Keaton’s lips were warm and soft, just like him. Inviting. They parted gently under my mouth and I felt myself sliding, slipping out of control. I wrapped my arms around his waist.
And he pulled away and looked at me with such an expression that my fantasy immediately died.
Keaton
“Really?!” I burst out. “Again?”
Olly swallowed. “I’m – I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing?” I demanded. Why was he playing with my emotions like this? Making me think there was a chance and then putting me down again? Toying with me?
“I…” Olly swallowed hard and looked away. His face had turned bright red. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“That’s not good enough.” I folded my arms over my chest. “The first time, you were drunk. What’s your excuse this time?”
“I don’t have an excuse,” Olly muttered. He was staring out of our window. “I just wanted to kiss you.”
I squinted at him. “What?”
He looked back at me. His face was burning so red I thought he might actually set on fire. “I wanted to kiss you.”
“Why?”
Olly sighed. He sat down heavily on his bed like he couldn’t have this conversation and stay standing up. “Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the first time.”
I stared at him for a long moment. The problem with Olly was that he never gave you the information that you actually wanted. He would answer your question in the most matter-of-fact and straightforward way, without giving you any of the background details or extra bits that someone else might add. The justification, the explanation. All you got was the simple answer as it appeared to him.
I sat down on my bed, facing him. What was I supposed to ask to get him to give me what I needed to know?
What I desperately had to know, because my heart was still hammering in my chest from the feeling of his arms wrapped around me?
“This isn’t real,” I said out loud. “You’re just playing with me. Is this some kind of long-game prank? You want to get the disgusting little gay boy to fall in love with you, so you can hurt me even worse?”
Olly’s eyes popped open so wide they looked like they were going to fall out of his face. “Keat…!” he said, and the use of the nickname along with the hurt in his voice resonated in my chest. “I would never do something like that to you!”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t call me names or let your friends beat me up in a locker room?” I pointed out.
Olly swallowed hard again. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I can’t keep saying I’m sorry if you won’t believe me.”
“I…” I took a breath to get my voice under control. It was me who had told him to stop apologizing in the first place. He was right. “I do believe that you’re sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Just – I need you to answer my questions. I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
Olly looked down at his hands. “Neither do I,” he said, and his voice was so miserable that something told me this had to be real.
He really did want to kiss me.
But why?
“It’s just because you’re not used to living so closely with someone, probably,” I sighed. “And you’re grateful and all of that. Don’t get it confused with anything else. College is kind of a weird new experience for everyone.”
Olly shook his head at me. “It’s not like I haven’t been part of teams for my whole life. I know about brotherhood,” he said. He paused, but before I could say anything, he spoke again. “When we kiss. Doesn’t it feel… right?”
I thought about his mouth on mine. The way his arms curled around my waist. I shifted my hands in front of myself to hide the fact that even thinking about it took me right back there again, had me growing hard. “Yes,” I admitted. “That’s not the point.”
Olly tilted his head. “It isn’t?”
I took a long breath. I had to get this out. He needed to understand where I was coming from. “It doesn’t matter if it feels right or not when we’re in here. In here doesn’t count. I don’t want to be some straight guy’s gay toy while you experiment in college. I don’t want to waste a few years of my life until you decide it’s time to grow up and find a girlfriend to marry.”
Olly cleared his throat. “That’s not what this is.”
