Page 77 of All Roads Lead to You

“Friend as in…”

“As in friends?”

Was he hitting on me? Here, out in the open? If so, that was a first. I had no context at all.

While he was cute as far as guys went, I needed to make it clear I wasn’t interested. Only Nick mattered.

Suddenly, Nick thrust a shot glass with some clear liquid in my face, and a beer bottle was shoved into my other hand.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, staring at the men. Was he… glaring at them? His lips drew tight and thin, and his body pressed against my side. Why did I like that so much, as if he was claiming me as his?

Wishful thinking, Logan.

I really needed to stop projecting.

Before I answered Nick, the guy thrust his hand at him. “I’m Art, and this is my best friend, Sean. We go to UT here.”

“I’m Nick,” he said, shaking their hands.

“I’m Logan.”

“You know, there’s a totally righteous party going on after the show. You cuties should come with us,” Sean said, tucking his shoulder-length blond hair behind his ear.

“We have plans,” Nick said. He shrugged before looking at me meekly.

“Yep, we have plans,” I agreed. We didn’t have anything specific other than to hit another bar after the show.

“Oh, too bad. It’ll be fun.”

Before we could talk further, another song started up. Nick handed me a lime and raised his glass, tossing back the shot. I did the same, biting into the lime as the burn traveled straight to my stomach. Ugh, I didn’t like tequila all that much.

Nick stood closer to me, our arms touching, when we turned back to face the band. Taking a risk, I felt for his fingers, and he touched mine back. Fuck, I really wanted to hold his hand to show those two guys that I belonged to Nick.

After two more shots and another beer, I felt toasty, and apparently, so did Nick, since he snuck in more touches.

As the last song of the evening played, Nick tapped my shoulder to get my attention. I bent down so he could talk in my ear.

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

I smiled, and then it dropped. We couldn’t risk it. “As much as I want to, we can’t.”

He quickly nodded. “Yeah, I know. I just… want to.”

Fuck, I really wanted to kiss him, too. We should be able to kiss and touch each other without fear, but this was life. We had no idea what the people were like around here.

Nick and I cheered for the band at the end of the song. As the crowd cleared, we headed outside. It was only around eleven at night, so it was still pretty early.

“Let’s go to another bar or something,” he suggested. “I’m not ready to go back to our motel.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

We walked down the street, with me following Nick, trying not to stare at his perfect ass in those ridiculous preppy khaki shorts he loved so much, but damn if he didn’t look amazing in them.

He turned around, smiling, making my heart beat a little faster at how beautiful he was, and for now, he was all mine.

“Hey, there’s a bar over there with a line. The place must be bitchin’ with that many people.”

As we got closer, I could tell this was another gay bar, despite women standing in line, too. The men wore pink or leather, and some dressed up as women, while others were shirtless and wearing skin-tight pants.

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