“Babe?”

My head snapped up at the sound of Nick’s voice. He was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the very picture of a hot librarian with a book in his hand and his reading glasses on, and he was smiling at me like I’d done something funny.

“What’s up?” I asked, unable to stop myself from grinning.

How many weeks since we’d said I love you? How many weeks since I’d known that finally, unbreakably, truly—this thing we had was real? That it wasn’t going to disappear, that even if Nick didn’t know how to say it very well, that he wanted to be with me?

It felt like a lifetime ago. Sure, he still wouldn’t really touch me, and yeah, he maybe wasn’t the most effusive in his declarations of love—but he’d said it. And I believed it. And that was all that mattered, right?

“Just, uh, wondering if you’d realized what time it is?” Nick asked.

I frowned and looked at the corner of my laptop where it lay on his bed. “How is it 7 p.m. already?”

I’d sat down to write an essay for English, kicking Nick out of the room so that I would actually get work done and not just stare at his biceps, but I’d still gotten distracted.

On the other hand, the distraction had turned out to be surprisingly fruitful. I clicked to check the word count in the document I was in. Six thousand words in three hours. Yeah. Weirdly fruitful. So I guess I wasn’t exactly complaining.

“I believe that’s generally what happens after 6 p.m.,” Nick informed me gently. “Next comes 8, then 9.”

“Cute.” My eyes narrowed. “Weren’t you supposed to come get me at 6 though? I thought we were meeting up with Ben and Adam for dinner.”

“Yeah…” Nick gave me a sheepish grin. “But you were typing so loud, and I didn’t wanna interrupt you if you were in a good groove.”

“So you just stood up your friends?”

“I mean, technically we stood up my friends. But if you’re hungry now, we can still go grab something. You done with the essay?”

He must have seen something on my face, because he raised an eyebrow. And when I didn’t say anything in response…

“Eli, you have been working on that essay, right?”

“What? Yeah. Totally. I definitely, for sure worked on it. I reread the prompt. I found the citations I wanted to use. I even came up with a thesis statement.”

“And then…”

“And then I maybe sorta worked on something else instead?”

“Eli! What have you been doing? What was all that typing about, if it wasn’t your homework?”

“Like I said, I, uh, kinda started working on something else.”

I flushed. I wasn’t quite ready to tell Nick about it. It still felt really new, and on the off chance that it all turned out to be terrible, I didn’t want to show it to anyone, even Nick, just yet.

I smiled, though, as I looked back down at my document. I didn’t think it was going to be terrible. I’d gotten that tingly kind of feeling that I got sometimes when I was really plugged into what I was writing, like I was just pressing my cup to a giant soda-machine of words, collecting them as they spilled out.

It didn’t feel like work, it didn’t feel like play, it didn’t feel like anything except, honestly, maybe the closest I’d ever gotten to prayer. I knew this feeling didn’t last forever, and the longer my pieces grew, the harder it was to sustain. A lot of writing was just gutting it out, and wondering why the words never sounded as good on paper as they did in my head.

But this? This kind of feeling was the closest I came to believing in something, because it didn’t even feel like the words were coming from me.

All of which was to say, I was really excited about this new project, and I’d be devastated if Nick saw it and didn’t like it.

“Yeah?” Nick cocked his head to the side. “A writerly something else?”

“Um. Maybe.”

He took a step into the room. “A fictiony-writerly piece of something else?”

“I mean, sorta. It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Can I read it?”

“No,” I told him primly. “Of course not.”

“Why ‘of course’ not?” Nick asked, taking another step into the room. “It’s amazing already, I can guarantee that. And you know I’ll love it.”

“See, you say that now, but that just means it’s going to be even worse if you hate it.”

“I’m not gonna hate it. If anything, I’m not objective enough to hate it.” He came to the edge of the bed and smiled down at me.

“How does that make it any better? That just means if it’s awful, I won’t get any early warning.”

“It’s not gonna be awful, babe. I promise.” Nick bent down slowly and leaned in. My breath caught. Was he about to kiss me? Saying I love you hadn’t seemed to have any effect on that particular rule of his so far, but maybe he was having a change of—

“Hey! What are you doing?” I exclaimed as Nick tried to grab the laptop from me while I was distracted.

“Helping you work,” Nick said, collapsing down onto the bed but not letting go of my computer. “Now let me see.”

“That was a dirty trick,” I complained, closing the laptop and earning an affronted look. “Now I’m definitely not going to let you see. You’re biased and you’re cheating.”

“Cheating? That’s a baseless accusation. I would never cheat.”

I narrowed my eyes, then bent to place my laptop on the floor before rolling over and lying sideways on the bed, facing Nick. That almost-kiss had given me ideas.

“Because you’re such a paragon of virtue?”

“Obviously.”

“Who would never compromise his personal integrity, no matter how sorely he might be tempted?” I traced a pattern on his forearm with my fingers.

Nick gave me a suspicious look. “I know I’m supposed to say yes, but somehow I have a feeling there’s a trap in here somewhere?”

“What? Me? But I’m a paragon of virtue, too,” I said, shifting so I was an inch closer to Nick. “Way too moral…” I shifted another inch, “to do something…” another inch, “...like this.”

I leaned in and brought my lips just in front of Nick’s, then held myself there, watching him. His warm brown eyes went wide and he inhaled sharply. His whole body was tense all of a sudden.

I slid my hand from his arm down to his hand, then brought his hand to my hip. Slowly, I slid it back so that it cupped my ass. Nick’s nostrils flared, and he closed his eyes. But still, our lips remained a millimeter apart.

Bolder now, I brought my hand up to Nick’s chest, ran my index finger down to his stomach, then let my hand sink lower still, till I was just—

“Eli, we’ve talked about this,” Nick said finally, turning his head and starting to pull away.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m satisfied with the outcome.” I hooked a leg over Nick’s—I wasn’t letting him get away that easy. “There’s no reason we have to hold ourselves back.”

“There’s plenty of reasons.”

“And they’re all literally the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Unless you don’t want me.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Prove it,” I retorted. I knew that was childish and I completely didn’t care.

“Prove it?” Nick sounded outraged, but he still wouldn’t look at me.

“Prove it.”

“You want me to fucking prove it?” Nick whispered. Finally, he looked at me again, and I blinked at the intensity in his coffee-dark gaze, the way there seemed to be a fire behind his eyes.

His grip was strong, almost rough as he took my hand and brought it to his cock where it pressed through his sweatpants. I actually gasped. I’d felt Nick before, but never like this. That night, three weeks ago, when he’d pressed our bodies together in bed and I’d felt him against my hip? I’d been playing that memory on a loop ever since. But it was one thing to get the general sense of someone pressed against your stomach or your ass, and another thing entirely to feel them with your hand. Nick was… not small.

“I think about fucking you every night,” Nick growled. “And every morning. Every afternoon. Every second that I’m not actively thinking about something else, in fact, and probably even then, it’s still playing in the background. Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?

“I think about stripping you naked, tearing your clothes to shreds because I can’t get them off of you fast enough. Laying you down on this bed. The couch. The floor. I think about tasting you, every inch, every part of you. I think about kissing you. About rimming you. About getting you wet, making your back arch, making you sweat and claw your nails down my back because of how bad you want it, making you pant and scream and beg for me.

“I think about finally taking you, when you think you can’t handle the waiting anymore. Of being inside you, and making you forget how to breathe. Of fucking you until you can’t think anymore, till you can’t remember your name. I think about making you come, of making you lose your fucking mind because of how good it feels. I think about whether we’ll use condoms, or if you’ll let me come inside you. If you’ll let me lick it back out. I think about whether I can convince you to stay in this bed for a full 24 hours, and how many times I can get you to come in that period. I think about you coming to my apartment the night you graduate, and not sending you back home until you can’t even walk anymore, until the scent of sex clings to you, and you ride home in a daze with some of me still inside you.”

“Fuck,” I whispered. I swallowed as Nick stroked my hand against his cock, and felt myself growing painfully hard in return.

“Is that proof enough for you? Or do you need more? Do you see what you do to me?” My fingers felt a wet patch in Nick’s sweatpants and my eyes widened as I realized I was feeling precum. “Do you believe me when I tell you I want you, that I am hopelessly, stupidly, completely fucking irredeemably wrecked for you? Or do you need more?”

He shoved my hand away, and I was confused at first, thinking he was pushing me back—until I realized his hands were at my waist, and he was pulling my shorts down, then doing the same with his sweatpants. Jesus, seeing his cock was somehow still a surprise and I couldn’t help licking my lips. Though I only had a second to concentrate on that, before Nick pulled me close again and began stroking my cock and his together.

“I know it’s fucked up,” Nick said, his voice a harsh rasp. “I know I shouldn’t want it. Shouldn’t want you, shouldn’t love you. I know you’re too young. I know that it’s wrong, that I’m taking advantage of you. I know I’m hurting you in the long run, and Eli, I don’t fucking care.”

Fuck, I was so close. I bit my lower lip, hard, trying to hold on, to keep from coming too soon and ending all of this. I wanted to object, to tell Nick that there was nothing wrong about us being together, but I was so close, and I didn’t want to do anything that might lead to him stopping. But how could Nick think all of that, think that he was hurting me? Did he not realize he was the best thing in my life?

“That’s how badly I want you,” Nick said. “How much I love you. I’m so gone for you that I can’t help myself. I know I should do the right thing, but I can’t fucking stop. I can’t stop.” He stroked us faster, his voice breaking, and I whined, on the razor’s edge before coming.

“I can’t stop,” Nick said as I clawed at his t-shirt, his back, trying to get closer, trying to wrap myself around him as I fucked into his hand. I was going to come, and I needed to be touching as much of him as I could.

“I can’t stop.” Nick’s movements grew wilder, stuttering, his voice almost a cry now. “I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t—”

With a groan, I came, my fingers digging into Nick’s shoulder, clutching onto him. I felt like I might get swept away, and feeling Nick come at the same time only made the sensation greater. Nick thought he needed to fuck me to make me forget my own name? He might be disappointed to find out all it took was a furtive hand job.

“Nick,” I whimpered, pulling him close and burying my face in his neck. I could feel tears forming again, but for once, they were just from pure, physical release. It wasn’t like I didn’t jerk off thinking about Nick all the time, but none of it compared to this. “Nick.”

“Oh God.” Nick’s whisper sounded stricken. “Oh, God, Eli. I’m so—”

“It’s okay,” I tried to tell him. “It’s okay. That was good. That’s what—that’s what I wanted. Please, don’t feel bad about this.”

“I shouldn’t have—” Nick pulled away and put a hand over his eyes. “Christ, I told myself I wasn’t going to—that I was going to end—fuck, I can’t believe we—I—did that.”

I tried to sort through the restarts and half-sentences. End what? End that before either of us came? That would have just been cruel.

I wanted to ask, but my phone buzzed before I could, and it kept buzzing, insistently. It was lying at the other end of the bed and I tried to kick it away, but Nick sat up and grabbed it, pressing it into my hand. I glanced down. It was my mom calling.

“I don’t need to take this. Really.”

“Just answer it,” Nick begged. He scrambled off the bed, leaving me staring after him. “Please. I’ll be—I need to—I have to go.”

I watched him disappear around the corner into the kitchen, then looked down at my phone again. Not knowing what else to do, I answered.

“Mom?”

“You got in.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No, I’m not in yet, I’m taking the train back from the con tomorrow.”

“Not the con, sweetie. Wrenville. You got into Wrenville College.”

“I got in?” My jaw dropped. I’d never really expected that. Hoped. Wanted. But not expected.

“You got a letter today,” my mom went on. “We opened it, of course. And you got in. With a scholarship. A merit scholarship, sweetie. See, I told you all that hard work was going to pay off. You’re going to Wrenville. Well, assuming you don’t mess up your grades in the final marking period.”

“I’m—I’m going to—”

“This is a big responsibility, honey. You can’t just slack off, now. And of course, we’ll need to talk about how best to manage the transition. Maybe there’s some way I could come and stay with you, just for the first month or so, to get you settled.”

“You want to stay with me?”

“Well, or maybe not, if you can convince me that you don’t need that. It’s just that it’s so far away, and I really want to make sure you succeed. Just think, this time next year, you’ll be in Minnesota.”

“I’ll be in…”

The words died on my lips as Nick walked back into the doorway, holding two glasses of water. His face was smooth, unreadable. You’d never have guessed that a minute ago, we’d been holding onto each other, lost in pleasure—a pleasure Nick seemed to blame himself for wanting.

And if I went to Wrenville? How often would I get that, would I get any part of Nick, if I moved?

“Are you alright, Eli?” My mom’s voice was sharp. “I have to say, I thought you’d be more excited about this. Frankly, I think you could do better, but you always said Wrenville was what you wanted.”

“Yeah,” I said faintly, trying to collect myself. I drew myself up into a seated position, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that I had cum drying on my skin. “Yeah, it’s—it’s what I wanted.” I ripped my gaze away from Nick and looked out the window instead. “I’m just surprised, I guess. It’s amazing though.”

“Well, don’t go getting a big head over this,” my mom said. “You really do need to keep pushing yourself.”

“Right. Yeah. I know.”

I waited for my mom to hang up, only vaguely aware of what she was saying, and then watched Nick walk the rest of the way into the room. He set the two glasses down on his nightstand, then moved to his closet, pulling out two pairs of sweatpants and tossing one at me.

“Good news?” he asked, not looking at me as he changed.

“Yeah.” I still felt shocked. “I got into Wrenville College.” I watched his back, waiting to see what he’d say.

Nick straightened, turned, and smiled. “That’s awesome.”

His eyes, hell, his whole face lit up. I searched for signs that any bit of that smile was fake, that even a teeny bit of his happiness was forced. But it wasn’t.

Nick was thrilled that I’d gotten in—and that, come August, I’d be moving a thousand miles away.

“Really.” Nick came and sat next to me on the bed. “That’s not just good news, that’s amazing news.”

“Yeah.” I looked down at the phone in my hand, at the sweatpants that had landed in my lap. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What do you mean you guess so?” Nick took my hand and squeezed it. “This is your dream program, isn’t it?”

It was so close to what my mom had said that I shivered. At least she didn’t seem almost eager to have me gone. Why didn’t Nick get it? I looked up at him, afraid to ask, and Nick kissed my forehead.

Why was the information that I’d be leaving in the fall making Nick more affectionate, not less?

“What’s wrong, baby?” Nick asked, his fingers stroking my cheek.

“Nothing,” I said, though that obviously wasn’t true. I tried again. “I mean, nothing really. It is good news. It’s just—I don’t know, it’s kinda far away, you know? Like, from you?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Nick said, giving me a smile I think he thought was reassuring.

“Yeah?” Could he not hear the fear in my voice? Or did he just not want to acknowledge it?

“Yeah.” Nick pulled me into a hug. Normally, that would make me feel better, but now I just felt cold. “I promise. We’ll figure it out.”

I wished I could see his face when he said that.