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“I know what I like.” I press my mouth to his jaw, because I can. “I like you. I love you. Those are both still true with our clothes on or off. Before or after an orgasm. You’ll see.”

That night was only the beginning. If I thought his lessons were intense, they don’t even compare to what we do now. My whole body hums with even the reminder of his hands on me and inside me, let alone his thick cock. I catch myself shifting in a lecture because of a memory and have to stare very hard at my notes until my face behaves and my dick settles down.

I keep waiting for it to fade. That’s what I tell myself on the walk back from French, and again when I open the door to our dorm room and find him already there, hair still damp from practice, a gas-station bouquet stuffed into one of my larger beakers because we don’t have a vase. It doesn’t fade. It gets better, which is almost statistically impossible. Every expectation I had about relationships gets blown out of the water, and I didn’t have many expectations to begin with. I had a theory that wanting someone would be inconvenient and mostly hypothetical. I was wrong.

Why isn’t everyone in a relationship? I almost asked Christine at lunch one day that Daniel couldn’t join us, but then didn’t because I didn’t want to hear it if this wasn’t normal or if this could go away. Even without kissing him where anyone can see, he still walks me to class. He still eats with me and my friends.

When he brought me flowers to lunch one day, my friends noticed. Christine stole a petal and raised an eyebrow at me until I said, “He’s my boyfriend,” and then I had to drink my entire water so I wouldn’t have to say anything else.

Even Lincoln accepted him. Going so far as asking how his last game went, which is him basically saying, fine, you can stay.

If it’s a dream. I don’t want to wake up.

I’m still thinking about the way he woke me up this morning and how hard I came, when someone steps into my path outside the science building and doesn’t move.

Blue.

I know him from home. Lincoln’s step-brother. He plays hockey with Daniel. He has his backpack hanging off one shoulder, and he’s wearing the same look he used to get in high school right before he decided Lincoln should pay for something he hadn’t done.

“Mackenzie,” he says. “Didn’t know you still followed Lincoln around like a lost puppy. Or is it the other way around?”

I stop. My hands tighten on my backpack straps.

He tips his head to the side at my silence. “Tell your butt buddy I said hi. Must be nice, having him here on campus to fuck you again.”

I sputter. “I’m not sleeping with Lincoln,” I say. It comes out flat, which is good, because my heart is trying to drop out of my ass. “I’m with Daniel.”

Blue’s eyebrows go up. His dark gray eyes glitter with an emotion I can’t decipher.

“Daniel,” he says. “My Daniel. On the hockey team. Your roommate.” He laughs once, but it’s not a nice sound. “Does he know you’re sleeping with my step-brother?”

“I’m not.” My mouth is dry. “I never have. Lincoln is only my friend. He’s only ever been my friend. Daniel’s my boyfriend. Those are different things. You can ask either of them.”

I don’t know why I’m defending myself with him. I know he’s not nice. He was a jerk to Lincoln in high school. Even if Lincoln down played it any time I brought it up. I know there were things that happened that he didn’t tell me about.

“I don’t need to ask.” He shifts his bag higher on his shoulder and looks at me like he’s already judged me and found me guilty. “I’ve seen you both at the rink. I’ve seen the way Lincoln looks at you when he thinks nobody’s watching. Daniel’s an idiot if he thinks you’re just helping him with his class. I’ll make sure he isn’t an idiot.”

He steps around me before I can respond. Someone else’s shoulder clips mine on the way into the science building. I stand on the walkway with my straps cutting into my hands and the glimmer of the dream still sitting in my chest, except now it has a crack in it.

He’s going to tell Daniel that lie. But he will say it like it’s a fact. And Daniel, who loves me, who woke me up this morning in the sweetest way possible, is going to hear Lincoln and in bed with me in the same breath and have to decide which version of me he believes.

I pull my phone out, my stomach rolling and my eyes burning with unshed tears. My thumb hovers over Daniel’s name. What do I say? He will believe his teammate. A tear slips down my cheek, chilling it in the frigid air. I’m going to lose the person I love because of a bully.

FIFTY-ONE

DANIEL

The last few weeks have been pure bliss. Everything has been perfect. Well. Most everything. My grades are slipping. And when I’m at my internship I find myself thinking about Quinn. I’ll catch myself staring at a microscope slide like it might turn into Quinn if I wait long enough. Which is obviously not how it works and also not how I keep the lab from deciding I’m a liability and cutting my internship short.

I’m going to have to face the fact that I need to think about my future and find some sort of balance. Quinn will understand. And we can study together…maybe we can set up some reward system or something. I snort under my breath. Right. Read chapter thirty-six, get a make-out session. Learn something new at my internship, and we do a little more than make out. I’d pass with flying colors and also never leave our room.

I shake my head and cut across the quad toward the cafe for lunch. I waited for Quinn outside of the Language Arts building and he never came out. And he wasn’t in the class room when I went inside to check either. Maybe I missed him. Quinn doesn’t skip. If he wasn’t where he said he’d be, something happened, and my brain has already started offering me six versions of it, none of them useful.

“Daniel.”

Blue is coming across the grass as if he’s been looking for me. He has an almost angry look on his face. I’m pretty sure I haven’t done shit to piss him off lately…now if we are talking about the other way around, that shit he said about Quinn a few months ago still grates on my nerves. I know I should let it go, but sometimes I remember it and I want to punch him.

I slow down. I don’t stop all the way, and he catches up.