“I-I don’t know,” he stammered. “I don’t know what’s happening right now.”
I raised my voice. “Gary thought you were single. You’re not. He is, in fact, deluded, and he needs to take a fucking hint and leave us alone.” The final part of my sentence came out as a growl, feeling Gary’s slimy presence still right behind me.
“We should kiss again.” Sheer panic came over Elliot’s face as soon as he said the words, the colour draining from his skin, but there was something in his wide eyes…
I stared at him, my momentary surprise replaced by the reminder that I was helping my best friend out, keeping this creep away from him, and even though I wasn’t gay or anything, it wasn’t exactly a hardship to kiss him. “Yeah, maybe we should.” Brushing my lips across his again, I lost myself in the sensations of his mouth, the kiss softer but deeper than before. His lean, strong body felt good against mine—not even weird because we’d hugged thousands of times over the years—and I had that same sense of gratification I’d had earlier when I felt his hardness pressing into me. This time, I experimented with tugging his lip between my teeth, earning me a barely audible whimper that made my dick pulse with satisfaction.
Fuck, I was good at this, wasn’t I? Maybe I’d been missing out all these years. Why hadn’t I ever tried anything with other guys? There was a whole world of opportunity out there that I’d been wasting. My hand slid down Elliot’s back, making his whole body shiver as I pulled him even closer.
“No. Wait. Stop.”
It took me a minute to recognise that he’d stopped kissing me. I drew back, blinking, and when the haze of lust cleared, the first thing I noticed was the wary look that had appeared on his face. The second thing I noticed was that Gary had finally taken the hint and disappeared. It was a fucking miracle.
“Ander, we can’t do this…it’s not a good idea.” Elliot pushed away from me, and I dropped my grip on him.
“Hey, it’s okay. It was just a kiss. Two kisses,” I amended when he just stared at me. “We got rid of that creepy twat, and now we go back to normal. Don’t overthink it. A kiss is just a kiss.”
He mumbled something like, “Maybe to you,” as he rubbed his hand across his face. When he lowered it and met my eyes again, he nodded once, decisively. “Just a kiss. And we’ll never speak of it again, right?”
I shrugged. “’Course, if that’s what you want. It’s really not a big deal, E.”
Something pained flashed in his gaze, but it was gone before I could make sense of it. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not a big deal.”
3
Ander kissed me. I kissed Ander.
It should never have happened.
He’d completely taken me by surprise the first time it had happened. The second his lips had touched mine, I knew I should push him away, but I didn’t. I was helpless to resist, dying to know how he tasted, how his mouth would move against mine, to give myself a tiny glimpse of everything I wanted but could never have. Then I’d made it worse by blurting out the suggestion we should kiss again. What the fuck had I been thinking? When I’d finally gathered the strength to break away from him, he’d shrugged off the whole thing. What had been a life-changing moment for me had been nothing but a friend helping another friend out for him.
“You okay?” Ander glanced at me as he indicated to switch lanes. We were almost back at LSU, and I could see the sign for student parking up ahead. “You’ve been quiet this weekend.”
Fuck. I thought I’d hidden it. I thought I’d been acting normally.
“I’m okay,” I said eventually. “Tired, mostly.”
He took his hand off the gearstick to give my leg a brief squeeze. Ander was a tactile person, always initiating contact without even thinking about it, having no clue that his touch lit me up inside. “Why don’t we get a takeaway and watch Netflix in my bedroom? You can take it easy. I’ll even use my magic hands on you if you want.”
Getting a massage from Ander, just the two of us alone in his bedroom, wasn’t a great idea with my current state of mind. “That sounds good, but I’m going to meet up with Noah.” Neither of those statements was untrue. It did sound good—just completely inadvisable, and I’d texted Noah earlier, asking if he was free. Of all my friends, he was the one that I felt the most comfortable confiding in. I confided in my housemate JJ too, to an extent, but because he was good friends with both me and Ander, I found it difficult to bring up my Ander-related issues with him.
“Alright.” He swung the car into a parking space and then turned off the engine. “But if you need anything, text me. Okay?” I nodded, and he smiled at me. “In that case, I’m gonna see if any of the football team want to get a drink tonight. But you’re my priority, so if you need me, I’ll be there. Bros before hoes and all that. Dicks before chicks.”
“Dicks before chicks,” I repeated, smirking. “That sounds like my kind of night.”
He lightly punched me in the shoulder with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Have you ever thought about fucking a girl?”
“What?” I stared at him, caught off guard. “A girl? How many years have we been friends? Has it escaped your notice that I’m gay?”
The corners of his lips kicked up in amusement. “I know. Just a question.”
Shaking my head at him, I huffed out a breath. “I can tell you, hand on heart, that I’ve never once entertained thoughts of being with a girl.” Just to get the point across, I gave a dramatic shudder, making him laugh again, which in turn made me smile. “Where did that question come from?”
He shrugged. “Just curious. Of all the things we’ve talked about over the years, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you that.”
“Well, it’s never going to happen.” I laughed, playfully nudging him with my elbow. “What about you, then? Have you ever thought about fucking a guy?”
There was a weighted pause, and then he said, “Yeah…I think I might want to try it.”
I choked on nothing. That was not the response I’d expected. When I’d recovered from what might have been a close brush with a heart attack, I stared at him, open-mouthed, my heart racing. “You what? Where did that come from?”
Tapping his finger to his lip, he thought for a minute. “I liked kissing you at the bar. I guess it made me wonder if I’m missing out, restricting myself to girls only.” His eyes widened, and he thrust his finger out, pressing it against my chest. “E! You can help me! You can be my gay guru. Show me the best places to find good-looking guys who want a piece of this.”
My chest tightened, a lump appearing in my throat so fast that I couldn’t choke it back. I yanked my sunglasses down from the top of my head, covering my eyes.
Of all the things…
What the fuck did I do? I’d been in love with him for so long, and I’d trained myself not to react every time he was with a girl. But a boy? And Ander…he was so gorgeous with his perfect gym body and sculpted features that he would have zero problems getting male attention.