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Noah stopped walking, leaning against the railings that ran alongside the path, the only barrier between us and the river. “Okay, let’s look at this objectively. Maybe he did kiss you because he wanted to ensure that Gary knew you were taken.” He threw me a look that clearly said,I doubt it.“Your second point—you’re his best friend. He’s not going to use you as an experiment. I mean, yeah, I guess maybe he might, but there’s no way on this earth that he would just dive in and do that without talking to you about it first. I know we haven’t known each other for that long, and I don’t know Ander very well yet, but it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that he cares about your friendship a lot.”
Taking a large gulp from my water bottle, I leaned back against the railings next to him. “Say you’re right about that. What about the fact that I dragged him outside and we did those things?”
“What about it? I wasn’t there, but it doesn’t sound to me like you forced anything. He never said no, never tried to get away, right?”
I nodded slowly.
“Well, then. That should tell you something.”
“But you didn’t see his face.” My voice came out low and defeated. “I saw the regret written all over it after I pushed him away. It was clear to me that he wished we’d never even kissed in the first place, let alone take things as far as we did.”
Noah’s shoulders slumped, his sunny optimism finally wiped away, and I felt even worse because now I’d brought my friend down too.
“I guess there’s only one thing you can do,” he said eventually. “You need to talk to him about it. There’s no point in guessing how he might feel. The only way to know is to ask.”
“But what if I ask him and he doesn’t tell me the truth?”
Noah didn’t have an answer for that.
* * *
“You dropped your pen.” Straightening up and holding his hand out, Ander gave me a smile that I’d never seen before. It was fake. So fake that he shouldn’t even have bothered because his insincerity was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes. I shouldn’t have kissed him again. It had been a huge mistake, as evidenced by the way we’d been tiptoeing around each other ever since. A kiss wasn’t worth fucking up our friendship.
“Loveridge! Eyes on the slides,” Dr. Wilder hissed from the front of the room, next to the interactive whiteboard, his mouth twisting in displeasure.
“Fuck me, this wanker needs to get laid,” Ander muttered under his breath. When he turned back to me, his smile had turned conspiratorial, softening around the edges, morphing into a genuine expression.
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly, curling my fingers around my pen as I tugged it from his grip. The lecture theatre was full, and I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to Ander and me, but at the same time, a part of me wanted him to acknowledge me—no,us. Acknowledge what had happened between us in Bournemouth.
“E. I’m—”
“Fuck, yeah. We made it.” Liam was suddenly sliding into the seat to my left, closely followed by Preston.
“Cutting a bit fine, aren’t you?” I glanced over at them both, speaking in a whisper so we didn’t draw any more attention to ourselves.
“Montgomery! Holmes! The lecture starts at 10:00 a.m. sharp, not 10:08! Learn to tell the time!”
“My apologies, sir. It won’t happen again.” Preston actually sounded sincere, and it had the surprising effect of making Dr. Wilder’s anger deflate. He gave a brisk nod of acknowledgement and returned his attention to the whiteboard.
Settling back into my seat, I attempted to follow along with the discussion on global sustainability issues, but it was a lost cause. I was too aware of the person sitting next to me.
I flipped to a blank page in my notebook and began to write, shielding the paper with my arm so that Liam didn’t see.
I hate this. Please tell me we’re OK.
Then I cleared my throat and inclined my head slightly. Ander’s gaze shot to me straight away, and I subtly tapped the edge of the page, drawing his attention to the words I’d written. I fixed my gaze on the whiteboard, seeing his hand moving out of the corner of my eye. When he gave a small cough, I glanced down to see his notebook at the edge of his table.
Same for me. We’re OK if you’re OK. Are you OK?
He’d underlined “Are you OK?” twice, and it was a question that I couldn’t really answer. But I quickly wrote “yes” on my page and then dared to look at him. He gave me a relieved smile, which I couldn’t help returning, some of the weight lifting from my shoulders.Coffee afterwards? he mouthed. I nodded straight away, and his smile widened.
After that, I was actually able to concentrate on the remainder of the lecture, and when we exited the lecture hall, Ander slung his arm across my shoulders in the same casual, friendly way he’d done hundreds of times before, although there was a little more hesitance than normal.
Things were back to normal.
Except they weren’t, not now I’d experienced what it was like to touch, to taste, to feel his hot breath against my throat as he ground his hard dick against mine. I did my best to lock those memories away. We were friends, and everything was as it should be.
When we were seated on the sofas in the student union with Liam and Preston, plus Mike and George, another couple of guys from our course, the talk turned to the weekend. The thing that I was trying to forget about.
