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Fiction

• Fiction : Récit entièrement imaginé, avec des personnages et des situations inventés

• Inspiré du réel : Récit partant d'une expérience vécue, avec une part d'invention ou d'embellissement

• Réel : Récit fidèle à une expérience réellement vécue

• Fantasme : Histoire correspondant à un fantasme personnel ou collectif

• Poème : Texte rédigé sous forme poétique avec contenu érotique

Gays

Orientation principale dans ce chapitre

Tourmented by jock in love triangle — Chapitre 2 · The project meeting trap

16 minutes

il y a 2 heures

Écriture avec assistance partielle d'une IA — Cette information est librement déclarée par l'auteur, elle n'a pas été vérifiée.

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Ce qui accroche d'emblée, c'est la façon dont l'auteur fait exister la tension sans jamais forcer la note : un geste retenu, une phrase de trop, et tout un rapport de force bascule. Les dialogues sonnent juste, les silences encore plus. Et il y a dans cette écriture une honnêteté sur la complexité des sentiments qui rend chaque scène difficile à lâcher.

Tourmented by jock in love triangle

Chapitre 2 · The project meeting trap

Two days after Marcus’s confession, I chose Noah. Not with a grand declaration. Not with a dramatic confrontation in the rain. I chose him quietly, the way real choices happen—by reaching for his hand under the table at the campus coffee shop, by letting him kiss me on the quad in full view of everyone, by whispering “stay” when he started gathering his things at midnight. I chose him, and Marcus watched. He watched from across the dining hall when Noah fed me a forkful of his pasta. Watched from the bleachers when Noah and I walked through the athletic fields shortcutting to the science building. Watched from his truck in the parking lot, engine idling, hands gripping the steering wheel like he was trying to choke it. Derek was gone now. Marcus had shed his entourage like a snake shedding skin. He moved through campus alone, a satellite knocked out of orbit, and the loneliness made him sharper somehow. More dangerous.

“Nice hickey, Lee.”

Monday morning. The computer science building corridor. I was five steps from the safety of my study carrel when his voice pinned me to the linoleum.

I kept walking.

“What, your boyfriend marking his territory?” Footsteps behind me. Closer. “Smart. Wouldn’t want anyone else thinking you’re available.”

The carrel door was right there. My hand found the handle.

“Does he know you like it rough? You seem like you’d like it rough.”

I slammed the door. Through the thin wood, I heard Marcus laugh—that same jagged sound from the hallway, the one that didn’t quite scan as humor.

The carrel’s fluorescent light buzzed overhead. I pressed my forehead to the cool laminate of the desk and tried to remember how to breathe.

---

Noah noticed, of course.

“He talked to you.” Not a question. We were in my apartment, textbooks spread across the coffee table, but Noah wasn’t looking at his notes anymore. His dark eyes tracked my face like he was reading code. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. The usual.”

“Lee.”

The way he said my name—gentle, insistent—pulled the truth out of me before I could stop it. “He asked if you knew I liked it rough.”

Silence. Then Noah set down his pen with deliberate care. “I’m going to report him.”

“No.” The word came out too fast, too desperate. “Please. It’ll just make things worse. The athletic department protects him, everyone knows that, and if I file a complaint it’ll be my word against the star quarterback’s, and—”

“Hey.” Noah’s hand on my knee, grounding. “Breathe.”

I breathed.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. But I’m not going to let him keep hurting you.” His thumb traced circles on my kneecap through my jeans. “We’ll get through this. Together.”

I wanted to believe him.

---

Tuesday. Advanced Algorithms. Professor Hendricks was rearranging project groups, projecting names onto the whiteboard in neat columns.

“Project three will be collaborative,” she announced, clicking through her slides. “Forty percent of your final grade. Choose your partners wisely.”

The board filled.

My eyes scanned for my name—there—and then tracked right to find my partner.

Marcus Chen.

The room tilted.

“Professor.” My hand was in the air before I’d consciously decided to raise it. “Is there any way to switch groups? I already have a project partner in mind.”

Hendricks peered over her glasses. “All groups are final, Mr. Walsh. The randomization ensures fairness.”

Fairness. The randomization had paired me with the man who’d spent two years systematically dismantling my sanity, and apparently that was fair.

Across the room, I felt Marcus’s gaze like a physical weight. When I finally looked at him, he wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t gloating. He was just—looking. Eyes dark. Mouth a flat line. Something almost like hope flickering behind his expression, quickly banked.

---

“Absolutely not.” Noah paced the length of my kitchen, agitation radiating from every step. “You’re dropping the class. Or I’ll talk to the professor. There has to be an exception for harassment.”

“I can’t drop. It’s required for my degree. If I delay it, I don’t graduate next semester.”

“Then I’m coming with you. To every meeting.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. The idea of Noah sitting beside me while Marcus worked—a buffer, a witness, a shield—loosened something tight in my chest.

But Marcus had other plans.

“No,” he said flatly when I suggested meeting in the library. We’d cornered him after class, Noah planted at my shoulder like a bodyguard. “My place. I’ve got the simulation software on my desktop. The library computers can’t handle the processing requirements.”

“Then email me the files and I’ll work from home.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened. “It’s a paired project. We work together. Those are the guidelines.” His eyes cut to Noah. “Your puppy doesn’t have to come. I’m not going to bite.”

“I’m not his puppy,” Noah said evenly. “I’m his boyfriend. And if you ever speak about me—or to him—like that again, we’re going to have a problem that the athletic department can’t fix.”

Marcus’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his throat—a swallow, quickly suppressed.

“Fine,” he said. “My apartment. Thursday. Seven o’clock. Bring the chaperone if you want.” He shouldered past us, close enough that I caught cedar and something sharper beneath it. “I’m not the villain you think I am.”

---

Noah couldn’t come Thursday. His own project group—Bioinformatics, same time slot—threatened to kick him out if he missed another meeting.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him, and almost meant it.

Marcus’s apartment was in the athletic housing complex near the stadium, a sleek two-bedroom with leather furniture and a wall-mounted television the size of a small car. Everything smelled like him—that cologne, layered over something woodier, something warmer.

He opened the door in sweatpants and a fitted t-shirt. No varsity hoodie. No armor. Just Marcus, barefoot on hardwood, looking at me like I was a puzzle he’d forgotten how to solve.

“You came.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

He flinched. “Right. Yeah. Come in.”

The first hour was excruciatingly professional. We sat on opposite ends of his sectional, laptops balanced on our knees, discussing neural network architectures like we were strangers at a conference. Marcus was smart—smarter than I’d ever given him credit for—and his questions were sharp, incisive, the kind that forced me to rethink my approach.

“You’re using backpropagation through time for the recurrent layers,” he said, scrolling through my code. “What about long short-term memory units? Wouldn’t that handle the vanishing gradient problem better?”

I blinked. “You know about vanishing gradients?”

“I’ve been reading.” His voice was quiet. “I wanted to understand what you talk about. In class. Your hands move when you explain things.”

The observation was so small, so intimate, that I didn’t know what to do with it. I stared at my screen until the code blurred.

“Marcus—”

“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out like he’d been holding them underwater. “I know you don’t want to hear it. I know sorry doesn’t fix two years. But I am. I’m so fucking sorry, Lee. For Rachel. For the quad. For every single thing I ever said to you.” His voice cracked. “I didn’t know how to—I didn’t understand what I was feeling. I still don’t. I just knew I wanted you to see me. And the only way I knew how to get that was by making you look.”

My laptop screen had gone dark. In the reflection, I could see myself—pale, frozen, mouth slightly open.

“You made my life hell.”

“I know.”

“You made me afraid to walk across campus.”

“I know.”

“You ruined every relationship I tried to build. Every friendship. Every—” My voice broke. “Two years, Marcus. Two years of waking up dreading the day, because I knew you’d be there. I knew you’d find me. I knew you’d say something, and your friends would laugh, and I’d have to pretend it didn’t matter while it was killing me inside.”

He was crying. Marcus Chen, star quarterback, Greek god of the football field, was sitting on his leather couch with tears tracking down his cheekbones, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

“I know,” he whispered. “I know what I am. I know what I did. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it right if you let me.”

The silence stretched. Somewhere in the apartment complex, a door slammed. Muffled music throbbed through the walls.

“You should go,” Marcus said finally, scrubbing at his face with the heel of his palm. “It’s late. We can finish this tomorrow.”

I should have gone. I should have packed my laptop and walked out the door and straight into Noah’s arms, where I was safe and loved and uncomplicated.

But I didn’t move.

Because Marcus Chen was crying on his couch, and some traitorous part of me wanted to understand why.

---

The meetings became regular.

Twice a week, then three times. Noah asked questions I deflected with half-truths—it’s just project work, he’s being professional, nothing’s happening—and the lies tasted like copper on my tongue.

Marcus was different behind closed doors. Stripped of his audience, stripped of performance, he was almost uncertain. He brought me coffee the way I liked it—black, no sugar—and didn’t mention that he’d noticed. He stopped making comments about Noah. He listened when I talked, really listened, his eyes tracking my face with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

“Why now?” I asked one night, three weeks into the project. “Why are you acting like this now?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Because I saw you with him. On the quad. He wiped mustard off your chin and you laughed, and I realized—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I realized someone else was going to get to be with you. Someone else was going to see you in the morning, and make you coffee, and kiss your stupid forehead when you stayed up too late coding. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t breathe.”

The words settled into the space between us like stones dropping into still water.

“You don’t get to say that,” I said, but my voice came out wrong. Weak. “You don’t get to be jealous. You’re the one who made me miserable.”

“I know.”

“You’re the reason I didn’t date anyone for two years.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even like men.”

Marcus looked at me then, and his eyes were the rawest thing I’d ever seen. “I don’t know what I like,” he said. “I’ve never—I’ve never been with anyone. Not really. I just know when I’m with you, I feel like I’m not drowning anymore.”

I should have left. I should have run.

Instead, I stayed.

---

Four weeks in. Late March. The project was nearly finished, our neural network achieving ninety-four percent accuracy on the test dataset. We’d ordered takeout—Thai, his treat—and were eating cross-legged on his living room floor, surrounded by printed diagrams and sticky notes covered in equations.

“You have sauce on your chin,” Marcus said.

Before I could reach for a napkin, his thumb swept across my skin. Gentle. Terrifyingly gentle. He wiped the sauce away and didn’t move his hand afterward, just let it hover near my jaw, his eyes searching mine for permission.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you?”

Like I was something precious. Like I was the only thing in the room. The way Noah looked at me.

I leaned back, putting distance between us. “I’m with Noah.”

“I know.” His hand dropped. “I know you are. And I know I don’t deserve a chance. But tell me something, Lee. When you’re with him—when he touches you—do you ever think about me?”

The question hit like a sucker punch.

“No,” I said, and it was almost true.

Marcus’s mouth curved. Not a smirk. Something sadder. “Liar.”

---

Noah knew something was wrong.

He lay beside me in my bed, his curls fanned across my pillow, his fingers tracing patterns on my bare chest. We’d just had sex—good sex, careful sex, the kind Noah was so good at giving—but my mind was somewhere else. Somewhere with leather furniture and cedar cologne and a quarterback who’d cried on his couch.

“Talk to me,” Noah murmured.

“About what?”

“About whatever’s happening between you and him.”

My heart stuttered. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Lee.” He propped himself on one elbow, and the look on his face wasn’t anger. It was worse. It was worry. “I see the way you come back from those meetings. Distracted. Quiet. Like you’re carrying something heavy.” His hand found mine. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want you to be honest with me.”

The words crowded my throat. I wanted to tell him everything—Marcus’s apology, Marcus’s tears, the way my pulse jumped whenever Marcus looked at me with those wrecked eyes. But the truth felt like betrayal, even though I hadn’t done anything.

Had I?

“He’s different,” I heard myself say. “When we’re alone. He’s—not the person I thought he was.”

Noah’s expression flickered. “People like him don’t change overnight. He tormented you for years. That doesn’t go away because he’s suddenly nice to you in private.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because it sounds like you’re starting to forget.”

I didn’t have an answer.

Noah sighed, long and tired, and lay back down. His hand stayed in mine, but something had tightened between us. Something that hadn’t been there before.

---

April. The final presentation was three days away. Marcus and I were debugging at his kitchen table, the city lights flickering through the window, when his hand landed on my knee.

I froze.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling back instantly. “I didn’t mean—habit. I’m sorry.”

But the heat of his palm lingered on my jeans like a brand. And I didn’t tell him to stop next time.

There wasn’t a next time. Not that night. But the awareness of it—the possibility of it—hung between us like smoke, thickening every silence, charging every accidental brush of fingers.

“Can I ask you something?” Marcus’s voice was hoarse.

I nodded without looking up from the screen.

“If things were different—if I hadn’t been such an asshole—would you ever have given me a chance?”

The cursor blinked on my laptop. Blinked again. Blinked again.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you give me one now?”

My head snapped up. “I’m with Noah.”

“I know.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his face close enough that I could count his eyelashes. “I know you’re with him. And I know he’s good to you. He’s probably better for you than I’ll ever be. But I also know—” His voice dropped. “I know you feel this too. Whatever this is. You wouldn’t still be here if you didn’t.”

“This is a project.”

“This stopped being about the project weeks ago.”

He was right. God help me, he was right.

I closed my laptop. Stood. Gathered my things with hands that weren’t quite steady. “I should go.”

Marcus stood too. He didn’t try to stop me. He just watched me pack, his expression unreadable, and when I reached the door he said: “Lee.”

I stopped.

“I’ll wait. If you ever change your mind. I’ll wait.”

---

Noah was asleep when I got home. Curled on his side, one arm stretched toward the empty space where I should have been. I stood in the doorway and watched him breathe—the steady rise and fall of his chest, the flutter of his eyelids, the small sounds he made in his sleep.

This was what I’d chosen. Kindness. Safety. Someone who’d never hurt me.

So why did my mind keep drifting to leather couches and a quarterback’s wrecked voice saying I’ll wait?

I slipped into bed beside Noah. Pressed a kiss to his shoulder. He stirred, murmuring something wordless, and pulled me closer.

I closed my eyes. Saw Marcus. Opened them again.

Noah’s arm tightened around my waist.

I’m not going to lose him, I told myself. I’m not. I’m not.

---

Friday. Final presentations. Marcus and I stood side by side in front of the lecture hall, our slides clicking past on the projector screen. He fielded questions about the convolutional layers; I handled the ones about training methodology. We moved around each other like dancers who’d rehearsed the steps a thousand times.

Professor Hendricks smiled when we finished. “Excellent work, you two. Clearly a strong collaboration.”

Clearly.

After class, Noah was waiting in the corridor. He kissed my forehead. “You did great.”

Marcus walked past us, paused, looked back.

“Noah, right?” His voice was light. Casual. “You should be proud. Lee’s brilliant. I don’t think I told him that enough.”

Noah’s arm slid around my waist. “I know he is.”

Marcus nodded. Something passed between them—recognition, maybe. Challenge. Then he turned and disappeared into the stream of students, and I watched him go longer than I should have.

“Lee.” Noah’s voice, quiet and careful. “You’re still watching him.”

I didn’t deny it.

I couldn’t.

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