“Like…” Dove prompted.
Gift shook his head. “I don’t know… Like he wanted to devour me?”
“Kinky,” Payton murmured.
It wasn’t unusual for Dove to hang out in their room. Usually, her best friend, Morgan, was in attendance as well. Itwasweird for Drake to be there, though.
He was Payton’s and Gift’s new roommate, and Gift still couldn’t quite figure him out. He was tall and blond with pool-blue eyes and a square jaw like a superhero. Neurodivergent like Payton and Dove.
Despite this being Drake’s room, he was rarely there. Nobody really knew what he got up to at night, but, sometimes, Gift wondered if it had something to do with the boy sitting on the floor beside his bed.
Remi. He was another mystery. For as tall and broad as Drake was, Remi was the opposite. He was small and thin with chestnut curls, huge green eyes, and freckles that made him look like people would mistake him for a teenager forever.
He was like Gift. Neurotypical.
They had all been chatting animatedly when Gift had fallen through the door, but had gone silent at his clumsy arrival. Luckily, Dove had almost immediately abandoned Payton to let Gift burrow into her lap and wallow over Park. Again.
“You’re acting like he dragged you to his bedroom. All he did was touch your face?” Drake asked.
Gift flushed from his neck to the tips of his ears. “You don’t get it.”
Gift didn’t get it, either. Park had gone from Arctic Circle cold to Sahara Desert hot in thirty seconds flat, and now, Gift couldn’t stop himself from…feeling things. All the things.
Dove giggled, dropping her hands to his cheeks to cup them. “Oh, you’re blushing like some scandalized maiden. You really need to get laid. You shouldn’t be this flustered from someone touching your face.”
“Yeah, we touch your cheeks all the time,” Payton said. “Who wouldn’t? Look at them,” he mocked, like he was talking to a baby.
Dove squished his face between her surprisingly strong hands. “You are insanely adorable.”
Gift rolled his eyes. He’d been hearing this his whole life. From the neck down, Gift might be considered attractive. He was six feet tall and fit, but his baby face kept anyone from finding him sexy. If anything, he looked like he should be fronting a K-Pop group. The most he could hope for was pretty.
“You don’t get it,” Gift said again. “P’Park doesn’t touch me except for that frustrating head pat thing he does. But now, I’ve felt his skin on mine and it was—” He fumbled to find the right word. “Nice.”
Drake snickered. “When are you just going to admit you want your ‘big bro’ to bang you like a pinky toe on a coffee table?”
Gift felt his face flush even hotter. “Shut up.”
Drake grinned, his gaze straying to Remi just long enough for Gift to watch the younger boy blush, too, before quickly looking away.
Gift dragged his attention back to Dove’s face. “What does it matter? I’m invisible to him. He thinks of me as hisnong. That’s it.” Gift kicked his feet on the bed in frustration, his lower lip pooching out. “Why can’t he just see I’m an adult?”
“Probably because you look like a chubby-cheeked toddler and you throw tantrums like one, too,” Payton said. “Especially around Park.”
“I do not,” Gift said, indignant.
Dove cackled. “You so do. You’re a totally different person around him.”
Gift bolted upright, criss-crossing his legs in front of him before giving them each a look.“That’s not true,” he said.
Dove batted her lashes, her face taking on a serene expression before she smacked her palms together in a praying hands motion. “Yes,hia. Thank you,hia. No,hia.” She fluttered her lashes at him.
“Shut up,” he said again, giving her a gentle shove.
“She’s right, man,” Drake said. “Whenever Park’s around, all of a sudden, you act like you’re in the presence of royalty.”
“I act like I’m in the presence of an elder. One who is close friends with my parents. The people who pay my bills,” Gift clarified.
“No. You act like you want Park to pay your bills,” Dove teased. “You would make a perfect sugar baby with those cheeks and this skin. And this mouth. And that ass.”
