Page 24

PRESENT DAY

Atticus: Theoretically

Julian: adverb, meaning according to theory rather than experience or practice

Atticus: Theoretically

Atticus: If I were to have made out with Kai last night, do you think it would be a bad thing?

Julian: awwww my second favorite himbo is finally making progress in his love life!

Atticus: Who’s your first favorite himbo?

Atticus: Wait no I know don’t answer that

Julian: the shortie pie who is passed out on my living room floor after challenging his new teammates to a ten mile run.

he looks so cute, like a little starfish on the rug, drool running out of the corner of his mouth, sweaty and stinky and very adorable, you could never compete with him for first place

Atticus: Wow

Atticus: You’re worse off than me I think

Julian: so you kissed kai, the man you’ve been in love with for actual ages, i do not see the problem

Atticus: Well okay so

Atticus: It was a little more than kissing

Julian: still not seeing the problem

Atticus: There’s been some flirting, more than usual

Atticus: And we fell asleep on the couch

Julian: how quaint

Atticus: And we woke up and started making out and then his hands were down my pants and ten seconds later it was all over and then my cat broke a glass and I sort of just left him hanging to go clean it up with a huge wet spot on my shorts and then he just went to bed and I’m a little worried that I might have fucked everything up

Julian: okay so here’s the thing

Julian: i know we’re friends or something no w

Atticus: Took a screenshot of that

Julian: but i really don’t need details about what you did or didn’t do in your shorts

Julian: and i need you to know how hard i’m laughing at you right now :D

Atticus: I’m trying to build a scene

Atticus: So you can tell me if I messed up or not

Julian: kai was into it, right?

Atticus: I think so

Atticus: No he definitely was

Julian: was he upset when he went to bed?

Atticus: It didn’t seem like it. He seemed fine. Maybe a little embarrassed

Julian: i know that this is wild advice, but you could just talk to him

Atticus: Yeah I know

Julian: better to just make sure everything is okay if you’re worried about it

Julian: although maybe he doesn’t want to talk to the dork who blew his load in his shorts

Atticus: Maybe I actually shouldn’t tell you thing s

Julian: that’s what i’ve been saying all along :)

Julian: and since when do you have a cat?

Kai lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

He had jerked Atticus off last night.

After six months of insisting to everyone, himself included, that there was nothing between the two of them, after resisting whatever physical chemistry that always seemed to be there, he’d finally given in.

And he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Kai groaned, rolling over onto his side and smashing his face into the pillow.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t spiraling. No, spiraling over what had transpired between himself and Atticus the night before would have been almost easier to deal with because it would have been familiar.

Kai was kind of always in a state of spiraling, had been for the last year.

Instead, his mind insisted on replaying their interaction over and over, again and again, in very vivid detail.

The sensation of Atticus' hands on his waist, grip tight and burning. How his cock had felt in Kai’s hand, thick and hard. The way his fingers had tangled in Kai’s hair, pulling in just the right way…

Kai frowned into the pillow. He lifted his head, grabbing his phone to distract himself.

Instead of a distraction, as though muscle memory had possessed him, he found himself pulling up his text chain with Ori, looking at the message he had sent last night before falling into a strangely peaceful sleep.

Kai: Attie and I just fooled around on his couc h

Ori had responded at some point with a string of eyeball emojis. Kai chuckled as he typed out a response, immediately receiving another one from his friend.

Kai: I feel like I should be more worried about it.

Ori: Not being worried is good!!! It means you can finally BE HIS BOYFRIEND

Kai: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Ori: NO. LET’S

Kai: It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. We were both half asleep and then suddenly all over each other.

Ori: I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU

Kai: I have to talk to him about it though and I think I would rather rip my skin off.

Ori: TALK TO HIM ABOUT BEING BOYFRIENDS

Kai: ORION. FOCUS.

Ori: I’m just excited!!! Don’t be nervous!

Ori: And don’t call me that only my mom calls me that

Ori: I’m laying on the floor and julian thinks I’m still asleep so he hasn’t noticed that I noticed he’s texting someone and I’m pretty sure it’s atticus because they’re friends now so he’s probably just as nervous as you but neither of you need to be because instead you could just be boyfriends

Kai: Why were you sleeping on the floor?

Ori: Because I ran the fastest

Ori: Don’t change the subject!

Ori: So was the fooling around good? :D:D:D

Kai: It wasn’t not good…

Ori: :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Kai: Got interrupted by his cat though.

Ori: Since when does atticus have a cat???

Kai huffed out another laugh as he flopped back onto his pillow, tossing his phone aside.

Something about talking to Ori always made things feel a little more manageable.

His friend had a way of whittling issues down to their simplest core, turning them into something less terrifying.

Why did Kai need what happened the night prior to be a bad thing?

He knew, of course. Just hours before they’d ‘fooled around,’ Kai had been in the bathroom crying about Nicholas. Again. And that always insistent whisper in the back of his mind never stopped reminding him that Atticus wasn’t Nicholas. Atticus wasn’t the person he’d planned his entire life around.

But even if things had ended in chaos, last night had been…

good. Good enough that Kai couldn’t get it out of his head, had been replaying the scene over and over since the moment he woke up.

Bringing up the fact that they’d been interrupted by the fucking cat only served to remind Kai of wh at he had done once he was alone in his room.

He yanked the pillow out from under his head, stuffing it over his face and groaning into it as he felt his body heat up. As he felt himself starting to grow hard.

Kai had said goodnight to Atticus, had barely closed the door to his room, before leaning back against it, a hand wrapped around himself in his sweatpants. He’d finished himself off, cumming to thoughts of what it would have been like to have Atticus' hand there instead of his own.

Lifting the pillow, Kai glanced down at the bulge in his sweatpants. He bit his lip, letting the pillow fall to the side as he reached down, pressing along his dick through the soft fabric before palming himself.

He could hear movement through the house, knew Atticus had been up for at least as long as he’d been awake. Knew he was going to have to take care of his problem before he could leave his room.

Kai rolled his eyes at himself, but all hesitation flew from his mind the moment he had a hand wrapped around his own cock.

Biting harder into his lip, Kai let his head fall back, eyes slipping closed as his mind filled with the same images that’d had him nearly crying out with pleasure the night before.

Limbs tangled with Atticus', one strong hand fisted tight in Kai’s hair as the other tugged at the waistband of his sweatpants.

The way Atticus had been about to ask if he could touch him.

Kai stroked himself steadily, pushing his shirt up to his chest, abs clenching as he breathed hard through his nose, teeth still sunk into his lip to keep any sound from escaping him.

Footsteps in the hallway reached Kai despite the blood roaring in his ears. Atticus had a habit of just walking into his room, as though privacy were a foreign concept to him. Kai’s eyes flicked to the door, pleasure building as he continued to stroke himself.

The thought of Atticus opening the door, popping his head in to say good morning the way he always did, of him seeing Kai splayed out on top of the covers, catching him flushed with one hand on his cock…

Kai spilled over his hand and onto his stomach, a gasp finally wrenching free from his lips. His chest heaved through the aftershocks, his limbs nearly trembling from the relief.

He’d now jerked off twice , in less than twelve hours, while thinking about Atticus. Awesome.

Kai lay flat, star-fished on the bed, once again staring at the ceiling. He needed to get up, needed to clean the mess he’d made on himself. Needed to figure out what he was going to say when he finally worked up the courage to leave his room.

What did he want to say to Atticus?

His heart was still pounding, echoing through his entire body. A steady, loud beat he could focus on and try to settle his thoughts.

Ori had made it all sound so simple. But it wasn’t, was it?

Kai knew, he knew that he wasn’t in a place where he could handle any sort of real relationship.

He didn’t know if he would ever be in the right place for that.

Just because Atticus accepted all of his broken pieces and sharp edges didn’t mean they weren’t still there.

It didn’t mean that Kai could just make them go away after some dry humping on a couch and a couple of good orgasms.

But the fact that he wasn’t spiraling over all of this, the fact that Kai felt okay enough to even think about the possibility of more… that was new. That was something he couldn’t help but recognize, couldn’t help but let float inside of himself, a bit of hope shifting on gentle waves.