Elliott contemplated his options in the vending machine, wishing he hadn’t eaten his Pop-Tarts so quickly. The machine was only stocked twice a month, and since it was already the middle of February, all that was left was the gross and the pseudo-healthy.

He needed something to keep him going, though. There was so much material to sift through for his essay on Julio-Claudian emperors, and if he wanted the TA to critique it before the deadline, he needed to finish it this week.

Elliott’s forehead thunked to the plexiglass. Red Vines would taste like plastic, but at least keep him occupied for a while. Decision made, he fished his change from his pocket.

His phone rang just as he was about to put the first quarter into the machine. His fingers hovered over the right buttons, but he decided to answer the call before making his choice.

Elliott frowned at the phone before he hit Accept. Aiden only ever texted him, usually when he was schmoozing clients in bars after work, hating his life and lamenting the fact that he couldn’t have been anything else but a lawyer.

“Hello?” Elliott said, suspicious already.

“Hi, Elliott.” Aiden sounded relieved to hear him, and a little like he’d just woken up, strangely, since it was six in the evening and Aiden hated napping. “Sorry to disturb you, I know I’m not seeing you until tomorrow. I have a bit of an emergency, and I— Uh.”

“You wanted to make sure I wouldn’t ignore your texts.”

Aiden gave a surprised laugh. “Yeah, maybe.”

Elliott waited for Aiden to elaborate, but there was only silence, with a soft clinking in the background. Maybe he was doing dishes?

The pause went on long enough to be awkward, so Elliott, impatient as ever, gave Aiden the prodding he needed. “So, is there something I can do for you?”

“Oh, yes, actually.” Elliott could almost picture Aiden starting guiltily. “I need your help.”

“My help?” Elliott’s brain started automatically searching for something he had to offer Aiden that he wasn’t already giving. He really didn’t think he was about to be asked for pointers on blowjob technique and couldn’t imagine Aiden needed a well-researched paper on the greatest hits of Julio-Claudian emperors.

“Yes. Now, you can feel free to say no—it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ll work it out on my own if you can’t, but if you would consider it, I would be extremely grateful.”

“Aiden, you’re worrying me a little. What the hell is it?”

Aiden sighed, and there was more clinking and a small thud, like Aiden had put down a particularly heavy dish. (Except, when did Aiden ever wash dishes that weren’t plastic?)

“I have to go to a gala next weekend,” Aiden admitted, and from his anxious, sheepish tone, it was clear where he was heading. “It’s a big charity thing, two grand per plate, live music, all that stuff.”

“I know the kind.” Events like that had been a big part of Elliott’s first job. Innes’s flagrant disregard for conventional—read: heterosexual—relationships was something the older partners had attempted to use against him.

As a partner of his grandfather’s firm, Innes was untouchable, but that didn’t keep the other partners from making assumptions that he was a spoiled brat. That being true didn’t stop Innes from showing off a guy half his age as a giant fuck-you to people who didn’t want the “icky gays” on top.

“I thought you might be familiar with them,” Aiden said, then he let out a long, relieved breath. Maybe Aiden expected him to groan theatrically at the very mention of the word gala. “Innes usually goes to these things to represent the family and the firm, but he has to go out of town suddenly.”

“Suddenly,” Elliott confirmed, crisply.

These things were planned for a year in advance, sometimes more. They were on the same weekend every year to make sure the same people were able to show up. Elliott would be willing to bet that if he looked in his datebook for a year ago, he would’ve been ready for the exact same occasion.

“Yes.” Aiden’s voice was absolutely neutral, giving nothing away.

Prior experience with the scary time-management skills of Innes’s PA made it difficult for Elliott to believe he could’ve been taken by surprise, so there was a good chance he was faking.

To punish Aiden? Maybe. But it would probably be unrelated to Elliott’s lateral move. Innes wasn’t the possessive type. Not about Elliott. His attempts to push expensive gifts on him had been more about the wealth the jewelry or watches represented.

Right?

“So, I have a problem,” Aiden said, predictably. “Innes had already told them he was bringing a guest along with him. It’s a sit-down dinner thing, and a plus-one is pretty much expected. His assistant told me that the number of people at each table in the seating plan is vitally important, for some reason, and the organizers would threaten her with bodily harm if she told them only I was coming.”

“You want me to come with you, then?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind.”

If Aiden and Elliott had had a contract, this wouldn’t have been on it. Aiden had made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t interested in parading Elliott around like Innes had.

“If Innes was planning on going, that means at least a few of his friends will be there,” Elliott pointed out. “Are you prepared for people to recognize me? He never did tell me whether some of them knew what our deal was, or if they all just assumed I was a gold digger with daddy issues.” One of those was half-true.

“Yes. We can keep it friendly and you’ll be a familiar enough face that people might not even question it. They don’t need to know we, uh—” Aiden cleared his throat, and it was a good thing Aiden wasn’t in the room to see Elliott’s majestic eye roll. “—have an arrangement. It’s none of their business.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

Elliott could’ve said no. Aiden would probably have to increase his dosage of antacids again until he found someone else, but he wouldn’t blame Elliott if he was too busy with school. With that in mind, Elliott still didn’t seriously consider refusing. He’d get an extra day of work on his paycheck, and enjoy a fancy dinner as well.

“Okay, sign me up,” he said. “What’s the dress code?”

“Black tie, but—”

“Ooh, fancy.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Aiden sounded hilariously incredulous, which said a lot about how different his opinion was from Elliott’s when it came to charity galas. For Aiden, they must come with their own dramatic theme music. A benefit for underprivileged kids? Horror! Dancing starts at 8 p.m.? Dun dun dunnn!

“I don’t mind at all. It’s not like I haven’t done this kind of thing before.” So many times. Truly, he was a pro. “I’m curious, though. Why are you asking me? Couldn’t Innes’s assistant come with you? Or one of your sisters?”

“My sisters had already RSVP’d. And his assistant was the one who brought me the news that I’d have to go and followed it up with way too many details about the holiday to Majorca she’s taking with her husband that week. I didn’t even get the chance to ask before she was telling me that the answer was an unequivocal no.”

Elliott’s hand had frozen around his pocketful of change at the mention of Aiden’s family. “Oh, your sisters will be there?”

“Yes.” Aiden sounded so happy, and Elliott could almost feel the affection in his voice. “Jill’s home from college for a visit that weekend and Shannon just moved back into the area. I guess you’ve never met them.”

“Nope.” Meeting Aiden had been unavoidable, since he and Innes had worked together and gone to so many of the same work functions, but Innes had been pretty adamant about not wanting to explain himself to anyone else who shared his last name. “You’re the only other Kent I had the pleasure of meeting as Innes’s—”

“A true honor,” Aiden drawled.

Elliott smiled into his phone and graciously allowed him to change the subject. “You better believe it, peasant. I’m a delight.”

Aiden snorted and Elliott grinned into the phone. “Yeah, sure. You should buy yourself a tux—”

“I can rent one, I know a guy.”

“Seriously, get it tailored and keep it. You never know when you’ll need one. Get them to send me the bill; I’ll take care of it.”

Elliott’s stomach twisted, and the appeal of red candy vanished. “Ah, ah, hold your horses. Because this is outside of my normal area, and I’m your employee, I’ll allow you to pay for the cheapest rental I can get my hands on, but anything more than that is unnecessary.”

“I appreciate this, though. It’s the least I could do to give you something that will last you for years—”

“No, the least you could do is pay me for my services. That’s all I’ll accept, because you’re not my sugar daddy. This isn’t personal, Aiden. It’s overtime.”

Aiden was quiet for a while, and Elliott started to panic. First, that Aiden might dig in his heels, and second, that he’d gone too far.

He’d just bitched at his boss.

“Fine,” Aiden said. “If I can’t change your mind, then I’ll pay for the rental, and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

“Deal.” That made sense, in the strange leger of debt and payment Elliott had built in his head. He wouldn’t owe any gratitude, and he wouldn’t expect too much in return. “I appreciate that.”

“Sure. It’s two Saturdays from now, by the way. In the evening.”

Was that it? Was Aiden going to accept that Elliott had come close to yelling at him? Elliott wasn’t going to push it, but Aiden seemed pretty chill for someone who’d been on the receiving end of Elliott’s displeasure.

“Okay,” Elliott said, his hand jingling his collection of quarters again. “Let me check my calendar before I let you go, just to make sure I don’t have anything else I promised to do that day. Gimme a minute to get to my computer.”

Giving up on the idea of the Red Vines, he walked briskly to his room, then warned Aiden that he was being put on hold before he placed his phone facedown on the desk. His laptop groaned to life, protesting at having to do anything quickly in its advanced age. When he was finished scrolling through dates filled with his carefully crafted study schedule, he lifted the phone to his ear.

“Yep, we’re free and clear and—” Elliott’s ears perked at a new sound in the background that stopped a second after he went quiet.

It was a familiar noise, but it took a few seconds for him to place it. It brought him back to his first semester and the few wild nights he’d allowed himself, but also to his dad’s garage every time he was home from college and wanted to unwind. It was so incongruous that it took Elliott way too long to recognize what was unmistakably the wet, bubbling sound of a bong hit.

“What are you doing?” Elliott asked, even though he knew the answer.

“What? Nothing,” Aiden said, immediately, guiltily, and that was all the proof Elliott needed.

“Oh ho, you are definitely doing something!” Elliott accused, gleefully. “You are partaking in a controlled hallucinogenic substance, Mr. Kent!”

“What? No, I’m—” Aiden started choking, a dry, hacking cough loud enough that Elliott had to take the phone away from his ear for a minute until Aiden got it under control.

“Elliott, I— It’s—” Aiden croaked.

“You fucker. Stay there, put your lung back in your rib cage where it’s supposed to be, and don’t finish it without me.”

“What?”

“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there.”

Elliott hung up and snagged his jacket and key card, almost dancing out the door to catch the bus. Julio-Claudian emperors could wait. Elliott had invited himself to a far better use of his Tuesday night.

“And then, I kid you not, this guy said in his most stereotypical stoner mumble that he’d never seen the full moon when he wasn’t high.”

Aiden snorted, sinking further into the couch. “Bullshit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Like, did he never go outside after dark as a kid? Apparently not, though. His mother was super strict or something.”

Aiden raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Strict, huh?”

“Yeah.” Elliott let his head loll to the side, pressing his warm face into the cool leather. “And all it got her was a neurotic college dropout with enough in his trust fund to surround himself with deadbeat college-dropout friends. And me, who isn’t any of those things.”

Aiden’s face scrunched up adorably as he let out a little laugh.

“Oh my god. No way,” Elliott cried, grinning from ear to ear. “Are you one of them?”

Aiden’s snickers, which were way disproportionate to the joke Elliott had made, tumbled past his rigid lips. “One of what?”

“A giggler,” Elliott accused, then he slapped a palm over his face. “I can’t believe it. My image of you is completely ruined.”

Aiden whacked his arm, but not hard enough to hurt. “Fuck off, that’s the euphoria you should have learned about in high-school health class last week.”

“Hey, fuck you right back, I’m twenty-one.” Elliott yawned and stretched out, crossing his legs next to the sensible breath mint tin half-full of Aiden’s supply. There wasn’t much, since, according to Aiden, he only needed it once every week or two.

“So, what about you?” Elliott asked.

Aiden blinked slowly, staring straight-ahead. “Hmm?”

“Were your parents strict? I’m just a little shocked that this is something you do. High-flying-lawyer type that you are.”

“Why? It’s perfectly legal.” Aiden’s voice was lower than normal, with a sexy rasp that was doing unexpected things to Elliott. “I’ve got a medical card and everything. My job is high-stress, so I need a way to relax from time to time.”

Elliott had one too, though he’d only used it once. Smoking helped him sleep, but he didn’t like to rely on any one form of sleep aid for any length of time. He’d learned other ways to relieve stress.

A thought occurred to Elliott, and he found himself giggling like Aiden.

“What?”

“It’s just—” He waved his hand lazily between them. “This, the whole you-and-me thing. That’s stress relief too, technically, so I was imagining something. What if you could claim me on your taxes as a business expense?”

Aiden’s jaw hung slack for a few seconds before he lost it and started laughing harder than before, dragging Elliott with him. They snickered like children until the joke died away and Elliott was pleasantly relaxed. He adjusted his position, swinging his legs off the table and into Aiden’s lap, but Aiden didn’t seem to mind. He started trailing his fingers up and down the fabric of Elliott’s jeans, above his ankle. It was rhythmic and soothing, a hypnotic caress that could’ve put him to sleep.

“Do you like your job?” Elliott asked.

The rubbing stopped and he opened his eyes. When had they closed?

“What do you mean?” Aiden asked.

“I mean, do you like it? Are you excited to go to work every day?”

“Is anyone?”

Elliott lifted his head to see Aiden’s face clearly, just in time to see him shrug, his face open and honest. “Sure,” Elliott said. “Lots of people love their job, or at the very least, they don’t mind it.”

“What’s your point?”

“It seems like you actively dislike what you do.”

Aiden’s hand started its rubbing again, slower this time, and purposeful. “I don’t know if I dislike it. Parts of it are satisfying.”

“But?”

“But sometimes I sit in my car in the mornings and I have to force myself to go in. Sometimes I make deals with myself, like, if I buck up and go in right now, I can take an extra five minutes for lunch. Or if I call this client I hate without procrastinating, I can eat a muffin.”

A lazy laugh bubbled out from Elliott’s chest. “Naughty.”

“Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah. So, I guess the answer is no, you don’t like it.”

Aiden shrugged again, staring placidly down at the foot in his lap. “Not really.”

“Why do it then?”

“I thought I wanted to.” Aiden’s voice was soft. Not sad, exactly, but resigned. “Law school was tough, but at least I was accomplishing something. I liked learning the theory and reading case studies. Sometimes my job feels almost the same, but usually, it’s all the worst parts of college.”

“Like with police officers and paperwork.”

“What?”

“Dad says police work is eighty percent drudgery and twenty percent high-octane stress. If you don’t like the boring stuff, the cool things won’t make it worth it.”

Dad also said that new officers wanted the heroism without putting in the work, but that wouldn’t be helpful to point out, especially considering that Aiden did put in the work. He just hated it.

Aiden snorted. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“So, why don’t you quit? You’ve given it a good college try. Why not move on?”

“My family would . . . It’s complicated.” Aiden let out a long breath, his eyes flicking around the room for a few moments before he shook his head. “Speaking of your dad, what about you? Was he strict? I imagine, being a cop, he would be.”

Elliott generously took the bait, sinking deeper into the couch that was starting to feel more like home than the chair in his dorm. “You’d be right—to a certain extent. He works a lot and I was responsible for myself a lot, so it wasn’t like he could get on my case about curfews and things. But if he’d ever caught me doing this before it was entirely legal, I could’ve said goodbye to my freedom, so I never wanted to risk it.”

“And after that? You didn’t mind the risk?”

He shrugged. “Not really. It’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t it? A police officer’s cherished only son, an upstanding, rule-abiding honor student, beloved by everyone he meets—” Aiden snorted with laughter so Elliott dug his toes into his thigh and ignored him. “—gets to college and goes wild.”

“Oh, yeah, so wild. Studies constantly, gets good grades, has a ten-year plan, and sometimes smokes weed. You wild thing.”

“I don’t do it often,” he told Aiden, truthfully. “I don’t have the kind of disposable income for that, so I just mooch off other people when I can. Like you.”

“I don’t mind,” Aiden said, a soft, dazed smile on his handsome face. “It isn’t much fun on your own, anyway.”

Elliott gasped, his hand going to his smoke-warmed chest in feigned outrage. “Aiden, you rebel. I thought you did it for the stress relief, not the fun. Shame on you—”

“Yeah, well, I do you for the fun too, and I don’t hear you complaining.” Aiden pushed Elliott’s legs off his lap but didn’t protest when Elliott dragged his bulky arm over his smaller shoulders instead, only laughing as Elliott burrowed in.

“No. No complaints here.”

He melted into Aiden’s side, breathing in the scent of Aiden’s laundry detergent with the new and intoxicating sweet-sour tang of weed smoke. The couch was their territory, where they spent most of their time that wasn’t in the bedroom. This tangled position was still a familiar one for them, comfortable and routine. As familiar to Elliott as being on his hands and knees for Innes.

He shook that thought off, chastising himself yet again for comparing the two Kent men. There was nothing to compare, really, only to contrast. Trying to stack them up next to each other was an insult to Aiden and far more complimentary than Innes deserved.

“God, can you imagine me doing this with Innes?” Elliott blurted, then immediately wished he could staple his mouth shut. Whatever strain Aiden had access to was loosening Elliott’s tongue.

“Not at all. It isn’t his thing.”

“Yeah, no doubt. A glass of wine is the only—”

“I used to be jealous of him.”

Elliott blinked, his reaction time slowed to a crawl. “Of Innes? Why?”

Aiden stared straight-ahead, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “You.”

Seconds ticked by as Elliott attempted to wrap his head around what Aiden was saying. Aiming for casual, he said, “Oh, yeah?”

He must have sounded as nonchalant as he’d intended, because underneath his legs, Aiden’s body lost some of its insidious tension.

“I thought it would be nice to have someone,” Aiden said, his head dropping back against the couch again. “He could just call, and an intelligent, nice, and . . . vibrant guy would come liven things up. Of course, he had to be all sleazy about it, but I could understand that a bit.”

His head rolled toward Elliott, warmth glinting in his dark eyes as he let his hand rest on Elliott’s knee.

“Flatterer,” Elliott said, struggling for any other response. “Well, now you’ve got me.”

“Yeah.”

They enjoyed a few more minutes of vacancy, then the jitters Elliott sometimes got when he was high made his legs and fingers too twitchy to ignore. He needed a distraction. A good one immediately came to mind, which he initially dismissed, but then he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Halfway to Aiden’s apartment, he’d remembered that he’d still have to come over for his regular Wednesday appointment. Since he wasn’t on the clock, he wasn’t required to do anything except steal some of Aiden’s stash and leave. Aiden’s fingers on a lighter, though . . . they made Elliott forget the days of the week.

Elliott relinquished Aiden’s arm, then got up on his knees, straddling one of Aiden’s legs.

If he was a bit prone to clinginess while sober, he was a limpet while drunk or stoned. Weed made any touch twice as intense, which wasn’t always a good thing, but with a guy who knew how to go slow and steady like Aiden? It was a great thing. A very tempting thing.

He kissed Aiden in slow motion, giving him his tongue like Aiden had given him the smoke from his mouth earlier while they both laughed at the silliness of it. Elliott tried to ramp it up, but Aiden didn’t take his lead.

“What’s wrong?” Elliott asked when he pulled away.

Aiden looked directly into his—probably bloodshot—eyes. “Is this a good idea? Neither of us is sober. Are you going to regret this tomorrow?”

Elliott blinked. No one had ever asked him that before sex. Most likely because he’d always been at a comparable level of intoxication as his partner, but still.

“Dude,” he said, laughing. “I’m California-born and raised. This is nothing.”

“You don’t get an automatic tolerance from being born in a California zip code. You just told me you didn’t start from the cradle.”

“Exactly. So, me taking to it like a fish to water in my first week of college proves that I was born to blaze. Occasionally. When the moment is right, and someone else is paying for it. Come on.”

He got up off of Aiden’s lap and tugged his hands until he was standing, then pulled him backward across the living room and down the hall. Aiden followed, stiff as a zombie all the way to the bedroom, but he didn’t put up any resistance. Elliott let go of Aiden’s hands when he crossed the threshold, and started taking off his clothes, while Aiden watched, leaning against the door. Elliott knew, when he was naked and lounging in the center of Aiden’s ridiculous bed, that he’d won. Aiden hadn’t stopped him, even as he’d cocked his knee and stretched his arm up over his head.

They were mildly relaxed, not wasted. He knew Aiden, trusted him. They were good, and they were going to do this, and enjoy every second of it.

Aiden made him wait for it. He made him arch his back and run his hands over his exposed skin, avoiding the place that wanted to be touched the most. He let Elliott tempt him into sin, rather than jumping into it feetfirst, like normal.

Elliott loved it more that he’d expected to. Under Aiden’s assessing gaze, he felt as a subject in a great painting might, so different from timeless, placid Greek statues. Legs open, beckoning, lips bitten and wet, no blanket or sheet, nothing hidden from the white light of the ceiling fixture.

Elliott was naked, exposed and vulnerable to judgment, but powerful too. He could choose to offer sex or withhold it, and his body—his everything—had the ability to tempt Aiden off his teetering ledge of impractical morality.

It ended up not being a jump, but a slow tilting to resignation. Aiden shed his clothes leisurely, still making Elliott wait and wait. He prowled until he was hovering over Elliott’s body in the center of the bed like a giant cat, pressing him down into the mattress at his own pace, ignoring clinging arms and legs trying their best to bring him closer right away, right now.

Both of them were too worked up and chemically slowed down to do more than rub off on each other, grinding and stroking against whatever they could reach without having to move too much.

Elliott felt seventeen years old again, fumbling on top of the covers, no idea what he was doing, but enjoying every second of it anyway. He loved kissing normally. When he was high, it was even better, though it balanced on the edge of too much for his textbook heightened sensory awareness.

He almost fell asleep before he came, too caught up in the hedonistic journey to care much about the destination, but Aiden clearly hadn’t forgotten it. After a few minutes, he sat up, and Elliott was suddenly cold from the absence of his humid body heat, but he didn’t have long to be distracted by the chill. Aiden quickly fisted their dicks and got them off in a fraction of the time it usually took them, like a train speeding to a fiery crash after hours of crawling along the track.

Elliott was too energized after that to fall asleep, so he enjoyed the afterglow to the fullest, grabbing Aiden’s head and kissing him stupid, long after the tremors of orgasm had passed. As usual, Aiden was too out of it to participate much, but from the smile on his face when Elliott brought him a towel from the bathroom, he wasn’t complaining.

After they were both clean, Elliott shuffled across the carpet. “See you tomorrow,” he told Aiden as he flicked off the overhead light on his way out of the bedroom.

“Mrfm,” Aiden said.

That razor-sharp lawyer intellect, Elliott thought, amused.

He got his jacket from the closet and toed on his shoes, all in the semidarkness of the hall that’d been lit by natural daylight when Elliott had arrived. It was early yet, though, enough that he could go back to the Julio-Claudian emperors if he wanted to. He was still a little buzzed. Maybe all he needed to get the words flowing was a change of perspective.

He wondered if ancient Romans had blazed and abruptly had to know with a burning passion.

Well. Guess I know what I’ll be doing with my evening.

They hadn’t, he discovered, a few hours and a few dozen Wikipedia articles later. They had seriously missed out.