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“He already has it.” Her pen stops. Fuck. “No follow-up questions.”

Micah opens his mouth. Tessa points the pen at him. “He said no follow-up questions.”

Micah looks at her. “He already has the guy’s number.”

“I heard him.” The host calls time before Micah can keep arguing. Tessa shoves the answer sheet into his hands. “Go turn this in.”

He complains the whole way to the scoring table, but he goes.

When he’s out of earshot, Tessa bumps her knee against mine under the table. “You okay?”

For half a second, I want to tell her. Then I see Pope with his shirt still buttoned and his hand slick with my come, telling me he isn’t into men.

“Yeah.” I take another drink. “It was just a hookup.”

She watches me for a moment, then pulls the basket of fries closer. “Good. Because if you’re going to have a crisis, wait until after the picture round.”

I steal one of her fries. “You’d let me die during the picture round.”

“I’d call an ambulance. Quietly.”

Micah comes back before I can answer, and the three of us fall into the game. Tessa argues with him over spelling. I stop them from changing an answer they had right the first time. Somebody at the matching-shirt table accuses the host of reading too quickly, and the entire bar boos them until they sit down.

By the next break, Micah has moved on to complaining about our score. Tessa has threatened to break the pen in half. I’m laughing hard enough that beer nearly comes out my nose. Micah buys another round, and Tessa lets me have the last fry after making me admit she carried us through the picture round.

The host starts the next round. Before he’s halfway through the category, I’m wondering whether Ben Pope is good at trivia.

9

BEN

I can’t call my twenty-one-year-old brother to get advice about gay sex.

My phone sits on the kitchen counter with Grayson’s name on the screen anyway.

It’s been a few days since the incident, but thinking about it still brings back the heat of Fraser’s mouth around my cock. I can see him on his knees in front of me, naked and hard, looking up like taking orders was another way to tell me to fuck off.

Then I remember how I left.

I used him like a thing I could put down when I finished. He was naked, streaked with my come, and barely done shaking when I shoved my cock into my pants and told him I wasn’t into men. Then I walked out without helping him clean up or asking if he was all right.

If a woman got me off, told me she wasn’t really into me, and ran before I could get my pants on, I’d think she was an asshole. Avoiding me for the next several days wouldn’t improve my opinion.

I’ve never treated anybody that way. I’ve always been honest with women about what I want and careful not to make them feel cheap afterward. With Fraser, I broke both rules in less than half an hour.

The sex itself left me confused as hell. Remembering what I did afterward makes me feel sick.

It hasn’t stopped me from wanting him.

Last night I woke up with my hand around my cock and his name behind my teeth. I was dreaming about getting him back against that wall. This time, when I dropped to my knee, I didn’t turn away from his dick.

I can almost taste the drop that slid over the head.

My cock thickens against my zipper. I brace both hands against the counter and wait for it to get the message that we’re going to a team party, not back to room 1127.

Maybe I’ve secretly been gay all along.

That possibility falls apart as soon as I think about the women I’ve wanted. None of that was an act. I liked their bodies, touching them, and the sex. There isn’t a hidden collection of men I refused to admit I wanted. There’s only Fraser.