13!
13. “Kiss me.”
we’re gonna go college au forthis one i think. fair warning i didn’t read this over at all and it’s just about 1000 words bc i got carried away oops
Link didn’t even think aboutit. He had been avoiding this girl for weeks now. She wasn’t unattractive inthe slightest. She just came on a bit too strong for his liking. And besides,he wasn’t all that interested in dating anyone at the moment.
Him and Rhett decided to go tothe party their friend from Econ invited them to over in on campus apartments.It was supposed to be low-key, just a good handful of friends and some cheapbooze. They hadn’t gone out in a while so it seemed like the good thing to doon their Friday night.
When they got there, the bassfrom the music hit Link’s ears first. He could hear it as they approached thedoor but when they opened it, a cacophony of sound hit his ears fast enough to makehim cringe through a smile. Rhett bumped an elbow into his side to catch hisattention and nodded into the apartment. His eyebrows lifted in a question: Wegoing in?
It didn’t take long to get acclimatedto the crowd or the beer building in his stomach. After an hour or so, he wascomfortably talking with some friends about the assignment due next week thatthey all dreaded doing.
It wasn’t until she was a good20 feet away that Link noticed the girl approaching. Panicked, he turned toRhett and asked silently for a distraction or to look very into theconversation they were having. He tried to hard to convey it with his eyes butRhett just looked lost and confused, and a little bit amused.
Link had his hand gripping abunch of Rhett’s shirt then, a grounding material under his hand other than acup of beer. Around him, his group still chattered but he could feel the girlapproaching. His heartbeat picked up even quicker, his breath puffed out in arush. His eyes looked frantically around Rhett’s face. Rhett was looking at theirfriends over his head, not at all bothered by the hand holding tightly to hisshirt.
“Kiss me,” he said, but wasn’tsure if Rhett even heard him. He shook his hand, his fist knocking at Rhett’schest for a few moments. “Rhett.” God, he sounded so desperate.
He just needed this girl toleave him alone. If he was distracted, she wouldn’t even talk to him. He hopednot, at least.
Finally, Rhett glanced down tohim with a questioning noise and the beginning of a laugh tugging at thecorners of his lips. It was like Link could read his thoughts, asking him whatidiotic thing he needed now, what was so important that he needed all of hisattention in the middle of a conversation.
“I said kiss me.” He was proudthat his voice didn’t waver under the last two words. Rhett tilted his head soseverely that Link almost took a step back, his expression unreadable.
“Um,” Link finished eloquently.He was about to point out the reason why, point to the girl that had beenbasically stalking him for a few weeks when Rhett’s hand landed on the back ofhis head, his thumb brushing into his hair.
His gaze softened so much thatLink had to hold his breath or he’d blow it all. If he thought his heart wasracing before, he was sorely mistaken. It was in his throat now and he waspositive that everyone in the apartment could hear it over the music.
Rhett was looming over him, everyinch of his body pointed towards Link like nothing else in the room mattered.His eyes flickered from Link’s eyes to his lips and back up again, the silentquestion still there.
Link nodded.
He didn’t think that the slow-motionkiss thing was a real thing before, that it was really just a stunt in a movieto amp up the tension. But boy did he watch Rhett duck down to kiss him for atleast a full minute’s worth of time. He watched every emotion flicker on hisface, watched his eyes focus on Link’s lips, watched his eyes flutter shut, andwatched him get close enough that he couldn’t see anything but a jumbled messof skin.
Rhett’s hand tightened on theback of his neck before finally, finally kissing him. It was so gentleand shy that Link worried that it didn’t look real enough. Yeah, that’s what hetold himself. It didn’t look real enough.
So he used the leverage of hisfist still curled in Rhett’s shirt to hoist himself up onto his tiptoes andpush back a little, just enough to get Rhett’s mouth to open in a soft sigh hefelt more than heard.
Goosebumps rose on his skinlike static shock and he grinned into the kiss. Soft lips, more insistent now, movedto chase his smile and Link was helpless to stop them. His other arm reached upto go around Rhett’s neck, to pull him closer.
When Rhett followed him andpulled Link closer with an arm around his waist, he bit playfully at his bottomlip to get a reaction. What he wasn’t expecting was for Rhett to tug harder andfor the action to cause his own arm to tip his drink all down Rhett’s neck andback. Of course, Rhett jumped back at that, his forehead bumping into Link’sharder than they both expected.
Rhett looked shell-shocked. Hischeeks were pink as ever but his lips were a bright red. Link couldn’t keep hiseyes off of them, mesmerized. He breathed out of his mouth like his nosecouldn’t take in enough oxygen.
It was such a pretty sight,Link thought. It made his heart stutter and his chest heaved.
“I think she’s gone, dude,” their friend saidfrom beside them. It took Link a minute to realize he was talking to him.
“Who?”
