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It started mostly as a joke.
Connor would sneak into Kevin’s dorm room when Arnold was out, and Kevin would do the same whenever Chris spent the weekend at his parents’, but it was never supposed to amount to anything real. At first, they would hang out. Study together in silence until one of them got bored and caved—usually Connor—so they ditched the books and started talking instead. Kevin hadn’t realized just how badly he needed someone to talk to until those nights. Even if he had Arnold, he somehow never managed to get the heaviest weight off his chest with him.
After a few times, they wouldn’t even bother bringing their books, knowing all too well how the evening would play out, and Kevin didn’t mind giving up a few hours of studying every month to listen to Connor complain about wanting to buy a pumpkin spiced latte every time he passed the coffee shop on his way to school but never doing it because Connor McKinley was a good Mormon. He didn’t mind that Connor would ask him questions he would normally never answer because he knew, somewhere deep in his chest, that whatever he said would stay within these walls.
After all, this wasn’t his secret alone, but one they shared. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t spark something inside him.
One night, Connor had suggested a game, and Kevin not knowing any better had agreed in a heartbeat. And so it began.
“Have you ever kissed a boy?”
Kevin had blushed. “No.”
“It’s kind of fun.”
Kevin’s eyes had gone wide, mouth falling open in a small, surprised gasp. “Have you?”
Connor had shrugged. “That’s what college is for, right? Experimenting.”
“You could get kicked out for that. Someone could report you to the HCO.”
“Hard to report illicit behavior if you participated in it.”
The room had been quiet for a moment, a new kind of tension growing between them that Kevin knew instantly was a bad idea in the making. “So are you… you know.”
Connor looked at him funny, quirking his lips as he shook his head. “Like I said, it’s just for fun. Doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Kevin had kissed him back with more fervor than he’d ever experienced before. He thinks it caught Connor by surprise that first time, when they had been more teeth than tongues and embarrassingly eager. It’s not a memory he likes revisiting, despite how much it had meant to him. Still means to him. Because as amazing as he felt in that moment, things are more complicated now.
They are both a few months from graduating, nearly ready to go off on life’s next adventure called finding a job. Kevin had gone into pre-med his first year but changed his major by his second, realizing he wanted to be a teacher. Which of course had made his father curl his lip and his mother frown, but in the end, they supported his decision.
Connor’s major was more of a hot mess; no one really knew how long he would stick to something before changing his mind in a coinflip. But he hadn’t minded because the less certain Connor was about what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, the more often he ended up in Kevin’s bed, desperate for some form of release. Kevin was never one to decline an offer like that.
“What about teaching?”
Connor laughs. “You’re kidding. Kevin that’s your thing, I’m not good with kids.”
“Something artsy, then? You like that stuff.”
“I do,” Connor says with a heavy sigh, “but my parents don’t.”
Kevin turns his focus back to his laptop, scrolling through BYUs course catalog like Connor’s private guidance counselor. “Hospital administration?”
“Perfect,” Connor snorts. “I can’t wait to die of boredom.”
“You’re really not helping here, you know.”
Connor sighs dramatically and falls back on Kevin’s bed, his left arm draped over his eyes. Kevin can’t help the way his eyes migrate from the screen to his skin, hundreds of golden freckles scattered across his body. “It’s not fair to expect a twenty-three-year-old to know these things. I don’t want to think about working. Working means getting old and getting old means dying. I’m too young, Kevin. This isn’t fair.”
“You’re not dying.” Kevin closes his laptop, turning in his chair to face the bed head-on. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
Connor flings the arm from his face to his side where it lands with a loud thump. “But that’s my personality.”
Kevin snorts. “Some character you are. Flat as a pancake and just as dense.”
He laughs when Connor chucks a pillow at him, and his reflexes are not quite quick enough to catch it midair before it smacks him in the face. “Should teach you.”
It is just the type of thing Kevin has come to expect from Connor, the playful, impish side of him that really only emerges when they’re alone like this. He’s still a bit of an overall menace around others, but Kevin doesn’t think he’d throw a pillow at any of his other friends.
It’s a weird thing to feel happy about, he does realize. But it’s Connor, and Connor can make him do just about anything with a single look. A smile and Kevin is putty in his hands. It’s a feeling he doesn’t know what to make of—should he feel this way about a friend? No is the short answer.
“How did you know what you wanted to do?” Connor asks after a beat of silence, and Kevin is momentarily pulled out of his own head.
“It just felt right.” He shrugs. There really isn’t much else to it. Kevin likes kids, and he likes telling people what to do, but in a polite, Mormon way, so teaching felt completely natural to him. Like he had finally found some new sense of purpose in the world.
“That’s the worst answer,” Connor groans. “That’s what my parents said when I asked them why they got married. What does it mean? What is right? How am I supposed to know if no one spells it out for me?”
Kevin rolls his eyes. If there is one thing you can entrust Connor McKinley to do, it is to complain like there’s no tomorrow. “Okay, new strategy.” Kevin leaves his chair and opts for the spot next to Connor on the bed, earning a small squeal when he lands beside him with a bounce. “What are you most sure of in the world?”
Connor knits his brows. “What?”
“There’s gotta be something that, should someone ask you about it, you wouldn’t be able to explain because it just feels that natural to you.”
Connor frowns even harder, but in what seems to be contemplation rather than confusion, staring at the air in front of him. Kevin takes the moment to note the slight wrinkle in his forehead, the freckles that disappear down his collarbones and below his shirt, the way he is worrying his lip until Kevin is sure he’s bound to draw blood. Then he comes back from his thoughts and meets Kevin’s eyes again. “There is.”
Kevin smiles. “See, not that hard.” Connor huffs when he pokes him with his foot. “What is it?”
There’s a flash of hesitation in Connor’s eyes before he averts them and sits up. He fiddles with the sleeve of his shirt for a moment, as though considering what to say before he turns back to Kevin with an unspoken question heavy on his lips; Kevin can practically see it. “It’s… personal.”
Part of him breaks at the thought that Connor won’t share it with him, but he nods along, smiling as if it’s fine. Because it is fine. Or, it should be, at least. There are things Kevin would never tell Connor either, so he really has no leg to stand on getting upset when the roles are reversed. “That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me, but… you get it, then? Feeling right but not being able to put it in words?”
Connor’s eyes go distant for a moment, but he nods, too.
They sit in silence again for a good chunk of time that feels way longer than it probably is until Connor’s eyes come back into focus, and then they’re staring at each other. Connor doesn’t blink so Kevin forces his own eyes to stay open despite the sting. Why, he isn’t sure. Maybe he’s worried he’ll miss something monumental if he lets Connor out of his sight for even a fragment of a second. Maybe he’s playing along because he knows exactly what these glances lead to. Maybe he’s just that desperate.
“When does Arnold get back?”
“His shift ends at ten, usually takes him half an hour to—”
And Connor wastes no time, surging forward until his lips come crashing onto Kevin’s and then he’s being pushed back, down. Connor climbs into his lap and Kevin feels as though he’s falling, flying, and he wants to laugh because this—this feels right, but it’s just for fun. It’s just a way to take the edge off. It doesn’t mean anything.
But then why does it feel so momentous? Why does it feel like he was meant to be here, with his arms around his best friend and his hands tangled in his hair? Why does it feel like nothing else will ever come close to this feeling?
See, it started as a joke, but Kevin fears he might actually fall apart come graduation day when Connor could up and leave without a single warning. He wouldn’t be able to bear it—to see him move on with a girl, to find a wife of his own, to go back to the straight and narrow lifestyle everyone expects of him—and he’s worried it shines through in the way he holds Connor as close as he physically can. He doesn’t care if he seems desperate, he needs this. He needs Connor to hold him, and kiss him, and love him. God, he just wants to be loved. Loved back?
He shakes his head as he rolls them around until he has Connor pinned underneath him. There’s a twinkle in his eye, a smirk playing on his lips, as though he knows exactly what he does to Kevin. And he fights his wrists free from Kevin’s grip only to surge into him again, urgently. As though he needs this, too.
But he just needs the release, Kevin reminds himself. Physical stimulation in lieu of mental; something that puts the swarm of thoughts that denies him peace of mind at bay, if only for a moment. And Kevin is more than willing—desperate, even—to be his sole provider.