grab some.”
“Wait, you don’t want…?”
“Nah, I’m good.” My body buzzed with faint arousal, but I wanted Benji to enjoy and relax, not worry about pleasing me. “I’ll go grab that pizza. Here.” I grabbed my laptop “Password is 1234.”
“You’re not serious.”
I chuckled. “I’ve got no secrets.” Unless you counted Benji. He still hadn’t told Jeremy, and that couldn’t go on much longer. “Find something to watch. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I smacked one last kiss to his lips, hardly able to tear myself away, even for a few minutes. Looking at his vivid, tousled hair, porcelain skin, and red lips made me want to climb back into bed and start kissing him all over again.
Easy, Ace. Don’t overwhelm him.
Backing away, smiling like an idiot, I watched him wiggle into a comfortable position, in my bed, still naked.
Damn, I was a lucky bastard.
16
Benji
Ace was amazing, the sex was amazing, life was amazing.
Lying isn’t so amazing, a bratty little voice in my head reminded me. My conscience could be such a buzzkill.
I’m not lying to Jeremy, I argued with myself. I’m just waiting for the right time.
When that right time would come, I wasn’t so sure. Night after night, I picked up the phone filled with good intentions. I’d tell Jeremy, remove this last barrier to unending happiness with Ace, and ride off into the sunset.
Except … this wasn’t a romance novel.
As soon as my thumb hovered over the call button, I thought of all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Jeremy might be horrified. He might think I’d corrupted his best friend or that his best friend corrupted me. It could go either way, honestly. Things were great with Ace, but we were still finding our footing as a new couple. Even if Ace stood by his choice to be with me, would it cost him Jeremy’s friendship? And if it did, could he really look at me without remembering what he’d had to sacrifice and wondering whether I’d really been worth it?
It was just too much pressure.
I loaded up some anime for comfort—and a much-needed distraction from my thoughts. Ace was working tonight and I already knew I wasn’t going to call Jeremy, so there was no point dwelling on it. Dre was on his phone, texting up a storm, so he’d probably be going out before long.
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, he returned from showering and changing, smelling of aftershave. “Hey, man, you wanna come out? I’m meeting some peeps at Tracks. Might be some good music tonight.”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. How late will you be out?”
He gave me a knowing look. “Late. You can get it on without an audience.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, regretting sharing that tidbit of my personal life with him. I’d needed to vent, and Tracy hadn’t been available. I knew the guys were teasing — and honestly, it was pretty fucking remarkable they were so accepting, even with a gay frat member in their midst — but it’d still been embarrassing. Jonas was the only one not getting a laugh at our expense.
I’d apologized for mostly blowing him off, and he’d shrugged it off, but I knew he wasn’t thrilled about the situation. Not that I thought he had serious feelings about me. If anything, his ego was hurt, but I still felt bad for doing a 180 on him.
Dre left, and I was fully immersed in Blood Brothers — a violent anime about ninjas who were as close as brothers, with a revenge tale and slow-burn romance that took freaking forever, but damn, the UST was off the charts — when Ace arrived.
I called out for him to come in without moving, hitting pause to look up when he dropped a kiss on my cheek.
“What ya watchin’?” he asked, glancing at the screen.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “We can change it.”
Ace kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed with me.
“You looked pretty into it. Just turn it back on.”
I hesitated. Surely, my boyfriend hadn’t come over to watch anime with me, but he seemed sincere.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather do something else?”
He settled in, wrapping an arm around me and nudging me into a cuddly position that made my chest warm with contentment. “This is nice. I just want to hold you and relax. It’s been a long day.”
I felt a little awkward watching anime with him. Sharing something I loved so much—something that was precious and important to me in ways I couldn’t even explain to a frat