Off Base (Out of Uniform 1)
Chapter Eight
“Fuck straight guys.” Pike punched his pillow. Or rather don’t fuck them. Hadn’t he been down this road before? He knew better than to kiss Zack, but he’d been powerless in the face of all those bare muscles and those hungry eyes. God, the soft sigh Zack had made when Pike landed on him, all low and needy, and then he’d looked at Pike’s mouth like it held the solution to a pop quiz on standard deviations. So what had Pike done? He’d deviated from all his resolutions and kissed the guy.
Shit. He flipped over the bed, rumpling his Tardis comforter. He really was going to make a crappy professor. He couldn’t even enforce his own damn rules for himself. The whole professor thing had played a part in why he caved though. It had been a crappy day, one where he discovered that even in a tie, people kept mistaking him for a student, and that being an official professor meant far more paperwork and hoops than he’d dreamed possible. He kept waiting for someone to pop out with a hidden camera and tell him this was all a joke, that no way could he be expected to be a professor now and follow all the university rules and be in charge of shit.
When he’d come home, he’d been strangely happy to see Zack’s truck in the driveway next to the Dumpster. They hadn’t seen each other much at all while Zack had been on duty, but he’d come to look forward to the sporadic texts about reminders for the house stuff. And it was kind of nice to have someone to come home to. He’d intentionally never lived alone because he liked having someone to talk to instead of being trapped in his own head all the time. So he’d planned to vent as soon as he walked in, but then he’d found Zack under the house in pursuit of his cat. A switch had flipped in Pike’s brain—Zack wasn’t simply a convenient set of ears for Pike’s ramblings, but a real roommate, one who gave a shit whether Pike’s cats were okay. Maybe they were on their way to friendship after all.
And friends took care of each other when they were hurt. It was only natural that his chest had felt too small at the sight of Zack’s wounds and that he’d wanted to help. And only natural that he’d wanted to touch that chiseled, surprisingly furry chest and kiss...
“Fuck.” He punched the pillow again. He was so stupid. He lay there, looking up at the ceiling for so long he almost started to drift off, startled awake by the sound of the doorbell.
“Hey, Pike?” Zack’s voice called from somewhere out in the hall. “I...uh...there was no food, so I ordered a pizza. Got you sausage and pineapple on half and asked for those little pepper things you like on the side.”
Oh hell. Now Pike had to go be nice with Mr. “I’m just waiting for the right girl” if he wanted food. And clearly Zack intended the pizza as a peace offering of sorts, even remembering what Pike had ordered the last time there had been pizza at Ryan and Josiah’s house.
“Coming,” he called back because really, what choice did he have?
They lacked a dining table so Zack had set the pizza on the rug in front of the TV along with some of the plates Pike had brought with him from LA.
“You like the rug?” Pike asked, because talking about anything other than the kiss was a great idea.
“It’s more color than I’m used to, but yeah, it works.” Zack offered him a tentative smile as he dished up two slices for each of them. However, instead of taking a seat next to Pike on the couch, Zack stayed sitting on the rug. He’d ordered Canadian bacon on his half, and he picked a piece off the slice and ate it.
“There’s a great thrift store near the campus. I got the rug and slipcover there dirt cheap. If we’ve got time tomorrow, we could go grab a table and two chairs maybe.” Pike folded one of his slices in half and took a bite.
“Maybe.” Zack shifted around on the rug. Fuck. Time to address the real big rainbow-colored elephant in the room.
“Look. Making this place livable isn’t going to turn you gay. I promise.” Pike nudged him with his foot. “And neither will kissing me.” The pizza turned to ash in his stomach as he said the words he knew that poor, confused straight boy needed to hear. “I promise. It was my fault and it’ll stay our secret.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Zack said firmly, but his neck turned pink, and he started fiddling with the remote for the TV. “But you...don’t want...ah...not again?”
“Are you asking if I want a repeat?” Pike gaped at him. Lord save me from confused-yet-horny straight boys. Seriously. What did I do in a past life to deserve this?