Chapter 2

CHAPTER

TWO

SCOUT

I slept like the dead, and woke up feeling better than I had in weeks. A therapeutic side effect of coming my brains out with another person, I guessed. Trey was already gone and I might have thought he was avoiding me, except I knew he liked to go and check on the state of the kitchen first thing just in case anyone had decided to make a snack overnight and failed to clean up after themselves.

It wasn't likely—we all knew better —but occasionally one of the new pledges was dumb enough to think that someone else would clean up their messes.

It wasn't a mistake they made twice. Trey in full House Manager mode was intimidating as all hell. I loved watching him put the fear of God into people. Hell, if I was lucky enough to know beforehand what was happening, sometimes I even made myself a snack and a drink.

This morning, I headed downstairs, blinking in the early morning light, and found Trey in the kitchen going over this week's chores' list and explaining to a perplexed-looking Marty that it wasn't good enough restocking the spare toilet papers in the cabinets in the downstairs bathrooms and not doing the same upstairs .

"But, it's like, I got all the toilet paper on the list," Marty said. "And I put it in the bathrooms."

"You have to put it in all the bathrooms, though," Trey said. "Not just downstairs."

"It doesn't say that on the chore list, bro."

"That's because some things should go without saying." He caught my eye over Marty's shoulder and flashed me a smile.

That smile settled the unease that had been brewing in my gut all the way downstairs. Made my skin prickle too, because I remembered his mouth accidentally brushing my collarbone last night, and the heat of his breath against my sweat-slicked skin.

Anytime.

"Hey, Scout," Marty said, turning toward me and dragging me out of my reverie. He looked me up and down, head tilted to the side like a curious dog. "You're smiling. What's up with that?"

"I smile," I said.

"No, you don't."

"Bathrooms, Marty," Trey said. "Focus."

"You know what helps me go to the bathroom? Apple juice. Do we have any?" Marty asked. He went to the refrigerator to check. Then he wandered away empty-handed anyway.

So much for focus.

"Probably gone to find an apple tree," Trey said.

I snorted.

"We're good, right?" Trey asked.

"Yeah. Of course."

"Cool," he said, looking me up and down like he didn't quite believe it. "Hey, do you want to grab a breakfast burrito from that new place over by the library?"

I'd just said that we were good, so it wasn't as though I could refuse him now, without making it weird. Weirder. Whatever.

"Sure," I said .

The new place was a hole in the wall cafe. Literally a hole in the wall. You lined up, ordered at the tiny window, and they gave you your food. There were no seats or tables, but it was right by the quad, so most people grabbed their food and went and sat in the shade of the massive sycamores. I lingered a little in the line, unsure of the etiquette of who ought to pay for whose breakfast after last night—it wasn't the sort of question of manners I could phone my mother and ask about—and Trey swiped his card before I did, and then we went and sat in the quad. It was still pretty early, so there weren't a lot of people around yet. There was some group doing some kind of boot camp on the other side of the quad, but this was a college campus and they were outliers—most people wouldn't be rolling out of bed until noon if they could help it.

I also wasn't sure of the etiquette of bringing up what had happened last night, but Trey had that under control as well. He peeled the foil back from his breakfast burrito, and raised his brows as he looked at me. "So, last night was at least a little weird, right?"

I huffed out a laugh. "You could say that, yeah."

He tilted his head. "Too weird?"

The question could have been a trap, but I knew Trey well enough—I hoped—that I knew he wasn't an asshole. "Less weird than it feels like it should be."

Trey smiled slightly. "Yeah."

I picked at my burrito for a few moments, watching the boot camp with narrowed eyes. Masochists. "I slept better last night than I have in ages."

His smile ratcheted up a few degrees. "Me too."

"So, yeah," I said. "It was cool, and we're cool too."

We fist bumped over our burritos, like the bros we were, and it was cool.

Okay, so I'm not sure exactly why I thought that Trey and I wouldn't do that again, or when that assumption got so badly flipped on its head. Probably somewhere between the third and fourth times it happened again, I guess. There was nowhere left for my denial to hide after that. ‘This probably won't happen again' had retreated in defeat, firmly replaced by the victorious ‘Oh yeah, we're doing this and it feels amazing .'

We were getting good at it too.

Every night when we turned out the lights, we'd lie there quietly for long minutes, and then one of us would flip their comforter back in silent invitation. The sound of bare feet on our wooden floor had become to my libido what a ringing bell was to Pavlov's dogs' saliva glands. Tonight, I was the one who sat up and flipped my comforter back, and my dick throbbed the second I heard Trey's feet on the floor. He slipped into my bed beside me, his thigh pressing against mine. He smelled warm and fresh from his shower. I liked his solid presence next to me.

I lifted up my hips and shoved my sleep pants down. The mattress shifted as he did the same. Then—always prepared, he held up a tube of lube and drizzled some into my palm. We leaned back against the headboard, and I reached out for his dick, and he reached out for mine.

For a while in high school, I'd thought my general disinterest in sex meant that I was ace. Then I'd decided it meant that I just had smarter priorities than getting laid. But now? Well, now I was sleeping better, studying better, and with absolutely none of the baggage of a relationship attached. Trey and I had found the perfect system—we both got off, and the only messiness involved was easily fixed with some Kleenex. There were no weird feelings or obligations or expectations. There was just this —his hand on my dick, stroking me towards an inevitable climax, while I did the same for him.

Trey tipped his head back, eyes closed, breath hitching, and I sped up my movements, knowing he was close. It was scary- good how fast we could get each other off, and how quickly we'd learned each other's tells. Trey let out a low groan and that, combined with his thumb brushing over the head of my dick, had me shuddering and jerking as I spurted into the tunnel of his fist, over faster than a Virginia summer.

"Fuck," he gritted out, and with a final roll of his hips, he came all over my hand.

I lay there panting, cupping his dick but not moving because Trey got crazy sensitive after he came, but he still liked to be held.

It was us knowing shit like that that made this so good.

Trey breathed deeply for a moment, and then said, "You good?"

He always asked.

"Mmm." I usually replied with nothing more than a hum, because I wasn't a talker at the best of times. And, in terms of mental acuity, this was not the best of times. My brain might have been ruined, but the rest of my body was still buzzing with pleasurable aftershocks, and I was warm all over. I could have fallen asleep just like that, with Trey still next to me, and I wouldn't have minded.

Trey let out a contented sound and I wondered if he would stay, just for a change. Not that we were a thing or anything. It would cross a line though, wouldn't it? I wasn't sure I knew where the line was anymore, in all honesty.

"Hey," I said, "do you?—"

And he turned his head and brushed his mouth against mine.

There.

There was the goddamn line.

In flashing fucking neon.

I pushed him away, my heart thumping wildly, my stomach clenching. "I don't—" I don't what? I don't know what's happening? I don't know what this is and how we got here? "I don't think we should do that," I said. "Bro. "

"Okay," Trey said, his voice as calm as always. As unbothered. Which meant, probably, that I was making it a bigger deal than he thought it was, right?

"Sorry," I said. "But it's a line, for me. Kissing."

Was it? It felt like one. Like taking a step over it would be a dangerous, reckless thing.

He shrugged. "It's cool, Scout. We're cool."

And then he passed me a handful of Kleenex and moved back over to his own bed like nothing had happened.

For a bunch of future lawyers, the brothers at Alpha Tau took our flag football seriously. It was part of a long standing but friendly rivalry with the guys over the road at Theta Phi. It was a lot nicer than our rivalry with the guys at Kappa Beta Rho, which had simmered away quietly for a few years until Andrew had called them all a bunch of small-dicked brain-dead party animals who only threw so many out-of-control parties because they were obviously compensating for something and didn't deserve a place on campus. Which was honestly only stating facts. Well, apart from the small-dicked thing—I could only assume that was speculation on Andrew's behalf. Anyway, our weekly game of flag football with the guys from Theta Phi was held on our front lawn, and usually drew an audience of our neighbors from Fraternity Row. The girls from Zeta Tau usually turned up with lemonade and snacks and hopeful smiles, and it was a good time, a way to get out of my head and stop worrying about assignments and grades and attempted kissing.

Not that I was worried about that last one.

We were cool. It was cool.

Trey had said so himself.

I jogged down the steps from the porch, and met up with Marty on the lawn. He was strutting back and forth for the benefit of the girls. He hadn't even broken a sweat yet, but he'd already taken his shirt off. It hung out of the back of his shorts like a trailing tail as he Foghorn Leghorned his way across the grass.

Archer joined me, squinting at Marty. "Does he think that's gonna get him any attention?"

"Oh, it's getting their attention, alright," I said. "Not in a good way, but he sure has it."

The Zeta Taus were looking at Marty like they had no idea what the fuck he was doing, but they planned to keep watching anyway purely for the nice view. That was how most of us looked at him the rest of the time too. Not the nice view part, but the bit where we kept an eye on him just in case.

"You know he slept with five Zetas last year, right?" Archer asked.

"What? Seriously?"

Archer shrugged. "He must be doing something right."

"Oh yeah," Trey said, joining me on the steps. "Marty's got game."

"Seriously?" I asked again.

Archer shrugged. "Allison Davis says he's got more stamina than anyone on the football team."

"She would know," I said. "And good for her."

Trey snorted, and slapped me on the back. "Come on. Let's get this game started."

It was a casual game, but that didn't stop the girls from cheering. That was probably more for the peacocking though, not the football. None of us were in any danger of making the Lassiter team—and Allison's list—but it didn't take long until the pace of the game and the heat of the day made me too hot. I peeled my shirt off, and caught a glimpse of Trey doing the same thing in the corner of my eye. His sweaty skin gleamed in the sunlight, muscles moving and shifting in such a way that I couldn't stop staring. Not until Andrew nudged me with his shoulder and pulled my focus back to the game.

I was focused for all of twenty seconds when I tried to sidestep a guy from Theta Phi, rolled my ankle, and then stumbled and landed with all my weight on my awkwardly positioned right hand. My wrist bent in a way it wasn't supposed to, and pain shot up my arm.

"I'm okay!" I said, ignoring the guy who reached down to offer me a hand up. I held my right arm protectively to my chest, and pushed myself up with my left. My wrist was hurting like hell, but I figured I could walk off the rolled ankle at least.

I'd barely limped more than a few steps when I was surrounded by Theta Phis. They were all premed, and got very enthusiastic about injuries. And then Trey was there too, shooing most of them out of the way.

"You okay?" he asked me.

Warmth filled me. "I think so."

He took note of the way I was holding my arm. "Do you need to go to urgent care?"

"I think I just need some ice."

"Okay," he said, and steered me toward the house.

Inside, once he closed the door behind us, it felt dark and quiet and peaceful. Most everyone was out and about, or playing flag football. I could hear the faint sounds of a TV coming from one of the living rooms on the eastern side of the house, but it felt as though it could have been miles away.

Trey led me down the hallway and into the chapter executives' office. We called it an office, but it was basically just a small lounge room stuffed with armchairs and a couch, with a single desk that Marshall used, where we could talk chapter business without everyone overhearing us. And, sometimes, to escape our brothers.

"Go sit," he said. "I'll get you some ice."

I sat, leaning my head against the back of the couch and closing my eyes. My ankle throbbed gently. My wrist, in angry counterpoint, throbbed like a motherfucker. I flexed it experimentally and wished I hadn't as the pain flared red-hot .

When Trey got back, I hadn't moved, not even to elevate my ankle.

"You sure you don't need to go to urgent care?" he asked, sliding into the seat next to me and wrapping a gel pack gently around my wrist. "You're pale as all hell."

"It's fine," I said, opening my eyes.

He held the gel pack in place. "Not even a joke about you being so white that you make the queen look like Queen Latifah?"

My mouth twitched. "That one hasn't aged well."

"Hmm. What about you're so white you can get a tan from standing in front of the TV?"

I raised my eyebrows, trying not to smile.

Trey's eyes sparkled. "How about you're so white you make vanilla ice cream say dayum ?"

A laugh escaped me.

He smiled. "I knew I'd get you eventually."

"Yeah," I said. "You did."

"Hold that there," he said. "I've got you some Tylenol too."

"Thanks, man."

Trey shook the Tylenol into my open palm and I put them in my mouth, then took the opened bottle of water he offered me, tipped my head back and swallowed them down. The ice pack was helping, and Trey being next to me was helping too. Not to throw myself too much of a pity party, but it was nice having someone look after me when I was hurt. When he rested his hand against mine and held the gel pack in place it kickstarted a few endorphins I could really use right now.

"So, no urgent care?"

"I don't think so," I said. "I'll ice it for a bit, and see how it feels."

"Want me to help you upstairs?"

"Nah, this is fine for now." I nodded vaguely toward the front of the house. "Don't you wanna go and join the game, give the Zeta Taus something nice to look at? "

Trey grinned. "Maybe I'd sooner stay here and give you something nice to look at."

I huffed out a laugh, but he wasn't wrong. Trey shirtless was fine as hell. And it would be nice to have something throbbing apart from my wrist and ankle. "You'd better lock the door then."

He could have teased me, made some joke about how I assumed I'd be getting some, but that... wasn't us. That wasn't what this was. Except what I'd thought this was also didn't take place in the daytime, in rooms other than our own. So fuck if I knew what the rules were anymore. Maybe I'd never known. Anyway, he got up and locked the door.

When he came back, he hesitated and said, "How's your ankle?"

I rolled it around. "Fine, I think."

He raised his eyebrows. "You say everything's fine."

"Yeah, but—" Whatever I was going to say, I lost it when he went down onto his knees in front of the couch. "What are you doing?"

He lifted my foot. "What do you think?"

Yeah, well, that was the problem. My thoughts hadn't gone in the direction of basic first aid at all .

"It's a little swollen," he said.

My ankle. Right. Yes. That .

"I'll live," I said, trying for sarcastic and bored and coming out slightly squeaky instead.

He traced a hand up my thigh, his warm, smooth palm making my skin prickle.

That fucker. He knew exactly what he was doing.

I leaned back and rolled my eyes. "Well, while you're down there."

He grinned. "Okay."

What? I had not expected that. And, as he reached for the waistband of my shorts, I discovered I was not opposed .

Yeah, it looked like my ankle wasn't the only thing swollen after all.

I raised my hips and gave a shimmy, and Trey tugged my shorts and boxers down my thighs.

And then he went down on me, and holy fuck.

I made a noise at a pitch only dogs could hear, and Trey immediately straightened up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just, holy shit. Don't stop."

He gave a slow, pleased smile and wrapped his lips around my dick, and this time when I made the noise he just laughed, tiny warm puffs of air against my shaft, and went back to blowing my mind.

The overwhelming sensation of warmth and wetness as he sucked and licked and teased was better than anything I'd ever felt, and I couldn't help but rock up into his mouth as my blood heated and my dick throbbed. The rasp of his tongue had my eyes rolling back in my head and my balls tightening. I tapped his shoulder with my good hand to warn him. "Trey, fuck, I'm gonna?—"

He pulled off, wrapping a hand around my cock and pumping once, twice, and combined with the sight of him on his knees, face flushed and lips spit-slick, I was done.

I don't know which one of us was more surprised when I came all over his face.

I mean, probably Trey.

He didn't seem to mind, though. Not if the way he licked his lips was anything to go by—and who knew that could be so hot? Not me.

My cock pulsed a few more times at the sight, the last of my cum dribbling over his knuckles.

"Feel better?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I said, still breathing heavily. "I really do."

He grinned, and held his fist out toward me.

I bumped it with mine, because that's what bros did .

And, like Trey kept reminding me, we were bros, right?

That night at dinner, Marshall caught us and reminded us that we needed to go to Richmond next weekend to pick up some window. Seriously. An attic window had busted a while back in a storm, and we'd had to get a special one made because the original predated the Civil War and was some weird non-standard measurement. We had a local guy who could put it in, but he couldn't make it. And the guy in Richmond who could make it had suggested we come and pick it up ourselves instead of paying for shipping. And since neither Trey nor I had said "Not it" fast enough in the chapter meeting when the whole thing was planned, we'd been volunteered.

That night after dinner, I attempted to give Trey a blowjob.

Well, it wasn't like I could use my hand, and it was only polite to reciprocate.

My mother had raised me to have manners, thank you very much.

"You sure you want to do this?" Trey asked as I knelt at the side of his bed, between his spread knees.

"Why wouldn't I want to do this?"

"Because you're buttoned up tighter than those blazers you wear," he said, and then tilted his head. "No offense."

"My blazers aren't tight. They're tailored ."

He grinned. "See?"

I rolled my eyes and shut him up by licking a stripe up his bare cock. It tasted vaguely of soap and skin, and I liked it more than I'd expected. The way Trey tensed and whined was pretty sweet, too. He might have made fun of me for being uptight, but Mr. Don't Leave Your Towels On The Floor had his own control issues, and it was fun to rattle him.

He reached out and caught my hair. Not hard or anything, but the tug on my scalp sent a thrill down my spine and made my skin prickle like static. And suddenly this wasn't just about reciprocation, or about getting even for that blazer thing—I was into it.

I licked my lips, and then closed my mouth around the head of his cock.

Trey's breath shuddered out of him, and his fingers trembled against my scalp. "Yeah, that's it, Scout. Jesus."

I sucked, the tang of salt flooding my tongue, and how was this so fucking hot? Trey was the one getting his dick sucked, but I was getting off on it too. I took more of him in my mouth, careful to cover my teeth, and Trey let out a long, low groan. I dug my fingers into the muscles of his thighs, and he arched forward, and wow, okay, there was my gag reflex.

"Sorry. Shit. Sorry." He pulled back.

I blinked away tears and rasped out, "It's fine."

Trey raised one eyebrow.

"It's fine," I insisted, and it was. I closed my mouth over the head of Trey's cock and started sucking again, wrapping my good hand around the rest of his shaft, and when he thrust forward this time it was fine. It was better than fine. ?The feeling of Trey's cock in my mouth, hot and hard and smooth? It was awesome.

Trey obviously agreed, because he started thrusting faster, and the next thing I knew he was tugging on my hair. I barely had time to register that I really, really liked the sting of it before my mouth was flooded with cum. I wish I could say I swallowed to prove a point that I wasn't uptight, but it was mostly just reflexive.

Still, I didn't hate it, and what did that say about my previously held assumptions that I was straight? Hand jobs were one thing, but this was a whole other level.

Trey ran his fingers through my hair, and I tilted my head back and grinned at him. "You good?" I asked.

"Fuck, Scout. You're good at that."

"I'm good at everything. "

Trey gave me a fucked-out smile. "You're pretty great, yeah."

And even though I knew it was his endorphins talking, something in me warmed at the praise, and I found myself saying, "Imagine how much better I'll be the second time round."

Trey's smile widened. "You want to do it again?"

"Well, yeah. It's better than I imagined. From both sides."

"Wait, in the study today, that was your first time getting a blowjob?'

"Yeah." My face warmed.

"You serious?" An expression of concern crossed his face.

"I'm not a virgin or anything," I said, suddenly defensive. I climbed to my feet awkwardly, mindful of both my injured wrist and my erection. "Just, the girls I've dated haven't offered to do it, that's all. They probably think it's not nice or something."

"It feels pretty damn nice to me," Trey said, grinning. He reached out and pulled me down to sit on the bed next to him, and his fingers curled around the nape of my neck in a way that had me arching into his touch like a cat. "From both sides. And we can do it again, any time you want."

I swallowed, and gestured at my pants. "When you say any time...?"

"Fair's fair," he said with a shrug, practical as always, and that's how I went from being a blowjob novice to getting my dick sucked for the second time in twenty-four hours.

This bros with benefits thing rocked .