“Do tell,” he prompts as he stops taking slow steps towards me. He’s not far away though. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to, but I don’t. The idea both terrifies me and thrills me.
“I mean, my dad was a shell for a really long time after she died.” I swallow but my mouth feels dry. “They were in love. Like the real deal. And after watching him try to put himself back together, I definitely didn’t want romance. I mean, fuck, why? So I could possibly end up as broken as he was? Nope. And the sex thing… well, yeah that happened for a while. Silly little hook ups in dark basements or quickies in a girl’s bedroom after school before their parents got home. But that became less fulfilling and more confusing. Girls had feelings that I didn’t have or didn’t want to have. Hockey was solid. Hockey didn’t want anything from me. Hockey let me set the rules. I worked hard, I succeeded. The end.”
“So Justin wasn’t entirely wrong then.” Luke doesn’t try to hide his disappointment, and his whole body shifts toward the door.
I know he’s about to walk over there, open it, and dismiss me. Not just me but the possibility that floated through this room when I walked in. He’s going to kick that out too. He takes one step and I reach out and wrap a hand around his bicep.
“And then I saw Steve on his knees with you in his mouth and…” I inhale as deep as I can as he waits for me to finish that sentence. The truth comes gushing out of me on the exhale. “And all the stuff I wasn’t interested in feeling, I felt.”
“Steve…?” he says. Of all things that’s what he fucking says.
“The guy you were with. His name was Steve. You didn’t know that?”
He gives me a small shrug, and his eyes fall to my fingers still wrapped around his left bicep. “I knew it then, I think. I mean it wasn’t a thing. It was an experiment.”
“An experiment?” I echo, my brows pinching.
“I had been fantasizing about guys for a while, and I’d kissed a few. Jerked off with one guy once. But this guy… Steve… was the first time I ever did that,” Luke confesses, and now he’s turning toward me.
There’re footsteps in the hallway and both of us hold our breath to make sure they keep walking. It would be just my luck to have one of them stop to get a pep talk from the captain right fucking now. When the noise tapers off our eyes meet again. God this man is fucking gorgeous. “I walked in on your first…”
“Blow job from a guy?” Luke finishes for me. “Yeah. And so maybe that was traumatizing for you but it was also a little embarrassing for me. Not the ideal first, for sure.”
“I wasn’t traumatized.”
“Yeah. You’ve clarified that.”
“I’m also not homophobic,” I add, and a tiny smile pulls at his mouth. I can’t stop staring at it.
“Yeah. You made that clear too. And I’m sorry I assumed.” He lets out a breath I feel dance over my neck because he’s that close. “I have a chip on my shoulder. I’m the first to admit it. I was at your house that Christmas not because my parents couldn’t afford to fly me home but because they didn’t want to. I’d mentioned to them at Thanksgiving that I was… not straight. I’d started to like guys, and when it came time to book me a flight for Christmas they said they weren’t ready to see me.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“They needed time to process.” Luke shrugs again and I reach out and drop a hand on his shoulder. Our eyes meet. I see the pain that he’s trying desperately to shroud in nonchalance. “They’re still processing.”
“Fuck…” I feel for him. I haven’t told my brother and dad that I think I’m bi, but it isn’t from fear. I could walk into the house tomorrow holding hands with a guy and they wouldn’t kick me out. They’d process just fine. My mother would have too. That feels like such a privilege suddenly.
“Look, forget about it. I do.” His tone is hard, like he’s warning me to drop it. And then he steps away from me and to the door.
And I panic. “What I haven’t been able to forget about is what I thought when I saw you that night, under the mistletoe.”
His hand is on the door handle but he freezes. “What’s that?”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at me. Maybe it’s easier this way. I’ve never said this out loud. “I thought you looked so hot. I thought you seemed… content. I thought. I wanted to feel that. And I wanted to be the reason you looked like that. I wanted to touch you… like Steve was. I thought for the first time that… I might be bi.”
He finally turns to face me. “Judging by how hard you got last night when I touched you, and the way you put your hand on mine so I wouldn’t pull away, I’d say you’re as straight as cooked spaghetti. Congratulations. Glad I could help you figure that out.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I move, pushing him square on both shoulders as I step into him. Luke’s back hits the closed door with a thump only slightly less loud than the thumps my heart is making. “I don’t want you to tell me what I am. I want you to show me. And you want to or else you wouldn’t have invited me here.”
He takes one shallow breath. Two shallow breaths. And then his hand reaches up and cups the back of my head and his dark eyes with the impossibly dark lashes flutter, like my heart, before his lips crash down on mine.
CHAPTER 5
LUKE
This is dangerous. This is gasoline and a lit cigarette. This is surfing in a lightning storm. This is wearing baby oil at the beach. Someone is most definitely going to get burned. And I’m volunteering as tribute, apparently.
Because I’m kissing Noah. I’m the one who made the first move. And luckily, or unluckily depending on how this all ends, Noah didn’t even pretend to hesitate before kissing me back. And now he’s got his tongue sliding over my lips, begging for entrance. His hands are at my sides, holding my hips to his and god damn, we’re both as hard as ice.
