Page 27 of Delay of Game

What did you say when you got drunk and accidentally fucked your best friend?

He could almost hear Jammer’s voice drawlingaccidentally, huh?And thought, viciously,shut up.

“I, uh, sorry. Kinda disoriented.”

Nate smiled, lopsided and awkward, and said, “Yeah, I figured. We were, uh, both pretty drunk last night. There’s coffee. And, um, I’m making breakfast.”

What did you say when you got drunk and accidentally fucked your best friend and then he made you breakfast in the morning?

What came out of Zach’s mouth was: “Thankfuck.”

Nate laughed and turned away from him to shake a pan on the stove.

Zach struggled to his feet and then stumbled across the room to the spot where his boxers had somehow ended up. This was probably a good thing. Nate didn’t seem to be freaking out or anything, and that had been, like, a pretty real possibility.

Zach had never really had any particular angst aboutanythinginvolving sex: he’d started early and continued often, indiscriminate about gender. If you’d asked him his body count, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Nate, on the other hand, hadmaybeslept with two women.

And now, he’d also slept with Zach, who definitely wasn’t a woman.

So if hehadfreaked out, a little bit, Zach wouldn’t have blamed him.

Zach put on his boxers and stared at Nate’s back, like if he did it long enough, Nate would turn around and look at him. He didn’t, so Zach went to see what he was making.

It was eggs, exactly the way Zach liked them, scrambled and fluffy. There were even chives in there. There were blistered cherry tomatoes and chicken sausages, and bowls of yogurt with sliced-up strawberries and granola that Nate made himself in large batches. There was toast, a little scrape of butter already melting on it. Nate never had salted butter at home, but he’d put some flaky salt on the bread. Zach’s chest felt like it was swelling, like it would explode. It was like...all of his favorite breakfast shit in one place. And Nate hadmadeit for him.

Nate glanced sideways at him, and said, “Uh, hey. Good morning, buddy.”

Zach stared back at him. Nate didn’t seem to be panicking. His face was a little red, and his hair was still messy, and he had a hickey on his hip, right above the line of his sweatpants. But his blue eyes were wide open, innocent, and he didn’t look freaked out. Like, that was good, right? That Nate wasn’t panicking.

In fact, it didn’t seem like his first gay experience had fazed him at all.

As Zach reached across the table to help himself to a piece of toast, a thought occurred to him that hit like a clenched fist against his chest.

What if Nate wasn’t freaking out because he didn’t care?

What if he wasn’t freaking out because he didn’t remember?

Theyhadhad a lot to drink. Just because Zach would remember every single second of the evening in photographic detail for the rest of his life didn’t mean Nate would.

Oh, JesusChrist.

“You okay, dude?” Nate asked, as he spooned the eggs onto plates. He was frowning, worried, and Zach contemplated how much he’d regret it if he slid around the side of the kitchen island and kissed him.

“Yeah, I... Head. It hurts.”

“You definitely need some coffee. You’re, like, barely coherent.”

“That’s normal, buddy. How many times do I gotta tell you I’m only half fluent in English?”

Nate was still watching him, with that half-worried, half-fond expression on his face. “It’s way too early to be this self-deprecating. Just drink some coffee and eat something, all right?”

They ate in relative silence, and it was the most awkward period of not-talking Zach could remember between them since pretty much the beginning of his time in Philadelphia. The food was really fucking good and Zach wished he had pants because he kind of got a little hard every time Nate cooked for him lately, and it was even worse now that he’d sucked Nate’s dick. Now that he knew the sounds Nate made when he was completely lost in the moment.

But if Nate didn’t remember, Zach didn’t want to ruin things, and he realized with a sinking kind of horror that now he wasreallygoing to have to keep it bros.

Except now whenever he tried to thinkbros, it’s just bros, nothing more than that, he could only picture Nate staring at Zach’s naked body with something like awe; Nate asking, uncharacteristically short of breath,was I okay?Nate squirming underneath his mouth. Nate’s hands twisting in his hair when he came.

Keep. It. Bros.

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