“I didn't break you,” I scoffed. “If it was too much for you, we can take it easy from now on.”
“Don't you dare.” Matt spun around on his chair, whimpering when his ass reminded him sudden movements were a bad idea today. He narrowed his eyes. “Now that I'm having sex again, you better not try to take it away for me. That would just be mean.”
“Then you'd better think before you get whiny.” I kissed the top of his head as I placed the coffee in front of him. His hands curled around the mug as if he was shielding it from me. “We need to head out after breakfast. I figured we could get shopping out of the way, and after everything’s put away, we can kick back and watch a movie together before everyone gets home.”
“Or we could skip the shopping and go back to bed,” Matt countered. “Maybe it’s time to kick the rest of the baby birds out of the nest. They’re grown men, they can feed themselves.”
“True, but you forget cooking is how I relax,” I reminded him. “Besides,youare the worst of those baby birds. I need to feed you, or you’ll flip between forgetting to eat at all and shoveling crap down your throat.”
“Fine. But I demand lots of cuddles—and maybe more orgasms—as a reward for adulting today,” he grumbled.
I slid my hands down his chest, pinching his nipples until he yelped. “You demand, huh? I thought we’d agreed you’re not the one in charge here.”
“No, we agreed that you’re the boss and I’m the brat,” he corrected me. “That means I get to be greedy and your job is to spoil me.” He arched his back when my hands passed his belly button and the tips of my fingers pushed at the waistband of his sweatpants. I stepped back, laughing when Matt crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “You’re mean. Now I’m gonna be thinking about you bending me over this table and fucking me.”
“That’s gross.” Yes, I knew kitchen table sex was a staple in porn, but it was unsanitary. I wouldn’t want to eat on a table that had been polished by some dude’s ass cheeks—or worse—so I wasn’t about to subject my roommates to that fate.
“And yet you’re the one who shoved his hand down my pants,” Matt pointed out. “I don’t get you sometimes.”
“Now you know how I feel every damned day,” I muttered as I retreated to the kitchen. If I didn’t get our breakfast made, we’d never get our errands run.
9
Brandon
It was almost two weeks before the new guy came out for breakfast alone. I was beginning to wonder if there was something going on between him and Jayden because the two were always attached at the hip. Chase sat on one of the barstools, watching me pull everything out of the fridge for breakfast. Every time we made eye contact, he quickly looked the other way as if he'd been busted.
He was possibly the most painfully shy person I’d ever met. If someone didn’t give him a push, the rest of the guys were going to give him a hard time for being the quiet one. “So, how are you liking the suites so far?”
Chase shrugged. “It's not bad. And it's definitely a refreshing change to not have to eat in the dining hall all the time.”
“You're not wrong about that.” I chuckled. Freshman year had been torture. I fully understood they needed to be careful about people's horrible taste, but did that really mean all of us needed to suffer with bland food?
I watched Chase out of the corner of my eye, trying to figure out how I could get to know him when he didn't want to let his guard down. As I started dicing vegetables and browning sausage to make a quick breakfast casserole, I noticed Chase paying close attention to every move I made. “Do you want help?”
His eyes brightened. “Only if you're sure you don't mind. I don't want to get your way.”
I jerked my head to the side, silently urging him to join me. “You're not in the way, Chase. It's not like I have a monopoly on the space. I know it seems that way, but that’s only because the rest of the guys suck at cooking so it’s sort of become my job.”
Chase hopped off his stool and came around to the kitchen side of the pass-through. “I like cooking. I’m not very good at it, but I enjoy it.”
“Go ahead and wash your hands,” I instructed him. He tensed and I realized how weird that might have seemed to him. I couldn't help myself. Now that Matt and I were doing our thing, it seemed natural to be a little bossy. The corner of Chase's mouth lifted into a shy smile as he turned on the water. “If you want to learn, just let me know. Cooking for the six of us is a lot of work. It’d go faster if I had a helper who I didn’t have to worry about cutting off his fingers.”
“Okay.” Chase worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “I think I’d like that.”
“If I'm ever too bossy, just let me know.” I almost explained that I was used to it because of having to tell Matt what to do, but that would probably seem weird to the new guy.
I really needed to quit referring to him as the new guy. He had a name. This was Matt's fault. He said he wasn’t going to use Chase’s name until he knew he’d be sticking around. My boyfriend was ridiculous, and he’d earned himself a spanking for thinking it was acceptable to be distant to someone who really needed to figure out that we weren’t going to judge him.
And there was definitely some fear of that radiating off Chase. I wasn’t sure why, but he was always guarded, as if he was waiting for the skies to open with some dark revelation.
His hands shook as he stirred the pan of veggies. I pretended to not notice, but I couldn’t shake the feeling he was nervous about something other than being close to me. “Did Jayden go to his mom’s this weekend?”
Chase’s shoulders hunched forward as he tucked his chin to his chest and nodded. Okay, that wasn’t the type of reaction I expected.
“How are things going between you guys?” I pushed when he didn’t say anything else. He shrugged. “Is he giving you a hard time? Listen, it’s going to take him a bit to warm up to you. His last roommate was a complete douche. None of us were sad to see him go.”
“That’s one thing we have in common,” he muttered under his breath. He clutched the edge of the counter as if it was the only thing holding him up. When he glanced up at me, his eyes glistened with unshed tears.
