Holy shit.
I can’t believe last night actually happened. I keep replaying it on a loop in my head—the press of Mason’s lips against mine, the way he dropped to his knees and made me forget how to speak, let alone think. It was the kind of thing teenage me used to fantasize about in the dark, alone in my room.
A hot, muscled lifeguard sucking my dick and calling me pretty? Hell. Fucking. Yes.
But what really surprised me was the way he looked at me afterward—like I wasn’t just a distraction or a passing curiosity, but someone who actually mattered. Like he wanted me.
Me.A skinny, awkward, socially-inept nerd who knows way too many useless facts about plants and corrects people when they confuse moss and lichen. The guy who’s more comfortable identifying trees than talking to actual people.
When my research proposal was approved earlier this year, I braced myself for a summer of quiet fieldwork and data analysis. A few sunburns. Maybe a bout of poison ivy. I certainly didn’t expecthim—and I sure as hell didn’t expect him to want me back. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to people like me.
Right now, I’m slouched at my desk, trying to type up my weekly status report for my graduate research advisor. My fingers hover uselessly above the keyboard, paralyzed by the racing thoughts in my brain.
With a groan, I shove my laptop aside and collapse on my bed, letting the blankets swallow me. I grab my phone and call my emotional support hotline: my best (and only) friend, Derek.
He picks up after one ring. “Hey, bitch! How’s it going?”
I groan into my pillow. “Derek, I need help. I’m having a crisis.”
“You’re always having a crisis. Be more specific.”
“I did athinglast night.”
“A thing?”
“Asexthing. With a guy.”
He gives a snort of disbelief. “Okay, solid joke. Now tell me what actually happened.”
“I’m not joking!” I snap, lifting my head. “You remember that lifeguard I told you about? Mason?”
“The grumpy-but-sexy straight one?”
“Yeah, well… turns out I was wrong about the straight part.” I pause. “We had an argument, and it got kinda heated, but then he kissed me. And we, um. Gave each other head.”
A beat of silence passes between us.
“Wait. Are you serious?”
“Yes, Derek!”
“Holy shit, Hunter. This is huge! You haven’t hooked up with anyone since—”
“I know,” I cut in, my stomach twisting at the name I know he’s about to say.
“Since Travis,” he finishes anyway.
I pick at the chipped polish on my thumbnail. “Obviously. Travis is the only guy I’ve ever slept with.”
God, it’s humiliating to admit out loud. Travis was my first everything—first kiss, first fuck, first heartbreak. And until last night, I hadn’t touched anyone else. We broke up two years ago, and I’ve been stuck in a stasis ever since. I’m twenty-three years old and have only ever kissed one guy.
Well, now two guys.
“Jesus. Okay, tell me everything. How was it?”
I take a breath. “It was… good. Really good. Like, way better than I expected. And not just the blowjob. I didn’t knowkissingsomeone could feel like that.”
“That’s because Travis was a bad lay and a terrible kisser,” Derek says flatly. “And a shitty person.”
