bed.
You’re all I see, Ethan.
Groaning, he smashed his face into the pillow. They’d always been comfortable with each other, but there was comfortable and then there was airing your feelings out by accident.
Fuck, what was wrong with him? He was usually a locked vault.
It was this stupid fake-boyfriends arrangement. Had to be. It was meant to keep Britton off Ethan’s back, which was why Casey was spending more time at the House lately. But the handholding and the casual touches and gentle leaning of body weight against each other? Now they were doing it outside of the House too.
Like just this morning at April’s. Ethan had palmed his hips—which, in itself, was more or less normal for them—and then Casey had leaned back against him, blasé as you please.
If he wasn’t careful, everything he felt for Ethan was going to explode out of his chest.
Rolling onto his back, he blinked at the ceiling, running the coin around his neck between his fingers. Remembering Dad’s expression of joy when the man at the garage sale had given it to him. How they’d spent hours scouring the internet for information on Spanish coins. The care Dad had taken when he’d affixed the little loop onto it so Casey could wear it as a necklace instead of carrying it around in his pocket, where it would surely fall out and get lost one day.
Dad had even planned on taking Casey to some sort of antique show in New York City before he’d—
A lump welling in his throat, he massaged his chest. Grief was a weird thing. After five years he found that, for the most part, he could think about Dad and smile at his memory. And then there were times when sorrow welled up so fast, he choked on it.
Most times it came out of nowhere.
On the day he and Ethan had driven to Glen Hill, they’d been packing Casey’s things into Ethan’s car that morning, a bouncy mix of excited and anxious, when out of nowhere, a memory hit.
“When you move out for college, your mom and I are going to dance naked around the house,” Dad had once said when Casey had complained about catching his parents kissing in the kitchen.
Casey had stood in the driveway, backpack hanging limp in one hand, and stared out into the quiet street, a gaping hole in his heart where Dad’s presence should’ve been. He didn’t hear Ethan slam the trunk closed. Barely remembered he was even there until he’d rounded the car and waved a hand in Casey’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
Instead of dancing naked together around the house, now Mom would be all alone as soon as Casey drove away.
“Nothing,” he’d choked out.
Ethan had known, though, where Casey’s thoughts had gone, and he’d pulled Casey forward, his big hand strong and steady against the back of Casey’s neck, and leaned their foreheads together.
And then they’d breathed. In and out. In and out. Standing together in the August morning sunshine, Ethan had held him still and breathed with him, exactly like he’d done after their parents died, when he hadn’t let Casey push him away.
What would Dad think of it all? Glen Hill College, Casey’s choice in majors—archeology, the same major Dad had studied, but only very briefly before having to drop out of college to get a job and support the family when his own dad died. Casey liked to think he was making Dad proud by following in his footsteps.
Sitting up, he dug his cell phone out of his backpack and called Mom, just to say hi, but it went to voicemail. Thirty seconds later, he got a text.
Mom: Sorry, sweetie! Out having dinner with some friends. Everything okay?
Casey: Yup. Was just calling to say hi.
Mom: On a Saturday night? Why aren’t you out with your friends?
Because the only person he actually wanted to hang out with was Ethan, but Ethan had a game tonight. In fact, he was probably already at the athletics facility. Which was where Casey was going to be shortly. First, though, homework.
He was grumbling to himself when his roommate burst into the room.
“Oh, hey.” Jasper let the door slam closed behind him and dropped his wallet on his desk. “What’d the laptop ever do to you?”
Running a hand through his hair, Casey unclenched his jaw. “It’s not the laptop. It’s the group project.”
“They still haven’t emailed you back?”
“No,” Casey said, a whine to his voice. Pulling himself together, he rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to end up doing