Boy Next Door (Chapter 1)
Introducing the "Boy Next Door" series — a slow-burn between John Callahan, 25, and the Ashford brothers next door.
Note: 18+ readers only. All characters are consenting adults.
John Callahan, 25. Neighbor to the Ashfords.
It was Thursday, two days from the Fourth of July. The window was open, and outside, our gardener was making his weekly pass across the lawn. The drone of the mower rose and fell, carried on the green smell of fresh-cut grass.
My drawing table sat angled to catch the north light. I’d been hunched over the rolls of trace paper for hours, trying to make the rooms work. The project was due after the weekend and I hadn’t made nearly as much progress as I had hoped. I hooked my feet on the rung of the drawing chair and braced my elbows on either side of the blueprints, taking yet another look at the damn floor plan.
“Knock knock.”
I looked up, annoyed at the disturbance.
Matthew Ashford was leaning in the doorframe, barefoot, wearing my hoodie.
Grass clippings stuck to his ankles. He’d probably walked straight through the lawn our guy was still mowing.
He had been slipping in through the back since we were kids. So I didn’t bother asking how he’d gotten in.
He plucked grass clippings from the sole of his foot and from in between his toes, dropping them on the polished floor. “We’re throwing a party Saturday. You should come.”
“I have a project due Monday.” I pointed at the blueprints on the drawing table in front of me.
“Luke told me you’d say that.”
His brother Luke and I were seniors at college in the fifth year of our architecture programs. Somehow Luke managed to have a social life and throw parties and not let deadlines consume him the way I did. Matthew, being a sophomore wild-child, didn’t have a care in the world.
He wandered over.
“What are these?” His attention was now fully taken up by the maze of floor plans on the drawing table.
“Just—” I nudged his hand away from my meticulous work. “Last-minute revisions.”
He shuffled over to my side, put his hand on my chair and wheeled it back a bit.
Somewhere outside the mower had cut off. Without it, the room felt suddenly quieter — just the ceiling fan ticking overhead, pushing air from one side of the room to the other.
He parted my legs and stepped into the space between my knees, blocking my view of the drawings. He bent over the desk, his ass nearly pressing against my chest.
“You drew all this?”
“Obviously.”
As he arched further, the hoodie crept up the small of his back, exposing a patch of smooth, sun-heated skin.
I tried to angle sideways to make sure he wasn’t smudging the crisp pencil lines. My eyes locked onto the soft dip of skin right at the base of his spine where the linen pants hung on his slender hips. The heat of his body made the hairs on my arms stand up.
I shifted in my chair and hoped for a cool breeze to blow in through the open window. I kept my hands on my thighs, my fingers twisting the hem of my shorts while he studied the drawings.
With his body inches away, it would have been so easy to reach out. To place my palms against his lower back, let my fingertips trace slowly along his warm side, over the soft curve of his stomach, and up to his chest, a trail of goosebumps rising across his skin.
The way he would tense beneath my touch as I pulled him gently into my lap, his back settling into my chest, his head falling against my shoulder.
A sudden rustle of the papers under his fingers yanked me out of it.
I turned him around by his waist before he could ruin hours of my hard work.
Up close, his lashes were thick, his eyes muddy grey with light specks near the iris. Same color as Luke’s.
“What are you doing here, Matty?”
“I came to give this back.”
He pulled the hoodie over his head. For a second, the fabric caught around his shoulders, keeping his face hidden while his bare chest and stomach were inches from mine. I found myself staring at the pulse at the base of his throat. My nostrils flared to inhale his fresh, familiar smell with a hint of sweat and grass.
When his face popped out of the collar, his hair stuck up in every direction. He draped the fleece over my shoulders like a cape, its sleeves hanging loose over my chest. He caught them both and reeled me in. Our eyes met before he pecked me on the cheek.
“Thanks for the hoodie, neighbor.”
He walked out the door, his shoulders swaying with his easy stride. When the soft slap of his bare feet faded down the hallway, the room felt too quiet again. Outside, the light had shifted to long and gold across the lawn, the gardener finished for the day. The sun had dropped low enough for the worst of the heat to finally loosen its grip.
I crawled onto my bed and wrapped myself in the hoodie, inhaling deep, pressing my nose into the collar, where his scent and body heat were trapped. There was no point in getting back to drawing. My focus was completely off the rails. I spent the rest of the evening gathering my thoughts on how I would manage the Monday deadline with a wild Ashford party.
This is how you open a slow-burn. Nothing happens, and everything happens. The hoodie carrying his scent, the mower cutting out so the silence becomes louder than his body inches away — you understand that desire lives in the almost, not the act.
That fantasy sequence is the heart of this chapter. John's hands staying on his thighs, twisting the hem of his shorts while his mind traces every inch of Matthew's skin — that restraint is what makes this burn. The question you leave open: does Matthew know? The way he steps between John's knees, the easy peck on the cheek — is it innocence or architecture? You don't answer, and that's why I'm coming back for Chapter 2.
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