Page 6 of The Jock Next Door

“With your art?” He stops a few feet from me, close enough that I can smell him. God, he smells good. Sweat dried into cotton, musk, warm skin. I want to bottle it.

“Yeah. With my art.”

“Cool, cool.” He scratches his stomach, and my eyes are drawn to the sliver of skin revealed where his shirt rides up. The trail of dark hair. “You heading to the showers?”

“Yeah.” Obviously. I’m standing here in a bathrobe holding a towel and toiletries.

“Mind if I join you? I could use a rinse.” He lifts an arm and sniffs his own pit. “Yep. Definitely need a rinse.”

Do I mind? The last thing I need is to be in a small, steamy, tiled room with a naked Trey. This is the absolute worst-case scenario.

“Sure,” I say. “I mean, it’s a communal shower.”

“Bet. Let me grab my stuff.”

He disappears back into his room, and I stand there in the hallway with my heart slamming against my ribs. This is not happening. This is a nightmare. Or a fantasy, depending on how I look at it, but a very dangerous one. I’m already half-hard from the smell of him.

I’m so screwed.

5

Ihate the communal showers. If my budget hadn’t already been stretched to its limit on the single room, I would’ve found a place with a private bathroom. Instead, I got a row of shower heads on a tiled wall, everything out in the open. The idea of running into anyone while buck naked has always been a special kind of hell for me. But so far, I’ve had the place to myself. I’ve figured out the dead hours, the windows when everyone’s in class or at dinner or out living their lives. I’ve perfected the art of the stealth shower.

Until now. Trey tosses his towel over a hook and drops his toiletries on the bench. He doesn’t seem to care at all that we’re about to be naked together. Of course he doesn’t. A guy who answers his door in boxer briefs wouldn’t think twice about this.

“So I listened to you,” he says, pulling his shirt over his head. There it is. The broad chest, the cobblestone abs, dark skin gleaming under the bathroom lights. It’s hard not to stare. My drawings from the last few days are a cheap imitation. Nothing beats seeing it in person.

“Listened to me?”

“About Coach.” He pushes his sweatpants down and steps out of them. Black boxer briefs this time. Hugging every inch of him. “I went to see him yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?” I’m trying to keep my eyes on his face, I am, but they keep drifting south.

“Told him what he wanted to hear, like you said. That I’d been a hothead. That I’d work on my attitude.” He rolls his eyes. “All that crap. Laid it on thick.”

“And?”

“He ate it up. Man loves hearing he’s right.” A snort. “Said he’d sleep on it. Maybe let me suit up for practice next week.”

“That’s… that’s great.” My face is so hot I’m surprised the mirror isn’t fogging up.

“We’ll see.” He hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and pushes them down. “So, thanks for the advice, man. For real. You said what I needed to hear.”

There’s no way to prepare for it. I’ve imagined it. I’ve tried to capture its shape and weight through boxer briefs. But seeing it in the flesh is beyond anything I pictured. Even soft, it hangs heavy between his thighs like a pendulum. Thick, with a slight curve to the left. Dark trimmed hair. Veins that make my fingers itch to trace them. My brain goes offline. A buffering wheel spinning behind my eyes. All I can do is stare.

“You gonna undress or you showering in your robe?” Trey tilts his head, lips curled into a smile.

“Sorry,” I hear myself say.

“Sorry for what?”

I don’t have an answer. So I turn my back and fumble with the tie on my robe. “I’m a little self-conscious,” I tell the wall. It’s the truth.

“Don’t be,” he says. “We all got the same parts, man.”

Do we, though? I don’t have the kind of body anyone would want to look at twice. All angles and pale skin and not enough muscle. And my cock is not the majestic thing hanging between Trey’s legs. But it is rapidly getting hard, and the last thing I need is for him to see that.

“You know,” Trey says, stepping under the water like this is the most natural thing in the world. And for him it probably is. He’s a football player. Locker rooms, team showers. He’s used to this. “My last neighbor was a real piece of work.”