I woke before Danny the next morning.
Blinking sleep from my eyes, I bit the inside of my lip when I noticed how close his face was to mine, smiling slightly in his sleep. What a dork.
Moving carefully and slowly so as not to wake him, I slid to the edge of the bed and slipped out of the room, closing the door gently behind me and tiptoeing across the living room to knock on Mason's door. I heard him grumbling an acquiescence and went in, pressing my back against the wood and waiting for him to sit up sleepily. The girl he'd brought home - Annie? Abby? - was making mumbled noises of wakefulness beside him as well.
'What do you want, dude?' Mason asked thickly, rubbing the back of his hand across one eye blearily.
'I kissed him.'
That got his attention. 'What?'
'I kissed him,' I repeated.
'Are you talking about Danny?'
'Yeah.'
'You... What? Why?'
The girl sat up now, looking between Mason and I curiously. 'Mason,' she said pleasantly, 'why is there a strange boy in your room while I am unclothed?' She was holding the bedspread to her chest with one arm but seemed largely unfazed.
'This is my brother,' Mason said, momentarily distracted. 'Dylan. Dylan, Abby.'
'Hey,' I said. 'Don't worry about your...' I gestured vaguely in her bodily direction. 'I play on the other team.'
'Dylan?' she asked, her eyes narrowing. 'Dylan, your brother. As in the gay one. As in the one Danny-'
Mason shushed her, making a face.
'Don't worry,' I said. 'I already know. About Danny. And his big dumb crush on me.'
Mason turned his confused, slightly panicked gaze back on me. 'How?' he demanded.
'I know everything. If there exists a fact, assume I know it.'
'Okay,' he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose in the way that only I can inspire. 'You kissed him?'
'Right on his mouth.'
'And you're telling me this... Why?'
I shuffled from one foot to the other anxiously. 'Well. Um. I wanna do it again. A lot. But I, like, need you to be okay with it. If you're not, I won't.'
Mason blinked at me. Abby was looking at me like I was a fluffy baby animal.
'You want my blessing?' he clarified.
'I guess. I don't want anything to be awkward for you.'
Mason narrowed his eyes, looking at me carefully. 'You like him?'
'Yeah.'
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Okay, dude. But this has to be a forever thing. You have to play this for keeps, because I won't choose. If it goes tits up. I won't. You have to be sure.'
I thought about it for a second and then nodded slowly. 'Okay.'
'And you're going into this fully cognisant of the fact that you're eighteen and this will be your first serious anything and that those have about a three percent success rate?'
I shrugged. 'I already sowed all my wild oats, remember? Under the bleachers? With the jocks? Remember, Mason? All the sex I had?'
Again with the nose-bridge pinching. I grinned.
'Right,' he said in a strangled voice. 'But...' he trailed off, looking like he wanted to say something, but then clearly thought the better of it. Sighing, he dropped his hand back onto the duvet in front of him and shook his head slightly. 'You have my blessing then, or whatever.'
I grinned. 'Cool. Thanks.' I turned to leave but he called me back.
'Hey. Thanks for this, by the way.' When I looked at him, he was holding the flipbook I'd made the previous week, the one insisting he was a good brother. 'Thanks especially for hiding it in my condom stash and trying to cockblock me with fraternal affection.'
I grinned and Abby thumped him.
Leaving his room and closing the door behind me, I looked up in surprise to see Danny making his way across the living room, clearly intending on doing what I'd already done. He stopped still when he saw me and there was a beat of silence.
'Hey,' he said warily.
'Hey.'
'I thought you were in the bathroom.'
'I wasn't.'
'Right.' He hesitated. 'I was just gonna go talk to Mason about something real quick-'
I stepped towards him, intent on stopping him. There was no way in hell I was going to let Mason freak him out with any "playing for keeps" nonsense.
'Or we could go back to bed,' I suggested, and he laughed, loosening up slightly.
'It won't take long, I just have to-'
'Or bed,' I said again, stopping right in front of him and forcing him to look at me. We're right around the same height, so he didn't really have a choice.
'I'll just be a-'
This time I cut him off by pressing the balls of my feet into the floor and pushing my mouth up against his. It worked; he sort of sighed and melted into it as I put my hands on his chest and gently but firmly manoeuvred him backwards across the living room to his room. I pushed him down onto his bed and crawled over him, lowering my body onto his and basically just sort of feeling him everywhere, all around me and in my head and my chest. Even though we'd kissed twice the night before, it had amounted to a grand total of about eighty seconds worth of making-out and this was turning into a third-time-lucky sort of situation, heating up and getting all gasp-y and whimper-y.
'Trickery,' he murmured against my lips after a few minutes, and I had to hand it to him - I barely had the presence of mind to remember my own phone number.
'Shh,' I whispered, running my hand across his bare abdomen hungrily as I kissed him.
He laughed and I pulled away, making a face briefly before grinning and rolling off of him to lay beside him on the bed.
'If you don't want me to talk to him about it, I won't,' he said, turning his head to look at me.
'It's not that,' I said. 'I just already did it. He's fine with it, honest.'
'Okay.'
'Who's that girl he's with? Abby Something. I thought he just started hanging out with her a couple of weeks ago, but she knows things about me. From, like, before.'
'Abby Conway,' he said. 'She's just a friend of ours, we met her right around the time we moved here. She studies nutritional sciences. Mason's had a thing for her from like, an hour after he found out her name, but she had a boyfriend. They broke up just before you got here.'
'So, last night for him was...'
'About as big a deal as last night was for me,' he clarified.
I blinked at him, not sure whether to dive into the whole "you liked me for ages and never said anything" thing, but I couldn't figure out what to say, so I didn't say anything.
I was saved the awkwardness of changing the subject by the sound of Mason's bedroom door opening again; we had neglected to shut the one to Danny's room and when he spotted us from the living room, laying half-naked and heads together on the bed, he made a face and called, 'Jeez, guys, come on,' which lightened the tension as we both laughed and hauled ourselves back up.
Abby went and settled herself - clothed in one of Mason's dress shirts that she had to have pulled out of the back of his wardrobe - by the kitchen island, obviously expecting something in the way of breakfast, and I climbed up beside her while Mason and Danny fixed us all some cereal.
I saw Danny glancing warily at Mason every now and then, like he was expecting some kind of reproach, but Mason didn't say anything except to eventually snap, 'Just say it, dude,' as they set our breakfasts down and sat on stools on either side of us.
'I'm sorry I hooked up with your little brother,' Danny stated flatly. 'And I'm sorry that I'm probably gonna do it again.'
I smirked and snorted, feeling a rush of something in the pit of my stomach that I did my best to ignore because even though it felt good, it was also kind of scary.
Mason tried to look disapproving but Abby nudged him with her elbow and he grinned. 'Whatever, dude. If you'll remember, I encouraged this from the very beginning.'
This was news to me. 'What?' I asked, looking between them suspiciously. 'Expand on that, please.'
Mason opened his mouth and took a breath to respond but Danny quickly interrupted him, changing the subject. 'So we've got a whole week off,' he observed; the party the previous night had been the opening celebration of spring break and there were eight glorious days left before any of us had to go back to school or, in my case, work. 'What do you guys have planned?' He directed this to Abby.
She wrinkled her nose. 'Ugh,' she said. 'That's the annoying thing. Wren and I had been planning since September to go to Miami for the week. Obviously that's not happening anymore.'
I choked on my cornflakes as Mason stared resolutely down into his. 'Wren?' I demanded. 'Your ex is named after a small bird?'
I knew Abby was trying to remain neutral, but I caught the quirk of her lips as she tried not to smile. 'He is,' she confirmed.
'That's hilarious,' I declared, trying to distract her before she noticed Mason's hangdog expression, but I failed.
'Aw,' she said, reaching out and catching him by the chin, forcing his head up to face her. 'Don't be jealous. I like you now.'
This seemed to panic Mason more than reassure him, and she laughed again.
'You waited an awfully long time for me,' she announced, slipping back down off of her stool and putting her bowl in the sink, before slinking back towards Mason's bedroom. 'I intend to make it fully worth your while.'
'Uh...' Mason stammered before hopping back down onto the floor as well. With a glance at us he mumbled, 'I think I know what I'm doing for spring break,' and trotted obediently after her.
I slid my glance sideways at an amused Danny. 'How long has Mason been waiting for her?' I asked, like I needed reminding. I saw him gulp, knowing where I was going.
'About a year and a half.'
'Huh,' I said. 'I wonder what would make a year and a half worth it. I wonder what would make twice that long worth it.'
Danny's cheeks started to turn pink but I spared him the embarrassment of looking at him and just continued to eat my cereal innocently.
Shit got kind of weird after that. Like, not in a huge way, but there was definitely some awkwardness. It was like we didn't know how to be together, you know, in that capacity. Sometimes we'd sit platonically on the couch together and watch TV, unless I got frustrated with that and shuffled in under one of his arms or threw my legs across his lap. I'd kind of thought we were falling into a pattern with the whole kissing thing - I'd kissed him first, he'd kissed me second, and I'd sure as shit kissed him third, but... I also kissed him fourth. And fifth. And sixth. And so on. It started getting to the point where even though I knew he was enjoying it, it still felt like he didn't want it.
Worst of all was the "Dylan" thing. He stopped calling me Trouble. Now it was all, 'Morning, Dylan,' and, 'Dylan, what do you feel like for dinner?' Like, what? It made me frustrated and annoyed for a reason I was having difficulty discerning.
The first couple of nights of that week I slept in his bed with him, pretty naturally since Abby had declined to go home and it wasn't like I could bunk in with she and Mason. But around midweek she insisted on going back to her place - 'For an apartment that has predominantly gay tenants, you guys have exactly zero good toiletries,' - and because things had been so weird I was pretty content to let myself fall asleep on the couch while the three of us watched TV that night.
I woke - but didn't open my eyes - when the room went silent as they prepared to get up and go to bed.
'So what are we doing with him tonight, then?' Mason asked, obviously meaning me.
I'd fallen asleep with my head on Danny's chest, and I felt him shrug. 'Which do you think he'd prefer?' he asked quietly, trying not to wake me.
'Well,' Mason said thoughtfully. 'I'm pretty sure he's pretending to be asleep so he doesn't have to make that decision, so I'm gonna leave it up to you.'
I made very sure not to move or react, and just kept breathing evenly, furiously instructing myself not to smile because the corners of my mouth really wanted to do just that.
Danny poked me on the arm a couple of times to see if Mason was right, but I just made some sleepy grumbling sounds and buried my face further into his chest.
'I think that's your answer,' Mason told him, laughing, and I heard him getting up to disappear into his room, solo.
'Come on, you,' Danny said softly, nudging me harder now, and I pretended to wake up.
'What?' I demanded, making my voice sound sleepier than it actually was.
'Bedtime,' he said, making no effort to disguise the amusement in his voice.
I got up and tripped into his room after him, collapsing on "my" side of the bed and waiting for him to turn off the light and join me. I lay there and waited for him to do something, anything - kiss me goodnight, pull my head back onto his shoulder, spoon me, whatever. But he didn't. He lay on his back for a few moments and then rolled over and faced the other way. I tried not to let the disappointment crush me, but it was kind of weird feeling like he was so passive that he just went along with it when I made the first move but never felt inclined to do the same. It felt kind of like rejection, which was not something I was used to and certainly wasn't something I'd been expecting from the guy who had allegedly been crushing on me for over three years.
This small seed of bitterness started building into a pretty nasty resentment, which I characteristically chose to express through passive aggression and petty avoidance. By Friday of spring break, one day shy of a week since I'd first kissed him, I had given up on initiating altogether and made a point of sitting as far away from his as possible on the couch. A couple of nights I even disappeared into Mason's room to sleep while they were both distracted, so nobody could make a big deal out of it.
I knew he noticed though. I could see that he was hurt, but that just kind of made me madder. Why was he so hurt when he wasn't even bothered to make any effort with me?
The following Monday, their first day back at class, I sat at the coffee table over my sketchpad while Mason sat across from me with one of his textbooks, ignoring Danny as he got ready to go to his early morning lecture. I'd been switched to the later shift at work for the first week back, which meant my mornings were free to work on my school and art assignments.
'Okay,' he said distractedly, as he double checked that he had all the books he needed. 'Still on for lunch later?' he asked Mason, who nodded. 'Alright. See you tonight, Dylan,' he added, as he started to move from the door of his room towards the door of the apartment.
'Stop calling me that,' I snapped, looking up from my work.
He hesitated, surprised and, if I'm not mistaken, a little scared. 'What?'
'Stop calling me Dylan. You only ever call me that when I'm in trouble, it's making me anxious.'
I could see Mason sliding further down in his armchair, pouring his full attention into his book so he wouldn't have to listen to this.
'Okay,' Danny said. 'Sorry.' And then he was gone.
I tsked in annoyance, leaning back over my sketchpad, but in too much of a foul mood to really do anything.
'Okay,' Mason announced after a second, putting his book down. 'What's going on here? I told you to only do this if it was long-term, and it's only been a week.'
'Not me,' I muttered. 'Him.
Mason looked perplexed. 'What's Danny done?'
'Nothing,' I muttered. 'That's the point.'
There was a beat of silence and when I chanced a glance up, I could see understanding dawning on Mason's face. 'Ah,' he said. 'I see. Okay. I mean, that's just something you're going to have to put up with for a while.'
I made a face at him. I really didn't want to be talking about this shit with my brother, but I didn't have anybody else and I wanted to know what was going on. 'What's that supposed to mean?' I snapped.
Mason laughed. 'Come on, dude,' he said, and when I shot him another look, making it clear I didn't know what he was talking about, he exclaimed, 'He's so intimidated by you! You're going to have to throw him a bone. Talk to him about it. You know. Be a boyfriend.'
I was about to spit out some scathing response or other but I bit it back, thinking about what he'd said for a minute. Maybe he was right. Maybe when the guy you're, you know, with, or whatever, starts acting weird, you're supposed to talk to him about it instead of taking the nuclear option and assuming the worst.
'Where are you going?' he asked a half hour later when I put my things away and started shrugging on my jacket.
'To be a boyfriend,' I muttered, slamming the door on his self-congratulatory laugh and making my way across town towards the campus. I set myself up leaning against the wall across from Danny's morning lecture, stuffing my hands in my pockets and glaring at the ground until I heard the door opening and looked up to see his class spilling out through it. He appeared after a couple of moments, chatting with some of his classmates, but stopped, his mouth dropping into a little "o' of surprise when he saw me.
'Hey, Trouble,' he said haltingly. 'What are you doing here?'
'Thought I'd walk you home from class,' I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt.
He nodded. 'I was gonna go to the library...' he said. 'I have another class in an hour.'
'Let's go sit by the lake,' I suggested instead, and he nodded again, falling into step beside me.
After a minute, I reached out and slipped my hand into his, twining our fingers together. I glanced up at him without moving my head, and saw he was looking down at our hands, surprised.
'We need to talk,' I told him, once we had settled ourselves on the grass by the artificial lake on campus. He looked nervous, and I could tell he had started chewing the inside of his lip. 'Relax,' I muttered, shooting him a half-smile. 'It's only painful if you let it be.'
He chanced smiling back. 'What's up?'
I took a deep breath and then groaned quietly in the back of my throat, lowering my head to roughly run my hands through my hair a couple of times.
'Okay,' I said, looking back up again. 'I guess I'm just not sure what your deal is? Why have you been calling me Dylan?' Even though the whole lack-of-interest thing seemed like it should have been more important, this was still the bit that bothered me the most.
He looked surprised. 'I just... I mean, with us, you know, like, hooking up or whatever...' He was even worse at this than I was. 'I didn't want you think I was patronising you.'
'Do you feel like you're patronising me when you call me Trouble?'
He shrugged one shoulder. 'Well, no. But I thought-'
'I don't feel like it's patronising either. I like it. That's... It's our whole thing. You thinking I'm trouble.'
Danny looked down, but I could see he was smiling. 'Okay.' I didn't say anything else, because I was trying to figure out how to word it without sounding like a total loser, but then he looked back up and asked, 'There's more, right?'
I nodded. 'Yeah. You suck at a lot of this stuff, it turns out.' I'd kind of expected him to laugh or make a face at me, but instead he just stared back down at his hands and I was left with a horrible, guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach but wasn't sure how to explain that I'd been joking. I plowed ahead regardless. 'You seem super into it when I make a move on you, but you never do it back. You don't kiss me or hold my hand or hug me. You touch me less now than you did before.' I paused and took a deep breath. 'Which is particularly fucked up because you know me. I told you. I want to be wanted. So... Want me.'
Danny looked back up, more surprised by this than by anything else I'd said. 'I do want you,' he blurted. 'Oh my god,' he muttered, rubbing his face with his hands. 'I'm really fucking this up, aren't I? I want you like crazy, Trouble,' he finished softly, moving closer to me, seemingly shocked out of whatever mindset had been holding him back by my words enough to put his hands on my neck and pull me towards him and kiss me hard on the mouth.
Happy enough with this, I kissed him back for a few moments, eventually moving around so my back was leaning against his chest with his arms around my waist.
'Better,' I said smugly.
He was quiet for a while as we stared out over the water, but after a few minutes jerked me out of my reverie by asking, 'Has Mason ever told you about when I came out to him?'
I shook my head, realising in that moment how unfair that was, since Mason had gone running to Danny with my coming out story less than twenty-four hours after it had happened.
'I'd been trying to work up to it for weeks,' he said now. 'I was pretty much a wreck. I knew he knew something was up with me and he didn't push it, but it was building like a kind of storm in my head and one day we were in my room and it just sort of happened. He was using my laptop to torrent some film we wanted to watch and I was sitting on the other end of my bed, all fidgety, and just kind of blurted out that I had something to tell him. He gave me that Atkins look, you know the one, you do it too - kind of intense, makes you feel like you're trapped, and-'
I laughed. 'Atkins look? I didn't know that was a thing.'
'It's a thing,' he assured me. 'Anyway, he did it, and put my laptop down, and gave me his full attention - which is another Atkins thing, by the way, makes you feel like you're the only person in the world.'
'I never knew I had that power.'
'You do. So I was low-key freaking out, because I knew what your parents were like, and I knew what Mason was like too, obviously, and that he wasn't like them, but it didn't stop me from being anxious that he'd hate me, or think I was a freak, or want to stop being my friend. But I still had to tell him, because I was so sick of hiding it. I'm pretty sure I babbled all of this at him while I was working up to it, and eventually I just, you know, said it. "I like boys more than girls".'
I laughed again. 'That's how you said it?'
'I was trying to avoid labels.'
'Fair enough.'
'So basically my heart stopped and I was holding my breath, waiting for what he was going to say, and he took a deep breath too and said, 'I know".'
I turned around for the first time to raise my eyebrows at him in surprise. 'He already knew?'
Danny nodded. 'I started to panic. I'd been so careful; I only ever flirted with girls, hooked up with girls, never let myself stare at a guy or anything like that. Mason was going on, saying how he'd been thinking for a while about how he was going to react when I eventually told him, whether he should pretend to be surprised and what he should say, and that he'd always sort of come back to the conclusion that he should just be honest and tell the truth and that the truth was that he already knew. So, naturally, I asked him how, and he got this look on his face like he was trying not to laugh because he knew it was a serious situation and that I was one wrong word away from a full blown panic attack, and said, verbatim, "This isn't the first time I've ever used your laptop, dude'."
'Oh my god,' I muttered.
'It's not what you're thinking,' Danny assured me. 'Believe me, that's what I'd been thinking too, but he very quickly reminded me that he'd been using my laptop to research his English assignment a couple of months before and that he'd closed one of his tabs by accident, and gone to my search history to reopen it. That was around the time I'd started really wanting to, you know, tell people, and he said he'd seen a bunch things like, "how to tell your best friend you're gay" and "how to come out to your best friend" and things like that.'
'Adorable,' I commented evenly.
'Shut up. Then he launched into this speech he'd obviously been planning for a while, about how he loved me and it didn't change anything and he was going to support me and stick up for me and all this.'
'Shithead,' I muttered. 'All I got was, "Are you doing this to be like Danny?"'
'Yeah. Well, that kind of ties in, because... Well, anyway, he came and hugged me and when we stopped I half-jokingly, half-seriously said, "I'm not into you or anything," and he laughed and said, "Yeah, I know that too." And there was something about the way he said it that made me nervous, so I asked him what he meant, and he laughed again and said that I had been searching for some other things around the same time, things along the lines of, 'how to not be in love with your best friend's brother" and "why am I such a cliche".'
I choked and coughed on that, losing any shred of cool I had.
'I don't think he'd ever admit it, but I think part of the reason he reacted the way he did, when you told him, was because he was worried about me. About how it would affect me if you were, you know, fucking around instead of being serious. We both felt pretty guilty about that for a while.'
'Right,' I managed to say hoarsely.
'Anyway,' Danny went on, 'you know the rest - he came to me and I chewed him out for what he said and told him I'd never in a million years have forgiven him if he'd reacted that badly when I told him and he roped me in to try and help him help you. What I'm getting at here is that even though I was feeling what I was feeling, about you, I worked very hard at burying it and not letting you ever see it, because I wanted to be there for you without it being, you know, creepy. You were a really messed up, angry, intense kid, and there were more important things to think about than the fact that I, like, liked you. I wanted you to be able to trust me to be there for you without worrying that I had any ulterior motives. And it was pretty much the same when you turned up in November - you were still all fucked up in your head and the kind of attention you needed was more... Fraternal. Platonic.' He paused. 'What I'm trying to say, is that it's been kind of difficult for me to change how I act towards you because I've spent such a long time being so careful to not act boyfriend-y. I'm just having a hard time giving myself permission to be like that, because somewhere in my head it still feels like I'm taking advantage of you.'
I nodded slowly, and we were quiet for a while as I tried to process all of this.
'You're also not the cuddliest person in the world,' he mused a few minutes later. 'You're kind of prickly.'
'Excuse me,' I demanded. 'What?'
He laughed. 'Like, I don't know what you're going to be okay with and what you're going to think it sappy and stupid. I have a feeling I might be sappier and stupider than you, when it comes to this stuff.'
'And you - what? Think I'd make fun of you?'
'No,' he said sarcastically. 'You'd never make fun of me.'
I huffed. 'Fair point,' I conceded. 'But you can be as sappy and stupid as you want. That's literally what I'm trying to get you to do. I won't mind.' I paused. 'If you'd told me before, you know, when we were in school... I mean, I probably would have been a dick about it, but you've never not been on a pedestal for me. It would have made me really happy; I just wouldn't have shown you. I know I'm still sarcastic and kind of an asshole but you get a free pass.'
Danny let out a sharp breath of air though his nose.
'So we've both got homework,' I mused. 'You need to work on giving yourself permission to get all up on me and I need to work on not tearing down your self-esteem very chance I get.'
'Finally,' Danny murmured, his voice close to my ear and I shivered. 'Homework I can enjoy.'
'How did Mason react? I mean, what did he say? When he knew about your big gay crush.'
'Well, I mean, you heard him. He encouraged it. Not at first, not right then in my room, he just sort of made fun of me - not in a mean way, just in a way that was supposed to let me know that he didn't think I was weird or a loser or whatever. But a few months after you came out, when we were both spending a lot more time with you, he kept saying I should tell you and talk to you about it. But he understood why I wouldn't.'
I nodded slowly, thinking about it. 'I think you were right,' I mumbled, letting my fingers dance across the skin of his hands where they were resting loosely on my abdomen. 'I would have played with you. I would have fallen fast and hard for you and that would have made me really angry and I would have been awful to you. I would have broken us both into pieces.' We were quiet again for a minute and then I asked, 'That's not what you thought, huh?'
'No,' he confirmed. 'Something more along the lines of you looking completely disgusted, snapping something nasty at me, and ignoring me forever.'
'Mason says you're intimidated by me,' I said softly, figuring that was as good a segue as I was going to get.
I felt Danny nodding, not even bothering to try and hide it. 'You scare me,' he said softly. 'You didn't used to. You used to just be my best friend's kid brother. Now you're... Something else.'
'You scare me too, sometimes,' I admitted. 'I'm not good at this stuff, you know, feelings or whatever. But the way I feel about you scares me.'
'This is good though,' he pointed out quietly. 'Talking about it. We should just... Talk about it.'
I breathed out and nodded, sinking further into him because I was starting to feel kind of overwhelmed and I guess pretty vulnerable, which is not an emotion I've ever embraced, and I think he knew it was starting to become a bit too much for me because his demeanour changed and he leaned forwards to kiss me on the side of my head before standing up and hauling me with him.
'My next class is in ten minutes. You wanna walk with me?'
'Sure,' I agreed, taking his hand again, and we walked back to the centre of campus slowly, not really saying much but not zoning out on one another either.
We were making our way through the corridors of the liberal arts building when it happened. I looked up and saw him; Ash was walking towards us in the opposite direction and I know he saw us too because he slowed to a stop, just kind of staring.
'Oh, excellent,' I muttered, turning to fall against the wall I'd been walking beside, tugging Danny with me by the hand I was still holding and lifting the other to the side of his throat to pull him in to me and kiss him.
As usual he sort of lost himself in it, leaning in to me and forgetting himself, and instead of making me wonder whether he was just playing along, this time it made me feel, I dunno, kind of powerful I guess, and I couldn't help the quirk of my lips as I kissed him pretty indecently for where we were and how early it was.
I made to pull away after a couple of minutes but he put one hand on my chest and pushed me firmly back up against the wall, pushing his mouth back onto mine and I pretty much crumbled because yeah: feeling wanted by Danny turns my bones into treacle.
When we finally did beak away I just kind of gazed into him for a few seconds, not really able to tear my gaze away, before finally looking over his shoulder: Ash was gone.
'I'm gonna be late for class,' he whispered, half breathlessly.
'You could skip it,' I suggested, feeling my voice catch in the back of my throat and wondering whether I should be embarrassed but deciding not to because he seemed to like it.
'You know, for your whole thing about being wanted, you don't seem to have any idea what being wanted by you does to me,' he whispered, and I swallowed. It was his turn to smirk and he put a little bit more distance between us, pulling me away from the wall and back down the slowly emptying hallway towards his lecture. 'What was that for anyway?' he asked. 'Why did you want to put on a show for Ash?'
I scoffed, annoyed. 'Because he almost had you,' I muttered, disgusted. 'Literally all he would have had to do was say something, and you would have been his. But he fucked up and now I've got you and I want to make sure he knows what he's missing.'
We reached the door that led to his lecture hall and stopped, and when I looked at him there was something about his expression that was kind of intense but he neutralised his features before I could get a proper read on it.
'See you later,' he said eventually, smiling and leaning in to kiss me before turning and disappearing into his class.
Things were a bit easier after that. We all fell back into our work and school routines without any difficulty; Abby was spending a whole bunch of time around our place; and it made me embarrassingly happy whenever Danny would shyly pull me closer to him as we watched TV or sneak up behind me and start kissing the back of my shoulder.
One night as we were waiting for our pizza order to arrive and Danny and Mason were trying to negotiate over what film to watch, Abby slid closer to me on the couch and nudged me with her elbow.
'Hey,' she said, raising an eyebrow at me.
'Hey,' I replied, bemused.
'I just wanted to check - you're not pissed with me about the sleeping arrangements are you? I feel shitty for kicking you out of your bed four times a week but you guys are a lot closer to campus than my apartment so Mason never wants to sleep round mine.'
I glanced at her, then over at Danny, then back at her pointedly. 'I'm not pissed with you,' I said, and she laughed.
'Okay, cool. Mason said you weren't but I wanted to be sure. But I was thinking, maybe we should set up some sort of schedule or something? Like I know there's some weirdness every time I don't stay the night and you pretend to fall asleep out here so you don't have to-'
'I don't pretend to-'
'Of course not,' she agreed quickly, but she was smirking. 'Anyway, it would be better for me to know what nights I'm gonna be here and what nights I'm gonna be at my place anyway, so I know when to bring an overnight bag to class with me.'
We'd caught the attention of the other two idiots by now and they were sitting in the armchairs across from us, fading out of their own conversation and tuning into ours.
'Are you guys talking about sleeping arrangements?' Mason demanded, clearly put out that he wasn't being included in a conversation that centred mainly around his bed.
Abby put one arm around my shoulders and sighed. 'We just don't want the divorce to be too hard on you, dear,' she said. 'We're working out a custody arrangement so you get to spend time with both of us.'
Danny and I both snorted with laughter while Mason looked disgusted.
'Not okay,' he told her fiercely, 'to imply that you're my mother.'
Abby's smirk deepened. 'I just wanted to try the Mrs Atkins title on for size,' she told him, and a blush started creeping up around the back of his neck.
Danny took pity on Mason and came to his rescue, rolling his eyes. 'Can't do a worse job than the last one,' he said evenly. 'She's a nightmare.'
Abby glanced from Danny to me curiously, obviously wondering how I was going to react to him shitting on my mother, but I shrugged. 'What?' I asked. 'She is a nightmare.'
'Total nightmare,' Mason agreed, nodding.
'Cosmo told me not to trust a boy who didn't love his mother,' Abby mused.
'We all love Danny's mom,' I suggested.
'Close enough, I suppose,' she agreed.
'Anyway,' Mason interjected, 'since the beds in question are mine and Danny's I feel like we should be included in the decision.'
'You could just move all of your shit into my room,' Danny suggested distractedly; half of his attention was already back on the film library on the laptop in front of him.
I narrowed my eyes at him; he was only just coming around to making a move on me and now he wanted to move in with me. 'Like... Spend every night there?' I clarified, ignoring Mason and Abby who were trying not to laugh at us.
Danny looked up at me and shrugged. 'Yeah.'
Still glaring at his suspiciously, I pointed out, 'I'm a nightmare to live with. I'm sarcastic and mean and passive aggressive and I hog the bedsheets and leave art shit everywhere and I don't clean up after myself.'
Danny laughed. 'I know. I already live with you.'
'And sometimes I kick.'
'He does,' Mason confirmed. 'He does do that.'
'Shut up, you idiot, you're almost shot of me,' I hissed at him, and that made everyone laugh. 'Okay,' I said archly, falling back against the couch and feigning nonchalance. 'If you want me that badly then fine, I'll move in with you.'
Danny raised his eyes to meet mine without lifting his head and the same current of electric tension passed between us that always did whenever anybody said the word "want".
That weekend all four of us gathered up armfuls of my crap in Mason's room and carried them across the living room to Danny's; Abby made a sweeping gesture and declared, 'Mazel tov,' before she and Mason slammed the door on us and went to celebrate having his bed to themselves.
Danny had cleared a space in his wardrobe for me, which made me feel uncomfortable and domestic, but it wasn't like I had that much stuff to begin with; I hadn't supplemented my wardrobe much since I'd arrived and I hadn't brought much with me from home. Most of my stuff consisted of third- and fourth-hand textbooks and art supplies, but I started haphazardly folding my things to put them away anyway.
I didn't get very far; after a couple of minutes of watching me from his desk chair I felt him move up behind me and slide his hands around to my abdomen. Not even bothering to pretend to fight him on it, I dropped the jeans I'd been struggling with to the floor and turned around to throw my arms around his neck and let him kiss me, leaning my body against his and letting him prop me up for once.
As if it could have gone any other way, we ended up on the bed and he disencumbered me of the clothes I'd been wearing pretty quickly too until I was laying on my back on the bed in my underwear while he leaned over me and kissed my neck and ran his hand lightly across my chest and lower, under the waistband and...
I melted into the bed, my hands clutching fistfuls of duvet and biting my lip hard enough to draw a little blood so I wouldn't cry out.
Danny kept planting little butterfly kisses on my neck and chest as I tried to catch my breath, eventually managing it and opening my eyes to look at him. He looked back innocently.
'Consider it a room-warming gift,' he suggested after a minute.
'Oh my god,' I muttered hoarsely, grabbing his head and dragging him down to kiss me again for a few seconds until I really couldn't ignore the squick any longer and made to get up. Most of the mess was still inside my underwear so slipped them off and mopped myself up, depositing them in Danny's clothes hamper before turning and moving to get back on the bed. He blinked at me in surprise and said, 'Oh,' and I realised it was his first time seeing me, you know, fully naked.
I glanced down at my body bemusedly; for all my teen angst I've never really had any body issues - I'm skinny and have okay definition and I've heard from multiple sources that my butt looks good, so I glanced back up at him and grinned and said, 'I showed you mine, now you show me yours.'
Danny swallowed. 'I really don't think it's a good idea for us both to be naked at the same time,' he mumbled.
I crawled onto the bed and settled against him with the back of my head on his abdomen, looking up at him. 'Why not? I have a refractory period of about thirty seconds, so no worries there.'
That managed to pull a laugh out from somewhere and I felt the tension in his body loosening slightly.
'Do you not want me to... Like, do you want me to get dressed? I don't mind.'
'It's not that,' he said, letting one hand trail up and down my stomach lightly. 'I just think we should talk about, you know, the sex thing, before we do it.'
I snorted. 'Why?' I asked, moving around to press my face into my happy place, which was right between his shoulder and pectoral muscle. 'It's not like it would be my first time.'
'Right,' Danny said evenly. 'But it would be mine, so...'
He trailed off as I pulled back sharply and sat up, staring at him, shocked. 'You haven't...?' I demanded, and he shook his head. 'But you're so...'
He laughed. 'What? Old?' Danny's twentieth birthday was coming up that summer.
'Hot,' I said baldly, letting my gaze switch to his body for a second before coming back to his face.
He laughed. 'I mean, I've done pretty much everything else. With strange boys at parties whose names I don't remember. But, I dunno, the sex thing... It's more about the emotional side than the physical side for me, I guess. And, well, in high school, I was too hung up on you to have feelings for anyone else, and they didn't really go anywhere for the first year after I moved here, even after you cut contact. And obviously things with Ash went nowhere. So.'
I started to feel a nervous panic building in the pit of my stomach. I had never really treated sex with the same emotional reverence Danny seemed to and I could feel something like dread filling my body as I started to realise that maybe our values didn't align and he might think badly of me.
'Do you...' I started, stumbling over my words as I tried not to openly freak out. 'Have you... Are you upset with me, for, you know, the bleacher thing?' I finally managed to ask hoarsely, and he frowned at me.
'No!' he exclaimed, reaching out to put a hand on my arm reassuringly.
Except I was sitting there naked and he was fully clothed and we were talking about my colourful sexual past so there wasn't really much that was going to make me feel okay.
'God, no, Trouble, of course not. That's not what I... I don't equate abstinence with inherent human worth, come on, that's not me. I don't care how many people you've slept with or how often. Well,' he amended, 'I care, but not for that reason. I care because I care about you. And I kind of...' he trailed off and stopped, and after a second it became clear he wasn't going to finish.
'Kind of what?' I asked in a small voice, and he must have seen that I was still messed up about it because he sighed and rolled his eyes and started again.
'This is going to be one of stupider, sappier moments we talked about before,' he warned me. 'In fact it might be the stupidest, sappiest moment of all.'
'Give it to me,' I said evenly.
'Well, I kind of think... Like, being with you, kissing you, all of that, it feels pretty enormously different to how its felt whenever I've hooked up with anybody else. Because of how I feel about you. And I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you didn't have particularly strong feelings for any of the jocks you fooled around with under the bleachers. So I'm kind of thinking, maybe, when we get around to it, it will be a different experience for you as well. Because it won't just be having sex, it will be...' he trailed off again, sparing me from having to hear the actual phrase "making love", because we both knew I wasn't mature enough to handle it.
He let out a breath and flopped back onto his pillows.
'So there it is,' he said. 'Make fun of me, if you want.'
But I didn't. I just swallowed and when he looked at me a minute later I felt raw and emotional and, yeah, pretty vulnerable, but I was kind of coming around to being okay with feeling vulnerable around Danny.
'Are you okay?' he asked carefully.
'I love you,' I blurted. It was the first time I'd said it where it was clear I meant "I'm in love with you," and Danny sort of stared at me before a small smile spread slowly across his face.
'I love you too,' he said softly.
'And,' I said, 'you said we should talk about when we feel scared and I feel scared. Right now.'
Danny nodded and moved around to pull me towards him, wrapping both arms around me tightly and stroking my hair and murmuring nonsense at me until I felt my heart rate slow back down to normal and my breathing even out.
'Do you think we're moving too fast?' he asked, when it was clear I could handle it.
'No,' I murmured into his shoulder. 'Maybe. I don't know. I don't want to undo anything.'
'Let's just take it a bit more slowly going forward then,' he suggested softly, and I nodded, slipping my arms around him as well now and squeezing.
So we slowed it down. It wasn't easy. It's kind of difficult when you're all up in one another's space while you're watching TV or cuddling before bed, and you both really want to start fooling around, but know that you if you do you won't be able to stop and that things could get messy and scary as a result. But we did our best to reign it in and one of the ways we did that was by making out exclusively in the company of other people so that even if we did get tempted, we'd be able to stop because, you know, decency.
Not that some of the people who were subjected to our displays thought that we ever managed to stop before it became indecent. We kept it mostly to places like random spots on campus but once or twice when we were watching TV with Mason and Abby one of us would accidentally or otherwise put a hand where there shouldn't have been one, or press a body part that shouldn't have been pressed, against a body part that shouldn't have been pressed against, and we'd slowly escalate until it became pretty clear to the others that, yeah, we were making out under that blanket and they had to throw popcorn at us until we'd stop.
Which wasn't too difficult. Neither of us felt particularly comfortable getting handsy in front of my brother. But still.
And there were a couple of near misses. Like the time we were making out heavily around the corner from one of Danny's classes in a narrow, abandoned hallway and he dropped his hand to squeeze my butt and I was so surprised I jumped and then figured, what the hell, and jumped again, wrapping my legs around his waist as one of his arms held me up and the other slipped underneath my t-shirt and we only managed to stop because we heard someone coming.
Or the time we found ourselves home alone because Mason and Abby were on a date and we were sitting on the couch with the TV on, which neither of us was paying attention to, slowly moving closer to one another until we ended up horizontal and nearly naked, jumping up in surprise and grabbing our clothes to get re-dressed when we heard Mason's key in the lock and his disgusted admonishments of our lack of self-control.
During this time I also slipped away after work one afternoon with my hood pulled low over my head and my shoulders hunched and made my way to the student health centre to get, you know, tested. I'd always made the jocks use protection and if I'd gotten anything from any of them I was pretty sure I'd know about it by now, but I wanted to be certain and I definitely didn't want to risk passing any of it along to Danny. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to look him in the eye if it came back positive for anything but when I collected them a few weeks later it was as I'd suspected and I was clean. I scribbled JSYK on the results and stuffed them into one of his music textbooks and a couple of days later as he and Mason and Abby and I all sat in our living room curled over various school assignments he looked up and asked the room, 'Does anybody know what JSYK means?'
Mason started trying to pronounce it, you know, like it was a word, but Abby laughed and elbowed him and turned to Danny and said, 'It's shorthand for "just so you know".'
I stared back at him impassively as his gaze turned on me for a second as he said, 'Huh.'
I hadn't been trying to send any particular message with it other than, "I'm clean", but that didn't mean that keeping our hands off one another didn't become just a little bit harder.
As the end of the semester approached and we all had exams to prepare for it became a bit easier. We both knew there was no point in even trying to study in the same room, so Danny and I took it in turns to spend our evenings in the library and considering how much course work he had, and the fact that I was preparing assignments and exams for two college classes and my online senior year of high school, and that we both had part time jobs, we were both so exhausted when we finally fell into bed every night that we didn't have the energy to fool around anyway.
'Let's have a party,' Mason suggested one evening, when he and Danny were in the middle of exams and I was almost finished with mine.
'A party?' Danny asked. I'd had a feeling they threw pretty regular parties before I'd come along but that they'd stopped considering what a mess I'd been when I turned up.
Mason shrugged. 'Yeah. It's the end of the year, almost everyone we know is going home for the summer, and this little shit will have finally graduated high school. We should celebrate.'
'Okay,' Danny agreed evenly. 'You want me to float the idea in class?'
'Obviously. It's not a party until some pretentious fuckboy in a fedora commandeers the iPod dock and insists on playing his favourite alternative ukulele band album. Or shits all over my girlfriend for liking Katy Perry.'
'We are not a Katy Perry household,' I interjected firmly. 'We are a Taylor Swift household.'
'No, this is good,' Danny mused. 'I know people that will deconstruct this argument for us.'
'Sounds like my kinda party,' I muttered sarcastically.
'Anyway,' Mason went on, 'Abby's gonna bring some of her classmates and all of the girls from the bar.'
Danny groaned. 'Not Barley,' he pleaded.
'She's gonna try and keep it form her but, you know, if she hears about it...'
'Who's Barley?' I asked, spitting the name because it was ridiculous.
'Wren's sister,' Mason informed me. 'She works at Wildrose with Abby.'
Wildrose was the name of the lesbian bar Abby worked at on weekends. Abby was straight but she was also hot and that was more important, apparently.
'Why don't you like her?' I asked, turning to Danny. 'Is it because of Wren? Wren isn't coming here, is he? I don't think I can even promise to try not to make fun of him if he comes here, you guys, I'm serious.'
'It's nothing,' Danny mumbled, pouring an awful lot of attention into his dinner now all of a sudden. 'She's just kind of annoying.'
'You're a really bad liar,' I told him baldly, but didn't push it, finishing my pasta and dumping my plate in the sink before making my way back into his - our - room to get ready for bed.
The rest of the week passed peacefully enough; Danny and Mason finished their final exams and so did I, closing my laptop after the last one and taking a minute to revel in the fact that I wasn't a high school student anymore.
The night before the party Abby came to stay over so she could help set up the following day, and also because, you know, she and Mason wanted to have more sex, or whatever. I slipped down the hall to the bathroom a few minutes before the movie ended so I could brush my teeth and get ready for bed without having to do battle with the others for mirror space, stopping, as is my wont, on my way back to the living room when I heard what they'd started talking about in my absence.
'Barley found out about the party,' I heard Abby saying, followed by a quiet groan from Danny.
'Typical,' he muttered.
'Sorry, dude. I made all the lesbians promise not to tell her but it got back to her somehow. I think it's her bisexual superpower.'
'Don't worry about it, dude,' Mason was telling him evenly. 'You've got an extra line of defence this time.' I guess Danny must have shot him a look of some description, because Mason laughed and clarified, 'I just don't think Dylan is going to be shy about marking his territory.' There was another pause, and then Mason and Abby both laughed.
'Oh my god,' Abby exclaimed. 'You want him to!'
'Shut up,' Danny muttered, clearly dying of embarrassment.
'It's like that first day back at school after spring break,' Mason went on, decidedly not shutting up. 'When you floated into lunch all moon-faced and starry-eyed because Dylan had peed all over you in front of Ash.'
'Shut up,' Danny said again, sighing this time.
'I mean, Barley is pretty determined,' Abby was saying now. 'She knows you're gay, and that didn't stop her. She knows you have a boyfriend, and I don't think that's going to stop her. But I really feel like Dylan could take her. He looks scrappy.'
'And he kicks,' Mason reminded the room.
No longer amused by their conversation, I reused my old trick of going back down the hallway to close the bathroom door loudly and muttered a, 'Goodnight,' to Mason and Abby and a, 'Don't take too long,' to Danny before kicking his - our - bedroom door shut behind me and flopping onto the bed to stare up at the ceiling and wait for him.
After a few minutes he followed me in, fresh-faced and minty-breathed, and started to undress, but I got up and walked over to him and snatched his shirt out of his hands, smirking at him and saying, 'Let me help you with that.'
Danny swallowed nervously like he always does when I do shit like this and I took control of the situation, pulling his shirt over his head and helping him struggle out of his jeans before doing likewise with my own clothes and pushing him down on the bed, crawling over him. One of our rules for maintaining, you know, a safe pace, was that we weren't allowed to be naked at the same time and when we did start to mess around like this we both had to keep our underwear on. Regardless, it was kind of satisfying to see the effect that me grinding against him lightly had; he melted into the bed and I took advantage of his pliability to kiss his neck; soft and dry at first, but then I twined my fingers through his and pinned his hands to the bed so he wouldn't be able to fight me as I nibbled and sucked on his throat. Once he realised what I was doing he tried to protest but I pressed my body harder against his and he stopped, giving up and letting me do whatever I wanted.
Eventually, satisfied with my handiwork, I released his hands and rolled off of him, laying on my back beside him and turning my head to grin at him smugly.
'Why?' he whined, bringing his fingertips to his throat lightly.
I shrugged. 'Just marking my territory.'
'Oh my god,' Danny groaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. 'Do you have this place bugged? Be honest.'
I tsked impatiently, pretending to be annoyed. 'It's not my fault you and Mason don't know how to have a private conversation,' I informed him.
Danny dropped his hands to his sides and looked over at me helplessly. I grinned again.
'I can do the possessive thing if you want,' I told him evenly. 'It won't be real because I trust you, and there's not really anything you can do to change that, but I can pretend.'
Danny looked at me cagily. 'I feel like this is something you would get a lot of enjoyment out of taking way too far.'
I laughed. 'Yeah, I can think of some ways to do that just off the top of my head. But I won't.'
He looked pretty uncomfortable; I don't think he'd been planning on letting me in on whatever daydreams he'd been having about me being possessive any time soon, so I rolled over back on top of him and buried my face in his hair, kissing his ear and his neck and the hollow under his cheekbone and murmuring nonsense little kid stuff like, 'Mine, mine, mine.' This had the desired effect of making him forget his embarrassment, because his hands anchored onto my hips and tugged them down onto his roughly which had a pretty instantaneous effect on me as well.
When I woke the next morning Danny was missing, which was unusual because I usually woke at least a few minutes before him, and staring at his stupid sleep smile was quickly becoming one of my favourite things about life.
I stretched, yawned, and swung my legs out of bed, making to wander into the kitchen and fix myself some breakfast, but I stopped in my tracks and narrowed my eyes suspiciously at the others as I saw them all hunched over something on the coffee table with their backs to me. All three of them spun around guiltily when they heard me opening Danny's - our - bedroom door, identical sheepish grins plastered across their faces.
'What?' I demanded warily.
'Close your eyes,' Abby instructed me.
'Absolutely not,' I replied.
Rather than argue with me she just jumped to her feet and hurried over to me, grabbing me by one arm and pulling me over to the others; I tripped along after her, not having the presence of mind this early in the morning to fight her on it. When we drew level with Mason and Danny she reached up and covered my eyes with both hands and I felt weird about pushing a girl so I let her. Somebody put something on my head and somebody draped something over my shoulders and somebody shoved something paper-y into my hand and when they all finally stepped back, grinning expectantly, I opened my eyes and blinked down at myself in bewilderment.
'Oh, Jesus,' I muttered, seeing what they'd done as Mason blatantly took a handful of pictures with his phone. They'd somehow managed to get their hands on a graduation cap and gown, and had rolled up a sheet of copy paper for a stand-in diploma. I was now standing in the centre of the living room in my underwear and covered in this mortifying shit. 'If you put any of those on the internet I'll disown you,' I told him severely.
'I'm just gonna send them to mom and dad,' he told me innocently. 'Salt their wounds a little bit.'
'Nah,' Danny said, stepping back over to me and putting one finger under my chin to turn my face to his. 'Send them this one.' And then he kissed me and Mason laughed and took the picture.
'Maybe don't send them anything until we know if I've actually graduated,' I muttered, looking down at my pretend diploma dubiously. I wouldn't know for sure for a few weeks.
'There's no way you didn't pass everything,' Mason commented. 'You studied harder than any of us did.'
'Go on,' Abby urged me, her eyes shining. 'Toss the cap.'
'No way,' muttered, reaching to take it off, but they all started trying to convince me and I figured they must have been planning this for a while and it couldn't hurt too much to play along so after threatening Mason with bodily harm if he photographed it I sighed and threw the stupid thing in the air and they all cheered and Danny slipped his arm around my waist and whispered, 'You know, this is a pretty good look for you,' and I stopped feeling quite so stupid.
It was the first weekend of summer and we were all kind of trying to adjust to the freedom and not having to worry about assignments and exams, so we spent a couple of hours chilling by the lake on campus before eventually making our way back to the apartment to set up for the party, putting out drinks and snacks and furiously arguing over whose iTunes music library should be connected to the speakers. I vetoed Abby's because I was taking my Katy Perry/Taylor Swift joke way too far, and we all vetoed Danny's because he has a bunch of school-related weird music on his. Mason's and mine were pretty close to identical so we tossed a coin for it and, deciding it was my greatest ever sibling victory, I won.
People started trickling in around seven and a couple of hours later our apartment was full of lesbians and college students. A few of Danny's pretentious classmates were drunkenly trying to get a couple of Abby's workmates to make out, and Mason was routinely hunting more of them away from the speaker system as they tried to sneakily change the music to whatever underground R&B flautist quintet they'd started listening to before the rest of us. Considering that Mason and Abby had brought a bunch of science and business students into the same room as Danny and I had brought a bunch of musicians and artists, there more than a few heated discussions about the merits of STEM vs arts going on, but I was doing my best to avoid them. At least everybody seemed like they were having a pretty good time though; I noticed that one girl who had been voraciously defending her choice to study computer science from one of the more insufferable hipsters ten minutes ago was now making out with him, so that was good, I guess.
'You wanna know which one she is?' Abby asked me at one point, sidling up to me with her eyes shining and a beer in her hand as I stood in the kitchen, jerking her head towards the main body of the party.
'I think I've got it figured out,' I said flatly; there was one girl in particular who'd been following Danny around all night, laughing too loudly at his jokes and touching him when there was absolutely no reason to. Even if he'd been straight I doubt she'd have been his type; she was curvy and not unattractive but based on his borderline insatiable attraction to me I felt like the half-starved alternative weirdo aesthetic was probably more his thing. The result of this being that I didn't feel jealous or threatened at all and none of the irrational possessiveness that had come over me that day we'd seen Ash on campus was making an appearance now. It also didn't seem like Danny was having any trouble handling it; he brushed her off whenever she put a hand on his arm and managed to give her as little attention as possible without being rude.
'Have fun,' Abby instructed me, smirking, as she went to rejoin her friends on the couch.
I spotted Mason sitting on the floor with a beer in his hand, his back pressed against the cabinet the TV sat on, and I made my way over to him, dropping down to sit by his side.
'How many of those have you had?' I asked; it was nearing midnight and I was half-hoping he'd be drunk.
'Why?' he asked, grinning at me. 'Are you gonna kiss me?'
'Oh my god,' I muttered, looking away from him. 'I can't believe he told you that.'
Mason leaned in to nudge me with shoulder. 'Come on,' he cajoled me, laughing. 'I think it's cute.'
'Goodbye,' I muttered, moving to stand up, but he caught me by the wrist and pulled me back down.
'I'm sorry,' he laughed. 'This is my third,' he went on, gesturing with the half-full bottle in his hand. 'Why do you want to know?'
'There's something I want to talk to you about but I want to make sure you're black-out fucked and won't remember any of it.'
Mason raised an eyebrow at me curiously. 'Is this a serious, go into another room for privacy, kind of talk, or a drunken confession of emotions talk?'
'The latter. But I'm not drunk.'
Mason put his beer down and shuffled around, making a show of getting comfortable. 'I'm ready,' he declared, and I made a face at him, but I knew he wouldn't drop it so I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands and resigned myself to it.
'I know you're still angry with yourself about how you reacted when I tried to talk to you, you know, about being gay, or whatever. But I want you to stop. I'm not angry with you. I haven't been angry with you for a long time. I forgave you ages ago, I forgave you before you even left to come here but I couldn't tell you because I wanted you to feel like you had to come back.' I paused. 'For all the good that did. And I know you think it was your fault that shit got so bad at home but it wasn't. Obviously, for whatever reason, I'm happier when you're around but you can't just put your life on hold to make sure I'm okay, I have to do that for myself. And I don't think I even really knew how bad things were, in my head, when I came here because I was so used to shit being that dark all the time, but now... Now I'm happy and it's because of everything you and Danny did for me and you didn't really have to. You could have sent me home or kicked me out and I know I wasn't easy to deal with and I act like I'm ungrateful most of the time but I'm not. I'm really grateful and I appreciate everything you've done for me and just because you made one stupid mistake when we were kids doesn't mean you're not the best brother in the world and that I don't love you, because I do.'
When I chanced looking up at him a moment later his whole demeanour had changed and he was staring at me with his mouth slightly open and after a second he swallowed and leaned in to me and pulled me into a hug, which he then held on to for way longer than necessary, but I guess I was okay with it and hugged him back.
Eventually he pulled away and I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously because he was making some weird noises.
'Oh my god,' I muttered, disgusted and making a face at him. 'Are you crying? This is why I wanted to wait until you were drunk, you absolutely useless pussy. How am I the gay sibling?'
Mason laughed, wiping the back of his hand over one cheek. 'Do you seriously think I'd be crying less if I was drunk?'
I made another face at him and muttered, 'Fair point.'
'Come here,' he said, throwing one arm around my shoulders and pulling me against him again, pressing his face into the top of my head. 'I love you too.'
'Shut up, you freak,' I snapped, wriggling away from him and standing up again. 'Go and find somebody else to take care of your sissy emotions,' I added, hauling him to his feet when he reached his hand up to me. 'I have shit to do.'
He laughed and I watched as he made his way over to where Abby was sitting on the couch; she looked up to smile at him, which quickly changed to concern when she saw he was weeping all over the place, and he squeezed in beside her as she started to fret over him. He waved her away, obviously explaining what had happened because she looked over at me, surprised and then smiling, so I made a face at them and turned instead to look for Danny.
He was standing back in the kitchen, filling another bowl with some snacks, but Barley appeared to have followed him and was standing just a bit too close, touching him lightly on the arm and then I guess he said something funny because she laughed and pressed her forehead into his shoulder and I found that all of a sudden it was a little annoying so I made my way over there and nudged her out of the way and hauled myself up to sit on the island, grabbing Danny by the front of his shirt and pulling to stand between my legs with our bodies pressed together and kiss him.
'Hey,' I said after a moment when we'd pulled away, smiling innocently.
'Hey,' he replied, still a little shell-shocked. I quirked an eyebrow at him and he quickly regained consciousness, turning around to lean his back against my chest as I laid my chin on his shoulder, and started making introductions.
'So this is the boyfriend, huh?' Barley asked, grinning at me, but the smile didn't exactly reach her eyes.
'This would be him,' Danny confirmed. For good measure, I slid my arm across his chest and smirked at her.
'Nice to meet you,' I said, my voice full of sugar.
'I suppose this must be your handiwork, then,' she went on, gesturing to the bruise that was purpling up nicely on Danny's throat. Rather than respond, I just leaned in and kissed it lightly.
'I've never understood the whole hickey thing,' she went on; her voice was light but obviously there was some weird shit going on under the surface. 'Seems so... Primitive.'
'Good thing you're not going out with Danny, then,' I said smoothly. 'He loves it.'
'I do,' Danny admitted, turning slightly to smile at me.
This one seemed to stump her and I caught a glance at Abby and Mason over her shoulder, looking at us with their heads together and sniggering. I sat there for about fifteen minutes, wrapped around Danny like a second shirt, talking and joking with both of them but referencing a lot of private jokes between Danny and I and bringing up some things and people she couldn't relate to or didn't know. Then, figuring my work was done, I slipped back down onto the floor, told Danny I'd find him later, and made my way back over to Abby and Mason.
'How'd I do?' I asked, grinning, as I leaned across the back of the couch to put my head close to theirs. Barley was still standing in the kitchen with a picture-of-innocence Danny, but she had taken a step back and wasn't touching him anymore.
'Very impressive,' Abby commended me, nodding. 'The lesbians aren't going to let her live this one down for a while.'
'You're getting pretty good at this boyfriend thing,' Mason mused.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
He shrugged. 'It means so much to him, you know, when you do stuff like this. Boyfriend stuff. I think he still sometimes can't really believe that after all this time, you like you him back.'
'It's so cute,' Abby added. 'The way he looks at you, like he's surprised that you're real.'
'You mean the way Mason looks at you,' I said flatly, because I'm not used to not being the one who's doing the embarrassing, and Mason's cheeks started to turn pink as Abby turned her laughing gaze on him.
'Yeah, like that,' she agreed, leaning in to kiss him, and I made a face and left them to it because ew, that's my brother.
The party started to wind down a couple of hours later and, exhausted, I slipped into Danny's - our - room to collapse into bed before everyone had even left. His alarm clock read after two am, and I crawled under the covers, not having to wait long before he joined me, snuggling up behind me and wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me closer and nuzzle the back of my neck.
'So did I take it too far or was it okay?' I mumbled sleepily.
Danny snorted. 'You were perfect,' he whispered. 'You're always perfect.'
'Shut up.'
When I jerked awake later it was still dark and a glance at Danny's alarm clock told me I'd only been asleep for a couple of hours. We'd wriggled and tossed so that we were facing one another now and even through the gloom of his room I could his stupid sleep smile and I stared at it for a few seconds before shuffling closer to him and kissing it.
It took a moment but he started to wake up slowly, kissing me back without needing any time to figure out what as going on, sliding a hand into my hair and one around my waist as I crawled over him and pressed my body down onto his and kissed him slowly and then fast.
And then I did it.
I broke the rule.
I kicked my underwear off and tugged at his as well and he didn't argue or even hesitate, he just let me, and I pulled away from his mouth to press my forehead to his and he opened his eyes and we blinked at one another, gasping, trying to navigate the intensity until it was finished and I moved to press my face into his shoulder and tried and failed not to cry.
After a couple of seconds to recovery Danny gently put me down and cleaned us both up before getting back into bed pulling my face towards his chest, stroking my back and my hair and murmuring nonsense at me again until I calmed down.
'Are you okay?' he asked eventually.
'Yeah,' I muttered thickly. 'Are you?'
His chest rose a fell a couple of times as he laughed. 'Yeah.'
'You were right,' I mumbled. 'It was different.'
'Good different?'
'Yeah.' I paused as he continued petting me and then took a breath and said, 'I know I'm not doing a very good job of conveying this but it was amazing.'
He laughed again. 'For me too.'
'Ugh,' I muttered, disgusted at myself. 'It was your first time and I'm making it all about me.'
'It is all about you,' he murmured.
'Shut up. And you better not tell Mason about the crying thing.'
He laughed. 'Why would I tell Mason anything about any of this?'
'I dunno,' I muttered darkly. 'Why would you tell him about when I kissed you after the spring break party?'
'Point taken,' he conceded. 'Sorry.'
'It's okay.' We were quiet for a few moments, all wrapped up together as the sweat cooled on our skin, just kind of breathing and being together, and then I said, 'Hey.'
'Yeah?'
'I love you.'
'I love you too, Trouble.'