LEO AND DECLAN 1: Under His Touch

1

I was lost.

I was such a cliche it hurt, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I'd tried, in vain, to stop pining for my best friend so many times I'd honestly lost count by this point.

Declan was gorgeous, with his frosty blue eyes and muscular build, the way his black hair fell into his pale face, his long fingers always drumming out a beat on his knee or the table or, well, just about anything else he could get his hands on. He was also the straightest guy I had ever met.

Dec was a total jock in high school, and I'd spent half of those four years camped out on the bleachers watching him run across the football field, shirtless, trying my best not to drool every time I caught sight of the patch of dark hair trailing below his waistline. And trying not to murder an endless string of girlfriends who had hung off of him like insects swarming.

Some of them weren't that bad, to be honest, but I hated them on principal. They had the thing I wanted most and could never have.

Declan knew how I felt.

My unrequited crush was one of the few things on our "don't talk about it" list, right up there with the car crash that put his dad in a wheelchair and the fire that had left my family temporarily homeless in our junior year. Which was fine with me: avoiding it was better than losing my best friend.

But the more and more time passed, I only fell more in love with the guy.

I was hopeless.

And it was also hopeless to think there was anyone else out there that could make me feel even half of what Dec did when he flashed that cocky, playful smirk of his at me.

Not that I didn't get attention from guys—I was halfway to a twink and spent most of my time falling off of stuff, so if they weren't checking me out they were laughing while I tried not to break my damn neck or walked off a self-imposed injury.

And after finding myself in the arms of countless guys who didn't even start to compare to Declan or the connection I felt with him, I'd basically given up hope of ever finding someone I could really be with.

So, for now, at least, I was stuck like this, in limbo.