“Do you have any more family?” Linc asked.
“Besides my aunt and uncle?” He fumbled for his keys.
“I was thinking more like siblings.”
“Oh. No.” He’d wondered about that sometimes. If he’d had a brother or a sister, would they have stood up to his parents for him? Or would they have turned their backs and pretended he didn’t exist too? “You?”
“Two sisters. We don’t—we don’t talk much. They’re in Wilmington.”
“That’s where I went to college.” He flipped the light on in the apartment. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Beer?” Linc’s eyebrows rose hopefully.
“Oh.” Avery poked his head into the fridge, but he already knew he didn’t have any beer. “I’ve got homemade pumpkin spice concentrate or almond milk.”
Linc laughed, even as his nose wrinkled. “Water is fine.”
As Avery returned with two glasses, Linc was sitting on the purple couch, arms spread over the back.
“This is looking good,” he said brightly.
“Yeah.” Avery handed him a glass. The couch was too small for Avery to sit without getting closer to Linc than platonic personal space would allow. He pulled over a chair from his small dining room table. “I hope your friend didn’t mind that we left early.”
“Fuck him. If he’s hanging out with dickwads like Derek, then he doesn’t get to dictate what we do.” Linc rolled his head on his shoulders, then, as if a new thought had occurred to him, said, “And fuck me too.”
Avery coughed on his water as all kinds of awkward and awesome images flooded his brain. “Excuse me?”
Linc sighed like he hadn’t noticed anything weird. “Because I have to go home and sleep soon. My shift starts early. And Jordan and Chelsea will be home late and still feeling the party and—” His eyes narrowed, and he swallowed. “They aren’t very discreet, and the apartment isn’t exactly soundproof.”
“Oh.” Avery’s skin heated as he realized what Linc was saying. “Oooh.”
Linc tipped his glass toward him. “Yup.”
“You could...” Avery swallowed, tamping down the sudden excitement that buzzed under his skin. “You could stay here. I can pull out the couch.”
Linc shook his head. “It’s okay.” But his body settled farther down into the cushions, arms and knees spreading wide.
“No!” Avery popped up to his feet. “No, it’s totally okay! I mean, that’s why I have it, right? So people can sleep on it. And you should totally be the one to break it in!”
Linc coughed. “Break it in?”
Of course,hedidn’t notice when he said something inappropriate, but as soon as Avery let out an accidental innuendo, Linc caught on immediately.
“Sorry. My tongue works really fast. I mean—it’s not—oh, no. Sometimes my mouth will—” He sighed. “Sleep. Would you like to sleep here? If I can stop talking, I promise it will be quieter than birthday sex and—oh myGod.”
Linc was laughing so hard, his T-shirt rippled over the muscles in his stomach, a spectacle hard to look away from.
Avery hurried down the hall before he burst into flames. Sleep. Linc would need a pillow and some blankets to sleep. Avery pulled open the hall closet and—
The closet was empty. Of course. Because hall closets didn’t miraculously come full of spare blankets and pillows when you moved in. Not like the closet at Aunt Brenda’s that was always stuffed with clean sheets and towels. You had to buy things like that, and Avery had not.
“It’s really great of you to let me crash here,” Linc called from the living room.
“Of course.” He was really nice, right up until the point he had to tell Linc his options were to sleep on the couch with nothing but a towel for warmth, or sleep with Avery in his bed.
He shut the closet and rested his forehead against the door. Linc in his bed was...Well it just wasn’t a possibility. Because how would you say that?Hey, I know we just bonded over our shitty dads, and I get that you’re straight and all, but would you like to sleep with me?
Avery would totally say that. And then Linc would look at him like an adorable puppy who couldn’t keep track of his feet—because most people looked at him like that, when they weren’t whispering about his history—and the whole “good friend” moment would be ruined.
