The Tight End (Red's Tavern 6)

Being something real.

My heart ached a little as I let go of Logan’s hand, suddenly self-conscious about overstaying my welcome. I had to keep my hands, my heart, and my dick to myself, tonight.

“Bryant! There you fuckin’ are!” a voice roared the moment I stepped through the door at the party. In another moment Mike appeared, throwing his arms around me, already well on his way to being drunk.

Hip-hop music blared in the background as we walked through the wide wooden doors of the frat house. Zeta Kappa Nu was one of the bigger fraternities on the KMU campus and had long been associated with the Wolves football team. Not every member was a football player, and not every football player was a member—I’d never joined, though I ended up at house parties here all of the time. But the frat house was the de facto second home for the team.

Walking in with Logan made me see the house with fresh eyes again. He looked around, his lips slightly parted, as he took in the house.

I could remember how impressive the frat house had been the first few times I’d walked in. Dozens of students lived here at a time, and it was one step short of a mini-mansion. The whole house was made of nice, dark wood in a style of architecture that I was sure Logan knew more about than me. To me, it just looked classic, with tons of framed photos all over the walls from the years and years of the fraternity. The entryway gave way to a grand ballroom that served as a living room during the week, then the sofas all got pushed toward the walls to have space to play beer pong and dance during party nights. The kitchen was to the right, huge and packed and stocked with a ton of alcohol.

After hugging me, Mike leaned back and pointed two fingers at me and Logan. “What are we doing? Tequila shots? Vodka? Whiskey?”

“All right, give me a shot of whiskey,” I said. “Logan, do you want anything?”

He was still looking around, taking in the party like he was studying it for a research project. I loved how he looked at the world like that, absorbing everything like a sponge.

“Got plenty of sodas if you don’t want to drink, my friend,” Mike kindly offered to Logan.

“I’ll take a whiskey and coke,” Logan said. “I came to party, after all.”

“Fuck yes, fam,” Mike said, immediately reaching out to give Logan a huge hug, too. “I’m so glad you came. Brody didn’t tell us he was bringing the little professor.”

“Oh no, you guys are calling me Professor, too?” Logan said.

“Well, I’ve only met you once, and you were the smartest person I’ve ever talked to. So it just felt right,” Mike said, a big, doofy smile on his red-cheeked face. “I’ll go grab you two drinks. Don’t move!”

Logan and I exchanged an amused glance as Mike bounced off into the bustling kitchen, where every square inch of the countertop surface was covered with liquor bottles.

“Mike and Vance are both so nice,” Logan said.

“They’re really good guys,” I said. “They just want to see everybody happy.”

He pulled in a slow breath. “Makes it a lot easier to be at a party like this.”

“I swear I didn’t tell them to call you Professor,” I told Logan. “I probably just said it at some point when I was talking about you, and it kind of caught on.”

“Talking about me?”

I glanced at him, biting my lip. “Yeah, I talk about you sometimes,” I said. “When I like something, I tend to talk about it a lot.”

I could see the faint pink rising in his cheeks here in the kitchen lighting.

“When I like something, I tend to think about it a lot. Way too much. Like, overthink everything.”

“Well, I hope you don’t ever overthink about me,” I said. “But I do want you to like me.”

He looked down at the floor, the hint of a smile on his face. “Of course I like you, Brody.”

Fucking lightning in my heart, just from hearing him say that.

God damn, I was in too deep.

“I’ll try not to talk about you too much to my friends,” I said.

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “I like the idea that someone was talking about me. It basically never happens. Definitely not from people like you.”

There was an ache behind my chest. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that until now, Logan had barely had any friends other than Danielle. He’d stayed in his room alone most nights, just reading until he fell asleep. This was all so new to him. And for some reason, that made Logan feel even more precious to me. Like I wanted to protect him at all costs. Or at least show him a version of the college world that he’d enjoy.