For Love and Forever (A Collection of Short Stories)

by Sloan Parker

  Rex was into men. Tough, guarded tattoo-artist Rex who everyone fell for.

  And he wanted me.

  Me.

  * * * *

  I gave up on reading the notes from my Fundamentals of Engineering class, grabbed my coffee, and swallowed the last of it. I was practically vibrating with all the extra caffeine. I’d been sitting in the on-campus coffee shop for the past hour, not getting anywhere with my studying and not caring one damn bit.

  When I had first walked inside the place earlier, I told myself I wasn’t there just to wait for him. I had to study somewhere since our dorm was usually too loud at that time of day. Why not combine activities?

  Only I wasn’t getting any studying done. Still, I continued with the pretense, staring at my laptop screen. All I could see was Rex’s face from earlier, the way he looked at me right before he kissed me. I couldn’t get that heated expression out of my head. So for once since I’d met him, I let myself imagine everything we could have together. In his bed. In mine. On the floor. Against the closed door of our room because we couldn’t wait to get our hands on each other. I hadn’t thought about sex with one person that much since the crush I’d had on my American history teacher in high school.

  With that thought, the front door of the coffee shop opened. I glanced up right as Rex entered. He didn’t see me, just stepped up to the counter and ordered a coffee, which he didn’t get in a to-go cup, so he was planning on staying. Like he did every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between his afternoon classes.

  As he turned away from the counter with his coffee in hand, he spotted me. I lifted my chin in a silent hello, and he returned the gesture, starting my way. He grabbed the back of the empty chair across from me, dropped his backpack to the floor, and sat, setting his coffee mug down before him. He didn’t say anything at first, just studied me with that same intensity he’d been looking at me with earlier in our room. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I barely croaked the word out. I cleared my throat. There was something about the moment that felt like a date. A first date, all awkward glances and uncomfortable pauses, neither one of us knowing what to say next.

  Or maybe that was just me. He smiled my way, his entire focus on my face. “Sorry I sprang all that on you this morning.”

  “It’s okay. Why didn’t you tell me before today?”

  “I don’t know. I never talk about it with anyone.”

  “It? That you’re into guys?”

  “Yeah, that, and other stuff. I just knew it was the right time with you.”

  “Why?”

  Rex sat back sharply in the chair as if whatever spell he’d been under was suddenly gone. He took a swallow of his coffee, then returned the mug to the table but kept it clutched in his large hand. “I just couldn’t ignore it any longer.”

  “Ignore what?”

  He looked up at me in surprise. “You know what. You’ve known for a while now. You just didn’t want to see it.”

  I had no idea what he was going on about.

  He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table, which gave the moment a more intimate feel, like it was just the two of us in that coffee shop. “I wasn’t sure what would happen if I made a move. I didn’t know if it was a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  He hesitated and glanced around the place. Was it the idea of saying more in public that bothered him? Or did he not want to say anything period? Or maybe it was something else entirely, because when he spoke again, it was with steady resolve. “I’ve never risked this much to be with anyone.”

  With each new piece of information, I was getting more and more confused. Risked what? Our friendship? People finding out about him? “What are you talking about? What would you be risking?”

  His shocked reaction was immediate. I had said something wrong. Only I had no idea how I’d offended him. Or maybe I’d hurt him. That was if the falling expression on his face was anything to go by. Never in my life had I seen a hard-hitting guy like Rex look so… defeated, so broken. And I’d done that to him. I opened my mouth to speak.

  “Brady,” came a voice from behind me. I turned and found a girl from my computer programming class strolling toward us. “Thank you so much for e-mailing me those notes. You’re a lifesaver.”

  I stood and gave her a nod. “No problem. Glad I could help out.”

  “You have no idea.” She glimpsed Rex over my shoulder, and as it went with everyone who looked his way, the breath momentarily caught in her throat. The second she recovered, though, she flashed him a smile.

  Something unfurled inside me, a jealousy I’d never experienced before. One response ran through my mind: Back off. He’s mine.

  Was he?

  Would he be if we slept together?

  I held back the uncharacteristic possessiveness and chatted with my classmate for a moment more. She offered her thanks again and took off. I turned back to the table. Only… Rex was gone.

  I scanned the coffee shop, but he was nowhere in sight. His backpack no longer sat beside his chair, and his nearly full coffee mug was still on the table before me. I dropped to my seat. He’d taken off.

  What the hell was he doing? He wanted to fuck me, but he couldn’t sit and talk to me for five minutes? Or tell me what was really going on with him? Apparently he’d decided to freak out about his admission, about that kiss, or he’d just plain changed his mind.

  Or maybe it was however the hell I’d hurt his feelings.

  Stunned and fuming, I crammed my laptop into my bag, stood, and headed for the exit. I shoved the door open and stepped into the cool spring air that still lingered after the rainstorm from the night before. I held still for a moment and let the chill in the air cool my heated body, if not my temper.

  Maybe the two of us being more than friends was a fucked-up idea. Maybe just the thought of it was going to totally screw up our friendship.

  Still. He couldn’t just kiss me the way he’d done and then run from it.

  Or maybe that was exactly what I should let him do.

  We only had a month more of living together in the dorm. Neither one of us was planning to stay on campus after that. We’d talked about getting an off-campus apartment together for the next school year, but that wasn’t set in stone. In a month, we could walk away from each other, and I’d never see him again.

  “Fuck this.” Maybe it was the fact that I’d now had a taste of him, but I couldn’t let this go. I wanted answers.

  I scanned the crowd around me on the sidewalk. Most of the people were students, likely on their way to class. I spotted Rex in the next block on the other side of the street near the Social Sciences building, moving at a quick clip in the opposite direction of our dorm. I gave chase.

  I was out of breath when I finally reached him. I grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to a stop. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why’d you just leave like that?”

  He kept on staring straight ahead. “Brady, just let it go.”

  “Let what go?”

  “What happened today.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” I stepped around him and got in his face, waiting until he looked my way. “You kissed me.”

  He glanced around at the people moving past us.

  “They don’t give a fuck what we did,” I snapped at him. “Or what we’re going to do.” I couldn’t help but hint that I wanted more, a hell of a lot more.

  “I know that.” His jaw clenched with anger. He was pissed? Although his next words were spoken in a calmer, almost miserable tone. “It’s not them I’m worried about.”

  “Then what is it?”

  He looked right at me. “It’s you.” Then, without another word of explanation, he stalked off.

  Me?

  I rushed after him. He must’ve known I was trailing behind him. At the last possible second, he turned right and ducked into a side door of the Social Sciences building. I followed him inside, but by the time I was through the vestibule and had th
e inside door open, Rex was halfway down the empty narrow hall.

  “Rex,” I called out as I raced after him.

  He kept on going.

  “Goddammit, Rex. Please stop.”

  That time he did. He kept his back to me until I was at his side.

  “Can’t we talk about this?” When he didn’t respond, I took that to be a positive sign. I glanced around and spotted an open classroom door down the hall. I tilted my head toward it. “Come on.” Taking a chance, I led the way and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard him follow.

  Once he stepped inside the empty room, I shut the door behind him and dropped my backpack onto the instructor’s desk near the front of the room. He did the same, not even looking my way as he moved past me. The open room was set up for lectures, accommodating maybe fifty students, with rows of individual seats situated on built-in carpeted risers. Windows covered the far wall of the room next to the desks. Luckily the shades were drawn closed. I didn’t want to have this discussion in front of the entire courtyard. Although one of the windows was still open a crack, letting in the chatter and shuffle of students rushing by. I ignored the world outside those four walls and went to him where he stood facing the risers, just staring off at row after row of empty seats, his solid arms folded across his chest.

  He spoke without looking my way. “How many guys have you been with?”

  The question startled me, had me feeling even more off-kilter. “What?”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”

  He scoffed as if that had confirmed something for him.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “You don’t share much about that part of your life. I’ve had to draw my own conclusions.”

  “And what did you come up with?”

  He shook his head. “Forget it.”

  Hardly. Did he think I slept with everyone who came on to me? Or was he wondering if I was really gay? Which was worth a laugh. Although he’d never actually seen me with a guy, and it wasn’t like I told him every time I hooked up with someone. Maybe he wanted proof. Wasn’t that kiss back at our dorm room enough? Wasn’t the way I felt about him obvious?

  Or maybe there was another reason behind the question.

  I thought about pushing him, forcing him to just come out and say what he really wanted to know, but then it hit me. Maybe talking wasn’t the answer. I moved into his line of sight, studied his hard expression for a moment. Decision made, I leaned in.

  He jerked back a step. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think?”

  He had that broken, wounded look in his eyes again. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  When he didn’t respond, I moved into his space again, slower than before but with as much determination. He didn’t stop me that time. If he really wanted to, he could lay me out with one punch.

  I slipped my hands around his nape and tugged him forward. Our lips met, and at first Rex tensed under the touch. Maybe this was a very bad idea. Then all at once, he took possession of the moment, planting his hands at my waist and practically lifting me off the ground as he spun us around and backed me to the wall at the front of the classroom. He raised my hands over my head and held them there while he fed me the best damn kiss I’d ever had. His fingers slid between mine so he was holding my hands as he kept them pinned to the wall above my head. Something about the restraint of his hold, about giving myself over to him, felt liberating. I grasped his hands in return.

  The kiss went on and on, Rex clutching my hands in his. When he finally pulled back, I sucked in a sharp breath as he dipped his head and kissed a path down my throat, then licked a line up the other side. He breathed deep as he swept his lips along my flesh, his stubble tickling my sensitive skin in a delicious way. “God, you smell so good.” He nibbled up the outer edge of my ear and whispered, “I want you.”

  “Oh God.” Rex taking me right there up against the wall in that empty classroom sounded hot as hell.

  But then, with unexpected suddenness, he let go and backed away from me, shaking his head as he went, his gaze focused on the expanding stretch of floor between us.

  The immediate loss of his strong hold, of his body against mine had my head spinning. “What’s wrong?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. He raised two fingers to his mouth and ran them over his lower lip, his hand trembling. His breath came in short, ragged exhales. “I have to go.”

  “What? Why?”

  He stood there like he was made of stone, like moving one more inch—forward or back—might just kill him. There was no denying how much he wanted to be with me. After all, he was the one who started all this that morning. Then why was he fighting it? I could think of only one reason.

  “Rex, who hurt you?”

  His jaw twitched as he clenched it shut. He kept his stare aimed at the floor. Finally he said, “I have to go.” He was kind enough to meet my stare before he did. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sure.” What could I say? Don’t go? Beg him not to walk away until he talked to me? Not to go without plastering me to the wall and giving me another one of those spellbinding kisses?

  Rex retrieved his bag and had the classroom door open and shut again in a flash, and he was gone. I stood there with my back against the wall and stared out at all those empty seats, wondering how many times I could take watching him walk away from me after having him in my arms like that.

  * * * *

  Seven hours later I sat alone in our dorm room, still confused as hell, sick at the thought that this might be the end of things between us, the end of our friendship and any chance of more. I hadn’t seen one sign of Rex since the classroom in the Social Sciences building, and I was getting angrier by the hour. I glanced at the clock beside my bed. It was after ten p.m. His classes were done at five.

  We sometimes did our own thing on Friday nights, but he never just took off right after class, not even dropping off his backpack before heading out. And tonight we were supposed to go to a party at an off-campus house with a group of guys from our dorm.

  A knock sounded on the door. Speaking of which… I closed the lid on my laptop, got up, and grabbed my coat. I turned off the overhead lights as I swung open the door.

  Snyder stood in the hall with his roommate and three other guys. “You ready?”

  Was I? I glanced back into the dark room behind me.

  “Come on,” Snyder said. “Don’t even think of saying you have to study.”

  “No, I’m coming.” As I closed the door to our room, I tried to tell myself I was only going because I had promised I’d hit this party with the guys, and I hated when friends bailed on each other like that, not that it had anything to do with avoiding Rex.

  Right.

  Snyder was watching me out of the corner of his eye as if he knew something was up. “Rex said he’d meet us there.”

  I jerked to a stop in the middle of the hall. The other guys kept on going for the staircase, but Snyder paused beside me.

  “You talked to him?”

  “He texted me an hour ago.”

  “Where’s he at?”

  “I don’t know. Just said he’d see us there later. Everything okay between you two?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” I brushed it off with a shrug. “Everything’s fine.” Was it? Rex was coming to the party. Did I even want to see him at that point?

  Yeah, I did. So much more than I wanted to admit, even to myself. I desperately needed to understand what he’d been trying to say earlier. I needed to find out why he kept walking out when things were just getting good between us.

  And no matter what, I needed to tell him what I was feeling for him, what I had been feeling for a long time.

  * * * *

  The crowd was getting more drunk and horny by the hour. I was tired of nameless girls coming up to me and not saying much of anything before they were all over me. Most of them had to k
now I was gay, but they still gave it a try, probably hoping I swung both ways.

  It was after midnight, and Rex was nowhere in sight. Apparently he was going for a degree in avoidance. The part of me that had been pissed off since our classroom encounter was now taking the reins.

  I ducked out of the action on the first floor as soon as I could manage and headed upstairs. Almost all the doors to the bedrooms were closed, and as I walked by I could hear the low groans, the wet kisses, the squeak of the mattresses. At least a few of my fellow classmates were having a good time.

  I leaned against the wall beside the only open door, debating whether I should step inside and lock the door behind me, fake myself a hookup to avoid having to go back downstairs.

  I was being a coward hiding up there. I knew it, but I didn’t give a fuck. I wasn’t sure if I could handle facing Rex just yet. I was still trying to work through what I’d say to him.

  I dropped my head forward and stared at the dingy hallway carpeting. How many college students had trudged over that carpet during the past year? Which got me wondering… How many guys had Rex been with since we’d started school almost two years earlier? And all the while I’d had no idea.

  My eyes fell shut, and I was back in our room that morning, back to that moment he told me he wanted to fuck me, to that earth-shattering kiss. I mentally ran through the same sexual scenarios as I had in the coffee shop earlier. Only this time, every moment with Rex was more intense, more intimate. We were naked and on his bed, and he was kissing me again, touching me everywhere, worshipping my body. It was everything I wanted with him.

  I breathed deep as I pictured him leaning over me, licking his bottom lip like he’d done in our room that morning before he’d left, then dipping his head down and taking my cock between his wet, warm lips. Had he ever sucked a guy off? Or did he just fuck? I’d been with a couple of guys who claimed to be straight but wanted my ass anyway. Only, that’s all they wanted. No other touching, no sucking. What was Rex like in bed with men?

  I wanted more than anything to find out.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Brady, you up here?”

  I jerked my head up and forced my thoughts out of the fantasy. “Yeah.”