Page 26 of Knock Knock

When he turned his face in my direction, it was so close I could smell the fruity drink on his breath. His hair tickled my temple, and I knew this was the only way to confess what I’d needed to confess for a fucking year. He shifted his weight, and I acted on nothing but instinct, clumsiness, and desperation.

And nothing was fluent about it.

He tried to get by me, and I got in his way.On purpose.

“Sorry,” I lied.

“Yeah,” he whispered, trying again to go around me.

When he bobbed and I weaved, our bodies rubbed in the confined space. When his abs touched mine, he looked down, and when our shoulders knocked, he turned to accommodate our size in such a small space. The way he turned his body left us closer, and my drunken coordination, matched with his broken toe, left us in a tangle of insecurity. Was I trying to let him go or trying to keep him?

Just tell him you have a thing for him, too. Say it.

He stumbled, his busted toe doing me favours because his chest landed against mine and gave my hands the perfect excuse to grab his hips to steady him.

“Sorry.” He was the one to say it that time, and when he looked up at me with his big green eyes all glossy and glazed from fruity drinks, he said it again. “Sorry.”

I pushed him upright. “Yeah.” My fingers slowly slid off his hips, and I didn’t miss the way he shivered from it.

“I’m gonna… go,” he said, hooking his thumb towards the bedroom. “I’ll… yeah.”

We side-stepped, needing to be on opposite sides of the hallway. “Okay.”

When we both plastered our backs to the wall and started to squeeze by one another, he looked right at me as our dicks grazed. It made me buckle forward, and I didn’t know if he buckled as well or if the hall was just that small, but our foreheads clacked, and then his lips were on mine, or mine were on his, and a thousand nerve endings frayed, everything got real fucking hot, and…

“Fuck,” Xavi whispered.

My body coiled, unsure if it was about to spring into action or stay locked in restraint. He breathed against my lips, not moving away, but caught in the same hesitation as me. Every goddamn part of me came alive, rising to the surface through the numbness of alcohol to burn me up with the force of my desires and how hard it was to resist them. For a fucking year, I’d wanted to do this, and doing it while drunk, pissed off at each other, and caught in close proximity because this hallway was never supposed to be more than a corridor from storage to staff room wasn’t how I pictured it. But with Xavi, we never planned anything. We got thrown into situations and handled them, and this time, we’d thrownourselvesinto this one and still weren’t sure how to handle it.

“Nate,” he breathed, straightening slightly. He didn’t back away. “This is a bad—”

“Yeah,” I agreed, but my back wasn’t against the wall anymore. My chest was flush against his, and when he inhaled, I felt every movement against my overheated skin, like he was sucking me in. “I know.”

His forehead rolled against mine, and for a moment in time, everything became entirely unclear, but I’d never been more eager to dive into murky waters without knowing what sat under the surface. I had a fucking thing for Xavi, and denying it hadn’t gotten me anywhere. He said he had a thing for me, too, and since I’d never been afraid to do anything in life as long as he was at my side, I wanted to do this. Figure it out. Stop denying it. Stop being mad at him for nothing. Fucking face it together like we faced everything.

He exhaled, his breath tickling my lips. “Nate, I—”

“Nate! Are you coming back?!” Miranda shouted through the locked patio door.

Xavi tensed as reality assaulted him, but it spurred me into action. I slid my hand to the back of his neck, held him right fucking there, and kissed him for real. My lips on his. His mouth on mine. Bodies pressed together. Dicks hard. The world paused, Xavi paused, sound stopped existing, and my heartbeat overtook everything else. I kissed him, waiting to see if he’d…

“Ah, fuck,” he groaned.

He pushed into me, my shoulder blades hit the wall, and Xavi’s hands slid around my lower back and pulled my hips forward while his chest pushed me back. And he fucking kissed me.

His mouth opened, and I goddamn moaned when his tongue met mine. I didn’t know if it was finally getting a taste of something I’d wanted for a long time or if it was the feeling of reconnecting with Xavi after days of fighting, but it was the single most life-changing kiss, and it wasn’t even that coordinated.

Xavi’s teeth grazed my bottom lip, making my hips thrust against his. Our dicks rubbed together and the animalistic moan that escaped him made me feral.

“Fuck,” I moaned.

Kissing him, feeling his body against mine, knowing that our desires were matched, even though we’d miscommunicated it, chased away the buzz I had and replaced it with a sobriety so pure I felt clairvoyant.

Until Miranda ruined it. “Nate! Hurry up!”

“Shit.” Xavi pressed on my chest and pulled away. When he looked around, his chest heaved, his eyes blinked, and the sad state of our apartment with the chick banging on the door ruined it. “Shit,” he said again, hand still on my chest.

“Don’t freak out.”

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