Page 26 of One Lovely Lie

We’re sitting at lunch and I can’t help but just stare at him. The way his blue blazer hugs his muscles is even more enticing now that I now know exactly what they feel like under me. His perfected messy bedhead that’s way too soft to be real. The way his pink lips wrap around the straw of his drink brings on a whole new meaning now that I know what they feel like wrapped around my cock.

Jesus, I’m getting hard at lunch, and if that wicked smirk proves anything, that bastard knows it.

“Daniel, are you paying attention?”

My attention snaps to Carter. “Um, what?”

Magnus chuckles and I kick his shin under the table, cheeks flaming at being caught ogling him.

“I asked what you got for number nine on our calculus homework,” Carter repeats, eyes narrowed suspiciously at me. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. I, um, didn’t do the math homework last night.”

Carter rears his head back a bit and blinks at me. “You didn’t do the homework? You?”

Once again, my cheeks are on fire. Magnus is sitting across from me, smug as shit because he’s the reason I didn’t do my work. We were up all night introducing me to the art of sixty-nining, and I guess we lost track of time.

A groan that’s a mixture of annoyance and exasperation bursts from beside me. I turn and furrow my brow at Avery who’s resting his forehead against the picnic table, head covered by his black hoodie, arms at his sides.

What the fuck?

Carter reaches over and pulls back Avery’s hood, revealing a head of dirty red hair. “All good, man?”

Avery groans again.

Carter, Magnus, Ozymandias, and I share a look over him, all of our faces filled with concern.

Sometimes Avery gets like this. We believe that after the hyperactive golden-retriever energy he lets out every day wears down, he just sort of crashes. It happens a lot, actually. He’ll go through periods of trying new things and partying all the time, and then he’ll suddenly go into a slump for a few weeks.

The four of us—Ozymandias included—worry about it, but every time we bring it up Avery gets uncharacteristically defensive. For a usually laid-back guy, he gets pissed.

So, we all keep a good eye on him when he’s like this, but we’ve learned to not talk about the big, sad elephant in the room.

“What is it?” I ask, rubbing Avery’s back and frowning when I feel how tense his shoulders are. “You want to talk about it?”

His voice is muffled by the table when he speaks. “Sebastian dumped me.”

“Wait, when did you start dating?” Magnus asks, looking at us like we’ve been keeping this secret from him. “Am I the only one who didn’t know about this?”

Avery shakes his head. “We weren’t.”

“How can he dump you if you weren’t dating?” I question him, trying and failing to get him to sit up.

“He turned me down.”

“You know, there’s a difference—Ow! Fuck you!” Ozymandias barks at Carter, rubbing the spot on his arm where he just got smacked.

“Can you not be an asshole for like two seconds?” Carter hisses, slapping his arm again.

“Fine,” Ozymandias snaps, taking a deep breath before turning back to Avery. “Avery, buddy, tell us about it.”

Finally, Avery sits up, and he doesn’t look good. He’s got dark bags under his eyes and his cheeks are pale. The misery in his green eyes is too painful to ignore and it makes my heart clench for him. “I asked him to be my friend and he said no.”

Okay, that might explain it. Avery has been known to…come on a little bit too strong. But I have to admit, I’m kind of pissed at Sebastian. I wonder how he turned Avery down. Was he nice? Gentle? Or did he humiliate him and say something that set him off?

“Do you want us to talk to him?”

The deadly tone that Ozymandias uses leaves nothing to the imagination. Although he’s an asshole, he cares about his friends deeply. It’s obvious that one look at Avery’s face has made him realize this means a lot more to his friend than he originally thought.

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