I keep looking at those lips. My cock thickens under my jeans.
Backing down from sexual tension isn’t in my nature.
Idowant him. Fuck, I do.
We’re at a party off campus. Another rundown house with sagging floors and overpriced thrift-shop rugs. A few people pretend to care about a pretty, raggedy-ass girl in the corner playing insipid cover tunes on a beat-up acoustic. Linus leans next to me against the chipped tile counter, sipping warm beer from a Solo cup like it might become something better if he wills it to be true.
“I can’t feckin’ stand Justin Timberlake,” he grumbles, barely audible over the latest offering from the songstress.
I glance sideways. “Finally. Someone with taste.”
“Aye.” His lips twitch. “Manufactured talent. The girl has a decent voice, though.”
I lift my cup, filled with water, toward him. “Music scene isn’t what it used to be.”
He quirks a brow. Licks those luscious lips. He knows my band is killin’ it right now.
The air shifts.
His shoulder brushes mine. He doesn’t move away.
The dare’s in his eyes before it hits his mouth.
A silent one.
If I lean in, will you?
“I live off campus,” I say. Casual, like I haven’t been thinking about this for months. “Not far. Place I share with my twin, Padraig, his girl Stevie, and our singer.”
He tips his cup in acknowledgment. “You bring many lads home then?”
“No.” I try to sound nonchalant. “Keep my sex life outta the house usually.”
Linus steps toward me. “Why?”
There’s a moment. Long enough to choose if I’ll lie.
“My da was in a car accident when we were seventeen.” I don’t look at him, my eyes are fixed on the sticky tile where my boots are planted. “Didn’t heal right. He couldn’t work. Got hooked on pills, then whiskey.”
Linus doesn’t speak. His shoulder brushes mine.
“Summer after first year, I brought a lad home.” My eyes burn. I’ve never uttered a word about this outside our family, and we avoid the topic like the plague. “He caught us in the hallway. Lost his mind. Said some things…”
It takes a minute for me to continue.
“Padraig stepped between us first. Took a punch to the face. I got shoved down the stairs. Split my head open. Out cold. It all happened in front of my three wee brothers.”
Linus doesn’t move or flinch.
“My older brother pays for college. Padraig and I are here at Wazzu so I’m not in danger.” I press my palm flat against the wall beside me, grounding myself. “So I don’t have to hide who I am.”
Linus speaks low and steady. “You don’t have to be afraid with me.”
I nod once. Doesn’t undo anything. I don’t know this guy, really. Yet his words, somehow, settle something inside me “I’m fluid. Bisexual. Pansexual. Hell, I don’t know. I like fucking who I want. Not the judgment from others.”
“Aye.” He exhales through his nose. “Sounds familiar.”
“Yeah?”
