Page 53 of These Secret Years

“Have you ever hooked up with a girl?”

He slides a glance my way, and I lift my brows. I totally understand he’s gay, but he’s also deep in the closet, and he’s about to be college famous. Maybe even famous famous. “I’ve never had sex with a girl if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking about anything. Kissing, blow jobs, touching, hooking up.”

“It’s kind of hard to avoid without being an asshole, but I do my best. To avoid it, I mean.”

“Is that an answer?”

“It’s more of an answer than I get out of you most times.”

I let out a short laugh and allow my hand to slide over the upper curve of his ass on my next pass down his back. He sucks in a breath, his knife work pausing momentarily.

“Kissing, minimal touching. One blow job,” he says.

“And how was that?”

“The blow job?” he asks.

“The blow job, kissing a girl. How’d it feel for you?”

“Like something I didn’t want to be doing.”

“So why did you?”

“Because people are usually watching. Not the blow job, but⁠—”

“So how did that happen?”

He winces, like the memory of it is uncomfortable. “It wasn’t one of my finest moments.”

My eyes narrow, and I’m greedy for more information. “Tell me,” I say because I know he will.

Lo and behold, his shoulders drop, and he sighs. “This girl was kissing me at a party and asked me to dance with her, but she didn’t end up taking me to where everybody was dancing. She took me into a room and started taking off her shirt, and then she was trying to take off my shirt, and I kinda freaked out. I told her to get on her knees.”

“And she did?”

He nods.

“That was bold. Were you even hard?”

“No,” he says quietly.

“What’d you do?” I ask just as softly.

“Told her…” He swallows like he’s recounting something truly traumatic, and maybe it sort of was. “I told her something about how she obviously wasn’t doing it for me or whatever. She cried.”

My hand stills on his lower back. “She did not.”

“Yeah. It was pretty awful. I wanted to fucking kneel down with her and give her a hug and be like—it’s not you—I don’t even like girls, but I didn’t do that. I just left her there and got the fuck out of the house.”

“Did you see her again after that?”

He shakes his head. “That happened right after spring break. I didn’t go to any more parties after that.”

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

He laughs harshly. “Yeah? Because I’ve got two sisters, and I can pretty much guarantee if something like that ever happened to one of them—well, number one I’d kill anyone who did something like that to either of my sisters—but they would not have been okay. Not for a while. I mean, would you be?”