My body gets hot, and my jaw tightens as a normal reply is stunted.
Mark lifts his hands into a submissive gesture, eyeing me warily. “Don’t cuss me out. I’ll go say hi to a few people and be back once you’re not irritated with me.” He retreats quickly, depriving me of the chance to start a fight. I rub my jaw, watching his retreating back, and my muscles slowly unclench. I take a sip of my drink and am grateful for Mark’s timely retreat. The night would have ended early, otherwise.
Louis returns with two drinks. He sees me alone and frowns. “Mark left?”
“He’s making the rounds.” I gesture to him across the room. He’s being greeted warmly by several men and women, clapping him on the back, hugging him, enthusiastically launching into his arms. Luckily for the launchees, Mark’s strong, and there’s no danger of anyone hitting the deck. Every few seconds his dark eyes move towards me and Louis, like he can’t help but keep looking at us.
“Oh, well,” Louis says. He turns back to me with a grin. “I’ll talk to him more later. I’m glad you didn’t pick a fight with him, Kyle. His friends…even if I have your back, we’re outnumbered.” He glances across the room at the group of guys stillcasting me dirty looks. He smiles and waves at them, noticing that they’re looking.Iknow he’s oblivious to their dirty looks, but I’m pretty sure they think he’s provoking them. It’s three guys from the rowing team. I may have tipped Mark, and therefore all of them, overboard. Once or twice. Several times. All year round until I was kicked out of the club. I haven’t held a grudge. Mark hadalwaysgotten me back, after all, so I’d considered our foray in the rowing club a draw in our ongoing war.
“Thanks, Louis,” I say, grateful and touched that Louis considers himself on my side. We are the only two in accounting modules, and I’ve missed his sunny disposition these past few weeks.
“Why don’t they like you?” Louis asks, finally realising they’re glaring at me. Louis had never been in the rowing club, so he hadn’t taken part in the antics.
“I was in the rowing club with them,” I say.
“And?”
“And they were in a boat with Mark.”
“And?”
“And Kyle tried to drown us all,” Mark says. “Several times.”
He steps in, displacing Louis a few inches to stand to my left. “Is this one mine?”
“Yes,” Louis offers Mark the drink, visibly pleased.
“Rowing was a draw,” I say. “You got me back.”
“Hardly,” Mark snorts. “I didn’t go out on the river once without ending up swimming, thanks to you.”
“I was the same!”
“I didn’t even know how to swim before that club,” Mark says with the air of someone who has been wronged. He has, but that’s not the point.
“Yes you did,” I argue. “You could swim. You could swim better than me!”
“That’s beside the point.”
I would have argued more, but Mark looks terribly amused. Instead, I fix a cold look on him. “You did look pathetic splashing around in the river.” It’s a blatant lie. Mark, soaked in river water, weighing down his curls, wetting his clothes so they clung to him like a second skin? Literal heaven.
A muscle in Mark’s jaw tightens. He stares down at me, eyes black, and his hand creeps up my spine. I can’t break eye contact. Mark apparently can. His gaze dips down to my mouth, where it lingers, and that muscle in his jaw ticks again. He looks away with a jerk.
I’m hot. Attracted. And usually when I feel like this, I act stupid. Like, ram my canoe into Mark’s and douse him in river water, kind of stupid. Retreatnever factors into my decisions when it comes to Mark; it’s always engage. And engage in the most antagonising way possible.
“Go on, then,” Mark says, his voice gravelly. His gaze flits back to meet mine. “Curse at me, antagonise me…get it out of your system.”
I experience a shot of clarity. It occurs to me that Mark is fully aware I like him, and that I lash out when I’m shy. “You asked me not to be mean. It being your birthday, and all, I’ll do my best not to be,” I say.Holy crap, I did it.
Mark stares at me as if he has to decode what I’ve said. He blinks several times, then leans in to speak against my ear. It cuts Louis, who has been watching with worried confusion, out of the conversation.
The hand on my spine creeps up to grasp the back of my neck. The way Mark leans forward hides his actions from the rest of the room. I grunt in surprise and do my best not to groan aloud as my cock gives a firm twitch. “Mark,” I grumble, instinctively grabbing his arm.
“I swear to god, Kyle, whenever you open your pretty mouth, you drive me insane,” Mark murmurs against my ear. His fingers wind tightly through the hair at my nape.
“Pretty?”
Mark growls. “You knowyou’re stupidly attractive—”
