Blame It On The Mistletoe

From Dreamspinner Press

Superhero

Puzzle Me This

The Trouble With Tony (Sex in Seattle #1)

The Enlightenment of Daniel (Sex in Seattle #2)

A Prairie Dog’s Love Song

From Torquere Press

Before I Wake

From the m/m romance group on goodreads

The Lion and the Crow

www.elieaston.com

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PIRATE THIS BOOK.

“OH, look!” Fielding said. “They have a new latte flavor—‘Santa’s
Death by Peppermint.’ I’m getting that.”

It was the second of December, and we were waiting in line at

The  Coffee  Clatch.  The  campus  coffee  joint  was  bedecked  and
bedazzled  with  holiday  spirit  including  colored  mini-lights,  tiny,  fuzzy
Santa  hats  on  all  the  espresso  machine  handles,  and  displays  of  giant
holiday  cookies.  Great.  Fielding  would  be  bouncing  off  the  walls  on  a
sugar high all month long.

“Do you have any idea how many calories are probably in that

latte?” I asked. It was more or less a hypothetical question.

“Lots and lots,” Fielding answered enthusiastically. “Oooh!

Cookies!-”

I was about to get more serious about my anti-sugar lecture when

someone  pressed  into  my  back.  By  the  feel  of  the  soft  curves  along  my
spine, that someone was female. Normally that would have been a good
thing, but I wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment, and I didn’t care to be
groped  in  a  coffee  shop  while  trying  to  talk  to  my  best  friend.  More  to
the  point,  before  I’d  had  my  morning  pick-me-up.  A  little  annoyed,  I
turned to see who it was.

A slim blonde in blue eye shadow and a tight pink sweater

smiled up at me. She put her hand on my arm.

“Hey, Mick,” she gushed. “Long time no see.”

I recognized her, despite the lack of a perky red and white

uniform. It was Regina, a Cornell football cheerleader. Had we ever
messed around? I had to actually think about it. But no, we hadn’t.
Regina had been into Dylan McDermont when I was on the team. But the
appreciative look in her eyes made it clear that Dylan was now buried in
the Cemetery of Abandoned Interests. Probably right next to subtlety.

“Hey, Regina. Uh… this is my housemate, Fielding.”

“Hello,” Fielding said.

Regina gave Fielding a quick once-over and a polite hello before

she turned her attention back to lucky me.

“I can’t believe you quit the team!” Regina put on a cute little

pout. “The girls were just chatting the other day about how much we
miss seeing your fine ass out on the field.”

What do you say to something like that? Why yes, I do have a

fine ass, thanks for noticing? or Maybe you and my ass can work out
another arrangement?

I went with, “I decided I needed to focus on my studies.”

“Well, you are missed! I was hoping to get to know you better. In

fact, the girls were just talking about you at dinner the other night. There
seems to be a general consensus that…” Regina paused, looking coy. “…
that you’re the best kisser on campus.”

A surprised huff escaped me. It sounded appropriately dubious.

“I was sort of hoping I’d get a chance to test that theory for

myself.” Regina blushed prettily at her own boldness and slid her hand
from my arm to my chest.

Man. As a freshman, I would have been all over that. I’d have

been  thanking  my  lucky  stars,  and  my  insides  would  have  been
auditioning  for  Riverdance.  Regina  was  cute  and  enthusiastic,  and  that
sweater showed off her C cups to perfection. But getting girls had never
been an issue for me. I inherited dirty blond hair and blue eyes from my
mom  and  a  rough,  somewhat  lumpy  face  from  my  dad.  I’d  been  told  I
looked  like  Daniel  Craig.  I  didn’t  get  the  appeal,  but  I  wasn’t  exactly
sorry for it. Still, by my junior year of high school, getting girls became
less of an issue than getting rid of them. And Regina was setting off big

red warning lights in my head.

“Sorry, I’m seeing someone,” I said, giving Regina a regretful

smile. “But it was really great running into you. Say hi to the other girls
for me.”

The people in front of us moved, and we were up to place our

order. Thank the god of awkward moments.

It was a decent enough day considering that it was December in

Ithaca, New York, so we took our drinks outside and sat at the fountain. I
had my usual hot green tea with soy milk. Fielding had ignored my
warning and gotten his sweet Santa sludge. I’d learned to pick my
battles, and I let go of this one. I was double-majoring in Nutrition and
Physical Therapy, and I took healthy eating very seriously. But Fielding
looked too happy for me to be a Scrooge about a little holiday treat.

“Why’d you tell Regina you were seeing someone?” Fielding

asked, as soon as we sat down.

Inwardly, I sighed. I’d had a feeling I wouldn’t get out of that

encounter unscathed. “It’s called a little white lie, Bud. The truth would
have been rude: I’m not interested, buzz off.”

“Ah! I see.” Fielding smirked. “Away with thee, thou silver-

tongued succubus.”

I laughed. “Piss off, oh ye of the cleavage-which-shall-not-be-

touched.”

Fielding chuckled, a low hearty rumble that made me grin. My

science  geek  housemate  hadn’t  grown  up  with  a  lot  of  laughter.  But
Fielding  laughed  now.  He  did  a  lot  of  things  now  that  he  hadn’t  when
we’d  first  moved  in  together.  I  felt  pretty  damn  good  about  that,
peppermint lattes notwithstanding.

“But why should her cleavage not be touched?”

I shrugged. “Been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt.”

Fielding blinked at me, a frown of confusion on his brow. “You

slept with her? But she said she wanted to test the theory about your—”

Damn. Fielding missed nothing.

“I didn’t sleep with her. Girls like her.” And really, having a

thing with three members of the Cornell football cheerleading squad was
more than enough for any man. More than that, and I’d seriously have to
seek counseling.

Fielding still looked puzzled. “So when you say ‘I’m seeing

someone,’ and you really aren’t, is that the equivalent of saying ‘Let’s
just be friends’? That’s the common brush-off, isn’t it?”

He said it with a bit of a blush, like maybe he’d heard that once

or twice before, himself. And, wow, that kind of made me feel like a
heel for what I’d just done to Regina.

“I guess. So, um, anyway, you have a late lab tonight?” I asked,

artfully changing the subject.

“It’s Tuesday,” Fielding said dryly, as if I should have his

schedule memorized. I did, but any port in a storm.

“Right. There are still two servings of that chicken casserole you

like in the freezer. So I’ll plan on dinner around seven, then. Okay?”

I tried to catch Fielding’s eyes to get a confirmation of that, or at

least a sign that he’d heard me. It was not unusual for the things I said to
go in one ear, get lost in the vast contortions of Fielding’s massive
intellect, and never make it to central processing. But Fielding wasn’t
gazing off into space, mind on some physics problem or another. No, he
was looking at me. More specifically, Fielding was looking at my mouth.
He was intently looking at my mouth, a frown of concentration furrowing
his brow. He sucked on his bottom lip.

Christ. Something hot rolled over in my stomach. It felt like

uneasiness that maybe shared a condo wall with terror. And maybe
arousal lived a couple of doors down. It was not a good feeling. I took a
hasty drink of green tea, trying to hide my mouth from Fielding’s gaze. It
also kept me from screaming like a little girl.

Covering up my mouth seemed to work, because Fielding broke

off staring at it and met my gaze instead. There was a light in his eyes
that I didn’t care for at all. When Fielding’s eyes said Eureka!,
civilizations crumbled and gods wept.

“Bye,” Fielding said abruptly. He pulled on his backpack and

FIELDING  Monroe. You  have  to  have  a  substantial  personality  to  pull
off a name like that. And he does. Fielding is my best friend, all around
genius,  the  weirdest  person  I  know—in  a  good  way—and  also  my  one
and  only  housemate.  But  it  almost  didn’t  happen,  thanks  to  Fielding’s
mother.

I met them back in August, a week before classes were set to

start.  I’d  put  up  notices  on  campus,  and  I  was  interviewing  housemate
candidates that day. See, my football pal Connor had graduated in June,
and he’d offered me first dibs on his rental. It wasn’t easy to find places
like  his  at  Cornell.  It  was  a  small  house  within  walking  distance  of
campus with three bedrooms and one bath. I was a junior, and I was sick
of living in the dorms. They were loud and smelly. And even though I’d
decided  not  to  play  football  after  my  sophomore  season,  I  was  still  in
with  the  football  player  crowd.  Someone  was  always  banging  on  my
door wanting to hang out, play video games, or get drunk. Worse, I was
like a sitting duck for girls. They all knew where to find me. It was like a
“Mick  Lives  Here”  sign  in  neon,  with  a  big  penis-shaped  arrow,  was
pumping away over my dorm, day and night. That might sound great, but I
had a lot of tough classes in my dual major—tough science classes like
physics, anatomy, physiology, and statistics. I had to work my ass off to
pass them. The constant interruptions were killing me.

So I jumped at the chance to lease Connor’s place. It was a bit

scary when I signed the contract, though. My parents do what they can to
help, but my dad is a real estate agent and my mom’s a nurse. I have a
younger sister too. So my folks couldn’t afford to put me through Cornell.
I worked two jobs, got student loans, and… housemates. With two

housemates, living in Connor’s old house would be only a little more
expensive than staying in the dorms.

But I hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to find good

housemates. I’d avoided telling any of my football friends about it since
that would sort of negate the whole point. Advertising on bulletin boards
had thus far brought in party hounds, bad financial risks, and douchebags.
One guy said up front that he might be ‘ever so slightly late’ on the rent
from time to time, as if I could afford to carry him. Another had come in
with three of his massive buddies, and they talked about what great
parties they could have there. And two had been girls, even though I’d
specifically put male only on the notices.

Reading comprehension, people. It’s sad, really.

By that afternoon, I was getting pretty freaked out about the

situation. I was thinking about the prospect of living on Costco beans and
rice all year when there was a knock on the front door. I opened it, and
an older woman entered the house. She had a notebook in one hand and a
purse dangling off the wrist of the other. She wore a pained expression
that said she had low expectations of finding anything she liked on the
premises. She appeared to be in her forties, thin, and rather nun-ish
looking, even without the wimple.

“I’m Mrs. Monroe.” She held out the arm with a dangling purse

for a limp press of flesh. “I’m here about the room.”

I sighed. “Sorry, but I’m looking for a student. A male student.”

She shot me a withering look as if I’d managed to disprove

Darwin’s theory single-handedly. “It’s not for me, it’s for my son.”

“Oh.”

Without asking permission, Mrs. Monroe pushed past me to look

over the kitchen and the living room. Her face remained blank and yet
strangely judgmental. “Which bedroom would be his?”

I figured I’d just show her around and get it over with. So I led

her down a hallway and opened a door on the bigger of the two spare
rooms. It had a double bed and small dresser that had come with the
house. She walked in, looked around, opened the accordion doors to the
closet, and sniffed.

I sniffed. I didn’t smell anything.

I turned my back on her, indulged in rolling my eyes, and went

back  into  the  living  room.  I  plopped  down  on  a  chair  and  picked  up  a
magazine.  I  heard  her  rummaging  around  in  the  drawers  in  the  shared
bathroom—drawers that held my toothbrush and razor and stuff. I gritted
my  teeth.  I  had  a  box  of  condoms  too,  but  they  were  in  my  bedroom
closet. I suddenly wished I’d put them in the bathroom, maybe with some
nipple  clamps  and  fuzzy  handcuffs.  I’d  never  owned  such  things,  but  I
suddenly wished I did.

I was smiling at the mental image of Mrs. Monroe running in

terror when she walked back into the living room.

I put down the magazine, expecting to show her out, but Mrs.

Monroe sat down in a chair near the sofa. She brushed some invisible
crumbs off the arm, then settled herself as if she planned to stay awhile.
She put her purse on the floor and poised a pencil over that notepad of
hers.

“Your name?” she asked perfunctorily.

I stared at her. “Mick Colman.”

She wrote it down. “And how many people would be living here

besides yourself and my son, Mick?”

“Uh… I have two rooms for rent.”

She looked me over from head to toe as if assessing my moral

fiber  or  perhaps  looking  for  signs  of  a  communicable  disease.  She
seemed  to  reach  a  decision.  “My  son,  Fielding,  is  a  very  special  boy.
He’s  highly  intelligent  but  a  little  absentminded.  I  can’t  have  him  in  a
house where there’s partying—alcohol, drugs, things of that nature. His
studies come first, always. He needs a place with peace and quiet.”

My first instinct was to show her to the door right then. Any guy

whose mother called him ‘a very special boy’ had to be truly scary. On
the other hand, a housemate who did nothing but study all the time
sounded pretty sweet about now.

“Well, Mrs. Monroe, I’m not a member of the religious right or a

teetotaler. But I’m studying nutrition, so I don’t believe in wrecking my
body with a lot of crap. And that includes drugs.”

“Excellent!” Mrs. Monroe made an excited notation in her

notebook. “And sex? Do you have a steady girlfriend who’ll be sharing
the space? Not that I expect you to be a monk, but I don’t want Fielding
exposed to scantily clad women in the bathroom or loud sex noises night
after night. He needs his rest.”

I realized my mouth was hanging open. I closed it with a snap. “I,

uh, don’t plan to have girls here, no.”

That was the new master plan anyway. To avoid the situation I’d

had in the dorms I planned to keep my new habitat very, very secret. So
when I hooked up with girls I’d have to insist on theirs or my car. Come
to think of it, that was an ideal scenario for my future housemate.

Of course, Mrs. Monroe didn’t need to know any of that. But my

answer  seemed  to  make  her  happy  enough  because  she  gave  me  a
conspiratorial  smile.  “Perfect!  We’ll  take  both  rooms,  of  course.
Fielding  can  use  one  of  them  as  a  study.  God  knows,  the  fewer
housemates the better.”

“Wait. You mean—”

She typed in a text on her phone. “And we’ll pay for a land line. I

need to be able to reach my son at all times, and he never remembers to
charge his cell. Now. How much of a deposit do you require?” She
pulled a checkbook from her purse and sat waiting.

“Hang on. You’re telling me you’ll pay for both rooms? That’s

twelve-hundred a month!”

“Oh, it’s not my money,” Mrs. Monroe said with an amused huff.

“It’s my ex’s. He’s the one insisting that Fielding move away to college
this year. Get a life of his own. Fine. If that’s the way he has to have it,
he can damn well pay for decent housing.”

“But I—”

Mrs. Monroe waved her hand at me. “Don’t worry. Fielding’s

pater is a Wall Street banker. He’ll set up automatic deposit, and he’s
never late. Take it from me. I’ve been getting child support from him for
years.”

My protests stuttered to a halt. Seriously?

Man, that was tempting. Two for the price of one. I’d only have

to share the kitchen and that small bathroom with one other person, a guy
who did nothing but study. And from the sound of it, I wouldn’t have to
worry about the rent ever being late.

But then I took another good look at Mrs. Monroe. She was

staring  at  me  impatiently,  and…  no.  If  Mrs.  Monroe  were  part  of  the
package, it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want some high-handed control freak
poking into my business night and day, stopping by constantly, checking
the bathroom with a white glove, glowering over the beer in the fridge.
Nope.  No  spank  you.  I’d  rather  go  back  to  living  on  campus.  Hell,  I’d
rather  go  back  to  living  in  my  parents’  basement  in  Pennsylvania.  At
least my mother wasn’t that fussy.

I forced a fake smile. “Great. You can, um, leave your contact

info. I’ll get back to you with a decision. I have a lot of other
appointments today, so—”

Just then the door banged open, and there, standing in the

doorway, was a guy so nerdy I nearly laughed out loud. He was tall, at
least a few inches taller than my six foot. He was skinny, and he had a
1950s Boy Scout haircut with short sides and an honest-to-god cowlick.
He wore black Poindexter glasses that didn’t disguise a serious unibrow,
khakis a size too big, and a button-down plaid shirt. He was wrestling
with two suitcases large enough to move Buckingham Palace. He started
dragging them inside.

“Uh…” I said, standing up.

The guy left the suitcases just inside the open door and strode

over. He stuck out his hand with a huge grin. “Fielding Monroe.”

I shook it. I don’t know. There was just something about

Fielding’s grin that was infectious. I found myself smiling back.

“Fielding, dear,” Mrs. Monroe began. “I think this gentleman

would prefer—”

“Bye, Mom,” Fielding said with cold finality.

“But we haven’t—”

Fielding took her by the shoulders, marched her to the front door,

and shoved her out.

“Fielding! We haven’t discussed the lease or—”

“I’ll work it all out and call you at the hotel. Thanks for

everything!” Fielding said cheerfully. He slammed the door in her face
and turned the deadbolt.

Faintly, through the door, came a resigned, “All right. But call

me!” and the sound of footsteps moving away.

Fielding turned to me with a look of pure glee. “She lives four

hours away!” he said in a maniacal whisper. He did a kind of happy
dance on his toes.

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. The cold chill Mrs. Monroe had

put around my chest melted a little. Maybe a lot. “Um… your mom’s
right, though. I haven’t made a decision about housemates yet. I’ve got a
few more people to see, so—”

But Fielding wasn’t paying any attention. He’d spied my shelf of

DVDs and was already over there looking at the titles. He interrupted me
with a gasp. “Oh, my God! Star Wars! I’ve heard of this!”

I gaped at him, my brush-off vaporizing into thin air. “Dude!

You’ve only heard of Star Wars?”

Fielding waved a dismissive hand, a gesture much like his

mother’s. “She never had a TV, and she blocked Netflix and Amazon on
my laptop. Bad for the brain, you know. Odious rot. So can we watch
this? Now?”

He looked at me with such hope and longing. To say no would

have been like kicking Mr. Rogers in the groin.

And, well, why not? School hadn’t started, and I didn’t have to

work ’til tomorrow. I really didn’t have any more appointments for the
house that afternoon. And the idea of introducing this guy to Star Wars
was… strangely appealing.

“Uh… okay?”

“Excellent!” Fielding bounced up with a jolt of enthusiasm, still

clutching the DVD. “I have cheese puffs.”

He went to one of the ginormous suitcases and opened it. He

dragged out a two pound plastic bag of, yes, cheese puffs.

I looked at it in horror. “You know that stuff’ll kill you.”

Fielding examined the bag with a puzzled frown, as if maybe

there were poisonous spiders infesting it and that would explain my
comment.

“Tell you what, I’ll make popcorn.” I headed for the kitchen. Air

popped with a dose of sea salt and butter-flavored spray would be nice.

“Sounds good!” Fielding called out with a full mouth. I glanced

out to the living room in time to see him throw himself on the couch, bag
of cheese puffs in hand. He looked like he belonged there.

I made the popcorn and was surprised to find myself humming

happily while doing it. But why shouldn’t I be in a good mood? I didn’t
have to work or study, and I was in for a movie marathon. That didn’t
suck.

I took the popcorn into the living room. The opening credits were

playing, and the familiar music filled the air.

I took the bag of semi-plastic foodstuffs away from Fielding and

handed him the popcorn bowl instead. Fielding switched without a blink,
pausing only long enough to lick the orange from his fingertips.

“So… have you decided what you’re majoring in yet?” I asked

him as I sat down.

Fielding shot me an arched brow. “It’s customary to decide what

you’re specializing in before applying to graduate school, yes. Particle
physics.”

“You’re in grad school?” I’d assumed Fielding was a freshman

given the whole drama with his mother. And he looked young, very
young.

Fielding just waved that dismissive hand.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Nineteen,” Fielding said, offering me the popcorn bowl. “It’s

interesting how they made the font move into 3D space like that. Rather
dated looking, though.”

“It’s called the Star Wars crawl. So you’re nineteen, and you’re

a grad student in physics?”

“I skipped some grades. I take it we’re on the side of the rebels

in this film. Would you mind if we talked later? While I agree it’s
valuable for housemates to become better acquainted, I’m not very good
at multi-tasking. My therapist says I have an over-developed ability to
focus.”

I blinked at him. “Uh… sure.”

“Excellent!” Fielding snuggled down into the couch and stared at

the TV.

And that’s how Fielding Monroe became my housemate.

THE THING about Fielding was, the other shoe always dropped
eventually. Because Fielding was like a database. Nothing you ever said
or did, or that anyone else ever said or did in Fielding’s presence, was
not noted, scrubbed over carefully, hung out to dry, starched, and
redelivered in a clear plastic bag sooner or later.

So really, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the delivery

attached to that unfortunate comment Regina made in the coffee shop
came later that same night as Fielding and I were having dinner.

I had this major burr about eating healthy. The first nutrition class

I’d taken at Cornell my freshman year changed my life. There’s nothing
like watching autopsy footage of arteries clogged with fat, or a seventy-
year-old smoker’s lungs, to make certain dietary concepts very real.

But it was tough eating well, given the fact that I was taking a full

load of classes and working two part-time jobs. So I cooked on Sunday
afternoons in large batches and stocked away Tupperware containers in
the fridge. Since Fielding had moved in, and horrified me with his msg-
laden Ramen cups and trans-fatty frozen chicken nuggets, I’d done it for
both  of  us.  It  worked  out  amazingly  well.  The pater  approved,  and  he
paid  for  all  our  groceries—and  not  the  cheap  stuff  either,  stuff  like
organic  chicken  and  black  rice.  And  Fielding  helped  me  cook  on
Sundays.  He’d  never  even  made  tea  before,  so  I  showed  him  how  to
chop veggies and brown onions and garlic, things like that. I didn’t love
to cook, but having Fielding do it with me made it sort of fun. As deals
went, it did not at all suck.

That night, I heated up a chicken-broccoli-mushroom casserole.

Fielding  inhaled  it  in  less  than  ten  minutes  as  usual.  But  he  seemed
distracted  as  I  tried  to  make  small  talk.  His  mind  was  clearly  far,  far
away.  I  gave  up  and  started  to  clear  the  plates.  That’s  when  the  bomb
was dropped.

“I want you to teach me how to kiss,” Fielding said in his most

arrogant voice. It came out as a demand, like Fetch me the lamp from
the sideboard, wench.

I knew Fielding used that commanding tone when he was

covering up his insecurity, so I didn’t immediately get mad. I froze,
though, my hands full of dishes. I made myself take them to the sink and
put them down carefully, nobly avoiding breakage. I went back to the
table and sat down.

Fielding stared at me, arms folded over his chest. “Well?”

“No,” I said.

“May I ask why not?”

“Because that’s not going to happen.” I thought I sounded

remarkably calm. In fact, I gave myself a checkmark in the ‘saint’ box for
not socking Fielding in the face or laughing my head off.

“But Regina said you have a reputation as the best kisser on

campus.”

“I think I’ll have a beer. You want a beer?” I stood up abruptly.

“It’s Tuesday,” Fielding reminded me, as if I should know better.

And I did. Fielding never drank during the week. He was a lightweight,
and even one beer could make him too fuzzy-headed to study.

I didn’t usually drink during the week either. But fuck, I needed a

beer. I grabbed one from the fridge and cracked it open. I turned to find
that Fielding had followed me into the kitchen.

“Well? Is there a problem with my request?”

I took a long drink. “The problem is, Fielding, that it’s not going

to happen.”

“Ooh, how convincing. You’ve changed my mind with your

superior argument,” Fielding mocked.

I stalked into the living room.

Fielding followed. “Why not?”

“Because I said no.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I sighed and counted to ten. I reminded myself that Fielding

wasn’t a normal guy. He just didn’t get things like social cues. He was a
fucking genius with an IQ somewhere in the stratosphere, but he’d grown
up  being  suffocatingly  sheltered  and  shuttled  from  school  to  lessons  to
workshops.  He  spoke  fluent  French  and  Russian  and  played  the  piano
like  a  prodigy,  but  as  far  as  I  could  tell,  he’d  had  few  friends.  So  he
probably just had no fucking clue how out of line his request was.

“Because, Fielding, I’m not gay,” I said firmly. “Which you’ve

probably figured out by now, being my housemate. That means I don’t
kiss men.”

Fielding looked confused. “I’m not asking you to kiss me because

you want to. I’m talking about a simple transference of skills. The way
you taught me running.”

I had taught Fielding to run. I ran three miles every morning, and

now Fielding ran with me. Without prodding from me, Fielding would
probably never leave his computer, and that much sitting wasn’t healthy
for anyone.

“My teaching you the basics of running didn’t involve putting my

tongue in your mouth. That is what you’re talking about, right? You’re
not asking me to draw you diagrams or maybe talk you through it on a
crash dummy?” I was starting to sound a little hysterical.

Fielding arched a droll eyebrow. “One assumes a direct

demonstration would be necessary, yes.”

“Then forget it.”

I sat down on the couch and grabbed the remote. There wasn’t

much on TV, but I found an old X-Files episode. I swallowed beer. My
heart was beating erratically, and my palms were damp. I was extremely
uncomfortable. And Fielding just stood in the middle of the living room
with his ‘cogitating’ face on.

“Is it an issue of saliva?” Fielding asked. “Transmitting germs?

Surely, you didn’t require a doctor’s note from the dozens of girls you’ve
kissed. And I’m perfectly healthy.”

“It’s not about germs! Jesus. You are aware that there are two

genders, right? Male and female? I mean, you’re not that oblivious.”

Fielding looked insulted. “I’m well aware of the concept and

purpose of genders, Mick. But I’m not asking you to impregnate me.”

“No,

because that would be unreasonable,” I quipped

sarcastically.

“I fail to see your point. Are you suggesting that because I’m

male, you can’t kiss me the same way you’d kiss a female?”

“That’s what I’m suggesting, yes.”

Fielding shook his head a little, the way he did when he just

wasn’t getting something. “It’s a matter of mouths, isn’t it? Of lips and
tongues and head positions, where to place the hands, pressure applied,
that sort of thing?”

“Yes. But—”

“As far as I know, both genders share those body parts. I’m

assuming it isn’t mandatory to grope the breasts or groin while kissing, is
it?”

“No.”

“Then I fail to see how male and female anatomy comes into it.”

I leaned forward and thunked my head on the coffee table.

Really, why did I even try?

“Well, obviously you’re frustrated with me,” Fielding said,

sounding a little hurt. “But you needn’t beat yourself around the
cranium.”

I turned off the TV. “You know what? I’m really tired. I’m going

to bed early. Good night.”

I went into my room and shut the door. And so I didn’t have to

spend any more time thinking about kissing Fielding, I did go to sleep—
at eight o’clock in the evening.

“MAYBE if I explain why I need your assistance,” Fielding said the next
morning as we sat at the fountain having our Santa sludge and green tea.

“Huh? With what?”

I’d pushed the previous night’s conversation far off into a distant

archive in my mind. It was sealed in a lockbox. Guarded by Rottweilers.

“With the kissing. You see, there’s a girl in my physics lab. Her

name is Susan DeVree. She’s what’s known colloquially as a ‘virgin
killer.’”

I sipped my green tea and smiled. Yeah. I’d known a few of

those. Good times. “And?”

“And I’m apparently on the top of her target list. She’ll probably

want to saw off my head afterward and have me mounted on her wall.”

I chuckled.

“She’s threatened—though really there should be a more

despairing synonym for that—to ‘nail me’ under the mistletoe at the
physics department’s Christmas party. Which is the day before winter
break: seventeen days and twelve hours from now, to be precise.”

“I see.” I was relieved to know there was an actual reason

behind Fielding’s bizarre request to be kissed. “And you want to impress
her, leave her on her knees chanting ‘Fielding, Fielding!’” I couldn’t
help but laugh at the vision. Two nerds in love. It was kind of sweet,
really.

Fielding gave me a wounded look. “If you’re implying that I want

to encourage her interest, the answer is absolutely not.”

“Why not? You gotta lose it sooner or later. Is she a dog?”

Fielding shrugged. “I suppose she’s attractive enough. But she

only wants me because I’m a virgin. I’m not interested in being a notch
on her belt. Besides, she’s not a very nice person, and she has a really
annoying laugh. She brays like a donkey.”

“Yes, it’s better not to have to think about barnyard animals at a

time like that,” I agreed solemnly.

Fielding nudged against my shoulder hard, as if to say it wasn’t

funny. “It’s your fault she’s after me.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You’ve made me too good-looking,” Fielding complained.

I could not hold back a laugh. Well, it was a guffaw really, and it

kind of escaped out my nose. Fortunately, Fielding didn’t seem offended.

Too good-looking. That was hilarious. Oh, I knew what Fielding

meant. When the poor guy had moved in in August, he’d been pathetic.
But  thanks  to  my  determined  intervention,  Fielding’s  glasses  had  been
replaced  by  a  much  hipper  pair,  his  dark  hair  had  grown  out  into  a
decent  shag,  and  he  wore  jeans  and  Tshirts.  As  for  the  unibrow,  all
props went to my friend Samantha for that. She’d taught Fielding how to
wax  it.  I  remembered  vividly  how  shocked  I’d  been  the  first  time
Fielding  walked  out  of  the  bathroom  with  a  triumphant-looking
Samantha.  Without  the  mega  brow,  you  could  see  Fielding’s  eyes  for  a
change.

Which were a light blue-gray with black lashes and actually very

nice. But still, to say Fielding was good-looking…. I turned my head and
really looked at him for a long moment.

And felt a strange sort of fluttery nausea. Maybe it was a mild

form of shock.

Sitting there in that cold winter morning light, it was like I was

seeing my housemate for the first time all over again. Only this time,
what I saw was not an adorkable geek. Fielding’s skinniness had filled
out to a nice, lean, athletic look thanks to the running and better nutrition.
His dark hair was silky now that it was longer. He had a strong jaw, a
good face, and those large blue-gray eyes behind GQ-ish black glasses,

glasses that gave him a sort of hot librarian vibe. My gaze slid to
Fielding’s mouth. It was a bit pouty with full lips—the sort of mouth I
might have called ‘succulent’ if it had been on a girl.

I looked away, confused and uncomfortable with this new picture

of Fielding Monroe. When had he changed so much? And why hadn’t I
noticed it before?

I cleared my throat. “Well, uh…. If you’re not out to impress this

Susan person, then I don’t see why you’re worried about the kiss.”

Fielding huffed. He spoke as if he were explaining it to a child.

“It’s very simple. I can’t avoid the party. Dr. Jamison has me scheduled
for the drinks table from eight to nine. And I probably can’t avoid Susan.
She’s  going  to  hunt  me  down  like  a  fucking  rabbit—this  mistletoe
business,  really  it’s  sexual  harassment,  plain  and  simple,  but  that’s  the
holidays  for  you.  And  I don’t  want  everyone  in  the  entire  science
department  witnessing  my  first  kiss  and  seeing  how  much  of  a  pathetic
loser I am.”

“Your first kiss?”

“Well, yes,” Fielding said, his glower darkening.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I knew

Fielding hadn’t exactly been a wild and crazy guy when he’d been living
at home, but it never occurred to me that he could be that innocent.

“Well… it’s not a big deal, Fielding. A mistletoe kiss—most of

the time, it’s just a press of lips. Nothing serious.”

“But what if it’s not? What if she sticks her tongue in my mouth

and I don’t know what to do? You should see the way she looks at me—
it’s like I’m naked and I have ‘free lunch’ tattooed all over my body.”

I laughed.

“I always have to attend these things alone, and everyone else

brings their spouse or their girlfriend or boyfriend,” Fielding continued
with  a  frown.  “That’s  bad  enough,  but this—this has the potential to be
epically  humiliating.  I  want  everyone  to  go  ‘Ooh,  look  at  Fielding,  he
really knows how to kiss!’” Fielding fluttered his hands in mock ecstasy.
“Rather  than  ‘Did  you  see  him  slobbering  and  looking  like  a  deer  in
headlights? What a dork!’”

“I get it,” I said. And I did. I awkwardly patted Fielding’s

shoulder. Fielding was a strange dichotomy of arrogant genius and self-
conscious  wallflower.  I  had  the  feeling  he’d  been  bullied  a  lot  in  the
past,  even  though  he  never  talked  about  it. And  though  he  pretended  he
didn’t  care  what  anyone  thought,  I  knew  that  he  did.  He’d  once  spent  a
whole day without coming out of his room after some jerks yelled names
at  him  on  a  drive-by.  I’d  had  to  lure  him  out  with  chocolate  ice  cream
and Battlestar Galactica.

“Great!” Fielding smiled. “So you’ll teach me?”

“No. But, look, maybe we can ask Samantha.”

“I don’t want to kiss Samantha!” Fielding said loudly.

I glanced around nervously. “Why not? She’s cute.”

“She has a boyfriend,” Fielding said, in a thankfully softer, if

sullen voice. “You’re my best friend, Mick. I trust you. Besides,
Samantha isn’t the best kisser on campus. If I’m going to learn something,
it should be from an expert.”

“Shit. Look, Regina only said that because she wants to get into

my pants. I’m not literally the best kisser on campus, okay? It was just a
come-on line.”

Fielding didn’t look convinced. “If all the cheerleaders say you

are, then you are. I bet they kiss more guys than anyone else.”

Damn. There Fielding went with that logical reasoning. He’d

probably worked out statistics on how many guys a cheerleader was
likely to have kissed on average. “Look, do you want me to ask
Samantha or not? Because I’m not going to kiss you.”

Fielding stared down at his tennis shoes, looking upset. Without

another word, he got up and stomped off to class.

I rubbed my forehead at the throb of an incipient headache. Shit.

“THAT IS the cutest fucking thing I have ever heard,” Samantha said.
Her big brown eyes widened and glowed with romantic fervor.

“It’s not cute,” I said, annoyed. “It’s a nightmare.”

Samantha pouted and batted her eyes. “But Fielding wants you to

kiss him,” she cooed.

“Keep your voice down!” I looked around with paranoid fervor.

This  whole  thing  sometimes  felt  like  a  punk  that  would  end  up  on
YouTube or something, making me a laughing stock. But no, no one in the
student  union  was  paying  any  attention  to  Sam  and  me,  despite  the  fact
that  it  was  fairly  crowded  for  a  mid-afternoon.  Everyone  had  been
driven  indoors  by  the  frigid  temperatures  and  heavy  clouds.  We  were
supposed to get snow at any moment.

“Come on, Sam. This is serious. What am I gonna to do? He

won’t drop it.”

Samantha sighed and took her coffee cup in both hands,

considering it.

I loved Samantha to death. She was the only female friend I’d

ever had. We’d been stuck together in lab as freshmen in Anatomy 101.
At  first,  I  kept  my  distance  because  it  was  obvious  at  a  glance  that
Samantha  was  a nice  girl,  a  serious  girl.  Nice  girls  were  something  I
avoided at all costs, no matter how cute. They expected things, things I
had  no  interest  in  giving.  But  Samantha  acted  oblivious  to  my  charms,
and  that  was  pretty  cool.  Then  I  found  out  she  was  engaged  to  a  boy
she’d  been  dating  since  middle  school,  her soul  mate,  who  went  to
NYU. She was completely loyal and deeply in love. I stopped worrying.

We were both in the physical therapy program and had shared lots of
classes since. She wanted to work in a hospital with surgery patients. I
was more passionate about preventative care—helping people get fit and
stay healthy. But we were both motivated to the core. And, like me, the
course work didn’t come easy to Sam. We understood each other.

She was also the only person I could possibly talk to about this.

God knew, any of my football friends would laugh me out of town on a
rail if they heard a word of this. Worse, they’d give Fielding a hard time.
I might not want to make out with him, but I didn’t want the poor guy
hounded.

Sam looked thoughtful. “Do you think Fielding is gay?”

I nearly choked on my salad. Yeah. Pertinent question.

“I don’t… think so? Is it even possible that someone who

dressed that badly could be gay? I dunno. I don’t see it.” I thought about
it some more. “I don’t think he even sees it like that. He acts like it’s all
just some sort of mechanical experiment. He’s gotten it into his head that
I’m an expert on kissing, and he wants me to teach him the way I’ve
taught him everything else. He’s never kissed anyone before so he
doesn’t understand that it’s, you know, intimate.”

“Oh my god!” Sam got puppy-dog eyes again. “He wants you to

be his first kiss!” She put a hand to her heart, which was apparently pit-
pattering away.

“Sam. You’re about to wear that container of yogurt. Remember,

I have a kid sister. I’m not afraid to torture you.”

“But, Mick! His first kiss. Do you remember your first kiss?”

I jabbed my fork at the salad, frowning. “Yeah. It was my friend

Dean’s aunt. She was like thirty or something. We were having a
sleepover, and she was staying at his house. I went out to get a drink of
water before going to sleep, and she pulled me into her bedroom and
nailed me. I was fourteen.”

“Aw,” Sam said sadly, putting her hand on mine.

“What? I’m a guy. It’s not like I said no.”

“But… she stole your first kiss. That’s supposed to be something

magical.”

I shrugged. “I guess to a girl it is.”

But her eyes were like fucking wells of regret, and I did feel a

pang  of  something.  I’d  never  really  thought  about  it  before,  but  in
retrospect,  a  grown  woman  seducing  her  nephew’s  fourteen-year-old
friend  wasn’t  a  very  upstanding  thing  to  do.  She  hadn’t  even  been  that
good-looking  or  even  very  nice  about  it.  She’d  gotten  huffy  when  I
finished  too  fast,  like  she  expected  a  virgin  to  give  her  the  time  of  her
life. I remembered feeling pretty shitty afterward. I’d never told Dean.

My salad didn’t taste appealing anymore. I pushed it away.

“What about you? I suppose your first kiss was with Rob?”

Sam got a dreamy smile. “Yup. At my parents’ cabin. We were

twelve. We were sitting out on the docks on a warm summer night. There
was a full moon, crickets chirping…. God, it was something else.”

I grunted. “I can see the hearts and flowers floating over your

head. Makes me want to hurl.”

“I know.” Sam looked very pleased with herself.

“But that’s just another reason why I can’t do it. You’re right—

Fielding’s first kiss should mean something, not be some exercise in
mastering a skill.”

Sam took a couple of bites of soup, thinking about it.

“Mick, you’re Fielding’s best friend. Maybe his first real friend.

You’re sweet to him.”

“I… get along with him is all. He’s interesting. And you know

how he is. Fielding may be the smartest person I’ve ever met or ever
will meet, but he needs someone to look out for him.”

“I’m just saying that he’s very attached to you,” Sam said

patiently. “And, let’s face it, you’re fucking hot. As far as first kisses go,
he could do worse.”

I glared at her. “Fielding isn’t like that. He’s never once looked

at me like that—or anyone else for that matter, not that I’ve seen.”

“But he did ask you to do it. So maybe it means more to him than

he’s letting on—or than he even realizes. He may not understand what

he’s feeling.”

I shook my head, denying it. “No. Don’t make it more than it is.

I’m telling you, he’s just gotten it into his head that I’m the ‘best kisser
on campus,’ and he wants to absorb my knowledge like a Vulcan mind
meld. It’s not personal to him.”

Sam tapped her fingers on the table, looking unconvinced. “Well,

if it’s not personal, then why don’t you just do it? Surely, you’re not so
horrified by the idea of kissing a man that you can’t just close your eyes
and think of England for sixty seconds. If it means that much to him.”

The thought had crossed my mind. But thinking something like

that and actually doing it were two entirely different things. Holding
Fielding close and….

I shook my head and leaned forward to speak quietly. “Come on,

Sam. Kissing is… sex. I don’t want to fuck up our friendship. What if he
really likes it? What if he gets turned on?”

What if I do? The thought caused a hot and twisting panic in my

gut.

Sam raised a mocking eyebrow. “Full of yourself much, Mr. Jock

Man? You really think you’re that irresistible?”

I laughed. “Yeah. That’s what people keep telling me. But, um…

I was thinking….”

Sam took a bite of her yogurt and gave me a suspicious look.

“How would you feel about doing it?”

Sam choked and had to take a drink. When her eyes stopped

watering, she said, “Do not even go there. Fielding didn’t ask me, he
asked you. Besides, Rob wouldn’t be too thrilled, I can tell you.”

I sighed.

Sam gave me a motherly pat on the cheek. “Well, you’re gonna

have to figure this one out on your own, toots. But whatever you decide,
try not to hurt him, will you?”

And that was exactly what I was afraid of.

IT DID snow, in a big way. By the time Sam and I parted company at the
student union, it was coming down thick and furious in fat, heavy flakes.
There  was  a  good  two  inches  on  the  ground  when  I  got  to  Schoellkopf
Hall  for  my  kinesiology  class.  I  found  a  sheet  of  paper  taped  to  the
classroom  door.  The  lecture  had  been  cancelled  to  allow  off-campus
faculty  and  students  to  get  home.  The  prof  listed  a  reading  assignment
and a paper due for the next session.

It would probably end up being more work in the long run, but I

was stoked. I felt the kind of joy you only get as a kid when school is
cancelled for a snow day. And I wasn’t scheduled to work at the fitness
center that night either. Boo-yah. I headed for home for some blessedly
unstructured R&R.

Fielding was already there. He was standing at the DVD shelves

when I walked in. I unlaced my boots to leave them on the entry rug so I
didn’t drag snow all over the house. He watched me with a monster grin.
“My classes were cancelled!” He held up two DVDs. “What sounds
good to you, Psycho or Terminator? I haven’t seen either one of them.”

“Later, bro, when it’s dark. Do you have thermal underwear?”

“Uh… what?” Fielding looked confused.

“Never mind. I’ve got extra.”

I rummaged around in my room and found an extra set of

thermals. I went back into the living room and tossed them at Fielding.

“Put those on under your heaviest jeans. On top, wear those, a T-

shirt, and a sweatshirt. And put on your parka and gloves.”

“Are we walking to Alaska?” Fielding asked drolly.

I smirked. “Have you ever had a snowball fight?”

“No,” Fielding admitted, getting an excited gleam in his eye.

“One snowball fight virgin going down! Hurry up. There’re only

a few hours of daylight left.”

Fielding was a natural snowball mercenary. Seriously, he could

have earned a living as a hitman, if snowballs were lethal. He got my
chest three times in a row right out of the gate, but his snowballs
exploded into powder on contact. I called time-out and showed him how
it was done.

“Pack it like this,” I demonstrated, grabbing a few handfuls of

sticky snow and pressing them into a ball. “Hold it tightly for five to ten
seconds. The heat from your hands, even through the gloves, will start to
melt the snow a little, making the snowball harder. Then it won’t fall
apart so easily.”

“Structural integrity. Yes, I see,” Fielding said with a wicked

smirk. “You could invent gloves that would speed the process, you
know.”

“Yeah, well, you do that someday and give me a cut. For now,

it’s down to you, and it’s down to me.”

“I will crush you,” Fielding deadpanned.

He sort of did. Which was embarrassing for an athlete like

myself.  I  hadn’t  expected  Fielding  to  have  a  decent  arm,  or  any  arm  at
all.  I  dunno.  Maybe  he  calculated  trajectories,  or  windspeed,  or  the
gravitational force of the Earth going around the sun on that exact day in
December or something. But whatever, he fricking got me every time, no
matter how much I dodged. I felt like a duck at a shooting range. I got in
my share of killer shots, though—a couple of good ones to the knees, and
then  I  hit  him  right  on  the  bridge  of  his  nose,  covering  his  glasses  with
snow.  That  was  pretty  hilarious.  It  was  less  funny  when  he  retaliated
with  a  really  hard  one  to  the  back  of  my  head  as  I  was  doubled  over
laughing, and then another in my face when I looked up to say “Hey!”

He thought that was pretty hilarious too.

A snowball fight just isn’t a snowball fight, though, unless you

get a good handful of the wet stuff down the other guy’s shirt. I had the
advantage of knowing this, and I was keeping that knowledge to myself.
But  first  I  had  to  get  close  enough.  Deviously,  I  pretended  my  phone
buzzed,  and  I  answered  it.  Holding  up  a  finger  to  pause  the  game,  I
disappeared  around  the  side  of  the  house  to  ‘take  the  call.’  I  snuck
around the back and the other side, swallowing my giggles. Fielding was
kneeling there in the snow, packing snowballs with total focus, pressing
them hard in his gloved hands.

Snow isn’t the quietest medium in the world. It tends to give out

little squeaks as you walk. But this stuff was thick and fluffy, and
somehow I managed to get up to him without being heard. I scooped up a
big handful of snow and, in one move, pulled back on his parka’s hood
to make a gap, then shoved my hand down the back of his neck.

He let out a high yelp and jumped up. The look of surprise and

outrage on his face lasted for about two seconds before he scooped up a
handful of his own and started chasing me around the yard. I evaded him,
but then he caught ahold of my scarf and whipped me back. To postpone
the dreaded event, I went with the momentum, spun, and tackled him to
the ground.

We wrestled and rolled in the snow, both laughing like crazy. He

was trying to get his snow-laden hands into my collar, and I was trying to
keep them from their goal. I was stronger, but he was a slippery and
gangly and determined. Finally, I managed to get ahold of both of his
wrists. I pinned them down at his side, and lay flat on him to make him
stop squirming.

Which was a really stupid thing to do.

He was still laughing long after I had gone silent. I should have

jumped up immediately, but it was like I was frozen, like if I moved at
all it would somehow be charged in a way I wanted desperately to
avoid. I guess it was something like coming face-to-face with a lion. You
want to run, but part of your brain is convinced that if you just don’t
move maybe it won’t see you.

Fielding did see me, though. He stopped laughing abruptly and

stared up at me. He looked rather frozen himself, which made me

wonder if I’d been mistaken about which one of us was the lion. His
gaze slid to my mouth. His brow creased in confusion. And then I felt it
—something warm and hard blooming in the space where our groins
were pressed together.

I swear, I had no idea if it was him or me, but I knew I had to get

the  hell  out  of  there.  I  jumped  up  like  I  was  on  fire.  My  brain  was
scrambled,  and  I  took  the  first  escape  that  my  sluggish  little  thought
processes  were  able  to  devise.  I  saw  his  stack  of  snowballs,  and  I
grabbed  one  and  started  rolling  it  in  the  snow,  making  it  bigger  and
bigger.

“What are you doing?” Fielding asked, from over my shoulder.

“Ever make a snowman?”.

“Really?”

“One-hundred-percent serious. And you’re falling behind

already.”

He hesitated. “Is this a race?” I knew he was just making sure he

understood all the rules.

I laughed. “No. It’s not a race, it’s a beauty contest. Or at least an

ingenuity contest. Best looking snowman wins. But you’d better get
moving if you want to finish before dark.”

With a whoop, Fielding started gathering snow, and it was like

that moment between us had never happened. I was more than happy to
push it out of my mind now and forevermore—and change the locks so it
couldn’t get back in.

While I rolled the bottom, middle and top parts of my snowman

into  balls  in  the  way  of  ad  hoc  snow  artists  everywhere,  Fielding
rummaged  around  in  the  house  and  emerged  with  a  huge  plastic  bowl  I
used for popcorn, a cardboard box roughly the same size, and a spatula.
He packed snow tightly in the box and then dumped it out four times to
make a tall rectangle. I tried not to be too curious, and focus on my own
masterpiece,  but  I  couldn’t  help  wondering  where  Fielding  was  going
with that thing. Then Fielding used a spatula to shave off the four corners
to make tall round shape. He packed snow into the bowl.

By the time I was thrusting in a carrot nose and pinning down

dried prunes for eyes with toothpicks, it was clear what Fielding was up
to. A few scavenged computer components later, and the front yard
boasted my own fat snowman and—R2D2.

I looked at his creation with envy. “Show off.”

“Clearly, one of us has superior snowman making chops. I’ll say

no more.”

“Mine’s more traditional, though. They made a movie out of it

and everything. There’s something to be said for a classic.”

“And yet, time marches forward. Hence the demise of floppy

disks.”

I smiled—clever bastard—but I was still about to argue. Only

just  then,  I  noticed  a  car  driving  slowly  down  our  street.  Since  we’d
been  working  in  the  front  yard,  a  few  cars  had  gone  past,  but  there
wasn’t much traffic in the semi-blizzard. This driver, though, pulled over
in  front  of  our  house  and  got  out.  It  was  a  girl,  a  short  brunette  with  a
full,  pretty  face.  She  wasn’t  wearing  a  hat,  and  the  snow  began  to
immediately clump in her long brown hair.

I walked over. “Can I help you?” I thought maybe she had car

problems or was lost.

The brunette gave me a look—assessing, dissecting, and

dismissing—that sent a chill down my spine. Suddenly, she didn’t seem
so pretty anymore. She walked up to the gate and put both hands on the
snowy top of it.

“Earth to Fielding,” she said loudly, ignoring me.

He was on his knees carving some more details around the shot

glass he’d used for R2D2’s ‘eye’, and he stiffened at the sound of her
voice like he’d been shot. He didn’t look over.

“What are you doing here, Susan?” he asked flatly.

“Just driving by. I see you’re making productive use of your time

off.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Fielding didn’t reply, he just kept working. But I could see the

frown deepen on his brow, and his cheeks, already red from the cold,

reddened  a  little  more.  That  pissed  me  off.  Why  should  Fielding  feel
guilty  about  spending  an  afternoon  in  the  snow?  The  guy  worked  like  a
dog  and  had  most  of  his  life.  He  deserved—no,  he  needed—to  live  a
little.

And then it struck me—Susan. Was this the Susan?

“You going to introduce me, Fielding?” I asked.

“Mick Colman, Susan DeVree. Mick is my housemate. Susan is

in the physics department, much to my despair.”

Susan smirked. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

Fielding stood up and, still not looking at Susan, seemed to be at

a loss for what to do next. He starting gathering up the tools he’d
scattered around the yard. I took another step toward Susan and leaned
on the gate.

I gave her what was probably a not very friendly stare. She

glanced at me, straightened her back icily, looked at Fielding, then back
at me with a sickeningly fake smile that said back-off, jackass.

“Do you have that Electrodynamics assignment on Noether’s

theorem? I can’t find my copy,” she asked Fielding coyly.

“I have it.” Fielding stood up with his box of stuff.

“Would you mind if I copied it right now? I really need to work

on it tonight. Please, Fielding?” Her voice dripped enough sexual heat to
melt icicles.

I could hear Fielding swallow from across the yard. “Okay,” he

said in a shaky voice. He carried his box into the house.

Susan reached for the gate’s latch. I got there first and put my

hand  on  it,  wanting  very  badly  to  keep  her  out.  I  didn’t  like  Susan
DeVree.  I  didn’t  like  her  at  all.  She  was  clearly  intelligent,  but  she
reminded  me  of  some  of  the  cliquiest  popular  girls  in  my  high  school,
girls who weren’t enjoying life unless they were dragging someone else
down. I wasn’t sure why she had Fielding in her sights, but she clearly
did.

Was she really a virgin killer, like Fielding had said? Just

looking for a notch on her belt? I didn’t think so. I sensed something

more… purposeful in her than that. And when I thought about it, Fielding
was a smart catch. He was probably the brightest student at Cornell. His
future as a scientist was assured, he came from a wealthy family, and he
was naive. A girl like this, she could wrap him around her little finger.
The thought made me ill.

For a few seconds, we wrestled over the gate, Susan trying to

open it and me holding it closed.

“Let go, asshole!” Susan snarled.

Reluctantly, I let go. She stormed by me toward the house. As she

passed the snowmen, she looked at them with disdain. “R2D2 and
Frosty? What are you, twelve?” She pulled open the house door hard
enough that it squealed and went inside.

I knew she’d meant the barb for me, and I really couldn’t give a

rat’s ass what Susan thought of me or my snowman. But she’d insulted
Fielding too, and that… I dunno. That made me feel really fucking bad
inside.

Susan didn’t stay long, thanks to my hovering and Fielding’s

refusal to string more than two words together or look her in the eye.
After she took the assignment and left, Fielding settled down at his
computer, staring at the screen intently.

I watched him from the doorway. Fielding’s jeans were soaked

from the snow. I knew he’d get lost in his work and sit in them for hours.

“Hey. Before you get into that, you should get out of those wet

clothes. A hot bath wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Fielding said, not looking up. He was in a bad mood

—which sucked, after we’d had so much fun playing in the snow.

“Still wanna watch Psycho?”

“No. I have to study.”

I’d been looking forward to an unexpected movie night. But I

knew Fielding well enough to know it would be impossible to coax him
away from his work now.

“Okay. But you should take a quick a bath to warm up,” I said

firmly. “You’ll get sick if you sit around like that. I’ll fill the tub for you.
Okay?”

Fielding shrugged in half-hearted agreement, but his shoulders

relaxed. I could see some of the tension go out of him, and then he turned
and gave me a smile. I smiled back. I liked to take care of him, and little
acknowledgments like that made me feel ten feet tall.

I lingered in the doorway. I wanted to say something like Stay

clear of that girl, she’s trouble. Or, You’re right, Susan DeVree should
not be your first kiss. But I had no right to say the first. As for the
second, if I said something like that, I’d have to step up, wouldn’t I? Get
over myself and do the deed. And I couldn’t. I really seriously fucking
couldn’t.

So I didn’t say anything. I just went to draw the bath.

THURSDAY morning I went to wake Fielding up for our run and found
him burrowed under his blankets, dead to the world. He’d probably
worked all night. I left him to sleep, packed on a few layers, and went
out on my own. But the salt trucks hadn’t been by yet, and the snow was
still dense on the sidewalks and roads. I gave it up as a bad deal.

Thursday’s are heavy class days for me, and I worked at the

Grain Basket from eleven to one, making sandwiches and smoothies. I
did that shift Monday through Friday, in rain or shine, in sickness or in
health. It made the day go by fast, which was good, because I was too
busy to think about stuff I didn’t want to think about—like a certain thing
that had happened in the snow.

I got home at four thirty, and Fielding was studying at the kitchen

table.

“I’m dying for a run,” I told him. “Wanna come along?”

“God, yes. Please.” He dropped his pen, stood, and stretched.

Our favorite route was a three mile loop that took us through the

Cornell Plantations arboretum with its gardens, bogs, and woodlands. It
was beautiful any day of the year, but today especially. The snow had
melted from the paths but remained on the lawns and trees, creating a
ridiculously scenic winter wonderland.

I liked running with Fielding because his long legs made me push

my own pace just that little bit harder. And I liked getting him away from

his  computer  for  a  while,  out  into  the  fresh  air.  When  we’d  started
running  together  in  September,  it  soon  became  clear  Fielding  was  a
natural. I was solid and thick, muscular and compact, and I sort of thud
when  I  run.  But  Fielding  is  lean  and  rangy.  After  his  body  had  gotten
over  the  initial  shock  of  doing  any  exercise  whatsoever,  he’d  quickly
become a more graceful runner than I would ever be.

We normally ran without stopping, but we hit this amazing-

looking pond with a white dock. It was just about sunset and the pink sky
reflected in the royal blue surface of the water. We stopped without
either of us saying a word and just stood there, taking it in.

Fielding broke the silence with one of his patented non sequiturs.

“You haven’t been dating.”

I blinked up into the sky with a frown. “What? Yeah, I have.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When do you go out with girls? I haven’t noticed you doing

that.”

“I go out,” I huffed. “Remember that time I wore that maroon

jacket on a date and you said it was good because if I spilled wine on it
no one would be able to tell?” I chuckled.

“Yes. But that was September.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was.”

I thought about it. It might have been September.

“You have a reputation on campus as a slut,” Fielding said

bluntly.

I choked back a gasp. “I do not!”

“You do so. Not that I care. But I don’t understand the disparity

between your reputation and what I’ve personally observed. It makes me
wonder. Either your reputation was undeserved—in which case, was it a
deliberately cultivated falsehood or a misunderstanding? Or your
reputation was deserved, but your behavior has since changed. In which

case, what was the impetus for change?”

I rolled my eyes. “Or maybe it’s not that complicated. Maybe

I’ve just been working my ass off this semester.”

“More so than last year?”

I didn’t know what to say. I really hadn’t been conscious of it,

but it was true. I hadn’t gotten laid much this semester. My classes were
kicking my ass, even without football practice. I worked a lot of hours,
ran and lifted weights, and I had Fielding to spend time with at home.
The whole mating routine just hadn’t been a priority.

But even last semester, when I’d still been living in the dorms,

the novelty of having lots of sex in college had been wearing off. It felt
like I was just going through the motions. Like it was all the same old,
same old, a different girl head popped on the same old interchangeable
bits. I mean, sex is a little slice of heaven, obviously. But sometimes, the
girls weren’t onboard with the whole no-strings plan. Sometimes they
got hurt, and I ended up feeling either trapped or like a total heel. I hated
that feeling. Honestly, it was hardly worth it.

“I’ve just been swamped lately, but I do need to get out more.

Use it or lose it, right? I’ll have plenty of time over the break, and I
know lots of girls back home.” I felt better now that I’d committed to a
plan, a plan involving nubile young women.

Fielding said nothing.

“What about you? You could date. There’s got to be someone out

there nicer than Susan DeVree.” I couldn’t get the attitude out of my
voice when I said her name. God, please let Fielding date someone other
than Susan DeVree.

He shrugged. “I never had the time for a social life when I lived

at home. I’m not in the habit of it.”

I chuckled. Not in the habit of it. That was so adorable. “You

should go for it, bro. You’re cute enough to get girls.”

I noticed a flat rock on the edge of the pond, and I picked it up. I

threw it underhanded across the water. It skipped three times before
sinking.

Fielding’s eyes brightened. “Show me.”

“Sure. Ya gotta find a flat rock though.”

We found some more, and I tried to teach him how to throw them

as low and flat to the surface of the water as possible. But for once,
Fielding couldn’t master it. His wrist kept tipping, causing his throws to
plop and sink. I had the feeling, though, that his heart wasn’t in it. He
seemed distracted.

“I guess I never saw the point,” he said after a bit. “I mean, I

haven’t had a strong urge to date anyone. My father says I’m a late
bloomer. He was too. He didn’t start having sex until he was twenty.”

“Ah.” Okay, TMI. “Well, I’m sure—”

His tone got harder. “And before I would even consider dating, I

at least want to know how to kiss. I want you to teach me.”

“Fielding….”

“Will you?” he demanded.

My jaw clenched. “No.”

Fielding turned and headed for home. I started to run after him

half-heartedly—the other half of my heart having been torpedoed to the
general vicinity of my ankles. But he opened up and stretched those long
legs and outpaced me like he was the roadrunner and I was standing still.

When I got home, he was in his room. I warmed up dinner and

fixed him a plate. He ate it at his desk, mumbling about needing to study.

I wasn’t sorry to escape his company, honestly. I needed some

space, and I needed to hit the books myself. I sat on my bed with my texts
and notebooks arranged around me, but I stared at the same page for
hours, not comprehending a single goddamn word.

Fielding Monroe.

Why did life have to be so fucking complicated?

I SHOULD have known the discussion wasn’t over. Fielding was
tenacious as hell once he got his mind set on something. So on Friday,
when I got the text, I knew exactly what Fielding was referring to.

You’re working 2 jobs. You need money. I’ll pay a tutoring fee.

$35/hour.

I was working at the Grain Basket at the time. I glanced at the text

message, put my phone back in my pocket, and kept making the turkey
and avocado on whole grain. I ground my teeth.

The text message alert sounded again. I finished the order and put

it up before I allowed myself to look at it.

$45

I texted back. No.

Fielding’s response came fast and furious.

I’ll do the dishes for a month.

And take out the trash.

And pay the tutoring fee.

It’s just a KISS. It is totally worth all that.

Please.

I turned off my phone. For the rest of my shift, my hands were

shaking.

Friday nights, I worked at the Cornell Fitness Center from seven

’til  midnight.  The  gym  closed  at  eleven  thirty  and  I  had  to  make  sure
everything  was  cleaned  up  and  put  away  before  I  left.  Like  everyplace
else  on  campus,  the  fitness  center  was  decked  out  in  red  bows,  fake
greenery,  twinkle  lights,  and  silver  tinsel.  Holiday  songs  like  “Santa
Baby”  played  over  the  loudspeakers  in  the  weight  room  instead  of  the
usual pop-rock mix.

I was showing an old football buddy of mine how to use the

elliptical machine when Fielding walked in. He was dressed in gray
sweat pants and a white, short-sleeved T-shirt. He saw me and waved.

My stomach immediately clenched up like a pill bug rolling into

a ball. God, if Fielding started talking about kissing here, in this
testosterone bastion, in front of the guys—like seriously guy guys—I was
going to kill him.

I got through my spiel on the elliptical. That was a miracle in

itself with about two brain cells focused on the task. When I was done, I
went over to Fielding. He was running his hand over the free weights
against the mirrored wall as if he were trying to choose a bowling ball.

“Hello,” Fielding said, smiling at me in the mirror.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. It came out pretty cold.

Fielding’s smile vanished. “You’ve been lecturing me about

lifting weights for months,” he said stiffly.

True enough. Any other time, I’d be thrilled that Fielding had

actually shown up. I licked my lips, and nodded. “So you’re here to
work out?”

“No, I thought I’d practice my Brahms. That’s why I came to the

gym.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Fine. Great. Let’s start with biceps.”

There were a dozen people in the weight room, but I knew them

all, and they were comfortable with their routines. So I had the time to

pace Fielding, taking him through a beginner workout for arms, back, and
chest. It quickly became clear Fielding was really focused on the
workout and wasn’t going to talk about the kiss. I started to relax.

“So what actually causes muscle tissue to grow?” Fielding

asked. He watched his bicep plump and flex while he curled a dumbbell.
There  was  a  frown  of  concentration  on  his  face.  He  actually  had  more
muscle  tone  than  you’d  expect,  though  working  out  a  few  times  a  week
would  do  wonders  for  him.  My  eyes  roamed  over  him.  With  his  lean
build, it wouldn’t take long for the results to show.

I put my palm on his bicep to feel it work, motioned for him to

keep going. “It’s, um, called hypertrophy. When you work out, you break
down some of the muscle fibers, then afterward your body repairs the
tears, building the fibers bigger and thicker. It’s sort of like scar tissue.”

“That sounds attractive.” Fielding arched a brow ironically, but

he didn’t stop pumping the weight. Under my hand, his warm muscle
flexed and contracted.

I let go and took the dumbbell from him. “That weight’s too light

for you. You want to lift enough so that eight to ten reps is challenging. If
it’s too light, you won’t break down the muscle fiber.”

I handed him a twenty pound dumbbell. “Do the other arm now.

Nice and slow.”

He switched. I wrapped my palm around his other bicep, just to

see if I could feel it working harder with the heavier weight.

“What happens on a chemical level?” he asked, rolling the

weight up and down.

I smiled. Fielding was the first person to ever ask me shit like

that in the gym. Normally, people just wanted to be shown what to do.
They could care less how or why it worked. It was nice to actually use
my education for once. “The stress on your body causes hormones to be
released—testosterone and growth hormone, some insulin. They increase
the amount of nutrients going to your muscles so they can rebuild.”

Fielding gasped out a ninth rep. “I see. The body’s equivalent of

FEMA,” he joked, putting down the weight.

I laughed. “Loosely, yeah. Only it actually works.”

“And this is good for you?” He sounded dubious.

My hand was still on his bicep. I frowned and pulled away. “It’s

brilliant for you. Having more muscle mass makes you stronger, of
course. But weight training also strengthens your bones and tendons, and
it’s good for your metabolism and even your mental health. Let’s do your
triceps now.”

I showed him an overhead pull.

“Ouch,” he said, trying it. “This isn’t nearly as much fun as

running.”

“Hence the term working out.”

He snorted. “You like it, though. You get anxious if you don’t get

your work out in.”

I rested my fingertips on his triceps on both sides to encourage

him to keep going as he lifted. I shrugged. “The hormone and adrenaline
buzz gets to be addictive.”

“How addictive?” he asked with interest.

I knew what he was asking. So I told him about clinical studies,

blood tests for serotonin, about people so addicted to working out they
got body dysmorphia and ended up ridiculously huge. He soaked it all up
avidly, and not because he had a particular interest in fitness the way I
did, but because he was simply curious about everything.

We made it through triceps and biceps and went on to butterfly

chest  presses  while  we  chatted. And  I  couldn’t  help  thinking—all  this
recent drama aside, this is why I loved spending time with Fielding. The
guy was funny and razor sharp, and when he decided to give his attention
to  something,  he  did  it  wholeheartedly.  He  had  to  dissect  it  and
understand it completely, to master it. Within one month of coming to the
gym,  he’d  know  more  about  body-building  than  anyone  else  here,
including me. He’d be able to teach classes on it if he wanted to.

Fuck, I admired that. It fascinated me to watch Fielding, gave me

this weird thrill. I admired him and envied him too, in equal doses.
There’s a saying—talent recognizes genius, and I guess that was me and
Fielding. I was smart enough to get into Cornell, and I was smart enough
to graduate in my chosen discipline. But it was never without struggle.

Fielding, he was so far above me intellectually, so gifted, it just made
me drop my jaw in awe and do a mental kowtow.

He was special. You don’t meet many people in life who are that

special. Maybe that’s why it was so much fun to show Fielding the things
his upbringing hadn’t exposed him to.

Like kissing, a voice in my head said.

I felt a spike of dread. No, not like kissing.

Fielding was lying flat on his back, doing bench presses. I stood

at his shoulders, spotting him in case the weight got the best of him and
giving him some tips on form.

But at the thought of the kiss, the words dried up in my throat.

Fielding didn’t seem to notice. He kept doing reps.

Would kissing be like the weights? Like running? Like the

snowman? Would he bring the same focus and enthusiasm to sex that he
brought to everything else? What would it be like to be with someone
like that?

Fielding’s white T-shirt was tight across his pecs and damp with

sweat right in the middle of his chest. His legs were folded over the end
of the bench instead of off to the side like most people—damn, his thighs
were long. His dark hair was damp around his face, and his blue-gray
eyes were locked on the ceiling as he pushed the barbell up and lowered
it slowly. His full lips were slightly parted as he breathed through the
reps.

I realized I was staring. I felt a burn deep in my gut, as if I’d just

done a few hundred sit-ups. Heat flushed my skin. My cock swelled
rapidly, and there was a painful ache in my balls, an intense physical
longing so sharp it was like a knife jab. Fuck.

Fuck!

There was no way to avoid the truth this time—the hard-on was

mine.

I got pissed. I took the barbell out of Fielding’s hands. “That’s

enough.”

Fielding sat up. I couldn’t look at him. “Listen, um, I’ve got to go

help some other people. Do two more sets like that and then call it a
night.”

“But I thought I’d hang out and walk home with you.”

I lost it. “What the—I don’t want to walk home with you, okay?

Just… leave me alone! For God’s sake.”

I said it loudly, and a half-dozen people turned to look at us.

Fielding dropped his eyes to the floor, and his face went from

pale to scarlet in what seemed to be painfully slow-mo, but had to be no
more than a matter of seconds. Guilt punched into my gut, killing my
embarrassment and my arousal both in a wave of black ice.

“Look, Fielding—I… I didn’t mean that.”

Fielding shook his head in a harsh jolt, not raising his eyes, and

walked quickly out the door.

I GOT home after midnight. The door to Fielding’s study was closed, but
a light shone underneath and there was the faint sound of keyboard
tapping. I knew I had to talk to Fielding, apologize for what happened at
the gym. But I was sweaty and I needed a shower. I also needed to get
my act together, figure out how to most effectively grovel, for grovel I
must.

I showered and changed into my bedtime sweats. When I was

done, the light in the study was still on. I girded my loins and knocked on
the door. There was no answer. With a sigh, I opened it anyway.

“Hey,” I said.

Fielding was staring at his computer monitor and typing. He

didn’t respond. I could see his face reflected in the glare on the window.
He had a closed-off look, angry and really hurt. I felt like the biggest
piece of shit that was ever shat out by the world.

“I’m sorry I said those things. I really didn’t mean it. I guess I’ve

just been stressed out about this whole… kissing thing.”

“Well, you can forget it. I won’t ask you again,” Fielding said

coldly. “Now please go away.”

Jesus, his voice was like ice. I gripped the door handle, needing

to make this right like I needed to breathe.

“Actually, I was thinking… you’re right. I’m making way too big

a deal out of this and… it’s fine. I’ll do it.”

Fielding stopped typing. His back got even stiffer. “Quel

sacrifice! Laudable, but I wouldn’t want to disgust you.”

“Come on, dill wad,” I teased. “Special offer expiring in ten…

nine… eight…”

Fielding jumped out of his chair. His face was happy but wary.

“Seriously? Because you don’t have to do this if it really goes against
your principles.”

I snorted. I turned around and walked out into the living room.

“I’ll be right there!” Fielding called out after me. “Gonna brush

my teeth! Wait for me!”

I laughed. I looked around the room, my heart hammering in my

chest.

Was I going to do this? I was. Why? It was the right thing to do. I

couldn’t let Fielding be chewed up by Susan DeVree. And… and
Fielding had asked. He’d asked me.

And I wanted to. That was, I wanted to get it over with so I could

put it out of my mind and things could go back to normal. But all I could
think about was Sam’s damned crickets and moonlight.

Fielding’s first kiss. Jesus, the pressure.

I put on some classical music that Fielding liked and peeked out

the drapes. The moon was only three quarters full, but it shone brightly
off the snow. I opened the drapes and turned off the lights, feeling
ridiculous but weirdly happy. My pulse was pounding so fast I felt like
I’d been doing sprints, and we hadn’t even started yet.

Fielding bounced into the room like an over-enthusiastic puppy.

“For me?” he gushed in response to the music and the dim lights.

I tried to keep my face serious. “Just remember. This is about

teaching you the mechanics of kissing. It’s not a real kiss.”

“You mean you won’t actually kiss me?” Fielding asked,

confused.

“No, I am going to kiss you. I’m just saying this is not, like, an

actual passionate kiss between you and me.”

Fielding looked blank. “Of course.”

I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince—Fielding or myself,

but I had a feeling I’d never said a sentence more meaningless in my
entire life. Fielding wasn’t paying attention anyway. He looked as
excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

“Right. So where shall I sit?” He fluttered nervously to the couch

and arranged himself with his arms over the back. Not satisfied, he
moved to sit in the corner, one hand on the arm. Not liking that, he
squirmed his ass in the middle of the couch.

“Just….” I interrupted with a smile. “Come ‘ere.”

“Standing? Will that be comfortable?”

“You’ll be standing at the party, won’t you?”

“Right. Good thinking. Excellent.” Fielding hopped up and came

to stand by the window with me. He wiped his palms on his pants
nervously. “Very good. So how shall we—”

I grabbed his face and kissed him.

I’d taken Fielding by surprise, and his lips were already parted.

They felt as good as they looked—firm and full. I tried to go slow, but I
only managed a few sweet presses before my tongue was demanding a
piece of the action and sliding into Fielding’s mouth with a will of its
own.

Fielding, who’d been awkward and stiff at first, suddenly melted

against me with a moan in his throat that was not analytical at all.

I reminded myself that I was supposed to be teaching kissing,

focusing  on  the  mechanics  and  actually  thinking  about  what  I  was
demonstrating.  But  the  sensations  were  overwhelming,  and  my  reason
was  washed  away  in  a  tidal  surge  of  pure,  heady  chemistry.  I  became
completely lost in kissing Fielding.

It was so… fuck. And it was… damn.

The arousal I’d felt at the gym returned, this time dressed in

Kevlar, and it was kicking my ass. A slow-rolling, hot-as-sin lust swept
through my body, setting every cell on fire. Fielding’s mouth was sweet
and minty and warm, and the suction was just right. He was a quick

study, mirroring my actions, alternating between sucking gently at my
mouth and suggestively lathing with his tongue. But there was an
innocence in him, a surprised and eager passion that trembled through his
body, unable to be contained. I could feel how much it was affecting him,
and it made me crazy.

I slid a hand behind Fielding’s neck and held him closer, kissed

him deeper. My tongue surged in and out of his mouth. It fit so perfectly
it was as if Fielding had been designed for me to kiss him just like this.

He made another inarticulate noise in his throat. His hands came

up to my waist and clutched, shaking. I started to answer that invitation,
to pull him in flush, wanting more, wanting to feel him pressed hard
against me, needing to rub and….

I suddenly realized that I didn’t want Fielding to feel how turned

on I was, because I was, I was completely hard. And I didn’t want to
feel if Fielding was in the same state or—worse, if he wasn’t. Either
way, I wasn’t ready to deal with that.

I pulled back, breaking the kiss. I tried to get a grip on myself.

“There,” I said, my voice rough and unrecognizable. I took one

look at Fielding’s face, and the breath caught in my throat.

Fielding stood there staring at me. His eyes were wide, his irises

nearly eclipsed by pupil. His mouth was slightly open, red from kissing,
and emitting soft pants. Even in the moonlight, I could see a patchy red
flush of arousal on the pale skin of his throat. Oh, fuck. He looked so
openly bewildered and lost in desire that it took every ounce of will I
had not pull him back in and kiss him again.

“Oh,” Fielding said in a soft, dazed voice.

I cleared my throat. “So… uh, that’s it.”

Fielding nodded dumbly. And kept nodding. For once, he was

speechless.

“Right,” I said. “Well, it’s late. Good night.”

I turned abruptly and went into my room. I leaned back against

the closed door, breathing hard. I tried to resist, I really did, but I was
too far gone. I pushed down my sweatpants frantically and took myself in
hand. I was so hard and aching it hurt, my dick pulsing in pure need

against  my  fingers—aggressive,  demanding.  I  tried  not  to  think  of
anything  while  I  brought  myself  off,  but  the  kiss  lingered.  I  could  still
taste that mouth, feel the sensations of that tongue moving over mine. The
best  I  could  do  was  refuse  to  think  about  who  that  mouth,  that  tongue,
belonged to. It didn’t take long.

When I was done, I sank down against the door, my spirit sinking

along with me.

I was so incredibly, incredibly screwed.

I’D BEEN right all along. Kissing Fielding turned out to be a
monumentally stupid idea.

Because as much as I struggled to get a handle on what had

happened, with what I was feeling, at least I could pretend nothing was
wrong. But Fielding, Fielding absolutely sucked at lying and
prevaricating.

It was obvious from that very next morning that things were not

normal  between  us.  Fielding  could  barely  look  at  me.  It  was  Saturday,
and usually on Saturday mornings we hung out at home. Fielding would
brave his weekly phone call from his mom, and then we’d go for a run to
detox.  I  worked  at  the  fitness  center  Saturday  nights,  so  we’d  do
something  fun  in  the  afternoons—watch  a  movie  or  play  cards  or  walk
somewhere  for  lunch.  But  this  Saturday,  Fielding  mumbled  something
about the lab and took off in the morning with his book bag, head down.
He didn’t even stop when I called after him about taking a sandwich.

On Sunday, Fielding stayed in his room. I studied at the kitchen

table  determined  to  play  the  ‘nothing’s  changed’  card.  Around  three,
Fielding came out and got a dish of frozen yogurt. He stood eating it at
the  sink  for  the  longest  time  while  I  pretended  to  be  engrossed  in  my
writing. I finally looked up at him. He was staring at my mouth with an
intense expression. He was wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans, and that
telltale  flush  of  arousal  burned  on  his  neck  like  a  port-wine  stain.  A
spoonful of frozen yogurt hung halfway to his mouth and, having melted,
dripped  into  the  bowl.  He  was  so  focused  that  he  didn’t  even  notice  I

was watching at him.

I felt a surge of anxiety and lust so strong it was like a bullet to

the gut. Without a word, I got up and went to my room.

The thing was, I knew exactly what was going on with Fielding

—that  kiss  had  revved  his  sex  engine,  so  to  speak,  maybe  for  the  first
time  in  his  life. And  he  didn’t  know  how  to  deal  with  it.  But  what  did
Fielding  want?  Was  it  just  a  matter  of  a  strong  response  to  his  first
external sexual stimuli? Or was he really gay? Had I fucked up and just
made  things  more  confusing  and  painful  for  him?  And  I  had  to  worry
about all of that on top of my own shit storm.

I had no clue what was going on with my body.

I’d been straight my whole life. At my high school, tiny little

pond  that  it  was,  I  was  a  football  star.  Girls  were  so  easy  and  so
available, it was a no-brainer. I’d gotten a reputation that all my buddies
teased me about, and then I’d had to uphold that reputation. I can’t deny
that  I  reinforced  that  view  of  me  whenever  possible,  deliberately
carrying it with me to college. The other guys seemed to find it cool, plus
having a rep like that was a form of protection. The more girls saw me
as a womanizer, the more I attracted the kind of girls who just wanted to
fool  around,  and  the  less  I  was  taken  seriously  by  girls  who  would
expect something more.

That was a good thing. Because the thought of getting tied down

to a girl scared the ever-loving crap out of me. The close relationships
I’d  had  were  always  with  guys—John  Davison  in  middle  school,  the
‘brat  pack’  in  high  school  with  Dean  Thomas  as  my  best  bud,  fellow
football players Chili and Connor my first two years at Cornell, and then
Fielding.  The  two  of  us  became  joined  at  the  hip  practically  overnight
once  he’d  moved  in.  That  was  always  the  way  it  had  been  with  me—
women were for sex, but it was guys I felt comfortable with, that I was
really loyal to.

The realization was a little dismaying in the current context. The

fact that I’d never had a girlfriend longer than a week—that was bad,
right? The fact that I’d always preferred hanging out with guys? With
Fielding? Still, that didn’t make me gay. I was just commitment-phobic,
lots of guys my age were. It wasn’t like I’d ever wanted to have sex with

a guy.

Except… if I was honest with myself, if I unlocked a certain

drawer in my mind, that drawer wasn’t exactly empty, was it?

I remember thinking about jerking off with Dean when we were

in high school, just because it sounded dirty and cool. I’d never brought
it  up,  though,  because  I  was  afraid  Dean  would  think  I  was  gay.  And
once,  when  we  were  camping,  I’d  really  wanted  to  suggest  we  crawl
into the same sleeping bag and get each other off. I’d been horny and a
little  drunk,  and  there  were  no  girls  around.  I  remember  thinking  at  the
time—if you couldn’t be honest with your best friend and say ‘Hey, I’m
horny, wanna get off?’, then who could you be honest with?

I hadn’t been honest. I kept my mouth shut and nothing happened.

But all that was just normal, hormonal, teenaged guy stuff,

random thoughts. All boys thought about stuff like that at that age. Hell, I
was probably in the minority because I’d never actually done anything,
never really experimented. I’d only thought about it.

Until that kiss with Fielding, which had turned me inside out.

Even thinking about it transmuted my one-hundred-eighty-pound, all jock
frame into fucking Jell-O.

Shit.

The tension in the house continued at nearly unbearable levels all

week. Fielding was barely talking and hardly eating. I didn’t know
whether to press him or leave it alone. In the fine tradition of sticking my
head in the sand, I left it. I hoped it would all blow over. I hoped I
wasn’t going to lose my best friend over this. Something had to break.

On Thursday after classes, I came home to find Fielding

unpacking two large boxes in the living room. They contained Christmas
decorations. Fielding had already put up a small artificial tree. It stood
bare and unlit, but the stuff that went on it, and more, was spilling from
the boxes.

“Where’d all this come from?” I asked.

“My dad. I asked him to send me some appropriate items.”

I poked through a box. There were hand-blown glass ornaments

in there and a dozen strands of thick twinkle lights.

“Appropriate for what? Martha Stewart’s Christmas Special?

This is expensive boutiquey shit. Want some help putting it up?”

“No, I have to do it all by myself. I’m compulsive like that.”

I looked at Fielding in surprise.

He snorted. “Psych! God, you’re easy.”

“Hosebag,” I huffed.

So we decorated. We did the tree, and there was enough left over

to string lights over the pseudo mantle on the pseudo fireplace and
around the archway between the living room and kitchen. When we were
done. we turned off all the lamps so the room was bathed in Christmas
lights.

Fielding stood in front of the tree, his head thrown back and his

eyes closed. He had a big smile on his face. He looked like a little boy.
“Do you know if you stand this close to the tree and close your eyes, you
can still see the colored lights through your eyelids?”

I smiled. “You really love Christmas, don’t you?”

Fielding opened his eyes and shrugged, looking self-conscious.

“I guess so. I always spent it with my dad.”

“Didn’t you see your dad a lot? Your mom and dad both live in

Manhattan, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but my dad traveled for work. And my mom had me in so

many  classes  there  was  never  much  time  to  see  him.  We  had  lunch
together  on  Sundays.  But  Christmas  was  different.  Everything  was  shut
down,  and  I  didn’t  have  to  do  anything.  I  got  to  be  with  my  dad  for  a
couple  of  weeks,  and  we  always  decorated  and  went  to  Christmas
shows. Normal stuff. It was the best.”

Somehow, I pictured Fielding’s father as this Gordon Gekko type

in a Manhattan penthouse, maybe taking a young Fielding to Rockefeller
Center. Not exactly my brand of normal.

“Hey, if you want the truly ordinary, you should visit

Pennsylvania sometime. My mom cooks Christmas dinner in our little
avocado-colored kitchen in our seventies split-level, my little sister runs
around chasing the cat and screaming, the dog is out in the backyard
romping in the snow, and my dad with his beer gut watches the holiday
bowl.”

Fielding looked at me like I was rather scary species of alien.

“And where are you in this scenario?”

“On the couch watching football with my dad, of course.”

“So you leave your mother to slave away over a hot stove?”

“Yup. In Lebanon, PA, that there’s women’s work.”

“But you cook now,” Fielding pointed out.

“Yeah, well. If I didn’t, neither one of us would ever eat healthy.

Speaking of which, how ’bout I make us some hot chocolate?”

“With every fiber of my being: yes.”

So I made hot chocolate—with raw cocoa powder, almond milk,

and a little stevia—and took two cups into the living room. Fielding was
sitting on the couch, and after a moment’s hesitation, I sat down on the
couch too.

It was nice, very nice—having things feel okay between us again,

the coziness of the tree and the lights, and being just Mick and Fielding.
But the sense of calm didn’t last more than a few minutes before I started
to feel it—a hyper awareness of how close Fielding was, the insidious
memory of that kiss, the creeping heat and tension, tightening my balls
and making me feel reckless and anxious. I was determined to ignore it
and have a pleasant, Christmasy evening, though. I didn’t leave.

Fielding, still looking at the tree, cleared his throat. “So I’ve

been thinking….”

“Yeah?”

He licked his lips nervously. “We should try that kiss again. I

was so… muddled. I’m not sure I even kissed you back.”

I huffed in disbelief. “Uh, yeah, you did, Fielding. You kissed me

back.”

“Yes but… you were the initiator, the controller. I need to see if I

can do that.”

The words hung between us for a moment, floating there like a

lead balloon. My pulse kicked up and the butterflies in my stomach
flapped like they were trying to escape ahead of a summer monsoon.

“That’s not a good idea,” I said quietly. “I barely stopped last

time.”

“Stopped what?” Fielding looked at me in surprise.

I steadily met his gaze. “You know what.”

Fielding turned bright red and looked down at his cup. His hands

were shaking. He started breathing hard. For a long moment, he stared
down into his hot chocolate. Then he said, “What if I don’t want you to
stop? I want you to teach me, Mick. I want it to be you.”

I got a rush of that now-familiar, panic-laced lust. I knew he

wasn’t talking about kissing.

“Fielding,” I warned.

“Mick,” Fielding replied, looking at me fiercely.

Fuck.

Fielding put down his cup. “I’m going to kiss you again,” he said,

sounding very determined.

He put his hand on my thigh. I gasped in surprise. Hang on, I

wanted to say. I can’t. Don’t. But I couldn’t get anything to come out.

Fielding scooted closer. Oh, God.

Surely, one kiss wasn’t enough to turn Fielding the virgin into

Fielding the seducer. Yet he always had exhibited a pushy streak when
he wanted something. And the look on his face was pure, focused,
Fielding Monroe concentration.

My heart—Jesus, it was about to pound out of my chest. Waves

of heat traveled up my leg from Fielding’s hand and circled in warm,
gushing eddies in my groin.

“I don’t think—” I began, but that was all I got out before

Fielding leaned in and kissed me.

Fireworks. Fucking hell. I opened my mouth helplessly, and

Fielding  moaned  low  and  needy  at  the  first  stroke  of  his  tongue  against
mine.  He  pressed  against  me  blindly,  eagerly,  his  need  an  open  book,
like  a  starving  urchin  plastering  his  face  against  the  window  of  a
restaurant.

What that did to me! God, I never had a prayer. Lust swamped

me, hotter and more furious than anything I’d ever felt before, and I had
zero fucking resistance left. I had no clue what I was going to do with a
male, or how to do it, but I knew I was going to do it right goddamn now
or die trying.

Groaning, I pressed Fielding back into the sofa, never breaking

the kiss. I reached down to pull up his legs and then settled beside him.

But Fielding wasn’t satisfied with that. He rolled onto his side so

we  were  chest  to  chest  and  gripped  me  tight  around  the  waist.  He
pressed  his  whole  body  into  mine,  acting  purely  on  need  and  instinct.  I
felt his cock, hard as stone, thrusting tentatively against me. And it was
so… stupendously hot to feel how turned on he was, to know that I had
made him feel that way. I shivered and broke the kiss so I could lick and
nuzzle  at  Fielding’s  neck.  I  had  to  catch  my  breath,  get  back  some
control. It would be humiliating to come in under a minute like a twelve-
year-old.

“Please. God, Mick, please,” Fielding begged. “I’ve never felt

this way before, and I… I don’t want us to stop.”

I pulled back to look at him. His face was flushed and wracked

with raw desire. There was a flicker of fear there too—fear of rejection.

“We’re not stopping,” I promised, caressing his face. And then,

because saying that, I don’t want us to stop , sent a message to every
lust-soaked crevasse of my brain that, yeah, this was a sure thing, and
hallelujah, I rolled on top of him.

He welcomed my weight with a moan and reached up for a kiss. I

hesitated. He felt good under me, but it wasn’t quite right. I lifted up a
little. “Let me lay between your legs.”

He hurried to comply, spreading his thighs, and I laid back down.

I wasn’t quite sure it would work with a guy the way it did with a

girl, but it did. I could feel his groin through both our jeans, the soft
mound of his balls and the hard root of him pressing against my own. It
felt so damn good I couldn’t stop my hips from thrusting against him
almost as soon as I laid down. And God, yes.

He whimpered and grabbed my hips hard, thrusting up against

me.  I  took  his  mouth.  Fielding’s  tongue  was  so  innocently  erotic  and
eager it pushed me to an edge I didn’t even recognize. I tried to keep our
thrusts  lazy  and  erratic.  I  didn’t  want  it  to  be  over  too  soon.  I  got  my
hands under Fielding’s T-shirt and stroked his chest. His skin was soft—
soft  as  a  girl’s.  The  lean  lines  of  his  stomach  and  flat  planes  of  his
nipples drove me nuts. And Fielding was being just as enthusiastic. His
hands pushed my T-shirt up to my shoulders, forcing me to break the kiss
long enough for him to pull it over my head. His hands were everywhere,
feeling my chest, the muscles of my back, my sides. And it was Fielding
who  was  the  first  to  reach  down,  forcing  his  hand  between  us  so  he
could touch me. He rubbed my erection through the denim and emitted a
long moan, as if touching me was the biggest turn-on ever.

“Fuck,” I said, breaking the kiss. I hurried to undo my belt and

zipper, fighting with Fielding for access. As soon as the zipper was
down, Fielding pushed his hand into my briefs and wrapped it around
me.

“Oh, my God,” Fielding groaned. “You feel so good. I like that!”

He sounded so ardent, and so surprised, it made me smile, even as the
pleasure of his touch had me thrusting up into his hand.

Fielding explored me, stroking with those pianist fingers of his. It

felt so damn fine my eyes rolled up in my head. I forgot about kissing or
touching him for a long moment, just soaking in the sensations created by
his hand on me. Then I remembered—I was supposed to be the mentor
here.

“Stop,” I said, grabbing his wrist. “I’m close. Just… wait.”

Fielding removed his hand with a pout, like he was being denied

a prize, as I reached for his jeans. I fumbled them open and pushed them
down to his thighs.

That act, pushing down Fielding’s jeans and briefs, and freeing

his erect cock to the air, felt more personal and more real than anything

else we’d done. There was no getting around the fact that he was male.
And he was so exposed—hard and vulnerable. I felt weirdly protective,
like I was doing this for Fielding and I was going to take care of him. It
inspired a wave of tenderness that I wasn’t used to associating with sex.
It confused me a little, but it didn’t dampen my lust, only tinged it with an
aching melancholy.

I took his pants completely off and mine too, wanting nothing

between us. And when that was done, I took a moment to stare at the very
first erection, besides my own, that I’d ever seen in real life. I touched it
carefully with one finger. That fragile skin felt so different when it
belonged to someone else, silky and soft as warm air. Fielding’s penis
was a little fatter than mine, maybe a tad longer. The head was broader
and more distinct from the shaft than mine was. It was fascinating, and it
spoke of sex in a way that felt base and taboo, dangerous and exciting.

A tremor went through Fielding. I looked up to see him biting his

lip, forcing himself not to thrust and looking at me with such trust. And at
that moment, I wanted everything. I wanted to kiss Fielding’s mouth, and
I  wanted  to  kiss  his  stomach  and  chest.  I  wanted  to  taste  him,  to  know
what  it  would  be  like  to  have  his  cock  in  my  mouth.  I  wanted  to  give
Fielding  the  bliss  of  his  very  first  blowjob,  to  make  his  first  time
special. But I hesitated, not sure I could really go there.

As if reading my mind, Fielding quirked an eyebrow and got a

little smirk. “Chicken? Switch places. I want to try it.”

He growled the last, enthusiastic about the idea of sucking me. It

challenged me in a way that had my ego roaring. Who was the
experienced one here?

“No,” I said. I put my arms under his legs and around his hips

and yanked him toward me. I took him into my mouth.

I’ve always been an oral person. I liked going down on girls,

liked  giving  someone  the  ultimate  pleasure.  This  was  the  same  in
principle, and yet it was not a fucking thing like going down on a woman.
I  loved  the  way  Fielding’s  breath  hitched  at  the  first  feel  of  my  mouth,
the shocked squirms and guttural moans as I started to suck him, moving
my head up and down. Christ. My hands cupped his hipbones. His hands
clenched,  hard,  over  mine.  Frantic  noises  rumbled  in  his  throat.  He
moved his hips as much as he could with both of us holding him down.

His shaft slid in and out of my mouth.

I didn’t take him all the way in, a little fearful of gagging, but

together we worked several inches of him along my tongue and the roof
of my mouth. He was hard as fuck, and it was so hot to feel him slipping
in  and  out  like  that, fucking  my  mouth.  It  was  blowing  my  mind:  the
noises  he  made,  the  strumming  tension  in  his  body,  the  trembling  of  his
thighs, the massively aroused hardness of him, the movement of his cock.
Sliding in and out. Of my mouth. I closed my eyes and just tried to hang
on.  I  sucked  him  hard  on  each  withdrawal,  the  way  I  liked  it.  I  circled
his head with my tongue before each plunge in.

There was no way he was going to last, or me either. I took one

hand off his hips to reach down and touch myself. Jesus, I was so close.
Pleasure shot through me as I squeezed.

“Mick!” Fielding panted, a warning and a question.

I pulled off long enough to encourage him. “Go ahead. Do it.” I

pulled him back into my mouth. It felt too good having him there to stop,
and I wanted to make it the best for him.

Fielding lifted his shoulders off the couch and clutched my head,

crying out. I slowed down as he started to come, rolling my tongue
around him, drawing it out and causing him to cry out louder, thrust
harder trying to get that firm contact. His spunk flooded my mouth as my
hand pumped hard and slid over the head of my dick. All of it together
was overwhelming. I groaned long and low as my orgasm boiled through
me, sweet and strong and endless.

I went somewhere else for a while. It was an incredible high, but

it couldn’t last forever. As the endorphin rush faded, it was just me,
Mick Colman, and my best friend, Fielding Monroe, lying naked on the
couch, covered with come. The taste of it was strong in my mouth.

And suddenly, I wasn’t sure I could deal with that. I sat up.

Fielding lay boneless on the couch. “Oh, my God. That…

There’s no superlative good enough for that. I’m going to have to invent
a new word. I’m saving that memory forever.”

I said nothing.

“Can I do it to you?” Fielding asked, reaching for me.

“I, uh, I already came.”

“You did?”

I smiled at him as best I could. “Yeah. That was really hot.”

“Oh, my God,” Fielding said, collapsing back. “That so does not

cover it. Can I do it to you next time?”

Next time. “Hang on. Let me get something to wipe us up.”

I grabbed my pants and went into the kitchen. I wiped myself off

with some paper towels and put on my jeans. I went back out to hand
some towels to Fielding.

He wiped up, watching me the whole time. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t want to act like a jerk and hurt Fielding. For God’s sake,

it was his first time. Nobody’s first time should end with the other
person running out the door. It wasn’t his fault that I didn’t know how I
felt about any of this, but I really didn’t. A panic was growing in my gut,
a toxic walnut that was expanding outward like a chia pet of pure fear.

I did the best I could. I leaned down to kiss Fielding on the

forehead. “Nothing’s wrong. That was great. Are you okay?”

Fielding looked at me warily but nodded.

“Cool. I’ll make us some sandwiches. Then I guess we both need

to hit the books.”

I made sandwiches, feeling like I was hovering somewhere over

my body, watching myself go through the motions the whole time. We ate
at the table. I tried to make small talk about school, but I could tell
Fielding was watching me with far too much discernment. I cleared the
table and briefly rubbed his shoulders.

“I have to work on a nutrition paper,” I said, leaning down to

give him a hug. “I’ll see you later.” Then I grabbed my computer and
escaped into my room.

I sat on the bed for a long time, holding my head, wondering what

the fuck I’d just done to my life. I’d been into the sex, gay or not, no
question there. Like, seriously into it. And, of course, I cared about
Fielding. He was my best friend, and I just really liked the guy. I didn’t

“LET’S SEE if I’ve got this straight,” Samantha said. “No pun intended.
You’re upset because Fielding—who’s a super cute genius, who’s
probably going to work for NASA or something when he graduates, and
win the Nobel Prize someday, and who is also your best friend because
you guys fit together like peanut butter and jelly—is sexually attracted to
you, and you to him.”

I glowered at her.

“You poor bastard,” Sam said. “Life can be so cruel.”

“You’re missing the point. I’m not gay.”

Sam rolled her eyes to show her opinion of that. Then she

thought about it. “Well, you’ve certainly been to bed with more women
than any gay guy in history. Maybe you’re into girls and boys, ever
consider that? Maybe you’re an equal opportunity employer. A switch
hitter. A man of many moods. Like oysters AND snails.”

“Oh God, shut up. My folks would go ballistic if I dated a guy.

My dad barely forgave me for quitting football.”

Sam looked curious. “Why did you quit, by the way? You never

told me.”

I sighed. “Because I was good but not great. I was never going to

make the pros, and I didn’t want to fuck up my body getting injured. I
need that body, thank you very much. It’s hard to be a fitness expert when
you’ve got a bum knee. Plus, our classes aren’t exactly a cakewalk. I

was better off focusing on my studies and trying to max out my grades.”

“Right. You made that decision for yourself, and it was the right

one for you. Your folks just had to deal.”

“But this is so much worse!” I argued. “I live in small town,

Pennsylvania, for God’s sake. My family goes to the Methodist church.”

Sam frowned at me, impatient. “No, Mick, you live in Ithaca,

New York, and after you graduate, you can go anywhere you want. This
is your life now. You can’t live it to please someone else—not your jock
friends, not me, not even your parents. Especially not your parents.”

I knew Sam was right—I couldn’t make decisions based on what

would please my folks. Let’s be honest, when had I ever? But it was one
thing to make my own adult decisions. It was another to become a
person who might not even fit into your family’s lives anymore or into
your own perception of yourself.

I leaned forward, talking low. “But, Sam, I don’t want to be gay.

I  mean,  obviously  I  must  be  bisexual,  but  that  doesn’t  mean  I  have  to
choose  to  be  with  a  guy.  Seriously,  think  about  it.  If  you  had  a  choice
would  you  choose  to  live  your  life  as  a  gay  person  and  put  up  with  a
bunch of bullshit from people?”

“If I loved someone, and that made me gay, then yes!” Samantha

was upset. She shook her head. “Jesus, Mick, get over yourself. You’re
going to rip Fielding’s heart out, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one who told me I should be his first kiss!”

“I never said you two should sleep together. But if you are, and

you’re both into it, then I don’t get why it’s a problem!” Samantha stood
up and grabbed her tray. “Look, you’re a good guy, Mick, but when it
comes to romance, you’re pretty much a shit, you know? So whatever
you decide, just, please, minimize the damage. He doesn’t deserve that.”

“I know.” I stared down at my hands on the table, wishing I could

maybe conveniently die of a heart attack or something in the next few
days. But no, I just had to be healthy.

Samantha relented and heaved a sigh. In an unusual show of

affection, she leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I know you care
about Fielding. You’ll do the right thing. I’ll see ya.”

I was still worrying it over in my mind like an OCD dog with a

bone  when  I  did  my  Saturday  night  shift  at  the  fitness  center  two  days
later.  I’d  managed  to  avoid  Fielding  since  that  night  on  the  sofa,  but  I
knew  I  was  being  cowardly  and  that  I  had  to  deal  with  it  soon.  I  was
leaning toward telling Fielding that I wanted to go back to the way things
were before. Fielding would be hurt, but I could try to soften the blow.
And  with  winter  break  coming  up,  it  would  be  a  good  time.  We  could
both use a little time apart. In January, we could start with a clean slate.

That wasn’t what I necessarily wanted—neither my heart nor my

newly-ramped up, bi-curious hormones. But the alternative scared me.
Fielding and I already lived together, so it was kind of all or nothing. I
was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual. I
wasn’t ready to be in a committed relationship with a guy.

So when Regina came into the weight room that night, in a pink

leotard and short shorts, and asked for my help on the weight machines, I
went along with it. I guided her hands on the chest press, leaned against
her back, and listened to her flirtatious chatter. I smelled her shampoo
and looked down into her enticingly displayed cleavage. I tried to feel
something. Hell, I wanted to feel something. And I did.

I felt like an idiot for flirting with her and wasting my time and

hers when I didn’t even like her. And then I felt like a complete tool
when I looked up and saw Fielding watching us from the doorway, his
face wiped blank.

Fielding turned and walked out. I backed away from Regina,

tripping over myself in my hurry to put space between us. But it was too
late. I had the sickening sensation that I’d been caught with my hand in
the cookie jar, even though we hadn’t been doing anything. Well, nothing
much.

I ran out into the lobby to catch Fielding, but he was already

gone.

I thought about what it must have looked like to him. I

remembered what it felt like that first time your feelings got crushed.
That was one first time I didn’t want to give him. It made me sick. I
texted him, told him to come back so we could do his workout.

But Fielding didn’t reply.

I made it home shortly after midnight. Longest evening of my life.

The house was dark. I thought Fielding was in bed, but I couldn’t resist
cracking open the door to his room to be sure. In the dim light, I could
see the bed was empty.

“Fielding?” I turned on the light. There was nobody there.

Fielding wasn’t in his office either, and his laptop was gone. I

was seriously worried now, a sense of dread turning my limbs to lead. I
checked Fielding’s closet. The big suitcases and most of his clothes
were gone.

I pulled out my phone.

You’re not home. Where are you?

No reply.

In my room, I found an awkwardly-wrapped Christmas gift on my

bed. The small card was in Fielding’s scrawl and just said “To Mick.”
Feeling  like  an  even  bigger  heel,  if  that  was  possible,  I  pulled  off  the
wrapping paper. It was the Blu-ray set of The Lord of the Rings  trilogy
with  tons  of  extras  and  special  features.  Fuck.  It  was  a  hundred  dollar
set. I knew because I’d looked at it longingly on Amazon before deciding
I couldn’t afford it.

Why had Fielding given my Christmas gift to me now? Winter

break wasn’t for another week. Where was he?

I hardly slept. I kept listening for the sound of Fielding coming in

—a sound that never came. At some point, I fell asleep, though. I woke
up at seven, and Fielding still wasn’t home. The worry I’d been feeling
was growing into full-blown panic. Where would Fielding go? He didn’t
have a lot of other friends he could stay with. He couldn’t have gone
home to Manhattan, not with final exams coming up. And it was way too
cold to sleep outside.

I picked up my phone and texted.

I’m worried about you. You can’t just vanish. Call me right

now and convince me that you’re all right, or I’m calling your mother.

Ten seconds later, the phone rang.

“I’m fine,” Fielding said bluntly.

Oh, thank God. I felt some relief at that, but still, something was

very wrong.

“Why did you leave the gym last night? I was just showing

Regina how to use the machine. It didn’t mean anything.”

There was no answer.

“Fielding?”

“I know you didn’t want to kiss me,” Fielding said in a rush. “Or

do the other thing. I know you don’t like males like that.”

My face squinched up at the awkward pain of it. “Okay. But we

can still be friends, can’t we?”

Fielding sucked in a harsh, deep breath, as if he’d been slapped.

“I’m at a hotel. I’m fine, but I can’t see you right now. Don’t call my
mother.”

Fielding hung up.

I SWEATED through the rest of the weekend and then the start of the
week. By Wednesday, Fielding still wasn’t home. At least work and my
classes kept me from getting too frantic or depressed. But when I worked
at the gym Wednesday evening, my eyes were glued on the door all night
long. Fielding never came in.

By Thursday, I was so tied up in knots I couldn’t eat. There was

a knock on the door just after seven in the evening, and I ran to open it,
praying it would be Fielding. It wasn’t. An older man stood on the
doorstep dressed in an elegant long wool coat with a suit underneath. I
took one look at the man’s face and knew exactly who he was.

“Mick? I’m Fielding’s dad, Lex Monroe.”

I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. But, uh, Fielding’s not

here right now.”

“I know that. Can I come in?”

I stepped back to allow Mr. Monroe to enter. Jesus. This was a

thousand shades of awkward. Did he know what had happened? I could
feel my face burning.

“C-can I get you something to drink? Herbal tea?” I stammering

like a dork—or like a guilty person with something to hide. Like having
sex with your son.

“No thanks. I won’t be here that long.” Mr. Monroe scrutinized

me with a gaze nearly as sharp as Fielding’s. “I stopped by because I’d

like to know what’s going on. When my son calls me to ask me to spring
for a hotel for the last week before Christmas break, I know there’s
something wrong. But he won’t talk to me about it.”

“If he doesn’t want to talk to you, it’s not really my place to—”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Mr. Monroe said impatiently. “I

wasn’t supposed to pick Fielding up for Christmas until Saturday, but I
drove all the way up here early because I want to know what happened.”

Mr. Monroe didn’t seem angry; he seemed concerned, but also

very determined to get answers. And suddenly, my own worry and
heartache felt like more than I could bear without cracking down the
middle.

“I’ll make tea,” I said quietly. I went into the kitchen and got out

a couple of cups, put peppermint tea bags in them. I filled them with hot
water and handed one to Mr. Monroe. He took it, but he didn’t sit down
and he didn’t take off his coat.

“Look, I don’t know you,” Mr. Monroe said. “But you’re all

Fielding’s talked about since he started Cornell. He’s never had a friend
like that. So I figured you’d know what happened. Did the two of you
have a falling out?”

I sighed. Fuck it. I needed to make sure Fielding was okay, and if

that meant coming clean and being embarrassed, or possibly punched in
the  nose,  then  I’d  just  have  to  deal  with  it.  “Something  happened.
Between  me  and  Fielding.”  I  looked  Mr.  Monroe  in  the  eye,  hoping  I
wouldn’t  have  to  elaborate.  I  could  see  from  his  tightening  expression
that I didn’t.

“I see,” Mr. Monroe said calmly. “And now you want him to

move out?”

“No! He’s the one who took off. I… I just wanted us to go back

to being friends. I’ve been texting him, but he doesn’t answer. I just…. I
don’t know. I’ve never… Shit.”

Mr. Monroe put down his cup. “I can’t say I’m shocked. From the

way he’s talked about you, I was worried he might be getting… overly
attached. I wouldn’t care if you two were making a go of it. But—”

“You wouldn’t?” I asked him, surprised.

“No.”

“You wouldn’t care if Fielding was in a relationship with a guy,”

I asked again, just to be one-hundred-percent sure.

Mr. Monroe glared sternly at me in a way that reminded me

eerily of Fielding. “Would I be thrilled? No. But I’ve had a lot of years
to get used to the fact that Fielding is different. He’s special. He’s utterly
unique.”

“I know.”

“What I want is for my son to be happy. I’d love to see him in a

healthy relationship with someone, anyone, who really cares about him.
But I have to tell you, Mick, that doesn’t appear to be what’s going on
here. Whatever Fielding needs, I’m going to get for him. And I think what
he needs is a new place to live.”

“No!” The very idea was like a slap in the face. “Fielding needs

me. Not just anyone is going to get him. I look after him. I make sure he’s
eating healthy and getting some exercise—sleeping. I’m… he’s my best
friend. I really tried…” I stopped, choked by the lump in my throat. I
tried so hard not to fuck this up. But I had. I shook my head, unable to
go on.

Mr. Monroe looked at me for a long time. He took out his keys

and tossed them in his hand. “On Saturday, he’ll be going home with me.
I’m going to talk to him about moving. If he decides that’s what he wants
to do, I will make that happen. So if that’s not what you want, Mick, then
I suggest you convince him otherwise before we leave.”

I gripped the counter to hold myself up and nodded. I had no

doubt that this man could make just about anything happen and happen
fast.

“Good-bye, Mick. And… thank you for looking out for Fielding

this past semester.”

After Mr. Monroe left, I went into Fielding’s bedroom and

looked around. It was so Fielding—cluttered with stacks of science
books on the floor, Hubble posters on the wall, and a pair of Converse
tennies tossed in the corner. I sat down on the bed and smoothed my hand

over the rumpled navy comforter. I picked up one corner of it and buried
my face in it. It smelled like Fielding.

My cock and the ache in my chest both stirred at the sensory

input, wanting him. I groaned.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe Fielding should move out.

Maybe we should both move on with their lives.

But the idea of someone else living here, of coming home and

Fielding  not  being  here  to  have  dinner  with,  watch  movies  with,  to  run
together with at first light—it left a torn, bleeding hollow inside me that
felt  like  it  might  never  be  filled  again.  It  was  impossible  to  imagine  a
time  when  his  dry  wit  wouldn’t  be  around  to  make  me  laugh,  or  to
imagine someone else being the one to see the joy on his face when he
learned  something  new.  I  thought  about  all  of  that,  and  then  I  thought
about  never  holding  him  again,  never  kissing  him  again,  never  again
experiencing  Fielding  pushy  and  demanding  and  needing  me  so  bad  he
trembled with it.

And man, it fucking hurt.

“Okay,” I said out loud, swallowing hard. “Okay. I give. Uncle.”

It was time to admit defeat, to lay down my cards, and concede

the game.

For the first time in my life, I was in love. I was in love with a

guy. I was in love with Fielding Monroe.

THE  PHYSICS  department  Christmas  party  wasn’t  exactly  the  hottest
ticket on campus, so there were no bouncers at the door checking student
IDs  before  letting  people  in.  Still,  I  felt  like  an  imposter  as  I  made  my
way  through  the  students  and  faculty  gathered  in  Physical  Sciences
Building atrium.

The open space in the new glass and steel building went up four

stories,  so  the  ceiling  was  way  out  of  reach.  But  someone  had  gotten
creative  and  strung  up  wires  across  the  room  every  ten  feet  or  so.
Christmas lights were wound around these wires and a ball of mistletoe
hung from the center of each one. Christmas trees were spaced out along
the  glass  wall,  every  light  reflecting  cheerfully.  Small  tables  were
scattered  with  people  eating  snacks,  and  more  people  mingled  around
and through them.

I wore my best outfit—a pair of well-fitted black wool trousers,

a black button down shirt, and a red tie for the season. My palms were
sweating. I saw Fielding by the drinks table talking to a professor. I
stopped and took it in. My heart did an absurd little pirouette in my
chest.

Fielding’s dark hair was combed back, and he wore a tight silver

T-shirt and black jeans. He had a plastic light strand hanging around his
neck that reflected green and purple under his chin. God, he was so damn
cute. He was the cutest person in the whole world. Seriously.

Holy shit, when did this happen to me?

I smiled. I really didn’t care.

Fielding looked up as I approached and he abruptly stopped

talking and stared. I was nervous as hell, but I walked right up to him.

“Hi,” Fielding said, his gaze locked on my face.

“Hi.” I tried to smile, but it was a little wobbly.

The professor cleared his throat. “I’ll talk to you later, Fielding,”

he said. Fielding didn’t look at him. The professor wandered away.

Christ. In my time, I’d picked up dozens of girls. I’d never been

this terrified of rejection. I made myself speak. “I came because I miss
you. I miss you a lot. And I’ve been doing some thinking. I don’t want to
just be friends.” I reached out and took Fielding’s hand. He didn’t pull
away.

“You don’t?” Fielding said, frowning.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Fielding studied my face as if he could find the answers to the

universe there. He looked puzzled, like he didn’t understand and he
wanted to ask something but he was afraid of what the answer might be.

My mouth was dry, I was so nervous. “So…. I thought maybe we

could date, or be boyfriends, or partners, or whatever you want to call it.
If you want to.”

“Really?” Fielding looked truly surprised.

I laughed nervously. “Yes, really. I’m not sure I’ll be any good at

it. But I want to try. If you want to. I mean, you’re supposed to say yes,
you know. Or you can say no too, but I hope you won’t.”

Fielding smiled. It was a joyous smile that lit up the whole room.

He took a step closer, holding tight to my hand. “I say yes.”

I felt a rush of relief and pleasure so dense it was like

swallowing a ball of light. Jesus. This love thing was not for wimps. We
stared  at  each  other  for  a  long  moment,  and  then  I  looked  around  the
room.  Yes,  there  were  some  people  watching  us,  including  Susan
DeVree  who  wore  a  clingy  purple  dress  and  looked  like  she  wanting

nothing more than to cut off my testicles and add them to one of the trays
of hors d’oeurve.

“So did Susan nail you yet?” I asked.

“No. I’ve managed to escape thus far, clinging to the sides of the

room like a limpet.”

I chuckled. “Well, maybe we should show her how it’s done.”

Fielding’s eyes widened and lit up, like that was the best idea

ever. He turned abruptly, pulling me along as he looked up at the lights
overhead. When he found the spot he wanted, he stopped and turned.

“Is this a sufficient clump of greenery?” Fielding asked.

“It’s a very, very nice mistletoe ball,” I said, smiling. I pulled

Fielding a little closer, sliding a hand onto his hip. “Hey—I know this
isn’t your first kiss, but it’s the first time I’m kissing you just because I
want to.”

“For real,” Fielding said.

“Yeah,” I agreed solemnly. “Absolutely for real.”

Fielding got a wicked gleam in his eye. Then he slid a hand to the

back of my neck and kissed the ever-loving hell out of me.

Somewhere in the distance there were cheers and catcalls, maybe

a little applause. But I didn’t care. My world narrowed to the feeling of
Fielding’s lips on mine, the sweet tug of suction and tongue, and the heat
it sent sliding down through the center of me with significant detonations
at my heart, stomach, and groin. My knees went a little weak, and I
realized I’d pulled Fielding tight, our arms wrapped around each other.

Reluctantly, I pulled back, grinning like a fool. Fielding looked a

little dazed.

“Fielding? Who’s this? I’d like to meet him.” A professor

stepped up to us. He smiled at me and held out his hand.

“Mick Colman, Dr. Bieder,” Fielding said. “Dr. Bieder likes to

shock students with a wand in Electrodynamics.”

“It’s a, uh, useful demonstration,” Dr. Bieder said, looking a

little embarrassed. “I promise I don’t have it on me now.”

“Good to know.” I shook his hand.

“And this is Mick,” Fielding continued, smiling slow and sweet.

“Mick is my boyfriend.”

And right then, seeing that proud and happy glow on Fielding’s

face, I knew that I was a complete and total goner, that maybe I had been
for some time.

Love. Wow. I could feel the hearts and flowers and damn cupids

floating over my head. Who would have thought? It was like some
weird-ass Hallmark movie.

And it was wonderful.

Epilogue

One year later

I HELD my breath and knocked on the wreath-laden front door of my
childhood home. Fielding looked nervous standing beside me in his long
black wool coat and red scarf.

“It’s only three days,” I said, reminding us both.

“Seventy-two hours, give or take a few,” he agreed. “It takes the

human body longer than that to die of thirst, at least in this climate.
However, the survival period is much shorter if one is flayed alive.”

“It’ll be fine.” I said. We both knew it was a completely

unfounded statement.

“And if it isn’t? Pennsylvania has those Civil War bolt-holes,

doesn’t it? For hiding runaway slaves? Perhaps I could squeeze into one
for the duration.”

I cracked up, despite my nerves. “Well, yeah, but not in houses

built in the seventies. They were considered passé by then.”

Fielding’s eyes twinkled. “You don’t say.”

The door opened, and my mother stood there, cheerfully dressed

in a red sweater with a reindeer on the front, complete with sewn-on
bells around its collar. For a moment, both she and I were frozen with
forced, happy expressions on our faces.

My mom studied Fielding for a long moment and sighed. “Hello,

I’m Mick’s mom. I’m glad to finally meet you in person, Fielding.
Welcome.” She enfolded him in a hug, a real one. She held onto him, and
over his shoulder, her eyes met mine. Hers were a little sad but calm.

The knot in my stomach relaxed. Maybe it really was going to be

all right.

This was the first time my family was meeting Fielding, but I’d

told them about him a year ago, on Christmas break. Our relationship had
been so new, and it’d been torture to be separated. I failed miserably at
hiding it from my folks, what with me sneaking into my bedroom for long
phone calls four or five times a day, the ‘dopey look’ my sister swore I
had plastered on my face, and my announcement that I was going to
spend a week of my break in Manhattan.

“You’ve met someone special, haven’t you?” My mom insisted,

cornering me in the kitchen one day. She was a champion interrogator.
Seriously, she was like the maternal equivalent of Torquemada.

“Yeeeaahh…” I hedged. “But.”

“But?”

“But… you’re not going to like it.”

My mom squinted her eyes at me. “Mick Colman, I’ve been

waiting for you to get a hook in your mouth for years. Whoever she is, if
she’s got you all gaga-eyed, she’s really gotta be something.”

I couldn’t lie. Well, I could have, but it felt like it would be

cheating all of us. I took a deep breath. “It’s not, um, not a ‘her’. You
remember I told you about my housemate, Fielding?”

Her mouth dropped open.

To say my family was shocked would be putting it mildly. My

mom tried to say positive things, but it was clear she was deeply shaken.
My  dad,  who  prided  himself  on  being  a  regular  Joe,  retreated  into  the
Silence  of  Doom.  That  Christmas  break  was  awful.  But  over  the  past
year,  my  mother  championed  an  all-family  reversal.  She  joined  a
‘families of LGBT’ support group. She sent care packages to our house
addressed to both Fielding and me. And we talked a lot over the phone,
my mom and I. Hopefully, all my gushing about how smart and talented

and wonderful Fielding was had sunk in.

The school thing was much less dramatic. After I’d nearly lost

Fielding, accepted the fact that I was in love with him, and came out to
my parents, there wasn’t a lot that could faze me. When we returned to
Cornell in January, Fielding and I were a couple. We were the buzz on
campus for a while—mainly because of the fact that I’d played Cornell
football and was a well-known ladies man, and because Fielding was,
well, Fielding. But he was oblivious and I’d already separated myself
from that football life. I grew closer to a few of my old friends, and the
rest moved on.

It made me wonder if there’d been some subconscious urge that

had prompted me to distance myself from those ties long before that kiss.
I guess I’d known that football Mick wasn’t really who I was. It just took
me a while to find the other guy.

The weird thing, though, was what an attentive boyfriend I

became. The whole PDA thing? Crazy. I loved being out with Fielding,
holding hands, cuddling on a bench. I liked taking him to football games
and sitting on the bleachers together arm in arm. It made Fielding’s face
get this adorable flush, like he couldn’t believe he had a cute boyfriend,
or that I would be proud enough of us to be open like that. He did, and I
was. And really, the campus was fairly sophisticated. Most people
didn’t care.

And the sex? Holy hell, the sex was amazing. Fielding was

relentless and he wanted to try everything.

Yeah. It had been a damn good year. And now here we were,

home for Christmas.

Our first day home, we all went to the mall for some last-minute

shopping,  attended  a  Christmas  musicale,  and  ate  out  at  a  steak  house.
My  dad  was  polite  to  Fielding  but  obviously  uncomfortable.  My  sister
Lindy,  who  was  thirteen,  was  completely  absorbed  in  her  own  world.
My mom was… thoughtful. But Fielding was Fielding. He talked about
the  Large  Hadron  Collider,  which  pretty  much  lost  them,  and  then
Pennsylvania  battlefields,  which  got  my  dad  going  like  a  Chatty  Cathy.
He loves that shit. Fielding insisted on chopping vegetables for my mom
on Christmas Eve and dragged me into the kitchen to help.

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of roast beef and

hedgehog potatoes. As we ate, my mom turned to Fielding with a glint in
her eye. “So, Fielding…. I have to say, I was worried that Mick would
never fall in love.”

“It was a valid concern,” Fielding deadpanned.

I gave off an insulted huff.

“So when did you realized that the two of you…that you were

more than just friends?” she asked him. She was trying so hard, and I
appreciated it, I really did. Lindy watched Fielding and I intently,
waiting to hear the answer, while my dad silently communicated with the
roast beef on his plate.

Fielding thought about it, studying my face. “I moved in with

Mick at the end of August, and I believe I was in love with him by early
October.”

My stomach did a warm, twisty somersault. I put down my fork.

“We were running one morning through the fall leaves. I looked

at him and had what I suppose was a defining moment. I saw how
handsome he is, how strong—mentally and physically. When I was with
him, I… I really liked myself. Being with him was fun. Easy. I’d never
felt so intensely about anyone before, and it made me sad. I wanted him
to be around for a long time, to be my friend forever, and I knew it didn’t
work that way.”

Damn. Fielding could really get to me. I held out my hand, and he

took it.

“But it didn’t occur to me that what I was feeling was romantic

love. Not until Mick kissed me.” Fielding smiled slowly, a blush
warming his cheeks. I felt an answering smile hijack my own. “Which he
would never, ever would have done if not for the mistletoe.”

“I would have figured it out eventually,” I argued, my voice

rough.

Fielding shook his head. “Au contraire. It was completely, and

irrefutably, down to the mistletoe.”

My sister giggled and jumped up. She ran from the room and

returned a moment later holding a plastic mistletoe decoration from the

Christmas tree. She held it over our heads. “Kiss!”

“Lindy!” I complained.

“Oh, just do it already!” Lindy whined, as only a ninth-grader

can.

My mother gave me a shrug, smiling. I glanced at my dad. He had

a pinkish cast to his face, but he raised his eyebrows and lectured me
patiently.

“I’m not any expert on the gay thing, but if it’s anything like

regular people, you’re having a moment here, son. Go with it.”

Fielding and I both chuckled at that. Then I kissed him.

I meant to make it a quick one, but Fielding caught me in his

gravitational force and we lingered, just a little. When we broke apart,
my dad was staring at the ceiling, his face beet red.

“Pass the potatoes,” he said with a sigh.

So I did.

After dinner, we watched It’s a Wonderful Life with the whole

family, and then everyone else went to bed while Fielding and I stayed
up to watch Elf. He’d never seen it, and I just had to share it with him.
We laughed until we cried.

When it was over, I turned off the TV. The Christmas tree was

lit, and we were alone. We were bunked in separate rooms, of course,
and a little Christmas Eve make-out session sounded way better than
anything Santa might stuff down the chimney.

But when I tried to pull Fielding into a serious snog, he had other

plans. He looked at his watch. “It’s two minutes after midnight, officially
Christmas. I have something to give to you.”

He went into the guest room and came back with a present. It was

wrapped in red foil, and it looked like a shirt box.

“You don’t wanna wait ’til morning?” I asked. I had his present

in my suitcase too, but I thought we’d do it with the ’rents.

Fielding looked nervous. “I think it would be wise if you opened

this while we were alone.”

Was it something kinky? I smiled. “Yee haw.”

I unwrapped the gift. Inside was a printed photo of a swanky

lodge and a black velvet jewelry box. My heart felt all jumpy, like
maybe it was skipping beats. I looked at him questioningly.

“Open it,” he demanded.

I opened the jewelry box. There was a platinum and gold band

inside—tasteful and terrifying.

“I want you to marry me,” Fielding said firmly. “I meant what I

said at dinner—I want to be with you forever. I was thinking we could
do  it  this  summer.  My  dad  helped  me  pick  out  that  lodge.  It’s  in  the
Adirondacks.  It’s  an  exceptionally  beautiful  setting,  and  they’re
experienced at hosting gay weddings. You need to book well in advance,
so  we  tentatively  reserved  a  date  in  July.  But  if  that  doesn’t  appeal  to
you,  we  can  do  it  somewhere  else,  and  I’m  flexible  on  the  date,  but  I
hope it can be soon.”

He was so nervous. Part of me wanted to laugh at how adorably

earnest he was being, but mostly, I was just stunned.

“Fielding…” I managed. It came out a bit strangled.

There were a lot of reasons why it was a bad idea. It was too

soon. We were both young. Hell, he was only twenty, and I was twenty-
two. Fielding had never been with anyone else—how did he really know
he wanted me, for all time? We had no idea what lab he’d end up
working for after college, or if I could get a job nearby, or if being in a
gay relationship would hurt his career, or mine, and….

And there would never be anyone like Fielding Monroe.

He was looking at me with his absolutely focused determination.

I laughed. “Fuck. I should know by now that you always get what

you want.”

“That’s because my success record at being right is extremely

high,” Fielding said solemnly.

ASTON

has been at various times and under different names a

minister’s daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, the author
of paranormal mysteries, a fanfiction writer, an organic farmer, and a
profound sleeper. She is now happily embarking on yet another
incarnation, this time as an m/m romance author.

As an avid reader of such, she is tickled pink when an author manages to
combine  literary  merit,  vast  stores  of  humor,  melting  hotness,  and  eye-
dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most
of  that  most  of  the  time.  She  currently  lives  on  a  farm  in  Pennsylvania
with  her  husband,  three  bulldogs,  three  cows,  and  six  chickens. All  of
them  (except  for  the  husband)  are  female,  hence  explaining  the  naked
men that have taken up residence in her latest fiction writing.

Her website is http://www.elieaston.com You can e-mail her at

eli@elieaston.com

Twitter is @EliEaston

A PRAIRIE DOG’S LOVE SONG

a 2013 Christmas novella from Dreamspinner Press

EXCERPT:

Joshua Braintree stared at the laptop screen with a mix of shock,

arousal, and stone-cold pissed. It was an emotional brew that might have
been at home on, say, a badger that’d been lured by female badger scent
only to find himself locked in a trap.

Joshua shut the lid of his laptop. Opened it. Shut it. Opened it. He

punched the drawer of his desk, which did nothing for his hand, and not a
hell of a lot for the drawer neither.

Opened it.

There, on the screen, was a video trailer featuring Ben For-

God’s-Sake  Rivers,  his  best  friend’s  little  brother,  naked,  and  doing
things with a blond god who was hung to put some of Joshua’s bulls to
shame. Damn if Joshua’s eyeballs didn’t wanna just plop right out onto
the keyboard and maybe crawl around screaming for a bit, though what
exactly  they’d  be  screaming  he  couldn’t  rightly  say.  It  was  a  toss-up
between  Gimme  more!  and  I  need  to  kill  somethin’!  and  Joshua  Ellen
Braintree, you goddamn blasted idiot of a fool!

He closed it.

His walkie-talkie buzzed, causing Joshua to jump off the seat of

his chair a good inch, scramble to close the already closed laptop, and
check in a panic for audio sound coming from the video, even though
he’d turned the audio off ten minutes ago and the video wasn’t running
anyhow.

Smoothing down his hair in an effort to calm himself, Joshua

picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Yup,” he answered, sounding two octaves lower than usual.

“Boss, ’s that you?” It was Charlie.

“Yup.”

“Oh, okay. Listen, the kids have started showin’ up, so… ya

comin’?”

“Ain’t Nora here?” Joshua grumbled, shirking his job for

probably the first time in ten years.

“Well, yessir, she’s here, all right. Ya want I should tell her ya

ain’t comin’? ’Cause that Samuels girl is pitchin’ a fit again, ’n’ the
Reston boys are tryin’ to climb the fence ’n’—”

The fever that had taken over Joshua’s brain thanks to that damn

video  now  faded  to  a  dull,  warmish  ache.  Charlie’s  words  pulled  him
back down to the real and the now and life as it was known on Muddy
River  Ranch.  Joshua  pushed  a  shaky  hand  through  his  long,  straight-as-
sin mess of hair. He grunted into the walkie-talkie, in an assenting sort of
way,  went  to  the  door  of  his  office  to  leave,  came  back,  unplugged  the
damn laptop, and headed out to the stables.

It was mid-October, and the aspens around the stables were

covered in leaves that twinkled and shone like gold coins in the sun. The
sky was the deep blue that was just about Joshua’s favorite color in the
whole  wide  world.  But  even  the  perfect  fall  day  didn’t  make  him  feel
any better, ’specially not when the Reston twins were seeing who could
bust  a  leg  first  by  jumping  off  the  corral  fence.  Nora  was  busy
comforting  Lily  Samuels,  who  stood  by  the  corral  gently  wailing. And
Charlie  was  leading  a  couple  of  saddled  horses  out  of  the  stables,
probably in a bid to give Billy and Bobby something to do other than risk
their dang fool necks.

Joshua stopped for a second, taking it in—the day, the ranch, the

Montana mountains rising in the distance, and the downright miserable
start to his Saturday riding class. The thought that hit him hard was Ben
should be here. He’d have the Reston boys gigglin’ and followin’ him
around like puppies in two seconds flat.

Which was a strange thought to have, because Ben had worked

the riding class with Joshua for only a few months before he got “too
busy,” and that was over two years ago. But Joshua felt Ben’s absence
real hard all the same.

And then he realized that Ben never would be here like that, not

ever again.

So he wasn’t in the best frame of mind as he strode up to Billy

and Bobby, leaped over the corral fence, and grabbed each one of them
with an arm around the waist. Joshua marched toward Charlie and the
horses, his arms full of wriggling ten-year-old boys.

“Hey, Joshua!” Billy said cheerfully, going as pliant as an old

hound under a belly rub.

“I’m gonna tell!” Bobby screamed, though what he’d tell wasn’t

real clear. He struggled against Joshua’s iron-hard arm.

Joshua grunted and, reaching the horses, shoved Billy at Charlie

and swung Bobby up onto the saddle himself. Bobby looked down, his
mouth opened to complain some. Then he blinked at the expression on
Joshua’s face.

“Okay,” Bobby said, suddenly meek as a lamb. “But can I please

ride by myself? I ain’t no baby.”

Joshua’s gaze flickered down to the horse, Trisket. She was old

and gentle and the look in her eyes told Joshua she wasn’t feeling
anything but supremely lazy today. It was Bobby’s second lesson, and
they’d already done the leading-him-around-the-arena thing.

Joshua took Bobby’s hand and placed it on the pommel, gripping

it hard. “Hang on,” Joshua instructed. “And keep them reins slack. Just
let ’er walk.”

“Yessir,” Bobby said politely.

Joshua let them go. Trisket placidly walked the perimeter of the

arena, and Bobby didn’t pull on the reins. Joshua’s gaze fell back to
Charlie, who was holding on to Dusty. Billy was seated in Dusty’s
saddle.

“What’s the matter, Boss? Ya sick?” Charlie asked.

“Nope.”

“’Cause ya look a bit peaked. Yer mouth is all set in a line so ya

cain’t hardly see yer lips a’tall. And yer sort of flushed like, on yer
throat, and ya have these lines—”

“Charlie, I ain’t no heifer, and you ain’t doin’ no health check.”

Joshua growled. “Take Billy round once, then let ’im go alone if he
wants.”

Charlie grumbled in his cantankerous way. “Sure thing, Boss.

Take care ya don’t get stung, what with that bee in yer bonnet.” He
started leading Billy around the ring.

Joshua took a deep breath and turned to Nora and Lily. Nora had

her hands on Lily’s shoulders now, Lily had stopped crying, and they
were both looking at Joshua a bit warily, like they didn’t think he’d bite,
but they weren’t entirely sure.

Joshua forced a smile and went over to them. He vaulted back

over the corral fence.

“Mornin’, Sunshine,” Nora said sarcastically, looking at him

with one eyebrow lifted in a question.

Joshua grunted a nonreply and squatted down on his haunches

next to Lily.

“Ready?” Joshua asked the little girl.

She shook her blonde head, her big brown eyes dead serious. She

reached out and snagged a fistful of Joshua’s shoulder-length brown hair.
Joshua sighed inwardly. She was seven but looked a year younger. She
was a fragile thing, and her folks had hoped the riding would be a
confidence builder. But last week, at her first session, they hadn’t
managed to actually get her on a horse.

“Let’s go find a friend,” Joshua said, carefully tugging Lily’s

hand free from his hair—ouch—and then holding those harsh little digits
to lead her inside the stables.

Nora followed. “Can we find a friend for you too?” she quipped

enthusiastically. “’Cause you sure look like you could use one.” Joshua
ignored her.

Joshua had known Nora since they were kids. She’d been a few

years ahead of him and Chet in school, and then she’d gone off for four
years to college. She came back and bought the town diner with some
windfall or another. It kept her busy, but she still came to help with the
kids every Saturday morning. When the days were long, she’d sometimes
stop by for a trail ride after the diner closed. She said horses were one
of the reasons she’d moved back to Clyde’s Corner, and she wasn’t
gonna let her business keep her from enjoying them. She was large, blunt,
and gregarious, and Joshua loved her to pieces. But sometimes she was a
mite too smart and a load too honest.

“How ’bout this horse, honey?” Nora said, going over to the first

stall. “This is Jasmine. She’s a real sweetie, just like you.”

Jasmine was an old Shetland. Her owner had wanted to get rid of

her, and Joshua took her for just this reason, as the gentlest possible
creature for timid new riders, but also because he had a hard time turning
down any horse that was about to be put down.

Letting go of Joshua’s hand, Lily passed Nora and Jasmine

without a second glance. She went directly to the third stall where a
large white horse poked out his nose.

Nora gave Joshua a rueful look. “Women. They always like ’em

big.”

Joshua snorted a laugh despite himself.

He went over to Lily. Valmont was one of his rehabilitation

horses. Not only was he big, but he could be violent, and Joshua hadn’t
worked it out of him yet.

“This is Valmont,” he told Lily. “He’s too big for you. Horses

and riders need to sorta fit one other, like clothes. Jasmine’d fit you just
right.”

Lily dug into Joshua’s leg with both hands. Her little fingers

were surprisingly painful, like cat’s claws. She looked up at Valmont
with big eyes.

“He don’ like me,” she said shakily, clearly meaning the horse.

Joshua blinked and frowned. “Uh—”

“I can’t ride him ’cause he don’ want me to.”

Valmont leaned his head down and sniffed at the strange little

blonde thing curiously.

“Let’s go pet Jasmine,” Joshua tried, feeling a bit desperate. But

Lily just clung to him and to that spot, like she was rooted deep in the
ground somewhere, like maybe she was part oak tree.

“No! I wanna ride Valfront, but he don’ like me.”

Joshua looked at Nora helplessly. Outside, there was the slam of

car doors as more parents dropped off their kids.

Good Lord, he just couldn’t handle this today, not today, when he

barely had a grip on himself as it was.

It was kind of like that badger—the further he got from that video

he’d just seen, the less the aroused part of his brain was fired up, and the
more room he could devote to being just plain mad as hell. Despite the
distractions of the horses and the kids, he felt it creeping up inside him
like rising floodwater.

He was mad at the company that made those videos, for luring in

gorgeous young boys. He was a mad at Ben for putting all his bits out
there without, apparently, giving it a whole lotta thought. He was sure as

hell mad at Henry Atkins, who’d leaked the news about the porn all over
town like the low-belly snake in the grass that he was. But mostly,
Joshua Braintree was spitting mad at himself.

He was mad at himself for waiting too damn long, for getting

caught up in the ranch and not tending to a certain business that he should
have  been  attending  to.  He  was  mad  at  himself  for  letting  time  slip  by
like  a  wolf  in  the  night  and  steal  a  prize  right  out  from  under  his  nose
while  he  was  no  way,  no  how  paying  attention.  Instead,  he’d  been  off
doing numbers and working like a dog to get his horse business running
after  he  took  over  his  daddy’s  ranch.  He’d  thought  he  had  time.  He’d
thought Ben was still a boy.

Well, the video had cleared up that notion good and proper.

And Joshua was mad, too, for letting down Chet, his best friend,

who was in Afghanistan doing a man’s work, and who should have been
able to count on Joshua to keep his father and his little brother taken care
of in the ways that mattered. And Joshua had fallen down big-time on
that one.

Nora must have seen some of that in his face, because she gently

pried Lily off his leg and gave him a worried smile.

“I swear, whatever’s eatin’ you sure has one hell of an appetite.

I’ll take the little Missy Miss here. You go on and get the Carter kids
goin’. They should be easy.”

Joshua grunted. He took a deep breath and turned to lead out two

more horses that Charlie, bless him, had already saddled.

By some miracle, Joshua survived the morning class without

either killing anyone or sticking a label marked “bona fide asshole” on
his forehead. He spent the afternoon with the horses. He had three horses
he was rehabilitating at the moment. They needed daily interaction to get
used to him and used to the way things were gonna be. And they needed
him to be calm and confident. Knowing that helped Joshua push down his
own frustrations, for a few hours at least. And it always eased his mind
to work with animals. They were so much simpler than people. They
sure as heck didn’t do things like run off to Vegas to make porn.

But by the time the day was done and the sun was fading over the

horizon, it dragged Joshua’s hard-won calm down with it like it was a
daytime critter that hibernated in the dark.

So when Joshua was finally all alone in his house, and it was

dark, he closed up the curtains in his office real tight, locked his office
door,  even  though  he  lived  alone,  and  dug  up  some  earplugs  he  hadn’t
used in two years. He went back to that website, Boys 2 Boys, and this
time,  instead  of  watching  a  preview,  he  gave  them  his  credit  card
number,  selecting  a  “one  month  only”  plan.  Then  he  watched  every
single video that Ben Rivers, aka “Caleb,” had ever made, starting with
the first one two years ago.

Every one of them broke his heart a little more as he saw the

changes in Ben, witnessed Ben’s first time with a guy caught on camera,
his first kiss, first blowjob, first top, even his first bottom. He watched
Ben’s expression as he took a man inside him for the first time (being
Ben, he looked determined and sort of fascinated by a new challenge).
He watched Ben grow in confidence, get fitter and tanner, become a star.
And all of it was caught forever in Technicolor.

Those moments, those intimate moments, those firsts, were

supposed to be Joshua’s, and they’d been stolen as surely as if cattle
thieves had raided his pastures. That made him so angry and upset his
teeth ached.

The videos also made him hard enough to drive fence posts.

He cried a little that night, a few old painful, rusty tears. And he

came. Three times.

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