Elliot snorted. “It worked.”
“Yeah. They’re going to be thrilled when I push you against the lockers and make out with you on Monday.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to get detention.”
“Fine,” Damon said. “I’ll save the kissing for later when I’m trying to distract you from killing my team.”
“So you admit it! You do cheat!”
“Nah, I wasn’t cheating.” Damon picked up their interlocked hands and kissed Elliot’s knuckles. “I just needed an excuse to touch you.”
Epilogue
“You have forty-five minutes until your next class. You can play one round,” Damon said, his brown eyes pleading.
Elliot sighed dramatically and tossed his backpack onto his bed. He launched toward the console under the TV and grabbed the only controller that Damonhadn'tgotten gunked up with peanut butter.
“Yes!” Damon said as Elliot tossed him a sticky controller and plopped onto the beanbag.
Elliot and Damon got into the same college and had, of course, decided to room together. They practically lived together anyway.
The summer after senior year had been spent the way all of their summers were spent—video games, pool parties, and not much else—except for one little difference.
There was a lot more kissing…and other stuff.
Damon’s mom walked in on them while they were hot and heavy within the first two weeks that they officially got together. She was less surprised with what she saw than either of them thought she’d be.
Elliot came out to his mom and dad, and they, too, were unsurprised that Elliot and Damon were dating.
“Just use protection,” Elliot’s mom had said.
Elliot's face heated, and he hid behind his hands. “Mom!”
“Of course, Ms. Croft,” Damon said, grinning, completely shameless.
Their first semester of college had been harder than either of them had anticipated. Elliot had to figure out how to juggle his courses and working part-time at the vet clinic, while Damon did the same with his classes and collegiate-level fall conditioning for baseball.
Second semester was easier, or maybe they’d finally gotten into the swing of things. Breakfast, class, lunch, class, work or baseball practice, dinner, video games, getting each other off.
“Hostiles in the upper attic portion,” Damon said.
“Where?”
“The floor with the hole. You have to jump off the stairs to get to it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Damon shoved Elliot’s shoulder with his foot. “Over there!”
“Where?”
“Oh my god!” Damon walked his player into a relatively safe corridor and crawled over to Elliot. He hovered over him from behind, wrapping his arms around him and covering his hands with his own. Damon’s thumbs nudged Elliot’s player in the right direction.
“There,” Damon said in a huffy breath that tickled his ear. Elliot’s head fell to the side, giving Damon more access to his neck. “You see it now?”
“Uh huh,” Elliot said, letting Damon’s hands do all the work of killing the hostiles while on his controller.
“You suck at this game.”
