Chapter Text
Despite what most people may believe about him, Andrew Minyard did not have a death wish.
Yeah, he got into fights with his team’s opponents that might have a foot on him. Sometimes he recklessly drove his loud car through residential areas, and sure, he consumed sweets like they held nutritional value. But he wasn’t an idiot and didn’t want to die. He just liked to test the limits of his emotions. Push himself to the edge, literally, just to see if the wind was strong enough to sway him. To most people, he would be bordering the line of suicidal. To Andrew? Eh. Unenthusiastic hand wave.
There was the metaphorical sense of a death wish too, as in a somewhat lack of regard for one’s life and how the consequences may affect them in the near future. Now, Andrew wasn’t one for regrets, but that was because he usually spent a long and hard time thinking about his choices before he made them. He wasn’t impulsive, never had been.
Not until Neil Josten.
Neil Josten was a fucking problem.
Well. That’s what Andrew told his best friends, along with a bunch of brutal nicknames he had come up with for Neil, including “bastard” and “rat boy.” What Andrew didn’t tell them was that he thought Neil Josten was so hot that he had permanent half-moons on his palms. We’re talking white-knuckled clenched fists, constantly. There was no way that his incredibly gay brain cells could comprehend someone like Neil. The solution they provided was to squash him like a bug.
Or to have sex with him.
But that wasn’t an option, so fly swatter.
Ahem. Neil Josten.
He was the Foxes’ newest addition, joining almost six months ago. Neil was a year younger than Andrew’s twenty-one, and in the beginning, he was timid, and as graspable as water. He kept to himself, and honestly, came across as quite strange. Andrew swore he blinked only once a minute.
Neil had never participated in any of the team’s activities, and even Andrew went to those, so. Weird. At first, he thought him a spy (because Andrew was a reasonable man), but then, during their initial interaction (one that emulated a fox cornering a rabbit), Neil’s throat bobbed, his pulse thrummed, and his eyes kept darting left and right for an out. And something switched. Andrew no longer wanted to scare him into a confession. Instead, he wanted to make him feel safe enough to open up.
So he did. He choked—which Andrew never fucking does—and instead of picking meat from Neil’s every bone, he told him he’d watch his back.
It was a terrible fucking mistake.
Neil was a goddamn foal learning how to walk when it came to… whatever their new agreement was. He’d freeze up when choosing a spot in the lounge, and Andrew would have to nod him over to lean against his armrest. Neil hesitated before Andrew shoved him into the back seat of his car to head to Eden’s. He’d pause before celebrating a win with Andrew, and the blond would have to swat a gloved hand against his helmet and say, “Nice job, Pinnochio,” to get him to relax.
But then, after their first few games, Neil finally loosened up. Started slouching his back. Laughing when Matt made a joke. And that was the problem. From then until now, Neil had turned into a goddamn—into a—Andrew was angry just thinking about it. Into an athletically built, sunkissed, sparkly-eyed fuck. His timid, awkward, flighty side was long gone (and Andrew sure had poked around for it.) The Foxes, an exy racquet, and Andrew too, he supposes, had provided Neil with a new-found confidence that was not going anywhere.
And he was by Andrew’s side, constantly.
Thankfully, the universe had some mercy. Neil was roomed with Matt, who had gotten close enough to him that the senior took up a lot of his time. Andrew and Kevin had a dorm to themselves, but Kevin’s muscled-lankiness was useless since he was one of Andrew’s said best friends (that is the only time that will ever be admitted. Snort it like a sicko and move on.)
Kevin was equally as much of a moron as Neil, since they both shared exygasms on and off the court. They chugged pre-workout and vibrated from it all morning. Andrew swore that if Kevin could shrink Neil down, he’d keep him in his bright orange hood just to whisper about their favorite athletes all day. Or to discuss their trauma. Who knew? Not Andrew. He minded his business.
But Kevin being so close to Andrew was another problem (apparently those never stop, there’s just one after another like a goddamn conveyor belt, providing either a surprise twin or a psycho Raven or an auburn wet dream) because Kevin understood Andrew, which caused uncomfortable shivers in itself, but it also meant Kevin knew. He knew about Andrew’s too-powerful-to-be-called-a-crush crush on Neil, and he was god awful at hiding it. Kevin had zero social cues. He waggled his really-nice eyebrows (that Andrew plucked for him) whenever Neil pulled off his jersey in the locker room. Commented on Neil’s form in the gym. It was inappropriate. It made Andrew fantasize about violence.
And then there was Aaron, who unfortunately has a twin-accessible Bluetooth into his train of thought. So he would look at Andrew, then look at Neil, and then do the same thing Andrew did with his upper lip: some disgusted sort of ick-face. And Nicky, their cousin, was gay, and knew any gay man around would consider Neil at least fifty times. Then there was Dan, Matt’s girlfriend, and Matt was Neil’s best friend, and Neil was practically Andrew’s walking video game companion. So she knew, but there’s also Renee, who was All-Knowing. And she was fucking Allison, and Allison coaxed all secrets out of her because Renee was gayer than Andrew (this is a joke). And then finally, to top it off, there was Wymack, everyone’s not-father, and all of his non-children’s drama was none of his business, but he had to know.
It was fucked, because Andrew had been dealt the entire deck to keep in order.
But he couldn’t, because he had no control when it came to Neil.
He’s screwed.
[ 1 ]
Whoever invented Seven Minutes in Heaven.
When Andrew takes a shower, he likes the water scalding, the door locked, and his music loud. Somewhere from within their dorm, Kevin is probably muttering to himself about the volume. It’s little of Andrew’s concern. The man is due for his monthly removal of the stick from his ass, anyway.
When he gets out, the bathroom’s walls are dripping from the humidity. Andrew ruffles his towel through his hair and then drapes it over his bare shoulders before pulling on black boxer briefs that hang low on his hips. His fringe is already reaching past his eyebrows, and Andrew scoffs in disbelief, smearing pomade across his fingers and running them through his hair. Then, he puts on moisturizer and cologne, sticks his toothbrush in his mouth, and checks the dripping mirror for his workout progress. Because Andrew wasn’t currently bulking, the muscles lining his chest and torso were sharp enough to cut. Still, he isn’t a toolbag that flexes in the mirror, so he definitely doesn’t spend a solid minute doing that. He only spits out his toothpaste and leaves the bathroom, bringing a billow of hot air with him.
“Holy fuck,” Kevin complains. “Do you want to try not creating literal Hell in our dorm?”
Andrew flicks on the ventilator in hopes that Kevin wouldn’t start.
“Jee, thanks.” Kevin scoffs, continuing to shuffle through his hangers. “Have you seen my jeans?”
“No.” Andrew tugs on the pants he’d laid out— his, thank you, Kevin is a fucking giant—and pulls on a matching black tee. “Are you ready?”
Standing in nothing but loose exercise shorts, Kevin asks, “Does it look like I'm ready?”
“Yeah.”
“You do realize I’m not going if I don't find my jeans.”
“You’re a very particular pain in my ass. Do you realize that?” Andrew asks, shoving Kevin toward the bathroom. “Go fix your hair.”
Kevin sputters something messy to him, but Andrew ignores it in favor of finding the taller man’s bottoms, which are in their neglected to-be-folded pile. Andrew throws them at Kevin’s legs, and the taller man sighs his thanks before dropping his shorts and pulling them on.
Andrew falls into his chair and pulls out his phone, plugging in the girls’ address. It’d take ten minutes to get there, and checking the time, he sees it’s already an hour past the party’s start. Before he can remind Kevin, the man walks out of the bathroom and buttons up his top.
“Are you ready?” Kevin parrots, buckling his belt.
“Waiting on you.”
“You took an hour in the bathroom.”
“I needed to shave.”
“It doesn’t take an hour to shave your balls.”
Andrew grabs his keys and wallet. “Stop talking.”
“Suck my dick,” Kevin says, following him out of the room.
Renee, Allison, and Dan live in a skinny three-story townhouse they rented off campus. When they get there, Andrew parks next to Renee’s hybrid and follows Kevin through the unlocked front door. They enter a long hallway that ends with a staircase. Off to the side of it is a den filled with folding tables already overflowing with red cups, empty bottles, and loud students. Outside on the patio, people stand smoking in tight circles, and Andrew thanks Fuck that he’d kicked the habit because he would’ve had to join them.
They go upstairs and find their teammates in the kitchen. Dan is in the middle of telling a story to a circle of people Andrew has never cared to remember the names of. Allison and Renee are whispering by the pizza boxes, holding spiked iced teas and ignoring their guests.
In the attached dining room, Neil sits next to Matt and Nicky.
Andrew had felt Neil’s presence as soon as he walked through the doorway. The lithe athlete is impossible to miss, sitting with a leg kicked out and an elbow on the table. Neil’s eyes meet Andrew’s, and he smiles at him in what’s likely supposed to be a friendly greeting but ends up a syrupy, sneaky thing that Andrew considers quite rude. He gives himself five seconds to ignore Neil in favor of grabbing a beer from the fridge before he walks over.
Matt greets him. “What’s up?”
Andrew nods his chin in reply before giving Neil all his attention, taking in his spindly fingers that rested twined across his abdomen. As always, Neil’s clothes were a bit too big—his long-sleeved shirt a muted color, his shorts rising up his thighs. Andrew rolls his eyes back up to Neil’s, the ones that had tracked his every step over, and raises an eyebrow.
“Hey,” Neil says.
Andrew is only two inches from his thighs. He could trail his fingers across their soft hair if he wanted. Neil probably wouldn’t even flinch. “I thought I burned that shirt,” he says instead.
“Oh really?” Neil asks, his smile pulling up into something smug. “I must have bought another one to spite you.”
“You’re really dedicated to the runaway look, aren’t you? Shame. You might look better if you actually put in the effort.”
Neil cocks his head, his fringe falling across his face. “You mean like you do?”
Andrew sucks his cheek against his teeth before taking a swig of his beer. “How long have you been here?”
“Like twenty minutes. That’s good, right? Do you think it’s cool to leave?”
“I’d give it another five.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Allison says. She walks up to the table and sets down her plate of cold pizza. “I have a lot of shit planned.”
Said table groans.
“Like what?” Matt asks. “I ended up half-naked last time.”
“You mean when you fucked your girlfriend in my bathroom? Yeah. I remember.”
Matt shrugs. “Dan’s your roommate. It’s her bathroom too.”
Andrew reaches a sly hand to hook around Neil’s wrist in an attempt to snatch him away from Allison’s plotting. Sure, he could try to avoid the redhead all night, or he could act on the fact that Neil was somebody he didn’t hate being around to make the party slightly more tolerable.
“I think he means when we played strip poker,” Nicky teases.
“Oh yeah. That. No more poker. Andrew is here,” Allison reminds them.
“Fuck. Well, that’s okay. He’d sweep all of us anyway.”
Neil shoots up an eyebrow, as in, Is that so?
Andrew only tugs his wrist again, hauling Neil up and towards the hall.
“No! Nope.” Renee was suddenly in front of Andrew, blocking the doorway and their only way out. “Hi. Sorry, you’re not leaving. If I have to deal with Allison’s games, you do, too. ”
Neil sighs, his voice rising into something phony. “C’mon Renee, I thought you liked us.”
“I do. That’s why I want you here.”
“You’re not as kind as you come across,” Andrew deadpans.
“And you’re not as slick.” Renee smiles, not daring to touch Andrew but turning Neil around with an arm across his shoulders. Neil’s wrist slips from Andrew’s grip, and his fingers burn from where they’d wrapped so easily around it.
“I’m not playing anything stupid,” Kevin declares, leaning against a wall by the group.
Dan had finished her storytelling. She hugs Kevin in greeting and says hello to Andrew before saying, “It’s all stupid. Accept it and enjoy it.”
Andrew takes another sip of his beer. Finally, it’s just the exy players in the kitchen, the other party-goers having dispersed around the house. Neil begrudgingly sits back down in his chair, and Renee falls in alongside him. Andrew steals the seat on his other side, his shoulder bumping Neil’s as he does so. Neil, being a jerk, nudges him back, and Andrew isn’t above returning it even rougher.
“Alright, is everyone drunk enough for Seven Minutes in Heaven?” Allison asks, draping an arm around Renee and sliding into her lap.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were still in high school,” Kevin says, but Andrew finds it to be an adolescent statement in itself.
“Well, we are, Kevin,” Allison snaps. “Listen, I’m not forcing anyone to hook up. If you want, you can use your seven minutes with Neil to dirty talk about exy racquets. Be my fucking guest.”
Neil snorts from next to Andrew, but Kevin meets his eyes with a look that almost begs for cut slack. Andrew plays off any itch of whatever feeling sizzles throughout him at the thought of Kevin and Neil being partnered and downs the rest of his beer.
“It sounds fun,” Nicky says, leaning forward. “Dan, if I get you, I have so much to tell you.”
“Oh my god, what? About that couple from your English class?”
“Yeah. I found out they—“
Andrew tones out their conversation as quickly as it starts. Thankfully, or not so thankfully, Allison continues in her push to get her teammates to play, explaining the rules of the game. They’re straightforward: go into the closet with someone random and spend seven minutes with them doing whatever the fuck you consent to. Andrew can name three people that he could stand to spend the time with—Kevin or Renee (to talk about Neil), or the little fuck himself, who keeps bouncing his leg under the table. Andrew looks at him and then down at his annoying limb. Neil stops shaking it, but when Andrew looks away, it begins to jitter again.
Andrew sighs and whispers, “Quit it,” as he reaches a hand to pinch just above Neil’s slender knee. It works.
“Okay,” Allison sings, grabbing a hat from the counter behind her. It’s one of Matt’s baseball caps, and she shakes the contents. “Who would like to go first?”
Andrew wasn’t one to shy away from a game. If he didn’t want to do it, Allison could dump the papers full of people’s names on his goddamn lap and he still wouldn’t budge. But a small part of him is curious about what would happen. Would Neil play if he didn’t? Would he go in the closet with anyone else?
Andrew had seen the others share touches of affection with Neil, but the most was a kiss on the cheek from one of the girls. The Foxes are a close bunch—in a way that causes the other teams around to scowl in jealousy—but Andrew supposes it isn’t strange for a group of touch-starved assholes, who had been through hell and back together, to form a—
He swallows, shiver flooding throughout him.
A bond.
“If no one volunteers, then I’ll have to choose,” Allison threatens.
“What about Neil?” Nicky suggests, and Andrew comes right back into the room at the sound of Neil’s name, like his consciousness had just been placed inside him. He swears he can hear the fucking sink dripping. “Neil, have you played before?”
“What do you think, Nicky?” Neil asks.
“I think you should go first, asshole.”
Andrew’s mouth dips into a slight frown as he wonders where his cousin found the balls to talk to Neil like that. Nicky’s eyes dart to his, as though he can sense danger, before he laughs it off. “It would be nice for you to try it out first, to see if you even want to play–”
Neil takes a drink of his seltzer. It’s non-alcoholic and strawberry lime and every bit him. “Fine,” he says. “But if any of you try to kiss me….”
It’s a joke, but Andrew still sits up a bit straighter. He puts his arm around the back of Neil’s chair so casually that Neil doesn’t look up from where he ruffles his hand in the hat, but every other Fox at the table gets the message.
“Thank fuck Aaron isn’t here. It’d be more like Hell with him….” Neil says, choosing a paper and tossing Matt’s cap back to the center of the table. Andrew had seen his twin with his girlfriend in the living room, because Katelyn preferred to hang out with her friends. Andrew looks around at the group of assholes he was sitting with and doesn’t blame her for a second. She and Aaron were always branched off from the team, especially after coming out as a couple, so Andrew had only saluted his twin and left them alone.
Meanwhile, Neil had gone quiet. Andrew leans over to see what his paper says. When he catches it, his eyes flick up to Allison, who avoids his gaze, not at all innocent.
“So?” she asks.
Andrew, who had so easily met everyone’s eyes before, suddenly can’t make eye contact with a single person at the table. Even Renee, the sneaky mouse, is focusing more on the bowl of chips than on Andrew and Neil. Absolutely fucking whipped.
“Andrew,” Neil says, matter-of-fact. He closes his fist around the paper and stills, waiting for someone to say something. No one does.
After a moment, Andrew clears his throat around the growl that almost snapped out of it. Apparently, it’s his job to make it not-weird, so he stands, pushing back his chair. “If you so much as begin to mention Jeremy Knox, I’m walking out.”
Neil breaks into a smile. “No? What about Laila—?”
“If any of the Trojan’s names come out of your mouth, the closet is getting burned down.”
Allison gasps. It breaks the tension around the table. Andrew looks at Kevin and shoots him a look that says, If you were in on this, consider your head on a pike, because Andrew is about a hundred-and-ten-percent sure that every paper in that fucking hat says his name.
“Let me show you to the closet!” Allison says, snaking out of Renee’s lap.
Andrew would deal with his traitorous teammates later. He had a bag of plastic bugs in his desk and could slip them into each of their lockers. For now, he looks down at Neil and waits for any sign of hesitance. Instead, Neil only stands and slips his hands into his pockets, looking at Andrew with his bright blue, bug-like eyes.
Fly swatter.
In Andrew's mind, Neil is smushed.
Deep into his fucking mattress.
“Are you gonna go?” Neil asks.
Andrew is blocking his way. He sidesteps from the table and goes to follow the conniving blonde before someone tells them to leave their phones. Andrew isn’t sure who, but he probably should dig the knife out of his back pocket. Instead, Andrew hands his phone to Renee and leaves the kitchen without so much as one threatening look at the others. Neil and his pretty eyes had blinked at him once, and all of a sudden Andrew’s wires were yanked out, deeming him nonfunctioning. Ridiculous.
Allison cuts his self-deprecation short, gesturing towards the room meant for sucking face. “Here we are!”
It’s a walk-in storage closet full of coats and old beanbags from the girl’s dorms. There’s even a plush area rug, as though even Allison’s unused amenities needed to be stylish and comfortable. Andrew scoffs, clicking on the soft overhead light.
Allison’s long fingernails tap something on her phone before she shows them a timer set for seven minutes. Then, Neil crowds in next to Andrew, though the closet isn’t necessarily small enough to do so.
“If you burn my shit, I’ll kill you,” she says, smiling. Then she shuts the door.
Andrew takes a deep breath. Neil smells like buttercream, and it isn’t his cologne or shampoo, it’s just fucking him. He’s still facing the door, so Andrew eyes the long expanse of soft skin from behind Neil’s ear all the way down to his shoulder before it dips beneath his shirt. Fuck. He forces himself to look away and sits down on the beanbag, his knees knocking open and arms folding across his chest.
Finally, Neil turns, looking down at Andrew with hesitance.
Andrew sighs. “I thought you were past that, rabbit,” he says. Then, when Neil doesn’t budge, Andrew leans forward and grabs the bottom of Neil’s top, tugging him down to a seating position. “Sit.”
“Past what?” Neil asks, mentally coming back from wherever he’d just gone. “You know I’ve never really kissed anyone—”
Andrew’s brain short-circuits. There might be sparks and smoke coming from his ears, but he can’t find the fucks to care. Actually, he can’t do anything for half a second, apart from blink. “Neil, we aren’t going to kiss.”
Neil processes his words slowly, and a small wrinkle appears between his eyebrows. “Oh, we’re not?”
Andrew sits back and forces a single deep, slow breath. Neil is looking at him, and it’s coming across as almost disappointed. No. There’s no fucking way. “Don't tell me you want me to be the one to steal your first kiss, junkie.”
“Why not?” Neil asks.
Andrew has a mental clock ticking down behind his eyes. It’s been maybe a minute, and suddenly he’s the closest to death he’s ever been. The most resigned, the most out of control. Neil’s words give him the same feeling as looking over the edge of Fox Tower or driving the Mas.
When Andrew doesn’t answer—a mistake, Neil starts to pick at his cuticles, and Andrew knows he’s seconds away from chewing at his nails—Neil says, “I just thought maybe, if it were to ever happen, it would be okay if it was with you.”
“It would be okay?” Andrew asks. He’s lying to himself, saying that teasing Neil is better than kissing him.
“Yeah. I trust you.”
It’s a knife in his fucking chest. Neil trusted Andrew to kiss him when all he could think about was what noises Neil might make if Andrew sucked on the sensitive tip of his dick until he was squirming.
This stupid high school game was the only taste of heaven Andrew was going to get, huh? After this life, it’d be nothing but flames.
“You trust me?” Andrew asks.
And Neil scoffs out a small laugh, wrinkling his eyebrows as though saying, Well, duh?
Andrew has to remind himself that Neil isn’t an idiot. He’s not innocent or stupid. He knows what types of monsters exist in the world and he knows better than to trust the wrong people. Yet he’s sitting here, looking at Andrew with what, five minutes left? Saying that he trusts him.
Andrew doesn’t say, I don’t want you to kiss me just because it would be “okay.” I want you to kiss me because you’re dying for it. Instead, he thinks of all Neil has confessed regarding his sexuality and supposes he’ll have to help get the striker to that point, if even possible.
“Fine,” Andrew says, and he thinks that if he or Neil were to ever sell their souls to the devil, that word would be signed on the dotted line.
Neil blanks at Andrew’s words, and Andrew gets it, because they shocked him, too. The name of the game is Seven Minutes in Heaven, but he has maybe four. Four minutes to get a taste of whatever drug has to be pumping through Neil’s veins and suck it all fucking dry. Hopefully, the high lasts him for life. Hopefully it's enough.
“Come here,” Andrew says. He lets his knees fall open further to make as much room as possible for Neil to comfortably crawl into his space.
Neil does, and he still has on that worried expression, but suddenly, layered beneath it is the same determination Andrew catches on his face when he’s playing exy. Something that hits Andrew deep in the stomach, because he’s always found it attractive, but now it was determination to kiss him.
Neil stops right in front him, folding back on his knees, and the room goes up twenty degrees. There’s enough tension to shatter glass, but they don’t have enough time to waste, so Andrew cracks it himself. Since Neil doesn’t know what to do, Andrew sits forward and wraps a hand around the back of his neck, drawing him in closer.
Their mouths hover an inch apart. Andrew can feel Neil’s sharp intake of breath and see his long eyelashes blink against his cheeks. Neil may think he's pausing for his sake, but it’s really for Andrew, who wants to savor the brief moment before he finally does what he always wanted to.
“Is this alright?” Neil whispers, a last-minute—no, a last-second chance to make sure Andrew is okay with kissing him.
Andrew is. He knows it’s a dumb idea. But it’ll be a taste of something mouthwatering that he’ll probably never get to indulge in again. Andrew vaguely recalls saying he wasn’t an idiot earlier, but scratch that.
He thinks of all he’s revealed. He shouldn’t give too much of a shit about a kiss. Andrew hooks up with people every now and then, and Neil knows that. Neil should think this is nothing to Andrew. It’s only kissing a teammate because a game told them to. It’s safe.
Andrew almost lets something slip. He keeps his, Yes, it’s alright, to himself. He doesn’t say how badly he’s been wanting to pull Neil’s soft lips between his own since he first fucking met him. Andrew doesn’t let so much as a single breath out because he thinks it may shake. Neil’s skin is warm beneath his fingers. Andrew can feel his pulse, and it’s fucking thrumming. It causes something to coil deep within Andrew—and then he can’t help himself anymore.
Andrew leans forward and closes the gap. He kisses Neil, slotting their lips together firmly. Neil stills, his body freezing up, but Andrew just got a shot of something addictive poured right into his mouth, so he goes for it.
His fingers tangle in Neil’s hair while his other hand cups his face. Andrew softly hooks his thumb beneath Neil’s lips and pulls his mouth open. The striker’s stiffness melts away instantly, and Andrew kisses him deeper, internally dying at the hot wetness of Neil’s parted lips.
Neil is so good. He doesn’t touch. He follows Andrew’s movements, puckering whenever Andrew does. Their kisses are as intense and rough as their dynamic—the push and pull almost dizzying. Andrew’s holding Neil’s cheek, trying not to think of how his hands could so easily slip around his slender neck, down his shoulders, and wrap around his waist. No. Andrew keeps them there, stroking the softness of Neil’s cheeks up to the roughness of his cheekbones, and Neil is practically melting into him.
During a brief second of stealing air, Andrew opens his eyes to see Neil’s hands knotted in the rug. The redhead’s eyebrows are tugged up in the middle, and his lips are wet and shiny in the low light. They have maybe a minute. Probably less. Andrew is buzzing. He’s never felt so mindless. Not even an orgasm has gotten him this braindead, and all he’s done is kiss Neil. They hadn’t even used tongue.
Speaking of, Neil’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, his eyes fluttering open to a glazed, half-lidded look. He’s checking to see where Andrew has gone, except he can only look at Andrew’s mouth. For the next thirty seconds, their lips are the only thing that matter. Neil’s tongue drags his bottom lip back between his teeth, and Andrew has had both more than enough and nowhere close to it.
He pulls Neil back against him, unable to stop himself from kissing him again, and Neil has to catch himself on either side of Andrew’s waist because he’s fallen back against the beanbag. A slight noise chokes out of Neil, and Andrew chases it back down his throat with his tongue. He swipes along the inside of Neil’s parted lips, tasting him. Strawberry lime. Neil makes a small gasp—a sound bordering on sweet that Andrew has never heard him make—before he shyly meets Andrew’s tongue with a tiny lick.
Andrew groans.
Neil doesn’t know Andrew like this. He hasn’t ever kissed him, and it’s not like Andrew has discussed his sex life with him before. So Neil doesn’t know that Andrew is usually quiet. Doesn’t know that Andrew rarely even kisses his partners, but when he does, he sure as fuck doesn't enjoy it as much as this.
Neil’s always been out of reach, but he’s kissing him back like he likes it. Andrew’s pretty sure he’s died. If the afterlife is him with his tongue in Neil’s mouth, limited to only that and not getting to drag it anywhere else, he’d suffer and take it.
He steals as many seconds as he can, daring someone to interrupt them because their time absolutely has run out. Andrew thinks he may stab them on the spot. Neil breathes out through his nose, and it’s stuttery and shaky. Andrew tilts his head to the side to kiss him deeper, to lap at more of the delicious slickness of his mouth. He holds Neil to his lips like he’s fucking drinking from him, because Neil is melty-hot like sweet cream, and he can’t get enough.
Andrew has just coaxed Neil’s tongue back out. Neil’s just gotten brave enough to hold it past his lips so that their mouths are barely touching, but their tongues are gliding against one another. It’s the dirtiest fucking kiss Andrew has ever experienced. He drags Neil forward again and finally, finally, Neil moans. It’s a small hum, satiated and whiny, as though he’d accidentally let it slip.
It’s infuriating. Andrew wants him to make all of his noises freely.
But then there's a knock on the door.
Neil pulls back. Andrew swears a trail of spit is connecting their lips before he sits back on his knees, dazed. Then Neil swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and looks away. Andrew can’t move. He keeps his face blank, but every inch of him is blazing.
Every. Inch.
He’s so hard he’s throbbing in his pants. His dick strains against the material, and he knows Neil caught it, so he shamelessly adjusts himself. He has to bite back a sound at the feeling of his cock rubbing against his briefs. Thankfully, Neil yells to whoever interrupted them for him. “Fuck off!”
To anyone else, it's venomous. But Andrew knows Neil is just as mouth-fucked as him. There’s a feminine laugh from behind the door before the shadow at the bottom of the frame disappears. Andrew feels no shame. He feels nothing and everything.
Neil looks at him. His lips are red and swollen, and Andrew thinks his may be too, but he doesn’t care. Something swells within him at the thought that he did that to Neil, and Andrew is just horny enough that he allows himself to imagine sliding his cock in his mouth.
Then Neil adjusts himself, too.
Andrew clenches his jaw hard enough that it’d wake him up from a dream, but this isn’t one. Neil has a boner because Andrew got him there.
It’s a lot. Andrew doesn’t know how far gone Neil is, but he must be dripping over the edges like Andrew, because he’s flushed and out of breath. They shouldn’t have gotten that far in less than five minutes. Not unless Neil had been preheating for months, just as Andrew had.
He cuts that thought off. No. Whatever happened here will stay here. It’s way too dangerous. Way too consuming.
Andrew clears his throat. “Any time now.”
Neil meets his eyes again and catches the look on Andrew’s face. He hopes it’s as sarcastic as he means it to be, and it must be, because Neil’s expression slips back into humor, too. He stands, but has to grab a three-drawer dresser to do it. “Alright. Thanks, I guess.”
Andrew unfolds, and he hates how weak his legs are. “You’re welcome, I guess.” It’s disingenuine. It’s mocking. It's back to normal.
They’re both standing now, and Neil is just looking at Andrew like the lost puppy he was when they first met. Andrew hates it. He wants to see Neil ignited again, so he pinches his side and says, “Let’s force Nicky in with Kevin.”
Neil is shocked into a laugh. His eyes turn back into something wicked. Success. “Alright.”
They leave the closet, and Andrew heads straight for the liquor.