OPEN [boyxboy] ✓

forty-one:: when you find stars in his eyes.

[Ironically, they don't kiss at all in this chapter; If I Was a Love Poet by Rudy Francisco]

FORTY-ONE: when you find stars in his eyes.

"What're you doing?"

Biting at his lip, Paul looked up at me. There was a lost look on his face and his finger that had been previously tracing along my thigh had stopped.

We were laying in my bed one day, his head in my lap and I'd been watching a pre-recorded college football game that I'd missed. I wasn't paying that much attention to him until the commercial breaks where I caught him with his eyes fixed on my skin. There was a cute little concentrated look on his face and I'd tapped my hand on his shoulder -covered in a loose and large sweatshirt- to bring him back to reality. Paul, being respectful to my father's rules, was wearing my sweatpants despite how uncomfortable he was sleeping in anything more than boxers.

The door was cracked as proof that we were just innocently hanging out and not having sex. Paul had come over during the week since he had a little time off due to a cold that was best to keep away from people's drinks.

He didn't care to answer my question instead choosing to smile small before continuing the pattern, sleepily. I'd been wearing some basketball shorts and they'd been up a little further than normal and for some reason, he was obsessed with my thighs and that made me nervous.

I mean, yeah, he said he liked my weight gain but what if he was lying? My thighs were getting really fat, they were and I knew that wasn't very attractive-

"Why don't you like your freckles?" It was then I noticed he was playing connect the fucking dots on my skin. Shivering when his finger slid a little too close to the insides of my thighs, I listened to his light chuckle, it turning into a cough halfway through and I sighed.

"I just... Don't."

Stop being annoying, Jules, he's getting sick of hearing about your insecurities.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to think about other things, he didn't need to hear about how ugly I was becoming and he didn't need to see it either. Pulling my shorts down a little, I pulled the cover further up to cover my skin from his gaze.

When he looked up at me curiously, I shrugged, my hand going to sift through his curls absentmindedly. I hated when Paul was sick, his entire face was drained of color except for his nose which was glowing a bright pink on his normally tan skin. Grabbing him a tissue, I could sense he was about to sneeze, it coming out in that small high-pitched kitten noise and it came in a fit of threes.

Wiping further at his nose, he'd balled up the tissue and discarded it in the trash bin beside my bed. Helping him reach the hand sanitizer, I brushed his unruly hair off of his slightly sweaty forehead. God, how did he deal with me after practice? I couldn't even deal with this much sweat without grimacing.

"I dislike my forehead." His voice was soft as he tried to hold a conversation. The entire day had been filled with him sleeping, fragments of conversations that would get nowhere due to either his throat hurting or him sleeping. Smiling softly at the pout on his lips, I caught a look in his beautiful brown eyes and settled to kiss his forehead, it hot under my touch.

He'd refused to kiss me on the lips in fear he'd get me sick. "Why?"

Shrugging, he mocked me, yawning slightly and arms stretching out just a bit as he tangled his hand in my free one. "I just... Do. It's too big." There was a cute little smile on his face when he closed his eyes, the smile that always seemed trapped between his laugh lines and his dimples caved in.