Anna Martin's First Love Box Set: Signs - Bright Young Things - Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me

by Anna Martin

  “When I have time. Which isn’t as much as I’d like,” Adam admitted. “Even though my mom’s out of town, she sends tutors round most days.”

  “Why do you have a tutor?”

  “Because,” Adam said lightly, though Jared thought he could see something lurking under the cool exterior, “I’m going to Harvard. I need to keep my grades up.”

  “Oh. So, you get left alone too,” Jared said without thinking.

  “I suppose. Where are your folks?”

  “My dad’s in New York. Mom’s in Michigan.”

  “That where you grew up?” Adam crossed to the sofa and flopped on it, clearly inviting Jared to follow.

  “Michigan? Yeah. I’ve been in Texas for the past year, then my dad wanted me to get decent grades too, so I got sent here.”

  “Don’t worry, Clare filled me in on all the sordid details,” Adam said, throwing his leg over the arm of the sofa. “What I don’t get is, why here? If your dad is in New York and so are your sisters, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to go a school there?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t ask,” Jared said, sitting down and trying to avoid looking at Adam’s crotch. And failing. There was a considerable bulge. “My options were either stay in Texas for another year or go to this random private school in Washington and live with my aunt. It was an easy choice.”

  “I guess so. What was military school like?”

  Jared rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask. Please.”

  Adam laughed. “I’ve got this idea in my head that it’s all yes, sir, no, sir, then the slutty boys exchanging blowjobs behind the barracks at night.”

  “I wish. It was really homophobic actually, which is probably not that surprising. My dad thought a year of ‘hard labor’ would somehow make me straight.”

  “I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work….”

  “No, me either.”

  They were both quiet for a minute, watching the rain slip down the windows, then Adam stood up quickly.

  “Do you want a drink?” he asked.

  “Um, yeah. Sure. There’s a bottle of Jack downstairs that I left with Ryder. I don’t know if there’s anything left.”

  Adam nodded. “Give me five.”

  He walked over to a wall, and Jared watched, intrigued, as he pushed one of the wood panels, and it easily slid to one side. When Jared murmured “holy shit” under his breath, Adam shot him a cocky grin.

  “Secret staircase down to the kitchen.”

  “Your mom is seriously awesome.”

  “The remote for the TV is over there,” Adam said, nodding to a table. “Help yourself. I won’t be long.”

  He didn’t bother to slide the panel back into place, so after a few minutes Jared stood and dared to take a look. The staircase was narrow, but not uncomfortably so, with bluish lights fixed into the ceiling, lighting the passageway. He hadn’t seen a doorway in the kitchen, so he didn’t know where it came out, but it was cool. Really cool.

  Jared turned the TV on and found a rolling-news channel that provided fairly decent background noise. If nothing else it could spur a conversation on current affairs.

  When Adam returned via the main part of the house rather than his secret staircase, he had the half empty bottle of whiskey, a bottle of Pepsi, a packet of double-stuffed Oreos, and a ziplock bag Jared guessed had come from Chris. There were two joints tucked safely inside.

  “Are you warm enough?” Adam said as he carefully set his stash on the coffee table. “I’m going to grab a sweater if you want one.”

  “Oh,” Jared said, only then realizing he was rubbing his bare arms. “Yeah. Sure. If you don’t mind.”

  “No worries.”

  He returned a few minutes later with a Harbor Academy hoodie and a Seahawks sweatshirt, throwing the latter at Jared and keeping the former for himself. It took a few minutes for drinks to be poured. Then they leaned back with feet on the coffee table and a general feeling of wellbeing.

  They watched the news for a while in companionable silence, then Jared reached for the weed.

  “You mind if I light up?”

  “Not at all. It’s your junk, dude.”

  “Nice,” Jared said. “My liquor, my junk—”

  “My house. My sweatshirt,” Adam countered. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and tossed it high in the air, forcing Jared to reach up to catch it.

  Jared twisted the end of the joint tightly, then leaned back and lit it, letting the paper scorch for a moment before he inhaled deeply. And exhaled messily.

  “Won’t people care that you’re not downstairs?” Jared asked as he passed the joint. “Not that I’m complaining, by the way.”

  “Nah. Wallace has it covered.”

  “I like that guy a lot.”

  “Everyone likes the underdog,” Adam said and brought the joint to his lips.

  “Harsh, man.”

  “But it’s true. Chris represents everything that people—our parents and grandparents—worked so hard to keep out of the school. He’s black, his family hasn’t been here since 1790 like everyone else’s, and he got here on his own merit. He’s charismatic and fun, and people like him. He grows great weed.”

  Adam passed the joint back and pulled open the long, thin drawer in the coffee table to find an ashtray.

  “Why does Clare call him Chris?”

  “’Cause that’s his fucking name, dude,” Adam said, laughing.

  “But everyone calls him Biggie.”

  “It’s a nickname. You’re under no obligation to use it. Call him Chris if you like. He won’t care.”

  “No,” Jared said. “You’re not getting it. It’s not about what I call him, it’s about what Clare calls him. And why.”

  Adam grinned. “You see it too.”

  “Am I the only one? Seriously?”

  “Nah, there’s been shit going down between Wallace and Clare for years. I don’t know what it is because I don’t ask. There’s no point. They wouldn’t tell me anyway, and they’d only get pissed that I asked. It’s their shit to figure out. Let them at it.”

  “Ryder?”

  “Dumb bitch. Here ’cause she’s from the right family, not because she’s got any brains.”

  “Mia?”

  “Are you seriously going to make me psychoanalyze all my friends?” Adam asked.

  “Only if you want to.”

  “All right. Mia doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. She’s smart, and she got involved with the right people at the right time. Clare’s carrying her through this school, and they both know it.”

  “So you’re saying not to trust her.”

  “Don’t trust anyone,” Adam said seriously.

  “Not even you?”

  “Especially not me.”

  Chapter 5

  The party started to wind down around three in the morning, when the noise from downstairs ebbed and the cars around the house growled to life.

  “I’m blocking someone in,” Jared said, remembering. He’d kicked his shoes off to tuck his feet up on the couch, and he was pleasantly buzzed from the whiskey and weed.

  “Which one?”

  Jared snorted. “The fucking pink Caddy.”

  “That’s Wallace’s ride. You’re all right.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Fuck, no. And that’s not any pink Caddy, dude. That’s Elvis’s pink Cadillac.”

  “Bullshit,” Jared said. “That’s at Graceland. I’ve seen it.”

  “Nah, he had a fleet of them. Wrecked a couple, too. Someone bought one of the wrecks, paid a shitload of money to fix it up, then sold it. Wallace has the papers and everything. Elvis motherfuckin’ Presley owned that vehicle.”

  “You want it,” Jared said with a grin.

  “Oh, hell yeah. That’s a money-can’t-buy ride, you know? Trust me, I’ve tried. Chris won’t sell.”

  Jared nodded. “Will he crash here tonight, then?”

  “Yeah. A few people usually do. There’s
a couple of guest rooms, and they’ll argue over those and who has to sleep on the couch. No one will come over here, though.”

  If there was an offer in his words Jared couldn’t hear it. His brain was foggy with drugs, and he was tired. Bone tired.

  “I’m gonna go,” Jared said, hauling himself to his feet with extreme effort.

  “No, you’re not. Stay here.”

  “I can’t, man.”

  “I can’t let you drive,” Adam countered. “You’re drunk and high. It would be… irresponsible of me.” Sarcasm laced his words, but they were delivered with a lazy grin.

  “All right,” Jared acquiesced. “Where’s the linen closet? I’ll grab a couple of blankets.”

  Adam rolled to his feet and flicked off the TV, then stretched his arms over his head until something popped. “Fuck it, I can’t be bothered to go and find shit for you. Just sleep in with me.”

  “Nuh-uh. People will think we had sex.”

  “So fucking what?”

  “I’m not going to have sex with you,” Jared said, leaning against the arm of the couch.

  Adam shrugged. “Your loss. I’m not in the mood to fuck right now anyway. I just want to go to sleep.”

  For a moment Jared wondered whether he should be offended. There was something in the look Adam was giving him he didn’t know how to interpret, but he was too tired and too high to think about it in any depth.

  “Okay,” Jared said after a moment, and followed Adam through to his cavernous bedroom.

  He hovered on the middle step down into the room as Adam went to a dresser and started throwing things around. Eventually a pair of plaid pajama pants and a light gray T-shirt landed in his arms, and Adam nodded to the bathroom.

  “There should be spare toothbrushes in the cabinet.”

  “Does this happen often, then?”

  Adam smirked lazily, and didn’t answer.

  Feeling like a dick, Jared went into the bathroom and quickly changed into the pajamas. While brushing his teeth with one of the spare toothbrushes, he regarded his bloodshot eyes and sallow skin.

  Weed was not a good look on him.

  When he was done, he swapped with Adam, then sat on the end of the bed and waited until Adam was finished in the bathroom. He re-emerged wearing a pair of black pajama pants with glow-in-the-dark stars printed on them and a black T-shirt. He looked irrationally good, especially with his hair mussed, his eyes tired.

  “Do you have a side?”

  “Yeah. Right.” Adam pointed to the side of the bed with an alarm clock.

  It was weird. So weird. All of a sudden there was expectation between them, even though Jared was pretty sure he couldn’t be more explicit than he’d already been that sex was not in the cards. There was something in the way Adam looked at him. It was a little lust, a little of the entitled attitude that was surprisingly hot.

  Jared crawled into the other side of the bed while Adam turned the lights off, then joined him in bed. They were lying comically far apart, the gulf between them feeling like more than the distance of a king-sized bed.

  For a few minutes Jared concentrated on deep, even breaths, trying to send himself off to sleep as quickly as possible.

  “Hey, Jared?”

  He screwed his eyes shut. “Yeah?”

  It was funny how, really, Adam could have been asking anything, but Jared knew exactly what he wanted. With a gnawing feeling in his stomach, Jared rolled over to face Adam.

  In the dark room he could just make out Adam’s fine features and how he’d pillowed both hands under his cheek. It was a startlingly intimate, almost childish gesture. After a week of constantly being on edge, wondering what the fuck Clare was up to and how Adam played into that, suddenly all the walls were down. They were just two men. Lying in bed together.

  Adam reached out tentatively and touched Jared’s cheek. When Jared didn’t move, he crept his hand up and rubbed his thumb over the seam of Jared’s lips. It was so very, very gentle, completely at odds with what Jared expected.

  Going on instinct and nothing else, Jared caught the pad of Adam’s thumb between his lips and kissed it. As if that was the signal Adam had been waiting for, he pulled the hand away and wrapped it around Jared’s neck, then leaned in to fit their mouths together.

  The angle was awkward even though the kiss was nice, and Jared wanted more. He shifted forward, responding immediately when Adam nudged him onto his back. When Adam pressed his knee between both of Jared’s, he let it happen. Adam might have been leading, but Jared was complicit in every movement.

  It felt good, goddamnit, good to be kissed like this, to be wanted. They might have been fully dressed, their bodies hidden beneath layers of fabric and a heavy down comforter, but simmering desire couldn’t be contained that easily.

  “I want,” Adam murmured and kissed down the side of Jared’s neck. “I want.”

  “Me too.”

  Jared slid his hand down Adam’s back, then molded the gentle curve of Adam’s ass. It was perfect, full and round, easily squeezed and used as leverage to pull Adam’s hips down. Closer. Yes.

  Adam trailed his hand down Jared’s side, hooking into the waistband of the pajama pants and tugging a little.

  “Can I…?” he asked.

  Jared licked, kissed, and nibbled up the side of Adam’s jaw. “Tonight? No.”

  Adam laughed once, softly, and pressed his forehead to Jared’s shoulder. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Fuck.”

  Before rolling away, Adam kissed Jared once again. They ended up on their backs, purposefully not touching. Adam’s forearm was thrown over his face. Two hard, frustrated cocks were contained in cotton prisons.

  “I know….” Adam started, then sighed. “I know we don’t have to fuck. But damn, I want you. And if I start something, I want to be able to finish it.”

  “Finish it yourself,” Jared said without venom.

  “Exactly my point. If I’m hungry, I could eat a banana or a Big Mac. Both would make me not hungry, but let’s face it, I only really want the Big Mac.”

  “Did you just compare a blow job to a banana?” Jared asked, rolling onto his back and throwing one arm over his head.

  Adam laughed, a bright, genuine sound. “Yeah. I did.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to Jared’s, then shifted back to his side of the bed.

  Feeling more than a little sympathetic, Jared copied the action, rolling onto his side, and tried not to think about how desperately horny one kiss had left him.

  Chapter 6

  In the morning Jared woke first, a little confused to find himself in bed with the one guy he’d vowed not to have sex with. Not that they’d had sex. But he was pretty sure people were going to think they had.

  His bladder was protesting, forcing Jared out of the comfortable bed far sooner than he would have liked. He maneuvered himself out from under the blankets carefully, not wanting to wake Adam if he could help it, and crept to the bathroom.

  It was hard to piss through morning wood, but he got there in the end. In the cabinet under the sink Jared found Tylenol and took two with a mouthful of ice-cold water to try and chase his lingering headache away.

  Not wanting to deal with Adam yet, Jared moved silently through the wing of the house Adam presided over, to the games room and the secret staircase. The panel was still open, and Jared was curious enough to go down the steps, wondering where they’d lead.

  Halfway down he caught the smell of something cooking and wondered who was awake already. At the bottom of the stairs, a door was slightly ajar, and Jared smiled to himself when he pushed through it into a pantry.

  In the kitchen, Chris was at the stove dressed in last night’s clothes, dancing to music only he could hear.

  “Morning,” Jared said.

  Chris looked over his shoulder, blatantly clocked that Jared was wearing Adam’s nightwear, then grinned. “Pull up a seat,” he said. “Food will be ready in a minute. Girls are on their w
ay down.”

  “What happened down here?” Jared asked, looking around. He’d been expecting to walk into a war zone. There had to have been close to a hundred people in the house the night before, and there’d been a lot of mess when he’d gone upstairs with Adam. Now it was spotless, apart from the debris of Chris’s breakfast-making efforts.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s… clean.”

  “Adam has an agreement with a cleaning company. Someone calls them—usually me—once the party winds down, and they let themselves in to clean up. By morning you wouldn’t even know anything had happened.”

  “That’s efficient.”

  “Yeah.” Chris laughed. “You didn’t think Adam was going to clean this place up himself? Oh, hell, no. Kid hasn’t ever had to wipe his own ass, let alone a surface.”

  “There’s a mental image,” Clare said, strolling into the kitchen in designer loungewear, hair, skin, and makeup flawless. “Coffee?”

  “It’s in the pot,” Chris said. “You can make it yourself, girl. I ain’t no maid.”

  “Nah, you’re the chef,” she said with a grin and helped herself to fresh coffee from the pot that was brewing. “Jared? Want one?”

  “Sure,” he said. Not wanting to take advantage of Clare’s sudden good mood, he hopped down from his seat and crossed the kitchen to take the mug from her. There was milk in the fridge, which confused him, as he was pretty sure there hadn’t been any there the night before.

  The rest of the girls and a couple of people Jared vaguely recognized from school filed into the kitchen, probably lured there by the smell of frying bacon.

  “Interesting,” Clare said softly, leaning against the counter next to the stove with her mug cradled to her chest. Jared would have ignored her, but the word was definitely directed at him. He raised an eyebrow in response. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “You just appear to be wearing someone else’s pajamas.”

  Jared felt the blush rise to his cheeks even as he tried to fight it back. “I didn’t fuck him,” he said, not checking to see if anyone else was watching the exchange. At Clare’s pointed look, he rolled his eyes and added, “He didn’t fuck me, either.”