Chapter Three
“So,” Deacon said when Mark Cooper sidled up to the bar. “I see you’re pledging.”
Mark tapped the badge on his polo. “Apparently.”
“Want a Coke?”
“I want something a lot stronger, but I’ll settle for that,” Mark said.
If Deacon wasn’t mistaken, Mark was buzzed already. Not totally, but definitely on his way there. “Shouldn’t you be running around naked or something by now?”
Mark grinned at him. “If you like.”
Well, that was more than a blip on the old gaydar. That was straight to DEFCON One, and man the battle stations. And there was at least one part of Deacon that was standing to attention. He leaned on the bar. “I meant, surely they’ve got some stupid, humiliating, and possibly dangerous activity lined up for you back on campus.”
“Actually,” Mark said, placing his wallet on the bar, “they sent me grocery shopping.”
Deacon raised his eyebrows. Mark was unencumbered by groceries of any sort.
“And condom shopping, and fuzzy-pink-cat shopping, and some other shit that I’ve already forgotten.” Mark sipped his Coke and shrugged helplessly. “What can you do, hey?”
“Well, you could go shopping,” Deacon suggested.
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that.”
Deacon laughed. “Aiming to go down in history as the pledge who flunks out the fastest?”
“Oh, sure,” Mark said. “I’m a high achiever.” He sighed. “Okay, so maybe I don’t want to flunk out straightaway, but I’m not going to bend over and let them fuck me every which way to Sunday for the next however long this takes.”
There was another image Deacon didn’t need. “You know, Alpha Delta is not exactly the right place to express your individuality.”
Mar tugged at the collar of his polo shirt. “I noticed that.”
Deacon would have laughed, except he had the feeling that Mark really didn’t understand what he’d gotten himself into. He was going to get the shit hazed out of him by those assholes. “Just be careful, okay? They’re…bullies.”
Actually, a couple of them were sadistic fucks who got off on their own sense of entitlement. And turned their pledges into sadistic fucks who picked up a sense of entitlement somewhere along the way. Because they were rich, popular, and they ruled the campus. Deacon liked to think that in a few years, out in the real world, they’d learn a thing or two, but he suspected guys like that never did. Bullies in school, and bullies in the boardroom, what was the difference?
“I can look after myself,” Mark said, sounding offended.
Of course he could. He was an angry little bunny, remember? He was also the kid who’d lied to his mother about the great birthday party his gazillion new friends were throwing him. Angry little bunny, Deacon knew, had a very brittle shell. Not brittle enough that he wouldn’t be able to land a couple of good punches if he ever found out about the bunny thing, though.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t look after yourself,” Deacon told him. “I just told you to be careful.”
“Okay.” Mark didn’t look at him for a while. Then, when he did, his gaze was more guarded than it had been. “I can, though.”
It was like arguing with a three-year-old.
“I’m sure you can.”
Mark lit a cigarette and glowered at the floor.
Deacon busied himself around the place, wiping down the bar, serving a woman who came in, tipping out the ashtrays.
“So,” Mark said when Deacon found his way down the back to Mark’s end of the bar again.
Deacon reached for his empty glass. “Another one?”
“I actually came here to get laid,” Mark said. “Wanna help me out with that?”
Deacon almost dropped the glass. He stared at Mark, wondering if this was part of pledge week now. He could just imagine the Alpha Delts sniggering as they came up with something as outrageous as propositioning a guy. But there was no hint of a smirk in Mark’s face. Was it possibly a straightforward question? Well, not straight, but sure as hell forward.
“I think maybe you’ve had too much to drink,” he said at last.
“I think maybe I’ve had just the right amount,” Mark countered. He showed Deacon his palms. “If you don’t want to, it’s no biggie. I just thought you might be interested.”
“I might be,” Deacon said. “But you’ve had too much to drink.”
Mark mulled that over. Then he grinned. “I’d better have another Coke, then, and sober up before you finish work.”
Deacon shook his head, smiled, and thought briefly about telling Mark to leave. Then he rethought that and went and got him another Coke.
* * * *
There’d never been any question for Deacon about going to college. He had a couple of friends who’d opted out, who’d gotten blue-collar jobs or continued waiting tables at the restaurants they’d worked at all through high school. Deacon had been accepted everywhere he’d applied, except Columbia, and he’d chosen Prescott because it was close to home.
He’d never seen college the way some people had—as this thrilling opportunity to be independent, to discover who he really was. He’d felt independent for some time now. And he either had a pretty good handle on who he was, or else he was fine with not knowing.
College was a way to get qualified for the jobs he wanted. It was a way to ensure he’d be financially stable in the future. He hadn’t thought too much about parties or getting laid, though some part of him secretly hoped he’d be able to relax when he got away from home.
And then he felt guilty for thinking it.
His older brother, Ben, had joined the military at the beginning of Deacon’s junior year of high school. Six months before Deacon had graduated, Ben had gone to Afghanistan. He hadn’t been stationed in a danger zone. He’d e-mailed now and then and had IM’d a couple of times through his AKO account. But once Ben had gone, there’d begun a long stretch of awkward, mostly silent scenes between Deacon and his mother.
Deacon didn’t have to ask what his mother was thinking about when she ate dinner staring out the sliding glass door into the backyard. The bright red-and-yellow swing set was still out there from when Deacon and Ben were kids—their mother’s one concession in her quest to rid her home of anything that wasn’t immediately useful or necessary. The neighbor’s kids, Mayla and Brody, liked to use it. He didn’t have to ask why he sometimes heard his mother up at four a.m. in the kitchen, reorganizing the cupboards or watching TV. She wouldn’t have wanted to say it anyway; she was afraid Deacon would tell her she was being irrational.
But she was convinced Ben was going to die.
Growing up, her OCD had almost been a joke. She had a good sense of humor about it and didn’t mind Deacon and Ben teasing her about the coat hangers that had to go through the dishwasher before clothes could be hung on them, or the fact that there were two bottles of spray disinfectant under the sink—one you were allowed to touch with dirty hands and one you couldn’t touch unless you’d washed first.
It wasn’t until Deacon was older that he saw how the germ phobia was only a small part of her disorder. It was the catastrophic thinking that really affected her ability to function. She’d be doing fine, and then suddenly she’d become utterly convinced of some pending disaster. It had scared Deacon as a teenager, because her certainty had made it easy to believe she was right, that something terrible was going to happen. Her fear was infectious. When Deacon spent the night at friends’ houses as a kid, it wasn’t uncommon to be woken in the dead of night by the friend’s mother handing him the phone. His mother would be on the other end. She’d sound slightly breathless, her voice thick like she’d been crying. She’d ask if he was okay. She’d say she needed to hear his voice.
She needed to hear her children’s voices regularly. Needed to know they weren’t dead or hurt.
Which was what had made Ben’s choice to join the army so frustrating. It wasn’t like Ben had had military aspirations growing up. He’d simply wanted a way to pay for college because his grades kept him out of the running for most scholarships. Sure, Ben needed to live his own life, make his own choices. But he had to have known that getting sent to Afghanistan would destroy their mother. And Deacon couldn’t help but feel like he’d been abandoned to deal with the fallout. To endure those long stretches of nothing but his mother’s silent fear and the knowledge that if he tried to tell her how his college applications were going, or what activities he was doing for Senior Week, she’d smile, she’d listen, but her mind would be with Ben, picturing him wounded, dead.
It was better when Deacon’s father was home, but that was only for a week here and there since his job had transferred him to Michigan, and Deacon’s mother had refused to go. Not refused like they’d argued about it and she’d put her foot down. Refused, like she physically couldn’t leave the house she’d lived in most of her adult life. She’d stood at the front door, holding a box she was supposed to be packing in the truck, shaking, and couldn’t physically move.
So Deacon had been the last one to leave home, and he’d hated himself for being so relieved to get out. He’d gotten a partial scholarship to Prescott, and the rest of his tuition he paid with what he made tending bar. Before he’d turned twenty-one, he’d worked at the campus bookstore, a royal nightmare. He was a junior now, and he still went home pretty much every other weekend.
And Ben was still gone. Not dead, like their mother feared, but far away, where she couldn’t see or talk to him. Sometimes Deacon hated him, and sometimes Deacon envied him.
Deacon had been glad to find it was much easier to get laid in college than it had been in high school. That it was easier to be himself here, and that there was always something going on if he was restless, if he couldn’t sleep. If he was sick of the Phi Sig house or of his physics textbook. But in truth, he hadn’t done much with his first two years of school except study and work. And play Risk, occasionally.
If Mark wanted help getting laid, then shit, Deacon was happy to help him. Something quick, fun, no strings attached. God, sometimes Deacon ached to hold someone he didn’t have to worry about hurting. Plus, taking Mark to bed instead of giving him a lift to Walmart would be helping stick it to the Alpha Delts, which was always rewarding on some level.
Why not? Deacon thought as he wiped down the bar. Mark was chewing the straw of his third Coke and seemed sober enough. At least he’d moved on from pronouncing the Alpha Delts a bunch of shitheaded, hypocritical fuckers and was holding a coherent conversation about his lit class. He was good company, cute as hell, and Deacon wanted to do something with his night that wasn’t reading pages 123-148 in Advanced Theories in Electricity and Magnetism.
The question was where to do it. The Phi Sig house was too crowded. Deacon shared a room with James and Matt, and they’d both be studying. There was the restroom here, but Deacon had never been one for public-restroom sex. The legacy of his mother’s germ phobia, probably. Plus he didn’t want to risk getting caught fucking a customer on work property. Mark almost certainly had a roommate at his dorm.
Deacon didn’t want to talk himself out of this by throwing out reasons why they shouldn’t hook up. Instead he kept Mark’s Cokes coming, and between bouts of idle conversation, they both watched the clock tick down. By the time the minute hand was inching up toward the hour—the big hand is on twelve, the little hand is on eight. What time is it? Time for Deacon to get laid!—and Bill appeared to take over until closing, Deacon was more than looking forward to getting Mark somewhere private, getting him naked, and getting them both off.
“Another drink, kid?” Bill asked Mark gruffly.
“No, thanks, mate,” Mark said, shoving his wallet back in his pocket and flashing a grin at Deacon. “I’ve got plans.”
“Five minutes,” Deacon told him and hoisted the trash bag from behind the bar. He’d just dump it out the back in the alley, and—
And Mark was right behind him. And then, somehow, Deacon was pressed against the back wall of the bar, with Mark pushing up against him. Deacon dropped the trash bag, decided to save the talk about personal boundaries and appropriate workplace behavior for later, hooked his fingers through the belt loops in Mark’s khakis, and bent to kiss him.
Which Mark somehow dodged, pulling back and dropping to his knees. He gazed up at Deacon, his smile cheeky. He lifted his hands to Deacon’s belt. “Want me to blow you?”
Yes. Fuck, yes.
That from the part of Deacon’s brain that was currently directly connected to his cock and shouldn’t be trusted with life decisions.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Deacon said.
“We are somewhere,” Mark said.
His logic was flawless.
“Fuck,” Deacon said, hoping to hell nobody wandered into the alley. Or that Bill wouldn’t stick his head out the door. Or that the waiters from the restaurant next door didn’t decide to hold one of their randomly scheduled smoke-and-talk-shit-about-the-boss meetings.
Mark tugged at Deacon’s belt and began to work on his fly. He’d lost his cheeky smile and replaced it with something more intense. Sheer want and determination. Deacon fixed his gaze on Mark’s face, a jolt of arousal pulsing through him when Mark wet his lips with his tongue, and tried not to let his rational brain derail this moment.
Because if they went somewhere else, somewhere with facilities, then he could freshen up. And not just his face. He’d been working for four hours straight, and surely he was getting sweaty down there. Not that it seemed to bother Mark in the least—he pulled Deacon’s fly down, then leaned forward, pressed his nose to Deacon’s briefs, and inhaled deeply. Which was simultaneously the dirtiest and the hottest thing anyone had ever done to Deacon in his life. Mark was just so…visceral.
Deacon groaned as he felt Mark’s hot breath through the fabric. His cock tried its best to find a way out of his underwear, and Mark helped it. He pulled Deacon’s underwear down, the elastic snagging on the way, and moved in. One of Mark’s hands went straight for Deacon’s balls, cupping them. The other one gripped Deacon’s cock, angled it, and then it was happening: the most phenomenal blowjob Deacon had ever received.
Eighteen. Shit, the guy was eighteen. Where the hell had he learned to suck cock like this? At eighteen Deacon hadn’t even kissed another guy, let alone learned how to cup his balls and tease the skin behind them at the same time.
Deacon struggled to stay upright. “Fuck. Where’d you learn that?”
Mark mumbled something, the vibrations multiplying every already-incredible sensation engulfing Deacon’s cock.
Right. Dumb time for conversation.
Mark worked his tongue around the head of Deacon’s cock, looked up again, did his best to smile, and then shifted forward and swallowed him.
Oh fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The last guy who’d tried to deep throat Deacon had choked, which Deacon could have taken as a compliment, except it hadn’t been. The guy had just been more ambitious than experienced. And it was hard to feel good about yourself when your date was vomiting on the floor.
Deacon could have come right then—didn’t want to make Mark work too hard, didn’t want to linger in the alley too long. But he also wanted this to keep going. Preferably forever, but he’d settle for longer than sixty seconds.
He placed a hand on Mark’s shoulder as Mark hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard, pulling his lips up the length of Deacon’s shaft until they caught on the ridge under the head. Mark tongued his slit, and Deacon squeezed his eyes shut, panting and kneading Mark’s shoulder. He moved his hand up, pushing his fingers through Mark’s thick hair and rocking gently. Mark hummed again, and suddenly both of Deacon’s hands were in Mark’s hair, and it was all he could do to keep from thrusting.
Mark pulled off his cock, gripped the base, and licked around the head several times. He flicked the slit again with his tongue, and at the same time pumped with his hand. “God.” Deacon tipped his head back, then snapped it forward as Mark swallowed him again.
It happened too fast—Deacon was pumping cum down Mark’s throat, and Mark didn’t seem to mind at all. Mark sat back and gulped theatrically, then wiped his mouth and grinned at Deacon. “You’ve got a nice dick,” he said.
Deacon was still panting. “Uh, thanks. You’ve got a nice… You do a nice… That was really good.”
Mark got to his feet. “Thanks.”
They stood there for a moment, and then Deacon figured he should probably pull his pants up. He fumbled for the waistband, and Mark stooped to help him. Even after Deacon was zipped, Mark left his hand on the front of Deacon’s jeans.
“So, uh, what about your grocery run?” Deacon asked.
Mark shrugged. “Guess they’ll just have to go one more night without lube and strawberry-flavored condoms.” He reached forward and brushed Deacon’s bangs back. His fingers were warm, a little damp, and they smelled like Deacon. Deacon wasn’t sure he liked that, but he decided to go with it. He definitely liked Mark touching him. Deacon leaned in hesitantly, and Mark met him, crushing his lips to Deacon’s.
“Wish you had gone shopping before you showed up here,” Deacon murmured.
“Why?” Mark stroked Deacon’s softening cock through the denim.
“If we had lube and a condom, I could offer to let you, uh…to return the favor.”
Mark cupped Deacon’s face, then dragged his fingers down Deacon’s throat. Kissed him again. “You’d let me fuck you? Just as a thank-you?”
“I mean I want you to.” Deacon sucked in a breath as Mark kissed the side of his neck. Mark placed a palm between Deacon’s shoulder blades and licked the spot he’d just kissed. Deacon glanced around the alley, sighing as Mark’s hair tickled his jaw. “Maybe not here, but…”
Mark laughed, sending a rush of air into Deacon’s ear. “I’m all right for now. Better than all right.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But I will…” He nipped the edge of Deacon’s ear and tugged. Chuckled again at Deacon’s whimper. “Take you up on that. Hopefully soon.”
“You’re all right?”
Mark ground against him. “Yeah, that was hot.”
Deacon caught him by the hips. “You don’t want to…?”
Mark’s breath was warm against his ear. “Mate, I came too.”
Without even touching himself? Holy shit.
Mark pulled away and ran a hand through his scruffy hair. “So, thanks for tonight. It was fun.” He nodded toward the door. “I need the toilet. Can I go back through there?”
Deacon shook his head. “Not before we exchange phone numbers.”
“No worries.” Mark smiled and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He took out his phone and carefully typed in Deacon’s number as Deacon recited it breathlessly. A second later Deacon felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as Mark sent him a text. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yes,” Deacon said. Hell, yes.
Mark flashed him another smile and headed back inside.
Deacon leaned against the wall.
So, that had happened.
He dug his phone out and checked his messages. There was one from a new number. Mark.
BTW, I also bottom.
Deacon laughed.
* * * *
After cleaning himself as best he could in the bathroom of the bar, Mark headed back to campus. He collected his remaining beers from the bush he’d stashed them behind, and drank them underneath the statue of Prescott College’s namesake. Who rode a horse and wore a tricorn hat and was possibly the guy Mark had been thinking of this whole time instead of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Or Ben Franklin. He squinted at the brass plaque but couldn’t read it in the dark. Prescott had done something heroic in the Revolutionary War. Personally bitch-slapped George III with the star-spangled banner, maybe. Mark’s knowledge of American history was definitely lacking, even after all that summer school. There was no way he’d considered taking it at college.
Mark stacked his empty beer cans around the tarnished hooves of Prescott’s horse and headed for the Alpha Delt house. It was almost midnight when he approached, already planning what he was going to say.
I couldn’t find any of the stuff, so I gave a bartender a blowjob instead.
That’d have to get him kicked out, right?
Kicked out in glorious, glittery, gay-as-all-fuck disgrace.
And then he’d tell Jim why: I tried, Jim, but they found out I was gay.
Insert sad face here.
And maybe then Jim would finally stop trying to make Mark fit in. He’d been doing it since they arrived. Encouraging Mark to join sporting teams when he had never even played the games. “Not sports? Well, how about debate? I know you can argue, Mark. I’ve heard it!” Not debate? How about the AV club? How about the chess club? How about the Model UN? “They’d probably even let you be Australia.”
Fuck that. Mark didn’t want to pretend to be Australia. He wanted to go back there, and sitting around with a bunch of smug kids who knew the GDP of Botswana and what NATO actually stood for wasn’t going to help him any, was it?
Jesus. Jim had been more desperate to find Mark friends than Mark had been. As though seeing Mark mope around had been a sign of personal failure for Jim, who’d promised him he’d love it here. Promised him he’d have heaps of friends and have fun and be happy. Except the harder Jim tried to push him into doing stuff, the more Mark had resisted. The more he’d been determined to show Jim that he was wrong.
The fraternity thing was just the latest idea out of Jim’s Top One Hundred Ways to Get Mark a Friend or Die Trying. Copyright Jim, 2013.
Mark was perfectly capable of finding his own mates. Like Brandon. Or like Deacon. Who wasn’t a mate exactly, but a blowjob was a pretty good start. Mark wouldn’t mind spending more time with Deacon at all. And with Deacon’s cock.
Mark smiled as he approached the house.
And the sooner he was out of this pledge bullshit, the more free time he’d have to do that.
He reached the front steps.
“Mark!”
He turned to see Brandon lurking behind the bushes. “Brandon?”
“What did you get?” Brandon brushed leaves off his shirt.
“Um,” said Mark. “Nothing?”
“I thought you said you were going to take this seriously.” Brandon frowned at him. “You’re not even trying, are you?”
“No,” Mark said honestly.
Brandon shook his head, turned around, and pulled a plastic bag from the bushes. “Here. Chips, dips, curly fries, and Reese’s Pieces.” He produced a second bag. “And a pink cat, a blue eraser, condoms, and strawberry lube.”
“You remembered all that?” Mark asked, astonished. “And you got it for me?”
“It was like ten things,” Brandon said. “Plus, I have an eidetic memory. And I knew you’d fuck it up.” He grabbed a cowboy hat out of the bushes. “Don’t forget this.”
Guilt bit at Mark. Brandon was a good guy, and he’d obviously been running all over town while Mark had been at the bar. And for what? So Mark wouldn’t get thrown out of the frat. Brandon was a better friend than Mark was. “Thanks,” he said and meant it. “Really.”
Brandon looked at him worriedly.
“Thanks,” Mark said again.
He jammed the cowboy hat on his head, picked up the bags, and walked up the steps. With any luck, it would piss Jackson off no end that Mark hadn’t failed. Mark was prepared to settle for that, for Brandon’s sake.
He was just making friends all over the shop, wasn’t he?
Jim would be proud.