They walked side by side, cutting a clean line through late-morning sun and oak-shade across the quad. You could hear the campus waking — the whirr of a grounds cart, the soft beep of a card swipe, the espresso machine at the union hissing like it had opinions. Malik rolled his shoulders once, twice, like he was loosening up for a drive route nobody else could see. Jaden noticed. He always noticed.
“Breathe,” Jaden said, eyes forward.
“I am,” Malik answered.
“Like a quarterback in the fourth?”
Malik smirked. “Like a guy meeting both families in a glass-box café.”
“Fair.”
They pushed through the student-union doors and into the hum: low music, the sugar-warm smell of pastries, a scatter of trophy cases reflecting a hundred mornings just like this, except not like this at all. On a muted TV above the pastry case, last week’s highlights looped — Malik dropping a dart on the sideline, Jaden dragging a toe like the turf had been made for him.
“They’re already here,” Jaden murmured.
He didn’t point. He didn’t have to. At a long banquette by the windows: Malik’s mom and dad, seated close, posture composed; across from them, Jaden’s mom and his sister, Micah, heads together in quiet conversation. Four waters sweating rings on paper napkins. Four coffees going cold.
“Together,” Jaden whispered.
“Always,” Malik said, and they walked in step.
Malik’s mom was up first, smoothing her skirt, and then he was in her arms — clean laundry and cocoa butter and every version of home he’d ever known. When she let him go, she studied his face like she was catching a story in the margins.
“You sleeping?” she asked, then softer: “You eating?”
“I’m good, Ma.”
His father stood slower — broad, steady, the kind of presence that could quiet a locker room without raising a voice. He pulled Malik into a quick, hard hug and held him at arm’s length. “Son.” A beat. Then, to Jaden: “Brooks.” A nod. Not warm, not cold — deliberate.
Jaden’s mom rose with a look that tried and failed to be stern. “You don’t call enough,” she told him, then folded him into a hug that made him taller and younger at the same time. When she released him, she turned to Malik. Studied him. The corners of her mouth eased. “So you’re Malik,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of number seven on my phone this month.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Malik said. “Thank you for coming.”
Micah popped up next, grin already loaded. “Hi, star boy,” she said, hugging Malik like they’d been cousins for years. “We’ll swap skincare later. Whatever you’re using is working.”
“Micah,” Jaden said through his teeth, fighting a smile.
“What? It’s true.”
They sat. The café noise folded around them like a buffer. A barista materialized and took orders; nobody touched the pastry box Micah had brought. The first minute was weather, and midterms, and how parking was a war this semester. Then Mr. Carter laced his fingers on the tabletop and met Malik’s eyes.
“I wish I’d heard from you before the internet,” he said evenly. “But I’m here.”
Malik nodded once. “I know. And… thank you.”
Jaden’s mom inhaled, exhaled. “I didn’t expect to be learning this way either,” she said to her son, then let her gaze include Malik. “But if you two are doing this for real, we’re not going to be your enemies about it.”
Silence, but not the bad kind. The kind where everyone tests the floorboards and finds them solid.
Micah cut it with a straw wrapper flick. “I mean, it’s not like y’all are bad at keeping a low profile,” she deadpanned, nodding toward the highlight reel looping on the wall. “Maybe next time pick a smaller sport?”
That actually got a laugh — even from Mr. Carter, even from Jaden’s mom, even from Jaden, whose shoulders seemed to drop a full inch.
Malik’s mom took her opening. “I have questions,” she said, and her voice did that gentle-firm thing that always made Malik sit up straighter. “About school. About focus. About safety.”
“And football,” Mr. Carter added. “Because love is love, but seasons are seasons.”
Jaden looked at Malik. Malik looked back, then nodded like: I got this.
“We’re still the same players,” Malik said. “We’re still in the weight room at dawn, we’re still watching film at night. We just… don’t lie about what we are to each other anymore.”
Jaden picked it up without missing a beat. “And it’s helped,” he said. “On the field, too. We trust cleaner. We read each other faster. The noise is there, but it’s not louder than our work.”
Jaden’s mom held his gaze a long time, then reached across the table and covered his hand. “You always were stubborn,” she said, which in her mouth meant brave. “I can live with stubborn.”
Mr. Carter tipped his chin. “I care about two things: that you tell the truth like men, and that you handle your responsibilities.” His eyes went to Malik, then to Jaden. “From what I see, y’all are trying.”
“And succeeding,” Micah said. “Look at the scoreboard.”
The barista returned with drinks; somebody finally opened the pastry box. For a stretch, it was easy — Micah teasing, Jaden’s mom asking about classes, Malik’s mom swapping stories about recipes he’d butchered in the dorm kitchen. The room itself helped: light slanting through glass, a soft bassline from somebody’s playlist, the ordinary traffic of students passing by, catching sightlines, moving on.
A sophomore in a team hoodie slowed near their table, knuckles tapping the wood once. “Y’all good,” he said to Malik and Jaden, low and quick. “Just wanted to say that.” His eyes flicked to the parents, respectful, and he kept moving.
Micah arched an eyebrow, impressed. “The kids are alright.”
It landed — that they were becoming something more on campus than a headline: a kind of signal. The thought made Jaden sit taller; it made Malik steady his hands on his coffee instead of twisting the lid.
Mr. Carter’s phone buzzed; he ignored it. A second later, Malik’s buzzed in sympathetic vibration. He glanced: Andre — Pro Personnel. Subject line: Evaluation Invite.
Jaden caught the shift in his posture. “What?”
Malik turned the phone so only he could see. His pulse ticked up. “It’s… a Combine-adjacent eval,” he said quietly, careful with the word. “Invite-only. Pre-screen. They want to see our timing live and do interviews.”
Jaden’s mom sat back, eyes widening. “The NFL called my table?”
“It’s not the NFL-NFL,” Micah said, already grinning like a storm was coming and she’d brought a good umbrella. “But it’s NFL-adjacent, which is the same thing on Instagram.”
Mr. Carter finally checked his own phone, thumb moving once, twice. “I know Andre,” he said. “He doesn’t waste Saturdays.”
Malik’s mom looked from face to face, then centered herself on her son. “If this is coming because you’re good — and because you’re handling the noise with your heads up — then that’s what we’ll celebrate.” A beat. “But be smart. Don’t let a headline use you more than you use it.”
Jaden got that little guilty-proud look he wore after a one-hander. “We won’t.”
They rode that lift a while — the talk turning practical. Travel details. Staying on top of classes. Boundaries around interviews. The kind of planning that made big things feel real and survivable.
And still, under it, a newly comfortable thing: parents starting to see their sons more clearly, not less. To see the man in each of them who could hold the line for the other. When the check came, there was a polite fight about who paid; in the end, Micah slapped her card down like a stunt and declared victory.
“Call us,” Jaden’s mom said as they stood, looking at both boys, and then, deliberately, at both of them together. “For the little things. Not just the ESPN things.”
Mr. Carter pulled Malik into a second hug at the door, shorter, easier than the first. “Do the work,” he murmured. “And don’t let the noise make you sloppy.”
“Yessir.”
The glass doors sighed open; fall air rushed in. The families stepped out into color and chatter and sunlight. Malik and Jaden lingered back a beat, watching. Micah glanced over her shoulder and signed text me, then shooed them with two fingers like she was clearing a runway.
“Okay,” Jaden said when they were alone again in the hum. He exhaled, long and low. “That… could have gone a lot worse.”
“Could’ve gone a lot better, too,” Malik said, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.
“Yeah,” Jaden said, “but we’ll take this.”
They walked out of the union swinging a half-empty pastry box and a new weight that felt less like a burden and more like a barbell you knew the pattern of. Somewhere behind them, a couple of guys in letter jackets stopped talking as they passed, then one of them said, loud enough to be heard, “Respect.” He didn’t look at them when he said it, which somehow made it land stronger.
“Safe space,” Jaden murmured, not really to Malik, not really to himself.
Malik bumped his knuckles. “We’ll be what we needed.”
They crossed into the light.
They didn’t go straight back to the dorm. They cut a long arc around the stadium instead — past the mural of past teams, past the gate where kids lined up for autographs on Saturdays, past the ramp that led up to the box seats. There were banners up already for homecoming. Somebody had hung a student-made sign on the chain link that read, PLAY WHO YOU ARE. The wind snapped it like a flag.
“You see that?” Malik said.
“Yeah,” Jaden said softly. “I see it.”
He reached for Malik’s hand where the walkway was empty, just for a second, and Malik let him have it.
“Tonight,” Jaden said. Not a question.
“Tonight,” Malik said back, voice gone low.
They kept the door locked when they finally got upstairs. They didn’t rush. They didn’t need to. The kind of heat that had scared them once didn’t scare them now; it felt like a current they knew how to read. Jaden palmed the back of Malik’s neck and leaned his forehead to his, and the conversation from the café bled out of Malik’s shoulders in one long exhale.
“Still here,” Jaden whispered.
“Still us,” Malik answered.
They kissed slow, then deeper, the room narrowing to breath and heartbeat and the familiar slide of body to body. Clothes found the floor. They took their time. What happened next wasn’t for cameras or whispers or anybody’s think piece. It was theirs — the kind of heat that’s half-confession, half-homecoming. When it crested, it did it on its own terms; when it was over, the quiet didn’t feel empty. It felt earned.
“Okay?” Jaden asked in the hush after.
“Yeah,” Malik said, and he meant the bigger thing. “Yeah.”
They fell asleep like that — not performing, not planning, just stacked against each other the way you do when you finally believe the floor will hold.
Morning slid in through the blinds and painted the ceiling in pale stripes. Malik was up first. New class, new syllabus, a book the professor said you needed in your hands today or suffer. Jaden mumbled something intelligible and tried to pull him back into the warm.
“I’ll be quick,” Malik said, grinning against his hair. “You want coffee?”
“Always.”
He showered, pulled on sweats and a hoodie, and stepped out into a crisp, early campus — runners cutting the edges of the quad, a guy in a beanie walking a pit mix in a varsity sweater, bikes gliding like quiet fish. The bookstore sat in the belly of the union, all bright shelves and tables stacked like little cities. A bell chimed as Malik pushed in. He scanned for the course section. He didn’t get that far.
“Help you find something, QB?”
The voice was warm and low, like a bassline under a party you weren’t supposed to be at yet. Malik turned.
The guy behind the counter was… a problem. Deep chocolate skin. Locs pulled back into a low tie, a few loose strands falling at his temple. Lean through the chest in a fitted tee, thick through the thighs in slate joggers that sat just right. A fine-line tattoo slipped from his sleeve down the inside of his forearm and disappeared at his wrist. His smile didn’t try too hard; it didn’t have to.
“Communications 341,” Malik said, keeping it neutral. “Professor Hayes.”
“Got you.” The name tag caught light when he moved: Darian. He came around the counter, not in a hurry, close enough that Malik caught a clean, dark cologne under the paper-and-ink of the store. “You’re Malik,” he said, like observation, not question. “Campus been loud about you.”
“Yeah, well.” Malik lifted a shoulder. “They’ll find something new next week.”
Darian’s mouth tipped, like he appreciated the attempt at shrugging it off. He led Malik down an aisle, scanned a shelf, slid out a fresh copy and tapped the spine. “Hayes likes to scan for highlights,” he said. “Don’t dog-ear. She’ll see it like a crime scene.”
Malik almost laughed. “Thanks for the intel.”
“Plenty more where that came from,” Darian said, and for the first time he looked him dead in the eyes and didn’t look away. Heat under calm. A beat too long for “customer service.”
Malik felt that look in a place he pretended not to acknowledge in public. He cleared his throat. “What do I owe you?”
“Depends.” Darian angled the book into Malik’s hands, fingers staying a fraction longer than necessary. “You ever get tired of people thinking they know your whole story?”
“Every day.”
“Same,” Darian said, and then he did the thing that would sit with Malik all afternoon. He stepped a half-step closer in the narrow aisle — not touching, but absolutely crossing the invisible line — and dropped his voice. “Wild shift day for me,” he said, eyes lowering for the briefest flick. “Joggers, no backup plan.”
Malik went still.
Darian’s smirk was quick, there and gone. “Dangerous,” he added lightly, then pivoted clean. “Register’s up front.”
If he’d said it crudely, Malik would have shut it down. If he’d said it softer, Malik might have missed it. The way he said it — casual and private and not exactly deniable — lodged under Malik’s ribs like a spark.
At the counter, Darian slid the book into a bag like he had all the time in the world. “You ever need faculty gossip,” he said, “I hear things.”
“Do you.”
“Or if you ever need a quieter aisle.”
There was no world where Malik pretended he didn’t understand. He also wasn’t about to disrespect what he’d just promised himself in a dark room with the blinds half-open.
“Appreciate the help,” he said, steady.
“Anytime,” Darian answered, and the word did a slow roll across his tongue.
Malik stepped back into the chill with the bag cutting into his palm and the line of Darian’s smile still warm on his skin. The campus was the same as it had been twenty minutes ago — bikes and dogs and coffee steam in the air — but it felt tilted a degree. He checked his phone. A text from Jaden: You get the book? Then another, right on top: Missed you already. A third followed, a link from Coach: Andre wants a call. Today.
Malik thumbed out: Got it. On my way back. He hesitated, then added nothing more.
He crossed the quad fast, wind lifting the edges of his hoodie, the stadium peeking over the roofline like a promise and a dare. Behind his sternum, two truths sat side by side: the one he’d chosen last night, and the one that had just said joggers, no backup plan in a bookstore aisle.
He could hold both, for now. He had to.
The door to the dorm clicked open under his key. Coffee. A call to make. A season to play. And somewhere down the line, a name tag that read Darian like a thread he wasn’t sure if he should pull.
He shut the door and leaned his head against it for a breath, then pushed off and went to find Jaden.
Campus moved like it had learned their rhythm—curious, watchful, mostly kind. The week after the café with their families, Malik and Jaden noticed the difference in small ways: fewer stares that stuck, more nods that meant I see you, jokes that landed without cutting, and a quiet that wasn’t silence so much as room to breathe.
Morning: Jaden
Jaden took the east path behind the stadium at 8 a.m., hoodie up, duffel loose on his shoulder, dew still combed across the grass. This route had shade and permission. Oaks leaned in, the air held its cool, and somebody in the distance tuned a trumpet badly enough to be funny.
“Yo—Jaden.”
He turned. Miles—sophomore safety from their film group—hovered by the bike rack, big frame, careful eyes, hands working the seams of his jacket like he needed something to do with them.
“You got a minute?” Miles asked.
Jaden tipped his chin at the bench under the oak. They sat. The morning’s noises gathered around them: the grinder hiss from the union café, wheel squeak from a maintenance cart, a laugh cracking open by the steps.
Miles tried three starts before finding one that didn’t break in his mouth. “I don’t know what to call it,” he said finally. “I just know some nights I think about… guys. Not everybody. Just one or two. I tell myself it’s nothing, but then it’s louder when I’m alone.”
Jaden let the silence do half the work. “You don’t have to label yourself today,” he said. “You just have to stop lying to yourself. That’s the first part.”
Miles’s shoulders lowered like he’d set down a plate nobody else could see. “I don’t have anybody to say it to.”
“You do now,” Jaden said. “Me and Malik keep the study lounge open some nights. No speeches. No content. If you show up, cool. If you don’t, also cool. But you’re not alone.”
Miles nodded. The relief was small and huge at once. “Appreciate you,” he said, voice thick but steadier.
They split—Miles toward the science quad, Jaden toward the weight room—two dots in a story bigger than both of them, each walking a little taller than yesterday.
Midday: Work
“Stack the day,” Coach said when Jaden stepped into the facility. No sermon, just the gravel that meant move.
Lift. Film. The projector threw their routes huge across the wall, leverage and hips and half-tells that became whole advantages. Malik tapped a still with his pen. “Safety’s cheating half a shoe outside.”
“We see him,” Jaden smirked.
They ran it again. Again. The argument about stems and depth was friendly, ruthless, productive—their favorite kind.
The weight room shook out whatever film tightened. Iron. Breath. Cadence. Jaden spotted Malik with palms steady under the bar. Malik counted reps under his breath and failed—unapologetically—to not watch Jaden’s forearms when he re-racked.
In the hallway, a freshman hovered like he’d walked into the wrong conversation. “Yo,” he said, voice thin. “My brother saw the clip of y’all after the game. He’s been scared to tell my folks. He said watching you made him feel… less crazy.” He swallowed. “He told me to say thanks.”
“Tell him we see him,” Jaden said softly.
“Tell him the lounge is open,” Malik added.
The kid nodded like someone handed him a rope and he tugged once to test it, then slipped away.
Noon: The Union
By noon, the campus was bright and loud. Jaden broke for class; Malik detoured through the student union for coffee and twenty minutes of reading.
He didn’t make it to the corner.
“QB.”
Darian slid through the union’s stream like water finding a quicker channel. No name tag today, no pretense of coincidence. Black tee, slate joggers, locs tied back with two strands loose at his temple, that unbothered gaze that didn’t ask permission to look. He didn’t stop walking—he pivoted close enough that only Malik would hear.
“You look lighter,” Darian said.
“Parents survived me,” Malik deadpanned.
“Lucky them.” Darian’s eyes ran an unapologetic sweep—shoulders, chest, the hang of joggers—back to Malik’s. The smallest corner of his mouth tipped. “If I wasn’t headed to a shift, I’d ask if you wanted to find a quiet corner and forget names for twenty minutes.”
Direct. Clean. No maybe.
Malik held the look, steady. He could laugh it off—he almost did. Instead he said, “You stay saying wild things in daylight.”
“Daylight’s honest,” Darian said. “So am I.” He peeled away at his own pace, tossed a look over his shoulder because he knew it would land later. “See you around, QB.”
It landed later. Malik reset his compass with a breath, went for coffee, found his corner, opened his book.
His phone buzzed.
Andre (Personnel): You + Brooks available for a pre-Combine eval in 4 weeks? Pair timing + interviews. Media-handling included. Need answer today.
Electric slid under his ribs. Yes, he typed before doubt could write a paragraph.
Buzz.
Unknown: Can we talk? –Taylor
Before he could answer, the dots bubbled again.
Taylor: Did you ever love me? Or were you always gay and I just didn’t see it?
No guessing. No rehearsed speech. The question, naked on glass.
Malik: I’ll answer. After practice, 5:30, union steps.
Taylor: Okay. Thank you.
He set the phone face down and read the same sentence three times without taking in a word.
Afternoon: Practice
Practice made the world straight again. Cadence snapped, feet cut, the ball left Malik’s hand hot and true and found Jaden’s chest like it had nowhere else to go. Miss a rep. Rep again. Hit clean. Work didn’t lie.
They drifted toward the sideline, pads off, shirts damp, sun sliding down the stadium’s crown.
“Personnel?” Jaden asked quietly.
“Four weeks,” Malik said. “Paired eval. Interviews that’ll try to get cute.”
“Let them,” Jaden grinned.
“Taylor texted,” Malik added, eyes honest. “Asked if I ever loved her or if I was always—” He let it hang.
“What’re you gonna say?”
“The truth,” Malik said. “Then come home.”
Home. The word landed warm behind his sternum.
“Ten minutes,” Malik said.
“Ten,” Jaden echoed.
Evening: The Ask
They met at the union steps where the crowd made privacy without walls. Taylor looked crisp, jaw set, eyes less sharp than he remembered.
“I’ll be quick,” she said. “Did you ever love me?”
“Yes,” Malik said. “As best as I knew how. Until pretending started hurting both of us.”
“Were you always—” She swallowed. “Were you always gay, and I missed it?”
“I was always me,” he said gently. “I didn’t have the words for the rest yet. I do now.”
Her face loosened a notch. “Is he good to you?”
“He makes me better.”
A breath. “Okay.” Then: “Don’t run from it.”
“Thank you for asking,” he said. “Not accusing.”
She huffed a small, real laugh. “I liked you for a reason.” She stepped back into her life and left him to his.
Malik: On my way, he texted Jaden.
Night: Heat
They ate cross-legged on the floor, cartons open like a map. Malik told it straight. Jaden listened, then nodded once.
“Proud of you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For not performing,” Jaden said simply. “For telling the truth even if it wasn’t neat.”
Heat climbed Malik’s chest that wasn’t anger. “Come here,” he said, voice rough.
Jaden came.
The first kiss wasn’t urgent. It was deliberate—pressure and promise, the kind of mouth-on-mouth that tells a body you’re safe here; you’re wanted here. Malik cupped the back of Jaden’s neck; Jaden’s hands slid under Malik’s shirt, palms hot on his waist. Cotton lifted, skin met air. The room narrowed to breath and heartbeat.
Malik backed Jaden to the edge of the bed; Jaden pulled him down with a sound caught between a sigh and a dare. Shirts went. Heat rose. They took their time—a slow map made with mouths and hands. Malik kissed along Jaden’s jaw, the hollow of his throat, the warm plane of his chest; Jaden’s fingers traced Malik’s spine, learned every small flinch and filed it away like something precious.
“Look at me,” Jaden whispered.
Malik did.
What followed lived in that thin, perfect strip between tenderness and hunger. They moved together like they were built in the same shop, a rhythm found and deepened, a pace that stayed slow even as wanting climbed. Breath caught against a shoulder. A soft “yeah” warmed the skin at a neck. Fingers anchored hips, a shiver answered a kiss pressed to jaw, trust made every sensation burn brighter.
The rest belonged to the dark and to them. The door held. The night did its good job of keeping secrets.
After, the room was a warm hush. Jaden lay on his back, chest rising slow; Malik half on his side, palm splayed on Jaden’s stomach, thumb drawing lazy circles like he was smoothing fresh paint.
“Four weeks,” Jaden murmured.
“We’ll be ready,” Malik said.
“Stack the day,” Jaden added, graveling up his voice just enough to make Malik huff a laugh.
“Stack the day,” Malik echoed, softer—meaning more.
Late: Hooks
The phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Andre (Personnel): Eval confirmed. Paired timing + interviews. Locker-room dynamics will be discussed. Be candid. Call tomorrow a.m.
“Done,” Malik said, thumbs a quick Got it.
Another buzz. Jaden’s phone this time. He glanced, jaw flexed, set it face down.
“Tre?” Malik asked.
“Yeah.” Jaden exhaled, settled back into Malik’s chest. “He’s not calling plays from outside the stadium.”
“He’s not,” Malik agreed, tugging Jaden closer until their legs tangled and the rest of the world could wait.
Word moves without feet. By nine the next night, two guys “accidentally” studied in the corner of the lounge while Miles took a chair and breathed like it was a skill. Nobody made speeches. Someone left a box of donuts with a sticky note: thanks. Coach didn’t ask; he just nodded in the hall and said, “Stack it.”
The morning after was cold and blue. They ran. They lifted. Film gave up one more tell: a safety who telegraphed greed with a shoulder twitch he thought nobody saw.
Darian passed Malik in the union again, just a glance and a slanted smile and a line dropped soft as a tripwire: “If I had twenty minutes, I’d ask if you wanted to misbehave.” Then gone, because leaving on your timing is its own language.
Malik didn’t stop. He carried the heat back to the room and let it cool in the shadow of something truer.
Taylor sent one last text: I meant what I said. Be well. Malik thanked her and let that door close.
Tre’s name slid through a rumor and didn’t stick. The eval packet hit Malik’s inbox with the facility map he’d only seen on YouTube and interview blocks highlighted in yellow. Jaden replied Let’s go within ten seconds. The campus learned their rhythm and hummed it back to them.
And somewhere in that hum, four weeks started counting down.
Campus learned their rhythm and hummed it back—curious, watchful, mostly kind. Word traveled without feet: if you needed a quiet room where nobody asked you to perform, the second-floor study lounge at nine was open, lights soft, door propped with a battered calculus book.
By midweek, three new faces drifted in—one from baseball, one from debate, one who didn’t say a major, just sat close to the window and breathed like the act deserved a trophy. Nobody made speeches. Nobody took pictures. Somebody brought donuts and left a note: Thanks for the space.
After lights-out, Malik and Jaden walked back under the oaks, saying almost nothing, saying everything anyway.
“Feels bigger than us,” Jaden said.
“Good,” Malik answered. “Takes the weight off our chests and spreads it around.”
They bumped shoulders. A quiet settled that wasn’t silence so much as room.
The next day had edges.
In the locker room, a sophomore lineman decided he was funny. “So, uh… y’all sharing reps off the field too, or—”
Malik didn’t swing. He didn’t even raise his voice. He said, calmly, “Say that again,” with such stillness the air checked itself. Coach’s office door opened and closed without comment. The lineman’s mouth worked; nothing came out. Jaden touched Malik’s wrist once, light, enough to ground him.
After practice, Coach’s shadow filled the doorway. “Carter.”
“Yeah, Coach.”
“Keep your head. Use your voice. Not your hands.”
“Yes, Coach.”
Coach nodded once, a softer tone under the gravel. “You’re doing more than ball. Don’t let them bait you out of it.”
Outside, in the orange wash of late afternoon, Jaden waited with two waters and a look that was more I’m here than any speech.
“You good?” Jaden asked.
“I want to be,” Malik said. “Not there yet.”
“We’ll get you there,” Jaden said. It sounded like a promise because it was.
The safe-space circle widened without announcement. A mid-distance runner DM’d Jaden: Do you ever feel split in half? Like I’m a different person in spikes and out of them?
Jaden: Yeah. It gets better when you stop fighting yourself for ninety minutes at a time.
Runner: Can I sit in the lounge sometime?
Jaden: Door’s cracked at nine. No pressure.
Miles found Jaden outside the facility with a protein shake and a question. “Is it normal to feel proud and scared on the same day?”
Jaden grinned. “It’s normal to feel that in the same minute.”
They laughed. Relief isn’t loud; it’s warmer air.
Malik cut through the student union on the way to film. He didn’t make it three steps inside before he felt it—eyes on him that weren’t hostile, weren’t shy—just there.
“QB.”
Darian peeled off from a pillar like he’d been leaning there since sunrise, deep chocolate skin catching light, locs pulled back, fitted tee and joggers doing a lot with very little. He didn’t pretend it was coincidence. He didn’t move like he was asking permission to approach.
“You got that look on your face,” Darian said, voice low.
“What look,” Malik said, even though he knew.
“The one that says you’re balancing nine things and still trying to breathe.” Darian’s gaze slid a clean line down and back up. “You should let me pull one of those weights off you. No mystery. No strings. I’m very good at being exactly what’s needed for twenty minutes.”
Direct. Unapologetic.
Malik’s pulse ticked faster. The pull was heat and curiosity and the quiet trap of being wanted by someone who didn’t need your story first. He pictured a corner, breath against a wall, the forgot-my-name blur. He pictured Jaden’s hand on his wrist earlier, the way that touch steadied him without claiming him. The fantasy dissolved on its own.
“Tempting offer,” Malik said, honest. “Wrong man.”
Darian’s mouth tipped at one corner, not offended. “Worth asking. I don’t do maybe.” He stepped back the exact distance the moment needed to breathe. “If you ever want uncomplicated, you know where to find me.”
Malik nodded once, grateful for the clarity and the line. “I hear you.”
Darian peeled away, leaving Malik with his heartbeat and the right kind of ache.
Tre reappeared like a cut you thought had scabbed over: brief, stinging, unwelcome.
Jaden was leaving campus rec when he heard it. “Jay.”
He stopped. Tre stood under the shade of a maple, hoodie up, eyes steady. Familiar. Unsettling.
“Not here,” Jaden said quietly.
“I’m not here to mess your day up.” Tre shoved his hands into his pocket. “I just… wanted to see you. For real.”
“You did,” Jaden said. His voice stayed even. “And?”
Tre swallowed. “You look good. Happy, maybe.”
Jaden’s mouth didn’t move. “I’m good.”
A beat. “He the reason?”
“He’s part of it.”
Tre nodded once, more hurt in the gesture than in his face. “We were a thing once.”
“We were a mess once,” Jaden corrected gently. “And you know that.”
Tre’s eyes slid away, came back. “I ain’t the one who sent the first picture. People love to blame me because it’s simple. But I didn’t do that.”
Jaden felt the tug of old gravity and refused it. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tre echoed.
“I heard you,” Jaden said. “I’m still moving forward.”
The shake in Tre’s laugh wasn’t humor. “Yeah. You always did run good routes.” He stepped back, palms up. “Take care, Jay.”
“You too.”
It wasn’t closure. It was a door that stopped rattling.
They took lunch in the quad with someone who knew one of them from a lifetime ago—Malik’s old seven-on-seven teammate, Cam, in town visiting a cousin. Cam was bigger now, beard lined-up, same chirp.
“I knew you’d be out here throwing dimes like a villain,” Cam said, grinning. “Didn’t know you’d be trending for kissing better than you throw.”
Malik choked on water; Jaden smothered a laugh. Cam held both hands up. “I’m playing. Mostly. Proud of you, man. Both of you.”
He meant it. They felt it. It helped. Cam peeled off with promises to catch a game. The visit left warmth—and a note of warning that good news travels just as fast as bad.
The locker room comment hung in the air long after the smell of eucalyptus and turf burned off. It wasn’t a fight day, but it was an edge day. Every step, every joke felt half a degree sharper.
After film, Malik didn’t bolt like he wanted. He sat on the bench, lacing, unlacing, re-lacing. The room thinned out. Jaden’s shadow eased across his shoes.
“Walk?” Jaden asked.
They cut across the quiet part of campus that only existed at dusk—light diluted, sky bleeding out color, crickets taking over where speaker stacks gave up.
“You kept your hands,” Jaden said.
“I wanted to use them,” Malik admitted.
“You used your eyes. That worked.” Jaden nudged him. “Come on. I know where you can put your hands today.”
“That a promise?” Malik asked, smiling without trying.
“That’s an assignment,” Jaden said, mouth curved.
They passed the intramural fields, cut behind a row of brick townhouses, reached the pocket park nobody used after eight because the lamps were dim and the path curved too sharply for scooters. Trees held the dark like a blanket. The night was a low hum—crickets, distant traffic, the occasional bark.
Jaden stopped where the path widened to a small circle and a bench. “You ever still want that thing you told me about?” he asked, voice quiet. “Being outside. Risk and control.”
Malik’s breath caught. “I think about it.”
Jaden stepped close enough for their bodies to fall into the old geometry. “Then take it,” he said. “Take me. But make me wait for it first.”
The air thickened—heat and shadow and the buzz of a risk they both wanted. Malik cupped Jaden’s jaw, kissed him slow—claim without bruise—and felt the tremor go through both of them. Hands slid under shirts; breath rose. He coaxed Jaden back until the bench hit his calves, until Jaden’s fingers curled in the front of Malik’s tee like he needed the grip for balance.
“Eyes on me,” Malik said, voice gone low.
“I got you,” Jaden breathed.
It started as a game of patience. Malik controlled the pace, the pressure, the places he touched and the places he refused to touch yet, until Jaden’s breath came ragged and his hands shook where they held Malik’s forearms. The park held them in a circle of lamplight and shadow; every small sound sounded bigger.
“Please,” Jaden whispered once, then again, ruin threaded through the syllables.
“Not yet,” Malik said, and the words shook because power is a weight you feel even when you’ve earned it. He took Jaden to the edge and hauled him back, kissed his throat, licked the salt from his skin, murmured praise at his ear until the plea was a low, unbroken note.
“Now,” Jaden gasped, finally, voice frayed. “Please, Lik.”
The world narrowed. They moved together with the kind of focus that makes time take a knee. The bench creaked once. The wind caught leaves. The night took their sounds and kept them. They held each other through the moment they broke and didn’t let go until their breathing synced again.
After, the air tasted different. Cooler. Softer. They didn’t talk for a minute because there are words and there are things that don’t need them.
“You good?” Malik asked, thumb stroking Jaden’s cheek, slow.
Jaden smiled—the real one that only showed up when his guard went home. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
They packed the moment up without rushing it, zipped it in the quiet between them where all the best things lived.
On the way back, as they cut along the far sidewalk, Malik glanced up on instinct. A figure stood half-lit at the far end of the block, posture familiar. Zay. He didn’t wave or move. Just watched for a beat and turned away, hands tucked into his hoodie.
“You see that?” Malik asked, keeping his tone even.
“Yeah,” Jaden said. “He’ll either knock on the lounge door or text something cryptic.”
They let it be. Tomorrow would bring what it brought.
Back at the room, two phones waited. One buzzed: Andre (Personnel): Interview blocks attached. Media drills added. Be candid. The other buzzed with a name neither of them said out loud; Jaden set it face down and breathed through his nose until the tightness in his chest eased.
Malik slid in behind him, wrapped him up, chin on his shoulder. “He doesn’t get to write this chapter.”
“No,” Jaden said. “We do.”
They slept like men who meant it.
By Thursday, the study-lounge door didn’t need the battered calculus book to prop it open; word had done the work. A cross-country kid sat in the far corner with headphones on but no music playing. Two baseball guys argued softly about nothing and everything. A freshman from student government stared out the window, breathing like he’d learned how only yesterday.
Malik and Jaden didn’t run the room. They held it. The way you hold a huddle—steady spine, open hands.
“Fellas,” Malik said quietly, “you don’t owe anyone a label in this room. You owe yourself honesty. That’s it.”
A few heads dipped. A few shoulders dropped. Jaden caught Miles’s eye at the door; the kid gave a small, grateful salute and slipped inside.
They left the lounge at ten, quiet and emptied—in a good way. Campus was a blue-black sheet of night and a light wind that felt like permission.
“You ready for tomorrow?” Jaden asked as they cut under the oaks.
“Scouts’ll be there, media’ll sniff, Coach’ll pretend he doesn’t see either,” Malik said. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” Jaden said. “’Cause I’ve been starving to embarrass a secondary on national TV.”
Malik laughed, head tipping back. The sound put them both at ease.
Game day, home stadium, early autumn light slick on helmets. The tunnel smelled like tape, gum, eucalyptus, and belief. Coach Redding came down the line not with a speech but with a look—one by one, eyes on each of them until the noise bent to his will.
“Stack the day,” he said, voice low. “Do your job. Do it together.”
He paused at Malik and Jaden, the briefest hitch at the corner of his mouth. “And have some fun making people wrong.”
The place detonated when they ran out.
First series, Malik took a shot down the seam that would’ve been heroic if it hadn’t also been smart. Jaden ate cushion, sold inside, snapped outside, and made a corner bite air. The ball dropped like it had been mailed. First down. The second series ended in the end zone—Jaden post-corner, Malik on time, hands soft, six.
Cameras found them on the sideline, laughing like the play had been a shared joke. It kind of was.
Between drives, every time Malik scanned the stands he found a pocket of scouts in visors and neutral windbreakers, notebooks out, eyes narrowed the way people do when they’re pretending they’re not impressed yet. Let them pretend.
They went into halftime up ten. In the tunnel, Jaden bumped Malik’s shoulder. “We’re walking them down.”
“We’re not done,” Malik said, but the grin betrayed him.
They weren’t.
Fourth quarter, two minutes to go, up four, third-and-long. The call came in: a concept they’d argued over in film, tweaked at breakfast. Malik took the snap, climbed the pocket, bought one beat, then another. Jaden throttled down, found the hole between zones like he’d been born for it, and Malik rifled a rope into his chest. First down. Kneel. Ball game.
The stadium turned molten. On the walk to the locker room, someone from production shouted “postgame in ninety seconds,” and someone else shoved a headset at Malik. He did it—clean, poised, generous—and made sure to say Jaden’s name twice more than he had to. Jaden’s spot came after; he did his part like a man who means what he says when it’s time to say it.
They found one another in the corridor, neither reaching because they didn’t need to. The look exchanged did the job of hands.
“Fun,” Jaden said.
“Too fun,” Malik said, and they both knew what that meant later.
The locker room was a thunderclap of music, towels, and relief. Somewhere in the mix, the sophomore lineman who’d tried a slick line earlier in the week kept his eyes down and his mouth shut. Growth, or fear. Either way, silence was fine.
Zay drifted in on the late tide of players, hoodie up. He wasn’t hiding. He was thinking. He gave Malik a look that wasn’t quite a nod, wasn’t quite a question. Later, Malik thought. Zay seemed to read it and peeled away.
On the far side, Jaden felt the brush of someone at his shoulder. Tre. Not close enough to be a problem. Close enough to be a presence.
“You saw that?” Jaden asked without looking.
Tre let out a breath that wasn’t envy so much as loss. “Yeah,” he said. “You look… right out there.”
“I am,” Jaden said, no weight on the words beyond truth.
Tre nodded once, backed off, gone. The past didn’t vanish, but it stopped tugging.
In the corner, Cam—Malik’s seven-on-seven friend—popped in with a sideline pass and a grin. “You tried to tell me you got calmer with age,” he teased. “Lied, but I forgive you. That last read? Filthy.”
Malik pulled him into a quick hug. “Stay for dinner. We’ll grab something off campus.”
“Bet,” Cam said, pointing a finger-gun at Jaden. “You—you’re a menace. I approve.”
The chaos reshuffled; the beat changed. Through it all, Coach Redding moved like a lighthouse—constant and unbothered.
He waited until the room took a breath. “Good win,” he said. “Better because you didn’t flinch when they started playing the media game. Remember what matters. The rest is noise. Enjoy the night. Don’t let the night enjoy you.”
He didn’t smile. His eyes did.
The night decided to be kind. Cam peeled off to find his cousin; teammates scattered to apartments and house parties. Malik and Jaden drifted toward the edges of campus where the streetlights are more suggestion than law.
The little pocket park that had held their secret once felt like a heartbeat they could find by memory: the curve of the path, the lamppost that flickered once every twenty seconds, the bench worn smooth by a hundred conversations and three decisions.
“I keep replaying that third-and-long,” Malik said, voice low.
“You liked the look on the safety’s face,” Jaden teased.
“I liked knowing exactly where you’d be,” Malik said. There it was again—clean, unperformed truth.
They didn’t rush what came next. It started with breath and hands, the slow melt that comes of adrenaline unwinding, victory humming under skin. Malik’s forehead touched Jaden’s; Jaden smiled into Malik’s mouth. The air was cool on their necks. Shadows did what good shadows do and held space.
They stayed under the flickering lamppost until the quiet was thick enough to feel like cover. Malik’s hand slid under the hem of Jaden’s hoodie, knuckles dragging slow over warm skin.
Jaden’s breath caught. “Malik…”
“Mm?” Malik’s mouth brushed his ear.
“You know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah,” Malik murmured. “Slowing you down.”
The first kiss was all control—Malik’s lips firm, tongue teasing until Jaden pushed against him for more. Malik wouldn’t give it. He kept it to shallow swipes, hands spreading over Jaden’s back like he owned the whole width of it.
“You’re killing me,” Jaden said, voice already thin.
“Beg,” Malik said.
Jaden’s laugh was more of a whimper. “Please…”
“Not enough,” Malik said, sliding one hand down to palm the back of Jaden’s thigh and drag him closer.
Jaden’s head tipped back when Malik’s other hand cupped his bulge through his sweats. Malik rubbed slow circles, thumb pressing until he felt the heat and swell through the fabric.
“Malik…”
“That’s better,” Malik said, and pushed him gently toward the bench, letting him sit before stepping between his knees. He bent, kissing Jaden hard now, tongue deep, hands framing his jaw. When he pulled back, his voice was gravel. “Turn around.”
The bench was cold under Jaden’s palms when he braced on it. Malik’s hands skimmed his hips, thumbs slipping under the waistband to tug the sweats down just enough for his ass to breathe the night air.
“Fuck,” Malik muttered. “You’re warm already.”
He pressed in close, his clothed bulge grinding along Jaden’s ass until Jaden’s head dropped forward. “I’ve been thinking about this since the third quarter,” Malik said.
He pushed his own waistband down, letting his thick length rest heavy between Jaden’s cheeks. He rocked there, letting the head slide over Jaden’s hole, teasing until Jaden’s legs shook.
“Don’t,” Jaden panted, “don’t make me wait—”
“You waited through two drives and halftime,” Malik said. “You can wait a little longer.”
Malik spat into his hand, slicked himself, and without warning, pressed in slow—stretching Jaden until he was full. Jaden’s fingers curled hard on the bench.
“Malik… oh, fuck—”
Malik stayed deep for a beat, hips flush to Jaden’s ass, feeling every twitch around him. “You take me so good,” he said, voice low in Jaden’s ear.
Then he started moving—long, steady strokes that built heat without breaking pace. Jaden tried to push back for more, but Malik held his hips still. “Uh-uh. My pace.”
Every thrust had weight, the slap of skin muted by the night. The flickering lamppost seemed to keep time with them. Jaden was a mess of soft curses, head turning like he needed Malik’s mouth and Malik’s dick at the same time.
“Please,” Jaden said again, voice cracked. “Faster—”
Malik’s grip tightened. “Say you need me.”
“I—fuck—need you,” Jaden groaned. “Need you in me.”
That was enough. Malik’s pace snapped from controlled to hungry, hips slamming forward until Jaden’s knees trembled. The sound of them filled the empty park—breath, skin, the wet slide of Malik pulling almost all the way out and driving back in.
The pressure built fast, Malik’s abs flexing as he bottomed out again and again. “Gonna fill you,” he said, chest pressed to Jaden’s back. “Gonna make you feel it all night.”
“Yes—yes—” Jaden’s voice broke on the last word.
Malik grunted, hips locking as his orgasm hit—hot spurts filling Jaden deep. Jaden gasped at the heat, clenching around him. Malik stayed buried, grinding slow as the last pulses left him.
When he pulled back slightly, the stretch eased and cum slipped out, hot against Jaden’s thighs. Malik dropped to a crouch behind him, hands parting him to lean in and lick—slow and deliberate—tasting himself and Jaden together.
Jaden shivered so hard his palms slipped on the bench. “Malik… fuck—”
Malik stood, pulled Jaden’s sweats back up, and kissed him like they weren’t still half-hard.
“You good?” Malik asked, thumb brushing Jaden’s lip.
Jaden’s eyes were dark and glassy. “I’m everything,” he said.
They walked out of the park like nothing had happened, shadows closing in behind them, the night holding their secret.
When the hush returned, they stayed pressed together, catching air like it was a shared thing.
“You good?” Malik asked, thumb skating along Jaden’s jaw.
“I’m everything,” Jaden said, and for once it didn’t feel like exaggeration.
They shifted, fixed zippers, found hands again without thinking about it.
At the end of the block, Zay stood in that half-light posture Malik recognized. He didn’t come closer. He didn’t turn away. He lifted a hand, undecided in the air, then let it fall and headed in the direction of the athletic complex.
“Tomorrow,” Jaden murmured.
“Tomorrow,” Malik agreed.
Tomorrow arrived at 8:03 a.m. in the form of a calendar invite from Andre in Personnel.
Combine Prep—Paired Timing + Media
Location: Training Lab E
Dates: Blocked (4 weeks)
Notes: Be candid. They’re not testing perfection. They’re testing leadership.
Malik stared at the note, then handed the phone to Jaden across the table. Jaden read, smirked, slid it back.
“We’re ready,” Jaden said.
They were still at the dining hall when Darian passed behind Malik’s chair. He didn’t pause. He leaned down just enough for his mouth to be close to Malik’s ear, voice soft and lethal.
“Offer’s still good,” Darian said. “No names, no past, no future. Just what you need.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He walked on, and the air he left behind tried to pretend it hadn’t heated.
Malik didn’t look after him. He didn’t need to. He found Jaden’s eyes instead. “I’m right here,” he said.
“I know,” Jaden answered. “Just making sure you do.”
They both smiled, which felt like power.
By mid-week, “the lounge” had turned into a lifeline. A thrower from track said he was tired of loving girls and still thinking about boys in the gray in-between parts of the day; a grad student whispered that he didn’t want to be anyone’s secret, even his own; a drummer left a list of queer artists in the middle of the table like a blessing.
Coach never asked what happened there. But on Wednesday night he stood in the doorway when they were packing up, hands in pockets, eyes easy.
“Y’all ain’t the first,” he said quietly. “And you won’t be the last. Keep your feet. Keep your grace.” He nodded once, started to go, then added, “Dinner Sunday. My place. Bring whoever you need to breathe.”
They both blinked. “Coach?”
“My husband cooks better than I do,” he said, like he was telling them it might rain. “Don’t be late.”
He left them swallowing a new kind of relief.
Tre resurfaced one more time, not with a threat but a truth. A late-night text sat on Jaden’s screen after lift:
I didn’t leak that first pic. I did say some messy things I can’t un-say. I’m sorry for that. You look like you found the version of you I couldn’t handle. Be careful with it.
Jaden read it twice, didn’t reply, forwarded it to Malik and Miles with a note: Context. Not a door.
Miles replied with a single 🙏🏽 and nothing else.
Friday practice hummed. The week had sharpened them without hardening them. Malik hit throws he liked to watch; Jaden ran routes like music. When it wrapped, a reporter drifting for color asked Malik a question that could have been a trap if he’d wanted it to be.
“What do you say to fans who think your off-field life is a distraction?”
Malik smiled without showing teeth. “I’d say if you like winning, I’m very focused,” he said. “And if you like people being honest, I’m doing that too.”
Twitter tried to be messy for twenty minutes and then remembered the highlight clip was cooler.
They finished Friday the way they’d begun the week—together, but not small. The dining hall, a corner table, a pile of carbs, and plans. Zay appeared at the edge of their table like he’d been deciding whether to step in for the last five minutes.
“You got a minute?” he asked, voice low.
“Always,” Malik said, sliding over.
Zay didn’t sit. He looked at both of them like he’d rehearsed and tossed the script. “I got some stuff to say,” he managed. “And a question I don’t know how to ask without sounding wild.”
“Say it the way it shows up,” Jaden said.
Zay nodded once, swallowed, looked down the hall, then back. “Can we walk?”
They stood as one.
The hall’s noise turned thin behind them as the door swung shut. Outside, the campus breathed in a way that made the night feel like a conspirator. The path to the oaks waited.
Malik glanced at Jaden. Jaden gave the smallest nod: we’re ready.
Whatever Zay needed to say, they had space for it.
And—later—space for whatever they needed from each other.
The next forty-eight hours moved like victory was a current under their feet.
Saturday morning turned into a late lunch at the student union café—sun through high windows, plates clattering, the low drone of a campus pretending to be calm. Malik and Jaden took a booth with Miles and a sophomore from baseball who’d started showing up at the lounge, all of them loose from the win and looser from the quiet they’d been carving out together.
Public and subtle—that was the assignment. They handled it.
Jaden told a story about a busted coverage and made Miles laugh so hard water went down the wrong pipe. Malik wiped a thumb through a smear of sauce on Jaden’s knuckle like it was nothing and didn’t look down, didn’t break the sentence he was in about route depth. The baseball kid saw it—the touch that lasted a heartbeat too long—and went still for just a second. Not judgment. Recognition. He looked away on purpose and started explaining his ridiculous nutrition plan like the moment didn’t happen.
Under the table, Jaden’s shoe slid along the side of Malik’s sneaker: I see you. Later.
“Y’all got plans tonight?” Miles asked, already knowing.
“Recovery,” Malik said, deadpan.
“Mm-hm,” Miles said, smirking. “Enjoy your… foam rolling.”
They paid. They left. The day saved its secrets for later.
Later meant a clean shirt and dark jeans, the brush of cologne that wasn’t loud, a text from a teammate about a party they wouldn’t attend and a text from Cam—there’s a spot I want y’all to see—with a pin to a side street nobody ever used unless they were cutting behind the theatre building.
The door was black and unmarked. The bell didn’t ring so much as thrum through the bones of the frame. It opened to a hallway that bent twice for no reason other than to make entry feel earned. The room at the end was all low amber light and red velvet, a bar that glowed like honey, leather booths half-hidden behind filigree screens. Phones stayed pocketed because the room asked them to; voices stayed soft because the room taught them how.
No sign, no menu. Just a bartender in a waistcoat, sleeves rolled, forearms inked in blackwork vines, who poured from crystal and looked like he knew every secret in a three-block radius and didn’t care to repeat any of them.
“Table?” he asked, eyes taking them in without touching them.
“Corner,” Cam said. “If you’ve got one.”
They got one—half-shadow, full view of the room. The jazz was a murmur. The glasses were heavy in the hand. The city through the slit of a window looked like it had agreed to be quiet while they finished what the week had started.
For a while, they did regular-night things. Jaden told Cam about the way the safety bit on a look-off late in the third quarter and how good it felt to be exactly where Malik wanted him; Malik teased him about getting away with a little extra shove at the top of a route. Cam cussed them both out for being too humble. They laughed.
Cam peeled off when a man in a perfect suit slid into the booth behind them. Wink and a two-finger salute and he was gone, the night making space.
They didn’t need words for a minute. Just the gravity of two bodies in a room meant for secrets.
Malik’s hand found Jaden’s thigh under the tablecloth. The squeeze was almost nothing. Jaden’s breath changed anyway.
“You’ve been looking at me like you’re starving since we walked in,” Malik said, voice low enough to get swallowed by the jazz.
“Maybe I am,” Jaden said. “Maybe I want to be eaten.”
Malik’s mouth curved. “Later. Here, we go slow.”
“Define slow,” Jaden said, already shifting closer on the leather.
Malik leaned in, lips grazing the shell of his ear. “I tell you where to put your hands. I tell you when to breathe. You keep your eyes on me and don’t make a sound I don’t ask for.”
Heat skated down Jaden’s spine. “Yes, Lik.”
He didn’t say Cap here; the room was already charged. Lik was the name that stripped the polish off and left what mattered.
Malik’s hand slid higher, the heel of his palm pressing where Jaden was already heavy. Jaden let his knees drift apart an inch. The ice in the lowball glass shifted like it agreed with the pace. The screen in front of their booth caught the glow from the bar and threw most of it back; the rest pooled around their shoulders like permission.
“Hands,” Malik said.
Jaden exhaled, set his palms flat on his thighs.
“Good.” Malik kissed the corner of his mouth, not deep. Not yet. He kept the other hand on Jaden’s thigh, thumb tracing circles that tightened and released, tightened and released, until Jaden had to close his eyes to keep from pushing into it.
“Open,” Malik said, quiet command.
Jaden opened his eyes.
“Take your belt off,” Malik murmured. “Slow. Under the table.”
Jaden did, metal muted by the cloth, the click of teeth on leather hidden under a swell from the sax. The belt came free into Malik’s hand. He looped it around Jaden’s wrist once, twice, cinched it without hurting. The restraint was more suggestion than prison; that was the point. Jaden’s breath hitched anyway.
“Hands stay there unless I say,” Malik said, almost a whisper.
“Yes,” Jaden said.
Malik’s knuckles walked a lazy line up, palm settling, pressing until the pressure made Jaden’s throat tighten. The room didn’t change. They did.
“Lift,” Malik said.
Jaden shifted his hips, just enough. Malik’s fingers found the drawstring knot, tugged, slipped his hand under elastic and heat. Jaden’s mouth went soft on a sound he swallowed at the last second. Malik shook his head, the smallest warning. Jaden bit his lip and nodded, eyes dark.
The first stroke was slow enough to quiet a fire. The second lit it all over again. Malik set a rhythm that was half mercy, half cruelty; every time Jaden pushed into his hand, Malik eased off, thumb circling, keeping him under, keeping him there. Jaden’s eyes didn’t leave his, not even when a server in black set a fresh glass on the table and retreated like a ghost.
“Look at me,” Malik said, when Jaden’s focus went soft around the edges.
“I am,” Jaden breathed.
“Tell me what you want.”
“You,” Jaden said, honest in a way that made Malik’s chest ache. “Here. Now.”
Malik’s mouth pressed to his ear. “You’re getting all of me. But you don’t get to fall apart until I say.”
Jaden quivered, restraint and want vibrating through him like a note. “Please.”
“Not enough.”
“Please, Lik,” he said again, voice frayed. “Please. I need—”
Malik’s hand left him entirely. The loss was a shock. Jaden’s jaw clenched, a soft curse escaping before he choked it off. Malik smiled, wicked and warm.
“Up,” Malik said. “Bathroom.”
They didn’t look rushed. They weren’t sloppy. They were two men standing to stretch their legs in a bar, cutting behind a screen, moving down a short hallway washed in amber. The speakeasy had a private single-stall at the end with a sign that didn’t say anything at all; Malik turned the latch and the lock thunked into place, quiet and final.
The room smelled like cedar and clean linen. A mirror ran the length of the wall. There was a small chair in the corner like the space expected patience.
“Hands,” Malik said again.
Jaden put them on the counter.
“Wider.”
Jaden spread them. Malik’s palm came down on the curve of his ass once—sharp, not punishing. A mark that was heat, not pain. “Good.”
Malik stepped in behind him, crowding, letting Jaden feel the length of him pinned between denim and the heat building under it. He mouthed at the side of Jaden’s neck, suckled until a red bloom would hide under a collar later.
“Say it,” Malik said.
“I’m yours,” Jaden said, voice low and steady now.
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours, Lik.”
Malik’s hands slipped into Jaden’s waistband and dragged it down slow, fabric catching on the shape of him and then clearing it. The mirror showed Jaden’s eyes go heavy as his mouth parted; Malik didn’t look away from that reflection as he spit into his hand and slicked himself, the sound lewd and perfect in the cedar air.
He pressed, not to tease this time but to enter, slow enough to stretch, deep enough that Jaden’s breath left him in a shudder.
“Fuck,” Jaden whispered, forehead hitting his forearm. “Yes.”
“Eyes up,” Malik said. “Watch me take you.”
Jaden lifted his head. Their eyes met in the mirror. Malik rolled his hips once, twice—testing, asking, answering. The pace they found was deliberate at first, the kind that builds like a storm you can smell on the air before the rain hits. Malik’s hands were heavy on Jaden’s hips, thumbs sinking into muscle; Jaden’s fingers curled on the counter like he’d tear it up if he could.
“Quiet,” Malik reminded, when a sound broke out of Jaden that tasted like surrender.
Jaden bit it back, a broken laugh choking on a moan. “You’re cruel.”
“You like me like this,” Malik said, and thrust harder. “Say it.”
“I like you like this,” Jaden said, every word a shock, a gift.
Malik changed angles and found the spot that made Jaden forget the room, the city, his name. Jaden’s knees trembled. Malik held him up and drove in again, again, the rhythm getting dirtier, wetter, the smack of skin on skin swallowed by the walls. Heat crawled up Malik’s spine and spread. Jaden’s voice was a string of please and yes and Lik that would’ve wrecked him if he hadn’t already decided there’d be nothing careful about the finish.
“You’re gonna take it,” Malik growled, breath hot against Jaden’s ear. “You hear me?”
“Yes,” Jaden gasped. “Give it to me—”
Malik did. He locked in and broke, emptied deep, a few hard pulses that dragged a noise out of him he barely recognized. Jaden groaned and clenched around him, shaking so hard the counter rattled.
Malik didn’t pull out. He stayed there, breathing into Jaden’s damp shoulder, feeling them both come back into their bodies. When he finally eased free, heat slipped down Jaden’s thigh, sinful and right. Malik didn’t reach for paper or a towel. He sank to his knees instead and dragged his tongue up slow, deliberate, cleaning what he’d given, tasting both of them on his mouth.
Jaden’s hand flew back to the mirror, bracing. “Fuck, Lik—”
Malik stood, palmed Jaden’s jaw, kissed him filthy. They were wrecked and perfect and smiling like thieves when they fixed clothes and smoothed hair, the world sharpening around them again.
“You good?” Malik asked, thumb brushing the corner of Jaden’s mouth where a smear said too much.
“I’m better than good,” Jaden said, and the mirror could’ve fogged from the heat in his eyes.
They stepped out into the hall like they belonged to the place. They did.
Back at the booth, two fresh glasses waited—clear liquor with a twist. The bartender hadn’t asked; the room had decided. A small envelope sat under one coaster. Black. Heavy stock. No name.
Jaden lifted the glass; Malik slid the envelope to his side of the table and broke the flap with a thumb.
Inside: a single card, bone-white, nothing printed but a line in clean serif:
Tuesday. Midnight. East Gate Track. Dress to move.
On the back, a simple mark—an intersecting circle and line—that looked like it meant something to someone.
Malik turned the card once, twice. Jaden watched his face. “What is it?”
“An invitation,” Malik said.
“To what?”
“Don’t know yet.” He slid it across the table. Jaden flipped it, the symbol catching the low light.
When they stood to leave, the air changed. A shadow detached from the bar and stepped into their path like it had always belonged there.
He was older by a decade, maybe—mid-30s, clean beard, a suit that fit like it had been made in a room with no mirrors because it didn’t need them. Dark skin that drank the amber and kept it. Eyes that were kind without being soft.
“You don’t know me,” he said quietly, voice more velvet than the booths, “but I know enough to say this: you’ve both got something they can’t teach—on the field and off it. Don’t waste it on people who want you small.”
Malik didn’t blink. Jaden didn’t flinch.
“What’s Tuesday?” Malik asked.
The stranger’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Orientation.”
“For what?” Jaden asked.
“For staying alive and winning bigger.” He tipped his head toward the card. “Midnight. East Gate Track. Dress to move.” He stepped aside. “If you’re late, you’re not ready.”
He didn’t give a name. He didn’t ask for theirs. He melted back into the bar the way he’d come—unnoticed by everyone except them and, maybe, the bartender, who polished a glass like he’d been expecting the moment all night.
On the sidewalk, the city’s air felt cooler, thinner. The card felt heavier in Malik’s pocket than paper should.
“You going?” Jaden asked after a block of silence that was more engine than lull.
Malik slid his hand into Jaden’s without looking. “We’re going.”
Jaden squeezed, quick and sure. “Dress to move,” he said, and the words felt like a promise.
They didn’t talk about the watcher again that night. They didn’t need to. Tuesday had already started ticking toward them.
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