Morning Light and Marcus
Morning light cut through the cheap blinds, pale and insistent.
I woke to the weight of Derek Gallagher sprawled across my chest, his breath warm against my collarbone, one thick thigh wedged between my legs. My glasses were somewhere on the floor. The world was a blur of golden skin and rumpled sheets and the distant sound of birds that had no business being that cheerful at - I squinted at the clock on my nightstand - 8:47 AM.
We'd slept maybe three hours. Maybe less.
Derek stirred. A low grumble vibrated against my sternum. His hand, which had been splayed across my stomach, curled into a loose fist.
"Time?" The word was barely intelligible.
"Almost nine."
"Fuck." He didn't move. "Practice is at ten."
"You're going to practice?"
"Have to." His eyes stayed closed. "Coach'll kill me if I skip."
The idea of him leaving - of this ending - sent a cold tendril through my chest. I pushed it down. He'd said he wanted to stay. He'd said we'd figure it out.
But the morning had a way of making promises feel like fever dreams.
Derek shifted, and I felt him wince. A sharp intake of breath. His hand moved to his lower back.
"Sore?"
"Understatement." He cracked one eye open. A sliver of dark iris. "You wrecked me."
"Pretty sure you wrecked yourself. You were the one riding."
The ghost of a smile. "Worth it."
He lifted his head, and our eyes met. In the daylight, he looked different - softer, younger. The confident mask was still off, and what remained was just a twenty-one-year-old kid with bed-head and pillow creases on his cheek. His lips were slightly swollen. A faint bruise was blooming on his collarbone where I'd gotten enthusiastic sometime during round two.
"I should shower," he said.
"Bathroom's down the hall."
"Can I borrow a towel?"
"Second drawer. Blue one's clean."
He extracted himself from the tangle of sheets, and I watched the full length of his body emerge - the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the perfect globes of his ass flexing as he bent to retrieve his boxers from the floor. He didn't put them on. Just stood there, naked, stretching.
"Stop ogling me."
"No."
His laugh was raspy. "I'll be back."
He grabbed the towel and padded out the door.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, cataloging every moment of the night before. The knock. His confession. His mouth. The sounds he'd made. The tears on his cheeks. The way he'd said I think I need to stay the night like he was terrified I'd say no.
The room smelled like us - sweat and sex and something sweeter underneath. My sheets were a lost cause. The lube bottle sat on its side on the nightstand, half-empty.
I was still grinning like an idiot when the knock came.
Three sharp raps. Harder than Derek's had been. More insistent.
"Derek! You in there?"
The voice was muffled through the door but unmistakable - deep, carrying the faint edge of irritation. I froze.
Another knock. Louder.
"Derek, I know you're in there. Saw your shoes outside."
His shoes. The grey Nikes he'd kicked off before getting on his knees. They were sitting right next to my door, visible to anyone walking past.
I scrambled out of bed. My boxers were somewhere - I found them half under the desk, shook them out, pulled them on. My t-shirt was a crumpled ball near my laptop.
"Derek!" A pause. "Don't make me get the RA."
The door handle rattled.
I had approximately three seconds to decide what to do. Derek's absence made the decision for me - whoever was outside was going to keep knocking, keep escalating, and if Derek walked back from the bathroom right now, still damp and half-naked and smelling like sex, there'd be no explaining it away.
So I opened the door.
The guy on the other side was almost my height, which meant he was almost their height - six-four at least. Built like someone who spent as much time in the weight room as Derek, but leaner, with the rangy muscle of a wide receiver. Dark skin. Close-cropped hair. His jaw was sharp enough to cut glass.
His eyes narrowed.
"You're not Derek."
"Astute observation."
He didn't laugh. His gaze swept past me, scanning the room - the rumpled bed, the discarded clothes, the lube bottle that I'd absolutely forgotten to hide.
His expression shifted. The irritation didn't vanish, but something else layered over it. Recognition. Calculation.
"So it's true," he said.
"What's true?"
"That Derek came here." He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. His biceps strained against the sleeves of his compression shirt. "He's been talking about you for weeks. 'The nerd in the back row. The one with the monster dick.' Thought he was just running his mouth. Guess not."
My stomach dropped.
He saw it on my face and smiled - not entirely unkind. "Relax. I'm not here to cause problems. I'm Marcus. Derek's roommate."
"I know who you are."
That got a raised eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"You're the starting wide receiver. Forty-seven receptions last season. Three touchdowns against State."
Marcus blinked. "You follow football?"
"No. I follow Derek." The admission slipped out before I could catch it. Heat crept up my neck. "He mentioned you a few times. In class. I pay attention."
"Huh." Marcus uncrossed his arms. His posture relaxed, fractionally. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Some twink. Or maybe a gym rat. Someone who'd show off about it." He gestured vaguely at my chest, my shoulders. "You're just... big. Solid. Quiet."
"Is there a point to this assessment?"
"Point is, Derek's been acting weird for months. Distracted. Disappearing at night. Avoiding the parties. Coach thinks he's got a secret girlfriend. The guys on the team think he's depressed." Marcus's eyes flicked to the bed again. "Turns out he's just got a secret boyfriend."
"We're not -" I started, then stopped. What were we? He'd stayed the night. We'd said we'd figure it out. He'd cried in my arms.
"Look," Marcus said. "I don't care who Derek fucks. That's his business. But he's my teammate. He's my friend. And if he's going to start sneaking off campus at one in the morning and missing curfew and showing up to practice looking like he hasn't slept -" He let the sentence hang.
"I didn't keep him here. He came to me."
"I figured." Marcus exhaled through his nose. "That's the problem. Derek's impulsive. He wants something, he takes it. Doesn't always think about the fallout."
"What fallout?"
"Coach. The team. The boosters. Take your pick." Marcus's voice dropped. "You know we're playing State in two weeks? Biggest game of the season. Scouts will be there. This isn't the time for Derek to be distracted by -" He gestured between us. "- whatever this is."
The hallway was quiet. Somewhere down the hall, a shower turned on. Pipes groaned in the walls.
"That's not your call," I said.
"Maybe not. But I'm still going to say it." Marcus straightened. "Where is he, anyway?"
"Bathroom."
"I'll wait."
He leaned against the wall opposite my door, arms crossed again. The posture was casual, but his eyes were watchful. Assessing. I stood in the doorway, acutely aware that I was wearing yesterday's t-shirt and boxers and nothing else, my hair a disaster, my skin still carrying the faint sheen of last night's sweat.
We stared at each other.
"You're protective of him," I said.
"He's my roommate. Been my best friend since freshman orientation." Marcus's jaw tightened. "You know how many people want a piece of Derek? Girls who want to say they bagged the quarterback. Guys who want the clout. Agents who smell money. Everyone wants something from him. And he gives it because he thinks that's what he's supposed to do."
"I don't want anything from him."
"Bullshit. Everyone wants something."
I could have argued. Could have listed all the ways he was wrong - how I'd been content to watch from the back row, how I'd never planned to act on my fantasies, how Derek had been the one to show up at my door.
But Marcus wasn't entirely wrong. I did want something. I wanted Derek. Not his status, not his body - or not just his body - but him. The person beneath the quarterback. The one who cried when someone said they saw him.
"I want him to be okay," I said.
Marcus studied me. The silence stretched.
Then footsteps echoed down the hall.
Derek rounded the corner, towel slung around his neck, hair dripping onto his bare shoulders. He was still naked except for the towel, and the sight of him - casual, unselfconscious, utterly at ease in his own skin - made my chest tighten.
He saw Marcus and stopped dead.
"Shit."
"Nice of you to join us." Marcus pushed off the wall. "You want to tell me why you vanished last night? Coach called your phone six times."
Derek's hand went to his pocket automatically, then dropped. "I left it in the room."
"Yeah. I noticed." Marcus's voice was flat, but I caught the undercurrent of worry. "You said you were going for a walk. That was at eleven. When you didn't come back, I figured -" He stopped. Glanced at me. Back at Derek. "I figured you'd found a party. Or a girl. Or something."
"Or something," Derek agreed.
"Something like the nerd with the monster dick."
Derek's expression flickered - surprise, then something that might have been guilt. "He told you?"
"He didn't have to. Your shoes are outside his door, you're walking around naked, and the room smells like a porn set." Marcus's voice was dry. "I'm a wide receiver, not an idiot."
Derek rubbed the back of his neck. The gesture was sheepish, almost boyish. "Look, Marcus -"
"You want to do this in the hallway? Or can we go inside?"
I stepped back, holding the door open. Derek walked past me, close enough that I smelled the cheap dorm soap on his skin. Marcus followed, shutting the door behind him.
The room felt smaller with three of us in it. The bed was still a disaster. The lube was still on the nightstand. Derek's grey Nikes were still by the door.
Derek sat on the edge of the mattress. His towel rode up, exposing the curve of his thigh. Marcus remained standing, arms crossed, posture rigid.
"Talk," Marcus said.
"About what?"
"About why you've been lying to me for months. About why you couldn't tell me you're into guys. About why you thought sneaking out in the middle of the night was a better plan than just - I don't know - having a conversation."
Derek's jaw tightened. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because!" The word burst out of him, louder than he'd probably intended. His hands clenched on his knees. "Because I'm the quarterback. Because people talk. Because if the team finds out their captain likes taking it up the ass, they're not going to look at me the same way. You know how it is. You know what they say in the locker room."
Marcus was quiet for a moment. Then: "Yeah. I know what they say. I also know that half of them are full of shit and the other half are probably dealing with their own stuff."
"That doesn't make it easier."
"No. It doesn't." Marcus's voice softened. "But you could have told me. I'm your roommate. I've covered for you with Coach a dozen times. I've lied to your parents when they called. I held your hair back when you got food poisoning from that gas station burrito. You think I'd care about this?"
Derek's throat bobbed. "I didn't know. I didn't know how you'd react."
"I'm reacting fine."
"You're reacting like you're pissed."
"I'm pissed because you lied. Not because you're -" Marcus waved a hand. "Whatever. Into nerds with monster dicks."
"His name is Adam," Derek said quietly. "And he's not just a nerd. He's -" He looked at me. Something passed between us, unspoken. "He's more than that."
It was the first time he'd said my name out loud. The sound of it in his mouth - rough, still sleep-thick, a little defensive - settled somewhere deep in my chest.
"Adam," Marcus repeated. "Okay. Adam." He turned to face me fully. The assessment was back, but less hostile now. More curious. "You the one who corrected Professor Hendricks on the Keynesian multiplier?"
"You heard about that?"
"Everyone heard about that. Derek wouldn't shut up about it." A grudging half-smile. "He came back to the room that day and said, 'This guy just made Hendricks look like an idiot in front of two hundred people.' Kept bringing it up for weeks. I didn't put it together until now."
Derek's ears went pink. "I wasn't that obvious."
"You were absolutely that obvious. Remember when you asked me if I knew anyone who'd hooked up with someone from the econ department? And I said no, and you got all weird about it?"
"I wasn't weird."
"You were weird." Marcus shook his head. "Dude, you've been into this guy for months and you never said anything. You just - what? Showed up at his door at one in the morning?"
"One forty-seven," I supplied.
Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're an idiot."
"I know."
"Both of you. Idiots." He dropped his hand. "Okay. Here's what's going to happen. Derek, you're going to put some clothes on. Then you're going to call Coach and tell him you overslept - which isn't even a lie - and that you'll be at practice by ten-thirty. I'll cover for you until then."
Derek blinked. "You're not going to -"
"Tell anyone? No. That's your business. But you need to figure out how you're going to handle this." Marcus's gaze shifted to me. "Both of you. Because if this is just a hookup, fine. Whatever. But if it's not -" He let the implication hang. "This campus is small. People talk. You can't keep sneaking around forever."
"We weren't sneaking," Derek said.
"You left your phone in our room and showed up at his door in the middle of the night. That's the definition of sneaking." Marcus pulled his phone from his pocket, glanced at the screen. "Coach texted again. 'Where's my quarterback?' What do you want me to say?"
"Tell him I'm on my way." Derek stood, the towel slipping dangerously low. He caught it, adjusted, and began gathering his clothes. Sweats. Jersey. The grey Nikes by the door. "Give me five minutes."
"Three." Marcus pocketed his phone and moved toward the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. "Hey. Adam."
"Yeah?"
"The Keynesian multiplier thing. Was Hendricks actually wrong?"
"He was conflating the short-run fiscal multiplier with the long-run monetary transmission mechanism. It's a common mistake."
Marcus stared at me for a beat. Then he laughed - a genuine, surprised laugh that transformed his sharp features. "Okay. I get it now."
"Get what?"
"Why Derek's obsessed with you." He opened the door. "Three minutes, Derek. Don't make me come back."
He left. The door clicked shut.
The room felt vast in his absence. Derek stood in the middle of it, clothes clutched to his chest, looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Adam," he said.
"Derek."
"I'm sorry about him. Marcus is - he's protective. He means well."
"He cares about you."
"Yeah." Derek pulled on his boxers, then his sweats. "He's one of the only people on the team who actually talks to me instead of at me. You know? He asks how I'm doing. He notices when I'm off. He -" He paused, jersey half over his head. "He's a good friend. And I lied to him. For months."
"You were scared."
"That's not an excuse."
"Maybe not. But it's an explanation."
He pulled the jersey down, smoothed the fabric. The number 7 stretched across his chest. He looked different in his uniform - broader, more imposing. The quarterback. The campus god.
But his eyes were still soft. Still tired. Still Derek.
"I need to go," he said.
"I know."
"I don't want to."
"Practice is at ten."
"Practice is at ten," he echoed. He took a step toward me. Stopped. Took another. His hand came up and cupped my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. "Last night was -" He stopped. Started again. "I don't know how to do this. The morning-after thing. I've never -"
"Neither have I."
"That's... reassuring." He smiled. It was small. Hesitant. "Can I see you again? After practice?"
"You know where I live."
"Yeah. But I want you to say it."
My hand covered his on my jaw. "Yes. After practice. I'll be here."
"Okay." He leaned in and kissed me. Not the desperate, hungry kisses of last night - this was softer. Sweeter. A question and an answer all at once. His lips tasted like my toothpaste.
He pulled back. His eyes were bright.
"I'll text you," he said. "I'll get your number from Marcus."
"Marcus doesn't have my number."
"Then I'll get it from you." He pulled out his phone - the one he'd supposedly left in his room. "Give it to me."
I recited my number. He typed it in. His fingers were quick, practiced.
"There." He pocketed the phone. "Now you're real."
"I was real before."
"No. Before you were -" He struggled for words. "A fantasy. A guy in the back row. Someone I watched but couldn't touch. Now you're Adam. You're real. And I'm not letting that go."
He kissed me again. Quicker this time. A promise.
Then he was gone.
The door closed. His footsteps faded down the hall. I stood in the middle of my room, surrounded by the wreckage of the night before, and felt the absence of him like a physical weight.
I cleaned.
It was mechanical. Mindless. I stripped the sheets - they were beyond saving - and shoved them into my laundry bag. Picked up the lube, capped it, put it back in the nightstand drawer. Opened the window to air out the smell. The crisp October breeze cut through the lingering musk of sex and sweat and Derek's expensive deodorant.
My laptop was still on the desk, screen dark. I tapped the trackpad. It woke to reveal my midterm study guide, half-finished, the cursor blinking patiently where I'd left it.
Midterms. Right.
I sat down. Stared at the screen. The words blurred into meaningless symbols.
Last night, Derek Gallagher had knocked on my door. He'd knelt on my floor. He'd taken my cock in his mouth, then his ass, then his mouth again. He'd ridden me until my vision whited out. He'd cried when I told him I saw him. He'd stayed the night. He'd kissed me goodbye.
And now I was supposed to study Keynesian economics like my entire worldview hadn't just shifted on its axis.
My phone buzzed.
I grabbed it. The screen lit with an unknown number.
hey. its derek. got your number from myself.
A laugh burst out of me, loud and unexpected.
creative approach, I typed back. shouldn't you be at practice?
stretching. marcus is covering for me. coach thinks i had food poisoning.
your acting skills must be impressive.
you have no idea.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
meet me tonight? my room. marcus is cool with it.
he knows?
i told him after practice. said if he was going to cover for me he deserved the truth. he took it well. mostly. he asked if you were going to distract me during the state game.
are you going to be distracted during the state game?
maybe. depends on if you're in the stands.
I don't go to games.
you do now.
I stared at the message. Derek Gallagher, starting quarterback, campus god, the man whose ass had its own Instagram fan account - was asking me to watch him play.
okay, I typed.
okay?
okay I'll be there.
front row. i'll leave your name at the gate.
front row is for boosters.
you're my booster.
that's not how it works.
adam. let me do this.
okay. front row.
thank you.
Silence, for a moment. The clock on my nightstand ticked to 10:23.
hey derek?
yeah?
you said you've been watching me for months. what specifically?
The three dots danced. Disappeared. Danced again.
your hands. the way you take notes. you hold your pen like you're afraid someone's going to take it. your thigh jiggles when you're concentrating. you push your glasses up with your middle finger. when you know the answer to a question you get this little smirk and then you hide it. i've watched you do that like a hundred times and it never gets old.
My throat tightened.
also your dick. i heard about your dick. that was part of it.
Another laugh. Louder this time. I was grateful my roommate had dropped out in September - no one to hear me losing my mind alone in this room.
marcus is yelling at me. gotta go. see you tonight?
see you tonight.
I put my phone down. Stared at the study guide. The words still blurred, but for a different reason now.
He'd noticed my hands. The way I held my pen. The way my thigh jiggled.
He'd noticed me.
I abandoned the study guide and went to the dining hall. Ate a bagel. Drank coffee that tasted like burnt regret. The dining hall was mostly empty at this hour - a few freshmen huddled over laptops, a couple of athletes carb-loading before the afternoon session.
I saw Derek's teammate at a corner table - a lineman, judging by the size of him - but he didn't look my way. Nobody looked my way. I was the nerd in the back row. Invisible.
Except I wasn't. Not anymore.
Back in my room, I tried to study. Gave up. Scrolled through my phone. Opened Instagram. Found the fan account - derekgallaghersass_unofficial - and scrolled through it for the first time since the night before. The photos hit differently now. The curve of his ass in compression shorts. The way his uniform pants stretched across his hips. The post-game shot where he was bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard.
I'd jerked off to these photos. Guiltily. Desperately. Imagining what it would feel like to touch him.
Now I knew.
The hours passed in a haze. I showered. Changed into clean clothes. Actually read a chapter of my econ textbook - not that I retained any of it. Derek texted sporadically between drills.
coach is running us into the ground
marcus says hi
marcus says if you break my heart he'll break your legs
i don't think he's joking
i'm definitely interested in continuing last night's activities
how flexible are you?
The last text made me choke on my water.
reasonably, I replied. why?
I have ideas.
what kind of ideas?
a gentleman doesn't text and tell. you'll find out tonight.
I stared at the screen, pulse quickening. Images flooded my mind - Derek on his back, legs over my shoulders. Derek on his knees, face pressed into my mattress. Derek in the shower, water streaming down his chest, reaching for me.
My cock stirred. I ignored it. Barely.
By the time Derek knocked - this time at a reasonable 8 PM - I'd managed to make the room presentable. Clean sheets. Desk organized. Window still cracked to let in the evening air. I'd even lit a candle I'd found in the back of my closet, some vanilla thing my mom had mailed me last year.
Derek stood in the doorway. He was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, hair still damp from his post-practice shower. He looked exhausted - dark circles under his eyes, shoulders slumped - but his smile was electric.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
He stepped inside. Closed the door. Locked it.
"Marcus is covering for me. Told Coach I had a study group." His grin turned crooked. "Technically not a lie."
"Am I the study group?"
"You're the study group." He crossed to me in three strides. His hands found my waist. His mouth found my neck. "I've been thinking about this all day. Couldn't focus. Ran a drill backwards. Coach yelled at me."
"I've been a distraction."
"A very hot distraction." He pulled back, eyes searching my face. "You said you'd come to my game."
"I said I'd try."
"You said okay. That means yes."
"I said okay."
His smile widened. Genuine. Bright. The exhaustion seemed to fall away from him, just for a moment. "Okay. Good. Now -" He tugged at the hem of my t-shirt. "- I believe I mentioned something about ideas."
"You mentioned a lot of things."
"I'm a man of my word." He pulled the shirt over my head, tossed it aside. His hands ran down my chest, slow, appreciative. "God, you're built. You hide all this under flannel and hoodies. It's criminal."
"I don't hide it."
"You obscure it. Same thing." His fingers traced the line of my collarbone, down my sternum, over my stomach. "I want to see all of you tonight. Everything. No rush. No desperate middle-of-the-night bullshit. I want to take my time."
My breath caught. "What did you have in mind?"
He looked up at me through his lashes. Dark eyes. Hungry eyes. The same look he'd given me last night, but warmer now. More certain.
"I want you on your back," he said. "I want to ride you again. But slow. We're going to go so slow you'll lose your mind."
"And then?"
"And then I want you to worship me." His voice dropped. "Not just my ass. All of me. Every inch. I want your mouth on my body and your hands in my hair and your cock so deep inside me I can't tell where I end and you begin."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah." He kissed me, soft and deliberate. "I want you to call me yours. Just once. Before the night's over. I want to hear it."
My hands found his hips. Pulled him closer. "You're already mine."
The sound he made - a sharp inhale, a shudder - was worth more than any fantasy I'd ever constructed in the dark.
"Say it again," he demanded.
"You're mine."
"Again."
"Mine."
He kissed me then, hard and desperate, and I kissed him back with everything I had. His hoodie came off. His sweatpants hit the floor. My hands found the perfect curve of his ass and squeezed, and he moaned into my mouth, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that this was real - this was happening - this was continuing - not a one-night fever dream but something that stretched into the morning and the afternoon and now the evening, something that had weight and shape and a future.
He pulled back, breathing hard. "Bed. Now."
I obeyed.
We sprawled across the mattress, limbs tangled, mouths searching. His hands explored my body with deliberate slowness - over my shoulders, down my arms, across my chest. He traced the line of hair below my navel and I shivered.
"I want to make you feel good," he murmured. "The way you made me feel last night. Seen. Wanted. All of you."
"You already do."
"Not yet. But I will." He kissed my jaw. My neck. My collarbone. Down my chest, his lips leaving a trail of fire. "Lie back. Let me take care of you."
I let my head sink into the pillow. Let my eyes close. Let the sensation of his mouth - warm, wet, reverent - wash over me.
This was the worship he'd asked for. Not just him receiving it. Him giving it, too.
And I was ready to receive.
His lips reached my hip bone. His fingers hooked into my waistband.
"What do you want?" he asked, breath hot against my skin. "Tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you."
"You," I said. "Just you. However long you'll let me."
"Always," he breathed. "I told you. I'm yours."
And he took me in his mouth.
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