SUBMISSION

Chapter 11: SUBMISSION 

On the outside, Leon looked like he was holding it together.

On the inside, he was falling apart at every seam.

Why the hell had he asked him for help? It was a disaster. Aaron was going to laugh in his face, humiliate him, and probably announce to the whole school that Leon was a pathetic gay guy pining for the Golden Boy.

He turned to leave.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

Leon stopped.

Slowly, he turned back around. His heart was slamming. He was completely certain he’d misheard, or that he’d turn around and find that smirk—that lazy, cutting smirk that Aaron weaponized like a second language.

But there was no smirk. Aaron was just standing there. Tall and still and completely unreadable, looking at Leon with an expression that didn’t have a name. No mockery. No amusement. Nothing.

Leon let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“After school. Meet me at the Old Wing,” Aaron said before walking back into the classroom like the conversation was simply over.

Leon stood in the hallway alone. Staring at the closed door. Aaron hadn’t asked why. Hadn’t made a single joke. Hadn’t even waited for a response.

Leon thought about Damian… the possibility that it really had been him last night… a dangerous spark of excitement cut through the fear. 

‘It was him. It had to be.’

The footsteps. The pause behind the door. Damian was probably just shy. He had always been hard to read, guarded in a way that made you want to crack him open just to see what was inside. Leon had wanted him for so long that wanting had started to feel like breathing—automatic, constant, something he barely noticed until it was the only thing he could feel.

He needed to be smarter about this. Bolder. And as much as it made his stomach turn, Aaron Blake was the closest thing to an expert he had access to.

‘Please don’t let this be a mistake,’ Leon prayed silently, fists clenched at his sides.

***

The final bell felt like it took a year to arrive. But when it did, Leon found himself walking toward the Old Wing before he’d fully decided to. That was the thing about hope… it moved your body before your brain could talk you out of it.

Aaron was already there.

He was leaning against the crumbling wall with his arms crossed, looking like he’d been waiting long enough to be bored but not long enough to be annoyed. He didn’t say hello. Didn’t acknowledge Leon at all, really. He just pushed off the wall and jerked his head toward the entrance.

Leon followed.

The Old Wing was exactly what it sounded like—old. The kind of old that smelled like chalk dust and abandonment, where the paint peeled in long sad strips and exposed concrete underneath. Every surface was tagged or cracked or both. The school had been “remodeling” it for three years. What they were actually doing was nothing, and meanwhile it had become the unofficial territory of everyone who didn’t want to be found.

Leon hurried to keep up with Aaron’s long strides. “Hey, wait… what exactly are we…”

He walked straight into Aaron’s back.

It was like hitting a wall. A warm, solid, immovable wall that smelled faintly of cedar and something else Leon refused to identify. He bounced off, rubbed his forehead, and stepped back.

They were in a classroom.

Leon’s stomach did something complicated and unpleasant. He knew this room. He knew it the way you know a place you’ve tried hard to forget. The same cracked window. The same row of half-destroyed lockers along the back wall. One of which he had hidden inside while Aaron did things to a girl on this exact floor that Leon was not supposed to witness.

Things that had… accidentally… ended up on his own lips.

His face went from normal to volcanic in under a second.

“What are you blushing for?”

Leon looked up. Aaron had settled himself onto one of the desks, one leg hooked over a chair beside it, leaning back on one palm like he owned every surface in this building. He was watching Leon with those dark, patient eyes.

“It’s hot,” Leon said. “It’s summer.”

“It’s not that hot.”

“It is for me.” He moved to step forward, desperate to put some emotional distance between himself and the memory of that locker—

but his foot caught on a stray piece of rebar jutting from the floor. He tripped hard, falling forward with a sharp yelp. “Dammit—”

There was no graceful version of it. Leon arms flew out, and he hit the floor on his hands and knees with a crack that rattled up both his wrists.

Aaron’s low chuckle rolled through the room, dark and knowing. It sent an unwelcome shiver racing down Leon’s spine. “You really are desperate for a man, aren’t you? Can’t even stay on your feet around me.”

Leon looked up, heart slamming against his ribs. He was positioned right between Aaron’s spread legs. His face hovered inches away from the visible bulge in Aaron’s trousers… the fabric already tightening, growing right before his eyes. 

His face was close. Too close. Close enough to see that it was getting worse.

“Oh my god…”

He scrambled. Both hands hit the floor as he tried to push himself upright, and a large hand came down hard on the back of his head. Not violent. But firm. Deliberate.

It stopped him cold.

“What are you doing?” Leon’s voice came out higher than he wanted it to.

“Relax.”

“Let go—”

“Leon.” Just his name. Quiet and weighted and somehow more effective than any physical force. “Stop moving.”

He stopped. He hated that he stopped. His pulse was going absolutely haywire and every rational thought he had was screaming at him to get up, get out, get away…

But he stopped.

Aaron’s voice dropped. Lower. Slower. Like he was choosing every word deliberately and placing it somewhere it would do the most damage.

“You wanted to know how to get Damian.”

Leon didn’t answer.

“Lesson one.” Aaron’s hand was still on his head. Heavy. Steady. “Learning how to serve a man.”

The words landed somewhere deep and terrible and confusing. Leon was angry. He was mortified. He was something else too… something he absolutely refused to look at directly, something he shoved into the farthest corner of his chest and locked the door on immediately.

He didn’t move.

And he couldn’t decide which part of that scared him more.