by M. J. O'Shea
“Me too,” Rory whispered.
Ben froze.
“What?” He didn’t know if he’d been hallucinating or if the heavens freaking opened up in that one moment and poured the sound of angels singing right into his bedroom because he could’ve sworn he just heard Rory say…. Wait, what did he say?
“What do you mean by ‘me too’?” Ben had to be sure.
Rory didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward, nudged Ben’s nose with his own, and brushed his lips across Ben’s in a short, tender kiss. “That’s what I mean.”
Ben shuddered like his whole body was trying to come apart. He nearly cried with relief, and then the shock hit him. Rory had just kissed him. Rory had just kissed him.
Rory grinned. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”
“Years?” Ben asked. Years?
Ben figured maybe if he kept repeating things in his head, they’d start to seem less like a desperation-induced hallucination. Holy hell, Rory just kissed me, and he’s wanted to for freaking years. Years. YEARS. That last part still hadn’t sunk in.
“Yeah.” Rory chuckled at what must’ve been blind shock on Ben’s face. “For sure since that skate party in seventh grade, you know at the Skate King, when you were walking around holding hands with Lauren?” Rory rolled his eyes. “I wanted to rip her stupid pink hair extension clip-ons out by the root.”
Lauren? He had zero memory of that. What he did remember was Rory falling and him rushing out into the middle of the rink to save him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rory countered.
Ben shrugged. “I guess I was afraid I’d lose you. Like who wants to hear that their best friend is perving on them?” Rory raised his hand with a small smirk. Ben laughed and reached out to pinch Rory’s stomach like they’d done, again, about a million times. It felt different. Good different. Ben wanted to touch more. “I know that now,” he said, still quite unable to believe it.
“Yeah,” Rory agreed. His teasing smirk softened. “Hey, Ben?”
“Mmm-hmm?” Ben asked, still marveling over what had just happened.
“Can I kiss you again?” he asked.
“Not if I kiss you first.”
“HEY THERE.” Rory woke Ben up a few weeks later with one of his slow, soft kisses. Ben was addicted—can’t get enough of it, fiending all the time like the kisses were crack—kind of addicted.
“Hey,” he mumbled and kissed Rory back. He tried to be casual about it, like his blood wasn’t racing through his body at lightning-bolt speed over one simple kiss, but he must’ve failed.
Rory grinned at him and leaned over. “Do you know how much I think about kissing you?” he whispered into Ben’s ear with a particularly dirty little laugh. “It’s even worse now that I know what it’s like. I swear to God that’s the only thing I thought about the entire day at work yesterday. Getting you here and kissing you all night.”
Ben shivered. That’s what they’d done. Kissed and cuddled and sucked at each other’s necks like ravenous vampires until they passed out somewhere close to dawn. They’d talked in there too, and joked like they always did. They talked about college, planned for the future.
Their plans hadn’t changed much; they’d always figured they would apply to school together, share a room and everything else just like always. Be the same. Ben just figured they’d add kissing to that plan. And touching too when they were both ready to take that step. Ben wanted to touch. He wanted everything.
“I swear I can’t even think of anything but kissing you,” he murmured. Among other things. “I almost got nailed in the head by a ball the other day when some kid missed his goal by about a hundred feet.”
Rory kissed Ben’s perfectly unbruised forehead and then pressed another to his lips. Their kiss deepened, but Rory stopped when they heard his mother’s footsteps in the hall. Ben tried to shift away guiltily, but stubborn arms held him in place. Rory’s mom opened the door.
“You two better get up soon,” she said. Ben swore he felt her gaze on him, like she knew he’d been making out with her son only moments before.
“I don’t have to work today, Mrs. Newton.” Ben tried to sound normal. Normal, normal, normal. Not turned on. Ugh. He hoped he’d succeeded.
“But Rory does, right?”
“Mom, it’s fine. And I’m seventeen, you know. Don’t you think I’m a little old for you to come in and wake me up every morning?”
“You being seventeen is exactly why I should come in here more often. But I suppose it’s fine if it’s just Ben here and not some young lady….”
“Mom—” Rory looked like he was about to say something, something that couldn’t be taken back once it was out in the open.
“I’ll make sure to get Rory to work on time,” Ben assured Mrs. Newton with his big lady-charmer grin. It still worked on her after all these years.
She smiled. “Thank you, dear. Have a good morning, you two.”
Rory made a face at Ben as soon as she left. “What was that? I want my parents to know the truth about us. I want them to know there’s never going to be a girl in here.”
Ben panicked a little at the thought. He did want to tell his parents, wanted to tell pretty much the entire universe to be honest, but he wasn’t sure how his dad would take it. Especially after all the sleepovers and shared sleeping bags.
“I know. Me too. But what if after you tell them the truth about us, they don’t let me spend the night anymore? I mean, best scenario is our parents are cool with us being together and… well….” He didn’t know how to say the word.
“Gay?” Rory prompted. He didn’t look like he’d questioned it too much.
“Yeah. Gay.” Ben sighed. He reached out for Rory’s hand. “Even if they’re cool with the rest of it, that still means we’re teenaged guys sleeping in their boyfriend’s bed. I don’t know about yours, but I don’t think my parents will be okay with that.”
A slow smile spread over Rory’s face. “Boyfriend?”
“Well, yeah. What would you call it?”
“I guess I hadn’t gotten around to naming it. But I like that I can call you that.”
“Ro. You know I love you. I always have, and I always will. It’s just… different now. More. You and I could never just be like casually dating or whatever. We have too much history between us.” And I like how I just announce that like it’s a fact. Ben blushed.
“I know,” Rory said easily. “Boyfriend.” He slid his fingers into Ben’s hair and brought him in for a kiss. “I love you too.” Always have and always will. It was implied. Ben knew that was the way things were meant to be for them.
“BABE! I made the varsity team!” Ben’s whole body thrummed with excitement. He hadn’t thought it would happen. Their school had one of the best soccer programs in the country. His dad had been over the moon when Ben called to give him the good news. Ben flopped onto the bed he’d spent most of the summer in and reached for Rory’s embrace. “I can’t believe I did it.”
His boyfriend grinned. “I can. You’re amazing. Why would you doubt it?” Rory dipped his face down for a long, slow kiss, but when he pulled back, Ben saw the worry in his eyes. Rory couldn’t ever hide what he was feeling from Ben. Neither of them could.
“Hey, it’s gonna be fine, okay?” He knew why Rory was worried. The varsity soccer guys ruled the school, and some of them… weren’t the type Ben would choose as friends. But just because he’d be playing with them, didn’t make them his new best friends. It didn’t mean he had to act like them either.
“I know it’s going to be fine.” Rory smiled his sweet heartbreaker of a smile. Ben didn’t think he’d ever get over how that smile made him feel. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Always have, always will,” Ben said with a smile. “Nothing’s gonna change. Come kiss me again.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Two
Eight years later
BEN SLAMMED his hand d
own on his alarm with a resounding groan.
First day of school….
AT LEAST there weren’t any kids yet. Just meetings—and hopefully, some time in the afternoon to work on his classroom. He’d been so eager to get out back in June that he’d left a bit of a mess. Ben rolled all the way across his bed and off, stumbling toward his closet for jeans and a T-shirt. The bed was empty, had been for weeks. The last guy he’d been seeing, Ryan, hadn’t lasted very long. They rarely did. It never took them more than a few weeks to figure out that Ben wasn’t really paying attention when they talked, and no, he wasn’t ever going to want to cuddle. Ever. No matter how good the sex was. And really, it usually wasn’t much to write home about.
Ben’s phone buzzed.
You better be up, dude. Schroeder will have your ass if you’re late. And not in a good way.
Ben chuckled. Fen always had his back.
Up and mostly dressed. Save me a seat, and I’ll bring you coffee. P.S. Too early in the morning for ass talk without at least the offer of a Bloody Mary.
AFTER A short coffee stop and a quick ten-minute drive, in which he really only sped a tiny tiny bit, Ben screeched into one of the few empty spots in the staff lot. He jumped out of his car and sprinted for the main entrance to the building. Wouldn’t want one of the witches from the math wing to catch him being late.
The cafeteria buzzed with conversation, and really, it was just like when the kids were there. The math teachers sat at their table, the English department and their tweed gathered in the corner, the languages, P.E.… and then there were the annex teachers—science, music, drama, health, and art. Ben. Sometimes when the others were trying to pretend they didn’t look down their noses at Ben’s crowd, they called them “the electives.” Usually “annex staff” served its purpose, and it was muttered with sneers and eye rolls, like nothing they did out in the boonie building mattered in the real world. The annex teachers were in the old part of the school, isolated from the rest by a breezeway and about a million layers of the school’s hierarchy. The annex had its own restroom, its own teacher’s lounge, its own social area code. Ben was fine with that. He didn’t have anything to say to the sweater Nazis in the main building anyway.
Ben slid into his spot next to Fen and handed him his coffee.
“Hey, you hear dragon lady Burroughs retired?” Fen whispered.
“Yeah? Hopefully, whoever takes over the lab is a little nicer than she was.” Ben rolled his eyes.
The chem lab was sandwiched between Fen’s physics lab and Ben’s art studio. Penny Burroughs had spent more time complaining about Fen and Ben than actually doing her job. Ben wasn’t even a little sorry to hear that she’d gone.
“The buzz is it’s some young guy. Just moved here or something.”
“Yeah?” Ben smiled. “Maybe he’ll be cool.”
Pinky Suarez, the orchestra teacher and one of his other closest friends in the building, turned and glared at him. “Cool better not be code for ‘somebody I can fuck,’ Ben. Remember what happened with that student teacher last year?”
“He was twenty-four, not a child. When are you going to stop giving me shit about that?”
Pinky snorted. “When he stops texting you,” she muttered with a slightly sadistic grin.
“You’re just jealous because you wanted him for yourself.”
“What?” Pinky’s mouth dropped open. “I was your wing man on that one. And I thought you wanted me to give him your number after that bowling night,” she added with big wide eyes.
“Because I so often—” Ben was cut off by Carl Schroeder, their beleaguered principal, clearing his throat to get started with the meeting.
“Morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you had a restful break. We’re going to have a busy year here at Canyon View High School. Go Coyotes!” His voice was gratingly enthusiastic. A few people tried to clap, but the sound echoed pathetically in the cavernous cafeteria. It really was too early for that crap coming right off of weeks of sleeping in.
Schroeder rattled on for nearly an hour about changes to the cafeteria, the addition of a rugby team, new uniforms for the winter sports teams….
“And finally, I’d like to introduce our new chemistry teacher. Penny decided to take her retirement a year early and move to Arizona with her sister. We’re very lucky to have caught this young man before he got snapped up by another school. He just came back to Chico after spending the past three years in Seattle building an award-winning chemistry program for Jefferson Academy.” Schroeder gestured. A shaggy brown head, broad T-shirted shoulders, slim waist, and an amazing ass clad in perfectly cut jeans rose from one of the front chairs. Pinky smirked at Ben. He smiled back slyly until the guy turned around and fuck. No, no, no thank fucking God yes fuck. No.
Rory.
The only guy Ben ever loved.
His biggest regret.
“Everyone,” Schroeder continued over the raging buzz in Ben’s head. “This is Rory Newton, your new chemistry teacher.” He chuckled. “Too bad you don’t teach physics. Maybe Fen wouldn’t mind trading.” Their principal gestured at Fen, who smiled and saluted. Rory smiled at Schroeder’s lame joke and saluted back for a moment, until… yeah. Right there. Until he saw Ben. And that’s when the smile slid off his face, and he coughed and waved awkwardly to the staff and plunked back down into his chair like he couldn’t hide fast enough.
“What was up with that?” Fen muttered.
Ben only shrugged. None of his friends knew about Rory. He had a feeling Fen would end up finding out sooner or later, but the middle of a staff meeting wasn’t the time.
Pinky poked Ben. “He’s hot. Do you know him? He looked like he recognized you.”
Ben shrugged again. There wasn’t enough time in the day to explain how he knew Rory, let alone a whispered conversation in the middle of a crowded meeting.
Schroeder announced that they’d be doing a few team-building exercises, which was met with a barely hidden groan, and then even better—he gestured at the annex table and told Rory to have a seat with his new “team.” Ben was… honestly, he didn’t know what he was. Shocked, appalled, horrified, happier than he’d been in years? Probably all those things at once. He just sat there and watched Rory walk toward their table with wide eyes and a thundering heartbeat. The only empty chair was right next to him. He dug his nails into his palms. Whatever was about to happen couldn’t end well. But Rory. Rory was going to sit right next to him, Right there at his table only inches away, and it had been so long.
Rory smiled graciously when he approached the table. He held out his hand to Pinky, who giggled and introduced herself as Priscilla Suarez, orchestra conductor.
“Really, Pinky?” Fen chuckled. “Nobody but your grandmother calls you that.” He rolled his eyes.
“Fenton Keene. I go by Fen.” He shook Rory’s hand warmly. “And this is my partner in crime, Ben.”
“Fen and Ben. The trouble twins,” Pinky muttered with another slightly hysterical giggle in Rory’s direction. Ben cringed inwardly for her. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she was barking up the wrong science teacher.
“Partner in crime, huh?” Rory rolled his eyes. He sat without shaking Ben’s hand—although it wasn’t as if Ben had actually offered his hand. How weird would that be?—and without even looking at him. Yeah, a look might have been polite. Of course, Ben didn’t exactly blame him.
Fen shot Ben a searching look. The fuck? he mouthed.
Ben simply shook his head. There wasn’t a good answer, and again, it sure as hell wasn’t a conversation they could have sitting in a staff meeting. Especially with Rory right there. Ben couldn’t get over that part. Rory. Only inches away from him. Ben inhaled, tried to be sly about it, and yep. There it was. Rory. Apples and laundry detergent and the faint scent of warm skin. Rory’s smell was some sort of heroin for Ben. It had to be, because damn if he didn’t want to lean closer and rub his nose into Rory’s hair, kiss his neck, whisper dumb jokes in R
ory’s ear just so he could inhale and smell him again after all those years. Maybe if he hadn’t been the biggest asshole on the West Coast back when they were kids, he’d still have the right.
Fen shot him another significant look, which Ben tried to brush off. He figured he had to tell Fen all about what he’d done to Rory when they were in high school. Eventually. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Okay, people, team-building exercise. Everyone in your group tell a favorite childhood memory. Go!”
Most of the staff looked at Schroeder like he’d sprouted a new appendage over the summer. Fen simply groaned. “Welcome to our staff meetings that make no sense,” he muttered. “Schroeder was a bit of a hippy. Right about now, we’re supposed to hold hands in a circle and tell stories over a campfire. Who wants to go first so it at least looks like we’re participating?”
Pinky rolled her eyes and told the story of her first violin lesson—the same one she’d told the year before… and the year before that.
“That’s cheating, Pinky. We know that one,” Ben told her.
She smiled and tilted her head, fluttered her eyelashes. Made herself look like a damn idiot. Good lord. “Yeah, but Rory doesn’t, do you?” she asked. Ben could’ve sworn her voice was about an octave lower just five minutes before.
Rory blushed and ran his hand through his hair. He wore it nearly shoulder length, still thick, waving, and golden brown and loose. Ben wanted to touch. “I don’t.” Rory smiled bashfully and glanced down at the table. Pinky looked like her ovaries were about to explode. Ben was halfway between laughing and crying. Rory. Why?
“Fen, you up?” Ben said quickly in an attempt to derail Pinky’s humiliation train.
“Sure. So, like I’m from Michigan, right?” He aimed that comment at Rory. “And it’s ass cold there in the winter, but in the summer, it’s really hot, and we had a lake in town with a great beach where my friends and I used to go swimming.”
