Page 70 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

PARKER

My dick was hard.

My dick was hard for my best friend, and my heart felt like it was going to skyrocket out of my chest. I wanted him so fucking much. It was like someone had popped the cork on a bottle of champagne I’d spent twenty years inadvertently shaking.

For the past two days, I’d been staring at a bunch of troubling puzzle pieces, trying to make them make sense.

I couldn’t be gay, since I still had zero desire to kiss Tiller, or the guy at the bar, or any other man I’d ever met.

But then, why had I been subconsciously cockblocking my best friend for years?

And why was the idea of Julian having a crush on me so damn thrilling and satisfying?

And why was my cock suddenly malfunctioning every time Julian grinned or stretched or spoke or breathed , like it was a radio permanently tuned to the Horny Channel?

I’d been subtly trying to avoid Julian—well, as much as it was possible to avoid someone you couldn’t resist sneaking into bed with every damn night, anyway—because I didn’t want to talk to him about any of this until I was a hundred percent sure what it all meant.

I was done making half-hearted promises and getting swept up by the tide like I had with Erin.

Julian was too important for anything else.

But then Julian had been standing in front of me, yelling at me, looking so desperate and angry and concerned and loving and mine , and suddenly, all those puzzle pieces fell into place like click click click , and the picture became perfectly, amazingly clear.

Of course I hadn’t felt a spark with Tiller. Because I wasn’t in love with Tiller. Just like I wasn’t in love with Erin… which was why I could never have been the partner she needed, no matter how hard I tried.

Julian was all I could think of.

He always had been.

His body, his smile, his infernal ability to both get under my skin and also be the ultimate comfort.

His words took a minute to sink in.

Supposed to be me moving on from you.

“You don’t get to move on from me,” I growled in a low voice. I was trying my hardest not to yell at him, not to grab him and shake him the way he’d shaken me just by being himself lately.

“You don’t seem surprised that I had feelings for you.” Julian’s eyes flared. “Oh, god, please don’t tell me you’ve known all along?—”

I shook my head. “Mikey mentioned it at the bar the other night. He wanted me to stop giving you mixed signals, but I hadn’t known I was. I hadn’t known I could . I didn’t know my own mind. But you know I’d never hurt you?—”

“But you have,” he whispered, his voice raw and small in a way that Julian’s voice should never be. “You didn’t mean to, but…”

My chest felt tight, and it became harder to pull in air. The thought of hurting him was excruciating.

“Talk to me,” I pleaded. “I can’t fix it unless you tell me.”

“You can’t fix it at all . It’s ancient history, and none of it is your fault. Like, did you know that I was going to ask you to homecoming the same day Erin did? Yeah.” He nodded when I grimaced. “I made you a poster. A whole big prom-posal thing, with puns and glitter?—”

“But you went on a whole rant about prom-posals,” I reminded him. “You told me they were elitist, and exclusionary, and heteronormative. I figured it was because no one had given you one. That’s why I did that whole stupid fake prom-posal thing at the Rockies game?—”

“I know. But what was I supposed to tell you?” he said tiredly. “That I had glitter under my nails for two weeks because she got to you first? That I cried myself to sleep? What good would that have done, Parks?”

“I would have been more careful, at least! I wouldn’t have, I dunno, kissed you as much. Or slept in your bed. Or snuggled up on your couch when we watched movies.”

Julian huffed out a breath. “Don’t you get it?

I didn’t want you to stop doing any of those things.

I told myself that was all I’d ever get of you.

I tried to convince myself that was enough.

For more than a decade , Parker. And I swore to myself that it was going to end this week.

This—” He waved a hand at the cabin around us.

“—this was my wallowing hole. The place where my unrequited crush was going to end once and for all.”

I met his gaze squarely, my mind a tangle of heartbreak for what I’d put him through, fear that it might be too late, and a tentative, cautious hope that he and I might transform our friendship into something even more precious.

“It’s not unrequited. It’s you and me, Jules. Always.”

I could see the rapid up and down of his chest. Jules was as riled up as I was, and I knew him well enough to know it wasn’t all anger.

“Don’t do this,” he begged. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I moved even closer until one of my legs was between his. The warmth of his thigh against mine made the hair stand up on my legs. “What if I do?”

“You’re just upset about Er?—”

“Don’t do that, Jules. Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. I can assure you the only person I’m thinking about right now is in this room.”

I noticed a slight tremor in Julian’s body, and I was torn between soothing him and provoking him further.

“Is this you being weird about Rocco?” Jules asked with a slight desperate tone to his voice.

“Who’s Rocco?”

Julian’s hands clutched the front of my hoodie. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep me from moving away or moving closer.

“The guy. The Grindr guy,” he said. “Because you get weird when I want to hook up with guys.”

Yeah. Yeah I did. And I’d been so fucking blind about what that meant.

“You don’t want to hook up with him,” I said, mostly to convince myself. “You sent him away.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he said, lifting his chin. “Maybe I should have invited him…” The movement of his chin brought our noses together in the lightest brush of skin on skin. Julian’s breath hitched.

“No.” My voice sounded strange in my ears. “No you shouldn’t have.”

Jules finally pushed me away, shoving me hard. Now he was legit angry. “Damn you, Parker. Why now, huh? Why now, when I’d finally started reconciling myself to the fact that you were never going to love me? When I’d finally decided to move on and find someone who could be mine ?”

“Because you have someone who’s yours already,” I corrected, stalking across the room after him. “Me. And I do love you.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I want someone who… who sneaks into my room at night to do more than cuddle.” His chin was firm and defiant, and I noticed his hands were balled in fists at his side.

I stepped closer. “I can do that.” I smiled fiercely. “I very much want to do that.”

Julian’s eyes widened. “No you can’t. You’re straight, remember?”

“No,” I said without any doubt.

Now the wide eyes were almost comical. He swallowed and backed into the rough-hewn log wall behind him. “What are you talking about? What the hell’s gotten into you?”

I resisted making a joke. Nerves were starting to sneak in, and the easiest thing to do would have been joking it all away.

“I love you,” I said in a voice I wasn’t proud of. It sounded almost as terrified as I felt.

“I know that.”

“No. I mean… I… I…”

“Oh, god, Parks. Don’t say anything you can’t take back.”

He was right. For Julian and me, there would be no on-again off-again. There would be no breaking up and getting back together.

To me, nothing had ever sounded so right.

But I understood that Julian would be harder to convince.

“Don’t tell me what I mean. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very, very long time.”

His jaw clenched. “You want to know what it’s like to kiss a dude? Fine. I’m calling your bluff so you can get this fucking whatever-it-is off your mind once and for all.”

He grabbed the front of my hoodie again and twisted me around until my back was the one pressed against the rough wooden wall. Julian’s other hand shot out and gripped me around the throat, pinning me in place, and within a fraction of a second, his lips were on mine.

After a beat of shock, I realized this was it. I was kissing Julian Thick, my best friend, my confidant, the most important human in my life.

And he tasted like everything I’d ever wanted.

I let out a feral sob and reached for the back of his head to keep him from pulling away. Our mouths devoured each other. A loud rushing sound filled my ears, and it almost, almost, drowned out the sound of Julian’s sexy-as-fuck whimper.

His kiss lit me up everywhere in a way I’d never in a million years even fantasized about.

My brain oozed into a puddle of useless slop, and my body sang with the need for more.

The harsh rasp of his beard scruff, the strong clasp of his fingers on my throat, and the insistent erection pressing against my groin were new sensations.

And they were breathtaking.

“Please,” I begged when he moved his lips off mine. “Don’t fucking stop.”

Julian’s lips quickly moved to my cheek, my jawline, my ear. “Not stopping.”

His teeth grazed my earlobe, and I wondered if I would have sunk to the ground if he hadn’t still been holding onto me.

I grabbed his shoulders, his ass, the back of his thighs, anywhere I could reach to both feel him and also keep him trapped in the cage of my arms. If he suddenly pulled away and stopped all this, I would freak out.

I yanked at his shirt until I could ruck it up enough to get my hands underneath and feel the warm skin of his back.

I wanted to slide my fingers down inside the waistband of his pants, but I didn’t dare.

At any minute, he was going to decide this was a mistake and call a halt to everything that was delicious and thrilling.