My heart was still hammering. My jeans were still tight. And my head was full of everything he'd just said—the confessions, the want, the casual devastating honesty ofjust two gay boys.
I was bi. But when I was with him I was definitely gay. When I was holding him like this, there was no confusion. No question. Just him. Just this.
He wouldn't remember all of it. Maybe not any of it. But I would. Every word.
The quad was silent through the window. His heartbeat slow against my forearm.
I closed my eyes.
Chapter 15: Alex
Iwoke up wrong.
Not the slow, surfacing kind of waking—the kind where your body jerks because something is off and your brain hasn't caught up to what it is yet. My stomach lurched. My head pounded—a thick, heavy pressure behind my eyes that made the dark room pulse.
Liam's arm was around my waist.
I could feel it before I could see anything. The weight of it. The warmth of his chest pressed against my back. His breathing slow and steady behind me—the deep, even rhythm of someone actually sleeping. Actually at peace.
I sat up and his arm fell away.
The room was dark. Not dawn-dark—middle-of-the-night dark.
My mouth tasted like something had died in it. Vodka and stomach acid and the chemical residue of whatever Collins's girlfriend had mixed into those cups. My shirt was wrinkled, still on. Shoes off. The blanket had been tucked around me—tight, careful. The way someone would tuck in a child.
Liam did that.
Fragments were surfacing. Not in order—in flashes. The party. The porch. Braden's face close to mine.Your little boyfriend.The texts—my own words swimming on the screen, typos and confessions I couldn't take back.
Oh no.
Then the dorm. Liam's hoodie. His hands untying my shoes.
You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Oh God.
The memory hit like a fist. My voice—slurred, raw, stripped of every defense I'd ever built. Telling him things I'd never said sober. Things I'd barely admitted to myself.
I can't stop thinking about you.
You're so fucking hot.
My hand. On him. Through his jeans. The hardness I'd found there and the way he'd grabbed my wrist and stopped me—
I pressed my palms against my eyes. The nausea wasn't just from the alcohol.
I'll just have you fuck me another day. In front of everyone. Who cares anymore. We're just two gay boys.
I'd said that. Out loud. To Liam.
Every other time we'd been together, it was equal. Both of us wanting. Both of us there. This was different. I'd been falling apart and he'd caught me. I'd offered myself and he'd said no—not because he didn't want me, but because he wasn't like that. He'd held my wrist like I was something worth being careful with.
Nobody had ever been careful with me before.
And that was the thing I couldn't sit with. Not the embarrassment. Not the words. The tenderness. Because if Liam could look at me like that—wrecked, drunk, graceless—and still choose to protect me from myself, then what I felt for him wasbigger than I'd been pretending. And what he felt for me was real.
It was easier to be angry.
