Let Love Live (The Love Series #5) (14 page)

I sighed into the line, “God, I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. So much.” We’d been apart for a little over a month, but the aching pain of him not being here was not easy to deal with.

“How’s the team?” I asked, genuinely interested in how the fall training league was going. I listened intently as he told me all about his teammates, all the while trying to bite back my jealousy that they got his time when I couldn’t. “Sounds like things are amazing,” I added the “for you” quietly, not without a hint of anger. But the anger was all directed at myself.

“What’s been going on with you?” Even though I couldn’t see it, I could hear his smile. The sounds of sheets and blankets rustled through the line. I filled him in on school – not that there was anything exciting going on with that.

We both tiptoed around the topic of my family. I could tell he wanted to ask, but we hadn’t spoken in so long, neither of us wanted to waste the time talking about things that were never going to change.

“Oh, get this. You remember Scott Henderson, from camp last summer?”

“Yeah.” The tone of that single word was icy and curt. “Why?”

“He’s in my sociology class. I actually went to a party with him tonight.” It wasn’t as if I had done anything wrong, but the tension that hung in the silence between us told me differently. It actually took Dylan so long to say anything that I had to pull my phone away from my ear to see if the call had been dropped. “You still there?”

“Yeah.” His clipped tone put me on edge.

“What’s the problem?” I became defensive.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit, Dylan. I can hear it in your voice. What’s the problem?” Starting a fight with him was the last thing I wanted, but I technically hadn’t started it.

“He’s an asshole, that’s all.”

I huffed flippantly. “Well, it’s not like I have groupies following me around like you or anything.” Now it was my turn to let the tension-laden silence settle between us.

“I just don’t like him, that’s all.” It sounded like he wanted to say so much more, like there was something brewing beneath his words, but he shut up as I cut him off.

“Here’s a newsflash for you. You’re. Not. Here.” I emphasized each word, throwing them at him in the hopes that they would hurt him as much as his absence wounded me.

I heard him take a deep breath – could imagine him running his hand through his floppy, light brown hair. My fingers twitched with phantom pains. “Don’t you think I know that, babe?” There it was again – the soft, tenderness reserved only for me. “You’re right. I’m not there and it’s killing me. I’m sorry I snapped at you over Scott. I just…there’s something about him I don’t trust.”

I was kind of shocked at his quick recovery, but in all the years I’d known Dylan, he was always the diplomat, always the peacemaker. It was probably those characteristics that drew him and me together in the first place.

I had needed someone to listen, and Dylan was and always would be perfect – in every way imaginable.

That last thought forced a smile to split my face. A devilish smirk quickly followed. “Exactly how sorry are you?”

He heard the amused tone to my words because a sexy chuckle followed my question. “Sorry enough to do whatever it is you’re hinting at,” he quipped. He knew me so well and I loved it.

“Are you alone?” He had to be, but just asking it made things feel more illicit somehow.

“Yeah.” I heard him move on the bed before the click and snap of what I assumed was a door being locked registered in my brain. “You?”

I pulled a face at him, even though he couldn’t see it. “What do you think?”

“I think you miss me touching you so much, it’s taking every ounce of self-restraint you have right now, not to shove your hand in your shorts and touch yourself.” His bluntness made my mouth go dry and my cock get instantly hard.

I pushed my shorts down as I lifted my hips off the bed, freeing my already painfully erect dick. “Isn’t that what you want, too?” My words were breathless as I wrapped my hand around myself.

“More than anything.” A low groan rumbled in my ear and I could tell that his hand was just as busy as mine. “What are you thinking about right now? What is it that you want, Shane?”

“You,” I groaned as I stroked myself relentlessly. “Your mouth. I miss the heat of your mouth.” Just the thought of his lips wrapping around my cock forced a bead of moisture to fall from my tip.

“And I miss the way you taste. Just imagine my tongue licking you all over before taking every single inch of you deep into my throat.” For a moment, the only noise shared between us was the breathless panting of our joined pleasure. I was about to explode and he was close, too. I heard it in his commands.

“Make yourself come, Shane. Do it like I would.” His words were laced with desire, with lust.

My hips began to move quickly, without any rhythm as I fucked my hand. I spit in the palm of my hand before tightening my grasp. It was nowhere near the heavenly feeling of Dylan giving me a blow job, but it would have to be good enough for now.

Imagining him doing the same had me racing toward a blinding light. “Dylan…” I growled his name as my balls pulled tight, as tingles went racing from the base of my spine.

“Oh, fuck! I’m coming.” His sigh of relief pushed me over the edge. My heart pounded in my chest as I struggled to pull in enough oxygen. He sounded about the same.

Not knowing when Reid would be home, I cleaned up quickly. “I need to see you.” The gruff huskiness of his earlier words was still there and I loved that I affected him. Drove him as crazy as he drove me.

“Maybe I can get there next week. I can tell my dad it’s a meeting with the coach or something.” He’d more than likely demand to go with me, but if I dropped it on him at the last minute, he’d have no choice. I hated the pull he had over my life and I was dying to break free.

“We don’t have games next weekend, so that would be perfect.”

A second later, Reid drunkenly stumbled through the door, essentially ending our conversation. “I’ll call you during the week and we’ll figure it out.”

“Okay, babe. Talk to you soon.”

“Goodnight.” Reid must have caught a glimpse of the satisfied look on my face, or heard a touch of the longing in my voice, because as he sank onto the edge of his bed, he stared over at me. A loaded question dangled on the tip of his tongue.

“Whadya get laid or somethin’?” he asked, his words slurring together. I didn’t even want to think about how he’d gotten home. It was up to him to learn some life lessons on his own. I wouldn’t always be here to do that for him.

“Shut the fuck up, asshole!” I grabbed one of the pillows from behind my head and launched it at him, hitting him square in the face.

“You totally did!” He laughed before asking, “Who is she?”

I faltered for a moment, my brain still stuck on Dylan. If there was anyone I could tell, it was probably Reid, but not now. I still wasn’t ready.

So instead of the truth, Reid got lies, the last thing he deserved. I told him about how I met Alex and how we were going out this week. He seemed to buy it; more importantly, he seemed happy for me.

And with thoughts of possibly seeing Dylan in just a few days, I pushed the lies to the back of my brain. I’d deal with them later, because, for the moment, I was happy too.

“You’re running around this place like a chicken with its head cut off.” John, my roommate, poked his head out from behind his textbook, calling out to me from across the room. “You’d think the President was coming here.”

His words made me stop in my tracks. Realizing that I was in fact going a bit overboard, I shrugged. “I just haven’t seen him in a while. Guess I’m nervous and excited, too.”

He jumped down from his bed and closed his book before tossing it on the mattress. “There’s a fine line between
excited
and
obsessive
. It’s a dorm room. He’s a guy. You haven’t seen him in two months. He’s not going to care what the room looks like. He just wants to see you.” John held my shoulders, shaking me on each reassurance.

“You’re right.” I sighed and John stepped away, grabbing his hoodie and bag from the hook in his closet. “And thanks for staying at Elise’s this weekend.”

“No problem. But we’re still on for later, right?” He slung his bag over his shoulder and stood in the doorway.

“Yeah, man. Thanks again. We’ll meet you at Elise’s around eight.”

If there was ever a contest for “Best Roommate Assignment of the Year”, I’d have won it with John. He stood at about six-foot-four and weighed about two-twenty-five, but there was nothing mean or rough about him. Despite his multiple championship titles in wrestling, and the promise of a huge college career ahead of him, John was anything but the stereotypical asshole jock.

He was a sophomore and, since plans for an off-campus apartment with a few of his wrestling buddies fell through at the last minute, he was stuck in the dorms. By the time he filled out all the residence paperwork, the only rooms that were left were in the freshman building.

After the awkwardness of initially meeting one another wore off, we found that we got along really well.

I hadn’t planned on telling him I was gay right away, but nothing that big ever goes as planned.

We were eating dinner in the student café when the topic of girlfriends had come up. He brought it up, not me. But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, I thought I should have asked first. Maybe it would have made me look more normal.

“So what’s your situation?” I took a sip of my iced tea, staring over the rim of my glass.

Situation? What the hell did he mean?

Panic invaded my system, thinking that he had somehow figured me out. I put my glass down, took a huge bite of my sandwich, and tried my best to keep my cool. Around a mouthful of food, I mumbled, “There’s no deal.” I swallowed my food, and his hard stare held me frozen in place. Growing defensive, my eyes narrowed. “Am I supposed to have a deal?” My spine straightened and my tone hardened.

His face split wide with laughter. “Dude, you should see your face. Chill out! I was just asking if you had a girlfriend back home. That’s all.” John held his hands up in front of his chest, palms facing out in a mock-surrender.

I slumped in my chair, exhausted already from one short and non-threatening exchange with my roommate. I had to learn how to calm down and just be who I was, unapologetically. Otherwise, I’d have a freaking heart attack before the end of my freshman year. John got up to refill his drink and I gave myself the mental pep-talk I so obviously needed.

When he came back to the table, I bit the bullet and, just like I had told my parents right before I left, I blurted out my truth. “I’m gay.”

I waited for him to curse, or spit in my face. To stand up and call me a homo or a fag while everyone else stared on in glaring contempt. But he just shrugged his large shoulders and took a sip of his water. “And I’m straight.”

I stared at him in confusion. That was it? He wasn’t going to say anything? John laughed as he saw me trying to figure out what the hell just happened. He crossed his arms and leaned across the table, keeping his voice low enough so that only the two of us could hear. “My uncle is gay. He’s really close with my mom and my sisters, and I learned very early in life that you love who you love. Gay or straight it doesn’t matter. So I’m good with it. There’s no need to worry.”