The part of him that had seen a lot of horror movies didn’t want to go. The part of him that trusted Spencer and wanted to patch things up with him knew he had to.
“It’s okay,” Spencer said, handing him a tiny flashlight and switching on one of his own. “I know, it looks spooky, but I come up here all the time and I haven’t been attacked by an axe-murderer yet.”
“What if you are the axe-murderer?” Jesse asked, jogging to catch up with Spencer as he started to disappear into the trees. It was one thing to follow Spencer, another thing entirely to get left behind.
“Then I guess you’ll find out soon enough.” Spencer laughed.
Spencer was probably not an axe-murderer. Almost certainly. Jesse had seen a lot of horror movies, though.
A silence fell between them, the effort of hiking up what was proving to be a pretty steep trail leaving Jesse short of breath. He could hear Spencer struggling a little as well, but he hadn’t paused for a second since they started out. Jesse was learning quickly that there was a lot more to Spencer than met the eye.
Eventually, they got to the top and came out on a clearing. A small, white structure was perched off to the side, on the edge of a cliff face Jesse could just make out in the almost perfect darkness.
An observatory. Obviously. Not the world’s biggest, but well-positioned.
That explained why Spencer knew the trail.
“Look,” Spencer pointed up. Jesse looked automatically, and what he saw made his mouth fall open.
Thousands of stars. Hundreds of thousands. The clearest view of the night sky he’d ever seen.
He could make out the Milky Way winding across the sky, twinkling like someone had just thrown a handful of glitter up there. He’d never seen that before.
He’d never thought to go out of his way to see it before. Jesse had known all those stars were up there. He’d just never really looked.
He hadn’t looked until Spencer had shown him.
“Wow,” he said softly. He felt Spencer move closer to him, their shoulders brushing against each other. Looking up like this was dizzying, the sheer scale of the stars above them not helping the sensation.
Jesse reached out to take Spencer’s hand, and found it already being offered. The simple gesture made his heart skip as he took it, his stomach swooping when Spencer squeezed gently.
This was definitely not about sex. Not right now. And it felt so nice.
“We’re up here for two reasons,” Spencer said. “Well, three. The first is that it’s really cool, and I find this place very soothing.”
“What’s the second?”
“The second is that I know showing you this will help you understand why I love my job. Why it’s important to me to keep it. There aren’t a lot of astrophysics positions outside of academia. I can’t lose this. I can’t walk away from it.”
Jesse swallowed. This was a gentle let-down, after all.
“And the third?” he croaked, his throat dry all of a sudden.
“The third is that I’ve never met anyone who I thought would get this before. The thing is, my job is super important to me. It’s everything I’ve worked for my whole life. But I think you’re worth the risk.”
Jesse finally looked away from the sky and down at Spencer. He wet his lips, not sure what to say.
“It would have to be a secret,” Spencer added immediately. “We… we couldn’t tell anyone. And I know that maybe you wouldn’t want that, and it’s okay if you don’t. I get it. But I can’t just forget about you. I know we only had one night together and maybe I sound ridiculous or desperate and maybe you’re thinking can I get down that trail by myself right now, but…”
Jesse shook his head. “No. I’m thinking I’m really good at keeping secrets. And that you’d be a secret worth keeping.”
If all he had to do was keep quiet about Spencer, and that meant he could have this—this connection between them, this undefinable something that made him want to keep holding Spencer’s hand forever—then he’d take the secret to his grave if he had to.
This was one of those moments where Jesse knew his life was about to change. He intended to grab hold of it and not let go.
Spencer’s whole face lit up. “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”
Jesse smiled. The knot of uncertainty that had been tangled up around his heart loosened, just a little, just enough to let him breathe again.
This was the right thing. They were breaking the rules, sure, but it was a stupid rule. A life lived without ever pushing a boundary was no life at all.
“Does that mean I can kiss you, now?”
“I’d like that,” Spencer said, still looking up at Jesse.
Jesse reached out toward Spencer’s glasses, removing them as gently as he could and tucking them inside Spencer’s jacket pocket. Spencer laughed, a bright, happy sound that echoed in the clearing.
Not wanting to rush things, Jesse stroked his way up Spencer’s neck, moving his hand under Spencer’s chin and just barely tilting it up, gauging the angle so that their lips would fit together perfectly.
His stomach swooped again as he leaned in, anticipation making his heartbeat speed up. He’d wanted to kiss Spencer for weeks.
Spencer made a soft, happy sound as they made contact, leaning into the kiss just a little. It was unhurried, confident. Right. So incredibly, definitely right.
So what if the college didn’t want them to be together? There’d been more forbidden relationships in the world. Family feuds, laws about who could and couldn’t get married, and people had been making them work since the beginning of civilization.
They could make getting around a stupid policy work. It wasn’t really a big deal.
Jesse sighed as he backed off for air, only moving an inch or so away from Spencer. It was cold out—so cold he couldn’t really feel his nose anymore—but he didn’t care. This was what he wanted. By some miracle, this was what Spencer wanted, too.
“Centre of the universe,” Jesse said softly. He glanced up at the stars again, then back down at Spencer, and leaned in for another kiss.
“Technically,” Spencer said when they broke away again, breathless. “The center of the universe is the observer. There’s only a perceptual center, because it’s infinite. The universe, I mean.”
“Hey, I’m a plant guy. Don’t try to confuse me.” He grinned down at Spencer, his heart swelling.
He was definitely a secret worth keeping.
Chapter Thirteen
“I don’t think I could ever get sick of kissing you,” Spencer murmured against Jesse’s cheek, thrilled to finally be alone with him after two days of anticipation. Jesse hummed, shifting his hold on Spencer. Spencer leaned back against Jesse’s chest at just the right angle to turn his head and steal another kiss whenever he wanted.
It wasn’t an objectively spectacular date, but it was one of the best Spencer had ever had. Admittedly, he could count the actual dates he’d been on with one hand and still have fingers to spare, but in the future, he wanted them all to be like this.
There was a nature documentary on the TV which they were both, in theory, watching. Since it was about insects, though, neither of them really cared. Spencer figured it was just there as background noise. So they could tell themselves that they weren’t just making out like horny teenagers.
Jesse’s apartment was sparse, the furniture tellingly brand new, but it still felt homey enough. Jesse’s presence was all over it in tiny ways, with knick knacks from assorted exotic locations dotted about on half-empty bookcases and shelves that had obviously come with the place.
There were dozens of photos of Jesse on his travels, some of them from when he was much younger. He’d been cute back then, all bright smiles in every single photo, as though they’d all been taken on the best day of his life.
His smiles were still bright now, but there was a little more softness to them. It was a kind of world-weariness, but Jesse didn’t seem weary, exactly. Just ol
der and wiser. More mature, more experienced than he had been back then.
Not that Spencer had known him. He was coming to a lot of conclusions based on photos he hadn’t even asked about.
He could solve that pretty easily, though.
“Where were those taken?” He nodded to the display with the bulk of the photos, all of which seemed to be from the same trip.
“Oh, uh. Papua New Guinea. I was twenty-two and super excited to be doing real fieldwork for the first time.”
“What was the work?” Spencer asked.
“Invasive species monitoring. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds. Not just the work, but the camping and the culture and all of that. I went in the first place because I had a huge crush on the professor leading it.” Jesse pointed to a middle-aged man with a beard and a warm smile in the photos.
He looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie in his linen suit, but Spencer could see the appeal. Everyone had professors they had crushes on when they were young. For Spencer, it had always been the ones that were a little strange. He’d felt a connection to people who were a half-step out of time with everyone else.
Jesse, with his tattoos and his PhD in botany, was one of those people.
“So you’re saying I should grow a beard?” Spencer teased.
“No, you’re perfect as you are.”
Spencer’s stomach flipped at the sincerity in Jesse’s tone. He really believed that Jesse thought he was perfect just as he was. No one had ever said anything like that to him before.
“You’re gonna be the professor so many of your students have a crush on,” Spencer said, equally sincere. It wasn’t just that Jesse was attractive—though he definitely was. It was his manner, his warmth, his obvious joy when he talked about the things he was teaching.
He didn’t quite fit in academia—dress shirts were strange on him, and he didn’t exactly look comfortable behind a desk—but that was all the more attractive. He was fun. People would respond to that.
Spencer certainly did.
“You already are the professor your students have a crush on. We’re sharing a few, and they always ask about you when you’re not around. Besides, you’re way more professor-y than I am.”
Spencer snorted. “I guess I’ve settled into it. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Fieldwork in astrophysics is scarce.”
“But you would probably get to go to space, which is cool.”
“No. Nuh-uh. I’ve seen enough movies about space travel to put me off the idea forever. They send botanists to space too, though. You could go.”
“I’ve read The Martian and I don’t think I’m nearly as smart as that guy. I don’t want to die alone on Mars,” Jesse said.
Spencer smiled to himself, thrilled that they had the same reading habits. That was the thing—as different as they were, they had a lot in common, too. To people who didn’t know them, they’d probably look strange together, ill-suited to each other. But Spencer knew better.
He was so intensely comfortable with Jesse that he wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it. Other than by spending as much time together as they could both spare.
“What do you want to do, then? Keep teaching?”
Jesse shook his head. “Not if I don’t have to. Honestly… this is gonna sound stupid.”
“Tell me anyway,” Spencer said. He was fairly sure nothing Jesse said would sound stupid. Not to him, anyway.
“I’d like to go into forest conservation. Not, like, become a park ranger or anything. I just want to be out there… collecting samples and stuff. I guess it seems like a lot of effort to go to, getting a PhD and then doing something like that. But I studied to prove I could. To prove I wasn’t stupid and I could follow an interest all the way through to the end. I’m done now. Teaching will keep a roof over my head, but it’s not what I want.”
Spencer hummed, considering that. He could barely imagine anything other than teaching now. That didn’t mean Jesse wanted to do it forever, and it wasn’t as though he had to, either. He’d gone into a field with a lot more practical value than Spencer had.
“So you’re a stealth hippie?” Spencer tilted his head back, grinning at him.
“Oh, you have no idea. Hang on, let me get up for a second so I can show you something.”
Spencer moved reluctantly, missing Jesse’s warmth the moment he got up. Jesse went to one of the boxes he still hadn’t unpacked, dug through it for a moment, and eventually extracted a crumpled photo from it. He brought it back to the couch and settled down again, leaving room for Spencer to get back in the same position he’d been in before.
This time, Spencer let himself rest fully against Jesse, leaning into him and letting his body relax completely. He was hoping not to be asked to move again for a while.
Jesse offered him the photo, which turned out to be another one of him—this time as a teenager, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He was wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt and holding onto an oil-covered penguin, cleaning it off with a towel.
“Wow,” Spencer said. He hadn’t expected this. The most environmentally-conscious thing he’d ever done was remember to bring reusable shopping bags to the grocery store.
Jesse shrugged. “It was my teenage rebellion. But I guess I never totally got over it, y’know? I always wanted to make a difference. I went to protests and everything.”
Spencer smiled down at the photo, pleased to have learned about this part of Jesse’s life. “You were adorable.”
“I’m not adorable now?” Jesse protested.
“You’re sexy now. It’s an upgrade,” Spencer said. He rubbed his cheek against Jesse’s, basking in the contact. This was almost better than sex. Cuddling on the couch was something Spencer had never really done a lot of before, but he realized now that he’d been missing out.
Pathetic as it sounded, Spencer had never really had a boyfriend. He wasn’t sure that Jesse was his boyfriend, but they did seem to be doing boyfriend-like activities together. It wasn’t just sex. They were enjoying each other’s company.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jesse said, kissing Spencer’s temple. He took the photo back and reached out to drop it on the coffee table. A moment later, he shifted to the side, moving so Spencer was lying in front of him and wrapping his arms around his waist.
Spencer could hear Jesse’s heartbeat, feel every breath he took. It was so nice to just be with someone.
Were they boyfriends? The question rolled around in Spencer’s mind. Were they something else? Was this just sex with a little cuddling?
It suddenly seemed urgent to know the answer. Spencer didn’t like not knowing things at the best of times, and now that he’d paused to wonder, he had to know where he stood. Even at the cost of potentially making a good thing awkward.
“Am I your boyfriend?” Spencer asked, bracing for an answer he didn’t want to hear. He felt stupid even saying it—he was too old to ask questions like that. He didn’t need a label for whatever it was they were doing.
Except he did. He needed to know that he wasn’t taking the risk he was for nothing. Or at least, he needed to know exactly what the stakes were. Hopefully, Jesse would understand that and not think he was ridiculous.
“Do you want to be?” Jesse murmured.
That left the question with Spencer. Maybe Jesse was as unsure as he was.
Strangely enough, that was a comforting thought. Comforting enough to give Spencer the confidence to be honest.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do. I’m hoping that’s what you want, too.”
Jesse laughed softly, his breath warming Spencer’s ear. “I do want that. That’s why I gave you my number in the first place. I was gonna take you on a couple of dates, first, but…”
“This is a good date,” Spencer said. It was definitely a good date if it meant he got to be himself without worrying he’d be rejected. “I’m enjoying it.”
“Me too.” Jesse sighed happily, holding Spencer a little tighter.
Spencer hummed and let himself melt against Jesse’s body, fitting against him as closely as he could. This was perfect, as far as he was concerned.
He could keep this a secret. No one would ever find out that he and Jesse were a thing.
Chapter Fourteen
Jesse woke the happiest he’d been in weeks, his limbs tangled up with Spencer’s and the blankets wrapped tightly around both of them. He could hear rain tip-tapping on the window beside the bed, the cool air of the rest of the room making the warm cocoon he was curled up in all the more appealing.
Waking up next to Spencer felt amazing.
He moved his hand to trace patterns on Spencer’s shoulder, fingertips barely brushing over the skin. Being around Spencer made him smile. Every single time they were together, Jesse couldn’t help it.
The more he got to know him, the more he liked him. It wasn’t often that he met someone he felt understood by. People looked at him and saw a big guy, covered in tattoos, and assumed that meant he was stupid or dangerous—or both. Spencer hadn’t even paused.
Spencer saw him as an intellectual equal, even though he’d seen what Jesse was like in his off hours. A lot of other scientists looked down on him when they found out.
Jesse knew that Spencer didn’t quite get that yet, didn’t understand why Jesse liked him so much, but they had time. Now that they’d decided to be together, they had all the time in the world.
Spencer hummed as he woke, yawning widely, then making a tiny grunt and settling down to doze again. Jesse smiled and dropped a kiss on his shoulder.
“Morning,” he murmured, nuzzling the back of Spencer’s neck.
“Good morning to you, too.” Spencer rocked his hips back, rubbing against Jesse’s hard-on. Jesse’s breath hitched. He really hoped this was going where it looked like it was going.
Morning sex was easily one of his favorite kinds.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, trailing his fingers down Spencer’s stomach. He paused to circle Spencer’s belly button, remembering that it was sensitive, and was rewarded with a gasp.
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