SIX

 

Someday, Tristan was going to learn how impossible it was that he might ever get to touch Grant. He was going to accept that it could never happen, that they were just too different, and that as tragic as it was, Grant was never going to give that beautiful body of his to Tristan.

Oh, but if Grant would only let Tristan, he knew that he could make that sexy, muscular body quake and shiver with delight, that he could pleasure him all night, drive him insane until he had no choice but to spill all over Tristan’s hand.

But it was never going to happen, and it was probably a good thing that Grant didn’t actually seem to spend much time in their room. Tristan was hardly an early-to-bed kind of guy, but even so, he was often in bed and sometimes actually completely asleep when Grant got back.

From work, Tristan had realized. Grant came home smelling of grease, and once, Tristan had seen the sleeve of a uniform shirt from a local fast food chain poking out of his backpack. Grant worked, and Tristan could imagine what Warren would say if he knew about that. What most of the guys would say. As far as Tristan knew, there wasn’t a single other person in this fraternity who had to work for a living.

It didn’t disgust Tristan. In fact, as the days passed and September drew to an end, Tristan couldn’t help but admire the sort of drive that would allow Grant to go to school, and work, and play football, all at once. Tristan had never had to focus on anything but his school, but not so Grant, which made it pretty amazing that he was here at all.

After the night when Tristan had, once more, come on to Grant and had, once more, been turned down, he had told himself that enough was enough. That he was going to stop obsessing about this man, who just wasn’t for him and never would be. It wasn’t like there weren’t other tall, beautiful blond jocks around, and Tristan would actually have more of a chance with at least some of them than with Grant, who wanted so much.

So he gave up, and he threw himself into his classes, which was completely unnecessary given the grades that he was already pulling in. And yet, despite that, he found himself starting to watch the football team practice, though he had never had any interest in that sort of thing before.

He was there when it happened, and from the moment that he saw Warren go down, Tristan knew that things were going to get ugly. It was a tackle gone wrong, and it was just a practice, it wasn’t even done on purpose by another team since there was no other team on the field.

Warren, supported by two medical staff, was helped off the field to sit down, and the coach considered for a moment and then pointed at Grant.

“You’re up, kid. You finish the practice.”

It was the logical choice for the coach to make, on the surface of it, it was even a stroke of good luck for Grant, who was getting a shot much sooner than would be usual for a freshman. But all it took was one look at Warren’s storm cloud, glowering face to know that this wasn’t going to bode all that well for Grant if Warren had anything to say about it.

Not that it was any of his business, except that it sort of felt like it was. Warren had said that Grant was Tristan’s responsibility, and in some weird way, he felt like it was actually true. It was not the sort of thing that he was used to, being responsible for someone who wasn’t himself. Caring about someone who wasn’t himself.

He found it uncomfortable, and more deeply intoxicating than even the strongest, best whiskey.

His worry only grew when he heard the news come in over the next few days. Warren had twisted his leg pretty badly, and while he would recover in a few months, the coach had no choice but to replace him for those few months. The school was soon humming with the news that there had been tryouts for that replacement spot, and Grant had easily beaten out all other comers to get it.

Tristan wanted to tell Grant to be careful, but Grant was never around. Anyway, what was Grant supposed to do? Not play the game that was the reason that he was at this school? Not give UCLA the best chance that it had this season, with Warren out of the picture?

No matter what Tristan could have said, Grant couldn’t do anything other than try his best. He didn’t have it in him, and Tristan could, and did, worry, but that was pretty much all that he could do.

One afternoon, a warm, early October one where there was still only the faintest hint of a chill in the air, Tristan walked into his room, the one he technically shared with Grant, but it had been days and days since he had even seen the other man, at least while they were both awake, anyway.

So he wasn’t expecting the notebook which was sent hurtling through the room, rushing surprisingly close to Tristan’s head in a flutter of pages and then slamming into the wall with a dull thud. Heart pounding, Tristan looked over at Grant, who was very much there and awake and looked far too gorgeous with a slight flush of color on his cheeks and chagrin in his eyes when he looked at Tristan.

Grant hadn’t been throwing that notebook at him, though it certainly could have seemed that way. That much was clear from the way he was looking at Tristan, so Tristan just reached down and picked the notebook up, dark eyes scanning the open pages.

“Physics?” he asked, only it wasn’t really a question. Even at a glance, that was obvious, and it was equally obvious that it wasn’t Grant’s forte. One look showed multiple math mistakes, and Tristan walked through the room, putting the open book back down in front of Grant.

“I’m sorry,” Grant admitted and then sighed, rubbing at his temples with his fingers, digging into the skin until it turned red. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”

Tristan shrugged. Although it had actually freaked him out a little, he was over it now. He perched on the end of his bed, looking at Grant, shyer than he was used to feeling. It was so weird how Tristan kept hitting on this man, and Grant kept turning him down, and yet Grant was still able just to talk to Tristan, that there was no awkwardness, not from Grant’s side, like he didn’t hold it against Tristan.

“Nah. I’m just not used to you throwing books at walls,” Tristan admitted, and it was true. He might not have gotten to spend a lot of time with Grant, but he had been fairly surprised by how even-tempered, how controlled, Grant tended to be. Even when Warren had been poking at him mercilessly, Grant had kept himself relatively calm. Calmer than Tristan had, anyway.

“It’s just, I had this short story due for English, and I finished it, but now I’m behind in Physics,” Grant spoke with a sigh, glancing into Tristan’s eyes and then down at his book. “I’m not getting it right, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“It’s no big deal. It’s mostly just math failures,” Tristan told him, casually glancing down at the notebook. “This stuff is easy.”

From the way Grant frowned at him, Tristan was pretty sure that he’d said something to annoy the other man, and he shook his head and searched his mind to try to explain it. This was something that he knew pretty instinctively, like breathing, almost, and it hadn’t really occurred to him that it might be hard for someone else.

So how to explain? The concepts were not difficult, not to him, and he narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the page, where Grant’s writing had turned nearly to a scrawl, evocative of his obvious frustration.

“Okay, so, uh …” Tristan searched his words, trying to find the right ones that would help. He’d never tried to talk someone else through this before and had never struggled to understand it, but he did his best. “This is about the effect that gravity has on light. Because gravity pulls on everything.”

Grant nodded, and Tristan let out an exhale, relieved that he had apparently managed to say something that made sense to Grant.

“You have the right idea. It’s just that the math part, it’s tripping you up. Math is a huge part of Science. More in Chemistry even than in Physics, but Astrophysics is pretty centered around Math, too.”

As he looked, as he explained, he found himself scanning one of the equations which Grant had scrawled down, and suddenly, he smiled. He thought he knew what the problem was now.

“You’re rushing through this part. I’m going to guess you’re not a huge fan of Math?” Tristan looked at Grant, who gave a sheepish little shrug, which was answer enough for Tristan. “You can’t rush it, though. If you do one part wrong, it’ll make all the rest wrong, too.”

There. That was the best he could do, and he watched as Grant’s eyes lightened, as a slight smile touched those beautiful full lips, one broad finger touching on the first of the scribbled mistakes that Tristan had noticed.

“Here. I did this part wrong,” Grant said, and with a strange lightness, an odd pleasure deep inside of him which seemed to radiate out and warm him from the inside out, Tristan found himself grinning as he nodded.

“Can you help me?” Grant asked and then gestured to the chair which was by Tristan’s desk. “I mean if you don’t mind. Just sit here and watch me do it and tell me if I miss anything? I’ll do the actual work myself …”

Grant wasn’t used to asking for help. That understanding came to Tristan as clear as day, bursting over him like the sunrise. So what did it mean that Grant was trusting him enough to ask him to help him?

“Yeah,” Tristan agreed and snagged his chair, switching from the edge of the bed to right beside Grant, so close that he could smell his spicy, masculine scent, and he could feel like he was breathing the man deep into his lungs, deep into himself.

Time passed, and Grant was soon picking out his own mistakes without error. A change came over him, a sort of confidence which Tristan had only seen before when Grant was on the football field.

“That’s it. That’s all I have to do. I’m caught up,” Grant finally announced, and Tristan beamed at him, reaching out to touch Grant’s thigh, to pat it lightly in approval. It had been a surprisingly fun time, watching as Grant went from clueless to proficient, and Tristan felt oddly buoyant as he looked up into Grant’s eyes.

And then he couldn’t look away. Grant was looking back at him. Those clear, earnest eyes fixed on him until they seemed to fill Tristan’s whole field of vision until he wasn’t aware of anything else.

“Thanks,” Grant murmured, and then it seemed that they were moving together, and it wasn’t anything that Tristan had planned. He would have been willing to swear that Grant hadn’t, either, that their coming together was as inevitable as the tide coming in to embrace the seashore.

Grant shifted down a little, and Tristan stretched it back, and they met in the middle. Their lips touched, and this time, Tristan didn’t have the cushion of whiskey to shield him from the full, devastating impact of it.

Tristan had kissed many men. He had even kissed many large, strong men, men who could snap him in half as easily as they could look at him. For whatever reason, most of the men who were willing to make out with him were deeply closeted jocks, and while it had gotten him in trouble before, he couldn’t deny that he had a serious thing for being with someone who was so big, so strong, so powerful.

So this shouldn’t have been any big deal, nothing new to him. The biggest issue should have been that it gave him some hope that Grant might let Tristan take him to bed. But instead, Tristan found his heart pounding in a way that was only half because of the erotic energy which coursed through his body and tickled at his nerves, and half because of … something else. Something which he probably shouldn’t think about too much.

The kiss was, at first, a question that they were both asking each other. Grant’s lips were slightly dry, and only parted a little bit, and Tristan, very aware that he had pushed things too far twice before, let Grant lead this time. His whole body was aware of Grant, aware of the warmth and his body beside Tristan’s, the slight pressure of his lips.

Then Grant gave a soft groan that Tristan felt rather than heard, and those full, soft, lush lips parted, his tongue sweeping out and into Tristan’s eager mouth. Before he even had a chance to realize what was happening, Grant was reaching for him, his hands slipping between Tristan’s body and the chair that he was perched on, then using his grip on Tristan’s hips, the curve of his ass, to pull Tristan onto his lap.

It was all very sudden, like being picked up by a strong wind and tossed around, or maybe like being tugged at by a powerful undertow. Not a force that Tristan could resist, but at the same time, he somehow felt safe, like Grant could, and would, protect him. There was no danger here, and Tristan relaxed as he straddled Grant’s lap, pressing close against him.

His hands slid over strong, broad shoulders, down toned arms, and the arousal that was never far away when it came to Grant swept over Tristan and pulled him into a sweet sort of madness. All that mattered was kissing Grant, and the way that Grant’s body tensed under his, the way he gave his mouth over to Tristan, the way those hips rose up so that he was pressed more tightly against Tristan’s ass.

There were so many things that Tristan wanted to say. He wanted to demand to know why Grant was teasing him when Grant had already made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want to get sexual with anyone that he wasn’t dating. Had that changed? But their lips and tongues were tangled together, and Tristan found himself just softly whimpering as he slipped his hands down over the strong chest, tracing over Grant’s nipples, his sculpted muscles, down to the hem of his shirt and then up under it.

Grant was hot there, his bare skin almost burning Tristan’s fingertips. He traced over the shape of abs that he could feel, but not see, following the line of them up to his chest. What was he doing? What were either of them doing? This was a mistake, and yet, somehow, it didn’t feel that way at all.

They writhed against each other, and Grant’s hips rose, fell, and then rose again until he was bucking up against Tristan. Tristan returned each and every thrust, his fingers slipping up until he could play with his sweet, soft nipples, teasing them until they were hard little nubs that he was aching to wrap his mouth around.

He could make it so good for Grant. He knew it if only Grant would let him. But Grant had to take the lead on this one, after everything that had happened between them. Tristan had to know that Grant was really, truly into all of this.

He certainly felt like he was. Tristan had seen the cock that was pressed against his ass, but only once before, and he had been drunk at the time. Part of him had thought that it couldn’t possibly be as big as he remembered, but it certainly felt like it was as it shoved desperately up against his ass.

“Tristan,” Grant whispered, and there was something about hearing his name spoken by that man that got to him, got into his heart. That voice had dropped down a little, become rough and softer but also deeper, and it was Tristan who had done that to him. Tristan who was distracting him to the point where he would let himself be affected like this.

Still, Tristan didn’t know how much he was getting to Grant, not until Grant was moving him once more. Tristan found himself propped up on the edge of the desk, perched on top of Grant’s homework, but neither of them could seem to care about that very much. He was pushed back when Grant pressed against him, and his hips rose up naturally, his legs wrapping around Grant and pulling them tightly together in a way that seemed to flow as naturally as one breath would flow to the next.

Their hips were slotted together, and that was right, too. They fit, better than Tristan had ever fit with anyone else. They kissed again, and Grant was so big, so thick, as he rubbed his cock against Tristan …

A knock came at the door.

“Hey, Grant, you in there?” It was a familiar voice, Manny’s, and even though Tristan generally liked Manny, he could have cheerfully throttled him right then. Without a second thought. In a split second, Grant was gone, the sweet weight of his body no longer nestled right up against Tristan.

“I have to go,” Grant realized, and as Tristan watched, Grant grabbed his backpack and slung it hastily over one broad shoulder as he yanked the door open.

“Sorry, Manny, I have work,” Grant hastily spoke as he pushed past his friend, and Tristan watched, his heart pounding, still balancing on the desk on top of Grant’s homework, as Grant disappeared without a look back.

Warren walked by, punching Manny in the shoulder in that asinine way which passed for friendliness among many of the jocks that Tristan had known. He was smirking, as was fairly normal for him, but that smirk faded when he saw Tristan there, aroused and dazed on the desk.

How obvious was it what had happened? Grant running away, while Tristan was left where he was, left hanging, left to wonder what the hell that had all meant and what the fallout from it would be.