The Mascot - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Author’s note: All my characters are consenting adults (18+). All sexual acts depicted are consensual between the adult characters.

Chapter 7

Saturday morning smelled like burnt coffee and a fight that had not picked a room yet.

I came out in yesterday’s T-shirt because laundry felt like a confession. The living room was a crime scene somebody had half-cleaned. Pizza boxes in a stack. Shot glasses in the sink. The rope coiled on the arm of the couch like it lived there now. The mute TV was on again. Soccer. Green field. Men running into each other for a living.

Nick was in the kitchen in the gray cut-off, blond beard, a bowl of eggs he was punishing. MJ was at the counter with a protein shake the color of a swimming pool. Vincent sat on the floor with the laptop, glasses on, typing like the night had been a lab report. Omar leaned in the doorway with coffee, green eyes calm, the only person in the apartment who looked like he’d slept on purpose. Nate stood between the fridge and the hallway with the posture he used when two interns started talking over each other.

Nobody said good morning. That was the first new rule.

“Macros,” MJ said, because somebody had to put sound in the air. “You going to chew those eggs or file a grievance.”

Nick didn’t look up.

“Don’t.”

“I’m talking about breakfast, bro.”

“You’re talking.”

Vincent, without lifting his eyes:

“Heart rate data from last night would be useful. Nobody logged recovery. That’s sloppy.”

Omar smiled into the mug.

“There it is. The science.”

I took a glass. Filled it. Drank like water was a salvation. My throat was still raw. My wrists still had a pink memory of the rope. I didn’t know where to put my face. If I looked at Nick I saw the slam. If I looked at MJ I saw the prize. If I looked at Nate I saw the booth. So I looked at the glass.

MJ reached past Nick for the peanut butter.

Nick’s shoulder hit him. Not a joke bump. A real one. MJ’s shake jumped. Green slime hit the cabinet.

“Yo. The fuck.”

“Move.”

“I live here.”

“Then move like you live here and not like you own the kitchen because you won a contest.”

MJ laughed once, short, the funny-jock laugh with the humor stripped out.

“You still on that. It’s Saturday. The sun is out. Let it go.”

Nick turned. The cut-off made his arms look like an argument. Dark-blond hair flattened on one side from sleep he hadn’t gotten.

“You want me to let it go. You came down my roommate’s throat and walked around like you’d invented gravity. I asked for a turn. The nerd wrote a constitution. You stood there and did commentary. So no. I’m not letting it go. I’m making eggs. Get out of my light.”

MJ stepped in instead of out. Bad geometry.

“Your light? Bro. You need to touch grass.”

Nick’s palm hit MJ’s chest. The same shove he’d given Vincent, except MJ was built for it and still went back into the fridge hard enough that the magnets jumped. A takeout menu fluttered to the floor. MJ came off the stainless with his teeth showing.

“Do that again.”

Nate was already between them. One hand on Nick’s sternum. One on MJ’s shoulder. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. Six-three does half the work.

“Kitchen’s closed,” Nate said. “Both of you. Separate corners. I’m not writing a memo. I’m telling you to pick a different room before this becomes a thing I have to explain to a landlord.”

Nick breathed through his nose. MJ’s jaw ticked. They looked at each other over Nate’s arms like the night was still on the floor between them.

Omar sipped.

“I didn’t even get a turn and I’m the comfortable one. File that.”

Vincent typed.

“Noted. Inter-household aggression, morning after, two subjects, one mediator. No guests present.”

“Vin,” Nate said.

“I’m documenting.”

“Document in your room.”

Vincent closed the laptop with a little offended click and took the stairs of the hallway like a man leaving a peer review. MJ grabbed the shake, what was left of it, and went out the front door with his gym bag and a “unbelievable” that was mostly for Nick. Nick turned back to the eggs like the eggs had started it. Nate looked at me. I looked at the glass.

“You eating?” Nate asked.

“I’m going for a run.”

Nick’s spoon stopped.

“Since when do you run.”

“Since the kitchen started needing a referee.”

I put the glass down. Hoodie. Shoes. The official funny friend put on sneakers so he wouldn’t have to pick a face. Nick didn’t stop me. Nate didn’t offer to come. Omar lifted the mug an inch, which was the closest thing to good luck the morning was going to give.

The door shut. The street was Saturday. Cold air. A dog. A guy carrying groceries.

I ran until the apartment was a problem behind me instead of a room I was standing in.

I stayed out.

Coffee shop with an ebook I didn’t read. Campus loop twice. A sandwich I didn’t taste. Bookstore where I stood in Graphic Novels and didn’t buy anything because buying something felt like celebrating. Phone in my pocket the whole time. No texts from Nick. One from MJ: u good mascot? I hearted it like a coward. One from Nate: mock Monday. Rest. One from Vincent: a spreadsheet preview I did not open. Omar sent a photo of the empty living room and the caption habitat restored. I put the phone face-down.

Every time I thought about going back I saw the booth.

Nate’s ring on the table. The soccer nobody cared about. Do you have a favorite? I had said yes and given him nothing he could use, and the nothing had sat in my mouth all morning next to the ghost of MJ and the slam of Nick’s door. A favorite was supposed to make the house simpler. It made it worse. If I said Nick, I was the guy who put his mouth on the first pair of balls and called it destiny. If I said MJ, I was the guy who looked at a prize and forgot the dare that opened the door. If I said Nate, I was handing the lawyer a name he would not use and would not forget. If I said all of them, I was the mascot choosing the job.

I walked another block and tried the sentence in my head like a closing argument.

Nick.

It fit too easy. Pizzas in the doorway. Cut-off. The ten seconds that stopped being ten. The way he had looked at my mouth this morning over eggs he was punishing. The way my hand had wanted his thigh before I even put it there. Nate had fished for that name on purpose. I had kept it in the glass. Out here on the sidewalk it kept arriving anyway, stupid and loyal, like a dog that did not care about brackets.

I bought a second coffee I did not need and sat in a window and watched people who did not live in an apartment with a rope on the couch and five bros fighting. A couple laughed at a phone. A guy in a law-school hoodie walked past and I thought about Monday’s mock and Nate saying rest like rest was a document I could file. I thought about Nick’s light clicking off in the hall. I thought about whether a favorite was a person or a first time or the one who slammed a door because he did not get to finish.

I did not text him.

That felt like the only adult thing I did all day.

Every time I thought about going back I saw Nick’s ears under the beard and MJ’s shake on the cabinet and Nate’s hands between them. I saw my own mouth. I saw the favorite I had not named. I walked another block.

By the time I came home the sun was the color of the whiskey from the booth. Key in the lock. Quiet. The kind of quiet that meant the house had scattered.

MJ’s shoes gone. Nate’s bag gone. Omar’s jacket gone. Vincent’s door cracked, RGB leaking out, headset on, the click-click of a game he could win. Living room: mute TV, college ball this time, and Nick on the couch in the cut-off and the gym shorts, knees apart, a beer sweating on his thigh. Blond beard. Eyes on the screen. The slam still in the hinges even with the door open.

I should have gone to my room.

I sat next to him.

Not close enough to be a bit. Close enough that his heat came through the cushion. He didn’t look at me. A guard missed a three. Nick’s jaw moved.

I put my hand on his thigh.

Thick. Warm. The muscle jumped under my palm and then went still, like it was deciding whether to throw me off. I left the hand there.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He laughed once. No teeth. Eyes on the game.

“For what. The nose thing. The dare. The part where you let MJ turn you into a parade.”

“For yesterday. For making it a show. For not—” I swallowed. The official shrug tried to arrive. I killed it. “I wanted it too. I wanted you. I didn’t want it to be a bracket. I wanted the ten seconds to not end. That’s what I’m sorry for. That it went to everybody else and you slammed a door and I went for a run like that fixed it.”

Nick turned his head.

Up close the beard was darker at the roots. The cut-off showed the strip of stomach I had catalogued the night he walked in with the pizzas. His eyes were not a joke.

“Say that last part again.”

“I wanted you.”

He looked at the hallway. Vincent’s door still cracked. The game still clicking. Then he looked at my mouth.

“Nick—”

He stood on the couch.

One foot on the cushion, then the other, gray shorts in my face, the apartment suddenly all height and gym and the smell of a Saturday he had not showered off because showering would have been conceding. He shoved the shorts down with the compression shorts in one motion, the same locker-room strip as the dare, except nobody was counting and the TV was still doing basketball without us.

He was already thick. Veined. Cut. Heavy in the way that had made the jokes too small the first time. He took himself in one hand and took my hair in the other and pulled my mouth onto him before I had a sentence.

“If they marked territory,” he said, voice gone rough, “I’ve got that right too. Open.”

I opened.

He didn’t give me the courtesy version. He gave me the feral one. Hips forward, cock on my tongue, the head pushing past the place that still remembered MJ, and then further, until my eyes watered and my hands found his thighs because there was nothing else to hold. He fucked my throat from above like the couch was a box he’d won. The beer bottle tipped and rolled under the table. The game on the TV hit a three and the crowd noise covered the sound I made.

“That’s it. That’s the thing I didn’t get. You don’t give that to a contest and then go jogging. You sit here. You take it. You look at me while you take it.”

I looked up. Bad idea. Nick looking down was a whole different sport. Blond beard. Mouth open. Eyes locked on the mess he was making of my face. Possessive in a way that had nothing to do with push-ups.

“Mine first,” he said. “Say it. Around it. I don’t care if it comes out stupid.”

I made a sound that was supposed to be yours and turned into a gag. He hissed like it was a compliment.

“Again. I didn’t hear a word. I heard a wet noise. Give me the word.”

I tried. His cock filled the attempt. He pulled back an inch, just enough for air, and I got it out on a breath.

“Yours first.”

“Fuck yeah. That’s the only rule I care about.” 

He pushed back in, slower this time, deeper, watching my throat work like he was grading it. “MJ can have his parade. Vin can have his spreadsheet. Nate can take you to a bar and ask you questions like you’re on the stand. I’m the one who walked in with the pizzas. I’m the one you got on your knees for when it was still a joke. You don’t run that off. You don’t apologize it off. You sit on this couch and you let me use the mouth that started it. You want me.”

He planted his feet wider on the cushions and used my head. Short, mean strokes. The wet click of it. Spit on my chin. When I gagged he held me there a second longer than kindness, then let me breathe, then took the breath back.

“You think about me when you were out there. Don’t lie. I sat here watching ball and thinking about your mouth on my nuts like a psycho. That’s your fault. You made it not a dare. You made it you. Now you deal with the version of me that doesn’t wait for Vin to write a path.”

My jaw ached. My eyes streamed. I wanted it in the ugly specific way I had wanted it since the first semester of college , and he could see it, and he used that too.

“Favorite,” he said, almost conversational, hips still working. “Nate asked you. He told me. Don’t tell me he didn’t. Lawyer boy takes you off the crime scene, he asks. Did you say my name?”

I couldn’t answer with him in my throat. He pulled out. A thread of spit broke on my lip. He thumbed it away like it annoyed him.

“Did you.”

“I didn’t say any name.”

Nick’s mouth went flat. Then he smiled with no teeth and put himself back in, rougher for the answer.

“Good. Don’t. Names make it a group project. This is not a group project. This is me on the couch taking what’s mine because the house turned you into a prize and I don’t share prizes I found first.”

He was close. I felt it in the way his grip changed, in the way his stomach jumped, in the way the talk got shorter and meaner.

“Look at me. They can have their contest. They can have their nose thing. This face is — fuck — this is amazing. This is not a dare. This is me. You swallow or I paint you. I haven’t decided. Shake your head if you want it on your face. I want to see it on you when Vin walks out of that cave.”

I shook my head. Not no. The other direction. The one he wanted.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. That’s my boy.”

Vincent was in the door.

Headset around his neck. Glasses fogged. Robotics hoodie. The ridiculous mustache. One hand in his sweatpants, moving like he’d started before he decided to be seen. His mouth was open. He looked at Nick standing on our couch and at my throat working and he made a small punched sound that was not data.

Nick saw him and did not stop.

“Take a number, nerd.”

Vincent’s voice came out thin.

“I— I want that. Troy. Please. I won’t last. I know I won’t last. I just— I watched the whole— I need—”

Nick laughed. Actual laugh. Mean and delighted.

“Virgin bracket. Come here. He’s busy. You can have what’s left.”

Vincent shuffled in like the carpet was lava. He shoved the sweatpants down. He was what the house had been joking about for two years — long, not thick, uncut, curved, already leaking, the small tight balls pulled up like they were trying to quit. He looked at my face like I was a boss fight.

Nick pulled out of my mouth with a wet sound and turned my head by the hair.

“Go on. Science fair. Ten seconds of Vin. I’ll time it this time.”

I put my mouth on Vincent.

He came.

No warm-up. No thrust. The second my lips closed around the head he made a noise that belonged in a cartoon and spilled on my tongue, hot, a lot, pulsing while his knees bent and his hand fluttered in the air like he didn’t know where to put it. He tried to say wait and it came out as a squeak. I swallowed because there was nothing else to do with it. He twitched and gave me another pulse and then he was laughing and dying at the same time, forehead against the wall, sweatpants at his thighs.

Nick howled.

He had to sit down on the back of the couch to do it properly, cock still out, shining, pointing at my cheek.

“That’s a record. That’s a world record. That’s a man who saw a mouth and filed for bankruptcy. Vin. Buddy. You lasted less than a microwave burrito.”

Vincent’s ears were scarlet.

“Sensitivity. I said. I said I wouldn’t last. That’s — that’s documented. That’s not — Troy. I’m sorry. That was — I didn’t mean to just—”

“You meant to,” Nick said. “You just didn’t mean to be that fast. Get your pants up before I take a picture for the group chat. Nate said no filming. He didn’t say no humiliation.”

Vincent yanked the sweatpants up. The wet spot arrived immediately. He looked at me, wrecked and grateful and already calculating.

Nick stood on the cushion again and put himself back in my mouth like Vincent had been a commercial.

“Don’t you swallow his and spit me. That’s not the order. I finish. He already finished. That’s the bracket now. My bracket.”

He was close. I felt it in the way his grip changed, in the way his stomach jumped, in the way the possessive talk got shorter.

“Look at me. This is mine. This face is — fuck — this is Saturday. This is not a dare. This is me claiming the mascot.”

He pulled out on the last word and striped my face.

Hot. Thick. Across my mouth, my cheek, a line up toward my eye I blinked against. He held my hair and stroked the rest onto my lips like he was signing it. Breathing like a lockout. Looking at what he’d done like he’d been waiting twenty-four hours to see it.

“There,” he said. Soft. Worse than the slam. “Territory. Wipe it and I’ll do it again.”

I didn’t wipe it.

Vincent, from the doorway, still shaking, found his voice.

He sounded like a man announcing a product launch.

“Tonight,” he said. “Another round. House rules plus one. Special guests. I already texted. They’re in.”

Nick’s hand was still in my hair. His laugh this time had an edge.

“Guests.”

“You wanted a path,” Vincent said. The glasses were crooked. The hoodie was a disaster. The data brain had come back online because it was the only way he knew how to survive coming in three seconds in front of Nick Boss. “You get a path. Tonight. Don’t slam any more doors. Don’t shove MJ. Show up.”

He went down the hall. His door clicked. The RGB leaked out again. A game queued.

Nick looked at my face. At the mess he’d put there. At the hallway where the nerd had just scheduled a sequel.

He thumbed my lower lip, slow, and pushed his taste back into my mouth.

“You’re not going for a run tonight,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Good.” He pulled the shorts up. They didn’t help. He sat back down like the couch was his again. The game on the TV hit another three. He didn’t watch it. “Whoever Vin invited, they can wait in line. I don’t care if it’s the whole athletic department. I go first. You hear me. You’re mine.”

“I hear you.”

“Say it so I believe you.”

“You go first.”

Nick nodded once. Picked the beer up off the floor. Drank. His hand landed on my thigh this time, heavy, claiming, the same print he’d left the night of the pizzas except now it meant what it meant.

From Vincent’s room, muffled through the door, the click of keys.

Special guests.

I sat on our couch with Nick’s cum drying on my face and his hand on my leg and the official funny friend nowhere to be found.

Saturday wasn’t over.

The house was about to get louder and I was gonna be their Mascot.