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The first time Jalen told Josh to cut it out, he was smiling, letting out half-laughs every few seconds. The second time, he’s quieter. Josh looks over at him, horizontal across the end of Jalen’s bed in his party clothes, telling a story to the ceiling. Jalen left an hour before Josh, mostly because he realized Josh was getting tired of leaning against a wall with him, and Jalen didn't feel like drinking enough to actually act like he was having fun. He tries not to drink much around Josh anymore at all, because when he's drunk, he somehow always convinces himself he can put on a convincing imitation of a normal person, and he never actually can. He ends up sentimental, standing too close to Josh and saying things that are way too honest. It's better to avoid it all together.
“Just stop,” Jalen says, as lightly as he can. “It’s gross.”
“You sound like a fucking virgin,” Josh says, and it stings because it’s true, only Josh doesn’t know that, which almost makes it worse. Jalen keeps his face neutral.
“Cuz I don’t wanna hear about you fucking some random girl?” Jalen says.
“Cuz you always get weird about sex," Josh says. He's looking at the ceiling again. It's dark out, but Josh got them a lamp from the campus store, and it's projecting the shadow of Josh's side profile against the far wall. Jalen stares at it and pretends he's staring out the window.
“I’m not weird about sex,” Jalen says, weakly adding “fuck you” as an afterthought.
“Fuck me?” Josh repeats, eyes back at the ceiling, still smiling. “I’m tryna tell you a story, don't get mad."
Jalen rolls his eyes. “You need a fuckin’ shower,” he says.
"How is she a random girl if you met her?" Josh says, ignoring the last comment. "Like you literally know who I'm talking about."
Jalen just shakes his head. "If you're not gonna shut the fuck up can you just tell me what happened and go to sleep?"
Josh scoffs. "Whatever," he says. "It's not like I'm marrying her, I'm just sayin' it was fun."
"Great," Jalen says. "Now can you—"
"When's the last time you hooked up with someone?" Josh says, and something dark turns in Jalen's stomach. Because he knows Josh, and he knows there's something more than casual in the upward tilt of his voice. He knows Jalen doesn't do hookups. They never talk like this. Except when Josh is bragging, or Jalen is talking about a girl to distract from the fact that the closest he's come to getting his dick wet was the singular time Josh tried to set him up with a girl at a party. Jalen froze, it didn't really work.
"I dunno," Jalen says. "I'm busy."
"I'm not busy?" Josh says, rolling over, toward Jalen, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. "You train too fuckin' much."
"Yeah, and we'll see who gets the lower draft pick."
"Fuck you," Josh says, grinning at him. Jalen smiles back too, tentatively, like he might've actually managed to successfully navigate his way out of whatever corner Josh is talking him into.
And then one of Josh's hands comes to Jalen's ankles, unexpectedly enough to make him flinch over top of his bedsheets.
"Overtraining is a bitch, y'know," Josh says, low and knowing, amber eyes fixed on Jalen. "Probably feel better if you took a day off once in a while."
"I—" Jalen begins.
"You left early," Josh says. "Why you always do that?"
"I don't, always," Jalen says stiltedly. "You were with... fuckin'.... Alison."
"Alyssa."
"Alyssa. I was tired," Jalen says. "Just wanted to sleep. So if you could fuck off and let me do that—"
Josh sits up, hand not straying from Jalen's ankle. Maybe he's right, maybe Jalen does train too much. Because his touch is burning, and Jalen has a sneaker blister and he ran ten miles this morning, and it's laughable to think he might actually be able to fall asleep after this conversation, but he'd still like to try if Josh would just get up and let him—
"You gonna answer?" Josh says.
Jalen blinks.
"Last time you stayed out past your fuckin' bedtime and, like, spoke to a woman?"
"I speak to women," Jalen says weakly.
Josh scoffs, real soft under his breath, one corner of his mouth tugging up into a doubtful smile.
"Nah," he says. "You run back here. Every night."
Jalen looks away, finding Josh's shadow on the wall again, eyes taking in the outline of him, blocking out the light, and across from that, Jalen's own shadow, shrinking into itself.
"You know, girls ask about you," Josh continues. "Star fuckin' player. You could meet someone if you wanted to."
"Maybe I don't want to," Jalen says before he can think about it.
There's a long stretch of silence.
Finally, Jalen looks back over at Josh, and he knows full well his expression isn't hiding anything.
"You didn't answer my question," Josh says.
"Don't be an asshole," Jalen murmurs.
Josh brings his other hand to Jalen's opposite ankle, sitting up a little straighter, leaning in just a little more. And for a second, Jalen thinks, this must be what the girls see, when Josh drags them into party bedrooms that no one tells him not to use because he's their fucking star point guard. Or this dorm, banishing Jalen to the dining hall so he can show off the athlete accommodation. This must be the view from the mattress when he leans over them and gets what he came for.
"You talk about fucking," Josh says, quieter. "But you never really do it. Do you?"
"I—" Jalen begins.
"When's the last time?" Josh asks.
"Fuck off," Jalen breathes, and Josh just nods knowingly, like that's the answer he was looking for all along.
"Thought so," Josh says, and Jalen hates it, he hates Josh's eyes on him right now. He hates how well Josh has learned to read his silences.
Jalen is waiting for a collision, some kind of attack or gotcha, but nothing comes. Josh takes his hands off Jalen's ankles, sighing, pulling back to lean against the wall, legs extended out long across the bed.
Eventually, Josh just says: "That's cool, man."
Jalen scoffs. He's still fucking burning all over. He can feel it in his ankles; a welcome substitute to the usually constant feeling of shin splints and swelling.
"Go fuckin' shower now. You smell like sweat," Jalen says.
Josh pulls his tee shirt unceremoniously over his head and throws it over into the ever-growing pile of laundry vegetating in one corner of the room, leaning back against the wall and looking over at Jalen.
"We gotta get you laid," he says, and his eyes seem to move over Jalen's body in a way that makes him fidget. He's in a tee shirt and boxers. He realizes, only now, that this shirt actually belonged to Josh when they first moved in. Everything they both own has gotten a little mixed up since then.
"I'll get around to it," Jalen says.
"You scared or something?" Josh asks.
Jalen forces a scoff. "Am I scared?"
"Yeah," Josh says, expression open, shrugging. "Are you?"
"No," Jalen says. "I'm not fucking scared. Dude, can you actually—"
"I'm trying to help, stop bein' so fucking difficult," Josh says.
"Maybe I don't want fucking help," Jalen says.
"Well, like, just tell me what you're into," Josh says.
"Okay, we are not having this fucking conversation," Jalen says.
"Come on, I know it's something. You think I can't hear you jerking off like every night in this bed?" Josh says, and Jalen freezes. Josh's tone is still light, but this isn't joke territory anymore. Unless Josh is doing it on purpose—making Jalen squirm so he can break in a few seconds and laugh it all off.
"Fuck off," Jalen says, not even trying to pretend it's funny anymore. Josh must hear the change in his voice, because his smile drops and he tilts his head. Jalen knows that look. He's seen it on the court a million times. It's a challenge.
"Fuck off?" Josh repeats quieter in a way that means make me and Jalen feels hot all over, and Josh isn't moving. Josh isn't leaving.
"Josh, get the fuck out of my bed," Jalen says, and when Josh still doesn't move, Jalen feels himself lunging toward him, grabbing him by the wrists, trying to somehow force him off the side. It doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work, Josh Hart is an immovable object. Jalen is still trying to push him aside when Josh turns onto offense, using Jalen's grip on him to push back, until Jalen is falling roughly against the mattress, Josh above him, shoving him down.
"Don't fight," Josh says, half a foot above Jalen's face.
Jalen grits his teeth, trying to get out from under him. He's released Josh's wrists by now, but that doesn't help, even pushing him by the shoulders isn't much help against the full weight of Josh on top of him.
"Stop," Josh breathes. "Don't fight."
Jalen goes limp. For the first time, he looks up at Josh, actually looks at him, bare chested, closer than they ever get off the court. Their legs are bracketing each other, Josh's hands are braced next to Jalen's head.
"I kinda lied to you before," Josh says, and it's so fucking laughable given the circumstances, given the fact that every time Jalen inhales, he can feel his shirt—Josh's shirt, actually—brushing the bare skin of Josh's stomach, and he an smell beer and feel heat radiating off of him.
"About what?" Jalen says, because sincerity seems like the least ridiculous response considering his current position.
"I didn't even fuck her," Josh says, quieter. "I could've. But. I didn't."
"Why not?" Jalen asks, expecting Josh to roll off him now, sit up and pretend this never happened. But Josh doesn't.
"Didn't feel like it," Josh says. "Wanted to come back here."
Jalen swallows hard. "I didn't know you could hear me," he murmurs. "At night, I mean."
"Well," Josh says. "I was kinda listening for it."
Jalen exhales a disbelieving laugh. He should start telling Josh to fuck off again. He should try to get out of this hold.
"Sorry," Jalen says, instead. "If I... like, woke you up, or—"
"Shut up," Josh says. He's still staring down at Jalen, eyes moving over his face, then back up to meet his. "I didn't complain."
"Oh," Jalen says.
"You're so..." Josh begins, shaking his head slowly. "Good. All the fuckin' time."
"I'm really not," Jalen says.
"Yeah," Josh says. "You are. Good at guarding, good at school, you're in bed by ten thirty, you're always on time to shit, you never drink too much, you never smoke."
Jalen is almost certain Josh is making fun of him. He doesn't care enough to tell him to stop anymore. In a sick, secret way, he likes the feeling of being stared at like this.
"You smoke?" he asks.
"You don't know everything about me," Josh says, and gives the tiniest shift of his hips. Jalen sucks in a quick breath before he can stop himself. Josh clocks it. Jalen knows he does, because his eyes widen, just a little, in the way they always do when he knows he has the upper hand over someone on the court.
If this is a game, Jalen just lost it.
"So you never...?" Josh says.
"No," Jalen says.
Josh shifts his hips again, past the point of all plausible deniability.
"It feels better with someone else," Josh says.
"Josh," Jalen breathes.
Josh lowers to his elbows on either side of Jalen's head.
"I could show you," he says, close to Jalen's ear. "Might make you play better tomorrow. If you loosen up a little."
Jalen grunts out something like "fuck" or "yeah." He's not totally sure what leaves his mouth, just that a second later, he can feel Josh's smile against his neck, and the two of them hardening against each other at the same time as Josh grinds down into him, and then he's just cursing and squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to think too hard about what exactly they're doing.
It feels all dark and wrong and dangerous, but Jalen has also lost all control of his rational mind by now, and the deeper part of him, the undisciplined part that his father all but scared out of him, has always been thinking about this.
Fuck. He's never getting over this. He's never living this down, he's never... God, Josh is biting the side of his neck. Jalen's mind slows down a little.
Josh is better at this than him. Jalen knew that. He knew the girls he walked past in the hallway on the way back into his room always had private, satisfied smiles on their faces, and he knew Josh had a reputation for being good with girls. That thought sends a dark shiver of backward satisfaction through him—the idea of being one of Josh's girls, one of the nameless figures that Jalen had spent more nights than he'd care to admit awake and thinking about as he listened to Josh's breathing even out, hand sneaking beneath the covers to touch himself with burning cheeks at the vague thoughts of long braids and lipstick smudging onto Josh's skin, the perfume smell that always lingered on Josh's side of the room. He gets it now. He always knew Josh was doing something right, but the feeling of him actually on top of him, actually moving against him... fuck. There's feeling building rapidly in the pit of his stomach and he knows he can't control it, knows he's going to humiliate himself somehow no matter what he does.
Jalen doesn't know the line here, doesn't know the rules. Josh said he would show him, does that mean this is educational? Tutorial only? But if this is educational, why is Josh's mouth still hovering over Jalen's pulse point, the spot he just sank his teeth into.
Jalen tilts his head away from Josh's, into the pillow. Josh's hips are heavy and hot on top of him, and it's all he can do not to push up against him or bring a hand between them to somehow alleviate the pressure that's building there.
"No, no, no," Josh murmurs, as Jalen presses his face into the pillow. "Come back."
And the tone of his voice, low but commanding, sends a dangerous dart of arousal through Jalen's stomach.
He turns his head back, meeting Josh's eyes again, and he knows he must look scared and turned on and idiotic, but Josh doesn't laugh at him. He leans down, until they're an inch apart, until they're passing the same hot breath between each other's mouths, and Jalen can't stop himself from arching up into the feeling of Josh against him, mouth dropping open as his stomach tenses in warning.
"Josh," he breathes, lips ever-so-slightly brushing Josh's as he forms the word.
"Come on," Josh murmurs back, mouth moving against Jalen's too, and the words make Jalen's whole body tense up with feeling so intense, he has to squeeze his eyes shut, biting his tongue and cumming in his boxers like a fucking high schooler as Josh grinds down against him so hard it's almost cruel, smirking again when he pulls back, sitting on his heels on top of Jalen's lap.
Jalen stares up at him, hazy eyed as Josh unzips his jeans. And for a second, Jalen thinks this is going somewhere entirely different, and his heart, rebellious as ever, gives a tired little jolt of excitement in his chest. But he realizes after a second Josh isn't trying to fuck him. He just pushes his jeans and boxers down enough to get his hand around his dick, leaning back, looking up at the ceiling again as he jerks himself off, and Jalen just stares, eyes getting wider as he watches Josh's muscles flex. Vaguely, he's annoyed that Josh lasted longer than he did, because it feels like losing, but then again, he's not sure how much he can say he lost when he just had the best orgasm of his life. Jesus, he thinks, Josh actually just made him cum. Just made him cum in his pants in like two minutes.
He knows he should be more ashamed of this whole thing, but it's hard to dwell on that as he hears Josh's quiet little breathes, watches his arm working faster as he finally finishes, cum splattering out onto Jalen's chest, dirtying what Jalen is sure is one of their only clean tee shirts.
When Josh is done, he drops his full weight into Jalen's lap, looking down at him for a second before clearing his throat and swinging off Jalen, collapsing next to him on the mattress.
"I, uh..." Josh begins and trails off.
Jalen looks over at him, waiting for him to say something else.
"Sorry," Josh says eventually.
"For what?" Jalen says.
"Um," Josh says. "That was probably a shitty first time."
"I don't think that really counts as a first time," Jalen mutters. "We didn't... I mean, we didn't even really do anything."
"Yeah," Josh says, looking away, up at the ceiling again. There's quiet for a long moment. Josh is the one who breaks it, inhaling and saying, "I never saw you look like that before."
Jalen hates how earnest it sounds. He hates himself for trying to press right up against the feeling, opening his mouth and saying, "Like what?"
"Like... I don't know," Josh says. "Like... something real?"
Jalen presses his lips together so he can't blurt out anything stupid. He should shower. He should change his clothes. Instead he says: "I don't usually feel like that."
And Josh turns his head toward Jalen, right at him, breathing against the sore spot on Jalen's neck that he'll have to cover up somehow in the morning.
When Jalen turns his head to look back at Josh, Josh brings a hand up to the side of his face and presses their lips together.
It's not Jalen's first kiss, but it might as well be. It's never felt like anything but skin against skin before. But this is different, this feels like Josh actually means something by it, and Jalen can't make himself pull away from it.
He can't stop the sudden onset of screaming in his body to touch, to get closer. He feels himself pushing up on his hands, moving over Josh's body on the mattress to lean down into him, lips still connected, Josh kissing him with all the slow fineness of the campus lady killer he's been for the past three years. This isn't practice. Jalen knows they aren't going to talk about this in the morning.
But maybe Josh feels it too—that same magnetic pull to crawl into each other. He leans up into Jalen's touch, eventually pushing himself up too so they're sitting across from each other in bed, and Jalen finally brings his hands to the bare skin of Josh's ribcage, trailing light fingers over the skin there, waiting for Josh to tell him to stop. He doesn't. Jalen flattens his palms against the warmth of Josh, leaning closer into his chest, feeling Josh wind one muscled arm around his neck to pull him in, and Jalen sighs, open mouthed against him. Josh takes the invitation, licking slow and sweet against Jalen's tongue in a way that sets all his nerve endings on edge.
Before Jalen can fully process what's happening, Josh is straddling him again, kisses getting less controlled, Josh's weight pressing him back. A second later, Josh breaks the kiss, but doesn't pull back. He lets his head drop against Jalen's shoulder instead, leaning forward against him.
"Fuck," Josh whispers. "I'm sorry."
For a few long seconds, Jalen just tries to catch his breath, tries to let his brain catch up to what just happened.
"Stop saying that," he says.
"I fucked this up," Josh says.
"No," Jalen says. "You didn't."
That gets Josh to pull back, still straddling Jalen as he looks at him, like he's trying to somehow read his mind.
"You okay?" Jalen asks.
Josh blinks a few times. "Yeah," he says.
His lips are all red and swollen. Jalen licks his own lips, and realizes he's tasting Josh on them.
"I'm glad you left the party," Jalen says.
"Yeah," Josh says. "I'm... glad I left too."
Jalen leans forward, just an inch, then thinks the better of it and pulls back again. But Josh takes the hint, leaning in again to press their lips together, slower this time, kind of like it was in the beginning only this time, it isn't as uncertain. It's like some kind of unspoken contract. We can do this now. This is allowed.
The whole thing is kind of still making Jalen burn all over with the wrongness of it, and unfocused thoughts of what would happen if people ever found out. But in front of all those is the feeling that Josh is his right now. Everybody else might want him, but Jalen's the only one who really has him.
He kisses Josh back, and wonders if he can get better at this, good enough that he gets better than Josh and takes him by surprise one day.
He leans in closer to him, hands on Josh's waist, rolling the two of them to the side so Josh is on top of him again, Jalen's back to the mattress, tee shirt sticky between the two of them. Jalen can feel himself getting hard again, and Josh must feel it too because he reaches down between them to paw at Jalen's waistband, pushing his sweats down clumsily until Jalen's semi brushes Josh's stomach and they both hiss with the sensation.
"Me too, me too," Josh says, lining them up to slot against each other, Jalen open-mouthed and breathing raggedy as Josh spits in his hand, bringing it down to jerk the two of them off at the same time. Jalen feels his hands falling idly next to him on the mattress, then coming back up to grab at Josh's shoulders—an anchor point in all this, until the two of them cum again, gasping into each other's mouths, Josh sweating against Jalen's touch, silence falling in one final sweep as the two of them collapse onto the mattress.
"I still need a shower," Josh mutters, later, after Jalen's heart has stopped racing and his body has stopped spasming with aftershocks.
"Yeah," Jalen agrees.
Josh laughs, all boyish and stupid.
Jalen looks over at him, narrowing his eyes.
"What the fuck is so funny?" he says, but he can't muster much real anger.
"Nothing," Josh says. "I don't know."
"You're laughing," Jalen says.
“Yeah,” Josh says. "Cuz I finally got you.” And Jalen shuts up at that, because he knows what Josh means.
All those party nights, standing against the wall, shoulders brushing each other, leaning in when they didn't have to. And days on the court too, glances during training, handshakes on the bench every time one of them got subbed in. Jalen didn't really realize how much touch he was hustling for until he got it like this, pure and all his, skin and warmth and enough light to see the way Josh looks at him. Actually looks at him.
"Yeah," Jalen agrees. "Don't tell anyone."
"You think I'm stupid?" Josh says.
"Yeah," Jalen says.
Josh scoffs, but then it softens into a goofy smile.
"So you gonna call that girl tomorrow?" Jalen asks, as casual as he can. "Alison?"
"Alyssa," Josh corrects.
"You could probably make up some excuse," Jalen says.
"Idiot," Josh says.
"What?" Jalen says.
Josh exhales in annoyance.
"I'm not calling a fucking girl," he says. "Not unless you tell me to fuck off again."
"Oh," Jalen says, pausing for a few seconds before saying. "Don't fuck off."
Josh smiles, relaxing back onto the mattress again.
"Wasn't planning on it."