Chapter Text
The bass was a physical thing, a deep, sickening thump that vibrated through the soles of Jude’s sneakers and up into his teeth. It was the soundtrack to his own personal hell: some fuckass Halloween frat party, filled with drunken, costumed college kids too fucked up for their own good.
The air was thick with the cloying sweetness of cheap flavored vodka, the sour tang of spilled beer, and the humid, collective body heat of a hundred people packed into a basement that was already too small.
Jude hated it. He hated every single thing about it, but most of all, he hated that he couldn’t leave.
He was only here because Tai had begged him to come, a promise Jude had made in a moment of weakness that he was already regretting. Tai’s best friend, Noob, was away, and Tai had refused to face the social minefield of a party alone. So Jude, against his better judgment and the screaming protests of the rational part of his mind, had allowed himself to be dragged along.
His costume, if you could even call it that, was a testament to his lack of preparation and his utter disdain for the entire affair. It consisted entirely of a single pair of purple, fuzzy rabbit ears he’d swiped from a box of his mom’s forgotten Easter decorations. They were perched awkwardly on his head, the flimsy plastic headband digging into his scalp.
He felt like a complete idiot. He was a freshman who was already light-years ahead of his peers academically, and he was standing alone in a corner of a sweaty basement wearing bunny ears and morosely sipping a lukewarm Coors Light. The beer, of course, was disgusting. It was a watery, bitter concoction, but it was the only thing left in the cooler that wasn’t some horrifically sweet, fruity malt beverage.
Against his will, his eyes began to scan the crowd, a drowning man searching for the source of his misery. And there he was. Jude found him exactly where he’d known he’d be. He was the center of gravity for the entire fucking party.
Sharpness Conexion.
Dressed as Thor, the God of Thunder, of course.
Jude rolled his eyes. It was a costume that required zero effort and maximum payoff. A simple red cape was draped over his broad shoulders, and a plastic hammer was tucked into his belt. But it was the t-shirt—tight, gray, and stretched across a chest and arms that were infuriatingly well-defined—that really sold the image.
He was laughing, his blonde hair catching the colored strobe lights, surrounded by his usual orbit of admirers. Sharpness was their university’s golden boy exchange student, the frat bro with a heart of gold, and he played the part to perfection. He was popular, handsome, and, to Jude’s eternal frustration, universally liked. Especially by girls, who he treated with a soft, easy charm that made Jude’s stomach turn.
Jude scowled, taking a long, bitter sip of his beer.
He watched as a girl in a skimpy witch costume stumbled nearby, her heels wobbling precariously. Sharpness was there in an instant, his smile gentle as he steadied her with a hand on her arm. He led her to a nearby couch, his voice a low murmur Jude couldn’t hear over the music, before disappearing and returning with a bottle of water.
What an asshole, Jude thought, the venom in his own head surprising even him. Sharpness could play at Mr. Perfect as much as he wanted, but Jude knew what he was really like.
Truly, he did. Jude knew because he’d lived it. He knew the endless, circular arguments, the way Sharpness would get that shifty look in his eyes when Jude asked where he’d been. “Just studying,” he’d say, or “Hanging with the guys.” But the stories never added up, the timelines were always just a little too neat.
Jude wasn’t an idiot; he knew a lie when he heard one.
He’d given Sharpness chance after chance, his own pride warring with his desire to believe him, until the final night he’d caught him in a lie so blatant, so insulting, that he’d finally snapped. He’d dumped him via text, a cold, brutal message that had severed everything and hadn’t waited for an explanation.
What was the point? Jude already knew Sharpness was a liar, and in Jude’s book, that was one step away from cheating. He wasn’t going to stick around to be made a fool of.
Against his will, his eyes snagged on the defined outline of Sharpness’s biceps as he crossed his arms, the muscle flexing under the thin fabric of his shirt. A hot, unwelcome flush of memory crept up Jude’s neck. He remembered what those arms felt like pinning him down, the solid, heavy weight of him, the way that slight accent would get rough and guttural right before he… Jude forced the thought away, his jaw tight.
He hated this. He hated the way his body still remembered, the way it still craved the man who had lied to him. It was a betrayal of his own principles, a weakness he loathed. He made himself look away, focusing his gaze on a particularly interesting water stain on the drop ceiling.
“Dude, what are you doing?”
Tai’s voice was sudden in his ear, making him jump. He appeared at Jude’s side, his own costume—a classic vampire with cheap, plastic bat wings strapped to his back—looking far too pleased with himself. “Stop staring at your boyfriend.”
Jude glared at him, his grip tightening on his beer can. “My ex-boyfriend,” Jude snapped back, making sure to enunciate the ex part. “You know I fucking hate the guy.”
Tai just grinned, his fake vampire fangs glinting in the dim light. He nudged Jude with his shoulder, a gesture that was meant to be friendly but only served to annoy him further. “Yeah, but you and Sharpness have got something special. You’re always at each other’s throats. It’s like foreplay.”
Jude rolled his eyes so hard he was worried they might get stuck. “Yeah, he’s totally perfect boyfriend material. We already saw how shittily that worked out.”
“Oh, come on, Playboy Bunny,” Tai said, completely ignoring his correction. “Seriously, let’s go. The game is starting.” He grabbed Jude’s arm, his grip surprisingly strong, and started to drag him away from the relative safety of the corner.
“Wait, what game?” Jude asked, downing the rest of his disgusting beer in one long, miserable swallow and crushing the can in his hand.
Tai stopped and turned to him, his bright eyes seeming to almost glow in the chaotic, flashing lights. He stared at Jude as if he’d just asked what color the sky was.
“Dude, what else?” he asked, a wicked, knowing grin spreading across his face. “Seven minutes in heaven.”
—
Seven minutes in heaven.
The phrase echoed in Jude’s head, a tinny, ridiculous jingle that was completely at odds with the bone-deep thrum of the bass vibrating through the floor. He couldn’t fucking believe this. What was this, fucking middle school? There was no way they were going to play seven minutes in heaven.
And yet, here he sat. A coerced participant in this bullshit.
Jude was perched on a lumpy, stained floor cushion that had probably seen decades of spilled beer and god-only-knew what else. It was part of a sad, mismatched circle of furniture, a hodgepodge of rickety folding chairs and the plush carcasses of couches that had been dragged from their rightful places to form this pathetic arena. Around them, the main party raged on.
Somehow, a new drink had materialized in his hand, a testament to the strange, parasitic economy of house parties. It was a crime against chemistry, a toxic-looking cocktail of flat Sprite, powdered lemonade, and what tasted like paint thinner but was probably, in a generous estimation, bottom-shelf tequila. This was the kind of shit that got passed off as a “frat party margarita.”
Jude took a tentative sip and grimaced, the raw, uncut alcohol burning a furious path down his esophagus. He made a face, his nose wrinkling in disgust, before snatching the half-empty can of Sprite from Tai’s hand and pouring a generous amount into his cup, diluting the poison just enough to be palatable.
Finally, people began to settle down. Leekleek, a bulky guy with way too much energy for someone dressed as a giant banana, explained the rules with a theatrical flair that made Jude’s teeth ache.
Who the fuck doesn’t already know the rules to seven minutes in heaven? He thought to himself, his bad mood worsening by the second.
It was stupidly simple: spin the bottle, whoever it lands on, you get seven minutes in the hall closet. Seven minutes of forced intimacy with a near-stranger in a space that likely smelled of mothballs and old shoes. Super sexy.
Jude turned to Tai, his voice a low, conspiratorial hiss. “This shit is so lame. I can’t believe we’re doing this. I feel like I’m losing brain cells just by being here.”
Tai just rolled his eyes, his cheap plastic vampire fangs looking less intimidating and more like a novelty you’d get out of a gumball machine. “Dude, relax. It’s a party. You’re supposed to do stupid shit. Maybe you’ll even get to talk to him.”
The him in question was obvious. As if.
“I would rather staple my tongue to the ceiling,” Jude retorted, his voice dripping with venom.
Jude’s eyebrows drew together in irritation as he let his gaze sweep around the circle, a mix of pity and contempt for his fellow participants. Suddenly, his heart gave a stupid, traitorous lurch, a clumsy, arrhythmic beat against his ribs.
Sharpness was there. In the circle.
Of course he was. He was still looking annoyingly, infuriatingly hot.
His Thor costume, which Jude had initially dismissed as lazy, now seemed infuriatingly effective. The simple gray t-shirt was beyond tight, practically a second skin. Knowing him, it was a deliberate showcase of the solid, sculpted muscle of his chest and arms. The red cape, a cheap piece of fabric, was draped with an innate sense of regality over his broad shoulders.
Sharpness was leaning back in a rickety folding chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, the prop hammer tucked into his belt as he watched the proceedings with an amused, detached air, like a god observing the strange, primitive rituals of mortals.
Jude studied him, his eyes tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the slope of his perfectly straight nose, the defined dip of his cupid’s bow. Truly, Jude hated himself for it. He hated the way his own body betrayed his rational mind, the low, familiar pull of attraction that was as annoying as it was undeniable.
Internally, he did his best to catalog every perceived flaw—the way his Sharpness’s hair was a little too long and fell into his eyes, or the fact that he was an accounting major, for God’s sake, the most boring, number-crunching profession on the planet. But it was a losing battle.
Even across the crowded room, a current of electricity hummed between them, a live wire of unresolved history.
Tai caught him staring again and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, a silent, obnoxious commentary that made Jude want to punch him right in his stupid, fanged mouth. Tai was the worst kind of instigator and probably the worst person to be at this party with both Jude and Sharpness. He had never approved of the breakup, always insisting there was some kind of ‘misunderstanding’.
Please. Misunderstanding, Jude’s ass.
Jude glared, a silent promise of future violence, and turned his attention back to the game, his face flushed at being caught staring.
Finally, the game started up with a flurry of giggles and nervous energy.
A girl in the cat costume stalked to the center of the circle and spun the bottle. It wobbled and spun, a clear glass beacon of impending doom, before landing with a decisive clink on a lanky guy from the debate team dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Her friends shrieked with laughter, pushing the two of them toward the dark hallway, their faces flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and delight.
Jude scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard he was starting to get dizzy. He finished his doctored drink, the sweetness of the Sprite doing little to mask the potent kick of the tequila.
As the game continued, couple after couple disappearing into the closet, Jude started to feel… looser.
He sipped on yet another shitty margarita, the idiotic premise of the game transforming from lame to, somehow, absolutely fucking hilarious. The sheer absurdity of it all, the forced awkwardness, the performative sexuality—it was all a grand, ridiculous joke, and he was finally in on it.
Jude was actually enjoying himself. At a party. He thought he’d never see the day.
Then, the bottle spun, and spun, and spun. Jude held his breath as its wobbly trajectory slowed to a halt, the tip pointing directly at Tai.
Jude grinned, delighted at the sudden outcome. Even more miraculously, the next spin landed on the girl Tai had been flirting with earlier, a cute redhead dressed as a flapper.
Tai’s eyes went wide, his face paling under his vampire makeup. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding semi-truck. He shot Jude a look of pure, unadulterated terror, a silent scream for help that Jude found utterly delightful.
Jude’s lips stretched impossibly wider, a broad, gleeful, utterly malicious smile. This was better than any reality TV show. He bumped his shoulder with Tai’s. “Get moving, Casanova,” he stage-whispered, slapping him on the back with a little more force than necessary. “Don’t keep the lady waiting.”
He waved them off dramatically as Tai was herded into the small closet.
While Tai was gone, Jude’s drunken mind began to wander. It was baffling, really. He, Judelow, future MIT graduate and certified genius, was at a fucking frat party playing seven minutes in heaven. The universe had a weird sense of humor. The minutes ticked on. Without Tai there to act as a buffer, his gaze was, inevitably, drawn back across the circle.
To Sharpness.
The man was backlit by the bright fluorescent lights of the kitchen behind him, and like this, he almost had a sort of halo around his blonde head. The light caught the golden strands, turning them into a shimmering, ethereal crown.
Jude’s drunken brain supplied a memory, unbidden: Sharpness, pinning Jude’s wrists to the mattress with one hand, his hair glowing like that under the single lamp in Jude’s dorm room. His voice had been low and sweet, thick with his slight European accent as he’d murmured, “You look so good like this, struggling for me,” his hips pressing down in a way that was both a promise and a threat. The memory was a flash of pure, unadulterated heat, a visceral recollection of being completely and utterly possessed.
As if he could feel the weight of Jude’s stare, Sharpness’s eyes lifted from the bottle and met his across the circle. He narrowed his eyes slightly, a silent, challenging look, his head cocked to the side.
It was the same look he gave Jude in their advanced math classes, the ones they were still forced to take together. The tension in those lectures was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Jude would sit in the front row, his posture lazy, while Sharpness would inevitably take a seat somewhere nearby. Jude rarely missed an opportunity to rub his own superior intelligence in Sharpness’s face, to correct his answers with a quiet, cutting “well, no,” and watch his jaw tighten with frustration. It was the only power he had over him, the only battlefield where he could win, and he savored every small victory.
Quickly, Jude looked away, forcing the color from his cheeks as he stared into his half-empty drink.
Just as suddenly, the closet door flew open, recapturing Jude’s attention.
Tai stumbled out, standing ramrod straight, his face as red as a ripe tomato. The girl followed, looking amused and a little disappointed, smoothing down her flapper dress. Jude ignored them, his attention solely on his friend, who looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
“Dude, what happened?” Jude asked, a smirk already playing on his lips. He went to stand to walk over to him, but his legs wobbled, and he stumbled, catching himself on the arm of the couch. The room tilted for a second, a dizzying, kaleidoscopic spin of colored lights and laughing faces. Damn, he hadn’t realized how drunk he was. That tequila had been a sneaky, insidious bastard.
Tai buried his face in his hands, groaning, a long, piteous sound. “Duuuude,” he whined through his fingers. “I pussied out. I couldn’t do anything!”
Jude cackled, a loud, unattractive snort that made the girl next to him glance over in annoyance. He almost knocked his empty cup over. “Oh my fucking god, Tai. I swear, you’re gonna stay a virgin the rest of your fucking life!”
Tai peeked out from behind his hands, his face a mask of misery and indignation. “Okay, it’s way scarier when you’re actually in there. You’re so close, and everything is so dark… it’s stressful!”
Jude nodded in false sympathy, his bunny ears tilting crookedly on top of his head. “Sure, dude. Sure. It’s a real pressure cooker.”
Tai punched him lightly in the arm. “Okay, fine. If you’re gonna call me a pussy, then when it’s your turn,” he poked Jude in the chest, hard, “I better hear that you actually did… something with the other person.”
Jude, never one to back down from a challenge, especially a drunken, idiotic one issued by his best friend, puffed out his chest. “Fine. That’s easy. I’m not a fucking coward.” He rolled his eyes, “It’s not gonna kill me to go make out with someone for seven minutes.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Fine.”
The two of them turned back to the circle as a fresh wave of commotion picked up. The next couple was being chosen, and the bottle was spinning once more.
As if baited by his own drunken bravado, the tip of the Tito’s bottle in the center whirled dizzyingly… until it landed, with a decisive, damning clink, on Jude.
He stared at it, the glass neck pointing right at his chest like an accusing finger. He refused to show even a flicker of apprehension on his face, keeping his expression carefully blank, almost bored.
Tai leaned down, sticking his own face right in front of Jude’s, grinning that same shit-eating grin Jude had worn just minutes ago. The triumph in his eyes was nauseating. “Better not be all bark and no bite, bunny boy.”
Jude shoved him out of the way, a little harder than necessary. “No fucking way. I’m not a virgin pussy.”
Leekleek, the guy in charge of spinning the bottle, rolled his eyes at Tai’s antics and gave the bottle another whirl. It spun and spun and spun, a blur of shimmering glass in the center of the circle.
Jude watched it with a strange, detached sense of calm. It could land on anyone. The girl from stats. One of the frat guys. Leekleek the fucking banana. It didn’t matter. He’d made a promise. He was a man of his word, even when his word was stupid.
The bottle began to slow, its wobbling becoming more pronounced, more deliberate. It passed the cat girl. It passed the banana. It passed the debate team guy. And then, with a final, gentle clink against the hardwood floor, it stopped.
The neck was pointing directly, damningly, at Sharpness Conexion.
Their eyes locked across the circle once more. The amused detachment on Sharpness’s face vanished, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated challenge. His jaw tightened, a familiar muscle ticking in his cheek, the way it always did when he was about to argue with Jude.
It was the same look he’d given Jude that day in the quad, right after Jude had sent the breakup text, his face a mask of indignant frustration as he’d demanded, “Jude, what the hell? At least have the balls to say it to my face!”
Jude had ignored him then, walking away without a backward glance, his heart a cold, hard stone in his chest. But he couldn’t ignore him now.
The air between them crackled, the noise of the party fading into a dull roar in his ears. The circle of people seemed to hold its collective breath, all eyes swinging between the two of them. To them, Jude knew, this was better than television. This was a real-life drama, a car crash of epic proportions, and they all had front-row seats.
Fuck me, Jude thought, a sudden, dizzying rush of heat rising to his cheeks as his brain helpfully supplied a vivid, terrifying preview of what was about to happen. Seven minutes. In a closet. With him.
The man who had lied to his face time and time again, who still denied it even now. The man whose smile still made Jude’s stomach clench with a confusing mix of anger and want. The man he still wanted, in the darkest, most honest corners of his heart, to fuck him against a wall.
He didn’t even have to turn and look to know that Tai’s grin had widened to a truly obnoxious degree. This was exactly what he had wanted. He slapped Jude hard on the back and leaned down, his voice a low, triumphant whisper right in Jude’s ear, his breath hot and smelling of artificial cherry.
“Have fun!”