Off Campus (14 page)

Fuck.

Jesus Christ. Fucking sack up and be a man. Asshole.

He headed across the room in a straight line for his roommate, before dodging a tiny blonde who was dragging a bearded giant of a man into a corner and shouting for a dance party to start and then catching the swinging hand of another party guest right before the man nailed him in the chest with a glass of red wine, eyes locked all the time on the huddled form of Reese, green Chucks tucked against his butt, hugging his knees, noise and people swirling around him but separate from the crowd. Separate and alone.

Tom dropped to his heels, squatting like a baseball catcher, at Reese's side. He dropped one hand on top of Reese's shoes and gave his feet a shake.

“Hey.”

Reese lifted his head with a jerk and turned to stare at him, eyes wide.

Tom spotted the red plastic cup next to the couch at Reese's hip and cursed, grabbing it and taking a swig.

Straight up Coca-Cola.

Thank God.

Reese lifted his eyebrows at his and shook his head, one corner of his mouth tucked back in half a frown.

Anything else you want to check on, Dad?

Tom put the cup back down on the floor and steepled his hands between his knees.

“Sorry.”

He wasn't leaning close enough or speaking loud enough for Reese to hear him, but that was one word everyone who'd ever spent time in a club or a rave could read on someone else's lips.

Reese shrugged and sat up further, elbows tucked together at the top of his knees, his hands falling forward toward Tom, until he jerked them back and grabbed his own shoulders with crossed palms. He kept his eyes on Tom.

What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He felt like an idiot. The only way for Reese to hear a word he said would be to lean in and shout it right up against his ear. Tom let his gaze flicker back and forth from Reese's face to the curve of his neck leading under the swing of dark hair that hid his ears. Was he supposed to push Reese's hair back?

If his roommate were a girl, that's what he'd do. He'd make sure the gesture turned into a long slow touch that was explicitly sexual in its invitation to lean close while he spoke. He'd make sure to brush his lips against the edge of her ear as he spoke and to rest one hand lightly on her shoulder, as if for balance, until he leaned back and smiled at her.

None of which was fucking happening in the middle of a crowd with a fucking guy, not even the one six inches from his knees right now, with the magnetic pull that had dragged Tom all the way into this room full of people he didn't want to know and would avoid for the rest of the year if he possibly could.

Fuck this. It was too hard.

When he shouted, he knew it was too loud, even for this party, and only because he didn't want to lean in close.

“I'm heading out.”

Reese didn't react at all. Just watched him.

“You can go upstairs anytime you want.”

The woman on the couch was staring at him and reaching out with her hands as if she were going to put them on Reese again.

Tom glared at her. She raised an eyebrow and sat back, draping her arms over the back of the couch but otherwise not giving an inch as she focused on his shouted conversation with Reese, if you could call it that when only one person was talking.

Reese, who had clearly caught sight of the glare and was frowning at him.

Tom waited.

Reese shrugged, eyes flicking toward the open door across the room.

“Okay. So go.”

Tom gritted his teeth. Would it fucking kill the kid to show some kind of emotion at the idea of getting rid of him for the weekend? Gleeful or wistful, some kind of sign that he noticed at all whether or not Tom was around? At least an acknowledgement that he existed?

Instead of ghosting his way through the campus and the classes and the days, untethered to anything or anyone.

Man, he was morbid tonight.

Feeling like a bug pinned between the stares of Reese and the hippie couch woman, and now the scruffy bearded welcome man, Tom gave in and did what he'd wanted to do since he dropped his bag on the floor and followed Reese downstairs.

He stood up in one smooth motion that ignored the ache in his knees from squatting and held his hand out, palm down, fingers together.

“Ah, fuck it. I want to talk to you. C'mon.”

When Reese stared at his hand and it felt as if the never-ending club song finally ended and the gap in the wall of sound before the next song started stretched for miles and hours of silence and everyone in the room had nothing better to do than turn and stare at him with his hand hanging in the air, waiting, for a moment Tom thought Reese was going to ignore him. Turn away until the music started again and he'd be left humiliated to head out of the room and maybe even off campus for good.

Reese reached up and grabbed his hand.

He was so relieved he almost pulled the kid up and straight into his chest with the surge of satisfaction that exploded through him, barely stopping Reese when he hit upright before toppling him over.

He imagined it, catching the slim torso against his chest and steadying Reese with an arm low around his waist, feeling small, strong hands clasp his hips, and his dick got hard at the idea.

Easy there.

Holding on to Reese's hand and leading him from the room, feeling eyes on their backs as they headed out the door and turned at the stairs felt like the scariest thing he'd ever done.

Everything he did, absolutely everything, was done with an eye to staying under the radar, making himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. And with one frigging show-off gesture, he knew he'd sparked a half dozen shouted conversations behind him in the living room. He knew it.

Reese's palm was hot against his own, the weight of his arm pulling on Tom's as he trailed behind Tom up the stairs.

The sound, muffled immediately when the fire door at the foot of the staircase swung shut, was a third presence in the stairwell, drawing attention to how loud it wasn't now that they'd left the party. Tom pressed his lips together and kept his mouth shut, despite the almost unbearable temptation to start talking, start babbling as he walked up the stairs with Reese's hand in his, way, way past the time when he had any legitimate reason to hold on to that hand. Any legitimate reason that wasn't tied to him being unable to stop thinking about Reese's hand, his mouth, on Tom's naked skin five nights ago.

Keeping his mouth shut as long as possible sounded like an excellent plan.

He didn't let go of Reese as he tugged him down the hall to their door and dug for his keys in his pants pocket before wrestling to unlock the door. Giving up on doing it one-handed, he let go to use both on the tricky lock, which was Reese's signal to regain the power of speech.

“What do you want?” His voice was sullen, but at least he wasn't bolting down the hall back to that fucking crowd.

“To talk to you.”

Which was going to be a nightmare and that was assuming he could figure out what the fuck he was going to say.

“I was having a good time back there.”

Ahh. The doorknob gave in and turned in his hand. Tom pushed into their room and Reese followed, stopping right next to him when he stopped to shut the door behind them.

“Bullshit. You don't like parties.” He turned and leaned back against his closet door in the little entryway, hands clasped behind his back, keys digging into his palm.

“Sure I do. Where do you think I pick up the guys I'm fucking in our room while you listen?” Reese crossed his arms.

“I don't know, the fucking street corner for all I know.”

“Oh, is that where you do your down-low tricking, straight boy?” The single raised eyebrow was a nice trick. “Don't worry. I'm not gonna tell anyone what you did when you were delirious with pain. You can stop stalking me in a panic.”

The keys jangled loudly as Tom swung his hands up and grabbed the back of his own neck. Ouch. Fuck.

“Can you shut up? For, like, a minute? I wasn't delirious. I'm not that straight. And I…” His voice wavered. He cleared his throat. “Liked it.”

“Getting sucked off? Big surprise. What is this, some kind of plea for an encore? No thanks. I don't do seconds.”

“Jesus. Why is this so hard with you?”

Actions spoke louder than words. Okay. Tom hooked a finger through the belt loop at the front of Reese's jeans, hyperaware that his hand was mere inches from Reese's dick. He tugged the slighter man closer, giving him every chance to push away or draw back. But Reese stepped closer. Tom lifted his other hand and rested it lightly on Reese's slim hip, barely holding on.

“I want to kiss you.”

“Oh.” Reese's eyes were huge, dark and unblinking as he stared up, frozen with his hands resting on Tom's forearms. “Okay.”

Tom wanted to yank him close, wrap his arm like an iron bar around his waist and kiss him until Reese made those little soft noises that the other boys made when they were in his bed. And if he could find the shits who made that impossible, because he knew without asking that Reese was barely holding still under this light touch, almost trembling with a fucking awful mix of desire and nerves, Tom would rip their fucking arms off and beat them to death with their own limbs. He braced his back against his closet door and slid his butt down a few inches, trying not to loom over Reese.

He wondered when the last time was that Reese let someone else approach him. Ask him to touch or be touched. He had a feeling that his roommate operated on a total control agenda and someone else making the moves had become foreign territory.

Which was almost half as scary as the fact that Tom was making the moves with a
guy
. Because while, let's face it, he wasn't exactly unacquainted with sexual contact with someone who was emphatically not a girl—you couldn't have your dick sucked more than once, by more than one guy, and keep fooling yourself about that one—this was the first time he'd ever laid his hands or any other body part on a guy who hadn't touched him first.

And this guy wasn't just someone Tom wanted. Reese was someone he worried about, someone he thought about when he wasn't around, that he hoped would get through each day relatively unscathed.

Now here he was with his hands on his roommate, six weeks into a school year that he'd hoped would be as boring as a two hundred page dissertation on the nature of non-profit taxation in the twenty-first century, trying to figure out how to kiss him without scaring the fuck out of him.

He was totally unqualified to deal with this level of damage. What if he fucked things up worse? Triggered something in Reese that scared the shit out of him? He was afraid to touch him, not knowing where the landmines were.

Reese waited.

He took a deep breath and leaned forward.

Reese's mouth under his was soft, relaxed. He didn't move for a second, waiting, until he felt Reese's breath against the skin of his upper lip and knew he wasn't frozen in fear. Then he moved, dragging his lips across Reese's mouth, kissing along the line of his jaw before tucking his face against his neck and inhaling, the spicy sweet scent of Reese's skin and body heat rising to his mouth and his nose until he felt surrounded by it and pulled back to kiss him again.

Mouth open this time, he licked his way into Reese's mouth, lips opening against his on an inhale that spoke of desire and need, followed up by the press of skinny hips against his own. The length of a semi-hard cock rubbing against him as Reese pushed his way into this kiss. An equal partner.

Want surged in Tom's belly and he pulled Reese hard against him, diving in with his mouth open and stroking his tongue hard against Reese's, teeth scraping, the sharp pinch against his lip of a near bite as they wrestled for control of the kiss, pushing his thigh between Reese's legs and yanking him up on it.

His hand slid up Reese's back to grab his neck.

And everything froze.

“Wait.” Reese's hands were flat against his chest. Not quite pushing him away.

Tom let go, his fingers cramping for a moment in their grip which felt loose but had required all of his control not to tighten. His chest rose and fell with hard, sharp breaths.

Breaths matched by his roommate whose dark eyes were staring at his with worry.

“You're just.” Reese bit his lip and looked up at him for a second. “You're, um, big. You know?”

Tom shut his mouth on the wisecrack about how Reese was gonna find out exactly how big he was and blew out a breath in frustration. Shit. He was already practically doing wall squats to bring himself down to Reese's level and even
his
quads were gonna give out sooner or later if he kept that up. Not to mention, that wasn't cutting it. Reese still felt nervous around him, because he was too damn big.

“Sorry.” The word from Reese was a whisper and made Tom feel like shit for hesitating to reassure him.

“Don't.” He squeezed the hand that still held on to Reese's hip and let go. “Not your fault. Just, gimme a sec.”

Maybe he had an idea.

He left Reese standing between their two closets and pulled the chair out from his desk, dragging it into the middle of their open floor space. He sat in it, facing Reese.

“What?”

Tom held out his hand.

Reese walked slowly up and took it, standing next to him, taller for once and looking down at Tom as if he wasn't sure what to do next. Tom looked up at him, his neck already starting to ache at the unfamiliar angle, but willing to put up with anything if it would help Reese relax. Feel safe.

After a moment, Reese leaned down and kissed him. A dry, close-mouthed press of lips to lips, hands steadying himself on Tom's shoulders. A step backwards maybe, but if that's what it took to get there, Tom could be fucking patient as a Buddhist monk. Reese's hand pressed against his jaw and he ducked his head in its direction, rubbing against his palm.