He met his own eyes in the mirror, realizing he was the only one flustered now. He couldn’t let that sit on him. He wanted to tell this guy off. So he shook off the water, grabbed one towel, quickly dried his hands, and yanked the door open, rushing into the hallway.
The only one in the corridor was an elderly staff member who pushed a cart full of books in front of her.
Dane clenched his fingers into a fist. This guy had to be fucking with him—in the literal and metaphorical sense. He let his shoulders sink down. Sure, he could run after him and try to catch up, but what good would that do? Maybe it was for the best. Dane shouldn’t have broken the rules of his secret spot anyway. He shouldn’t have been spying on who was in the other stall in the first place, let alone deliberately walking into him after they were done.
Dane let out a deep breath. He got what he wanted. Even more. And in the end, he probably also got what he deserved—the desolate hunch of him being the one who was played.
FRIDAY, 09:52 A.M.
Rain peltedagainst the library windows as if the sky thought they needed a good cleaning after the dirty things Dane had done here with Ty yesterday.
Dane made his way to his favorite desk in the center of the reading room, close enough to the books and to watch the rain pour onto the tall windows but just so far away from the corridor that he wouldn’t be disturbed by people constantly walking past him. He threw his laptop, notebook, and a bottle of water he had just obtained from the downstairs vending machine on it and plunged into the wooden chair.
The storm howled over the library, turning the city so dark that one could’ve thought it was still the early beginning of dawn. Dane switched on the reading lamp, which every desk had. The white light made his hands look pale. With a sigh, he stared at them as if they harbored the answer to why he felt so strange today.
He almost didn’t come here. Not because of the rain, no. He lived close, only fifteen minutes by bike, which is very comfortable for a city like New York, and he had bragged to his roommates so often about how well prepared he was for bad weather that they would’ve mocked him if he used it as anexcuse. The reason why he almost bailed out of finishing the paper today was because ofsomeonehe dreaded running into again.
Dane raised his glance from his hands and scanned the room. With the weather, there was a chance that he got lucky, and Ty had taken the day off. His eyes rushed over the shelves, down the corridor that branched off into other corridors filled with more aisles, toward the counter in the center of the reading room.
Shit.Behind the counter was Ty, scanning codes printed on the back of the books and sorting them onto a cart. Dane let his head sink closer to the desk as if that would help him not to be seen. He had to be careful today. He wasn’t interested in running into Ty again, not after how he ended things yesterday. Revealing it was him? What astupididea. Sure, the sex was hot, and Dane had the orgasm of a lifetime. When he got home, his dick got so hard, reminiscing what andwhohe did, that he wanked off again. Two times. Once he was done, though, he realized that just as much as he could expose Ty now, the same was true for him.
As a result, the next half hour was spent with the attempt to concentrate on the task at hand, but whenever he noticed that Ty was nearby, he pushed his nose into a book or hid behind his laptop screen, pretending not to see him.
A white flash illuminated the reading room, followed by a thunder. The usually silent space erupted into a short moment of quiet laughter and whispers from people startled by the unexpected weather phenomenon.
Dane, on the other hand, was startled by the heavy thud of a book thrown on his desk mere seconds after the thunder. It looked like it weighed at least 5 pounds, while the sound of it hitting the dark wooden desktop gave him the impression that it had to be at least ten times as heavy.
Dane reached his head high, trying to find out where that book had magically appeared from, only to catch a glimpse of Ty rushing back to the counter.
“What the fuck,” Dane whispered, scrutinizing the book.
The light green hardcover glanced at him as if it were an array of hope. He couldn’t believe it. This was the book he had been searching for yesterday.
His fingers skimmed over the smooth textured surface. Who would’ve thought that Ty could be this nice? Maybe Danewaswrong about him. Could it be that hehadjust hit a nerve, as Leon suggested during lunch yesterday?
Dane opened the book, and a small folded piece of paper fell out and glided onto the floor. Groaning, he reached his head underneath the table, searching for the white paper, and spotted it on the backside of the desk. He leaned down and unfolded it as soon as he got a hold of it.
Meet me in ten minutes. You know where.
His heartbeat overshadowed the sound of the rain tormenting the windows.
It was the same handwriting as the note slid underneath the stalls yesterday. Ty wasn’t just bringing him the book out of the goodness of his heart. That much was clear.
Where was Ty going with this? Did he want to confront him? Fight him? Or…repeatwhat they did yesterday?
Dane’s hands trembled, unable to read between the lines. His cock, though, swelled up, clearly having an opinion of his own. Why did the thought of fucking this guy make him so freaking horny? What should he do? Was Dane going to meet him up there? Or would it be wiser to ignore the note?
He sat back up, searching the room, hoping to spot Ty, but he was nowhere to be found.
Dane’s dick pulsated, and as he looked down, he realized that his raging boner probably would also be very visible to others if he got up now.
He let out a slow and deep breath. He should stay calm and focused, thinking rationally before making any rushed moves.
Another lightning struck, but this time further away, almost as if it was the voice of Ty calling for him—no longer right next to him, but already up on the third floor, waiting for him to join.
Dane scratched his jaw. Who was he kidding? He already knew he would go up there. There wasn’t any alternative that wouldn’t leave him wondering about the what-ifs later. He closed his laptop, put his blue sweater on top of it, shook his head in disbelief that he was going through with this, and rushed to the staircase.
A minute later, he pushed open the white door with the men’s room sign.
