Off Campus (22 page)

The challenge was a red flag to a born competitor like Cash. He frowned and sat up. No skinny gay punk was going to make him stutter.

“Yeah I can. He's fucking your ass. Like a boss, I bet.”

Tom snorted. Talk about always having his back. Looked as if Cash still took his role as defender number one seriously.

“Actually…”

Reese didn't say another word, but Tom knew damn well what was coming. Although technically it was true he wasn't fucking Reese's ass, Tom wasn't about to get into a conversation with Cash about the variety of non-anal ways two guys could get off.

Which meant Cash would assume Reese meant one thing.

The gradual roll of blank confusion to bug-eyed shock played out on Cash's face like the slow-motion flipping pages of old animation. He jumped off the bed.

“No. No.” His hands slashed through the air. “I don't fucking believe it. Tom Worthington is not giving his ass up.”

“Dude, I'm in the room.”

“You shut up.” He pointed at Tom before spinning back to Reese. “No way. I can maybe,
maybe
, believe he's fucking some cute boy, although why he'd want to when the chicks that crawl in his lap look like porn stars, I don't know—”

“You think I'm cute?”

“Ha. Like I can't tell a cute dude from an ugly one.” He narrowed his eyes at Reese. “I'm not afraid of you, gay boy.”

Whoa. Lines getting too close to being crossed.

“Hey, be nice. Understand?” Tom didn't need to move a muscle to make it clear to Cash how serious he was.

Buried beneath the look they shared was a history of letting bros know when the chick you were banging became something more and no further wisecracks were allowed.

Fuck. Every time he turned around, he was comparing Reese to a girl. And that shit was too dangerous, even if it was only in his head, because sooner or later he was going to slip up and say something out loud and Reese would have his balls on a platter.

Or he'd have Tom's ass for real.

The shiver that leapt up his spine at the thought surprised him.

Jesus. Thinking about anal and whether or not he was ready to give it a try with Reese was
not
the topic he wanted on his brain when Cash was in the room, if only to avoid scarring his friend for life on the off chance that a freak gamma ray blasted the planet and gave everyone psychic powers in the next thirty seconds.

Cash, who was still a little offended.

“I'm always nice. I told your boyfriend he was cute, for crying out loud,” he protested, hands thrown up in the air. “I'm down with the gays.”

Tom thought Reese might have sprained an eyeball, trying not to roll them at that pronouncement.

“Sure you are. You're, like, ally number one.”

They didn't look as if they were going to kill each other. He might as well get dressed. He rolled off the bed and onto his feet, heading for his closet.

Reese smacked his ass with the flat of his palm as he passed, and Tom ignored Cash's staring back and forth between the two of them.

The struggle to wrap his brain around the sex thing was occupying most of Cash's working brain cells.

“Just, why?” He needed to talk it out. Great. “Okay, cute dude, not my thing, but whatever floats your boat. And I guess it makes sense that a dude knows his way around a dick, so okay, I can see how that works. But your ass, man. Why you wanna go sticking something up there?”

“Does my sex life have to make sense to you? Because I am not having this conversation!” His words were muffled by the sweatshirt he dragged over his head, but he was pretty sure everyone on the hall heard that one.

“Baby, I got this one,” Reese called to him and Tom hated himself a little for wishing Reese hadn't called him baby in front of Cash. Fuck. This was hard.

“You never heard of the prostate?”

Jesus. The shit you had to talk about when you were gay. That alone would kill him. He threw up his mental hands and let Reese take over.

“Sure I have. My dad had to get his checked out. He was pissing ten times a night. Yet another up-the-ass experience I'm not looking forward to.”

Reese sat down on his bed, leaning back on his hands, crossing one leg over the other and kicking his foot lazily while Cash rambled.

“Yeah, well, if you're not fifty, just think of the prostate as your magic button.”

“Magic button.” Cash sounded doubtful.

Seriously. Tom was having a hard time believing that his boyfriend and his one remaining friend were having an in-depth conversation about gay sex.

“Yup. Press the magic button and you'll come harder than you ever have in your life.”

He turned around, pulling on clean track pants. This, he had to see.

For a moment, Tom thought Cash was going to wander further down this off-fucking-road conversational path. Cash opened his mouth, froze, and then shut it. Then did it again.

The magic button concept had obviously caused some kind of meltdown.

“Right.” Cash cleared his throat, crossed his arms, and nodded. “I'll, uh, keep that in mind.”

“Best. Orgasm. Ever.” Reese's enunciation was as precise as an Oxford don's.

“Can we please not talk about this anymore?” On the other hand, Tom was pretty sure his voice squeaked.

Cash nodded and stared at the two of them. “So, this is weird. But I can do it. I can. Just, you know, do it, man.”

Tom stared at him. What the fuck?

Cash blushed but rose to the challenge. He flapped a hand back and forth between the two roommates. “Go on. Kiss. We gotta get it over with.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at Reese who grinned and shrugged at him from his recline on the bed, then beckoned with one finger.

They could take it easy on Cash, who was standing like a first baseman expecting a fast throw from the pitcher to keep the runner on base, knees bent for balance, hands up in front of his chest as if he were ready to catch anything that came his way. Tom thought simple was probably a great idea. Mouths closed, a brief touch.

Looking down at Reese, who grinned up at him, love hit him like a punch in the gut.

Exactly like. He felt queasy and couldn't breathe.

No way.

He had to block that thought out because love and every other emotional train wreck was not on the agenda. Not love. So,
want
, and something that edged too close to
need
for comfort, pulsed low and smooth in this belly as he stood over Reese, a position Tom almost never allowed himself to hold, too aware of his own potential to intimidate. He pushed his fingers into the thick shock of Reese's hair.

Not love.

But he sure did like this guy.

He bent down and laid his mouth on Reese's, never letting his hand tighten around his boy's skull, knowing how much trust it took Reese to manage being even this far beneath him. Reese's breath was warm against his mouth.

“Ack! Gross! Nope, nope, can't do it. That's cool. Have fun. I'm closing my eyes.”

Tom caught Cash sneaking a look between spread fingers clapped over his face. This was getting ridiculous. But if the alternative was Cash being so uncomfortable around them he stopped coming by, Tom was reluctant to give that up. Feeling spotlit wasn't his idea of a good time, but Cash would get bored of watching this peck on the lips any time now, right?

Right?

“I need to do, like, that thing where you're afraid of spiders so they make you touch a tarantula.”

Tom pulled his mouth away from Reese's to grimace at Cash.

“Aversion therapy?” His voice shot high.

Oh, fuck it.

“I'm not giving myself a crick in my neck for this asshole. Scoot over.” He bumped his knee against Reese's leg until there was enough room for him to squeeze on the mattress next to Reese. Without the awkwardness of bending over it was easier to get distracted by the taste of Reese's mouth, minty and hot, and the warm length of his thigh pressing against Tom's own. He slid fingertips down the side of Reese's neck to rest lightly on his collarbone, the edge of his nails testing the skin, and felt Reese's breath catch in his chest. He opened his mouth and dragged the tip of his tongue against the full curve Reese's bottom lip. His cock swelled in his jeans.

“Yeah. I can force myself to look—nope! Not yet!—until I get used to it.”

He was rapidly forgetting why Cash was there as Reese snaked a hand across his lap and braced it on the bend of Tom's hip, fingers slipping under the hem of his T-shirt to brush against bare skin with slow strokes.

“Hey. Guys. I'm still here.”

He didn't look. Reese was sucking Tom's bottom lip into his mouth in gentle pulses, releasing and sucking over and over again in a rhythm that made Tom want to throw himself down on the bed and pull his boy on top of his chest. He would push up with his cock against Reese's hard, slim hips.

“Dudes.”

Reese flexed the hand on Tom's hip, fingers spreading wide until his thumb crept closer to Tom's crotch and his pinkie wrapped around to his ass. His fingers were like steel bands on Tom's body, no sign he'd be letting go soon. Heat radiated off him and Tom's skin sucked it in, warming until he must be glowing.

“Oh, what-the-fuck-ever.” The creaking thump of a big body hitting a cheap mattress pulled Tom's head up. Cash was stretched out on Tom's bed, arms crossed behind his head. “Don't you guys have any video games or anything?”

Ha. Boredom.

Mission accomplished.

He grinned at Reese, whose hand clutched his hip. Reese's gaze flickered to his lap and Tom knew Reese saw the semi he was sporting.

Reese licked his lips.

Desire jolted his cock, shot up his back and blew most of his brain cells out the back of his head.

“No.” His voice was ragged. He cleared his throat. “No video games. Sorry.”

“S'okay. But I need something to do, you know? While you guys are all make out city over there.” Cash started humming and playing the drums on his thighs.

A totally unironic, no doubt, version of “Paradise City”.

“You could read a book,” Reese said sweetly and waved at the shelves.

Cash's one finger salute was exactly what he'd have done to Tom, who almost laughed at how good it felt to watch his friend flip the bird at his roommate.

“Ha ha. Your boyfriend is funny.”

And wasn't
that
a little moment of weirdness. But he still needed to get things right with Cash. He shot Reese a pleading look.

“Right. I have to go to the bathroom. Again.” He managed to drag his fingers across Tom's lap as he stood up, scraping his fingernails over Tom's dick in a long, shivery scratch that tore a grunt out of Tom's throat. No chance Cash had missed that.

He left the room. Tom watched him go.

Cash rolled over on his side and propped his head on one fist. Waited for him to start.

“He's not convenient. Or easy.” Finding the words was like digging through rock with his fingernails, painful and bloody. “But things have been pretty fucking horrible for him too and…he gets it.”

“
I
get it.” His friend sat up, his eyebrows pinched together, thighs open, sitting cross-legged and innocent, like a child.

He shook his head. He wasn't trying to make Cash feel bad but he couldn't lie.

“Not like him.”

Silence stretched between them like taffy until Cash broke and blew a sharp breath out of puffed cheeks.

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” Tom pinned him with a look. This was it. The make-or-break point.

“Fuck. Yeah. All right. I get it.” His friend broke out the air quotes. “He
completes
you
.
”

Tom covered his relief by whipping a pillow at Cash's head.

“Asshole.”

“Cocksucker.” Cash threw his hands up and grimaced. “Don't! Don't fucking tell me.”

Tom laughed, relief leaking out of him all over, like a sieve. “Don't worry. I won't.”

“Good. So. Your roommate, huh?”

Tom shrugged. He was never gonna scrabble up the right words. “He gets it. Needing a break from—” he opened and closed his hands, trying to grab hold of something he could describe, “—everything.”

“Ooookay. If you say so. You could get a nice break with some girl's lips on your dick, no problem, and—”

“I heard that!” Reese's shout was clear through the closed door.

So, not all the way to the bathroom.

“Then stop listening at the door!” Cash barked. He ran a hand over his hair. “And, as I was gonna say—” he raised his voice and twisted his torso to aim his words at the door, “—you'd get to avoid the fucking
circus
that'll pull into town when this gets out, but that's your deal. You know I got your back.”

The party in the hall kept his mouth shut.

“I like him.” It was that simple.

“Okay then.” Cash scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head like a dog. “Holy fuck. What a night. I came here to drag you out of your little mancave. You coming?”

“Coming where?”

“There's a party at Phi Psi.” The words weren't all the way out of Cash's mouth before Tom was shaking his head.

“No fucking way. 'Sides, can you picture?” He pointed one finger at the door without saying a word. Openly gay Reese and a Phi Psi party were not a match made in heaven.

“What? He can come.”

“Dude.”

The door opened.

“Just so you know, we might as well be fucking right out in the hall. These doors are made of paper or something. You can hear every word,” Reese announced.

Tom grimaced at the idea. Although if anyone should have known how much you could hear from the hall…

“Cash was asking,” he started.

Reese interrupted him, but quietly.

“I heard.” He shook his head, his eyes steady on Tom's, as if Cash wasn't even in the room. A message there. “Not for me, Tom.”