“Noah,” Gage said sharply, sitting up abruptly and lifting me onto his lap. “Jesus.Breathe.”
I couldn’t.
“Listen, if the bullshit issue your parentals are fixated on is your grades, then we’ll get them up. I haven’t been on you like I should have about your shitty study habits. That’s my bad, but—”
“Gage,” I gasped, my fingers scrabbling at the collar in desperation because I wanted it—I wanted it more thanair—but not if it meant I lost my best friend.Nothingwas worth that. “I just… I just had your dick in my mouth!” I blurted out, hooking my fingers under the collar and hanging on for dear life. “And you want to talk about school? And myparents? Who cares aboutthat? What’s… what’s happening tous?”
He went still, staring at me for a second like he didn’t get it. Like I’d just spoken Japanese or something. Like he couldn’t see the potential end-of-the-world-as-we’d-known-it disaster barreling down on us like a freight train right now. Like he’d forgotten that he’d never, ever been interested in guys before. Like he didn’t remember how he’d immediately ditched every girl he’d ever hooked up with the minute they’d wanted more… and how now, for all intents and purposes, all those girls wereme.
“What’s happening is whatever I say is happening,” Gage finally said slowly, his arms like steel—no, likechromium—bars around me. “Because I’m in charge, remember?”
I made an embarrassing sound, like a scared squirrel, but it was all I could manage due to lack of oxygen and impending hysteria.
“And right now,” Gage went on, still eyeing me like he needed to talk me down from a ledge. “I say that what’s happening is that you’re going to get your fucking grades up so we can convince your parentals that you’re staying here at school with me. Over the summer, like we planned, and next year, and every year after, too. And if they need you to do something else to convince them that this is where you need to be, then we’re gonna do that, too, Noah. But I can’t—” He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing for a second before he cleared his throat. “I can’t be here, or anywhere else, without you being there, too. So lettingthathappen is not an option.”
I was still having trouble with the breathing thing and it was making me feel light-headed, and that plus the accompanying ringing in my ears made it hard to concentrate on everything he was saying. Or maybe my inability to focus was because he was still talking aboutschoolandgradesand myparents, and yes, all of that mattered if it meant being able to stay here at school with him, but I needed to do more than just stay with him. I needed us to beus. I needed him to be the other half of me, the way it had always felt like he was before. The way it felt evenmorelike now.
But most of all, I needed that to still be true even after the collar came off.
Even if… oh God. Even if I had to leave.
“Gage,” I squeaked out in a strangled plea for him to reassure me, convince me, tell me it would all be okay and then somehow make me believe it. I… Ineededhim.
“Breathe,” he said again, keeping one arm locked tight around me but starting to rub my back in slow circles with the other. “Come on, babe. You’re scaring me.Breathe, Noah.”
“I can’t… I can’t…G.”
I stopped.
Somehow, forced a breath in.
I’d need air if I was going to make him understand.
“I just… I… Isucked you offand you’re not even gay, so what if itruinsus even though… even though it was the best andyou’rethe best and yourdickis the best and it’s so… it just… I mean, it felt so good and so right and so perfect, but I know it’s not what you really want becauseI’mnot, and Ilovebeing yours, but… but I don’t want to mess us up no matter how much I love wearing this collar for you and coming for you and… and… and…”
Somehow, amidst all my frantic babbling, I managed one of those lifting-a-car-off-a-crying-baby feats of superhuman, panic-induced strength and broke free of his arms, scrambling out of my chromium cage and off his lap and off his bed so I could yank at the collar and get itoff, throw it away, hide it like I’d hidden all those post-pubescent boners from him over the years, so that, just like back then, I could preserve the one thing that mattered most to me.
Us.
But Gage was off the bed in a flash, almost before my feet hit the floor and definitely before I’d found my balance, not letting me do anything more than work the buckle free.
He caught my hands.
“I already told you,” he growled, pinning me against his chest. “That’s not coming off. And what the fuck are you talking about, Noe? Nothing’s gonna ruin us. Not ever. And don’t tell me you didn’t like blowing me, because you’restillfucking hard.”
I was. Oh God. Don’t let him hate me. My dick didn’t care how panicked I was. It wasn’t just hard; it was already turning his sweatpants dark as it wept endless rivulets of precum against his thigh. It was hard and shameless andbegging. It didn’t care at all about the future, not when right now included me, naked, and Gage holding me like this.
“Of course I liked it,” I whispered, shaking so much that it was a good thing he was holding me upright. Because if he knew I liked it… “So… so… so you’re saying Iamgay now?”
That question felt equal parts terrifying and relieving to finally ask… so it was really too bad, given all the years I’d worried about it, that Gage didn’t actually answer.
“I’m saying you’reminenow,” he said instead, manhandling me back onto the bed, face down on my stomach, and then fixing the collar’s buckle while he lay down on top of me to keep me there. “I’m saying you’re minealways,” he added in a possessive-sounding growl. “And I’m saying that from now on, I’m going to take care of you, in every single fucking way that exists, and that you’re going tolikeit. Got it, Noe?”
“Yes,” I whispered, even though he was wrong. If… if all that was true, I was going toloveit, not just like it.
If he actually meant it, I was going to be in heaven.
Gage rolled his hips, and I could feel the thick ridge of his hardening cock encased in the soft cotton of his sweatpants, slotting right between my thighs like the material wasn’t even there. “It’s how it’s gonna be between us from now on, okay, babe?” he murmured, his hot breath playing over my ear and making me shiver. “It’s how itshouldbe. You and me. Fuck ‘gay.’ Does it really matter that we’re both guys?”
