Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
PEYTON
My whole life I’ve had the pressure of being Marcus Talon and Shane Miller’s football prodigy. I’ve been destined to follow in my NFL-playing fathers’ footsteps since the day I was born. I usually thrive under pressure, but as senior year looms, it all gets too much, and I need an outlet. The last place I thought I’d find my release is at Levi Vanderbilt’s graduation party. In his bed. With him.
It’s a one-time thing. An experimentation. And while it was fun, we agree that being with guys isn’t for either of us. I’m happy to accept that until he turns up in California.
I haven’t had to think about him for four years, but now I can’t get him out of my head.
LEVI
Coming to Franklin University for grad school to follow a boy I hooked up with once is the stupidest thing I could have done.
We said that high school didn’t mean anything, but the truth is, that night made me realize who I truly am, and since then, I’ve been trying to find that sense of freedom again.
I’m hoping it can be with him, but everything I’ve heard around campus points to Peyton not having the same life-changing revelation I did.
And if that’s the case, did I just move across the country for a straight guy?
Kill me now.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
peyton
The house party scene of Montgomery Preparatory in Chicago is always extravagant and insane. Rich kids in mansions with no parents. I’ve thrown many of my own over the years when my dads have been away, but this one is different. Not only because it’s not my party but because there’s a vibe to it that doesn’t sit right with me.
It’s weighted with a sense of finality, which makes sense—it is a graduation party—but I shouldn’t be feeling it. I’m not the one graduating.
The walls sink in on me, like they’re pulsing in time with the bodies and music that surround me. The living room is a little too hot, and my panic is a little too real. No matter where I go, I can’t get away from it. I lost my brother, Brady, somewhere along the way. I’m edgy and sweaty, and it’s hard to breathe.
I need air.
I find the nearest exit and stumble out onto the terrace of Levi Vanderbilt’s penthouse that overlooks Lake Michigan on one side and the city on the other.
This place, all eight thousand square feet of wood-paneled halls and limestone staircases, screams old money. Mine screams famous family. Levi and I might be in the same world, but we’re billions of dollars apart.
The pumping music is muted out here, enough to keep the neighbors below us from complaining but still not enough to stop the throbbing in my head, so I cross the lawn, ignoring the thought process of how they got grass to grow twenty floors in the air.
They even have a fountain in the middle.
Definitely old money.
Levi and I haven’t had a whole lot to do with each other. He’s in the grade above me, even though I’m his age.
My dads decided when Brady and I were little that I wouldn’t start school until Brady did so we could go through school together like we were twins. Which we’re not. Far from it. We don’t even look like brothers. I take after Dad with my blond hair, blue eyes, and the perfect quarterback physique. Whereas Brady is filled out like Pop, with the kind of wide body he needs to be a center on the field with me, and has brown eyes, but he has a lot lighter hair than Pop. Somehow. It’s a darker shade than mine, like an ashy-brown color, but we can only speculate the egg donor they used must have been blonde. Black hair, plus blond, equals brown … or something. When we were younger, he used to have blond hair like mine, but as time’s gone on, it’s gotten darker. Genetics are weird, and it’s not really talked about in our house.
Unlike the reason my dads say they kept me back a grade, which is talked about constantly. They claim it’s so by the time I graduate college and enter the draft, I’ll be the strongest I possibly can be, but they say it so much I think it’s an excuse to hide the truth. They didn’t want Brady or me to be lonely. They knew we would grow up to be each other’s only friend we could trust wholly.
And maybe they had a point because technically, this party should have been my graduation celebration too, and I’m out here by myself, trying not to hyperventilate.
I go over to the balcony and sit on the edge, swinging my legs over the side. The railing is short, and the fall is big, but I anchor myself by wrapping my arm around an ugly-ass stone lion statue. I guess safety measures for balconies weren’t a thing when this place was built.
I can finally breathe out here … so long as I don’t look down.
But then a voice comes from behind and scares the shit out of me. “You don’t have to do this.”
I flinch so hard I have to grip onto the lion tighter. I turn to see Levi himself, standing a few feet away with his hand out and a concerned look on his face.
He’s your typical privileged white kid. Not that I can talk. His chestnut-colored hair is shaggy and sits around his neck, but that’s probably the only thing about him that says he’s unkempt, and if I had to guess, I’d say he keeps it that way to piss off his parents.
I remember one year when Brady was eleven, he told our dads he wanted to play baseball instead of football just to annoy them. He can’t hit a ball with a bat to save his life.
We love our dads to death—they’re the best parents anyone could ask for—but growing up as the sons of the first ever queer couple to win a Super Bowl, we haven’t had a normal childhood. They’re not to blame for that, though. It’s all the media wanting to pry into their relationship. Two bisexual football players? Together? Clutch your pearls and pray to Jesus.