27. Ronan

The summer is ending quickly. We only have two more weeks until school starts up again. I try not to think about it. I know I should be preparing to end things with Fletcher. If I was smart, I'd get out now, but I'm apparently not smart at all.

No. I'm at one of my favorite places with Nathan, Annie, and Fletcher, currently watching Fletcher dominate a game of pool with Nathan while I sit in a booth with Annie.

It all feels so damn surreal. So easy in ways my life has never been easy. "Oh my God, could you be any cuter?" Annie exclaims, and I tear my eyes off Fletcher long enough to look at her, seeing she's looking awfully smug.

"What?"

She cackles, then takes a drink of her pink cocktail. "You cannot stop staring at your man. And it's adorable."

I bristle at that. She did not just say that. "What?" I lower my voice and lean a little closer to her from across the table. "What are you talking about? I don't have a man." And oh shit, was it that obvious? Did she pick up on something? This is so not good. I swear my eyeballs are sweating.

She looks me dead in the eyes, her gaze her no-nonsense one. "Don't be an idiot."

"What?" I gasp. I quickly look around, suddenly paranoid that someone may hear, but no one is paying attention to us.

Annie raises her eyebrow, like she's waiting for me to calm down, but that's not going to happen.

"You know?" I relent.

"Of course I know." She watches me like I'm totally insane, and I feel pretty damn crazy right now. She knows?

"How are you not totally appalled right now? How are you not lecturing me and telling me to end it right fucking now?" I'm panicking, but when I look around, I still don't see anyone paying any attention to us.

"I'm not appalled because you haven't done anything wrong," she says it so simply I want to scream that of course I've done something wrong. I did something very wrong minutes before we left to come meet Annie and Nathan at the bar. I did something wrong last night and then fell asleep with Fletcher in my arms. I've been doing something wrong all damn summer.

Even if it doesn't feel that way when I'm with him. Even if when I'm with him, it feels the most right I've ever felt. I know in my head it's wrong. It has to be. I'm a professor, and he's a student. Black and white. It's wrong.

She just goes on and doesn't wait for me to argue, "I'm not lecturing you because you're a goddamn adult, and so is he." She nods in the direction of Fletcher, but I won't let myself look. "And I'm not telling you to end it because I don't want to see you end it with him."

My mouth drops open in shock, and it takes me a moment to get any words to come out. "You said Professor Tuttle deserved to be fired. Why the hell are you giving me grace here? It's the same thing."

She rolls her eyes at me again. "It's not the same thing. Not even close."

I think about the points Fletcher made about how it's not the same, but to me, on a very basic level, it is. The guilt is gnawing away at me because I know it is. "I'm going to lose my job, and I should."

"No," she says firmly, her eyes on mine. "It was different, and you know it was. Fletcher is different. He's..."

"What?" I snap. "He's even younger than the poor kid with Professor Tuttle. Probably even more vulnerable too. He's not what I thought he was. He's not a spoiled little rich boy."

"Fucking duh," Annie says calmly as if she knows that already, and I cock my head to the side in question. "We talk. He's a good kid. I like him a lot, and the fact that you both come from a foster care background isn't a bad thing. It's not a flaw in your relationship, it's a connection. It's powerful. You make each other stronger."

Fletcher told her about his past?"You know about him being in foster care?"

"Yes," she says simply. "I know all about it. About the abuse. The neglect. The fear. God, it was like he was telling me your story through his eyes, Ronan. And you both made it out. You're both strong men."

I stare at her, unblinking and unsure what the hell to say. "I don't have anything to offer him." She starts to argue, and I'm the one to cut her off with a firm shake of my head. "I can't give up my job, and you know I can't. Kids like us, all we want is stability when we grow up. I can't give that up for anyone. I've worked too hard."

Way too damn hard.

Fuck, I think about all the nights I only got one or two hours of sleep because I had to wake up and go to the dining hall on campus, not to eat, but to work before my first class. About cleaning offices and doing so many odd jobs every single day while I went to college.

I never had spring break. I never had summer break. I never had a damn break in my life. I'm only just now starting to breathe, starting to relax. I can't risk my job now that I'm almost fully comfortable.

"You've done nothing wrong." she tries to state again, but it falls on deaf ears.

"I doubt the dean will feel that way."

She shakes her head, and I see the pity she has for me. "You've been happier than I've ever seen you before, Ronan." She looks over at Fletcher and smiles before her gaze returns to me. "It's because of him. Not your house. Not your job. Him."

I swallow hard, a heavy lump in my throat because I know she's right. He does make me happy. He loosens me up, and I relax when I'm around him. "He makes me happy. But my house and that job—they give me something I've never had in my entire life." I force myself not to look back at him, and I only look at Annie. "Security."

"Is it really worth it without happiness, Ronan?" She's not being rude. She's dead serious. She may be a bit of a romantic, but she has an uncanny way of weighing pros and cons.

"I think happiness is a luxury some of us just never get." I never really thought about being happy when I was a kid. I did, however, think about safety. All the damn time. About having a roof over my head where I knew I would eat that day and I'd be safe at night.

"Oh, Ronan." She sounds like she's in so much pain—pain for me—but she doesn't get a chance to say anything else because Fletcher and Nathan finish their game and rejoin us at the booth.

Fletcher's in a really good mood as he teases Nathan, and we all fall into an easy conversation, like we've been a group of friends for years and not like he's only just joined us.

I can see the affection both of my friends feel for Fletcher. It's written all over their faces as we sit and chat. As I watch him, that same overwhelming feeling I have for him sweeps over me.

I'm in love with him.

There's no doubt about it, and when Annie peers at me from across the table, I know she knows that too. She saw it before I did, and I have no idea what the hell to do with this information.

We barely makeit through the door of my house before I'm on him. I may not be able to tell him out loud that I'm in love with him, but I can tell him with my mouth and my hands. With my entire body and soul.

I want to tell him with words too, but I don't have the strength in me to say it out loud and then let him go. It's the last thread. The one thing keeping me together that I haven't actually said the words.

"Oh shit, that feels good," he says as I kiss down his neck and suck hard on the crevice between his neck and his shoulder. "Yes."

When he's this far gone, it's so damn easy to get lost in his raspy, sexy tone. I pull his tank top off over his head and toss it to the ground, quickly following it with my own shirt. I fumble with the buttons, just wanting to rip the damn thing so I can feel his skin on mine, but I manage not to before I toss it behind us. His muscles flex under my fingers as I drag my hands all over his warm skin.

I'm afraid to speak because I'm terrified the words will slip out, so I quickly rid him of his shorts and shoes, leaving him fully naked before me. He's like art. His body is like carved stone perfection.

My eyes run over every single inch of his bare skin, and I drag my hands over his firm biceps, squeezing the muscles and reveling in his strength. His hands are all over me too. Completing the task of getting me naked before his lips slam against mine, and we're kissing as we walk further into my house.

"I need inside you," he says against my mouth, and all I can do is nod because I want that too. Desperately.

I don't want him to move though. This moment is too perfect. I hold up one finger, telling him to wait, and I dash to my room, grabbing the lube and then coming back, giving it to him as I lean over the back of the couch, spreading my legs and pushing my ass out for him.

He makes some sort of strangled noise that goes straight to my dick and makes it even harder than it was before I feel his heat behind me. I feel his hard cock against my ass, sliding in between my crease, but not touching my hole, and his thighs against the back of mine. His front presses to my back as he boxes me in against the couch.

His hands smooth down over my shoulders and my back, his lips making a slow trail down my spine, sending goosebumps through their wake.

"Fletcher," I breathe softly.

"Shh," he says, soothing me. Calming me in a way I've never had. Why does this have to end?

I try to push that thought away and just feel.

I lean into his touch as he grabs the lube and, at an agonizingly slow pace, gets me ready to take him. When he enters me, it's just as slow. Just as reverent. I can't see him as I hold onto the couch, and his pace increases as he slams into me over and over, but I can feel him. I can feel what he's feeling. It isn't just sex. It's not just about getting off.

He's telling me all the things he can't say out loud. And when he nails my prostate as he reaches between my body and the couch, stroking my dick in time with him, I allow myself to really listen to what he's saying before I fall over the edge, and then he lets go at the same time.

He comes deep inside me as his body remains flush with mine. And he pants into my ear over and over again as we both work to come back from the brink.

But I think it's too late.

I'm too far gone, and I'm never going to be able to come back from this.