Beau met me outside of my place at six, as the sun dipped over the horizon.

I left a note on the counter for my mom to find before grabbing my keys and slipping out of the front door. Each step down the stairs sent a strike of nerves up my spine, and I couldn't help but wonder why I so easily gave into the text.

Finally outside, I found Beau leaning over his motorcycle outside of my building wearing a helmet, a sky blue T-shirt that hit just past his hips, and a pair of loose cargos. He held his phone in both hands, typing something, and held a second helmet between his elbows and the handlebars of his bike. As the door closed behind me with a metallic thump, Beau looked up and smiled with those twinkling eyes.

"Hey," he said, slipping his phone into the pocket on the side of his pants and holding up the second helmet. It was a pure, shiny blue. "Ready to go?"

"Go where?" But I still took the helmet and climbed on the back of the bike, holding the handles under the seat.

Beau shrugged in front of me, revving the engine and kicking off the ground. "I don't know."

And we took off into the waxing night.

*+*❅*+*

We ended up walking through desolate corners of the local college's campus. The brick buildings lined the greens of the campus, and the sidewalks were well-kept and clean. Students passed us occasionally, stacked with books or bottles, but paid us little mind.

Beau pulled a vape from his pocket and started to smoke something fruity, letting it curl from the corners of his lips. My hands were snugly in the pockets of my jacket as I watched the streetlamps come and go, one by one. Their lights glowed warmly in the chilly night, bright against the dark brick buildings lining the sidewalk.

"I'm still hungover," Beau said, his soft voice almost absorbed by the quiet cushion of the night.

I laughed airily. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he mused. "The party was good. It's nice to get drunk. Feels warm. Liberating." He paused, turning the vape in his hand. "I never partied like that before I moved. It's a weird change of pace."

"No?"

"Nah. Small school, bible-thumpy. Nobody had the balls to host anything."

"Was that your first party, then?" I asked, pulling the vape out of Beau's hands absentmindedly and taking a hit. It tasted like peaches.

"Kind of," he said, smiling into the darkness. "I used to go out back home, but not for a school party or anything. I'd sneak into bars and clubs to dance and drink, mostly."

"Ah." I shrugged, tracing the seams inside of my pockets. "Bars seem annoying. I hate drunk people."

"Oh, yeah," Beau chucked, taking the vape back from my hands and pressing it to his bottom lip. "I had to drag Carrie's drunk ass home last night. She's horrible when combined with gin, I think."

"So is my friend Iza," I said, smiling in recollection. "She was there last night, too. Hammered out of her mind. She goes here, though."

"How was the party for you, then?"

I took a soft breath, relishing the peace of the night and the comfortable company at my side. Better company than most of the party, I couldn't help but think, and discomfort clawed its way up my throat at the thought. "It was fun. I got cross-faded and stayed half the night in the rain with Iza, actually, then crashed at hers."

His gaze traced my profile. "Did you sleep with her?"

"What? No," I was quick to reply. I felt heat crawl up my neck. "She's actually the only other one who knows I'm..."

Beau hummed in understanding, bumping his shoulder gently into mine. "Gay?"

My voice felt softer than the smoke leaving his lips. "Yeah."

He took another hit of his vape, and we walked a few more meters. Our footsteps were in sync.

"I want to go to another party," Beau confessed, a secret flitting into the dark like a paper crane.

"Why?"

His answer felt wispy, like the flame of lamplight reflected in his eyes. "I want to let loose again."

As he spoke, we passed a Greek house thrumming with music and lights. Red cups and college students littered the front lawn, rolling in the grass or throwing up in the bushes.

"You know," I mused, unsure of the feeling that crawled up my insides, "they say the best cure for a hangover is vodka."

Beau grinned at me, having to look down only a little to meet my eyes. His shone with something dangerous. "Alright, Doctor Luke. Lead the way."

And I did. We slipped through the thick wooden doors and into the fray, grabbed drinks from the sticky kitchen, and did a line of shots, then another. I felt destructive that night, I think. The disgust had wiggled its way into my head slowly, quietly. The discomfort when I thought to hard was suddenly too confusing, too wrong. So, Beau and I made it right. Made it messy and simple again.

We were loud and drunk as we danced to the shitty frat party music, feeling our heat bleed into the throngs of people. It was barely 10 p.m. when Beau's hips twisted against mine, and I groaned something into his ear, and he grabbed my hands and led me up the stairs and into an empty room. It was stuffed with two desks and two beds, and we collapsed on the one under the window. With the alcohol, everything felt warm and easy and silky.

I rolled on top of Beau, pressing a long, firm kiss to his lips. His mouth opened with a moan as his head tilted back against the pillows, granting me permission to do what I pleased. Moonlight seeped into his skin, turning it from milky to something almost iridescent and divine. With a low, satisfied groan, I surged my head forward, thrusting our faces closer together and sliding my tongue into his mouth.

His hands wasted no time, quickly slipping under the hem of my shirt and tracing ridges of my spine through my skin before Beau wrapped his smooth palms around my shoulders and dragged them down to my chest. He took his time, alternating between grazing my body with the pads of his fingers and roughly groping the taunt muscles, all the while continuing to press his lips to mine rhythmically. It was like waves crashing onto a coast, leaving foamy traces in the sand and the smell of the sea permanently embedded in the air. And when Beau opened his eyes, I could see the crystal blue waters darken with an incoming storm, the thunder rolling in the distance ambiently. Dangerously.

Beau dipped his hands under the waistband of my jeans, grabbing my ass and squeezing it through my boxers, dragging my hips down to roll more harshly against his own. His thumbs dug into the dimples at the base of my back, massaging the sensitive skin and prompting me to arch my chest into his.

I leaned back to peel off my shirt and watched Beau do the same to his, tossing it aside and reaching to undo his pants. I helped him, grabbing them at the ankles and yanking them off as he lifted his ass from the bed, and tossed them aside.

Finally finding myself between his legs, I took the opportunity to look up at Beau, who was propped up on his elbows as he looked down at me with hooded, glazed-over eyes. His chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths, each being drawn through kiss-slicked and reddened lips. Long, slender legs were spread coyly, knees turned out, unashamedly showing the smooth skin of his inner thigh as it connected up his hips and to his slim waist, where his piercing glinted sharply in the moonlight. One leg hooked around my waist, the heel digging into the small of my back in an effort to press me forward. It was less of an invitation than it was a demand to come closer, and I could see the want swirling in his tantalizing eyes, like a siren's song beckoning me to him. Beau was shaking, sweat pinning his now-soaked bangs to his forehead and making the ends of the blond strands curl.

"Come on," he whispered, shakily reaching a hand to his brow to brush the hair from his eyes, not letting his gaze break from mine. "Just do it."

"Do what?" I prompted, my voice lower than I had intended it to be. His thigh twitched as I trailed my fingers up the inside of his leg, dangerously close to his barely-clothed erection, and Beau sucked in a tight breath. I felt powerful, even between his thighs. "Do what, Beau?"

The moment his name left my lips, any shame or patience left in his body and evaporated to steam as he dug his heel more harshly into my lower back, pushing my posture lower, towards the show of want between his legs. Beau's pale thighs parted further, and his head tipped back against the wall behind him, exposing the smooth column of his neck. His eyes looked impossibly dark, shining with something sharp hidden in flecks of golden-hazel that sent a pleasureful chill rolling down my spine. His tongue flicked over his lips, nearly imperceptibly, but I caught it.

"You're right there, just... come on. Suck my dick, Luke."

I grinned, slow and unusually cruel from the drink, pressing a hard kiss to the junction of his thigh and groin and pulling at his clean, white briefs. His dick sprung from inside of them, hard and pink and beading delicate pearls at the tip that rolled down to the base. I spoke against the smooth skin by his balls, wetting it with the insides of my lips. "Why should I?"

Beau's face was flushed with lust, difficult to hide under his pale complexion. By now, he was panting, tugging at his lungs to draw in any breath and coiling his hands into fists into the blankets. But through that, he still managed to reply.

"Because. It'd be fucking hot."

I opened my mouth to retort again, but he cut me off with a hand to the back of my head, digging into my hair and shoving my face between his legs and leaving a sticky, white line across my cheek. His eyes turned stormy.

"Stop talking and get me off."

I didn't bother trying to tease him any further and took him into my mouth with uncharacteristic bravery, burying my face in his pubes and sucking. Beau moaned and bucked his hips, pushing against the back of my throat, and I choked on him, drawing back to paint a slippery line up him with my tongue. I dropped a kiss to the head of him before taking just that into my mouth. I was licking, sucking, and drooling, pulling off and letting a thick thread of saliva connect my swelling lips to the tip of him before surging back and taking him back as far as I could, holding Beau's hips open as far as they could go. I watched him through my lashes, watched him stare at me with a hooded gaze, watched him as he pulled my hair and tangled his nimble fingers in the fraying twists.

This was something I couldn't do sober, I understood. But I loved doing it drunk tonight: loved ripping him apart piece by piece, lick by lick. The thought didn't scare me as much as it should have.

"You're so hot," Beau breathed, watching me press feathering kisses up him, pressing my tongue in the slit. He hissed through his teeth and his thighs trembled on either side of my head.

"Do you have condoms? Lube?" I asked, and he shook his head. Beau was quick, however, to open the nightstand next to us, sifting through the top drawer while I continued to give him head. He shuddered around me, but pulled a chain of foil wrappers out of the drawer and threw them at me.

"Will those fit?" His eyes glinted with lust and humor, but his face had a sheen of sweat. A shudder wracked him when I pulled away, letting the cold air bite his groin.

I ripped one packet off of the chain and tore it open, grabbing my hard dick from my pants and rolling the condom on, before immediately pulling it off with a hiss. "It's small."

"Fuck," Beau cursed, grabbing a fistful of my hair and dragging me back down to his mouth, kissing it open with is lips and tongue. I'm sure I tasted like him, but he only groaned. "It's fine, hold on—"

I gasped into his mouth when I felt him grab my dick in his hand, sliding it against his own. It was slippery from precum and my saliva, and as he started to flick his hand, it produced wet, obscene sounds that sent warm arousal pooling through my body.

We didn't last long. Beau came first, with a gasp and a jerk, and in watching tears roll down his cheeks and cum shoot up his chest, I went flying over the edge.

The music played downstairs while we rested, laying in a pool of our own sweat and painted with cum. But it felt weirdly quiet despite the noise. I closed my eyes, tipping my head into the pillows, slowly letting the heat of my orgasm bleed from my body.

"You were good at that," Beau murmured, tracing the shape of my brow with his ring finger, smoothing the creases there. "Was it your first time giving head?"

My eyes fluttered open, meeting his, swirling with something I couldn't pin down. Even though my dick was just in his hand and my cum was drying on his chest, I felt myself flush with embarrassment. "To a guy," I mumbled.

Beau cocked his head, still tracing my face. "Aren't you gay?"

"I mean... I think so," I murmured. "I've slept with girls before, a few times. But I've never... It's never felt like that."

"I understand," Beau said.

"Nobody else can know I'm gay," I whispered into the air, the fuzzy glow of my orgasm ripped away. The vodka seemed to vanish from my system, and all I was left with was an ice bucket of fear being poured over my head. "Please don't..."

Beau was quiet for a moment, gripping my hair tight. "I won't." A pause. "But I want to keep seeing you."

"...What do you mean?"

"Friends with benefits. We can fuck. Whenever we want. It's okay. But nobody can know." He lifted his hand from my face, holding up a hooked pinky. "Deal?"

A million possibilities ran through my drunken mind, each worse than the last, each like a strike to the back of my head. What if someone found out, what if we got caught? What if we messed up, or what if we caught feelings? What if we got hurt?

But when those big, mysterious eyes stared back at me, I couldn't help but clasp my pinky finger in his.

"Deal."

As we left the party and hailed a cab, Beau's head lolled onto my shoulder where we sat on the side of the road next to his motorcycle. Running a hand through his tousled hair, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

[a/n] finally took my oxford entrance exam! not sure how it went, and i won't have my results until january, so... wish me luck!!