Chapter 3
Levi had to wait two heartbeats before his legs agreed to move, then he was up off his bed like a shot. He scrambled out of his room and caught Mack's arm. “Wait,” he asked, trying to get his head around what he'd just heard.
“I've waited long enough.” Mack shrugged him off and kept walking.
“No…listen,” he pleaded, moving in front of him. He held Mack by his shoulders so that he couldn't leave. “I was scared, okay? I was scared. I didn't know what you wanted and I was too scared to ask, because I like you more than I've liked anyone else,” he confessed in a rush, hoping that would help Mack understand what he'd been thinking and feeling lately. But he looked right through him.
Levi cupped his face in his hands and took a deep breath, before saying what he knew he had to say. What he'd been scared to say all this time. “And I could love you too, if we can just clear the air,” he promised. He needed to talk this over, before they agreed to anything, or there was no point.
“Why should I? You clearly don't trust me,” Mack said, with a shrug.
“What? No, I do.”
“You thought I had condoms because I'd been sleeping around,” he reminded him.
And he did feel guilty about that, now that he knew what had been going through Mack's head, but he could make him understand. “Okay, yes. But that's because I didn't think you were already mine,” he explained, as best as he could. There was a big difference between doubting a friend who was toying with him and doubting his boyfriend. “I've never done anything with another guy before. I've had crushes and things, but I've never told a living soul and I never acted on them. Until you. And it's pretty bloody terrifying,” Levi admitted finally. He hadfinallygot it out there, that he had probably always been bisexual. He didn't care; all that mattered was making Mack stay to hear him out.
“I'm the opposite,” Mack volunteered, his shoulders relaxing a little. “I've never had crushes, but I've kissed a few guys when I was drunk,” he confided, as though he had never told anyone else that either. He assumed that didn't include Casen, because they were twins. Levi knew and understood that their connection was much stronger than his friendship with Tam.
“Please come back to my room. No condoms, no nothing…just talking,” Levi promised, hoping Mack would take him up on that. He really wanted to talk this over.
Mack smiled faintly and walked past him, heading for his room at the end of the hall.
“Is that a no?” he asked, not sure what that meant.
Mack turned, with his hand on the door handle. “Let's go to my room. I've got the bigger bed,” he hinted, his smile growing as he waited.
Levi managed to match his smile and walked over to join him, as soon as he'd closed his own door. Mack let him go inside first, so he took a deep breath and prepared to admit everything that would help them iron out the creases in their…whatever the hell it was.
