Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
The guys are coming over now.
I see the group approaching, with their food trays in hand.
I let out a nervous puff of a laugh. “You can’t seriously be saying you want a boyfriend—”
“I want you to be my boyfriend,” he blurts out, a wide smile spreading over his face that makes me go weak inside. “Yes. I am saying that.”
I start to get a rush of feeling.
It’s small, at first.
A tightening in my throat, and a steady thump in my chest.
But then it becomes a tidal wave as Sev holds my gaze.
I lean in and press my lips to his, kissing his mouth, then his cheek, and then his temple.
“I’m like, shaking,” I whisper to him.
I know the guys might even see us, now. Maybe they don’t. Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter.
“Good shaking or bad shaking?”
“Good. I think it’s really fucking good,” I tell him.
“I want you to be my boyfriend. You don’t have to say yes now. Think about it for the next month, for all I care. But you should know that I want it.”
Someone is choosing me, and me only, for the first time in my life.
“Okay,” I say softly.
“Fuck yes, Weston Knox,” he tells me a low tone. “You aren’t even close to ready for this. If you’re my boyfriend I don’t want to be quiet about it. I’m not secretive, or ashamed, or nervous. I want to be all in. Are you okay with that?”
I nod at him. “I like the idea of that. A lot.”
He presses one more kiss to my lips, giving me a fiery look.
“Then get ready, baby.”
The moment the other guys get to the table and slide in one by one, Sevan grips my hand, holding it tight above the table.
“Hi, boys,” he tells the assortment of Onyx guys who are currently congregating around the table with their burgers, slices of pizza, and energy drinks.
I swear my heart could pound right out of my body.
“Sevan,” Rayne says, giving him an upward nod.
“Just want to let everyone know that Weston is my boyfriend, and he’s very much off the market for anyone else. If anybody has a problem with that, you can take it up with me. Cool?”
“Holy shit, Sev,” I mutter under my breath, but I can’t keep a giant smile from spreading across my face.
Sev leans over and kisses my neck like he’s marking his territory.
“Old news,” Niko calls out from the side of the table, sitting down next to Ollie.
“I mean, yeah, we kind of suspected, bro,” Hunter says, giving me a sly grin from his seat at the table.
Even Rayne looks up. “Didn’t know when the fuck you were going to tell me, but I was letting you take your time.”
I furrow my brow, dropping my mouth wide.
“No fucking shot everyone knew,” I tell them. “Rayne? Even you?”
“I’ve known you for too long, Wes. I knew you had something going on, but I thought it would be… I don’t know. Just a hookup.”
“It isn’t,” I declare proudly. “It’s not fucking casual at all. Hands off. Know what I mean?”
Sev turns to me with the proudest look on his face I’ve ever seen.
“Sickening,” Noah calls out as he comes over to the table. “No one is allowed to be in love around me anymore until I find someone.”
Noah has a smoothie, some applesauce, and soup, still only eating liquids for now. The other guys start asking Noah about his injured nose like they do most days now, some of them actually asking him to remove the bandage and let them see the nasty healing process beneath it.
He tells them to fuck off, pushing a straw into his smoothie and taking a drink.
As the guys break off into their other conversations, I realize how natural it already feels to be here like this.
At the table with my boyfriend.
And there’s no part of me that feels timid about that anymore.
“They love us,” Sev leans over and murmurs in my ear.
“Wouldn’t care even if they hated us,” I tell him. “But I still can’t believe no one was shocked.”
“People know you better than you think, Weston. You have a lot of people who care about you, you know that?”
I let out a long breath. “I’m lucky, I guess.”
And he has no clue how monumental that is for me to say.
I’ve never felt lucky.
I was the unlucky brother, the unlucky son.
I don’t feel anything like that anymore.
After we have dinner all I want to do is spend the next 48 hours or so in bed with him, but I know he has a lot on his plate.
“Listen,” he tells me before we leave. “The engineering ceremony is tomorrow night, and I need to focus on finishing my project. But after that’s done, the only thing that’s important to me is figuring out a way to get Thorne out of your fucking life. Okay?”