Page 49 of Unbound
“And here—” My voice came out rough. I cleared my throat, acutely aware of how his eyelashes fluttered when I tapped the equal protection clause. “The plaintiffs say banning same-sex marriage creates a similar caste system. Of love.”
Jesse’s Adam’s apple bobbed. When he spoke, his hand mirrored mine on the paper, pinky grazing mine. “So legally… it’s the same violation.”
Not a question. An admission.
The profoundrightnessof it shimmered in his expression—not just intellectual assent, but the dawning horror of realizing his entire worldview might be built on lies. And beneath that, something hotter, hungrier.
When his fingers tangled with mine atopObergefell v. Hodges, the irony wasn’t lost on me. Here was Jesse Miller—raised to condemn everything I was—holding my hand over the case that legalized my right to love. His palm was damp. So was mine.
I should’ve crowed in triumph. Should’ve texted PhoenixTold you so. But the awe in Jesse’s eyes as he traced my thumb with his own—tentative, reverent—stole my breath. This wasn’t victory. It was surrender.
And God help me, I was falling. Not into some calculated seduction, but intohim—the way sunlight burst through him when he forgot to censor his thoughts, the wounded sounds he made when logic shattered another tenet of his faith, the courage it took to let me see him tremble.
Our linked hands trembled now. Not from fear.
From possibility.
Thursday evening found us in our normal place in the library.
Jesse reached across the library table for his Constitutional Law textbook, and time slowed to a crawl.
His shirt—one of those carefully pressed button-downs he always wore—rode up as he stretched.
Just an inch.
Maybe two.
Enough.
The waistband of his khakis gaped slightly, and there, visible for maybe three seconds before he settled back into his seat, was a strip of fabric that was definitely, absolutely not white cotton.
Charcoal grey.
The grey ones.
He was wearing them.
My brain completely short-circuited. Because intellectually, I'd known there was a chance he might actually wear them. I'd hoped he would. That was the entire point.
But knowing it and seeing the evidence were two catastrophically different things.
Jesse Miller was sitting across from me in the library, discussing the Bill of Rights, wearing underwear I'd bought him. Had chosen them this morning, put them on, made that decision.
"Adrian?"
I blinked. Jesse was looking at me with that confused expression that meant I'd been staring into space too long.
"Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you agreed with Kennedy's framing inLawrence—that the case doesn't involve whether the government must give formal recognition to relationships."
Right. Constitutional law. We were discussing constitutional law.
Not the fact that Jesse was wearing my underwear.
Not the fact that I'd seen proof.
Not the fact that he'd made that choice.
