Page 69 of Built To Perform

“Jefferson,” they said, voices overlapping.

Suddenly, the contents of my mug were particularly fascinating.

“I mean... maybe.”

Adam snorted. “Are you going to snuggle into his sleeping bag, too?”

I flashed him a pointed look. “Decided where you’re going on your date with Brayden yet?”

His cheeks flushed, though that didn’t stop him flipping me off.

“Are you actually going on a date?” Clay sounded fascinated.

If I was being honest, it was a question I’d thought about asking several times since my roommate put Brayden on the spot. Relations between the two of them had barely amounted to more than casual hookups, not that I imagined either Adam nor my big bro minded that arrangement. One of them had a clear taste for - among other things - slim twinks who’d sass you right up until you folded them over and reamed them out; the other got off on muscles and being manhandled.

Still, that made for good sex. Trying to imagine Adam and Brayden sitting across a table from each other, making smalltalk as they waited for appetizers to arrive, left my brain itching.

“Were you joking?” I asked, genuinely curious.

Adam frowned. “Why, did he say something?”

I shared a quick look with Clay, before shaking my head. “No, he hasn’t mentioned it. I just wasn’t sure...”

“Brayden doesn’t really seem the dating type,” Clay supplied, diplomatically.

Adam folded his arms, looking stubborn.

“Then maybe it’s time he tried something new.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t think my big bro was capable of it. Just that I never guessed it might be my freshman roommate who ended up being the one to test his flexibility.

“If he asks,” Adam said, giving me a level stare, “you can tell him I wasn’t joking.”

I nodded, wondering if the senior quite knew what he’d got himself into.

#

A few days later, in the back of Jefferson’s truck, I was asking the same question about myself.

The camping trip had seemed like a great idea when Luke had first suggested it. Sure, Coach’s initial invitation had been grudging to the point of intimidating, but I was used to that. He was a spiky, sharp, private man, and just because he was giving up some of that privacy, it didn’t mean there’d be a reprieve from the other aspects.

But in the end it wasn’t Coach who was worrying me. It was his boyfriend.

Luke had been personable, and clearly eager to put me at ease, and had even tempered some of Coach’s brusqueness. But I couldn’t quite forget the details of that first meeting; couldn’t fathom a way that, when he looked at me, he’d see something other than the stripping, gyrating, jerking man on the stage that night. A performance which had now lost any last semblance of eroticism in my mind’s eye, entirely replaced by mortified shame.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, trying not to think about how awkward it could be if the two of us were left to hold a conversation over the long weekend.

“You getting carsick, lil bro?”

Even with just his eyes visible in the rearview mirror, Jefferson’s concern was clear.

I shook my head.

“Getting sick of this guy’s music?”

Brayden shoved him in the arm, laughing. “Asshole. It’s better than any of your shitty playlists.”

Jefferson grinned back at him. “Sorry I don’t have any playlists appropriate for strippers.”