That is going to leave a nasty bump in the morning, but I’ve had worse. Since there’s no ringing or spots in my vision, I’m ninety percent sure I don’t have to worry about a concussion, so I can fake my way to being okay enough to get through this and at least cash in my V card.

  “Oh, shit!” Stan exclaims when he helps me roll over onto my back. I’m sure my face is super red with how embarrassed I am right now.

  Hurriedly, he helps me get my pants back up since my left wrist is starting to swell up a bit. It doesn’t feel like a break, but I probably sprained it. I’ll ice it when I get back to the dorm and it will be fine.

  “SPENCER! ELI!” Stan starts yelling for some of the other guys I know that live in the house once he’s sure I’m covered again.

  The door bangs open and four people pour into the room. I recognize Spencer because he is Lucky’s boyfriend. Eli was introduced to me earlier as Lucky’s uncle, and there is enough of a family resemblance that I can pick him out. Obviously, I can recognize my own roommate who drove us both over here. The fourth person is the woman I saw Jesse come up here with earlier.

  “What the hell, Stan? Are you trying to kill our friends in my room before I finish clearing it out?”

  It takes me a second to recognize the voice belonging to Eric – Professor Barnes’ partner and someone from a memory that is best left in the past. So, why did Jesse go upstairs with Eric earlier?

  “Daddy, what’s wrong with Sta…ah…”

  Lucky pushes his way past the people still standing in the doorway and suddenly faints. Spencer and Eli are quick to grab him before he hits the ground. I’m so confused. I reach up to wipe the sweat from my brow – being embarrassed gives me hot flashes apparently. When I pull my hand away from my face, I realize why everyone is freaking out like they are.

  Okay, so maybe a trip to the ER for some stitches on the way home isn’t out of the question. I guess I can get them to do an X-ray on my wrist while they’re at it. Not my first rodeo.

  JESSE’S DIARY

  HALLOWEEN CATASTROPHE

  I am never letting Sid out of my sight again. Fuck I wish I could do that for real. Tonight was amazing right up until it wasn’t. When Sid asked me to be his date to the Halloween party at Kink Manor, I thought: This is it. This was gonna be my chance to confess to him and stop playing this walking on eggshells game that we’ve been doing for the last two months. He gets trapped in his routines so much that it was nice to see him having fun and laughing for a change.

  Oh, God. That laugh. I want to hear more of it. So far, I’ve only managed to get him to chuckle at most. But Lucky and that Stan guy? They got him into a full belly laugh where he was gasping for air.

  Fuck that Stan guy, tho.

  Not really. He’s gotta be a decent person if he’s moving into Kink Manor.

  And it’s not his fault for noticing Sid. I wish I could fucking claim him as mine already, but he’s not… yet. So I can’t fault Stan for shooting his shot.

  I can admit the guy is attractive, but after the Justin date, I wouldn’t have thought Sid would go for someone like him. I didn’t even realize they disappeared upstairs until Eric told me where they went. Eric had pulled me aside earlier in the night to basically threaten me into not hurting Sid because of something from their past. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but is Eric more his type? I don’t look good in drag, but I’m willing to try if it means I can have Sid fall for me.

  Hell, I would do anything at this point to avoid him ending up in the hospital again. I swear my fucking life was flashing before my eyes on the entire drive there. One of the nurses even joked at one point that if it wasn’t for the fact that Sid was the one bleeding, they would have thought I was the one needing medical attention. I’m glad someone found it funny because I was damn near having a heart attack.

  23! 23 stitches! Plus a sprained wrist that he needs to keep in a brace for the next two weeks… All because Stan couldn’t fucking keep it in his pants.

  CHAPTER 11

  GAG ME

  Work sucks with a busted wrist because I am forced to stay at the register. At least I no longer have to deal with Jessica – the passive aggressive bigot. Don fired her ass so quick last week after she said the quiet parts out loud in front of his boyfriends. For a second, I thought he was taking her side and getting rid of me because I was having one hell of a time restraining Toby from killing the bitch. He may be small, but he’s feistier than my little sister when Mom tries to get her to wear a dress.

  Now, instead of her bitching and moaning about how the gays and the immigrants are ruining everything, I’m stuck listening to Sylvie drone on and on about how the planetary alignment is the reason why I fell over. It apparently has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was a dumbass who forgot all the lessons from being a toddler when I learned to dress myself. It’s all Mercury’s fault that I got twenty-three stitches.

  “Seems like you could use a break,” Stan says when he walks up to the counter during one of our slow times. Most of the students with morning classes have either already stopped in or are in a class right now, so the only people here are just studying or hanging out until the next sessions start.

  “Oh, I’ll cover the register for you, Sid,” Sylvie chirps and skips over to nudge me with her hip. “Go have fun with your boyfriend.”

  I find it cute that Stan’s cheeks pink up at her teasing while he rubs the back of his neck. I’m pretty sure that his reaction has more to do with the bubbly barista than me, but I bring him back to the little break room next to Don’s office to get away from prying eyes. The Boss-man is out taking the deposit to the bank and the pets are both in class – as well as Lucky. The only one who might come in and gossip is Eric. He sometimes drops by to surprise Professor Barnes when he comes in for his coffee and sandwich after this session ends.

  “So,” he speaks before flopping down on the futon that Don moved in here for us. “I’m heading to the airport in a couple of hours and wanted to check on you after the party the other night. I really didn’t expect our attempt at mutual deflowering to end in a trip to the emergency room and you in a cast.”

  Leave it to the clown to find a way to make my never-ending stream of awkward situations into something comical.

  “You’re coming back after Christmas, right? Maybe we can get together during the break between the semesters since I’m not going home.”

  Stan leans forward while I munch on a protein bar from my backpack. I mean, he’s a good looking guy even if Jesse is quintessentially hotter. But, I would rather shoot for a surety than risk getting shot down. Plus, Jesse and I are starting to become kind of good friends. Seeing him get so rattled at the ER was unexpected, but I like that he’s not always the super macho know-it-all kind of guy like I used to be surrounded by back home. I don’t want to ruin a good thing .

  “I don’t want to mess things up if you’re with someone, though. We are talking like two entire months here, dude. A lot can change.”

  Considering I’ve been trying to find someone to fuck me for the last two months and continue to strike out, I’m pretty sure that I will still be single and a virgin when the New Year rolls around… unless a fucking miracle happens.

  “Well, we can Netflix and actually chill if by some miracle I’m involved with someone cuz I like you, Stan. If nothing else, I want to be your friend. I don’t have a whole lot of those – none back home, in fact. So, you’d be doing me a huge favor.”

  Stan grins and pulls me down onto the futon next to him before giving me another exagerrated eyebrow wiggle.

  “Wanna do me a huge favor?”

  Me: Is there any chance I can use your washing machine upstairs for a clothing emergency?

  Boss-man Don: ???

  Me: bad spill

  Me: can’t really go out looking like this

  Boss-man Don: fine with me.

  Boss-man Don: go up and knock and Shy will show u where it is

  Fuck me, I am absolutely mortified already. And now, I have to face my boss’s other boyfriend while Stan is changing into another outfit in the employee bathroom. I finish tossing the dirty paper towels into the trash right before Stan comes out with his previous outfit tied up in a plastic bag.

  “I promise, I will get this back to you in less than an hour,” I say before snatching it out of his hand and racing up the stairs to knock on the apartment door. It takes less than a minute for Shiloh to answer.

  “Come on in… Woah! What the… Don said you needed the washer, but your clothes are fine. And you should just throw whatever is in that bag in the dumpster out back with how bad it reeks.”

  I can feel my skin flushing as I try to figure out how to respond. I wasn’t expecting him to call me out on my white lie. What the fuck do I do?

  “Speak, Freshman. Or you have to haul that bag of what-the-fuck over to the communal laundromat and deal with the rest of the student body.”

  I mumble it out as quickly as I can, but my words are apparently not clear enough. Shiloh looks angry with me. Everyone says he’s this super sweet and introverted person, but I’ve only ever seen this fierce and strong man since we’ve met.

  “Speak up!”

  “Stan came to say goodbye and we got to talking and he joked about me giving him a blow job to remember me by so I tried to and found out I have a very sensitive gag reflex…”

  Time stops for what feels like eternity while I watch Shiloh process the words that just flew out of my mouth. Is it possible to die from sheer mortification? Because I really think I’m on the right path to having it happen. I don’t want to die a virgin.

  Before I can react, Shiloh throws his arms around me with a bark of laughter. “Oh, you poor thing. And I’m guessing those are Stan’s clothes that need washing?”

  He steps back and I nod sheepishly, causing him to smile wider. Instead of making me feel like an even bigger idiot, he waves me into the apartment and gets the washing machine started for me, even setting it for an extra wash cycle to be safe.

  When I go to head back down to the shop, he pulls me back to sit on the sofa. I’m confused by the quick changes in his demeanor, but I won’t argue with my boss’s partner.

  “I’ll let Don know that your shift is done for the day and tell Stan he can head back to the manor for now. Jay can swing by here on the way to the airport to pick them up or we can just leave them in his room at the manor.”

  I watch the lithe man move gracefully through the kitchen and fully understand why they all call him Kitten. There’s something almost feline in the way he moves sometimes. He bustles around with the Keurig on the counter – which I find hilarious since there is a coffee shop downstairs – and brings me a cup of tea. Oh, that makes more sense.

  “Peppermint should help with both the nerves and the stomach. Not to mention I’m sure your breath is feeling a bit ratchety right now.”

  I take a sip and feel myself start to relax a little bit. In my head, I knew that it was unlikely that he would make fun of me. Unfortunately, my brain tends to fly the coop when my adrenaline spikes after I embarrass myself. I would love to say that my fight or flight instinct is to fight, but I learned real quick once I was off the ice that fighting back only brings more pain. So, when I can’t run away, I brace for the pain.

  “I’m not going to make fun of you, Sid,” Shiloh says when he comes back with his own mug of tea. “I have my own limits that I’ve had to find over the years when it comes to certain activities. Granted, mine are because of trauma, but limits are limits. You are the one who gets to decide what your limits are and if or when they shift and change. For me, I’m working on some with my therapist, now with Don’s help. Others, I don’t see them changing anytime soon.”

  “I don’t know what limits I could even have. I’m still a pathetic virgin,” I mutter into the cup.

  “Well, for one thing, I would say deep throating is definitely a limit for you,” he says with a chuckle. “But you should knock it off with that self deprecating talk. There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, Sid. Everyone was inexperienced at some point. Hell, Profess… er, Matt didn’t even know he was bi until last year. Everything he’s done with Eric has been a new experience for him while they both figure out their limits together.”

  I never would have thought that Professor Barnes and Eric have only been together that short of a period of time. They seem like they’ve known each other forever. And I mean, if someone like Eric is still figuring out his limits, then I guess I really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. I mean, I did meet him last spring when I was in town for my college interview and campus tour.

  Dad went to the hockey game – he still holds out hope that I’ll pick it back up – while I wandered around the city. I ended up walking past a bar that looked like a place that doesn’t check ID to come in the door, so I took a risk. A few people glanced at me when I first came in, but between my lack of visual appeal and the fact that I didn’t even attempt to order alcohol, they didn’t kick me out.

  I was sitting in a booth, watching the television above the bar when Eric slid in across from me. Between his turquoise hair and his incredible makeup, I was transfixed. This little fat gay boy from South Dakota had a bit of an awakening at that moment and hung on every word that fell from his lips. He told me, over many drinks, about how important it is to have family to support you and if your blood relatives are fuckups, then just choose a new family.

  Sitting here now with Shiloh, I understand why he chose the people he did. They were the ones to lift him out of the darkness, both years ago and whatever was haunting him that night we met.

  “Now, I’ll keep the reason you needed the woosher between us, but I can’t speak for Stan. Although, hopefully, by the time Christmas rolls around, it won’t be such a sore spot,” Shiloh tells me after setting his phone on the coffee table.

  JESSE’S DIARY

  ROAD TRIP

  I don’t know what happened at the coffee shop between the party and now, but Sid turns an adorable shade of pink every time he sees Sylvie or Shiloh. I’m glad the wicked bitch of the west campus was fired, but I hate the fact that Sid picked up the extra shifts. I know he needs the money, but his wrist needs a chance to really heal, and well… I fucking miss him. Thanks to our schedules and how he’s had to adjust his workouts, I don’t get to see him until late most days, and then he spends his time studying.

  Ok, yeah. I should be studying, too. Midterms are coming up and everything. But I wanna TALK to him, not just look at him. We haven’t had any type of real conversation since I brought him back from the ER that night.

  Yesterday, he surprised me by asking me if I can drive him up to where the Juniors team plays up by my home for the Thanksgiving break and bring him back to school after. When I asked him why, he said his brothers were going to be playing there that weekend.

  WTF? I don’t remember him telling me his brothers were playing for the National Juniors team. All he said was his siblings play hockey. There’s a big fucking difference between playing in the top tier Juniors league in the country – on par with the top leagues in Canada – and playing for some rinky dink high school team in the middle of nowhere South Dakota.

  Of course, I told him I would drive him, but now I’m wondering if I should ask Mom if I should just invite him to stay at our house and then get tickets for the games. He hasn’t gone anywhere near the rink on campus and even takes the long way around to avoid going past the athletic building where the better gym is located.

  But, I mean, they’re his brothers. Of course, he’s going to want to watch them play. At least, I think so?

  Ugh, I wish he would just talk to me.

  Fuck it. I’ll buy the tickets. They’re only like ten or fifteen bucks a piece. If he doesn’t want to go, I can give them to my parents for a date night. Now, I just have to ask him if he wants to stay at my place or if he’s going to waste money on a hotel room. Maybe he wants to get away from me… No. Oh, that would suck. Please, universe let him agree to stay at my house.

  CHAPTER 12

  TWIN-TUITION

  When Jesse pulls into the driveway at his house in Youngstown on Thanksgiving morning, we are bombarded by his family – dogs included. While he is fielding all of the greetings and introductions, I am desperately trying to figure out how to escape. One would think that I can handle large families considering I have four younger siblings, but the truth is that both of my parents were only children and all four of my grandparents have passed away. I’m used to the six people I’ve known for my entire life, not… this.

  “Alright, alright. Let the boys breathe,” a woman I am assuming is Jesse’s mother cuts in, slapping people away with a dish towel on her way over to hug her son. “Good to have you home, J-bear. I put the boys in your room since Lizzie came home with a girlfriend this year. I set you and Sid up in the den in the basement to give you boys some privacy from the chaos.”

  Jesse suddenly looks panicked until his mom leans up to whisper something in his ear that has him slumping back against the car in relief. His father helps me grab our bags from the trunk, and I follow him through the garage and into the house. The basement stairs are right next to the door leading to the garage, so it doesn’t take long to get to the room where two queen size air mattresses are laid out on the floor with a folding table and chairs set up in between them.

  “Sorry it’s not as nice as a hotel, but Jess said you wouldn’t mind. I understand if you would rather find a hotel, but we are honestly glad to have you here.”