Brody sat up a little straighter, clasping together his big hands. “So if it was Jimmy’s twentieth birthday, in 1770, that would mean he was born in 1750. That’s a nice, round year. Maybe that’ll help me remember.”
Now we were getting somewhere.
I’d captured Brody’s attention, and it was incredibly rewarding. For the next hour and a half, we went through tons of exercises like this, making up characters like Jimmy for all sorts of different events around the Revolutionary War. I watched Brody’s eyes carefully, and I could see them begin to glaze over sometimes when I talked about too many dates in a row or got too into the weeds about political factions.
When I saw that I was losing him, I tried to win him back. And the push and pull was some of the most fun I’d had in a long time.
I knew I liked tutoring people. But tutoring Brody was satisfying in a way nobody else had been before. I wanted to keep him interested. I wanted to distract him from the shittiness he’d had to endure this morning.
In high school, when I’d been bullied mercilessly, I’d lost myself in stories from history. And right now, it seemed to be helping Brody, too. I couldn’t even process what that did to my heart, but I knew it was doing something to me.
By the end of the study session, I let Brody recount all of the stories we’d talked about all night. Other than a couple of dates he got wrong, he was remembering almost everything. When he remembered multiple events of The Boston Massacre accurately, he bounced up off of the couch and pumped his arms in the air, doing a little dance.
I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Is that the classic Brody Bryant victory dance your teammates were talking about?”
“Hell no,” he said. “This is just a mini dance. If you want to see my real victory dances you’re just going to have to come to a game.”
“I told you last night, I’ll come to a game.”
“Oh, you meant that?” Brody asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Of course I did.”
He lifted one eyebrow, a look of mischief coming over his face. “I mean, you said a lot of things last night. I wasn’t sure which ones you really meant.”
I swallowed hard, shifting on the couch. My heart rate was already increasing just from thinking about last night, but I also liked it.
Just do it.
Say what you think.
Quit holding back.
“I meant all of them,” I said.
His eyes went wide, just for a moment. He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, biting it for a moment before letting it go.
I swore he was looking at me like he was about to pounce on me.
And I wanted him to.
“Is that right?” he said softly, not letting his gaze leave mine. I felt frozen in place, but I tried not to let on how flustered I was. How fucking hot every inch of my skin had gotten just from this conversation.
I nodded my head, unable to force words out of my throat right now.
“So you want to ‘kiss me all the time,’ huh, roomie?” Brody asked, still gazing at me like it was a challenge. He stepped toward me, standing between my legs as I sat back on the couch.
All of the blood in my body was rushing to my cock now.
I gulped, scrambling for what the hell to say. How the hell did people flirt? My brain was in a state of total meltdown mush.
“I might even want to do more,” I said.
If I’d been trying to de-escalate the situation in my pants, that certainly wasn’t going to help.
Brody reached his arms up above his head, stretching his body out. His shirt rode up, exposing the taut planes of abdominal muscles just above the waistband of his sweatpants. I knew I was staring, but at this point, I just couldn’t look away.
Even in the simplest clothes—a fitted white T-shirt and light grey sweatpants—his body looked like a damn sculpture. I watched as he stretched out his arms and neck and back, right in front of me, knowing that he was giving me a show. I wondered what it might be like to have such a perfect body.
Or even just to feel such a perfect body.
He knew exactly what he was doing. What effect it had on me, seeing him stretch like that. And I kind of loved that.
“What have you got going on for the rest of the night?” he asked, letting his arms down and turning back toward the table to gather up the various notes he’d taken throughout the night. It was like he’d snapped back into being casual, but I knew it was just an act.
He was teasing me, still.
Getting me super fucking riled up and then acting normal again. Why was that so fucking hot? It was like he was edging me, and he hadn’t even touched my dick.