Page 24 of When Ben Loved Jace (He Loved Him #2)

I assumed, when Tim suggested that we grab lunch sometime, that it might happen next week. Not even twenty-four hours goes by before he texts me again.

I’ve got class today. Do you? Let’s grab a bite to eat.

I agree, the idea seeming harmless enough.

I’m less certain when he picks me up from one of my classes and we walk through the hallways together, because this never happened before.

Not when we were in high school. I always wanted it to, so I feel a little guilty, as if I’m indulging in an old fantasy.

Then again, guys walk next to each other all the time.

It’s not like we’re holding hands. I look down at one of his, remembering how good they used to feel on my body.

Although there’s something different about the fingers.

I can’t figure out what. It’s still nagging me when Tim notices my stare.

“Are you checking out my package?” he teases.

“What? No! I was…”

He smirks while awaiting my explanation, but I’m not about to tell him the truth, so I deflect.

“Your shoe is untied.”

He glances down and I snort, because he’s wearing sandals.

“Nice save, Benjamin,” he says drolly.

“Shut up. You’re buying me lunch, by the way.”

This seems to please him. “No problem.”

Being in the commons gives me more of that high school déjà vu, so I’m relieved when he suggests we eat outside to take advantage of the warm weather. He orders a double cheese burger. I opt for a bagel with smoked salmon. We settle down on a patch of green grass while making small talk.

Tim’s bronze skin glows in the sun, plenty of it on display.

He’s wearing torn-up shorts and a tank top.

I’m mesmerized by the way his biceps bulge each time he takes a bite.

I bet I couldn’t get my hand even halfway around his meaty forearms. I wonder if anything else on him has gotten thicker.

I’ll never find out, but I do notice another change.

A glossy pink scar that runs down his deltoid.

Of course it looks good on him, like everything does.

“Where did you get this?” I ask, unable to resist running a fingertip along it .

His skin prickles with pleasure. “That? Travis gave it to me.”

My eyes narrow. “He’s a dead man.”

“Not like that,” Tim says with a chuckle. “I did it to myself, but I like to blame him for pushing me over the brink. Literally.”

“I need to hear that story. From the beginning.”

Tim sighs. “All right. Travis was my roommate at the frat house. Which was torture even before we started messing around. The dude was hot! You would have liked him. He had the kind of muscles you only get from being raised on a farm. Anyway, I’d wake up in the morning with a boner that wouldn’t quit, and he’d be on the other side of the room passed out under a skimpy little sheet that barely covered anything.

Being in the fraternity made it impossible to ignore that I’m into guys.

Someone would always be strutting around naked, or banging girls as loud as they could, like a bunch of show-offs.

I was so fucking horny the entire time I was there. ”

“So you and Travis…” I prompt, wanting him to change the subject, since I’m getting hard myself. My ruse does little to help.

“I noticed him checking me out once when we were both drunk. I mean, yeah, I’d stripped down to nothing while facing his bed.

At first I thought he was just curious about me being uncut, but I noticed him looking at me funny, even when I had clothes on.

So one night, I suggested we help each other out.

We were both wasted. The sex we had is kind of a blur, to be honest. The next day, we didn’t talk about what happened.

But about a week later, he brings a twelve-pack to our room while blushing like an idiot. That’s when I knew for sure.”

Tim’s grin falters. “It went on like that for months. I mean, we’d also hang out and do other stuff.

He’s into cars like I am, or we’d shoot some hoops.

But whenever I brought up anything about being gay, he’d shut down real quick.

Even if I was talking about a celebrity or some other guy on campus.

And it sucked, because I was really starting to like him.

” He glances over at me self-consciously.

“It didn’t come close to what we had. Nothing could.

Anyway, I thought about that trip you and me took out here, and how free I felt once we got away from everything.

Eric had mentioned this cabin that him and Gabriel used to go to—”

Tim brightens up suddenly and leans to the side—toward me—to pull out his phone. “Hey! You’re going to love this. I did some modeling work. ”

“You did?” I ask before casually breathing in his scent.

“Yeah. To pay for the trip that me and Travis took. Eric has this friend, Marcello, who owns… all kinds of stuff, really. Including a studio. I wasn’t crazy about modeling—it’s harder than it looks—but I only had to do it for a weekend. Here.”

He hands me his phone and I greedily begin swiping through photos.

In one of them, Tim glowers at the camera while holding an ornate bottle of cologne, his hair mussed to perfection.

In another, fake fish-scales cover his lower body, his bare torso glistening with beads of water.

A sequence of images feature him with a hot black guy, their bodies entangled suggestively.

“Can you—” I squeak before clearing my throat. “Can you send these to me?”

“Sure,” Tim says with a grin. “So anyway, I used the money I made to rent this cabin that had the works: a hot tub, snowmobiles, a freaking sauna… Best of all, it’s in the middle of nowhere.

I thought I’d cracked the code. Especially when I got Travis to have sex with me while we were both sober.

But as soon as we were done…” Tim swallows.

“He got weird. I tried talking to him about it and he flipped the fuck out. Like throwing shit around the kitchen, that level of crazy. After a big ugly argument, he took off in my car. I sat there and waited for him to come back—which he never did—while getting drunker and drunker. When I ran out of booze, I hopped on one of the snowmobiles so I could buy more. It was late at night, I was wasted, and for whatever reason, it made the most sense to cut through the woods on my way to town.”

“Tim…”

“I know, I know. It was stupid of me. I ended up launching off a snow bank—” He sends a flat palm through the air, making it collide with his other hand, which is vertical.

“—and smacked into a tree. The snowmobile got trashed, I busted up my nose, and this—” He twists to look down at the scar.

“—is where a branch broke off in my arm.”

“A branch?” I say in shock.

“Okay, a twig from a branch, but it hurt like a motherfucker. Especially after I pulled it out. Not the best idea. I’d lost my ride home, so I headed back on foot, following the tracks I’d made.

I was a mess by the time I got to the cabin.

My arm was bleeding like crazy, it was hard to breathe, and the rest of me was half- frozen.

Which was probably for the best, since I couldn’t feel much pain by then.

I warmed up in the shower before passing out in bed.

After that… I don’t remember much. I had one of those horrible fevers where you’re either shivering or sweating.

I kept trying to sleep it off but it just got worse and worse. ”

“You could have died!” I cry in dismay.

“I know. Luckily, I had called Eric when I was drunk. I don’t remember that, but apparently I’d told him that Travis took my car, so he knew I was stranded. When I didn’t answer his texts…” Tim’s voice softens. “Eric flew out there. Just to make sure I was okay.”

“I love that man!”

Tim nods. “So do I. He got me to the hospital. Turns out I’d inhaled some nasty shit into my lungs when picking a fight with that tree. Aspiration pneumonia, they call it. That’s what really messed me up. This,” he says, eyeing the scar again, “was only collateral damage.”

“I think it looks cool,” I admit.

“Really? Huh. I guess it is the sort of thing a warrior would have. I’ve got battle scars!”

He flexes.

I stare. But even my hormones take a back seat to my heart. “So was that the end for you and Travis?”

“Just about,” Tim says. “When I got back into town, I found out that one of my modeling photos had been used on the cover of a gay magazine. The kind that businesses have by the front door for free. So of course someone at the fraternity noticed. The assholes must have taken a whole stack, because they covered my car with them, which is why the clear coat is so messed up now. They used some sort of glue. That was my welcome home gift. When I went inside—” His face is drawn.

“They all turned on me. My worst fear finally came true. And it stung especially bad, because a lot of those guys were my friends. Travis just stood there. He’d already moved his stuff out of our room.

Stupid me, even after seeing that, I still asked him to—” Tim’s voice strangles to a halt.

He looks embarrassed before trying again.

“I thought if we both left the fraternity, then maybe we could…”

He shakes his head and turns his face away.

I take his hand in mine and rest my cheek on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. ”

“Eh,” Tim grunts dismissively. “I had it coming. A taste of my own medicine. It’s what I deserved.”

“No, it isn’t,” I say. “You deserve to be loved. You’ll get another chance.”

“Will I?” he asks, his face close to mine now, especially when I look up into silver eyes wet with emotion.

I push myself away, squeeze his hand, and let go. “Yeah. You’re an incredible guy. Someone will notice that. Once you’ve healed enough to try again—”