All Chapters of Crossing The Line : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

A few days later, Jason found Marcus after practice.The locker room had mostly emptied out. A couple of guys were still laughing near the showers, but most of the team had already headed home. Marcus was zipping up his bag when footsteps stopped beside him.“Hey.”Marcus didn’t look up. “What.”Jason leaned against the locker next to his, arms crossed, way too casual.“That favor?” he asked.Marcus’s shoulders tensed. He kept his eyes on his bag. “What about it.”Jason smiled. It wasn’t friendly. “I need some cash.”Marcus finally looked up, frowning hard. “How much?”“Five hundred.”Marcus stared at him. “Are you serious?”Jason shrugged like it was nothing. “Come on, man. You’re loaded. Your parents give you whatever you ask for.”Marcus’s jaw tightened. Anger boiled up fast in his chest. “That’s not how this works.”“Just this once,” Jason added, still smiling that same sharp smile. “Help me out. I’m short on something and I need it quick. No one else has to know.”Marcus didn’t a

Marcus thought that was it.One favor.One request.One payment.Done.He was wrong.A week later, after practice, Jason found him again.Marcus was alone in the hallway near the equipment room, wiping sweat from his face with the bottom of his hand towel. Most of the team had already left. He heard footsteps and looked up.“Hey,” Jason said, same casual tone as before.Marcus didn’t even try to hide his irritation this time. “What now.”Jason leaned against the wall, grinning just a little. “I need more.”Marcus went completely still. The towel in his hand stopped moving.“…you’re joking right.”“Not really.”The word landed like a punch. Marcus felt his stomach drop. He stared at Jason, waiting for the punchline that never came.Jason just kept smiling that same easy smile like he was asking about the weather. “Five hundred again. I’ve got some stuff coming up and I’m a bit short.”Marcus’s jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “We had a deal. One time. You said we’d be even.”“Yeah, well…

Ethan had no idea.Marcus had told him they would go all the way soon, and Ethan had nodded like he understood exactly what that meant. He had smiled, played it cool, even felt a little excited in the moment. But the truth was, he had no clue how two guys actually did it. Not really. Not beyond the vague stuff he had overheard in locker rooms or seen in quick flashes on the internet as ads when he was younger.The more he thought about it, the more nervous he got. So that night, after his mom went to bed and the house was quiet, Ethan lay on his bed with his phone in his hand and did the only thing he could think of.He went on Google and searched “gay porn.”A bunch of links popped up immediately. His face heated up as he scrolled past the thumbnails, heart beating faster than it should. He clicked on one that looked the least intimidating , just two guys in a bedroom setting. The video started playing right away.It featured two men. One was a tall, muscular guy with broad shoulder

Ethan was late. Not just a little late—late by his own ridiculous standards. He burst through the gym doors with his bag half-zipped, hair still damp from the world’s fastest shower, and his practice shorts clinging to skin that felt too warm.Sweat already beaded on his forehead even though he hadn’t run a single suicide yet. His heart was still hammering from the dream he’d woken up from twenty minutes ago, the one that left sticky evidence in his boxers and a rush of panic so sharp he’d nearly thrown his sheets across the room.He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Marcus’s hands. Marcus’s mouth. The way dream-Marcus had pinned him down on the court after everyone else left, whispering things that made Ethan’s stomach flip even now. He’d come hard just from the fantasy, gasping into his pillow like an idiot, then spent the next ten minutes scrubbing himself raw in the shower while his mom banged on the bathroom door asking why he was running late for “that basketball thing.”He was s

It had been a week now.A whole damn week and everything felt off-balance, like the court had tilted sideways and nobody else noticed.Marcus didn’t have time for Ethan anymore. Not real time. The secret after-practice rituals they used to steal—those quiet moments in the storage room or behind the gym where hands wandered and mouths found each other without anyone watching—had basically disintegrated into nothing. Gone.Replaced by quick brushes in the hallway, random secret kisses when no one was looking, and Marcus’s natural flirt energy turned up to maximum.Marcus was still a flirt by heart. Always had been. He’d touch Ethan’s lower back when they passed each other in the locker room, let his fingers linger on Ethan’s wrist during warm-ups, steal a fast kiss behind the bleachers when the team was distracted. Any form of physical contact he could get away with, he took. But it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.Sometimes—or most times—they barely even communicated. Just nods across the c