***

Maddox watched as Jonathan found a place in the last row away from everyone. His face was all a frown, but his hands were steady as he took out his laptop and placed it on the desk. At this point, a total noob in the art of getting someone to like you would have walked over and asked to sit by the guy’s side, but Maddox was no noob. He was plenty more refined than that.

Of course, it was a bit of a let-down that he wouldn’t get to look at Jonathan at all during the lecture, as he always sat in the front row, but it didn’t bother him much. Also, he wanted his little surprise to catch Jonathan completely unawares at the end of the lecture.

He exchanged a few words with the students around him while the professor waited for everyone to be seated. One last look couldn’t hurt. Jonathan was a pleasure to look at, Maddox had to admit. Only earlier, when they had bumped into each other, he had had the chance to smell his subtle, yet highly selective, cologne. For any gay guy, Jonathan had to be sex on a stick, not that Maddox knew anything about that, but he was just a keen observer. And his observations had led him to notice the broad shoulders, lean waist, pretty eyes, and of course, that perfect ass. Maddox sneaked another glance at the last row.

Jonathan had his forehead resting against his palm, shielding his face from view like he wanted to be anywhere else but there. Maddox frowned. Wasn’t he a bit too sensitive? So, yeah, the entire student body was kind of a bunch of douchebags for shunning him, but no one had done anything overtly hostile, as far as Maddox knew. Why did he have to look so down?

Well, things would change for Jonathan Hamilton starting today, Maddox decided. Because once they became friends, everyone would love him, and that was that.

***

Jonathan had a hard time focusing on the class and taking notes, as he couldn’t ignore the proportions of his inane conflict with Maddox. Mad Dawg clearly looked like he owned the place, and everyone was bending over backward to be in his graces.

He hated to do that, but he needed to apologize. It wasn’t because he wanted all that ostracisation of his person to cease, he tried to convince himself, but because he had been in the wrong to assume that Maddox was some drug dealer. As much as he needed to control his inexplicable attraction, it didn’t mean that it allowed him to go around accusing people of such horrible things.

Inexplicable attraction? It was hard to keep up with that after throwing the quickest of looks at the front row. Jonathan found himself drawn to the place where Maddox sat. He wore his hair cut close to the head at the back but let it long on top, which allowed him to look at the world through that jet black curtain that fell in his eyes and made him look so sexy and mysterious. Without a doubt, he knew very well what he was doing with that act. He had the small world at Sunny Hill wrapped around his little finger, and Jonathan struggled to find it in him to hate him. 

Their little bump-in from earlier had just lit a new fire under his ass, he pondered dejectedly. He had had the chance not only to look into those gorgeous gray eyes from much closer but also to notice how nice Maddox smelled. Yeah, that was the last thing he needed.

“And now I will announce to you the project pairings for this semester. As some of you already know, I prefer that you don’t change your partner unless you have a really good reason,” the professor said.

Jonathan straightened up and listened attentively. If it happened to be an odd number of students attending the course, he had the highest chances of being the odd man out, and he was fine with it. But he still needed to apologize to Maddox and maybe mend some of his catastrophic debut. As soon as the professor was done calling their names for the pairings, he would have to move fast and catch Maddox before he walked out the lecture hall.

“Mr. Kingsley,” the professor said loudly, “you’ll be with Mr. Hamilton.” She looked over the hall, and Jonathan put one hand up while his heart first slowed down and then began hammering in his chest. What were the odds of that happening? 

Maddox appeared to be crazily pleased as he turned and grinned at him. He even waved, and Jonathan waved back after a second of hesitation. What was that about now? Did Maddox think of some new way to haze him? It had to be as that satisfied smirk, visible even across the several rows between them, couldn’t announce anything good.

Jonathan repressed a groan. The chances were that Maddox would just have him put in all the work on the project as payment for not kneeling in front of him and kissing the pinky ring the moment they had met for the first time.

He bit his bottom lip hard. The last, but truly the last thing he needed was to picture himself kneeling in front of Maddox Kingsley. And he truly needed to take care of his raging hormones if only imagining such a thing was enough to get him going.

***

Maddox leaned against the desk and stretched his legs as the students hurried out. Now, Jonathan would have to talk to him since they had to partner for their project. And that was the chance to clear the air and make him like him, just like the rest of the universe. 

He didn’t move a muscle as Jonathan walked in front of him and stopped. His handsome face looked conflicted, and Maddox tensed without wanting to, expecting some other weird accusations to leave that perfect mouth.

“Maddox, I must apologize.” Jonathan looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

Maddox’s grin stretched lazily. Now that was unexpected. Jonathan Hamilton looked like the kind of dude who didn’t say those words easily, not when it was about serious stuff, at least. And by the expression in those beautiful amber eyes that finally settled on him, this was serious.

“What for?” Maddox asked. “You’re not backing out on partnering for the project, right?” That would be a total bummer.

Jonathan’s frown deepened. “No, I wasn’t talking about that. I was referring to our little incident from a few days ago. I shouldn’t have assumed you were trying to sell me drugs.”

Maddox munched on his lips, trying hard not to laugh.

“What is so amusing?” Jonathan asked. 

“Nothing, nothing,” Maddox replied and sighed, finally capable of reining in the laughter bubbling in his chest. “Apologies accepted. No harm done.”

“All right,” Jonathan replied.

The words rolled out of his mouth like they were gems he bestowed upon the world. Okay, so the dude had kind of a chip on his shoulder, which made things all the more entertaining.

“However, I can only assume that verbal apologies may not be enough,” Jonathan continued.

“Uh-um,” Maddox said, strangely attracted by his mouth. Jonathan had a nice pair of lips, and as a gay guy, he most probably liked sucking –

He shook his head to chase away that strange image that came to mind uninvited.

“So, to make things right,” Jonathan said, clearly oblivious to the effect he had on Maddox by doing nothing but talking, “I’m offering to contribute in a more substantial manner to the project. I mean, if you don’t feel like --”

“What?” Maddox finally managed to shake off completely the naughty image in his head. “Don’t worry, dude, I’ll pull my own weight. I mean it. And I love this course.”

“You do?” Jonathan seemed surprised. And then he offered a small smile. “I also enjoy it.”

“Great, that’s great.” Maddox said the words mechanically, incapable of remembering all the teasing he had had in store for Jonathan. 

“Excellent. Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Maddox said with a shrug.

Light pink colored the heights of Jonathan’s cheeks. “Do you think you could, maybe, let the rest of the world know that we’re not engaged in some sort of… war?” It appeared that he was struggling to find the right words.

“What war? Ah, oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I kept telling them that it was nothing,” Maddox said.

He tried to look lower, just so that he didn’t have to stare at those sexy lips again. It wasn’t helping, though, since as much as Jonathan’s shirt was as conservative and regular as it could be, it did absolute justice to a nice broad chest and the perfect shape of his pecs.

“Is there something on my shirt?” Jonathan asked, looking at himself in confusion. “You keep staring --”

“You know what, Jonathan? Let’s meet up later to talk about the project.” He pulled out his phone, and Jonathan did the same.

Gosh, there was something weird going on with him and this dude. Maddox was perfectly fine with his sexuality, like totally. And he had never had any qualms with admitting when dudes were fine-looking. Yet, the more he looked at Jonathan Hamilton from up close, the less sense the images in his head made any sense.

“So, we’ll talk,” Jonathan said and offered another small cautious smile.

Maddox closed his eyes for a moment. That smile was fucking precious, for some reason. What he needed to do right now was to stop ogling that smile, lips, eyes, chest, whatever. So he stood and pulled Jonathan into a hug since that was a sure way not to be forced to keep his eyes open and stare at him anymore.

“Oh,” the other reacted, “are we hugging?”

Maddox nodded and held him close, wrapping one hand around the back of his neck. “That’s what I do with all my buddies.”

Yes, he did, but he’d never done it just so that he didn’t have to stare at their faces and have weird ass fantasies. Jonathan touched him gently on the back and patted him with cautious hesitation. That felt nice.

A bit too nice. He could totally smell the expensive cologne, and Jonathan really did smell fantastic. And his body was warm and perfect, all lean angles and hard surfaces, as Maddox could clearly feel through his t-shirt.

Jonathan broke the hug quickly. “Guess I’ll see you around, then,” he said and pushed himself back, almost at the same time with Maddox.

“Yeah, sure, I have a thing,” Maddox mumbled and rubbed the back of his neck. “I should go.”

They almost bumped into one another on the way out, and Jonathan just stepped back and allowed him to run away. In a completely different direction than him.

***