lukas.”

He studies me for a second before responding. “Charlie.”

Might have helped to know the original buyer’s name ahead of time. I give him a short nod. “That’s me. You have the phone?”

Lukas sizes me up for a minute too long for my liking. Then, his face tightens. “Do you … Do you have the money?”

“Hand me the phone, and you’ll get what you’re owed.”

“It’s in my car.”

“Where’s your car?”

His lips purse. The discomfort is evident in the way his back stiffens. After a single second of deliberation, he gives his head a curt shake. “No. I’m not down for this.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

“The deal’s off,” he states, then turns around.

“I wouldn’t turn away if I were you,” I warn him, my voice gaining depth. “When you make a deal, you honor it.”

He stops and faces me again, his face twisting with smugness. “Is that so, Charlie?”

Charlie. Why’d Lukas emphasize the name?

Then it hits me: it was a test. The real buyer’s name must’ve been something else. I gave myself away. Fuck.

“Dude, seriously,” I say, my tone turning soft, like I’m just one of his disappointed bros. “What were you thinking, meeting a guy out here you don’t even know, totally alone, to sell some videos of your ex? That’s just poor thinking.”

He squints at me, annoyed. “Who the hell are you, really?”

“You don’t think something’s going to happen when you mess with a celebrity’s daughter? A celebrity with deep enough pockets to afford a maniac like me to protect her?” Lukas sputters for a second, unable to produce a response. “Think about it,” I push on. “The real buyer could’ve forced his way to your car, made you get the phone, stolen it right out of your privileged little hands, beaten you into orange juice pulp, and sent you home with tears streaming down your plastic little face.”

“It’s not p-plastic!” he spits back.

“Don’t be an idiot, Lukas. At the very least, bring a friend with you for backup. Like … a goon,” I say, lovingly borrowing Trevor’s little word.

“A what?” he asks with an impatient huff, but then his eyes fix themselves somewhere past my shoulder, and fear surges through him like a cold front.

Unsettled by his expression, I glance quickly behind me.

Trevor stands there with his arms folded tight and high over his chest, his feet planted shoulder-width apart, and his chin inclined down, glaring at Lukas through the top of his head like some challenged superhero to the rescue. His dark blond spikes cast a menacing shadow down his otherwise adorably scowling face. He looks poised to cast laser beams from his eyes.

I bite my lip to keep from laughing. This is Trevor playing the role of beastly bodyguard, if I had to guess.

Regardless, it does the job. “Who the fuck is he?” Lukas calls out, unnerved. “Y-Your goon?”

I’m about to pull a bunny of a response out of my butt when Trevor answers. “I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare, kid.”

Lukas squints his eyes challengingly, lifts his chin, but then seems to think twice about it. “I-Is that so?” he retorts boastfully, feigning confidence.

Trevor doesn’t budge an inch. “Tell me. Were you having trouble accessing your bank accounts, kid? Your online payment methods? Is that why you had to resort to selling those videos to someone in person for cash?”

Lukas doesn’t respond, nor does he move a muscle or even seem to breathe.

“You have me to thank for that,” Trevor goes on, playing his part. “I froze your money. And I can freeze your whole sad life if I want to—just like that.” He snaps for emphasis. Lukas flinches at the sound. “Because I happen to be the world’s greatest hacker. I’m so great, with just the press of a button, I can send a whole fleet of cops to your house right now. And trust me, you won’t like what they’ll find.”

“I don’t keep any weed at my h-house,” Lukas stammers. “You think I’m an idiot?”

“Oh. You think I’m talking about the weed?” Trevor emits his version of a slow, evil laugh. I stare at him, wide-eyed. Really, this whole act isn’t necessary at all, since I had the situation totally under control, but I’m much too amused to stop him now. “No, no, no, you poor, sad, spoiled little moron. This isn’t a matter of a bag of grass. This is a matter of the stash of underage porn they’ll find at your house.”

At that, all the blood drains from Lukas’s face. “I … I-I don’t have a-any—”

“You don’t have any …? Is that what you’re about to claim?” Trevor takes two steps forward. “What do you think you have in your car? On that phone of yours you were about to sell?”

Lukas’s jaw tightens. His terror has quickly become anger.

I suck my tongue for a second, then put a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. No need to escalate things further. “That’s enough,” I murmur to him. “You’ve made your point, Cyber God Slayer 99.”

“I wonder,” Trevor goes on, apparently loving this hacker character he’s invented too much to know when to stop, “what your parents would think about that. Or your friends. Or your entire school. With just one little slip of my finger, everyone would know. Would they be interested in hearing about your … extracurricular interests?” Trevor smirks superiorly. “That’s right. My name is Cyber God Crusher—”

“—Slayer—”

“—Slayer 99,” Trevor declares, corrected, “and if you don’t hand over that phone right now, we’re going to have ourselves a problem. Or, more accurately, you are.”

For a second, I think Lukas is about to kick his heel into the pavement and run away. Instead, he lets out a furious war cry, then charges toward Trevor with red rage in his little eyes.

23

Trevor might have gone too far.

Oh, shit.

Just before the teeny-bopper in a popped collar reaches me, Ben intercepts him like a beast. Grabbing two fistfuls of Lukas’s black polo, he slams him into the wrought iron fence at our side.

“I’ll make this really easy for you, kid,” says Ben in a voice so level and calm, it’s twice as unsettling. “You take us to your car, hand over the phone, and Cyber Punk Slayer—”

“Cyber God Slayer 99,” I whisper gently to him.

“—will restore access to your little play money mommy and daddy give you.”

“Fuck you,” hisses the teenager, struggling to no avail against Ben’s hold. “You ain’t got nothin’ on me. You two are full of shit.”

Ben lets go of Lukas’s shirt and sweeps a hand between the boy’s unsuspecting legs, grabbing hold of something else. Lukas lets out one tiny squeak, his eyes bulging.

Ben presses him to the fence, the teen’s balls gripped tightly through his thin khaki shorts. “Correction: I have your nuts. Both physically and metaphorically. The phone is now mine. The videos are now mine. And you are now mine.” Ben glances over his shoulder at me. “Hey, Cyber. You want to pull out your phone and get ready to send that incriminating message out to the police, and to every single contact our little friend Lukas here knows?”

“W-W-Wait,” stammers the teenager.

My eyes flash just for a second before I shove a hand into my pocket and, fumbling slightly, produce my phone. I straighten my posture, once again assuming the cocky role of super hacker, then hold the phone up demonstratively, like I have any idea what the hell I’m really doing. “Cyber God P-Punk is ready.”

“In ten seconds,” Ben states, “if this dipshit doesn’t hand over the phone, I want you to send out that message.”

“W-W-We could both sell the vids,” Lukas suggests quickly. His words come so fast, spittle comes out with them, his lips as wet as his desperate eyes. “Share the profits. Half, half.”

Ben starts to count. “Ten. Nine. Eight.”

“Thirds, then! Third for you, third for C-Cyber, third for me!”

“Seven. Six. Five. Four.”

“Just ten percent for me! Greedy punks!”

“Three. Two. One.”

“I’LL GIVE YOU THE FUCKING PHONE!” the teenager screams, nearly thrashing against Ben’s hold. “Don’t press that button!!”

Ben, his grip still firm on the boy’s balls, leans into him. “So we have a deal, then?”

“Deal,” blurts Lukas, his bottom lip trembling. “D-D-Deal.”

Ben lets go of him, takes a step back. “Take us to your car.”

With just a quick walk around the corner, Lukas’s ritzy, sleek white, unblemished BMW—literally the least inconspicuous car one might imagine showing up to such an exchange driving in—comes into view. Lukas opens the passenger door, pops the glove box, then pulls out a phone with trembling, sweaty hands.

“Prove it’s the real phone,” commands Ben.

Lukas’s face tightens with anger, but he complies, unlocking the phone with a code, then pulling up the video in question. I’m right at Ben’s side when Lukas shows us the screen: it’s a big thumbnail of a video showing a teenage girl looking into the camera with a finger at her mouth, and she’s wearing just a tiny red slip. There’s no chocolate in the thumbnail, but I imagine that comes later in the video, and neither Ben nor I care to watch it.

Ben pockets the phone, then leans into Lukas so close, Lukas backs against his BMW in fear. “I want you to know, you are very lucky tonight that I’m such good buddies with Cyber here,” Ben tells him, his voice low. “He’s going to honor his promise of unfreezing your accounts … but he’ll still be watching you, Lukas. He’ll keep an eye on your every move. If you fart, he’ll know.”

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” Lukas squeals, his hands in the air.

I cross my arms again. “Not sure about farting,” I interject, “but he’s definitely shitting himself right now.”

“Now go home and try to do something more productive with your time,” states Ben. “Maybe you can try something that doesn’t involve exploiting your ex-girlfriends’ sexuality, or making dumb deals with total strangers on the internet, or perpetuating every damned Beverly Hills brat stereotype that exists.”

Lukas’s lips quiver when he grumbles, “F-Fuck you. Fuck you both,” then slams shut the passenger door, whips around to the driver’s side, slips inside, then cranks the car into drive. Ben and I step back as he tears off, his obnoxious engine rumbling like the throat of a great white dragon until the darkness of the street swallows him up.

After the teen is long gone, Ben turns to me. There are about a million questions in his eyes, the first of which he asks: “Who in the hell are you, and what did you do with the shy, timid Trevor I left my home with?”

His words warm my heart. I’m still riding the rush all of that action gave me, but to be honest, I’m relieved as hell that I can be myself again. “I don’t even know where any of that came from,” I confess, laughing over my racing heart. “I just … got inspired, had an idea, and went with it.”

“You sure went with it alright,” Ben agrees with half a laugh himself. We start to head back to the car. He slips a hand into his pocket on the way, pulling out the phone. He gives it a little toss. “All that trouble over this hunk of metal and a pair of idiot teens.”

I bite my lip, then lean into Ben as we walk, my body up against his. “That would be two crotches you’ve grabbed tonight.”

Ben grins, amused. We arrive in front of his rental. At once, his face hardens suggestively. “Get in the car, intern.”

I tilt my head. “Intern? You really think you can still boss me around? It is not office hours,” I point out, crossing my arms, “and so therefore—”

Ben swings a hand around and swats my ass, hard, then cups it firmly and pulls me against him. In a low, deep voice, he growls, “Get in the car, Trevor. I am going to have my way with you, I am not going to hold back, and then we are going home.”

I try to respond defiantly, but all my resolve crumbles at the feel of his hand gripping my ass so powerfully. I can’t fight him.

And I don’t want to.

When we’re back in the car, Ben jerks it into drive, then burns rubber. He doesn’t even use his phone to direct him, knowing just where to go. I watch him half the time, the hard and needy look on his face turning me on so much. A week ago, I might have been terrified by his show of strength. It might have even scared me away for good.

Something inside me must be changing. Instead of fear, I feel security. Around Ben and his powerfulness, I feel safe. No one—especially no punk teenager in khaki shorts—can possibly mess with me when Benjamin Gage is around.

Just before we reach the airport, Ben pulls off onto the side of the road, startling me.

I turn to him, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

He slaps a hand onto my crotch, earning a grunt of surprise from me, before he turns my way. “I can’t wait a second longer.”

“But we’re on the side of the—”

He doesn’t care, clearly. His seatbelt pops off followed by my own, and he’s all over me. My pants fly open. His fingers work my shirt off with such animal determination, all I see half the time is the fabric of my own shirt trying to escape my body.

Just when I gasp for breath, his mouth covers mine, stealing away any chance I had of getting air.

My breath is his now.

In the next instant, my seat falls backwards—he’d gripped and pulled the reclining lever—and then he’s on top of me, drawing a line of kisses over my chin, down my neck, across my fast rising and falling chest, then slowly through the ridges of my abs. When his mouth arrives at the bulge he’s made of my tight black briefs, a determined scowl of desire spreads over his face.

There’s something in his scowl that is immeasurably hot.

It’s like he’s about to attack my cock, and I’m going to like it. His eyes assess me like a piece of meat. His hands, which slowly crawl down my sides and cause me to squirm, explore me with invasive, wall-stripping pleasure.

I am at his total mercy right now.

The old Trevor would never have let anyone tear him open like this on the side of the road in the middle of the night, exposed to the world, exposed to the night, exposed to a man he—in truth—still doesn’t know awfully well.

A stranger named Benjamin Gage.

A stranger who just whisked innocent Trevor away on a jet across two time zones.

This is totally not me. I don’t know who this new Trevor is, and I feel no semblance of the old one in me anymore. I am brave. I am reckless. I feel like I’m still wearing the skin of some other person I’m not.

And what the hell city are we in again?

When Ben slips his hands under the band of my underwear, I forget everything I’m thinking. I gasp under the cool touch of his fingertips. Ben grips my briefs with force and pulls them down my thighs, freeing my achingly hard cock.

Is this really happening? Are Ben and I really about to have ourselves some roadside hanky-panky?

The answer: red and blue flickering lights flooding the car.

24

Trevor officially craps himself.

In my act of pulling my pants back up, I knee Ben in the face.

In Ben’s act of scrambling to get out of my lap, he head-butts the steering wheel and issues a loud honk.

“Fuck!” I hiss, slipping back into my plaid button-up so fast, I hear threads pop. “This is not happening.” My hand searches in the dark for the reclining lever. “I can’t have something on my record. I can’t go to jail. Ben!”

Ben’s back in his seat, upright, and completely composed. Of course he is; he isn’t the one who was just being royally objectified and stripped of his clothes for some roadside sex.

I find the lever and give it such a hard pull, I fly upwards fast, nearly folding myself in half.

The very next second, a cop appears at Ben’s window, giving it that all-familiar tap-tap-tap with his flashlight.

Ben rolls down the window. “Hey there, Louie.”

“Benjamin Gage! Well, I’ll be.” The cop laughs heartily. “The heck you doing in this part of town at this time of night? About to fly back home or something?”

“Client,” Ben answers simply, offering a smile. “They have you on the late shift now?”

Oh my God. He knows the cop??

“Yep. It’s pretty damned quiet tonight, to be honest. I didn’t recognize your rental. You pull over to take a call?”

Ben—his phone already out with impressive speed—gives it an innocent wiggle. “Don’t drive and text, they say.”

“Good, good. I’ll leave you to it.” The cop—Louie—leans down a foot more, his eyes meeting mine. I give him an anxious, tight, toothy smile and a wave. He acknowledges it with the tiniest of nods, an awkward twist of his expression, and then he nods at Ben. “Have a safe flight home, Mr. Gage.”

“And you, a safe night keeping this city clean,” returns Ben.

The cop saunters back to his car, and soon, the red-and-blue circus of lights vanishes, traded for the soft moonlight of before. The hum of the cop car races past us, and then we’re alone again.

But we’ve changed. The sexiness from just a moment ago is gone. My heart races for a different reason. Have I pushed myself too far tonight? What is going on in my head? We’ve taken a flight to a strange city. We have met with and threatened a pompous teenage kid and taken his phone. And we’ve almost been arrested for entertaining the idea of fellatio in a car near an airport.

I hear my mother’s scolding voice in my head. I see my dad’s disapproving eyes. I see Elijah hanging his head and wondering who the hell his best friend is. I’m wondering the same thing.

This isn’t me.

“You’re pretty freaked out,” Ben notes.

“No shit,” I retort snappily.

He studies me for a moment. I feel his eyes burning into the side of my face. It shouldn’t turn me on, not while I’m having this miniature existential crisis going on in my head, but I can’t help the draw I feel toward Ben’s strength. I need him to say the exact right thing to me right now, but I have no idea what it is, or if I’ll even know it when I hear it.

“I had a different vision for tonight,” Ben tells me.

I close my eyes, shutting out the world.

Ben goes on. “I just wanted you in my apartment sharing a hot meal with me. Then I was hoping we’d … just hang out in front of the TV, maybe relax on my couch, and get to know each other some more. No pressure. No … chasing teens across California.”

For some reason, I was expecting his “different vision” to include bending me over the kitchen counter. I feel something stirring in me at the deliberate omission of any such raunchiness from his vision, to my surprise.

I think it’s my heart warming. Except it feels a bit like my stomach doing a proud somersault, turning over whatever little bit of that delicious Italian food we had hours ago before our dinner was interrupted by all this rousing celebrity drama.

“G-Get to know each other some more?” I prompt him, my eyes still closed.

“Yes, Trevor. I want to know everything about you.”

My eyes flap open at the soft, sincere tone in his words. I dare to turn to him, then melt at the sight of his shining eyes and fierce expression. It stabs me right where it counts, right in the chest, right where I’m feeling all that fear and anxiety and terror.

And he replaces all that mess with a calm, rich, needed feeling. The feeling you get when you’re chosen for a team in gym class. Or when you see your name on that cast list for a play. Or when the boss singles out that one intern—you—and commends your good, hard work.

“I … felt a different impression from you,” I tell him. “Judging from the way you attacked me before your officer friend Louie interrupted us.”

Ben tilts his head, appraising me. “Well …”

“I mean, I know you want my nuts.” I try to smile. It comes off a little fake, even to me. “Maybe I’m worried that’s all you want.”

Ben throws an arm over the back of his seat, facing me better. “I’m not going to lie, Trevor. You make me crazy. I am attracted to you. Badly. I don’t even see you as …” He gestures at me with his hand and a slight nod. “… as a twenty-year-old. You have an old soul. You have a brain in that head of yours. I really like that about you. And while sometimes it’s hard to contain my desire when we are alone, I … also want to know who you are inside.”

I can’t pull my eyes away from his, caught under his spell. He doesn’t say anything more, so I take it as my chance to confess the same thing. “I want to know what’s inside you, too, Ben. Other than this … softer side that you don’t let anyone see.”

“Oh, I let a couple see it.”

I smirk playfully at him. “Your dog doesn’t count.”

Ben tilts his head. “But don’t you?”

The way he stares at me right now, a sharp pang of thrill and mystery surges through me—the same electric sensation I had the night his eyes caught mine across that smokey nightclub. Was I defeated then? Did he conquer me, slamming through all my walls that first night? And have I been helpless to his power ever since?

Ben’s fingers surprise me when they tease into my hair, his hand hanging off the back of my seat. It feels so good, sending chills down my neck. “Let’s get on my plane,” he suggests, “maybe join the mile-high club, then head back to my place to get to know each other some more. How does that sound?”

I bite my lip as he plays with my hair. Sounds like heaven.

25

Benjamin doesn’t smile this much.

Normally, when I walk into my office, I feel the cold rush of winter enter with me. Chatter dies a quick death. Ties straighten upon their masters’ necks. Keyboards click and clack a bit louder.

Today, I hear none of it. Today, I wear a smile.

“Morning, Dana,” I say to the front receptionist, whose wide-eyed stare of shock tells me I neither greet her nor refer to her by name enough.

Rebekah has ten reports to give me, but instead, I turn to her and ask, “When’s the last time you took a vacation with little Jax?”

She blinks. Maybe she’s shocked that I remembered her son’s name. “I … I’m, um …”

“That long?”

“I’m trying to remember the year,” she confesses.

The year?? I sigh. “That needs to be remedied posthaste. Get your calendar. Next report I want on my desk is when you’re taking your vacation. It better be before the end of the summer.”

She gapes. “B-But Hawk the Jersey boy … the interns … the—”

“It’ll all be covered. How’s Disneyworld sound? My treat. You work too damned much, and for as sheltered as that poor Jax is, he’ll probably think Mickey Mouse is a Pokémon.”

“He probably already does,” Rebekah agrees sadly.

Across the room, I catch sight of the interns gathered around their table. They all look the same to me except for the one bright-eyed exception with the dirty blond hair, perpetually flushed face, and determined look about him: Trevor. He seems to be in the middle of talking excitedly with three others. I can’t imagine what exactly he’s discussing, but a humored part of my brain pretends he’s bragging to the others about the amazing night he just had, how he got to ride on the boss’s private jet, soar across the country, and stop a client’s life from exploding. The thought is enough to make my smile deepen despite myself.

“I knew you’d like them,” murmurs Rebekah, giving me a tiny nudge of her elbow.

I’m pulled from my little dream. “Sorry?”

“The interns.” She gives a nod in their direction. “Best batch I’ve concocted in years. You don’t have to thank me,” she adds quickly, lifting a hand. “I know. I’m brilliant.”

I want to play off my staring and say something dismissive at once, but it occurs to me without question that, had Rebekah not hired Trevor, he likely would never have crossed my path. He’d be spending his whole summer filing papers in some tiny office somewhere else, or taking orders from a tired thirty-something retail store manager, or dunking baskets of fries in his hometown.

The outlook of my summer might be marginally different, too. I might have brought some tough, boring contact along last night, or gone totally alone, not following my own advice. I might have taken someone else home that Friday night at the club, probably some guy who, like, says “like” every other word and makes the porn face whenever I fuck him. You know the face—it’s when a guy can’t close his mouth because of the “unfathomable ecstasy” he’s supposedly feeling as he’s being fucked, appearing like he’s about to bite down on something, but never actually closes his mouth for a solid hour. The face intensifies when he nears orgasm, of course, and the sound he emits is what you hear in every porno ever: a cross between a ship horn and a donkey being inseminated.

Instead, Rebekah hired Trevor. And Trevor is in my life.

A twenty-year-old with an old soul.

Maybe I’m a thirty-three-year-old with a young soul. I give a considerable amount of thought to how out-of-the-loop I’ve been in the dating world since my early twenties. I’ve had a lot of ass and a number of hook-ups, even ones that didn’t go all the way, but nothing substantial and nothing that stuck. I always saw the men who go to clubs as slippery, like fish. You catch them, you delight in them briefly—snap a duck-lipped selfie—then watch as they slip right through your fingers, crash back into the lake, and vanish. You never seem to see them again either, no matter the clubs you frequent. It’s like gay magic, how they disappear.

Trevor might be the fish that sticks.

Assuming I can control myself and not eat him whole.

“That Trevor, though …”

Her mention of his name pitches an icicle through my gut. I face her sharply. “Sorry?”

“Trevor. The one I know you’re looking at.”

I’m defensive instantly, my smile crumpled up like a ball of misprinted copy room paper. “I was looking at all of them. I don’t play favorites.”

“Oh, I know. I didn’t mean—”

You’re reacting too much. Cool it down. “Trevor is outstanding,” I note casually, “but so is Jimmy, who’s showed great promise. And Ashlee, who is quick as a whip. And the tall one, Brady.”

Rebekah winces a bit. “Well, that Brady seems a bit inflated.”

“Sometimes we have to puff up to scare the smaller fish away. Or the bigger fish.” I glance at the interns again. Trevor’s back is facing me now, his tight tush perfectly in my line of sight.

Of course he’d unknowingly torture me with that ass when I’m in the middle of playing emotional hopscotch with my career.

Rebekah’s smile is tight. She lifts her pointy chin with a pinch of mustered dignity. “I didn’t mean to compare Brady to a blowfish, Mr. Gage. I just meant he comes off a bit strong, a bit … pushy.”

“We all do,” I point out, thinking about how I want to push into Trevor right about now.

“I’m just saying that Trevor, however—”

“He will have to prove himself, just like the others.”

“Of course. Right.”

I make my way toward my office, inwardly aghast with myself while keeping a perfectly straight face. I can’t even believe what I said to her. Am I that terrified of our little secret getting spilled to the office? Do I really have to show such staunch impartiality by acting like Trevor Woodard means as little to me as any of the other interns? If I wasn’t involved with him, I would be noting his good work ethic and teamwork, and then making light of his first impression to me: crashing to my feet with an explosion of copier toner down his front. Trevor is, above and beyond, my best.

And here I am, conveying to Rebekah that he still has yet to impress me.

I shut the door heavily at my back, flip on the lights, and drop into my office chair. Or, more accurately, I aim for my office chair, miss completely, and crash ass-first onto the ground.

Yes, the blinds are open, and the whole floor can see me on my ass through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

I climb to my feet, entirely unable to play off the act as some clever little dance. With a glance at the window, I see twenty faces quickly turn back to their work, pretending they totally didn’t just witness my … miscalculation.

But I have bigger balls to bust. Namely, my own.

Trevor isn’t the enemy. I have to remember that. When I shut my eyes, all I see is Trevor’s face as we talked on the way home for hours and chatted away about everything last night. I expected Trevor to be pooped when we got to the airport, but instead, he was invigorated. He was like a kid who couldn’t stop going on about some amazing movie he just saw—except he had a role in it. He curled up with me on the small leather couch on the jet and spilled stories of his life at college, telling me about all his classes. I listened as we casually cuddled, caring about nothing to do with clients or computers or Beverly Hills’ teenaged tools. I was fully invested in him, and he was lit up like a Christmas light.

And then the flight landed and our night ended. We drove to his place, shared a sweet kiss, then I watched him step inside. When I got home, I worked out my sexual aggression for a solid hour in my gym, took the steamiest shower I’d taken all week, then slipped into bed and slept like a brick at four in the morning.

I have to be cool whenever Trevor’s name is mentioned in the office. He’s one of my top interns, and he caught Rebekah’s eye. It’s inevitable that he’s going to be noticed by others, too. I have to be okay with that and treat him just like I would anyone else who’s receiving due praises, regardless of my intensifying feelings.

No special treatment. And no not special treatment.

Didn’t Trevor say that himself, once?

26

Trevor is a team player.

No special treatment. That’s what I said I wanted.

So I shouldn’t be mad, really, when Rebekah summons three interns to assist a special team headed by Ben to fashion a plan of action for one of his clients—three interns that do not include me.

Really, it’d be a bad idea to be in there with them, working so close with Benjamin after the night we just had. Right?

I shouldn’t take it personally.

“Can you hand me the stapler?” mumbles Elijah, reaching out his hand.

Distractedly, I hand it to him, my eyes like needles as they stay glued to the glass windows that reveal the three interns and five employees around the round table in that office, Benjamin circling them slowly as he addresses them. Every now and then, he’ll stroll up to his dry erase board to squiggle out an image or jot something down. Even from all the way across the room, I can recognize the very specific way in which his butt wiggles as he writes on that board. It fills me with a mixture of longing and frustration.

I came to Gage Communications with the purpose of gaining traction in my career, impressing someone who could potentially make or break me, and soaking in all the brilliance like a big, soft, collegiate sponge.

I didn’t come here for a boyfriend. Or a lover. Or him.

Yet all of my priorities seem to have shifted overnight. When I come into work, I go through the motions like a choreographed routine I’ve rehearsed fifty-seven times. I give the boss as much attention as I would an out-of-place paperclip on a desk. I do my good work, but expect nothing for it and expect nothing to come from it.

Because all of my thoughts begin and end with Benjamin Gage and when we’ll get to be alone again.

Benjamin Gage, whose soul I dived into last night.

Benjamin Gage, who took me on an adventure that split me wide open and made me face both my fears and my joys.

Benjamin Gage, the man who’s supposed to be my boss. The man who’s totally in a meeting right the heck now with three of your fellow peers—and not you.

Don’t be a jealous little kumquat, Trevor.

“Alright, I’m callin’ it,” says Elijah.

I jolt out of my thoughts, then turn to him. “Calling what?”

“You. On your shit.” Elijah hands the stapler back to me by slapping it onto my palm, earning an “Ow!” from me. “We’re hittin’ the corner store pizzeria after work. You and I are gonna talk.”

I frown. “What’d I do now? Leave the toilet seat up?”

“Or stay out past two in the freakin’ morning?” Elijah squints at me like a scolding father. “Ring any bells?”

I sigh, already over it. “Elijah, you were the one who told me I needed to loosen up. You pushed me to go clubbing with you. You told me to get laid. You said—”

“Tonight,” clips Elijah, cutting me off, then swipes his laptop off the desk and struts away without another word.

No, my day doesn’t get any better after that. Why would it?

It’s almost time to go, and I’m stretched like a tree in the supply closet, reaching for the top shelf (unsuccessfully) when a tall shadow eclipses the light.

“Sorry,” I mumble to whoever it is behind me. “Just trying to get the damned box of envelopes back here. One more second.”

“Trevor.”

The voice catches me off-guard. I stop stretching and turn. The tall cold glass of water named Brady stands there, his bright blond hair sitting perfectly styled on his stiff, half-tilted head. He stares me down with two annoyingly sexy, frigid eyes.

“Brady,” I clip back for a greeting. “You need something? And if not, can you help me get these envelopes? I really don’t want to pull out a stepladder. That’s just humiliating.”

“Humiliating.” Brady snorts. “Now that’s an interesting word.”

I face him, confused. I have no idea where all this hetero sass is coming from. “What do you mean?”

He takes a step forward. Considering how small this closet is and how close he already was, he’s more than invading my bubble, which I might have one day welcomed in an entirely different context, but not right now.

“Let’s talk about humiliation,” he says, eyes narrowing.

That’s an odd way to lead an attack. I feel like he’s about to pull down my pants and give me an atomic wedgie on this supply rack. Instantly, I’m in high school again being cornered by a bully.

A sexy bully who’s staring me down right now. “Humiliation,” he repeats, “like the fact that, if boss man wasn’t so distracted by your dumb act, and if our supervisor wasn’t so easy to charm, then I wouldn’t feel like the ignored cat scratching at their back door.”

Uh, what? “I’m … not following.”

“I’m not the kind of guy who gets ignored,” Brady states, his voice steely and his eyes like two pools of molten silver. “When I’m in the office, the supers look my way. Right now, the only thing either of them seem to be seeing is you.”

My mouth just hangs open, unsure what to say to that. There are about a hundred thoughts racing around my head right now, like if Benjamin himself said something, or if there’s a rumor or two making the rounds, or if my own behavior has given anything away. All of these thoughts render me paralyzed.

Brady fills the silence with his own sexy threats. “I don’t know your game, Trevor, but I want you to know I see it. And I will not tolerate it. I don’t give two shits about any of these other guys, least of all you. But once I see through your scheme, I’m going to blow it up, and I’m going to get the recognition I deserve.”

“I’m not d-doing anything,” I state suddenly, gathering my courage at last. Despite my stuttering voice, I push the words out and straighten my spine in the face of heterosexual gorgeousness. “I don’t have any game. I just clock in, do what I’m asked, and clock out. I don’t know about the first d-damned thing your sexy ass is saying to me.”

I blink, stunned. Sexy ass? Seriously?

“You’re a schemer,” Brady states, either ignoring me or not having heard my words at all. He shakes his head disapprovingly. “I knew it the second I met you in the copy room that first day and you played dumb, acting like you didn’t know how to change the toner. Everyone knows how to change the toner.”

“I … I didn’t know,” I start, trying to defend myself to this guy with demigod eyes and a face cut from stone. Seriously, it’s not easy. It’s like trying to argue with Michelangelo’s statue of David.

“And maybe Rebekah and Mr. Gage are buying your innocent-eyed play-dumb thing, but I don’t buy it for a second. And unlike them, I can’t be flirted with. I see right through you.”

“Oh, can’t be flirted with, huh?” I counter. “So that makes it totally alright for you to … to play your sexy little game and flash your pretty eyes and cock-tease the boss with your tight gym body and … and … and your perfectly styled hair?”

I’m not very good right now at insulting him, apparently.

Brady ignores my tirade. His hard, unbending eyes bore down onto me as he whispers, “No matter what you do, just remember this: in the end, I’m the one who wins this game. Not you.”

His eyes are so bright and fierce, each time he blinks, it’s like two shutters eclipsing the glorious sun.

“Well, I hope you like playing with yourself,” I state, lifting my chin smugly, “because … because you’re the only one playing any game, apparently. I don’t play dumb, I don’t charm supers, and I definitely don’t flirt my way to the top.”

Nor do I hook up with my boss at a club.

Or go back to his place and nearly have sex. Twice. Sorta.

And let’s not forget our adorable bathroom tête-à-tête.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, Brady,” I continue on, addressing the tall slender block of perfection that is my rival, “I was in the middle of getting some envelopes.”

With that, I turn my back on the office bully and resume my little stretching exercise, humiliating myself as I grunt and reach for the top shelf. I pretend he totally isn’t glaring at me with those smoldering, sexy eyes. Shut up, Trevor’s dick.

After a beat, Brady steps beside me and, with ease, grabs the box of envelopes off the top shelf, then tosses them at my chest. I catch them, then watch as Brady saunters off without so much as a glance back my way. I stare after him awhile, feeling more and more unsettled by the second as his words sink in.

All humor aside, I realize the severity of his threats. It isn’t something I should take as lightly as this box of envelopes in my sweaty grip. Brady is certain that something’s going on with me, something strange, something of a game. That leads me to wonder if the other interns suspect anything, too.

And what about Elijah? Is that why we’re hitting the pizzeria later after work? He chats with all of the others. Surely he gets all the juice from the grapevine.

What if I’m the latest grape?

27

Trevor enjoys a polite scolding.

“One small pep,” Elijah instructs the guy at the counter, “and a three-top medium with onions, mushrooms, and bacon.”

“We’re out of bacon,” the guy replies.

“Sausage, then.”

“We’re out of sausage.”

“Jesus, just put some meat on the dang pizza,” Elijah exclaims, exasperated. “Ham, turkey, cat, your manager’s dick, something. You got two starved, cranky guys to serve here!”

“I’m not cranky,” I interject.

Elijah glares at me and says, “You’re about to be,” to which I just roll my eyes and drop back into my seat by the window.

After paying, he plops down in the chair across from me. “The tables here are tiny,” I complain. “We taking the pizzas back to the apartment? Or—?”

“The booths are all taken. We’ll deal.” Elijah glances at a girl strolling by outside the big window, distracted for a second, then cracks his knuckles and faces me. “You and I got some unfinished business to discuss.”

I will admit, I’m a tiny bit freaked out by what he might have to say, but he’s my roommate and best friend of so many years, so I have to trust that even if it’s bad, we can work through it. Also, I’ve given things a lot of thought on the walk over here from the office, and have had a chance to adopt a casual, totally-nothing-odd-going-on demeanor, which is probably the reason I kick back, fold my arms, and await what he’s going to say like some bored, totally petulant teenager. Go ahead and give me my gold star for lovely behavior, teacher; I’m totally earning it.

“First off,” Elijah begins, “you know I know you’ve been acting funny lately. Like, abnormally funny.”

“Okay.”

“Four years of high school and three years of college, and you have never undone a single lace on the knee-high boot of your … uptightness.”

“Nice metaphor.”

“I know.” He runs a hand through his messy dark brown hair. “Now, you’ve all but torn that boot off. You’re telling me about all these extra things you’re being held back at the office to do, which I know are all lies.”

I part my lips to protest, then think the better of it, allowing him to go on.

“You stayed out past two in the morning, dude. Like, even I wouldn’t do that on a work night.”

“Really?” I interrupt, unable to help myself. “When the new Grand Theft Auto game came out last fall, you’re telling me you didn’t stay up until five in the morning knowing you had a final exam the next morning for Geology?”

“That’s not the same thing! It was Geology! Rocks! What’s so hard about that? Don’t distract me.”

I sigh. “Go on, then, Captain High Horse.”

“You don’t know this, but …” Elijah takes a deep breath, then lets out his next words with it. “I sorta made a deal with your mom and dad before you came to live with me.”

“You what?”

“I told them I’d look after you. Be a big bro. Blah, blah. And you know how your parents are,” he goes on with a dramatic lift of his eyebrows. “They are … a certain kind of people.”

“So you’re supposed to be babysitting me? Is that what you’re so upset about? That me and my diaper loads are such a handful?”

Elijah shoots me a hard look. “Yeah, bro. That’s my issue,” he replies sarcastically. “And now we need to schedule a spanking until you learn your lesson.”

“Please, Elijah, stop, you’re turning me on,” I spit back dryly.

He leans over the table. “The point is, Trevor, my sweet love, you used to tell me everything. But lately, you’re all dirty, shady, out all night, and probably have toilet herpes by now.”

I bring my head down and hide my face from the view of our neighboring tables, all the occupants of which are looking our way now. “Toilet herpes??” I hiss. “Really, Elijah?”

“Hey, I don’t know what kind of weird back-alley clubs you’re hitting up after work until two in the morning!”

“Shhh!”

“How am I going to explain to your poor parents all the exotic rash creams you’re gonna need? These things keep me up at night, Trevor. You know, while you’re out gettin’ your bang on.”

I’m shielding my face with both hands now, flames rushing up my cheeks. “So this is why you brought me here?” I ask quietly, muffled through my hands. “To humiliate your best friend?”

Elijah grips my wrists and pulls my hands back down to the table, then looks me in the eye. “I want my studious, determined, stick-up-his-ass buddy back.”

I frown, still red-faced. “You hate stick-up-his-ass Trevor.”

“Right now, I’m loving stick-up-his-ass Trevor. I miss him. I need to put that stick right back up his bum. We were interning together at Gage Communications and we cared about doing hard work, impressing the supervisors … and the boss. This new Trevor sneaks away into bathroom stalls to diddle with guys like skinny-tie Isaac.”

I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t Isaac,” I groan.

Elijah smiles victoriously. “Process of elimination, buddy. One pretty boy at a time. I will get to the bottom of this,” he promises. “Unless the dude’s a top. Wait. Are you the bottom? I forget how it works. You gay guys are so confusing.”

Just then, our food arrives in the form of two hot, cheesy pizzas being slapped in front of us. The steam alone gives my face a long-needed bath as I peer over it, starved.

When our mouths are full of our first bites, we stare at each other across the table, all the words we didn’t dare utter hanging invisible in the pizza steam between us.

Chewing, I ask, “We good, then?”

After he swallows his bite, takes a full ten seconds to chug down a gulp or six of his Coke, and dabs his mouth daintily with a napkin, he gives me a curt nod, then adds, “We’re good … as long as you’re open with me, stop all this silly pussyfooting around, and don’t give me any reason to worry that my best bud is throwing his career away on some mystery office dick.”

With a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni, I give him a totally confident nod, then avert my eyes to the window, reflecting on whose “mystery office dick” Elijah is unknowingly talking about.

28

Benjamin had a long, hard day.

After the door shuts lightly behind me, I kick off my shoes, shrug off my jacket, and drop onto a stool at the bar counter. I pull a glass in front of me and help myself to some whiskey.

Because what else do you do after a day like today?

Just when I’m pouring myself seconds, Lance comes down the spiral staircase and sits at the foot of it to stare at me judgingly. That’s pretty much the only way he ever looks at me lately.

I frown at him, the glass hanging from my grip. “Where are my thousand face-licks, Lancelot? I came home alone tonight. I’m all yours.”

He just stares, unresponsive.

I sigh. “Okay, I get it. You’re pissed. Some total stranger you don’t know came over. Three-and-a-half times. And you feel this deep sense of … betrayal. Am I right? Ballpark?”

Lance lies down on the floor, resting his chin on his paws.

I ditch my glass, hop off the stool, then take a seat on the floor next to him. He doesn’t object. I give his head a rub, itching behind his ear the way he likes it, despite him not responding to it much at the moment.

I half-cuddle Lance, bringing my chin to his head and baby-talking to him. “Are those birds still harassing you on the terrace? The scary birds that squawk and go flap-flap-flap?” I pretend his silence is an answer. “You don’t have to be afraid of them.”

A tiny whimper escapes Lance’s throat. It’s probably entirely unrelated to my mention of the birds, but I put an arm around him and squeeze tighter nonetheless.

The issue is, Lance can’t be walked around the city like other dogs. The first several times (and we’re talking over the course of months) that I tried to take him on a walk, poor Lance howled and protested with such terror that I simply gave up. I built a doggy-door into the door leading out onto the terrace, which has a full garden and considerable patches of grass. There’s even two small trees with a bench underneath one of them where Lance will sometimes lie down.

But lately, we’ve had a team of bullies in avian form who will periodically show up and scare Lance inside. These birds are big, loud, and relentless. Though Lance is able to go out there to do his business whenever he wants, he often waits for me to go out with him, like I’m his guardian against the territorial bird bullies.

His tail starts wagging suddenly, swatting my side softly every second. Then he hops up from the floor energetically and circles around, watching me as he pants, pants, pants.

“Oh, I see. You want to play, do you?”

He starts hopping around in place, then posing, like he’s ready to catch a Frisbee or chase a ball I’m not holding, but could totally produce from nowhere and throw, according to his expression and the canine logic of what crazy ball-throwing magic humans are apparently capable of.

I peel off my socks and toss them aside, then bound after him. Lance goes running off to hide. Even though I know he’s always in the second guest room—since that’s always where he seems to run off to hide first—I give him a few seconds to situate, then call out a little taunting warning before going to “find” him. When his hiding spot under the bed is found, he goes dashing off to his next spot, which will either be in the gym or back out in the living room. I’m not sure when Lancelot and I figured out how to play hide-and-go-seek together, but it just sort of happened over the years without any effort on my part to train him (I think), and he seems to love the hell out of it.

Eventually, he gets that look in his eye and starts whimpering by the terrace doggie door, so I grab my phone off the counter before heading out onto the terrace with Lance, acting as his guardian against the birds. I stroll across the garden while Lance goes about his business, since I note that there are no birds today.

I come to a stop at the railing that overlooks the city, then calmly watch the sun as it slowly begins to sink past the jagged city skyline of ridged condominium towers to the west and the taller skyscrapers beyond.

And somewhere in that sunset is a guy I totally ignored today.

I didn’t just normal-ignore him, as per our agreement. I cold-ignored him when I entered the office, when I went about my day, and when I slipped into the meeting with three other interns. And none of that feels good to me. I need Trevor to know how special he is, and I can’t do that by treating him the way I did today for the rest of the summer.

If he doesn’t kick me in the nads for how I’m treating him after a week of this, then I will.

After a quick peek back at Lance, who is all but frolicking in the large patch of grass like he’s chasing an invisible goblin, I pull out my phone and tap the cryptic “T” on my contacts list.

The phone rings once. Then twice. Then three times.

My chest tightens. He’s going to ignore my call. He’s going to let it go to voicemail. He’s giving me a taste of my own puckery medicine, ignoring me with a cold, cold shoulder.

Then he answers: “Hey.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Trevor.”

“Had to slip into my room. My roommate’s outside the door,” he adds in a whisper.

“Elijah. Right.” I smile. “You kept me waiting, intern.”

“Oh? We’re back to playing the boss-intern game?”

“You know the boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Trevor sighs into the phone. “Sorry, boss, but I think I’m going to need a reevaluation of my job description, seeing as bending to your every neurotic whim isn’t exactly on it.”

I grin despite myself. Oh, Trevor … “An employee of Benjamin Gage has many responsibilities.”

“Is the top of that list of responsibilities to be invisible and work thanklessly?”

My mouth locks with my next words unsaid, hanging on my lips. I shut my eyes, then shake my head. “So … you noticed the oddness today, too.”

“I noticed.”

“Today was weird.”

“Really weird. I mean, I know you keep to your office most of the time … but not even a glance my way? Not even a mention of my hard work? Or how cute I looked in my shirt and tie? I picked them out for you, I’ll have you know.”

“For the record,” I state, “I did glance your way, and the only thing that greeted my eyes was the sight of your sexy booty across the room. That wasn’t very nice of you.”

The sound of Trevor’s breathy, voiceless chuckle fills my ear. It makes me smile, hearing it.

“Secondly,” I continue, “if you expect a high-five and a sugar cookie every time you do something good at the office, then you need a hard reminder of the dick you work for. Oh, and also the fact that you’re an adult, and every job in the world is like that.”

A brief moment passes before he says, “I don’t suppose there are many jobs anywhere that aren’t, in most ways, thankless.”

“How mature of you to note.”

“But maybe …” He hesitates. “Maybe we don’t have to be … so professional at work.”

I smirk, looking off toward the setting sun. The sky is a furious orange from one end of the jagged skyline to the other. “Yeah,” I agree quietly, all too aware of how uncomfortable today felt. It was like having your underwear riding up your crack all day long, and we all know how awkward that moment is when you’re pretty sure no one’s looking and it’s safe to finally pull your wedgie.

“We can still keep things a secret,” he goes on.

“Yes. It’s important.”

“I’m just thinking that maybe we shouldn’t give each other so much of the cold shoulder. I think it’s making things—”

“More suspicious,” I finish for him.

“Exactly.”

“We should just be ourselves.”

“Totally ourselves.”

“Me, the boss.”

“Me, the intern.”

“Benjamin Gage.”

“Trevor Woodard.”

I hear Lance whimper behind me, standing at the door and waiting to head back in, but apparently not wanting to go without me. I smile as I study him across the terrace. “Lance loves the toy you got him, by the way. He’s playing with it right now.”

“You’re not a good liar.”

“No, really. He loves it. He leads an army of sword-wielding pup soldiers now. They’re questing for the Holy Grail.”

“He dug a hole, buried it, and peed on it.”

I snort. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“I’ll bring him a round table next time.”

“Want to come over for dinner tomorrow?” I ask abruptly. “We can try having that night I wanted to give you all over again, except this time, we leave out the spontaneous round-trip flight.”

“But I liked the spontaneity.”

Lance paws at the door, still whimpering. “Oh, a dinner at my place can be plenty spontaneous. Trust me.”

He takes a breath. “Well, the truth is … I don’t think I should be coming over every other night. I think my frequenting your place isn’t a good way to practice discretion. Not when—”

“Your roommate. Right.” I grit my teeth, frustrated by the circumstance.

“Maybe next week sometime. Or next weekend.”

“Next weekend?” I blurt, incredulous. “You’re going to make me wait that long for your ass?”

“Well, if it’s my ass we’re talking about,” responds Trevor, his tone light and superior, “then you may have to wait a bit longer for that. I don’t just hand my ass out to anyone, considering …” He clears his throat. “Considering that I haven’t exactly handed it to anyone at all, ever, per se.”

I nod and put my back to the glorious sunset, leaning against the railing. “I’m curious, Trevor. What kept you from going all the way? Are you waiting for the right guy or what?”

“Maybe. Or I just …” He sighs. “I’ve been so busy being a good student and all that. I’m not even sure anymore if it’s some high road I’m taking, or if I’ve just … simply not gotten around to it.”

“You make it sound like an item on your list of to-dos.”

He chuckles at that. “Far from. Whenever I do go all the way, I want it to be … special.”

“Special?”

“Yeah. Meaningful. There’s so much casual sex in the world. Boys bending over to the first person who breathes on them, boys who meet up with a new piece of meat every single weekend, boys who bang through boys the way you toss back a bag of chips.” He lets out a sigh. “I don’t want to be a chip.”

“You’re so not a chip.”

“I can’t just throw away my virginity,” he goes on. “I know, I know. I’m the corniest, most old-fashioned guy you’ve ever met. You’re having second thoughts about even having me as one of your interns. I’ll ruin the cool-guy image of your whole company.”

I smile and shake my head. “I doubt you’d ruin any company image if you sat right on it.”

Saying that makes me think of him sitting right on me.

On my lap, more accurately.

On my naked lap, even more accurately.

“Besides,” I go on, feeling my chest warm and my heart flutter excitedly, “I … think that makes you really cool, actually.”

“Yeah?” he breathes, his voice quivering a bit.

“It’s refreshing to hear such … virtue in another guy.”

Okay. My dick is totally disagreeing. It’s hard from thinking about his tight ass squirming in my lap. I’m literally having wet and slippery shower daydreams in an instant. The sensation of my cock slipping between his firm butt cheeks, slick and easy, as it seeks his tight pink hole as naturally as a power cord pops into a wall socket.

Zap. Pop. Power.

The feeling of slipping inside him—the warmth, the ease, the tightness—is worth waiting for. It’s been so damned long since I’ve let myself get intimate with anyone.

I can’t let my insatiable hunger for Trevor destroy the honor and respect I’m trying to give him—the very same honor he is exhibiting. Really, it isn’t the worst thing, being around a guy as adorable and hot and young as Trevor. It’s only agonizing.

Meanwhile, my dick writes the most butt-hurt power ballad known to humankind. He isn’t happy.

“Thanks for saying that, Benjamin.” The sound of all three syllables of my name in his slightly shy, achy voice casts a wave of excitement through my system. I’ve heard him grunt. I’ve heard that cute voice in my ear. I’ve been the reason for those sounds.

And it makes me think about more than the sex. It makes me think about waking up next to him, or cuddling with him on the couch like we did just last night.

I slap a palm to my face. What the hell is going on with me? I’m totally messed up about this kid.

This … kid.

“But seriously,” he goes on in his same cute voice, “and this is quite serious. Super serious question.” Trevor takes a breath. “If I was a chip, what kind would I be? Don’t say potato.”

I let myself smile—while my dick throbs in a prison of mesh and microfiber. “A tortilla chip. But dipped in a tangy salsa.”

“I am twenty-one percent Spanish-blooded. I did an ancestry DNA test thing a couple years ago for a class. I have ancestors in Spain, England, and a few other places.”

I’m still thinking about his confession of wanting his first time to be special. “So are you picturing, like, flower petals leading up to a candlelit bathtub? And then—”

“Wait. What?”

“Your first time. Sorry, my mind’s a bit fixated now.”

“Hey, now. Don’t go planning this like … like it’s a thing you’re going to orchestrate. I’m not an item on your to-do list.”

“You’re the only item on my to-do list,” I counter, rubbing my hardened crotch as my devilish grin intensifies.

“Alright. I should return to my roommate before he wonders what sex hotline I’ve holed myself up with in the closet.”

“You’re … in the closet?” I tease.

“I’m hanging up, Ben,” he warns, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Come out of the closet! Elijah’s got your back. He probably already knows you’re gay. The closet is nowhere to live.”

“I’ll see you at the office tomorrow, boss.”

I smirk. “You sound like a salty chip right now.”

“I’m a spicy barbecue Lays chip. I’m a spicy lay,” he whispers, trying on a suggestive, sexual tone.

“You’re so much hotter when you’re trying not to be hot.”

“The things you say!” Trevor protests with half a laugh and half a scoff. “I swear, if you were a chess piece, you’d move one step forward and two steps back!”

“Sounds like a knight to me.”

“Sounds like someone who doesn’t know how to play chess.”

Lance has all but given up on me, lying in the grass again with his head cradled on his front paws, staring at me with bored, lazy eyes. I bite my lip and consider my next metaphorical move. Do I bring out my queen, or do I let my pawn take an unassuming step forward to prepare for a sexual ambush?

A tone of sincerity touches his words. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I agree, like a promise.

He hangs up, and I let the phone drop into my pocket. Lance is up in an instant as I cross the terrace toward the door, and then the pair of us bound back inside. While Lance lounges on the couch to watch TV (or stare at the wall or wait for cat commercials or whatever dogs really do), I plant myself in a bar stool and whip out my laptop, figuring I’ll catch up on some work.

When I’m about to plug my laptop power cord into the wall, I stop, staring at the three metal prongs and the socket, and recall something I’d thought before.

The socket is Trevor.

I am the plug. The very hard, throbbing, power-hungry plug.

The next minute, I’m upstairs on my bed flat on my back, legs spread, pants off, and feverishly jerking my steel-hard dick. So much for working tonight.

29

Trevor notices some office tension.

The tension is in my pants, by the way.

And, when the following week arrives, it only intensifies.

With each passing workday, whether I’m at the intern table or among the office computers, Ben makes it a point to stroll by, looking so damned proud of himself and greeting everyone by name. “Isaac. Caleb. Trevor.” His eyes linger on mine a bit too long, giving me the chance to catch that all-familiar glint of humor in them as he disappears into his office.

He’s clearly taken what I said to heart.

“Can you get me an intern to look over these numbers?” asks Ben one afternoon to Rebekah, loudly enough for me to hear. “I prefer someone with a good eye. Someone sharp. Someone who’s not let me down yet.” Then he casually looks my way and gives a nod. “Trevor, perhaps.”

“Yes, sir,” says Rebekah at once, and then I get a new task.

And when I turn in the corrected numbers to him, Ben gives me a twinkly-eyed nod and a curt, “Thank you,” before hopping back into his office like a proud puppy who’s found a bone.

Each day that passes, I catch myself having to stifle my laugh in the presence of my peers for fear of giving away any secret thing going on between Mr. Gage and I—especially when he peers at me from across the office, thinks no one’s looking, then gives me some totally out-of-character, attitude-filled chin-lift, or one of his superior, cocky smirks, or decides to pose suggestively against whatever desk he’s near, deliberately poking out his butt in my direction.

This third week as an intern at Gage Communications, I learn a very important lesson: Benjamin Gage is a super skilled cock tease.

I seriously underestimated him. When I’m seated at one of the computers, innocently doing my work, he comes to check on one of his employees seated at the computer right next to mine, and when he does so, he leans into their computer with obscene demonstrativeness, putting his tight ass right at eyelevel with me while I’m trying to work. He has no shame about it either; the total dick that is Benjamin shifts his weight from one leg to the other as he innocuously inspects the employee’s work, and I have to fight to keep all my attention on my computer screen and not take a big bite out of that sexy butt hovering in my peripheral. Ben gets so daring that he leans his ass close enough to my face that I could literally lean on it like a second head cushion to my office chair. I have no doubt it’ll be twenty times more comfortable.

I guess this kind of childishness is what I signed up for when I decided to screw around with the boss.

The week flies by fast, and the following weekend, even faster. Elijah occupies me for every minute of it, despite my wanting to make plans with Ben. It’s bothersome, but Benjamin and I both knew we’d have to let things cool down for a bit until we have more allowance to sneak around our respective obstacles.

My main obstacle: my roommate Elijah, who totally promised me not to mess with Ashlee if I don’t mess with whoever it is I did the dingy-dingy with in the bathroom.

My roommate, who I am terribly, horribly, utterly lying to.

Is it a good or bad thing that my devotion—if that isn’t too creepy and dramatic a word to use—to Benjamin is so strong, I’d deceive my best friend, hop around behind his back, and have little to no reservations about it?

I mean, really. The guilt is almost nonexistent lately. Maybe that’s because, ever since that one crazy Wednesday night where I jumped on a jet in the middle of dinner, Ben and I haven’t spent any time together.

That needs to change, I think to myself Sunday evening as I’m gripping my phone tightly awaiting yet another flirty text from Ben while watching my roommate kick some poor guy’s ass online on his Xbox.

The flirty text comes just as certainly as the last fifty did.

I’m unstoppable, I’m shameless, and I have no regrets.

No regrets at all, even when Monday rolls around and Ben innocently slips into the copy room to check on one of the fax machines for no reason at all. Well, for one reason: me.

“Excuse me,” he grunts under his breath as he reaches across me—obviously just to torment me with his mere proximity—to check a cable that runs along the copier table. “Totally don’t mean to invade your space,” he assures me casually as he gets on his hands and knees and follows the cable under the table.

Which brings his face right around my crotch.

I bite my lip and pretend to ignore him.

He pops up at my other side, still following the cord. “Thanks for your patience,” he mutters into my ear as he leaves.

“No problem, boss,” I toss over my shoulder, catching him just before he vanishes. Was it as good for you as it wasn’t for me? I think to myself with mounting sexual frustration.

He’s making me so infuriatingly hot and bothered at work.

I can’t go much longer without having another night at Ben’s house. I’m going to have to think of something—and soon.

Y’know, before my nuts swell so big that they collapse into a black hole and swallow Earth intact.

It’s Wednesday morning when half the interns are busy at the computers googling clients. Two have been sent on an errand in the city, last I heard. And remaining at the intern table, Elijah and Ashlee work with me on sorting articles by date.

Did I mention I’m right between them in a very leave-room-for-Jesus sort of way?

When Ben enters the office, I’m the first to notice. At least, that’s what I tell myself every day as I lift my eyes from the table and watch him strut by in his fitted blazer, black dress shirt, and hot pink tie. His cocky smirk is so up-to-no-good that he’s popping a dimple, and as he passes by, his scorching eyes flick over to our table and meet mine powerfully and knowingly.

Then in a voice as smooth as silk, and without interrupting his sexy strut, he greets us: “Elijah. Trevor. Ashlee.”

“Sir,” mutters Elijah, wide-eyed.

“Morning, Mr. Gage,” returns Ashlee brightly.

Our eyes never unlock from one another as he passes. I give him just a curt nod. “Boss,” I mutter for a greeting.

Ben’s fierce eyes twinkle with amusement as he continues on, making his way farther into the office. Rebekah and two other supers find him, and then he’s followed by a cloud of questions and reports as he circles around the cubicles, patiently addressing each of them as he goes.

Yes, I watch him long after our eye contact is broken.

“He remembered my name,” whispers Ashlee at me excitedly.

“Mine too,” boasts Elijah, having overheard the whisper, “but I wouldn’t expect anything less. Boss man knows what’s up in his house,” he adds with a sassy accent. “He knows who the cool cats are.”

Ashlee snorts at him. “Is that so, Elijah? Is that why you haven’t been called to participate in one of his meetings yet?”

I chuckle and put out a hand for a low-five, which Ashlee is all too quick to give, smiling cheekily and letting out a tiny bark of victorious laughter.

Elijah smirks sourly at both of us. “Yeah, yeah, you two can laugh all you want. He’s just saving the best for last.” He puffs up his chest as he shoves an article into the June folder.

Ashlee leans into me and pokes a thumb toward him. “Watch out for this one. Mini Brady-in-training over here.”

“Do not compare me to that cherry Pop-Tart,” Elijah sneers.

My pocket vibrates—a text message from my phone. Since I’m sandwiched between these two (and am fairly certain who the sender of the text is), I can’t safely look at it. Even though I just abbreviate him with a “B” in my phone, my fellow coworkers can still read its contents and might be able to deduce a few things. Just that slight, terrifying possibility makes my butthole pucker.

Even though Brandon also begins with a “B”. And Brady.

And Ben.

While Elijah and Ashlee continue to tease each other, I feel the buzz from Ben once again. I know it’s a total figment of my imagination, but the vibration from each text he sends seems to get more urgent. By the time he shoots me a third text, I shut my eyes, feeling like he’s causing my pocket to vibrate on purpose.

And my pocket is awfully close to my cock.

Which is already starting to stiffen. Thanks, Ben.

Just when I’m about to pull away with a “that morning coffee I totally don’t drink went through my system faster than I thought” trip to the bathroom to check these texts, the door to Ben’s office swings open.

“Who’s responsible for this report?” he asks snippily.

Rebekah is at his side in an instant—his right hand and eager assistant at all times—and her features harden when she eyes the report up-close. She lifts her face, her tight bun flipping up with her head as she splutters several words I can’t make out.

Ben slaps the report against his palm, huffs once, then shoots a terse word to Rebekah before slipping right back into his office. Rebekah, after a moment of steeling herself and smoothing out her skirt, makes her way down the aisle of cubicles.

And she comes to a stop right at the intern table. “Trevor,” she states, her voice low as a reproachful mother’s.

I swallow. “Yes?”

“Mr. Gage,” she explains collectedly, “wishes to see you in his office regarding a report you turned in yesterday before you left.”

I frown, knowing precisely the report she’s indicating. It was perfect. I even remember looking over it twice. “Was something wrong with it?” I ask.

“Please see Mr. Gage in his office. That’s all.” With that, she spins on her heel and disappears to the computers.

Despite all the attention I’ve suddenly earned, I feel a heck of a lot more indignance than I do embarrassment or fear. I run a hand down my tie, take a breath, then dismiss myself from the table, ignoring Elijah and Ashlee’s glassy, worried stares.

A lot of eyes follow me as I cut across the room toward Ben’s office. I feel them on me like stale air.

His door is halfway open when I reach it at last. Benjamin is leaning against the front of his desk, his arms folded powerfully, and his glare is menacing.

Or sexy, depending on who you are. Good thing I’m me. “You called for me … sir?”

The blinds to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the rest of the office are open. Everyone is watching.

“Close the door, Trevor.”

I lift my eyebrows questioningly for three solid seconds. Then, setting my jaw, I turn and close the office door behind me.

Ben, smooth as the silky hot pink tie he wears, reaches an arm around the back of his desk and hits a switch. The blinds slowly rotate, closing themselves and shutting off all vision of the office to us.

Suddenly, we’re completely alone. I tilt my head, my role of intern traded away at once for the braver me. “What the hell?” I ask quietly. “Is this your idea of how to keep things discreet?”

His eyes are dark and greedy as he stares me down. “You are in deep, deep trouble, intern.”

30

Trevor needs a strict disciplining.

I stare at Ben, my furious muscle god in a fitted suit and hot pink tie, my obsession, my boss. “What … What do you mean?”

“This report,” he states, lifting it off his desk with one hand and giving it a hearty backhanded swat with the other, “is entirely too damned perfect for my liking. I mean, this staple in the corner here? It’s goddamned immaculate.”

“Is … Is this a joke? Are we joking right now?”

He tosses the report I spent two hours on to the side like it means nothing, then pushes himself off the desk, approaching me. “My worse problem, however, is you.”

I smirk defiantly. “Oh yeah?”

He stops right in front of me. “Yeah.”

I look up into his eyes. They fucking crush me up. I’ve wanted him so bad and for so long. He stands close enough to me that his every breath crashes over my face.

“That tie,” he growls.

I clutch my tie. “What about it?”

Without warning, he hooks a finger into the neck of it, gives it one deft jerk, and then it’s pulled off with the ease of a ribbon on a birthday present. “It’s against dress code. It’s got to go.”

My heart starts racing. “Ben …”

“And that tight shirt?” He starts to circle me like he’s king of the jungle, sizing up his challenger. “It’s the same shirt you wore at least three times since last week. It’s the same shirt that shows your cute little pecs—and nipples when the office is cold.”

“Ben.” I’m almost at a whisper, my heart thumping so loud I’m afraid I won’t hear someone if they were to knock or just walk right in.

“I turn down the temperature sometimes, just for your sexy nips.” Ben continues to circle me. “That shirt has got to go. It is too fucking tight. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Ben …”

“I’m your boss. I’m not Ben. Take off your shirt.”

I swallow so hard, it feels like I’m literally trying to swallow my heart back down into my chest. I glance nervously at the blinds, which are perfectly shut and show nothing through them.

He stops right in front of me, his eyes pressing down upon me. “Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”

When I meet Ben’s eyes, suddenly I find my courage. It’s just us. It’s the moment in his apartment that I was looking for. It’s the dream I’ve had every night for over a week.

Benjamin is the first, last, and only thing in my spank bank.

I start tugging on the buttons of my shirt, freeing them one at a time. Soon, my sleeves loosen, and then I let the shirt slip down my shoulders. It drops to the floor so softly, I don’t hear it.

I lift a defiant eyebrow. “Satisfied?”

“Oh, I’m not done with you,” he growls. “I’m far, far, far from being done with you.” He begins slowly circling around me once again, his eyes running down my body like a set of invasive hands. “Mmm-mmm-mmm,” he groans, surveying every inch of me. “You got a lot of nerve, intern.”

“Nerve?”

“To wear pants like that in my presence.” He comes to a stop behind me and slaps my ass so hard, I suppress a shout. I swear, he spanks me so hard that my ass spanks him back. “So tight. So cruel and inviting. You deserved that spank.”

I don’t care at all what’s happening outside this office. I don’t care what anyone can hear through the glass or the door. Let them hear Ben swat my tight ass. “I deserved that spank.”

“How dare you wear those pants to work all week,” he growls, coming back around to my front. I don’t move a muscle. “You did it on purpose, knowing how much it tortures me to see your firm, cute ass in them. I can count your ass cheeks.”

“Spoiler alert: everyone has two.”

For that lip, he hooks a finger into the front of my pants and pulls me as he moves backwards, bringing me right up to the front of his desk. Then he steps aside and bends me over the edge of his desk with such quick, unexpected force that I grunt and fling out my hands to support myself.

He comes up behind me, his crotch pressing against my ass. I feel his hardness through the material. It feels like we’re not even wearing anything, for as defined as his cock is and, apparently, as much “separation” as my pants are giving my ass cheeks.

It’s not lost on me that he’s moving his hips, too. It’s driving me crazy, the way he’s slowly grinding himself against my butt.

“You’re being a bad boy,” he whispers, and just the sound of his breathy words fills the whole room. “These pants are very, very bad. And they’ve got to go.”

I have no idea when or how he unbuckled my belt or undid the buttons to my pants, but when he grips them, he pulls so hard that they fall straight down my thighs and pool at my feet.

And my underwear goes right with them.

His fingers grabbed it all.

The nervousness has returned, filling my chest with fear, and my ears with my ringing pulse. “B-Ben …”

“Someone could come in?” he asks, positing my fears. “You’re basically naked, totally exposed and bent over my desk, and you think someone is going to have the audacity to stroll right into my office?” He humps my butt again, except this time I really feel him now. Ben slaps his hands on the desk, one on either side of me, then leans in to bring his lips to my ear. “Does it turn you on?”

My answer surprises me to the core. “Y-Yes.”

“You like the excitement, don’t you? You’re a thrill junkie, just like me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“This makes you feel more alive than you’ve ever felt before?” He gives my earlobe a tiny, teasing nip. “Being bent over for me is fulfilling hot fantasies you didn’t even know you had? Smelling the oaky wood of my desk? Enjoying my big bulge against your sweet ass? Feeling my every word crash over your ear right now and making you shiver with need?”

“G-God, yes,” I breathe, my voice quivering.

“I have some good news … and some bad news for you.” He kisses my ear, sending chills down my neck. Then he starts to kiss a line down my back as he speaks. “The good news is, what I’m about to do to you is going to feel very, very good.”

I moan, gripping the desk tightly. He is totally undoing me bit by bit, kiss by kiss, as he makes his way slowly down my back.

“The bad news is,” he murmurs, kissing the small of my back, “you will have a very, very difficult time keeping quiet.”

My body clenches and my eyes go wide. My mind races with all the possibilities. This can’t be how he takes my virginity, can it? He wouldn’t dare take it from me like this—bent over his desk, deprived of dignity, stripped of all my clothes, and exposed to the cold office air.

Why does that possibility turn me on so much?

Then his kisses lead to the top of my ass. My lips part with a breathless gasp when I realize where he’s heading.

“Ben …” I breathe. “Y-You can’t …”

“I can,” he hisses, cutting me off. “And if you ever plan to lose your virginity, I think you’re going to need a little warming up.”

He runs the flat of his tongue up one of my cheeks.

I flinch, surprised by the smooth sensation. Oh, God …

“You taste so fucking sweet,” I hear him whisper from between my legs before he goes for my other ass cheek, licking it from the very bottom to the very top.

I bite my lip and cling to the desk, my cock throbbing as it points between my legs, hard and in perfect view, inches from his face. With my legs spread as they are, my ass, cock, and balls are totally exposed to Benjamin and at his total mercy.

I’ve never felt more objectified than I do right now.

And I love it.

Then his tongue runs along the underside of my balls. I suck in a breath of air, my legs and thighs pulling taut at the cool, slick, almost-tickling sensation of his tongue as it slowly runs up, up, up until it reaches my hole. The sensitivity is so strong and makes me so crazy, I can barely stand it. Just this one long, slow lick might be enough to make me fall apart, cry, and orgasm all at once.

Then he does it all over again.

I’m clawing at the desk. He’s gripping my thighs, so my legs have no chance of closing. Bent over his desk, I can’t escape the overwhelming sensations happening between the underside of my balls and my sensitive, exposed hole.

And then Ben does it again. Licking slow, long, and firmly.

“Oh my God, Ben,” I groan, my voice jagged.

He never stops. He is relentless, knowing how maddening this is for me, doing what he’s doing, making me desperate for more, making me long for his tongue to reach its destination, making me so turned on that I feel wetness at the tip of my throbbing, flexed, achingly hard cock.

Then he brings his lick higher, running along my hole.

I tighten right up, gasping.

“Mmm,” he moans, his breaths casting cool waves of delight over my now-wet balls. “You’re so fucking tight. And you taste so sweet … and clean … and perfect.”

There is something so invasive about how he describes how I taste. Maybe it’s how he holds my legs apart, trapping me in this totally exposed position. Maybe it’s how his door is unlocked and anyone might come in. Maybe it’s the way he speaks with his lips less than an inch from my butthole, like I’m just a piece of ass to him. What a piece of heaven this is right now, to be Benjamin Gage’s toy.

He doesn’t use his hands to separate my ass cheeks. He just pushes his face right in, meeting my hole with his wet lips and his wetter tongue. My mouth is frozen open, my jaw grinding against the desk as I let out a silent scream of wild delight.

His tongue laps at my hole in slow, measured licks. One long, flat-tongued lap at a time, he drives me insane and makes all of my muscles clench tighter with joy, anticipation, and desperate need.

The licking never stops. I can’t find any new ways to squirm; I’ve tried moving and flexing and pushing and pulling every single muscle I have on my body, but I can’t get away from the relentless, agonizingly perfect pleasure he’s forcing me to endure. It’s a kind of pleasure that is barely not enough, and yet overwhelmingly too much. And while I teeter on the brink of insanity, I’m at his total whim, suffering every beautiful, squirming second of it.

I’m dripping. I feel my cock letting loose drop after drop of pre-cum, unaware and uncaring of where it’s all landing. In his lap? On the floor? Down the front of his desk?

He’s turned my cock into a pre-cum factory, slowly churning drip after desperate drip, stream after stream of frustrated, sticky anticipation.

If he touches my cock—and I mean literally touches it—I just might nut all over him.

Then, just when I think I can get used to the asshole torment he’s putting me through, his tongue pushes at the hole.

And enters me.

“Ben, Ben, Ben …” I let out involuntarily, my eyes shaking, wet, crazed. I thought I’d felt it all; I was horribly wrong. “Oh my God, Ben.”

His lips wet, his mouth all in my ass, he barely pulls away an inch to murmur, “Told you you’d have trouble keeping quiet,” against my ass before darting out his tongue once again, slow and sensual, as it slips right back into my hole, tunneling in.

Everything is so wet down there—his lips, his twirling tongue, his nose. His whole face slides right into my crack with such ease, invading me. My whole ass is slippery from all his relentless and muscular activity down there, working my crack and my hole over with his frustratingly, agonizingly, devilishly skilled tongue. And even if I wanted to squirm, I can’t, because he still grips my legs so powerfully that I can’t move.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I might be able to come like this. I’ve never been so stimulated before that I’m just a second away from being thrown into a full-on rage.

And his tongue keeps probing without end. Ben has started to push his face so deeply into my ass that I’m rocking back and forth, much like I imagine I’d rock if he were actually fucking me.

Well, I guess he sort of is.

With his tongue.

When Ben lets go of my thighs, I think he’s about to rise and do something else to me. But his face never leaves my ass, which is both the best news and the worst torment.

Until his slippery fingers wrap around my swollen hard cock, and I learn the meaning of a whole new torment.

“Ben, I could come, I could come …” I warn him, pushing out the words in tiny tufts of breath, urgently. “C-Careful … I could come …”

Again, he pulls his face away just a fraction of an inch to say, “You aren’t coming until I say, intern.”

Then his hand moves.

A lightning bolt of sensations courses down my whole body, filling me with such instant pleasure that I’m forced to bring a fist to my mouth and bite down to stifle my moan of ecstasy.

“You ever been milked before?” he murmurs against my ass, all his words drifting over the coolness and the wetness of my completely exposed hole and ass cheeks.

“No!” I answer in half a hiss, half a scream muffled by my fist.

“You’re in for a very, very cruel punishment, intern.”

Then his tongue gets right back to work probing my ass.

And his hand slowly strokes my slippery cock. It’s made all the more slippery by my pre-come, which his hand slowly gathers as he strokes the whole length of my throbbing cock from base to tip, base to tip, base to tip—slowly, tortuously, tightly.

The swelling of pleasure between my cock, my sensitive balls, and my exposed asshole that Benjamin is still sensuously plunging his tongue into is quickly becoming too much to take. Something has to come out of me to relieve the insane pressure—Benjamin’s tongue, Benjamin’s hand on my cock, or the cum inside me that threatens to pop the grenades that have become of my balls.

I mean, I’m so fucking ready to come that my balls are pulled up as high as a fraternity pledge’s tighty whities on hazing day.

And isn’t that what this is? My belated hazing to the office by the big bad boss who wants to teach me a lesson? A lesson in getting your cock slowly milked while his tongue is plunged up your pucker like a spelunker on the hunt for the fountain of youth?

The hand that currently fists my cock starts to gain speed and, to my utter delight and horror, starts only jerking the head of my cock, twisting and twirling and massaging.

Now I’m truly going insane.

The inevitable point of no return rushes toward me quickly, regardless of the agonizingly slow pace in which he’s jerking me. The frustration has built up far too strong. I’m grinding my teeth so hard I can taste my brain.

“I’m gonna come,” I warn him in a groan.

His answer comes in the form of pressing his face even deeper into my ass, his tongue reaching an all new depth in my hole, completely penetrating me.

My legs tighten up, threatening to buckle.

My balls squeeze.

My knuckles bleed white as I cling like a rock climber to the desk, part my quivering lips, and cry out my release.

I come hard. And it is endless.

And Ben is merciless, squeezing and twisting his fist at the end—only the end—of my cock as I erupt wave after wave of the come I’ve built up inside.

It doesn’t seem to stop, coming and coming and coming.

And coming.

My body is milked all the worse by Benjamin’s insistence to not pull out of my ass, tonguing me and lapping at my crack while I empty all over the floor, or down the front of the desk, or on Benjamin’s clothes—I have no idea where I spewed all my spunk.

“I’m going to get every last drop out of you,” he promises from between my ass cheeks. “Every. Last. Drop.”

When the waves of orgasm finally recede, I feel like I just came enough to fill the whole damned floor.

And still Benjamin twists and works the head of my cock like a doorknob. It starts to grow too sensitive—way too sensitive.

“B-Ben …” I say, trying to rise off of the desk.

His free hand slaps onto my lower back, shoving me right back down onto the desk. “You will be done,” he murmurs into my ass, “when I say you’re done.”

After just a few seconds of his fist working my hypersensitive cock, I start to squirm—really squirm. But fight as I might, Ben holds me in place with his face buried in my ass, his hand on my back, and his other twisting and jerking my cock.

He won’t let me get free from this post-orgasm torment.

And somehow, I love it. It’s like the orgasm that never ends, even though I’ve stopped coming and the sensation is too much. I squirm against him because whatever he’s doing in my ass still feels so good, despite my growingly desperate need for him to stop stroking my sensitive cockhead.

Then, finally, I feel the sweet reprieve of his face pulling out of my ass and his hand letting go. I only experience a short moment of missing his touch before his hands grip my hips and flip me around to face him. My naked, half-wet, wholly-spent body faces his fully clothed one. He smirks down at me, smug, triumphant, proud of the mess he’s made of me.

As he stares at me, he lifts his hand up to his mouth. My cum hangs from his fingers. I watch as he closes his eyes, slowly brings a finger to his lips, and tastes me. He seems to savor the taste, his mouth twisting into a crooked smile as he slowly licks his hand clean of me, his tongue working in much the same way I imagine it worked on my ass.

“So unsafe,” I mutter.

His eyes flip open. “Oh? You’re calling this unsafe, virgin?”

My face is still flushed from everything we just did, and I am still catching my breath. “Eating the cum off your fingers from a guy you’ve only known for two weeks?”

“Two and a half weeks.”

“And even though I’m a virgin, I still might’ve messed around with guys before,” I point out. “And also—”

He takes a step toward me, his clothed body pressing against my sweaty naked one. “Am I really getting a lecture on safe sex after having my face buried in your tight, wet ass?”

I bite my lip, feeling oddly self-conscious. “I … was just …”

Then, unexpectedly, he pulls me in for a hug. Apparently he’s not afraid of my sweatiness, or my wetness, or any cum that might still be on my cock. He presses me against him, holding me tightly against the cage of his muscular body.

In my ear, he says, “Break time’s over. Get your clothes back on. You have work to do.”

I grin despite myself. He lets me go, and I crouch down to gather my clothes off the floor. When I pull up my underwear, it feels cool to the touch of my body. Having the wetness of all our activity still on me as I dress is strangely erotic to me, like I’m wearing our depravity.

Just as I’m slipping on my tie, he comes up to my front and, grabbing the tie out of my grip, starts to put it on for me. I let him, my cheeks warming as I gaze up into his eyes while he slowly, caringly, gently does my tie. When he pulls it through the hoop and draws it up to my neck, his eyes flit to mine and scorch me all over again.

That’s where it all began: in those gorgeous eyes of his.

“Now get back to work,” he tells me, his tone soft and sweet, “and don’t let me see you turning in bad work ever again, intern.”

I bite my lip to suppress a grin. “Yes, sir.”

When I leave his office, I’m surprised to find no curious or suspicious eyes on me. It’s like no one even remembers that I was called to his office. The table is empty when I return to it, so I assume the previous task got completed by Elijah and Ashlee while I was occupied.

You know, occupied being rimmed and milked by my boss.

After all that sensitive milking of my cock, I face a sudden and urgent need to take a leak. Scurrying to the bathroom, I stand at one of the urinals and let loose. There’s nothing quite like a good, strong peeing after such a hard and bodily come. It’s almost better than the relief of orgasm.

Liar, I tease myself, then smile at the wall.

My smile dies a quick death when the bathroom door opens, there’s footsteps, and then Brady appears at the urinal right next to mine.

Thankfully, I’m finished and don’t need to endure any smug or condescending glance from the pompous punk. I flush and go to the sink, washing my hands thoroughly. Brady finishes just as fast and then occupies the sink next to mine.

“Enjoy your lecture in Mr. Gage’s office?” asks Brady.

I turn my face away, roll my eyes, then twist off the sink and go for the paper towels. “Always learning,” I answer smugly. And quite a “lecture” it was, if he only knew. The thought makes me grin.

He joins me at the paper towels, drying his hands. “Nice tie.”

“Thanks.”

“Wasn’t it a loose Kelvin knot this morning?”

I freeze, my grin crumbling, and then I face him. “What?”

Brady studies me skeptically for a second, an air of feigned calmness and innocence in his eyes, then he shrugs. “Perhaps I got it wrong and your tie was always knotted in such a clean, crisp Full Windsor.” Then he tosses his crumpled up paper at the trash and eyes me again, coolly. “Good day, Trevor.”

The door swishes softly on his way out. I turn to myself in the mirror, a hand going up to my tie. Is it sad that I don’t know what either knot looks like?

Should I be worried? I tighten my jaw. Fuck no. Brady’s got nothing on you. Screw that self-satisfied sack of perfect hair.

With a jolt of confidence I likely don’t deserve, I push out of the bathroom and hunt for a free computer, figuring I can jump in on some of the daily work we’re always assigned. I find a computer right next to Elijah, who looks up at me with a sheepish, worried expression.

He gives my shoulder a rub. “You alright, buddy?”

I sit down and give the mouse a shake, waking the computer up. “I’m fine, Elijah. Thanks for asking.”

“I’m gonna get you so wasted this coming weekend for your birthday. I mean, twenty-one? It’s nothing to take lightly.”

I shrug, not having given my upcoming birthday even a speck of thought. “It’s just a birthday. I don’t like drinking, anyway. It’s really not a big deal.”

He studies me for a second, then lowers his voice. “It’s the boss, isn’t it?”

I turn to him, alarm in my eyes. “Who? What?”

Elijah puts a consoling hand on my shoulder and gives it a hearty squeeze. “The boss was mad at you for that botched report, huh? Got on your ass for your mistake?”

On my ass. In my ass. I experience an inner jolt of excitement, my asshole puckering as if reliving what just happened to me minutes ago in that office. “H-He did.”

“He gave you a really bad scolding, huh?”

I bite my lip and blush. “The worst.”

31

Benjamin prepares a surprise.

By Thursday, all the plans are in place. I step out of my office and lean against the door, surveying my employees as they go about finishing up their work.

My eye fishes Trevor right out of the crowd. He’s near the break room speaking with his roommate Elijah. I watch him for some time, feeling a sense of pride swelling within me.

I pull out my phone and tap a message to him, then hit send. I look back up and watch him some more.

Trevor’s hand goes to his pocket, but he doesn’t remove his phone; he simply continues talking to Elijah, smiling emptily, but I see that his eyes are glossed over, distracted by the text he surely knows is from me.

I don’t know why that amuses me so much, but it does. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him my plans.

Finally, he gives his friend a nod, then slips into the break room. All I see is his backside when he finally pulls out his phone and takes a look. He just stands there for the longest time, which makes me so impatient that I start shifting my weight from leg to leg like a dog waiting to be let out.

After waiting precisely five seconds too long, he only pockets his phone with a short sigh, then disappears into the break room.

I narrow my eyes.

That boy isn’t going to ignore me.

Deciding for some bullshit reason that I totally need to go and check the employee fridge for a yogurt I know isn’t there, I stroll through the office and right into the break room. He’s alone at the counter stirring a cup of coffee with a tiny straw.

He looks up from his cup, and his eyes flash.

“Trevor,” I mutter for a greeting that any boss would give any of his or her employees, then go for the fridge, turning my back on him. I poke through its contents in search for nothing at all.

“Mr. Gage,” he returns to my back.

I draw a long, even breath. “Thought you didn’t like coffee?”

“You can say I’ve acquired a taste.”

I slap shut the fridge, then come up right next to him at the counter—my elbow brushing along his—and reach into one of the cabinets for a mug I totally don’t need. “You’re defying me again.”

“Defying you?”

“That shirt is much too tight,” I warn him, “as are those pants, which are showcasing your cute ass far too perfectly.”

“Oh, we’re doing this again?” he sasses.

For that, I ought to give him a swift smack on that cute butt of his, but I refrain. After all, I’m not just some big horny wildebeest. I’m a gentleman.

And a big horny wildebeest. “With as much cream as you’re putting in that cup there, you’ll be drinking milk before you taste any damned coffee.”

He stiffens up. Then, in a voice that’s hardly there, he replies, “Better than the taste you’ve recently acquired: that of my milk.”

I choke on a laugh as I bring a mug to the counter, then pour my own helping of coffee. “Touché. You get my message?”

“Sure did.”

“And?”

“And no, I’m not free for the weekend,” he whispers so quietly, I have to lean in to catch all his words, “as my totally needy roommate wants to take me out for my first legal drink.”

I fetch one packet of sweetener and flick it twice. “You mean to tell me you’re going to say no to your boss?”

“Yes.” He shakes his head suddenly. “I mean no. I mean, yes, I’m saying no.”

“Do I really fluster you that much?”

He smirks at me. “Discretion,” he hisses at me. “Discretion.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I lean my back against the counter and bring the mug to my lips to give it a little blow. “That’s precisely the reason I want you all to myself this weekend. Discretion.”

“M-Mr. Gage …”

His insistence on formalities in the workplace is so fucking hot to me. “You’re going to cancel your plans with Elijah. Come up with a clever little alibi, I know you can do it. Then get on my jet.”

Trevor’s eyes go wide. “Your jet? Again? What exactly is this ‘plan’ of yours?”

“Do you have a passport?”

The question knocks him in the chest. He can’t even answer me, his mouth parted and his cup of coffee hanging so loose in his grip, he might drop it.

“Yes or no?” I prompt him.

“Yes,” he finally manages to say. “Elijah and I … our families were going to take a trip to Europe last year together. Elijah and I got passports, then the trip was canceled due to funds. As always.”

“Hmm. That’s a pity about Europe. Be at my place after work tomorrow. Bring your passport. It’s all you need.”

Trevor swallows hard. He still hasn’t taken a single sip of his cup of cream-we’ll-call-coffee. To be fair, I haven’t taken a sip of mine, either. “But … B-But I’d need to pack a bag …”

“Nope. I’ve got you covered. I’ll take care of everything. Your clothes, toiletries, and whatever else you may need.” I give him a nudge with my elbow and a swat on the ass so swiftly, he jumps a foot in the air in surprise. “You’re all mine this weekend, Trevor. I’m going to give my favorite intern the birthday getaway that he deserves. Got it?”

Trevor’s little eyes are hollowed out with a perfect cocktail of excitement and fear dancing in them. That’s precisely the reaction I was going for. I love making his adorably bright eyes shrink.

And other things grow.

I wink at him, then push myself away from the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow after work,” I throw over my shoulder as I strut out of the break room, mug in my hand, and way too proud of myself for my own good.

32

Trevor pencils in a little vacay.

“But I was gonna get you wasted!” Elijah protests as he puts on his tie. “I even planned out a beverage and bar-hop itinerary!”

“Sorry,” I tell him with a sigh, “but you know how my mom is. She’s got this whole family weekend thing she wants to do for me. Dad’s in on it, too, with me turning twenty-one and all.”

“And I can’t come?”

“No. Sorry, buddy. It’s a family-only thing.”

“But I’m family! … Kinda.” When I smirk and shrug, he huffs with frustration. “She just doesn’t want you to drink. She’s trying to keep you holed up at your house so you won’t get plastered, thanks to your totally-a-bad-influence roommate. Help me,” he adds, turning his back to me so I can help tuck his tie under his collar, which I do.

“You can take me drinking when I’m back,” I promise him with a hearty pat on his back. “Though I’m pretty sure I’m only built to handle a single drink or two. I’ll likely be the lightest lightweight you’ve ever seen.”

“Dude, quit pretending you’ve never drank before. I’ve seen you after your final exams,” he teases, leaning toward the mirror to check his hair.

“That’s because I actually study for them. What you’re seeing is a normal college student’s relief when his brain can finally let go of all that crap he was retaining for his exams.”

“There isn’t anything normal about you,” Elijah spits back.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I study him for a while as he keeps fussing with his hair. “You’re gussying up more often lately, I’ve noticed. Something … progressing with Ashlee?”

“Hey, I said what I meant and meant what I said,” he shoots at me. “I don’t play where I work.”

“But why not play outside of work?” I suggest, scooting up next to him by his cramped bathroom mirror to check my own hair, our shoulders touching. “There’s no rules keeping you and Ashlee apart. You could easily stay professional at work and still date outside of office hours.”

“Dude. Sorry, but staying professional while diddling someone in the office just isn’t possible.”

My body tenses, instantly turning defensive. “I think it is,” I assert. “You just need to practice discipline, separate work needs from social needs, and—”

“And what do I do when things get complicated, or she bites my head off at work, or we break up and I have to deal with the cold shoulder for the rest of the summer?”

“Then it’s just for the rest of the summer.” I’m being really stubborn about this. I think the guilt of what’s going on between Ben and I—and what’s not going on between Ashlee and Elijah—is starting to get to me. I really need Elijah to be dating who he wants. I need Elijah to let go of this rule of his, like it will in some way permit the wrong thing I’m doing. Maybe I could even confide in Elijah. We could be sidekicks in inappropriate intraoffice dating. “There’s no harm in trying. I think you’re just being difficult.”

He turns on me suddenly, his features hardened. “For the guy I knew growing up who was so adamant about following rules and doing the right thing and keeping focused on the goal, you sure are exercising a sudden change of heart.”

“Listen, all I’m saying is you could be having—”

“You’ve been fucking weird these past few weeks,” Elijah lets out in half a bark. “Are you wanting me to date Ashlee because you’re secretly dating Brady? Is that it?”

I choke on my tongue for a solid second. “Like hell I’d ever date that gorgeous hunk of hetero ham. Besides, he’s straight!”

Elijah’s seriousness breaks for a second as he chuckles and mutters, “Hetero ham,” under his breath. “Fuck, I gotta remember that one.” Then his face hardens right back up. “Trevor, if you’re just wanting it to be okay for you to screw around, and you think having me screw around with Ashlee—”

He’s so annoyingly perceptive. This is what I get for having such a close best friend as Elijah. “No, no,” I blurt out, despite the fact that he might’ve just thrown me the very rope I was waiting all this time to grab hold of. Naturally, I’m too stubborn to notice. “It’s not that. I just want you to be happy. I’ve spent so much of my college life denying myself basic … collegiate pleasures … and—”

“Oh, like getting gangbanged in the back of a frat house every Saturday night? I don’t think you missed out on much other than a sore jaw and a vastly decreased ability to keep in your farts.”

I snort and shove Elijah for that one, which earns me a cackle of laughter from him, breaking any tension our little discussion about diddling fellow interns built up.

After a final (and totally unnecessary) adjustment to his hair, he comes up behind me and grips both of my shoulders, giving them a near painful pinching. “I appreciate your little push of faith, but I’m keeping my eye on the prize here, Trev. We’re already almost halfway through the summer, and I still have yet to score a perfect moment to impress the big man. No Ashlee for me, and damn it, no bathroom bump-buddy for you, either!”

My face flushes as I shake my head, laughing it off. Despite Ben saying I don’t need anything for the weekend, I swing a backpack onto my shoulder that I’d packed last night—which only carries my passport, laptop, charger, and a change of clothes for after work, since I plan to go straight from there to Ben’s—and then the pair of us are out the door and on our way to work amidst a cloudy morning sky that threatens to rain over our heads, but mercifully doesn’t just yet.

It’s on my lunch break—after a grueling three hours of tedious client research—that I’ve dismissed myself to the front reception area, which is unoccupied, the desk lady Dana having gone off to get herself a bite with a few of the other employees down the road. I stare out the front window onto the street as I hold the phone to my ear, waiting for my mom to respond.

I sigh, frustrated with the silence she’s given me since I went and dropped the news on her. “It’s just that Elijah and some of my friends here would be so disappointed if I didn’t go with them,” I further explain. “It’s not that I don’t want to see the family, Mom.”

“I know,” she finally mumbles. “You’re not ten anymore. Or even fifteen. You looked forward to the cakes I’d make you every year, even throughout high school.”

“Except for the banana nut donut cake with cherry icing.”

“Ugh. You’re still giving me hell for that?” She snorts into the phone. “We’re all allotted an experimental phase, thank you.”

“Couldn’t you have picked another day to experiment on? Like Valentine’s Day? Or Easter? Or National Underwear Day?”

“I love you, hon,” she says suddenly, “and I miss you. Enjoy your birthday with your friends, and knock the stinky socks off your bosses at that internship of yours! You hear me?”

I smile, warmed by her turnaround. “Love you too, Mom.”

After I hang up, the rain starts to pour. Flashes of lightning soon follow, bringing with them rolling growls of thunder that shake the very soles of my shoes—the same shoes I’ll be wearing to Ben’s right after work today, the same shoes I’ll wear onto a jet that takes me who-knows-where, the same shoes I hope to kick off when it’s just Ben and I, and we can finally have our way with one another in the privacy of a cozy room somewhere.

I’m totally messed up about him. I don’t even know what I want to do with my life anymore. All I want is Ben.

He’s consumed everything I know about myself.

And now I have Elijah believing I’m racing home to celebrate my birthday with the family, and I have my family believing I’m sticking around to celebrate my birthday with friends from the office. The truth takes a shady path right between the two lies, where I will slip away to Ben’s and enjoy whatever plans he has up his tight and sexy sleeve for this weekend.

Not that I know what his tight and sexy sleeve looks like today, because apparently he’s taken the whole day off. “Oh, he does this from time to time,” Rebekah explains an hour later when I’m back in the office and asking her about revisions I made to a report I was to turn in to him today. “Mr. Gage is a very busy man and sometimes spends a day or two bouncing from one end of the city to the other. He even took a whole month off once to visit several of his clients, hopping state lines and time zones. I was his go-to, of course, for any updates in the office.”

Rebekah has gotten really soft on me over the last few weeks. She is not the rigid, uptight, cold woman I met on that first day. Behind the veil of strictness, there’s a sweet person with a kid (or was it two?) who is desperate to not only do a good job herself, but also to keep the standards high for those who work around her. She’s a natural leader, that much I can tell.

Also, she’s slightly obsessed with Benjamin Gage. That much, I can also tell by just the way she watches him across the room. It isn’t any secret in the office that Ben only swings with the men, but she dotes on him and serves him and speaks of him and looks to him the way one does a cherished friend—or a lover.

Maybe she is in love with him. I wouldn’t blame her.

That thought scares me a bit, how quickly I relate to it. Are my feelings for Ben so deep already? Sometimes it feels like we just met at that nightclub an hour ago. Other times, it’s like I’ve known Benjamin for years.

But it’s too early to say I love him, right?

That would definitely put me right in my expected place as the naïve twenty-year-old with big red hearts in his eyes who still entertains silly, childish dreams of love-at-first-sight. I’m not going to be the lovesick little twink everyone likely assumes I am. I left the twink behind the moment I interviewed for this position at Gage Communications. The rest of my adult life is ahead of me, and it’s time for me to act like the adult I want to be.

The adult who packs a bag and goes to his boss’s high-rise for a secret weekend getaway that requires a passport.

Meanwhile, the rest of the twenty-going-on-twenty-one-year-olds in the world chug hard liquor and hold each other’s hair at four in the morning when their bestie is bent over the toilet.

I smile later when I work at the intern table and think about all the errands and super important tasks Rebekah insisted Ben might be tending to today, but I know what he’s really up to: he’s getting ready for whatever it is he has planned for us. Ben even told me I didn’t need to pack a bag, that he’d provide everything including my clothes. I blush as I think about what skimpy-ass sexy things he’s planning to put me in.

The way he commands me and takes charge of everything is so insufferable at times, and yet little bombs of excitement burst within me despite myself. His strength turns me on. His bossiness turns me on. That arrogant glint in his eyes when he looks down at me and smirks superiorly … it turns me on so much that I have to squeeze my legs together through half of my workday.

I can’t stop thinking about Ben.

When the clock hits five, I slip into the bathroom and lock myself in a stall—the very same one Benjamin pulled me into—and change into the clothes I’d brought: some loose jeans and a t-shirt. After shoving my dress shirt, slacks, and tie into the backpack, I come out of the stall and stare at myself in the mirror, then grow lost in thoughts of Benjamin and what the hell is happening to me.

It’s not just the assertive man in a suit who I know. I am also vividly aware of the laidback, gentle person who can slip his arms around me on his couch and hold me tightly against him, cuddled, as the TV emits its soft glow over our half-naked bodies.

I’d give anything to have another night like that.

Maybe that’s what this weekend will be all about: nights like that.

I know the man who whispers in my ear as he tells me stories of when he was a lost kid, unsure what to do with his life. I know the man who can be as vulnerable as he is intimidating.

I think I’m starting to think about that man too much. I fear I’m starting to fear what’s happening inside me when all my thoughts turn to Benjamin Gage. I feel I’m starting to … feel … too much.

“Time to go,” Elijah notes when I come out of the bathroom, changed. “Sure you don’t want me to drive you to your parents’?”

“I have a ticket for the bus.” That’s the twenty-ninth lie I’ve told my roommate Elijah today, who I never keep secrets from.

“Alright, man. Only if you’re sure.”

I give him an unexpected hug before we part ways outside the office, where the sun has finally come out to push away the clouds and cook the evening air into a humid soup of summer sweatiness. “Thanks for understanding. See you Monday, and we’ll get drinks and complain about our super lame weekends. How’s that sound?”

“You better tell your mom I said hi, and if she doesn’t send your ass back with a container full of her homemade cinnamon rolls, I’ll disown her as my adopted mother-in-law.”

I laugh a touch too hard at that. It’s just my tightened nerves and overflowing excitement chasing their way up my body. I am so ready to get my ass to Ben’s place and start this weekend.

And as I watch Elijah walk off into the sunlit mugginess, my phone dances with a text in my pocket. I pull it out at once and let my eyes feast on the words.

B

I’m all ready for you, intern.

Is your cute ass ready for me?

I grin. You bet your beefy cheeks I am, boss.

33

Benjamin values his employees.

I’m so excited to start my weekend with Trevor that I don’t give him a second to breathe when he arrives at my place. We’re in the car at once, and my driver Ian takes us to the airport. The next time Trevor draws a breath, we’re in my private jet miles in the sky, and his eyes are glued to the window, awed by the sight of the shrinking city and the wispy clouds.

“Where are we going?” he asks eagerly.

“Somewhere that’s going to put some sun on those ass cheeks of yours,” I tell him.

He laughs at that and shakes his head in disbelief, appearing totally lightheaded with excitement. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

“First time for everything.” I try not to let my eyes wander down his body, encouraging myself to be a gentleman now and save whatever diabolical instincts I have for later. Even though his pants are so loose that I see a hint of his underwear at his waist whenever he leans into the window. Even though his shirt comes short, barely meeting the waistband of his jeans, and the material hugs his shoulders and arms tightly, the sleeves distractingly taut.

Yeah, I’m such a “gentleman” over here, as I literally devour his body with my eyes.

“This summer turned out to be full of firsts,” Trevor murmurs thoughtfully. “First time to a nightclub. First time drinking. First time getting a legit internship that could totally shape my future. First time flying—twice in the same month. First time doing things totally not appropriate for the office with my—” He stops right there, turning his face sheepishly toward me. I flit my eyes up to his, since I was busy staring at the little peek of underwear he’s giving me. “Well, with my boss,” he finishes in a tiny, cute voice.

“Except I’m not your boss right now.” I rise from my seat and crouch next to his. “I’m just Ben, the guy you met at a club.”

“I’m trying to separate the two,” Trevor assures me. “I really am. It’s just hard. No matter how hard I try, you’re still my boss, too. You’re the Benjamin Gage, the man who makes and breaks the public images of celebrities everywhere.”

“Only makes them,” I return cockily. “Never breaks them.”

He chuckles, smiling down at me. Crouched next to his seat like this, I do realize how close I am—once again—to his crotch and the side of his ass. When his eyes turn serious as he stares into mine, I realize he must be having the same thought.

“I have no shame,” I confess. “I can’t get enough of you.”

He gives me a short nod. “And we’re alone now.”

“We are. And will be. The whole weekend.”

“But where?”

“Wherever I want you,” I growl back, biting the air in front of me playfully like a dog, to which he chuckles again and blushes.

I put an arm over his lap and another around his back, pulling myself against him in a slanted embrace. Then I lift myself up to bring our lips together. He tastes so fucking sweet. Even his breath is like sugar against my face. Will we ever “just” kiss, or is every kiss that Trevor and I share going to cause our hearts to pump and turn our breaths jagged? I feel fifteen years younger when I’m around Trevor, like a horny, excitable, boundless schoolboy who wants to steal his crush away to some hidden place every chance he gets. I want him to be my secret that no one knows of. I want him to be totally mine, and I want to be his special someone, the only man in the world who can truly satisfy him. No one else can compare. No kiss can match our kisses. No touch of finger against skin can compete against the way his touch affects me or my touch affects him. I want him to pour himself into all the holes of loneliness within me that have been there since my own youth—back when I was certain no one existed in the world who would want me as much as I wanted him.

Trevor is every boy I ever craved growing up. Trevor is the one I spent night after night waiting for. And now I have him.

Why am I just now seeing this so plainly?

“Do you feel that?” he asks suddenly.

My heart stumbles, fluttering in my chest. “Feel what?”

“No work. No other interns. No responsibilities or duties or reports or … or phone calls.” Trevor takes a deep, demonstrative breath. “Don’t you feel the freedom to just … be yourself?”

I smile crookedly, my brow furrowing devilishly. “I’m not sure you’re ready for me to ‘be myself’. I’m pretty sure it’ll result in me wolfing you down, whole.”

Trevor shrugs. “I fail to hear the problem.”

His response makes me let out a growl against his body I can’t contain. My cock came to life minutes ago, but now it’s throbbing impatiently. “You’re waking a deadly beast that can’t be put back to sleep, not anymore.”

“After all the sexual frustration you put me through this past week and a half,” Trevor shoots back, “that’s the least I can do.”

“Goes both ways, you sexy slab of meat, you.”

I swat Trevor’s thigh, then let go of him to step back into my seat. I’m going to have to practice some serious discipline until we are on the ground.

After all, I’m fairly certain that when we arrive, his eyes are going to go into wonderland all over again.

“Where are we?” asks Trevor, his nose pressed to the window as he tries to ascertain where we’re descending. “Mexico??”

“The sandy white beaches of Cancún,” I confirm.

Trevor’s eyes are drunk with astonishment as he stares out the window. I feel like I’m experiencing Cancún for the first time all over again through his excitement, which is infectious.

After the plane lands and we go through customs, a sleek black car sent by my contact awaits us outside with a kind and handsome driver in a full suit—even in this scorching heat. In the back seat, I watch Trevor’s wide eyes swallowing in the sights as we’re driven across the city to the resort.

“I have a client who is … more or less off the books,” I explain to Trevor on the way. “His son got caught up in a sticky situation involving a politician’s daughter. I swooped in, cleaned it all up, and now he’s in my eternal debt. He co-owns a resort down here in Cancún where a suite awaits me anytime I want.”

“A resort? We’re going to a freaking resort?”

“Right on the water, too. Back balcony has steps you can walk down onto a private beach. Whitest sands you’ve ever seen.”

Trevor stares at his backpack across from him. “I … Y-You told me not to pack anything. I would’ve brought a swimsuit, or beach clothes, or towels, or—”

“I’ll provide everything.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Cancún. A private beach on a resort … in freaking Cancún!” He slaps a hand to his forehead. “If my parents knew, or my roommate, or anyone … God, they would be so jealous. I almost want them to know,” he adds with a chuckle.

He spends the next thirty minutes gasping and gawking at every hotel we pass, thinking each one is grander than the last, but all of them pale in comparison to our true destination, the one we will be staying at for the next two nights. Trevor’s response to everything seems to reach an all new, unheard-of level of shock when we pull down the road leading to the front entrance. I beam, loving the excitement that Trevor is arrested by. It floods me with an excitement of my own. Four times I’ve come here to relax my mind and get away from the stresses of my job. Four times I’ve come here all alone. Four times I’ve stared at happy couples across the water, within the restaurants, and along the beaches.

This is the first time I have someone of my own.

The moment the driver lets us out, two bellhops descend on the car to help with the luggage. “Welcome back, Señor Gage,” they each say as they load my bags (and Trevor’s backpack) onto a tall, gold-rimmed cart. “Your things will be waiting for you at your suite.” I thank them and hand each one a hefty tip, including the driver who brought us here. After they’re off, I walk with Trevor down the path lined with exotic trees toward the front entrance and catch him eyeing me with a smirk.

“What?” I ask innocently.

His eyes narrow. “You told me to bring nothing.”

“And I meant it. I packed for you,” I remind him with a cocky grin. “You’re my boy toy this weekend, so your sexy ass will wear what I want you to wear.”

Trevor blushes at once, looks as if he has a clever comeback, but says nothing.

I chuckle. “Don’t for a second think this weekend is about you and your birthday. This is about me dressing you up, dressing you down, wearing you on my sleeve like a trophy wife, and having my dirty way with you.”

“At least you’re honest,” teases Trevor, despite his face still burning a furious red.

I smirk assuredly, then give him a nod. “What did you bring in that little backpack of yours, anyway?”

“Laptop, charger, passport, and my work clothes I changed out of. Ben, this place … this whole experience …” He shrugs. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay you. This is too much.”

“It is too much. And it’s about to be more. Wait ‘til you see the room,” I add with a teasing lift of my eyebrows.

Trevor chuckles, shakes his head, then follows me as I lead the way inside. The front desk welcomes us, which is a spectacle in itself, the desk so extravagant that its back opens to a grand hall with columns that seem to touch the sky. The rim of the room is filled with plush seating areas, boutiques, kiosks, and stairs leading up to a second and third floor with other amenities. In the center of the hall is a great fountain that extends through a large opening in the back of the room, which drops off into a waterfall to the resort pool beyond. Large decorative stones with palm trees adorn the lobby, their height as staggering as the columns.

“Welcome back, Señor Gage,” the lady at the front greets us. “Your suite awaits you.”

Knowing the way, I lead Trevor through the great, expansive lobby and out a wide archway that opens to the outside where two large pools glisten in the evening sunlight. The pools have swim-up bars with submerged stools for perching, dramatic slides and tubes, several stone canopies over which water softly pours, and shallow areas where the bottom of the pool slopes up to meet the cobblestone walkway, painted to look like the shore of a beach.

Down from the pool, wooden elevated walkways run along a bank of colorful grass and trees, which gently shade the way. One of the paths leads up to a large cabana hugged by local flora that bursts with color.

That luxurious cabana is where we’re staying.

“Oh my God,” breathes Trevor when we step inside, his eyes swallowing in the lavish space, which looks twice as big inside as it does on the outside.

I close the door behind us and follow Trevor farther inside. He wanders around the place in slow, mesmerized circles. He walks through the long kitchen which opens to a living room. The whole place is lined with enormous windows that overlook the private beach, letting in all the warm evening sun and painting the room gold. Just outside, there’s a table and two chairs on the balcony with a handful of steps leading down to the sand, which stretches out into the blue Caribbean Sea.

While Trevor is busy being awestruck by the place, I slip into the bedroom and find my luggage awaiting me. Unzipping my suitcase, I pull out an outfit and lay it out on the enormous, lush bed, then smile appreciatively down at it. He’s going to look sexy as fuck in this getup. What a cruel thing, to make Trevor dress up in clothes that I’ll want to tear right the fuck off of him.

When I return, I find Trevor at the back window staring out at the sea, his eyes glistening with the light of the sunset.

I come right up behind him, joining him. “Quite a sight, huh?” I murmur into his ear, my chin almost resting on his shoulder with my hands slipped around his waist, squeezing.

“We’re going to be here? In this place … with this view … for the whole weekend?”

“Yep. We fly back late Sunday afternoon.”

Trevor laughs suddenly, like he’s tickled and hysterical. “I feel like I’m never going to want to leave, Ben. This is insane. I have never … ever … ever …” He can’t even finish his sentence.

I smile against the side of his face. “You hungry?”

“Y-Yeah, actually.”

“Unlike me, you’ve had a long day at work,” I point out. “How about you go to the bedroom and freshen up? Then we can go get ourselves something to eat.”

He turns slightly to face me. “I, uh …”

“The bathroom’s got everything you need,” I tell him. “You could even take a shower. I already did before we left.”

“It was pretty muggy back home …”

“And there’s clothes on the bed for you to wear.”

Trevor smirks. “You’re seriously going to dress me this whole weekend like I’m your pretty plaything? Do you even know how objectifying that is?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t like it.” I give his ass a swat and a firm squeeze, causing him to jump, blush, and glare back at me. “Our reservation is in an hour. Go get pretty, birthday boy.”

34

Trevor drowns in succulence.

Can anyone tell me how the hell I woke up this morning in a cramped spare bedroom with Elijah’s snores vibrating the walls, and twelve hours later end up here at an exotic resort sharing dinner with this gorgeous man across from me?

This gorgeous man, who’s also my boss, and maybe my lover.

Lover. I sound so ridiculous. Lover. Just thinking the word makes me giggle. I’m delirious.

“What’s got you so tickled?” asks Ben over his wine glass.

I shrug carelessly. “Oh, I don’t know. Everything. Nothing.” I giggle again. “What’s the name of this restaurant again?”

“Cocina Caribeña,” he says, the Spanish words rolling off his tongue so smoothly, it’s sexy as fuck.

Our table sits at the end of a wooden patio that overlooks a lagoon lined with white sand and beautiful trees. The sun is half-dipped in the horizon like a great glowing cookie made of molten gold, its light catching on every ripple of water.

I just finished the tastiest serving of grilled steak and cilantro-lime-marinated vegetables, and a sweet Mexican bread I’ve never heard of before. I don’t even remember the name. I don’t even remember my own name.

“You look sexy.”

I jerk my eyes back to Ben. “Thanks. I’m guessing you like my outfit. You ought to; it’s yours.”

“It’s yours,” he insists, “and you look damned sexy in it.”

The outfit he got me is sleek, yet casual, and does its job of making me feel pretty sexy. It’s a crisp white short-sleeved dress shirt with a thin grey checkered design down one half of the collar and cutting across the shirt in a thick slanted line—very art deco. With the sleeves folded up a cuff, the underside reveals a sharp black design. My slate-colored shorts, cut off above the knee, feel like they were tailored to my crotch and ass’s every contour. They look skintight, yet feel as comfortable as if I’m wearing nothing at all. I have no idea how Ben got my sizing so perfectly, as if he measured me inch-by-inch himself.

The invasiveness of that possibility has me squeezing my legs together and catching my breath a bit, imagining myself naked on a platform while Benjamin pulls out the measuring tape, strictly instructing me to stand still while he measures every single inch of my body. Blood rushes to my cheeks—and below my waist—as I feel his imaginary fingers all over me, pulling that measuring tape in my most sensitive areas. I’m suddenly twenty times more aware of how snug and perfectly the shorts fit me, as if he’s literally gripping my legs and thighs—and quickly swelling crotch—with a hundred firm, squeezing hands.

Here I am, in a foreign country, far away from home, and my only tether is my beautiful boss Ben, who sits across from me looking smoldering as ever. It’s the perfect recipe for sexiness.

“So for my birthday,” I reply, pushing away my dirty tailor fantasy, “I get a weekend in Cancún … and a new wardrobe.”

He smiles crookedly, his eyes twinkling. “I have some plans in store for tomorrow, too. Don’t think I’m just going to let you sit on your cute ass by the pool all day and bake for your birthday. I’m going to put you through the ringer, boy. I’m going to make you earn every bit of your birthday gift.”

I know he’s teasing me, but the dominant vigor in his words really turns me on. “Oh, is that so?” I challenge him, swallowing my racing heart. “All of this doesn’t come for free, huh?”

“Far from,” he teases back, a devilish quirk to his eyebrows as he goes for another sip of wine.

After dinner, we casually explore the resort with the stars above our heads and in our eyes. We stroll past kiosks of jewelry and precious stones and gold. We find boutiques selling handmade pieces of art, clothing, and household items. There’s even a tequila tasting station, which Ben insists I try, as the legal age for drinking alcohol is just 18 in Mexico. “Consider it a trial run,” he teases.

There is an unprecedented amount of sexual tension pulsing between us which is made worse every time he does the subtlest of things, like putting a hand at the small of my back (the fingers of which lightly graze my tight, material-clad ass), or leaning close to my sensitive ear to tell me something with his words shooting chills of delight down my neck and arms. He even has the nerve to full-on cup my ass with his big hand when we’re walking up a set of stairs, playing it off like he’s guiding me, but I know he’s just wanting to touch me and turn me on. He must be holding back as much as I am. Doesn’t he know that if I pop any wood in these tight shorts, there will be no way in hell to hide it?

It’s like a sexual game of chicken, seeing how long either of us can endure the tension before one of us explodes.

I’m just about at the brink of exploding point, by the way. And it’s a game at which I’m not likely to mind losing, since we both win in the end.

We pick up some churros and stroll along the wooden paths, eating them. They are notably and by far the sweetest, softest, richest churros I have ever tasted, like long fried donuts from the heavens sprinkled with cinnamon and love and Mexican magic. We end up at the end of a pier that stretches across the public beach, just barely kissed by the sea which crashes in soft, hypnotic waves below. The stars shower over the two of us from above like a dark, glittery sea all on its own.

And against all of that sweetness, Ben turns his face to mine with a look that’s up to no good. “There’s cinnamon on your lips.”

Just when I go to wipe my mouth, he catches my wrist. Then, ever so gently, he leans in and licks the corner of my lips once, pulls away, then kisses, pulls away, then goes for another—deeper and hungrier. When Ben finishes, he licks his lips as he draws back to stare into my eyes. “Tasty,” he murmurs.

I’m hard right away. If we don’t do something really soon … “You drive me crazy. You’ve been touching me all night.”

“I can’t help myself.”

“My skin is literally … like … prickling with anticipation when I’m near you. I’m … Ben, I’m crazy for you.” My heart is pounding suddenly. I have never quite voiced this before, regardless of the story my body language has clearly been telling him for weeks.

“The feelings are returned.”

I fidget with my fingers, tiny granules of cinnamon and sugar still dusting them. “Sorry for being snappy. Or jumpy. Or whatever I am. I think the mini shots of tequila are messing with my head.”

He reaches out and brushes his knuckles softly down my arm, coming to rest at my hand, which he grips tightly.

“I think you’re messing with my head,” I amend.

A twinkle of amusement enters his eyes. “Is that so?”

“That’s so,” I confirm. “That’s very so.”

“Come,” he says suddenly. “We’ve got a show to catch.”

I blink. “A show …?”

He tugs on my hand, guiding me away from the end of the pier. It isn’t until we’re halfway back to the resort that I realize he hasn’t let go.

We’re holding hands. Like boyfriends.

Don’t make a big deal out of it, Trevor. It’s only the most intimate he’s ever been with you in public, ever, and he’s not freaking out at all.

My heart warms more with every step we take. After a while, I walk even closer to him, my side pressed against his as we stroll along the water past extravagant boutiques, hot springs, and even a mariachi band, which we stop and stand among a small crowd to listen to. The crowd consists of two other couples, a family of four, and a loner teen who’s probably here with his family but “totally over it”—yet even he seems momentarily pulled out of his head, hypnotized by the rhythm of the band as they strum their guitars and toot their trumpets. There’s even a violinist among them, who takes center stage when the mariachi tune turns sweet, making us swoon with their singing in the moonlight that now bathes us.

An hour later finds us seated at a half-moon booth in front of a stage in a dim, romantic lounge. Set before us on a tiny table are two tall, blue cocktails Ben ordered for us with tiny umbrellas and pineapple chunk garnishes. A beautiful, long-limbed woman sits at a stool in a green dress, her red lips making love to a microphone as she sings. A quartet of musicians on string instruments—a cello, bass, violin, and a bearded man with a viola—provide the backdrop to her powerful voice, upon which our ears feed.

My eyes, however, are plenty fed by the man I’m cuddled up next to in this booth at the front of the lounge. He could show me twenty mariachis and a hundred beautiful singers and a thousand white-sanded beaches; all I need to fill my heart is just a single glance into his eyes.

Yep, I just said that. I’m one of those guys now.

Also, I might be a little drunk already. “Are there two singers on the stage or one?” I ask Ben quietly, feeling silly and excited for no reason at all.

He smiles at me, amused. “It doesn’t take much, does it.”

“Not at all. I don’t even know what I’m drinking. It tastes like fruit laundry detergent, except it’s … like … good?” I take another sip, just to be sure. The sip turns into a gulp. “Really, really sugary. Kinda like a blue raspberry Popsicle that’s melted.”

I get a laugh out of Ben, who shakes his head. “You need a bit of training before you can handle more than just one drink in a night. You’re acting hammered and you’ve barely—”

“Hey, now. I’m not drunk! Also, I think it’s after midnight.”

“It’s two in the morning.”

“TWO?!” I blurt, then slap a hand over my mouth. The singer onstage smiles at me while she sings, her attention drawn by my tiny outburst. I shrink into Ben’s side. “Oh, no. I am drunk. I’m one of those loud drunks I always make fun of.”

“You want to head back to the cabana? Relax and slip into the silkiest, cushiest bed sheets your skin has ever touched?”

“Yes! But after a dance.”

Ben’s face goes rigid at once. “I don’t dance.”

I leap up from my seat and excitedly grab Ben by the hand, pulling him up to his feet despite his legs turning into lead and my hip nearly knocking over my drink, if it weren’t for the sturdiness of the tiny table it sits on. I pull Ben to a small clearing, put a hand at the small of his back, and clasp his hand with my other. I take the lead in a little slow dance, swaying with the music onstage.

Ben’s face, for once, is the one blushing. “Trevor …”

“I don’t want to hear any more protests,” I demand. “This is my birthday weekend, and so we honor my wishes. And right now, all I wish is to dance with my boyfriend and enjoy the music.”

His eyes flash. “Boyfriend …?”

I freeze in his arms. My feet stop moving. I didn’t even realize I’d said it. Can I blame the alcohol and call it a slip of the loosened tongue, playing it off?

I look up into his eyes. “Shut up. I’m drunk.”

“Are we boyfriends now?”

He won’t let it go. “It just slipped.” I bury my face in his chest, then distractingly remind myself how firm and shapely his pecs are. “Your chest is making me horny,” I whisper to him, though with my swimming state of mind considered, it probably came out in a hollering moan.

“You smell great,” he murmurs into my hair.

I crumble under him, clinging tighter as we dance in slow circles to the sound of singing strings and a woman’s soft vibrato. “You smell like sexy,” I moan back.

He chuckles. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me,” I retort smugly.

“Are you sure I don’t smell like boyfriend?”

I reach down and grip his ass tightly, squeezing it, but I meant to smack it for that jape of his. Ben draws his head back to look at me, smirking as he figures out what I’m trying to do.

“We should probably get back to the room,” I decide in a tiny voice, “before I try to form a comeback and accidentally take off my pants on this dance floor instead.”

He pulls me against his body tighter—so tightly our crotches grind against one another. That doesn’t help my giddiness at all, pulling every ounce of my mind straight to our swelling cocks, the heat coming off my face from the alcohol—and my sudden and unexplained desire to take off all our clothes.

If we didn’t have the attention of the whole place already, we certainly do now.

Ben puts a finger under my chin to lift it to his lips, which come down from the muscular mountain of him for a kiss. “Good idea,” Ben finally agrees when he pulls away.

We leave the lounge at once and take a long winding path around the resort back to all of the cabanas that line the private beaches. I don’t even remember the walk; the first thing I’m aware of is being back in the cabana with the pretty lamps and the lush furniture and the salty air. I get my clothes off in a fit of giggles, dizzy, then drop onto the bed completely naked. The feel of the soft sheets on my skin is like swimming in whipped cream and ocean breeze. I don’t even know how I’m angled on the bed, spread out akimbo with a drunken smile stretched from one ear to the other.

Ben nestles against my body and pulls me into his arms. He’s naked, too, I realize. I grunt and explore his body with my sleepy, clumsy fingers. Somewhere between a lazy kiss and the grazing of his hand along my bare ass, I drift away.

35

Benjamin is a people-pleaser.

I watch Trevor for a whole hour, splayed out on the bed on his stomach with his cute butt exposed through the sheets as he softly breathes, sleeping. The morning sunlight fills the room along with the calm roaring of the ocean. I can’t pull my eyes from Trevor.

Yeah, I’m totally being the creep watching him as he dreams.

The moment he hit the bed last night, he was out. Despite our cuddling naked and not having any sex at all, I found myself far from disappointed. I was full of joy, warmed and at peace. I feel a responsibility to keep him safe too, protecting him in every way.

That means protecting him from myself, too.

The last way I want to take his virginity is through drunken, spoiled, sloppy sex. That sort of messing around can come later, because it does have its place, but not now, and not when it’ll feel too much like taking advantage of someone I care about.

And I do care about him, even for as relatively short a time as we’ve known each other. Exactly three weeks yesterday, in fact, but it feels much longer. I’ve really gotten to know Trevor quickly in the thick of it all. There is something about his personality that marries so well with mine whether we’re kidding around, kicking back, or going to town on each other’s faces. There isn’t age between us. There isn’t money between us. There isn’t fame or class between Trevor and I.

No. We are just two men, between which I only see sparks.

I hope I’m not being naïve in feeling that way. I just can’t deny how smart, aware, and observant Trevor is. Of all the younger men who have passed through my life like street signs in a speeding car, none have caught my eye—and my soul—like he has. There is something about him that is like spiritual kin to me. And I don’t mean “kin” in the he’s-my-“son” way; I’m really not into the daddy-son thing, as I have had the pleasure of witnessing plenty of that when I once represented one of San Francisco’s leading men (cough, daddies) in the leather scene. I mean that something about Trevor aligns with me in a way that transcends age and lifestyle.

And he called me “boyfriend”. It might have been a slip, but I saw the sincerity in his eyes, like using that word was as natural as calling me by my actual name. Benjamin. Boyfriend.

The thought has me smiling all over again. Boyfriend … This whole weekend, I want to wine and dine him like the prince I think he is. And today, he’s certainly going to feel the part.

Prince Trevor.

Slowly, and at last, Trevor begins to stir, as if osmosing all of my thoughts about him somehow. I watch as he writhes out of the feathery dreams he was likely having on this ridiculously swanky mattress and these sumptuous, silky sheets. He slowly peels open his sleepy eyes, searches for mine, and then a cute, blushing smile spreads across his face. “Hi,” he croaks.

I run a hand through his hair and return his smile. “Morning. Sleep well?”

He turns over onto his back and pulls the sheet across his waist, as if deciding now to be modest. This is the same boy who ripped off all his clothes last night, torpedoed into the bed buck naked, and fell asleep against my equally undressed body. “I slept naked,” he murmurs in a sleepy voice, still smiling all cutely. He starts to stretch, all his little muscles flexing with him as he does, revealing some obliques I didn’t realize he had. “But I slept really, really, really well.”

“Glad to hear it. I did, too.”

He stiffens up suddenly and stares at me, wide-eyed. “Wait. Did we …? D-Did we, um …?”

I roll my eyes. “Really, Trevor? You’re going to pretend like you don’t remember what we did last night? You had one drink. One. And a splash of tequila hours before.”

He bites his lip, thinking, then meets my eyes again. “So … we really just came back here and … we just fell right asleep?”

“Yep. Right after I tied you to the wooden X in the top secret basement of the cabana, gave you twenty lashes, then let you off so we could snort two lines of coke together, then—”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Trevor cuts me off with a roll of his own eyes, laughing. “I just … I’m surprised we didn’t do anything. Like, I would have maybe wanted to.” He presses his lips together into a cute, shy smirk. “And you were a perfect gentleman, huh?”

I glance down at his morning wood, which he either hasn’t noticed or is totally ignoring. It’s making a dramatic tent in the sheet he pulled over his waist to protect his “modesty”. When Trevor’s eyes follow my own and find his involuntary erection greeting him, he shifts to cover it.

Until my grip on his thigh keeps him in place. So much for being a perfect gentleman. “You think you can let that beautiful cock poke anywhere it wants and not suffer a consequence?” I tsk-tsk-tsk him. Then I get on all fours, and his face hardens. “Time I give the birthday boy his first present.”

“My birthday isn’t until—”

I slip under the covers as fast as a snake, cutting off his words. His morning wood is especially hard, likely because he needs to pee pretty bad. That’s going to make this morning blowjob all the more tormenting for him, which I take private pleasure in as I bring a hand softly to the base of his taut balls and feel Trevor jump with surprise at the touch of my cool fingertips.

His cock stares me in the eye, beautiful and swollen to its max. When I wrap my tight lips around its tip, uncaring of the mix of pleasure and anguish I’m about to force Trevor to endure, I feel his legs tighten under me and hear him moan deep.

I ride his cock with my lips—up and down and up again—over and over until he’s already squirming beneath me, likely ready and desperate to spill.

This time, I want him to spill, and I won’t let my hand collect the load; it’s already collected twice from him.

Now, it’s my turn.

“B-Ben …” he moans from the world beyond the bed sheets in which I’m buried, sucking him hard and relentlessly.

I need no warning. I know how close he is. Desperate to pee, desperate to come, desperate for some kind of relief from the twist of my mouth, the toying of my tongue, the pressure of my suction, and the hypersensitivity I’m making him tolerate for so long.

He’s such a champ. And he’s so strong.

And he wants more of it.

“I’m g-g-going to come,” he warns me, his breath jagged, his voice quaking and urgent.

And then he does.

I swallow it all. Every burst. Every shot. Every drop. I swallow the sweet lusciousness like it’s my birthday, drawing my mouth up and down his cock, but slowly now.

His body still quivers underneath me, the experience made even more sensitive by my continual sucking of his cock even after he’s come all he can.

Finally, I lift my head from his cock, slowly kiss my way up his smooth, supple body, then bring my mouth upon his pink, panting one. I swallow his panting and his awe as I kiss him, letting him taste himself on my lips.

I pull away and get a good look at Trevor, who is all but spent and he’s barely been awake for five minutes. His eyes are full of dreams when he opens them at last to look upon me.

I grin suddenly, proud of myself. “You were saying?”

He chuckles. “What?”

“Your birthday isn’t until …? Tomorrow? Sunday? That may be,” I murmur to him, “but this whole weekend, I plan to give you pleasure from one end of it to the other. And if you’ve studied my career as much as you say you have,” I add, “then you know that I don’t give up until the job is done, and it’s done to perfection.”

He giggles underneath me, then throws his arms around me and wrestles me back down into the sheets. “My turn,” he growls as he starts reaching for my cock.

“Nope.” I pull his hand away. “This is all about your pleasure.”

“But I haven’t reciprocated anything yet,” he says with a pout.

“Oh, you will,” I promise with a devilish smirk, then kiss him, tasting him all over again, a taste I’ll never get used to, a taste I’ll never get enough of.

36

Trevor is one pampered boy.

My life is so hard.

Like, ugh, it sucks so much to be me.

Observe the warm stones resting on my back like hot palms, and the skillful thumbs making putty out of my feet. Observe the relaxing music an hour later when I’m kicking back in a spa bath of warm spring water. Observe the kind lady gently massaging my temples with warm oils, and the pleasant tingling her work casts down the rest of my limp, noodly body.

Such agony.

Did I mention the endless service of any drink I could possibly fathom or any food I could possibly crave? I’m pretty sure I could request grandma’s fresh baked chocolate chip cookies on a platter of gold and find it brought to me within ten minutes. It may even literally be my grandma’s cookies. I have no idea how the magic of this place works; I simply know for a fact that it does.

When the spa treatments are complete, I’m actually expected to figure out how my legs are supposed to work. Seriously, a part of me expects the masseuses to carry me around the resort. How am I supposed to walk when my legs feel like two wimpy rolls of thrice-kneaded bread? Not to mention my arms. I can’t possibly be bothered to lift a glass to my thirsty lips, not after the morning of massages, treatments, and general pampering I just endured.

And some people get to experience this every day.

Like, I can’t even feel my muscles anymore. Every single part of me has been worked, pressed, twisted, pulled, mashed, beaten, and bent into flesh pudding.

I need to be poured onto a big dish and left in the sun to bake before I can call myself a functional human being again.

“Enjoying yourself?” asks Ben.

We’re in two reclining chairs shaded by an oversized umbrella with gorgeously garnished cocktails between us, a lavish pool to our right, a beach with calmly rushing waves to our left, and a cloudless sky kissed by the gorgeous, golden sun overhead.

And this joker asks if I’m enjoying myself.

“I suppose I’m alright,” I answer flippantly, going for another sip of my tasty cocktail. No, I don’t know what I’m drinking, but it tastes like happiness and everything right in the world.

“Oh? Everything not to your exact liking, Prince Trevor?”

He’s been calling me Prince Trevor all day. I can’t say I know where it comes from, but it seems to be some kind of inside joke to him, so I play along. “I’ll let you know when I am, in any way, dissatisfied. You’ll be first to know, in fact.”

I’m sitting here in just a skimpy pair of red trunks, by the way, courtesy of Benjamin Gage, who is responsible for this entire weekend’s wardrobe. I can’t really complain about it. Just like my outfit last night, the trunks fit me perfectly, cupping my cock and balls and cleaving my ass just right. Though it does make me feel a bit like a Ken doll on display for the whole world—Benjamin’s own personal trophy to show off, I suppose—it also makes me feel sexy.

I can’t remember ever feeling so damned attractive, sexual, and desired. Ben is making me feel so many things for the first time. And I don’t just mean the cucumber slices over my eyes.

The sun is overhead when Ben and I return to the cabana for a shower. This would be the second experience I’ve had in our giant, extravagant cabana shower, which makes me realize that I never bothered describing the first. Picture a walk-in closet, except it’s a glorious chamber of watery, soapy, showery delight. The mere size leads me to genuinely wonder why the hell a shower would need to be so big. Is it meant to house an orgy of eight at once? For the time being, I’ll ignore the sudden hot fantasies that spring to mind at that very thought—bookmarked for my next jerk-off session. This shower has a warm jet of water coming from every damned direction, so you don’t have to worry about scrubbing that spot between your balls and your butthole; rest assured, it will be thoroughly attended to by these invasive shower jets.

Not that any of that matters to Ben, whose hands are doing a plenty enough good job of soaping every single goddamned inch of my wet, slippery, sensitive body. I have never been so turned on for such long periods of time as I’ve been here in Mexico with Ben taking every liberty to touch me everywhere. He is all animal and a perfect gentleman all at once. He treats me like a piece of meat and a prince. How is it even possible?

Yes, I get and stay hard the entire shower. No, Ben doesn’t do anything about it except torment me worse and worse with each soaping and rubbing of hands against skin.

Of course, I’m allowed my turn to torture him when it’s my turn to lather up and rub my hands up his tatted body. Even for as slippery as the water and soap make us, his muscles still feel firm as marble. His abs are like rolling pins of meat. His pecs are two thick mounds of bread pinched at the end by nipples, which I give a teasing kiss to as I clean him. Yes, Ben bucks and moans.

Ah, so mister muscle man is sensitive there too.

Noted.

But I behave, and we save the real messing around for later. Ben gets out of the shower first to make sure all our evening plans are still in place while I finish up. When I step out ten minutes later and don the clothes he left out on the bed for me—a beautiful royal blue button-up with slacks, a sleek belt that must’ve cost a hundred dollars on its own, and shiny dress shoes—I feel like a totally different person.

I’m not Trevor Woodard. I’m Mr. Woodard, the young man who walks with his chin lifted a hair higher.

Is Ben spoiling me? Am I a spoiled little turd biscuit, now? Should I start popping my collars and complaining to the manager at every restaurant I go to?

When I step out of the bedroom, I find Ben on the phone in the kitchen. In a sleek grey dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up loosely and a sexy pair of slacks (all of which make Benjamin look unexpectedly laidback compared to his usual standards), he looks downright edible.

He taps his phone looking satisfied with himself, pockets it, then lifts his gorgeous face to me. “Ready for dinner?” he asks.

I bite my lip. “You mean it’s not you?”

He chuckles darkly, then shakes his head. “No. I’m the dessert, and I decide when you get to enjoy me.”

I scowl at him. Such a cock tease.

The dinner is nothing to scowl at, however. He takes me to a gorgeous restaurant I must not have noticed last night on our extravagant touring of the premises. The restaurant is located on an upper floor of the main building. Some windows have a view of the Caribbean Sea while others overlook the gardens of the resort. It’s the resort we view during my birthday dinner, which consists of a dish called Cocobichuela—which is a blend of shrimp and sliced lobster with rice and tropical fruits in a curry sauce. This cocktail of succulence is served in a hollowed-out coconut shell with a slice of pineapple on top, which is very intimidating at first sight, but after the first bite slips past your lips, you are certain you’ll never taste anything better for the rest of your life.

I spend half of my meal moaning, which is all too amusing to Ben, who’s enjoying my reactions almost as much as he’s enjoying his own meal. The sun begins to set as we eat, so by the time we’ve reached dessert, the ceiling light is traded for candlelight, and the gentle ambiance of families talking is now seasoned with a backdrop of romantic music courtesy of a live band.

But I’m too pent up to enjoy it. I’m too distracted by the man sitting across from me, the beauty in the grey dress shirt, the one who keeps tunneling through me with his deep, hungry eyes.

“Can we take our dessert to go?” I ask calmly, betraying my excited, jumpy insides.

Ben grins, knowing my mind all too well. “Anything for you, Prince Trevor.”

When we return to the cabana, Benjamin and I settle on the cushy swinging bench on the patio overlooking our private beach. Between us, we share tiny forkfuls of triple chocolate fudge cake swathed in the sweetest raspberry ganache. A single hole lives in its fudgy heart where a candle was lit, blown out, and plucked free. Only a tiny strip of sky is bruised dark gold by the sun, which has passed beyond the horizon, pulling its dark blue blanket of stars along with it.

And here we are, eating my birthday cake a bite at a time. He takes one, then I follow. It’s like a game, his eyes stabbing me fiercely as he watches me delight in the dessert.

“You are a fine looking twenty-one-year-old,” he tells me.

I smirk. “It isn’t midnight yet.”

“Nice observation.” He takes another forkful, cocky as ever. “But you weren’t born at exactly midnight, now were you?”

“One in the morning. Close enough.”

“So I’m sharing a cake with the world’s sexiest twenty-year-old for roughly four more hours.”

Shifting my legs under me, I’m reminded anew that Ben is even responsible for the underwear I have on right now: a pair of ass-cupping black boxer-briefs that feel like nothing. The crotch is shaped perfectly to accommodate my cock and balls, like a pouch perfectly contoured to fit my cock, with stitching on either side that runs right up the crease of my inner thighs. It could not be more fitting to my body if it were painted on.

Feeling sexy and in charge, I take the now empty plate and set it on the table next to us, then throw my legs over Benjamin’s lap, cuddling on the swinging bench. Ben takes to me right away, adjusting to put an arm around my back while resting his other arm along my legs, gently stroking up and down my calf as we slowly swing, enjoying the sights and the gentle sea breeze.

“It feels like we could just sit here for hours doing nothing,” I murmur, leaning my head against his shoulder.

“Second that,” mumbles Ben, breathing across my hair.

“Life can be so unnecessarily stressful, worrying about what my roommate thinks of me, worrying about the others and their opinions, worrying about my mom and dad and whether my education was worth the money we’d saved up for years … I wish I could bottle up the perspective I have right now and take it back home with me somehow.”

“I know that feeling.”

“Shouldn’t life just be about … love? It’s the only thing that matters when you take away stupid arguments you had … and bad moods, frustration, stresses, expectations … and money. In the end, all that’s left when you sift through the dirt is love.”

“Love, the golden nuggets in life’s big gold pan.”

I chuckle. “Thanks for carrying that metaphor full-term. You could have left it alone, but I’ll take it.”

He kisses the top of my head. Something about the slowness in which he kisses me is telling. He takes his time planting those lips on my hair, like his mind is full of deep, swirly thoughts.

Why am I the only one who gets to see this side of Benjamin Gage? Why does the world only know the hard-ass who beats the public images of celebrities like hot metals against an anvil until they’re perfectly shaped, strong and unbreakable when they cool?

Well, to be fair, I also get a far less gentle side of Ben, too—the side that wants to devour me whole every time he looks my way and undresses me with his smoldering stare.

“Would it be so wrong to … call you my boyfriend?” I ask.

His lips freeze atop my head. I clench shut my eyes, feeling like maybe I shouldn’t have pressed the matter. I don’t know why I need it to be stated that I’m his and he’s mine somehow, like the term is my staked claim of ownership. Benjamin is not the corner piece of brownie I’m jabbing my “mine!” fork into at a party; he is a human with willpower and a right to his emotional freedom.

But dang it, so am I.

“I would be lying,” he finally murmurs back, “if I said that what I feel for you isn’t strong. It’s pretty strong, Trevor.”

Every time he says my name in that softer, more sensitive tone of his, my insides melt. Who knew that just uttering a name could be so damned sexy and intimate?

“We don’t really have to label it,” I blurt out, maybe to save him the sweat of tap dancing around an answer. “Whatever this is between us. I don’t know why I’m so caught up in the ‘boyfriend’ thing. Maybe I’m just trying to express my feelings to you, and the only way I know how is … to call you my boyfriend.”

He tightens his grip around my back, squeezing me against him. “Every time you say that word, you make me hard.”

I chuckle, noting the firmness swelling beneath my legs in his lap. “Is that right? … Boyfriend?”

“And you make something else inside me soft.” Ben pulls his head back to get a look into my eyes. The look in his is infinitely deep, almost unrecognizable. “You mean a lot to me, Trevor. I’ve had so many walls around me my whole life. Defensive walls. Reasons to keep guys away. To stay alone. Everyone in my life has always wanted something from me … but it’s never been my heart. It’s just been my clout. Or my wallet. Or my big dick.”

“To be fair,” I quickly add, “I am very interested in your dick, and if it weren’t for your wallet or clout, we wouldn’t be here.”

He chuckles and gives my calf a little smack. “You know what I mean, smart ass.”

“My smart ass is in a very tight pair of underwear right now, thanks to you.”

Ben stares down at me hungrily and growls at my words. “I look forward to getting you right out of those later.”

I feel a sudden surge of humility. “Thank you for them.”

He considers my face for a bit before reluctantly replying, “You’re welcome.”

“And thank you for being patient with me,” I go on. “I know you must go lightning speed with boys you meet at nightclubs. You have had so much more experience at this than I have. I don’t know if I’m going to measure up to what you’re likely used to.”

“Trevor …”

“I just want you to know that I know that. And I also realize this slow pace has to be … hard for you. All of this … waiting …”

“Stop.”

I meet his eyes. The look in them is hard and knowing.

“I don’t have any expectations of you,” he states to my silent, anxious face. “There isn’t any ‘waiting’ happening. Whatever this is between us, it’s already begun. Sex is just sex. It’ll come when you’re ready.”

“Pun intended?” I put in teasingly.

He doesn’t laugh; his eyes pour with sincerity as he speaks solidly into my own. “I’m enjoying myself, Trevor. I’m enjoying all of this. Relax.” That one word from his lips sounds as comforting as it does demanding, almost like an order. “Just enjoy the breeze, go with the flow, and let things happen.”

I melt into his eyes. “I know you meant all that,” I murmur to him openly, “and it really touches me, it does …”

“Yeah?”

“But your words also made me really, really hard.”

I kiss him right then before he can respond. Everything goes away—the waves crashing in the distance, the crisp and salty air, the motion of the swinging bench—and it’s just Benjamin and I.

And this kiss.

So many things happen with his kiss, all at once. Boyfriends? Yes, we are, without a doubt, boyfriends. Lovers? There is so much passion bursting between us that we’d be fools to deny it, and it’s safe to say that neither of us are fools.

Walls?

I can hear them crashing down, one kiss at a time.

Benjamin is my lover and my boyfriend. He is everything I secretly wanted, filling the years of loneliness so completely that I forget I was ever lonely at all.

Maybe I was never truly alone. Maybe I can see the future and knew all this time that Benjamin Gage would come along to save me. It was only a matter of time.

“I don’t want to wait,” I breathe against his lips while we kiss. “I’ve waited long enough. I want it now. I want you now.”

“Trevor …” he growls like a warning.

“I’m giving myself to you totally. Please,” I nearly beg, “please give me what I really want. Give me you, Benjamin.”

He pulls away from me for one hard second. His eyes darken, all his features tightening with desire. “I swear, you’re going to ruin me, Trevor Woodard.”

Maybe I had it backwards. Maybe I’m the one saving him.

Maybe I’m smashing down all his walls.

The next instant, he sweeps me up into his arms and carries me toward our private beach, sand and wind and night swirling around us.

37

Trevor is ready.

The next thing I know, he sets me down on a soft pile of multicolored blankets in the white sand.

“What’s this?” I ask, glancing all around me.

“Just a little something I had the staff set up for us while we were busy at dinner.”

Plush, brightly-colored pillows rest on the blankets, and the whole area glows from the light of four shallow bowls with rocks that are afire, like four bright braziers.

Ben sits next to me and reaches for an iced bucket I didn’t notice, pulling from it a bottle of champagne. His other hand picks up two champagne glasses, which clink as he sets them on the blanket between us. I hold one while he pops the cork, then pours us each a bubbly glass.

“A toast,” he says after setting down the bottle. I lift my glass, a smile stretched from ear to ear. He lifts his as well, eyeing me importantly. “To being able to legally drink in America. To having the hottest ass on this beach.”

I roll my eyes.

“To good company,” he adds in a more sincere tone, which draws my softening eyes to him. “To knowing the gold you have when it’s sitting right in front of you. To taking our time, and in doing so, appreciating every precious minute we have.”

“I didn’t take you for such a sap.”

“I’m not done.” He reaches around me as fast as a whip and swats my ass, squeezing a laugh out of me that echoes over the sand and into the late evening beyond. “To knowing what’s truly, genuinely valuable in this world … and that it has nothing to do with the numbers … whether that number is an age, or a number in your bank account—”

“Or the number of likes you get on a Facebook post,” I finish.

Ben scowls at me. “Will you take any of this seriously? Or do I have to throw your sexy bare ass over my knee, right here on this beach, and teach you a lesson?”

I’m about to say something really sassy back to him, but then I feel a surge of emotion bubble up inside me out of nowhere. Is it the time we spent here that sobers me? Is it the honest look in his eyes and the way I see him come apart when he gazes at me? Is it the fact that I realize the only reason I enjoyed a second of this weekend was because Ben has been by my side the whole time?

I could be pampered a billion times like I was this morning. I would trade it all for a single kiss from Benjamin Gage.

I lift my glass a touch higher, all the humor in my face gone, replaced with hopeful compassion and gratitude. “To good times, good people, and happiness.”

He gives me a gentle nod. “To good times, good people, and happiness,” he agrees, then taps my glass with his own.

We both drink.

I have felt like Prince Trevor all damned day, pampered until I’m putty, thanks to this man.

But now, I feel like a King.

The empty glasses touch the blanket, and then we are looking into one another’s eyes with the breeze blowing about us. Neither of us move, watching one another as the tiniest bit of light slowly seeps from the sky like a dark gold ink bleeding from a canvas. His eyes sparkle in the light of the four braziers encircling us.

I take my cue. Slowly, I lean into him for a kiss.

His hand grips my shoulder powerfully, stopping me.

I lift an eyebrow, confused. The subtlest of smiles teases the corner of his mouth, and then he gently pushes me back onto the blanket, laying me down. He straddles my waist, then slowly starts to unbutton his shirt—that sleek grey thing that grips his every rippling muscle. When the buttons are freed, he peels it off, and the wind takes it.

My heart pounds, watching his shirtless torso as it glows in the dancing light from the braziers. The last tendril of sunlight burning on the horizon behind him ignites his silhouette in a way that makes him look like a demigod. It’s almost like he reads my mind, knowing how utterly beautiful he looks right now, since he starts taking his sweet time to unbutton his pants.

Somewhere between the button and the zipper, I experience a very untimely jolt of fear.

Is it about to happen? Is it really about to happen?

I realize he’s stopped moving, studying me in my apparent panic. “Something wrong?” he asks, concerned.

“No, no,” I assure him too quickly. “I’m fine.”

There’s a plate containing a hill of strawberries at my side, bright red and plump, accompanied by a small bowl of dipping chocolate. I’m not sure why my eye catches sight of them. I think suddenly I’m nervous and swallowing in my environment.

The waves of the Caribbean Sea still crash beyond us.

The breeze gently blows, tossing the strands of Ben’s hair.

Am I nervous? Am I really, actually nervous? Maybe I should eat a strawberry. Maybe we both should, even though we just devoured a small cake together.

“You look beautiful,” he volunteers suddenly.

I’m yanked from my thoughts. “Th-Thank you.”

He considers me for a moment, then lowers onto the blanket next to me, abandoning the task of taking off his pants. My eyes drift to them, which he’s left unbuttoned and half-unzipped, as he lies on his side with his head propped up by a palm and his elbow digging into the blanket. He can’t possibly know how sexy he looks right now, shirtless with his pants halfway open giving me a peek of his shiny blue boxer-briefs.

“Why’d you stop?” I ask him, forcing myself to sound brave despite my racing heart. “I was enjoying the show.”

“Oh, there’s plenty more show where that came from.” Ben’s face glows when he smiles at me, his eyes twinkling in the flames that are quickly becoming our only source of light. “What’s the rush? We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want. You’re the birthday boy. You’re in charge.”

I feel all the moisture escaping my throat. Cotton fills my mouth as I try to form the right words. “It’s just … I mean … I want to do something. I want to do everything,” I amend with a nervous chuckle. “I’m really … really turned on by you. I think that much is obvious. Someone would have to be blind not to be.” I reconsider. “But even that’s not true. A blind man would hear your kindness and your character and your … your heart. And if that man were deaf as well, then he’d …” I meet Ben’s eyes, worried I’m rambling. He’s perfectly attentive, listening. “Then he’d feel your care.”

“He’d feel my care?”

“The way you touch me … the way you make me feel safe and present and heard.”

“Yeah?” He lifts his free hand to my hair, brushing the short, messy bangs off my forehead. “Like this?”

“Like that.”

Ben hooks a finger into the top of my shirt, somehow wiggling the first button free. My breathing deepens. Then the second button is freed, followed by the third, then the fourth, and then the last few.

He meets my eyes again. “Like … this?”

“Yes.”

He’s doing all of this one handed. It’s so sexy, how little effort he takes in pulling me right apart. It’s almost lazy, the way he now brings his hand to my sleeves, gently tugging them down my arms until I, like him, am freed from my shirt.

“Like that?” he continues. “Do you … feel my care?”

“I feel it.”

His eyes finally pull away from mine as they begin to explore my chest hungrily. He even licks his lips, but in the most natural, incidental way, like he doesn’t even notice he’s licked them. There isn’t a single bone of performance in him, or demonstrativeness, or fakeness. He isn’t acting or playing a role right now; he’s just Ben, a man with a need, like me, and his eyes are as curious as they are aware.

How can eyes as dark as his look so bright?

His hand comes up to my body. The moment his fingertips touch my skin, I close my eyes, overcome with sensitivity.

“Open them.”

My eyes flap open and reel onto his. “Sorry?”

“I want you to watch me watch you.”

I swallow hard. My heart beats so furiously right now. “I am.”

As he says the words, his hand slowly starts to slide up the side of my body. I’m about to close my eyes again, but then find myself desperate to obey him, keeping my hard gaze on him. His eyes are drinking in the sight of me as his hand softly explores.

The salty air dances over my skin. His fingertips cast waves of excitement through my body, goosebumps coming to life up and down my arms.

And I keep staring into his eyes, just like he ordered.

And he keeps running his hand along my skin, exploring me like he’s never touched another man before. Maybe in some way, this is his first time, too.

When his hand reaches my chest, his fingers play across my nipple gently. I groan and clench shut my eyes, terribly sensitive to his touch.

“Eyes, Trevor.”

I flick them open. “With what you’re doing to me …” I start to say, warning him.

“I don’t want you to miss a second of seeing what you do to me. You need to see the effect you have on other men. You need to see it firsthand and believe it when I say how beautiful you are.”

These words, coming from the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on, have officially melted the inner parts of me that no masseuse could dream to touch. I’m officially one hundred percent pudding in the hands of the man I’ve come to trust so deeply.

The realization hits me like a sudden gust of wind off the sea. I trust Benjamin Gage.

I’m about to trust him with the greatest thing a person can.

“I’m ready,” I tell him.

“Good. Be ready. I want you ready and wanting it so badly that you’re squirming.” Benjamin’s voice is cocky, yet sweet somehow. His confidence emboldens me, and his compassion warms me—which is a good thing, because despite the flames, the wind off the ocean is starting to kick up a mean chill.

Then his hand slides to my other nipple, which is already hard from the cool breeze.

I shudder under his touch, but keep my eyes trained on him.

“Squirming,” I groan.

“Not yet.” He sits up and brings his other hand to join the party on my skin. I breathe deeply, trusting him despite my urgent need for something relieving to happen. I have succeeded in filling my underwear to full capacity—or rather, he’s succeeded. I have a very strong desire to set my cock free.

He tore me apart once in his office, taking full charge of me. He stole me away into a bathroom stall. He owned me in his high-rise apartment, taking what he declared was his.

And now he’s treating me like a precious glass ornament.

Maybe I’m not so precious as he thinks.

“Ben.”

“Yes, Trevor?”

“I don’t want you to woo me. I don’t need the strawberries and chocolate and sweetness. I know who you really are.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” I bite my lip and stare into his eyes. “Take me, Ben.”

Instantly, he slips a hand around my back, yanks me against him, and brings his mouth to mine. I gasp once, a tiny breath, and then I’m hopeless to get another breath with his powerful kiss.

We topple over, wrestling one another, shirtless, pants and legs entangling as we roll over and over, making out madly.

My back hits the bowl of chocolate. I have no idea if any gets on me.

Then we roll over again, and suddenly I’m on top of him as he lands on the plate of strawberries, splatting a handful of them beneath his weight and appearing for a second like our making out has caused a fatal wound to his backside.

Yeah, I’ve busted a strawberry red hole through his dam of emotion. All I see in his wet eyes is feeling, watching as he devours me with every kiss and wrestles me with aggressive force.

Straddling him with his fatal wound of strawberries beneath his body, I look down into his eyes, his wet and needy eyes. There’s no more waiting left in me. I’m all out of patience.

“Ben, I need you inside me.”

His eyes flash with surprise. “Oh? Do you, now?”

“I want to know what it feels like. Please, Ben. Make me yours. It’s all I want.”

He lifts his eyebrows, appearing genuinely surprised as he appraises me. “Are you sure you can handle me?”

Ugh, the way he says that is so hot.

I’m nervous, I’m not going to lie. I have no idea if I’m going to fuck it all up and embarrass myself. But I’m excited, too.

I’m excited because I’m with Ben. “Yes,” I answer.

He holds my arms and slowly runs his big hands up and down their length, rubbing me soothingly. I bite my lip and stare down at him, tense as ever, unsure what to expect, jumpy in all the best and worst ways. I’m starting to shiver under the calm winds that chase each other around us.

Then Ben gives me a sudden pat and guides me off of him, gesturing toward the blankets. “Come. Lie down.”

I lie on my stomach. He pulls a plush crimson pillow from the assortment that lie around us and tucks it under my face. It feels like silk and heaven beneath me as I cuddle it.

His big warm hands start to gently massage me. I feel his fingers and palms covering so much of my back that I’m instantly warm again, grateful for his touch. The flames dance around us as he massages me with care.

Ben leans down and plants kisses on the back of my neck as he rubs me. I quiver, melting against the blanket. “Ben, that feels so … so … so good,” I moan.

“I know it’s probably nothing like what you got this morning by the professionals,” he teases, planting another kiss by the back of my ear, “but I try.”

“To be honest,” I murmur back, my voice deep, “I think your hands might even be better than theirs.” With every pressing of his thumbs into my back muscles, I feel more and more relaxed. His kissing is so tender, his lips soft. “Ben, you really have a—”

“Let’s get your pants off, babe.”

Babe?? The word—and the command—turn me on so fucking much that all the blood in my body rushes right to my cock. In the space of ten seconds, I feel myself grow to full mast, which is both alarming as well as incredibly exciting.

Without waiting for my response, he reaches under my waist to undo my buttons. I lift my hips up slightly, granting him access, and then soon he slips them down my legs. My shoes and socks come off along with them. I rest my hips back onto the blanket.

“Underwear, too.”

I blink and turn my head slightly around, though I can’t see him well, being on my stomach. “Underwear, too??” I half-protest.

“It’s a private beach. All ours. You trust me?”

My heart is racing so badly right now, I feel like my chest is casting earthquakes through the sand to the other side of the damned planet. My throbbing heart is going to cause a tsunami in Antarctica.

“Do you trust me?” he repeats, a touch softer.

“I trust you. Yes. Of course.”

“Then what’re you waiting for? Off they go.”

I lift my hips once again, and he softly hooks his fingers under the waistband of my underwear to pull them down. This time, however, Ben goes very, very slowly. He enjoys every second of the silky fabric as my underwear gently slips down my legs. He leans against me while he takes them off, kissing my back, kissing my side, then kissing the top of my butt cheeks as they reveal themselves to the night air. I suspect he’s getting quite a show of my bare butt greeting his eyes and lips. He already became pretty intimate with my ass once; I’m quivering down there thinking of him stimulating me once again the way he did in his office.

Then the underwear is gone. “How do you feel, babe?”

There’s that “babe” again. Fuck, it’s so sexy. “B-Breezy. You got me in my birthday suit.”

“Good. Spread your legs.”

Oh my god, the way he commands me. I slowly spread my legs. I feel him settle between them, then return his big warm hands to my cool backside, resuming where he left off in rubbing me down. I feel my whole body give in to his strength, gently relaxing underneath him, even completely naked and exposed as I am.

I have a feeling he’s really enjoying having me exposed to him while he’s still in a state of half-dress. This would be the second—or is it the third?—time that he’s put me in such a compromising position. I’m really starting to like being his toy he gets to play with whenever he wants.

This is something a boy like me could get used to.

His hands start to rub lower, reaching the middle of my back. I suppress a bit of squirming while underneath him, enjoying so much the warm, weighty feeling of him pressing into my back in rhythmic circles. He keeps kissing my back too as he rubs, his strong thumbs targeting just the right muscle areas, pushing and releasing, pushing and releasing, then gently letting the tips of his fingers explore. It’s as relaxing as it is invigorating.

And his kisses, so soft, but deliberate, like each kiss is a firm, wet declaration of how much he adores that very specific spot of my body. He must especially adore my ass cheeks, by the way.

Then his hands go lower yet. He’s reached the upper part of my ass and starts using his knuckles to dig into the muscles right above my glutes, deeply and with fervor.

His fingers stretch out, and before I know it, his palms are filled with the meat of my ass cheeks. As he massages them, his fingers start to gently graze between them, teasing the crack and barely daring over my hole.

Remarkably, I’m so relaxed I don’t even squirm. I welcome his touch. I’m desperate for it, even. I want him to keep grazing my hole with his fingers.

Suddenly and without warning, his face descends into my exposed ass, burying between my cheeks completely. His tongue drags over my hole, and I’m sent into a cyclone of pleasure.

I bite the pillow to stifle my moaning. Yeah, I’m officially a pillow-biter.

He doesn’t let up. The way he eats me out down there is twice as vigorous as it was in the office. I squirm with my legs spread, exposed as I endure the endless pleasure.

Or rather, not so endless. Ben lifts his face out of my ass, but replaces it at once with a hand. I’m only allowed a single second of wondering what he’s doing before something very cold and very wet touches my hole.

I clench up, surprised. “What’s—??”

“Just a little aid to make things more … slippery.”

“Is it lube?”

“Relax, babe. Let me take care of you.”

The lube warms up quickly as he massages it along my hole, and before long, I’m a puddle of happiness all over the colorful blankets again. “Babe …” I murmur dreamily, enjoying the slick sensation of his fingertips circling and teasing and gliding. “Where did this ‘babe’ stuff come from?”

“Just feels right,” he answers simply. “Babe. The word rolls right off my … tongue.”

His fingertip, almost accidentally, slips a tiny bit into my hole to the first knuckle.

I gasp. “Oh my God …”

“Relax,” he sings to me, his voice soothing and gentle. His other hand slowly rubs my butt as the slippery fingers of his other hand continue to tease and circle my hole. “Just a little bit at a time. I want you to feel everything.”

“Oh, I’m feeling everything,” I promise him, a declaration the whole world has to know.

“Good.” He continues.

And continues.

Oh my God.

His finger slips farther in. I groan, clinging to the blanket. The muscles of my hole tighten around his finger, which makes my cock throb to an unprecedented level of hardness. He is so gentle and patient, the way he slowly slips in and out of my hole, but never totally leaving it. He’s stretching me out, little by little, as his finger works me.

“You ready, babe?”

Oh my God. Already?? “I … I’m …”

“For another finger,” he finishes, then chuckles with a nearly mocking tone in his laughter. “You thought I was going to give you my big D already? No, no. You’re not ready for that yet.”

I bite my lip and suppress a groan as he gently slips in another finger. My cock flexes, throbbing almost painfully hard now. Chills rush up my body, and for a second, I wonder if I can’t take it.

Then, just as suddenly, I can. My body relaxes, accepting him. “I never … never …”

“What’s that?” he prompts me.

“I never thought it’d feel like this.”

“Like what?”

I can’t even describe it, so his question goes unanswered as I feel his fingers work me slowly. I clutch the pillow now and bury my face in it, quashing the embarrassing moan of ecstasy I let out.

He penetrates me a little deeper, then dares to start applying torque to his cruel, sensual maneuvers. It is becoming quite an ordeal not to squirm and writhe like I’m possessed, with the way he’s handling my body.

Can we discuss my poor cock for a moment? It’s becoming an increasing concern of mine that it might genuinely explode. With each finger Ben adds, my asshole grips him tighter, and my cock grows even harder. I am definitely leaking pre-cum all over the blanket beneath me. There’ll be a giant pool of it when I get up eventually, I’m quite certain.

“You’re so tight,” he groans.

“I want to see you,” I say at once, realizing it just as the words fall out of my mouth.

“Hmm. That can be arranged.”

His fingers slip out of me with surprising ease, which I wasn’t expecting, and then he guides me to flip over. On my back now, I gaze up at the staggeringly gorgeous sight that is Benjamin Gage, shirtless. Before returning to his task, he decides he needs to be free from those sexy pants of his. I get to watch with mounting excitement as his biceps bulge and flex with his efforts of opening his pants. His whole body is a goddamned dream, from his round sculpted pecs to the ripples of his abs, punctuated by his sexy bellybutton below. His tattoos decorate half his torso, giving him an unexpected edge when the clothes are stripped off and the businessman turns into the bad boy.

I can’t contain myself, lying here beneath him and drooling all over myself at the sight of him. I sit up and bring my face to his gorgeous body, ravishing it with kisses, admiring his perfect form.

My hands slide down his muscled backside and come to rest at the top of his ass. I’m reminded all over again what a pert, solid butt Benjamin is packing. It makes me want to cry that such a gorgeous work of art exists in this world.

Call me dramatic, but Benjamin’s ass really is that epic.

“Back down, babe,” he instructs me. “I’m not done with you.”

“Maybe I’m not done with you,” I counter, then take his nipple between my teeth and bite it, giving him a taste of the torment he’s given me.

He grunts, then groans, then lets out a sigh of delight. He looks down at me with a warning in his eyes.

I grin victoriously up at him, then let go of his nipple.

“Down, boy,” he commands.

I’m on my back in an instant, looking up at my beautiful man, who is now just in his underwear. He is hard—very hard, from the look of it.

With my legs spread, Ben sweeps a hand under each of my thighs, then lifts me, bringing his hips to my ass. I grind against him, desperate to know what he feels like inside me. He growls in response, likely eager for the same thing.

I’ve never been more ready for something in my life.

From the pants he just took off, he fetches something from the pocket. A condom. He tears it open almost gently, the wrapper flung to the side, and then he slips the condom into his underwear, rolling it onto his cock.

My eyes follow his every move. “Is your cock shy?” I tease.

“Not in the least,” he answers, pulling the waistband of his underwear down. His cock is unleashed like a beast. Every swollen inch of it is throbbing—and it’s throbbing for my ass.

I breathe deeply, my heart racing so fast.

He produces the lube again, except this time I watch as he lets some out onto his length, then strokes it really slow, his biceps swelling and dancing in the effort.

My mouth is hanging open. I’m literally drooling.

“It’s … It’s so … big,” I breathe, unsure if the observation is in fear or excitement.

Ben almost laughs at that, his smile spreading and showing teeth. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle. I’m going to treat you right.”

His tip touches my hole.

My eyes flash, overwhelmed at once.

Benjamin’s cock is so thick, but it’s slippery. My hole is just as slick and inviting, the marriage of the two feeling so perfect and wet and primed—and he hasn’t even entered me yet.

He leans forward, putting one hand in the blanket to brace himself and bringing the other to my face, caressing my flushing cheek. “I’ll go slow.”

“At first,” I grunt back.

His tip slips inside almost accidentally.

I gasp at the sensation of being invaded. It scares me for only a split second before my body adjusts. I’m ever thankful that his fingers did a lot of the work of relaxing my muscles down there. It almost seems easy at first, letting him in.

And then he presses a bit more.

Pressure builds up down there. I clench shut my eyes.

“Slowly,” he murmurs into my ear, watching every single emotion crackle and flick and brush across my face like changing weather patterns. “The moment you tell me to stop, I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I beg him, still curious, still wanting it. “Please don’t stop.”

He grins, then pushes some more.

Something gives, something that makes my jaw drop and my insides shiver with desire. I have no idea how much of him just slipped inside me, but it feels like his whole length.

“How much is in?” I ask between jagged breaths.

“Just an inch or so past the tip,” he answers.

I gawk at him. Just an inch??

“More,” I beg him, reaching to grip his backside to encourage him farther in. “More, more.”

“Slow, babe. Slow. I’m not going to hurt you, even if you want me to.”

Gently, he starts to pump me—the inch sliding out, sliding in. When he pushes back inside me, he goes slightly deeper, then out. Back in even deeper, then out. He forms a rhythm that my body quickly adapts to, rocking with him.

It’s like a dance that’s so natural, I didn’t need lessons. Our own bodies choreograph every careful movement, gliding and shifting and swaying in perfect unison. Even our groans align.

He pushes even deeper with each thrust, and soon I start to feel mounting pressure inside me, pressure that I have never felt before. Is he hitting my prostate? Is that what this feels like?

Would I even know?

“Ben, how deep?” I ask, out of breath, my eyes half closed.

“Almost all the way, babe. You’re taking it like a champ.”

“Prince Trevor, the Champion,” I recite, to which Ben grins down at me, appreciative.

And then he drives into me full-on, hitting a spot.

My cock, already hard, flexes involuntarily like a peg made of steel.

That’s my prostate, I realize at once. And yes, I knew.

“Oh my God,” I groan.

“Feel good?”

“Keep doing that,” I beg him. “Oh my God. Do it again.”

“Do what? Did I tap your boy button?”

“You and your euphe—OH MY GOD—euphemisms,” I finish. Yes, he hit it again in the middle of my sentence.

“I can’t do it to you too much just yet,” he tells me, his voice as hard as our dicks. “You’ll come before I want you to come.”

“Oh? Is it up to you?”

“Considering my position and yours … yes.” He’s cocky when he addresses me, confidently handling my body and taking charge of every pleasure I’m allowed or denied. “It’s very much up to me when you get to come.”

“Please, Ben. Fuck …”

“Maybe I’ll make you wait until your birthday.” He stares down at my gawping face as he continues to penetrate me, thrust by thrust, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Maybe I’ll just fuck you for a solid two hours, keeping you on the edge of insanity the whole time until you’re finally twenty-one and deserve to come.”

“I deserve it now,” I hiss at him, my voice embarrassingly desperate and begging. “I’ve had such a hard day. All the meals and pampering … such a hard day. God, please …”

He picks up pace, pumping me faster and harder—and with each thrust, seemingly deeper.

The pressure is so much, and yet my whole body is racked with insurmountable pleasure. I have never felt so many nerve endings firing in my body all at once. I don’t know what to pay attention to, so overcome with feeling.

Then I know exactly what to pay attention to: I reach for my swollen cock. The second I touch it, I’m shocked by how sensitive it’s become, as if a single stroke could fling me over the edge.

Ben grabs my hand and swats it away. “Denied.”

I whimper at him. “Ben. Fuck. I need to jerk off.”

“You need a promotion.”

I groan when he pumps me even deeper. I think I hear his balls slapping my ass with every thrust. “P-Promotion??”

“From intern to birthday bitch,” he taunts me, his rhythm perfect, relentless, and uninterrupted. He’s like a goddamned machine that never tires. All his muscles flex and bulge and work as he keeps thrusting into me deeply. “How’s that sound?”

“Degrading.”

“So it’s perfect, then?”

“Fucking perfect. I’m your birthday bitch. Oh my God, I’m so your birthday bitch.”

He starts drilling me so hard that my hips lift up from the blanket while he pummels his dick in me, deeper, deeper, deeper.

I’m seeing stars. They frame Ben’s face as he gives me his all, his eyes still locked on mine.

Fuck, he is so strong and determined.

The world spins around me as I breathe brokenly and grind myself against him. My fingers dig into his meaty body, pulling him against me more and more with every shove.

He hits the spot again. And then again.

And then again.

Over and over.

I can’t take it anymore.

“I’m coming,” I groan, the waves of orgasm rushing into my cock too fast for a warning.

And then I’m howling my release, coming all over my body in stream after sticky, warm, white stream. I’m coming forever. I come so much, I fill the Caribbean Sea twice over.

Ben isn’t far behind. After a few more thrusts, he groans over my face, his eyes never pulling from mine as he empties himself inside of me. His stare becomes so intense as he watches me while he comes, spilling and spilling … then spilling some more.

The pair of us collapse on the blankets, spent. The stars look down on us as our bodies enjoy glorious, happy aftershocks. Our breaths overpower even the crashing waves from the sea.

Minutes go by. I am completely at peace. Nothing can touch me, not even a thought.

Then Ben turns his head toward mine, happiness painted over his sex-drunk eyes. He holds a fat chocolate-dipped strawberry pinched between two fingers, dangling it. A drop lands on my chest. The next lands on my chin. And then I bite the plump red fruit with a little giggle when he brings it to my lips.

When I turn my face toward him, I find him smiling. He puts a kiss on my lips, pulls back, and whispers, “Happy birthday,” into the gentle wind.

38

Benjamin is a man who satisfies.

When we flew to Mexico, we sat in separate seats. On the way back home, we’re occupying one seat—Trevor in my lap, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, and our lips inseparable.

We went from business partners going on a trip to lovebird teenagers who hooked up at the school dance.

Or at least that’s what it feels like. Trevor can’t stop smiling and laughing and recounting all the things we did, including our fun, kick-back time at the resort pool earlier today. I left Sunday completely open for us to do whatever we wanted without a thing planned. I also knew today was his actual birthday, so I made sure to have breakfast brought and served to our cabana. Of course it included a stack of chocolate chip glazed pancakes with a candle piercing them like a spear. “My cake was last night!” he protested when he saw the decadent arrangement. I smirked his way and said, “Expect a lot more candles where that came from.”

And I didn’t relent. When he wanted to try some “gourmet hamburgers”, I had the server stick a candle in that, too. Then, completely without my prior setting it up, a mariachi band came up to our table and sang their rendition of “Happy Birthday” to a blushing, lip-biting Trevor.

When it came time to pack, one slippery pair of underwear led to another, and we ended up christening the bed one last time before leaving the room. Yes, it ended stickily. Yes, it involved two condoms, lots of lube, a particular holler of ecstasy that I’m quite sure all four neighboring cabanas could hear, and a sleepy smile of delight from my boy afterwards.

I always want to be the reason for his sleepy smiles of delight. I only ever want to make that boy smile.

“Are we about to land?” Trevor asks, peering out the window to our side.

I rub his thigh, smiling up at him. “Should be pretty soon.”

He glances back at me, his eyes full of life. “I didn’t want this weekend to end. I could stay there forever.”

I put a kiss on him. “Me too.”

“But … only with you,” he amends, his gaze turning serious. “You made it all worthwhile. I can’t imagine having spent this whole weekend with anyone else.”

I give his head a rub. “You made me dance,” I groan.

He laughs at once. “That was one of the best parts! I was even drunk and totally remember that.”

“Drunk? Pfft. You were tipsy at best. Lightly buzzed, maybe.”

“Thank you, Benjamin, for this amazing weekend.”

I smile at him. If only he knew how worthwhile he made this weekend getaway for me. “You think this weekend was all about you and your birthday?” I snort and shake my head. “I just wanted a cute guy by my side to have fun with. And if he’s lucky, he had a little bit of fun, too. Did you have fun?”

“Yep.”

“Success.” We kiss again. Really, we are this sickening right now. Feel free to avert your eyes if this sort of mushiness makes your eyes roll so hard, you have to chase them across the room. “But if I’m being totally honest …”

“Yes,” Trevor encourages me. “Be totally honest.”

I meet his eyes significantly. “You’re far, far more than just a cute guy to me.”

Trevor squints at me. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Alright. Prove it.”

I swat his ass, which is easy to do with him in my lap. He lets out a grunt, then glares at me challengingly. “That all you got?”

Now I grin, egged on. I lift Trevor like he’s a sack of bread, flip him over amidst him laughing and protesting, throw him over my knee, then spank his ass firmly. Through the material of the sexy khaki shorts he’s wearing, his cheeks fill my palm perfectly with each playful-yet-firm swat I give them.

It’s the best damned spanking I’ve ever given. I have so much fun with Trevor, I have half a mind to close the whole damned office for the week and give everyone time off, just to turn this jet right back around and stay in paradise a while longer.

“Learned your lesson yet?” I ask.

He bites his lip and looks back at me, then shakes his head, blushing as red as the strawberries we ate after making love last night on the white sands of Cancún.

“Very well,” I grunt, then begin another round of spanking.

Don’t worry; I’ll kiss his ass all nice and better when we land, and there won’t be a pair of khaki shorts in the way.

After the plane lands, it’s well after ten o’clock. The sun is down and Monday’s return to the office hangs on both our minds. Trevor insists on being dropped off at my place so he can take a cab home, too afraid that Elijah might spot us together. He gives me a deep, fulfilling kiss in the car outside my building as we wait on his cab. When it appears, Trevor trades one car for another and is gone in seconds. My heart longs for him, feeling lonely in an instant after he goes.

Already, I’m so attached to Trevor. It almost scares me, how deeply my feelings have grown in such a short time.

Of course Lance tackles me when I enter my condo. I pay the pet sitter handsomely, including quite a hefty tip, and then it’s just me and my dog … and the cool air of my silent, empty home.

Without Trevor, it’s infinitely heavy. And even with Lance on the foot of my bed an hour later when I lie down to sleep, I still feel the vacuum of having no one to wrap my arms around. It makes me ache, not having Trevor with me.

Until my phone buzzes with a text from him. I smile in the dark, my face lit up with the glowing from the phone screen, then type my reply. So much for getting any sleep tonight.

When the morning comes, however, I wish I had gotten some. There’s yet another text awaiting me on my phone, but this one is not from Trevor.

REBEKAH

Benjamin. You’re all over the news.

I sent you a link. Call me ASAP.

With my stomach sinking through the bed, I flip over to my email and find Rebekah’s at the top, sent seven times in a row. I open it to find an article with an image right at the top—a dark and blurry snapshot of two men cuddled on the beach.

It’s me and Trevor, with a tiny censor box over my ass crack.

39

Trevor is right back to reality.

“Elijah,” I try for the twentieth time through the door.

He isn’t talking to me. I still don’t know why. Maybe he got all lonely this weekend without me. Maybe his loving, adoring cat-monster Salamander chewed up the power cord to his Xbox.

“I got some new shiny shoes,” I announce, leaning against the door and picking at my fingers. I’m already ready to go; I’m just waiting on Elijah in the bathroom before we head off to the office together. “And … some other clothes, too. Birthday presents from my parents.”

I’ve become so skilled at lying. The gifts of clothing Benjamin got me have just become gifts from my parents with a few words.

Not that my parents would have bought me two pairs of sexy underwear and the skimpiest red trunks I’ve ever seen.

And worn.

“Elijah. What happened? Is it Ashlee?” I finally ask, figuring that if I don’t probe, I won’t get anything from him. The last time he acted like this back on campus, it was because a girl in his Poli-Sci class he was interested in turned out to have a boyfriend, and all the “flirting” Elijah thought was happening was, perhaps, not flirting at all. “Is Ashlee dating Brady now or something?”

The bathroom door flies open so fast, I would’ve fallen clean to the ground if I didn’t have such fast reflexes.

I stare at Elijah’s furious, scowling face. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” echoes Elijah darkly. “You have some balls, Trevor. I’ll give you that. You have some seriously nervy balls.”

Maybe I struck a nerve and took a step too far. “Sorry for suggesting it’s Ashlee. I’m just fishing. Last night, you were sleeping when I got back. Or maybe pretending to be, since your door was open and the TV was left on. This morning, you walked right past me when I was eating breakfast—we’re low on Lucky Charms, by the way—and then barricaded yourself in this bathroom. Not one word to me.”

“What one word would you like to hear?” asks Elijah. “Liar? That’s one word. Friend? That’s another.”

The first traces of genuine worry start to snake their way through me.

“How about ‘parents’? Or ‘birthday’? Or ‘You weren’t at your house all weekend, so where the fuck were you?’”

“That’s more than one word.”

“I KNOW! IT’S THIRTEEN!”

Okay, maybe now’s a bad time for humor diversion. Besides, he’s obviously on to me. “Listen, I didn’t want to—”

“No, no. You listen.” Elijah gets in my face so close, all I smell is his minty toothpaste. Spearmint, by the way. “I called up your mom because I wanted your opinion on … something. When she then explained that you weren’t visiting home for the weekend, but in fact were supposed to be having a party with your friends here—which I suspect was supposed to include me—I had to play the quickest game of cover-up I’ve ever played. I told her yeah, of course we were together, of course we were partying, and that she misheard me: I wanted her opinion, not yours. So there I am on the phone, spilling my heart out to your mom and getting the best damned advice I possibly could regarding me and Ashlee. No, I didn’t blow your cover to your family. I covered for your ass.”

“So this is about Ashlee!”

Elijah doesn’t appreciate my interjections one bit. “Now I’m just left with one burning question. What the fuck were you doing this weekend?”

I sigh. “Elijah, I know I lied to you. I know you’re pissed. And I know you’re using my toothpaste.”

“Mine ran out Friday, and yours is fucking tasty.”

“Thank you.”

“Now spill the truth, Trevor.” His voice softens. “Please. I’m so tired of being lied to. I’m supposed to be your best friend.”

I sigh. “You are my best friend.”

“So tell me where you were.”

I stare at him hard, which isn’t a difficult task considering he’s so close to my face that I can see up his nostrils. I consider him for much too long, so long that I start to wonder if I’m making us late for work.

The trouble is, while I trust Elijah wholeheartedly, I’m not sure if this particular truth is too big for him to handle. How much can our friendship truly withstand?

“Elijah, if I tell you …” I start to say, clench shut my eyes, then quietly resume, as if I’m worried that the other interns are hiding in our walls. “If I tell you, you have to promise me you won’t blow up, and that you won’t tell anyone else.”

“Whatever it is, the secret’s safe with me and you damned well know that. Whether or not I blow up, I reserve that right,” Elijah fires back, hardness in his words. “Now spill.”

I take a deep breath. I can’t believe I’m about to say this.

“I’m ready,” states Elijah impatiently, pressing me.

I lick my lips, then let it all out. “I’m involved with someone in the office. We went away for the weekend.”

Ugh.

Okay, so I let some of it out. Maybe this makes me a total wimp or a coward, but what Elijah doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?

When I see the look of hurt enter Elijah’s eyes—genuine hurt, the kind that no humor can touch—I feel a deep and irreparable stab of guilt.

“Who?” he asks, one little word.

Fuck. I can’t possibly bring myself to say Benjamin’s name. I simply can’t. If Elijah knew the whole truth, it would destroy our friendship.

That’s what this is, right? A friendship? A friendship where I lie to him and keep vital truths from him, not trusting that he’ll be by my side? I’m so messed up suddenly.

I owe him a name. I owe him a name and nothing’s coming. I’m frozen up, my throat tightened so much that I can’t even draw a breath for who-knows-how-long. Just give him a name, any name that isn’t the real one.

Elijah shakes his head and backs away from me, giving up. “We’re going to be late,” he mutters, disappointment in his eyes, then turns to head for the door.

He’s let me off the hook. For now.

The whole way to the office, I feel my brain working at full speed. What hurts me the most isn’t the look of betrayal in Elijah’s eyes, or the way he confronted me, or the genuine fear that sits in my chest that I may have permanently damaged our friendship.

It’s the fact that I’m still trying to construct a lie.

Who’s name do I offer up to Elijah? Brandon? Isaac? Caleb? I’ve already denied having anything to do with a number of them each time Elijah fishes for the mystery bathroom bump-boy.

I could offer him Brady, who would be first to deny anything’s happened between us, since he’s straight and all. But even I can’t stomach the amount of yuck in that lie.

Not that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to be associated with that delicious straight boy and his perfect hair.

Shut up, Trevor.

When we step into the office, there is an immediate and quite alarming difference in the atmosphere. The computer wizzes rush around with worry in their eyes and files hugged to their chests. Stressed, tight-throated words are called out over the walls of cubicles. The intern table is completely empty, the interns spread out everywhere in the office.

Elijah and I share a look of concern, momentarily forgetting we were upset with each other at all.

Ashlee is the first one either of us see, standing over the copy machine. Together, we hurry up to her side. “Is something going on?” I ask first. “Something juicy with a client?”

Ashlee meets my eyes with her pretty, bright green ones, and there’s excitement in them. “Really?” she questions, her eyes going between either of us. “You don’t know?”

“Obviously not,” I retort, perhaps a little more snippily than I intend. “What is it?”

A tiny chuckle escapes her lips, then she covers her mouth quickly. “I really shouldn’t laugh,” she mumbles through her fingers, then leans into us to add, “It’s our boss. A photo of him is going viral. A compromising photo.”

All the blood escapes my brain. I’m rendered numb as a crash test dummy, staring blankly at her eyes.

“So, yes,” she finishes. “It’s something very juicy. And now, we are being tasked with the very important job of minimizing it.”

Elijah finally speaks. “What exactly is this photo of? Did some pervert get a camera into our boss’s bathroom or something?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Ashlee looks past our shoulders, then behind her own, and finally comes kissably close to us, excitement bursting in her bright green eyes. “The boss has a little boy toy on the side, a boy toy he must’ve taken to Mexico this weekend. The two of them were photographed on the beach, naked … and doing the nasty.”

I fall back against a table, desperately thankful for it being there to catch me, as I feel my insides hollow out with terror.

Someone photographed us. In my most intimate moment.

There might be video out there in addition to the photo. Some pervert—some total mysterious pervert—has documented the night that Benjamin Gage took my virginity.

And it’s all over the internet.

All over the office.

I feel so fucking violated.

Wait. Ashlee’s telling this to us—to me—without showing any sign of judgment on her face. If I’m in the photo, then …

“Who is this boy toy?” I ask innocently, lifting my eyes back to hers and interrupting whatever it is she’s saying to Elijah.

She shrugs. “No idea. The boy’s face is covered and indistinct. Benjamin Gage’s, however …” She quirks an eyebrow and stifles a little laugh, then quickly adds, “Really, I need to be mature about this. This is a big deal. I think. Or at least an embarrassing one. Whatever. It’s going to keep us busy all day, that’s for sure.”

A look of deep, pensive thought crosses Elijah’s face as Ashlee continues to talk to him like an excited schoolgirl who just got hit with the week’s hottest gossip, spilling every tasty detail. But I watch my friend’s face carefully, and it is not lost on me that Elijah is trying to put two and two together.

And I desperately, desperately don’t want him to.

That chance, however, is completely robbed from me when all of us are called for a meeting by Rebekah. She explains a good deal about sensitivity, discretion, and professionalism before allowing us to view the several articles that have surfaced with the photo in question.

The photo of Benjamin caressing me on the blankets, barely lit by the flames of the braziers. My face is turned away. Benjamin is in full view, twisted so that his gorgeous ass is on display, but covered up with a hilariously tiny censor box.

But there’s nothing hilarious about the way Elijah’s eyes flash when he sees the image—Elijah, who can recognize me from my ankles, who can recognize me from a misplaced strand of hair, who is certainly recognizing me from that blurry, horrible photo.

And when he slowly turns to meet my gaze, there is a whole new level of questions and betrayal in his eyes. I am certain that if my morning’s half-truth wasn’t enough to completely end our friendship, this is.

40

Benjamin’s ass is on the line.

And also online.

“I am sorry, Benji Boy. It cannot be done.”

I stare at Jazz’s face—or rather, the completely veiled shadow with just two mysterious eyes showing—as she speaks to me through the screen of my protected tablet.

“Are you sure?” I ask her. “I mean, you’re basically capable of everything.”

“I am only a human. Not a god.”

“But you’re a god of computers. You’re a computer whisperer. You have to think of a way to whisper into the network, find out who released the photo, track it or something, hijack their system and see if there’s any more photos … maybe videos …”

“I am sorry. I said I am sorry, hundred times,” she drones in her German dialect. “If it takes me saying it one hundred and one times, I shall, but I cannot. Ugh, why are you being so … nervig?”

I cover my face with my hands, giving it a wholehearted rub. I’m out of options. There is no way I can possibly minimize what is happening.

“Even if we somehow were to find the source of the content,” she goes on tiredly, “there is no … guarantee … that their content is simply sitting on a computer somewhere waiting for me to hack into it. It is likely on a separate camera. Multiple cameras, even.”

“Fuck.”

“There is just no easy way, Benji Boy.”

Rubbing my eyes, I realize the one and only thing I have anything to be thankful for is that this is happening solely to me and not to Trevor. No one can possibly identify him from the quality of that picture. Plus, his face is mercifully turned away.

My only fear, which I’ve expressed to Jazz, is that there may be more pics where this one came from, and if so, one of those other pics could show us in drastically more detail—up to and including Trevor’s face.

And that’s one pretty face I don’t want blasted across every blog headline from here to Google.

“I just don’t understand it,” I continue, picking up with all the whining I did when I first contacted Jazz about this whole thing. “Why just this one blurry pic on the beach? Was it a total fluke? Some dumb kid with a camera capturing something hilarious he was seeing? And then someone got that camera from him, saw who I was, and sold the pic? Or was someone tracking me while I was in Mexico? And if so …” I sigh, my stomach somersaulting all over by it again. “If so, they would have seen us holding hands all over the resort. They would have seen us at dinner. More than once. They would have seen us kissing by the pool …”

“Is this the pretty boy you have been sending the sexties to?”

I drop my hands and squint at Jazz’s eyes. “What? Sexties?”

“From your phone to his. The sex texts. Is that what you call them? The sexties?”

I roll my eyes. “They’re called sexts. And are you meaning to tell me you’ve hacked into my phone?”

“Never mind it. It is for your own protection. I installed guard software, just like the kind the boy-dummy had on his phone. The one whose chocolate syrup videos I could not delete. You are safe now from hackers.”

“Hackers other than you?”

Her eyes go stern as needles. “I am not a hacker. You seem to have strong feelings for this pretty boy.”

I fight a flush chasing its way up my cheeks. “Of course I do. I don’t just take anyone to Mexico for the weekend.”

“One day, I will visit America. Then I will be a ‘not-anyone’ you can take to Mexico, too.”

I chuckle, then fall back into my couch with a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know if I can go into the office today. How can I face my employees when they’ve all seen my ass?”

“Unless your ass has a permanent black box covering Grand Canyon, they have not seen your ass.”

I snort and stare at her. “Grand Canyon? You think my butt crack looks like the Grand Canyon?”

“And you are the Benjamin Gage, my friend. Your employees expect the unexpected from you. They will take care of you.”

I tilt my head. “Aww. You used the ‘friend’ word again. Is it too soon to invite you over for tea and chitchat about our dogs?”

“Chitchat. You Americans and your strange words.” After a second, her eyes soften and she looks away momentarily. When she returns her gaze to mine, her voice is also gentler. “As for your pretty boy, he makes you happy, and it has been a long time you haven’t been happy. I see it in your eyes, Benji Boy.”

“You see nothing in my eyes,” I fire back defiantly.

“I also see fear. Yes, maybe fear most of all.” She tsk-tsk-tsks at me. “That means you care for this pretty boy. He is special, this ‘T’ in your phone.”

My face reddens even worse. I know I can trust Jazz with any secret I can fathom. Still, I’m not quite ready for anyone in the world to know about him.

I feel instantly protective, just like when I first saw the image in the article. My first reaction wasn’t thinking about who’s going to see my splendid spread of cheeks; it was whether anyone would recognize Trevor and if he was in any danger. That much, I would not be able to stomach.

And then I realize, with a start, that Jazz is my only friend. Other than Trevor himself, there is no one on this whole planet I could possibly confide the complete truth to.

“His name’s Trevor,” I hear myself volunteer.

“Trevor Woodard. I know. He is quite a cutie,” she murmurs thoughtfully, “even if he is only twenty-one since yesterday.”

I gape at her. “Is there anything you don’t know, Miss Hacks-Into-Anything-And-Knows-Everything-Already??”

Jazz looks me very seriously in the eye through the screen. “I do not know what this thing called love is. It puzzles me, the crazy fucked-up shit you boys do for it.”

“Someday, you’ll find someone for yourself,” I promise her.

She rolls her eyes at first, then a flicker of hope passes over her face—or at least her eyes, the only part of her face that isn’t completely shrouded in shadow. “I will monitor the activities of the blogs and restrict what I can. Please do your part, my friend, in not putting your Schwanz into any more pretty boys on beaches.”

After a wink, Jazz vanishes from the screen, the connection terminated. I close my tablet and slip it back into its bag, then sink deeper into the couch, lost in a whirlwind of worries and thoughts that have only been half alleviated by Jazz and her wizardry.

The worst part is that Trevor is among the chaos in the office and is being forced to help minimize and cover up something that no one will know he’s directly involved in. I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now, and I hate that I am—even indirectly—responsible for any suffering he’s enduring.

He is the innocent party in this, and I have a duty to protect him. I don’t want anyone to hurt Trevor—least of all me.

Really, who the hell cares who I diddle on a beach in Mexico, anyway? Apparently everyone does. The big almighty celebrity-whisperer Benjamin Gage is caught with his pants off and his ding-dong up a young guy’s tooter. If you’re curious how many squats he does a week, just check out this photo showcasing the uncensored side of his ass.

I can’t just hide here at home like a turtle in his safe, hard shell. I need to be in the office working alongside my employees, leading them by example.

Hopefully that doesn’t end up with an orgy of interns on a beach.

“Be good, Lance,” I tell my dog an hour later, giving him a rub behind his ears as he looks up at me tiredly, before grabbing my briefcase and heading out, determined.

41

Trevor is sorta crapping himself.

I guess I’ve felt this amount of loneliness before.

It feels like back in high school gym class when we played Dodgeball and I would stand in the back picking at my fingers pondering the day’s choice of cafeteria lunch and whether the chili con carne really was made of mystery meat.

Here I am in front of a computer staring at the photograph.

And the mystery meat in it.

“Who do you think it is?” asks Ashlee, appearing at my side.

I jump, not having heard her approaching. I have, needless to say, been jumpy all morning. “I’m … not sure.”

“I think it’s a ten-dollar-an-hour Mexican prostitute,” Ashlee decides. “And that is one very, very lucky prostitute. I’m picturing a sort of Pretty Woman scenario where they fall in love, he leaves the money, the prostitute doesn’t take it, comes to America and tries to update his wardrobe … ‘Big mistake. Huge.’ I could picture it.” She giggles after that, then stares off, picturing it.

I find my skin turning to ice at once. “That’s our boss you’re talking out.”

Ashlee turns back to me, her eyes glazed over. “Oh. I … I didn’t mean to—”

“And we need to handle this situation very seriously,” I go on, apparently deciding to take the righteous high road, like I have any right to be on it. “For Mr. Gage’s sake, and the company’s.”

Ashlee gives me one sad nod, then glances back at the screen, her eyes all over the picture. “You’re right,” she finally concedes. “I shouldn’t perpetuate all the stupid jokes everyone’s making in the office. We’re above that, you and I. We can see the seriousness in situations like this.”

I feel bad instantly. “I’m sorry for snapping, Ashlee. I just—”

“No, no. You didn’t snap.” She gives me a wink and nudges me. “You’re not like the others, Trevor. I can see why Elijah thinks so highly of you.”

Dear God, is today Make Trevor Feel Like A Guilty Piece Of Shit Day?

“Speaking of whom,” she goes on, leaning in closer to me and bringing down her voice, “is Elijah okay? He’s been really off all morning.”

“He’s just got some … personal things … he’s dealing with.”

“Hmm. Okay. I can handle that.” She smiles at me. “Do you think he’s into me? Like, even just a little bit?” Before I can even respond, she sputters on. “I mean, like, I’m not trying to be that girl, the one who zeroes in on the office cutie and starts blushing, acting flustered, and stops wearing any underwear. I’m wearing underwear, by the way,” she adds in a whisper.

“Office cutie?” I lift an eyebrow at her. “Of all the guys here, you think Elijah’s the office cutie?”

“Oh, by far. He’s real. And he’s sweet … funny … charming in a totally dorky way.” Quite suddenly, she’s blushing and flustered. “Anyway. Please don’t tell him I said all of this. He’s also a totally cocky bastard. Hey, maybe we should all go out for drinks at the end of the week. Elijah’s birthday is in a couple days, right?”

I drum my fingers along the edge of the desk, then face her. “Maybe just the two of you should go.”

Her eyes flash. “J-Just the two of us? … What do you mean? Why? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying maybe he likes you, too.”

Ashlee squints suspiciously at me, then prepares to respond, but is quickly interrupted by another intern rushing up to her to ask a question, and then the two of them are off. Ashlee looks over her shoulder to throw me a smile, then disappears around the corner. I return my attention to the image in front of me and the article whose comment section I’ve been tasked to babysit.

There is nothing more meta than helping minimize a scandal you’re right in the middle of among a team of people who don’t realize they’ve been staring at your naked ass all day.

The picture could not be more focused on Benjamin if my whole body was blotted out by a Photoshop eraser. The lighting from the fire is pretty bad, making shadows look like shapes, and licks of white and red look like faces that aren’t really there. I’m a skinny blur of fleshy vagueness with my head turned away, and Benjamin is completely in view, covering me like a protective animal. It’s almost telling, the way he’s shielding me from the cold air I remember so vividly from that beautiful night.

All that beauty is wiped away in an instant when twice more I pass Elijah in the office, and twice more he ignores me. Did Elijah really recognize me from the pic, or was that glare he gave me just about his ire from before? I’d like to say I’m flattered he can point me out so well in a crowd. I mean, it isn’t often one can say they have a best friend capable of recognizing them by their elbows.

But that “best friend” of mine doesn’t seem much invested in being my best friend at all today. He’s more invested in staples and whatever’s on that computer screen across the room.

My lunch break is cut in half by an urgent summoning of all the employees in the office to the floor. I’m standing in the back of the crowd when Rebekah and the three department heads—Julian, Samantha, and Quentin—address the room.

“Our favorite pop star client Hawk—the Jersey boy—will be coming through town tomorrow,” announces Julian loftily, “and plans to drop by the office. He is scheduled to meet with Mr. Gage at four in the afternoon.”

“That being said,” picks up Samantha, her voice unexpectedly deep and grainy, “Mr. Gage will expect that we are all on our best behavior and appearance tomorrow.”

Quentin nods at her and faces the room. “This is a really big deal, especially considering our situation involving Mr. Gage’s trip to Mexico. We must look on top of it, unworried, and diligent.”

“I’m going to be assigning some of you interns on cleaning duty, since we need this office to look sharp,” finishes Rebekah. “As he is meeting with some important people today, Mr. Gage will not be coming in—”

“Mr. Gage will be coming in,” interrupts a voice.

The room shifts, all the bodies turning to the man who cuts through the crowd—Benjamin himself. His face is flushed slightly, looking as if he just ran the whole distance here, but he offers an apologetic smile to the room as he stands in the middle of the semicircle of employees and faces us.

My heart melts just seeing him. I didn’t realize until now how badly I’ve needed to lay my eyes on my beautiful man.

My beautiful man.

“I have a few things to say,” Benjamin starts out, lifting his eyebrows and appearing dashing as ever in his fitted blue blazer, sexy slacks, and shiny shoes. “Firstly, I’m sorry for the tizzy that my apparent extracurricular activities have caused. Rebekah has been keeping me informed, and you are all doing an incredible job doing exactly what we’re paid to do for all our clients: minimizing, spinning, and rewriting the narrative. You are superstars, all of you, and thanks to your work, this unfortunate bad angle shot of my ass will be buried by tomorrow.”

A tittering, favorable laugh ripples softly through the room.

I may be the only one whose funny bone isn’t tickled as I stare at Benjamin longingly, desperate to be alone with him and discuss what’s going on.

“Secondly, as you were just told, our Jersey punk-ass Hawk is dropping by the office. Be on your best, but more importantly, just be yourselves.”

It’s at this exact moment that Benjamin seems to find me in the crowd, and his eyes flicker with emotion. Just be yourselves. He says this, yet plays off our weekend and the photo that came from it as a thing to minimize, spin, and rewrite.

It’s like suddenly we never went to Mexico.

My birthday never happened.

I’m still that twenty-year-old heartsick idiot from the nightclub who went home with a perfect stranger that fateful Friday night.

I pull my eyes away and stare at the floor, unable to keep eye contact with him anymore. Heaviness sinks into me as suddenly as if I was just filled with all the water of the Caribbean Sea, except it’s cold and unwelcome.

Benjamin must finish saying whatever it is he’s come to say because the room starts applauding out of nowhere, and then Ben gives everyone an encouraging nod and dismisses us, turning to speak to Rebekah and the other department heads as they slowly make their way toward his office. The door opens, they go inside, and then the door closes. The lights flick on, and I watch as Ben goes to his desk, hits the hidden switch there, and then his blinds flip shut and not even silhouettes can be seen.

Five o’clock cannot come fast enough. I grab my things and head for the door, uncaring of whether Ben is still in his office or if Elijah is making plans with Ashlee or literally anything else.

When I pass the front desk, an unexpected voice stops me. “You got some sun.”

I spin around to find Brady sitting where Dana the front receptionist usually is. “What?”

“Sun,” repeats Brady flippantly, his arms folded on the desk in front of him. His bright blond hair is unexpectedly tame today, tightly parted and flat against his perfectly shaped head. “You got some sun this weekend. Lots of it, in fact.”

I don’t like the superior, leery look in his eyes. “I was outside all weekend at my parents’ for my birthday,” I state, inventing my alibi on the spur of the moment.

“Oh? Do they live on a particular beach in Cancún?” he asks, immediately followed with an arrogant chuckle and a calm, “Just kidding. I wouldn’t dare imply that.”

Winter’s worst cold front rushes through my stomach. I don’t remember what I had for lunch, but it’s about to meet Dana’s prized desk. “What the hell are you doing at this desk anyway?”

“Dana has the week off. Rebekah trusts me. She appointed me front desk duty. It’s really one of the best tasks any of the interns could be assigned,” he points out, puffing up his chest. “I get to speak directly with clients, forward calls, set up appointments …”

“Congratulations,” I state flatly. “I’m sure your beautiful hair comes in handy when you’re answering calls.”

“It’ll certainly come in handy when I’m the first one to meet and greet the Jersey boy tomorrow.” Brady grins so big, he shows teeth. “Have a most excellent evening, Trevor. Don’t get too much more sun on your way home; you really don’t want to look like a tangerine tomorrow.”

I roll my eyes and turn toward the door again, clutching my stomach. It slams with a rattle behind me.

I can’t get home fast enough. The second I’m through the door and discover that I’m alone, I collapse against the kitchen counter and bury my face in my folded arms, rested on a smelly folded newspaper and a gaming magazine.

And then I start to cry.

I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I have decided to throw myself a pity party for one, and if you’re not planning on feeling terribly sorry for me and all my grievous woes that I am suffering, then you are not invited.

Comically, my phone vibrates with a call just as I have that thought. I look up to see who my first invitee is.

My only invitee.

I answer the call, pressing the phone to my ear and quickly suppressing my annoying sobs. “B-Ben?”

“Hey, babe.”

I try to mask the obvious quivering of my voice as I struggle to regain my composure. “What the hell happened?”

He sighs into the phone before answering. “Some dick with a camera caught us, in short. There’s nothing much else beyond that. But if it’s any consolation—”

“It won’t be.”

“The story is already burying itself. It hardly broke ten thou on the big blog. Five thousand or so hits, collectively, on all the subsidiary sites. It didn’t even trend on Twitter or Facebook.”

I take a deep breath, wipe my eyes, then nod. “That’s a really good thing.”

“Yes, it is,” Ben agrees. A short moment passes. Then he adds, “I miss you, Trevor. I could barely sleep last night without having you by my side.”

I clench shut my eyes. I had a very similar experience, finding my pillows terribly inadequate to the big muscular one I got to press against me Friday and Saturday nights. “That makes two of us. Benjamin …”

“Yes?”

This isn’t going to be easy to say. “I … I think my roommate knows.”

He is silent for a while. I drop my forehead to the counter, curling up in this barstool as I stare down at my lap with the phone at my ear turning sweaty.

“Ben?”

“I’m here,” he finally says. “Why do you think he knows?”

“He broke my alibi I had for this weekend. Called my parents. Realized I wasn’t there. He saw the photo and … gave me a look in the office. He could pick me out of a crowd of ten thousand, Ben.”

“But did you confirm that it was you?”

“No. Of course not. I … I told him I was involved with someone in the office. But I didn’t say it was you.”

“But he still suspects it’s me?”

“I think so.” More like I’m three hundred percent certain.

“Alright.” He takes a quick breath. “Well, we need to let the card of plausible deniability play out. Divert him. You and I will be cool and collected in the office, alright? No one else will suspect—”

“Ben. I’m not another one of your clients.” I’m starting to get short with him. “Unless you really think what’s going on between us is nothing more than a scandal that needs minimizing.”

“Trevor, we can’t let this get out. You agreed. I agreed.”

“I know. And I don’t want it to get out either. But it may very well out itself whether we want it to or not. Even that fucking Brady is on to me. He kept noting how much sun I’ve gotten. And between him and Elijah—”

“Again, plausible deniability,” Ben insists, stubborn as ever. “I have handled hundreds—thousands—of situations like this, and even worse. Trust me when I say this will blow over, and things will be right back to how they—”

“Maybe I don’t want things to just go back to how they were!” I snap, rising up from my barstool as my heated words shoot into the phone. “Maybe I liked Mexico and what it did for us! Maybe I liked how I got to see into you for the first time! Maybe I liked how we grew so close that I felt like I’d known you for years!”

“Trevor, stop it.”

“I don’t want to just be your fucking intern!” I shout, my hand shaking. “I’m your boyfriend, Benjamin. I let you inside me. I gave you my fucking virginity and you want to minimize it.”

“Come on. You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“And you’re reducing its proportion.” My words are quiet and cold now. “Minimize. Spin. Rewrite. How are you going to rewrite the weekend, Ben?” I ask. “Did you go to Mexico alone?”

“No. Babe, please …”

“I think you did,” I go on. “You went to Mexico alone. Maybe you picked up a cute boy in the bar—a Mexican nightclub—picked him up after staring lustily at him through the smoke and the mariachi music.”

“Trevor …”

“You wined and dined him, then took him out to the beach and popped your pecker in, just in time for the snap of an unseen camera. And where was I?” I ask coolly. “I was at home with my parents. I ate my mom’s birthday cake, calmly turned twenty-one, and I’m still a virgin.”

Ben has gone silent on the line except for his slow, measured breathing.

“I’m still a virgin,” I repeat, detached, staring off at nothing.

Then I hang up, slip into my room, and drop face-first onto my bed. I don’t want to see or hear or feel anything until the morning sun pours over my head like a bucket of warm water and this horrid day comes to an end.

42

Benjamin was once robbed at gunpoint, shat on by a pigeon, and broke his arm in the same day.

This day is worse.

The first thing I see when I enter my office is the smug face of the intern Brady, who rises from his seat and gives me a curt nod and a plastic smile. “Good morning, Mr. Gage.”

I give him a tight nod. “Morning. When Hawk arrives, make sure to buzz my office immediately. He arrives at four.”

“Will do. You can count on me.” He gives me another bright, million-dollar smile.

I pass through the office full of quick-moving bodies, giving the faces that look up an obligatory nod, a polite hello, and a tiny smile of greeting.

When I pass the intern table, I am surprised to find Trevor there. I don’t know why I expected him not to be—as if he’d quit overnight after the unfortunate tiff we had on the phone.

As if sensing my presence, Trevor glances up from his work. His eyes soften when he sees me. I don’t see anger in them, but I’m not sure I see anything inviting either. He makes no move to speak nor greet me. He just stares, distant and unemotional.

Despite that, I give him a nod of acknowledgement, then continue on my way to the office, ignoring the way my heart feels: crushed up like a beer can in my chest. My stomach feels as raw as a throat that’s screamed for hours on end.

I spend too much time in my office staring at the computer screen and reading the same sentences ten times. I can’t focus on anything. Nothing makes sense anymore. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to Hawk when he shows up. His image is a total disaster. The world only knows him as a self-indulgent, rebellious teenage pop star who keeps offending everyone with his social media presence and the totally awful, tasteless answers he gives during his TV and radio interviews. How the hell am I supposed to pour honey all over that and serve it to the internet?

But none of it matters. How can I focus on any of that when the real problem is sitting at the intern table outside my door? How can I bother to care about anything when the man I love just tried to rewrite history in the space of a phone call last night?

It pains me so much that, even in anger, he’d wash away all of that joy we experienced together. Doesn’t he realize that the first thing I thought of when I saw that article was how this might affect him and whether he was okay? Trevor was the first and last thing I worried about. I’m still worried about him.

I sigh, exasperated, then buzz for Rebekah. When she pops her head in, I tell her to get me an unoccupied intern from the intern table, someone to organize a filing cabinet. She disappears, and I wait anxiously, desperate to have an incidental excuse to chat with Trevor and sort my mind on the matter. We need to talk. But the next time there’s a knock at the door, it’s Jimmy’s bright red hair I see, not Trevor. I suppress an inward sigh, thank him for coming in, then set him to work on organizing the files, which totally don’t fucking need to be organized.

Twice, I give myself an excuse to leave the confines of my office and cut through the main floor. Both times, I discover that Trevor is either on the opposite side of the room or he’s busy with other interns at the computers. He’s never in a place where I can get to him.

The frustration is mounting. I have too much on my mind with the Jersey boy making his way here in a few hours. I need this settled between Trevor and I. Things between us have to be okay, and I need to see to that as soon as possible.

It’s one o’clock when Trevor takes his lunch. And it’s exactly at that same time that I intercept him at the door to the break room. “Trevor.”

He looks up at me, his eyes unreadable. “Mr. Gage.”

“I need you in my office to go over numbers you submitted yesterday,” I tell him. “I … found a discrepancy.”

Trevor’s eyes narrow.

“A discrepancy with my numbers,” I am quick to clarify. “Your work was flawless. I need to see where my numbers went wrong compared to … compared to yours.”

Really, this silly tap dance could be avoided by not speaking in annoying office metaphors. There’s a discrepancy in my feelings, I’d rather say, and I’m desperate to know where I’ve gone wrong and how I can repair this.

The next thing I know, Rebekah appears at my side—and with Brady, no less. “Oh, there you are, Mr. Gage,” she chirps excitedly, then turns toward Trevor. “Didn’t you clock out for your break?”

“He did,” I answer on his behalf. “I am taking him to my office to look over some numbers. Shouldn’t take long.”

It isn’t lost on me that Brady is eyeing us suspiciously.

“Oh, alright,” Rebekah returns. “Brady got a call from Melena wanting to thank you for recently handling a situation, but you weren’t in your office, so—”

“Brady, tell her I will return her call tomorrow,” I tell him.

A glint of self-satisfaction twinkles in his eyes before he gives me a curt smile, nods, and says, “You got it, boss,” then turns and heads back to the front desk. Rebekah gives Trevor and I both a bright smile before also heading off to do whatever it is she was busy doing.

And what are we doing? Trevor stares at me, and I stare right back, a hundred questions sitting in my stomach.

“Shall we?” I offer, gesturing toward my office.

Trevor clenches shut his eyes, then pops them open and gives me a short nod. He passes by me and heads toward my office. I pick up the sweet scent of his cologne, invading my nostrils and reminding me who this beautiful boy is who’s got his claws sunk so deeply into me that I can feel them every time I move a muscle.

And following him into the office proves that I still can’t pry my eyes away from the shape of his slender body in those tight pants of his, that fitted pink dress shirt, and that sexy black tie. Behave, I warn myself. Discretion is key, and if you have any chance of making this right with him, you’ve got to be smarter than your dick.

I close the office door behind us, flick on the lights, then tap the button under my desk, causing the blinds to snap shut.

“What are we doing?” asks Trevor despondently.

I lean against the front of my desk and face him, arms folded. “We’re going over numbers,” I answer.

Trevor narrows his eyes. “What are we really doing?”

My gaze drifts to his chest. “I … owe you an apology, Trevor.”

He studies me for a while, his face blank as a stone. “For what, exactly? And be specific,” he adds, folding his arms to match my own. “I want to know exactly what you’re sorry for.”

Trevor’s sassy little attitude is coming back. I experience an inner grin of satisfaction. We’re getting somewhere …

“I’m sorry for seeming like my image was my main priority.”

He purses his lips, listening.

“And,” I go on, “I’m sorry that your weekend was ruined by a greedy goblin with a camera whose identity we may never know. You don’t deserve to be spun into an article and spread across the internet.”

Trevor closes his eyes, then shakes his head. “This is stupid.”

I lift an eyebrow. “What?”

Trevor takes a breath and drops his arms to his sides, looking me in the eye. “You aren’t the one who owes me an apology. I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I shouldn’t have said all those things. I overreacted. My roommate thinks I’m banging my boss.”

“Well, you kinda are.”

“Shush. And he hates me for it. I’ve never lied to him, Ben, not ever, not about anything. And now it’s all I do anymore. Lies, lies, lies. I lie every day I come into this building. I lie whenever I talk to my parents on the phone about how my job is going or whether I’m still single. I lie to myself, most of all, insisting that I’m okay with our secrecy when really … I’m not.”

He closes the space between us, his eyes hardened and shiny with emotion. His plump pink lips are parted as he stares into my eyes, searching for something.

I dare to touch his tie, gripping it gently. He lets me. “This past weekend showed me a few things.”

Trevor lifts an eyebrow. “Did it?”

“Number one, it showed me that my life … is empty.” I fidget with his tie in my grip, like it’s the only thing keeping Trevor near me—our tether. “Number two, it gave me a glimpse of what my life could be like if it was fulfilling. But most importantly, number three is …” I bring my eyes to Trevor’s and find them glistening, bright and aware. “That you are the one who fulfills me.”

“But Ben … where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know,” I confess. “Preferably somewhere without any cameras.”

“There aren’t any cameras here in this office.”

The suggestive tone in his voice sends blood rushing down my body and straight to my dick. I promised I’d behave. I promised. “Somewhere without watchful eyes would be nice,” I add.

“Yours are the only ones I see.” Trevor gazes into mine with longing.

I grip him suddenly, unable to contain myself, and pull our hips together. When I do, I make the discovery that I’m not the only one getting hard. “I don’t give a fuck where we go from here, Trevor, as long as we go together.”

Trevor swallows hard, the wetness in his eyes trembling with excitement. Then, in a voice that’s barely there, he chokes out these words: “Ben, I think I’m falling for you.”

43

Trevor wonders if he really just said that.

Yes. Yes, I just said that.

If it weren’t for the intense stare Benjamin is giving me, I may not have let the words slip out at all. My words just crashed into him like a runaway train. The question is whether or not he’s aboard and willing to ride it to the land of interns who have no idea what the hell kind of deep waters they’re leaping into.

That’s me, by the way: a clueless intern leaping into the deep.

But at least I would be leaping into the deep with him, the beautiful man with the eyes that kill me.

And I meant those words, even if my insides are shaking with terror as I await his response. I figure we’re laying it all out on the table. I have nothing to lose but my dignity, and really, with my indistinct body all over the internet, it’s difficult to discern whether I still have any.

Oh, why not. I’ve freaked him out this much. Let’s go all in.

“I’ve fallen for you,” I amend.

“Trevor …” he warns me.

I reach around his waist, pulling our hips tighter against one another. I feel his hardness, desperate to know it intimately all over again. “I’d give anything to be back on that beach.”

“Me too.”

“I don’t care if a hundred guys take a hundred pics of my ass.”

“It was my ass, actually.”

“I came here for the experience. I stayed here for my career. I never thought I would end up with something worth more than all of that combined.”

Ben growls, his eyes trailing down my body as we hold each other. Our cocks are having their own separate conversation, by the way. His flexes, then mine. Mine flexes, then his. Both grow harder with every passing second.

“Trevor, we need to finish up here,” he tells me, trying on his usual dominant tone as he struggles for control, “and then we can talk at my condo afterwards about everything.”

“Your pop star won’t be here for another three hours. We have … numbers to go over.” I reach around and grab a big handful of his butt, earning a growl from him. “Like the number of times I caught myself staring at your stunning, muscled ass this weekend, desperate to bury my face in it.”

“Trevor. Stop.”

The deep, gravelly sound of his words tell me to do anything but stop. I move my lips to his ear, taking the lobe between my teeth. He moans as I bite down. When I let go, I whisper in his ear, “The number of places I want to kiss you … bite you …”

“I’m warning you …”

I’m in front of his face, eyeing him with deadly, hungry intent. “And the number of ways you drive … me … fucking … crazy.”

Then, it’s over for the both of us.

Our lips crash together. Our hands fumble with each other’s clothes. Buttons pop off. Cuffs are loosened. Ties are thrown. Pants come undone.

And then I’m shoving Ben at the desk, bending him over it.

Benjamin’s sexy slacks pull down with ease, like his thick legs are all greased up and slippery for me. I kneel down behind him—my back to the blinds, to the office, to all the bullshit I want to put out of our heads—and I stare at the magnificent hunk of meat that is Ben’s gorgeous globes.

I have wanted to bury my face in this piece of ass paradise so badly the same way he’s done to me—twice.

And now I finally get my chance.

He moans when I grip his butt cheeks, filling each of my hands with his firm flesh. I can’t help but kneel here and simply admire the joy that is Benjamin’s ass. I realize in this moment that I’ve never gotten a chance to worship it so up-close.

Really, how many damned squats does a man have to do to achieve a work of art like this?

At long last, I bring my face into his warm, perfect butt. I’m completely buried in it in seconds, engulfed in Benjamin on all sides. Just the sensation of having my face surrounded by him completely is overwhelmingly erotic. I can’t possibly quantify the amount of arousal I’m experiencing.

“Trevor …” I hear from above.

I groan, twisting my face and opening my mouth, desperate to get even deeper between his cheeks. I have never, ever wanted my face submerged in something so badly—not even my grandma’s lemon Bundt cake. I’ve never felt more thrill from such a simple act as this—not even from the very first time I was tall enough to ride the roller coaster with the loop.

Benjamin is my loop, and he’s got my head spinning in ecstasy between his magnificent cheeks.

“Trevor … it’s brighter in here …”

His words don’t even make sense to me. All I see, all I know, all I love and adore is Ben’s beefy butt, which has eclipsed all the light in my world. Who needs light when you have ass to the left, ass to the right, ass on my mind, ass everywhere?

“TREVOR! THE BLINDS!”

I pull away from heaven, my sight restored, and turn around to face the floor-to-ceiling office windows, confused.

I’m not confused for long.

The blinds are wide open. Through the glass, the entire office is watching.

Every single employee.

Every single intern.

And a cocky-looking teen I’ve seen on TV—Hawk, the Jersey boy himself—whose face is frozen in a permanent laugh.

And Rebekah with a turned-over cup at her feet, evidence of the coffee she just let go in shock.

And Elijah, my dear sweet friend, whose eyes have widened so much, the whites of them flash, and whose jaw hangs so low he could fit his fist inside.

And Brady, standing proudly right in the front, the only one whose expression does not reflect surprise, but rather knowing smugness, a look of dark triumph in his pretty, glittery eyes as he aims his phone our way, capturing it all.

And then there’s me, still proudly gripping the ass cheeks of my boss and taking the term “brownnosing” to an all new low.

44

Trevor’s not here. Leave a message.

I stare at the oversized stuffed teddy bear across the room.

It stares back and offers no advice.

I’ve been having a staring contest with an inanimate object in my bedroom that is Elijah’s storage room for three solid hours.

“Trev?”

Just like the last fourteen times my roommate’s tried to speak to me, I let his words go ignored, preferring the company of this teddy bear who knows better than to try and speak to me now.

Brady—or maybe another intern who also had their phone out, for all I know—recorded the whole thing the second Ben’s (or was it my?) hand slipped and hit that stupid switch on his desk that opened the blinds behind us and exposed us to the whole office, much like drawing back the curtains on a goddamned stage.

And there I was, center stage, right in the spotlight before my audience of coworkers, eating out my boss’s ass.

Benjamin Gage’s ass.

The pictures were online within hours. I had already made it home by then, unable to face anyone or anything. Having to cut through that office full of gawkers as I ran out is one of the worst experiences I have ever had to endure.

The amount of humiliation I experienced was paralyzing.

And it hasn’t ended. It chased me all the way home.

And now it’s on the internet. Forever.

Really, I should be able to look back and laugh at this, right? I mean, it’s hilarious. Gut-busting, even. After my best friend Elijah and arch nemesis Brady secretly and not-so-secretly assumed that I was trying to fuck my way to the top, I’m no sooner caught with my boss’s pants down and my face buried nose-deep in ass.

I mean, if they’re going to call me a brownnoser, can we get any more fucking literal than that?

Yes, it turns out we can. On my way home, I tripped over the leg of a homeless man on accident, flew over a surprise stack of newspapers that ambushed me, and landed face-first in a puddle of something brown and greasy that I will spend the rest of the night caring not to identify. When I got home, I had more than a brown nose. I had a ruined pink shirt, a soiled black tie, and a nightmare of nastiness across my face.

It was even in my hair.

I cried, staring at myself in the mirror. I cried washing the crap off of me in the shower. Then I cried drying off and dressing.

Then I collapsed in my room and cried some more. After an hour or five, I’ve completely run out of tears. There’s not a single bit of moisture left in my face to squeeze out. Numb and struck silent by my own stupidity, I just stare across the dark room at the giant teddy bear whose glassy eyes catch the sliver of light coming from the hallway.

And I ponder my life.

It’s ruined. Everything is ruined. My career. My job. Whatever future I could have had.

But really, let’s not make this all about me. What about Ben? He’ll never live this down. He’ll be the man who fucks his interns, even if I was his first and only. If his little sexual hiccup in Mexico wasn’t bad enough, now he’ll be known as the man who really puts his interns through the rigorous ringer to achieve great heights. Yeah, achieving great heights by sinking to your knees and burying your sniffer in the boss’s bum.

“Trev. I’m coming in.”

Again, I don’t respond. Beep. Please leave a message at the tone.

Elijah slips quietly into the room, eclipsing the light from the hallway for a second. Mercifully, he shuts the door behind him, then stumbles in the dark over to my bed where he takes a seat, the springs beneath him squawking their disapproval like a family of metallic chickens.

“How are you holding up, buddy?”

I don’t respond or move. I even stopped hugging my knees to my chest an hour ago, too spent to bother with even that much effort. I’m just sitting on the squeaky bed, one leg hanging off, one splayed out before me, my back flat against the headboard and my hands resting limply in my lap.

He sighs. “Dumb question, I know.”

Elijah clicks his tongue, turning his face away. Though my eyes are adjusted to the dark, I can only barely see the silhouette of his messy hair when his head turns. The window doesn’t help much, offering little in the way of moonlight tonight.

“You know,” Elijah recalls, “I did tell you before the summer began that this job might require some ass kissing. I just didn’t think you’d interpret that so literally.”

“I’ve heard all the jokes,” I mumble, surprised by the grumbly sound of my voice, which I haven’t used once in the past several hours. “I made most of them up in my head already.”

“Some of the headlines are cute.”

I blink. “Headlines?”

Elijah turns toward me, but I can’t see his face. “Um … you do realize you’re exploding on the internet right now, don’t you? I’m pretty sure one of the YouTube videos had over forty thousand views in the first hour it was up.”

One of the YouTube videos. Just one.

You’d think I’d have a reaction to that. I don’t.

No reaction at all.

Just like the teddy bear across the room.

“Listen, I really … really … don’t want to judge you,” Elijah starts, “but I have to ask. How the hell did you seduce Benjamin Gage? And when? The man is untouchable.”

There hasn’t been any sound in this room for so long, Elijah’s voice seems unnaturally loud, rattling my skull and filling up my ears. “On a Friday night,” I murmur drowsily.

“On a Friday night …?”

“The Friday night,” I amend. “You and me, loosening up. The nightclub. The one you took me to.”

Elijah sits with that information for a second. Then, he slowly turns to face me, and in the dark, I see his jaw drop. “No way. No … fucking … way. Benjamin Gage was the guy from that night??”

“The one and only.”

“The rich prick?? Mister Rich Prick?? Oh my God!” Elijah is off my bed in an instant, grabbing his hair. “All this time! Holy shit!” He spins around suddenly, facing me. “So why didn’t you tell me back then, Trevor? This could’ve been our secret!”

“I didn’t know at the time,” I tell him. “I thought he was just a sexy man from the club. I didn’t recognize him until that first Monday when he showed up at the office—”

“And you freaking fell at his feet like you were diving into home base.” Elijah slaps his own face. “Damn, that’s fucked up. Wait a second,” he exclaims suddenly, lifting a finger as he puts even more of the puzzle together. “Wait, wait, wait. Our boss … was bathroom boy, too?”

My words are deadpan, affectless, spent. “Yep.”

Elijah starts pacing the room. “This is big. This is really big. I knew it when I saw that beach photo. I just …” He stops by the bed and stares down at me, his voice changing. “I just didn’t think this was your style, Trevor.”

“Style …?”

“Sneaking around. Dating the boss. Running off to Mexico, you punk. You were supposed to leave the country for the first time with me, bro. It’s why we got passports together!”

I shrug, then turn to stare out the window, defeated. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Elijah. My whole life is fucked.”

After a moment, he sits back down on the bed, inviting the springs to squawk again. “You … should probably know what happened after you left.”

“I probably shouldn’t.”

“The moment after you tore out of that office like your pants were on fire …”

“It wasn’t my pants. It was my face, from the humiliation.”

“Rebekah was first to take charge, ordering everyone to hand over their phones. Even Hawk. Oh my God, if I could describe the look on his face at being told what to do by the short, tight-bunned Rebekah—Hah!” He claps once, hooting. “Anyway, I saw there was a guy who was slipping off to the bathroom, hands in his pockets like he was hiding something. A certain someone. Brady.”

“His phone,” I mumble, catching on. “It was him.”

“Pissed off as I was at you, I didn’t like the way he slipped off so fast. I went straight to Rebekah and told her he’d gone off to the bathroom the moment she asked for everyone’s phones. When he came out a minute later and played his big innocent eyes, I knew he’d done it. So did Rebekah, I think, but there was no trace of a video on his phone. He must’ve sent it to himself, or shot a few photos over to one of our media outlets. He’ll be caught, Trevor. I know it was him. It’s just a matter of—”

“Time,” I finish for him, expressionless. “Like how much time it’ll take for the whole world to know me as the boss-fucker. How can I go back to campus, even? They’ll remember in the fall. Even my professors. Classmates. Everyone. I’m so fucked.”

Elijah sighs. “Listen. Rebekah, she’s not stupid. I know she thinks it’s Brady, too. She doesn’t trust that pompous pineapple. But she likes you. That’s why she let me go early … so I could come be with you. I … don’t know where Mr. Gage went.”

“Why are you being nice to me now?” I retort, the first hint of emotion returning to my voice. “You acted like I was dead to you since yesterday. You avoided me in the office.”

Elijah sighs again, then crawls up the bed to sit right next to me. I adjust, giving him more room, but then he throws his arm over my back and pulls me against him like a brother, not letting me get away. “I was pissed at you, sure. I’m still pissed at you. But I never turn my back on my best friend, especially not when he’s gonna need me.” He faces me. “And you’re gonna need me.”

“Are things really that bad?” I ask, nearly in a whimper. “The headlines? The articles? Is it really as bad as I think it is?”

Elijah bites the inside of his cheek, not responding.

“Oh, God,” I breathe. “It is that bad.”

“I …” Elijah tries playing it off with a little shrug. “I think we just need to let some time pass. I mean, think about it. New shit goes viral every damned day. People have short memories. And—no offense—but Benjamin Gage is really the focus of the whole scandal. He’s the one this will affect for quite some time. You’re … well, you’re just the intern.”

“Just the intern,” I echo, suddenly feeling very bad for Ben.

“Rebekah really feels a lot for you. I wasn’t kidding. Boy, have you gotten her all soft on you these past few weeks,” Elijah teases. “She had the biggest look of sympathy in her eyes when she told me I could go ahead home to look after you.”

“I still don’t think I deserve your kindness.”

Elijah turns his face to me, his lips near my eye when he says, “You remember the day we met? It was on the playground in third grade. Some dicks were fucking with you, trying to shove sand down your shorts. I beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of them, got sent to the principal’s office, and earned a week of detention.”

“Oh, come on,” I interject, a bit of life revived into me at the memory. “You only served one tiny day of that week because the principal pitied you.”

“Felt like a week to me!” Elijah boasts. “And besides, I would have served that whole week if I could, because that’s what friends do. They stand up for each other … even when their buddy’s face is mining for gold up their boss’s ass.”

I shove at him for that, but he keeps me tightly held against him, uncaring.

“I feel like I could have stopped all of this,” he adds, a tinge of regret in his voice.

I glance at him. “What do you mean?”

“I should’ve gone after Brady,” he explains. “Could’ve stopped him sending those pics and videos. I should have socked that fuck-nut right in the jaw.”

“No, Elijah. It wouldn’t have been worth it.”

“Fuck yeah, it would have been! I should have punched him, taken his phone, and snapped it in half.”

“Yeah, and then you would be in jail right now charged with assault and damaging his property. Then all I’d have is this teddy bear to look after me tonight … and not my … my best friend.”

He gives me another squeeze with his arm, then lays his head on top of mine as I sink against his chest. “Even then, you’d still have me, Trev. Even if I was sitting in a jail cell nursing my knuckles, I’d be proud. You always, always have me.”

I smile for the first time in hours. I don’t quite know when it happens, but I shut my reddened eyes, and suddenly I’m falling asleep against Elijah’s chest, letting go of my living nightmare and desperate for a sweet dream to replace it.

When the morning finds me, I open my eyes to discover Elijah gone and a cloud of indistinct murmuring and crowd noise in his wake. I blink a bunch of times, confused, then push myself out of bed and stumble out of my room to investigate.

Elijah is fully dressed and ready for his day, but he’s frozen by the front door, wide-eyed.

I rub more sleep out of my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Dude …” Elijah faces me. “Paparazzi, everywhere. Reporters. Journalists. The whole fuckin’ city.”

I’m wide awake in an instant, rushing to his side to look out the peephole in our door.

To my terror, he isn’t lying; there are reporters, cameramen, photographers, and journalists crowded right outside our door and pouring into the street.

I pull away to gape at my roommate. “You are not going out in that.”

He nods quickly. “Agreed. I’ll be eaten alive.”

“And I’ll be dessert.”

He frowns. “But I want to be the dessert.”

I’ve made my way to the couch to flip on the TV, then get the pleasant experience of reliving all of yesterday’s nightmares right before my sleep-deprived eyes. The news channels have censored versions of the photos and videos blasted everywhere. Cameramen are posted just outside of Benjamin’s building, the front of which I recognize all too well. There is crew at the Gage Communications building too, but none are able to get any comments from the people inside.

“What … a … shit show,” moans Elijah, having joined me by the couch.

“I’m at a loss for words. What the fuck do we do? You can’t go to work.”

“Me?” He shakes his head. “You’re not going to just sit here all day feeling sorry for yourself, Trevor.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Um, yeah, I am. I can’t go back into that office. Sorry. There’s no way I can face anyone there ever again. My career there is over.”

“But what about Ben?”

I bite my lip and glance back at the TV. What about Ben? The more I watch the coverage on the TV, the heavier my feelings become. I must be kidding if I think I’ll ever get any career again after this. The bigger picture begins stretching itself over my eyes, darkening my mind to the point that I can’t close my mouth. How can I ever dream to be taken seriously for the rest of my life? Every boss in the world that could hire me would laugh at me, or wait for me to make a move on them, or downright turn me away. No coworker would ever trust me, figuring me to just be an opportunist who screws his way to the top.

I’m ruined in every way possible.

And I think I’ve lost Ben despite it all.

Elijah gets up to check the kitchen windows, which face the front of the apartment. When he pokes a finger through the blinds, he instantly regrets it, the crowd of reporters outside coming to life with shouts and questions and demands. Elijah backs away from the window so fast, he trips over Salamander and crashes onto the floor, the ugly orange creature hissing and tearing across the carpet toward the bedrooms.

I grab the remote and mute the TV, unable to hear any more of it. Then I turn to my roommate, who’s finally managed to peel himself off the floor. “I’m sorry,” I mutter to him. “For all of this.”

“Nah, don’t go taking all the credit for this performance,” he teases me. “Mr. Gage’s ass gets a supporting actor nomination at the very least.”

I stare at my phone, wondering if I should dare try to call Ben. I haven’t heard a peep from him. I wonder if I ever will again.

“You should go to work,” I decide, lifting my gaze to Elijah. “Those vultures out there aren’t here for you. I’ll stay here and try to sort through everything and figure out what I want to do.”

Elijah shakes his head. “Not sure how I feel about that.”

“Go on with the internship, Elijah,” I insist. “Be both of us.”

He glances back at the door, considering it. Then he gives me a confident smirk. “I’ll call you on my lunch break. Then, when all of this dies down—and it will—you and I are going to go out and get some really, really hard drinks.”

I smile, despite my desire to stay in this apartment for months and hide from the world. “Sure,” I force myself to say, my heart not in it. “Really, really hard drinks.”

Elijah slaps me on the back, then picks up his backpack and heads for the door. The moment he opens it, an explosion of noise meets his face, then seconds later is immediately quashed out by the door slamming shut—which I promptly lock behind him.

With the news on mute and the house otherwise silent, all I hear is the distant humming and buzzing of reporters outside. I have to laugh to myself, wondering what the hell their questions could possibly be. “How did Benjamin Gage’s ass taste?” “Was his butt as warm and inviting as you dreamed it would be?” “Does he use Dove soap up his crack or Irish Spring?”

Really, am I that interesting? Is this whole story even that worth the time and attention of all these reporters who could be investigating homicides, kidnappings, corner store shootings, or even what Ms. Becky Buttersworth made for the PTA bake sale?

I stare down at the floor and find Salamander sitting there staring up at me. “Just you and me,” I mutter to the feline, who just twitches his tail, irritated, eyes half-lidded.

Just you, me, and a million vultures at my door.

And Ben … who-knows-where.

45

Benjamin is now his own scandal.

I stare through the car window at the crowd in front of my office building, numbed.

It doesn’t matter how many pretty words I string together, or how I can possibly manage to own the chaos I just inflicted on my company and my poor, unsuspecting coworkers, or what the world must think of me now.

None of it means anything if I can’t get Trevor back.

He isn’t answering any of my texts. He won’t pick up the phone, either. For all that I know, he’s already hightailed it out of town, unable to handle the stress of the invasive cameras. I can’t blame him, either. I brought this on him.

This is my fault. All of it.

How can he possibly forgive me for all of this shit I’ve put him through? It was my idea to pull him into my office. It was my dick that kept pushing us together, even when I’d promised myself to behave. It was me who pursued Trevor, who ignored the email that the Jersey boy Hawk would be arriving several hours earlier than planned, who accidentally hit the button that flipped open the blinds and unveiled us to over a million and a half viewers on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook—all the social media sites.

A million and a half.

Those are numbers that, in any other circumstance, I would frame and slap onto a wall.

But I don’t feel like slapping anything except myself today. I always have things under control, no matter the situation. I’m not the guy who hides to lick his wounds; I stay in the thick of it and suffer under the pressure until the problem is solved.

Yet here I am, clueless as ever, lost in a fog of doubt.

After the whole situation went down and Trevor ran out of the office, the employees were all sent home except for all of my department heads, who gathered for a meeting. Facing them was both easy and difficult—easy because I’d worked with these same people and suffered many missteps and awkward situations with them before, but difficult because I had no answers.

When we realized the media outlets had all been hit with a few videos and pictures, despite Rebekah’s efforts in confiscating and checking phones, it was deduced that the only person who could have been responsible—due to the particular camera angle of all of the leaked media—was Brady, whose efforts were likely intended to spite Trevor. I didn’t waste any more time on him than necessary, assigning the dealing of him to Rebekah and moving on to more important matters.

Namely, what this would do to Gage Communications, how to handle the employees and their feelings, and what steps we could take to control the “conversation” on social media. We discussed, we brainstormed, and we made a few decisions. Statements were sent out to the same media outlets that first debuted the material. We apologized, insisted that the scene was not a reflection of how we handle our clients, and the circumstance of the videos was pulled entirely out of context—which hopefully would debase the immediate reaction to the articles and instill doubt in the viewers’ and readers’ minds.

The effect, if anything, backfired. The comments sections filled up with some of the nastiest things that can be said about a person. My business was likened to a whorehouse of boys, all of whom are required to sexually please me or be tossed to the curb. My character has been mocked, spat on, and slathered with exaggerations of what really happened, with misquotes of things I apparently said in some past interview, and with outright lies.

Now I’m really in the game of salvaging a ruined public image. This time, it’s my own scandal.

“Are you ready?” asks Ian from the front seat.

I shift uncomfortably, then give him a curt nod.

Fighting through a crowd of snapping cameras, accusations, shouted questions, and screams is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And there is no way to shield your ears from the onslaught of terrible names, ridicule, and scathing mockery. And there is no way to shield your eyes from the looks of disgust, from the hardened eyes of greedy reporters, from the large circular eyes of cameras as they aim, focus, and flash.

Then it’s over as quickly as it started, the door to the building closing at my back.

Today is a day I am not looking forward to.

But when I step into the main office, I’m taken aback by what I see. Hawk, the Jersey boy himself, is sitting on one of the desks in the center of the room with one leg hanging off and the other hugged against his chest. He’s talking to everyone in the room—interns, employees, all of my supervisors—and making them laugh, making them listen, and speaking with an unexpected eloquence about his words. I almost don’t recognize who he is for a while as I stare and try to make sense of the scene.

He spots me, then interrupts himself to shout, “Well there he is, the boss man Benjamin himself! Give your boss a big round of applause, folks.”

Everyone in the room is led into loud, excited applause, all their eyes on me. I blink, completely confused by the scene before me. Why does Hawk have all of my employees gathered, why is he still here in town, and what the hell is he telling them?

I clear my throat. “Would anyone like to explain to me what this is all about?”

“You,” answers Hawk simply, crossing his arms.

I lift my eyebrows patiently, then spread my hands. “Can we elaborate a little more?”

Hawk turns to the others in the room, cocky as ever, his eyes bright and his chin lifted with authority. “Can anyone tell me what the first thing is that comes to your mind when you think of the great and infamous Benjamin Gage?”

For a moment, the office is silent. Then, like a bird chirping in a nest, tiny, almost not there, the intern Ashlee speaks up. “He’s bold. He’s confident. He makes no apologies.”

“Fuck yeah!” agrees Hawk. “Anything else?”

One of my guys at the computers, Rob, speaks next. “He is unconventional in how he deals with celebrity scandals.”

“His methods are unpredictable,” puts in Lacy, another office worker, an inspired smile on her face. “He is brilliant. He is sharp. He is relentless.”

Hawk nods. “That’s right. You got it.”

“He’s a bad ass motherfucker,” shouts one of the interns, inspiring a tittering of excited laughter in the room. “He doesn’t answer to anyone. People answer to him.”

“And,” Hawk puts in, “when photos of his ass—which is a really beautiful ass, by the way, it’s like a fucking Rembrandt—make headlines twice in the same week, what does a bad ass motherfucker like Benjamin Gage do?”

“Sends them a third,” calls out another employee.

“He posts his workout routine and tells the world what kind of beef you gotta eat to get an ass like that,” states Julian, his voice deep and masculine, inspiring a wave of laughter.

“He owns the fucking web!” throws in Samantha, then lifts her eyes, surprised at her own outburst. “Wow. He really does own the web.”

Hawk faces me finally, a proud smile spreading across his face. “That sounds more like the Benjamin Gage I know.”

I purse my lips, studying the faces in the room as they look back at me. After skimming so many ugly posts and comments and remarks overnight, the effect of seeing so many friendly, warm, hopeful, inspired faces is humbling.

“Well then,” I say, straightening up my spine and taking a cue from Hawk as I address the room. “What’re we doing sitting on our asses when we got work to do?”

The room cheers, erupting into a wave of enthusiastic banter as everyone starts splitting off, asking the supervisors questions, consuming the computers and the boards and the desks. Life and morale is restored to the office in an instant, and I feel the first flicker of hope burst inside my heart. Maybe everything isn’t lost.

Except one thing.

Hawk struts up to me, proud of himself. “I couldn’t leave town after seeing your pitiful apologies online,” he explains. “I may not have the expertise and the finesse that you do, but I have more to thank you for than anyone else in the world. You’re the only person who puts up with my shit. I figure the least I owe you in return is my support.”

I nod appreciatively. “Thanks a lot, Hawk. But this still doesn’t solve the fact that I’m a—how did they word it?—power-toting monster who took advantage of an innocent waif who worked in my office, abusing my authority.”

Hawk tilts his head. “Well, he’s not just some little ‘innocent waif’, though, is he? Hell, you took him to Mexico. You worked together for weeks here. There’s a fuck of a lot more going on between you two. I heard the story from your supervisors when you gave them the 4-1-1 yesterday after clearing the office.”

I nod. “The last thing Trevor is to me is some kid I dicked with. He means … everything to me.” I can’t believe I’m speaking so openly about all of this to a cocky teenage pop star, who pays me to babysit his image.

“Then the world needs to see that,” Hawk states. “What the hell did I just get done proving to your whole staff? Own it, Benny. Own all of it. Own this business, own your brand, and own what you got going on between you and this Trevor kid.”

I give Hawk an assured nod, feeling more motivated now than ever. “You may have just saved me, Jersey kid.”

Hawk chuckles at that. “After how many times you came to save my ass after I kept pissing on your advice? I owe you.”

The electricity of inspiration rushes up my veins. With a glance over my office, watching all of my employees hard at work and brainstorming new, brilliant ideas, I dive right in, answering questions and getting straight to work on managing the situation. Instead of burying myself in my office, I’m on the floor fielding the activity and engaging with my staff more in the space of two hours than I do normally in a whole month.

I’ve never felt more alive.

But there is still that hole in me that no amount of work can fill. I have to come to a decision about what I’m going to do about Trevor, and I think I know what it is.

When half the interns are at lunch—including the one I need to speak to—I make my way for the break room. The conversation they’re all having across the tables, however, brings me to pause at the entrance.

“I mean, it’s not that I think less of Trevor necessarily, but if I knew that Mr. Gage was fair game, I might’ve flirted a bit harder this whole time,” teases Brandon.

“Agreed, me too,” shoots out Isaac, inspiring a couple of the other guys to laugh. “I mean, I don’t swing that way, but hey, for a little recognition from the boss, I could stand taking a trip to Mexico and playing the role.”

“At least Trevor was smart about it and did everything behind the scenes,” Caleb throws in. “I had no idea. None.”

Quite suddenly, Elijah slams his hands down on the table and rises from his chair. “None of you know what the fuck you’re talking about. None of you!” he shouts, silencing the room at once. He takes a deep breath, then goes on in a calmer voice. “Trevor doesn’t have a mean or manipulative bone in his whole skinny-ass body. Trevor met Mr. Gage before he even knew who he was. Their connection was real, and it tormented Trevor for weeks when he found out who he really was. I can’t imagine it was any easier for Benjamin himself, who had to hide his feelings too. Who the hell are we to judge what’s going on between them? Maybe you all fail to notice the intern who is not with us today—the former intern named Brady who wouldn’t think it’s beneath him to seduce Mr. Gage, to ruin Trevor and compromise this business by publically humiliating him, and to leave the office with a smirk on his face. Rest assured, he just buried his own career too, and if you want to sit here and mock Trevor and Benjamin instead of supporting them, then you’re no damned better than Brady.”

The silence in the room is thick after his spiel, an air of deep thoughts cutting through the minds of the other interns.

Finally, Elijah picks up his lunch, then leaves the room. On his way out, he almost crashes into me, not having seen me around the corner of the doorway. “M-Mr. Gage,” he murmurs, surprised.

I nod. “Elijah. How are you?” I ask stiffly.

He gives me a tight-lipped smile and an awkward shrug. “I’m alright, Mr. Gage. Thank you for asking.”

I glance back at the break room, noting that all the employees have gone back to chatting amongst themselves. No one else is around us, so I figure it’s safe enough to be candid with him. “You and I should talk.”

His eyes gloss over. “Us? Why us? What’s wrong?”

I go for humor. “Other than everything?” After a chuckle that earns me nothing, I straighten my face. “Nothing’s wrong, Elijah. But you, most of all, I think I owe an apology to.”

He looks stunned. “I … M-Me? Why me?”

“With Trevor trying to keep our secret, it put this … wedge between you guys. You mean the world to him, and it was shitty of me to compromise your friendship like that.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“No, I do.”

“Really, though. I mean, maybe he kept things from me and lied a lot, but … I knew he was seeing someone,” Elijah explains, “and I knew that someone was giving him a little hop to his every step. Now that I know it’s you, well …” He smiles. “You’ve done more for him than anyone I know. You made him happy.”

I can’t help but feel a stroke of glee at hearing those words. If only Trevor knew how much he’s done for me … “I’ll still apologize anyway for any strain on your friendship. It wasn’t intended.”

Elijah considers it, then reluctantly nods at last. “Alright. I accept your apology, Mr. Gage. Th-Thank you.”

“On a related note …” I lean toward him and lower my voice. “Where is Trevor? He hasn’t come in, which I understand, but he’s also not answering his texts or his phone. I’m worried about him.”

“He’s … He’s at our place.” Elijah licks his lips, nervous. “But I don’t think he wants to see anyone or speak to anyone. He’s waiting out the storm. I … honestly don’t know if he’ll come back.”

Those words hit me the strongest. “Elijah. Please look out for him. And keep me updated, will you? It’s killing me, this silence.”

“I will,” he promises.

46

Trevor has made up his mind.

“It’s nice to be twenty-one at long last,” declares a lazy Elijah, chomping on a slice of pepperoni pizza as he kicks back on the couch.

I’d already finished mine, curled up in the armchair with a glass of cheap wine hanging from my hand. “I feel shitty that we aren’t going out and partying or anything for your birthday.”

“Dude, just because my real birthday is today—a Thursday, of all boring days—it doesn’t mean I won’t celebrate with a big bash. I’m thinking this weekend, maybe. Friday or Saturday. We can all go to that bar down the street.”

“All?”

Elijah glances at me, squirms a bit, then adjusts his statement. “Just you, me, and Ashlee. And a couple buddies from campus, my media buddies from school. No other interns,” he quickly puts in. “I know you’re … probably not cool to be around them. I get it. I totally get it. But Ashlee’s cool, right? She’s angry for you, y’know. She wants Brady to pay.”

I give him an apologetic smile which quickly dies. I hate that it’s even an issue. I know he probably would’ve rather had all the interns going out for his birthday, but has to hold back because of me. Always because of me.

“Anyway, no interns other than Ashlee. Oh, hey, we can hit up a club around the corner afterwards, maybe, because I clearly will not be wasted enough by then. Ashlee said it’s totally a clean place. Clean except for the bathrooms after 1 AM. And then—”

“I’m going home, Elijah.”

He stops cold and stares at me, confused. “Uh, what?”

I set my glass down on the side table, then sigh. “I’m moving back home. I … I made the decision today while you were at the office. I already packed my things.”

Elijah drops the pizza to his plate, his jaw dropped. “No, dude. No, no. You’re not—”

“I called my parents. They’re expecting me.” I can’t quite look him in the eye just yet. “I don’t want to upset you, especially on your birthday, but you’re making all these plans for the weekend and … well, really, I think you should do what you really want to do. Invite all the interns. Have a blast, dude. I … I just need to be home right now with my family.”

“Come on. You’re running away? After everything? You can’t just go home,” he states pleadingly. “I’m your family, too! We were just getting into our groove here. Salamander’s even warmed up to you. Kinda. Not really. Anyway, the paparazzi aren’t outside our doors anymore. The story that’s out there circulating the net is already taking things in a whole different direction.”

I did notice the changed attitude on the news and on the blogs I browsed today, curled up on my bed with my laptop and all my precious, hurt feelings. The headlines made me smile, admittedly. Benjamin Gage is an ass man. Benjamin Gage is a man of few words, but one amazing set of gym-bred cheeks. Benjamin Gage makes his employees work overtime and makes no apologies for it.

The change is so abrupt, and I know it’s the finesse of Ben’s hand and his team—a team I was just, two days ago, a part of.

Not anymore.

And while I’m happy that his image is taking a new path, what am I supposed to do with my own? There are still people out there on both sides of the fence, scouring the net with their trollish opinions that either condemn me for being an office slut who tried fucking his way to the top, or pitying me for being an innocent “kid” who Benjamin took advantage of.

“I’m sorry, bud,” I tell him, “but I need to do this. I’ve been stuck in here for days. I need to be home, sleep in my own bed, and recalibrate. I need to figure out what I want to do with my life. I even spent part of today researching schools …”

“Schools?? Trev … Dude. You are not transferring to another university for your last fucking year.”

“I may have to. I don’t know. I’m weighing … options.”

“Yeah. Well, an option is also to move to China and become a geisha. Or you could take up an axe and chop trees in the snowy wilderness of Canada, build yourself a cabin. Or crack twenty eggs into a bowl and bathe your face in it.”

I squint at him. “The fuck?”

“I’m saying there are options!” he exclaims, maddened. “I wouldn’t pick any of those, per se, but don’t act like you’re up a tree and need some hot fireman to come save you. Or like you climbed up the curtains and don’t know how to get back down. Or like your food bowl is only halfway empty and you gotta meow incessantly like you’re starving and the end is nigh. Or like—”

“Seriously. Enough with the cat metaphors. You’re about to give Salamander an orgasm.”

“You’re emotional right now,” he tells me, “and you just need to calm down, take a few more days, kick back, breathe, jerk off twenty or thirty times, watch a season or two of Friends … and then we’ll come at this and figure out your next move.”

I sigh, sinking in the armchair even more. “I’m a mess.”

Elijah stares at me for a bit, a perplexed look on his face. Then he goes and brings up you-know-who. “Have you talked to him?”

I stare at my phone, which sits on the side table next to me. He’s called me several times. He’s texted even more. I don’t know if I can bring myself to listen to whatever it is he has to say. I’ve done enough irreversible damage to his career just by existing, haven’t I?

Meanwhile, Salamander has hopped onto the couch and is busy investigating the slice of pizza Elijah left on his plate, sniffing it suspiciously. Elijah seems to be utterly ignoring it, still awaiting my answer.

“No,” I finally reply. “I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t.”

Elijah bites his lip, then falls back into the couch. He pulls out his phone and starts tapping away.

“You texting Ashlee?” I prompt him, feeling a bit guilty.

He doesn’t answer, his thumbs feverishly at work.

“Y’know,” I go on, desperate for a change in subject, “I don’t think Ashlee would be opposed to you asking her out. Like, at all. Just saying.”

Elijah finally looks up, his expression lightening. “What?”

“She likes you.” I give him a little smile, then spread my hands like a magician, wiggling my fingers. “Happy birthday!”

Elijah squints suspiciously at me. “Have you been talking to her or something? Where’s this coming from?”

“Since you’re texting her,” I say with a nod at his phone, “I just thought I’d let you know that you can make a move and … I’m pretty sure she’d make one of her own.”

Elijah smirks, then lowers his phone to his lap, thinking about it. A tiny smile breaks out over his face. “I noticed an odd change in her this past week or so. I just thought it was because I fixed some little thing on her spreadsheet last Tuesday.”

“Your lady awaits.” I give him a wink.

“So does your lad,” he returns.

I press my lips together, then push myself out of my armchair to refresh our respective choices of alcohol. We’re just drinking cheap wine and beer, but it’s really more symbolic anyway, since it’s Elijah’s first day as a legal alcohol consumer. Before long, we’re both watching some random show on TV, for the first time not staying focused on the repetitive, nauseating news.

When I finally decide to go to bed, Elijah speaks up. “At least wait until I’m home from work before you go, will you?”

I stop at my bedroom door, turning to hear him out.

“Just give it the day,” he pleads, “and if you still want to go home … then I’ll drive you. It’s the least I can do.”

Hugging the doorframe, I give Elijah a tired, surrendering nod before ducking into my room and shrugging under the bed sheets. I stare at my phone in the dark, rereading the texts Ben sent me over the past couple days. Then I open an ambiance app, set it to the gentle crashing of ocean waves, and attempt to fall asleep.

No, I’m totally not dreaming of a certain beach in Mexico.

With a certain someone’s arms wrapped tightly around me.

Damn it.

47

Trevor changes his mind.

“I’m partying with you tonight.”

Elijah blinks. “Uh … what?”

“Invite all the interns. Invite the whole damned office,” I tell him. “I don’t care. My best friend Elijah is turning twenty-one and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna miss the celebrating!”

“My birthday was yesterday. I’m already twenty-one.”

“You know what I mean, punk!” I laugh and slap him on the back, excited. “We’re going to have a blast tonight!”

Elijah looks mildly concerned. “Are you … um … okay?”

I squeeze his shoulders and slap a kiss right on his cheek. “I am so fucking okay.”

Now he looks twice as concerned as before.

But who cares? Maybe being holed up in the apartment has made me crazy. Maybe Salamander’s fur is lodged up my nose and has planted a rebellious streak in me. Maybe I acquired a taste for partying in my sleep last night.

The reason turns out not to matter anymore by the time the sun’s down, the moon’s up, and Elijah and I are set up at a very particular nightclub down the road.

The nightclub where this whole mess began.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t crazy anxious about being at the scene of the crime all over again. This is, after all, where I first met Ben. And as the interns trickle in slowly, one at a time, my anxiety only gets worse and worse. Never mind what they really feel about the whole scandal; what if Ben himself shows up?

I interpret every shifty glance my way as a question someone won’t dare ask me. Did you seduce Mr. Gage, or did he seduce you? Is he a bottom or a top? Is Mr. Gage as cocky in bed as he is in the office?

But after a couple of drinks, the amount of shits I give reduces to approximately none.

It’s really remarkable, the magic alcohol can do to an uptight, stick-up-his-ass ex-intern like me. Ex-intern. Is that what I am now? Is my employment at Gage Communications officially over?

That last question is what Isaac makes the mistake of asking me after two full glasses of whatever fruity cocktail the bartender keeps serving me. “Well, I consider my career ‘officially fucked’, actually,” I answer lightly. “But thanks for the cement! I mean, centimeter. I mean … senti-sentiment.”

When you’re drunk and you’re not a drinker, the most normal things become royally hilarious.

Like fingers. “Elijah, Elijah, look at my fingers. They are so … freaking … long.” My observation is followed by laughter I can neither control nor stop, and yes, I do realize I’m being loud.

But when you’re drinking, you assume everyone is loud and totally appreciates your obnoxiousness. They like it, even, and all those stares you’re getting are stares of curiosity and delight. They’re definitely not judging me. Or sneering. Or annoyed.

“Trevor, bro … are you alright?” asks Elijah.

“I’m on top of the world!” I cry out, delighted. “I’m free, and I’m drunk, and I’m—”

“Delirious,” Elijah finishes for me. “And I think you need to maybe pull back a bit, yeah?”

“I know what we need.” I grab his hands. “A dance!”

“Uh, that’s a hard nope.”

“Birthday boy dance!” I pull him toward the dance floor. By now, the others in the club have all become very aware of me—or wary, it’s hard to tell as they’re kinda backing away—and then it’s just me and Elijah on the dance floor. It isn’t long before I get my best friend smiling and laughing again, though I see the flicker of concern in his eyes.

Maybe another drink or two will get that concern wiped right out like an eye booger.

I’m not sure how it happens, but suddenly I’m standing on a block of stage intended for a go-go dancer or a DJ or something. My shirt is off and circling over my head like a lasso.

“What the fuck, Trevor??” calls someone—Elijah, or maybe another intern, or maybe even my totally new number one fan whose name I’d like to know.

Provided they exist.

I’ve spent about four days feeling like total slutty scum, right? Don’t I deserve to feel four minutes of glory, like I’m king of the parties and prince of everything that feels good and completely free of consequence? Oh, wait. We’ve been partying for four hours already? It’s been four years of uprightness, studiousness, and perfectionism in high school that’s been my identity, then all of that wash-rinse-repeated for four years in college? My whole life has been one totally controlled act after another, leading up to me fucking it all up anyway?

Who can blame me? This bomb was waiting to go off since I first enrolled in that Honors English class when I was eleven years old. Each “A” I earned was another tick, tick, tick, tick.

Tonight: boom.

“TREVOR.”

The name cuts through the room impossibly, like the word was spoken by all of the walls of the club, startling me. The volume of the music even seems to cut in half, and the chatter and hollering of the room dampens to nearly nothing.

I search for the voice.

When his figure emerges through the crowd, the people part amidst gasps of shock to make room for him.

It’s Benjamin. He’s standing there in the middle of the dance floor in a pool of light. He wears the same fitted bicep-hugging blue blazer he wore that first night I saw him—in this very room. His dress shirt accentuates his pecs beautifully. With his face framed by the light from above, he practically glows with beauty.

And here I am: sweaty, shirtless, and drunk, standing on a go-go boy block.

Slowly, he lifts a dildo to his mouth.

Oh wait, no, that’s a microphone.

“Trevor,” he speaks into it, his voice dancing all around me and bouncing off the walls. “I called your name a minute ago. You couldn’t hear me. So I had to get, uh … dramatic,” he explains with a little wiggle of the microphone.

I’m stunned. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Whispers scatter through the room, and I know what they’re saying: Benjamin Gage is actually here, and he’s speaking to Trevor Woodard—the intern who had his face buried in his boss’s ass on the evening news from here to the other end of the world. It’s like the next news story has just come to life right before their eyes, and they all have a front row seat.

I hope that’s not pee trickling down my leg right now.

“What are you doing?” I ask despite the room spinning.

“What I should’ve done the first night I met you,” he replies, echoes of his words scurrying into the corners of the nightclub like shadows—met you, met you, met you. “In this very room. When we were just two men whose eyes caught one another’s. Before you were an intern. Before I was your boss.”

Your boss, your boss, your boss.

I swallow. It’s not lost on me how many phones in the past ten seconds have just whipped out of pockets to capture—yet again—another moment of our lives. Except this time, it’s public whether I want it to be or not. The world watches us right now, listening to our every word.

Well, all of Ben’s words, more like, seeing as I’m struck dumb at the moment.

“When we’re not at the office, when we’re not in front of cameras, when you’re just Trevor and I’m just Ben, I feel happier than I have in years.” Years, years, years. “All I know is, you can’t control where you fall in love. Or who it is you fall in love with. But when it happens, you gotta own it.”

Own it, own it, own it.

He didn’t just say “love”, did he? That wasn’t my ass that just fell through the floor at hearing those words, was it?

“I mean, I don’t know yet if what we have is love,” Ben adds. “Is it too soon to know? Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want some scandal caught on tape to take the chance away from us to figure out what we have. We owe it to ourselves to pursue this. You. Me.”

You. Me. You. Me. You. Me.

“So let’s do this the right way,” Ben finishes. “Trevor. Will you go on a date with me?”

My vision may be slightly questionable at the moment, but I see a majority of the interns at the front of the crowd, all of them eyeing us with curiosity, with excitement, with astonishment. I see Ashlee with her eyes full of that “aww” sort of hopefulness, her hands clasped together. I see Elijah right by her with a “go get ‘em” sort of smirk on his face.

I bring my gaze back to Benjamin, inspired, then take a step proudly toward him. “Ben, I’d be—”

And then I forget I’m standing on a go-go dancer block.

There’s nothing there beneath my foot.

As I twist, struggle, teeter, and finally tip over with a shriek, I feel a pair of arms rush forth to catch me. I throw my hands around my savior, clutching tightly, then bring my eyes up to meet those of Benjamin Gage, who looks down on me in his arms.

Of course there’d be a glint of dark amusement in his eyes.

“What I was going to say,” I murmur with dignity, “is that I’d be an idiot to not take you up on that offer of a first real date.”

He grins, his eyes smoldering me as his million-dollar smile shines down on my face. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ben is, whether out here on the dance floor amidst a crowd of curious onlookers or in the privacy of a peaceful cabana in Cancún, the most beautiful soul I’ve ever let into my life.

“Also,” I add, “thank you for being there to catch me.”

He still grips the microphone, even after having caught me. “Always,” he whispers to me, bringing his lips to mine, consuming me in the deepest, most breath-stealing kiss I’ve ever known. The nightclub erupts into applause and triumphant hooting.

Always, always, always …

48

Benjamin owns it.

Our first date goes exactly how it ought to.

Well, minus the people who spot us in the restaurant and pull out their phones to subtly (and not so subtly) snap pics and take videos. But really, what else is new?

“I’m pretending not to notice,” whispers Trevor over the table with the candlelight flickering in his adorable face.

“I don’t care about the pic-snappers,” I mumble back, “as long as they’re not catching my bad angle.”

“You don’t have a bad angle.”

I smile, elbows propped on the table with my hands near my face, wringing them gently as I stare down Trevor across the table and try not to distract myself with the hundred different things I want to do to him when we’re alone again.

Strangely, the first thing I want to do is cuddle him. Does that make me a softy? Does that make me lame? I don’t give half a fuck if it does; I find the idea sexy as hell to strip off our clothes, get into something comfortable, and caress each other’s bodies on the couch while something on the TV makes our skin glow with its lazily flickering light.

After dinner, we stroll down a quiet street to my high-rise, chatting the whole way. Though others might objectively see our night as completely unremarkable, I feel like we just had the best first date ever. Trevor complained about the room spinning at first, but quickly calmed down the more we talked. My insides are bursting with happiness at the fact that I haven’t lost Trevor for good. It might be a strange reaction to have, but even with my entire career hanging on the brink of absolute destruction, my biggest fear was that Trevor would walk away without giving us a shot. Clients who want to sever ties with me or look elsewhere for representation, or business executives who get shifty feet … I can replace all of them.

But there’s nothing—nothing—that can replace what exists between Trevor and I.

When we arrive at the penthouse, Trevor finds the toy sword he had given Lance sitting on the kitchen counter. I wince apologetically when he picks it up and gives it a wiggle, turning to me. “Sorry,” I murmur, coming up to Trevor’s side. “He doesn’t … really play with toys.”

“Where is Lance?” he asks.

I poke my head around the corner of the hall. Lancelot sits at the door to the terrace staring out of the glass. He glances over his shoulder at us, a sour look in his eyes.

“Ugh. Fuckin’ birds,” I gripe. “Lance won’t go out there to do his business when they’re there.”

Trevor eyes me. “Birds? Your dog is scared of birds?”

“You should see them. Big scary fuckers.”

“But your dog Lancelot is a Knight of the Round Table,” he protests, tilting his head cutely. “He should take on anything!”

Before I can stop him, he marches toward the terrace door. Lance backs away, spooked, until he realizes Trevor is just passing him by, shoving his way out of the door and onto the terrace.

I stand by the opened door with Lance. “Uh … Trevor?”

“Where are you at??” Trevor calls out, brandishing the dog toy like an actual sword. “Come out, birds!”

Lance is by my side. We watch, alarmed, as Trevor wields the dog toy and looks into the sky.

He doesn’t have to look for long; the birds find him.

“Hey, you!” he yells at them. “Get out of here! This rooftop belongs to Sir Lancelot!”

That was a mistake. Two of the birds, entirely unconvinced by Trevor’s declaration, descend on him with colossal beating wings and outstretched talons.

Trevor screams and runs away. The birds chase him in a circle around the garden and the trees. He dares a peek over his back, trying to bat away the birds with his little squeaky sword, but each time he isn’t looking where he’s running, he stumbles, and the birds gain on him.

More birds have joined, too, and before long, there’s an avian army of six or more squawking and flapping above him to claim their territory.

Then, Lance barks.

I turn to him, surprised. Lance? Barking? Lance is invested, watching the scene with a mix of distress and bloodlust. His eyes chase each bird as he pants, watching, hyper focused.

Trevor, terrified, cowers by a tree, putting his arms over his head and blindly waving the sword above it. The effort is feeble at best, but it is a clear and obvious sign of his surrender.

But not for Lancelot.

The dog bounds after Trevor and the tree to defend his honor, barking wildly and snapping his jowls at the birds. The birds are clearly taken aback, fluttering away, confused, circling only once or twice before realizing they’re no match for the crazed dog, who snarls and snaps and barks and yaps at the birds, dancing in front of Trevor and the tree. The birds start fluttering away.

Lancelot, however, isn’t through with them in the least; my brave dog chases the confused birds to the brink of the terrace, barking and barking until the avian attackers flutter away into the night, gone for good.

Trevor doesn’t move until he feels the wet swipe of a tongue across his neck—to which he flinches in fear. When he puts down his arms and looks, he finds Lance standing in front of him, bright-eyed and panting happily. Trevor lifts his eyebrows in wonder. Then, in a move that surprises us both, Lancelot licks Trevor’s face from his chin to the top of his cheek, over and over. Trevor starts to laugh, falling against the tree as Lance pours all his love all over Trevor’s face.

Once Trevor’s been appropriately covered in dog saliva, Lance takes the sword by his teeth, slipping it from Trevor’s hand, and goes off to chew and play with the squeaky thing. Trevor watches, astonished.

I come to join Trevor under the tree, putting my arm over his back and squeezing him against me.

He shakes his head. “What … the hell … just happened?”

I kiss Trevor on his cheek. “I think you just knighted my dog.”

Trevor looks at me, warmth returning to his eyes. “I guess sometimes you just have to fight for what’s yours, no matter the scandalous birds of gossip that try to tear you down.”

“You and your metaphors and poetry,” I tease him.

Trevor bites his lip. “I do have three fourths of a degree in Journalism, you know.” He eyes me. “And I’m kind of horny.”

“I fail to connect the two thoughts.”

“I’m very horny.”

“Really, though, you have a gift,” I insist to him. “For words. It’s one of the things Rebekah noted on your application, your finesse with the English language.”

“I’m literally hard right now.”

“Plus, I think you could really make a career out of it,” I go on. “I have connections.”

“I have a boner, and I’d like to connect it to your mouth.”

I grip him by the face, sobering him at once. “You’re beautiful, Trevor. Inside and out. And I’m so lucky to have you.”

Those words, of all the ones I’ve uttered, finally affect him. He bites his lip as he blushes, unable to say anything as he stares into my eyes.

“To have you,” I repeat, emphasizing it. “I implied that you’re all mine. Does that make you hornier?”

“Maybe,” he mumbles cheekily, still biting his lip.

“Got anything in mind?”

He answers by tackling me to the dirt, his lips dropping onto mine impatiently. Here we both are, fighting for what’s ours. I think we’re finally ready to figure this out for the first time not as boss and intern, but rather as boyfriend and boyfriend—the way it was always meant to be.

Epilogue

Trevor fast-forwards 4 years.

Four years can really change a person.

Unless that person happens to be named Benjamin Gage, who is as immature as ever, eyeing me suggestively over the table at this ritzy restaurant as he ever so slowly dips his breadstick in and out of the garlic butter sauce over and over and over again.

I’m apparently in love with a thirteen-year-old who makes lewd sex jokes in public, shamelessly plays footsy with me under the table the whole time I’m trying to enjoy my shrimp scampi, and is insatiably horny at all hours of the day.

I finally crack a smile and proceed to muffle my laugh with a cloth napkin. And I can’t get enough of him.

I don’t mean to be “one of those gross lovey-dovey guys”, but pretty much every weekend is like this now. Benjamin spoils me with some fancy dinner at a restaurant, we hit the town for a bit to kick back and have fun, and then we’re home cuddled up on the couch with a movie. Lancelot has taken a liking to me ever since we conquered Mount Benjamin and reclaimed the terrace from the evil bird beak posse, so he’ll often cuddle with us too or sit on the rug below our feet.

Comically, he’ll leave right when Ben and I start to kiss and decide we can’t make it to the end of the movie without losing ourselves in each other’s massaging hands and explorative lips.

Spoiler alert: all our massages have happy endings.

This particular weekend, however, is special—and not just because it’s my three-year anniversary of the incredible job I landed as a freelance writer for one of the country’s largest media publications. This weekend is special for a reason which will be unveiled after we get home and my final plans come together.

“You’ve been really jumpy today,” notes Ben, eyeing me as we walk back to our apartment under the evening sun—which tries and succeeds at turning the sky into a breathtaking painting of warring orange and brilliant blue colors.

“After watching your breadsticks fornicating with the garlic butter sauce for an hour,” I quip back, “I think I have a library of reasons to be jumpy.”

He leans into me, clasping my hand. Yes, we’re holding hands. I know. Who am I, right? “I’m jumpy, too. I want to jump on you.”

I smirk, feeling the inevitable tickle of excitement chase its way up my neck—the tickle that always leads to a night of hot sex. “Can’t you contain yourself until we get home?”

“I know why you’re jumpy,” Ben decides. “It’s because we both have next week off, we’re heading to our spot in Cancún so you can get your pretty butt pampered the way you like, and you know it’s our anniversary next Friday, so—”

“You make me sound like such a damned princess.”

“Prince,” he corrects me. “And you are.” He reaches around to give my ass a firm, aggressive squeeze. I melt whenever he does that. The way he grabs my butt is so “this is mine”, like he wants to remind me of exactly what he plans to do to it later.

I am so his. And I’ve been totally his for four years.

Of course, his own beefy butt, swollen biceps, chiseled jaw, brilliant eyes, and plump lips are all mine. So it goes both ways.

Before we even enter our home, Lancelot is already scratching excitedly from the other side of the door. When we open it, both of us are tackled by the eager dog and all his pent-up, face-licking excitement. This happens every day now, by the way.

“Dinnertime!” I announce as I finish plating Lance’s meal on a dish, which I serve at his spot at the table. Ben was adamant about Lance being served at the table like a member of the family—our son, in many ways—and not in a bowl on the floor. I was quick to embrace it, since Lance and I have all but become best dog-and-human buddies. And really, I’ve come to love him just as much.

Speaking of dogs, my phone dances on the counter with a call. As it rings, I watch Ben go up the stairs while slowly stripping off his clothes, leaving a deliberate trail that ends with him naked at the top, slowly sauntering to the bathroom—and knowing full well he has my complete and undivided attention. What a cock tease.

I bite my lip, hard in an instant, then pick up the phone and decide to deal with the call quickly. “What is it, Elijah??” I blurt.

“Whoa, bro. Really? Did I interrupt you giving Ben an enema or something?”

“Just about,” I answer, impatient to rush upstairs and join Ben in the shower, which is where I assume he’s gone. “What do you need? Be quick. Ben’s naked. This only happens four times a day.”

“I’ll be so in-and-out quick, you won’t know who the daddy is.” He clears his throat. “Basically, we’re pregnant again.”

I gape. “Oh my God. Are you serious??”

“I know, I know. Ashlee and I already got our hands full with number one—our noisemaker Emma—and now we’re popping out another. We’re gonna be a family of twelve by Christmas.”

“That’s … not even physically possible.”

“Shush with you and your smarty-smartness,” he fires back. “Speaking of Ben and giving him enemas for the rest of your life. When are you two gonna finally … y’know? It’s been four years, bro. You’ve waited long enough.”

I glance back at Lance, who’s still innocently chomping down his meal at the table. “Don’t jinx it.”

“Jinx what? Hey, dude, tell me I’m gonna be your best man. I’ll throw you the biggest, gayest-ass bachelor party …”

“Nah, Lancelot is my best man. You’ll be my ring bearer.”

Elijah chuckles. “You’re such a dick.”

I find myself overcome suddenly with all that’s happened over the years. Elijah and Ashlee’s wedding and the unexpected early birth of their daughter Emma. Getting my dream job and the man of my dreams. Benjamin and his overwhelming list of A-list clients brought on by his totally-doesn’t-give-two-fucks approach—inspired by the unapologetic now-twenty-something Hawk. Rebekah and her opening of a new firm in California.

Ben also finally got a unique surprise in the form of meeting a very peculiar woman friend of his for the very first time. I wasn’t really sure who she was, but she wore a face-swallowing scarf, huge sunglasses, and a sunhat that could provide shade for a small country. When she got a look at me, the only thing she said to Ben was, “No wonder you had the ants in your pants about this pretty boy,” in her thick German accent. Then she poked him in the ribs and added, “I bet you go through ten bottles of chocolate syrup in a week with this one.”

I still have no idea what she meant by that, but it made Ben laugh so hard that even the stoic, strange woman seemed to smile with her eyes, twinkling happily that they finally got to meet.

I even had the pleasure of meeting Ben’s parents, who took to me rather well, considering Ben doesn’t think too highly of them. But I like to believe that after my meeting his family and pushing Ben to reconcile with them, their relationship is now stronger. Maybe he was inspired after meeting my own family—especially my mother, who basically treats him like a second son now.

And maybe it’s all these thoughts that inspire my next words. “Elijah, your friendship means so much to me. I’m so happy you found the one. And in all sincerity, congratulations to you both.”

“Aw, shucks, dude. You’re gonna make me cry.”

“If you keep me away from Ben any longer, you’re gonna make him cry. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you his answer.”

“His answer to what?” asks Elijah, but I’ve hung up already.

Not wanting to interrupt Lance’s dinner, I get him ready, then rub behind his ears encouragingly. I level my eyes with his. “You wait for the cue,” I murmur to him. He answers by licking my cheek, which I take for him understanding me. “Good boy.”

I’m up the stairs in seconds. I take off all my clothes outside the bathroom door, then push my way in.

The steam swirls around my naked body. Peering through the fog, I spot Ben’s sexy wide shoulders in the enormous renovated shower—which was my idea to renovate, inspired by the giant one we enjoy every time we visit Cancún. He pretends not to see me, lifting his arm as he demonstratively scrubs his pit with a bar of soap. I saunter up behind him, closing the distance between us. The steam had already cloaked my body in a sheen of warm moisture, but now the hot water falls over my skin as our bodies unite. My cock presses up against his pert butt cheeks. I slide my hands around his torso, cupping his pecs from behind.

He continues to play coy, washing himself slowly, sensuously, his arms in the air as he focuses on his pits. I continue to scrub something of my own: my cock between his cheeks … until it slips right between them and teases at the hole.

Ben’s head turns slightly, half-looking at me over his muscled, tatted shoulder. “You playing ‘knock, knock’ back there?”

“I’m playing ‘breaking and entering’, actually.” I have sorely underestimated how good his cheeks would feel engulfing my cock when it’s this hard. “And I’m gonna get in.”

The slickness is driving me crazy. If his soapy dick sticking straight up is any indication, he’s turned on just as much as I am.

“You asked what I wanted for our anniversary,” I tease him. “I think you know damned well what I want.”

“My big, beautiful pair of beef bubbles wasn’t on the menu,” he teases right back, a crooked grin on his face.

“Beef bubbles.” I snort against his back, shaking my head in shame. “Really, you outdo yourself.”

His chuckles echo all around us. I cling tighter to his body, my arms embracing his torso as my cock continues to grind and hump his—big, muscular hump.

My cock keeps poking at his hole, then slipping past it, over and over. The sensation of his hole as it slides over my sensitive cockhead makes my breath jagged with anticipation.

“Please,” I beg him, pressing myself against him so tightly.

The soap slips from his fist and plops onto the ground.

He glances down at it, then sheepishly looks back at me over his big shoulder. “I, uh … seriously didn’t intend to do that.”

Never mind him bending over anyway; I push my man against the shower wall and grind my slippery cock between his butt cheeks. Each time my cockhead grazes his hole, it gets that much more difficult to not shove the whole length of it inside.

“You’ve gotten really bossy,” Benjamin notes.

“I learned from the best,” I moan back, one of my soapy hands sliding down his form and slipping its way between his cheeks. I tease his hole with a finger, daring to see if it’ll slip inside.

Then, with surprising ease, it does—right to the first knuckle. Ben moans the second my finger enters him. All his back muscles flex, gleaming beautifully under the running water.

“I’m collecting my anniversary gift early,” I whisper to him, the shower taking away half my words and scattering them across the walls along with the water droplets.

“Prince Trevor is a greedy prince …”

My finger continues to stretch him, working its way in and out of his tight, slippery, smooth hole. My cock is pulsing with so much anticipation, desperate to get inside, that I feel myself leaking all over his ass as I continue to grind against him.

I kiss his backside and up his neck, relaxing him, soothing him just as he soothed me the first night he took my virginity. “You’re beautiful, Benjamin Gage.”

“I’d say the same of you,” he moans, his chest pressed against the shower wall, “if I could see you.”

“Never mind seeing me. You’re about to feel me. Every inch.”

I add another finger to the first. He’s officially humping the shower wall, his eyes rocking back and his lips parting.

“Trevor … fuck. I didn’t expect this to feel so damned good.”

“Just wait ‘til I’m inside you.”

He’s loosened so much, I’m slipping in and out easily. Almost seamlessly, I replace my fingers with my cock, and in I go.

“Oh my God,” he breathes, half a groan, half a hiss.

I start pumping him from behind. I know what he’s feeling because I’ve been on his end before, but I did not anticipate the amount of insane pleasure that I would be flooded with the instant I entered him. The tightness alone is overwhelming, how his ass squeezes and massages my cock with every pump I give him.

He returns every thrust I give him with a hump of his own. I push into his ass, and he pushes his cock against the wall.

It’s one of my favorite pastimes, having any part of me being engulfed by his ass, after all. Face. Tongues. Hands. I guess it was only a matter of time before my cock got a turn.

I pull him away from the shower wall just enough to grab hold of his slippery dick, then start to stroke it slowly at first, knowing how unfathomably hard and sensitive it is.

“Careful …” he warns. “I could blow at any second.”

“I’m counting on it,” I moan right back, my words disturbing the steam that dances in front of my face, “because I want you to blow your load the second I say.”

“You got it, boss,” answers Ben with half an evil grin, dimples popping out of his chiseled cheek.

We manage a rhythm that rocks us both into a state of ecstasy that neither of us are likely to endure for much longer. The closer I get, the closer he gets—I can tell with how his cock pulses in my hand and the unevenness of his breaths.

“Five …” I whisper. “Four …”

“I love you, Trevor.”

I keep pumping his ass with my cock and stroking him with my slippery, skillful hand. “Three …”

“Oh, God …”

“Two …”

His dick already begins to convulse, my man rushing over the brink of no return. “Trevor …”

“One,” I grunt just as my orgasm ripples through me.

We both empty ourselves at once. He cries out in bliss, his moans vibrating the shower walls as he dumps his load all over my hand and the tile below. I erupt inside him, driven crazy by the tightness of his big muscular ass. It flexes and tightens from his own orgasm against my cock, which makes my coming all the more exciting. Our orgasms must last a solid minute, for as many times as we groan and convulse against one another’s bodies.

Then we’re spent, pressed to the wall of the shower as we breathe deeply and collect ourselves. The water slowly continues to run over our bodies, cleaning us and soothing our minds.

When I pull out, Ben spins around and attacks my face, kissing me so passionately that I even feel the muscles of his jaw work.

He pulls away and stares longingly into my eyes. “I love you, Trevor Woodard. Also, happy early anniversary,” he adds with a devilish smirk.

I grin. “I love you, too, Benjamin Gage.” I give his butt a slap, then add, “But I have one more surprise.”

“Is it a cake?”

I don’t tell him another thing. We clean ourselves off under the hot, powerful spray of water, then slip out to dry. Benjamin continues to eye me suspiciously as we throw on some underwear, and by the time we lie on our bed, he looks like a petulant child who refuses to wait for Christmas morning. It’s almost adorable, his impatience when he’s the one so used to being in charge all the time. I should remember to make him wait more often.

“So?” Ben prompts me, lying across the bed and staring at me as I sit on the foot of it. “What’s this surprise?”

I smile and act cool, but really, my heart is pounding. I’m so fucking nervous. Can I do this?

“What is it??” Ben presses again.

I swallow hard, then lift my hands up and clap twice. The tiny tinkling of Lance’s collar is heard in the distance, and before ten seconds have passed, Lance pads excitedly into the room and sits on the floor in front of the bed, staring up at us expectantly.

“Aww,” sings Ben, coming up to the edge to look down at his loyal knight. “You taught him a new trick! You’re so damned good at that.”

I look over at Ben, all the humor gone from my face as I peer into his beautiful eyes. This is the moment, I coach myself.

Ben meets my eyes, notices my expression has straightened, and then his own follows suit. “What is it, babe?”

I take a breath. “This … is Lancelot’s best trick yet.”

Ben squints at me, confused, then takes another look at his dog. “Oh. His collar. It’s new. It’s …”

And then Benjamin leans forward, reaching out to inspect the charm that dangles from Lancelot’s neck. He freezes when he realizes it isn’t a charm at all.

It’s a ring.

I slip off the bed, then lower myself to one knee.

Ben’s eyes, wide and unblinking and stunned, turn to meet mine. “T-Trevor … babe …”

I unclip the ring from Lancelot’s collar, then present it with annoyingly trembling fingers.

“Oh … my … God,” Ben breathes.

I swallow again, my throat dry, my nerves tightening all over as I bring my eyes up to meet Ben’s, which are wet with emotion. “Benjamin Gage …” I start.

“You’re doing this. We’re … We’re really fuckin’ doing this …” Ben looks like he’s about to spill tears of joy or pass out before I’ve even began.

“Benjamin Gage. The day you came into my life … I’d been a total wreck.” I tighten my grip on the ring, my palms sweaty, my heart thrashing against my ribcage. “My life was totally derailed. I couldn’t tell up from down. I lost my mind every time I saw you. And I have, ever since, been downright head-over-heels stupid for you, Benjamin … and it’s all your damned fault.”

“Oh, babe …”

“Benjamin Gage, my love … ever since that first day I saw you at the club, and then met you for the first time all over again by diving at your feet in that office … I knew it would be my fate: I’ve fallen hard for my boss.”

Ben’s lip starts trembling. For the record, I’ve never seen him like this. He doesn’t cry at movies. He doesn’t sob for anything. And this big muscular man is about to cry. He’s so undone by such a simple act as bending the knee and presenting a ring.

Who knew this would be his weakness?

“Ben, my love, my everything … will you marry me?”

He rushes off the bed so fast, Lance jumps back in surprise. Ben wraps me up in his arms and lifts me off the ground, spinning me around, then sets me down to kiss me deeply.

He pulls away just an inch to answer, “Yes,” to my face, his breath warm and wanting. “Yes, Trevor Woodard. Yes, yes, yes.”

The ring slips over his finger, a perfect fit.

And then he kisses me again, and it’s this kiss that I will, for years and years, remember.

I hope all our kisses compete relentlessly with this perfect, powerful kiss. I hope all the rest of our moments alive try with passionate fervor to compare to this one when the love of my life, Benjamin Gage, kisses me with a ring on his finger.

And I hope, from this day forward, every single breath I ever take dares to be like the one he just stole from my lungs with this kiss—wholly, tenderly, and with all his bossy, stubborn heart.

The End.

*** Did you enjoy “Hard For My Boss”? ***

Keep turning the page if you’d like to read *two* FULL novellas from my Brazen Boys series, which is a collection of nine standalone M/M romances. I’ve included both “Dorm Game” as well as “Straight Up” for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy them!

Happy Reading, Always!

XXOO

Daryl

DORM GAME
(Full Novella)

The Brazen Boys
Daryl Banner

Dorm Game: a Brazen Boys story

Copyright © 2015 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover & Interior Design : Daryl Banner

Cover Model : Nick Duffy

Photo of Nick Duffy by Simon Barnes

[ 1 ]

I’ve found the world’s greatest source of renewable energy, and it is horniness.

He waits for my answer. His eyes are dangerous and bright, two chips of ice in a hard, perfect as porcelain face. The devil plays on his lips and the belt hangs heavily from his right hand like a tail, a devil’s tail. It’s his belt. Somehow that makes this whole thing all the hotter. The sweat on his skin and the dim light shining from the lamp on his desk make his powerful pecs glow, smooth and shining, as he stands over my body tied down to the skinny dorm bed.

“What’s your answer, boy?”

Andrew and I are both twenty and he calls me “boy”. I told him not to do the “boy” thing when he first moved into my dorm, but Andrew isn’t the type to follow orders. He made it clear from the start: he’s in charge when we play the dorm game.

“Tell me your answer, unless you’re wanting the punishment.”

If I had known studying for tests would be this fun, I’d have had him move in the second we met.

“A,” he asks, licking his lips, “or B?”

The right answer will earn my throbbing cock a few teasing, pleasurable strokes from his strong and all-too-clever fingers. The wrong answer …

“R-Read the question again?” I beg.

His eyes narrow. Andrew looks so sexy when his eyes narrow. Especially wearing nothing but those loose, acid-washed jeans sagged just enough to show the black waistband of his boxers, the brand printed in giant green block letters across it. With a voice as hard and unforgiving as iron, he repeats the question patiently to me. He knows how deeply I’m breathing without even listening. I’d swear he even knows my heart rate, my thoughts. He knows the answer in my jagged sighs and can tell whether it’s reward or punishment I crave. His strong jaw working to produce the words of the question, I’m distracted by the beauty of this boy I’ve let into my life, this boy who drips sexuality. He sweats and I’m horny. He rubs a spot on his shoulder and I’m hard in an instant. I’ve wanted Andrew for so long and now I have him.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, he has me. Fastened to a bed, at his total mercy, it’s pretty fucking clear I’m not going anywhere.

The question is about the names of bones in the hand. It makes me wonder about the bones in my hand; the knee-length soccer socks he uses to tie me up constrict my wrists, cramping them in a strangely pleasurable way. I wonder, for as many times as we’ve done this, why the bones in my hand haven’t broken from my pulling on them to escape his playful fingers and less playful lashes.

“A,” I choose when he’s finished.

He smiles coolly, then flips the flashcard. I see the answer circled. “Correct,” he announces, then tosses the flashcard aside like nothing. The belt hanging from one hand, he lazily reaches the other toward my cock, and when the fingers squeeze to claim it, I suck in air. He strokes it once. He strokes it twice, then lets go.

“Don’t stop,” I beg, but I know better than to beg. My every ounce of pleasure is allowed or denied by his frisky hands. Literally. I’m starving to death and my cruel friend offers me crumbs. Why do the appetizers make me so much hornier than the actual meal? But this is who Andrew is and who I’ve become, and we are both expert players of the dorm game.

Casually, he brings the next card to his face. “Ah,” he mumbles. “A question about … arms.”

“I like arms,” I say, wriggling against the binds.

“Oh?” He presses his lips together, clenching, then bends his arms into a perfect double-bicep pose. His veins pop. He grunts. “Like these ones?”

He does this on purpose. Knowing I can’t reach my cock, that I can’t jerk myself off while looking at his perfect baseballs-for-biceps … It’s agonizing.

“I want to cum so bad,” I breathe.

He drops his arms and laughs at me. “Fourteen more to go,” he says, “and then we’ll consider it.”

[ 2 ]

Andrew’s always enjoyed being in control. I met him in an Intro to Psychology class last year when we were sophomores. The prof was a total pushover and half the students slept, even in the front row, but the sight of Andrew kept me awake every day. He’d always sit near the side, elbows propped on the desk so I’d get this delicious view of his flexed triceps and back muscles most of the hour. The way his shirts fit tightly against his back, sucking on his arms, painting his traps and bulged shoulders, I’d find myself nursing a secret hard-on so often that I can count on my hand the amount of classes I wasn’t hard.

It became an obsession pretty quick. I would make sure to get to class super early just so I could excitedly anticipate him arriving. I’d sit in my desk and watch the door like a dog. The rustling of clothes and side conversations happening all around me were bothersome because it all tried to distract me from the sight of Andrew walking into class. When at last he arrived, I’d clench the edge of my desk—my hands already plenty sweaty—and study what he was wearing. Another tight shirt of some color or another. Tight jeans he squeezed his powerful thighs and thick jock butt into. I wondered what he did in high school. Was he a walking football quarterback wet dream? Cocky captain of the wrestling team? Bored too-much-time-on-his-hands weightlifter? Bully with four older brothers he had to grow stronger than?

Too soon, the class always ended, and all my classmates scattered like my memory of half the lesson I was supposed to be paying attention to. One of these countless days, I found a speck of courage and did what any normal person would do when consumed by a classroom crush.

I stalked him. As I didn’t have another class for three hours, and I was miserably obsessed with Andrew, I went in the same direction he did, which was basically opposite of my dorm where I would otherwise be headed. Seemed his next destination was the math building, not far from the psych hall. I kept my distance and, moments after he went in, I then followed. I was certain he didn’t know I was on his sexy tail.

Once in the building, I saw him disappear into the first auditorium, then realized that, in fact, I did not want to sit through an hour-long algebra class. Also, I was sorta creeping myself out with all this stalking. Feeling a stroke of panic lance down my arms, I gripped my backpack and turned on my heel, vacating the math building for good.

I shouldn’t make a habit of this, I realized. People do not like to be followed. But for the next hour, I found myself helplessly glued to a bench near the exit of the math building. I was pretending to enjoy the sunshine, pretending to catch up on the last psych chapter, but every five seconds I’d glance up at the doors, wondering if I might catch Andrew leaving them. Every person that pushed through the door sent a jolt of excitement through me, even when it turned out not to be him.

Then suddenly, it was him.

I casually gathered my things and began to follow. Again. What the actual fuck am I doing? I continued down the path many, many, many paces behind him, and discovered with relief that he seemed to be headed to the food court. Just so happened, I was hungry as a motherfuck.

Of course, half an hour later found me seated on the opposite side of the commons, watching as he pushed a fat burger into his big, sexy lips. He was all by himself. No one sat with him. No one approached him. No one walked past to say hi. For some reason, the seeming lonesomeness of his character drew me in. I felt like I related to him, just in that solidarity factor, that … aloneness. I wanted him to be just like me, somehow. I wanted all the obvious differences in our appearances to be nothing compared to some deep inner sameness about the two of us. That isn’t so improbable, I reasoned, desperately hopeful.

Desperately horny.

Chewing on my lame, tasteless sandwich, I knew how stupid I sounded. We’re nothing alike, I told myself, bitter, nor will we ever be. You should go back to your dorm and your boring roommate and give up this creepy obsession of yours. Still, I stayed there to watch him until the bitter, delicious end.

My roommate was going to move out the following year. That meant some random cat they pulled from the sophomore or junior bowl was going to be shoved into the vacancy in my room. Staring hungrily at Andrew across the food court, I wondered what it’d be like to be his roommate. Would we work out together? Would he be embarrassed of me? Maybe we could help each other study. Yes, I really, truly thought that, even then, sitting there with my sad sandwich and the dream boy within my view, not knowing a thing that my future would hold, I sat there and pondered a life with Andrew for a roommate.

He got up unceremoniously and moved to the trashcan with his empty bag of chips and a crumpled up napkin. I flinched, daring myself to follow, but half of my sandwich remained, and suddenly I lost the nerve to keep up with him. Doesn’t matter, I thought, trying to comfort myself. I’ll see him Friday. He walked toward the exit of the food court, shoved his way out of it, and the muscular walking orgasm was gone.

That night, as I rested in bed with my eyes to the ceiling and a textbook opened at my side that I’d given up on an hour ago, I listened to the gentle hum of my roommate talking to his girlfriend on a cellphone in the bathroom. For a moment it sounded like arguing, then it became pleading, and finally I heard the echoing ring of laughter.

Really, relationships are so strange to me. The only guy I’d ever been sexual with was some fruit ball my junior year of high school whose voice was two octaves higher than mine, but his hair was always done up really fucking amazingly. One day afterschool he’d insisted on coming over to “give me a makeover” or something, and I agreed even though I and the whole school knew he was gay. In the bathroom, he turned my hair into something half-amazing and half-scary, then grabbed my face with two oily palms and cried, “You’re hot shit!” When I tried to thank him, he planted his lips on my face, and somewhere between the hairspray and two a.m., half a handjob and some clumsy kissing happened. The next day he told his two best girlfriends that we were boyfriends, and I denied it, and then there was an argument and a lot of ugly words were thrown around, and suddenly I had nothing to do anymore with him or anyone he knew. It was a very confusing and painful week.

I just never grasped the concept of boyfriends or lovers or whatever. My right hand sufficed.

And when my roommate finally got off the phone and mumbled something at me about staying at his girlfriend’s that night, he threw a bag over his shoulder and took off. The room all to myself, I spent exactly twenty minutes reading the same sentence over and over again in the psych book before giving up, pulling up a porn site on my laptop, and feverishly searching for something that reminded me the most of Andrew. I settled on some puffy muscled guy flexing, then unzipped my pants. His face was all wrong and his shirt didn’t fit him as tight as I wanted it to, but he pulled the thing off too soon anyway, and I jerked until the stars were traded for a wash of morning sunlight.

I was officially, irrevocably crushing hard on the muscle god from Psych. So, naturally, that Friday when the prof announced that we would be partnering up for a joint research paper and project, my stomach fell through the floor.

[ 3 ]

Excitement thundered into me like a horrid sickness and my legs turned to overcooked fettuccini. To my left, I saw boys partnering up. To my right, boys and girls and everyone partnering up. Straight ahead, Andrew sat there, bored, tight-shirted and muscular and … waiting.

I couldn’t believe it. No one was going for him and no one was approaching me. Maybe it’s a fluke. Maybe I should wait. Maybe someone was headed for my desk right now and as soon as they’d ask, I’d weakly agree to be their partner while longingly staring at Andrew from across the classroom and swallowing all my what-ifs. What is it about a sick concoction of courage and horniness that drives us to do stupid things? Was I about to do the stupidest thing of all?

I was up from my seat and began to move. The world was falling to my left, falling to my right, and the classroom was a blur of noise and voice and colors. As I approached his desk, I felt myself getting sicker and sicker, shaking all over. I’ve never been this nervous before, I remember thinking. Still no one approached him. Why? Didn’t anyone else see this beautiful hunk of beefsteak just waiting to be claimed?

Halfway to his desk, he turned. That’s when our eyes connected for the first time in my life, and I stopped. He just sat there, fierce and beastly, his blue-steel eyes pinning me in place. He made no effort to move or get up, even while we stared at each other, both of us waiting—waiting for what?

He wanted me to finish my walk toward him. He wanted me to humiliate myself. Even this early on, teaching me that he always gets what he wants.

I started moving again. The rest of the walk to his desk took seven forevers. Walking toward him, he neither spoke nor smiled; he just sat there, his bright eyes locked on me, waiting, almost bored.

And then I was in front of his desk. He hardly made the effort to lift his chin. I felt the throbbing of my nervous system in my fingertips and if I didn’t get the words out soon, I was going to faint.

“Do you …” Already ran out of breath. I braced myself, noticed I had put a hand on his desk—perhaps to ensure that I wouldn’t fall over—then finished: “Do you want to b-b-be partners?”

He regarded me lazily. The muscles in his shoulders flinched. His arms twitched deliciously as he shifted his body around to have a better look. I was breathing funny and my palms were so sweaty I thought they’d fall off.

After what might have been the length of a sentence to hell, he finally said, “Alright.”

Oh fuck, his voice. Deep, smooth, strong. Involuntarily, I lowered into a seat next to him. I didn’t even check to see if anyone was sitting in it and I’m super glad no one was because I’d be in their lap now. “Cool,” I finally allowed myself to say, grabbing my fingers, unsure what to do with them, resting them on my thighs. “I’m Michael.”

“Andrew,” he said back, but of course I already knew that. Every day’s roll call told me so, again and again: Andrew Knudson.

I took a second to peer across the rest of the class, surveying all the other partnerships that had been formed. I still couldn’t believe no one else thought to approach Andrew. He had no friends in the class, I figured. Maybe he intimidated everyone else just as much. Maybe he was put in this class just for me.

I was self-centered and horny, I don’t care.

“So?”

I returned my attention to him, realizing I was losing myself in my own head. “Yeah, okay,” I said, bringing myself into focus. “So, uh … next we need to, uh … we need to figure out a subject for our paper.”

“Yeah,” he grunted, playing with a pencil in his hand. The way his fingers moved, making the pencil dance between them, among them, under and over them, I should’ve known right there how expert he could be with his fingers. He has clever fingers. Wicked fingers. Playful fingers …

“So … do you have any ideas for … um …?”

He shrugged his big muscular shoulders and focused his bright, cold eyes at the ceiling. I couldn’t tell if he was in thought, or just so horribly uninterested that he was counting the minutes until class was over. Was this a mistake? I wondered. Did I steal him away from someone else? Was he hoping some hot chick would’ve asked to pair with him? I felt guilty instantly.

But despite my guilt, I also felt lucky as fuck. I felt special. I felt like I’d won something. Yeah, he’s probably straight, and I had half a mind to sneer at all the girls that could’ve partnered with him, even the other dudes in class, anyone that could’ve come between me and the object of my desires. I had a sudden and hungry possessiveness take hold of me.

It was a game of partners and I’d won.

Noting his clear lack of enthusiasm for the tedium of work, I began to suggest ideas for our psychology project. Andrew was very, very little help. He wants me to do all the work, I realized, but somehow I wasn’t annoyed by it. If the price of being within his proximity was doing the work, I’d pay it happily. I’d pay it all year long, just to make sure we’re partners every time.

Of course, every idea I had Andrew shot down. “Dumb,” he said to one. “Lame,” he said to another. Then finally he cuts me off and says, “Games.”

“Games?”

“The psych behind them,” he said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice, as if I ought to have followed his train of thought perfectly with just the few unhelpful words. “Games we play.”

“I don’t get it. Video games?”

“You think I’m hot?”

My mouth was opened with my next words on my tongue, but his question froze me in place. A hundred thoughts raced through me and my heart was in my throat. Was he onto me? Did he, all this time, know that I was some horny, lonely, drooling guy in the back of the classroom waiting for this one sad moment to throw myself at him? Did he know I was stalking him that whole time, following him to math and then to the food court?

I realized even now, he could still decide not to be my partner and go find someone else. I could lose him.

“What—What—What do you mean?”

“You hoping this project’s gonna get us close or something?” he asked, his voice so low I could swear his words were being submitted to me by telepathy. He’s inside my head, I told myself. I was shaking so bad, I could feel my pulse in my fucking eyeballs. Still, he went on, almost gently: “Wanna touch me, Michael?”

“I don’t—I don’t know what you—why you—”

“I’m playing with you, get it?” His eyes burned with their furious hot-blue irises. “The games we play with each other. Teasing. Button-pushing.”

“Oh. The … the psychology of games,” I said back, studying him uncertainly. Question was, was he still fucking with me, or was he serious? My pulse blinded me, making my eyesight unclear. I wondered if my vision was the only thing all this excitement was making unclear. “I … I don’t think they have a study specifically for that.”

“That’s what I want our project to be.” The way he said it, I got the feeling there was little room for negotiation. It’s always been Andrew’s way or no way. It’s Andrew’s game or no game at all.

“Games, it is,” I agreed.

[ 4 ]

This was how I met him. In a clumsy joining of partnership one unassuming day in Intro to Psych, we were bonded forever. The so-called questions he threw at me about how hot I thought he was, they weren’t again resurrected. I was equal parts relieved and unsettled by that. Every class period thereafter, the prof would kindly give us ten minutes to discuss projects with our partners, and those ten minutes were the only ten that I began looking forward to. Even lunches and other classes and sleep got in the way; Intro to Psych was the only thing that mattered. Games, he had chosen for us. He must be into games …

Through the course of our research, I would learn precisely how into it Andrew Knudson was. His affinity for playing was apparent in almost everything he did, from the intimidating way he’d stare at me knowing he’d get his way eventually, to the aggressive, almost-competitive attitude he’d take in making all the decisions with our project. I constantly felt like there was a competition going on, whether of brains or brawn I couldn’t tell. The playing was endless. Once, he even bet that he could find something in the appendix quicker than I could. There were no stakes, but he’d make the bet anyway and he’d always win. Sometimes he’d be so cocky, he’d give me a head start … and still win. What an expert he is with those fingers.

When the class times apparently weren’t enough to speed our progress, Andrew decided the two of us should make a workspace of my dormitory. No discussion about it, just a decision, and at once it was set in stone. He always gets his way. My roommate was often not there, so Andrew always sat on his bed as if he owned it. That’s the way Andrew approached anything, as if it were already his to do with as he pleased. It’s a quality I both admired and found furiously annoying.

When my roommate took off for a weekend, that’s when the relationship between Andrew and I became something more than just a study in manipulative psychology.

“We need to be more specific,” I pointed out that Friday night, scrolling through notes and bookmarked Wikipedia pages. Of course, I was the one doing all the work; he just sat there most of the time looking pretty, offering one-word responses, and only now and then bothering to crack open the textbook. “Our notes are, like, everywhere. We might as well be doing a paper on the whole field of psychology. Psychology is all manipulative when you think about it.”

“Let’s play a game.”

I frowned at him. He was wearing a baby blue polo shirt. It was a size too small for his body, which gave a gift of his meaty, muscular form to my hungry eyes. Also the way he sat on my roommate’s bed, it showed the crotch of his jeans in perfect view, as if taunting, deliberate. Even his clothes knew how to play with me. “A game?”

“We try to guess what the other’s thinking.”

I vividly remember feeling my heart quicken. My mouth was dry in an instant and I couldn’t even swallow. Something about the way he suggested the game made me think he was already perfectly aware of the dirty thoughts crossing my quivering, ever-distracted mind. At this point, with his eyes locked onto mine and awaiting my answer, I found it excruciatingly difficult to not look down at the shape of his pecs in that tight baby blue polo, at the bulge his faded pants made below.

“Are you … Are you trying to apply what we’re learning about manipulative psychology to … to …” I tried to act all cool, tried to act casual, calm, easy.

But Andrew pressed on, ignoring me. “If you guess right, nothing happens. If you guess wrong, then you lose a piece of clothing.”

“Wait, what?”

“Same applies to me. If I guess wrong, I lose a piece of clothing. My choice of clothing, always.”

A game, he’d said. Let’s play a game. This is how it all started. “You’re really into this, huh?” I asked, but I knew I was projecting onto him because, to be honest, I was really into this. My cock was bone-hard in my pants to the point that it ached.

Did I really want him to see me with my clothes off? I considered that this might be a trick, a horrible prank. He’s the one with the goods, after all. He’s the one with the muscles and the demigod body. “How do we know we’re telling the truth? I could just … lie.”

“Oh, you’ll tell the truth,” he said, though it sounded more like a threat. “Ready? You go first.”

How far would this game go? Did we stop when we got down to our underwear? And if we were stripped naked, what would we have left to wager for every wrong answer?

My cock throbbed thinking of an answer.

“Well,” I said, feeling smart, “you’re obviously thinking about winning this game.”

He squinted. I remember thinking, You look so sexy when you squint. The ice in your eyes burns furious when you squint. My heart clenches with longing when you squint those fierce steely eyes. “You sure?”

The way he asked those two words, it made me doubt everything. His voice was so powerful, his tone so persuasive, I was confident he could make me uncertain of my own name if he applied enough dominance. He is so strong, I knew right then. This was a horrible mistake, to engage in a game of psychology with Andrew, the beauty from Intro.

“Y-Yeah,” I  got out, annoyed at the dryness of my mouth.

Andrew grinned. I wondered if it was the first time I ever saw him smile. It took a game to get a smile out of him. His cheeks blushed feverishly and his eyes melted with hunger. I realized this is the way lions look when they’re luring in their prey. “Correct.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Your turn.”

“You’re thinking how relieved you feel,” he said at once.

I couldn’t argue with that. “That’s cheating,” I said, annoyed. “Obviously I was thinking that.”

“So I’m right,” he declared, the grin never leaving his face. Even his teeth shone with the saliva of a lion winning, lips wetted. “Your turn.”

I shifted my legs, swallowing again despite my mouth having nothing whatsoever to swallow. “Can we get back to the paper? I’m concerned that we’ve spent a week or two on this and still have, like, nothing done.”

“What is it?” he taunted me. “Afraid to lose your clothes?”

I steeled myself, lifting my chin. “No,” I lied.

“Yeah, you are,” he spat back, grinning.

“You’re thinking about me losing my clothes.”

Andrew’s grin was gone. He snorted, annoyed. Apparently I had guessed right, because the beast in him withdrew.

“Really? I’m right?” This tickled me greatly. “Why are you, Andrew, thinking about a guy like me losing my clothes? You getting gay on me?”

“You’re thinking about me with my clothes off,” he snapped back.

“Nope.” When a wash of surprise came over his fierce, sexy face, I felt myself smiling. “But now I am.”

This became my goal now. He wanted to play the dorm game? We’re going to play. And my goal was getting Andrew Knudson out of his tight, body-hugging clothes, watching them drop piece by piece to the floor. I wanted to see the goods he’d been hiding, the goods that only through tight fabric had I received hint of, every class long since the turn of the semester. I’d waited long enough.

He squinted at me, riled. Oh, what those eyes can do. Then, without being further prompted, he stood up like a good sport, unbuckled his pants, and unceremoniously threw them to his ankles. He wore sleek, black boxer-briefs that hugged his thick, muscular thighs, which were gently dusted with hair that matched the nearly-transparent blonde of his head. Plopping back down on the bed gracelessly, he kicked off the jeans along with his shoes, both of them tumbling loudly to the floor with the clinking of his heavy belt that I would someday become quite intimate with. He wore no socks. Shoes, belt, and pants? Hmm. Three for one, I thought, feeling greedy and thankful.

The boner in my pants was quite thankful too.

“What were you thinking about, then?” he asked—or rather, demanded to know.

“I was thinking about how good it’d feel to win,” I told him, because it was true. “Now I know and I can move on happily with my life.”

“Alright,” he said, skeptical.

“What? You think I lied?”

“Yeah, I think you lied.”

Perfect. My turn: “You’re thinking right now about whether or not I lied.”

Now it was his turn to feel cheated. “That’s fucked up,” he said.

“Psychology is manipulation. I take your reaction to mean I’m right.”

He snorted at me. I took that for confirmation.

I felt so proud. I’d never before felt this confident in front of Andrew. And despite the look of frustration on his face, I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to be … enjoying this. Something inside me had woken up, something that connected with Andrew’s little dorm game. Where only a week ago Andrew had been some strange exotic and unattainable muscle boy, now we were at once speaking the same language, diving one at a time into each other’s heads. What was he about to find?

“You’re thinking about the paper again,” he blurted out, thinking he’d caught me, but I shake my head, inspiring another huff of frustration from him. “What the fuck’re you thinking, then?”

“How much you’re enjoying this game,” I said. “I was also wondering, maybe, what your p-p-pecs look like.”

His eyes were sharp and cold as needles. That death-cold stare never broke from mine when, quite deliberately and slow, he rose from the bed and took hold of the bottom of his shirt. So slowly, so excruciatingly slow and careful and slow, he lifted the shirt, inch by inch by inch. He had my full attention. I had never wanted to see something so badly in my life. I counted his abs as the tight baby blue polo lifted, inch by inch by inch. Oh my god, I breathed. Four. Six. Eight. He has eight of them. Past the rolling hills of Andrew’s abdomen, he reached the mountains of pectoral muscle, the left and the right. I was holding my breath. Inch by inch by inch. Then his nipples peeked out, greeting my eyes, the left and the right. Another inch, and the curve of his two powerful mounds of chest muscle snuck out. The muscles in his whole torso played and flinched and flexed as he maneuvered the tight shirt over his thick shoulders, peeling upward, inch by inch, up and up as he lifted his big arms to slip the shirt off over his head. He struggled and worked, all the while giving me a show of his abs dancing, his pecs dancing, wriggling as the shirt made its way off his arms one at a time. Then, almost gently, he flung the shirt to the bed behind him, his eyes still on me as though they’d never broken away, not even when the shirt was covering them. The devil grinned in his eyes, not quite his mouth, not quite, and when he licked his lips, that’s when I caught my breath.

“Your turn,” said Andrew, standing there in just a pair of sleek black boxer-briefs, his voice deep and full and taunting.

“Can I just be wrong and take all my clothes off?” I half-joked, trying to make light of the fact that I was completely dressed and he was … almost completely not.

“Rules,” said Andrew, his voice booming. “You don’t change the rules in the middle. You play fair, from start to end. What kind of man do you think I am?” Every word he’d say, his abdomen flexed and retracted, taking in air, then pressing it out with the words. I was so distracted by the work of art standing in front of me, I could hardly focus on what the fuck he was saying.

“I think you’re an almost naked man.”

“You think I’m someone who gives up?” he went on stubbornly, ignoring what I thought was a rather witty jab. “You think I’m some kid who bends when it’s tough? The world’s gonna throw shit at you, and it’s gonna keep throwing shit at you. You’ll be at your worst, your best friend just died, and it’ll keep throwing shit. You think the world changes its rules to help you?”

“You’re thinking about the world and its rules,” I announced.

“The fuck right I am,” he said. It didn’t occur to him that I meant that as my guess, that despite his sudden bout of philosophy and life lessons, I was, in fact, still playing the game. “The world is fucked up when we come into it, it’s fucked up when we go. Nothing changes that.”

He looked so beautiful standing there, almost yelling at me, his muscles flexing and unflexing with all his speech and passion and fervor.

“You get me?”

I looked up to meet his eyes. I saw the zeal in them. He was having fun a moment ago, but now he was made furious at the mere suggestion of me breaking the game, forfeiting, or otherwise tampering with his apparently-set-into-stone-like-law rules that he’d made. He takes this shit seriously, I realized, attempting to sober myself. He takes this shit really, really seriously. This is not just a game.

“I get you,” I said, though it came out in more of a meek, dry choke. Was I ever going to kiss his lips? Can he make my fantasies realized, and suddenly express that all this gaming and playing around and teasing and taunting is, in fact, just his version of foreplay, and that we were about to crash faces as soon as he could get my clothes off?

“So you stick to the fucking rules,” he said.

“Got it.”

“No dicking around. No second tries or mistakes. If you don’t respect the rules, you respect nothing. If you don’t learn discipline, you don’t learn anything.”

“Got it.” Discipline. Discipline. Do you want to discipline me, Andrew?

“Now make your guess,” he ordered me.

I smiled. “I already had. And I got it right.” When his eyebrows pulled together, quizzical, I watched it slowly dawn on him. I remember thinking: He has such a beautiful face, he has to be a model or at the very least part-god. “Your turn.”

His jaw locked, set and gnawing on his own teeth. He knew he only had one more wrong answer before he was completely naked. I knew he only had one more wrong answer before he was completely naked. I was certain that, no matter what he said, I’d tell him he was wrong. I’d tell him just so I could have him banish away that final scrap of fabric on his sexy body. I’d lie to him just to watch him remove his last piece of dignity. Dignity never looked so sexy. Heaven’s never been so close to me, within reach, within touch … Just one wrong answer away.

He said, “You’re thinking I only have one wrong answer left before losing.” His eyes burned with the fury of a million games he’d played in the past, a million more he’ll play in the future. His chest, puffed with confidence. He’s a man who always wins, a man who gets his way, a champion, a competitor.

With every article of clothing that Andrew lost, my confidence grew twofold. I found myself licking my lips. You’re thinking I only have one wrong answer left before losing, he’d said.

Right, I thought. “Wrong,” I breathed instead.

He showed no reaction; his eyes simply continued to burn me whole. Then, after too long a time, he asked, “Then what is it you’re thinking?”

“How big your cock is, and whether or not it can fit in my mouth.”

He took a step toward me. He took another step, his heavy bare feet slapping the dorm room floor. Another. Then he stood right in front of me. My legs apart, he stood between them, invading my space, his face baring down on me and the crotch of his tight boxer-briefs right there, enveloping my blurry, quivery field of vision.

Then his fingers found the waistband, slipping underneath. I broke from his eyes to stare ahead at the show of his clever fingers. The waistband dropped half an inch, the fabric bunching up, the sound of the fabric alone enticing me, lifting all the hairs on the back of my neck. The sound of the fabric as it slipped another half inch, revealing two cut hips, slowly unveiling the “V” of muscle that led to his cock. The boxer-briefs held back little from the imagination; I was already plenty aware how big he was.

Until even this moment, Andrew had never indicated one way or another his sexual interests. He’d never ogled a woman or a guy in my presence. Not once did he make mention of a girlfriend, of a boyfriend, of a chick he found hot or a dude he’d want to slam. His sexual appetite was a complete and agonizing mystery to me. Until this moment when his crotch was literally two-and-a-half inches from my face, I’d never even had the gall to give it an honest wonder. It’s so strange, how a person can just be sexuality … how a person could make you forget heterosexuality, homosexuality, anything that limits or defines or categorizes … that Andrew was, somehow, inexplicably, unexplainably just … there for the meal.

Yes, the fabric was still slipping off. I saw the hint of hair peeking out. He manscapes, I thought, and it amused me, almost inspiring a smile. He cares, I realized it meant. He’s a groomer. The base of his cock was next to reveal itself, the underwear coming slowly, slowly, slowly off. He makes a game out of everything, knowing how bad I want it. I had half a mind to make a grab at his boxers, to yank them off and claim my prize, but something held me back.

I didn’t really earn this, I realized, a tinge of guilt working its way into my somersaulting cocktail of excitement and horniness happening downstairs. I won the sight of his cock with a lie. I cheated. I broke the rule … arguably, the only rule of the game.

When he pulled the rest of his boxers down, sliding them slowly over the hills of his upper thighs, his cock slapped me in the face, and I didn’t care anymore how I’d earned the win, from deceit or otherwise. His cock remained there, pointing out, pressing itself against my cheek like a friend who’s come at me for a hug.

The boxers laid at his ankles, and when I peered up, I found Andrew still staring down at me mightily, like some giant beast. Even his pecs seemed to stare at me, his nipples punctuating the peak of either mountain of muscle. To my immediate right, his cock still graced my cheek.

Was he expecting something? No more words came from him. I wondered if this meant the game was over, now that he’d lost all his clothes. His cock against my face, it neither flexed nor flinched nor pulsed; it merely waited there, strong, powerful and keen.

I took this for an invitation. What the fuck else was it meant to be? I parted my lips, began to turn my cheek.

“No,” he barked from the top of the mountain.

I stopped, lips still parted, his cock literally a centimeter from entering them. My eyes stared up at him like some puppy from the floor. No? I could feel myself wanting to whimper like a puppy too. No? But his cock was right there. His cock was waiting, wasn’t it? Wasn’t he?

“If you want to suck me off,” he said finally, “then you gotta get the next question right.”

The disbelief poured out of my eyes. My lips were still parted, I was still frozen in place with his cock—my prize—resting gently in the air before my mouth, and I choked: “A-An-Another game?”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t we played enough?”

“A simple game. One question. You get it right, you get my cock. You get it wrong, I leave and you don’t see me until class Monday.”

WHAT?? I pulled away right then, staring up at him exasperatedly, my jaw hanging. What the fuck was he getting out of this? “Dude,” I argued, feeling incensed, “it’s your cock that’s getting the blowjob. It’s a reward for us both, isn’t it? Why do we have to make another fucking game out of it? I don’t understand.”

“You playing, or am I going?”

He was having none of my protests, nor my questions, nor my appeal to simple logic. Didn’t he want me to suck him off? Or does every sexual action between us have to be motivated with the winning or losing of a game?

Well, I started the day not knowing what Andrew’s naked body looked like. Now I knew, so whether a blowjob happened or not, I’m not leaving the day empty-handed. Nothing here to lose, really, only something to gain.

In my mouth.

So I finally asked: “What’s the question?”

He reached down suddenly, wrapped his cock with his mighty hand, pressed it against the side of my face and asked: “How many inches is it?”

Are you kidding me? His cock was right there, pressed against my face, and there was no way I could possibly see it, no way I could possibly guess. The only moment I’d had of judging its entirety was a split-second after the boxer-briefs went down before the man-monster slapped me in the cheek. So fucking cruel, I thought, to have the answer pressed into my cheek where I can’t see it. It could’ve been nine inches. Could’ve been eight. Hell, having only seen it within centimeters of my face, it might’ve been four inches and simply looked enormous so close-up. How the fuck could I know for sure? Was it hard, or is he more of a grower than a shower?

He must be thinking of the answer right now. Andrew must be thinking of it, and this is almost like just another round of our previous game. What number are you thinking of? How many inches is little Andrew? Difference is, the stakes in this particular question were considerably higher.

“Seven,” I answered.

Andrew didn’t move for a moment. His firm fist still obnoxiously pressing his cock into my cheek, I heard him murmur: “You sure?”

He wants you to be right, I told myself. He wants a blowjob—Who wouldn’t? He’s trying to help you.

“Eight,” I said, changing my mind.

The cock still pressed to my face, torturing me, driving me crazy, Andrew murmured once again: “You sure?”

Those two cruel fucking words. Those two evil, horrible motherfucking words.

“Eight and a half,” I choked. “Nine.”

Then Andrew pulled away. I felt a stab of excitement until suddenly I realized he was pulling up his underwear. I didn’t even think to look at his cock until it was already put away. Then he began slipping a foot each into his pants.

“Andrew,” I said.

He pulled the pants up, yanked them over his thighs, did the buckle loudly. The whole time he dressed, his eyes never left my face. He took up the polo shirt from the bed, slipped it over his head, working his way into the arms. There went his pecs I was so craving, there went his abs, there went his sexy bellybutton.

“Andrew?”

He reached down and pulled on his shoes, slowly doing the laces, taking his time.

“You’re not seriously leaving?” I blurted, all the fun dropping from me in an instant. “Andrew?”

That’s when the wicked grin spread across his face. Pulling the backpack over his shoulder, he didn’t say another word and, unhurriedly, he went to the door.

“Andrew, seriously?”

The door shut softly behind him. I stumbled to my feet, pulled open the door and stared after him as he walked down the hall.

“What the fuck!” I called out.

He disappeared into the stairwell, the heavy door shutting behind him. I was left alone, standing at my dorm room with my cock throbbing in my pants.

I’d won the game, yet left a loser.

[ 5 ]

Had I done something wrong? Had I said something? I hardly said anything. Half of me wanted to run after him, but I can’t imagine myself acting so desperate. Was the whole thing a ploy to fuck with my head? Maybe he’d been listening more than I thought he had during all our research on manipulative psychology. Maybe this whole diabolical cock-torture was his plan from the start. Talk about applying what you learn. Fuck.

The rest of Friday night I spent sulking in front of the TV, watching a rerun of some bullshit something. I didn’t even eat dinner so my stomach sang sweet grumbly songs of misery all night to match the drumming of my heart. Saturday went much the same. I kept my cellphone close, as if he’d call or text or something. We had each other’s numbers. I ate in the dorm cafeteria for lunch and dinner that day, thinking there was some small, stupid chance he’d still be around and I’d catch him. I didn’t even know where he lived, whether in another dorm on campus, or off-campus in some fraternity-riddled subdivision or maybe he even had his own apartment. For all I knew, these dumb little efforts at trying to run into him on a weekend would prove fruitless.

Saturday night I jerked off. I don’t even remember the porn I watched. Sunday was no different, though it was filled with remarkably less hope. How the fuck am I going to face him Monday? That was the question I couldn’t stop asking myself. I’ve seen him naked, I kept thinking, over and over. I’ve seen Andrew Knudson naked and his cock, his cock, his cock was pressed against my face.

My cheek was more intimate with Andrew’s cock than my mouth was, and that made no sense to me whatsoever.

Monday hit me like a storm and I worried in the morning I’d not have the balls to go to class. When I finally coaxed myself into some clothes and heaved my heavy textbook-filled backpack over a shoulder, I trekked across campus to the psychology building. Every step threatened to buckle my knees. Pushing open the door to the psychology building made me lose my breath. When I reached the door to the classroom, I had to stop and shut my eyes. My face was on fire, I could feel it. I don’t think I can do this, I realized, trembling and wanting to cry.

Then I pushed into the room and, without paying mind to anything or anyone else in the class, I blindly stumbled to my seat. There I remained, breathing slowly and horribly, counting imaginary minutes until the class would be over.

The professor began to talk and if a million dollars were laid down I still couldn’t tell you what the hell today’s lesson covered. Twice, only twice, I looked up from my hands and brought my eyes to his desk—to Andrew’s desk. He sat facing forward, a striped blue and white shirt hugging his body. I couldn’t even quiver with excitement at the sight of him; I was much too scared, too anxious, too worried of things that had happened, of things that hadn’t happened. Look back at me, I begged, but he didn’t so much as flinch. Only twice I looked.

At ten minutes left, the professor released us to discussing the project with our partners. For the third time, I looked up, but only Andrew’s backside greeted me.

I took a deep, deep, deep breath. It was a jagged breath, but it gave me the strength to rise to my feet. I clumsily put one foot in front of the other, brought myself to the side of Andrew’s desk.

Then, he turned to look at me. His grey-blue eyes seemed lazy, almost tired. “Hey,” he said.

I lowered myself into the seat next to him and said nothing for a while, trembling. He lifted his eyebrows expectantly.

“You look sick,” he said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again to speak. “Are we okay? You and I?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

I felt my breath become more even. I felt my chest relax. My fingertips were tingly and icy cold, all the blood having retreated from my limbs, apparently. “I just, uh …” How the fuck would I put it into words? “After I … I lost the game, I …”

“This your way of saying you want to do another one?” His voice was almost gentle.

No, I didn’t want any games. I just want to know what your cock feels like inside me. In my mouth. In my body. I want to give you a reason to lose all your cool, to drop the stoicism and the hardness and adopt, instead, another hardness below your waist. I want to give you reason to moan like a bitch and cry out so loud all my hallmates hear and wonder whose buck is getting banged. I want to get you and your beefcake body naked again without the permission of another fucking game.

“Yes,” I said instead.

[ 6 ]

The second time my roommate went out of town for the weekend, Andrew took the chance and declared my dorm as our study hall. Also, our paper was kinda fucking due the following Monday and we’d written precisely zero percent of it.

“I’m not a good writer,” he complained, seated in the chair at my roommate’s desk.

The laptop was growing hot on my thighs where I typed, seated cross-legged on the bed. “You don’t have to be. I’m typing it out, you just need to help me think.”

“I’m not a good thinker.”

“I have a thesis figured out. Kinda. I have our notes here. I know what we’re going to say, just … I need a little more input from you, Andrew.”

“I’m the inspiration.” He folded his arms, spinning around in my roommate’s swivel chair. I got the pleasure of watching his body in three hundred and sixty degrees as it rotated. He wore a plain white t-shirt with a pair of torn jeans today. “Without me, the paper would be boring. Hey.” He stopped spinning, facing me. “Let’s play.”

“Let’s write.” I typed out the intro paragraph, worked a thesis into it somehow. Of course, my mind kept warring with me. One side hollered at me to pay mind to the deliciously big boy sitting in the chair. The other side panicked for the soon-approaching deadline. Then there’s the issue of how my cock kept throbbing gallingly at me every five seconds. It was like I could still feel Andrew’s cock pressed against my cheek. He looks really good in that shirt, I reasoned, then realized he’d look good in any shirt he wore. What a stupid thing to think.

I bit my lip, frustrated beyond all hell, then finally met Andrew’s hungry eyes with my own. “Before we play again, I want to make a new rule.”

“Fine. New rule is—”

“New rule is,” I took over, not allowing the ever-bossy Andrew to take charge as he always does, “no consequence of any game is you leaving the dorm and not coming back all weekend. That’s just stupid, and if you’re not going to help me with this paper, then we both fail. Got it?”

He stood up from the chair at once and rushed to the bed. I only had time to let out a gasp before my laptop was flung to the side and Andrew Knudson sat on me. His hands pinned mine above my head to the wall and he was straddling my lap, his power-thighs trapping me. His face, stern and iron-cold, stayed a mere two inches from mine. I could feel his every breath on my face.

“The rule,” he said in a voice so low it crept up my spine and tickled the little hairs in my ear, “is that you gotta stay absolutely fucking still.”

“Okay.”

“And no talking.”

I nodded.

My hands were still pinned to the wall behind me. He kept them there with just one of his hands. He’s so strong. The other hand traced down my arm, slowly, like a drop of water or a tiny bug. I flinched a bit when he approached my underarm.

“Stay still,” he said, and his voice carried a lilt of warning. “That’s the only rule. Stay still or you lose.”

“But it—!”

“And no talking. Wasn’t I clear?” His face inches from mine, I felt myself breathing hard and heavy. My cock was so hard, I felt like I was leaking bad. I clenched shut my lips, clamped, tight, clenching and clenching.

His hand began to move again.

When he got to my underarm, it was almost unbearable. I shivered and shivered, trying with all my nerves not to squirm and laugh. Is this the point of the game? I wondered. Is this a tickling game? The slower his hand moved across my armpit, the harder I got. The sensations were driving me wild. I felt a pox of goose bumps all over my body. He had my hands pinned high above me, but he even had my legs pinned too, held firmly beneath the weight of his own body. I was all his to do with as he pleased … and it seemed he pleased to do a lot.

“Doing good,” he said, as if it helped ease the torment of sensations wriggling through my growing-ever-the-more-sensitive body.

“How long’s this last??”

“Until you fuck up,” he answered. “Shut up.”

His hand continued down to my chest. I almost squeaked when his wicked fingers reached my right nipple. Oh my god. He lingered there quite deliberately; he must’ve noticed something in my face, whether it was a flinch or a squirm of an eyebrow. He began to tease my nipple, slowly, gently. Then he pinched it. I shut my eyes and bit my lip. Fuck being tickled, I thought. This feels good.

But then his evil hand slid to my side, and before I knew it he’d entered the next most-sensitive area imaginable: my ribs. I took in a deep and futile breath as his hand played devilishly down my side. It wasn’t so bad until his fingers started to move, like five individual ticklers, each with a mind worse than the next. He knows what he’s doing, I knew. He’s an expert. He was so gentle, so, so gentle. Not to mention, I also still had the problem of a certain throbbing something between my legs that couldn’t be tamed.

“You won my pants,” he announced. I opened my eyes, lifted my brow. Is it safe to talk? “Keep it up longer and you get my shirt.”

No fucking way. The longer I last, the more naked he’ll get? I felt a smile break across my face.

Andrew, notably not smiling, leaned in as his hand began to move again. “Yeah, sounds nice and all. But the game ends when your silence does.”

With that, I felt his fingers go lower. Lower. Lower. Before I realized what he was doing, his mischievous grin had returned and my mouth flung open in a silent gasp. He tugged once, and the button to my pants flew off. He tugged again and a zipper slid down. My eyes grew double.

“Moaning counts,” he muttered. And then his hand gripped my swollen cock. My jaw dropped further to emit a yelp of surprise, a gasp, a groan, something, but nothing emerged but silence and nothing and nothing. His fingers, now the five little masters of my cock, began stroking.

This was no tickle torment anymore. Shit just got serious.

He neither moved nor spoke for a while. My legs were trapped and useless beneath his body, and my hands were still pinned to the wall. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, nowhere to look but right into his delicious, horrible face. His own lips parted. He was excited; this was his thing. I could see the hunger in his eyes, the yearning, the longing … but perhaps it was more the hunger for winning that I was seeing, not something else.

His jerking of my cock quickened. “Don’t even think about moaning,” he threatened. I felt my toes curling; at least he couldn’t see them. I’d let all my excitement out through the expressive wringing and wriggling and curling and uncurling of my toes, but never in my body. I have to win, I realized. I have to get his shirt off again. Ever since that cruel Friday, I’d hungered so bad to see him shirtless. I wanted his body and I would pay almost any price.

I was getting close. He’s an expert jerker of the male member. My breathing was quick, but even that had to be quieted in order to win. I couldn’t make a sound, not even the rasping of breath. It was a silence nearly impossible to maintain.

But all the restraint of physical expression only made me that much more aware of my sense of touch. The way he worked my cock, if only I had the freedom of voice, I’d be squealing and yelping and moaning and clawing at him.

I felt my cock pulsing, pulsing, reaching the point of no return. My eyes began to rock back.

“Oh god,” I blurted out.

And just as he let go, my cock erupted. Don’t stop, I wanted to scream, agonized, frustrated, but it was too late, and with my eyes clamped shut, I felt wave after wave of cum thrusting out of me. I cried out, moaned, and my wrists fought against his powerful hand, squirming, my legs and thighs wrestling under the weight of his body.

My eyes shot open and I kept yanking on my hands, desperate to continue jerking myself. “Why’d you fucking stop??” I exclaimed, out of breath, my cock dribbling now, bobbing up and down, as desperate as the jagged breath I’m trying to catch.

“You made a sound,” he said simply. “You lost.”

I inhaled three times, filling my lungs, trying so feebly to calm myself. Then finally I shouted, “Is that what this is about?? You won’t—” I took a breath, let it out, “—do anything sexual with another dude unless the rules of some game—” I took a breath, let it out, “—allow you to?”

He didn’t address my question. He only glanced down at his chest, then frowned. “You got jizz on my shirt.”

“Maybe that’s what our paper should’ve been about,” I breathed, feeling my pulse in my throat. “Denial. Got a whole chapter on that, I’m pretty sure. Maybe its own textbook, even.”

“No one’s denying anything,” he said finally, meeting my eyes. “I like games. It’s what gets me off. And also, I’m a man of my word.”

Finally he let go, slid off the bed, and began to unbuckle his pants. I brought down my arms to nurse two sore, tingling wrists and watched as Andrew threw aside his belt like a bothersome thing and popped his own pants open. With a thrust, he dropped them to his ankles and stood proud. Today, he wore a loose pair of blue and green plaid boxers. They did not hide his own cock well.

“So you’ve made a mess of me all over my bed,” I point out. “Is this my reward? Getting to see your legs?”

He shrugged. “I’ll pull them back up if you’re not interested.” Even as he said it, he bent down to retrieve his fallen pants.

“No,” I blurted out. He stopped, lifting a brow at me. “Don’t you dare. The sight of your legs is my … my prize and … I want it.”

“More than finishing a psychology paper?”

“We’ll get to that later. Right now, I want to enjoy what a bunch of unnecessary tickling and a nipple-pinching and half an interrupted cum just earned me.”

“Either this or the paper.” He crossed his arms, looking like some muscle beast, waiting.

“Huh?” I pulled myself to the edge of the bed, minding the cum that was turning cold on my still-exposed and softening cock. “How’s that a fair choice? We have to do the paper. It’s due Monday. We’ve had four weeks now.”

“Paper or me.”

“That’s bullshit.” I couldn’t believe he was making me choose. It just wasn’t reasonable at all. Like picking whether to eat or breathe for a day and only being able to choose one.

“What’s your answer?”

“Don’t you care about your own grade? If we don’t do the paper—”

“Either we work on the paper,” he spoke, obnoxiously slow, as if I was the dumb kid in the back of the class with the drool hanging from my slack mouth, “or I keep my pants off. One or the other. You can’t have both.”

“What is this?” I asked, challenging him. “Another fucking game?”

“Make your choice, boy.”

Boy.

Boy …

This was the first time he ever called me boy. With that one word, he put me in my place, from then on. That one word branded me, collared me. I didn’t quite realize it then, but from that point until now, I would be his boy … his toy … his glad and willing game-thing.

And what kind of boy, exactly, did that make me? What kind of boy did that make him?

“Fuck the paper,” I breathed.

[ 7 ]

Two trying weeks later, I would discover that Andrew and I had made a C- on our paper. More accurately, I had made a C- on our paper, as I was its only author. It was the first C- I’d ever made in my entire life. High school showered me in A’s and B’s. Every other class, I saw A’s and B’s, and when I saw that C- on the paper, I felt a stab of joy.

Yes, a stab of joy. That C- was my freedom. That C- was my permission to let the fuck go, to relax, to slay the demon of perfection that had so haunted my adolescence. “C fucking minus,” I said, reading the grade aloud. Some guy next to me gave me a sympathetic frown, leaned in and said, “Sorry, dude. Better luck next time.” His face turned queer when the smile of pride washed over my face, beaming positively at the C- and the world that’d been opened before me and everything that stupid, shitty grade meant.

But with the ending of the psychology project, Andrew and I no longer had a reason to meet. Not that the paper was ever fully our focus. But I could not let us drift apart, not after what had been so suddenly and hotly birthed between our warring, playful minds.

“Hey, Andy,” I called out, chasing after him through the doors when class had ended.

Without turning around, I heard him grunt, “Don’t call me that.”

I had caught up to him, walking beside him on the road between the psych hall and the architecture building. “Where you off to?”

“Algebra.”

“Want to grab lunch after?”

“No.”

I was reaching here. Totally fucking desperate. That psych paper couldn’t be the only thing that brought us together. There had to be something more. “So what’re you doing after Algebra, then?”

“Going home.”

“Do you live on campus?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you want to grab some lunch before you leave, then?”

“I’ll get it on my own.”

I stood in front of him, exasperated. I couldn’t let this dream slip away from me so easily. “What the fuck, Andrew?”

He walked around me, not daunted in the least by my sad attempt at trying to stop him. He just kept going, sauntering down the path without paying me a cent of mind. He was near the door to the algebra building. I had to act fast.

“How about a deal then?” I shouted at his back as he reached the door. “If your Algebra class is totally lame as fuck, then I win, and you gotta come to my dorm afterwards for lunch.”

To that, he turned his head, gave me a big grin, then flicked me off as he disappeared into the math building. I took that to mean the deal was accepted.

An hour later, he knocked on my dorm room door. “Lame as fuck,” he agreed when I answered.

And so it began. For weeks, we expertly snuck around my roommate’s schedule—which blissfully consisted of a lot of trips back home, weekends spent with the girlfriend or the parents, and days where he just wanted to stay out all night in town—and Andrew and I played and played and played. Whenever he arrived at my door, I knew it was time for our next dorm game.

One time, he had me tied up with an elastic band he used to work out and do stretches, then proceeded to ask me questions about himself, like his birthday, or his favorite TV show, or even the color of the socks he was wearing. “What color underwear do I got on?” he asked once, and the agony of knowing that the answer was hidden right in front of me beneath the sexy fold of denim at his crotch was unbearable. “You’re hard,” he observed. Tied up, there was little I could do to hide it. Every right answer earned me a piece of his clothing coming off. Every wrong answer earned me a piece of his clothing going back on. If I could get him naked in ten questions or less, I’d get his cock in my mouth. “This is killing me,” I complained, so horny and frustrated, but he only licked his lips, half-dressed, and asked the next question.

I didn’t get to suck his cock. Somehow I knew he’d planned it from the start, as it was upon the eleventh question that I finally earned his naked body, but no cock play.

A normal person would’ve given up on him by now. I’d decided that I was, without a doubt, far from normal.

Later in the year, he thought it’d be an amazing idea to belittle me with his strength by engaging in some more … physical games. One such game involved us holding a weight in either hand, requiring us to keep them elevated at shoulder height. To win, I, with my puny muscles, had to hold up a weight longer than him, the demigod. I knew he was at an unfair advantage and I didn’t care. Something about the experience of suffering near him, sweating, struggling, feeling my muscles cramping and aching while he stood there, perfectly at ease, cocky, a triumphant smirk on his face the whole time, made me so hard that I could’ve cum right there.

After we’d play and have ourselves declared a winner and a loser, he would seem to grow restless, unsure of what to do, then eventually decide to go. I’d always have to make sure we had our next game planned, just so I’d be assured that I would see Andrew again. Whenever he left, my heart felt heavy and the world grew small and cold. Lying there on the bed, I’d hardly acknowledge my roommate when he’d return at two in the morning and rush to the shower. Good for him, I remember thinking. At least my roommate’s getting some action. I’ve been mindfucked all semester by Andrew and yet haven’t fucked or been fucked at all.

What a cruel concept, to have so much sexless sex with someone. We were so strangely intimate, and yet hadn’t been intimate at all.

That needed to change. And soon.

Even this late in the game, I still couldn’t say with confidence whether Andrew was gay or straight or experimental or something else entirely. He seemed to have little interest in sex. I couldn’t even say whether he found me attractive. I was, by no means, a super sexy guy. Andrew was a super sexy guy. The only thing that seemed to keep his interest at all were these weird, sexually-frustrated, mind-fucky sort of power games. Sure, I found them erotic. I usually had a stiffy from start to end, but there was something emotionally missing for me. Was it missing for him, too?

For one, he never kissed. I’ve wanted to put my lips to his so badly that I’ve dreamt it several nights in a row. Also, he never allowed us to do anything incredibly intimate unless it was within the context of a game. With my somewhat limited psych knowledge, I considered whether this was a form of denial or not. It almost reminded me of the type of guy that would only do gay things if he was super, super drunk or stoned. It’s like he could just blame the drug—or the game—for making him do shit with a guy. It somehow made it … acceptable.

There had to be something else in him. There had to be something more in him than just these fucking games. Where was his soul? Where was his passion and his gallantry and his humor?

I needed to figure it out. I refused to believe it didn’t exist. It’s time to manifest my own power. It’s time to bring the player to a different table.

It was time to play my game.

[ 8 ]

One innocent Tuesday, there was the expected knock at my door, right on cue. I opened it without acknowledging the scrumptious Andrew, then sat myself on the bed and returned to watching TV. Some lame show was on and I gave it all my fake attention. Seeing me all chilled out, the remote balanced on my belly, he lazily threw himself into my roommate’s desk chair, kicked up his feet, and let out a long, obnoxious yawn. For the next ten minutes, neither of us said a thing, allowing the murmur from the TV to do all the talking.

“Bet I could—” he started to say.

“Bet you could too,” I interrupted, letting out a small yawn of my own. “Hey, do you know what we’re watching?”

Andrew squinted at the screen. “No. I don’t really watch TV.”

“Neither do I.”

The TV kept spilling its mud mess of colors over our faces, the sun through the window nearly set for the day. Andrew finally had an instinct to turn on the desk lamp, I guess to save us from the swallowing darkness of the night. We were coming up on the half-hour and one stupid TV sitcom was traded for the next. Every time Andrew glanced over at me, I made sure my eyes were glued to the TV.

My little trick worked, though it took so awful long to know that it had. “Wanna do something?”

“I’d kinda like to just chill,” I answered. “Ever since my workout this afternoon, I’ve had a bad cramp in my calf. Kinda making me miserable.”

“Hmm.” He stared at my leg, uncertain.

“It sucks,” I said, hoping my prompting him isn’t too obvious.

Then, he took the bait. “Which leg?”

“My right. The calf.”

“Lie back,” he said. I lifted a nonchalant brow at him. “Go ahead, lie back. On your stomach.”

I sprawled out on the bed, pressed my face into the pillow and waited. I listened to him rise from the desk chair, then felt the bed compress as he sat on it. His hands embraced my leg, and I felt him slowly begin to rub it. The instant he touched me, I was hard as steel.

“Thirsty?” I asked.

I heard him grunt, then ask, “Why?”

“My roommate has beer in the fridge.”

For a moment, I worried he was about to whine that he doesn’t drink. To my surprise, my second bit of bait was taken, and I listened to him reaching for the fridge—which was conveniently at the foot of my bed—and the tiny door opened, a can was fetched, and the tiny door shut with a gentle thump. He cracked open the can, and I heard him chugging. I felt a strange giddiness tickling up my body, listening to him drink my roommate’s illegal beer. If he was ever caught with it …

“I’m getting another,” he said when he was done. “Want one?”

“Nah. Have as many as you like.” As if I needed to give him permission; we both knew Andrew would help himself to as many beers as he damn well pleased.

A whole six-pack of empty and crushed beer cans on my floor later, he was back to running his hands down my “cramped” leg. Yeah, it wasn’t cramped at all, the whole thing was a sneaky, sexy lie, but tonight I was insisting on our playing my game. He didn’t have to be aware he was playing. He was so used to his own form of denials; what’s the harm in introducing him to another?

“You should feel more relaxed now.”

“Yes.” I shut my eyes and breathed into the pillow. His hands climbed and climbed, working my calf muscle into a state of blissful, melted butter. I wanted to bite the pillow. I think I might have, clawing the sheets. I knew he had skillful hands and yet I still wasn’t prepared for the gourmet-caliber massage I was getting.

“It’ll hurt a bit,” he warned me. “In a good way.” His thumbs went deep into my calf, pressing and kneading and pressing and pressing. I moaned a bit, squirming. It definitely hurt, but with his firm grasp on my leg, I surely wasn’t going anywhere. How does he make every gift—even a massage—feel like something I have to earn through suffering or endurance of some kind?

“Thanks,” I choked out, trying not to pull my leg away.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

His hands moved up my leg, began to work my lower thigh. I couldn’t believe how much power lived in just his fingertips, how he could make such an impression on me through the thick material of my jeans. It’s like I’m not even wearing them, I thought—which led me to an even tastier thought.

“Should I take my jeans off?” I asked. “I mean, would it make it … I don’t know … easier?”

“Not really,” he said.

I spun around, got to my feet anyway. He let me, looking up to meet my eyes with his watery ones. He’s buzzed, I realized. Good. Right where I want you. I undid my pants, let them drop to the floor. They landed with an unimpressive thump on the carpet.

Without any shoes or socks to kick off, I simply stepped out of them and hopped back onto my bed, putting my leg in his lap. “Go ahead,” I told him, like an order. “Right where you left off.”

He gripped my leg, but his hands were tender this time … careful and deliberate. He still kneaded my calf muscle firmly, but something about him changed. Is my plan working? I wondered, hopeful. Was I breaking through his walls? Had I found the fissure in his otherwise impenetrable armor?

“The year is almost over,” I pointed out as his fingers worked up my calf again, reaching my lower thigh, massaging and rubbing.

“Finals are on us,” he agreed, his words subtly slurring together. “Might, dunno, need your help in studying or something.”

“I could help. You’ll have to help me too.” I kept shut my eyes, enjoying his hand as it worked up my lower thigh … up, higher, higher. “I was also wondering if, like, y’know, if you’d given any thought to your, uh, your living arrangements or whatever.” It was a bit awful to be the sober one in the room. Too much thought was happening in my head. Too many fears that beer might have otherwise quieted. Maybe I should’ve downed one or two to make it all a bit less—whatever it was.

“What do you mean?”

“Where you’re planning to live next year,” I clarified. “My roommate might be moving out. And I don’t want them to stick some random other dude in here, y’know. I’d kinda prefer, well …”

“Someone you know,” he finished for me.

Oh my god, was he already considering it? Was he considering it before? He was on my same train of thought; I could tell from the way he ended my sentence. “Yeah?” I prompted him, feeling my heart rate accelerate. Just the thought of having him around all the time made me suffocate with excitement. “You’ve given it some thought, then?”

“Could work out,” he reasoned, his hands still moving up, up, up, creeping like an ambush of ten horny boys, each a fingertip, up the terrain of my leg. Soon, he’d run out of thigh to massage. Where are those wicked hands headed next?

This was my game. He didn’t know it, but he was playing my game now and I was in control.

Quite suddenly, I flipped over onto my back, placing my leg into his lap again, this time facing up and watching his eyes carefully. He squinted quizzically at me, his blue-grey irises shining.

“Front side now,” I said. “The cramp’s moved up my thigh.”

“Alright.” He started massaging it, his watery eyes not leaving my face, full of skepticism and suspicion. But his gaze was also clouded by the alcohol, making his suspicion appear more like confusion. I couldn’t have planned this better …

In my underwear, face-up, I couldn’t hide the erection his steadily-kneading palms and fingertips gave me. He knew it. I knew it. The both of us were obviously aware of the big tent in my loose plaid boxers. Still, he struggled to keep his intense, watery stare on me, blinking away the buzz of the beer that threatened to loosen him too far. I kept my innocent eyes on his, studying him almost curiously as he smoothly worked my leg with the concentration of a steelworker.

He reached the upper part of my thigh now … and I felt his fingertips grazing the rim of my underwear. If he kept moving up my leg, his hands would slip effortlessly under my boxers. Just the thought made my cock bob. His fingers kept tickling my underwear, barely disrupting the fabric just enough for my cock to become agonizingly aware of it.

And then my hard-as-fuck cock slipped through the fly, poking out in all its bareness, greeting the world. Andrew’s eyes went to it right away, almost as though he were startled. My cock pointed to the sky, bobbing in sync with the thrashing heart in my chest, with the pumping of my excited veins and the pulse of my life.

Our eyes didn’t meet again. He was transfixed on the new attendee of our massage party. His hands had become distracted then, hardly paying attention to the massage, losing all their drive. Wow, I wondered. I didn’t realize my cock demanded such attention.

He parted his lips suddenly, brought his mouth upon my cock, and it was gone, swallowed whole by Andrew Knudson on my dorm room bed.

I threw my head back with a rasp of surprise. My hands instinctively went to his soft head of hair. My throat formed a howl that I never released and I couldn’t close my mouth, jagged of breath and stiff as stone.

His mouth moved up and down my cock, up and down and up. His hands suddenly found a purpose, gripping my hips at either side. My fingers still played in his hair, feeling his head as it went up and down and up again.

When finally I felt his tongue begin to join the party, a groan wrested its way out of my chest.

My legs had nowhere to go, once again trapped under Andrew’s muscled weight. All this time, I was certain I’d be the first one to taste his cock, and not the other way around.

He didn’t seem to have a desire to stop, either. The sucking went on and on. It drove me so crazy I had a sudden fear that I’d erupt in his mouth. I wondered if he’d like that or if it’d destroy the moment—whatever the fuck this moment was that we were having.

His hands rushed up my body suddenly, slipping under my shirt and making a dance across my bare belly and chest. As if finding home, his fingers arrived at each of my nipples, and my left nipple made a friend with his evil left hand, my right nipple with his evil right.

“Oh god,” I blurted out as he pinched my nipples too hard—that is, exactly hard enough. I squirmed underneath him, but he didn’t budge an inch, still working his hoover of a mouth on my throbbing cock. “Ooh god, ooh god,” I started saying over and over. It was like I had no choice; I had to exclaim what his fingers and his mouth were doing to me.

And this was no game anymore. This was two normal boys messing around in a dorm room. This was the culmination of something real, yes … that’s what this was. Something natural that came about totally … organically.

Yes, something that I didn’t need to coax him for months to do, something that I didn’t need the aid of six cans of beer and a teasing massage to get him to do. Right.

Fuck it. I didn’t care. I had my fingers in Andrew Knudson’s hair and my cock between his plush, dexterous lips and his tongue working miracles. In my game, there were no losers.

Suddenly he came up from my cock, his mouth wetted by his efforts, and he started undoing his own pants. Oh my god, is this about to happen? That’s what I thought as I sat up to watch Andrew struggle with his belt, nearly tear it off, then kick his pants off. Climbing back onto the bed, he pulled out his own cock from over the waistband of his sexy tight boxer-briefs and began to jerk off in front of me. I stared, gawking.

“Eight inches,” I decided, staring as he jerked off while straddling my legs, the tips of our cocks so close they could kiss. “Definitely eight.”

“Seven.” He squinted down at me. “Objects in mirror are bigger than they appear.” We both bust out laughing for a split-second, then went right back to our ever-serious staring at one another.

“Can I jerk off with you?” I asked quietly.

It felt stupid to ask, as if I needed to request permission to touch myself, but something told me that’s exactly what Andrew would like to hear.

At my question, he suddenly grabbed my cock with his other hand and began to stroke. I gasped, taken anew by the wild sensations he made chase through my body. Both our cocks in his control, he jerked and jerked and jerked.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, his voice still bent a touch to the left with his slurring. “Whoever cums first loses.”

No. No games. “How about we just jerk off and cum together like normal fucking people?”

“Because that’s boring.” His words thundered down upon me. There was something so incredibly sexy and equally as maddening about the power he had over me. “You cum first, you lose. Got it?”

“What the hell does the loser lose, anyway?”

Jerking us harder, faster, he leaned in and said, “If you cum first, I don’t move in. You lose me as your roommate.”

That’s not fucking fair! He’d been sucking my cock for the last—however long. I already had a huge head start. I could cum any second, and he only just then started jerking. “Not happening, no.”

“Better hold off, then,” he teased, staring down at me, pressing his power onto me. His fist was making quick work of my edged, sensitive, wet and slick-as-fuck cock. There was no way I’d be able to hold back when I reached the brink. My loss and his “victory” was certain.

“I have better stakes for you,” I retorted. I would do everything in my power to focus on our words and, with every fiber of my weak, vulnerable body, ignore the pulsing pleasure downstairs. “Far, far better, far higher stakes.”

“Too late.”

“Not too late. I haven’t accepted your terms.” I propped myself up with my elbows so as to get into his face more, my own eyes squinting with conviction. “If you cum first, you gotta kiss me.”

His jerking stopped, his eyes went queer, then he resumed again. “Kiss?” he said, as if he actually didn’t hear me right.

“Yeah, the mouth, full on. Like we’re nasty, clothes-off, don’t-give-a-fuck lovers. You gotta put your lips all over mine.”

“No fucking way.”

“Yes. That’s what’s at stake. You want my stakes to be my losing you as a roommate? Fine. Sounds a bit like your loss too, but if you insist so badly, then there’s my stakes. Roommate, or kiss? Kiss, or roommate?”

He swallowed. I watched his throat, watched as he swallowed hard. I have him, I thought. I have him right where I want him.

He kept jerking and jerking and jerking, and I said, “Thinking about it, now?” I smiled, watching the emotions battle across his face. “Oh, fuck. Can you imagine? If you actually … lost? Think about what you’d have to do. Think about … think about what you’d be forced to do, if you cum first. Putting your lips all over mine. Kissing me like a boyfriend. How fucking horrible that’d be, huh? How humiliating. How degrading.”

His breath became audible. Is this turning him on? Andrew Knudson, half-moaning as he jerked the both of us. His legs began to shake; I could feel the muscles in them as they tremored through my own. His eyebrows screwed upward, the folds of his forehead showing. He parted his mouth, his head thrown back as his breathing became less air and more voice … a whimper, a cry …

“Better hold off,” I whispered at him.

And then he came. The jerking on my cock stopped and a rope of his cum landed across my chest, white and heavy. Another followed, less powerful. Then a third and a fourth, and he kept pulling and pulling on his cock, but gentler now, and his eyes were closed in a quiet, blissful agony.

Winner.

Then he laid down—or rather, fell—onto the bed beside me. His hand still gripped his cock, but his other one let go of mine as his arm folded into my body like an eagle’s wing. One might almost say he were cuddling into me.

His chest heaved, exhaling heavily after the mighty orgasm. Every puff of air from his mouth landed hot against my face, and I realized belatedly that I was smiling.

I made Andrew Knudson do that. That was all me.

Watching him breathe, in and out, in and out, I suddenly found my strength. I rushed in and put my lips against his. At first he froze, even his breathing stopped. His whole body went rigid at the touch of my lips to his. Then, I let my lips become gentle. I didn’t want to force the kiss on him, not anymore; I wanted his permission. Even without words, I requested permission to go on.

His lips, ever slowly, parted to receive mine. Then his tongue darted out, tickled my lips with seeming encouragement, letting me in.

Permission granted.

Then quite suddenly, he seemed to forget all about the mess he just made across my chest, or the cum dribbling from his still-perky cock, and he found new breath in our feverish kisses.

I regarded the cum just as little, a light and silent laughter fluttering in my chest as I wrestled tongue and mouth with the boy of my dreams in my messy dorm bed.

If I’d known a stupid project in Intro to Psych was going to lead to this …

Winning never felt so good.

His mouth almost hurt, at times too intense for me, pressing strongly against mine, pushing teeth and tongue and warm, wetted lips … and then it would grow gentle. For a moment, I couldn’t keep up. In the next moment, I was the one in charge, controlling his lips and leading the kiss.

It was a delicate dance of breaths and mouths.

That night, he slept in my bed. The lover’s mess between us probably dried, and whatever sort of permanent stains it would cause, I literally did not care. Andrew held me like a lover, whether he’d ever admit that or not, and I felt the long drawl of a sleeper’s breathing against my cheek for hours and hours and hours.

I was happy. The TV’s murmur went on, my roommate never came back, and I was happy.

But that’s twice now that I’ve found a reward in deceiving Andrew: once during our what-are-you-thinking game when I lied to win, and this time with offering him beer. Which, if either, was a necessary evil, and what, if neither, could I have done otherwise?

The game is played many ways, and in its end, we should both come out winners, shouldn’t we?

[ 9 ]

“A,” Andrew asks me, “or B?”

This brings us back to our little study game of guess-the-right-bone. “A for absolutely horny, B for boner,” I reply wittily, squirming.

He puts a foot on the bed, an elbow propped on his knee, and leans over my restrained body to say, “A for agony, B for belt.” Then he snapped the belt in his grip for punctuation, sobering me.

Over the course of our year as roommates, the dorm game has taken a turn for the scary. Now that he’s around me all the time—and, being his roommate, I have nowhere really to hide—he has introduced me to a score of alternative and vastly worse consequences for wrong answers, laughably small ways to reward me for right answers, and an arsenal of wicked items with which to inflict joyful, frustrating, and oftentimes surprising torment on me.

I learned it wasn’t the pain he enjoyed; he was, so he claimed, not really a sadist. It wasn’t the pain that ever turned him on. It was the thrill of the win and the reward—or the loss and the humiliating punishment that followed.

“Were you ever bullied as a kid?” I ask him, my feet twirling around playfully, pulling against the sock-binds that had them so bound to the bed. “And more pressingly, are these socks clean? I’ve been concerned about that ever since you used them to tie up my hands and feet, seriously …”

“Yeah, about as clean as they get after one of my four-hour workouts,” he says, moving over me and baring the worst of his forceful stares onto me. “That might explain the man-stink of them. You like my man-stink?”

“When it’s yours,” I say, smiling sweetly. “Not so much your socks’ stink.”

“Learn to love it. You get this next question wrong and I’m tying those socks to your face when you sleep tonight.” I blanch, rolling my eyes. “You will learn to love every part of me whether it makes you sick or not.”

“Love?” I screw my eyes back onto him, lifting a brow. “Love, did you just say? Andrew, is this your way of confessing the ‘L’ word to me?”

He tosses the belt onto the other bed, suddenly choosing to ditch it, I guess. “Change of plan. Wrong answer’s earning you a tickle.”

Fuck. I hate his tickles. I hate them so, so, so fucking bad because he’s so good at it. The last time he gave me a harsh tickling, we had a complaint from the R.A. who had to come to our room to tell us to keep down the noise—the noise being: my hysterical screaming and laughing and begging Andrew to stop. Why does he have to be into weird shit like tickling and sock-sniffing and questions and betting and jerkoff-races and belt-flogging and stripping games and fuck-knows-what-else?

“A,” he says, the flashcard pinched between an eager forefinger and thumb, “or B?”

“I don’t even remember what the choices were,” I complain. “What’s the name for which bone in the body?”

“In the hand,” he answers. “And if you weren’t paying attention to the choices, not my problem. You’re fucked. A or B?”

“How does that help me learn? This whole thing is supposed to be about me learning,” I argue back, my blood rising. Quite suddenly, in fact, I find my face flushing with the long-pent-up anger and sexual frustration spawned by Andrew, master tormentor and owner of my fucking soul. “You do this for your entertainment. You don’t give a shit if I fail or pass any of my classes. You never gave a shit, not since Intro to Psych, not since ever. Hell, you wouldn’t give a deep-fried fuck if I flunked outta school, wasted all my scholarships, drew a noose around my neck … just as long as we keep playing your stupid fucking dorm game.”

“Wrong answer,” he says, as if he can’t tell how angry I’ve suddenly gotten, as if he let every word of my impassioned spiel go unheard.

And then he’s on me. I cry out, shocked because I was genuinely not expecting him to go through with tickling me. But really, why the fuck am I surprised? I scream at once as his fingers dig into my exposed armpits. I pull and pull against the socks that are tied so tight at my wrists and ankles, pulling and yanking until I’m quite sure one or all of my appendages are likely to break.

“GET THE FUCK OFF!” I scream, howling with noises that land somewhere between agony and joyous unintended laughter.

“You love it,” he says, his fingers unrelenting. “You love it so much. A or B, the choice was simple,” he goes on, unworried, casual as a boy with his feet kicked up on a desk while he makes sweet torment of his roommate beneath his sinful fingers. “Tickling’s the punishment, I was pretty fucking clear. But oh no, you preferred to just talk and talk and talk …”

The sock at my right ankle pulls loose. I thrash my right foot, kicking, but I can’t get him off me. Then the hands seem to come loose at once, and in a movement that’s so fast I can’t see it, I’ve punched Andrew square in the face.

He falls back, tumbling off the bed and landing on the carpet.

I sit up, alarmed. He puts a hand up to his nose, finds it bleeding. Quickly, he gets to his feet and turns away, bringing his hands to his nose to stop the bleeding. I’m staring in horror at Andrew as he moves to the box of tissues at the desk, pulls a fistful and brings them to his face.

“Oh fuck,” I exclaim, a hand of my own going to my mouth. “Andrew. I’m so fucking sorry. I just, I was just … You were tickling me and I …”

My left ankle’s still tied to the bedpost and all the aching and pain of being tickled is gone in an instant. Andrew’s naked backside is all that exists.

“Andrew, please, say something. You okay?”

“Yep,” is all he says.

I stare at him for a while. He doesn’t move, just standing there with his back turned, pushing tissue after tissue into his face. I notice a handful he sets on the desk—notice the amount of blood drenching them. Fuck, I think, studying the wad in horror. I hit him really hard.

“Andrew?”

“Right in the nose,” he grunts. “Won’t stop bleeding,” he adds, but it sounds more like an observation, less like a complaint. He’s trying not to sound hurt, I realize. He’s acting all manly, all you-didn’t-hurt-me, all no-big-deal … but his nose is basically pouring blood, right?

“Andrew.”

Suddenly he goes for the bathroom, says, “I’m alright,” just before shutting the door behind him. The faucet turns on. It’s all I can hear now.

I grab at the sock at my left ankle, untie it, and free myself from the bed. Suddenly ashamed of my outburst, I don’t feel right being all naked anymore. I fetch a shirt off the ground, slip it over my head, and pull a pair of boxers on. Quickly, I move to the bathroom door and press my ear to it.

“Andrew?”

He doesn’t respond. I close my eyes to listen better. Through the running water, I hear tissues crinkling. I hear the water breaking, perhaps with his hands plunging into its gushing stream. Maybe he’s taken to a washcloth or a towel. Did I break his nose? What the fuck did I do?

“Say you’re going to be fine,” I call through the door, desperate and helpless.

After a moment too long, I hear: “Gonna be fine.”

“Tell me you’re going to be fine and mean it. Tell me if you’re not going to be fine, either, please. Do I … Should we … Should I call the campus medics or—?”

“No.”

“Alright.” I pull away from the door. Maybe I’m overreacting. I have no fucking idea. I’ve never hit anyone before. Not even in high school, or elementary school, never. The impact of my knuckles against his face, I can’t even remember it. My hand throbs a bit, but I can’t tell if it’s from being restrained or if it was from the impact of my bones hitting the beautiful face of my roommate, Andrew Knudson.

Flashcards season the floor, answered right or wrong, forgotten. I pick up the last one he’d asked me, read it with absent eyes. A, I see. The answer was A. I wonder if I can name the possible bones I could’ve broken in my hand … in my wrist. The bones I could’ve broken in his face.

I sit on the bed and wait.

Only four minutes later, the bathroom door opens and Andrew emerges. He plops down on his bed, stares at the floor. A tiny wad of toilet paper is shoved into either nostril and he stares at the floor listlessly, emotionlessly, a big muscled troll turned to stone.

“You alright?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah,” he says. He seems to be just staring at the flashcards on the ground, or staring through them, or staring at nothing at all.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

“Maybe the games are stupid,” he says back.

“They’re not always stupid,” I reason. He’s still staring at the floor; his eyes won’t meet mine. Maybe he’s embarrassed. Maybe he’s ashamed too. “I mean, sometimes they’re really hot. I just wonder sometimes if …” I trail off, unsure how to put it. The air conditioner comes on, fills the room with a gentle, unassuming hum. I don’t welcome it, shivering against the sudden draft that now kicks through my already quite chilly room.

“I can find another dorm,” he says.

I stammer. “N-No, Andrew. You don’t have to move out. That’s kind of … That’s kind of an overreaction, really.”

His eyes flick to the other side of the room. He still won’t look at me. Comfort him, I tell myself. He needs your reassurance. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Andrew. I … I think we’re actually—you and I, we actually have a lot in common.”

He plucks out the tissues, sniffs, then looks back at the flashcards on the floor. It’s so strange, for someone with so much cockiness and dominance and power to be so in need of comfort.

I stand, cross the room and lower myself next to him on his bed. He turns his head slightly, but still won’t meet my eyes. “Andrew …”

Ever since the day I got him drunk and earned a tongue-wrestling session from him, his lips have yet to meet mine again. Maybe the craving for an honest, genuine, physically-loving relationship between us has driven me somewhat mad, and I’m lashing out at him for not giving me what I need.

“You meant all that,” he states suddenly.

I look at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“All that about me not caring about you. That the only thing I care about is the playing. That I don’t … That I wouldn’t care if, like, you flunked all your classes, or … or …” He bites his lip and squints at the floor pensively.

“Well, I didn’t say it to hurt you,” I point out. “I just … I just meant that, sometimes, I want …” A sigh escapes my lips. Maybe I shouldn’t have said a thing at all. I mean, really, is it that bad what we have? The hottest guy on campus is my roommate and he’s constantly wanting to put me in situations that get one or both of our clothes off somehow, and oftentimes it involves him or I jerking off or being jerked off. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with him at all; maybe it’s something wrong with me.

“I care about you.”

I study the side of his face, surprised. “What?”

“I care about you,” he repeats. “So, like … tell me what it is you want from me.”

His blue eyes are so intense, even looking at them from the side, I can still feel his influence. If you only knew what I want. Maybe this is another of his games. But really, when you think of it, isn’t kinda everything in life a game? Whether you win a friendship by saying the right thing, or lose a lover by saying it all wrong? Whether you score the job by wowing your interviewer, by dressing the part, by winning yet another game? When does the playing stop? At what age do we graduate from playing games with one another and, instead, reap the benefits of all our years’ rewards and lessons and personal triumphs?

“I just want to know what we are,” I tell him.

“We’re roommates.”

“We’re so, so … so much more than that, Andrew.”

“Why? Because we get naked and do stuff? Because I have certain sexual interests and, like …” He swallows hard, presses his lips together before forming his next words. “I don’t see why we gotta call it something. Why the fuck’s a person gotta be straight or gay. Lovers or friends. Why the fuck?”

“Just makes it easier for me, I guess.” I place a hand on his thigh. His gaze shifts, now focused quite intently on my innocent hand. “I guess calling us something is a game in and of itself, don’t you think? Except … it isn’t required to have any rules. I don’t want a rule telling me when I can kiss you or—”

I close my eyes. I’ve said it. I want to kiss you, Andrew Fucking Knudson. I want to kiss you and I want you to kiss me and, just for this moment, I don’t want alcohol or belts or flashcards or dominance involved.

That’s when I feel his lips touch mine. With my eyes closed, I feel his mouth open and a tongue greets my lips, traces them, tickles them.

I open my mouth to his, and the heat between us becomes one. When I breathe, he breathes, and our heads tilt gently as we kiss. Even our noses seem to kiss—lightly, of course, minding the ache that surely still lives in his—and our faces caress one another, mouths attached, tongues greeting.

When at last we part, I confess. “I cheated on our first game. The thought game. You’d gotten what I was thinking right and I lied and said you were wrong.” He lifts his brows in mock surprise. “I just wanted to see you naked so badly.”

Unsmiling, he regards my anxious face for a long, agonized moment. Then, finally: “We’ll make a new game of it,” he offers. “Rule is, when you want me naked, you just ask. When you want to kiss me, you just fucking go for it.”

Even this little offering of his, he makes it sound like an order, his voice strong as stone. My thighs squeeze together. I wonder if one of the many flashcards on the floor includes the bone that’s now formed between my legs.

“Your terms are accepted,” I say. Then, as prompted, I fucking go for it, crashing my lips into his. The hand I’d so strategically placed on his thigh, I let it gently slide between his legs.

He responds with a sigh of pleasure.

Feeling smart, I push him down into the bed and climb over his body like a beast. Yeah, I’m the beast now. Mounting Andrew, I make quick work of his face, my hand opening up his clothes below to claim my prize—all seven inches of it. It’s my turn now to part lips and bathe his cock with my tongue, generously. I open my mouth to him, one inch of him in, two inches, three. He quivers under my grip, and I feel a moan cascading down his body. My hands reach up, desperate, grabbing, and as I swallow and tongue and suck his seven inches of glory, my hands discover his rippling abs as if for the first time. My hands discover his pecs, making a game out of his left nipple, then his right. Grabbing his hips and rocking myself up and down, I put Andrew where I want him and nowhere else.

I give him no choice but to enjoy it.

And when he cums, the thunder from his voice shakes the walls. For now, Andrew is under my control. I’m the one whose game we’re playing tonight. And in my game, there are never losers.

The end.

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Keep scrolling for another sexy, angsty M/M Brazen Boy novella, titled “Straight Up”!

STRAIGHT UP
(Full Novella)

The Brazen Boys
Daryl Banner

Straight Up: a Brazen Boys story

Copyright © 2015 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover & Interior Design : Daryl Banner

Cover Model : Nick Duffy

Photo of Nick Duffy by Simon Barnes

[ 1 ]

He throws me into the couch, then climbs atop me like a horse, straddling my chest and gripping my shirt tight.

It’s finally going to happen.

He tells me he wants to have his way with me, his eyes greedy and black, all his dark hair tousled from our bout of wrestling on the floor where he almost tore my sleeve. Not that it matters, as I suspect my clothes won’t be on for much longer at this rate.

I tell him I’ve always been his to do with as he pleases. He laughs in my face and, just when I think he’s going to kiss me, he reaches down, slips his hand into my jeans and grabs a mighty handful of my manhood. I gasp, my lips parting, and an evil look of triumph takes his face.

This is mine, he tells me in a word or two. This is mine until I’m done with you, Benny. You got that? Your cock belongs to me.

Between stolen breaths, I tell him to do whatever he wants with it. My roommate of two years and best buddy of seven, I tell Trent I’m so fucking horny for him I feel sick.

Or maybe it’s his vice grip on my balls that’s inspiring the nausea. You’re goddamned right, he whispers, then clasps my hair into his other hand and pulls my head back onto the couch. One hand gripping my junk, the other my hair, I’m in his complete control.

Just where I’ve always wanted to be for years. Ever since grade school when he started dating girls and I felt the stab of jealousy every time he brought one around. Ever since we enrolled at (and dropped out of) the same college and our parents called us “inseparable” and my sister rolled her eyes and said we had a bromance. Yeah, a bromance, a romance, every kind of mance, whatever kind, I want it all. Trent and his messy hair and his piercing eyes and his slender sculpted swimmer’s body and his skinny jeans and his lip ring and about a hundred other things I could list about him.

I’m not sure how it happens, but suddenly his lips are an inch from mine. He smells so clean. He calls me something—horny fuck, dipshit, my bitch, boy toy, I don’t quite hear him—and then he lets go of my hair and starts to unzip himself. Through the tattered skinny jeans, I see the outline of Trent’s cock. Yes, it’s big, I’ve seen it many times, though not in this context. And it is raging.

I can’t believe this is happening. All these years … why hasn’t this happened yet? Why didn’t I know that my own best friend …?

Fuck face, I hear him say, though I don’t see his mouth move. Those full lips and that lip ring and that look in his eyes … Kiss me, Trent. Stop being such a tease, please, and put those lips on me. Let me feel those lips, please. Don’t make me beg.

Then he sits up and I get a front row seat to his pants opening. He’s going commando today and his cock, throbbing and veiny, pops out and stares me in the face.

Little Trent: not so little at all.

He asks me if I want to suck it. Even with the courtesy of a question, I know I don’t really have a choice. Not that I want or need one. I want that cock so far down my throat I gag. Please, please, please. Please let me have that cock. I open my mouth, ready, my tongue ready to receive, my hungry eyes watching.

You want it? The evil grin that spreads across his face makes my cock pulse. It’s strange how he’s let go of my balls, yet I feel like he’s still got them squeezed with his long, mighty fingers. I want it so bad.

My mouth is open. Please, please, please.

All the times our hands would graze when we both reached into the chip bag. All the video games we’d play—how even the boyish competitiveness between us would somehow seem so sexual. All the times we’d borrow each other’s clothes, even though I’m bulkier and his clothes fit hilariously tight on me.

Trent brings his hands up behind his head, all cocky-like, and just with his hips he thrusts himself at my mouth.

His cock slides in like a friend who’s come home. My tongue, the welcome mat. I feel his weight on my chest as his thighs squeeze, pushing his cock in, deeper and deeper.

I moan, feeling his cock in my mouth, twisting my head and sucking. I hear him laugh, as if my horniness amuses him. There is something about the taste of his cock that intrigues me—something musky, masculine, sweaty. The scent and the taste reel me in, making my heart drum with excitement. I’m consumed by him. I’m engulfed in everything Trent, from his smell to his taste to his weight on my body.

“How’s that taste, dumb fuck?”

I open my eyes.

“Tasty?” asks Trent again, and he’s not straddling me. He was never straddling me. I was dreaming. His pants are zipped up and there’s no cock in mouth.

I try to speak, find my mouth is stuffed. I reach up and pull out a sock—Trent’s sock.

“What the fuck?” I say, half a laugh and half a repulsed choke bleating out of me.

“You were moaning and shit, I felt left out,” answers Trent, amused. “What the fuck did you dream you had in your mouth? My cock?” He laughs, then adds: “Need a trip to the spank bank, Benny?”

I look down my body and realize I’m tenting in my sweat pants. My face flushes red, but I fight the humiliation and say back, “Yeah, alright, wanna tell me how long you were lookin’ down at my boner like that, fag?”

He snorts. “I’m out. Catch you after work, bitch.” Then he struts to the door.

I watch him as he leaves, how his ass and his tiny waist move in those skinny jeans and how his broad shoulders give him that athletic triangular shape. I’m breathing heavily as though my dream were real, watching hungrily as Trent shuts the door behind him.

But my dream will never be real. He doesn’t know I’m into him. I’m just his best friend who’s only dated two girls in my life. Trent will always be the straight roomie I can never have. I will always be the desperately lonely dude everyone thinks is straight, the man’s man, the dude with the bulky football build who’s never played a day of football in his life. It’s only in my longing mind that these desires are fulfilled. If only it weren’t for the agony of waking up …

His sock still in my grasp, I cram it back in my mouth and slip a hand down my sweat pants. My eyes rocking back, I start jerking off and struggling frenziedly to return to my place on the couch, to the engorged cock on my tongue, to the weight of Trent atop me with his smart fingers and evil plans.

[ 2 ]

I told him it was a bad idea, but in typical Trent fashion, he did it anyway.

“You’ll like her,” he insists, slapping my tummy as he gets off the couch to grab another beer. “Wear somethin’ snazzy, bro.”

I scoff, annoyed, and return my attention to the game I’m playing, tapping buttons on the controller mindlessly. When Trent returns and passes in front of me, I’m distracted by his jeans hanging low, teasing me with more than just the waistband of his underwear, then find when my gaze returns to the TV that I’m being attacked and am nearing zero health. That’s pretty much my life in a nutshell: always distracted by boys that I’m caught off-guard and drained to near-death by zombies.

“Tonight at seven,” Trent tells me as he cracks open his can, “at the Kegs & Dregs.”

“Ugh, I hate Kegs.”

“She’s way the fuck into you,” he goes on, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. His fingers graze my neck. “Showed her that pic of you with the green background, told her you were the no-sex-‘til-marriage type. That made her wet.”

“Dude, that pic of me’s almost five years old, from prom.”

“You look the same. Go take a shower, get ready. I’m taking you.”

My character dies and I grunt, tossing the controller into his lap, giving up. “Your turn. I’ll take myself.”

He takes it, starting the level over. “Gross, controller’s sweaty. You can’t take yourself, bro. I need the car tonight, so I’m dropping you early. Just call when you need to be picked up, or decide to go home with her, or fuck her in the unisex, whatever. You need to get laid, you’re way too uptight.”

I roll my eyes, cross my arms and sink into the couch, willing myself to disappear. His shoulder pushes into mine as he relaxes into the couch himself. Suddenly, my sourness is replaced by comfort, just with the subtle presence of his body against mine. It doesn’t take much to make me happy, it really doesn’t. Trent could make me so happy, if he only …

“When you bone her,” says Trent, “make sure you eat her out real good first, get her all nice and wet. And condom-up, dude, you don’t want to splooge in her and have a little Benny running around our pad.”

Way to spoil my passion, roomie. “Noted. What do you need the car for anyway?”

Trent smirks, sucking in his lips and squinting at the screen. I know that look.

“You’re kidding me,” I say flat out, giving him a shove from my shoulder. “I thought—”

“Her parents are gone for the weekend, so I gotta get as much ass as I can, bro.” He sighs, likely because he feels my disapproving glare. “You saw the same pics of her house as I did, didn’t you? She’s fuckin’ loaded.”

“So’s her daddy’s shotgun,” I spit back. “A girl you gotta tiptoe around parents to see is not a girl you can make it with. Especially when you got five years on her.”

“Six.” Trent swallows hard, mashes his fingers into the controller and narrows his eyes to practically slits.

I sigh, feeling equally annoyed with and sorry for my dummy roommate I’m in love with—or whatever. I don’t even want to argue with him whether the girl he’s trying to see is even legal. I have my own girl issues to worry about. What do I wear tonight? What outfit says: “Hello. I’m only going out with you because my roommate thinks I need to get laid, but I’m actually zero percent interested, to no fault of yours, as I’m, unbeknownst to roommate, a big horny virgin homo.”

My roommate throws the controller across the room and hollers out in frustration. I stare at the “GAME OVER” on the screen with little zombie bites in it. Game’s always over when it comes to me and craving anything with a dude. It’s hopeless. It’ll never happen. Maybe I should meet a girl I like enough and just do the husband-and-wife thing, have a few kids, coach the local soccer team. Pump enough self-denial into the marriage bed and just about anything can happen when the lights are out.

“I ain’t ever gonna be happy,” Trent groans, glaring at the screen.

Took the words outta my mouth.

[ 3 ]

She orders a tea with no lemon because lemons make her queasy. She decides she only wants a salad because she’s got this goal of losing fifteen pounds by the fifteenth. Her name is Sandy and she’s wearing something and her hair is some kind of color and blah, blah, blah.

“Are you alright?”

I lift my eyebrows. “Sorry?”

She nibbles at a forkful of greens with the daintiness of some princess, overlooking the massive burger and fries I ordered for myself with judgment. “You seem a bit preoccupied. I hope I’m not boring you.”

“Not at all. Sorry, I didn’t know I—”

“This was sprung on me too,” she admits with a shrug, chewing. “If you’d rather just call it a night and, I don’t know, meet up another time maybe, I’m just fine and dandy with that.”

Her Texan accent is thick and borderline annoying, if it weren’t for the fact that she’s so damn nice. Actually, her niceness is annoying too. I don’t want to be here.

“Nah, it’s alright,” I say instead after struggling to swallow a stale fry. I hate Kegs & Dregs. I hate everything. “We’re here, so …”

“Trent told me you work in sales?”

I roll my eyes. “What he means by that is, I’m a retail clerk. Lame, I know, but it’s just a day job until I get the chance to do what I really want.”

“And that’s …?”

“Take over my pop’s business,” I answer after swallowing a bite of dried-out burger. I really, really hate Kegs. “He’s got a store off Stoneridge and Fourth. I always wanted to own my own store, call the shots.”

“You like being in charge?”

“Usually.” I throw back my Coke. Even that’s flat. I fucking hate Kegs.

I hear her moan. When I look up, I find her face wrinkled in disgust, staring across the room. I turn, following her line of sight.

The likely capturer of her attention is the local gay. Poor fool is all on his own on the dance floor, wagging his ass and flinging his arms around like four pinwheels. He is such a faggy McFaggerson. Dressed in a skin-tight yellow shirt with some angel-looking thing on the front and pants that he probably pulled from a woman’s rack at Macy’s, he dances all alone to the pop country music that’s pumping the bar tonight. He’s basically “the gay guy in town”. If I talked to him, I’m one hundred percent sure I’d get at least a blowjob. I could have my gay cherry popped, just like that.

So why does he bother me so much?

Just in this moment, he turns around, his eyes connecting with mine. We went to school together, even though we never talked, but when he looks at me, he seems almost startled. Then a twisty sort of smile happens on his face and, as if inspired by my watching him, he dances with even more vigor than before. It’s like I’m paying witness to some sort of gay mating ritual. This weird peacock is trying to wake little Benny between my thighs. He’s not yet successful.

“I don’t know why he comes here,” my date Sandy says after sipping her no-lemon water. “No one wants him around.”

Despite finding the flamer annoying as a fly in my dinner and never having had a thing to do with him in my life, I’m struck with a sudden desire to defend the little shit. “He’s out there, but he ain’t hurtin’ no one.”

“He’s hurtin’ my eyes.” She rolls said eyes, then fixes them on me, smiling. “Trent said you were old-fashioned. I love an old-fashioned boy. You seem awful sweet.”

“Thanks.” I sneak another glance at the Dancing Queen. When he spins around, I see his little tight ass in those bright pants that might as well be painted on him with blue and white inks. His skinny jeans rival Trent’s. To be fair, he doesn’t have that bad an ass. I’d grab a handful of it if he wasn’t shaking the thing so desperately on that dance floor.

My attention is drawn back to my date when I feel her foot graze my leg. I turn and lift a brow, as if to ask the precise question of: what the fuck? She smiles coyly, as if she’s up to nothing, then says, “If you’re not into something serious, we can just … have a little fun back at my place, Mr. old-fashioned.” She gives a wink, then sucks down some water from the straw, as if to suggest precisely what sort of “fun” she has in mind.

I’m not gonna lie—I’m tempted. After my recent frequently-recurring dreams involving Trent almost fucking me, I’m charged up as a lightning bolt and ready to be set off by just about anything.

I look back and find the homo’s mercifully removed his party-of-one off the dance floor, having taken a seat at the bar. The stool to either side of him once occupied a dude; now they’re both empty. He certainly knows how to clear a bar. That’s a skill I might like to utilize sometimes on a busy Saturday night.

“What the fuck?”

I return my gaze to Sandy, the source of the outburst. “Huh?”

“You gonna just ignore me all night? A sweet ol’ gal like me?” She purses her lips, seeming to suck her tongue in annoyance.

The burger stares me in the face like a half-opened mouth drooling ketchup and gooey diced onions. I’ve decidedly lost my appetite. “I gotta take a piss.”

Ignoring her scandalized face, I abandon the table and slump to the bathroom. When the door shuts behind me, all the clatter and twang of country music and drunken banter goes away. All I’m left with is a wet countertop, two dirty urinals, a stall I couldn’t be dared to touch, and a big smudgy mirror through which I see the semi-handsome face of a guy with everything going for him—a guy who will, despite his appeal, be heading home alone tonight. Again.

The door opens behind me and I can’t be bothered to turn around, opting to just stare at my own baby blues in the mirror. I think about Trent, wondering what he’s doing right now. Is he scaling his girlfriend’s wall where some ivy grows? Is he bumping her on her parent’s bed? Is he helping her with her math homework?

“You aren’t gettin’ any prettier.”

I turn to look at the bathroom’s newest occupant. It’s the guy from the dance floor. Upon closer inspection, the angel on his shirt is actually a winged skeleton creature with a sword in either hand. No idea what the fuck it is, but it doesn’t look like it takes it up the ass.

“Huh?” I finally respond, still staring at his shirt, studying it.

“Looking at your face in the mirror, you aren’t getting any prettier,” he says, coming up to my side to get a look at his own. He presses a few fingers into his cheek, lifting the skin, then letting go and watching it drop. “And neither the fuck am I.”

His name’s Charlie. We went to school together too, same school Trent and I and every other loser in this town went to, except back then Charlie wasn’t so … colorful. He was just another face in the school band.

He twists his eyes, looking at me from the side of his face. “You gonna hide in here from your date all night? Pretty sure she’d go for you. You’re the prettiest guy I see around.”

“Don’t call me pretty.”

“You were missed when you ran off to college for those one and a half tiny years,” he goes on as if he didn’t hear me. “You, Trent and whoever else thought they could climb outta this hellhole. Welcome back to hell.” He gives himself an air-kiss in the mirror.

“What do you mean I was missed?”

“Here, you notice every tiny change. Also all the hundreds of things that never change. Loneliness is real, girl, and it sucks hard. And not in the below-the-waist way.” He squints at me. “Are you really happy here?”

“Yeah,” I answer a bit quickly, not really giving it an honest consideration.

He snorts, as if calling me out, then heads to the farthest urinal, unzips his pants. “I’ll tell you something,” he says as he starts to pee. I look away, rolling my eyes. “It sucks being me in this town. High school was easier when I was pretending to be someone else.”

“What the fuck makes you think I care?”

“No one does,” he says, finishing and zipping up. The already stuffy room fills with the uproar of a flush. He pushes up next to me to wash his hands. I back out of the way, but only an inch or two. “You pretty boys think you have it all, with your pretty girl dates and your pretty wives and your gym memberships. And really,”—he shuts off the faucet, wipes his hands on his thighs—“you kinda do.”

With that, he leaves the bathroom.

It takes me a full minute to gather my resolve and get the hell out of the bathroom. The noise of chatter and thumping country music assaults me, and when I reach my table, the bitch is gone. She left a note on top of my half-eaten burger, scribbled across a napkin: Thanks for a great time, asshole. I’m also pretty sure she spit in my drink.

Great. Stranded at my favorite bar in the world, no ride, no date, no nothing. I pull out a twenty, bothered to all hell, and fling it on the table. With one last smirk at the empty dance floor and the idiots guffawing at the bar, I make my leave of Kegs.

Outside in the nearly pitch-dark lot, I pull out my phone and call Trent. Goes straight to voicemail. I call him again, sighing. Again, no answer from fuckface. I imagine him doing things to that probably-underage wonder girl … things I wish he’d do to me. It pisses me off so much, thinking about the simple things I long for—a cuddle, a kiss, holding hands, being told something nice—and the things I get instead: ditched by my date, sassed by the town homo in the bathroom, and then getting stranded. I could go for an all-nighter with Trent on the X-Box right about now.

I’m about to call him again when I hear the scuffling of shoes against pavement. I turn to see shadows dancing around the bend of the building, somewhere near the dumpsters. At once I assume some sort of mugging or raping or crime is happening and, to my shame, my first instinct is to run away or leap back into the building. For some insane reason, I pursue the noise, coming around the corner.

It’s Charlie, pinned against the wall by two flannel-wearing men in cowboy hats. One of them is threatening Charlie verbally, the other one scowling and looking mighty red-faced, even in the dark. What’s interesting is the expression on Charlie’s face. For being accosted—or robbed or beat up or whatever—by these two considerably larger men, Charlie looks almost … bored.

“What’s going on?” I say loudly.

Only the two men turn their heads to look at me. I recognize one of them: Steve’s his name, a jock I knew back in high school. He had an infestation of crabs and had to miss two days of school. He had the “flu”, he kept insisting; his ex let everyone know otherwise. “Go away, Benny,” he barks, annoyed. “I’m taking care of business.”

“What kinda business?” I throw back.

“Taking out the trash,” the angry one says to Charlie’s face, then spits in it.

Charlie, as unbothered as a snail on the wall, simply smirks and closes one eye, the saliva crawling down his cheek.

Seeing as they’re doing this barehanded and without weaponry involved, I dare to take a few steps toward them.

“For two grown men, you sure are taking your time,” I remark.

Shouldn’t have said that. Incensed by my quip, he throws a fist into Charlie’s belly. Charlie rasps, his eyes going wide. Then Steve throws another right into his abdomen, folding Charlie in half.

I come up next to them. “Go home, dude. You’re drunk. I’ll finish off the fag.”

“When the fuck am I not drunk?” Steve snorts at me, then massages his knuckles as if the punch hurt his hand more than Charlie. “This fucker tried to grab my buddy’s junk at the bar.”

“Yeah,” I say, watching as Charlie rises back up, that same bored expression taking his face as he stares at Steve, daring him. “He was checking me out in the bathroom too. Let me take care of him.”

Steve, the red rage burning in his eyes, finally backs off, stepping away. His buddy seems to have lost all interest, slumping off toward the parking lot.

When Steve looks at me, he says, “Give him hell. Let him know his kind ain’t welcome here. Boy gotta learn to respect, know what I mean? Fuckin’ queers think they can touch anything they want.”

“I got this.”

“Nah. Fuck him up. I wanna watch.”

“You’re still on probation, aren’t you? For that bar fight last month? You don’t wanna get caught up in this.” I stare at Steve, hard. “Like I said, I got this. Go.”

Steve snorts, curling and uncurling his fingers several times before finally leaving. I stand in front of Charlie now, my bright eyes locked onto his dark, daring ones. I listen as the two cowboys walk away. I hear the roar of a truck like some mighty dragon in the dark, and then it slithers away into the night.

When there is only silence, in a quiet, calm voice, I say, “What the heck were you doing grabbin’ some guy’s junk, Charlie?”

“I didn’t grab nothin’,” he says tiredly with half-open eyelids. “Only thing I’m guilty of is being a queer. Oops, sue me.” He smirks and looks away, tired of it all.

I don’t really believe him, to be honest. I’m pretty sure he did something at the bar, considering how forward he was with me in the damn bathroom. Pretty boy this, pretty boy that. Part of me wants to say he asked for this, what with the way he was acting.

I’m not sure what the other part of me feels. “You alright otherwise?”

“Dandy.”

I look him over. “You … got a car?”

He looks at me, suspicious. “Yes. Why? You gonna try and take it from me?”

“No. I need a ride home.”

“And … that’s my problem, how?”

“I just saved you from getting your ass kicked,” I retort, feeling my breath go all over his face. He blinks it away. “You owe me.”

“I got gut-punched. Twice. I could’ve handled them myself. I owe you nothin’ but a swift kick in the balls,” he says, then looks down my body, reconsidering. “Or a swift lick of your balls, whichever you’d allow.”

I feel my cock jump in my pants, hearing that. “Neither.”

“I could’a taken them both,” he insists again. “Steve and his wannabe cowboy.”

“In the ass?”

He smiles suddenly, impressed by my wit, I guess. Then, looking smart, he says, “I’ll give you that ride. And I promise to keep my hands to myself, so long as you let me blast whatever I want on the radio.”

Car ride of gay hell, party of two. “Deal.”

[ 4 ]

When we pull up to the apartment, I have to listen to Charlie complaining about a cramp in his stomach. I tell him to sleep it off but he insists on drinking it off, as I made the mistake of telling him that I didn’t like my roommate’s choice of beer—which happens to be Charlie’s favorite too, apparently. “Please,” he begs me, then fakes a pain in his belly. “Ugh. Please. I need some healing. The beer’s gonna do my body and my mind good, please, please.”

I might have more than one reason for saying yes. And I do.

When the door shuts behind him, he seems to forget all about the beer and walks around my place, looking at everything. It bothers me, the way he looks at everything. “Is this you?” he asks stupidly, picking up a framed graduation photo.

“No, that’s my gay twin.” I swing open the fridge, poking around leftover Chinese and half-empty sauce bottles looking for the beer.

“Well, your gay twin is hot.” He sets the picture back down, keeps drifting around the room. “Where’s your roomie?”

“He’s busy statutorily raping a girl for the weekend.” I’d finally gotten ahold of Trent on the car ride here. He wanted to hear all about the date I had. Then, after I told him, he wanted to know why I was such a prick to such a perfectly nice girl like … what’s-her-name. I ignored the lecture and told him he could stay there for the weekend; I wouldn’t be needing the car. To say he sounded relieved is an understatement.

Maybe I should’ve lied and said I needed the car. Thinking about what he’s doing to that girl—things he should be doing to me—makes my face red and my cock stir.

An hour later, the TV hums with the applause of a game show, the air conditioning unit grumbles tiredly at the window, and I’m doing the last thing on Earth I’d expect to be doing: throwing back beers with Charlie.

“Oooh my,” he sings after guffawing at something I said about a girl we both knew in high school. “That bitch crazy, tellin’ ya. Did I mention she tried to sell me popsicles?”

“No. Hmm, I like popsicles.”

“So do I,” he says, his eyes going big. “I’m pretty sure it was on a grape creamsicle that I learned how to suck my first cock.”

I laugh hard. Too hard. For some reason, I sorta want him to think I’m drunker than I really am. The couch can sit about four people, yet Charlie and I are puddled in the middle of it, much in the same way Trent and I usually sit. It’s a mind-fuck, really, that tonight I’m sitting by someone I could make a move on.

But for all my bravery, I’m just not that brave. “This is why no one talks to you,” I say after I’m done laughing, hoping my words sound naturally slurred. I’ve kicked back three beers; I need at least eight more in me before I’m actually drunk. “All you talk about is sex. You’re gross, Charlie.”

“And you ‘straight’ boys don’t talk about sex and pussy and how many ways you can bend a girl over a table? Puh-leeze.” He grabs another can, cracks it open, chugs, then says, “I’m downright tame compared to you horn dogs. What the hell am I guilty of? Dancing too much at the bar? I got life in me. This is my life. Fuck you for making me feel like I shouldn’t live it.” He chugs the rest, crushes the can in his fist, throws it over the back of the couch. “I should warn you, with regard to the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed tonight, I had a head start at the bar.” He hiccups.

I’ve been nursing the same can for the last thirty minutes. I don’t think he’s noticed. “It isn’t easy to just … be yourself in this town.”

“It isn’t possible,” says Charlie, like he’s correcting me. “You grow up being told what you gotta be by your parents, because they can’t just let you be what you are. Then you’re made fun of, beat up, shoved around by your peers in school. Then you meet some jackasses in high school who tell you who you are, then also proceed to beat you up for it, emotionally or physically, both count as bad. I should warn you I’m drunk.”

“You already did. But I never perceived you as a guy who … isn’t himself. You’ve always just been …” I try to think of a nice way to say it.

“The town fag, yeah, whatever. You think that’s not a role in itself? Half the time, I don’t even feel like I’m me. Are you ever really you, Benny? Even around your roommate? Or your buddies, or … or that sweet girl you totally failed to woo at Kegs?” His eyes go wide and his face takes a sudden yellowish color.

“Don’t vomit on my couch,” I request of him as politely as I can.

“Puh-leeze,” he manages to say, cocking his neck. “I’m a tank. I can rest the down of these. I can—I can down the rest of … What the fuck did I just say?”

Then he leans into me, his cheek pressed against my shoulder. I’m suddenly very aware of how fast my heart is beating. I feel the weight of his face on my shoulder, pressing into my side. I’ve never done anything with a guy before. I’ve never had a guy—especially a gay guy—this close to me, this close to doing something to me. All these years I’ve been waiting by Trent’s side like a sad puppy … and I might get my first break from Charlie. Is this really happening?

He burps, then wipes his mouth and sits back up. “Sorry,” he says, though I totally don’t want to accept his apology for anything. “Sorry. I’m clearly as think as I drunk I am, know what I’m sayin’? Heh, heh.” He reels his head, sighing.

Lean into me again. Please. Please lean into me. “You can crash here if you want.”

“Mmm,” he moans, seeming to consider. That is, if he heard me at all. He leans back into the cushions, shutting his eyes. The TV drones on and on, I’m not even paying attention.

At the beginning of the night, I was more annoyed about Charlie’s existence than I was about my forced date. Now, Charlie is suddenly the indubitable center of my focus and desires, the only person in the world who can supply what I’m demanding, the source of all my hidden thrills and secret needs and pent-up cravings, years-long in the making.

I shift my weight on the couch, then allow my shoulder to press into his when I lean back. As if by instinct, I spread my legs a bit, the crotch of my jeans out in the open. I’m hard, I know it, just with the anxious thought, with the excitement, with the anticipation, the possibility that I could be touched by another guy. I let the can rest in my hand on one side of my body, and let my other hand rest on my belly, out of the way.

Nothing there to stop Charlie from having his way with me.

After what seems like an eternity, he moans again, as if trying to form a word. Then I hear his head shift, as if he’s looking, as if he’s noticed what I put out in front of him, the temptation.

Please be tempted. I lick my lips too, just in case he’s looking at my face.

“I’m really drunk,” he murmurs, slurring. His voice is so close to my ear that I feel chills run down my body, goose bumps brought to life along my arms. He whispers something else that I can’t distinguish, and then he shifts his weight.

His hand drops onto my thigh.

I resist the gasp that tries to come out of my mouth. My heart is hammering so loudly it’s a wonder he can’t hear it … it’s a wonder it isn’t shaking the floorboards loose beneath my feet. I have never wanted something so badly. It isn’t even Trent. He’s not even Trent and yet my entire body is squirming beneath the skin, craving another man’s touch, craving the attention, craving the closeness.

Touch me, I’m begging him. Move your hand. Touch me.

His hand begins to slide. Slowly. Slowly. Glacially. It might take him an hour to make it from my thigh to my crotch. I will wait that entire hour, holding my breath. I don’t move an inch of my body. Not one muscle flinches, not even my bone-hard cock. It’s like a hunt, and any sudden movements can scare away my prey. Touch me. Grope me. Be inappropriate. Don’t be noble. Don’t be careful. Touch me.

Touch me.

He keeps sliding his hand. He reaches my inner thigh. I fight an urge to squirm. I fight another urge to moan. I struggle with all my might not to twitch or feel ticklish.

I wore my tight jeans today. Every graze of his fingertips is like touching my skin. I might as well be naked, thighs spread, with the misbehaving hand of Charlie tracing my leg and sliding ever-slowly between them.

Touch me.

Grope me.

His weight on the couch shifts more and I feel his shoulder digging into mine. Then, to my surprise, I feel his mouth on my chest. His mouth. The button-down blue plaid shirt I’m wearing clings to my skin, and when he puts his mouth on my pec, I feel his warm touch as though he were using tongue.

His lips move. My toes curl.

I’m so hard I’m leaking.

He moves his mouth again. I feel his chin graze my nipple. Is it safe yet to let out the gasp I’m swallowing? Is it safe to acknowledge what he’s doing to me?

His hand, which had stopped moving on my thigh, begins once again to slide, almost startling me. It draws closer to my crotch, up my inner thigh, drawing closer and closer while his mouth works on my chest, suckling my pec.

Charlie gets bolder. He brings his other hand to my chest and, slowly, carefully as if trying not to wake me, he undoes the top button of my shirt. Oh god. I feel the tightness of my shirt let go, just with that one button. He runs his wicked fingers down, releases the next button. The tightness drops again, my pecs closer to falling out. Oh god, it’s happening. My heart is pounding. My whole body is quaking, aching, and ready.

He moves his hand yet again, works off the next button, and my chest spills out. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His warm breath brushes across my pec, across my nipple, and I release the subtlest of sighs—I can’t help it. I’m suddenly not so sure I want to help it.

Maybe I should tell him … but what would I say? I crave my roommate? I’m only doing this with you because I can’t have who I really want? I’m straight by all definitions of lifestyle, yet hungry for a specific kind of intimacy that only another man can give?

When his mouth suckles my nipple, all my thoughts are lost, and I drop open my mouth, overcome. His tongue works my nipple so expertly that it feels like a blow job. It might as well be, for all the mind-blowing effect it’s having on my cock, which throbs and leaks in my tight jeans.

As if responding to said tightness, his hand moves again. This time, it reaches its long-awaited destination, the fingers running slowly across the bulge my cock is making in my jeans. Oh god. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s like he knows exactly where my cock is without even looking, as his face is pressed into my pec, his mouth latched to my nipple like a suction cup, and his tongue just won’t stop. His hand expertly traces my cock through the jeans, up one side, down the other, up one side, down the other.

It’s driving me insane.

Then the activity at my nipple stops. He lifts off my chest, then withdraws his hand. It is so abrupt, I flick open my eyes and turn to him, startled. He’s looking at me with a strange mixture of guilt and excitement in his eyes. What happened?

“Sorry,” he slurs, hiccups, then repeats, “so sorry, Benny. I didn’t mean to—”

“Huh?” I say, stupid as ever, unwilling to acknowledge what he was doing to me, even now, even in my current state.

“I’m drunk. You’re drunk. We’re such a mess, the b-b-both of us.” He burps just then, guttural and bassy. Then he wipes his mouth and, after a moment of thought, adds, “I don’t want to take advantage of you, Benny. You’re a good guy. I could’ve beat those fuckers up myself, but you came and acted like some knight in shining armor and like … I’m a big sucker for the knight in shining armor, okay? And I’m lonely. And you’re here. And—” He loses his words, staring at me expectantly.

Why can’t I just say it? Why can’t I tell him to keep doing what he’s doing? He’s waiting for permission. He wants permission. Here I am, a block of muscle and fear, a big tangle of hunger and needs. Didn’t he just feel my boner? Doesn’t he get that I want it, too?

Why do I have to say it?

“You’re a good guy, Benny.” He reaches up, which excites me for a second, until I realize he’s doing my shirt buttons back up. One, then two, then the top button.

My cock is throbbing. My insides, whimpering.

“W-What’re you doing?” I finally get out, sounding as stupid as I feel. “W-What do you mean?”

“I’ve overstepped a bit. I took advantage of you.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder, patting me, then thinks the better of it and just gets up from the couch.

No, no, no, no, no.

“Wait,” I blurt out, getting up, watching him as he walks to the door. “Wait, Charlie. I told you, man, you can crash here. I trust you. We’re cool, right?”

He stops at the door, looks at me hard, his hungry eyes drawing a path from my crotch to my face. Then he says, “To be honest, I don’t trust myself.”

After he leaves, the only sound I’m left with is the pounding of a heart against my ribcage like some sickly, starved prisoner begging for release.

[ 5 ]

Trent doesn’t return from his weekend with his high school prom queen until about midafternoon Monday, just before I’m heading in for work. He looks like a number’s been done on him. I likely look the same, with all his beer I’ve been guzzling. Hope he doesn’t mind. I’ll consider it a price for not having a car all weekend due to his teenager-lust. In fact, I was about to walk the thirty minutes down the street to work before he showed up.

“Need the keys,” I say as he drops into the couch right where Charlie was two nights ago.

“I almost encountered the dad.” Trent sighs, wipes his face and turns to look at me. “You totally fuck things up with Sandy, or did she forgive you and you fucked her brains out last night?”

This one time back in eighth grade, we went to a party where they played a weird combination of spin-the-bottle and seven-minutes-in-heaven. There were approximately four other boys there, all four of which I would’ve given anything to be stuck in a closet with. I didn’t even know what I’d do with them. I just wanted to be near them, for them to like me. I’d never been kissed, but I was sure I’d like it to be one of them. When I spun the blue hairbrush, which we were using as our bottle, it landed between the adorable punk boy Trent Hollings … and goth Katy Windsor. Boy and girl. Of course, as the way of assumptions go, that meant my “bottle” had chosen Katy. My heart sank as Katy got up and took me to the closet, the hooting and howling of the others meant to encourage us.

Once in the dark, though, she slumped against the wall and sighed. Through the cracks in the slatted door, I could see her face. What’s wrong? I asked her. She told me she really wanted her first kiss to be with Trent, and that’s why she sat by him. I had to smile because I was thinking the same thing. How nice it would’ve been if the group had laughed, played along with the hairbrush and decided that I had to go into the closet with Trent. My heart leapt at the thought. I told Katy it was okay, that she could save her first kiss for a boy she really wanted to kiss. She looked a touch grateful and a touch sad. Then, for the next six and a half minutes, we didn’t touch at all, sitting alone together in the darkness and listening to each other breathe.

“I fucked my right hand last night,” I answer the now-ten-years-older Trent. “But thanks for asking, buddy. I was about to walk to work, but now that you’re here and I got the car back, I have about twenty minutes before I gotta leave. Wanna play Wii? Some Smash?”

“You’re gonna need to walk, actually.” Trent kicks his feet up—two oversized chucks with the laces half-undone—and throws his arms over the back of the couch. He’s wearing a black leather cuff on his right wrist that I’d gotten him last year for his birthday. “I have a job interview at five.”

I come up to the back of the couch. “What happened to your other job?”

“I think my boss is into me. Like, into me. That’s gross and it makes me uncomfortable, so I put in applications elsewhere.”

His boss is a blond-haired man in his forties whose name is Donald, but he goes by Dick. “So, you’re scared of Dick. That’s what you’re telling me. You’re letting Dick scare you away.”

“When Dick’s trying to touch my dick, yeah.” He turns on the TV, tosses the remote on the cushion next to him.

“Never know. You might like it.”

“You might like it,” he jests back. If only he knew. But he doesn’t, and never will.

“You talk about me flakin’ out on dates,” I point out, “and here you are, flakin’ out on a job because you can’t stand someone checking you out who isn’t a girl.”

“Whatever, it’s gross.” He changes the channel, plops the remote back down.

Even after knowing each other so long and having spent years talking about our private lives and wants and fears, I still don’t know if he really knows about me. So every time he says something about gay men being gross, I can’t tell if he intends to hurt me, or if it’s pure ignorance and he might not say those things if he knew. Thinking this, guilt rushes in, and I’m staring at the back of Trent’s head, his spiky black punk hair, and my stomach’s roiling.

Am I in the wrong for keeping this secret from him for so long? Am I a terrible friend, to keep this huge part of me hidden from Trent …?

I imagine how that other night might’ve been, had Trent been the one passed out on my couch, and I was the one latched to his nipple, running my hand up his inner thigh, waking parts of him he didn’t know were asleep.

Staring at the keys he left on the counter, I sigh, resigning myself to the thirty minute walk in this unforgiving summer heat. I have half a mind to grab the keys and drive myself anyway, forcing him to get a ride or walk to his own interview, but as usual, I allow Trent to have whatever he wants, take whatever he wants, get whatever he wants, no matter how much I suffer for it.

I spoil him. I kinda want to spoil him.

“Will you pick me up after work?” I ask. “I get off at ten. I really hate to walk home in the dark.”

“Nah. I’ll be at Kirkland’s. He’s havin’ one of his beer fests tonight, remember? Marked it on the Star Trek.”

I give a tired glance at the Star Trek calendar he’s referring to. He and I jokingly told his mom that we are huge Trekkies, and every year since then, she gets us a Star Trek calendar. I doubt either of us have seen a single episode or movie.

“That’s tonight?” I bite my lip. “But—”

“It’s just three blocks north from your work, ain’t it? Maybe four, five. Come by after you get off. It goes ‘til, like, whenever A.M. His house is huge. There’ll be pussy aplenty. And probably high schoolers, if that’s your thing. Just kidding. Not really kidding. Loud music. Lots of dancing and probably weed, if we’re lucky.” He pushes himself off the couch, comes around the counter to the kitchen.

Watching his ass in those skinny jeans of his, ruefully I say, “We’re never lucky. Not in this fuck-all of a town.” Then, I grab my wallet, shove my phone into a pocket and head for the door.

“Hey, where’s all my beer?” I hear him ask as I shut the door behind me.

[ 6 ]

The scent of smoke, sweat, and barbeque precedes the party by about three blocks. I admit, my shift at work was not that long tonight, but here I am slumping down a dark street to Kirkland’s fat pad of sin. And I’m still in my work uniform, which consists of khakis, brown belt, loafers and a white chest-hugging polo with nametag. I couldn’t look dorkier if I tried. Even my hair’s parted because, well, I can’t stand to make a bad impression, even at my day job of the past however-many-years.

I find Trent on the porch with Steve.

“Hey, fuckface,” says Trent, raising the bottle he’s drinking as if in a toast. “You’re finally here, I see. Why so late?”

“Had to close because Pete didn’t show up, otherwise I would’ve been here an hour ago.” I squint through the window where likely everyone under the age of twenty-five in this godforsaken town has gathered. And maybe a few much younger, too. “Why does it smell like horse poop?”

“We drank up all the soda and the punch that Emma brought over,” Trent goes on while Steve just stares at me with red, drunken eyes, “but there’s Miller in the mini-fridge.”

I nod at the pair of them. “Appreciated. I’ll be back.”

I need to be drunk if I want to get through this. Like, super drunk. Like, fall on my face, fuck-off, lips-against-the-floorboards drunk.

Inside, the house looks like the electric bill wasn’t paid. A dark entryway (with a couple making out by the stairs) spills into a den area where about seven people are all over the couch, illuminated by the glow of a TV. I can’t and don’t want to be able to see what they’re doing to each other, judging from the wet sounds I hear. Further in the house, the larger living room is flooded with dancing fools, and the farthest wall overlooks a backyard through tall floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Where the fuck’s the kitchen?” I mutter to myself, pushing through the crowd of half-standing, half-gyrating bodies toward an archway that I pray leads me into the kitchen. Instead, it leads me to the dining room where two girls are seated at the table, chatting.

When one of them catches my eye, my stomach drops. “Hi,” I say to Sandy, my date from the other night.

“Hello, Benny.” She regards me coolly, her lips squeezed into a permanent smirk. Her friend, a girl with a sideways ponytail, simply watches me as though I were the menacing dog who happened on a pair of kittens.

“Having a—a—a good time?” I finally get out, inching my way through the room.

“Marginally,” answers Sandy. The friend remains silent as a crypt.

“Great.” I force myself to smile at them both. My transparent, cheesy politeness goes unreturned. “I didn’t have a chance to change after work, otherwise I’d—”

“You look fine.” The friend interrupts, lifting her brows at me. Sandy gives her a quick, disapproving nudge with her elbow. The friend, after a glance at Sandy, clears her throat and draws silent.

I nod at them. “Gonna grab myself a beer. I’ll see you two later.”

Knowing full well that at least one of them has no desire to see me later, I say it anyway, then move into the kitchen.

Pressed into the counter by the sink are three guys in jeans. One of them’s shirtless, sporting a distractingly nice set of abs, and the other two wear t-shirts. The tall one to the left has a cowboy hat on and a beer in his hairy fist. He’s first to look at me, but doesn’t greet me in any way except for a suspicious squint. The other two are occupied in conversation … or maybe it’s more of an argument about something to do with barbells.

“Excuse me,” I say as I draw near the tall one who’s leaning on the fridge. He shifts his weight to the counter next to him as I pull open the door. Nothing but cheese and a gallon of milk and a bin of potatoes meets my eyes. I frown.

“Mini-fridge’s upstairs,” says the tall one, “if you’re looking for the good stuff.”

“At this point I’m looking for any stuff.” I meet his eyes, shutting the fridge. I extend a hand. “I’m Benny.”

“I know. We went to school together, just never talked is all. You got—?” Then, he cuts himself off, distracted by a girl passing through the kitchen. She gives him a onceover, smiles, then disappears into the doorway connecting back into the den with the TV. “You got … Sorry, forgot my dang question. That lady was fine.”

Straight guys and their dicks. “No prob.”

“Dude, there’s so many fine chicks here,” one of the other guys—the shirtless one—says. “Never even seen half of them before. Tony, if we don’t get laid tonight—”

“Good point,” the tall one I was talking to, Tony, says, then excuses himself wordlessly from the kitchen in pursuit of the girl.

The two at the sink watch him go off, then drop back into their conversation as if I’m not even here. What I wouldn’t give to draw as much of their attention as the pretty girls do. What I wouldn’t give to not be so pathetically dependent on Trent’s approving glances and smiles and laughter … to have any hot guy of my choice at this party, the shirted and the shirtless ones. I give another doleful onceover of the young dude’s abs, feeling a pang of desire stir my heart. He doesn’t notice my ogling, which is both fortunate and unfortunate. No hot dude ever seems to notice me, not in the way I want to be noticed.

Pity party for one. I abandon the kitchen, pass through the den of eerily quiet souls and ascend the stairs to the second floor. Leaning over the banister is another pair of guys staring down at the selection of girls dancing in the living room. One of them comments about a pretty one in a pink dress, to which the other makes an obscene show of humping the banister, I guess to portray to his buddy what exactly he plans to do with her, despite it looking like he’s ramming some dude in the ass. Or maybe it’s just my oversexed mind.

The game room on the second floor has a pool table that is being used for anything but a proper game. Bottles and cans line its perimeter, and a pair of guys that can’t be older than sixteen or so are seated atop it, talking to one another and stealing glances at the other young girls across the room who are laughing about something.

Boys with girls. Girls with boys. This is all my life is full of in this fucking town. When I was in high school suffering the same fate, school dance after school dance after school dance, I was convinced that my life would change when I graduated. I dreamed a hundred dreams of what my college experience would be like, about the freedom I’d exercise, about the boys I’d meet and the love I’d find. Instead, I took Trent with me, and he was the dangerous light bulb toward which my stupid moth self was inevitably lured. I spent those almost-two college years being boy-blind, then dropped out with him and returned home with nothing to show but a list of half a hundred things I swore I’d do when I left … and didn’t.

Ah, there it is. “Pardon me, ladies.” I make for the mini-fridge near them. They draw quiet and seem to just watch me as I feel around for a bottle, then pull it out and snap off the top. “Thanks.” I give them a smile, then take a swig. Reconsidering, I grab another bottle for later, then dismiss myself from the game room to let the boys resume their dumb fascination with the two pretty girls they’re obviously too chicken shit to approach. Just fuck each other already, I have more than half a mind to shout.

The same two guys are at the banister still, staring down at the crowd of dancers. So many people from town are here, I wonder if Charlie is among them. With Steve poised on the porch like some ugly watchdog, I doubt he’d let Charlie through the doors. The thought angers me, even if I’m not super attracted to Charlie or excited about his presence. For some reason, the fact that Charlie even exists in a town like this gives me a bizarre, unknowing strength. It makes me feel like I’m not alone, even if Charlie and I are so … unalike. We at least have that one thing in common, even if Charlie himself isn’t aware. Thinking of him makes me feel the gentle touch of a hand on my inner thigh and, frustratingly, I feel my cock stir. Not now, dummy.

I take another swig from the bottle. Fuck it all. I’m so alone.

The music has grown louder somehow, and when I poke a finger through the blinds in the front entryway, I notice Trent’s missing and only Steve sits out there now, staring out at the nothingness in the street. His brown-booted foot is propped up on the porch railing and a cigarette dangles from his left hand. I sneer at him through the window, then release the blinds and walk away, wondering where Trent’s gone.

Just as always, I’m puppy-dogging the focal point of my existence, my rope and tether, my black hole of a crush that is ruefully named Trent. Where the fuck did he go? He’s not in the den with the creepy TV-watchers and whatever-else-have-you’s. Unless he slipped into a bedroom, he’s not upstairs. I doubt he’s in the kitchen because there’s no beverages left there.

I move through the living room, deciding to give the backyard a combing-over. The guys, who don’t look old enough to be drinking, are generally at one end of the living room, chatting, joking, some of them dancing stupidly, but most of their eyes are shooting arrows of desire at the spread of girls across the room, hoping any of their arrows stick. Regular cupids, all of those dumb fucks. The girls are just as stupid, doing the same thing. They sip their drinks, shake their bodies to the music, laughing at one another’s jokes while they shoot quick glances at the guys. Is this a fucking school dance? It’s just the forever, inevitable mating ritual dance bullshit of heterokind. Much like the inevitable mating ritual dance bullshit of homokind, except I’m likely the only fucking gay guy here. None of those guys shoot longing glances my way.

I squeeze shut my eyes, frustrated, and finish off the bottle, abandoning it atop an end table by the couch before pushing out the back door. A barbeque pit still smokes where, likely a few hours ago, some actually edible food was being grilled. I still haven’t seen Kirkland, and with his bushy head of hair and pointy beard, he’s impossible to miss. There aren’t many people out here, but with it being so dark, I can’t quite make out who’s sitting in lawn chairs by the inflated baby pool.

Then, Trent emerges from the dark like a ghost. “Where ya been?”

“Got lost in the house looking for booze.” I lift my second bottle I haven’t cracked open yet to indicate. “Where the fuck’s Kirk?”

“When’s our lease up, bud?” he asks quietly, drawing himself up to my side. “Do you know?”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“The lease. My mom wanted to know.” He chugs from his can. It crinkles loudly in his squeezing fist, dripping with condensation onto his shirt.

“Why do you—Why does she … need to know that?” I feel my heart racing and not in the good way.

“Never mind.” He belches, not meeting my eyes and, instead, peering through the window back into the house. “Fuckin’ full of nobodies. Who the hell did Kirkland invite, the fuckin’ high school? Where’s the assholes our age? Hope the walk wasn’t that bad, bud. Girls here aren’t even that hot.”

I’m still lost figuring out his question. Is he thinking of moving out? “Are we alright?”

He frowns, annoyed. “Of course we’re alright. What the fuck.” He chugs again.

I know Trent. He’s never evasive about anything. He’s blunt with me, always is. His hesitation and his weirdness unsettles me like nothing else in this stinking town can. I’m flooded with a million guilty thoughts all at once. Does he know? Did he figure it out? Did Charlie fucking say something? Did he find something on my computer? For that matter, what the fuck is on my computer?

But I can’t say any of this. I can’t even express it in some vague, indirect way. I’m stuck with my worries while Trent guzzles his beers, checks out his ladies, and goes about his life with no regard or awareness whatsoever to the war being waged in my mind. The same war I’ve been fighting since we were dumb horny teens and jerked off while staring at differently stimulating … things.

We were fourteen when I first stayed overnight at his house. He wanted to show me something and it wasn’t until 2 AM when he had the porn open on his computer that I realized what. I’ll never forget those fake perky tits and the grunts she made as the frat boys fucked her one by one. I never really got to see the frat boys very well, as this was straight porn—I think—but it didn’t matter when I had Trent pulling out his wiener right next to me, going to town. Some wicked part of my mind wanted to feign “not knowing what to do” around him. My heart raced, almost to the point of nausea, almost to the point of throwing up his mom’s brownies she made us earlier. I wanted him to touch me so bad. He got hard to the porn. I got hard to him, watching him breathe heavy, watching him gnaw on his own lip, watching his face wrinkle up as he grew closer and closer and closer to the edge.

When he came, a string of his cum landed on my face. I shut my eyes and gasped, feeling it run across my tongue and lips.

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

And then I came, too.

“You see Sandy inside?” he asks, slapping my belly and jerking me out of the memory. “She was upstairs, last I saw.”

“She’s in the dining room,” I say flatly. “She saw me. Can’t say she liked it.”

He throws an arm over my shoulder suddenly, as if sensing my withdrawal, and pulls me into him. “Patch things up, dude. She’s forgiving. You two could really hit it off. You could finally have a girl in your life.”

“What if I don’t want a girl in my life?”

The thought came so suddenly that I voiced it without thinking twice. A rush of dread reddens my face. Trent’s lips are near my nose, his alcohol breath wafting over me as he breathes.

“What else you gonna have in your life?” he asks innocently, missing the point I might have been making.

You, Trent. You, you, you. You are all I want. You are all I need. You and your breath and your slender punk body and your cocky charm. You and your competitiveness. You and your annoying habits I can’t stand. You and the way you’ve made me feel around you for over a decade. You are everything to me.

But there will come a time when he meets a girl, and that girl actually sticks. She won’t be a prom queen nominee from the high school around whose parents he has to tiptoe. It won’t be any of the easy girls at the bar, none of whom he actually picks up, despite throwing each and every one of them at me, Sandy included. But he will meet a girl and she will be everything he dreamed of. And I will have to be invited to the wedding. I’ll be the best man, standing at his side, watching him be taken away by another girl I’ll be forced to like. Hell, maybe I’ll even actually like her. Wouldn’t that be worse? I’ll have no reason under the stars to protest their marriage, no reason to talk him out of it. She’ll be perfect and sweet and friendly and beautiful. She’ll even be pro-gay or some shit.

And I’ll still hate her. I’ll hate her for taking him from me. I’ll hate her and I’ll hate him. And for all the rest of my days, I’ll live under the shadow of some fantasy I should’ve thrown away the year I grew my first pube.

“Probably just more beer,” I answer him finally, wondering how true my answer, in fact, really is. I stare at my half-empty bottle, lost in thoughts of a future without him. I’d never even considered one, but I’m no longer a kid. I’m an adult. I’m an adult who’s running out of time.

What am I doing?

Trent slaps his neck suddenly, curses. “I’m heading back inside. Getting bit the fuck up out here. You comin’?”

Aren’t I always? I nod.

We move into the living room again. The boys on one side, the girls on the other, and a sea of reluctance between them. Kicking back my new bottle, I laugh on the inside at the dumbness of the scenario in front of me. All these horned up, lonely, desperate folk of my horned up, desperate town … and they can’t even approach each other at a party. What is this, high school? People are already coupled off in bedrooms and dens and backyards and wherever else, yet the pump of dance music paralyzes these fools.

“Feel like headin’ home yet?” asks Trent. “This party’s lame.”

And full of high schoolers, judging from the fear they have of the opposite sex. Even the twenty-somethings in the crowd won’t look at me. None of those hot boys will give me the time of day or night. None of them see me. None of them know. I study the crowd long and hard, feeling brave.

“Actually, I feel like dancing.”

Trent looks at me, thinking I’m crazy, when I slap my bottle of beer into his chest and push myself out onto the floor. Two girls look at me, startled by my suddenly popping into existence. They become my inspiration. I start working my shoulders to the music. One of the girls smiles. The song pumps harder, and then my hips start to rock, my arms working into the sexy-bad performance I’m putting on. Now I have four girls looking at me, a small grouping of them, all of their eyes at perfect attention to my seduction act. I grin, emboldened by their excitement, and move my hips harder. I lift my arms in the air.

The girls begin to circle me like a flock of birds, and now their bodies are moving too. The music wraps us up in some sort of trance. What do you know? I’m part of the heterokind mating ritual, my arms twisting, my hips working an invisible hula-hoop, feet stamping the floor. I can’t take the smile off my face, all the pretty birds circling me and shaking their feathers and laughing. I’m suddenly the most charming blue jay that’s flown into their lady-tree. At long last, after an eternity of waiting here at this party for something to happen, I pull them out of the darkness.

When I turn around, I see the eyes of all eighteen or nineteen boys across the room. All of their eyes, all of them, are on me.

They envy me. They want to be me. They want all these women to be all over them.

I am their focal point, in this one moment. I am their everything. I am their cream and their butter and their prize in the cereal box.

All the boys are watching me now.

But the reality is, no one’s winning. These girls are grinding their hips for me—for a guy who will never choose or prefer any of them. The boys across the room, they’re now the ones pining for something they can’t have, at least not right now. They’re drooling in envy. They’re wondering who I am. They’re curious and infatuated and dreaming, just like me.

And Trent on the sidelines, watching all this happen. Trent and his punk boy lips and his lip ring. Trent and his messy dark hair, giving him that air of mystery and sexuality and depth. Trent and the utterly bewildered expression on his face … and my beer bottle that still hangs in his slackening grip.

All of us, playing the lonely game. All of us, losers.

[ 7 ]

I can’t sleep.

I close my eyes and dream Trent is trying to dance with me, pushing his hips into mine and gripping me the way he grips the girls. Stop, I try to tell him, shoving him off, knowing he’s fucking with me. He drunk.

Stop.

Then, his mouth lunges for my face. He’s trying to kiss me and I shove at him, but can’t push him away far enough. Stop trying to kiss me, the dream-version of me says while the dream-version of him keeps reaching.

He laughs drunkenly in my face. I even feel the heat of his breath as if it’s there. He grips me harder, suddenly having all the power and strength of the world in those hands of his.

He always had that power.

Even in my dreams.

It doesn’t matter what I do. I push his shoulders, his mouth seems to grow closer. I push his hips, they grind me harder. Harder. That’s the key word: harder. My cock grows and grows, and it isn’t wholly pleasurable.

I’ve never hated a boner more than I have tonight. Every tossing and turning in the bed runs my hard-on along the sheets, stimulating it worse, tickling it, sending shivers up my spine that I resent.

Stop doing this to me.

He never stops.

Then, when the struggle is almost too much to bear, I turn and find him just staring at me, almost hurt. He asks me something, his lips moving, and I don’t understand. What? He asks again, but I still don’t hear him.

Does he really want to kiss me? Have I had it wrong all along?

The rhythm of the music is a heartbeat. The walls bend inward with each beat, synchronized. It scares me. My heart races.

What are you trying to say, Trent?

His mouth grows closer.

Does he really want to kiss me?

When I open my mouth to finally accept his, he shoves a sock in it.

I wake up in the darkness of my room, alone, and Trent isn’t there, neither the real one nor the imaginary. I stare down my body, my sheets forming a huge teepee with my boner pointing at the ceiling fan.

“I’ve had worse dreams,” I say out loud, miserably.

Deciding I can’t sleep at all, I drag myself out of the room in just boxers and gym shorts and a white tank. The subtle titter of voices on the TV draws my attention, surprising me. Trent’s still awake? I come to the living room and find Trent leaning back in the middle of the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table and the remote hanging in his left hand.

He’s asleep.

I listen to the calm ins and outs of his breath. His eyes closed, his lips slightly open, he looks so … adorable. I envy his peace. I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep at  his side while on the couch.

I miss that so much.

I’ve wanted nothing but to fall asleep with him, curled up, his arms draped across me carelessly. Maybe when we’re asleep, he’ll absently put his leg over me, hugging me like a fireman’s pole, with his face nuzzled into my neck like a pillow, not even minding that I’m a dude.

Why can’t guys be like that? I don’t even need him to be gay. I just want him to comfort me. We’ve been through a lot. We’re closer than most brothers who are related by blood.

Why do guys have to be so … afraid? Why can’t they be more …

All these struggles bring me to the end of the couch. When I get a full look at him, I realize he’s only in his boxers. I see the tattoo he got when he turned eighteen, a big scorpion on his shoulder. His boxers are black and hug his thighs—which makes the wood inside them show all the more. I stare at it, surprised. His legs somewhat spread, his arms across the back of the couch, his slender, toned body painted the bluish glow from the TV, I find myself completely entranced.

I’m such a fool. I fall in love every single time I see him. I fall in love over and over.

I lower myself to the arm of the couch, watching Trent, listening to him breathe. My heart is literally jumping out of my chest, yearning for him.

Why do I like him? He’s not even always nice. But … he includes me, most of the time. He’s kept gravitating back to me over the years. I’ve always been there. I’m dependable. Even in college when I was sure he’d make a hundred other friends, he seemed to only bother keeping my company. What if there’s something there? What if …

What if …

I put my hand on the back of the couch to brace myself, misjudge where it is, and slip off the arm, landing clumsily on the couch, halfway into Trent’s lap.

I freeze. I don’t move a muscle. I turn to stone.

Trent fidgets, his breath changing for a second, and then he resettles in the same position, his legs outstretched and apart, feet on the coffee table, and his arms still over the back of the couch. He’s still asleep.

Still asleep.

And here I am, a hand on each cushion to either side of him, hovered over him with my face an inch from his crotch. His hard cock, tenting his boxers, threatens to poke me in the eye. Ever so fucking slowly, I turn my head, looking up at his face.

His eyes are still closed, his mouth still hanging partway open, and he breathes slowly, in he breathes, a long moment, then out he breathes, a long moment, then in …

My heart is racing so hard. I feel a certain dark inspiration brewing inside me from my night with Charlie. What he did to me … the excitement I felt …

What if Trent has just been … waiting? What if he’s awake right now, pretending to be asleep? What if …

What if …

Balancing all my weight on one hand, I lift the other and, so, so, so, so gently, I take a pinch of his boxers between my fingers.

I look up to check his eyes. Still closed. Still asleep.

I give my fingers a gentle tug. The fly to his boxers moves a smidge. I give it another tender pull, sliding it. I hear Trent’s breathing give a start, as if affected by something, and then return to its normal rise and fall. When I tug the boxers just a tiny bit more, suddenly his cock slides out of the fly, popping up as if it just burst a hole through the fabric.

His swollen, rock-hard cock … inches from my lips.

I look up to check my victim again. Eyes still closed. Lips still parted. I listen to him breathe a few rounds before I turn my attention back to Trent’s dick. Is this really happening? I ask myself, I ask all my dream selves who were in this situation before, who have lived this over and over again.

Except they’ve never really lived it. Because I’m living it. Because this is not a dream, and Trent’s cock is in my face, and there are real consequences if he wakes up.

I’ve been afraid most of my life. Can’t I, just this one time, be brave?

I open my mouth, daring myself. It’s just right there. It’s right there in front of me. Right there. I stick out my tongue, reaching, like an experiment.

My tongue touches the tip of his cock.

Tongue still touching, I twist my face to look up the mountain of my best friend. Eyes still closed. Mouth parted. No reaction.

I let my tongue slide. The whole pad of my tongue rests along the tip of his cock now, like the palm of a small, warm, wet hand. I dare my tongue to move.

His cock jumps.

I stop, twist my eyes to look up, frozen in place with my tongue latched on.

Eyes still closed.

I run my tongue down the length of his cock, slowly, slowly, then run my tongue back up. After seeing hundreds upon hundreds of boys do this in porn videos, it’s my turn. I let my tongue slowly bathe every inch of his tall, swollen dick. Slowly, slowly up one side, then slowly, slowly down the other. His dick grows more and more wet, slicker, smoother as my tongue traces its length over and over and over again. He never opens his eyes.

I’m in gay heaven.

The next time I reach the tip of his cock with my tongue, I pause, taking another glance up at his beautiful, peaceful face.

Here goes nothing.

I part my lips wider and, slowly, I take his cock into my mouth.

Nerves I didn’t know I had are waking up.

At first, I just accept the tip of his cock, closing my mouth around it like a popsicle. I think suddenly about Charlie and the girl he told me about on this couch, the popsicles she’d sell. I’ll take a cocksicle instead, please.

It might be my imagination, but I think I hear his breathing quicken. I hesitate, waiting, hovering with my mouth wrapped around the tip, wondering if I should go further. Give me a sign, I beg him, horny, insane, desperate. Give me any sort of sign that I can go on.

I barely slide a bit more in, taking another millimeter of his cock. His breath quickens. It’s not my imagination. Whether he’s dreaming it or not, some part of him is aware of what’s happening.

He wants it, I tell myself.

I take another inch, my tongue sliding, my wet lips sliding, his cock like a rod, firm and unrelenting and pulsing with need.

Can I satisfy that need? Me and my lips and my tongue?

Trent breathes a bit differently now, the more I take in. I hear his throat opening up, his breathing lighter, his breaths getting closer together. Trent’s cock is in my mouth and his pleasure is at my mercy.

I’m in control.

The power I have with just a tongue, with just lips. If I knew I had this power before …

I go the full length of his cock, swallowing it all. I hear him moan. I HEAR HIM MOAN! Fighting my gag reflex, I twist my mouth up and down his cock slowly, the entire length of him. Little Trent, pulsing, throbbing in my eager mouth.

Suddenly his hand drops from the back of the couch, lands on my head. Is he awake? I can’t look up to see him, his hand now gripping the back of my head. Oh my god, I realize. He woke up and he’s guiding my head now. He’s guiding my head on his cock.

He wants it.

Inspired by his touch, high as a kite on the drug of want, I work his cock in my mouth with the commitment of an engine. He moans now, even louder. His breaths are raspy and quick. He’s getting close, he has to be.

Just when I think he’s going to shoot, something horrible and hard knocks me in the side of the head, and everything turns into dots and flashes and stars.

I’m on the floor, grabbing my head and looking up, the room spinning, confused.

“WHAT THE FUCK??” Trent screams, standing over me.

I blink away whatever it was that hit me, blink the world back into focus. “W-What?” I sound innocent. I sound confused. I sound hurt. “W-W-What happened?”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” he repeats. He doesn’t put away his cock, which drips with my saliva.

I’m lost for words. Did something happen? I’m completely confused and disoriented. The room spins, my lips are wet with drool and my roommate’s staring down at me with the fury of a volcano.

“I’m … I …” I sound so stupid. I form a sentence to say, then let it stick in my throat, terrified.

“You were sucking my dick,” he says, eerily calm suddenly. He points at it, as if it’s necessary to indicate what he’s talking about.

I shake my head, my first impulse being to deny it all. Then, mouth hanging open stupidly, I say, “I was confused. I’m still drunk. I … I was …” I slap a hand to my forehead, out of words.

He doesn’t say anything, frozen in place, a finger pointed at his still-hard, still-dripping dick. It still pokes out of his boxers like a middle finger, flicking me off. Even the way he’s pointing at it is like flicking me off.

Fuck you, Benny. That’s the message I feel like I’m getting. Fuck you.

“You knew what you were doing.” He says it so quietly, so unsettlingly. “You were blowing me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were sucking my dick.”

How many more times does he have to say it? My forehead’s breaking out in a sweat and my face burns redder and redder. Every time he says it, the reality of what I did becomes more real. Every time he says it, I’m more ashamed.

“I’m drunk.” Despite the room spinning, I get to my feet, staggering to the left, then the right. I bring a finger to my lip, bring it into view. “I’m bleeding.”

“I kneed you in the face,” he mutters, and he doesn’t quite sound proud of it.

Unable to meet his eyes, I stare at a thread in the couch, some thread that’s been coming lose for years, some piece of that couch that’s been unraveling before our eyes for years and neither of us noticed, neither of us bothered to fix it. To that thread, I say, “I’m sorry, Trent. I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute. I wonder if he’s still pointing at his dick. Why can’t he put it away? Does he want me to finish? I ask myself bitterly.

“So you been wantin’ to do this for a while or what?” he asks.

“Fuck you, Trent.”

“I’m serious, Benny.”

His voice suggests he’s also angry and has nothing kind to say to me right now, regardless of how I respond to his harsh interrogation.

He goes on: “You been looking at my dick when I sleep? You look at me like that?”

“No.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I warn him, feeling the blood rise in my neck, the ugly blood, the kind that is not the stuff of passion.

“You been wantin’ my junk this whole time? Your own friend? You betray my trust and you—you—you—you take advantage of your best fucking friend when he’s asleep?  So you can satisfy your sick perversions?”

“Shut … the fuck … up.” My tone suggests that it’s my last warning.

“You fucking do this to your friend? You want me?—Is that it, bitch?”

I lunge across the room so fast, he barely gets his hands up in time. My fist makes a sweet friendship with his cheek, knocking him over. Having gripped my shirt, he takes me with him as he falls.

On top of him, his still-exposed cock slapping my thighs, I grapple with him on the floor. Twice we roll over … my back slams to the floor, then his, then mine again, then his. Atop him, I throw another fist into his face just as he calls me a name.

The next punch sends a spray of blood across the floor, staining a rug my mom got us last Christmas.

When his hands come up not to attack me, but to shield his own face … that’s when I stop. I stare down at the boy I’ve loved for years, witnessing what I’ve done to him. His hands shake, ready to grab or deflect or otherwise stop the maiming my feral fists had planned. Breathing heavy, my teeth bared, I stare down at Trent, overcome, anger still billowing out of my ears, still burning my cheeks with the ugly blood.

Trent and I lock gazes, warily studying one another through sheens of tears in our quivering eyes. His blood still seasons my knuckles.

“I did,” my mouth finally says, and I’m not even sure exactly what I mean. I did want you this whole time. I did mean to suck your cock. I did take advantage of you.

I climb off of him, finished, sick with myself. Still dressed in just a tank and gym shorts, albeit a touch roughed-up and with a speck of blood staining the tank—whether his or mine, no one can tell—I let myself out.

He might’ve said something. He might’ve called out for me, but I don’t hear it.

I leave, walking down the empty street in the dead of night, joining the cacophony of crickets. A genuine wave of reluctance seizes me, threatening to turn me back home and not let me take another step, but I push through it, forcing myself recklessly into the dark.

I don’t know how much time passes with these thoughts tormenting me, but I find the brick wall of a building and, almost politely, I crouch down and retch anything that’s inside me. It isn’t much and the most I actually do is just dry heave and groan and spit at the wall.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to the bricks.

I half-fall, half-lean into the wall, deciding to keep my vomit company for a while, I guess. An uncharacteristic breeze wiggles down the street like a great invisible comb, sending dust into my eyes. I clench them shut and wrap my arms around my belly, hugging it tight. I better take good care of myself; I might be the only friend I got left.

After roughly half an hour of disoriented thoughts and numbness passes, I finally pull my phone out and look for my parent’s number. I find Charlie’s instead. When the hell did I acquire his number? Mr. Dancing Queen must’ve put it in there himself.

I bring the phone to my ear.

Click. “Hmmnh?”

“Ch-Charlie?” I clear my throat of phlegm or whatever the fuck builds up back there after an indeterminate amount of time spent crying and vomiting and gagging on the blood of a bleeding mouth. “Charlie?”

“Who da fuck?” I hear rustling, clothes or bed sheets or something. “Fuckin’ … 4 AM?”

“This is Benny. R-Remember me? We, umm … We went to school together. You gave me a ride home and … and I …”

“It’s four-the-fuck-A-M, honey. My ass needs ‘ta sleep.”

“C-Can I crash at your p-place tonight?”

There is a long silence. I pray he’s actually considering it. This is not a prank call, I want to tell him. I need your help. I hurt all over.

“Where you at?” he finally asks, his tone taking a slight change for the concerned.

I have no idea. “A brick wall.”

“I’ll be right there.”

[ 8 ]

Charlie dresses a cut above my eyebrow, a scrape on my cheek, and a gash on my knuckle with a generous assortment of Rainbow Bright Band-Aids. He offers me a shirt, but I opt to sleep shirtless instead. I remember very little else before I lay myself down on his absurdly comfortable couch, waiting for him to get me a glass of water and an Ibuprofen.

That must’ve been when I fell asleep.

Morning throws a blanket of piss-yellow light over my head from a window draped in pink-and-blue polka-dot curtains.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” he sings from a salmon-colored armchair in the corner of the room.

I blink the light out of my eyes and twist my head. The whole room seems to twist with it. “Fuck,” I groan, touching my head and discovering a puffy bandage there.

“Do I get the story now,” asks Charlie, “or do I gotta make you pancakes first?”

I squint at him. I feel so hungover, the room like an aquarium of syrupy light and diffused sound. I push myself into a sitting position, feeling aches in my muscles that certainly weren’t making themselves known last night, what with my rage and everything.

Rage. That’s when I remember what the fuck happened last night. Trent. His dick. My misbehaving mouth. The words we threw at each other. The fist I threw into his jaw … my best fucking friend.

“Pancakes first,” I groan.

Over artful yellow-and-red plates of eggs and pancakes and chopped-up cantaloupe, I tell Charlie the whole story. Trent and my friendship that grew into something more for me. The culmination of feelings that became my one hard and horny mistake last night. The whole story has Charlie so captivated, he doesn’t interrupt once and hardly touches even the one tiny pancake he served himself.

When I’m finished, the most intelligent response he has is: “Wait … you’re gay?”

“Yeah, whatever,” I confirm with a shrug.

“Wouldn’t have guessed. Shit.” He pokes his pancake, looking annoyed. “If I’d known that, way back in the day, phew … I would ‘a had my way with you, sweetheart. In the gym locker rooms. In first period and second period and every period, even my sister’s, honey, I’d have taken you everywhere and anywhere and anyway. She had a baby last year. Girl. I’m an uncle, did you know that? Gay uncle Charlie. The baby daddy moved to Hollyweird to do gay-for-pay to afford child support. I’m a sitcom. This shit writes itself, take notes.”

“Thanks for taking me in, Charlie.”

“Oh, sweetie, stay as long as you want. Move the fuck in. Be my best friend. You can suck my cock whenever the hell you want. Saves me the hell of going to Kegs and Dregs where you only find just that: the dregs. Ugh. That place is sin. Did you know the owner’s fucked every woman over forty in this town? He’s probably fathered a fifth of our senior class. Welcome to backwater incest fuck-twat hell, it’s what we live in, leave your shoes by the door, hey.” He slurps his coffee, watching me over the brim of the mug. “You a virge?”

I narrow my eyes questioningly. “Virge?”

“Virgin, babe, keep up. Have you done the hocus in your pocus yet? I won’t tell no one, pinky swear.”

“Uh … yeah, I guess I am.” I’ve swallowed every bite on my plate. I could eat three times the amount he gave me, but I suck it up and appreciate the breakfast deck I’ve been dealt.

“Which do you think you wanna do? You the pitcher, or the lemonade? You the hot, or the sauce? I’ll teach it all to you, babe.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood to be taught nothin’,” I murmur, trying not to sound too ungrateful. “Mind’s a bit preoccupied with—”

“Straight boys.” I nod. “Yeah, yeah. The fly in all our chardonnays. Trent’s a cutie, I’ll give him that. He’s got one of those get-the-fuck-over-here-and-let-me-pinch-you sort of faces. I always wondered what it was like to kiss a guy with a lip ring.” Charlie pushes his cheek into his fist, pondering exactly that. He puckers his lips, as if testing it with an imaginary volunteer before him.

“You’re fuckin’ weird,” I can’t help but blurt out, stifling a laugh.

“And really lonely.”

My face turns serious, studying him. He gets up suddenly, takes both our empty plates to the sink, dumps them in loudly with the care of a barmaid.

“Me too,” I say quietly.

“I’m so tired of waiting for some asshole to ride into my life to save me,” he complains to the sink, his back turned. “Why is it so hard to just … get up and take what we want? I mean, this is our fucking life. This is my life.” He turns suddenly, a dishtowel with tiny pink unicorns dangling from his hand. “This is your life, you dumb mother fucker. Who told you to be quiet and careful and not get in anyone’s way? What the fuck are you gonna do when you’re dead, Benny? Ask for another chance? This is your chance. You took it. You saw Trent on the couch and you … you sucked it. You sucked your chance, baby, and if ever the circumstance should again arrive, I say, fuck it and suck it too. Life is here for the sucking and the fucking of it, my friend. We are alive, so be alive.”

I imagine he’s waiting for the applause of an auditorium full of attendees to his self-help seminar, but all he’s got is me, and my reaction is a blank stare and an unsatisfied grumble in my stomach. That, or I gotta take my morning dump already.

“I gotta get to work soon,” he complains.

“Me too,” I confess. “But my clothes …”

“What is it you wear to work?—Dickies? Polo? Honey, I got it all, take your pick. I have three closets and every acceptable color of this season’s and last. Have a heyday. I’m bustin’ a move, bitch. Spare key’s under the black dog statue. Place is yours.” He leaves his mug on the counter and saunters off to the bedrooms.

He’s leaving me a way in, just like that? I call after him: “You’re letting me stay?”

“I’d be crazy not to. You kidding?” He stops at the hall, his butt looking tight as a rope in those jeans, his bright eyes flashing. “Didn’t I just get done saying I’m a lonely mother fucker?”

My hands resting in my lap, I smile lamely. “Thanks.”

“Aww, babe. Don’t mention it,” he says. “Like, literally, don’t. I don’t do sappy.” He disappears into his room, the door shutting heavily at his back.

I smile, looking around and taking in the environment of his home. It’s colorful and strangely inviting. I feel like I’m in some lost aunt’s house, or a whacky grandma’s cabin who makes rainbow-sprinkled cupcakes every Tuesday for no reason at all.

Reluctantly, I pull out my phone and look at the notifications. Trent called me an hour ago, apparently. Voicemail.

My belly somersaults. My breath goes all wrong and jagged. After steeling myself far too much, I clench my jaw and tap the button, then bring the phone to my ear, listening.

“H-Hey, uh … hey. Just … just calling to see where you’re at or whatever. You kinda just fuckin’ took off and … and …” He sighs loudly, a blast of static in the voicemail. “I think we should talk about this, Benny. I’d try and, like, check all your friends’ houses and find out where the fuck you are … but I know you don’t got no friends but me, so … and maybe that’s the other reason why I’m, well … why I’m fuckin’ worried, I guess. Like, for real, Benny, like … Where the f—” And the voicemail ends, cut off.

I stare at the phone, then shut my eyes.

“Spectacular,” sings Charlie as he emerges from his room in a white t-shirt and skin-tight maroon pants. Sunglasses nest in his hair. “You can take whatever you want. We look about the same size, I reckon. Well, my stuff will likely squeeze you to death, but hey, tight is the new loose so, whatevs. See you after six or so. I’m ordering Chinese later, hope you like moo shu pork and lettuce wraps.”

The next instant, Charlie is out the door and I’m left in a strange house with just the sound of my own unsettled digestive system for company.

I set my phone on the counter, as if afraid of it. “I’m sorry,” I tell it, maybe speaking to Trent, maybe speaking to myself. I don’t know anymore.

I just don’t know anything anymore.

[ 9 ]

My time with Charlie is surprisingly nice. We seem to have similar work hours, though I don’t quite know what he does and never bothered to ask. I like everything he orders to eat. He seems to always order delivery and never cooks. “I don’t believe in stoves,” he tells me. “My mother halfway cooked her boobs on one once, like in that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire. I’m literally afraid to bake my boobs. I don’t do toasters either because every time I try to use one, my shit gets burnt.”

Trent calls again Thursday afternoon.

“Aren’t you ever gonna answer it?” asks Charlie after I let the phone go to voicemail. “Your girlfriend Trent is obviously concerned as fuck about you. He’s probably posting missing persons fliers, like they do with lost puppies …”

“He knows where I work,” I say flatly. “If he really cares, he’ll find me at the store.”

“Oh, hey, look what I picked up.” He lifts a case of beer onto the counter with the might of a lumberjack. “Your roommate’s favorite. The brand I guzzled up that night I stayed at your place and almost molested you.”

“I still sorta wish you had.”

“That can be arranged.”

It’s all fun and games between us. I never know what to take seriously and what to laugh off as another of his countless jokes. But a handful of hours later when the sun’s gone down, we’re huddled on his couch watching reruns of Golden Girls and chugging beer after beer after beer. I’m squinting at the TV now and we’re laughing at each other’s slurring.

“You know you’re really not my type at all,” he tells me. “Handsome just doesn’t do it for me. Believe it or not, I did not ogle the football team, nor did I hump to thoughts of the soccer team … or the anything else team. The wrestling team, however …”

“I peeked into one of their afterschool practices once,” I confess, remembering. “The gym where they practiced was right across from my study hall, and they were all in this bent-over-backward bridge sort of position, each of them, their pelvises pointing up to the rafters. Their coach was punishing them, I think, threatening to make them hold that position for another thirty minutes if any of them fell or couldn’t hold it. The dude closest to the door, bent over in a bridge in his tight blue singlet, he was sporting the biggest hard-on I’d ever seen. It was like he was enjoying it, but couldn’t hide his enjoyment, no matter how he shifted his body or … or anything. It was just there, out in the open, his hard-on in plain view.”

“Hot,” grunts Charlie. “What the fuck’s your point?”

Clumsily, I push my face into his and, as if fumbling through dark woods to clasp hands with a friend, my lips latch onto his. Nothing happens, our mouths just touching, frozen together. Then, as if gently waking up, our lips begin to move, kissing one another. With growing anticipation and deepening hunger, I twist my head and bury my mouth into his as deep as I can manage. He grunts, surprised, then slowly slides to his back on the couch. I climb over him, sucking his lips and inhaling his scent.

When our lips finally part, I tell him, “You’re not really my type either. But I’m a bit virge, I’m a bit lonely, and we’re here and alive and all that bullshit so … y’know, figured why the fuck not, right?”

“That’s basically how it always happens,” Charlie explains.

Our faces collide again. This time, Charlie takes the lead and works me onto my back as he climbs atop me. Ungently, he works open my shirt one stubborn button at a time. Then his mouth wanders from mine, kissing down my neck like a naughty boy taking a path in the woods he was warned against. Charlie even sneaks wicked glances up at me as he goes lower and lower, to my pec where his mouth meets a familiar friend. I clench shut my eyes and moan when his playful tongue finds my nipple again. Yes, I cry inside, my inner triumphant shout of victory. A thousand times yes.

Six billion hours of working my nipple later, he resumes his trek of kisses down my body until arriving at my pants. He pulls the belt off and throws it aside, that wicked, evil thing, then claws open my pants like branches of trees in his way.

My cock leaps out, hard as it’s ever been. Kiss it, I beg him silently. Lick it like I licked Trent’s. Bathe it with your tongue. Oh god, I just want to know what I did to him. I want to know how it feels.

He kisses the tip of my dick. “Yes,” I say aloud, my thoughts becoming words. “Kiss it good.”

Charlie follows my command. What a good boy. Those lips touch my cock with such tenderness, I feel my balls pull up tightly, my toes curl within my shoes.

“Lick it,” I whisper.

When his tongue darts out, daring a taste of my cock, I gasp sharply, surprised by the sensation. This is really happening. Finally, really, actually happening.

“Please suck my dick.” My hands grapple. I fumble blindly for his face, then find my greedy purchase in his hair. I pull him down on my dick, his warm mouth enveloping my every inch. This boy is practiced. “Fucking holy hell fuck,” I blurt out.

He lifts off my cock. “You’re sexier when you shut the fuck up.”

I shove him back down, gagging him with my dick as I start to pump my hips. “So are you,” I growl back.

My hands gripping his hair so tightly, directing him up and down my cock, I find myself licking my own lips, breathing heavier and heavier with every tongue-and-lip-assisted stroke of my cock.

I want this feeling to last forever.

“Fuck me,” I say, getting close. “Oh, god, fuck, fuck me, fuck …”

This time, he pulls completely off my cock and brings his face near mine. I almost recoil, surprised by his closeness when suddenly he asks: “Is that an invitation?”

I stammer. “I … I meant … I was just …”

“Yes, right, I’m sure you were. But would you like to, Benny boy?” He grins, bites his lip. He looks halfway cute when he does that, and halfway amateur porn star idiot. “I can transport you to worlds beyond worlds, boy, with just my cock and my hands and a bottle of gooey.” He grips my dick with his hand. “Pitch, or catch? Hocus, or pocus? Lemon, or lime, or take your time?”

“Just fuck me,” I breathe.

A minute later, my face is pressed into a spread of five different feather pillows. My naked body feels smooth as a buttered bird on his silken sheets. I don’t see him get the lube, but suddenly he’s working a finger along my crack and I feel the unmistakable slickness of fuck-goo from a tube. Trent and I use it to jerk off every day.

Mmm. Trent.

“It might hurt at first, sweetie,” he says from behind. “You gotta relax yourself into it. Feel it all. Let yourself off the edge for once. Drift, baby … just drift away.” I feel him put a finger at my hole, gently pushing. I’m so tight that I feel my hands clasp the bed sheets. Shivers run up my back. “Just drift.”

“Just shut up.”

I’m imagining Trent behind me working my hole instead of Charlie. My body relaxes. Charlie is being so—I mean, Trent is being so gentle with me. He doesn’t want to hurt me. “That’s it,” he murmurs, though his voice is someone else’s.

When his cock enters me, I don’t realize it’s gone in until he begins to slide in and out, his hips moving. My mouth is trapped in a perpetual jaw-drop, feeling every bit of his cock moving in and out of me. I bite the pillow and feel the slickness of his member. Is it really Trent? Is it really Charlie?

“Fuck me,” I breathe. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

And he does.

The more he goes, the slicker it becomes, and the more I relax. It’s a contradiction, how I’m tensing up with excitement, how it feels so fucking good, and yet I’m turning to a puddle of helpless horniness on his bed. It’s like the most perfect massage in the world.

“You’re tight,” the person that isn’t Trent says to the back of my head.

“Sorry.” I groan the word, high on sex.

“Don’t be. It’s a fucking pleasure.” He grabs my back like a horse’s reins, his thighs squeezing my ass like a saddle, and he rides me into the whispers of very early morning.

But the very early morning is anything but whispers when he has me flipped over, my legs apart, and he starts to jerk me off while his cock—still hard as steel—pummels into me at full force.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

It’s harder to keep up the illusion that it’s Trent doing all this to me when I’m face-to-face with Charlie. But with all our sex in the air and our scents dancing like horny demons in the heat of this fast-filling room, I realize I’m with exactly the right person I need to be with and that I am not lacking.

I don’t tell him I’m ready. My cock races to the brink without my permission, Charlie’s expert hand making work of it. And in the sweat of his thick, warm room, I cum.

Rope after rope of transparent whiteness dresses my abs. Some of it reaches as high as my neck, a pearl necklace made of liquid fire that, on contact, turns to ice.

“You’re fucking brilliant,” I breathe, my eyes wide, sweat dripping down my nose.

“I fuck brilliantly,” Charlie corrects me, his pumping having slowed after I came. “I am far from brilliant. Now it’s my turn.”

He pulls out, drops my legs, then straddles my stomach, half-sitting on the mess I just made across my body. He rips off the condom, tosses it across the room and, with his cock halfway to my face, he strokes himself fast.

“What’s the hurry?” I ask, every muscle in my body relaxed into a state of nirvana. I reach up and throw his hands to the side. He looks down, startled. “My turn.”

When I clasp his cock, his lips part. His eyes lock onto mine as I start to stroke his cock, gently at first, then quickening by the second.

He breathes heavy, throws his head back. His right hand, as if having a mind of its own, drifts up to his nipple. Then his left hand joins, gripping the other nipple. Squeezing, kneading, massaging them, his cock grows even harder than it was, pulsing and flexing as I jerk him off.

“Keep going, keep going, keep going,” he says over and over, his thighs shaking. “Keep going, keep going.”

I certainly don’t stop. He’s so insanely hard, I wonder if he plans to ride the edge for hours more. Surprisingly, even after cumming, I’m so into this … The look on his face of utter bliss, even as he rocks his head back and goes into another galaxy, working his tits …

The fantasy and the reality never align. What you tell yourself you want, and what you’ll ever get, they’re like strangers that will never meet. It’s the lie that desperately wants to become truth. It’s the straight boy in me and the fag in me. Both are truths. Both are lies. Somewhere in the middle is where I exist—where Benny exists, trying to convince himself who the fuck he is, but ain’t no one buying it. They all see the fear in his pretty eyes. They know he’s hiding something. They watch and they whisper and they wait.

Straight up, Benny. Why can’t you just look them in the eye and be straight up?

“I’m cumming,” Charlie warns the ceiling, squeezing his nipples red and purple.

He warns me ten times for ten minutes—once a damn minute—before finally deciding to let go of the ride, to leap off the horse, to set free the bird. And his birds fly all over my chest, one of them smacking me in the chin, another on my shoulder. Fly, birds, fly.

He falls off me like a desert-bound man off a camel’s back. “Holy mackerel.” The bed springs chuckle as he lands on them, bouncing.

For a good long while, the after-sex peace lays like a blanket over the room. The heat slowly dissipates, replacing itself with the coolness of air conditioning and a breeze snaking in from the cracked-open window by his purple armoire.

“You can stay here forever for all I’m concerned,” says Charlie finally.

I was seconds from drifting to sleep with all this cum drying on me when he speaks, stirring me back to life. “Huh?”

“I know, I know. Trent.” Charlie sighs.

We’re both staring at his ceiling, sprawled out on his bed. Our legs are woven together a bit, tangled like a pile of zombie limbs, and the fingers of one of each of our hands are grazing each other like curious, playful friends. I feel strangely close to Charlie. Part of me might even entertain the idea of exploring something deeper with him, if it weren’t for the apparent commitment my heart and soul has to a certain punky someone else.

“I do need to talk to him,” I admit. “We do, after all, share a place. All my things are there. I’m sure he’s worried about me and all that, but …” A quivery sigh escapes my lips, thinking on that horrible night all over again. The look on his face, both before and after I punched all his blood out of it. I’d never laid a hand on him until that night.

“Sleep here tonight.” He almost sounds like he’s begging. “I can’t be alone tonight. My soul feels all needy and crap and—Ugh, I hate feelings.”

“It’s too fucking late to go anyway.”

“Oh, yeah. Sun’s probably coming up soon, huh.” He turns his head to glance at the window across from me, his eyes sparkling in the glow from the pink clock radio by the bed. “Y’know, Benny, you’re actually a really good person.”

Trent’s bloody face looks at me in the dark, squinting at me, teary-eyed. “I’m not.”

“I don’t know anyone else in this town that would’ve come around the corner of a bar late at night to investigate a sound, happen on an obvious beating-up and bother to intervene. I might be the only proverbial torch-bearing gay in this town, but I’m not the only gay. Neither are you. We’re not alone, fuckface.”

“Call me fuckface again and I’ll fuck your face.”

He looks at me, squinting. I twist my head and shoot him a smirky smile, inspiring his face to light up. “Promise?”

Our eyes connect longer than they should, and a million unspoken thoughts seem to pass between them, like our eyes have some secret language that our mouths desperately envy. Somewhere in the space between us, yet another truth is realized.

This was just an island of relief for the two of us. It was a moment, come and gone. I’m not his type of heaven, and he’s not mine. We’re just two lost, lonely birds who landed on the same branch, and it’s time now to flutter home.

[ 10 ]

I walk up the steps and approach my door like I’m entering a warzone. My heart’s in my throat and I can’t seem to make my hands work properly. Everything’s slippery. I take a deep breath, my hand resting on the doorknob, and then I push it open.

No one’s in the living room or kitchen. I step further inside, leaving the door open behind me. “Trent?” No one answers back. I poke my head into his bedroom, find no one there. I peer into my own. No one. I probably should’ve checked to see if the car was out front. Didn’t even bother, figuring he’d be home. God forbid I consider that anyone else might have a life and, y’know, go out and do things.

When I return to the living room, Trent is standing at the door. I freeze in place, a deer at the first sight of the hunter. Even my breath stops. Our eyes are locked to one another’s.

He speaks first, so quietly I hardly hear it. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I quickly return.

He doesn’t say anything. Quietly, he moves to the back of the couch, then leans on it. His eyes drift to the cushions, as if he’s recalling my moment of complete and utter humiliation, the moment I’ll likely regret for the rest of my life.

“I don’t like how this feels,” I finally say, having trouble ignoring the panting of my tired heart. “I … I hate that I hit you and … I hate that I did … what I did … to you.”

“Nah.” He taps his own face, gives me a smirk. “Didn’t even leave a bruise, pussy.”

I break a tentative smile. “I meant … the other stuff too. The stuff on the couch.”

“I got over it,” he says, shrugging. “Pretty sure I barked up the wrong tree a few times before, hittin’ on girls that wanted nothing to do with me. It’s basically like that.” He bites his lip. He looks so cute when he bites his lip, the ring popping up.

“So what you’re saying is, I’m like a girl you’re way not into, and I barked up the wrong tree. You’re calling me a girl?”

“You sure hit like one.”

“I know girls who can kick your punk ass black and blue, Trent, watch out.”

He grins. “Like Sandy?”

I come up to the back of the couch, leaning against it with enough space for a person between us. He doesn’t flinch or move away. Somehow, that simple observation reassures me deeply. “I’ve been staying with …” My heart gives a leap, worried for an instant what he’ll think. “Charlie.”

“I know.” He picks at his fingernails.

“You found out? How?”

“News spreads. Steve and a couple of his buddies said they saw you entering Charlie’s house one day after you got off work. Couple days ago, they kinda confronted me about it. I told them it didn’t matter to me. Steve started saying some shitty things, so I told him his ass looked good in those jeans, and he fuckin’ took off. Dipshit.” Trent grins at me, his eyes finally meeting mine. “I freaked out,” he says, the smile going away. “I freaked out when I woke up with a dude on my cock. I’m sorry, Benny, but I might’ve freaked out if you were a chick too. I didn’t know what I was seeing. And then I felt hurt and betrayed and … and a bunch of other weird shit. Believe it or not, I am actually surprised. I didn’t fucking know. I thought …” He reaches for the words, shaking his head. “All those times we jerked off together … like, were you …?”

I feel my insides squirming. “Can we not talk about that?”

“How long have … have you …?”

“Since ever, I guess.” I cross my arms, losing the confidence I was feeling a second ago. My face is already burning.

He breathes evenly, thinking on it all. “I’m just really weirded out right now, dude. You finished food I didn’t like. We, like, did the Batman and Robin thing last Halloween. We share underwear for fuck’s sake.”

I screw my eyes at him. “What does any of that have to do with anything?”

“It’s everything. It’s all different now. I was having one interpretation of all that and, like, you were … you were having another.” He shrugs, as if I ought to follow his logic easily. “How do I know you don’t, like, sniff my underwear when I’m not home?”

“You fucking kidding me?”

“No. I have no idea. You’ve been my bro forever, Benny. I don’t have siblings. You’re it and you’ve been there for me and you’ve touched me and now you’re sucking my cock.”

I already feel like this is going to end in fists to face once again. “I’m the same dude.”

“You are. But now that I know the truth, I’m not. I’m changed. Your truth changed me. It’s all fucking changed, Benny.” He crosses his arms too, tightly, shaking his head between sentences. “It’s like I signed up to be your friend, to join the Benny club, and after years of being a … participating member … I only now notice all the fine print. If I’d known that you were looking at me this whole time—”

“I was drunk, Trent. You could’ve been anyone that night.”

“Stop making excuses.” He turns to face me. I meet his eyes challengingly, daring him to piss me off again. He’s already halfway there. “If you want me, just say it.”

“You think that’s gonna solve everything? If I just come out and say that our friendship has really been a one-sided relationship this whole time? It doesn’t help, Trent. I’m runnin’ out of air. This town’s suffocating me.” My teeth are grinding through my words, whether from nerves or anger, I can’t tell. “I came back to talk to you, but if … if there’s no chance of us figuring this out and going back to the way we were, then …”

“I don’t wanna go back to how it was,” says Trent.

“Give me one fucking reason to stay, Trent. Give me just one, because I have about a thousand reasons to go.”

“Here’s one.” Trent opens his arms and, despite my flinching in thinking he was about to hit me, instead his arms wrap me into a hug. He pulls me in tight, squeezing me.

Not what I was expecting, after all that.

Into my ear, he asks: “This givin’ you a boner?”

“Fuck you,” I say quietly, an annoyed smile breaking over my face.

“Gotta check, now. Gotta check now that everything’s different,” he says while he keeps holding me, speaking over my shoulder. “Hey, all those times I called you a fag …”

“I don’t care.”

“I was gonna say I meant them. Each and every one, you fag. And I love you.”

Fuck you, I try to say again, despite Trent’s attempt to lighten things up and show me, in his straight boy punk-ass way, that he cares about me. Fuck you … but the words are choked by my sudden untimely desire to spill tears.

My arms come up and suddenly I’m hugging him back, wetting his shirt with my leaky eyes.

“Like … brother-love you,” he clarifies in my ear, knowing I already know what he meant. “Not like, wanna-hump-your-ass kind of love you.”

I sniffle up my tear-snot. “I know. But next time I beat you in Smash Brothers, I’m humping you so hard.”

“We’ll never play Smash Brothers again.”

The two of us collapse into a fit of laughter, dropping to the floor and leaning up against the back of the couch, cracking the fuck up. It wasn’t even that funny, but after the tension and the tears, I think we both desperately need a reason to laugh.

“I wanna reenroll,” he says finally.

I lift my eyebrows. “Oh. You’re leaving?”

“I wanna reenroll and …” He bites his lip, casting his eyes to the floor. “And I think you should, too.”

“Why?”

“You said it yourself. This town’s fuckin’ out of air, dude.” He grabs my neck suddenly, pulls me into him. My head rested on his shoulder, he says, “Whether you’re a homo or you’re me, this town’s got no one for us, and unless we get the fuck out, we’re not gonna be happy. I wanna …” He sighs. “I wanna do this with you, man. But I kinda want you to have your space, too. I want you to meet people. I want you to, like, suck other dicks.”

I snort into his shirt. “That bad, huh?”

“Until I opened my eyes, it was heaven.” He gives the side of my head a slap. “Don’t you ever repeat those words.”

[ 11 ]

It’s our last morning to wake up in the apartment despite the majority of our stuff being packed up and shoved in the back of the car. The aroma from the pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen fills the space like a disease.

A super gay disease: “Morning, Benny,” says Charlie, slurping out of Trent’s favorite mug despite him distinctly telling Charlie not to. “You sleep well on that crooked-ass piece of crap you call a mattress?”

“Not everyone can have clouds for beds like you do,” I spit back, sipping my milk.

Charlie grins, scrolling through his phone with his free hand. “I’m a bit excited about this acting class we’re taking with Professor Kozlowski.” He slurps on his coffee again. “Can we do a scene together? Let’s do a gritty sexy scandalous scene together.”

“I only agreed to take that class because I needed the fine arts credit,” I warn him. “I’m going for business and psychology. I’m taking over my pop’s store someday, or maybe opening my own.”

“Puh-leeze.” Charlie sets down his mug and leans over the counter, getting up in my space. “Dream bigger, bub. You’re going to be a college boy, soon. Ain’t no way in hell we’re coming back to this hellhole, so you better get yourself some ideas and fashion yourself a future. Build an empire. Invent a fuck-what. What’s a fuck-what? I don’t know, but you’re gonna invent it and make millions. Hey.” He lays a kiss on my cheek, pops me in the ear. “Maybe you’ll meet a sexy man or two along the way.”

Just in time, Trent emerges from the door, coming back into the apartment from lugging the last box downstairs. He’s dressed in a smart button shirt and slacks, a chain hanging from his pocket. “Sup, boys,” he says, then notices Charlie and the mug. “What the fuck.”

“It’s our last morning here,” Charlie spits back, rolling his eyes. “Your ass wasn’t gonna drink my high-dollar coffee anyway.”

Trent smirks. “Point taken. Car’s packed and ready to go, boys.”

His piercing eyes meet mine. I’ve come a long way since that tumultuous time when I sucked his cock and nearly ruined everything. He’s also come a long way, having apologized at least seven times for “overreacting” and then having to convince me that, while he’s not gay, he might be open to getting drunk enough to let that happen again. I smirked and told him some hotter fuck was waiting for me at the university and he missed his chance.

Of course, hearing that from Trent made me swell with a certain dark pride.

“Finish up that high-dollar shit,” Trent tells Charlie, giving him a nod. “I’m ready to blow this joint and get the fuck to campus. Nine hour drive. Hope you guys brought good music on those phones. Mine’s still broken.”

Charlie’s about to enthusiastically mention his discography from gay hell when I say, “I got the music covered. Charlie, don’t even think about it.”

Charlie smirks. “Y’all fools got no taste.” He goes back to his phone, scrolling and checking things while finishing his coffee.

I turn to face Trent. His eyes look glassy, far away. I know that look. Coming up to him, I grip his shoulders and give him a rub. “It’s gonna be fine, man.”

“I know. I’m good.”

“Nah, you’re not.” I whack him on the head, give his shoulder a shake. “It’s nerve-wracking, I know. Long drives into our possibly radically-changed futures can be a bit of a mind-freak-out. But we got each other, buddy. We can do this.”

“I know. Alright.” He takes a deep breath, lets it all out in my face. “Sorry.”

“Fuck. You need a mint.”

Trent smiles, adorable as ever, his lip ring popping and his eyes sparkling. “You do realize you’re the inspiration behind this whole thing, right? Like, I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have you in my life, I’d still be sitting on that couch playing fuckin’ … games until my thumbs turned to bone.”

“Look at us,” I say, picking up his muse. “We’re still together. Look at all the shit we’ve gotten through.”

“All the shit we’ve yet to get through.”

“It’s just a nine hour drive.” I shake his shoulders again, bringing his adorable face back to mine. “A nine hour drive and then we’re fuckin’ free.”

I finally see the first bits of fear vanish from his eyes, replaced with a twisted sort of courage. “We’re gonna get ourselves some fuckin’ degrees.”

“And a life, maybe,” I jest.

“Hey!” shouts Charlie. “You two bromos finished makin’ out over there? I just made nine playlists, one for each hour, and we got a big ol’ campus to corrupt. Things to do, people, things to do.”

I grab my bag off the couch, sling it over a shoulder. “Let’s get the fuck out.”

“Say goodbye.” Trent gives the place a kiss in the air, then slaps the wall and swings out the door.

After Charlie gives the apartment a wiggle of his fingers and hops down the stairs, I’m the last to leave. Looking back at the place, my eyes come to rest on the couch.

With just the sight of it, I feel the warm embrace of imaginary Trent, the one that kept stealing his way into my dreams, and the brave and wicked imaginary Benny who let it all happen, who lived the fantasies that I could never know.

I think about all the things I said to Trent and all the things I didn’t. All the things that imaginary Benny could do and say.

My heart swells up. “Goodbye,” I tell them both, whether the imaginary ones that loved each other straight up, or the real ones.

The end.

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Have you read “Football Sundae”? It’s a standalone M/M romance set in the small town of Spruce, where a budding dessert chef finds his hot-fudge-glazed world flipped upside-down when the town’s college football star comes home for the summer.

Keep scrolling for a sweet & tasty sample of Football Sundae!

FOOTBALL SUNDAE
(Sample Chapter)

Daryl Banner

FOOTBALL SUNDAE

(The First Chapter)

M/M New Adult Romance

This book is a sweet & sassy standalone.

Copyright © 2017 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

BILLY

Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, Tanner Strong struts through the diner doors with his entourage of jock buddies.

Tanner Strong. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the lean slab of meat that was the high school quarterback of my horny, teenage wet dreams. When Tanner Strong enters the room, everyone turns their heads—and it’s not just because he’s something of a town hero. Tanner’s body is built to order—straight from the sex fantasy factory, apparently—and his crushingly adorable face matches the goods, framed by short, dusty brown hair that pokes and jabs in all directions. He has this chiseled nose with a tiny scar across it that gives him this tough I-beat-people-up-for-a-living look. His full, plush lips half hang open as he turns in circles, ignoring the loud shouts of his comrades as he drinks in the sight of my family’s diner, likely noting how much it’s changed in the past three years.

He hasn’t changed much. I could watch that dang face for hours. Those muddy brown eyes can still pull all my focus, just like they used to in the middle of history class when I should’ve been learning what year prohibition was repealed. It was 1930-something, by the way.

And please, let’s not spend another hour discussing Tanner’s broad, muscled shoulders that have obviously rammed into countless firm, hard-bodied rivals during his time on the field. Or the thick, bulging arms that come from those shoulders, the muscles of which make a stretch rack of those poor, tortured sleeves of his too-tight shirt. Or the pecs underneath said shirt that show through in perfect, distracting detail.

This is the first time I’ve really seen Tanner since high school. He scored some football scholarship and took off to Oklahoma, which is a twelve hour drive north from our little country hometown of Spruce. Every time he’s come home since, the whole dang populace seems to throw a parade, even though he spends all his time out on his family’s big ranch. Hell, the first summer he came home, I think he was sent off on some luxurious trip to Europe, or so said half the gossips that run through our diner.

But the sight of him and his buddies crashing through our door does not inspire the same wave of joy in me that it does in all our sports-loving, cheer-happy patrons. All four years of my high school career, I had suffered when, after every football game, win or lose, the whole team would burst through the doors and make a mess of our diner. Sure, it was great for business. Sure, my pa’s a big fan of football and loved every second. But having to serve upwards of twenty-five to forty rowdy, cocky, Coke-guzzling, burger-chomping athletes and all their adoring fans after every game quickly became my Friday night hell. While they were here, it was a headache of nonstop noise, and after they left, it was hours of cleanup.

And it was always spearheaded by the great football hero and legend-in-the-making that is Tanner Strong.

Now, after three years of peace, he’s back. And he brought a few former teammates. And the sight of him is making my insides turn over with a mix of horniness and dread, even as I stare at him from the window of the kitchen, a wet bowl in one hand and a rag in the other. I’ve apparently forgotten whatever it is I’m doing.

“Well, Junior, if your mouth was hanging open any more, you’d be washing your jaw instead of that bowl.”

I flinch at the sound of my ma’s voice, giving her thin, weary figure and frizzy brown hair half a glance before returning my attention to the bowl—and not to the guys who just piled into the booth by the TV. “I thought we close our doors at eight.”

“It’s ten ‘til,” she says back, “and it’s Friday. You know dang well we stay open ‘til eleven Fridays and Saturdays. Now get your booty out there and take their orders.”

I lift my tired eyes to her. “Me? What about Mindy?”

“She’s on break.”

I gawk. “She just got here an hour ago!”

“And I just sent her on break. Skidoo!”

I give the bowl and rag a shake, lifting my eyebrows defiantly. “I’m in the middle of—”

She swipes them right out of my hands like they were never there, taking over the dishes. “Any other excuse you got not to hop on out there and take them sweet boys’ orders?”

I scowl at my unbearable ma, then glance through the kitchen window, watching as the patrons cheer and laugh and give Tanner high-fives and slaps on his back as he makes his way to the booth his buddies have swallowed up. “Ain’t nothin’ sweet about them.”

She smirks knowingly. “I know you all went to high school together. You might’ve—”

“What’s it matter about high school??” I cut her off. “That was three years ago!”

“Exactly my point, Junior! Three years! Might be you were on opposite sides of the track back then, but I heard college really changed that Tanner boy. He ain’t the same as he used to be. Maybe you got more in common now.”

Me? More in common with the town football star? “You hit your head or somethin’?” I ask her.

She nudges me with an elbow. “Don’t forget to tell them about the daily special. It’s your pa’s pride and joy.”

The Touchdown. Just the thought of having to sell a special burger my pa came up with called The Touchdown to a quartet of obnoxious football-playing jocks turns my face a color that rivals the cherry pie I’ll no doubt be gorging on later.

But I’m not built to whine. Hard work and sweat has kept my parents’ diner open all these years, and it’s put food on the table and a roof over our overworked, messy heads of hair.

“Maybe you can entice them later with your little dessert menu,” my ma keeps on. “That might be all the endorsement we’d need, if Tanner takes a liking to one of your culinary concoctions.”

I feel the corner of my mouth pulling up. She’s right, and she’s set my mind back on track. No matter the hell I might have to put up with this summer, come the fall, I’m kicking it out of here at long last to chase my dream of culinary school and someday opening my own place. My father’s heart attack might have hindered me leaving right out of high school, but now I have an associate’s degree in business under my belt before I head off to become a real dessert chef. Billy’s Confections. Billy Bakes. Billy’s Sweet Tooth Tastery. All the possible names of the business I’ll eventually open and operate race through my head like ice cream flavors.

My dreams are just a summer away. And I’m sure as hell not gonna let a hotshot college athlete scare me into the kitchen. I grab my apron, then puff up my chest as I tie it on. You can do this, Billy. I glance into the side of the fridge, which is basically the kitchen’s version of a body-length mirror, being polished so shiny that I can see my slender shape, my short, messy brown hair, and a smudge of dark grease on my forehead—which I wipe away. Under my black apron with the diner emblem across the chest, I’m wearing a fitted navy blue plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows. Worried I look a bit uptight, I let pop the top button, then give my disheveled brown hair a push of encouragement in the right direction before slipping past the swinging doors.

The noise of our rowdy guests reaches me long before I reach them. Despite my little pep talk a second ago, my feet don’t seem to move properly, as if they’re trying to drive me back to the kitchen. When I reach the table, they don’t notice me. I try to speak, but they all suddenly burst out laughing at some joke one of the guys was finishing. I only need to catch the punch line—“And that’s why you call it pussy!”—to know what sort of hell I’ve walked into.

Just get their orders. Quicker served, quicker gone.

“Welcome to Biggie’s Bites,” I state over their laughs. “I’m William. Can I start you guys off with—?”

“This, right here,” announces Kirk, the one across from Tanner, a beastly guy with a buzzed head wearing a sleeveless green jersey that shows off his thick shoulders. He jabs a pudgy finger at the menu. “That big ol’ juicy thing. Put it in my mouth.”

“Fag,” teases Joel, the blue-eyed blond at his side in a grey shirt, stained with grease from working at his pa’s auto shop two blocks over. He’s got an unfortunate pox of acne on his cheeks that’s festered there since his thirteenth birthday. I’ll call him Zits.

Oh, and a word about the word “fag”: Growing up gay in this small country town of Spruce that no one in the world’s heard of, even with as “friendly” as it is, you still hear the three-and-six-letter F-bombs thrown back and forth twenty times a day between boys at school who can’t be bothered to broaden their vocabulary. I guess I’ve either grown a thick skin or become so desensitized that I don’t even associate it with “gay” anymore.

Maybe that’s what inspires me to make light of it. “That would be me,” I interject with a smile, “though my nametag reads ‘William’.”

The four boys shut right up and stare at me. Zits tries to say something twice, sputters and fails both times, then finally manages to get out, “B-But you’re not a fag. You’re just gay. There’s a difference.”

Now it’s my turn to stare. “By all means, enlighten me of this difference.”

Tanner swallows a chuckle of amusement, his face going red. The fact that my words might have had anything to do with his reaction gives me such a rush of private joy, I can’t even begin to describe it.

“A fag’s, like … just a stupid person,” explains Zits.

“Oh. That explains it so much better,” I remark.

“Yeah, see? Totally different,” exclaims Zits, missing my sarcasm completely, and the third one at the table sitting next to Tanner—a thinner guy named Harrison with blunt black eyebrows, russet skin, and wearing a t-shirt with grass stains on the arms—grunts his agreement.

This is how I’ll say I spent my Friday night: getting a lesson in etiquette from a bunch of rowdy jocks who, just seconds ago, shared jokes about pussy and called each other fags. Jeez, who smacked me with the lucky branch?

I know these guys from high school when they used to play football alongside Tanner. Kirk, who still bags groceries down at the market and lives in a trailer by his grandma’s house. Joel/Zits, who gets greasy tinkering under cars at his pa’s shop. Harrison, who works as a farmhand for an aunt or uncle of Tanner’s, far as I know.

“Can I get you guys anything to drink?” I ask politely.

“Gimme a Coke. And this juicy thing,” says Kirk. “Cook it medium-rare. Double cheese. Toast the bun, too. Fuck, I’m hungry. This come with fries?”

If you read the menu … “Yes, or coleslaw, your choice.”

“Coleslaw’s gross,” Zits interjects, face wrinkled.

“Your face is gross,” returns Kirk.

Zits ignores him and lifts his menu. “I want this one. No pickles. Lather mine up in mayo … extra mayo.”

“He likes lots of white, creamy stuff in his mouth,” Kirk explains.

The others laugh, but Zits punches him so hard in the shoulder that Kirk jerks forward, kicking the leg of the table and causing the salt shaker to fall over.

“Burger of the day?”

The words come from the one person at the table I’ve been trying hard not to look at. The one who might or might not have already stolen enough of my attention in high school. The one I secretly pined over ever since I was thirteen and first discovered how my cock works. The one who’s always flocked by cheerleaders and flanked by buddies—and never once looked my way.

But now he’s looking my way. Tanner Strong is looking my way. The Tanner. Tan the Man. Quarterback of Spruce High School. The hero who’s returned home from college and flipped the whole dang town upside-down. The star.

And he’s asking me about my pa’s damned burger.

“Yes,” I state, staring at the fallen salt shaker instead of him. “Burger of the day is called The Touchdown, and it contains—”

“TOUCHDOWN!!” shouts Zits with enough volume to fill the whole diner, throwing his big hands in the air and waving them. “TOUCHDOWN!!” joins in Kirk, his voice roaring and booming. Harrison and his blunt black eyebrows jump in, too. To my surprise, other tables fall in line as well, throwing their hands up and shouting, “TOUCHDOWN!!”

“Okay, I want one of those,” decides Tanner.

“Scratch my last order,” blurts Kirk. “I want one too.” Zits shouts, “Me too! I don’t care what’s in it.” Harrison raises his hand. “Gimme one of them, too! Big and juicy! Double-everything! Score!!”

After recovering from laughing at his buddies, Tanner hands over his menu. When I take it from him, our fingers touch. I feel a surge of enjoyment thunder up my arm just by the little flirt of skin my fingers feel when they graze his. I keep my eyes on the menu knowing full well that his deep eyes are on me and are guaranteed to melt me to a puddle of nothing right here in front of him and all the rest of the world. Don’t look at him. Don’t you dare.

And then he has the audacity to say, “Thanks, Billy.”

Billy. He remembers my name, the one I actually go by, the one that’s not on my nametag.

I look up at his face.

Big mistake. His rich brown eyes smolder me. His eyebrows are pulled together with just the slightest pinch of concentration. His mouth is barely parted from the words he just spoke, which invite me into a whole library of fantasies I thought I’d locked up in my all-too-horny teenage brain when we graduated years ago—ridiculous and unlikely fantasies of under-the-bleachers make-out sessions, sweaty locker room jockstrap-clad meet-ups, and maybe a carefully orchestrated sleepover which always ended with him sleeping right by me, except in my fantasies, neither Tanner nor I were sleeping at all, each of us excitedly waiting for the other to make a move.

“Oh, and a Coke for me, too,” adds Tanner.

I swallow down my horny teenage sex fantasies, trying with all my might to shove them right back into that vault in my brain where they belong. With just a quick nod, I take the menus and head back to the kitchen while dodging a chorus of diners who are still chanting, “Touchdown! Touchdown!”

When I return to the back counter by the kitchen, I head straight to the POS and put in their orders. I have to do it three times because the machine’s been possessed since two Halloweens ago and keeps canceling the whole dang order when I try to add extra mayo to Zits’ ticket.

“Piece of shit,” I grumble at it.

“Hey now,” warns my frizzy-haired ma who appears by my side to see what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

“That’s what it’s called, ain’t it? POS?” I tease.

She chuckles as she continues on her way. Then, my pa, his salt-and-peppered brown hair smashed down by a cap and his mustache looking particularly out of control tonight, pokes his head out of the kitchen in a smoky cloud of grill steam. “Am I hearing a bunch of excitement out there?”

I lift a brow. “We gettin’ the ventilation checked any time this year? Or is it your plan to run outta breathable oxygen by ten o’clock?”

“Never mind the dang ventilation. Are the diners likin’ the special tonight? Is that what I’m hearin’?”

“Yeah, Pa. Over the moon.”

“They lovin’ the Touchdown?”

“It’s a total hit, Pa. Everyone wants one.”

“Score!” He disappears into the back again.

After taking out an extra plate of fries to the Kimbles and refilling glasses at the table of ladies who meet here every Friday to eat chicken fried steak and play dominos, I bring the boys at table 12 their Cokes. They hardly seem to notice me anyway, bellowing out with obnoxious laughter and shouting at the game on the TV. Kirk nearly elbows me in the nuts when he throws his hands up at something his buddy across the table says. When their order is ready and I bring them their burgers, the four of them shout, “TOUCHDOWN!” yet again, and then I get to enjoy another loud wave of the word coursing through the diner from every mouth big and small, young and old.

While I’m at the kitchen sink again washing cup after greasy cup and thinking about which delicious treat I’m going to serve up for Saturday’s Sweet—an item my pa lets me add to the dessert menu every Saturday to show off my pastry skills—I can’t help but stare at table 12 through the window, even though it’s across the length of the diner and Tanner’s backside is all I see. Here in Spruce, football is the beginning and the ending to everything. All it takes is for Tanner Strong to waltz into town from college and it’s like Reverend Arnold himself is calling a holiday in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy dang Spirit. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it on Sunday, when every business closes and half the town piles into the church at the end of Apricot Street.

And really, can I blame them? Tanner is a walking, talking wet dream. He’s got it all. He’s handsome. He’s built. He’s well-off and sitting pretty in that big ranch his family owns at the edge of town. The Strongs own a number of businesses around here and pretty much run the town, along with the Evans, Whitman, and McPherson families. They also throw the biggest most extravagant parties out there on the ranch that the whole town’s invited to, so of course everyone loves them.

Meanwhile, I’m still scrubbing cups in the kitchen so feverishly, I might rub the poor things out of existence. I’m usually the guy who does the books and waits on a table or two, but I’m having to pull double duty since Dane, our busboy, called in sick. To make matters worse, I can’t peel my eyes away from the back of Tanner’s head, wondering how much the last three years of college really have changed him. Apparently not much, despite what my ma heard. He’s still loud. He’s still the spotlight of the whole populace of Spruce. He’s still hot as fuck.

Not that it should matter. He’ll have every girl from here to the edge of Spruce all over his tight-jeans-wearing ass the second news spreads that he’s back. He’ll have all the attention he craves. Why should I add any more to it?

“My, my, can those boys put down some food,” Ma mumbles when she sees me later at the POS adding more to their total. While eating their Touchdown burgers, they order two big appetizers and three extra baskets of fries, which they finish every bite of. By the time we get to the dessert menu, I feel fifty pounds heavier.

Apparently to prove that their stomachs really are bottomless pits, the boys order a huge lava brownie apiece lathered in hot fudge. But just as I leave to put in their dessert orders, the twang of Tanner’s deep, gravelly voice stops me cold. “Hey, what’s that ‘Saturday’s Sweet’ thing on the back?”

I swear I could listen to Tanner read a dictionary on a hot sweaty porch pestered by flies. “Every Saturday, my pa lets me come up with a new dessert.”

“You?” Tanner lifts an eyebrow. “Like, you actually make them?”

“From scratch, pretty much.”

“Well, shit.” Tanner smirks at his buddies, then lifts his chin at me. “Gimme one of them Saturday Sweets, then. Whatever it is, don’t care. I wanna try it.”

I swallow hard. Today’s not Saturday. But instead of protesting, I tell him, “I-It’ll take twenty minutes, about.”

Tanner gives me his soft brown eyes. “I got the time.”

Lord, what those eyes do to me.

“Dude, c’mon,” blurts out Kirk. “You really wanna wait twenty dang minutes for some fruity-lookin’ dessert? I thought we were gonna hit up the bar after this!”

“The bar can wait. And besides, it’s open ‘til three. I got all the time in the world to try out this …” Tanner lifts his gaze to me yet again. “… Saturday Sweet.”

I swallow hard, give him a curt nod, then whisk my way back to the kitchen. Every footstep seems to chant the words in my ear: It’s not Saturday. It’s not Saturday.

“Whatcha doin’?” asks my ma over my shoulder as I’m hacking away at a pair of defenseless apples.

“Saturday Sweet on a Friday, that’s what.”

“Mmm.” She gives me a nudge. “Tryin’ to impress the boys, are ya?”

I snort. “Like hell.”

“What’d you decide to make?”

“An apple pastry vanilla thing.”

“An apple say-what?”

“I haven’t had time to name it yet.”

I already have my puff pastry dough sitting pretty in the cooler, so I pull it out. After mixing up my apple filling spritzed with a pinch or five of my secret spices, I put it all together and toss one into the oven, then go check on my homemade vanilla bean ice cream in the deep freeze. It’s still a bit soft, as I’d intended for it to thicken for tomorrow, but I guess it’ll have to do. It’s pairing with molten hot apple anyway.

After all the prep for my Saturday Sweet, it’s almost comical tossing the three bricks of frozen brownie into the microwave and watching them get nuked through the glass. My parents insist on buying them because they’re quick to make and cheap, even though I could whip up something better in five minutes. No one appreciates fine culinary art anymore. They just want nuclear chocolate and calorie-packed filler.

Ding.

I plate the lava brownies and start nuking the fudge topping while the scent of apple cinnamon heaven fills the kitchen. I catch my ma through the window chatting it up with the domino ladies. She meets my eyes and gives me a wink, then is pulled back into conversation.

My gaze drifts to table 12. I find myself thinking of all the times my pa dragged me to the football games. Really, in a town like this, there are only so many options you have for entertainment, but this particular one had a few unintended perks in this gay boy’s longing, gear-and-spandex-addicted eyes. As my pa kept trying to point out the intricacies of football, my eyes were glued to Tanner’s tight end as he crouched low behind his teammate and reached between his legs, ready for the ball. I’d never admit any of this out loud, but I hardly ever had any idea who was winning or losing. It didn’t matter to me. As long as I kept my eyes on Tanner, I was winning. And right now, staring through the window at table 12, I’m winning.

Ding.

I bring out their lava brownies and set them on the table, making sure to save Tanner’s Saturday Sweet for last. His eyebrows lift at the sight of it before him.

“It’s a …” I freeze. What in jock hell was I going to call it? “A flaky … apple thing,” I say, “with m-my homemade cream on top. Er, vanilla bean cream on top. Ice cream.”

Kirk and Zits turn to each other and stifle laughs while Harrison sucks in his lips and looks away.

“Well,” says Tanner, observing my creation, “that’s … quite a dessert.”

His buddies burst into laughter, unable to contain themselves anymore. Tanner elbows Harrison, joining in the laughter and giving him a shove, telling them to shut the hell up. “It’s got his cream on it,” Kirk spits out, laughing so hard he looks like he’s choking. “And it’s homemade!” wheezes Zits, unable to even draw breath he’s in such hysterics. “I make homemade cream too! With my right hand! Every night!”

Doesn’t matter much, because the second I feel my face flushing red, I decide I’ve had just about enough of high school fantasies and humiliation for one damn night. Bidding them good riddance without uttering a word, I leave them to their desserts—with or without my dang cream—and head back to the kitchen.

Sometime later, Joel/Zits makes a pass at Mindy, who’s back from break, and so when she’s in the kitchen to refill his Coke, I give her the bill and tell her she can finish them. “He’s not really my type,” says Mindy with a loose, careless shrug, but takes the bill anyway and heads to their table, leaving me finishing up with the dishes.

After paying, the boys stay awhile longer to finish out whatever game’s on TV while cracking jokes, hitting on girls that pass by, and talking to folk who stop by their table to see how Tanner’s been. I’m stewing in my own fury at the sink, waiting to clear off their wreck of a table provided they don’t suddenly decide to order four large pizzas to top off their brownie-and-burger-filled bellies.

I stare despondently at the crumbs of pastry shell that still remain on the back counter, waiting patiently to be wiped away, which is really what I’d like to do to this whole damn night. I just can’t stomach going to the front of the house to finish my closing duties, worried that Tanner or his buddies might say something. I don’t even want to think about the conversation that probably ensued at the table after I presented Tanner’s dessert. Who the hell am I kidding? Is this some fancy French bistro? After listening to his buddies’ laughter all night, I know exactly how it’ll sound when they’re in Tanner’s pickup driving back to his big ol’ ranch, having a laugh at my expense. Their hearty guffawing rings in my ears, even if it’s partly imaginary. If I’m lucky, I’ll be the talk of the town by morning: Tanner Strong gets a polite welcoming back to Spruce by the town homo, who bakes him an apple-something with his homemade “cream” on top.

After I peek through the window to find them gone, I finally allow myself out of the back and make my way to the boys’ table to bus it. Piling all the dishes into my grey tub, it’s under Tanner’s drink that I find my tip, neatly folded and crisp. I open the single bill up.

It’s a fifty.

I stare at the bill, unable to close my mouth. But that’s not all. When I flip the fifty over, a message is written at the bottom: Thanks for putting up with me and my buddies. The apple thing was seriously delish. Even the cream. I’ll be back for more—Tanner.

Well, I’ll be damned.

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Keep scrolling for a look into my new adult / college romance series, which begins with “Read My Lips”. Each book is a standalone romance, but centers around the same group of college friends. They are smart & steamy new adult romances with a pinch of angst and a lot of immersive characters.

READ MY LIPS
(Sample Chapter)

A College Obsession Romance (M/F)
Daryl Banner

READ MY LIPS

(Prologue and First Chapter)

M/F New Adult Romance

NOTE: This book can be read as a standalone, but is the first in a trilogy of novels that center around a group of college friends. The series contains straight, bisexual, and gay characters throughout. The third novel in the series, With These Hands, focuses on the relationship between a bisexual male and a straight female, and it contains M/F, M/M, and M/M/F romance.

Copyright © 2016-17 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

PROLOGUE

DESSIE

I went to college to find myself. I didn’t expect to find him.

My whole life was a delicate, artful plan set in place by my delicate, artful family. From my mother, the famous actor of stage and film, to my world-renowned lighting designer father and insufferably perfect sister, I was doomed to a life in the Theatre spotlight.

And the Lebeau family name was forever tainted with average, unremarkable, untalented me.

After graduating high school, I enjoyed a few years of disappointing my parents. Thirty-three bad auditions and two private academies later found me begging them for one last favor: a normal college experience.

And it was at that totally normal small-town Texas college that I met him, the muscular, tatted bad-boy who would soon become my obsession.

His eyes smoldered me with just one look. His touch awakened the woman inside me. His breath drew out the inspiration deep in my soul that I did not know was there.

And through his lips, his perfect, plush, kissable lips, I would find my voice at last … the voice that would someday fill a New York City stage, the voice that would set me apart from my tragically perfect family, the voice that would finally break me free …

If only he could hear a word of it.

CHAPTER 1

DESSIE

“I can’t hear you!”

The noise that fills the courtyard of the Quad is deafening. Families bustle about carrying belongings to the dorms. A group of frat boys play Frisbee, their shirtless torsos sweaty and lean. A guy shouts orders from a window up above to his parents below, who can’t make out what he’s saying. A circle of girls chant some sorority thing over and over nearby. Two dudes who look like they haven’t bathed since Daylight Savings began stand on the rim of a fountain with guitars as they serenade the masses, their lyrics lost in the cacophony of shouting and laughter.

And standing before all that mess is little excited me, a heavy bag hanging at my side, a massive case of luggage-on-wheels by my feet, and a phone pressed to my fast-reddening ear.

“What? I can’t hear you!” I shout again. “Mother?”

The call cuts off. I stow my phone away in a pocket. Besides, the whole reason I’m here is to get away from my nauseatingly arty, weird, fame-whoring family. “Please,” I begged my mother two months ago when she was between photo shoots. “All I want is a normal college experience. I don’t want the expensive schools and the private lessons and the pretentious crap.” To that, she hiccupped, raised her martini glass, and sweetly replied, “Doll, the Theatre world is pretention.” It was my father who caved and said he knew a person down in Texas who could pull a string or two to get me into a school this late in the summer.

And here I am—and excitedly so. This is it! I only have a battlefield of frat boys and Frisbees to wade through before I’m safe in the comfortable confines of my very own dorm room.

“What do you mean I don’t get my very own dorm room?” I ask half an hour later when I’ve finally made it to the front of the line at the reception desk.

The woman stares at me over the thick rims of her glasses. She’s clearly had a day.

“I’m supposed to have my own place,” I explain, all too aware of the line of anxiously waiting people behind me. “A condo, some upperclassmen suite, or … or my own dorm room at the very least. I spoke with a Betsy … or Bettie? Bridget? And she said I would get my own room. I’m sure it’s just a mistake.”

“Priority living arrangements are reserved for upperclassmen. Not for incoming freshmen.”

“But I’m not an incoming freshman, Donna,” I explain, trying my best to lean over the counter so that I don’t have to shout. These people should have offices; the whole line can hear every word of our little chat, I’m sure. “I’m a transferring sophomore.”

“It’s Diana. Are you new to Klangburg University? Then you’re a freshman in our eyes. Current students get priority. If you wanted solitude, you should have rented an apartment on Periwinkle Avenue.”

“In this neighborhood??” I hiss back. My bag has become so heavy, I let it drop to the germ-infested floor. “Listen, I … I really don’t mean to cause a big scene, but—”

“Of course you do. You’re an actress.” She slides a key and a slip of paper across the counter. “Theatre major, right? I could smell the drama a mile away. You’re in West Hall, room 202. Your roommate’s a Music major. Name, Samantha Hart. Go make yourself a best friend.”

A Music major? Great. I’ll have to contend with a roommate who gives blowjobs to an oboe all day long. Is the AC in here broken? I pull my hair over a shoulder and off of my neck as beads of sweat populate my forehead. First lesson: Texas weather is Hell’s weather. “She sounds lovely. Listen, Diana, I—”

“Oh! ‘Listen,’ you say. What a novel concept.” Diana the Desk Demon snorts. “You keep telling me to listen, but it’s you who doesn’t hear a damn thing I say. The rooms were assigned months ago. You even got your room assignment in the mail.”

“I didn’t. I haven’t gotten any…” But even as I say the words, I picture my controlling mother pulling the mail from the box and not giving a care in the world about anything addressed to me. I bet it’s even my mom’s email that’s in the school database, not mine, because she controls everything about my life. “I understand your desire to run away to a faraway ‘normal’ college,” mother told me this morning over cups of peppermint tea, just before I left for the airport. “You’re scared of New York, doll. You’re a guppy in a world full of sharks. Your sister—now she’s a shark.”

If there’s anything worse than being called a guppy, it’s being compared to my insufferably perfect sister Celia—or Cece, as she insists on being called. She gets cast in leading roles. She’s as beautiful as a princess and annoyingly well-read. She always has handsome, adorable, sexy boyfriends at her side. It’s not that I’m jealous; I love my sister. But sometimes I wish I was the one who scored a leading role now and then. I wish I was the one with a hot guy hooked to my arm at some gala my parents drag me to.

I’m not the one guys stare at. It’s always her.

Surprisingly, my sister has nothing to do with my current predicament. Maybe my roommate will turn out to be cool, or have parents who bring us home-cooked delicacies, sparing us the frights from the campus kitchens. What do normal college kids eat? Maybe we’ll have lots of Easy Mac and Ramen. On second thought, that sounds like a carb nightmare.

“Thank you,” I murmur to my new best friend, Diana the Desk Demon, and take the key.

“It’s been a pleasure,” she mutters back, sounding like it’s been anything but. “There’s a freshman mixer in the courtyard at seven. Good day.”

I’m not a freshman! But I keep the words to myself and lift my bag once again, heading for the door. The second I’m outside, three shirtless boys nearly topple me over in their effort to claim a rogue Frisbee, which I end up catching midair to prevent it from giving me an unintended nose job. I hand the disc to the nearest one, trying not to stare at his lean, sweaty torso. Pulling my luggage along, I cut through the noise to the West Hall, a slate-grey building in the shape of an L that forms one of the four corners of the Quad and seems to be the liveliest of them all. Its heavy door bursts open the moment I approach, releasing four loud freshmen and a worried set of parents. I wonder if they’re taking bets on which of their children will contract dorm room herpes first.

I step inside only to mourn an onslaught of stairs before me. Enlisting the strength and dexterity from my basic combat training in New York (or rather, stage combat training), I choreograph and execute a one-woman routine of dragging my suitcase up five steps, sliding it across the narrow landing, then up eleven more. Arriving at the second floor, I squeeze past a crowd of guys guffawing at a spilled box of soda cans two paces from my room, 202. They’re daring each other to open a can when I make it to my door, ready to reveal my college dorm room to my eager eyes.

The door swings open, revealing two beds, two dressers, and two desks. The smell is hundred-year-old musk and even older mildew. The bare walls, pocked with scratches and holes, are the color of a rash my sister got once that she made me swear never to tell anyone about. How adorable. The bathroom appears to be a small chamber of doom that connects to the neighboring dorm, suite-style.

I smile. No one in the world would recognize it as one, but it’s there. My college experience is going to have to include sharing a bathroom with three other girls I’ve never met. In a bleak room that’s just short of padded walls.

I fight a rare urge to call my mother and demand that she give me a bigger allowance and allow me the mercy of getting an apartment like any other twenty-two year old adult. Then, I gently remind myself that this is what I wanted. No privilege. No personal chefs. No driver who takes me around town. No ritz and glitz. No fancy cocktails. Just a fixed allowance and meal plan like every other student.

For once, a normal life among normal people doing normal, college-y things.

I have a sudden craving for this gourmet lobster bisque that only my mother’s chef Julian makes.

Focus, Dessie! Piece by piece, I unpack my suitcase and hang each article of clothing in the tiny closet, which is a quarter the size of mine at home, leaving one half of it empty for my mystery roommate. Then, I sit on the bed I’ve made up with my new sheets and feather pillow I brought from home. It creaks happily under my weight. I listen to the noise in the hallway of families moving their kids into their dorms, the sound of laughter and banter and shuffling furniture and boxes reaching my ears and vibrating the walls.

My parents told me to call them when I was all moved in. I prefer that they presume I’m lost or dead. So caught up in mother’s performance in London next month, I doubt they’ll even give me a thought until well into my father’s fourth glass of chardonnay when he finally looks up from his lighting design charts to ask, “Did we hear from Dessie yet?”

It’s already almost seven, so I push myself off the bed, freshen up in the bathroom mirror, and spritz myself with a light scent. I pray there’s more than just freshmen at this courtyard mixer. When I open my door, I’m greeted with the sight of the room across the hall, its door propped open. Scarves of varying shades of purple adorn the ceiling in bilious clouds of silk, giving the room the look of a 16th century gypsy’s tent. A lamp burns orange on the desk within my view, which is littered in glass trinkets that pick up the light. It is night and day from the starkness of my room to the glamour of hers. Beads line the closet door, and they rattle when the room’s occupant moves through them carrying a thin book pinched open in one hand and a bottle of lemon vitamin water in the other.

She turns, spotting me. “Hi,” all eighty-nothing pounds of her says lamely, her tight braids dancing with her every step as her needle eyes focus on me. She stands at her doorway. “You’re living in 202?”

“It seems to be my tragic situation,” I admit. She’s reading a play, I realize with a closer look. She’s a Theatre major, too. Befriend her, damn it! I give a subtle nod to her décor. “I like what you’ve done with your—”

“I have a lot of reading to do, if you don’t mind.” She gives me a curt nod, then taps the rim of her playbook with the closed end of her vitamin water.

“As Bees In Honey Drown?” I note, catching the title off of the cover. “I played Alexa in Brendan Iron’s production in New York last spring.”

“New York, you say?” A light flashes in her eyes. “You don’t look like a freshman. Are you a transfer? New York? Where in New York?”

Now I’m suddenly worth her time. It’s amazing, the power of a simple name-drop. I discreetly leave out the fact that it was less of a production in New York and more of a botched audition. “I’m a transfer from Rigby & Claudio’s Acting, Dan—”

“Acting, Dancing, and Musical Academy,” she finishes for me. The whites of her eyes are ablaze, deepening the rich color of her smooth, mahogany skin. “And … you transferred here? What brought you from there to … to here?”

A fierce vision comes forth of my former director, Claudio Vergas himself, as he hollers at my indignant face, flecks of his morning coffee dusting the stage floor between us. It was the first time he’d ever lost his temper enough to throw his favorite mug. I can still hear the porcelain as it shattered against the lip of the stage. I didn’t even flinch. I lifted my chin and called him a stiff-necked, pretentious, know-it-all panty-wad. It was not my best moment.

“Artistic differences,” I answer vaguely.

“New York,” she moans, all her childhood dreams of being in the limelight painted across her glassy eyes. “I’m Victoria,” my new best friend says, shoving the script under an arm and extending her hand. “Victoria Li. Third year Theatre major. Don’t call me Vicki. I have violent reactions to being called Vicki. I’ll cut a bitch. But not you. Unless you call me Vicki.”

My phone in one hand, I accept her handshake with my free one. It’s cold as ice. “I’m Dessie.”

“Great name. I love Desiree Peters. Her portrayal of Elphaba on the last national tour of Wicked had me in tears. I have her autograph on my CD soundtrack and the playbill which I, of course, framed. I had to stand by the stage door afterwards for forty-eight minutes in ten degree weather. Worth it.”

“It’s not short for Desiree,” I clarify. “It’s short for … for Desdemona.”

Victoria stares at me. “As in Othello’s Desdemona?”

Hurray for having Theatre parents. “That would be the one. Anyway, it’s almost seven already, so I was going to head to the mixer. Are you going?”

“It’s not until eight,” she tells me, leaning on her doorframe and taking a sip of her lemon water. She’s suddenly so much friendlier than she was a second ago. “How’d you hear about it?”

“I was told it’s at seven. Well, according to Diane the Desk Demon,” I add with a roll of my eyes.

“No, no. Eight o’clock at the theater.”

I lift a brow. “There’s a Theatre one?”

“You thought I meant the fishbowl? No, honey. You’re coming with me,” she states. “You’re new here, and you don’t want to get lost on this big ol’ campus after dark, end up somewhere on fraternity row, and get robbed … or worse. Can’t trust a frat boy for anything. It would not be a lovely way to spend your first evening here.”

“It’s really that bad here?”

“This campus is the pillow on the bed between two bitchy ex-lovers: the rich neighborhood full of snobs to the north, and the have-nots and gunshots to the south. Campus security is a joke, but it does exist. Remember, safety in numbers! So, we’ll leave in thirty. Hey, where’s your roomie?” she asks suddenly, craning her neck to get a look.

“Not here yet, I guess.” What the hell kind of crime-ridden so-called normal college did my father send me to down here in Texas? “School starts the day after tomorrow, so she might come in tonight, or—”

“Or not at all,” she points out. “Sometimes, there’s a last minute transfer or change of plans. My friend Lena had a room all to herself last semester.”

“Don’t get my hopes up.”

My phone buzzes. I look down to see my mother’s headshot staring up at me, all glamorous and ready to blink at the flashing cameras. I slap the screen to my chest, unwilling to chance whether or not Victoria knows who she is. I’m not ready for a firestorm to be caused by anyone figuring out whose daughter I am.

“Mommy and Daddy?”

“Something like that,” I admit, still chokeholding my phone into submission.

“You were spared the company of my parents by about five minutes. No one wants to see a black woman and a tiny Chinese man arguing.”

“Oh, you’re half-Chinese?”

The phone keeps vibrating against my chest. I continue to politely suffocate it.

“He’s my stepdad, but I call him Dad since they married when I was two. My bio dad took off.” The phone stops buzzing. She notices and offers me a wistful smile. “Looks like you’re safe for now. See you in thirty, Des.”

She disappears into her room. A green voicemail notification pops up on the screen of my phone. I swipe it out of existence and, inspired suddenly, I text Randy, my one and only friend that I kept in touch with from that creatively stifling elitist academy. He’s a deliriously gay playwright my age, who I desperately wish I could’ve brought to Texas with me. He might be the only regret I have about leaving that cruel, snobby school. I text him, asking how he’s doing and why I haven’t heard from him. Then, I stare at the screen and excitedly wait for him to answer.

I’m still waiting half an hour later when Victoria knocks on my door to go.

The walk is far less scary than she made it out to be. From the dorms, the School of Theatre is just a stroll past a large courtyard and fountain, through a tunnel over which the Art building squats, beside the University Center itself, and around the tall, glass-windowed School of Music where I imagine the corpse of my mystery roommate to be buried.

The School of Theatre is a giant red block of a building with a three-story tower jutting out from its rear like the tail of a threatened scorpion. The front is a row of glass teeth, punctuated at either end by double doors that read: Theatre, Dancing, Excellence.

As we approach the doors, for some reason I can hear the bottles of my parents’ champagne popping off at some ritzy cast party in my mind, mocking me. I hear mother’s cold words to me all over again, the ones she said when I first came home after quitting Rigby & Claudio’s: “You’re simply not ready for the stage, doll. You’ll find your spotlight someday.” I hear my father’s: “A good actor listens before she speaks. A better actor only listens.” Whatever the hell that means.

When Victoria doesn’t lead us through the front glass doors, I make an observation. “The lights are all out. Do we have to wait for a member of faculty?”

“Oh. No, honey. This isn’t a faculty-organized thing. The seniors do it at the start of every year. There will be booze. I’m fairly sure that some faculty know about it, but they pretend not to. Only certain underclassmen are allowed to attend.”

“Which underclassmen?”

She gives me a knowing smirk. “The ones that matter.”

The side door is propped open, a pool of light touching it from the parking lot. There’s a guy leaning against the wall amidst a cloud of smoke generated from that cancer stick in his fingers. Shaggy haired, skeletal, and looking like he lives under a sheet of cardboard on Bleecker street, he regards me with heavy-lidded eyes and a nod. I’m about to greet him when Victoria steers me into the side door and whispers, “That’s Arnie. He’s a prop rat, hates life, and I’m pretty sure he’s stoned out of his mind twenty-five hours a day.”

The side door empties into a small lounging area, which is entirely unoccupied. We continue to follow the light down a hallway and into what I take to be a rehearsal space, which looks like half a basketball court minus the baskets. Across the room, a pair of double doors empty into the wings of the stage.

“Wow, this is new,” she murmurs, our footsteps slapping against the hard floor as we go. “Party must be in the main auditorium.”

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?”

She answers my question with a shrug, then bursts with energy at the sight of a girlfriend, cutting across the stage to greet her and leaving me entirely on my own. The darkened wings of the stage, framed by long red curtains that hang down from the heavens, are littered with racks of unhung lights, coiled cable, and a big machine on wheels that looks like some sound system from the 90’s. Onstage, there are clusters of students chatting and laughing, only a spray of bleak white light coloring them. In the audience seating, there’s a row or two with a handful of other people kicking back and chatting. Somewhere in the aisle—though it’s hard to see with the bright light in my face—there appears to be a shirtless guy dancing, egged on by whooping friends nearby. Victoria claimed this little theatrical shindig started at eight, but from the looks of it, it started much sooner.

“You’re a new one.”

I turn toward the loose, gruff voice. Standing next to me is a short bald man with a beard and sparkling eyes. His body is stout and muscular with a belly that pulls at his green, plaid shirt. His beard, red and trimmed, sits like a rug against his pale, freckled skin.

“Hi,” I return with a smile.

“Have a beer.” He offers a second cup to me I didn’t realize he was holding. I accept it, but don’t dare take a sip. “You look too old to be a freshman.”

Quite the charmer. “Thanks.”

“Freddie,” he says, extending his free hand. I shake it and regret it immediately, his hand being wet as frog skin. “You’re an actress, obviously.”

He didn’t even ask for my name. “Obviously,” I agree, looking around for someone to rescue me.

“I’m directing a play in the black box. Goes up in November. You should totally audition for it.”

“Should I?” Where the hell did Victoria run off to?

“You’d be perfect for, like, all the parts. Every one. Even the dudes. You’re amazing.”

I step back and realize I’m a step from falling off the stage. Close call. That would be a lovely way to meet everyone: with broken limbs and a concussion.

“How old are you? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?” he asks, his words slurring.

“I’m an actress,” I answer. “I’m all the ages.”

Freddie laughs a little too hard at that. “Holy fuck, you’re funny, too!”

Out of the shadows, Victoria appears at my side, her eyes flashing brightly. “Dessie!”

Saved. “Hey there, Victoria! You, um … wanted to show me something?” I urge her, hoping she picks up what I’m putting down.

She’s smart as a whip and does. “Totally. Excuse us, Freddie.” She pulls me to the steps leading down to the seats while Freddie gives a sad, wordless moan of a goodbye.

“You ditched me,” I hiss at her.

“Sorry, hadn’t seen Marcella all summer. The bitch thinks she can take the role of Emily. She should go for the stage manager. We’re sorta stage sisters,” she explains, “doomed to audition for all the same parts.”

“Stage manager? That’s a tech position.”

“No, no. The acting part. The ‘Stage Manager’ role in the play Our Town. That’s the first fall production. Catch up, Dessie!” She stretches out her arms. “Erik! Other Eric! Ellis! Stanley!” She embraces each of her friends one by one, who stand in a cluster at the end of the fifth row. “This is my hall mate Dessie,” she says for a modest introduction, then adds, “She’s from New York,” in a cocky aside.

“Hi,” I murmur, then lift the cup that Freddie had given me. “Anyone like some roofied beer?”

“Have you tried it?” Victoria asks excitedly.

“I’d rather not. As I implied, it’s probably roofied, and it smells like cat pee.”

The one she just called “Other Eric”, slender and olive-skinned, gently takes the cup from my hand. “It’s homebrewed cat pee.” With a shy smile, he adds, “It’s my homebrewed cat pee.”

“Oh.” My face flushes at once. “I’m s-sorry, Other Eric. I just panicked. That bushy orange-bearded guy gave me a drink and started the whole director’s couch thing on me and I just—”

“Freddie.” Other Eric shrugs. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just Irish.”

“I bet this auditorium is, like, nothing compared to what you’re used to in New York,” says a girl from the floor, her jet black hair choppy and erratic, and her eyes bleeding dark eyeliner like tears.

“Actually, the theaters in New York are pretty small,” I admit. This one’s surprisingly big and almost two-tiered, an aisle dividing the back six rows of the house from the front. I guess everything is bigger in Texas; they have more space to play with than cramped-up, built-on-top-of-itself New York City.

“Smaller ones are easier to fill,” notes Other Eric. “We never sell out the house.”

Victoria grips my arm suddenly. “She studied at Rigby & Claudio’s. This chick’s been places!”

“So, you’re here for the grad program?” asks the girl from the floor.

“No. I’m a sophomore. I left that school after one year. It … It wasn’t a right fit for me.” Inspired by all the attention, I let my mouth run off. “An arts school in New York really … isn’t all that. I learned nothing I didn’t already know. All the students think they know everything.” I can’t shut up. “The professors are failed actors, bitter and blaming their failures on you. Half the time, it was me schooling them.” The resentment pours out of me like soured wine. “Claudio Vergas … is a prick.” I feel shivers up my arms, just saying that one harsh word. “And Rigby? You’d be lucky to even see him once a semester. Don’t get me started on the fools who run the dance department.”

“Please,” Victoria urges me, “get started on the fools who run the dance department.” That inspires a laugh from the others.

“It’s all so pretentious!” I go on. I’ve craved this release. My parents wouldn’t listen. I need to get this out so badly. “They make you pay so much money just to fund their own shoddy off-off-off Broadway productions—and they’re never hits. They had a whole play once where the entire set was constructed from just … chairs. Chairs stacked together to form a bed, to form a wall, to form … a bigger chair.”

“That sounds kinda cool,” murmurs goth girl from the floor.

“It wasn’t,” I assure her. “Then, during a grueling five-hour rehearsal of this weird, modernized, full-of-itself, leather-daddy rendition of Romeo & Juliet last spring, I found myself realizing—”

Then, my words catch in my throat at the sight in front of me.

From backstage emerges a man whose face catches the stage light so potently, his creamy skin glows.

I hear my own breathing in my ears, nothing else.

My heart stutters.

His killer face is carved from stone, sharp and dusted with a hint of five o’clock shadow. Even from the seats, his fuck-me eyes glisten like chips of glass.

I swallow hard.

I want to tangle my fingers in his messy brown hair, which casts a shadow down his forehead.

Then, there’s his body. Damn. His magnificent, big body. I have seen countless stunning male actors, but instantly forget all of them in the presence of him.

And I’m still trying to finish my damn sentence. “And … And I found myself realizing …”

He wears his heather-grey tee like it was hand-stitched to fit his every delicious contour, from his strong broad shoulders to his thick biceps—I can already picture him lifting me with just one arm.

“And …” I’m still trying to make words. “And I found myself …”

His jeans, light blue and torn at the knees, hang low on his hips, the sight of which guts me and sends me down a path of naughty thoughts.

“And …”

“Go on,” Victoria encourages me.

He’s standing now at the table with the beer, and the firmness of his ass is a one-man show all on its own. I want to grab it or tear his pants into shreds. He’s turning me into a damn animal.

I am never like this. I’m so ashamed of myself.

“And I found myself,” I finish. Maybe that was the sentence I was looking for all along. “You know what? I think I will try that beer.”

“Drank it,” says Eric apologetically, wiggling the empty cup.

“I planned to get one that wasn’t roofied,” I joke distractedly. “I’ll … I’ll be right back.”

I turn and walk up the steps to the stage. With each footstep, my nerves grow tighter and tighter. I don’t think I can do this. Seeing him at the table with his beer, I strongly consider changing my mind. This is so insanely out of character for me, I feel like a different person with each of my slow and slower footsteps, dragging my feet through a swamp of molasses. My thighs threaten to drop me to the stage floor in an embarrassing heap of limbs.

My sister does this so easily. She approaches the hottest guys like they should be lucky to share oxygen in her vicinity.

But this is my turn. She’s not here. I am.

One step at a time.

One breath at a time.

You’re just walking into an audition, except it’s ten billion times worse, and the casting director is the hottest guy you have ever seen. Suddenly, all I can hear are my own breaths, in and out. Then come my footsteps as I cross the stage, each slap of shoe against wood rattling my brain.

I draw so close, I bump into the table. He doesn’t seem to notice, turned away slightly and seeming to be trapped in a web of dark, bothersome thoughts. A tortured artist, I decide with a smirk. He’s a man of many mysteries. That’s okay. I’m mysterious, too.

Then I inhale, and that might be the greatest mistake of all. He smells amazing. The hint of some unnamed, mannish cologne invades my senses, its spicy subtleness intoxicating me. He smells clean and oddly comforting, like the way someone else’s home might smell—safe, inviting, yet unfamiliar.

I have to speak. I have to say something to get his attention. I can’t just be the ghost girl who lurks. I draw breath to say something, anything—and then nothing comes.

He has a cup of beer in his big, strong hand. He studies it pensively. This is your moment. No one else is around. You even have the perfect excuse: you’re new and you’re meeting people. Introduce yourself.

No better gift than right now; it’s why they call it the present.

“Hi,” I offer, using my sweetest audition voice.

He doesn’t even flinch. After too long a moment, he takes a sip of his beer, then stares into it like he’s disgusted with his own reflection. God, he looks so hot when he makes that face, scowling at absolutely nothing.

I try again. “I’m Dessie.” A beer is in my hand and I don’t even remember getting it. Its contents shake because my hands do. “I—I’m a transfer here. Second year. Are you an actor? You look like an actor.”

Still nothing. He even turns his head upstage, looking off as if something far more interesting than me caught his attention. Y’know, like a fly.

That’s when I notice the seriously sexy, dark tattoo running up the base of his thick neck, making me wonder what else he’s hiding under that tight shirt.

“Listen, I’m new here, and … and I’m just trying to meet people,” I go on, feeling more desperate and dumb by the second. I set my beer back down on the table. “It would be rather nice to talk to someone who actually acknowledges when he’s being—”

Then, the asshole walks away.

I watch, completely taken aback by his rudeness. It was clear as hell who I was talking to, wasn’t it? He had every opportunity to just simply tell me he wasn’t interested in getting to know me. Except, isn’t that the point of this damn Theatre mixer thing? To … mix?

“Prick,” I mutter at his back, drawing the attention of a couple girls at the other end of the table, but not from the guy to which the word was directed. I hope they didn’t hear me.

Or maybe I do. I suddenly, immediately, wholly don’t care about anything. I’ve been used to this my whole life. Cece gets told “yes” every day. My peers at Rigby & Claudio’s got all the praise while I sat back and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I’m the outcast, the failure, the family joke.

I’m the guppy.

I abandon the stage, departing through the wing and the rehearsal room. In a matter of seconds, the School of Theatre is behind me and I’m tramping down the dark pathways back to my dorm, alone.

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OUTLIER: REBELLION
(Sample Chapters)

Daryl Banner

OUTLIER: Rebellion (Book 1)

(A Sample of the Prologue and First Chapter)

Dystopian

Contains: M/M and M/F sexuality, violence, and adult content.

Copyright © 2013-2017 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

PROLOGUE

She sees everyone, and everyone disappoints.

Chewing off the last scrap of a chicken bone with the corner of her teeth, feeling not unlike a dumpster cat, the seven-or-eight-year-old girl sees everything all day and night, but no one sees her. She calls herself Kid because everyone else does, and she keeps her twenty braids of dirty hair wrapped and pinned to her scalp because no one else does. Her hair’s so dirty, she forgets what color it is. Slum-colored, she tells herself, but no one sees.

Kid has her eye on a band of boys tonight. One of them’s called Link—a scrawny one with a mop of black hair hiding his eyes—and he wears a ragged blue cloak like the rest of them. Eight in all. They round a corner, so Kid tosses the chicken leg—empty of meat anyway—and follows. Curiosity is the sole thing that carries her, as she has no idea who they are. They’ve said very little in the last hour, which is annoying. She’s heard of kids banding together to right the wrongs of the city. Maybe this is one of them, she hopes, her heart lifting at the very idea.

But of all the boys, Link makes her the most curious. He told them he has no brothers and lives alone, but she followed him from a house where two other boys in fact lived, so she already knows he’s a liar. That makes him all the more interesting. He even has a mom and dad.

I once had me a mom and dad.

Following Link and his wordless party of blue, she tracks them down three streets before a foot accidentally kicks into a trashcan … her own foot. They turn—all eight of them—and she just stands there.

They still don’t see her. They don’t see her because her Legacy of invisibility won’t let them.

“Cat,” one of the younger guys mutters, deciding. “Just a cat, keep going.”

“I don’t see no cat,” another complains, squinting.

“It’s gone now. Move on.”

After a length of annoying debate, they finally move on with Link pushed ahead of them. Kid keeps up, this time caring not to attack anymore trashcans. She hates drawing attention, even if she cannot be seen.

It isn’t too much longer before they arrive at the apparent destination: a sanctuary at the edge of the tenth ward slum. She didn’t take the boys to be the praying kind. Are they here to donate? Help the poor? Maybe she could join their band, help the world smile more. There are so many terrible things out there, as living on the streets has taught her. Kid lets herself smile, having drawn close to them as they approach the door of the sanctuary.

The nearest one politely knocks. A priest with heavy eyelids answers. He observes the visitors a while before speaking. “Welcome to The Brae, boys. Have you a life to save tonight?”

“Yours,” the boy in front says, and a knife finds the priest’s throat and draws red across the length of it.

Kid’s smile is gone.

The blue cloaks drop to the ground like curtains. Beneath, the boys are dressed in chains and black tatters, and the screams from within the sanctuary are all she hears as they press inside, blades drawn, knives thrusting. The leader of the boys, a lean and youthful boy with black gunk caked around his eyes, throws the butt of his sword against another priest’s face as they push into the sanctuary. Kid follows them into the main hall where rows of benches hold startled innocents. A boy whom she presumes to be the leader’s younger brother—practically his twin, similar of face and build—shoves one of the older ladies, threatening her with a thin curved blade Kid doesn’t know the name of, and demands something from her, her jewels, her life, the sanctuary’s money keep. It’s so difficult to make out words with all the screaming.

Then an unlucky priest who speaks up gets his jaw knocked sideways, blood painting the wall behind him. “Where’s your Three Goddess now?” the attacker cries out, laughing maniacally. “Go ahead!—Pray! Pray! Ask them to save a life now! Save plenty of ‘em!”

She spots Link passing through the hall less boldly, the scared faces of innocents seeming to bring pause to his actions. Kid slouches against a wall, feeling the hope that lived only a moment ago in her heart turn black as the blood that now dances on stone and fist and sharp, sharp metal. Oh, what boys’ hands can do …

“Link,” calls out the leader with black gunk about his eyes. “Food, glass, and money from the chambers. It’s ours.” And like a good boy, the one called Link grips his sword, puts on a menacing sort of face and takes off.

Such a good boy a liar makes, she thinks with a scowl.

The moment he’s gone, the other gang-boys start to laugh. “What a tool,” one says between guffaws.

She’s been watching them for a while and can tell there’s something different about the one called Link. He isn’t like the others, he doesn’t belong. But he seems to want them to think he belongs. Is there a game being played here among these boys? Does she not see it?

In the corner of the room, Kid observes a mother with her baby squeezed in arm. It touches her, the baby, mommy’s embrace … Kid’s a young enough age where she can almost remember her final wake, but it’s been long enough that she questions whether she’s recalling it at all, or just lying to herself. All babies in the world sleep until the age of two. Then they wake up for the last time in their lives, forever after staying awake, dreams never to find them again. Until they’re dead, maybe.

“Did you see it?—the hilt of his sword?? Tell me you saw it,” a boy snickers to another. “It was all pink.”

“Yeah,” replies the other, sneezing with laughter. “A pink handle, I saw it. Who paints a sword pink??”

Another priest gets his jaw knocked sideways, for what, Kid doesn’t care anymore. The saddest thing is, none of the priests use their Legacies to defend themselves. So many abilities in this room, and no one even bothers to shield a face. Is that their pride, or their silly Three Goddess beliefs that stop them? What’s it matter, the girl wonders sourly. Death and hurts can’t be stopped by the palms of hands. Everyone’s gonna die just the same, no matter their Legacy. They die as pathetically. Die alone. Whether screaming, pleading, laughing or silent, everyone dies the same. She watches the priest beg, the sorry man he is. No hand can stop death.

The scrawny Link returns, heaving with the weight of a sack over his shoulder. The sack is spotted in streaks of pink where Link’s hand clutches it. Strange.

“I have it, Dran, all of it.”

And the lean, sinewy one with the blackened eyes and greasy black hair, Dran by name, sings to the scared priests: “It’s been fun, but gotta run. Thanks for donating, so very.”

In the way of the exit, a little girl stands clutching a doll, begging Link to help her. Apparently on their way in, one of them struck down her brother, who still writhes in silent agony on the ground. “Please,” she whimpers.

The one called Dran is studying Link, the rest of the gang too, all of them waiting to see how their new recruit handles this obstacle. Even Kid finds herself on edge, invested, her interest revived. Her heart begs him to be strong, to not give in, to throw away his desire to win these fools over, to stand against them.

Instead, Link rips the doll from the child and twists off the head—which takes more effort than he was expecting, clearly. He grunts in the effort before the head pops off with a sad little squeak. The girl cries out, but Link silences her by putting the pink hilt of his weapon into her cheek. This action moves a priest between them in some sad attempt at protecting the child, but Link is quicker and strikes him too, a blunt hit to the back. For a moment, horror flashes across Link’s face at the red he’s just drawn from the man’s backside. The priest attempts to rise for one pitiful second, then drops to the floor, unable, wailing in agony.

The moment that follows stretches on and on. The little girl and her brother, both on the ground clutching at nothing, pain seizing the boy in so many places he doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands. The struck priest, he can’t even turn over to witness what else is going on, his eyes in a panic. The rest of the sanctuary holds tensely, watching, begging good riddance to their intruders who with such ease slipped in and took all the money and food they had, every paper and cent.

Kid, the invisible bystander, the watcher, she just waits and waits with tired eyes, seeing all.

The little Link puffs up, playing proud of the horrors he’s committed, though his face tells another story, eyes trembling, lip quivering with uncertainty. He faces the room and cries out, “If anyone else wants to talk back, talk now so I can show you what your insides look like!”

No voice answers him, only silent, cold eyes.

Link drops the mutilated doll into the girl’s tiny lap before stepping over her to make leave. The others follow, each as though hopping a mere crack in the pavement, paying no mind to the blood on the floor or the quiet, swallowed tears of the sanctuary. Dran trails behind, taking a last glimpse over his shoulder to admire the pretty victory, a greasy sort of smile tickling his lips.

Kid doesn’t watch where they go, nor does she follow. Instead she observes the wounded of the sanctuary gather themselves, rising slowly off the floor, in pieces, emerging from dark corners of the hall and the stair and from beneath benches where they hid, not one of them saying a word for so long. The silence and shuffling of feet speaks enough.

If there’s anything Kid hates worse than the constant disappointment, it’s a liar. She whispers his name bitterly. The wounded boy on the ground stirs at the sound of Kid’s whispering, searching for the voice, so Kid thinks the name instead: Link.

Liar-boy Link … liar, liar Link …

0001

WICK

For once, he is not alone.

There is a boy sprawled out on the ground with the gold of sunlight in his hair and the blue-grey of sky in his piercing gaze. A lifetime of feeling alone, wiped out the instant Wick’s eyes fall on this boy with the beautiful face. For some reason, they don’t speak. Nothing to say, maybe. What the hell can be said to a boy who turns strong, clever, brave guys like Wick into a helpless, melted mess? Red, furious light dances across their faces. Fire, he realizes belatedly. Everything is on fire. His chest, his eyes, his knees … Knees that all his life held him up, crumbling in the presence of this boy. Blue-grey eyes that smolder, dissolving Wick’s every pinch of strength. He imagines them opening mouths to each other … How he might taste … His smell lingering on his clothes … You’ve gone and set everything on fire, Wick accuses the boy, a smile playing on his face. He knows the boy’s lips are warm, and it’s not because of the fire. For once, I am not alone. Wick reaches for the boy, and the boy reaches back. Fire hugs them like a swarm of yellow friends. The boys grow closer and closer and closer … yet never seem to touch.

Then Wick opens his eyes, and it’s all gone. The fire, the boy, the touch that never happened. Gone.

How cruel a dream can be.

Wick hears breakfast sizzling in the kitchen before the aroma reaches him. With great reluctance, Wick abandons his attempt at squeezing himself back to sleep; the warm lips will wait for another night. When he pulls on a pair of pants, he finds the dream left him with one other considerate gift in his pants. Sighing, he gives an honest consideration to taking care of his distractingly peppy friend before heading downstairs, but judging by the dagger of sunlight striking through the window, there really isn’t enough time.

Getting ready takes Wick exactly fourteen seconds. After thrusting on the only pair of clean socks he owns, he coaxes his feet into a pair of running shoes with red stripes that cut up the sides. Pushing a spray of hair under the hood of the same red sleeveless jacket he’s worn for years—and long since outgrown—he opts not to don a shirt underneath, as laundry hasn’t been done in half a week and the jacket fits snugly enough without one.

He staggers out of the closet he’s called a room his whole life and makes a stop at the tiny bathroom he and his brothers and parents share, only to find the faucets make no water. “Come on,” he moans tiredly. “Just a spray. Just a trickle’s all I need.” With a sleepy, resigned sigh, he continues his short trek down the steep narrow stair to the den, stepping over a dune of dirty shirts that haven’t made it to the laundry and a half-dumped backpack.

He takes a creaky seat at the island counter, the only thing separating what can be called den or kitchen in their tiny, crowded living space. His brother Lionis, who generally inhabits the den as his own room, has left something loud and crackling in the pan.

“Cooking without water?” moans Wick, pulling on the short spikes for sideburns that play on his cheeks. “Hey, where’s mom?”

Returning, Lionis doesn’t reply, pitching a dash of who-knows into the pan. Lionis looks like a starved version of Wick. Lionis’s short brown hair is combed forward and pressed flat to his forehead today. He has the blunt nose of their dad and is always flushed with mad craters of acne, masked only by wiry, overgrown stubble that runs in patches up his cheeks. His eyebrows are two blunt dabs of dark that seem in a permanent state of concentration.

“Do you know where Link was last night? He wasn’t home when I …” Seeing the cold half-closed eyelids of his brother, Wick just gives up. He pushes palms into his eyes, trying to forget that beautiful boy in his dream.

From behind he gets a sudden embrace from two tiny arms, mom’s citrusy perfume finding him before her face does. “Hey. Morning, mom. Water’s out again. Where’s Link?”

“Upstairs.” She kisses him on the brow. “He stayed out all night working on a project, something for school.”

“Sure.” Wick knows better; his little brother’s late night antics are always suspicious. He doesn’t like how Link’s changed, turning from the bright thinker he once was into this angsty stranger who keeps secrets and wears too much black—even his hair’s dyed black. He even insisted on taking the whole room upstairs when his older brother Halves moved out. But Wick’s no room to scorn others for secrets, considering his own.

“Get enough sleep last night?” his mother whispers into an ear, and Wick nods irritably, shrugging her off.

It’s the family secret. Everyone knows children wake for the last time at the age of two … so why at seventeen does Wick still sleep? Mom coddles him and makes a fuss like he’s still her baby because the only people left in the world who sleep are toddlers. But Wick is no toddler.

“Breakfast,” says Lionis.

“Not hungry,” says Wick, disinterring his backpack from clothes and clutter on the sofa and checking it for his proper books before slinging it over a shoulder.

Mom calls at him when he reaches the front door. “You really should eat, sweetie.”

“There’s lots of things one should do, and doesn’t,” says Wick, feeling smart, “and things we shouldn’t do, but clearly do.”

Like sleeping. Like dreaming.

He doesn’t wait up for Link. The air outside is thick and smelly as his mood, dust settling in the morning air as his shoes slap against damp pavement on his way to the station. He draws his hood, squeezes it to shield most of his face as he boards the overcrowded nine-two, which takes him halfway through his home ward with only three midway stops. On the fourth, he hops off the train and walks the long nine and a half blocks to school.

Today’s lesson does nothing to lift his mood.

Professor Frey’s going on about Legacies and Kings, her gritty voice marveling how vital it is to express oneself without fear. She gushes on and on about the importance of being free, of not having to hide one’s Legacy … so why are Wick’s parents so adamant that he hide his at all costs? Why must he keep secret that his unique, special power is the unheard-of ability to sleep?

“Dream,” Professor Frey urges her students, smiling wanly, “and dream big. For the King only cries once.”

Wick rolls his eyes at that. Dream … Hah. If only she knew how deceiving a simple dream can be. Wick dreamed once he had the Legacy of flight, found himself flying to the Lifted City, straight to Cloud Tower and meeting the Banshee King face to face. In the dream, he plucked out Greymyn’s tongue, removing his death-cry once and for all. Yeah, the King only cries once, but after Wick’s through with him, he’ll hardly be able to cough.

But it was just a dream. These people who don’t sleep … his classmates, his brothers, his mom, his dad, Professor Frey … they only consider the joy of dreaming.

They fail to consider the agony of waking up.

“Most of you are seventeen. For those of you who haven’t taken it early, your Legacy Exams are impending. A good word. Gets to the point, I think: impending. Inevitable, I like that one too.” She pops the back of a boy’s head with her hand, putting a stop to a side conversation he was having. “Each of you may have a unique Legacy—a little gift from the Sisters … a talent, a special ability, a power, whatever you’d so love to call it—but in honor of some of your impending Legacy Exams—there’s that word again—I’d like to focus on what makes us alike, not what makes us different. Tell me.” She stops in front of a girl’s desk, interrupting the girl’s important business of picking her nails. “What are the three classes of Legacy?”

Hands shoot in the air, but Professor Frey ignores them all, staring needles into the girl, who has frozen in place. After too long a moment, the girl finally offers an answer. “M-Mentalist.”

“Mentalist, yes, there’s one,” she agrees dryly, “but allow me to share a few fun factoids, as I know not all of you are as bright as a Lifted City sunrise. The majority of Legacies are, in fact, Mentalist. If you conduct regular practices of your Legacy for your Exam, I suggest quiet areas. Get into your own head. Psychist. That’s another word for a Mentalist who channels others’ minds. Could also include sensory abilities, Sensors … mathematical abilities … and so forth. On a scale of influence from 0 to 10, we place them at about a 1. And the second class of—If I have to pop you on your head again, you won’t have a head.” The boy rights himself, his private, hushed conversation brought to a shut-up.

“The second class’s a Morph,” offers another boy.

Professor Frey’s stony gaze lingers on the little whisperer a while longer, daring him to speak again before moving on. “Didn’t ask for it just yet, but well done. Morph. Please, someone put me out of my misery and tell us what the hell a Morph is.”

“It’s someone whose power affects the body,” the same boy finishes quickly.

Frey leans on a desk, crossing her legs and looking to the ceiling as if for help. “Must I beg for an example?”

Another girl, thin-faced and squeaky of voice, gives it. “My dad and his brother both can make their skin rough at will. My dad’s can feel like a stony texture, my uncle’s, sort of reptilian, like snakeskin.”

“I don’t like snakes. Terrible examples, but they’ll do. On our scale of influence, Morphs are about a 2.” The professor turns about, engaging a tall, wiry boy in the back who hardly ever speaks. “And the third class?”

“Elementalist,” he mutters, voice deep.

“And they affect …?”

“Things … Things outside the body. Elements.”

Sucking her tongue, Professor Frey nods once. “We have a few Elementalists among us, don’t we? Even someone who can bend paper. You ought to practice origami, dear, don’t miss your obvious calling.” A few classmates chuckle, and the one she refers to blushes and twirls a pencil in his hand. “On our scale, Elementalists come at about a 3.” She arrives back at her desk, facing the room. “Legacies grow as you mature and gain life experience. It’s a fact, not a myth, not a sugary fantasy your mommy and daddy tell you. It’s fact. We grow and we learn and we evolve. Many of you will regret taking your Legacy Exam so early; you might discover you underestimated your ability … and I consider that a great offense in my class.” She leans forward, her eyes carving into the front row of students. “Never underestimate your Legacy. Not ever.” She winks at no one in particular, gives a lift of her chin. “No two of you are identical, and neither your Legacies. Twenty people can open the same door, but will open it twenty different ways. Remind us of the special class of Legacy.”

No one answers. Wick sighs, irritated by the fact that not only is his class full of idiots, but he’s surrounded on all sides today. Every desk around him, occupied by an idiot. He’s always hated crowding; it makes him so edgy, nearly sick in the head. Social anxiety, his mom calls it.

Wick finally says, “Empath,” just to kill the silence.

To that, Professor Frey smiles approvingly. “Yes,” she agrees. “Empath. It’s a special class, as it incorporates the transfer of something from one person to another, and its influence can range anywhere from a 1 to a 3, depending on the person. For example, a person who can plant fears in others—or take them away … In fact, the thirty-seventh King had such a Legacy: King Rainly Prime. They named him the Scare King. But to escape fear is to feed it. Once the people learned that, well, so long to him. He took the throne after infamous King Chole, the Dust King.”

Pudgy-nose speaks again. “How’s Rainly called an Empath and not a Psychist? Or Mentalist? Didn’t he push fear into others?”

“Good point. It’s a matter of perception. One can go their whole lives misunderstanding their own power. Consider our current King. The Banshee King, called so for his cry that brings death to any who hear it. Who knew that as a kid, his yapping would develop into the life-rending weapon it is today?” She stops by the girl’s desk, peers over the brim of her bony glasses. “Dream big, child, for the King—” Only cries once, Wick finishes bitterly.

“Are there even higher classes?” asks a kid right next to Wick, his voice too loud. “What if someone’s Legacy is over a 3? What if it rates at a 9 or 10 on the scale? … or even higher?”

Professor Frey shrugs lightly. “Outlier.”

“What?”

“Outlier. They’re called Outlier, and those types, I’m afraid, cause proud Kings to go cross-eyed and Marshals to shiver, and that’s all we’ll say about that.” Abruptly, Professor Frey flips open the book on her long knobby desk, says, “Chapter 8. Open your books and let’s discuss the history of our first ten Kings, and how their Legacy Exams won them a damn throne.”

Wick closes his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. Or maybe it’s last night’s dream forcing its way into his terrible day … A very welcome distraction it’d be.

At lunch hour in the courtyard, he watches his younger brother Link eat alone at a wooden lunch table. The trio of bullies are tramping about the grass, and it takes everything in Wick not to hurl a stone at their heads. There’s several by his feet; he’s even picking which one he’d chuck. He’s hated them for years, ever since their voices changed and girls and boys became more interesting and hair sprouted in sensitive places. That’s when the new feelings came, the yearning and the anger. The most muscular of the bullies—his name’s Tide—has always had a fist ready for little Link—and Wick, two fists of his own ready to defend him. But he’s not an expert at defense and often did more witnessing than defending. But someday, Wick silently promised …

“Hey Pink!” Tide calls out, passing the lunch table and laughing. Link’s Legacy is changing the colors of things through touch, but he’s admittedly not very good at it. Most often, he only manages to turn things a sickly pink hue, hence the unfortunate nickname.

“Ignore him.” Wick takes a seat next to his brother. They’ve been through this a hundred times, but Link’s stopped eating. The anger that lives in his little brother scares Wick sometimes … the way Link has changed. “Tide’s just a meathead, bro. He just thinks he’s—”

“Whatever.” Link rises from the table, trudges off.

Wick sighs and slaps a hand to his face. In truth, he didn’t sleep well at all last night. “I don’t like him either,” says a friend of Wick’s at a neighboring table. “That Tide’s gonna learn, you can’t keep biting at everyone without someone someday biting back.”

Wick smirks. “I think Tide’s a bit beyond learning.”

The friend at the table is Rone, handsome, deeply bronze-skinned with buzz-cut hair and bright, sapphire eyes. He’s always been very comfortable around Wick, but never hangs with him outside school. His twin sister is a lot fuller of frame than he and not so pretty in the face, though she shares her brother’s intensely blue eyes and dark skin, always sitting with him and never talking. Both are known smart, note-takers, always in good graces with Professor Frey. They’ll get highest in life, those types. Maybe score a job up in the Lifted City … who knows?

But the city isn’t always kind to those who deserve it. Just his luck, it’ll be a low-life like Tide who’ll catch the eye of Impis, the Marshal of Legacy, in some upcoming Legacy Exam, scoring fortunes from above. One day, he saw Tide walk a poor kid half his size into a wall, then burst into tearful laughter about it with his cronies, hysterical, rolling on the floor like dogs. Bad people don’t deserve good graces … but slum life is not known for being fair.

“Tide couldn’t land a job in a wind factory,” Rone jabs.

“What the hell’s a wind factory?” Wick asks back, and they both just laugh. Tide’s Legacy is pushing air. Or at least that’s how Wick likes to describe it, because it sounds not unlike farting.

“Can you smell stupidity?” asks Rone.

Wick makes a big show of sniffing the air, earning him a half-amused-yet-still-unsmiling glance from Rone’s silent sister, then responds: “And he reeks of it.”

Everyone thinks Wick’s Legacy is that of acute smelling because that’s the lie his family tells. “He even smells fear,” his mom told their neighbor Iranda, “and sadness.” Wick can’t stand the lies, that his family won’t admit to people that he can sleep.

But then there’s all of Sanctum and the Marshals with prying, greedy eyes who are on the lookout for strange and unusual powers among the citizens’ youth. If Wick’s dreamy secret were told to the wrong person, he might be abducted by Sanctum and studied, used, experimented on … or so say the rumors. But Wick thinks little of rumors or things he’s never witnessed himself.

“You remember the first thing you ever smelled?”

Wick shrugs. “Myself?” They laugh again.

Really, what an awful Legacy. Sleep. You can’t even call it an “ability” like most Legacies; it’s a disability. Can’t avoid or control it either. That pains Wick the worst … He’s certain he’ll die in his sleep, neck slit or heart pierced at a blade’s end, especially in a world where no one else at all requires eight hours a night to recoup. That’s eight hours of possible death, that’s what it is.

“See you in class,” says Rone, departing the table. His sister’s eyes linger a bit on Wick, then she’s off too. Feelings still sitting heavy, he stays a while staring at his hands until he convinces himself not to be late to class.

When school’s out for the day, Link and Wick board the nine-two back home. Pushing through the front door, Link’s right out the back door and gets lost somewhere in the overgrowth of shrubs in their diminutive backyard, likely not to be heard of for the rest of the evening. Mom and dad are both still at work, so the cramped house is oddly quiet and seems to breathe for once, the sunlight cutting through the kitchen like a golden sword.

Unmotivated as ever to get a start on his homework, Wick leans against the back of the sofa, still cluttered with last week’s dirty clothes and blankets, and stares out the window at the giant scrap metal disc thing in the backyard. It is a giant scrap metal disc thing because Wick has no idea what else to call it. Ever since it fell from the sky, it cut so deep into the ground that no one, not even dad, can manage a budge. It used to fascinate him, wondering what it is, what it’s used for … He peers up, squinting against the sunlight at the arm of the Lifted City that overhangs this part of the slums, about thirty stories in the air, give or take. From the window, he can see only two of the enormous pylons that hold the Lifted City up, of which there are copious. And this giant scrap metal disc thing, it’s probably just trash from that Lifted City, some large discarded thing from the rich and privileged above. How easy their lives must be … So casual, to let go a huge piece of metal over the brim, dropping it to the trash-laden slums below. It could’ve killed someone, cut a child in half … It actually did land unsettlingly close to the tree Lionis reads in. But what do they care, up in the sky, of those who struggle and starve below?

Wick—Anwick Lesser of the ninth ward, by full name—has never known luxury or gold or height. His dad bangs iron at the metalshops and his mom rakes mud tirelessly in the Greens, all for scraps. Their bellies, all full of scraps. His oldest brothers Aleks and Halves live in the Guardian dorms now, working for them. And Lionis, older than him by only two years, is no help either; he just fills his head all day with science and nonsense at the library. Mom excuses his lack of income, since he also does laundry and cooks for them on the daily, but Wick doesn’t care. He can feed himself. Wick doesn’t need his brother soaping his socks.

After flicking on the broadcast for half a minute and discovering exactly four boring channels on them, he finally makes way to his tiny room up the narrow stair, pushes the front window open and sits on the tiny porch roof outside, scribbling away his homework assignment in the steadily waning daylight. When he’s on the last page, mom’s come home and pokes her head in his room, face spattered in numerous hues of mud. “Coming down for dinner? Just us tonight.”

With Halves and Aleks off defending the city in the name of Guardian and the Marshal of Whatever, the house is considerably quieter. Two less mouths to feed. And so he clambers down to the half-lit den to share a communal plate of dumplings, bean mash, and salted cabbage with his two brothers and mom until the sun’s been replaced by black and birdsong traded for crickets.

That night, Wick wakes to the razor point of a sword at his lips. “Dead,” says the sword-bearer.

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Keep scrolling for a sample from Daryl Banner’s heart-gripping, darkly humored, and whimsical post-apocalyptic / young adult series: The Beautiful Dead.

THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD
(Sample Chapters)

Daryl Banner

The Beautiful Dead

(A Sample of the Prologue and First Two Chapters)

Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy / Young Adult

Copyright © 2013-2016 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.

Prologue

It’s so cold. It’s so, so cold.

What you should know is, the first time a dead man opened his eyes, the twenty-seven doctors in the room screamed. The dead man did not bite them or foam at the mouth. He didn’t claw at them with his dirty nails nor did he grunt and moan like the dead were expected to do.

The dead man just opened his tiny mouth and asked, “Where am I?”

I’m so cold, but let me assure you, it was a quiet end. That’s what you should know above all else. Even with bombs all over the news. Mushroom clouds and calmly-reporting reporters. Debris snowing from the heavens, like winter. Bombs here, bombs there, bombs in your backyard and your neighbor’s living room. Smoke and liquid fire ate up the cities, the forests, the children.

No one knew exactly what was happening, and by the time they did, it was over.

And they were dead. All of them. Fire and smoke still covered the land like a blanket long after they were gone, the last of leaves and tree trunks burning on. The final blink of mother nature’s eye before she retired for a long, long sleep. Sweet dreams.

I’m not sure where I was when all this happened. I may have died already, but it doesn’t matter. None of us were going to survive.

At least, not completely.

If time were an endless plain, this event is the chasm cut deep in the earth, its yawn spanning far beyond what light can reach. This awesome rift, we will never know for sure how wide it is. But on the other side, as sure as we are that there is another side, that’s where my story begins. Not when the world ended, but long after.

After the trees have all but expired.

After oceans burn and mountains fall.

After the sky.

It’s so, so cold, but before my life is gone … before I forget my mother’s face or my favorite flower or my name, I need to explain something, and it’s crucial that you pay attention. I’m so cold, but just let me say this one last thing to you before I’m dead, before I’m

before I’m

before I’m

Are you paying attention?

Chapter One:
Winter

I came into this world like most people do: screaming.

“Don’t worry,” a kind voice tells me. “You’re just dying.”

Everything hurts. My skin is all icy and bitter. My heart’s a heavy stone the earth is trying to wrench from my chest and my vision is an angry haze—I am blind.

“Your eyes are adjusting, girl. Just relax.”

Dying?—Did she just saying I’m dying?

“Undying,” she amends. “You’re undying. But really it’s sort of the same.”

I’m reaching out for my mom. I want to find my dad’s hands and pull them toward me, they should be there somewhere. I’m furious that no one seems to be helping me, that no one’s there.

“No use in screaming on, you’ll just break your voice. You might need it.”

Why would I need a voice if I’m dead? And for that matter, how’d I die? When did that happen? Shouldn’t I know?

“No use trying to remember,” she murmurs sadly, her voice strangely accented. “That was your Old Life … a nothing life.”

I can’t picture my mom’s face. Or dad’s. There’s a strange vacuum in my mind now, like I can’t even remember having parents. The idea of anything existing before this moment, that simple idea seems so difficult to understand suddenly.

“You’re the worst I’ve ever heard! This awful screaming! Really, you should quiet down. You’ll wake the dead.”

I don’t remember the last word I uttered. I don’t remember the last meal I had. I don’t remember the last hour I saw on a clock. I don’t remember …

I don’t remember my name.

“That was a little joke of mine,” she says with a squeaky snicker. “Wake the dead. You’re not laughing.”

I’m panicked by the silence in my body where a heart should be racing. I’m gasping for air that isn’t there, with lungs that stubbornly refuse to fill. I’m in agony, I think.

“Let go of my hair!—You’ll pull it straight off!”

Her soft hair clenched in my fist, it’s the first sensation I have that isn’t horrible. It grounds me like an anchor. Suddenly gravity makes sense. My position of lying on cold hard ground makes sense. I’m aware of my ears for the first time and the information they helpfully lend … the ambiance of howling winds and whispers … the distant rumbling of thunder … the precise location of the strange accented voice that’s been speaking to me …

“You’re coming to, at last. I feared there was no hope for you, screaming as you were. Now please, a finger at a time, let go of my hair.”

My eyes have been open, but they only just now discover how to work. The furious haze of earlier releases me to my new world. Hovering over me is the face of a twenty-something-year-old with wide-set beady eyes and curls of black hair that gather atop two sharp shoulders.

“Really, I’d hoped for a prettier Raise, but you’ll have to do. Oh, your skin is so tragic.”

Who is this person?

“My name is Helena Trim,” she tells me, “and yours will be—Oh, I hadn’t noticed your hair! It’s so … white. A snowdrift in a dream. Almost makes up for your face. I’ll call you Winter.” She smiles for the first time. It sits oddly on her stiff, pointy face. “There, that was easy. Now are we ready to try standing?”

I push myself off the damp ground. Curiously, I find all the pain and torment I’d only a moment ago felt is gone, leaving an empty ringing in my ears that echoes down my body like a bell. I feel hollow. I feel weak. I feel like a vacuous shell holding nothing, not even air.

“Where,” I say, startled for a moment by the sound of my own voice, “am I?”

“The Harvesting Grounds,” this person called Helena informs me. “This is where the dead are Raised, girl. This is where everyone’s Final Life begins … if this can be called a life.”

“I’m—I’m dead?”

“Undead.” She delicately moves a strand of hair out of my eyes, wrinkles her face in pity. “We should get you to the Refinery straight away. Death hasn’t been kind to your—ah, never mind.”

I don’t remember leaving the murky field. I don’t remember being guided down a winding road that cut through an endless array of dead trees and into a city. I don’t remember walking crowded streets or being steered into a squatty pink building, but now I’m leaning back on some kind of doctor’s table and there’s a large flush-faced woman with green eye shadow looming over me.

“Her hair is just exquisite!” she squeals, taking a handful of it into her puffy palm. “I’ve never seen hair like this, the color of pearls. And coming straight from the earth, no less! Her skin, however … oh, help us all.”

“Will someone,” I whisper quietly, “please show me a mirror?”

“Not a chance, sweetheart. Roxie, dear precious, hand me my Chromo and a two-inch carving blade, will you?”

I’m not sure what is happening, but it reminds me of prom night. The large lady starts working on my nails while gossiping sweetly with the others. Another girl who couldn’t be more than twelve years old starts scrubbing my legs for some reason. The one called Roxie takes to my hair, combing it and applying some pungent formula that makes my nose recoil. Helena keeps stealing my attention away, talking her little head off and, I suppose, trying to distract me from looking at myself. Despite her efforts, I catch a glimpse of what looks like an arm missing half its flesh, the bones of the hand visible. Of course I don’t recognize it as my own hand because, well, denial’s a powerful thing. And I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming, except I’m not sure where I’d wake up. The idea of having a bed, or even a home to return to seems strange.

“Have I lost my memory?” I ask finally. “For good?”

“Oh, here we go,” the large lady sings.

Helena faces me quite seriously. “Yes and no. Your Old Life is gone. Your memory of it and all the memory you had in your previous life is no longer. It’ll come back someday, sure, but it’s best not to think of it at all. Just let go now and never again look back.”

“But—But I remember how to speak, obviously. I know language. I know how to walk. I remember concepts like … like prom night!—of all things. How is that possible if I lost all my memory?”

“Some things stay, most things go,” the large lady chimes in, working some tool into my foot. “It’s not ours to decide. Do you prefer cherry or coral toenails?”

I move my eyes back to Helena. “But you said it would come back someday?—my memory?”

“It’s called a Life Dream,” she answers. “Or Waking Dream. Or the Dreaming Death. It has many names, but it’s when everything rushes back all at once, the memory of your Old Life returning to you in an instant. It will happen someday, but I assure you, it will be like an unwelcome enemy arriving at your doorstep. It’s best to forget it and leave it in the dust behind you, girl.”

The large lady murmurs agreement, kneading something gritty into my skin like I’m dough. The one called Roxie winces in her own form of concurrence. The twelve-year-old just purses her lips, like the idea of remembering her life tastes bad.

“That looks like it should hurt,” I point out, staring at the large lady and the tool she’s poking into my foot. “I feel it, but I don’t. Is that normal?”

“Perfectly,” one of the girls behind me mutters. “Now keep still.”

The questions start coming like a wave of nausea, I can’t help it. “What are you doing exactly?—Where’s half my arm?—Are those my bones?”

“Helena,” one of them grunts, annoyed.

“Listen to me,” says Helena, pulling my face toward hers and away from my own innards. “This new life you’ve been given, your Final Life, it’s all that matters now. You’re one of us.”

“One of us?” I ask. “One of what?—A zombie?”

Wrong word. The large lady drops the tool she had in her hand. Roxie steps away from me so quickly I might as well have burst into flames. An icy hush has covered the room. My gaze moves from one horrified set of eyes to another. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

“We,” Helena says, steels herself, then finishes, “are not zombies. We are people, and we have standards, and we have flesh, and for the love of God we do not eat brains! We are a dignified people, all of us. Even you.”

I look around the room, my eyes meeting each person before I speak again. “I’m sorry. This is all very new to me. Obviously. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

After a very lengthy moment passes in which I’m pretty sure the ladies in the room would gladly toss me back to the foul earth from which I’d been yanked, the large one finally sighs, if just a little, takes up her tool again and says, “It’s okay, honey. I’m sure I said something equally as awful on my first day, which was far too long ago if you ask me. Which you didn’t.”

“You’re all dead,” I whisper, like I’m just now discovering this.

“Undead. Every last one of us,” she agrees. “I doubt there’s a Living left in the world.”

Looking at each of them, it’s dawning on me what world I’ve been brought into. A dead world. Ageless. No one breathes here or ever will again. Souls being fetched from soil and made up into fake-alive people, like me. A world full of … silent chests.

“Now,” she says, gripping my foot tight, “hold still while I make you a new pinkie toe.”

I don’t remember what else she or the Roxie girl or the twelve-year-old do to me. I don’t remember having my right ear reshaped, or my nose reset, or color fused into my lips by some weird kind of gun-shaped mechanism. Even though Helena claims otherwise, I don’t remember choosing Icecap Blue for my eyes.

“And now, girl, meet Winter!” Helena’s guided me over to the first mirror I’ve seen since my Raising. The maybe-twenty-year-old face in the mirror is one I should probably recognize since it’s my own, but I don’t. She has eyes like arctic pools. Hair that falls like a soft mist, veiling half her face. Her skin is a sea of satin. Her nails are little polished glass shards. Her lips, a subtle pink, with cheeks gently blushed the same. The person in the mirror is a person I do not know.

“What do you think?” the large woman asks me, obviously proud of her work. “Can you live with this?”

My left hand falls off.

“Roxie!” the large woman yelps. “Adhesive, honey! Proper, level-four-grade adhesive!—I do swear!”

A lot of shuffling, a slight shove from my left side, and I’m whole again. I wiggle my fingers and they seem to work. For how long, who knows.

“Should we try another blush?—another eye color?” the large-in-charge offers sweetly. “We have enough time before our next appointment.”

“This is fine,” I say, defeated somehow. “Icecap Blue is fine. My name is fine. Whatever.”

Winter. I didn’t even choose my own name.

And so this is where Winter was born, and how. Whoever she is.

Then I’m given a tour of where I’ll live for the rest of forever. The heart of the city is the Town Square, surrounded by rings of streets that hold businesses, stores, tall apartment complexes. It’s all very downtown. Then on the outskirts of the city you’ll find clusters of trailers, shacks and little houses. One of them is mine, apparently.

Helena tells me living here is entirely free. No bills or rent will ever be collected because, in her words, “money is a bother.” Consequently, no one is required to work or hold a job, even though many do. Some people form pretend-families with one another, maybe for comfort, maybe for fun. Fun, they call this.

Oh, and yes, there are children here. A short girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, lives somewhere among my circle of houses with another lady who pretends to be her mother. This is all very normal and accepted. The girl has long black braided hair and Helena tells me I’ll be happy to meet her someday. I would never wish this on a child, but I guess I didn’t have a choice either.

Trying for some levity, I ask where all the stray city cats are. Helena replies, "What's a cat?" I ask her, where are all the birds in the sky. She’s like, “What’s a bird?”

I think maybe she’s joking, but it occurs to me that every tree I’ve seen is dead. Every blade of grass, a browned, yellowed, or otherwise lifeless fleck of paper it may as well be. Litter is all it is, the remnants of a world that once thrived, now so very unalive.

To my surprise, she tells me there is electricity, but nothing seems to work very well. Especially when we draw near anything electrical. She wouldn't elaborate further. Oh, and she says there's running water more or less, but it isn't good for our kind. I ask what she means and she says, “Think, like magnets of opposing poles. Whatever you might call natural, we are its opposite.”

What a comfort she is, this Helena person.

Breathing and eating and dieting and exercising and taking vitamins and rubbing age-defying creams all over ourselves ... that’s all so obsolete now. It’s unnecessary to maintain our dead selves. So last-season, says Helena, the idea of dieticians and trainers and doctors.

"But if you absolutely need one," she says, pointing down the street, "there's a clever pair of men who run a gym. One of them had their Waking not too long ago, discovered he was a bodybuilder in his Old Life. The other was a surgeon—his name is Collin. So depressed he became, when he realized all his knowledge of health is for naught in this dark new world … Darling, please pretend to have a heart attack at some point, or perhaps a little summer cold. Indigestion. A rash. He would so very much appreciate the attention, even if it’s not real.”

Life was so unnecessarily difficult. Only here in death, she explains, is anyone truly at peace.

Sorry Helena, I feel anything but peaceful. It must show on my face because she looks particularly annoyed as she presents me to a cluster of houses at the west edge of town. “This one,” she says with a little nod, “is yours.”

And then we’re standing on its creaky little porch. I peer around, afraid to touch anything. It all looks so old.

“You can try to smile,” Helena suggests stiffly. She puts a calming hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off. “You should rest,” she tells me, peeved a bit by my rudeness. “When you wake, you’ll see how happy we are. You have no Earthly burdens anymore. Like a job, or a husband, or a family, or—”

“How’s that mean anything to me,” I argue, “if I don’t even remember the family or husband or job I might’ve had? What if—What if I was happy with my life?”

“Oh, please,” she snaps, her whole tone going sour. “Who in their right mind would turn down an eternity where you own a house, no responsibility, no bills to pay, and enjoy endless time to do whatever it is you desire? Seriously, girl, open your cold dead eyes.”

I return her tirade with a blank stare. I’m silent as the so-called heart housed in my chest somewhere ... the one that doesn’t pump blood, cold as a stone, no purpose being there at all as far as I’m concerned.

Seeing my forlorn expression, she huffs irritably and says, “Have it your way. Enjoy the scenery of Trenton, your new hometown, or don’t. Meet some people or keep entirely to yourself. Return to your grave and rot, I haven’t a care. My task here is done.” She turns away and descends the porch steps in her clicking jet-black heels.

“Your task?”

Without missing a step or turning back, strutting away she calls out, “You may someday be chosen, miss Winter, and you’ll be made to do your first Raising whether you like it or not. Then you’ll know the pain of bringing a sniveling ungrateful girl into this wonderful world. It’s like childbirth, but infinitely more regrettable.”

Her black locks of hair swinging, she disappears into the misty city.

I drop into a rocking chair, thankful it’s there to catch me. Had it not been, I would’ve fallen clean to the ground. Not that it matters. At this rate, I might as well drop dead into a hole. Words don’t fool me … Undead is still dead. There is no convincing me otherwise. I’ve kissed Life goodbye without a flinch of my cold dead lips.

Sniveling ungrateful girl, she called me.

I look out from the porch of my forever-home, only to witness two people break into dance in the middle of the street for no reason. Maybe I should smile, but the sight of them annoys the hell out of me. I look away and see three middle-aged women taking a calm stroll together. If I take for granted that all of this may actually be happening to me, that I may truly be Undead, that this world is really the world I’m to live in for the rest of time, maybe longer, then I must realize that all these crazy people are my new forever-neighbors, in my new forever-neighborhood. Trenton, she called it. My new forever-home.

The place I now live. Forever.

I don’t remember entering the little house I was told is mine, but I’m relieved to find it in better condition on the inside than it appeared on the out. The front den opens to a small kitchen area that I’ll supposedly never use. Why it’s there, I’ll never know. A cockroach scuttles across the floor, disappears into a crack in the wall. That must be my roommate, a fellow survivor of the end of the world. Further in, a short hallway opens into a quaint bathroom on one side and a bedroom on the other. And there you have it. In less than thirty seconds, I’ve given myself a tour of the place I’ll spend the rest of forever.

Welcome to your new, roomier coffin. Comes with a kitchen.

I suppose that’s what inspires me to run. From the house I bolt, not knowing where I’m headed. This dress I was put in, it snags on the door as I flee, the sleeve torn straight off. This hair of mine that was cured from the earth, white as winter, it bustles behind me like a cape. My reconstructed legs thrust forward, to where, who cares. From the house I would live in forever, the town I would live in forever. From this strange new life, from my Icecap eyes, my death I can’t remember, my beautiful life, I just run, run, run.

I run until there’s no town around me anymore, until there’s no person or soul or breath in sight, until even the dead trees have fallen scarce, and before me only a cliff’s edge grows closer.

That’s when I stop running.

At the edge of the cliff.

I peer down into the misty valley below which looks nothing like a valley at all. It’s as though this place, the deadwood forest, the town, as though it were aloft in the clouds somewhere. The mist down below, perhaps that’s the planet from which I’d died.

YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.

I’m going to jump. That sounds like a brilliant idea. I lean over the precipice. All I see is a world of mist below, a world below the mist where maybe I lived a life.

The. Only. One. Left. To. Blame. Is. You.

I’m going to do this. I close my eyes.

“It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?”

I spin, startled by the voice, but my foot has already slipped and I fall—then catch the edge of the cliff with my hands, clinging on for life, hanging on for death.

The person emerges over the brink of the cliff. His pale face peers down at me as I hang from the edge, my legs dangling, far below me the mists of unknown, far below me where my second death waits patiently.

“Can I help you?” he offers kindly.

His face is handsome and gentle. Of course I’d notice something like that at a time like this.

“I don’t want to be helped,” I cry out, breathless.

“Then why are you hanging on at all? Let go.”

He’s my age—I assume—with short black hair cutting partway down his forehead. I must’ve had the fashion eye when I was alive, or else the Refinery girls already rubbed off on me, because I notice he’s garbed in a fitted black button-down and slim jeans, clean, well-dressed and sleek. He smiles when our eyes meet, lighting up his whole tortured, dark demeanor. I even see blush in his cheeks, as though blood actually flows through his veins, just as it totally doesn’t in mine, such a liar even a cheek can be.

“This is the first day of my life,” I explain.

“Careful,” he warns me very seriously. “It’s a crime here to count days.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, then realize at the sight of his chuckling eyes that he’s teasing me. Or maybe not, I can’t tell. Dead people aren’t the easiest to read. “What’s it matter, anyway? What’s the point of all this …?”

“Many people have come to this cliff,” he admits, looking off into the mist, pensive. “Many have also, like you, considered throwing away this opportunity.”

“Opportunity??” I blurt out, while simultaneously marveling at how light my body is … how easy it is to just hang here from this precipice, just as easily as I could let go. Is strength another quality that accompanies this new body? Or is it that I now weigh less than a person?

What does that say?

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “Let me help you up and I’ll give you a kiss.”

“That’s your offer?”

“Yes.”

I fully realize I can pull myself up. Somehow, hanging effortlessly as I am, I know I can do it without his help.

Or his kiss. “You need to offer more than that,” I tell him, my eyes narrowing. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this. Why am I here? Wasn’t I—Wasn’t I peaceful enough, happy enough being left dead and in the ground where I belong?”

“You tell me,” he says teasingly, that snarky smile curling his cheeks into dimples again.

I hate that cute, snarky smile. “What will happen if I let go? Will I die? Can the dead die again?”

“No,” he admits with a hint of sadness in his voice. “If you must know, you’ll likely have a hard landing on the rock lands below, and your body will break into pieces. Shatter. Like a statue. Or a mannequin. A very pretty mannequin,” he adds. I look away, annoyed. “And you will remain alive, mostly in your head. The rest of you won’t be animated anymore, as I understand it.”

I regret asking. I sorely, sorely regret asking.

“Or you could let me help you,” he goes on, “and I could show you the town. Show you what you have in your Final Life. If still you’re not convinced, feel free to jump into the sky.” And he extends his hand.

Helena’s last words resonate with me, that I was a “task” for her, and someday I may be chosen to Raise my own poor soul into this world. Not to mention that some unassuming moment, I may recover all my lost memory at once. Snap, it’ll all come back, shocking me like an “unwelcome enemy” ... and I wonder if the anger and unhappiness I’m harboring is just my Old Life locked away in my skeleton somewhere—a prisoner. Maybe it’s something that, if I remembered it, I would be glad I was freed from. Maybe this new life is something I’d secretly begged for, wished for. Maybe I really am ungrateful.

Or maybe I’ll never remember the person I was.

Maybe she’s gone forever.

“Okay,” I agree emptily, taking his hand.

In one short little effort, I’m standing on the edge of the cliff again, no longer hanging on for dear death. I look into the eyes of the person who saved me from a certain shattering—or postponed a certain shattering.

“You look better on your feet,” he tells me.

He doesn’t kiss me. I don’t ask his name and he doesn’t ask mine, not now. We just cross the sandy plains together and on through a range of dead trees, making our way back to my new hometown Trenton.

I’m not sure what to talk about. What do you say to the person who just saved you from kinda-not-really dying? “Is it always so overcast?” I ask, deciding to point out the eerie silver wash that is the sky.

“Has to do with our eyes,” he explains, stepping over a tree branch. “Undead don’t regard darkness the same way the Living do. Something about being stuck in the End of Time, I guess. But hey, listen, if you squint real good, you can make out a sharp spot in the sky, slightly more silver than the rest ... That’s the sun.”

“Oh.” I look up. All I see is grey and grey and grey.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re keeping track of days.” He smiles again, warm, welcoming. “I’m not the police or the Deathless King, so help me.”

“We have police in this world?—and a King?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“How are we alive?” I can’t stop the questions … They just pour out. “How are we carrying on without heartbeats or blood or—or anything?”

“How did we carry on with them?”

I sigh. “Please, is there a single concrete thing you can tell me about this world? Something useful? Anything?”

“Yes. My name’s Grimsky.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m Winter, I guess.”

His expression breaks at the obvious dejection in my voice. “Winter … The name they gave you. I understand. Someday you’ll remember your original name, though by then I’m certain you’ll not identify with it in the least. You have beautiful hair.”

The compliment comes so suddenly, I have to cover my face with a hand, like I’m blushing. Reminding myself that nothing runs in my veins, I drop the hand and say, “Thanks.”

“We’ve arrived.”

The tall iron gates of Trenton loom ahead, awaiting my timely arrival from the cliff for which it surely knew I’d be headed, at which it surely knew I’d meet this fetching person called Grimsky, by whom it surely knew I would be somewhat saved, and with whom it surely knew I’d once again return.

Now if only I can keep from killing myself again.

Chapter Two:
Dead

I guess like most things in this new world, including eye color and flesh complexion and whether or not you’re dead, you just have to fake it.

I can’t tell time here. Silvery grey-o’clock, that’s what time it is. Bleak, that’s the day of the week.

My fellow roommate cockroach scuttles up the wall. With a disgusted shudder, I decide it’s time to get out of the house for the first time since my return to Trenton. The porch shudders too, so unused to carrying weight I suppose. Each step down them, a yawning of dead wood.

Walking the dirt-lined street to the heart of the city, I allow myself a smile. I’m determined to like this new life, whether I like it or not.

Maybe someone at the bazaar carries roach spray.

The Town Square turns out to be a decent walk from my neighborhood. A stage sits in the middle of the plaza surrounded by boarded-up storefronts that all look closed but aren’t. Men and women bustle about with their days, shopping, conversing. A kid barters with a bothered old man over the worth of an antique from the twenty-first century.

At the next city block, I encounter a long and narrow schoolyard full of kids. Class must be dismissed because the teenagers are gathered in little clusters outside. I’m struck for a moment by how … normal everything seems. As I watch the teens chat and laugh with each other, zipping up backpacks, sharing notes and gossiping, I forget for a while where I am. It’s nice, being captured by something so simple, so uncomplicated. I forget that I’m dead. I forget that all these kids are dead too.

“I’ve never seen you before.”

A plump, short teenage girl with spiky brown hair and an eyepatch stands before me, a pink backpack hanging from her shoulder and a thick scarf coiled about her neck.

“I’m new here,” I explain.

“You seem a bit old to attend school.”

“I meant to Trenton. I’m not … I’m not in school.”

She studies my face for a second. “I’m seventeen, but I’ve been attending this school for a decade. If I were alive, I’d probably be married and knocked up in my thirties by now.”

I blink, dazed by her bluntness. I have to remind myself that in this world, even age is a lie. And to think, I was just enjoying how normal everything felt. I didn’t realize how fleeting that moment would be, else I might’ve appreciated it a tad more.

“My name’s Winter.”

“Mine’s Summer. Just kidding, it’s Ann.” She smiles, her teeth sparkling with the shimmer of braces. I try to smile back, it probably falls flat. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to fake nothing around me. I wasn’t thrilled when I woke up in this place a decade ago either.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“This place isn’t all that bad. Look at it like a long holiday weekend … There’s no work, and Monday is forever, forever, forever away. The only thing you come to miss is the sun.” She holds a hand up, peers into the sky. “I hope your favorite color is grey.”

Quietly, I ask, “Why can’t we see the sun?” For some reason or another, I’m embarrassed to ask the question. I feel like a child asking her mother about the world. Why’s the sky blue. How are babies made.

“Science wasn’t my thing when I was alive, neither now that I’m dead.” She shrugs, her backpack making jangling noises. “Undead, whatever. Hey, look on the bright side. You’ll never get sick or age. You don’t gotta eat anymore either.”

“But I liked eating … I think.”

She squints at me. “You want in on something fun?”

“Fun?”

“Follow me.”

Assuming there wasn’t anything I planned to do with my day anyway—if I can bother telling where it ends or begins—I follow her across the street and down an alley. After a few turns (and passing several shady-looking faces) we arrive at the back of a building where several other teenagers are gathered. They’re arranged in a big circle and appear to be kicking an oddly-shaped soccer ball back and forth among them.

“Sporty,” I remark. “Are we supposed to join in?”

“Not on your first time,” Ann whispers back.

One of the teenagers, a chubby boy wearing a thick striped scarf of his own, glances back at us. “She cool?” he grunts at Ann, who just shrugs. “Alright.”

It isn’t until I’m closer that I realize the ball isn’t a ball.

“What the hell?” I blurt. “That’s someone’s—”

“Isn’t it genius?” Ann leans into me. “Just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. Hey, but if you want to be part of the Heads, you can’t tell anyone about what you see here. It’s, well … more or less breaking every Trenton law.”

“We have laws?”

The soccer ball—I mean, the head—calls out “I’m done! I’m done!” and one of the teens kicks the head into the air, catches it, then helps return it to the person to whom it belonged—a girl I hadn’t noticed who was standing there without a head the whole time. Two kids holding the body up, another friend helps snap her back together. I see she’s a sweet thing with freckles and two blonde ponytails. Yes, that really did just happen. I’m watching this happen.

“You know we don’t feel pain,” Ann reminds me, probably noting the shocked expression on my face. “So it’s just a little way for us to blow off steam. Not everyone in this town is overjoyed at being—whatever we are.”

Another kid, tall and gangly, excitedly volunteers to be next, unwrapping the black scarf around his neck, revealing a less-than-sightly fracture—where he’d clearly removed his head for a past game, I presume—and proceeds to decapitate himself.

I look away. “So … that’s what’s with the scarves …”

“Every town needs its misguided youth, I reckon.” Ann grins. “The law’s trying to kill us over and over. Pretending we’re still alive, like we still eat and bleed and have pulses. We know better.” She prods me with a bony elbow. “Still angry about the whole being-dead thing?”

“I wasn’t angry,” I murmur, finding myself helplessly distracted by the boy’s head as it gets footed and bumped around by the circle of teens. It’s like I can’t not watch.

The joy in their eyes … This is what we’ve come to.

And then I can’t watch. I turn without remark and backtrack my way out of the alleys to the main street. I make it to the curb, breathing and attempting to regain my composure. It isn’t until after five or six breaths that I remind myself how very unnecessary it is for me to breathe at all. How capable I am of just standing here, doing nothing to sustain my consciousness. How capable I am of just twisting off my own head.

Why did I bother letting Grimsky pull me from that cliff? I’d be better off in a million pieces at its foot. Why bother with any of this at all?—Wasn’t one death enough?

“Not your thing, I get it.” Ann has caught up to me, speaking to my back. “I misjudged you. Thought you were bored and needed a little fun.”

“I need a pulse.” I clench my eyes and chew on my teeth. “I need to blush when I’m embarrassed. I need … I need to remember who I was!” I crouch down, unable to stand anymore. “I want to know my name!”

“It’s Winter.”

“My real name!”

Ann sits down on the curb next to me. “I went through this too. Before I had my Life Dream, I was furious about what I’d lost … Whatever memories, whatever friends and family, I was furious it was gone. But I don’t think you’d miss it as much if you knew what it was. No one ever misses their Old Life.”

“I miss seeing the sky. I miss feeling my heart race, I know that much.” My lips purse together. I can’t control how angry this is making me and for some reason I don’t care to hide it. “A fall from a cliff should kill us … It just isn’t natural that it can’t.”

“It’s really too bad. I was hoping you’d play with us. Such a shame, you have a nice neck too.” Ann sighs. “Maybe they’ll let me graduate this year. I have eight high school diplomas at home, wanna see?”

“Another time.” I put my head between my knees. It’s the strangest sensation, knowing I can’t actually feel anything like nausea or weakness or whatever, but my mind is telling me I should.

“Another time,” Ann agrees. “See me when you have a free day. I live in the fourth quarter, west end.”

“Wherever that is,” I remark sulkily.

She stands, adjusts the backpack on her shoulder. “I should get home before my mom starts to worry.”

“Your real mom?” I ask acidly, without caring how insensitive that might sound.

She just shrugs, unoffended. “What’s a real mom, anyway?” Then, with half a smile, she’s on her way down the road.

I watch her for a while, not sure how to feel. I want to cry, but know full-well that isn’t possible. On the bright side, I guess that makes one friend I’ve successfully found. Ann, a teenager who’s been seventeen for at least the last ten years and who, for fun, pulls off her head and plays soccer with a group of law-breaking teens. My Second Life is so purposeful and fulfilling now.

I take a short glance at the sky, noting it’s still silver-o’clock. I could get used to grey.

I spend a lot more time on the curb just watching people go by … Groups of suited men, pairs of teenagers dismissed from school, young couples in love, a lady with a cart full of candlesticks, three tall men laughing about something that happened at the factory … After a while, things start to feel a little normal again. I’m almost convinced that I’m alive, just sitting on the curb of some town I’m visiting, people-watching, some nice afternoon.

Until I remind myself I can pull off my arm.

“Dear!” cries an old lady, clutching her face. “You’ve had an accident!”

I glance to my left, as though noticing a fly on my shoulder, only to realize I’ve indeed just pulled off my left arm with my right.

“To the Refinery, you must!” the old lady urges me, throwing a shawl over my back as though attempting to hide me from the onlookers. “We must fix that at once!”

Yes, I pulled off my own arm. No, I don’t care. The old lady hurriedly leading me back to the Refinery, I’m not even upset about this stupid Second Life anymore. I’m not angry about my stupid pulse that isn’t there, or the unfunctioning pointless parts inside me. The fact that I barely felt my arm come off, that something that grotesque has no more an effect than a fly landing on my skin … That’s what kills me.

Back on the work table with the large woman who created me not so long ago, she’s sewing my arm back on when she whispers, “Death is such a blameless chore!”

The. Only. One. Left. To. Blame. Is. You.

When I’m ushered out of the squatty pink building, rubbing my arm with the stupid illusion that it’s sore after a tiring surgery, I honestly debate pulling it right back off. Here, you can give this to someone else—I don’t need it. That’s what I’d tell the large refinery lady. I’d mean it too. I’d give everything back, my legs, my empty lungs, my icy eyes, every useless piece. Maybe I was an organ donor when I was alive. Maybe I’ll be one in death too.

“You look lost.”

I look up. I can’t believe it. My eyes are met by the one and only Grimsky, the man who saved me from the cliff. He leans on a dead tree that hangs over a long stone bench. Of course I’d run into him, of all the hundreds of people to encounter in this city. Just seeing his sweet smile warms me instantly, makes me forget about all those stupid things, makes me forget how I just tore off my own arm. “Lost as ever,” I admit in many ways.

He steps away from the tree. I see his thick brooding eyebrows, his porcelain skin. A few steps closer, he smiles again and says, “Need help getting home? I realized the other day that you live really close to me.”

I find in staring at his smile that I rather like it, the way the corners of his long lips create dimples in his smooth pale skin. I almost reflect his smile, unable to help myself. “I think I already miss eating,” I confess quietly.

“Hey, we can still drink,” he points out, cocking his head to the side. “Sometime we could have one together. There’s a lovely tavern in the strip, just up the road.”

Looking into his soft, forever-welcoming eyes, I wonder if I’ve been looking at all of this wrong. If I have no memory, then there’s nothing to mourn. Nothing to miss … No family, husband, lover, like Helena said.

I put on a smile. “When I’m ready, I’ll be happy to take you up on that drink offer.”

“We have all the days of the world for you to get ready, Winter.” He grins. “Welcome to the End of Time.”

His voice is like ... coffee creamer. I don’t know what that means. It’s raspy, but flows like silk off his tongue. Maybe he was an actor when he lived, or an orator. Perhaps a poet. That feels the best, calling him a poet.

“Do you like poetry?” I ask him.

His face narrows for one perplexed moment. “I do.”

And with that, I agree to let him escort me to my quarter, which I learn is the first, west end. We carry on with small talk where I make quite sure not to ask too many questions regarding my New Life. I don’t want to talk about those things … Worrisome thoughts about what’s different, what’s lost, what’s never to be again. Instead, I want to feel normal for a while. I want to forget where I am, and assume that I’m on a very long vacation and have run into a nice, attractive man with which I’m enjoying a simple conversation.

It helps.

When we walk past a restaurant, I have to stop and laugh. A restaurant, when we don’t eat and have no need for food. I ask to go inside, curiosity taking the better of me, and we seat ourselves at a table in the back. Idly wondering why anyone eats or drinks, I come to the conclusion that everything in this world is indulgent. People drink not from thirst or necessity—they do it just because they can. Same with eating. They pretend, like they’re replaying their lives. I wonder if they miss the people they used to be … If they even remember them.

Finally we make it back to the cul-de-sac. There’s my little squeaky house, just as I’d left it. I have no idea how long I was out and it doesn’t matter. Time has no relevance anymore.

I wonder if it ever did, even when I was alive.

Grimsky has a curious reaction. “This is your house?” When I nod, he bursts out laughing, then says, “So you’re my new neighbor??”

I blink. “New neighbor?”

“That’s my house,” he says, pointing. “Right there.”

I stare at the house right next to mine. I’ve not been very observant, clearly. Until now, I hadn’t a moment to notice that, of all people, it was my cliff-savior friend who lived just next door.

“What are the chances,” I say, genuinely surprised. “On that first day when you brought me back, we parted ways before reaching my house. Otherwise we would’ve learned we were neighbors sooner.”

“Better now than never. I wouldn’t have made a good neighbor if I let you sit in that house for all eternity.”

I smirk at him. “Either this is a pretty remarkable coincidence, or you’re a not-so-subtle stalker.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I moved in next door so I could make sure you don’t run off to the cliff again.” He laughs. I try not to, hiding my face. “So tell me, did you enjoy your tour of Trenton today? I would’ve taken you earlier, but you seemed a little ... ah ...”

“I’m still adjusting,” I explain, excusing him from having to describe my clearly sulky and despondent nature. “The people are … interesting. Though I haven’t much else to compare it to, come to think of it.”

“There’s plenty to compare it to,” he says. “There’s a lot more out there you haven’t yet seen, Winter. Places left behind by humankind. I can’t wait to show it to you someday. The world’s changed since we were alive—whenever that was.”

I sit in the rocking chair on my porch, which creaks under my weight. “So what happened …? Did the zombie apocalypse come and go and the zombies won?”

“There are nice things out there, and some not-so-nice.” He grimaces. “I’ve only heard about a few things myself, the Deathless for one, but don’t know much about anything. As far as I understand, we’re safe here to live long and happy lives.”

“Seems like a big waste of time, doesn’t it?”

“Wasn’t Life?” He leans on the porch railing. “Not that either of us know yet. I still haven’t had my Waking Dream. I don’t know what my life was like at all ...”

“Me neither.” I pick at something on my hand. An entire fingernail comes off. “Oh, crap.”

“It’s okay. That’s what we have the Refinery for. Upkeep. This guy down the street, his toes keep falling off. He makes a trip to the Refinery once a week, not that I’m keeping track.”

“That’s ... awful.”

“Be thankful you were Raised with all your body intact. I hear some needed arms and legs when they were Raised … Can you imagine??”

“I’d rather not.”

Grimsky smiles, looks away. “I guess I’m going a bit fast for you, aren’t I ...”

I shrug. “What’s it matter? We only have all eternity. To do what, I have no earthly idea. I guess I’ll figure it out. Welcome to the End of Time, you said so yourself.”

I do realize I’m being a little short with him. Maybe my patience has been exhausted for the day.

“I’ve been Undead for five months and twenty-eight days,” he tells me in a quiet voice, like a secret. “There, I announced my age. How’s that for criminal?”

Despite the anger, I break a smile.

But no matter the kind words we share, I can’t lighten the heavy stone in my chest. Later in the evening when the sun has apparently fallen, according to Grimsky’s keen eye, I walk the inside of my house one hundred times. Staring miserably into the bathroom mirror, I find that smooth porcelain face that isn’t mine. The curl of my eyelashes, it’s fake. The striking blue crystals I have for eyes, they’re fake. Icecap Blue or Cerulean or Moonglow Azure, I don’t really care. I never did. Call me Winter. Call me Summer. Call me the Devil’s Doornail, I’m still a dead girl underneath. Even the subtle pink blush in my cheeks is a lie, pressed onto me, injected into me, just to hide the fact that I’m dead. That we’re all dead. That underneath all this prettiness, there lies corpses. Underneath our flawless complexions, fettering flesh that belongs in the earth.

I clench shut my eyes and try to remember my life.

I loathe what’s happened to me. Every cell in my body pulses with resentment so powerful, so vile, so passionate that I may as well be alive right now. But I’m not, and that is the greatest anger of all.

I want to be alive. So badly, I want nerves to pinch every inch of my skin. Blood should rush through me at the sight of the fetching Grimsky, my heart racing in his presence. What thrill would it be to even kiss him, if I haven’t a heart that races? Or blood to pump into my fingertips?—into my lips? I want my knees to turn into noodles, is that too much to ask? I want hairs on my neck that will stand on end when I’m frightened, when I’m tickled, when I’m turned on.

Maybe all Undead feel like this at first. Maybe they all ache and long for their senses, but I don’t care.

I want to be so hungry it aches. I want to fall in love so deeply it makes you squeeze a pillow in the middle of the day and cry. I don’t remember a second of my Old Life, but I know what it felt like to get ready for Prom. Like a friend I’d let go of centuries ago, I want it back, every good sensation and even every bad. I know the agony of stubbing your toe on a chair leg.

I’d do almost anything.

Weeks slowly, slowly, slowly pass. I’m growing used to Trenton. I even spot Helena a number of times, but she always seems preoccupied with something, and whatever it is always looks to be such a bother that she can’t possibly turn around and notice me. I tell myself she isn’t doing that deliberately.

One day, I run into two of the girls from the Refinery, the one called Roxie and the plump one who reattached my right arm recently. Her name turns out to be Marigold, like the flower or whatever. She always waves cheerily at me. There’s a group of men who always sit outside a furniture store playing cards. They’re pretty friendly, always seeming to interrupt their game just to say hi to me when I’m passing. I pretend not to notice them ogle me from behind as I walk away. I guess I don’t mind the attention. It’s more entertaining than anything else, seeing as what they’re ogling isn’t the real me. It’s Winter. The real me died however long ago, and I may never know who she is until I have my Waking Dream, or Death Dream, or whatever we feel like calling it today.

They say once you have your Dream, everything changes. With the memory of your Old Life suddenly assaulting you, everything is put into vivid and horrifying perspective. Most people, like Helena said, just toss their Old Life behind them, say good riddance and move on. Only a few can’t handle it. They seek help or go insane.

There’s a wise older lady named Jasmine who lives across from me. I took many of my difficult questions to her, ones I couldn’t ask just anyone. She was very kind to attempt answering the most of them, one of them being: When will I have my Dream thing?

Another: Is it true there’s no more Livings, anywhere?

Livings is what they call people who are alive, just in case that wasn’t obvious. Some more derogatory terms include Breathers, or Fleshes, or Rosy Cheeks (seriously), or ... and I regret to say this last one ... Humans.

I asked, “But aren’t we Human?”

My neighbor Jasmine, she just smiled endearingly and said, “Oh, poor child ...”

Undead. Gotta remember that for my next job résumé. Name: Winter. Gender: Female. Race: Undead.

It must be a month and a half since my Raising, and I lean over the railing to spy on my favorite neighbor’s book. He pulls it away, grinning. “Get your own copy!”

“Hi, Grim.” I smile at him. “You never did get me that drink at the tavern.”

“I’m never good at making a first move,” he admits coyly. “Can I call this a date?”

“Call it what you want. I’ll be in town browsing Hilda’s new line of dresses. Maybe I’ll pick something up and meet you at the tavern?”

And so it’s a date. Just like that.

Down at the Singing Seamstress, which is Hilda’s little dress shop downtown, I find myself a sleek little red thing that, according to three giggly women, looks simply perfect. “You’d stop hearts if they weren’t already!” one murmurs, inspiring breathy chortles from her friends.

I guess I have myself a winner. “What do I owe you for the dress?” I ask Hilda at the door.

“Every detail about how your date goes, including how he looks at you in that splendid red thing,” she says, her giggling eyes overjoyed at seeing me in her creation.

I take a spin in front of a mirror. I look like someone else, but maybe she’s a little more familiar to me now. Maybe I hate her a little less than I did on my first day.

Maybe Winter’s growing on me.

When I arrive at the tavern, it’s already bustling with activity from drunken men and women, cackling over tabletops and stumbling around the bar spilling drinks everywhere. I smile and nod at a few familiar faces, all of whom seem to regard me like some sort of celebrity. This little red dress is really doing the trick, it seems. I wonder what effect it’ll have on my fetching maybe-poet friend.

Seated at a table, I wait for said fetching friend to arrive. Every person that comes into the tavern isn’t him. I’d check a clock but, you know, there isn’t one. Telling time in any way is forbidden or whatever. Makes for planning things—like a date—a little troublesome.

Honestly, I’d kill for a watch right now.

After a while, I slip into the women’s bathroom—a tight-spaced little box—and poke at my face in the mirror, deciding I could use a little touchup. I pull out a small Living Red lipstick that Marigold gave me one day. It’s for your Upkeep, she told me in secret. I rub a little of it on my lips, air-kiss my reflection like an actress. I can play this role, this Winter role. A sultry seductress who wins the unbeating hearts of zombies everywhere. Oh, excuse me, I said the horrible awful word. I meant Undead.

I ask my reflection, my living dead reflection, “Can we do this?—for the rest of eternity, can we do this?”

Then I hear a shriek in the tavern and something crashes against the bathroom door. I jump, whip around to face the noise. I hear another scream followed by what sounds like a bottle shattering. Someone with a deep voice shouts out a bunch of things I can’t make out. There is a lot of shuffling on the wooden floor, vibrating even the soles of my own feet.

A bar fight. Yes, that’s all I need. A bunch of intoxicated Undead men fighting to prove each other’s manhood. I’d never considered whether Undead men could even get intoxicated until now. Maybe they pretend, just like they pretend everything else. Clinging to the memory of a bar fight they experienced when they were alive. Let’s recreate it. Let’s relive it.

The Living Dead world, you come to learn, is just a bunch of actors, and a regretfully bad show of acting. Maybe life was like that too. Actors, playing the role of themselves. Life’s greatest contradiction is also death’s.

Closed up here in this tiny bathroom, I just shut my eyes and wait for the show to end. The shouting, the scuffle and kicking of feet against floor, the crashing and smashing of bottles, I just shut my eyes and wait it out like I would an annoying person I wish would shut up.

Thoughts entangle me like a web. I find myself staring at my face in the mirror, puzzled, captivated by … I’m not sure … Am I remembering something?

Am I remembering me?

Then without warning, a young man quickly slips into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, pressing his body flat against it.

I wasn’t expecting this.

His panicked eyes, his warm brown eyes, they find mine—and horror fills them at once. Why he has this reaction at seeing me, I don’t know.

“You’re in the ladies,” I decide to tell him.

He puts a finger to his lips, signaling that I should be quiet. His hand is trembling.

“What’s so—?” I start to ask, but his other hand goes to my mouth, silencing me at once.

His soft, warm hand.

The violent throws of bodies and glass continues for what feels like several minutes, and then instantly falls silent. A single pair of footsteps crosses the tavern floor as though pacing, one end of the tavern to the other, back and forth.

The man holding his warm hand to my mouth, I notice how strong his arms look. His broad shoulders from which the arms come. His face reflects a warmth that stirs something deep in me, something I’d assumed was lost. His five-o’clock-shadowed rosy cheeks, I’m shocked that any miracle from the squatty pink Refinery could replicate them. Or his lush lips. A noteworthy job they did on this rugged man I have to admit, even despite the odd circumstance. His soft watery eyes are more aware than any I’ve seen yet. I watch his forehead screw up in concentration as he silently presses an ear to the door, listening with all his body.

Slowly, the steps approach us. This guy’s grip on my mouth tightens so much, I have to bring my own hand up to meet his. He seems to be holding his breath, squeezing his eyes shut like he’s in pain. The mystery walker stops just short of the door, then waits there as though he is listening too. An eternity seems to pass before finally, the footsteps slowly draw away, growing fainter, fainter, then gone at last.

He finally lets go of my mouth and whispers his first words: “Are you going to eat me?”

Not the sweetest first words I’ve heard. “What?”

“Are you going to eat me?” he asks again.

“Seriously?”

After studying my face doubtfully for a while, he seems to relax. “Okay, then.”

And without further explanation, he swings open the door and peers outside. Deciding the coast is clear I guess, he steps out of the bathroom. When I reluctantly follow, I find the tavern littered with skulls and bones of the bodies it once peacefully occupied. None of them stir. This must be part of the big pretend-scene—the part where they all lay in a mess, knocked out by one bottle or another, done in by someone’s wildly swinging fist. Skulls and bones, an unsettling but impressive touch. Among them, shattered glasses and spilled pools of waste decorate the scene.

This is an impressively disturbing tableau of undeath. I’m genuinely taken aback by its … horror.

“Is everyone okay?” I ask carelessly, looking around. “A little bit overdone, don’t you think?—this scene? I didn’t know the dead could die. Seems silly, the thought.” I blink. “So … Anyone getting up anytime soon?”

“No,” the young man murmurs, quickly locking the front door of the tavern—no idea why—then whipping over to the bar counter and inspecting it, looking for something.

“Is this normal? Bar fights? Is this what I have to look forward to for all eternity?”

“No,” he mumbles again, agitated, opening cabinets, rummaging through drawers.

“I’m Winter. That’s the name they gave me.” I watch him scavenge through every drawer behind the counter, curious. “What’s the name they gave you?”

“No,” he says, slams something shut, tears open another cabinet, a vein jutting out of his forehead with his face scrunched up in frustration. “Not a drop of anything, anywhere. Not even—Not even—”

“What are you looking for? Wait,” I say, listening carefully. “Do you hear that?”

He stops his hunting and stares at me now. I meet his eyes, pointing up at the ceiling where I think the sound is coming from. “Do you hear that? It’s like ... a gentle drum.”

“No,” he whispers, the sound barely making it from his lips this time. “I hear nothing.”

“Do you think whoever it was that started this is coming back? It sounds like footsteps, or some kind of drum, or ... Wow, I can’t believe you can’t hear that. Just listen ...”

I draw closer to him, thinking the noise is coming from the counter. Then I cross around the counter and notice him stepping away from me.

“Wait,” I tell him. “Just listen … Listen.”

His back is pressed against the wall. Before I realize how closely I’ve come in pursuit of the strange sound, I’m standing right in front of him.

Then I hear it, clear as a spoken word. A thumping. A drumming.

The horror returns to his eyes. Thumping. Thumping.

Drumming. Within him.

A heartbeat.

<> <> <>

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Table of Contents

OTHER WORK by Daryl Banner

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Epilogue

DORM GAME (Full Novella)

STRAIGHT UP (Full Novella)

FOOTBALL SUNDAE (Sample Chapter)

READ MY LIPS (Sample Chapter)

OUTLIER: REBELLION (Sample Chapters)

THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD (Sample Chapters)