Felix put a hand over his heart. “I’ll try to contain my laughter. So what do you want to do first? Or should it be a surprise, like you open the door and I’m there in a maid costume?”
“Maid costume? There’s no maid costume.” Jacob shook his head. “This is stupid. You’re going to make this weird.”
He turned back toward the classroom. Felix grabbed his shirt, yanking him back.
“I won’t!” Felix said. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s showing a guy a fun time. Right?”
Jacob inclined his head in reluctant agreement. Felix beamed and let go of Jacob’s shirt.
“I’ll make it nice, man,” Felix said lightly. “I promise.”
Jacob said nothing. He would be the last one to admit it, but he enjoyed Felix’s antics. Just not if he was making fun of something Jacob was actually self-conscious about. And he was self-conscious asfuckabout sex.
Felix’s smile faded. An earnest expression replaced it, one he rarely let anyone but Jacob see.
“Dude,” Felix said softly. “You’re my best friend. I’d… I’dloveto.”
Then he dropped his gaze. Jacob broke out in goosebumps. He’d never heard Felix say anything so intense in his life. And Felix wasn’t even following it up with a joke. He just stood there, waiting for Jacob to respond.
Jacob swallowed. “Meet me in your dorm after classes. Shane will be gone, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Felix said, immediately falling back into his airy, unserious self. “They’re doing some schmoopy romantic shit on the other side of town. So we’re doing this?”
“I guess.”
Felix stuck his hand out. Jacob took it warily, already shaking it when he realized something. “You used the hand cream,” he said. “Your skin already looks better.”
Felix grinned. “Told you I was on it.” He rubbed his thumb over Jacob’s wrist. His skin didn’t just look better, less red and dry—it was softer, too. Jacob’s wrist tingled when he let go. Was he developing an allergy to aloe?
Felix asked, “When do your classes end?”
“It’s Thursday.”
“So, three. Alright.” Felix nodded at him casually and walked off. “See you then!”
Jacob said nothing, his hand still tingling where Felix had touched him.
This is either the best thing I’ve ever done,he thought to himself as he watched Felix vanish around the corner,or the dumbest.
CHAPTER 3
Felix sat at his desk in class, deciding whether he wanted to fist-pump the air or throw up.
He was going to have sex withJacob. The guy he’d been in love with since before he knew what love was. The first guy he’d ever jerked off to. The guy he was going to pine after forever, never knowing what his lips felt like.
Except now he was. And not just his lips, he was going to knoweverything. How could he not be fist-pumping, nervous-puking excited about that? How could he not dread it with every bone in his body? He was going to introduce Jacob to sex and then live the rest of his life knowing how Jacob’s cock felt inside him, only to never have that again.
It felt like a Greek tragedy. Which might be useful if this course was about classics, but they were studying Black British poetry from 1980s London, so it was pretty useless.
Felix was so distracted by what was waiting for him after class that he got up and slammed straight into a guy who looked incredibly familiar.
“Shit, sorry,” Felix said automatically. Then he registered the guy frowning down at him and paused. “Oh, hey. You were theTA for a bunch of creative writing classes, right? Jack something. Since when do you TA for English?”
“Since I’m doing a minor in it,” Jack said, looking just as exhausted as he always did. He started to walk away, but Felix—desperate to think about anything except the shitstorm he was about to put his heart through—jumped in the way.
“I thought it was cool you talked Nate into doing that love poetry confession last semester,” he said. “Shane’s my roommate. They’re pretty unbearable now, but they’re good together.”
Jack snorted, rubbing his stubbled chin. “I didn’t talk that kid into shit.”
