Hide and Seek

A/N: This was written for azihelm’s birthday!
As usual, I do not own Twilight. These two boys just come and play with me every now and then. Enjoy!

---

He was concentrating on something. It was easy to tell, really. His black-rimmed glasses had slid down his nose, and even though he kept pushing them up, they’d just slide right back down again because he was hunched forward a little, intent on the screen in front of him.

He was working on a laptop, probably trying to figure out what some lamebrain fratboy  had done to it now… most likely downloaded some porn that had a virus attached or something stupid like that. I’d heard him talk about stuff like that too often to really care. I knew enough, though, to know never to make that mistake. One thing I never, ever wanted to have happen was for him to come and fix my own computer because of something like that. The porn he would find there…wasn’t something I wanted to share with anyone.

Well, not true – not really, anyway. There was one person I wouldn’t mind watching it with. Him. But how could I? As far as I knew, he was not into guys. Not that I’d ever really seen him with anyone in all the years I’d known him… except for Bella. She had always hung around him, and the two were thick as thieves. Everyone always suspected them of being an item, though both vehemently denied that fact.

They argued against it so passionately, in fact, that the saying ‘Thou doth protest too much’ came to mind on more than one occasion. They had been close  since junior year in high school. I was certain of it, and it had caused me no small amount of pain knowing she had him, and I didn’t.

I watched from my hiding place behind the bookshelf as he sighed, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. I could see his lips moving as he presumably sat cursing who ever  the computer belonged to.

I thought back to when I’d first met him. He had been a gangly boy, with a wild mop of bronze-colored hair and those same black-rimmed glasses he wore today.  He and his brother Emmett had come to school together, driving a huge Jeep that seemed to be too big to belong to either of them. I found out later that it was Emmett’s and that he had worked on the car himself, rigging it out.

Emmett was a jock, but he had as much brain as he had brawn. He was loud as fuck but so jovial that you didn’t care. It was easy to become friends with him, and I did so quickly.  Edward had been another story altogether.

When the two of them had transferred from Chicago to Forks, Washington, I’d already known I was gay. I was seventeen and had been going through the motions of ‘normal’ teenage life.

In other words, I was closeted and scared as fuck that anyone would find out I liked dicks and not chicks.

Emmett had joined the football team I was also a part of, which made it easier for us to hang out and become fast friends. Edward was into track, but aside from that he spent most of his time with his nose in either his books or his computer. Edward was the ‘school geek’. He got ridiculed for it, but he never seemed to care.

It was one of the things that attracted me to him, his looks aside. Gangly he may have been, but I knew that was something he would outgrow – and he had.  His green eyes always had a bright shine to them and were so alive that it was easy to get lost in them once you looked into them.  It was something I tried not to do too often, as he would usually catch me and raise an eyebrow in question. He never said anything though. And neither did I.

Bella and Edward had been lab partners from the moment the year had started, and they were soon inseparable. I envied her so much that it was difficult at times to remember to be nice to her. She was a sweet girl and everybody’s friend, albeit a little on the shy side.

As time went by, my feelings for Edward became stronger the more I got to know him. Emmett and I would hang out almost every day, and Emmett never let Edward sit on the sidelines. Whether Edward liked it or not, he was included whenever there was a party or we just decided to have a guy’s night.

To both my pleasure and my torment, these nights happened at least every other week. We usually ended up drunk at their place, hanging out and just shooting the breeze.  Their parents didn’t mind if we had alcohol as long as we stayed in the house and didn’t get too crazy. We never got to the point where any of us got sick or did something stupid.

Junior year became senior year, and Edward was growing more beautiful by the day. At least, it felt that way to me. I was having a harder and harder time not outing myself to him due to my body’s responses. A few times, I think he caught on to my boners, since I could never seem to control myself around him, but again, he never said or did anything.  I just hoped he had passed it off as… hell, I didn’t even know.

He became a little more social, thanks to Bella and Emmett’s prodding, and we ended up hanging out together as a group. Emmett had gotten a girl over the summer, so Rose hung out now, too.  Alice, her sister, tagged along as well. I think they were hoping that Alice and I might end up together, but though she was nice enough, she missed a few key parts.

As a hobby, Edward had started taking computers apart and putting them back together again. Usually, he did so with a few modifications, and they ended up working better than before. He had a gift, and it was soon recognized by most of the student body. He became the go-to guy for anything tech. He seemed to thrive on it, and he was happier than I’d ever seen him.

Whenever he fixed something, he always got this brilliant smile that would light up his face. I loved seeing it, so I started to hang around under the pretense of learning more about computers. I actually did end up learning a thing or two from him, but often I was just too engrossed in watching him to really care.

He seemed to like my company, though, never making anything of it.  I took what I could get from him, though I was aching for more. I was certain that he was into Bella, so I never made any move on him.

After graduation, we’d all attended the huge party that Alice and Rose had put together.  It was great fun, but for me, it drove home the fact that our ways would soon part and Edward would never be mine. As far as I knew, he was going to go to Oregon State, and I would be going to the University of Washington.

I was looking forward to college, in a way. I hoped that once I was away from the confines of Forks, I would be able to spread my wings a little and maybe find someone to love… even if  the one I truly wanted wasn’t available.

You can imagine my surprise when, on my first day at UW, I ran into Edward.  Literally. I had been looking at my map, trying to find my way around campus, and apparently so had Edward. When I got over the shock of seeing him, I managed to ask him what he was doing here.

He had blushed a little, stuttering slightly as he said that he had decided to go to UW instead of OSU because he wanted to be closer to home.  I had frowned at that since, really, Portland wasn’t that much further away from Forks than Seattle, but I figured that was all the answer he was going to give, so I let it be.

He asked if I wanted to get together after classes were done for the day so we could discover what the campus had to offer. Both of us had opted for dorm life, and it turned out that he was in the same dorm as me.

I had agreed, but the knowledge that Edward was here was a double-edged sword. How was I going to come out now? I wanted him. Still. Of course, I was elated to have him close, but it also meant that I would have to face him if the time ever came that I no longer had to hide what I was. And I wasn’t at all sure I was ready for that yet. Not with him, anyway.

So, I stayed as I had been. Closeted, but friends with the man I had loved for so long.

And here I was now, spying on him because I was too cowardly to confront him. We had been hanging out weekly since the semester began, and it was getting to be painful to be around him because all I wanted was to kiss him, to hold him. Hell, to have sex with him.

But he always talked about Bella or the other people we knew from Forks. He’d talk about Emmett and Rose – who had gotten engaged shortly before going to the University of Oregon and moving in together off campus in Eugene.  I was happy for them; truly, I was. But I was also jealous. I wanted what they had, and I wanted it bad.

Bella and Alice had both gone to OSU, having gotten accepted there as Edward had been. They were in regular contact with Edward, and with me. I missed my friends but still felt like they were looming over my shoulder. It was a feeling I could not shake.

Edward’s cry of, “Ha! Gotcha!” startled me out of my thoughts. For a second, I thought he meant me, but when I looked closer, I saw the jubilant smile as his fingers tapped over the keyboard. It seemed that he had just figured out how to fix whatever was wrong with the computer. That was my Edward.  I smiled at the thought and the sense of pride I felt in him.

For the past month, Edward had been working part-time fixing computers. For that same amount of time, I had hidden behind my bookshelf, watching him on those days where I just had to be near him.  Those days became ever more frequent, and I knew that if I wasn’t careful, I would get caught. I wasn’t sure I was ready to be called to that carpet yet.

With a sigh, I tore myself away and started to walk outside. When I got to the door, though, I felt a hand on my shoulder, a warmth spreading down through my entire body at the contact, and I gasped, both at the sensation and because I was startled.

I turned my head to look at who the hand belonged to and immediately felt my throat tighten up. I’m sure that I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights, because the hand that was still gripping my shoulder – gripping, not just touching – belonged to none other than Edward himself.

He watched me closely, his green eyes piercing straight to my soul, and I could feel myself falling into their depths. Again.

He turned me around to face him fully, and I let him, too stunned to do anything but obey. He put both hands on my shoulders as he continued to stare into my eyes. My throat went dry, and I had to swallow hard when I thought I saw his eyes flicker to my lips.

I licked my lips, which suddenly felt like they were parched, and as I did so, I saw his eyes tighten and darken. What was going on? I tried to find my voice, which seemed to have left me the moment his hand touched my body, but all I could utter was a hoarse, “Edward?”

It was as if he had put a spell on us. Time seemed to just stand still, and nothing or no one mattered but us.

Finally, he looked me in the eye again and slowly, ever so slowly, began to lean in. I held my breath as I felt frozen. I could not have moved if I wanted to, not that I did. More than anything, I wanted to feel his lips against mine, but how was this possible? It couldn’t be that Edward was mere seconds from kissing me. I had to be dreaming.

And then his lips brushed against mine, tentatively at first, but when I gasped at the contact, he pressed harder. When I felt him part his lips, I couldn’t help myself any longer. My hands flew to his hips, gripping them tightly as I tilted my head and kissed him back with everything I had in me. If this was a dream, then I was going to make it worth my while.

When he slowly began to pull away from our kiss, I whimpered, not wanting it to end. He peppered my jaw with open mouthed kisses until he reached my ear. He whispered breathily into it, his hot breath fanning over it causing me to shiver, “Come out, come out, wherever you are. I’m tired of waiting, Jasper. No more hiding. Please?”

I inhaled sharply at his words, turning my face to look at him. His eyes were bright, and he looked hopeful…and more vulnerable than I had ever seen him. So many thoughts were racing through my brain, and I couldn’t grasp a single one of them for what felt like ages.

Edward just stood there, watching me, his thumbs rubbing small circles on my collarbones as he waited for my reaction. When I finally managed to regain enough of my senses to speak, all I was able to utter was, “How long?”

He sighed softly, looking relieved that I hadn’t reacted negatively, at least. He answered the unspoken questions; he knew me well enough to know them all.

“Since the day I met you, Jas. I have wanted you for so long. I’ve always known I was gay. I wasn’t sure you were, though, at first. You never said anything, or did anything. And when I thought you might be, I was too scared to do anything to out you. It didn’t seem like you were ready for that, and I get that.”

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. His eyes flickered to the side before fixing back on me.

“I switched colleges because I hoped that maybe you would be able to be more free here. I hoped that maybe you wanted me, too. I waited for you. I’ve known you’ve been hiding here, Jasper. I’ve known you were watching me for a while.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. He had known all along!  He wanted me, as much as I did him. He had waited for me to make a move, and I had been too scared to do it. He knew, and now the ball was in my court.

I leaned in, my lips brushing against the shell of his ear as I whispered, “No more hiding. I’m out, Edward. Yours. If you want me, I am yours completely.”

---

Ang, I hope you have a great day today, and that you enjoy your stories.