You’ll never know unless you try.
Jax’s words echoed in my head as I stood under the warm water.
I had to be at a frat meeting in less than half an hour and was finding it hard to muster up not only the motivation to go but also to care about what would happen if I didn’t show up.
Being a student-athlete was the equivalent of having a part-time job. Between practices, meetings, and the work we put in on our own time, that didn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. Especially not any sort of meaningful downtime.
The few hours I did have free a week were taken up by my frat responsibilities. I got a pass on committees because of baseball, but that still left meetings and parties and other random shit I had to do.
I liked being an athlete and didn’t begrudge the time I dedicated to the team. Too bad I couldn’t say the same about Lambda Chi.
The water pressure changed, and the fluctuation in temperature startled me back to reality.
Heaving a deep sigh, I went to turn off the water but paused before I touched the dial. Might as well get a jerk in while I was in here.
I turned my back to the water and grabbed my body wash off the ledge. I squirted some into my hand and put the bottle back, then loosely stroked my cock a few times.
Tightening my grip, I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. The slick slide of my hand over my shaft felt amazing, and I went from soft to rock hard in only a few strokes.
I pictured a chick on her knees for me. No one I knew, just a faceless dark-haired woman with a banging bod and lots of enthusiasm.
I let my head fall back as my fantasy woman worked me over with her mouth, but I couldn’t shake Jax’s words out of my head.
You’ll never know unless you try.
Maybe I should see what all the fuss was about.
I reached behind me and slid one finger through my crease.
The unfamiliar sensations knocked me right out of my fantasy.
Huh. Not exactly a great start.
Spreading my legs, I kept my strokes even and hard and pressed against my hole.
It was… different. Not bad but not great either.
Maybe I needed to do more than just poke it for it to feel good.
The angle was off, and it was beyond weird, but I gently circled my fingertip over my hole. A flare of pleasure shot through me.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Okay, that was better.
I rubbed harder, moving in time with my hand as I worked my dick. A zing of heat and something like electricity skittered up my spine.
“Holy fuck.” I stroked faster, chasing the pleasure.
The dual sensations were amazing, but not enough.
Carefully, I slipped the tip of my finger inside myself. That was… strange, but I focused on the undercurrent of something pleasant that rippled through me.
I pushed in deeper, then a little bit more. Half my finger was in, but now what?
Gently, I pulled it out, then pushed back in. That felt better, but still not the mind-blowing pleasure I’d hoped for.
Maybe I was thinking about it too hard. Time to go back to my fantasy.
Clearing my mind, I pictured the dark-haired woman on her knees again. This time she had one hand between my legs and was fingering me as she blew me.
More pleasure swirled inside me, and I relaxed, sinking into the fantasy and letting it take me away.
A jolt of something amazing shot through me. Fuck, what was that?
As I sped up my hands, moving faster and pushing in deeper, the chick in front of me melted away. Jax was in front of me now, on his knees and staring up at me, his big green eyes full of challenge.
Rather than question why the hell I was picturing my BFF with my dick in his mouth, I ran with it and snapped my hips so I was fucking both my fist and my finger.
“Fuck!”
My orgasm tore out of me fast and hard. My ass clenched as my cock pulsed, then I came so hard most of my load landed on the tile wall.
Holy shit. Jax had been right.
Dazedly, I pulled my finger out of my ass and splashed some water onto the tiles to get rid of the evidence.
If my fumbling attempts had felt that good, then having someone else do it would probably be next level. Maybe I should ask the next chick I picked up if she’d mind doing a little backdoor play.
“What did you get for number eleven?” Jax asked from his place on my dorm couch.
“Existentialism?”
Jax smirked. “Are you asking or telling?”
“Guessing.” I snapped my textbook closed and tossed it aside. “I’m bored.”
“We’ve been studying for less than twenty minutes.”
“And I’ve been bored for fifteen of them.” I stretched out on the bed and let out a loud sigh. “Entertain me.”
“Entertain yourself and keep studying.”
“That’s not entertaining.”
Jax looked up from his textbook, a gleam in his eyes. “Tell you what. If you can ace the quiz I give you in twenty minutes, we’ll take a break and play some Enforcers.”
“Ugh. You’re making me work for a video game break?”
“Yup.” He looked back down at his textbook. “Twenty minutes.”
Being as dramatic as possible, I pulled my textbook in front of me and flipped to the chapter I’d been attempting to read.
“Keep sighing like that, and you’re going to make yourself light-headed.” He didn’t bother looking up.
“Worth it if it annoys you.”
“I have three siblings. Sighing is about the least annoying thing you can do.”
“How about this?” I drummed a beat on the textbook.
“This is why you can’t dance. Your rhythm sucks.”
I stopped drumming. “Never had any complaints before.”
“Not to your face. Eighteen more minutes.”
I pursed my lips and whistled, which I knew for a fact drove Jax crazy.
“Now you’re officially annoying.” He finally looked up from his textbook. “You’re like a child sometimes.”
“You love me anyway.”
“No clue why.” He smirked.
“Because I’m awesome, and being my bestie is amazing.”
“That must be it,” he said dryly.
“Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.”
“You’re ridiculous.” He shot me one of those fond smiles that made my insides feel funny. “Fine. Since studying is obviously not going to happen, what do you want to do?”
I sat up and shoved my textbook aside. “You promised me virtual hockey.”
“Are your roomies home?”
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t sure when a rhythmic thumping rang out in the room.
“Beck and Finn are busy.” He closed his textbook and put it beside him on the couch. “Want to see if the TV is free?”
We stood and made our way down to the main floor.
The living room was empty. I went to the front door as Jax turned on the TV and set it up to play.
“Alex’s car is gone. Looks like we have the place to ourselves, at least until Beck and Finn stop boning.” I flopped onto the couch next to him and knocked my knee against his.
He handed me a controller. “Don’t worry. I let you be the Pens.”
“You know I play better with my boy, Sid.”
“The man crush you have on him is adorable.”
“I appreciate his athletic greatness.”
“Sure you do.”
“The Oilers again?” I bumped him with my shoulder, and we set up for the face-off.
“You have your boy. I have mine.”
“And it has nothing to do with you having a thing for McDavid?”
“Like you, I can appreciate his athletic greatness.”
I snickered as the screen ref dropped the puck, and all thoughts of ribbing Jax flew from my mind as we worked the controllers, each trying to get the upper hand.
“Denied!” I shouted as my goalie blocked a shot.
“Rebound!” Jax jumped up and whooped as the goal siren blared on-screen. He sat down again with enough force I bounced on the cushion.
“Lucky,” I grumbled.
“It’s pronounced talent.”
“Lucky.”
Jax laughed and leaned forward, his eyes on the screen.
“It’s adorable that you guys are baseball players, yet you battle it out in a hockey game.”
I looked up from the TV. Alex stood on the other side of the loveseat, spinning his keys around his finger. When had he gotten home?
“Baseball is a strategy game.” Jax shot him a grin. “And I’m Canadian. Hockey is in my blood.”
“What’s your excuse?” Alex smirked at me. “Last I checked, they didn’t play a lot of hockey in Arizona.”
“Not a lot,” I agreed. “I started playing because this asshole wouldn’t shut up about it. Now I dominate.”
“You’ve lost the last four games we’ve played.”
“But I won the five before that.” I elbowed him in the ribs.
“Five out of nine isn’t exactly dominating,” Alex said.
The change in him since he’d started dating Kai was startling. Alex used to be a ball of energy. Like he’d been a step away from having the best night of his life or breaking down and losing his shit on any given day.
Now he smiled and laughed and seemed genuinely relaxed most of the time. Maybe it was getting some O’s on the regular because Beck and Finn had that relaxed vibe going on too.
I could use some of that calming energy in my life.
“Semantics.” I brushed Alex’s comment aside. “Want to play winner?”
“I’m headed to bed. Maybe next time.”
“Night,” Jax and I chorused together.
We resumed the game, but the laser-focused attention from before was gone. As was our usual barrage of trash talk.
“You good?” He broke the silence.
“I tried what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“About not knowing until I try.”
“Gonna need more context than that.”
“About doing some backdoor play while I jerked.”
Jax’s hands stilled on the controller, and I took the opportunity to score.
“What did you think?” he asked, his voice measured and his eyes on the TV as the game resumed.
“It was… good?”
“That’s not exactly convincing.”
“I liked it, but I don’t think I did it right. What’s the correct technique?”
Jax turned to me, his eyes wide. “Are you asking me how to finger yourself?”
“Yeah.” I punched him in the arm. “Why are you being so weird? I’ve asked way stranger questions than this.”
“Pretty sure this ranks in the top ten, but yeah, you do ask a lot of weird shit.” He put the controller on the coffee table, the game forgotten. “Did you think to look this up online?”
“Why use the Internet when I have you?”
“There’s no real science to it. Find the prostate, stimulate it while jerking, and voilà, prostate orgasm.”
“But what does stimulate mean? Rub it? Poke it? How do gay guys do it?”
“The same as anyone else who does butt stuff.” Jax’s eyes glittered with laughter. “But I don’t recommend poking it. Rub, circle, stroke. Just do what feels best.”
“How do I find it?”
“It feels different.”
“I know that, but I mean, how do I find the actual spot?”
“It feels different. Like the texture is different.”
“Huh.” I pursed my lips. Had I felt anything different in the shower? “What’s the best way to do it? Standing or maybe sitting? What about lying down?”
“Again, it all depends on what feels good for you.” He shrugged. “I’m not exactly the best person to ask. That’s not really my thing.”
“But you do it for other people, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s the best way?”
“Doing it on yourself and doing it on someone else are completely different. The angles, positions, it really can’t compare.” He grabbed his phone off the coffee table and unlocked it.
“What are you doing?”
“Just a sec.”
I tried to look over his shoulder, but he angled his phone away.
“There.” He grinned and put his phone down. “You’ll get a little something in a few days that should help you discover what you like.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” He winked and leaned back against the couch.
“You ordered me one of those weird-looking dildos, didn’t you? Like it’s a tentacle or something that looks like it should be hanging off an alien.”
He snickered. “I didn’t, but thanks for the idea.”
“What is it?”
“Not telling.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I know.” He grinned. “I need to get laid.”
I blinked at the sudden shift in conversation.
“I haven’t hooked up since the summer,” he continued.
“Same. Looks like we’re both doing no nut November by default.”
He chuckled. “Sure, we’ll pretend this was totally on purpose.”
“Is anything going on this weekend?”
“You’re asking me? Aren’t you the frat brother? You’re supposed to be dialed into what’s happening on Greek Row.”
“I’m sick of Greek parties.”
Jax didn’t say anything, but his expression was soft and encouraging.
“They stopped being fun a long-ass time ago. I mean, I go because I have to, not because I want to.”
“What would you do if you didn’t have to go to them?”
“I don’t know. Find something, anything, that’s different.”
“I still don’t understand why you went through all that trouble to get special permission to pledge when it’s obvious you don’t like it.”
Rutherford was a D1 school, and most of the athletic teams forbade their players from joining frats. Coach’s policy was strict. Only legacies could pledge and only after they obtained written documentation that their frat duties wouldn’t interfere with their team responsibilities. Most frats didn’t want to deal with the red tape and didn’t accept athletes. Unfortunately for me, I was a legacy, and the frat president my freshman year had been all about legacies. I was the only person on the team who was stupid enough to do both.
“I don’t hate it, but I have so much other shit going on it’s just one more thing.”
Jax bit his lip. I knew that move. He was physically stopping himself from saying something.
“What?”
“I just don’t get why you didn’t say no when your dad told you to join.”
I snorted. “I said no a million times, but he wouldn’t let it go. I told you how he contacted Felix on his own and greased the wheels for me before I even showed up on campus. You think I could say no to that? I would have looked like an asshole if I’d declined after all the paperwork Felix did to get permission for me.”
“Doesn’t he understand how much extra pressure this puts on you?”
“He doesn’t care.” I toyed with the sleeve of my hoodie. “All he cares about is bragging rights. Me being a D1 player isn’t enough for him. Now he gets to tell anyone who’ll listen about how I’m a ball player and how I’m following in his footsteps at the frat.”
“I still don’t really get frat culture, but from all the movies and shit I’ve seen, they’re supposed to be fun. Brotherhood and teamwork and all that jazz.”
“It is for other guys. You remember the shit I told you about hell week? You thought the team was bad. It had nothing on the hazing we went through.”
“Another thing I don’t understand. How is torturing someone supposed to build brotherhood? Like being part of it isn’t enough, and you have to abuse new members and put yourself through literal hell for that to happen?”
“I don’t get it either. But no one goes through that just for shits and giggles. Most of the guys in the house live, eat and breathe the frat. It’s their entire life.”
“Which makes it harder for you, since you’re already disconnected from them and have never lived in the house.”
“Thank fuck I wasn’t allowed. I could barely handle constantly being around the team in jock hall. I would have lost my mind if I’d lived in the house and been surrounded by that shit day in and day out.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have one season left. This is the year you need to put everything into the game if you want to even have a hope of being scouted.”
“I know.” My chest tightened, and I gripped the material of my sleeve hard. “Everything I’ve spent my life working toward is happening now.”
A low whoosh, like the ocean, filled my ears as my vision went white. My chest tightened to the point I couldn’t pull in a breath, and a surge of terror shot through me.
Fuck. Not now. Why was this happening now? It had been weeks since my last attack.
“Matt, look at me.”
Jax’s commanding tone seeped into my panic. I flicked my eyes to his.
He put his hand on my chest and pressed lightly. “Lift my hand with your breaths. Nice and slow, okay?”
I tried to do as he said, but my chest wouldn’t loosen, and my breaths were stuttered and sharp.
My lungs burned, sending another wave of terror through me.
Fuck, I couldn’t breathe.
“It’s okay.” Jax slid off the couch and knelt between my knees. “Look at me.”
I did, still struggling to pull in a full breath.
“Take my hands.” He held his hands up. I grabbed them and squeezed tight. “There you go,” he soothed. “Now just keep looking at me. Watch my chest and breathe with me. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Using the last of my mental faculties, I focused on Jax and tried to mimic him.
“Good. Now relax your muscles for me. Start at your neck and shoulders. Just let the tension go. Good. Now your arms. You’re doing amazing. Last one. Your hands. Relax them for me.”
Jax’s voice soothed the last of the panic away, and I was finally able to pull in a deep breath.
“That’s it.” Jax rubbed his thumbs over my knuckles. “Now do that a few times.”
I did, each breath easing the fear and tension until I was an exhausted, boneless lump.
“Fuck,” I croaked. “That was a bad one.”
“Yeah.” Jax slid back onto the couch and wrapped his arm over my shoulder. “Just lean on me for a few minutes while everything settles.”
“I hate them,” I whispered as shame washed over me.
“I know. But it’s over. You’ll feel better soon.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and leaned into Jax’s touch.
Something about his big, strong body was beyond comforting. Knowing he was there and feeling his warm skin against mine, hearing his steady heartbeat, grounded me.
“Can you stay tonight?” I asked softly.
“Yeah.” He squeezed me tight. “Ready to go upstairs?”
I nodded.
Jax let go of me and shut down the TV and system. He stood and hauled me up, catching me around the waist and holding me close. I leaned on him as he half carried me up the stairs to my room.
I stripped down to my underwear and climbed into bed while Jax plugged in our phones and shut off the lights. When everything was done, he stripped and slid into bed next to me.
“Sorry.” I rolled toward him and gripped his arm, hugging it like a teddy bear, and put my chin on his shoulder.
“Nothing to be sorry about.” He patted my arm with his free hand. “Wake me up if you need me.”
“’Kay.”
I snuggled closer to him and pressed my nose against his skin. His familiar scent wrapped around me like a blanket, and a ripple of calm moved through me as exhaustion took over.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
“Ugh.” I snuggled into my pillow. “Too early.”
“You sound like me.”
I blinked my eyes open, but instead of my pillow, all I saw was miles of sun-kissed skin and muscles.
During the night, I’d shifted so I was half lying on him, my head tucked under his arm, using his broad chest as a pillow. One leg was thrown over his, and his leg hair scratched my skin.
It should have been weird. Jax and I had shared a bed more times than I could count, but I’d never snuggled him like this before. Not even after any of my previous panic attacks.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Wiped.” I leaned more heavily against him. Panic attacks always took a lot out of me and left me exhausted the next day.
“Do you need to stay in bed a while longer?”
“I have class.” I groaned. “And of course it’s statistics. I hate statistics.”
“How about you rest while I take a shower and make breakfast?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“You’re gonna have to let me up if you want to eat.” His voice was filled with humor.
“You’re comfy.”
“You seem to think so. I could barely breathe last night.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He patted my hip. “But I need to get up before I fall back asleep.”
Grumbling, I rolled onto my back.
Jax sat up, slipped out of bed, and stretched. My gaze was drawn to his strong back. Something about the wide set of his shoulders and narrow waist was strangely fascinating, and the rippling muscles under his smooth skin reminded me of how he’d used his strength on me when we’d kissed.
“Can I borrow some clothes?” He dropped his arms and looked over his shoulder at me.
“Yeah, grab whatever you want.” I hugged the pillow he’d used against me like a teddy bear. It smelled like him, earthy and fresh.
He rooted in my drawers and pulled out a hoodie, a pair of sweats, and a tee. His ass was too big for any of my pants to fit, even my cargos, but I liked my sweats loose so he could squeeze into them without looking like he was wearing leggings.
He tossed the clothes onto my desk and grabbed my phone.
“I set an alarm for thirty minutes. Will that give you enough time to shower and get downstairs?”
“Yeah, as long as breakfast is portable.”
“Do you have the stuff to make wraps?”
“I should.”
“See you in thirty.” He grabbed the clothes, my shower kit, and one of my towels, leaving his big fluffy one for me. My chest tightened at his thoughtfulness.
The door clicked shut behind him, and I closed my eyes and snuggled into his pillow.
Practice was brutal. Coach had us running drills for the first two hours. Usually, we pitchers got a break from the sprints and leg work while we focused on pitching, but not today.
I’d grown up in the desert, and the Pacific Northwest was a huge change, even after three years. By the time we were setting up to scrimmage, I was sweating like a bitch, but the damp air seeping into my skin and down to my bones made me shiver. It wasn’t especially cold, but I’d never managed to acclimate to the change.
Jax donned his catcher pads, fresh as a daisy. He was used to this weather, having spent his high school years in Victoria, British Columbia. He joked it was like being in the tropics compared to some of the other provinces he’d lived in when he’d been growing up.
The first inning of the scrimmage was a disaster, at least for me. More than half my pitches didn’t drop on time, and after Chase managed to get a triple off a slider that went right into his hit zone, Jax took pity on me and called for basic curves and fastballs.
As a first-string pitcher, basic wasn’t acceptable, and the longer the inning went on, the more frustrated I got. Which meant I was throwing beach balls by the time we finally got the third out.
“Landry.”
I groaned as Coach came to stand next to me in the dugout. I was in for a rightly deserved dress-down. “What’s up, Coach?”
“What’s going on? That was the kind of thing I’d expect from a freshman, not my star pitcher.”
“Just having an off day.” I tried to keep my tone neutral. It wasn’t Coach’s fault I was playing like dogshit.
He nodded, his eyes on the second-string players getting into position. “You’re dropping your shoulder early, and your footwork was off.”
My face flushed hot. He wasn’t wrong, but those were rookie mistakes.
“I’m going to get you and Crawford to work together for the rest of practice. He’s making the right calls, but you’re not delivering.”
Hopefully, my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
“Everyone has off days, but that shoulder drop can put extra strain on your rotator cuff. You need to fix that so you don’t hurt yourself.”
“Yes, Coach.”
He patted my back and headed to the other side of the dugout to talk to Coach H.
“You okay?” Jax walked over to me, concern on his face. “Is your arm twinging?”
“Nah. Just can’t seem to get in the rhythm today.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, gritting my teeth so I didn’t snap at him. It wasn’t his fault I was pissed.
When I was a kid, I’d dislocated my shoulder in a stupid accident. It had healed up fine, but every once in a while, it would bug me, and the telltale sign was that fucking shoulder drop I couldn’t seem to control today.
“We’ll work on your curve and maybe play around with a few eephus pitches for funsies.”
I nodded and punched my fist into my glove. Curveballs didn’t put much strain on my shoulder, at least not the way I threw them. And an eephus pitch wasn’t really something I’d use in a game but was a handy tool to keep in my back pocket. They were notoriously hard to both throw and hit, especially since I was a lefty.
“Matt.”
I turned and faced Jax. Concern was etched into his handsome features.
Wait. What?
Jax was a good-looking guy. Anyone with eyes could see that, but I’d never just randomly thought about how good looking he was. Especially not in the middle of practice when I was playing like shit.
“Everyone has off days. You’ve been under a ton of stress, and last night was rough. Be kind to yourself. The more you beat yourself up, the worse it’ll get.”
He was right. I was my own worst enemy, and no one could throw me off my game better than my stupid brain when it went into these spirals of self-loathing. But knowing he was right and actually letting shit go and not being a dick to myself were two different things.
“Let’s get to it,” I said tightly.
Two more hours of this. I could hold it together until then.
