Ashton’s hazel eyes widened in total, stunned confusion, his mind completely failing to parse the three words hanging heavily in the dark bedroom.
Keegan reached up with trembling fingers, taking Ashton by the wrists and gently, firmly pulling Ashton’s warm hands away from his face.
He dropped them into the space between them on the mattress.
A faint, bitter smile curled the edge of Keegan’s lips—a quiet, self-mocking gesture that didn’t reach his dark, hollow eyes at all.
“Funny how your expression changed so fast,” Keegan murmured, his voice flat, devoid of the panic that had consumed him just minutes ago.
He looked away, shaking his head slightly.
“Never mind I said that.
Forget it.
I…
I just meant let’s actually get some sleep.”
Keegan’s gaze drifted past Ashton’s shoulder to the glowing numbers of the digital clock resting on the nightstand beside the abandoned, untouched boba tea.
08:48 PM.
Bright red digits blinked back at him in the dim room.
They had been trapped in this agonizing back-and-forth for hours—the morning slipping entirely away while the rest of their friends were obviously already back in the hotel by this time or they were still having fun since the park closed late.
“Jesus…” Keegan exhaled softly, rubbing a hand down his face as if trying to scrape away the remaining fatigue and shame.
“It’s already so late.”
Before Ashton could find his voice or process the lingering tension in the air, Keegan swung his legs over the edge of the mattress.
He shoved the heavy duvet aside and forced his shaking body to stand up, desperate to put physical distance between himself and the boy sitting on his bed.
“Where are you going?” Ashton asked quickly, his voice still laced with a disoriented, guarded edge as he turned around on the mattress to watch him.
“Bathroom,” Keegan muttered without looking back, his bare feet sliding over the cool carpet as he headed straight for the adjoining en-suite door.
“I need to wash my face.”
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Inside the bathroom, the heavy door clicked shut, locking out the rest of the world.
Keegan didn’t make it to the sink.
His legs simply gave out, and he sank down onto the cool, polished tiles, slumping against the clear glass enclosure of the walk-in shower.
He pulled his knees up against his chest, staring blankly at the bottom of the closed bathroom door.
Outside, heavy footsteps padded across the carpet and stopped right on the other side.
Ashton stood there in the quiet hallway.
He raised a hand, his knuckles hovering an inch from the wood as if to knock, his lips parting to say something—anything—to make sense of what had just happened.
But the words died in his throat.
He lowered his hand, standing in complete silence.
From inside, Keegan watched the dark shadow of Ashton’s feet silhouetted under the narrow gap beneath the door.
He held his breath, his heart hammering against his ribs in terrifying, erratic beats.
For a few agonizing minutes, neither of them moved.
Then, the shadow shifted.
Keegan watched as the feet turned around and padded quietly back across the suite.
A second later, the distinct, metallic latch of the front mahogany door clicked open and shut.
Ashton was gone.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Keegan let out a long, ragged exhale, burying his head deep into his arms resting on his knees.
His shoulders shook as he pressed his forehead hard against his knees, squeezing his eyes shut against the suffocating shame.
“What was I thinking…?” Keegan whispered into the empty bathroom, his raspy voice trembling with self-loathing.
“God…
what the hell was I thinking…?”
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Downstairs, the resort plaza was bursting with afternoon energy.
The fool bright moon reflected off the sparkling pool waters, and lively music drifted through the air, completely disconnected from the dark, suffocating room high above.
Ashton stepped out of the resort’s main lounge, mindlessly navigating through the steady stream of vacationing crowds.
He automatically assumed the rest of the group was still out near the beach or somewhere having fun, but his mind was completely somewhere else, looping back to the look in Keegan’s eyes over and over.
He stopped by the outdoor grill and bar, ordering a fresh, hot pizza box and four chilled bottles of beer.
He handed over his credit card, waiting in a quiet daze as the cashier processed the payment and packed everything into a carrier bag.
Ashton signed the receipt, grabbed the hot pizza box in one arm and the bag of drinks in the other, and turned around to head back toward the elevators.
He barely took two steps before he nearly collided with someone coming from the opposite direction.
“Whoa—!”
“Oh!” Chloe gasped, taking a quick step back to avoid the pizza box.
She looked up, her face lighting up with a bright, gorgeous smile the second she realized who it was.
“Babe!
Oh my god, is that for us?
Haa, you’re such an absolute lifesaver!
The guys literally dragged me out here to come grab a round of drinks and food for everyone.”
Ashton stood there looking unusually quiet, his brow slightly furrowed, his head clearly a million miles away.
Chloe tilted her head, her eyes softening with concern.
“Hey…
how’s Keegs doing?”
Ashton blinked, catching up to the conversation and forcing a quick, reassuring smile onto his face.
“Ah…
Chloe.
He’s…
he’s still not doing great, honestly.
Right now he’s just taking a shower.”
“Ow, that’s a total bummer,” Chloe sighed sympathetically, resting a hand on her hip.
Then she glanced down at the hot pizza box and the clinking glass bottles in his hands.
“Wait, so who’s all that food for?”
“It’s for him,” Ashton explained, shifting the weight of the box in his arm.
“He hasn’t actually eaten anything the whole day, so I bought these.
I just…
I figure I’d go back up and hang out with him, try to have a good time together since he missed out on pretty much everything since yesterday.”
Chloe looked at him for a long, quiet moment, taking in his earnest tone and the simple, effortless way he looked out for his best friend.
A sweet, fond warmth filled her gaze.
She stepped in close, leaning up on her tiptoes to press a soft, lingering kiss against his cheek.
“You’re the best, my love,” Chloe murmured softly against his skin, pulling back with a tender smile.
“The absolute best.
Keegan is so incredibly lucky to have you as his friend…
and honestly, so are those slackers over by the pool who sent me on this errand.”
She gave him a playful wink, backing away toward the bar.
“Go on then, good luck with your patient, babe!
See you later!”
Ashton gave her a short nod, watching her turn away before he headed back toward hotel.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
The electronic keycard chimed softly, and Ashton pushed open the heavy mahogany door of Suite 503, stepping inside and letting it click shut securely behind him.
The living area was quiet and cool.
Carrying the pizza box and the four cold bottles, Ashton walked straight into the darkened adjoining bedroom.
He fully expected to hear the water running or to find the bathroom door still locked tight.
But as his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the heavy curtains, he froze in the doorway.
Keegan wasn’t in the bathroom.
He was sitting right on the edge of the mattress, wearing a clean shirt, his damp hair slightly messy from a quick wash.
He was staring quietly down at his own bare feet, his hands resting motionless on his knees.
Ashton set the pizza box and the clinking bottles down on the nightstand right next to the forgotten boba tea.
“Hey,” Ashton said softly into the quiet room, breaking the silence as he stood at the foot of the bed.
“You’re out.”
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
11:09PM
A couple of hours slipped away in a blur of warm television light, greasy cardboard, and low-frequency music.
The heavy, suffocating tension that had held the Suite hostage for the entire day finally began to thaw, buried under four drained glass beer bottles lined up on the nightstand and a pizza box with nothing left inside but a few stray crusts.
Keegan sat propped up against the headboard, his legs stretched out over the duvet.
He was finally holding the cup of iced taro boba tea Ashton had brought him hours ago, using the plastic straw to mindlessly swirl the remaining tapioca pearls around in the purple liquid.
At the foot of the bed, Ashton was sprawled out on his back, his head resting against a pile of pillows, a loose, easy smile plastered across his face as the alcohol and late hour loosened his shoulders.
“Dude, I swear to God,” Ashton chuckled out, his voice rich and raspy as he stared up at the ceiling, tossing a couch cushion up in the air and catching it.
“Remember three years ago when we first got into Clifton Heights?
When you were totally convinced our freshman schedules were somehow going to be mixed?”
Keegan let out an soft, involuntary laugh, shaking his head as he took a sip of his boba.
“Don’t bring that up.
I was stressed.”
“Stressed?” Ashton sat up on his elbow, looking over at Keegan with hazel eyes full of bright, teasing amusement.
“Keegs, you literally printed out my class portal and your class portal, sat on the floor of our dorm room for three hours, and tried to color-code them into one combined schedule!
You literally assigned us ‘joint study blocks’ before classes even started!”
“Because I thought Clifton Heights had an interdisciplinary core curriculum!” Keegan argued, a genuine, flushed smile finally breaking through his pale face as he nudged Ashton’s hip with his socked foot.
“How was I supposed to know Business majors and Art majors didn’t take a single class together?
I was just trying to keep us organized!”
Ashton wheezed out, letting his head fall back onto the pillow as he laughed out loud.
“I walked into my first lecture thinking you were gonna sit right next to me, and instead I had to spend two hours listening to supply-and-demand graphs while you were over in the design hall drawing live models.”
“And you texted me sixty-four times during that lecture complaining that your professor looked like a thumb,” Keegan pointed out, his eyes crinkling at the corners—a real, unforced warmth washing over him for the first time all day.
“He did look like a thumb!” Ashton insisted, sitting up completely now and crossing his legs on the mattress.
“I was dying, Keegs.
I needed my support artist.”
Keegan looked down at his boba tea, the laughter slowly settling into a soft, quiet atmosphere between them.
It felt so easy like this.
When they were 20, when they were just two guys who had known each other forever, sitting on a hotel bed at night talking about college memories.
For a few fragile minutes, Keegan could almost pretend that the bitter scent of Chloe’s perfume wasn’t still clinging faintly to Ashton’s hoodie, and that the agonizing confession hovering on the tip of his tongue had never existed at all.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
12:30 AM.
The distant pulse of bass from the resort plaza had long since died down, leaving the bedroom wrapped in an absolute, heavy silence.
Outside, the night was completely still, the ocean breeze barely rustling the heavy velvet curtains drawn across the balcony doors.
Keegan leaned over from the bed as he made sure there wasn’t any more dirty boxes or bottles in the room.
A moment later, the bathroom door clicked open.
Ashton walked out, rubbing a white towel over his damp hair.
He had changed into a soft, gray t-shirt and low-slung sweatpants, radiating that clean, warm scent of cedar and soap.
Tossing the towel onto a chair, Ashton climbed straight back onto the bed without a second thought, stretching out his long legs and propping himself up on his elbow right next to Keegan.
Keegan looked down at him, his brow twitching slightly as he swirled the last few pearls in his boba cup.
“Aren’t you going back down to Chloe?
Maybe kira isn’t with her again.”
Ashton just smiled, a lazy, lopsided smirk playing on his lips as he looked up at Keegan.
“Nope.
Today you have my full, undivided attention, princess.”
Keegan’s head snapped toward him, a sudden laugh bubbling out of his throat despite himself.
“Hey—don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” Ashton chuckled, hazel eyes gleaming with playful mischief in the dim ambient light.
“You call me princess literally every time we win a game!”
“That’s completely different!” Keegan protested, leaning down to swat Ashton hard across the chest.
“You’re the star golden boy who gets treated like royalty, and I’m the blueliner who has to clean up your messy turnovers!
You are a princess on the ice!”
“Oh, it’s different, is it?” Ashton’s smirk widened into a dangerous grin.
Before Keegan could react, Ashton lunged forward on the mattress, digging his fingers straight into Keegan’s ribs.
Keegan let out a loud, breathless gasp, dropping his boba tea onto the nightstand as he instantly doubled over, squirming desperately to dodge Ashton’s ruthless hands.
“Ash—stop!
Don’t—fuck—stop it!”
“Say it, Sterling!” Ashton laughed, shifting his weight until he was straddling Keegan’s thighs, pinning him down under his sheer frame while his fingers kept digging into Keegan’s waist.
“Say I’m the greatest king to ever skate for Clifton Heights!
Say it!”
“King—my ass!” Keegan wheezed out, his voice completely wrecked by helpless, breathless laughter as he thrashed underneath him.
“I’m—I’m older than you, remember?!”
“By twenty-four hours!” Ashton wheezed, wheezing with laughter as he pressed all his weight down to hold Keegan still.
“One single day doesn’t make you the boss of me!”
Gathering every ounce of strength in his core, Keegan threw his upper body upward, grabbing Ashton by his wrists and violently twisting his hips.
The sudden leverage threw Ashton off balance.
With a hard, breathless grunt, Keegan flipped their positions entirely, slamming Ashton back-first onto the mattress and throwing one knee over Ashton’s thighs to pin him down.
Keegan sat heavily on Ashton’s chest, his hands reaching up to tangling firmly in Ashton’s damp, messy hair, holding his head down against the pillows.
“Now,” Keegan panted out, his chest heaving violently, a bright, flushed grin plastered across his face as he stared down at his best friend.
“Who’s your king now, Montgomery?”
Ashton didn’t answer.
The breathless laughter suddenly evaporated from the air.
Ashton lay completely still beneath him, his hazel eyes fixed on Keegan with a sudden, unblinking intensity that made the air in Keegan’s lungs freeze instantly.
The playful atmosphere snapped, plunging the room into an eerie, suffocating silence.
Keegan’s heart took a violent leap into his throat.
He felt the rapid heat of Ashton’s breath against his hands, felt the sharp shift in the weight beneath him.
“Hey…” Keegan whispered, his smile fading as his grip in Ashton’s hair loosened slightly.
“Montgo—”
Before Keegan could finish the surname, Ashton’s hands shot up, wrapping firmly around the back of Keegan’s neck.
Ashton sat up violently off the mattress, bridging the space between them in a fraction of a second, and crashed his lips directly onto Keegan’s.
Keegan’s eyes snapped wide open in total, paralyzed shock.