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There’s a tension in the air, something equal parts loving and exciting. The heated haze of it is thick and suffocating as people all around the room pair up with each other. Established couples linking their hands, women sneaking off with women, and men hiding in dark corners with other men. Everyone’s finding someone, and Mack’s quite happy to stay where he is and observe it all, even when part of him yearns for a certain American.
As the countdown inches closer to midnight, Mack sighs. He swirls the abandoned drink in his hand, watching the glittery pink contents slosh along the sides of the glass, higher and higher until it threatens to lick along the rim and spill over. He can still taste the bitter fruitiness of it on his tongue, and he thinks about finding someone to kiss, wondering if they’d be able to taste it on his lips or the backs of his teeth.
Mack ignores the person that comes to mind. The person who he wants to kiss to ring in the new year and has done almost every single second since they met. The person who was at his side at the beginning of the party but has since been swallowed up by so many faces and names that Mack didn’t recognise. He’d stopped tracking after the thirtieth different person or so.
Fireworks pop and fizz outside as the announcer on the television starts the countdown. Mack sighs again, taking one last dogged sip of the drink in his hand.
Ten!
Will appears out of nowhere, his face filling Mack’s vision, and Mack can’t help but perk up. Will is there and he won’t have to go into the new year alone, even if he has to go into it kissless.
Nine!
Mack squeaks softly as Will crowds into his space, one hand splayed over Mack’s broad yet plush chest as he pushes Mack towards the wall. He persists until Macklin’s back is pressed against it, steady and stable.
Eight!
The half-finished glass is plucked from Mack’s hand, Will’s fingers curling elegantly around the stem. He watches with a spit-slick mouth as Will deposits it to one side.
Seven!
Will leans into his space again, fingers sinking into the thick folds of Mack’s waist as he noses along Mack’s cheek. Mack whimpers, hands scrabbling for purchase on Will’s shoulders, fingers meeting thick, defined muscle.
Six!
Soft kisses greet the sensitive skin of his neck and Mack shivers, melting back against the wall even further. Will follows him, because of course he does.
Five!
Mack feels insane. Heat is shooting through him, burning and flickering inside his gut. He’s never wanted anything more than Will’s mouth on his, and he can’t believe he’s this close to getting it.
Four!
Will pulls back and smirks at him. It’s delicious and heady and intoxicating. One of the most perfectly alluring expressions Mack has ever seen. Mack feels like he’d downed the entirety of his abandoned drink second ago, insides swimming with fizziness.
Three!
Mack is shaking with want now, fingers spasming against Will’s shoulders. He wonders if Will can feel it, wonders if Will cares. He thinks to himself that maybe this is what Will wants Mack’s reaction to be, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it too much. He’s much more interested in focusing on Will.
Two!
Their lips are inches apart. If Mack nudges forward, even the slightest bit, their mouths will connect. Will smirks again, or maybe he never stopped doing it in the first place. Mack’s not sure of anything anymore, all his attention zeroed in on his pure want and desire for Will. “Hey there, pretty boy,” Will whispers and Mack can’t help but whimper at how wanting Will sounds.
One!
Will leans forward, connecting their lips together. It’s sweeter than Mack had anticipated from all of the buildup, but he doesn’t care. Will is kissing him and it’s the greatest feeling in the world and he thinks that if Will lets go of him now, he’s going to drop like a stone.
“Happy new year,” Will whispers against his lips. Mack blinks up at him as he pants softly, any words he potentially could’ve said being stolen from his tongue by Will’s kiss. Will blinks a few times, the barest flicker of his lashes, before he curses and pulls away.
It’s like a switch has been flipped. Will’s pulling away from him, hands disappearing inside his pockets. He’s hunching in on himself, Mack realises, trying to make himself smaller. “Will?” Mack questions. Will shakes his head and steps back before turning and rushing off. Mack whimpers. What did he do wrong? He can’t think of anything that could’ve changed in the past few seconds.
Had Will been aiming to kiss someone else? Or did he just kiss Mack as a last resort, imagining him as someone else and regretting it the second Mack said his name and broke the illusion? Mack isn’t sure, but he feels the hurt of it all the same.
And there’s still two more hours of the party. Two more hours that he has to stick around for because his frat is the one that’s hosting it. Honestly, Mack feels insane about it, the feeling in his gut churning and roiling unpleasantly.
Is he seriously that fucking undesirable to Will?
“You look like you could do with this drink more than me,” Collin says, appearing out of nowhere. Mack startles and curses softly. Collin was always like this, had been for as long as Mack’s known him. Appearing out of nowhere, moving on silent feet. Mack honestly should be used to it by now.
“What is it?” Mack questions.
“Something with gin in it,” Collin says with a meek shrug. Mack wrinkles his nose but takes the glass all the same. He curls his arm through Collin’s and pulls him in, the pair of them sighing in almost practised unison. They can share the drink, he muses. He takes a sip and grimaces at the taste before taking another one. “So… what happened to make you a grumpy sour faced baby in the corner?”
“Will kissed me and then immediately ran off, apologising like he regretted kissing me,” Mack mutters. He takes a proper mouthful of the bitter drink at that before he passes it back to Collin. “You can finish that. S’fucking gross.”
“Grow up,” Collin says with playful huff before he takes a mouthful. He swallows it without a single wince and Mack is honestly more impressed by that than anything else. “Did you want Will to kiss you?”
“Obviously,” Mack spits. Collin knows that. As does the rest of their frat, and he’s pretty sure even some of the other students know about it, boys in different frats and girls in sororities. He’s not exactly subtle with his pining. Never has been. “But he clearly didn’t want to kiss me, otherwise he wouldn’t have ran off afterwards.”
“Maybe he’s scared,” Collin suggests.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like me like that,” Mack says. He snatches the glass back and takes another mouthful, wincing at the way it burns down his throat. “Seriously, how the fuck do you drink this without gagging?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Collin says. Mack can’t help but snort with laughter at that, elbow knocking lightly against Collin’s ribs.
“So, what you’re saying is you’re old?” Mack teases. Collin shoots him a look and soon the two are laughing together, barely holding each other up with the help of the wall. It takes a while for them to calm down, but when they do, Mack can’t help but sweep his eyes across the room, looking for Will.
He doesn’t find him. Of course.
“Go and hunt for him. He can’t have gone for. He’s responsible for driving his friends home tonight, and I still see most of them here,” Collin says. Mack sighs and drags a hand through his hair. He wants to, more than anything. He’s desperate for answers. But at the same time, he wants to give Will his space. Doesn’t want to crowd into him and potentially make things worse. Collin nudges him. “Go.”
“Ten minutes. I’ll look for ten minutes, and then I’ll stop,” Mack says. Collin nods and raises the glass at him in a salute before he knocks the rest of its contents down in a few gulps. Mack wrinkles his nose at him. “You’re disgusting.”
“Yeah, well, you chose to my friend,” Collin says with a cheesy, overdramatic wink. Mack snorts and pushes off the wall, ignoring the rush of blood that leaves him momentarily dizzy, vision blurring.
“Did I?” He says with a laugh. Collin rolls his eyes fondly at him and Mack laughs boyishly as he walks away, shaking his head at his friend’s stupidity. At their combined stupidity, really. The two are just as bad as each other.
But Mack appreciates Collin, he really does. If it wasn’t for Collin finding him when he did, Mack is sure he would’ve crumbled into a chubby ball of Macklin Celebrini and not moved for a week. Collin’s silent offer of companionship prevented that, and now he was setting off to try and find Will, all thanks to Collin’s reassurance.
Should be easy, right?
❅❅❅
Mack’s first stop is the kitchen. There’s a crowd of people hovering about inside, but it’s still somehow less hectic than the living room. He slowly makes his way through, a litany of apologies spilling from his lips when his broad shoulders or chubby stomach knock against or nudge into people.
He’s halfway through the sticky-floored kitchen when a hand curls around his bicep and he’s pulled to one side. It’s Sam, clearly drunk off his ass judging by the way he sways in place. Mack giggles softly and allows Sam to slump into him, ignoring the puff of whiskey that greets him from Sam’s breath.
“I kissed him, you know?” Sam slurs. Mack sifts through his brain to try and figure out who the fuck ‘him’ could mean in this situation, before he remembers the guy Sam had vaguely mentioned in the past.
“Oh, Easton? That’s good. Or, well… did he kiss back?” Mack says. He looks around the room as he speaks, desperately searching for a hint or a sneak, something that will alert him to Will’s presence. He doesn’t find anything.
“He did!” Sam chirps, almost immediately afterwards falling into a fit of giggles against Mack’s neck. Mack goes to respond when said Easton appears, an apologetic smile on his face. He holds up a glass of water for Mack to see, and Mack mouths a quick ‘thank you’. He doesn’t need to be dealing with a riotously hungover Sam tomorrow.
“I’m back. Did ya miss me?” Easton says as he curls his arm around Sam’s waist from behind. Sam immediately shifts his attention over to Easton, and Mack takes that as his cue to leave. He still hasn’t spotted Will and he’s starting to think that maybe he’s not in the kitchen. And maybe Mack himself doesn’t want to be in the kitchen any longer, either.
With a sigh, he focuses on the sticky sounds that greet his overwhelmed ears with each step he takes further into the room.
❅❅❅
The garden air is cool and refreshing as it washes over his skin, and Mack can’t help but sigh in relief. Whilst it had been nice to see Sam happy, if overly drunk, in the kitchen, he hadn’t found Will, and the air inside had been suffocatingly thick.
Mack looks around at the garden. There’s plenty of couples littering the grass and the patio, and Mack is seeing far too many wandering hands and flashes of skin for his liking. He’s about to turn back and head inside again when someone calls his name. Looking up, he meets Connor’s eyes.
“Come ‘ere,” Connor says, beckoning him over. Mack huffs and quickly jogs across the patio, stepping down and into Connor’s little bubble. He can’t see Will outside, and he’s starting to run out of options. Most places in the frat house had been locked up, kept private so as to avoid anyone’s property being trashed, and Mack honestly couldn’t think of many other places Will could’ve gotten to.
Unless he already left.
“Hey. You alright?” Mack greets, attempting to push all thoughts of Will from his head. He sees a guy lying next to Connor, someone he vaguely recognises from photos on Connor’s Instagram stories, and he shoots Connor a look, one eyebrow raised. Connor blushes and ducks his head.
“Uh… Mack this is Fraser, Fraser this is Mack,” Connor says. The guy, Fraser, sits up and waves slightly before he rests his chin on Connor’s shoulder, eyes slipping closed as he hums softly to himself. “Are you okay? You look really scattered.”
“You haven’t seen Will anywhere, have you?” Mack asks. He’d have plenty of time to tease and taunt Connor over his new relationship later. For now, his main priority is finding Will. “I really need to speak to him, but he’s sorta vanished.”
“No. You see him, babe?” Connor says, lightly shifting the head against his shoulder. Fraser stops humming and pops one eye open before he blinks them both wide and gestures towards the top floor of the frat house. “He went upstairs?”
“Was just leaving the bathroom when I saw him. He had a key in his hand, went into one of the rooms,” Fraser says. Mack sighs with relief and turns to rush off, fully prepared to find which room Will is in when, at the last minute, he quickly drops to his knees in the grass and curls his arms around Connor’s shoulders.
“Congratulations,” Mack whispers. He squeezes Connor once before he finally stands up and darts off, sneakers slapping against concrete slabs as he rounds to the side gate. He doesn’t want to have to fight his way back through the kitchen, not when the staircase is right next to the front door.
As he lets himself in through the front, Mack muses over how Will had gotten a key to one of their rooms. It doesn’t really surprise him, however, not when half of Mack’s frat went starry-eyed over Will the first time they met him. They probably slapped it into his hand the second they saw his mopey expression.
Mack takes the stairs two at a time, stopping on the landing at the top as he tries to regain his breathing. It takes him a few seconds but soon he’s looking around, trying to assess which room Will might be in. “Will?” Mack calls out. It’s silent for a few moments until he hears a faint scuffle coming from his own bedroom. He crosses to the door and gentle nudges it open, heart breaking at the sight before him. Will is sat on the edge of Mack’s bed, head in his hands. “Will? What’s wrong?”
Will’s head whips up and he gasps, getting to his feet and shuffling away from Mack. That only serves to break Mack’s heart harder and he falters in place, feet scuffing along the floor as he forces himself to stop. The door slams behind him. “I’m sorry I kissed you,” Will blurts out.
“It’s fine, honestly,” Mack says. It’s not really that fine, but Mack’s main priority right now is helping Will to calm down, not begging him for another kiss or three.
“No, it’s not. I… fuck, I forced myself on you, Mack. How is that even anywhere close to okay?” Will says. He runs his hands through his hair repeatedly as he paces across the room, and Mack has to resist the urge to barge into Will’s space and link Will’s fingers with his own. “I’m sorry.”
“You wanted to kiss someone else, didn’t you? Or, just, you were kissing me, but pretending it was someone else, right?” Mack says. He tries to control the way his lip wobbles and quavers, but there are tears in his eyes that are perilously close to slipping free.
“What? No, Mack, I,” Will trails off with a sigh. Mack swallows down the sob in his throat before gasping when Will crosses the room in only a few steps, pushing Mack backwards until he’s pressed against the door. It’s practically a mirror to their kiss earlier, and Mack wonders if Will’s going to kiss him again now.
“Will?” Mack whispers. Just like before. He can only hope that Will won’t run away this time, won’t leave Mack chasing after him like a lovesick loser. His heart is hammering in his chest, and he wonders if Will can see it, feel it maybe. Mack wants him to. Wants Will to know just how crazy he makes Mack feel.
“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. Because you’re wearing those tight fucking jeans that emphasise your ass, and that shirt that stretches across your chest in a way where I just want to bury my head between your pecs and never move. You look hot, Mack, but I want to kiss you anyways. I want to kiss you always. It’s just, fuck,” Will spits. “You looked too hot today, and I couldn’t fucking stop myself.”
Mack smirks before he can stop himself. He knows he’s hot, has seen people ogling and admiring his body before, but there’s something about it being Will this time that makes Mack’s confidence soar sky-high. He places his hands on Will’s waist and tugs him in, delighting in the soft noise Will lets out. “You want me, baby?” Mack purrs.
“Fuck, Mack, don’t tease me like this. I don’t wanna fuck you,” Will says. Mack whines before he can stop himself. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Shit. Not like… fuck, of course I wanna fuck you. But it’s not just that. This isn’t a one-night stand thing for me, Mack. Not when it’s you. I want to hold you and kiss you and show you off. I wanna cook you food just to hear your little hums as you taste it, and I wanna watch you graduate and yell ‘that’s my boyfriend’ when you walk the stage and fucking… I never wanted to get married until I met you and maybe I’m too young to be feeling like this, but fuck, it’s how I feel.”
Mack’s silent. Stunned by Will’s words. He’s not sure what to say, so he does instead. He shifts his hands from Will’s waist to instead cradle his jaw, pulling him in for a kiss that’s more tongue and spit than anything else. Will melts into it, responding like he knows exactly how much Mack wants to devour each and every piece of him.
“You’re fucking insane, but if it makes you feel better,” Mack breathes out, “I feel the exact same way. Never wanted anyone the way I want you, Will.” He snags Will’s lower lip between his teeth and tugs softly, delighting in the moan it gets him. Will’s hands are groping at his waist, fingers sinking into the plush thickness of Mack’s torso like he can’t quite get enough.
“It’s your fault,” Will mutters and Mack can’t help but giggle breathlessly. He’s so in love that it almost hurts, like an arrow to the heart. Cupid’s arrow, he muses to himself. He’s entirely sure the only reason it doesn’t hurt anymore is because Will’s finally put his hands on him.
“Be my boyfriend,” Mack blurts out. Will groans and drops his head to Mack’s shoulder. “Please. Please, Will, please. Need to be yours, need you to be mine,” Mack begs. He’s not entirely sure why he’s begging when he knows exactly how much Will wants him, but he’s begging, and he can hear the way it’s effecting Will, his breaths coming out uneven against Mack’s skin.
“Yes. I’m yours. Yours, Mack,” Will says. Mack whines and slots one hand in Will’s hair, dragging him up until their mouths can slot together again. He’s wanted this for ages and now that he’s got it, Mack isn’t prepared to give it up.
It’s a good thing, then, that it seems like he won’t have to.