22. Cole

Puddles scatter across the field as the rain falls. The coach has us running laps, so even though the air is bitter, and I’m soaked right through to the bone, the coldness is a treat to the heat pouring out of me.

Either that or the raging warmth twisting around my spine is from the glimpse of abs I keep seeing whenever Blaise uses his shirt to dry the rain from his face—it’s an unintentional glance in his direction that I can’t help but fall into. I’m more drawn to him than ever, and my entire body is aware of his proximity when our shoulders brush on the field.

I lost myself for a bit. Blaise stayed with me until our parents called us down to tell us they were going to go on another trip, just the two of them. They want a breather, away from us and life.

I stayed quiet and kept my eyes on the floor, while Blaise did all the talking. Asking where, when, how long, and if they think they can trust their sons not to blow the house up. He meant it in a laughing manner, but I didn’t laugh. I didn’t acknowledge a word. I dismissed myself and silently retreated back to my room and fell asleep.

I woke four times last night, and I could have sworn Blaise was there two of the times.

It’s fucking confusing. The way I feel. It’s messing with my head. I should hate him, want to smash his face in for being a pain in my ass since we met. But if I’m going to be honest with myself, in the least pitiful way, I never felt an ounce of peace under my bed until he joined me.

I didn’t pull away when our palms pressed together, and my heart slowed to a healthy pace when our fingers entwined, and just… Fuck.

“Any slower and you’ll stop, Carter.”

I pick up speed since I’m falling behind, catching up with Keith and Samson. “Fuck, man,” Samson gasps. “I feel like my lungs are dead.”

“Mine are on fire,” Keith replies.

“Pair of pussies,” I throw in as I overtake them, dodging one of them trying to kick my ankles. I run backwards while giving them the middle finger, getting back into a steady pace as I turn around.

My hair sticks to my forehead as I round the benches and ignore all the bystanders—the usual girlfriends, boyfriends, and wannabe jocks enjoying the view while we nearly die from exhaustion.

It’s been an hour, and Coach won’t let us stop. It’s punishment for the locker room getting trashed last night. It wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was any of my friends, since I would’ve heard about it on the group chat, so everyone speculates that it was Allie.

Apparently, she’s made it publicly official that we broke up with some huge social media post about betrayal and heartbreak.

I was sent a few screenshots, but I didn’t bother reading any of her bullshit. She’ll play victim, like she always does, then go spread her legs for her professor again in an attempt to make me jealous.

It explains why she’s here, watching with rage in her eyes.

Jackson sits on the bench behind her, with Samson’s big brother beside him. I know they’re going to party later. They’ll be waiting on the guys finishing up so they can head out.

I said no.

The last place I want to be is anywhere near Jackson. He made it out that something happened between him and Blaise. Blaise wouldn’t lie about it. He’s more the type to rub it in my face to get some sort of reaction from me.

I reacted. I hit my friend, ended said friendship, then let myself spiral.

I breathe heavily when we’re eventually allowed to stop. Bending forward, I keep my hands on my knees and cough up a lung. My leg aches like it always does when I exercise, but I learn to get on with life and ignore the constant reminder of my past. Sweat mixed with rain drips from my eyebrow as I glance up to see Allie smiling at me as if she hasn’t blasted me all over the internet. Jackson smirks, his head tilting to Blaise, and I follow his gaze to see Blaise talking to Mia.

Mia.

Why the fuck won’t these girls leave us alone?

And why is he talking to her?

I watch as they interact. He runs his hand through his hair, his chest rising and falling from the running, while she talks. Then she reaches for his hand, which he pulls away, making her brow furrow.

Good boy.

My nerves crash when Jackson hops down from the bench and walks straight toward Blaise, and before I can stop myself, I aim for them too.

“Practice isn’t done,” I snap at them, my eyes not daring to look at Mia or Allie. I’m glaring at Jackson. “Fuck off.”

“Hmm,” Jackson hums, before dragging his eyes to Blaise. “I’ll see you at the party tonight.”

My heart accelerates, but I don’t show it as I stare at my old friend. He backs off, lifting his hands, then swings his arm over Allie’s shoulder. “You don’t mind if I take a shot of your girl now, do you?”

“Not my girl,” I retort, grabbing Blaise by the shoulder and turning him toward the field.

“We have forty minutes left of practice,” I say without looking at him. “Then you can go to the party all you want.”

Blaise shrugs me off, grabbing his helmet from the side of the tracks just as I take mine and pull it over my head. Keith whistles to hurry us up, and Blaise stops beside me. “If you’re jealous, you know what you need to do,” he whispers. “If you don’t want me to go to the party, all you need to do is say that.”

Coach signals for us to get into position. Blaise jogs to his side, since we’re on opposite teams for practice, getting into a squat position, ready to catch the ball.

Half an hour into the match, I think I’ve tackled every single player, imagining they’re Jackson. I nearly punched Keith in the gut when he told me to calm down.

The last pass, and I aim for Blaise as soon as he catches the ball and runs up the side of the field. My feet pound the wet ground as I gain on him, throwing my body into his side before he can touchdown.

I hear the air rush from his lungs on impact, slamming him into the ground and pinning him down.

“Shit, Cole,” he groans beneath me. “That was fucking personal.”

I grab the cage of his helmet and yank him up to me, so our helmets clash. “Stay the fuck away from Jackson,” I snap. “If I see you even talking to him, I’ll beat your ass and snap your legs and watch him get his spot back on the team. If you want to take that as a threat, good, because it is. Stay. Away. From. Him.”

When I let go of him, he headbutts me, cracking our helmets together and shoving me off so I fall onto my back in the mud. He jumps to his feet, panting. “Don’t threaten me again.” Then he laughs. “Knew you were jealous.”

“Rowle,” Coach yells. “Carter. Get over here.”

Rolling my eyes, I slap Blaise’s hand away when he tries to help me to my feet. Coach shakes his head at us both as we approach.

“Your father said you’d both fight during a match, so this is your only warning. Another brawl between you both and I’m benching the pair of you for three games.”

He thinks that was us fighting? Fuck, he should see what it’s like when I’m masked and Blaise is sucking my cock. Or not – I don’t want anyone seeing that side of us.

I sigh. “Then you’d lose the games. We’re your best players.”

“Get out of my sight.”

I laugh as I walk by him. Everyone’s already inside getting showered and dressed. Blaise follows, muttering something under his breath about being an asshole.

Must be talking about himself.

The stalls in the shower room are empty when we get in, the guys pulling on their clean clothes, some cocks out. I glance at Blaise to see if he’s giving them any attention, but he’s too busy trying to unfasten the clip on his helmet. Tossing mine down, I yank off my shirt, then my guards, and hike my foot onto a bench to undo my laces.

“I’m not helping you,” I say to him when he huffs. “Learn to do it yourself.”

“I know how to fucking take off my helmet. I played in high school.”

Keith comes over, squirting water into his mouth from his sports bottle. “J will pick us up around seven,” he tells Blaise. “Be ready.”

He nods, and I feel every fucking nerve snapping as I switch shoes to undo the other lace.

“You sure you’re not coming?” he asks me, and I shake my head. “Well, suit yourself. We’re gonna play another chase.”

Great.

Fucking perfect.

Blaise isn’t going.

Keith leaves the locker room, and after a few minutes, everyone else leaves. Blaise finally gets his helmet off and drops it onto a bench. I catch him looking at me while I undress down to my boxer shorts, but he isn’t doing the same.

I’m annoyed with him. I’m always annoyed with him, but something inside me likes that it’s just the two of us in here. And I want him to fucking take off his clothes so I can at least look at him the way he keeps looking at me.

Instead, I snatch my towel from my bag and head to the shower stalls, resting my towel on the hook on the way in. I remove my boxers and let them splash in the puddle on the floor, catching a glimpse of Blaise glancing in my direction before I vanish into the cubical.

Warm water cascades over my body, washing away all the sweat and dirt from my skin. I drop my head forward, soaking my hair under the spray, facing the wall with my hand on it.

Footsteps sound, and I hear the shower next to me. I turn my head to see Blaise, from his shoulders up, doing the same as me.

I don’t hide the fact I’m watching him. Watching him soak his hair and run his fingers through it, dropping his head back and rubbing the dirt from his throat and chest.

My cock hardens. It twitches between my legs, begging for touch. It wants his lips. His mouth. His throat.

Blaise’s jaw is clenched as he washes his hair, and my breathing halts as he looks at me from under his wet lashes. We both gulp. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, jaw clenched tightly.

Slowly, his eyes close as he releases his lip and parts them both, his head falling back to elongate his throat. His shoulder rises once, twice, three times. And I realize my hand is following his movements. I wrap my fingers around my cock, not daring to break our colliding eyes. Letting out a puff of air, I stroke myself the way he is. Slow. Long. Twisting at the tip and back down.

With my mouth open on a deep whimper, Blaise lets out a “fuck,” groaning as we keep the slow, sensual pace of fucking our own hands. “Tell me not to come in there.”

I don’t speak. I just keep touching myself, feeling the energy of him all over me while I pant for air within the steam-filled room.

Blaise doesn’t stop stroking himself as he ditches his shower and rounds mine, and my nerves spark into an inferno when I see him fully naked, his long, thick cock in his hand. I moan as he snatches my throat and slams me into the side of the cubicle, pressing his forehead to mine as we breathe the same air, still stroking up and down.

My tip hits his, mixing our precum, and neither of us bother to turn the shower back on when the timer cuts off. My free hand reaches for his chest, dragging my blunt nails down the muscles there, loving the way he sucks in a rushed breath between his teeth when I reach his abs.

Absently, we move our cocks in sync. He rubs into the side of mine, and we wrap our fingers around them both, thrusting, getting into a rhythm where he thrusts forward as I drag back, watching how good our cocks look together.

I lift my head, staring at him as we keep going, as heat rushes up my spine and makes me dizzy. My gaze drops to his mouth, and I don’t hesitate to slam my lips to his. It’s feral. It’s painful. It’s everything I fucking need as he kisses me back. The strokes get faster, deeper, and when we both part our lips and our tongues collide, the world stops spinning, the shower room vanishes around us, and time halts as we devour each other’s mouths, deepening the kiss as he snatches my bottom lip between his teeth and nips at me.

Blaise slides his hand up into my hair and tugs, yanking my head to the side. I nearly explode all over him as he kisses along my jaw and down my throat, stopping just under my ear to suck on the sensitive skin there. My cock jumps, and I moan deeply as he bites and licks and kisses while we fuck our hands.

A door opens, and we both pause.

“Cole!” We hear Keith coming in. “You in here? Your car’s outside still.”

I push Blaise down to his knees just as Keith walks into the shower room. I quickly turn on the spray and pretend to wash my body as Keith stops in the middle of the room.

“Ah, good, found you. Did Coach tell you about the away game in South Carolina?”

I turn and nod once, even though I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. I’m too much in a panic that he’ll walk around more and see Blaise crouching in front of me.

I don’t look down as a hand slides up my thigh while Keith tells me about the trip. My body freezes all over when his lips trace over the scar on my hip, a reminder of my father’s abuse. He kisses it and drags his lips lower.

I swallow, my cock twitching as fingers wrap around the base. I fight the groan and how badly I need to screw my eyes shut as Blaise’s warm mouth takes the head of my cock. His tongue circles it slowly, so fucking slowly I think I might blow while Keith tells me about the hotel and flights. Not that I’ll be going since I have too many assignments for college.

Sneaking a glance down, I stop breathing at how deep he takes my cock into his throat. I absently move my hips forward, bringing my gaze back to Keith still talking away like I’m not in the middle of being sucked off by Blaise.

I flinch when he palms my ass cheeks, spreading them, and I tense all over when a sneaky fingertip presses to my back hole as Blaise swallows my cock.

“Anyway, yeah, I just wanted to check that you were on board. I’ll make sure the coach doesn’t room you with your brother. We don’t want any fights.”

I nod once. “Right.”

Blaise chuckles silently around my cock, and I fist the hair at the back of his head and force my cock in until it hits the back of his throat. Quietly choking, he gags around the base of my dick.

He returns the favor by pushing his finger into my back hole just as Keith waves himself off and leaves. The locker room door shuts, and I let out a gasp and pant and grab the back of his head and shove in deeper.

“So sneaky on your knees for me,” I breathe, my balls tightening as he pushes a second finger into my ass, making my eyes roll.

His eyes are watering from the intrusion while he pulses his finger in and out of my ass, and I move with him. I fuck into his mouth while he finger-fucks me into a frenzy. My vision blurs, and I quicken my pace as his fingers curl in my ass and hit something that blows my fucking head off.

“Fuck,” I moan. “Fuck, Blaise.”

I empty into his mouth, filling his throat with my cum. I nearly die when he swallows around my cock, his throat tightening around my thickness. He moans, and I realize he’s been stroking himself, getting himself off while he pleases me in the college shower room.

He stills completely, and I feel the hot spurts of his release hitting my legs as he whimpers around my dick.

Pulling out, I use his hair to get him to his feet quickly and fist his cock at the same time as I kiss him. He’s still coming as I stroke him, squeezing, twisting, fucking swallowing his groans and tasting my cum on his tongue as I bite down on it and suck.

When he’s finished, I let go of his dick, and instead of pulling away completely, I take his face in my hands and kiss him harder. Our chests press together, hands everywhere, as I taste and bite and lick and fucking feel Blaise all over me.

“We’re really doing this?” I ask between kisses, both our hands in each other’s hair and pulling, the muscles on our chests and abs rubbing together, even though we’ve already gotten off and our cocks are flaccid.

“Just don’t make it obvious and we won’t give our parents a heart attack,” Blaise replies, nudging my nose with his before slowly kissing me again. “We still hate each other, remember?”

“And you’ll stay away from Jackson?”

He grins against my mouth, the smile making me feel warm as it lights up his green eyes. “I knew you were jealous.”

I laugh and shove away from him. “Fuck you.”