He'd purposely had as little contact with Kell as he could.

The things he was starting to feel for Kell, he wanted to nip them in the bud. He had to avoid him in class, even if he'd wanted to be closer to him and to sit near him again and to talk with him. If he had gone over to him, then he’d just be dropping further down a rabbit hole he was scrambling to get out of. Meeting him for the project was enough. He would keep it all official. That way he could keep his feelings in check. He could keep whatever this damn feeling was in check.

After work he rushed to meet with William to check on a promising daycare center for Nate. It was highly rated, in a good neighborhood, and surprisingly affordable. After a tour of the place, the two of them agreed that it would be a great place for Nate—and not a moment too soon, because William had started to get responses back to the dozens of job applications he'd sent out.

"You going to meet that dude again, tonight?" William asked when they got back home.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll probably be back pretty late."

"Going to that noodle place again?"

"No. I'll just be around the corner. Going to his place."

William's eyes widened. "Oh, really?" He imitated Parker's baritone voice. "'I don't want to make this more personal than it has to be.' What happened to that?"

Parker sighed. "Why do I tell you anything? We’ve got a project to complete. We'd save a lot of time cutting out the driving. Especially because we need to do renderings, and we can't exactly do that without a drawing tablet. It'd take forever to drive all the way to school."

"Okay, okay," William laughed. "Thank you for the detailed explanation."

Parker scowled at him. "I'm outta here."

"Have fun," William said, winking.

He grunted and shut the door behind him, stepping out into the warm night air. Damn William, it wasn't like that. It was never going to be like that. He wasn't going to give in to anything unnecessary. Absolutely not.

Kell's apartment was just a few turns down the hallway, and when he reached the front door he took a moment to brush some debris off the front his shirt before ringing the doorbell. The door opened and there was Kell—only it wasn't the same Kell he'd seen at school that afternoon. Instead of his usual paint stained jeans and old t-shirt, he wore a crisp button down and pressed slacks, his hair shining and done up with wax. Despite the smart outfit, he still wore that same awkward smile.

"Come in," he said.

The inside smelled like it'd been sprayed down with cologne, or something. It was pretty sparsely decorated, with the bed just a bare mattress sitting on the floor next to a disassembled bed frame. In the corner by the kitchen area was a fold-out table and two plastic folding chairs, and in the other corner was an easel and several stacks of paint stained storage bins and stretched canvas. For some reason, Kell had the place lit by a bunch of tea candles and one desk lamp.

"What's with the mood lighting?" Parker asked, nodding towards the candles.

"Oh, uh... I just like having it a little dimmer to help me, um, unwind. At the end of the day. You know?" he said.

"We're not going to be able to do any work with this light," Parker said. "It's too damn dark in here. What'd you do, drop a bottle of cologne on the floor? How can you breathe in here?" He went to the window and opened it.

"No..." Kell said. "Sorry. I didn't think it was that strong."

Parker sighed. The guy was hopeless. "Do you have any more lights? How did you do any work in here?"

"I only just moved in a couple days ago," he said. "I've got some work lights in those boxes. If it's not up to your standards, we could go to your place..."

"No," Parker said. "C'mon. I'll help you set up the lights."

Kell opened up one of the supply bins and pulled a collapsible light stand and a large lamp, and the two of them set it up near the folding table.

"Did you just come from work?" he asked Kell.

"No. Why?"

"You changed your clothes," he replied. "You look all dressed up, like for a presentation or something." He plugged the lamp in and then turned it on. Kell's cheeks were pink. What the hell? Was he blushing?

"I'm just a retail drone," Kell said. "I wear a uniform at work."

"You never dress like that at school," Parker said.

Kell shrugged, looking away. "Maybe this is how I normally dress."

"You should dress like that more often," Parker said.

Kell looked at him, surprised. "Thanks."

"People might take you more seriously if you did," he added, and Kell's expression went dark.

"God, you're such an ass."

Parker couldn't help but laugh. He was way too easy to wind up. "I'm kidding," he said. "You do look good."

"Wow," Kell said. "I'm shocked that you have a sense of humor." He looked slightly flustered and hurried off to grab his sketchbook. "Anyway, we should get started. It's getting late, already."

"Yeah," Parker said. "I don't want to have to stay any longer than I have to. I might suffocate."

Kell rolled his eyes, and the two of them sat down at the table. "I made some alterations to your design. Take a look." He slid the sketchbook over.

Parker was impressed. "Very nice," he said, honestly. He'd swapped around certain elements to the illustration and added in some little graphical flourishes to accentuate the key parts, and he'd also done several little color thumbnail samples with gouache paint, each one vibrant and sumptuous. "Now this is what I'm talking about. This is fantastic."

Kell leaned over to point at the page, and when he did, his thigh rubbed up against the side of Parker’s leg. Parker felt a tingle of excitement run through him. And despite what he'd told himself earlier, he didn't pull away.

"These two are my favorites," Kell said. "I think this arrangement of color works best. What do you think?"

"Couldn't have done it better myself," said Parker. Kell's thigh against his was beginning to feel like being touched by a live wire. How could just that simple contact make his heart beat so fast? He couldn't take it anymore. He had to pull away. He shifted his leg and severed the connection as he pointed to one of the images. "I think we should go with this one."

Kell took the sketchbook back, his cheeks turning pink again. Parker swallowed and licked his lips. How the hell was Kell this damn adorable? How did he have this much power over him?

"How should we do the final rendering?" Kell asked. "You probably don't trust me to do it."

Normally, Parker would've agreed to that. For a project as important as this one, he would've preferred to do the heavy lifting on his own, that way he'd be certain it'd be done right. But he did trust Kell, and he wanted to see what he would produce, what he was fully capable of.

"I think we should split it," he suggested. "You can do the line work. I'll take it into the computer and do the digital portion. I've got a lot of experience with doing digital painting, so I can do it quickly."

"Okay," Kell said. He looked surprised and pleased that Parker trusted him. "I'll get to work on that now."

Parker got out his laptop and tablet and set them up on the folding table while Kell got out a large sheet of paper and clipped it to a wooden board, which he leaned against the wall. He got out his pencils and a drafting ruler and plopped himself on the floor in front of it, and the two of them set to work.

"I don't get it," Parker said. "You must've had plenty of opportunities to get hired at a firm. Or even doing commissions. We had that portfolio review fair last quarter. I know several less-skilled people in our class who got hired through that event. Didn't you go to that?"

"No," Kell said, sounding embarrassed.

"Are you serious?" Parker asked, surprised. "Why not?"

"I just... My portfolio, it could use a bit of adjusting. I know there's a lot of pieces in it that aren't very strong, so they wouldn't have liked it anyway."

Parker picked up a pencil from the desk and flicked it at Kell, and it bounced off the side of his head. "Ah! Hey!"

"Let go of your fear, Kell," he said. "Or eventually, your talent won't be enough to sustain you. Everyone else will pass you, and I'll have left you far behind in the dust. It's limiting you in every way, you've gotta see that."

"I'm fine," Kell mumbled, turning back to his work. "I've got it. I've got to go at my pace."

"No, if you go at whatever your pace is right now, it's never going to happen."

"Why are you so concerned about it, anyway? Don't worry about it."

Parker picked up a kneaded eraser from the desk and tossed it at Kell's head. "Dammit, stop that!" Kell said.

"It pisses me off that you're wasting your potential right now," Parker said. "Someone as talented as you shouldn't be doing anything other than art. It's a damn crime to be wasting your time with anything else. Let me see your portfolio."

"What? Parker, it's fucking late already, shouldn't we be finishing—"

"Portfolio. Now."

Kell put his hands up. "Okay, jeez." He went to his closet and pulled out a portfolio case and brought it to the table. "Here."

Parker unzipped it and removed the several large pieces that were inside, spreading them out on the table. He shook his head. He only needed that brief glance to see that Kell's fears were entirely unfounded. The work was, as always, some of the best he'd ever seen. The fact that Kell's confidence in it was so low was mind-boggling to him. This was work that should've inspired supreme confidence. He flipped through each one, taking a longer moment to examine them individually, and then slipped them back in his case.

"You know what?"

"I know, I know. I should've used red tones in the last one, it would've matched so much better with everything else. And the digital one, I'm still learning how to paint in Photoshop, so I don't really have great command over the brushes, and—"

He stood up and placed his hand over Kell's mouth. "Shut up. No. All of this is brilliant. You are brilliant, and the fact that you're sitting here making excuses is killing me. Do you have this as a digital portfolio?" He took his hand away.

"Yeah..." Kell said.

"I'll do the first part of the project. You send your portfolio. Through my job I know of a handful of design and advertising firms who are currently looking for artists. It's not the most ideal work, but it's a start."

"I don't know..."

"God dammit, Kell." He grabbed him by his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "Are you going to take charge of your shit, or not?"

Kell stared back at him, and for what seemed like the first time, didn't immediately look away. His eyes were clear and bright, like liquid topaz. His lips quivered, and when Parker looked at them he found himself licking his own.

"Okay," Kell breathed. "You're right. I've putting it off for way too long."

Kell got on the computer and Parker loaded up the websites for the firms he knew were hiring, and Kell sat and typed up a resume to go along with his portfolio. Parker took over the project, bringing it entirely onto the computer where he knew he could finish it up quickly. After an hour, Parker went over to check on him.

"Is this good?" he asked, scrolling through the resume. "I don't know if this is formatted right."

Parker glanced over it, and then hit the send button.

"Hey!" Kell gasped. "Oh, no!"

"Stop fighting it," Parker said. "You're just dawdling. It's fine, I told you. Everything looks great."

Kell slumped into his chair. "Yeah." He went through the rest of the applications and submitted those, too. "Alright. They're gone. They're in."

Parker crouched down next to him so that they were at equal height. "Good job. And you'd better believe I'm going to follow up with you about this to make sure you go in for those interviews."

Kell blushed, and with his gaze averted, put his hand on top of Parker's. Parker jerked in surprise. Somehow, he hadn't realized that he'd been touching Kell's leg. When he'd crouched next to him, he'd placed his palm on Kell's thigh without even thinking about it. Parker's heart hammered, but he didn't pull his hand away. He felt the warmth of Kell's palm on the back of his hand, the tingle of their skin touching.

Were they... What was happening?

"Thanks," Kell said.

It was Parker's turn to feel shy. "Yeah," he mumbled.

Kell swallowed nervously, and then turned to look at him. "Fuck it," he said, and then he leaned in.

Parker froze in shock as Kell's lips met his, and he stumbled backwards onto his ass in surprise. Kell looked at him with a look of half concern and half horror on his face, like he couldn't believe what he'd just done. As the kiss still burned on Parker's lips, he felt all restraint, all care and all hesitance he'd had crumble away to pure want. He came forward and slipped his hand around the back of Kell's neck, pulling him into him and into another kiss. It was explosive and unrestrained. Parker fell back again, this time bringing Kell with him. He fell on him, kissing him back with wanton fervor. Kell's kisses were unpracticed and virgin, but Parker didn't care. The feeling of his lips was like a taste of water in a parched desert. How could it feel so good to kiss someone? He'd never felt this way before in his life.

Their tongues met and played, and Parker felt his cock swell with vigor, pressing tightly against the front of his pants. He told himself not to go any further, to fight against the intensely powerful desire that was welling up inside of him. He was an alpha, and he wanted what only an omega—what only Kell—could give him. And he might have actually succeeded in containing his want and ended it with just that incredible kiss, if it hadn't been for Kell's curious hand, which slid between Parker's legs, gliding along his thigh. He sucked in a breath as Kell's fingers reached him, a slight and hesitant touch that was dampened only by the thin layers of fabric. And yet even with that barrier there, it felt like a shock of pleasure to his cock and he actually found a moan leave his lips.

"Is this okay?" Kell whispered, as his fingers went for the button of Parker's pants, quickly working to open it.

Parker responded with another kiss, and he slowly reached up to touch Kell's chest. He felt oddly reserved about touching him. He wasn't used to getting close to anyone. His fingers finally met him, and he felt the ripples of muscle beneath Kell's shirt. The more he felt, the more he wanted to feel, and soon his hands moved hungrily all across Kell's body. He grabbed him by the waist and in one quick motion, flipped him so that Kell was on the bottom and he was on top. Kell stared up at him, his gaze occasionally flitting away in shy, nervous glances.

"God," Parker growled. "I don't get it. Sometimes you piss me off so much. But I can't get you out of my fucking head. You've been driving me crazy for the entire time I've known you. I fucking hate it." He kissed him again, this time pushing his face into Kell's neck. He licked him and raked his teeth across his skin as he breathed in Kell's scent. Kell gasped and dug his fingers into Parker's back. Parker loved feeling and hearing his reaction to his touch, and he nipped his neck again.

"Ah..." Kell moaned. "I've never liked you. You've always been such an asshole. This shouldn't feel so damn good."

Parker felt Kell drawing down his fly, leaving his pants open and his bulging underwear exposed. Then he felt Kell's fingers pushing down beneath the waistband of his underwear until finally they made contact with him. A rush of energy crackled through Parker from the touch, as Kell squeezed his fist around his length.

"I've never done this to anyone before," Kell admitted, almost to himself.

Parker reached down and pushed everything off, and his cock popped free. Kell's gaze dropped. His eyes briefly widened as he took him in, in the way that a person's eyes did when they saw something delicious. Parker tugged Kell's shirt off and tossed it aside. He pulled him in and pressed his face into Kell's chest, kissing and sucking the swells of his muscles as Kell stroked his cock.

Then Parker stood up. His cock bounced at face height in front of Kell, waiting for him. Kell wrapped his fingers around the base and then opened his mouth to take it inside. Parker moaned as he felt Kell's tongue glide along the length of his shaft. Holy shit. It felt amazing. Kell gobbled him down, going at it with an uncharacteristic lack of hesitation.

Parker pushed his fingers through Kell's hair and grabbed a fist of it, riding the pleasure that pulsed through him. He'd had his dick sucked before, but it'd never felt anything like this. This was more than just the physical pleasure. This was something real that he'd never had before. This was a connection.

He was going to come. He uttered it through clenched teeth, and Kell continued to suck on him until the climax surged through his body and pulsed through his cock. Kell still didn't stop. He swallowed everything that Parker had to give to him and licked him clean, like he'd been craving it his entire life.

Parker collapsed into the folding chair, and he pulled Kell to him and kissed him. Their chests heaved with excited breaths. Parker didn't want to stop, but Kell moved away and pulled his shirt back on. He smiled shyly at Parker, like he couldn't believe what he just did. "Maybe we should finish the work. We've got a lot to do."

Parker wanted to get a taste of Kell. He wanted to make him moan with pleasure, to see him lose his mind as he sucked his cock. But he wasn't going to force him to do anything.

"Right," he said, going around to collect his pants and underwear from the floor. He re-dressed and then sat back down at the computer. Kell came and sat next to him. The frantic electricity that had filled the air just moments ago was fading down to a gentle buzz. It felt almost like nothing had happened between them—almost. But the connection was there now, real and established. Parker cleared his throat and picked up his stylus to get back to work. He felt Kell's hand slowly make its way onto his thigh, where it rested as he worked. Parker smiled. The least expected thing had happened, and he felt damn good about it.