Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
“I can’t visit an old friend?” Jeremy ducked in for a last, lingering kiss and was rewarded with a nip at his lower lip.
Leo’s heavy-lidded gaze tracked him as Jeremy rolled off the bed. Jeremy could almost hear the gears working as Leo thought, and he knew it wouldn’t take long for the other man to draw the right conclusions. They’d gone to the same high school, after all. They’d been teammates for four years and clumsily unsubtle lovers for most of one. Then Warren offered Leo a car if he climbed out of Jeremy’s bed, and Leo needed only two hours to choose his side.
Whenever he was home for school break, he parked the BMW where Warren was sure to see it. Jeremy had considered keying it beyond repair for a while there, and for two years the sight of it was enough to make him ill. Last year he’d run into Leo by chance at the beach, and Leo had taken him up the coast to desecrate the backseat. After that the car was a little less of an eyesore, but there was still a chasm between them neither man could fix.
“Bryson’s in town,” Leo decided. “When is that cocksucker going to move out for good? Annie did.”
“Annalise,” Jeremy corrected him, never mind his sister wasn’t around to take offense to the nickname. Jeremy pushed around Leo’s jeans with his foot, looking for his other sock, and finally found it near the baseboard. “Glass houses, anyway. We’re still living at home.”
Leo sat up just to immediately slump back against the headboard. He scratched idly at his bare chest and watched with keen interest as Jeremy tugged on his clothes. “We’re in undergrad,” he said only after Jeremy’s ass disappeared into boxers and too-bright shorts. “How’s he ever gonna get picked up by a firm in Manhattan if he’s back here so often? I can call around, maybe, see if I can namedrop him to the right people. Not that a Wilshire needs my help getting placed, I mean.”
“He is not a Wilshire.”
Leo was unmoved by the flat tone but beckoned Jeremy back to him. Jeremy waited until he’d yanked his shirt on before letting Leo pull him in. “Ah, there you are,” Leo said, tracing the hard line of Jeremy’s mouth with his thumb. His grip on Jeremy’s wrist went bruising when Jeremy tried to pull free, and he kissed Jeremy to take the sting off his words: “Denial didn’t save you then and won’t save you now. He made his choice, and you made yours, Knox.”
“Let me out.”
“What’s the rush?” Leo let go and put another pillow behind his head. “Let’s chat a bit. You’ve been holding out on me.”
“I’ve stayed too long as it is.” Jeremy crossed the room and motioned at the curtain. “Come on.”
“Love him and leave him,” Leo mocked him.
Jeremy leveled a cool look at him. “You made that choice for both of us.”
“And I’d do it again,” Leo said, without an ounce of guilt or shame. He was at least smart enough to get up, knowing his words were likely to send Jeremy out onto the balcony unattended. He gave a half-assed attempt to find his briefs before moseying over to Jeremy in the nude. Jeremy stepped out of view as Leo tugged the curtains wide open, but Leo didn’t bother to slide the door open yet. “Don’t be stingy. You’ve got a Raven on your lineup. How’d you pull that off?”
“Luck,” Jeremy said.
Leo waited, but Jeremy gazed back in silence. Leo gave an exaggerated shrug and said, “It’s about time the Trojans gave up the gag, honestly. It’ll be good to see them get dirty this year. Good for you, too. You tried it their way for four years, and what did it ever get you except failure right at the finish line?”
“Our way.” Jeremy tilted his head away from Leo’s kiss. “Signing Jean doesn’t mean we’re changing how we do things. I wouldn’t want us to.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I believe in us,” Jeremy insisted. “We can win without sacrificing who we want to be.”
Leo’s smile was too amused to be pitying. “You couldn’t even beat the Foxes when it mattered most.”
Jeremy regretted the loss, but not the choice his team had made that night. Trying to explain himself to Leo would only start a fight, so Jeremy gazed back at him in silence until Leo turned away at last. The other man tugged the door open and stepped out onto the balcony. He made a show of stretching and yawning, his head on a slow swivel as he checked the neighbors’ windows for any witnesses.
Leo motioned an okay when he was done, and Jeremy stepped out alongside him. Leo propped his elbow on the railing and said, “Mind the roses when you drop. Mom’ll kill me if you fuck ‘em up.”