Gage had been having sex since way back when we’d both hit puberty, but he’d never had an actual girlfriend. Not once. Notever. And even though I wasn’t a girl and he wasn’t gay, if hehadbeen gay, then probably-almost-surely his total, lifelong, unwavering aversion to ever being in a relationship like that would have applied to boyfriends, too. So if he started seeingmelike that, likeanyof that, rather than as his totally platonic best friend who adored him but in a totally un-needy way—
Well, okay, fine. I adored him in anextremelyneedy way, but he’d always been okay with that because it had always been in a totallynon-romanticallyneedy way. But if he thought that had changed now, then—just like with all those girls who he’d dropped the minute they got clingy—he might not…
He might not…
He might not want me anymore.
As his best friend, I mean.
A pitiful sound burst out of me, and I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter.
I couldn’t face that. Icouldn’t. But then my eyes popped right back open when Gage suddenly yanked me to my feet, my body getting vertical so fast that I got a little dizzy.
“Noah, Jesus, what the hell?” he said, holding me tightly against him and wiping away the stupid tears that had stupidly started to leak out of my stupid eyes.
“Sorry,” I sniffled, trying to pull away from him to delay having to face the potential destruction of everything good in my life; the impending tidal wave of outrage that would crash over me and wipe out thirteen years of friendship as soon as Gage realized what I’d done, leaving me a lonely, miserable, broken, shipwrecked… um, wreck, with a bleak future and no best friend and nothing but misery and desolation to keep me company for the rest of my empty days.
“You’re sorry for what, bro?” Gage asked, his arm tightening around me even more and keeping me in my favorite place—a.k.a. plastered right up against him. “For falling out of bed?”
I shook my head, my throat so tight I literally couldn’t answer. But he was still being super nice, just like always, so maybe… maybe he’d had enough beer last night that he didn’t remember what we’d done?
“Why are you crying?” he pressed me, his eyebrows crinkling together in concern. “Talk to me, Noe. You’re fucking scaring me right now. Are you gonna hurl? Are you hurt? Are your balls sore from coming so hard last night or some shit?”
Were my…what?
My eyes went wide with horror and the sneaky-ass stealth hangover that I’d been semi-successfully dodging up until now, the one that I’d honestly sort of forgotten about thanks to an excessive amount of freaking-the-fuck-out, used the opportunity to swoop in again and make my head start pounding like the bass at a frat party.
He remembered.
I swallowed hard, and my eyes started to well up with evenmoretears as something inside me shriveled up and died a little. Oh God. Last night had been a mistake. The worst one of my life. I… I hated beer.
And hangovers.
And poker.
And everything.
But most of all, I hated the truth-bomb that had just exploded with Gage’s balls comment, because that meant I’d ruined us. It was already too late. There was nothing I could do to salvage—
Wait. Maybe…?
My fingers scrabbled at the collar in a sudden, desperate, and possibly irrational attempt to get it off, because maybe if I removed the evidence, that might be enough to magically give Gage temporary amnesia, right? Get us back to the way we’d always been? Which, for the record, was perfect.
I mean, almost perfect.
Perfect-adjacent.
“Hey now,” Gage said, grabbing my hands and forcing them down to my sides, then holding them there. “None of that. You donothave permission to remove your collar, slave.”
Slave?
I froze. And by froze, I mean I almost jizzed in my—
I gasped. Oh God.I wasn’t wearing any pants. Or… or anyanything.
“I’m naked,” I blurted, suddenly very, very aware that he was, too.
“That’s right,” Gage said, smiling... slow and dirty and exactly the way I’d never let myself secretly wish he’d smile at me before. He stroked a finger along my collar. “Naked except for this, sweetheart. Just the way your master likes it.”
