When he kissed my hip bone, then stood up to retrieve a towel from the bathroom to clean us up, I didn’t want to let him go, not yet.
“Wanna watch a little TV?” I asked, and in lieu of a reply, he reached for my hand and led me to the bed, where he cradled me in his arms as we watched the end of a movie I couldn’t even name. But it didn’t matter because he was warm, and our bodies were aligned, and spending time with him just like this was everything I didn’t even know I needed.
17
Brady
Shit, I’d held Kellan for longer than I’d meant to, only slipping out after he’d fallen asleep. When I got back to my room, Hollister was sitting on the bed, clicking through television channels. His face was a storm of emotion I couldn’t make sense of right then. Not after I’d just come down from the high of being with Kellan and performing my first blowjob on a guy I wanted so much to please. The way he’d responded to me had made my night, and I wanted to do it again and again, except that didn’t seem likely, not in our current circumstances.
“Where were you?” Hollister asked in a hesitant voice, but his eyes were blazing.
I motioned over my shoulder. “Oh, I only—”
“I saw you,” he cut me off, and my heart nearly stopped.
“What do you mean?” My voice was unsteady.
“Going inside Kellan’s room. I was rounding the corner from… It wasn’t like I was spying or anything,” he said in a loud whisper, as if someone might hear us through the walls. “What the hell is going on?”
“What? I can’t be friends with the team’s bat boy?” My tone was weak at best.
“I… I dunno. You’re different about him.”
I sank down on the edge of my bed because I didn’t think my legs would hold me up anymore.
“At first I thought it was because of Ricky. But I’ve noticed other things too. Like how you always seek him out and how he makes you smile.”
Did everyone think that about my friendship with Kellan? A friendship I wanted to be more, which was probably written all over my face. Shit.
“Hollister…” I could barely find my voice, my pulse was thundering so loudly in my ears.
“You’ve never really been with any girls, except for the rare hookup, so I’ve wondered… Am I out of line here?”
And then I just…broke. It was exhausting holding it all in. Hollister was my best friend, and I needed someone to talk to or I was liable to combust. I’d deal with the fallout no matter his response. “I’m just finally figuring myself out.”
He must’ve seen the anguish in my face because his eyes softened. “What does that mean?”
“I never really understood why I wasn’t into girls like you guys, and thought maybe I hadn’t found the right one yet, so I was sort of going through the motions, you know?”
He nodded but didn’t say anything, giving me the opportunity to collect my thoughts.
“And then last year, when I first saw Kellan at a practice, I…I don’t know. It was like my body woke up or something, and then all these little things started to fall into place in my brain, and fuck, it was like, I finally found my answer.”
When I buried my face in my hands, he moved to sit beside me and patted my shoulder like he’d done a thousand other times before, the action comforting. “Hey, it’s okay.”
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. It was one thing to admit it to Kellan, who understood what it felt like to come out, but to confess it to my best friend from childhood was something else altogether. Relief and panic all at once.
“So you like him?” he asked after another minute.
I more than liked him. I had fallen for him, not that I could tell anyone that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Yeah, I…well, I wanted to get to know him and have someone to talk to who might… And he’s…he’s great.” Why was I answering like I was going through a minefield? Jesus, it was hard to navigate through this shit. “I like hanging out with him.”
“He’s a good guy,” he agreed. “Does he, uh, feel the same way?”
“Um… Probably not? Thing is, with his dad being the coach, no way us hanging out would go over well with him, so it couldn’t really be a thing anyway, you know? And Christ, my family doesn’t even know yet about…my sexuality.”
“Your family will be cool about it. They’re awesome and will support you unconditionally.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I never wanted to add anything more to their plate, so maybe I sort of ignored all this stuff about myself or…something.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a good person, a good friend, and I want to be one to you too. I won’t say anything to anyone. You deserve time to figure stuff out.”