Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“I get glared at all the time.”
“From jealous girls who wish they were the ones standing beside you. It’s not the same.”
“Well,” he says, lowering his arm behind my back and gently pulling me to his chest. “I don’t give a shit that you’re gay.”
Famous last words. A short two years later, and he had a big fucking problem with me being gay.
“Are you out at school?”
“Not wearing dick sucking t-shirts out, but yeah. Everyone around here knows, too. I told my dad a while back and like it always does, that news spread like wildfire through the clubhouse.”
“Run into any problems?”
I shake my head. “It’s like it is what it is. People there don’t care. I don’t think I ever seriously thought they would. Jaxon and Rob are gay, and they’ve been a part of the club from the beginning.”
“Talk about two hot Daddies.”
I huff a laugh. “Right?”
Jaxon and Rob, known as Snatch and Itchy by the club, were best friends that ended up together. I looked at them as inspiration, holding on to hope for years that Landon and I could be just like them.
Immature thoughts for an immature boy. That’s all that was.
“What’s up with Landon?”
I snap my eyes to him.
“What do you mean?”
“You two are still together, right?”
“We aren’t together,” I snap.
God knows what would happen if this gossip hound in front of me began to spread that rumor.
He chuckles. “Not together-together because he’s the straightest man I know, but you ended up at the same college, right?”
“We’re both at Lindell University in Texas.”
“And where is your bestie tonight?”
He’s digging. I know this because he was well aware, like many kids in high school, that by the time we graduated, we weren’t the best of friends any longer. Most assumed that the girls always lining for Landon got in the way, and I never corrected them. I had my own part to play, not letting on to the heartbreak that ate me alive each day.
“We aren’t exactly besties any longer.”
“That’s fortuitous,” Seth says, grinning.
“I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word. Fortuitous means—”
“Look.” Seth nods his head to the front door at my back, and I don’t have to even look to know who just came in.
I don’t have to look, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t.
Landon saunters in, that stupid grin he gives women to draw them closer on his stupidly perfect face.
He glances in my direction, but I refuse to think of myself as a beacon for him like I have many times in the past, then his eyes land on Seth.
I wish I were braver than I actually am because I would stand up to him for being so disgusted at the sight of me sitting here with an old friend. Who cares that we’re both gay?
“He doesn’t seem happy,” Seth says as Landon walks toward the front counter, taking a seat on the far side. We’re still in his line of sight, but at the moment, he isn’t looking in our direction. “Maybe he isn’t as straight as I thought.”
“Oh, he’s straight alright,” I mutter.
“He’s jealous.”
“Of what?”
“Me sitting here with you instead of him.”
“Fat fucking chance,” I grumble.
I want to celebrate the fact that my heart doesn’t race at the implication. Maybe the broken thing in my chest is finally making it into the acceptance stage of grief.
“Let’s put it to the test.”
Bubbling laughter erupts from Seth just as his hand lands on my forearm.
When his finger begins to trail up and down my skin, I narrow my eyes at him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He laughs again, a boisterous, overexaggerated display that for some reason brings a smile to my own face in its ridiculousness.
“Testing him. Lean close. I want to gauge his response. He’s already looking like he wants to tear my head off.”
I lean in, forgetting all about the zero chance I have with Landon and focusing on Seth’s little game.
It’s not going to bring about the response Seth thinks it will, but since I’m a petty person, I play along.
“This feels childish,” I say, leaning in close, and really looking into his familiar eyes for the first time tonight.
Hazel, an abstract mix of blues, greens, and amber, look back at me.
“Let’s kick it up a notch,” he whispers, and then his lips are on mine, both familiar and foreign at the same time.
I should pull back. This will get me nowhere except having to apologize to Seth later, but I find myself leaning even closer when the hand he had on my arm cups my cheek.
My eyes flutter closed when his tongue brushes mine, and when we part, Seth licking at his lips with a smile, I feel breathless.
“I think I needed that,” I whisper, more to myself than to him.
It’s like I’m starved for attention.