Don't Read in the Closet volume one (58 page)

Unfortunately,
at the moment, it wasn’t the emerging bruise causing the ache. It was the sight
of a taut ass and a sculpted back, muscles flexing with mouth-watering
definition under a tight, sweaty T-shirt.

If Matt didn’t
do something soon, it was going to be an excruciatingly long summer.
Fortunately, he had a plan. Maybe not a good plan, but it was a start, anyway.

By the end of
the week, Blaine Thompson was going to be his. Either
that,
or he would hate Matt’s guts. At this point, Matt was willing to take the risk.

****

The rundown,
rambling two-story house was quiet, eerily so. Blaine wasn’t used to it. Usually
the place burst at the edges, the common rooms overflowing with athletes (often
in various states of undress). But most of the team wasn’t due to show up back
at campus for a while. Blaine and Matt were the sole exceptions. While most of
the guys had gone home for the summer, the two of them had stayed behind. At
the end of last semester, Coach had asked if anyone was willing to stick around
and help out with some of the summer camps being run for high school students.
Most of the team couldn’t run fast enough. Coach had looked at Blaine and Matt,
poised to flee in front of the lockers, and grinned. They’d fussed and
protested, but stayed anyway.

For Blaine, the
protests had been all for appearance’s sake. It wasn’t exactly like he had a
home to go back to. The last foster home had washed their hands of him when he
hit eighteen. Hell, if not for the sports scholarship he landed, he wouldn’t
even be in college. No, Blaine would be stuck in some dinky little apartment,
fixing cars for a living.

Why Matt
stayed, now that was a mystery. But then, Matt frequently confounded Blaine.

The man was a
player, no question about that. But he didn’t act like the typical player. Oh,
he had that charming persona down
pat,
teasing and
easygoing, so comfortable in his own skin it was almost disgusting sometimes.
Nothing
phased
Matt. He always had this air of
complete confidence and absolute certainty about everything he did. For someone
like Blaine, always hovering on the fringes...well, he could be man enough to
admit he frequently envied Matt’s easy charm.

They’d known
each other for nearly three years now and in that
time,
Blaine had learned something else about Matt. The guy was, deep down, a big
softie. Especially with his friends. Blaine couldn’t even begin to count the
number of times he’d seen Matt go out of his way to help someone.

Blaine tossed
his bag and keys in a corner, calling Matt’s name. Silence rang through the
empty house. It was nearly four
o’clock,
he could have
sworn Matt said he’d be back by then. Blaine kind of counted on it; his
roommate was the only guy in the whole damn house who could cook without using
a microwave. It was like magic.

With a shrug,
Blaine trotted up the creaky wooden staircase to take a shower. He was hot and
sweaty and gross. And hungry. He guessed if Matt wasn’t around, he’d have to
scrounge something up for himself.

Blaine ventured
back downstairs a short while later, hair wet and torso still damp. Barefoot,
his only concession to modesty his battered jeans, Blaine made his way to the
kitchen. He had just popped the top to a can of Coke when he heard a thump from
outside.

He turned his
head and sniffed, barely catching a whiff of the most marvelous scent. Blaine
groaned.

“Please, God,”
he murmured. He padded through the kitchen and shoved open the screen door. It
squealed a protest, flapping on one busted hinge.

The house might
be a dump, but what the heck, wasn’t like it needed to be perfect. It was home
to a bunch of college guys. Damn near half the soccer team, to be precise. The
one major selling point of the place, besides the insane number of bedrooms,
was the backyard. The house sat at the end of a dead-end road, butting up
against the campus baseball fields. Long ago, some enterprising college
employee had planted pine trees all along the boundaries of the fields. Those
same trees were now massive, towering and bushy, providing a cozy little haven
behind the house.

The back door
opened onto a large concrete pad. Trees bordered three sides of the pad, a
steeply sloping hill the other. A cement block retaining wall along the hill
barely contained the overgrown grass and the remains of a flowerbed, long gone
wild. It made a great spot to perch and hang out, the house and trees casting
welcome shade and keeping the area nice and cool, even on the hottest summer
day.

Shortly after
moving in, the guys had all pooled their money and bought a massive grill,
which held court in the very center of their patio. It was all black and
chrome, shiny and complicated and looking like something out of a science
fiction movie. Blaine wouldn’t admit it, but the damn thing confused the hell
out of him. Matt, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease, standing there
in the smallest, tightest pair of jean shorts known to man. He had a large
spatula in one hand and his cell phone in the other, flipping burgers with
expert skill while he chatted.

“Jilly, stop
it, honey, you’re being ridiculous. Of course you want to marry Jared. You’re
just freaking right now.”

Matt balanced
his spatula on the edge of a small table and leaned, snagging a plate with the
tips of his fingers.

“Calm down,
sweetie. Breathe. In and out. That’s it. You need me to come over? You sure? I
can. All right. Call him, okay? Promise me? You’ll feel better if you talk to
Jared. Okay, give me a call later. Love you, too, sweetie.”

Matt snapped
his phone shut, sighing and muttering to himself.

“Problems in
paradise?” Blaine asked, leaning against the side of the house.

“Hey. Yeah,
seems Jilly’s pregnant.”

“Good Lord.
Coach is going to kill Jared.”

“Don’t I know
it.
She’s panicking, he’s talking marriage, and she’s
dumping it all on me.”

“You
are
the one who introduced them,” Blaine pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean
I’m responsible for the success of their relationship.”

“Sure it does.”

Blaine sipped
his soda and tilted his head to one side. He’d never figure Matt out, not in a
million years. The man just kept poking meat on the grill, casually talking
about the pregnancy of his ex-girlfriend. Matt was weird, no two ways about it.
Blaine couldn’t even begin to count the number of former flames Matt had hooked
up over the years, many times with one of their teammates. Jared, Jilly’s
erstwhile boyfriend, was, in fact, their team captain.

“
You going
to go comfort her later?” Blaine asked with a
blithe nonchalance that he didn’t really feel. The thought of Matt cuddling his
former girlfriend didn’t sit well with him for some reason. Blaine shoved the
feeling away with practiced ease.

“Hell no,” Matt
said. “That’s Jared’s problem. I’m going to try to eat my weight in burgers,
then
spend the next few hours napping on that lounge chair
over there until I’m red and crispy.”

“Sounds like a
plan to me. Got enough food for two?”

“I even dug out
the second lounger.”

“Sweet.”

Blaine trekked
inside for more drinks before wrestling with the lounge chairs. The green one
had a hole near the bottom that you had to watch, so your feet didn’t fall
through. The blue one was kind of rusty, legs screeching in protest when he
unfolded the damn thing, and he nearly had to go to battle to set it up. Blaine
smashed his finger, cursed, and promptly proceeded to drop bulk of the chair on
his foot. Finally, he got it opened up and steadied.

“Gotcha,” he
muttered with satisfaction, stepping back to survey his work. “But Matt’s
getting you.”

“You know, I
learned in Psych class that talking to furniture is not a good sign.” Matt’s
low voice rumbled right in his ear, warm breath wafting across his neck. Blaine
took a hurried step away, uncomfortable with Matt crowding his personal space
that much.

It was only
after he stepped away that Blaine questioned the action. Since when was he so
uneasy around Matt? They often got up close and personal during practice. Hell,
he’d
showered
with the guy.

Maybe Matt had
a point. Maybe Blaine was losing it.

Burying the odd
feelings, Blaine took the offered plate. “Looks good,” he said inanely to fill
the silence.

“Yep.”

Blaine watched
out of the corner of his eye as Matt settled into the blue lounge chair, his
lean body covering up the weird flower pattern. The chair creaked and groaned
under Matt’s weight. Matt ignored the ominous sounds, swinging his legs up and
getting comfortable.

The air hung
thick and heavy between them. Blaine took a big bite out of his hamburger,
ketchup squirting over his fingers, and tried to ignore the tension. So damn
weird. Matt kept glancing over at Blaine with a puzzled expression. Blaine
couldn’t blame Matt, either.

Eventually, the
gentle sounds of rustling evergreen branches and the cool rush of breeze
through the humid, thick air started to seep into Blaine’s muscles. He began to
relax a bit, the sun warm and soothing. Stomach full, nice and
comfortable…yeah. Time for a nap. He was getting nice and sleepy –

And then Matt
moved. It was just a little shift as he dropped his plate to the ground and
settled back. Matt spread his legs wide, propping one foot on the chair,
sighing with contentment. The motion made his chest rise and fall, but Blaine
barely noticed. His gaze was quite firmly stuck on the view, so tantalizingly
showcased in Matt’s tight shorts. There was a hole, right there, and Blaine
could just make out a bit of skin that he would swear was cock. If Matt moved
just a bit –

Blaine turned
and froze, pinned beneath electric blue eyes and a slight smirk. Oh, shit. He’d
been caught ogling his roommate. Not good. Not good at all.

“I’m gonna –“

“Like what you
see?” Matt murmured, still staring at Blaine. The heat in his expression caught
Blaine off-guard and he blinked a few times, mind blanking.

Matt
hummed,
that low sound he made when he was teasing someone.
It was enough to snap Blaine out of his stupor. He jumped to his feet like
someone had lit the fabric under his ass on fire.

“Where you
going?” Matt asked, turning his head to follow Blaine’s retreat.

“Have to piss,”
Blaine muttered.

“Don’t run off
on my account,” Matt replied.

Blaine ignored
the comment. He made it nearly to the door when a hand on his arm halted his
progress.

“Hey, sorry,
didn’t mean to freak you out,” Matt said. “You okay, man?”

“Sure. Sure,
fine. Like I said, I need to take a piss.”

Matt hummed
again, the sound maddening, scraping against Blaine’s already irritated temper.

“Look, if
you’re gonna keep teasing me –“

“Who said I was
teasing?” Matt demanded with a bit of irritation, using his grip on Blaine’s
arm to swing Blaine around. “I was flirting.”

“Flirting?”
Okay, no way was that high-pitched yell his. No way on earth.

Matt’s loosened
his hold, the touch becoming a caress as he ran lightly calloused fingers down
Blaine’s arm. He licked his lips, raking his gaze along Blaine’s body before
coming to a stop on his crotch.

“Look all you
want,” Matt said, voice husky. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Blaine reared
back, shaking Matt off. “What the hell, man?”

“Oh, come on,
you know you want to. It’s hardly the first time I’ve caught you sneaking
peeks. Not like I haven’t been looking back, either. And damn, babe, what a
view.”

“This is
bullshit.” Blaine tried to bluster his way through the situation, not entirely
sure what he was feeling. His stomach was in knots, emotions in a massive,
chaotic, turbulent mess until he couldn’t separate one from the other.

Matt ignored
the tone and stepped closer. All right, time for more drastic action. Blaine
tried to push past Matt and go back into the house.

“Let me know
when you sober up,” Blaine snapped.