“I’m 23,” he admitted, in a tone that suggested being 23 was a moral failing he had not yet been able to conquer.
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s going to care that you’re 23,” I said honestly. “As long as you like horror movies. Arie kind of forces us to let him pick most of the time.” Bossy little twink.
“Well, I…” He wrung his fingers together nervously. “Oh! Gosh, I’m probably keeping you from your next class, right? Sorry!”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. It was nearby, only a minute or two walk. But I stood up anyway. “Let me know if you end up wanting to hang out. I’ll give you the address.”
“Sure,” he said, nodding quickly. “I’ll let you know.” I couldn’t tell if he would actually take me up on the offer, but I could tell he wanted to. Well, I’d offered and that was that.
My next class was economics, which Caelyx was also in. I slid into a seat, setting my bag on the desk. He was across the room, but his eyes had been locked on me since the second I’d walked in. A flush of heat washed over me, tingles snaking up my spine at the memory of his tongue on my dick.
Staring up toward the front where the professor was preparing to start their lecture, I hoped I wasn’t visibly blushing. If I was, I knew he would see it since he was still staring at me like a fucking creep. If he ever found out I was actually letting him do a bunch offirststo me, I was seriously done for. He’d tease me until I died of embarrassment, and then he’d probably still stalk me in the afterlife.
But as irritating as he was and as clueless as he seemed most of the time, Caelyx was making it supremely easy to just lean into whatever was going on between us. There was no pressure, no unpleasant tension, no stress. For the first time since I’d startedhaving sex, I wasn’t in my head about how my partner felt about my body or if they wished I was something else or could give them something else.
I’d fucked around with more than a few guys since transitioning. Once I’d started getting bottom growth from T and my top surgery was healed up enough for physical activity, I’d been good to go, although I’d immediately defaulted to topping with a strap-on. The idea of sex without that physical barrier there had always felt too intimate.
I’d had several guys express interest in going down on me, or topping me, which I’d always turned down. It wasn’t that I thought they weren’t genuine, but… There was something incredibly un-sexy about having a guy stare at your crotch like it was a science experiment that hadn’t gone quite right and they were trying to figure out which variable had caused the confusing result. Even if it was only for a second before they recovered, it was enough to completely take me out of it. It was even worse when they treated me like a quiz they didn’t want to fail, making me explain what words they were allowed to use and not use. Maybe some people were into that, but I wasn’t. It felt like a humiliation ritual.
So far, Caelyx was batting two for two. Jerking me off from behind was one thing, but now that he’d sucked my dick like it contained an antidote for an exotic poison he’d accidentally ingested, it was impossible for me to pretend I wasn’t into him. Well, I was into his fingers and tongue and dick, I reminded myself.
Emotional attachments weren’t my thing and probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Even if Faulkner was trying to buy me and force me into an arranged marriage with his son like we were merging kingdoms in a smutty romantasy novel. I wondered how pissed Caelyx would be if he ever found out about that.
I slid my gaze over to where he was seated, and discovered he was still looking in my direction. Our eyes locked, the brief contact somehow hot and intense enough to speed up my pulse. I immediately looked away, my teeth digging into my lower lip as my hand curled into a fist on my thigh. My heart was racing, but after a few seconds of mental pep talk, I turned toward him again.
He was smirking now, his eyebrow quirked up as he stared. He leaned forward, wiggling his fingers in a cocky little wave before resting his hand on his chin. His clear blue eyes were sparkling, his infuriatingly perfect lips curved up into that signature fuckboy grin. Snapping my gaze back to the front of the class, I made it my personal mission not to look over there again.
After an hour and a half of discussing GDP as a means of measuring the wealth of various nations, class was done. I didn’t even have to look over to know he was making a beeline for me. It was our last class of the day, so neither of us had anywhere to be. My stomach twisted with a light touch of nerves as I realized I’d probably agree to hang out if he asked me, even though we’d just hung out and hooked up the day before.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to make it such a regular thing. We weren’t dating or anything, but I couldn’t pretend like I hadn’t had a good time with him. Not just the getting sucked off and frotting part, but even just the hanging out and drinking smoothies part. Still, I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea that we were athing. We weren’t, and I wasn’t interested in that.
Plus our regular Friday closing shift together was the next day, followed immediately by the weekly group hangout, so it wasn’t like it’d be any significant amount of time before we saw each other again.
He planted a palm on my desk, leaning his hip onto the side so I was forced to look up at him.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied. We stared at each other for probably way too long before I rose up from the seat, nudging him toward the door. I didn’t want anyone to see us and think we were lovesick morons or anything.
“I hope you don’t miss me too much tonight,” Caelyx started as we walked together, before letting out an intentionally melodramatic sigh. “I can’t hang out, so don’t even think about asking. You’ll tempt me too much.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, both relieved and mildly disappointed. “I do have a life, you know.”
“Not me,” he admitted instantly. “I just need to study so I don’t fail the econ exam.”
“You haven’t studied?” I asked, my brows drawing together. He smirked, blinking his lashes at me innocently. He looked stupidly cute when he did that. It felt unfair, like biological warfare or something.
“Relax, Cupcake. I’ve been studying. Just want to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
I thought about how Faulkner had told me how much better Caelyx’s GPA had gotten since… Well, since me. Or at least, that was what he seemed to think. I still didn’t know if there was any truth to it and I certainly wasn’t going to ask.
“Well, you have fun with that,” I finally said, once we’d reached the point where I’d need to go one way to my dorm and he’d need to go the opposite way to his house. “Oh, hang on.”
“Yeah?” He responded, tucking his thumbs into his pockets as he waited.
“I, uh… I grabbed this for you when I was opening at the café this morning,” I said, digging in my bag to pull out a fancy little cake pop wrapped in cellophane.
I’d seen him eat them before, and this was a new special flavor that Sophia was trying out. Apparently they’d sold outreally fast the day before, and Caelyx never worked mornings, so I didn’t know if he’d ever get to try one if I hadn’t grabbed it.
