Fever Pitch Read Online Free PDF Page B

off his burger and digested Giles’s observation along with it. “So you must have thought I was a jerk like Colton.”
    Giles hesitated before confessing, “Pretty much.”
    A lake appeared before them, framed by trees and moonlight. Giles pulled over into a dirt patch that would have been muddy had it rained more. Killing the engine, Giles gestured at the water. “Behold. Hickey Lake.”
    Aaron grinned, the tension between them falling away. “How the hell did it get named, anyway? Too many teenagers in the ’50s?”
    â€œWould have been named in the 1850s. Probably somebody’s last name, but I suspect plenty of hickeys are given here. Who could resist?”
    And the tension returned.
    Giles cleared his throat. “So. You want to sit here in the car, park our butts on a blanket or keep driving?”
    One hell of an invitation lurked inside Giles’s list of choices. This was the drunken dance with Tanner all over again. Without the alcohol, Aaron probably would have gone into cardiac arrest trying to work out what to do. But he had alcohol—lots of nice, swimmy beer. The pretty, blue-black lake lay invitingly before him.
    The soft, spicy scent of Giles, his smile and his laugh, which somehow aligned Aaron’s spiritual spine, allowed him to calm down. In so many ways it was a choice more nightmarish than which college to go to—and yet at the same time it was the easiest decision of all.
    â€œBlanket sounds good.”
    Taking a deep breath, Aaron told himself everything would be okay, then waited to see if he was right.

Chapter Three
    Giles had no idea what he was doing with Aaron.
    He dug in the trunk of the car for the winter emergency blanket he thought he remembered seeing back there, though he told himself if he didn’t find it, it was a sign from God he should get in the car and drive Aaron Seavers the hell to his house, where he belonged. He had no idea what it meant when he found the blanket immediately, neatly folded on top of the spare tire. Somehow he doubted it was a thumbs-up from the Almighty to get laid.
    Was he actually going to sit on the beach of Hickey Lake and deep throat the guy he’d had a crush on since the moment he’d first seen those baby blues peeking beneath dark, shaggy bangs? When he shut the trunk, he saw Aaron standing beside the car, hands tucked in the front pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched, with a hungry, terrified expression on his face.
    Yep. Getting laid was definitely on the table.
    The thing he didn’t know, the thing making Giles’s brain run around like a squirrel in a cage as he spread the blanket on the most level spot he could find, was whether this was another case of closeted “straight” boy or if this was Aaron coming out to him. Normally Giles didn’t ask. As much as he hated these hookups after, as much as it made him batshit the only action he ever got was with recoil-fucks—well, Giles had a hard time looking gift sex in the mouth. He told himself it was his sweet revenge, a power trip, but if he were honest, mostly it was because he was lonely.
    In short, at the bottom of his barrel he was alarmingly pathetic.
    He wanted to find out if this was another shame-and-blame or…something different. Dumb, because it wasn’t like this could go anywhere. Aaron was gone tomorrow, and come this fall Giles would be too. At best they would maybe hook up on breaks, but if Aaron was about to come out, Giles would never bag him again. Aaron was Grade A Prime for whatever gender he chose to take to bed. Giles was lucky to be a C+ on a good day. Too skinny, too geeky, too awkward. No way Giles could ever score an Aaron for real.
    Yet here he was, spreading a blanket and settling down on it beside Aaron, who sat a hell of a lot closer than a straight boy would. Looking a lot more eager and vulnerable than Giles’s hookups usually did. None of this was on the scripts Giles