Page 37 of Caden & Theo

Wakingup with Caden’s mouth on my dick probably ruined me for regular mornings. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to alarm clocks and cereal after that kind of sunrise.

I’d barely opened my eyes, still heavy with sleep and travel aches, when I felt him—warm breath, hot mouth, soft hum against my skin, like he was trying to wake me up slowly and sweetly. Like a gift.

It worked.

We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to. We’d simply touched and moved and let it happen again, the way it’s always going to happen when it’s just us in a room and we’ve got enough hours to get tangled up without time running out. Later, we laughed about it while brushing our teeth, naked except for boxers, bumping hips like we weren’t both fully addicted.

Best. Morning. Ever.

We spent the whole day together—Caden showing me around campus, pointing out weird student traditions, claiming a corner of the library as “his,” telling me about classes and professors and how tough Coach has been on him even though his scholarship pretty much guaranteed him a spot. “Tryoutswere hard,” he said, “and the pressure’s real. If I want to start, I’ve gotta earn it.”

I believed him.

He’s got the kind of drive that burns through everything. It scares me a little, if I’m honest. Not because I think it’ll pull us apart, but because it makes me wonder how I’ll coexist next to that kind of fire when I’m not even sure what I want yet—besideshim. I know I’ll follow him here in a heartbeat if I can, but I also don’t want to mess up what he’s building by hovering too close.

Still.

Today made it harder not to imagine that future—lunch at the campus café, making out in the stairwell of a dorm I’ll probably never live in, holding his hand under the table at a hole-in-the-wall diner in town where no one looked twice at us. If I went to school here, we could have thatall the time. Well, some of it. The whole together-in-public thing would have to continue to remain on the down-low.

By the time we get back to his dorm, the sun’s barely begun to set, spilling a warm gold across the floorboards like a movie scene that doesn’t know how to end. Caden shrugs off his hoodie and tosses his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door—some half-assed attempt at adulthood he swears keeps him organized.

He stretches, arms over his head, shirt lifting to expose a sliver of warm brown skin and the curve of his waist. I catch myself staring, and he catches me looking.

“Hungry?” he asks, eyebrows raised, teasing already curling at the edge of his voice. “I’ve got leftover spaghetti that may or may not be a health hazard.”

I laugh, because of course he does. “You planning to poison me before the party?”

He shrugs. “There are worse ways to go.”

“I’ll pass,” I say, dropping onto the couch. “I think I’d rather starve.”

He snorts and walks over to me with a small bag he drops dramatically on the bed.

I raise an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

He grins. “Part of your birthday gift.”

I lean forward and pull it open. Two mini LEGO kits. One is a tiny street food cart with a hot dog vendor. The other looks like a firefighter with a dalmatian.

“We’re building these?” I ask, bemused.

“You’re damn right we are,” he says, already tearing into the box. “We’ve got time, and I need a pre-party wind-down.”

I snort. “Is this a thing now? LEGO dates?”

Caden shrugs. “Could be. You trying to judge me or fall more in love with me?”

“Dangerous question,” I say, and open the second box.

We work in silence for a while, soft music playing from his stereo. He’s got a little furrow between his brows as he clicks pieces together, biting his lip in concentration like he’s assembling a space shuttle and not a four-inch plastic hot dog cart.

I finish mine first. It’s crooked, but charming. “Mine’s got personality,” I declare.

He leans over, inspecting it critically. “Yours looks like it survived an earthquake.”

“Still standing.”

He laughs, that deep, warm kind that settles behind my ribs. Then he holds up his finished figure—a proud firefighter with a red helmet and blocky shoulders. He even gave it a tiny mustache. “Behold: me, in another life.”