Page 1 of Just the tip

1

Graham

Ipunched my fist into the horn and held it there until the neighbor’s dog started howling. I stared vehemently at our front door, like the viciousness seething through my core would make Ryan’s feet move faster. He never seemed to have trouble with that on a court. Or a soccer field. Or anywhere other than our house at ten minutes until the morning bell.This motherfucker. Couldn’t be on time to save his damn life unless it was for a basketball game.

Mrs. Russel’s front door opened, and she stepped onto her porch to cast a disapproving glare in my direction. I waved as I cracked the driver side window, gave her a smile, and yelled, “Horn got stuck!”

Her frown deepened but she was apparently appeased enough to go back inside.

With a glance at the dash clock, I let my head fall back against the seat, grinding my molars together. 142 days and we’d only made it to school on time once. Okay, maybe twice. Maybe even twice a month. But that definitely wasn’t so much a habit as it was an aberration.

I didn’t know what the fuck Ryan did up there in his room in the morning, but it was annoying as hell. I mean, how freaking hard was it to roll out of bed, take a shower, grab a bagel, and walk out the door? Even factoring in a jerk session which—I paused that thought.No, I definitely wasn’t going down that road this morning. Point was, even ifIengaged in a pre-academic shower-jerk session, it was an extra five minutes, tops. Ten if the fantasy was fucking superb and Ryan hadn’t used up all the hot water prior. And I still managed to beat him out to the car every single day.

Another three minutes later, our front door opened, and he hopped the stairs, barreling toward the car with that stupid fucking maniac’s grin that was only slightly apologetic. And my stupid brain watched this performance and helpfully presented it to me in slo-mo movie montage style: Golden perma-tan, perfectly tousled hair whipping behind him. Handsome as fuck, paragon of athleticism. When his muscles rippled, the ripples had ripples.

I hated Ryan almost as much as I fucking desperately wanted him. It’d been like that since we were introduced, but at least back then I had the padding of distance. Once his dad and my mom got hitched, sayonara buffer.

It was torture being around him. The only thing that made it bearable was that we argued so fucking much that eighty percent of the time, as soon as I got horny over him, I could count on being pissed at him seconds later, taking the edge off any unfortunate arousal.

Ryan stopped long enough at the driver’s side window to stick his middle finger in my face. I grabbed it and jerked it backward until he cursed and wrenched away, loping casual as you please around the other side of the car and sliding into the passenger side.

“What’s the hurry?” he said, stuffing his backpack in the backseat. Sharing a car sure as shit hadn’t been my idea, but my mom made it mandatory. She thought it would build our “bond.” It hadn’t. We played nice for our parents, though, because—at least for me—it was nice to see my mom finally happy and not crying over the string of dickbags she’d been dating leading up to Ryan’s dad—who genuinely was a nice guy, I had to admit. Wasn’t his fault he had Ryan for a son. And really, we only had a few more months before we went our separate ways to college. I was counting down the days until I didn’t have to see Ryan every day. My dick was, too. It was tired of the many ups and downs involved in sharing space with the guy.

“It’s Thursday, which means I have Calculus first,” I told him, jamming a finger at the AC until cool air blasted my face, carrying with it whiffs of Ryan’s aftershave. “I actually fucking like calculus, and Mrs. Wren is a bitch about tardiness. You know that, dipshit. The fuck are you doing up there anyway? Shellacking your hair? How long does it take to take a shower and eat a bowl of cereal? Jesus.” I threw the car into reverse and backed down the driveway, then gunned the engine toward school once we were on the street.

Cut him some slack, my mom had said.Changing schools your senior year has to be incredibly tough. Tough my ass. Ryan walked into our school and owned it five minutes later. It was as if jock dudes could scent their own. He’d been incorporated as seamlessly as if he’d been there since freshman year. And Ireallystopped cutting him slack once he snatched the girl I’d been into. So what if he had no idea? It was the principle. I’d been cultivating that one for months, and he’d been in her pants a week later.

“You know, you open your mouth, and all I hear is wah, wah, wah.” Ryan said cheerfully, flapping his thumb and fingers together as he settled back in the seat. He had to move it all the way back to make room for his long legs, which he let splay wide, totally manspreading. Gross. That was definitely another point against him.

I resolutely kept my eyes on the road, avoiding the mouthwatering bulge in his pants. Who knew how many holes that dick had been in by now? If one of them had been mine, well…no, goddammit.

I glanced over at him, treating him to the same glare I’d given the front door earlier, with much the same effect. “I swear to god, if you’re not on the curb at 4:30 today, I’m leaving you. I have a tutoring session.” I did it three times a week for extra credit, and half the time I was late for that, too. Ryan’s practices always went over.

“Joke’s on you, Peter Pan. It’s game day, dude. Didn’t you notice the duds?” He made a sweeping gesture in my peripheral vision, and I tried to ignore him, but I couldn’t. I looked. The team always dressed up on game days. Ryan’s khakis fit him like a glove, stretching tight over his massive thighs. He rolled the sleeves of his white button-down up corded forearms to his elbows. His tie hung loose around his neck, and he started working the knot while I tried not to watch. I could be dangerous with that thing, given half a chance.

“You look like a prick, Tinkerbell.” Ihatedwhen he called me Peter Pan. He thought it was hilarious. It wasn’t that I was all that short. I was 5’10”, but it was true that next to him, I was rather…diminutive. Asshole.

“Thank you.” He gave me a savage grin that made my mouth water. I jerked my eyes away and pulled into the parking lot, cut the engine, and hopped out swiftly.

“Eat a dick,” I said, shouldering my backpack and rushing toward the door. It was as close to “Have a good game,” as he was ever going to get from me.

As punishment for being late,Mrs. Wren made me stand at the front of the class and work the first five problems of our homework out on the board. I hated being in the front of the class, hated that kind of spotlight. I wasn’t socially challenged or anything, I had friends, but I was a pretty hardcore introvert, and that kind of attention made me cringe, paranoid that every whisper was about me. Maybe it was. I didn’t know. I thought I managed to fly under the radar pretty well. I did my own thing, ignored gossip, didn’t feed into drama, and kept my own preferences—especially about my stepbrother—locked up tight. There were only two people in the entire school who knew I liked tabs as much as I liked slots. One of those was my best friend, Ophelia. The other was fucking Ryan.

That’d been an embarrassing and also uncomfortably arousing reveal six months ago. I’d been at a house party with some friends Ophelia knew from a different school in the city, getting my dick sucked by a pretty little twink I’d been flirting with all night. I was enjoying the hell out of the way his big, black-lined eyes looked up at me while his mouth was stuffed full of my cock. I had my fingers sunk deep in his dyed-platinum hair, gasping my pleasure as he slobbered all over my shaft in a bathroom we’d found tucked away on the third floor of that big mansion, when Ryan flung the door open. He had a red Solo cup in one hand and was already unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. He froze, and I did, too, my fingers going tight in the twink’s hair. Ryan’s mouth dropped open and formed a confused O, liquid sloshing out of the side of his cup as he backed up. And for some reason, instead of stopping, backpedaling, and freaking the fuck out, I tugged the twink’s hair and urged him to please continue as I growled at Ryan, “Get the hell out.”

Ryan’s mouth opened and shut a couple of times as he gawked, and then he shook his head and stumbled away, belatedly pulling the door shut a few seconds later.

After the guy and I had finished messing around and I’d cleaned up, I hunted Ryan down near the kegs, where he was shotgunning a beer. I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him around the side of the house. “What the fuck are you even doing here?”

“Guy who lives here is on one of the teams we play. Cool dude. He invited me.” Ryan shrugged. Even then he was fucking gorgeous looking down at me, hair all mussed up like someone had run a rough hand through it, his cheeks slightly booze-flushed, and those pretty green eyes darkening as mine narrowed upon him. “Didn’t know you were into guys.”

I shoved him then, a hard punch of my fists to his shoulders, and was shocked as hell when I managed to actually move him. He rocked a couple of steps back, curling over, breath coming hard. Then he stabilized and lunged at me, slamming me up against the side of the house. His forearm pinned me across the shoulders and throat as his face hovered inches from my own. “You don’t want to go down that road with me.”

At that moment, I sure fucking did because his breath was hot on my skin and his lips were wet and full. I ever so inconveniently starting popping a boner and shifted so he couldn’t feel it. I grabbed for his hips and slid my knee between his legs, lifting until it met his crotch. A threat, but one that made him loosen his grip on me slightly. “Likewise,” I growled. “You may be bigger, but I’m fucking vicious, and I’m telling you right now. You keep your mouth shut, or I’ll make it my mission to destroy our parent’s pretty little love story.” Even more than I was glad to see my mom happy, I knew Ryan was overjoyed to see his dad happy. His mom had run off when he was a baby, and it had taken eons for his dad to get over it.

Ryan could’ve easily called my bluff but instead relaxed his forearm, leaving a trail of goosebumps as it slid down my chest on its way back to his side. I was panting, but it was easy to pass that off as adrenaline and exertion.

“I’m not going to say anything, you little shit. You’d really fucking do that, though? Are you that ashamed?” He cocked his head.