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I nod, smacking the card against my hand and backing out of the room.
“Thank you again.”
Corvin rolls his eyes, but a smile tugs at his lips. “Go to bed. And put some clothes on.”
I let out a chuckle and hold up my hand as a farewell, but I only make it halfway back to my room before I backtrack again.
“Atlas Huxley. If you don’t get out of my doorway in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to take your state of undress as an invitation.”
The insinuation does nothing for me, not even a lick of embarrassment, much less arousal. Not that he means it anyway. Corvin might be bisexual, but I’m so far off his radar I may as well be in Switzerland.
“You care about him, don’t you?”
Shiloh might not see the looks, the long stares when his back is turned. But I saw the concern in Corvin’s eyes tonight. I saw how strung out and ready to pick a fight he was at the thought of anyone hurting Shiloh.
This time, his smile is soft, genuine. He puts his paper and pen away, tucking his glasses into their case and yanking the band out of his hair. His eyes look tired, but there’s a familiar fondness in his eyes that tugs at something in my chest.
“Not that he’d ever believe.”
I leave him to whatever thoughts I’ve awoken that he wanted to keep away, and when I’m under my own covers, staring at the rise and fall of Shiloh’s back as he sleeps sprawled across his mattress, blanket half kicked onto the floor, I can’t help thinking about Blair again.
Because the look I saw in Corvin’s eyes was awfully close to what I saw in Blair’s. Right before he walked away tonight. And maybe I’ve seen it before, too. Caught in moments when he didn’t know I was looking. Maybe I shrugged it off and told myself it was nothing.
But the twinge in my chest and the heat in my gut doesn’t say it’s nothing. It says I want to rush over to his apartment and make him explain it to me. Why people like he and Corvin hold things back from the people they care about?
And why my body responds to it in such a heated way.
Even in the dark I can still see the lettering on the card, moonlight from the window making the colors glow almost iridescent.
I’ve always thought there was something wrong with my body. That my sex drive was broken. I’ve gotten blowjobs and handjobs from a couple of girlfriends, but they took a lot of work to keep in the moment and stay hard. I can’t fake it like a girl can, but more than once I found myself wishing that I could.
I’ve never gotten hard in response to another person before.
Not until tonight.
Someone from this card has to understand. Has to be able to tell me what the hell is going on, what’s been going on for the last twenty-one years.
I don’t want to be a virgin anymore.
And I don’t like the direction my thoughts take when I imagine losing it.
Chapter 3
Blair
Atlas Huxley might just be the death of me.
I’ve spent a good handful of years hiding the fact that seventeen-year-old Atlas—who sprouted up like a weed one summer at football camp—sent me spiraling into an entire sexuality crisis.
It’s mostly out of my system now thanks to my roommate, Noah, but every once in a while I feel a tug, one that begs for me to look just a little longer.
If my libido could focus on anyone other than Shiloh’s best friend since toddlerhood, that’d be great.
“Please don’t overcook the bacon. I like it crunchy, not tooth breaking.”
I rub at the sleep still clinging to my eyelids, a yawn coming out unbidden, and glance over at where Noah sits at our tiny kitchen counter. He’s eyeing the bacon in the pan like it’s going to fly out and straight into his mouth, and I shake my head before flipping the sizzling pieces of meat.
“You’re more than welcome to cook them up if you want.”
