If he got any more nervous, I was going to put vodka in his bottle. Vodka and orange juice went well together, so maybe apple would work in a pinch.

“I know. You don’t have to say it again.” But the way Bryan was aimlessly wandering around the apartment pretending to clean said I probably should.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Starting in on my speech for the third time, I smiled when he jumped in.

“But I need to remember that they won’t think any less of me and there’s nothing to worry about.” Bryan sighed as he finished. “I know it up here.”

He gestured toward his head then shrugged. “It’s the rest of me that keeps forgetting.”

Dr. Shepard thought the best way for Bryan to ease into being little around others was by being in that headspace around Kevin. It was a sound idea, but it wasn’t easy. Bryan had kept all of that inside himself for so long, sharing it made him feel more exposed than if he was running naked through campus.

I had a feeling he’d rather run naked through campus.

But he wanted to be able to play with other littles, and I had a feeling he wanted to prove it to Cody. Their relationship had gotten better, but Cody was still nervous around us because Bryan was so nervous around him. It was a weird cycle that needed to be broken…and the only way to break it was for Bryan to get more confident.

Tough guys didn’t scream. Even when something knocked on the window in the middle of the night. But gasping a little and taking some deep breaths were perfectly acceptable—especially since I was only eight. Getting out of bed and going over to the window in my small room made me all kinds of badass, though.

“Shit, man, are you trying to kill me?” Opening the window, my chest finally stopped pounding when I realized it was Hayden. I didn’t have to fake being badass for him. He knew me too well.
Hayden had been my best friend and neighbor for as long as I could remember. He’d just always been there. But that wasn’t surprising. My mother always complained that once people moved into the trailer park where we lived, it was where they stayed until they died.

Since Mr. Murphy’s trailer had gotten hauled away last week after his heart attack a few months ago, she must have actually been right about that. I thought she’d just been being dramatic like my grandma had claimed.

“I’m sorry, Trent.” Hayden’s voice was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it.

“Climb in. You don’t have to whisper. Grandma don’t have her hearing aids in at night and Mom’s over at her boyfriend’s.” Grandma didn’t have many rules, but one of them was no sleepovers. The only exception was for Hayden and that was just because Grandma thought his parents were worse than white trash. But she wouldn’t tell me what that was.

All I could figure out was that it was someone who drank a lot and never had enough food in the house.

The funeral seemed to be his breaking point. Gage had walked and paced and stalked every inch of the house in the days since the accident, but he’d seemed to be holding it together. Something about seeing them both laid to rest broke him…or maybe broke the stranglehold he had on his emotions.

Gage liked control.

Control over his emotions.

Control over his future.

Control over me.

What nineteen-year-old thought they had to worry about their parents getting killed in a car accident? I wondered if knowing there was nothing he could have done broke something inside him. Hell, maybe the last piece of sanity, and I just hadn’t noticed how little the thread had gotten.

But how could I?

I found him on Craigslist. It probably wasn’t some place you were supposed to go to meet people. I mean, the personals were fun to look at, especially when you were drunk or something, and the section for trying to get in touch with that random stranger you saw on the street was hilarious. But no one actually met people from Craigslist. Well, no one except me.
He was interesting.

Sometimes I couldn’t decide if I liked him or not. Other times it felt like I might be obsessed with the guy. It seemed like a relationship where someone who was outside looking in would label it as unhealthy or odd. It didn’t feel that way.

It felt natural. Like I’d known him forever.

I’d read somewhere that good roommates were supposed to be like that. The article, or maybe it was a book…maybe an online magazine—that wasn’t the point—had said that a good roommate was like a lover.

You might know by just looking at them that the chemistry would be amazing. It might take you a while to get there, but in the end, it would feel perfect. Or they’d turn out to be totally crazy, and while you suspected that to begin with, you didn’t listen to the little voice in your head.

I wasn’t so sure about the lover analogy, but the article had gotten one thing right. I’d known that he was the perfect roommate from the moment we met. The lover analogy still confused me, even after we’d been living together for almost six months. I thought that once he’d moved in it would help me make sense of it, that I would finally just get it one day. But maybe I needed to have a lover first for the author’s meaning to sink in.

“You ask him. You’re the one who’s curious.” Bryan’s whispered voice held an edge of panic, but since it was Kevin egging him on, I thought that was to be expected.

“But you’re the one who’s little, so you should ask.” Kevin seemed to be trying to convince Bryan that his logic was sound, but there was obviously some debate over that.

“This isn’t my idea. I don’t even know why I’m listening to you.” Bryan’s voice was clearly stressed but since he seemed more likely to hit Kevin than pass out, I didn’t step in. “You’re a nuisance, and I’m going to tell Jeremy you’re driving me crazy.”

Kevin just giggled. “Good, I haven’t been spanked in days.”

Bryan groaned. “I don’t need to know that.”

Kevin giggled again.

“Let’s just go.” Evidently whatever Kevin was trying to talk Bryan into wasn’t sounding like such a good idea anymore.

But Kevin was persistent.

“You’re going to feel ridiculous if you chicken out now.” There was a pause, and I knew more than likely Kevin had hugged his still-nervous friend. “Besides, it’s just a question, it’s not like you have to do anything.”

“But what if he thinks it’s stupid or too personal?” Bryan’s voice dipped quieter, but I heard his nerves even more clearly.

What do you get the man who has everything for Valentine’s Day? Chocolate? No, he was allergic . Card? He thought fake romance was disturbing, and there was no way I was crafty enough to make one. Dinner out at a nice restaurant? He ended up with food poisoning last time, so he wanted to pick the restaurant this year.

Go with an experience, my mother said. Just go out and do something together, his brother said. That wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be. We both had busy jobs and couldn’t take time off from work in February. I was scared of heights, so that left out those ropes courses and things. We both thought something like a spa would be painfully boring.

So I started thinking outside the box.

He really shouldn’t have left the planning up to me. He should have learned that after the vacation disaster two years ago. He’d said fun and carefree…evidently that hadn’t meant an indoor waterpark resort filled with families.

I’d thought it sounded like fun.

Tobias didn’t. He was a bit too serious sometimes. That was one of the things I liked about him, though. He wasn’t boring, but he was thoughtful and focused, and I never had to worry about him doing something stupid like spending all our rent money on lottery tickets and Girl Scout cookies because he’d gone grocery shopping while high.

But that seriousness made holiday shopping for him more…interesting.