1. The Kiss

Hunter

“Lay off, man!” Hunter snapped at his roommate while typing at his dimly lit desk. Thoughts of the previous night made it impossible to concentrate.

“Hunter, you kissed me.”

“Look, I already said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I mean, it’s worth discussing,” Logan said, a glimmer of hope in his voice. Hunter could see Logan’s reflection staring at the back of his head from a strategically placed mirror above his desk.

They became friends in second grade when sporting the same Spider-Man backpack on the first day of school, and their parents met that evening for an exchange after a mix-up. In fourth grade, they became best friends after being the last two standing during a winning game of dodgeball. Now, sophomores in college, Hunter and Logan were inseparable.

“What’s the past tense of sink? Sank? Sunk?” Hunter asked himself aloud, ignoring Logan’s eyes as best he could.

“I can see you, you know?” A heavy huff escaped Logan’s mouth. “Whatever. I’m taking a shower. Are you coming out tonight?”

Don’t look at him.Hunter looked straight ahead. “Can’t. I’m two pages away from wrapping up this paper due tomorrow.”

“I can proof it when I get back from dinner later.” Logan grabbed his towel and shower caddy and walked out the door.

Hunter sank his head into his palms and exhaled, the deafening heartbeat in his ears keeping him from thinking about anything else. What’s wrong with me? What the hell was I thinking?

Hunter recalled his memory of the previous night.

After celebrating the first lacrosse match win of the season, they’d stumbled back to their dorm room in a drunken haze. Logan propped him up with Hunter’s arm over his shoulder.

“You’re so fucking heavy,” Logan grunted, struggling to support Hunter’s weight before giving up and plopping him down on a bench near the football field next to their building.

The memory, though recent, seemed like a blur. While their heads pressed against one another, Logan turned to face him, and their noses brushed in a delicate touch. He remembered Logan’s eyes, growing small, seductive, and his lips parted. A forest green hue encircled his dilated pupils under his shaggy, dark hair. The lamppost nearby gave them a faint sparkle. The tips of Logan’s fingers grazed his jean-covered thighs.

Hunter caught a whiff of Logan’s familiar scent of musky sweat mixed with cheap body spray. After their lips touched, he watched Logan’s eyes widen before pulling away, putting a cold distance between them.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he remembered Logan saying while extending his arm to help him up and back to their dorm room. The silence remained for the rest of the night.

Hunter spent the following day hungover and avoiding Logan, wondering what would happen if Logan told someone what he’d done. The risk of their friends on the lacrosse team or even Andrea, Logan’s girlfriend, finding out was too stressful to think about. He hoped Logan had forgotten all about it, chalking it up to the alcohol.

Still, he couldn’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. A twitch in his pants made him reach down into his waistband to tuck his eager companion away.

Logan

Logan stroked himself in the shower, thinking of the time Andrea made him come three times the one night at her parents’ house. “ Fuck me! Yes, harder,” she’d squealed, sending him over the edge. The titillating image in his mind shifted from Andrea’s sun-kissed naked body, bouncing on his hips, to the feel of Hunter’s tongue in his mouth. He winced at the thought, but it made his erection tighten in response. It hadn’t happened that way. It was only a peck, but why was he imagining it going further than it did?

He tried to remember, almost impossibly, the feel of Andrea’s breasts and how they bounced freely against her chest. Placing one hand on the wet tile to hold himself up, he grounded his feet in a wide stance as he approached his climax. Images of his tongue on Hunter’s tongue; passionate, ardent kisses flooded his thoughts. Desire took over, and an inadvertent moan escaped his mouth. His body stiffened, reaching its height of pleasure, and then relaxed in satisfaction. The cool tile on his face calmed his nerves as he panted, catching his breath while feeling the hot water run down his back.

The sound of a heavy pounding on the shower door made Logan’s eyes widen in surprise. “Quit jerking off in there!” a voice boomed, followed by an obnoxious cackle.

“Fuck off,” Logan shouted back with a laugh, recognizing the voice of one of his dormmates, who lived down the hall. A sudden pang of anxiety drained the blood from his face, and he wondered if they could read his mind. God, what’s wrong with me?

Hunter

Hunter tried his hardest to avert his eyes and concentrate on his paper instead of watching the mirror that routinely teased him. Still, the curve of Logan’s flexed shoulders and the contour of his abs captured his attention. Logan’s gaze met his in the reflection, making Hunter dart his eyes away with a blink.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come for dinner?” Logan asked a few minutes later, dousing himself in body spray. “Her parents are paying. Which is awesome ‘cause I could never afford that place. I think her friend wants to meet you. Andrea showed her a picture of you.”

Hunter stretched his neck, moving it from side to side until he heard a couple of cracks, trying to settle his body as best he could. “Some other time. I really have to finish this.”

Logan stepped in closer, placing his hands on Hunter’s shoulders, and dug his fingers deep into his trap muscles, kneading with a deliberate and unhurried pace that made Hunter tense, surprised by Logan’s touch. The warmth on his shoulders fogged his head, which disabled his brain from telling his fingers to type.

“Relax, jeez,” Logan said, resting his chin on his head. “You’ll always have a knot if you keep sitting like this.”

Hunter exhaled and tried his best to relax as Logan’s fingers made their way inside the neckline of his shirt and onto his bare skin. Thumbs traced up his neck and down again, the tips of his fingers touching the tops of his pecs. Keep going. His cock hardened in his pants.

Logan’s phone buzzed in his pocket, causing him to jump and slide away. “Hey, babe … Yes, I’m leaving now … No, Hunter has a paper … I know … Yes, I’m in the car …” Logan grabbed his keys off his desk and headed toward the door. “See you later, bud.”

Hunter waited a few minutes after Logan left before locking the door and turning off the lights. Between the cool bedsheets, he browsed the collection of bookmarked favorites in his phone: big tits, lesbians, hardcore gang bang. They’d all lost their usual stimulation. Pausing momentarily, Hunter looked up at the ceiling before typing, ‘two guys kiss.’ He winced, his stomach churning at the sight of it. He closed the browser in frustration and opened his social media account.

As he scrolled through the tagged photos from the previous night, memories of the match and the afterparty flooded back, causing his face to flush with embarrassment as he studied Logan’s expressions. The mere thought of kissing Logan, tongue to tongue like the men in the video, turned him on with raging intensity. He scoured Logan’s profile for pictures. There were pictures from the school year, holidays with their families, selfies with Andrea, and pictures of Logan and him over the years.

Upon scrolling back to the summer, he came across photos from a family trip to the lake, with one photo standing out among the others. Logan, clad in only his swim trunks, standing on a cliff with his hands on his hips, dripping wet. His muscles glistened in the sun, and dark hair fell over his expressive green eyes. He wore a broad, radiant smile. Logan sported braces for most of middle and part of high school. Once the braces came off and he grew almost a foot, his popularity skyrocketed.

Hunter stroked his leaking cock to the picture, admiring Logan’s muscular chest, broad shoulders, and tight core. Like a favorite song, the kiss replayed in his mind. He scoured his memory for every time he saw him naked in locker room showers or had sleepovers in the same bed. He realized, perhaps, it wasn’t the first time he’d thought of his best friend this way. However, the picture became all he needed to get some release.