Page 85 of A Stealthy Situation

I move beside him to see the screen and the little purple flowers on it before reading the title across the top. “The naked-man orchid—what?” My face almost hits the screen in my hurry to look, and sure enough, the purple flowers look like little men wearing flower hats with something unmistakable between their legs. “Look at their little peens.”

“Cool, right?”

“Very. This is the shit people want to know about. What else you got?”

And that’s how we spend the afternoon with Harrison excitedly telling me about plants.

I don’t even have to pretend to be interested this time.

25

HARRISON

My Benny is a fucking genius. I have a list of the weird and wonderful as long as my arm, and now that I have some direction for my capstone project, I’m jumping into stage one. Seeing if this idea holds water before I begin my project next year.

The excitement buzzing in my veins tells me that I’m on the right track. Learning about plants stimulates me, interests me, and I can never shut up about them. This idea though, it’s next-level, and I can’t wait to put it into practice.

“Okay, so.” I pace my area of the greenhouse, loving that Benny is hanging on to my every word. That’s a good first sign. “How do we test this hypothesis? I’m going to need some kind of sample audience. A control group and a test group …”

Benny’s eyes glaze over.

“Don’t judge me!”

He holds up his hands, clearly trying to look awake. “No judgment. I’m super interested.”

I walk over to where he’s sitting on the table next to my laptop and step between his legs. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Being fucking incredible and interested enough to try and help me with this?”

A little of his snark melts as he wraps his hands around my neck. “You’re cute when you’re being nerdy.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Why would it be anything else?” He smiles so innocently I pinch his side.

“You know, I can tell the difference between you and Em, but sometimes …” I hesitate. “I might need to start checking your hand whenever I see you as my insurance policy.”

“You really think we’d switch places on you?” He looks hurt, so I hurry to clarify.

“No, like, if I want to just walk up and kiss you or grab your ass or something, I don’t want to accidentally get the wrong guy. That’s all.”

“You mean you don’t want to be the meat in a twin sandwich?”

My face twists. “What? No. Do you do that?”

Benny snickers. “Never. But we’ve been asked a lot, and I wanted to make sure that wasn’t on your mind.”

“Ah. Well, no. You’re safe.” I lean in, brushing my mouth over his before pushing my tongue inside. Fuck, it feels good to be able to kiss him when I want to. I’m still waiting for that moment to hit, the one where I realize being in a relationship isn’t for me, but thankfully, nothing yet. Every day I’m more excited to see him than the last one. With our class work, and Benny’s frat duties, and spending time with our friends, we don’t get to catch up every day, and on the days I don’t see him, it makes me grumpy. Full days like this are rare.

“As soon as we’re done here, you’re coming home with me,” I tell him.

“Finally!” Benny goes to jump off the table, but I hold him firm.

“Not now. When we’re finished. I’m not finished.”

Benny makes a sound of protest before giving in. “Fine. What are we doing?”

---