“Weird how?” They brush the crumbs off of their shirt, leaving an annoying little pile of flakey crust right inside the threshold of my room.
“Dude,” I mutter, and they use their foot to ‘clean up.’ “Uh, sorry, no the meeting with my adviser was normal and fine, aside from the fact that I’m stressing aboutstillnot having my thesis topic narrowed down. The weird part came after,” I answer with a laugh, dragging my fingers through my curly hair in a fruitless attempt to tame it a little.
“Are you going to make me guess?” they tease.
“No, it was just…”
“Weird,” Juno repeats for me when I trail off.
“Yes,” I chuckle. “I was on my way back from campus, and I remember that there’s supposed to be some great new bakery in Boystown.” I gesture to their Danish. “So, I got off the bus a few stops early, and I accidentally ended up inside a gym instead of a bakery. Some massive guy named Butch challenged me to arm wrestle him.” My face heats again at the memoryand my stomach squirms. “And I might have accidentally agreed to a couple of free personal training sessions with him or something,” I mumble the last part while I pull my T-shirt over my head.
“Was he hot?”
Of coursethat’s Juno’s first question.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know, I guess. It’s not like it matters.”
“Well, it would explain why you keep blushing.” They smirk like they just check-mated me.
And, dammit, I blush all over again.
“I’m not blushing,” I grumble. “And even if Iwereblushing, it still wouldn’t matter. Some gorgeous gym hunk is not going to be interested in my skinny, pale ass. Besides, I haven’t even managed to work up the nerve to test drive all this,” I gesture to my dick, “with another person, and there is no way in hell that the first time I do it will be with someone as gorgeous and…manlyas Butch.”
“But you want to?” Their eyebrows go up and their smile widens.
“Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?” I grab the nearly empty coffee cup out of Juno’s hand as I shoulder past, just to be a dick, and they punch me in the back in protest. I guess maybe I kind of understand what Butch meant about siblings earlier.
I set their coffee down and pick my chai back up to take a sip.
“Besides all that, what would be the point of drooling over some big, muscley himbo? The jock-nerd thing is only a trope in romance, not in real life.”
Juno looks downright offended. “I refuse to believe that.”
“Believe what you want. Some of us try to live in reality.”
“Good luck with that,” Juno mutters, as if I'm the weirdo here. I love their optimism but come on. Not even in my dreams.
BUTCH
“How many miles you got today so far?” Callan asks, hopping onto the treadmill next to me while we’re both in between training clients.
“Not as many as you,” I assure him with a grunted laugh.
“Bro, the victory isn’t satisfying if I don’t know how much I’ve won by,” he complains.
Honestly, I haven’t even been keeping track today, which isn’t like me at all. But my head is still stuck on that twink who came in this morning. Percy Rockton with those stunning blue eyes and cheekbones that would look fantastic with cum dripping from them. PhD student at University of Chicago, undergraduate minor in journalism and major in cultural studies, and now he’s studying anthropology. Lives with someone named Juno who looks punk as hell with a lip ring and an eyebrow piercing, along with blue hair that’s styled in spikes in most of their pictures. Not that I spent half my day social media stalking him or anything.
No question at all, he’s miles out of my league.
But that’s chill. So, he’s cute. It’s not like there’s any shortage of cute guys who come in here. Hell, there are at least five certified snacks in here at any given moment, including right now.
“I can’t tell if you’re stonewalling me or if I used too many big words,” Callan teases, and I grunt out another half-laugh.
“Just running,” I lie, cranking up my speed. Callan takes it as a challenge and does the same.
“You know what I was thinking?” AJ saunters over and claims the treadmill on my other side. “We should do another camping trip before the weather gets too cold.”
“It’s already too cold,” Fender says, stretching on the mat a few feet away after spending the last hour running a boxing class.
