Page 22 of These Secret Years

A groan escapes me as I remember the feel of it on my tongue a little too well. To be fair, I’ve made no effort to forget it. It’s my entire spank bank, so I like to keep the memory as vivid as possible.

It took a few weeks after the incident in the woods for Knight to be able to look me in the eyes. We didn’t see each other often, didn’t run in the same circles. If he and his friends still go to The Front, I have no knowledge of it.

While the guys in my dorm maintained a natural ease with each other, we separated into our separate groups as expected when classes started.

Deandre slept in our room and stayed friendly with me, occasionally forcing me to go to the gym with him, but that was about it. Knight and Rodrigo’s room really did become the fun room, but I never hit them up to use the air fryer or play a round of darts or Wii boxing. I got closer with the guys at the other end of the hall who perfected smoking weed in their dorm room without the smell getting into the hallway. That type of fun was more my speed anyway.

JT and Shannon didn’t have a Wii, but they did have a Switch and an excellent ventilation system.

My knees buckle when Adrian sucks me into his throat, his lips closing tight around the base of my cock. He has a thing he does—something like a cough, that never fails to bring me to the brink. Since all I want is to move onto the next part of this thing we do, I let the orgasm build, doing nothing to hold it back. I warn him it’s coming with a strong press of my fingertips and a soft moan.

He prepares himself to take my load, making sure every drop of it hits his tongue. Apparently I taste sweeter now that I’ve stopped eating meat. It’s the one thing he hasn’t complained about since I left for college.

It’s made him hungrier, though. Needier when I’m here. I used to be able to count on one blow job a day. Now it’s two to three.

I refuse to let that make me change my diet. It’s not like I have to do anything more than stand here and bear it. It’s the easiest job in the world as long as Quinn isn’t in town.

With my cock still in his mouth, Adrian jerks himself to a finish. He’ll have put his hand in his expensive pants at some point during all that and gotten himself close while he waited for me to come. He’s touch averse and allows the grip on his shoulders to keep me standing, because this is how he prefers to give head. On his knees like he’s hooking up in a bathroom stall. An odd perversion for a man of his importance.

When we’re both done, I let him go, locking my knees as he lets my dick fall from his mouth.

He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his lips and then his hand before he puts his pants back together. I don’t have to watch. I know it by the sounds.

“Dinner in an hour,” he says as he stands. “Wear the blue.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t wait to catch up, darling.”

I force a soft smile onto my mouth. “I’ll be down soon.”

He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, but I can’t look at him anymore. My eyes flutter shut. “My darling boy.”

I swallow bile as I suppress the shiver that wants to turn into a full shudder. I freeze my smile into place.

“Definitely the blue,” he says. Finally, he stops touching me. I wait until he’s out of the room before walking to the bathroom and turning the shower to hot.

Chapter Six

KNIGHT

The twins are impressed with my parents’ house. It turns out they were raised by their grandmother because they’re orphans. They’re also now my best friends. It wasn’t the air fryer or the Wii that brought them randomly to my room one night. It was the Cardistry book. Since I’d never heard of it, and they seemed really enthusiastic about it, I learned it with them.

Building a house of cards is laborious work, but it’s the opposite of running drills and smashing helmets in scrimmages. It’s slow, thoughtful, meditative, and extremely satisfying. My Instagram grid has become a mix of my practice reels and our card art.

It’s amazing how chill and deep a conversation can be when no one’s looking at each other and focused on something else. Derek is the quieter, more thoughtful of the two, but he’s got the same goofball sense of humor as his brother Dillon. They’re sweet. Pure. They’re the kinds of people who’d be friends with me no matter what. Who my dad is or who I have the potential to be is only a cool bonus for them.

They’re the guys who’d start a meal train for you if you were ever housebound for any amount of time. They’re the ones who’d come by every day just to check in. They’re gonna spend the short summer here with me because they’ve never been to Michigan, we have room, and my family can easily afford to feed the two tanks.

When we get back to school, we have a house rented and ready to go. Deandre and Rod are going to live there, too. The fact is, with the amount of money we got paid to play for USM, we could all afford our own places, but we’re barely nineteen, and the twins weren’t gonna live separately anyway. I don’t want to be by myself yet, Rod and I are used to each other, and Deandre’s just a good guy to have around, so it doesn’t feel like we’re sacrificing anything. The house we got is big enough for the five of us, close to campus and a park where it’ll be cool to run routes with D.

After a year spent learning the team, I’ll be starting quarterback this fall. During recruitment, I was led to expect it, but it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to blow if you don’t perform. But my O-line, the graduating running back, and me—we came together like we’d been raised to be on this team.

I’m tense about being the captain and a starter but knowing we work well together and respect each other is a huge relief.

The first order of business when I got home was a sit down with my dad where he grilled me about all the players. We’ve talked all year, but face to face at home, I’m able to give him all the smaller details I wasn’t able to on the phone. He wants to know everything about my own game, too—about how they’re developing me as a quarterback. While I had a coach and trainers in high school, my dad has always had the last word in what I do as a player. I trust him more than anyone to know what I need because he’s been exactly where I am, even if I sometimes get the feeling he’d rather I’d be doing anything else.

Whether he’s proud of what I’ve accomplished or not, I can’t really tell.