Good Guys Don't Date Bad Boys – Ch. 46
By Laura S. Fox
Copyright © 2022 Laura S. Fox
All Rights Reserved
Gay Erotica
Intended for Mature Audiences Only
This story will contain graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, strong
language and it is not meant for readers who are less than 18 years of age.
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Chapter Forty-Six – The
Pride Of The Cock
Walking through the quad
at Sunny Hill, flanked on all sides by friends, felt exciting and reassuring at
the same time. Maddox had one arm thrown over his shoulders, casual, yet
possessive, while Ray stood by his left and held Hanna by the hand.
"Well, at any moment now,
I suppose that everyone's phone is going to blow up," Jonathan said
matter-of-factly. He had decided that he needed to be at peace with whatever
happened, but nonetheless, that didn't mean he didn't feel nervous at all.
Indeed, he didn't consider himself ready to face the sneers and the laughter. But
his support group was there, and that meant the world to him.
Rusty was the one who
kept on refreshing the Xpress page, with a focused expression on his face. "My
dudes," he said, "and Hanna," he added with a deferential look toward Ray's
girlfriend, "it looks like Xpress is really slow on the uptake."
"Ah, did we make all
those cool t-shirts for nothing?" Ray said in a deflated tone.
"We can still have the
big reveal, but I think it will only make people confused," Dex
offered. "I mean, not that they're not cool, but you know, the message wouldn't
make sense."
"Let's just wait," Kane
suggested. "How about we sit right there?" He pointed at the group of benches
around the statue in the middle of the quad. "Rusty, just keep refreshing that
page. In case nothing happens today, we can expect things to blow up tomorrow.
We don't know if Xpress is not just a single person way too much into gossip."
Rusty scratched his head
and remained standing, while everyone else took a seat. Other students flocked
to them now and then, drawn to the Amazing Four like usual, but no one, absolutely
no one seemed to know anything about the existence of a certain compromising
video.
Jonathan didn't know what
to think. Had it all been just a prank, and the blackmailer was backing down,
seeing how their bluff had been called? Part of him hoped it was true, but the
rest of his brain told him that they were waiting for the other shoe to drop,
and that it would happen any moment now.
"Not long, and we should
all be heading to class," Jonathan pointed out. "Maybe the mastermind behind
Xpress is sound asleep at this hour. A lot of people must have seen me coming
back to campus last night, even if it was late." Something about all of this didn't
quite make sense.
Rusty paced back and
forth, a focused frown on his face. "You know what, guys? I'm doing it. If this
blackmailer is such a big ass coward, maybe it's time to show our hand so that
they know that we don't give a fuck about it."
"You really want to show
off?" Dex asked.
"I'm me," Rusty said and
pointed at himself like Dex should have known better
than to ask obvious things. "Sure thing I want to show off."
While they debated
whether their whole operation should be called off or not, something snagged Jonathan's
attention out of the corner of one eye. He saw Connor coming from the direction
of his dorm, his hair a bird's nest, his clothes in disarray, as if he had been
woken up and forced to hurry somewhere. It took Jonathan some time to
understand that he was hurrying after somebody, and quickly identified the girl
in the hoodie he had seen before with Connor.
Only that she wasn't
alone. Two girls in identical hoodies hurried after her, as well, and the
similarity triggered another memory, one that at first he didn't know where to
place. The trio came together with flawless choreography, and all three pulled
out their phones. Of course, he remembered them, from that day when he had
taken Maddox on their first official date. Jonathan frowned, as he heard Connor
shouting something at the girls. He was even breaking into a run, and any
moment now, he would be able to catch up with them.
However, it seemed like
Connor's plans were bound to be frustrated, as other people flocked into his path,
forcing him to put more distance between him and the three girls.
As caught up as he was in
watching that scene, he missed the growing murmurs around him. Maddox grabbed
his hand, and only then, he tore his eyes away. His breath caught in his chest,
as it seemed like the entire population of Sunny Hill was busy with a single
thing: to pull out their phones and look at their screens.
"Rusty?" Maddox asked.
Rusty shook his head.
"Told you, guys. It's not Xpress." He pointed the screen at them to have them
see that the gossip column page was still talking about who broke up with who
over winter break, and not a word about Jonathan's compromising video.
"However," Rusty
continued, "I just got sent a little video by an unknown number. Would you guys
like to bet on what it's all about?"
Dex
and Kane pulled out their phones, too. A few scattered laughs could already be
heard here and there. That was their cue. Ray and Hanna jumped to their feet
and shed their jackets, while the others in the group followed their example.
Jonathan felt his skin
growing hot as he looked at his friends, all wearing identical t-shirts, on
which a hand holding an emoji eggplant stood above the message: The Pride Of The
Cock, something Rusty had come up with. The message under it was even more
to the point. Laugh if you want a punch in
the face. That had been more like a joint venture between Maddox and Ray,
and Jonathan had acquiesced with their desire to have anyone who showed any
signs of rudeness at least properly threatened with physical violence.
On the back of the
t-shirts, the Xpress logo was encased in a circle cut over by a diagonal line.
Jonathan closed his eyes
just as all other eyes began to turn toward him. He could feel them, even if
they were behind him, burning holes in him. This was the moment he had feared. And
indeed, there were laughs and sneers, and he could hear them. He knew who they
were aimed at.
"Hey, do you want me to
wipe that grin off your face?" he heard Dex threaten
someone.
Suddenly, the laughter
died, snuffed out like a candle. Dex hadn't even
spoken that loudly, but it looked like reputation was above all else, here, at
Sunny Hill.
"What?" Dex murmured at Kane, in response to some unspoken
question. "I didn't say that I was going to do it with a punch, as Maddox
insisted that we write on the t-shirts."
Jonathan took one deep
breath and exhaled when Ray snuck one hand into his. "Are you okay, JJ? You
know we're not going to let anyone make fun of you."
The warmth growing in his
chest was bigger and more overwhelming than the icepick he had felt driven
through his heart at the first signs of laughter.
"Cool t-shirts, guys,"
one girl said. "The Pride Of The Cock? What's that all
about?"
"It's about not making
fun of people who do nothing that you don't do when you know no one's
watching," Dex said promptly. As the biggest of them
all, he had taken upon himself the mission of being their mouthpiece. Jonathan
was grateful for that, too.
More people flocked to
them, interested in their message. No one seemed to be laughing anymore.
Jonathan dared to open his eyes and was taken by surprise by a girl he didn't
know who hugged him tightly. "Whoever sent that video is a total scumbag," she
said and then looked over him at Dex, probably
seeking the guy's approval.
Well, that seemed to be a
consequence of hanging with the right crowd, and he had no idea how he would
express his gratitude in the most appropriate manner later. More and more
people, encouraged by the girl's action, began to follow her example, so soon,
Jonathan found himself surrounded and almost assaulted in the friendliest way
possible.
He had no idea when he
got separated from Maddox, but noticed how his boyfriend was willing to set
everyone straight by talking to them in the same friendly, yet firm manner, as
Ray, Hanna, and Kane. Dex stood there, his arms
crossed over his chest, staring down everyone who dared to do anything else but
be supportive, once his mission as first responder, so to speak, was fulfilled.
"We knew that someone was
blackmailing Jonathan with this video, threatening to release it to everyone on
campus," Maddox explained, as he was now in charge of speaking to the masses.
Jonathan looked at him with adoring eyes. If Maddox ever wanted to run for
president or change the world, he would be there for him. He definitely had the
charisma, and something more. A big heart, to go with everything else that made
Maddox Kingsley the best boyfriend in the history of boyfriends.
Eventually, Jonathan thought
of searching for Rusty with his eyes. Hopefully, the resident kinkster, as Maddox called him, didn't think it was a good
occasion to go full monty
just for the sake of it. Not that the gathered crowd wouldn't like to see that,
Jonathan was sure.
No, that wasn't what Rusty
was doing. Instead, he was waving at Jonathan and beckoning him to come closer.
"Yo, Hamilton, get busy."
Jonathan disentangled
himself from his new and unwanted cheerleading squad and hurried to Rusty. The
guy grabbed his arm and made him follow. "It's not Xpress, right?"
"I think not," Jonathan
agreed.
"So," Rusty waved with
the hand holding his phone, "who's missing from this happy reunion? Look
around, and look closely."
Jonathan already knew the
answer to that. "It's not Xpress," he said as if he had just realized that. "I
think I know who the blackmailer is."
He hurried in the
direction he had seen Connor running earlier, with Rusty on his tail. The crowd
gathered around the rest of their group didn't pay them any mind while Maddox
continued to present the situation, only to be met with nods and sounds of
agreement by everyone in the audience.
"Is it your friend Williams?
`Cause I don't see his ass anywhere around," Rusty
asked. "Man, that guy's a douche. An eco-friendly douche, but still a douche."
"No, I don't think it's Connor, Rusty," Jonathan said as he broke into a run.
He had no idea if he still had a chance to catch them red-handed but hoped for
it. A theory was forming in his mind, but he needed to verify it, and a direct
confession, straight from the horse's mouth, sounded like a good idea.
"Where are we going?"
Rusty asked.
"We're searching for
Connor," Jonathan said promptly.
"But you just said--"
"I know, but trust me."
Rusty didn't ask for
further explanations. Jonathan almost missed the narrow space between two
buildings, but Rusty was ahead of him and gestured for him to follow as he
snuck in. The sound of voices reached them, raised and accusatory. They were
already far enough from the crowd that it was easy to understand what the
voices were saying.
"I told you to forget
about that video," Connor was the one to speak first. "I told you over and over
again. I thought you understood as much."
"You laughed when you saw
it," a girl's voice shot back at him.
Rusty turned to make a
hush sign at Jonathan, one finger pressed against his lips. Jonathan nodded
slowly.
Connor let out a
frustrated sigh. "Yeah, but that didn't mean that I wanted to see him publicly
humiliated. I have no beef with the guy."
"We have," someone else
said, another girl.
Rusty pressed himself to
the wall in a dramatic move. Then, he peeked for a split second. "Connor's
whole crew is there," he mouthed at Jonathan. "Look."
Jonathan put a hand up.
He wanted to hear a little more before revealing his presence.
"Why would you even do
such a thing?" Connor asked.
"He dissed you," a third
girl said. "Who the hell does he think he is? Don't tell me you weren't hurt
that he chose that meathead over you."
"Yeah, he deserves this,"
another voice intervened, belonging to a male this time. "It doesn't matter if
you didn't want him to get punished. Jonathan Hamilton was born with a silver
spoon in his mouth but, as a grownup, it looks like he prefers something else."
Sneers and laughs followed that little speech.
Rusty nodded thoughtfully
and pursed his lips. "The meathead is Maddox," he mouthed at Jonathan.
"No, he doesn't deserve
this," Connor said in a cutting voice. "And why did you go over my head with
this?"
"We tried to tell you,
but you were acting like a total pussy," the first girl said.
The insult seemed to
silence Connor for a moment.
That only encouraged the
girl to continue. "You kept on complaining about how Jonathan Hamilton prefers
Maddox Kingsley, you know, the guy who's everything we all hate. So, we took
matters in our own hands."
"Over me?" Connor repeated,
seemingly lacking the words to reprimand his crew.
"Yes, over you. We love
you, Connor, but maybe you need to do some more growing to be a proper leader.
We're willing to wait, you know?"
"I've never asked such a
thing from you." This time, Connor sounded a bit creeped out by that weird
confession of love.
"It doesn't matter. And
it's out in the open now."
"Yes, it is," Connor
said. "But for what good? Hurting Jonathan serves who? Aren't we supposed to be
the good guys?" It appeared that he was trying to reason with them.
The girl laughed, and the
others followed. "Wake up, Connor, baby," she cooed in a sugary voice. "It's
all about us against them."
"What are you talking
about?" Connor asked.
"We're the outcasts, and
they're the popular guys. Let Maddox Kingsley show off now with his cocksucking boyfriend while everyone laughs at them. I bet
he'll drop him like a hot potato."
"Why are you talking like
that?" Connor seemed shocked by the conversation, even more than Jonathan felt.
"I thought we got together because we all believed in something, and it wasn't
supposed to be going against the popular guys. It was supposed to be about
protecting the environment--"
Harsh laughter
interrupted Connor's tirade. "Really? You know, Connor, sometimes I think you
should pull your head out of your ass."
"Jeez, Rose, mind the
language," Connor reacted.
"Well, let me tell you,
and I'm speaking for everyone here. We chose you, Connor, because we needed a
guy who could hang out with all crowds equally so that we can find out things about
them we could use. You didn't choose us."
"I have no words," Connor
murmured, apparently very much shocked by that revelation. "I don't think I
want to hang out with you, guys, anymore. I'm going to apologize to Jonathan in
your name, but we're no longer friends."
"Seriously, Connor? After
everything we've done for you?" The girl now sounded agitated.
"Yes, seriously. I have
no intention of being associated with you."
"You're going to regret
this, Connor," the girl called Rose said in a sharp tone.
Rusty grabbed Jonathan's
arm and hurried him to head out of there.
"What are we doing?"
Jonathan asked as soon as they were far enough from Connor and his crew. He was
boiling on the inside. "I wanted to tell them a few things myself."
Rusty grinned. "My dude,
why get mad when you can get even?"
Jonathan was about to ask
what he meant, when Rusty showed him the phone. Quick thinking had to be the
guy's middle name.
"Let's watch the ripple
effect," Rusty said and tapped on the screen with satisfaction.
Once more that fair
morning, everyone began checking their phones. This time, the puzzlement on
their faces spoke volumes.
***
"Wow, I have no words,
JJ," Ray commented cheerfully while pretending to wash the dishes. "I mean, for
real, those scumbags! What do they have against you? Just because you didn't
want to get cozy with their pal, the king of douchebags?"
"Connor wasn't part of
the blackmail," Jonathan reminded his bestie, but Ray waved like that was a
detail that could easily be overlooked. He was about to say something more,
when a knock on their front door interrupted them.
"Wow, someone's
boyfriend's impatient," Ray commented.
Maddox knew they would be
getting together that evening, so Jonathan doubted it was him at the door. He
wasn't entirely surprised to see Connor there.
"Can I talk to you,
Jonathan?" he asked. He had a somber look on his face and appeared ready to be
denied entry.
He had no intention of doing
so. After the video taken by Rusty had made its rounds of the campus, Connor's
crew had been welcomed by a booing committee when they emerged from their
hiding spot. At first, they had been completely taken by surprise, but little
by little, they had seemed to understand.
And made a run for it. A
literal run in the most literal sense of the word. No one chased after them. If
anything, their sudden breaking into a run took everyone by surprise.
Now, as bluntly put
before by his friends, he might just get that confession straight from the
horse's mouth, only that it wasn't the blackmailing horse who was knocking on
his door. Still, he would take it, since he was curious to hear why some
strangers would hate his guts so much as to force him to leave the campus and
his studies behind.
"Come on in," he replied
and stepped out of the doorway, to let Connor enter.
Ray came out of the small
kitchen armed with a wooden spoon. "If you do something to Jonathan," he
threatened and added nothing more. He just waved the spoon to make sure that
Connor understood the message. Jonathan had a hunch that Ray looked up to Dex and mimicked the guy's intimidating ways. As much as
Ray looked like it would take several of him to make a Dex
Solomon, the technique appeared to work. Connor's shoulders slumped, in an
effort to make him appear smaller. "I have no such intentions and never had,"
he said.
Ray moved the spoon to the
other hand and pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at Connor. "I'm
watching you."
"Ray, I'm going to talk
to Connor for a bit in my room," Jonathan intervened.
Connor walked toward his
bedroom at his invitation, with Ray still watching them like a mother hawk.
Jonathan smiled at him and Ray nodded, full of self-importance. Who could be
afraid of anything in the world with such a guardian angel, ready to intervene
at the drop of a hat?
Once in Jonathan's room,
Connor refused his invitation to take a seat. Jonathan, however, sat on a chair
and crossed his legs, waiting for an explanation that would throw a bit more
light and maybe some sense on the blackmail he had been subjected to.
"I have no idea where to
start, Jonathan."
There was a bit of a
dramatic undertone in that, but Jonathan decided to let it slide. Good thing
Ray wasn't sitting in. He would take Connor apart. "How about you start with
how your people found the video?" he suggested.
"They're not my people,"
Connor said with a grimace. "I thought they were good people, not... whatever
they truly are."
Jonathan had his own
theory about that. Connor wasn't the kind to have friends; he was more the kind
to have followers. Hence the problem of never bothering to get to know them
properly. But Connor wasn't there for a therapy session, and Jonathan wasn't
interested in giving away free advice.
"I found the video,"
Connor said in one breath. "I was, um, just watching stuff--"
"Porn," Jonathan
corrected him. "You were watching porn."
"Yeah," Connor admitted
and looked down, embarrassed.
According to Rusty, one
hundred percent of people between twenty and twenty-two in the world were
watching porn. Of course, Jonathan had tried to get that tidbit out of his
head, but Rusty insisted that he knew more about statistics and porn than any
other living being on the face of the planet. Jonathan didn't exactly dare to disagree
with that, no matter what his thoughts on the matter were.
"It was a crap shoot, I
guess," Connor continued. "Imagine my surprise."
"I'd rather not,"
Jonathan said. Even if Connor wasn't directly responsible for all that drama,
Jonathan couldn't bring himself to sympathize with him too much.
"Well, anyway, it was my
fault, because I showed it to them."
"Your people," Jonathan
insisted.
"I told you, they're not—Anyway," Connor decided to let it drop, "they got it into
their heads that it could be used against you. I told them to drop it."
"Was it that girl's, Rose's,
idea?" Jonathan asked. "Why does she keep hiding her face? Is she someone
famous?"
Connor shook his head.
"No, she's just... well, they're not well adjusted people, let's just say that."
"Let's," Jonathan said
with a shrug. "Wait, is she one of the triplets?"
"Triplets?" Connor asked,
somewhat confused.
"There are three girls.
They all seem the same," Jonathan explained. "Are they sisters?"
"Ah, you mean, Rose,
Nadia, and Gail. No, they're not, but they do try to be as similar as
possible."
"Why?" Jonathan asked.
Connor seemed embarrassed
by the question. "As I said, they're not very well-adjusted. Now that I think
about it, they were talking all kinds of crazy. They say they want to combine
into one person, fool the world, things like that."
"But Rose is the leader,"
Jonathan pointed out.
"Yes, that's true. Nadia
and Gail don't get out of their dorm room a lot, and when they do, they only do
it if Rose is present."
"That day, when we met in
the cafeteria, it was her, right?"
"Yeah," Connor said,
although it felt as if, for a moment, he was wondering if that was true. "I
suppose that, in a way, she has always been the real leader of the group. Not
me. Otherwise, the others wouldn't have followed her in all this," he waved
vaguely, "instead of coming to me."
"Is she in love with
you?" Jonathan asked another question he thought legit.
"In love with me?"
Connor's eyebrows shot up. "No. I'm gay," he said matter-of-factly as if
Jonathan had to be hearing that for the first time.
"Well, that isn't reason
enough for her not to love you," Jonathan pointed out.
Connor shivered for a
moment, like someone who had suddenly discovered some creepy crawler moving up
their leg. "I have never encouraged her."
Jonathan didn't quite
believe him, but again, it wasn't his business. However, Rose appeared to be a
manipulative, dangerous person. Who thought up blackmails and talked like that
to strangers as she had done in the messages she had sent him? So, it was basic
courtesy to tell Connor that. "I'm not in any position to give you any advice,
Connor, but I think you should stop seeing her. Even if you're not encouraging
her, she appears to have certain ideas about you." He hoped his words had been
chosen carefully enough to not have Connor believe that he was calling Rose
crazy to his face.
"She's a crazy one,"
Connor said in his stead. "I'm staying away from her. And the rest of them."
"What are they going to
do? They're not the ones who've been writing Xpress all these years, are they?"
It didn't appear so, but that was just another item to be crossed off the list.
"No," Connor confirmed
his guess. "They cannot be. They're not interested in gossip at all, and Rose
was quite annoyed whenever I mentioned Xpress."
"For the record,"
Jonathan said, "it wasn't my intention to turn them into pariahs."
"Well, it was their
intention to turn you into one, so I suppose we can call that poetic justice,"
Connor said matter-of-factly. "Anyway, I wanted to come here and apologize in
person. If I hadn't mentioned the video, they wouldn't have had anything to use
against you."
It wasn't probably his
place to ask, since they weren't friends, but he had been raised like that.
"Are you going to be all right?"
Connor seemed surprised
by his question, but after that, he frowned. "Of course, I will. I can always
make other friends."
Or gather other
followers. As Jonathan accompanied Connor out of the room, he thought that at
least here was someone who didn't appear to have learned anything from the
whole situation and its consequences.
***
Apparently,
we were wrongfully accused of some wrongdoings... Ah, our little hearts are still
bleeding over it. The Amazing Four thought we were behind the dissemination of
a certain compromising video featuring our local royalty, Jonathan Hamilton.
Just to make things clear, if we had been in possession of the respective
video, we would have never released it. Never. We have standards to uphold.
Maddox held the phone and
read the whole thing to Jonathan. "So, how did Xpress get hold of this video of
Connor and his gang?"
Jonathan shrugged. "It's
some big mystery."
Maddox groaned. "You and
Rusty disappeared for like ten minutes or so. Don't think I didn't notice." He
pretended to be pissed only so Jonathan would hug him from behind and kiss the
side of his neck in apology. "Did you or Rusty take the video?"
"Rusty. I was too busy
being outraged by it all. I didn't even have time to agree."
"That's Rusty for you.
The sword of justice," Maddox said with a chuckle. "Those assholes. Why the
hell did they do it, anyway?"
"Some misplaced sense of
loyalty, I suppose," Jonathan explained. "Connor wasn't happy they did that. He
even came to me to apologize, although it wasn't his fault."
"It was, in a way,"
Maddox said.
"How so?"
Maddox turned to face his
boyfriend. Jonathan was just too nice and good sometimes. He pressed his
fingers against the frown between Jonathan's eyebrows. "Connor gathered this
kind of people around him because he likes being worshipped and never
questioned. It's not exactly like having proper friends."
"No, you're right,"
Jonathan agreed.
"So, because he has
always been a douchebag, he surrounded himself with like-minded people."
"He wasn't to blame for this,
though. I feel sort of bad. He seems lonely."
Maddox snorted. "He'll
live. As for the other scumbags, I heard they're considering a transfer.
Because of our little revolution, word got to the powers that be. I even heard
that the president called them in for a reprimand."
"And Rusty as well, who
declared that he made the t-shirts," Jonathan pointed out.
"Don't worry. He only got
a little slap on the wrist."
"Well, I guess I'm glad I
won't have to run into my blackmailers next year," Jonathan commented. "As much
as you think I'm a nice guy, I'm not entirely sure that I'd be able to keep
everything I think and feel about them inside."
"Don't worry. For what's
left of this year, they're going to keep a low profile. Everyone hates their
guts. Even Xpress, and that says a lot."
Jonathan seemed to ponder
for a bit. "Maddox, do you really think Xpress would have not released the
video if they had it?"
"It's a tough question.
But you know, there is something kind of irking me. When the assholes behind
the blackmail contacted you, they said that the video would be dropped by
Xpress."
"So?"
"That means that they
might have tried to get Xpress to go public with it and didn't succeed."
"Yes, but it all seemed
to happen very fast. I suppose they were expecting me to cave in," Jonathan
reasoned.
Maddox shrugged. "Still.
It was easier for them to hide behind Xpress."
"Are we thinking Xpress
is kind and understanding now?"
They both burst into
laughter at the same time. "I suppose not."
They stared at each other
for a few moments. Maddox was glad they were in his room, because that meant
Jonathan would be easy to entice to spend the night. And he liked his big bed a
lot better than Jonathan's narrow one. Not that they couldn't make do with
whatever they had at their disposal.
"You know, I don't
remember if I properly thanked your friends for everything they did for me. Dex really put the fear of all things holy into everyone
who dared to do as little as smile the wrong way in my direction."
"Don't forget about Rusty
running around and pointing at the eggplant on his t-shirt and yelling `you're
all a bunch of cocksuckers, pay your respects to the cock'."
"Funny thing, that was
after the entire truth was revealed," Jonathan commented.
"Can you imagine Rusty
missing a chance to bask in the heat of the spotlights?"
"Not really, no. I bet he
left at least a few guys feeling very confused about the whole thing. Everyone
thought Rusty was the cock and needed to be revered."
Maddox laughed and hugged
Jonathan tightly. "Everyone's here. Let's go downstairs and you can thank them
to your heart's content. Be warned. They might want you to cook for them. Don't
cave under the pressure."
"I don't mind, as you
know," Jonathan said. "And Ray and Hanna are already here, so the pressure will
be pretty high already."
"You know what I think,
babe?" Maddox dared to bring it up.
"What?"
"I get it that we're too
young and still studying..."
"Hmm..."
"But not for something
that is less, let's say, family-involving..."
"Yes..."
"How would you feel about
getting engaged? For real?" Maddox finally mustered the courage to ask.
"You think that's less
family-involving?"
"Yeah. I mean, we can do
it, all official and that, later, but I want something that's just between you
and me."
He hoped he didn't sound
really lame by proposing such a thing. Jonathan surprised him by cupping his
cheeks and kissing him on the nose tenderly. "I don't see why not."
"Good, so it's a given.
We're going to do it, this summer."
"Just let me know the
date. Wait, so what is this going to be like? If we aren't involving the
family--"
"I'm going to think of
something."
As usual, it was true
that Maddox hadn't thought of all the details. But, with Jonathan, he knew that
he would make them up as they went and everything would be great. There was
nothing standing in their way, and he'd make sure that nothing ever would.
TBC
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