Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck.
The chant echoed in my mind as Beck slammed my door closed with a curse.
Holy fucking shit.
My roommate had caught me with my dick out. Literally.
“Oh fuck.” I spun around, then spun around again, my mind going blank as I tried to get control of myself.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been busted jerking. Dex had caught me multiple times when we lived at home, and both my freshman and sophomore roommates had too.
But this was different.
Because it was Beck.
The guy I’d been crushing on since I moved into the house.
“Finn?” he called from the other side of my door.
“What?” I shrieked.
“Come to my room when you’re…done. We need to talk about this.”
I wanted to tell him that no, we didn’t need to talk about this. We needed to forget it ever happened. And I needed to find a way to erase my memories so this wouldn’t haunt me every time I looked at my too-hot roommate.
Still standing there like a moron, I blindly reached toward my night table, patting around until I found the box of tissues I kept there.
With shaking hands, I wiped myself clean, then bent to pick up my phone where it had fallen on the floor while I’d been…busy.
I glanced down at my shirt, then stripped it off. It was a mess.
Of course Beck had to be the one who caught me.
All my roommates were hot. Alex had that pretty boy thing going on, but it didn’t really do anything for me. Matt was gorgeous with his boy-next-door charm and baby blues that practically glowed, but I wasn’t into ripped guys. Eli had the body of a runway model, long hair, perfect bone structure, and intense green eyes. But as much as I thought he was attractive, I wasn’t attracted to him.
Beck, however, was my type to a tee. With his dark brown hair and soulful brown, nearly black eyes, he had a calming, kind air while also giving off some serious playboy vibes. His body was perfection, lean and strong, but not too bulky. And his voice, so deep and smooth, never failed to make my stomach flutter.
Then there was me. The short nerdy guy who couldn’t do a chin-up.
Well, to be fair, I wasn’t exactly short at five ten. My roommates were giants, and they made me feel small by comparison.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” I pulled on a clean shirt.
I glanced at the window. Could I escape through it?
No, that was stupid. I was on the third floor. And it wasn’t like Beck was camped in the hallway. He’d said he’d be in his room. I could leave if I wanted to. But where would I go?
Why hadn’t I locked my door?
I was usually meticulous about checking it, but after that damn drinking game, I’d been too distracted to think about it.
Maybe I could turn off my lights and pretend I was asleep. Then I wouldn’t have to face Beck, knowing he’d seen my post-O face while I’d been covered in my spunk.
Thank fuck I hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need to know I’d been jerking off to the visual of him coming out of our shared bathroom in nothing but a towel wrapped low on his hips and droplets of water glistening on his sun-kissed skin.
My dick twitched as the image flashed in my mind again.
Nope, not going there.
Pulling in a deep breath, I turned my attention to my door.
Maybe I should go talk to him. Get the awkwardness out of the way now. I had to share a floor with the guy for the next eight months.
Steeling my reserve, I strode out of my room and across the hall.
I paused in front of his door, my hand raised to knock, but I couldn’t seem to make my body move.
“One, two, three, four, five,” I counted quietly, using my tried-and-true method for pushing past my fears and making myself do something.
I knocked three times, my flight instinct screaming at me to run.
Beck pulled open the door.
“Come in.” He stepped back and walked to the small dorm couch in the corner of his room.
I took three steps into the room, closing the door behind me.
His room was bigger than mine. I didn’t have room for a couch, just my bed, night table, dresser, and desk.
“You gonna stand there or sit down?” He quirked his eyebrow as he sprawled on his couch, his arms over the back in a relaxed pose.
I glanced between his desk chair and his bed. I wanted to sit on the chair because the thought of being on his bed after…that sent a little trill of panic through me.
But pulling out his chair would probably look weird.
He watched as indecision warred inside me, his expression shifting from curious to thoughtful.
Shit. I was being stupid. There was nothing wrong with sitting on his bed if he was on the couch.
I scurried over to the bed and gingerly perched on the edge.
“I’m sorry.”
He was what?
“I should never have opened your door without permission. I heard something, and I thought you were hurt. I just reacted.”
“Definitely wasn’t hurt.”
He grinned, and some of my nerves melted away.
He had an incredible smile, so bright and genuine. It lit up his entire face, and his eyes actually sparkled.
I tore my gaze from his face and looked at my hands.
“I should have locked it.”
“And I shouldn’t have opened it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not the first time I’ve busted someone.”
“Not the first time I’ve been busted.” I grinned despite myself. “Although it’s the first time it happened right after I…”
“Last year, Alex walked in on me right as I was…finishing.” He chuckled. “I don’t know who was more shocked.”
“I walked in on my freshman roommate once, and he kept going.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I ran out of there so fast. I spent the next six hours in the library, and when I came back to the room, he pretended like nothing had happened.”
“My freshman roommate used to do it while I was in the room, at night.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I mean, I get it. Sometimes you just gotta. But at least make sure your roommate is asleep before you start jerking five feet away from them.”
“Maybe he had a thing for being watched?”
“Could be. He was a weird dude. He liked to hang out in only his underwear. Said it was a California thing.”
“Um, I’m from Cali, and I don’t hang out in my skivvies around other people. No one I know does.”
“You’re a Cali boy?”
“Yup. LA. Where are you from?”
“Seattle.”
“I like Seattle. My brother and I visited after we did a campus tour last year. Pike Place Market is something else.”
“Did you check out the Space Needle?”
“We did. And a bunch of museums. Dex loves them.”
“Dex is your brother?”
I nodded.
“Is he your only sibling?”
“Yeah.”
“Your parents didn’t go with you guys?”
“They work a lot,” I said. “Do you have siblings?”
He grinned. “Five of them.”
I gaped at him. “You’re one of six?”
“Yup. I’m the youngest and the only boy.”
“Wow. I bet growing up with five sisters was an experience.”
“Oh yeah.” He laughed. “I spent the first six years of my life being treated like a living doll. I’ve worn more princess dresses and makeup than most Disney actors.”
I laughed. “My brother and I are super close, but I never played dress-up with him. He’s four years older.”
“There’s ten years between my oldest and youngest sister. Britney is thirty-five, and Bethany is twenty-five.”
“Britney, Bethany, Beck… I’m detecting a theme.”
“My parents went all out with the B names. My other sisters are Bella, Brianna, and Bristol.”
“Let me guess. Your parents have B names as well?”
He chuckled. “Nope. My mom’s maiden name is Beckett, which is where my name came from. But their names are Patricia and Lance.”
“My parents are all about old-fashioned names. My full name is Phineas, and my brother is Dexter. My mom’s name was Azalea, but she changed it to Leah when she turned eighteen. She hated having a unique name, and she said she picked our names because they sounded ‘successful’ and not made up. My dad is James. A very ‘successful’ name in their books.”
“How can a name sound successful?”
“She said they added ‘the honorable’ to the beginning to find names that sounded the best.”
“The honorable Phineas Donovan.” He grinned. “It makes you sound a hundred.”
“It really does.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s why I go by Finn, and my brother goes by Dex. At least we sound like we were born in this century.”
“Sounds like your parents had high hopes for you and your brother.”
“Still do.” I leaned back, resting my hands on the bed as I finally relaxed. “My brother already disappointed them by deciding to get his PhD in psych.”
He blinked. “Your brother is getting his doctorate, and your parents are disappointed?”
“According to our parents, the only two acceptable streams of education are medicine and law.”
“So which are you?”
I sighed. “Law. Blood freaks me out, so medicine wasn’t an option.”
“You don’t sound excited.”
“I’m not. Maybe it’s because I’m still in my undergrad. It could get better once I get to law school.”
He studied me, his dark eyes piercing.
I resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny.
“What are you studying?” he asked.
“Econ. You?”
“Business.”
“You don’t sound excited,” I echoed his previous words.
“I took it because I figured it would be useful. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it.”
“What do you want to do when you graduate?”
“No clue.” He picked at the leg of his sweatpants.
“Did your parents push you into business?”
He snorted. “Not at all. My parents are chill and laid back. You have to be when you have six kids. Being the youngest has its perks. I can pretty much do anything I want as long as it’s legal, and they’d be cool with it.”
“How does that feel? I can’t remember a time my parents didn’t have an opinion on my life and what I do.”
“That sounds like a lot of pressure to live up to.”
“It is.” I looked down at the bedspread, tracing the pattern with my finger. “If I got an A, they demanded to know why it wasn’t an A+. They had my entire life mapped out for me by the time I was born. I just keep messing things up.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad wanted me to rush Sigma Chi, but I’m not him. I have my own interests, and being in a frat isn’t one of them.”
I snapped my mouth closed. Jeez, why was I telling him so much?
This was our first conversation, and I’d already revealed more to him than anyone I’d met since I started college, other than Anna.
He made me comfortable, and talking to him was easy. Too easy.
“That must be hard.”
“It’s not fun,” I mumbled. “But they have our best interests at heart, so I can’t really be mad at them.”
He studied me for another moment, his expression intense.
I looked down at my lap, my neck heating.
“Are you a senior?” he asked.
“Junior. You?”
“Senior.”
I drummed my fingers on the bedspread as silence stretched between us.
“So, that game earlier.”
My ears flushed hot. “Yeah. That was… revealing.”
“I’m sorry if we put you on the spot. I bet you didn’t expect those kinds of questions when you agreed to play.”
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but get a bunch of twentysomething guys together, and of course it’s going to be about sex. I should have seen that coming.”
“Still, I hope you don’t think we were judging you.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I mean, I judge myself all the time.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I looked up at him.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
“One. Back in high school. It didn’t work out.”
“Most high school things don’t.”
I bit my lip. Should I tell him the truth?
Beck seemed like a nice guy, but that didn’t mean he’d be okay with me being into guys.
I wasn’t exactly out, but I wasn’t hiding either. It was more that I didn’t have anyone to tell.
“It wasn’t the fact that we were in high school. It’s that she was a girl.”
He blinked at me. “You mean you’re gay?”
I nodded, swallowing hard.
“Have you had a boyfriend?”
The seamless way he’d accepted my identity calmed my racing heart.
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“Isn’t that a loaded question,” I said wryly. “I’m kind of an introvert, so meeting people is hard for me. And I don’t meet a lot of openly queer people, so that makes it even more difficult.”
“What about the LGBT group on campus? I’ve heard they do mixers and host a bunch of different events.”
“I’ve looked into it, but the idea of going alone and meeting people in a group like that freaks me out.”
That was the understatement of the century. I was a huge introvert with recluse tendencies, but Beck didn’t need to know that.
“I forget that not everyone is like me. I don’t mind crowds or meeting new people. I can see how that would be intimidating for some people.”
“It’s extremely intimidating to me, like anxiety inducing.”
He gave me another thoughtful look.
The moment felt heavy, even though I had no idea why.
“I should go.” I got to my feet. The last thing I wanted to do was overstay my welcome, not now that we were kinda becoming friends.
“Have a good night.”
“You too.”
I headed toward the door.
“Finn?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him, my hand on the doorknob.
“I had fun talking with you.”
“Me too.” A happy flush moved through my chest.
I waited a few more seconds, then opened his door, but when he didn’t say anything more, I stepped into the hall.
Tonight had been a wild ride.
Between the game and getting busted by the guy I’d been fantasizing about, this should have been one of the worst nights of my life.
But talking with Beck had been fun.
Was it possible we could be friends?
