“It wasn’t terrible. We both enjoyed ourselves well enough. But it also wasn’t for me.”
And that was part of the problem. Hunter’s skin hadn’t gone clammy and his heartbeat jumpy because he’d hated what he’d done. He’d enjoyed the hell out of it. But what that could mean about him hit him with more force than he was expecting. In the privacy of a hotel or their room at the frat house, he could be whoever he liked with Devon. But outside of those walls, the impact of that kind of relationship on his life would be far-reaching and potentially catastrophic.
“Hey,” Devon said softly, giving Hunter’s knee a squeeze. “You’ve gone ten shades of white. Take a breath and look at me.”
Hunter looked up.
“Listen to me, Hunt. You don’t have to make it a big thing. We drank a little too much. We fooled around. That’s it. Even if you decide you might be bi, it doesn’t mean anything has to change. Bi means you have another option—an option that people readily accept. I would never tell anyone about what happened between us. No one ever has to know you went there. Your friends, your family. They’ll never know. And I don’t expect anything more from you than friendship. Just because we did this once doesn’t mean we have to do it again. You wanted to experiment. We did. Now we can just shower, get drunk, and eat our way through the room service menu.”
Hunter gripped the towel tight in his hands, letting all of that sink in, trying to keep the anxiety at bay. Devon was right. This
didn’t have to change things. The question was—did he want it to? He let out a long, tense exhale. “A drink sounds fucking fantastic.”
Devon smiled. “You jump in the shower. I’ll make the call.”
Devon moved to get up, but Hunter grabbed his forearm. “Dev, even if this was a mistake, I’m glad I made it with you.”
Devon’s smile stayed in place, but something sad flashed in his eyes. “What are friends for if you can’t make mistakes with them, right?”
“Right,” Hunter said without any enthusiasm.
Devon slipped out of his grasp then and headed to the living room without looking back.
That’s when Hunter finally let the panic fully take over. Bright, blazing panic.
He might have been able to handle the idea of being bi.
He might’ve been able to handle that he’d fooled around with his roommate.
But what he couldn’t handle was the realization that he was falling in love with him.
Chapter 9
College—2 weeks later
Devon should’ve skipped the goddamn party. He rarely put in more than an appearance at Thursday night keggers at the frat house. It was all about getting wasted and getting laid, which meant cheap beer and lots of girls. Not his scene. But he’d promised Ahmed that he’d introduce him to Jory, the girl from his accounting class. So until Jory showed up, Devon had parked himself on the couch with a beer in an attempt to look like he was participating.
It had all been going fine until an already-buzzed Hunter had plopped onto the couch across from him with some blond chick hanging off him. The girl was wearing white pants that looked like they’d need to be surgically removed from her skin and a shimmery top that kept catching the light and making Devon’s eyes hurt. She had a Solo cup clutched in her hand and was rambling on about how hot Hunter looked when he wore his baseball uniform, her syrupy accent dripping all over him. Hunter had a drunken, tilted smile on his face that either represented interest or complete oblivion. Devon couldn’t tell.
Not that it should matter.
Since the night in the hotel room, he and Hunter had agreed to not have a repeat performance. Hunter had told him that he didn’t want him to move. Devon had admitted he really didn’t want to leave either and that starting anything with a guy who wasn’t sure and wasn’t out really wasn’t an option anyway. At that point, the decision had been made. Dev wouldn’t move. He and Hunter would go back to being just friends. Rewind. Restart. Like that was so fucking easy.
Since then, they’d managed not to make things awkward by an unspoken, carefully executed plan of rarely being alone together. Hunter had taken a sudden interest in going out and coming home too trashed for any real conversation. And Devon had spent more time studying in the library in the last two weeks than he had all semester.
Devon told himself it was for the best. He wasn’t going to date someone who couldn’t be open about being together. He’d done enough goddamned hiding in high school. And Hunter wouldn’t fuck up his family situation by fooling around with a boy. Their friendship would endure. Win-win.
But as he watched the blonde drape herself over Hunter and kiss him, something tight and tense burrowed in Devon’s chest. He took a long pull off his beer and tried to drag his eyes away. A few others drifted into the space, taking seats wherever they could find them, and distracted Devon from the torture for a minute. The couch squeaked as Brad, one of his frat brothers, and Brad’s girlfriend took the spots next to Devon. Conversation swelled around him, and Hunter and the blonde seemed oblivious to anything besides each other. He doubted Hunt had even noticed Devon was in the room.
Devon was about to get up and bail, feeling altogether antisocial at the moment. But then Alice, one of his friends from their sister sorority, strolled up with a dramatic sigh. “I am so over the meat market in the kitchen.” She plopped down in Devon’s lap, some of her hair sliding out of its topknot. “You mind, gorgeous? All the seats are taken.”
Devon smiled, happy to see a friendly face and someone to distract him from watching Hunter in all his hetero jock glory. “Just make yourself at home, Al.”
“Let me stay and I’ll tell you all about the meat in the kitchen.” She looped her arm around the back of his neck and waggled her eyebrows.
“Spare me. I live with most of these guys. Not interested.”
“You and me both.” She leaned against the arm of the couch, situating herself sideways over Devon’s lap. “You should hear some of the lines I got fed tonight. I’d need way more alcohol for any of that lame shit to work. Or a lobotomy.”