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Win and Max weren’t happy. They worried about me living on my own with a roommate who might or might not hate my sexual orientation. I couldn’t even blame them really because, deep down, I worried about it too. Hell, I barely interacted much with the Elite outside of practices and the diner until Ryan and Jamie befriended me.
It had been three years since my so-called friends turned on me and put me in the ICU, but it was clear my brothers would not forget. But I fought for it, arguing it would be easier for the early-as-sin swim practices and getting to class if I didn’t have to drive to campus daily. I didn’t know how Win managed, but he got me a solo dorm room, and it was probably the only reason they backed off enough to let me live there.
It was a relief because it was getting harder and harder to live with Max. To not die inside every day when I looked at him and wished.
Now here I was back in this house with him right down the hall, and things seemed harder than ever before.
“It’s just the accident,” I told myself as I moved into my bedroom. “Emotions are running high.”
Despite having my own apartment, this room was still stocked with anything I might need. A dresser filled with clothes, shoes in the closet, a desk under the window for studying, and a bed with the same plaid blankets I had at home (a.k.a. my parents’ house). We still owned that place too, but we didn’t stay there much because it was farther from campus. Plus… the memories.
Sighing I tossed one crutch on the end of the bed and used the other to backtrack to the switch. Despite spending half the day napping, I was drained of all energy.
I flipped off the light, plunging the room into darkness…
“Max!” I called, my voice shocked and strangled.
I wasn’t sure where in the house he was, but I was loud enough for him to hear.
“Max!”
Footsteps pounded on the stairs. “Wes!” he answered.
I heard him plunder down the hall, saw his hand wrap around the doorframe as he appeared.
“Wes? What happened? Did you fall, are you—” His words stopped, eyes finding me even in the dark. “You need the light?” he asked.
My hand fell onto his as he reached for the light switch. The second our skin brushed, everything beneath mine lit up as though it had only been partially alive until him.
“Who did this?” I asked, my voice a quiet echo in the vast night.
He made no move to pull back, instead keeping his fingers on the switch. So of course I had to keep mine over them so he didn’t turn on the light.
“What?”
“This,” I said, gesturing to the ceiling. To the hundreds of stars glowing overhead.
“Oh,” he said, hand slipping away from the toggle. “I did.”
It took a minute to process his words. Tofeelthem. “You put hundreds of stars on my bedroom ceiling.”
“There’s not hundreds,” he muttered.
Is he being shy?
“But why?” I asked, that tide of emotion rising inside me so fast I was overfull in seconds, so much so my hands nearly trembled. I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from overhead. The juvenile stickers glowed a little bit of neon green, making the entire ceiling shine like a night sky, basking the entire room in a soft glow.
“Your room at home has them.”
The backs of my eyes were burning, trying to leak out the emotion this man always, always, burned me with. God, it hurt to love him. It hurt so fucking much.
But I couldn’t stop. Wasn’t sure I wanted to.
When I said nothing, he said, “I can take them down.”
The light flipped on, robbing me of all the starlight, shocking me as the overhead chased away what he’d done.
“No!” I said, slapping the switch back down, plunging the room into darkness, looking again at the stars. “When did you do this?”
