When I am about to hit my head against the wall, my boyfriend turns me around and presses another of his stupid praising stickers onto my sweaty torso, then kisses me.
I’ll gladly take more of the kisses, the stickers not so much.
“Why do you even have these stickers?” I don’t try peeling them off because I know if I do, Luan is going to make me do that Shoulder Pectoralis Stretch again, and I’d rather be covered in praising stickers than feel like a failure again just because I can’t even hold my hand to a door frame without wincing in pain.
“Because the little kids I used to coach loved them, and I am hoping my new kids will too. Besides, praising is great for someone’s mentality. It makes them feel better about themselves, even when they’ve done a seemingly bad job.”
“I didn’t know you had a praise kink.” I lay both of my hands onto his hips to pull him against my body. I lower my voice. “Do you want me to call you a good boy next time I get the chance to?” I brush my lips along his jaw.
“Don’t—”
“Or tell you just howgoodyou’re taking me?”
A quiet whimper leaves him when I push my hips into his and he can feel my growing erection. “Grey,” he chokes out. “I don’t know why Ialwayshave to remind you, but this gym has security cameras.”
Although I can feel the chuckle bubbling up, I keep my face as unbothered as always. I then look up, directly into one of the cameras and wave.
Luan lets his forehead fall against my shoulder, groaning. “You’re so embarrassing.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one to stickgood job,Wow!, andgreat jobstickers all over my torso.”
“I have a sticker roll that says all kinds of kinky stuff. LikeHot, Fuck Yes,andNice Cock. They’re star shaped.”
This should surprise me, I think, but somehow this makes a lot of sense. And I honestly think there’s nothing Luan could ever tell me thatwouldgenuinely surprise me. “Please tell me you didn’t accidentally buy them and hand them out before.”
He laughs, lifting his head again. “No, but I did buy them when I was nineteen and drunk and… you know, maybe this is the point where I should stop myself from telling you everything for once in my life.”
Nineteen. That’s almost a whole decade ago, and he still has them, apparently.
When Luan tries to escape to terminate this conversation, I stop him and pull him right back into my body. “I want to know what you did with them so I can laugh about you.”
“I know, that’s why I refuse to tell you.”
“Look on the bright side,” I begin and lay both of my hands onto my boyfriend’s ass, “you’ll hear me laugh.”
“Tempting.”
“Aw, come on, baby. Be agood boyand tell me.” Luan sighsreallyheavily as he closes his eyes, still refusing to tell me. “As your future husband, I am entitled to know. Who else would know these kinds of things about you? No one. So,… tell me.”
“Wow, you really had to go there, huh?” He smirks, but despite how much he’s trying not to let thefuture husbandpart affect him, there’s still a faint blush on his cheeks.
“Sure did.”
“Fine. I stuck them to myself, fell asleep, and the next morning, because, again, I was still drunk or drunk again, whatever you prefer, I forgot I had them on me and got ready for my classes. When I got to my first class that day, I was wondering why people kept staring at me, but I didn’t care much either. At least until Doro found me in the hallways and asked me why I have a bunch of stickers on my neck and arms. If they had beennormalstickers, it wouldn’t have been half as bad. For the rest of my college path, people thought one of the soccer guys I—presumably—hooked up with was weirdly into stickers and praises.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “But you were the guy who did it.”
“Yeah, but that was honestly the least bad thing I did. I took a picture of my cock with theNice Cocksticker on it and sent it to my then crush—the soccer guy, who sent the picture to his friends, who made sure to send them all around campus. But the good thing was, the picture looked like someone else took it because I had my phone upside down. Don’t ask me how I managed to do that, I have no idea. So anyway, the guy’s friends thoughtheput them on me and that we hooked up, mind you, he was straight as a ruler. And according to that guy, we drunkenly fucked, which I know we never did. In hindsight, I don’t think he was as straight as he claimed to be because, like I said,hetold people we hooked up when we never did. Anyway, I was hurt over his rejection, well not hurt but… you know, he didn’t serve any purpose for me anymore after that, so whenever someone asked me about it, I would just say, ‘Oh, yeah, Travis or whatever his name was, he was a really weird and bad lay’ and people would believe me because, I don’t know if you knew, but I used to be arealand brutally honestasshole.”
I stand corrected, maybe Luan can still surprise me after all.
“I think you just traumatized me a little there.”
“And I think you’re full of shit, Grey Davis.”
“Still you love me.”
His smile widens. “Only because I feel bad for you. I mean, you fell in love with me the second you saw me. Your whole grumpy play-pretend was pretty obvious right from the start, but I figured I could do you a solid and go with it. For your own sake, of course.”
