Page 48 of Worth the Wait
“Pure fucking golden reasons them.” Freddie rolled his eyes.
“What other reasons are there?”
Freddie held up his fingers to count off. “One, you wanted to. Two, you at least liked her. Three, you were ready to take the next step in your long-term relationship where you’d built up trust and honesty. Oh, wait…”
“Fuck off, Fred.”
Freddie shut up.
“If we’re going off to uni or whatever, I didn’t want to be the only one who hadn’t done it.” Nathan picked up a stone and chucked it into the sea. It skipped once. Sank.
“At least tell me she was good at it.”
Nathan looked at him. Dead. Eyes blank.
“Jesus.” Freddie glanced away.
“She was all mouth. Tongue everywhere. Like, trying to clean my molars. Felt less like a snog and more like one of those hook-a-duck games at the fair. Only I was the duck, and she was fishing for my tonsils.”
Freddie let out a laugh.
Nathan narrowed his eyes. “So I got it over with, Avoiding her mouth.”
Freddie snorted.
“Is that what it’s like for you?”
“No.”
Nathan searched his face in the dark. “Who’ve you been with?”
“Plenty, thanks. All while you weren’t looking.”
Nathan looked away. Couldn’t place the stab to his chest, so he stood. Blew out a breath. Which trembled and caught.
“Ever had a decent snog?” Freddie asked, the question slicing through the night like a spark catching tinder.
Nathan startled, blinking at him. Then he let out a breathy laugh, more nervous than amused. He shrugged rather than answered.
Freddie inhaled deeply, as if drawing courage straight from the sea air. And when he spoke, it came out quiet, cautious. “Want one?”
Nathan didn’t answer. Not out loud. But his silence buzzed loud enough.Yes.Please. From you. But the words caught somewhere in his throat, stuck behind years of pretending and posturing and never, ever daring to ask.
He was pretty sure Freddie was gay. Ninety-nine percent sure. Not that he’d said it. Not out loud. But Nathan noticed things. Freddie had zero interest in girls. He was good-looking, sure, and the girls at school knew it. Lucy Regan had once asked Nathan to put in a good word for her, cheeks blooming red every time Freddie looked her way. But Freddie had turned her down with a shrug and a smile, and that was that.
Nathan had also used Freddie’s computer once. Well, more than once. For homework mostly. Freddie’s mum was always trying out new schemes, and they’d ended up with a battered Dell desktop she’d got in some ‘home office starter bundle’ convinced it would launch her into millionaire mumpreneur territory. It hadn’t, but it meant Freddie had a computer, and he didn’t.
He hadn’t meant to snoop. Not really. But one night, while Freddie was shouting at his sister about who used up all the hot water again, Nathan had clicked into the wrong folder. He’d found images. Nothing dodgy, just… pictures. Male models, some shirtless. Actors Nathan recognised. A few footballers mid-celebration, shirts off and muscles flexing. Nothing explicit. But it was enough.
And, buried deep in a subfolder, he found another one.
It was all Nathan.
Candid shots. Him at the skate park, laughing. Mucking about at the beach, jeans soaked from the tide. Sitting on Freddie’s bed, half-asleep with crisps in his lap and a textbook balanced on his stomach. Stupid, soft, unguarded pictures that made Nathan’s heart thump.
He’d closed the folder.
Said nothing.
