Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t think Tony knows how to drive this thing,” Alex whispered. His head was on Brandon’s shoulder, and Brandon had known for the last half hour that Alex wasn’t really asleep. But he hadn’t known what to do—whether he should put an arm around Alex’s shoulder or hold his hand or what. It was much easier when they were in private. Brandon had thought once he’d come out and once they’d had sex, little things like touching when there were other people around would be easy. That he’d magically stop overthinking this kind of stuff. But not tonight, apparently.
The “bus” rumbled down the Mt. Nittany Expressway toward State College. It was dark out, so Brandon couldn’t see much in the way of scenery. But he couldn’t sleep, not with Alex so close that Brandon’s mind churned with the possibilities. The Killer Numbats had offered the Phi Sig team the bus after they’d been eliminated from the campus competition. At first Tony had been too proud to accept, but Mark had insisted. They still had one week left on the rental contract, and the Killer Numbats didn’t want to see the money they’d raised go to waste.
The first match of the regional Academic Challenge competition was tomorrow morning, but the Phi Sigs had wanted to get there a day early to settle in. So they’d rented a room at a hotel off campus. Brandon fantasized about getting a separate room for him and Alex. The idea of sharing a bed with Alex but not being able to touch him because there were three other guys in the room was painful.
Brandon tilted his head so their temples touched. “He’s getting better.” Before they’d even left the Prescott campus, Tony had managed to scrape another car’s side mirror and had narrowly avoided backing into a hydrant.
“If you say so,” Alex whispered. He shifted and pressed his lips quickly to the side of Brandon’s neck.
Brandon closed his eyes. He was going to get hard. Right here on the team bus, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“I wish we had our own room,” Alex whispered.
Brandon smiled. “Yeah, I was just thinking that.”
Alex snuggled in closer, and Brandon put an arm around him. He tried to ignore the way Alex started to stroke his leg. Then he thought he’d better warn him to stop it before he embarrassed himself by getting an erection. And then, thankfully, Alex moved his hand away.
Brandon relaxed, and suddenly Alex’s hand was back, except this time it was at his crotch.
“Alex!” Brandon hissed, as Alex tugged his fly down.
“Shh!” Alex bumped his chin against Brandon’s shoulder, then lifted his head to whisper in his ear. “Can I try something?”
“What?” From the seats behind them, Brandon could hear tinny music blasting from Reuben’s headphones. And Matt was sitting just across the aisle. Deacon was somewhere up the back as well, along with Mark, who claimed to be on board the bus to make sure that Tony didn’t damage it and try and blame the Alpha Delts, but had claimed the backseat straightaway and had been asleep since they left Prescott.
Alex’s breath was hot against his throat. “I want to give you a blowjob.”
“Here?” Brandon squeaked.
Alex’s eyes were black in the gloom. “Uh-huh.”
“Oh…” Brandon squirmed as Alex tugged his jeans open. “Someone’ll see!”
“It’s dark,” Alex whispered. He took his balled-up jacket, which he’d been using as a pillow, and draped it over Brandon’s lap. How the hell that was supposed to help, Brandon didn’t know.
Where’s Alex gone?
Oh, he’s just got his head in Brandon’s lap, under his jacket. I’m sure it’s all perfectly innocent.
Brandon glanced across the narrow aisle. Matt was looking the other way, staring out the window at the lights on the highway.
He tipped his head back as Alex pulled his dick out. “Seriously, we can’t.”
“Shh. Don’t draw attention.”
Brandon clenched his jaw. Glanced again at Matt. Who, Brandon realized, wasn’t actually staring out the window. His eyes were closed. He was sleeping.
Alex breathed on Brandon’s cock, and Brandon tensed his thighs.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
This was going to be awkward. And messy. And there was no way in hell that Brandon would be able to keep his mouth shut if Alex—
Shit.
Brandon bit his lip and shuddered in his seat as Alex closed his mouth around the head of his dick. He tried to disguise his someone-just-put-ten-thousand-volts-through-me jerk as a stretch, and draped one arm over Alex’s back. On the slim fucking chance it would look like Alex was using his lap for a pillow if Matt looked over, instead of a buffet.
His toes curled inside his sneakers as Alex took more of his dick into his mouth, and all he could think about was the last time he’d used the bathroom and had he wiped properly? Oh, God. He hoped he didn’t taste like urine. Still, it couldn’t have been too horrible, because Alex was still down there.
Brandon dropped his head back against the headrest, trying not to squirm. He concentrated on breathing normally. Found himself rubbing Alex’s back gently.
Down the front of the bus, Tony was humming along to the radio.
Matt snored, shifted in his seat, but didn’t turn around.
Brandon swallowed. He tilted his pelvis up, and Alex made a tiny gagging sound.
Shit. Was he choking?
The tiny gagging sound was followed by a tiny snorting sound, and then something that sounded an awful lot like a muffled giggle.
Brandon jabbed him in the shaking ribs. “Shh!”
Okay, so this was kind of funny. Or it would have been if it hadn’t been so embarrassing and terrifying.
Brandon bit back a moan as Alex closed his mouth around him again, and this time applied suction. Oh, God. He was pretty sure this wouldn’t take very long at all. His balls were already drawn up tight, and his dick was starting to ache.
Brandon drew a deep breath and held it, telling himself to let Alex set the pace.
He moved his hand up under Alex’s jacket to the nape of his neck. Stroked his hair as his head bobbed up and down, and closed his eyes.
Turned out it was pretty easy to forget he was on a bus surrounded by people. With Alex’s mouth around his dick, Brandon was certain he couldn’t remember his own fucking name.
Take that, stupid eidetic memory.
The heat tightened in his groin, and he suddenly panicked. “Alex,” he whispered. “I can’t stop!”
“Mmm.” Alex sucked harder, which Brandon guessed was permission to come in his mouth. He hoped it was, because nothing was going to close those floodgates now. He tightened his grip on Alex’s hair as he came, clamping his mouth shut to keep from yelling out. He hunched over as his muscles trembled, then leaned back in his seat.
Tried not to squirm as Alex… Shit. As Alex cleaned him with his tongue.
Alex carefully tucked Brandon’s dick back in his underwear and tugged the zipper on his jeans up again. Then appeared from underneath his jacket blinking, like some fuzzy, big-eyed animal emerging from hibernation. He smiled shyly and leaned against Brandon.
“Omigod,” he whispered. “That was…wow.”
Brandon put an arm around him. “When we get to the hotel, I’m going to pay you back.”
So what if they were sharing a room with the other guys? Alex had just blown him on a goddamn bus. Brandon was pretty sure nobody would notice some under-the-sheets action once the lights were out. And who cared if they did?
Alex bit his lip and squirmed. “Yes, please!”
“Hipstalker.” Mark suddenly loomed in the narrow aisle. “Move over.”
“There isn’t really room for—” Alex said, but Mark was already sitting down.
Brandon rolled his eyes. “What do you want, Mark?”
Mark opened his hand. “Just came to offer your hipstalker some chewing gum.”
“Why would you—” Brandon groaned. “Oh, shit.”
“It’s minty,” Mark said. “Good for your breath.”
Alex buried his face in Brandon’s shoulder.
Mark set the gum down on his knee. “Okay, I’ll just leave that here then. And for future reference, newbies. Backseat. Every time.”
Grinning, he stood and headed toward the back of the bus again.
Alex’s ribs were shaking again, as he tried to muffle his laughter. “Omigod!”
Brandon kissed him on the top of the head and tried not to laugh too.
The bus continued along the expressway.
* * * *
Penn State was big. Driving around the next day, looking for a place to park. Alex couldn’t believe how big it was compared to Prescott. Alex had never wanted to go to here, not even on a full ride. It was too intimidating. There were crowds everywhere. Alex would have been terrified to step outside his dorm at Penn State. Prescott had been the right decision.
God. Of course it had been.
He had a boyfriend now and everything. And not just any boyfriend, but Brandon, who was probably the best boyfriend ever in the history of the world. And not just because he was hot and smart and liked dinosaurs too, but because he and Alex were in this together. They were figuring out this sex stuff as they went along, and that was okay. So far they’d figured out that Alex gave great head for a beginner, and you got pillows thrown at you if you tried to fool around in a shared hotel room.
“You guys nervous?” Mark asked as they looked for somewhere to park the bus.
“Nope,” Alex said. It was true. He’d done heaps of these things since high school. Though, admittedly, never at a venue this large. And with the way Tony was trash-talking the Bucknell team, Alex was slightly worried about Tony’s continued psychological well-being if Phi Sig lost to the “fuckin’ Buckies.”
“A little,” Brandon said, so Alex squeezed his hand.
Tony pulled the bus to a stop and stood. “Okay, guys, we’ve got three heats this morning. We need to win at least two of them to get into the semifinals this afternoon. And we need to win the semi to get into the final tomorrow. Any questions?”
Mark’s hand shot up.
“Mark?”
“Did you remember to put the park brake on?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Anything else?”
Silence.
“Student center is on Shortlidge Road if you want to grab some food. I can give you directions. We’re in Schwab Auditorium at nine. Be there at eight forty. I’m gonna go get us signed in.”
There were bleary nods all around. Alex was surprised everyone had managed to wake up and get out of the hotel on time. He and Brandon left the bus and wandered until they found a building that had a bagel place on the ground floor. Alex had pocketed one of the hotel’s small, bland-looking bagels this morning, and now he tossed it in the trash and ordered a pumpkin bagel with extra cream cheese.
They were both silent until Alex couldn’t stand it anymore. “If we win this weekend, I’ll have sex with you.”
Brandon looked up. Took a bite of his bagel. Chewed. “What if we lose?”
“I’ll have sex with you.”
Brandon swallowed. “So I win either way.”
“Depending on how much you like having sex with me.”
Brandon glanced around the café, then turned back to Alex. “A lot.”
Alex pushed his nerves aside and asked, “Do you wanna have sex here? Like, in the bathroom? I think we have time.”
Brandon stared at him for a moment, and Alex stopped breathing. Brandon shook his head slowly, gave Alex a slight smile. “It’s not you,” he whispered.
“Right.” Lots of people around. A competition Brandon was nervous about. It had probably been stupid of Alex to ask. He tried not to be hurt. He’d get used to this. Sometimes Brandon would want to do it, and sometimes he wouldn’t. Not because of Alex. But because sometimes Brandon needed space.
Alex tried to imagine one of his former teachers turning out to be someone he couldn’t trust. Someone who would hurt him. It sucked that he was sitting here feeling lucky that everyone who was supposed to take care of him had done so. Seemed like that should be a given for all kids.
Alex pulled two plastic figures from his pocket. His Sinosauropteryx and Brandon’s Protoceratops. “Look what I brought. For luck.” He made them march across the table toward Brandon.
Brandon laughed and put his bagel down. Wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You’re the biggest nerd I’ve ever met. And I live with professional nerds.”
Alex moved the Sinosauropteryx up and down. “Brandon,” he made it say in a high voice. “Don’t talk to your boyfriend like that.”
“I mean it as a compliment,” Brandon told the dinosaur.
On their way to the auditorium, they passed Mark sleeping on a bench, his face completely slack, sunlight glinting in his sandy hair.
“Look at that,” Alex said. “Didn’t he sleep for three hours on the bus, and then, like, thirteen hours at the hotel?”
“I think Deke keeps him worn out, to protect the rest of the world.” Brandon leaned forward. “Mark. Mark!”
Mark gasped and opened his eyes. Twisted his head back and forth and squinted. “Bran?”
“Almost go time.”
Mark breathed out slowly and closed his eyes again. “F’v mrr minuhhs.”
“Uh-uh. Get in the auditorium. Or I’ll tell Deke where you are.”
Mark swung his legs over the bench. “I’m up.” He shook the hair out of his eyes. “I’m up.”
They walked together to Schwab Auditorium, where they got their name tags and handbooks. Tony gave an extensive pep talk Alex paid little attention to, and the Alderaan Durans took the stage alongside Temple’s Spanish Club team, Los Churros y Chocolate. A few minutes later the house lights went down and a microphone crackled.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said. “Welcome to the fifth annual regional Academic Challenge tournament…”
* * * *
It was a hell of a long day. And physically draining, despite the repeated pep talks, snacks, and “Eye of the Tiger” choruses Mark provided.
“Is he bothering anyone else?” Reuben finally asked around lunchtime.
“He loaned us the bus,” Matt said. “With a full tank of gas.”
Which, Brandon noted, wasn’t exactly a straight answer. In the end, Deacon spirited Mark away somewhere to work off some energy. At first Brandon had visions of Deacon throwing a tennis ball for him, and Mark chasing after it like a hyperactive puppy, but when they came back in time for the final heat of the morning, he was pretty sure they’d been doing something else altogether. Mark was relaxed, a little dozy even, and his eyes were hooded. He leaned against Deacon when they took their seats in the front row of the auditorium again and looked like he was going to drift off to sleep.
Not for the first time, Brandon wondered exactly what it was that Deacon sometimes did that left Mark wrung out like that, and wondered if he’d ever have the courage to ask.
People began to file back into the auditorium.
Alex, who’d been sitting on the table playing with their dinosaurs, took his seat beside Brandon again. Matt, who was talking to a girl on the opposite team—from one of Penn State’s sororities—noticed the auditorium filling and also headed back to their table.
Reuben lined their water glasses up, first shifting them around in a complicated pattern that made Brandon think of chess. Reuben was probably thinking of chess too, of course.
Brandon wasn’t nervous about the final heat. They’d already won the first two, so they were through to the semifinals. He was actually looking forward to lunch most of all. While Mark’s snacks had filled his stomach, they’d been 95 percent sugar. Brandon was craving something with actual nutritional value.
The quizmaster walked up to the microphone and introduced the teams to polite applause. Even the audience wasn’t as enthusiastic as they had been in the morning. Everyone was getting a little tired. Except…
Brandon glanced over at a burst of wild applause and the sound of girls cheering, expecting to see a bunch of sorority girls here to support their sisters. What he saw instead were his sisters, Charlotte and Ella, on their feet clapping and waving flags in Prescott colors.
“Who are those hot girls?” Matt asked.
“Those are my sisters,” Brandon said, surprised, and then very quickly annoyed. Hot girls. He couldn’t even begin to articulate the myriad of ways that annoyed him. He waved self-consciously at Charlotte and Ella, and then froze as he saw two people picking their way along the row toward them: his parents. His mom was carrying a coffee and apologizing to everyone whose knees she bumped. His dad, angular and long-legged, was picking his way through with more ease. “Oh.”
Alex opened his mouth to say something, but then the buzzer sounded to indicate the start of the heat.
Brandon did terribly.
He was supposed to be concentrating on the questions, but all he could think was that his family and his boyfriend were in the same room together, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. And he’d told his dad his boyfriend’s name was Alex, and that time Charlotte and Ella had dropped him off at school he’d told them the kid on the porch was Alex, and they were smart girls way before they were hot girls, so they’d probably put two and two together and got…
Shit.
He couldn’t even figure out two plus two, let alone describe the Pythagorean theorem.
He was totally fucked.
First he couldn’t remember which former Portuguese colony Boa Vista was part of, or what year Marie Curie discovered radium, and then he couldn’t remember the name of Picasso’s famous 1937 painting.
Matt buzzed in for him. “Guernica.”
Brandon glanced offstage. Tony was pacing back and forth, as tense as a wrestler waiting to get tagged into a match. He glared at Brandon, and Brandon felt a stab of guilt. Yep. He was choking here.
He couldn’t bear to look into the audience and tried his hardest to concentrate on the questions instead, except they seemed to be mostly static and white noise.
Oh, God.
They were going to lose, and it was all his fault.
They were going to lose in front of Brandon’s family.
His family who were probably now whispering and staring at him, and at Alex.
Oh, God.
They lost the final heat twelve to thirty-five.
* * * *
Lunch was kind of tense. Alex wasn’t sure what had happened in the last heat, but Brandon had frozen up. Even on the capital of Turkmenistan, and Brandon and his superpower memory were the greatest for the pure trivia questions like that. Dates and capitals and presidents and kings, and Brandon was their go-to guy.
After losing to the Penn State sorority, Brandon had cleared the auditorium like someone had pulled the fire alarm. Not that Alex had expected him to introduce him to his sisters…but it would have been nice. He didn’t have to say he was his boyfriend or anything. Not if he didn’t want to.
“It’s not a total disaster,” Tony said as they ate subs in the team bus. “We’re still through to the semifinals. If there was any match we could afford to lose, that was it. But it’s sudden death from now. Sudden death.”
“It’s also just a game,” Deacon said from the backseat, his voice calm.
“Deke, this is our big chance to beat Bucknell!”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Deacon’s right. You need to chill.”
“Oh, come on!” Tony exclaimed. “You want to beat those smug assholes as much as I do!”
“Tony,” Matt said slowly. “It’s. Just. A. Game.”
Alex picked a stringy piece of lettuce out of his sub. “Ew.”
“Also, you’re not actually on the team, are you, Tony?” Mark piped up helpfully. “I mean, you’re an alternate.” He made an odd noise.
Alex didn’t turn around quickly enough, but he had the impression Deacon had shoved an elbow in Mark’s ribs to shut him up.
“I should be on the team,” Tony said. “After that last round. You’ve been great, Brandon, but you’re obviously tired.”
Alex sat up straighter. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
Brandon flushed. “Don’t worry about it. He’s right. I sucked in there.”
“So, we’ll take a vote on it,” Tony said.
“Okay,” Alex said. “I vote that if you vote Brandon off, I’ll go too. Good luck substituting both of us!”
“Me too!” Reuben declared.
Mark stood up. “I’m Spartacus!”
Deacon dragged him back down again. “Tony, take a breath and go for a walk or something.”
Tony huffed and stormed off the bus. He slammed the door behind him.
Alex glanced worriedly at Brandon, and reached over and took his hand.
“Awkward silence,” Mark said from the back.
“Don’t worry about him, Brandon.” Matt stuck his hands in his pockets. “He’ll come back and apologize in a minute. He just really wants to beat Bucknell. Look, I was going to ask him if he wanted my spot in the semi anyway, so nobody’s getting thrown off the team.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Brandon said, but he sounded upset.
They both jumped as a Prescott flag tapped against the bus window and two blonde girls peered inside. Matt hurried to open the door for them.
“Hi. Come in. I’m Matt.”
Alex tugged his hand free.
Brandon’s sisters knelt on seats in front of Brandon and Alex, leaning their arms on the headrests.
“This is Charlotte and Ella,” Brandon said. “That’s Mark and Deacon up the back, and Reuben, and you met Matt, and this is Alex.”
“Hi.” Alex hated the way he squeaked when he was nervous. And by the way Brandon’s sisters looked at him much more closely than they’d looked at everyone else, Alex knew they knew. He could feel heat climbing in his face, even though he didn’t really have anything to be embarrassed about. Apart from the knowledge that he’d blown their brother less than twenty-four hours ago on this very bus. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Charlotte said. Or Ella. Omigod, what if he couldn’t tell them apart? What if he’d gotten them mixed up already, and there was never an opportunity to ask Brandon quietly which one was which? And somehow, like fifteen years from now, he’d embarrass himself completely by accidentally revealing he’d been calling Charlotte Ella this whole time by mistake?
Possibly Charlotte lowered her voice. “Mom and Dad didn’t come and see you because they thought you got a bit nervous before.”
Possibly Ella nodded. “We didn’t know they were coming, promise. We know you don’t like surprises.”
That struck Alex as incredibly sad. Who didn’t like surprises? Only someone who’d had too many bad ones.
“Anyway,” Possibly Charlotte said. “They want to take you out to dinner tonight, after your semifinal.”
“Oh,” said Brandon. “I, um, I guess so. I was going to, um, just get a burger with Alex.”
The sisters looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Brandon,” said Possibly Ella, in that sisterly tone of voice that Alex knew only too well. It was the one Mara used when she thought he was being particularly dense. “It’s a family thing. Alex is invited too.”
Brandon looked at Alex, wide-eyed.
Alex opened his mouth to say something comforting.
And squeaked again.
Omigod.
Or, fuck.
* * * *
Brandon hadn’t imagined in a million years that his parents would be inviting him and his boyfriend to dinner. The restaurant was a good one too, with actual tablecloths and candles and wine lists and stuff. Definitely a step up from the bright plastic decor of the burger places that Brandon frequented as a student.
Brandon and Alex were running late. The family was already seated.
“Omigod,” Alex said under his breath as the waiter pulled out his chair for him and then shook open the fabric napkin with a flourish and laid it across his lap. His eyes were wide. Brandon could practically hear him telling himself not to freak out.
Which made two of them.
“Alex, is it?” Brandon’s dad asked, reaching out a hand across the table.
Alex half rose, knocking the table with his knees. Cutlery and glasses rattled. “Um. Sorry. Hello, yes, I’m Alex.”
Brandon leaned down and scooped his napkin off the floor.
“Thank you,” Alex whispered when he handed it back.
“Alex, I’m Charles. This is my wife Ann, and our daughters Charlotte and Ella.”
“Hello. Nice to meet you.”
Brandon reached out and shifted the candle before Alex set fire to his sleeve as he shook hands around the table. He caught Ella’s gaze and discovered she was smiling at him broadly. He flushed, and wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because making sure Alex didn’t burn himself to death implied an intimacy, one beyond sex, that Brandon wasn’t sure he was ready to share with his family yet.
This is Alex. He’s a klutz, and I’ve spent enough time with him to know that he is absolutely the sort of guy who could accidentally set himself alight. And I’m the guy who’s got his back.
The waiter moved around the table, pouring water.
“So, Alex,” Brandon’s dad said. “What is it you’re studying?”
“Computer science,” Alex said.
“And what sort of job will that get you?” There was nothing cutting in his dad’s tone, but Brandon winced at the question all the same.
“Um, I don’t really know,” Alex said. “I haven’t figured out my major yet.”
“Dad, Alex is a genius,” Brandon said. “Whatever he decides to do, he’ll have people falling over themselves to offer him jobs.”
Alex’s smile was tinged with embarrassment.
“You were very good in the quiz today,” Brandon’s mom said. “Both of you.”
The semifinal, fortunately, hadn’t been as disastrous as that last heat. After Tony had apologized for, as he put it, being a total dick, things had gone a lot more smoothly. Brandon had been able to relax. It hadn’t mattered so much that his parents had been in the crowd. He’d concentrated on the boy sitting beside him again, and the feel of the plastic Protoceratops digging into his palm. That little sting, and Alex’s smile between questions, had kept him grounded.
“Weren’t they great?” Charlotte said.
Brandon leaned back in his seat as he listened to his family discuss the competition, marveling at the questions they’d answered correctly, as though it was some sort of impossible feat to know that the king of Albania who fled into exile in 1939 was called Zog. Whereas Brandon really didn’t know how, having read it once, he was supposed to forget a name like Zog.
“It’s just memory.” He sipped his water.
Just memory.
Just the way his brain was wired.
He wasn’t smart like Alex, or Deacon, or even Mark with his comebacks for any occasion. He just had his memory, and his memories.
Well, he was slowly overwriting all of those, wasn’t he? Slowly changing all his defaults to something better than that nightmare from his childhood.
“And where are you from?” his mom asked.
“Um, New Salem,” Alex said. “But my family is Hawaiian.”
“Well, you are just gorgeous. Just gorgeous!”
“Mom!” Charlotte exclaimed, and smacked her on the wrist. “Don’t ogle Brandon’s boyfriend!”
“What?” Their mom put her hand on her chest, mock-offended. “I’m not allowed to look?”
“Mom’s a cougar now.” Ella snorted.
“What’s a cougar?” their mom asked. “Is it like a MILF?”
Brandon’s jaw dropped.
“Omigod,” Alex whispered.
Charlotte and Ella were in fits of giggles by the time the waiter arrived to take their orders. Charles managed to steer the conversation into safer waters: the gazebo he was intending to build in the backyard. As boring as hell, but if it meant Brandon never heard the word MILF coming from his mom’s mouth again, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
When their meals arrived, Brandon found himself relaxing more.
It felt like years since they’d done this—eaten and talked and enjoyed one another’s company—but Brandon knew it had only been years for him. How many hours had he spent with his family, wishing he could be somewhere else? Or, worse, sitting there trying his hardest to be a part of the conversation and feeling like he was somewhere else despite it? Always out of sync, always out of step.
For the first time in a long time, Brandon felt like maybe he could fit in again.
When Alex fumbled his butter knife and dropped it onto the floor, Brandon grinned at his embarrassment and leaned down to pick it up. Then he took Alex’s bread roll and buttered it using his own knife.
“Thank you,” Alex said.
“You’re welcome.” Brandon twined his fingers with Alex’s.
“Oh.” His mom drew in a sharp breath.
Brandon looked down at where their clasped hands rested on the tablecloth. He tried to smile at the look of wonder on his mom’s face, but couldn’t. It was an effort to swallow around the sudden ache in his throat. He looked to his dad.
His dad blinked quickly, eyes shining.
“Okay.” Brandon finally managed his smile. “Let’s not get weird about this.”
Alex looked at him anxiously.
“Not the us thing,” Brandon assured him. “The fact I can hold your hand without freaking out.”
The fact I can even admit that without freaking out.
“Oh.” Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh!”
“I’ve come a long way since I met you,” Brandon said.
Alex turned as red as his complexion would let him, and Brandon knew they were both thinking about the bus ride to State College. And hopefully both thinking about beating Mark and Deacon to the backseat on the drive home tomorrow night.