Page 68 of Pride High 2: Orange

Diego nodded. “I could tell you were gay.”

Ricky swallowed, feeling vulnerable. “How?”

“From the way you looked at me, like you were, I don’t know… Hungry.”

Ricky’s stomach chose that time to growl. Diego’s chest shook with laughter, drawing his attention to it.

“Exactly like that,” Diego said. “And every time I made a joke about you wanting my body, you’d get this panicked expression, like you’d shit yourself if anyone found out.”

“I was new at school! I was being careful!”

“Fake people always make excuses.” Diego pulled his legs up, resting his arms on his knees. “That’s why I thought it was cool when you finally called my bluff in the locker room. Remember that? When you told me to whip it out?”

How could he forget?

“And then you met me in the grove, even though I could have kicked your ass. That’s fucking badass.”

“Youthinkyou could have kicked my ass,” Ricky corrected. “And until then, I didn’t realize that you were bluffing.”

“I wasn’t,” Diego said. “I only invited you out there so we could get high. I figured you deserved that much for all the shit I’d put you through. But I would have let you do what you wanted.”

“For real?” Ricky asked.

Diego shrugged. “Yeah. Why not?”

Most guys their age—if they were interested—had a whole slew of reasons, which usually boiled down to them worrying about what other people would think. Huh. Diego was right. Most peoplewerekind of fake.

“Not many guys are open to the idea,” Ricky said leadingly. “Unless they’re gay.”

Diego didn’t take the bait. His cinnamon eyes stayed locked on Ricky without revealing their intent.

“Are you into guys?” he tried.

“Why?” Diego stretched out again, one of his feet nudging Ricky’s knee. “Do you wanna mess around?”

Ricky stared, first only at Diego’s face to see if there was any trace of irony there, but his attention soon wandered down the muscled torso to his jeans, which were scrunched up around his impressive package.

“So freakin’ gay,” Diego said with a chuckle as he shifted, spreading his legs wider, as if making room for him. “Show me what you can do.”

Ricky wanted to. He reallyreallydid but… Actually, he couldn’t remember the reason why he was hesitating. So it couldn’t be that important. Ricky leaned forward, planning to crawl across the mattress to reach Diego, when they both heard the garage door rumble open. Soon after, his mother yelled, “Ricky? Come help me unload!”

“Uh oh,” Diego said with a smirk. “Better lock the door. You’ve gotta help me unload first.”

“We can’t!” Ricky spluttered. “Not while my parents are home!”

“Too bad,” Diego said with another shrug.

Ricky continued to stare at him until his mother called again.

“I better go,” he said, getting off the bed. “Umm… Do you want to help?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Diego said, adjusting himself as he stood.

Ricky led the way downstairs, hoping that Diego wasn’t swaggering along behind him with a massive boner. He refused to look, all of his willpower needed to keep himself under control. So he made himself focus on how nervous he was about his mom meeting Diego. Please don’t let him say anything crazy!

They found her in the garage, standing behind the car and fussing over a paper bag that had tipped over during the drive home.

“Hey, hon,” she said when noticing him. “Can you— Oh! Who’s this?”