To Be Alone With You

36. safe

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

SAFE

—

"You know what really pisses me off?"

Kaspian glanced at North, who was lying on their bed, staring at the ceiling as they spoke.

Phoenix shook his head. "Do tell."

"When girls fetishize gay guys, and when they're like... Desperate to know who the top and who the bottom is. Like, shut the fuck up, it literally doesn't concern you. Gay people don't exist solely for your amusement, so stop objectifying them. It's not that hard," North lamented, sighing to themself.

Stella nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! And when straight dudes— except Phoenix, he does the bare minimum— fetishize lesbians, and jack off to lesbian porn, but if their friend comes out as gay or something, suddenly they're homophobic dicks."

North shook their head. "I don't get it, honestly. Like, people just view the entire community as some object with which they can just get profit or pleasure. And sometimes, people quite literally force gay relationships onto straight people. Or constantly ship straight dudes together or whatever. Toxic as fuck. Everyone tends to forget that we're people, not objects for their pleasure. Fucking dumbasses."

Letting out an airy laugh, Rowan nodded in agreement. Moving closer to Kaspian, he placed his chin on his shoulder, promptly making Kaspian's focus shift from his laptop to Rowan.

"What do you want?"

"Attention."

Kaspian rolled his eyes and shut his laptop, taking his glasses off his face. Guess my assignments will have to wait. "Okay, you have my full attention. Do what you want with it."

This was unfortunately a common occurrence. Rowan would ask for attention, Kaspian would give it to him. But he knew that whenever Rowan said he craved attention, all he really wanted to do was give Kaspian attention. He just didn't like Kaspian's focus to be anywhere else while he was smothering him with affection.

A week ago, when they were in school, Rowan had practically begged for attention during lunch, so Kaspian rolled his eyes and placed kisses on every inch of his stupid fucking attractive hands, until Rowan shook his head and said, "No, no," before covering Kaspian's mouth. In the end, Rowan had just ended up wanting to play with Kaspian's hair— he didn't even let Kaspian do anything but sit in silence.

This was similar to that situation, except now, Rowan just placed his head on Kaspian's shoulder, holding his hand and weaving their fingers together. "You look tired. Everything good?"

"Y'all need to stop being so cute and shit. You make me look like shit, especially because I'm constantly being mean to Nix," Zahra interjected, placing her head on Phoenix's lap. She hummed when Phoenix began to massage her scalp, a small smile on her face.

"That's because Nix likes it when we're mean," Stella chimed in, blowing on her freshly painted nails.

Phoenix cleared his throat, eyes widening in alarm. "Well. Anyway."

Rowan grinned. "Don't be fooled, Kaspian's always mean to me."

Gasping dramatically, Kaspian turned his head around to look at Rowan. "You're mean to me too!"

Exasperatedly sighing, Zahra shook her head. "We're not turning this into a competition of who's meaner, both of y'all are soft bitches. You think you're being mean, but we know y'all are tryna flirt. You just don't know how."