Light the Fire

**This story will continue references to homophobia and violence throughout. Reader discretion is advised**

**Thank you so, so much for all the love on this story so far! I really appreciate the support and I hope you will continue to enjoy following Cal and Luca's story. This is my first time writing these sorts of scenes so I hope they work well.**

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Something shifted between us after that day.

A different type of air settled around us, encased us so we were in our little world. Untouchable to all who tried to get too close. We might have only known each other for a short time, but it seemed like forever. Our conversations were natural, and the silence comforting. When he wasn't around, I craved his touch more than oxygen in my lungs.

Classes started, Luca began his football practices, and we developed a domestic routine that worked. We sought out those moments we craved; his hand and mouth on my cock, me rimming and fingering him. His touch always felt like a zap of electricity against my skin and that just made me want it more. I needed more from him, but I wasn't going to push him too far. He had to get to those points on his own.

Neither of us mentioned those two words spoken that night. Two weeks passed and we still didn't talk about it, but it stayed on my mind. Had they been made as a joke? A passing comment that meant nothing? Or did he mean it?

I couldn't stop imagining his cock at my hole, those first few moments when we were connected in a way that transcended everything else. There would be no going back. I tried to push those thoughts from my mind, but when I was on my own it was all I could think about.

The morning of Luca's first football game -- a friendly against another college -- I sat at my desk with a half-written essay open, Fall Out Boy playing through the speakers of my laptop, and books spread out around me. I swiveled on the chair, drumming my fingers on the wood of the desk as I tried to decide what my next paragraph would be, but I'd hit a dead end. My mind kept drifting.

When the door to the room opened, I turned the chair and watched Luca step through. Sweat trickled down his face from the run, his cheeks bright red and his blonde hair tousled; he managed to make working out sexy. My cock twitched in my pants. Luca looked at me, his usual bravado gone as he took a swig from his water bottle and pulled his sweat-soaked shirt off.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Nervous. Always am before a game, but the first college game is different, you know? This is a whole new team and I don't want to humiliate myself."

"You won't. You got the scholarship for a reason."

"I can still have a bad first game." He sighed, dropping onto the edge of his bed and running his hands over his face.

In the few weeks I'd known him, I'd come to realize how much he would beat himself up over the smallest of things. If he missed a catch during training it was all he could think about, if he struggled to understand something in class he would spend the night going over it. For all the confidence and bravado he exuded, there was a side of him that many people didn't get to see.

I pushed myself away from the desk, wheeling myself over to him. "You'll be fine. With all the training you've been doing, you're bound to smash it."

"You're coming, aren't you?" He dropped his hands to his lap.

"If you want me to."

"I do." Luca nodded, his green eyes meeting mine. "I might not be as nervous if you're there."

His words sent a flutter of butterflies through my stomach. "You know, there are other ways to get rid of nerves. Fun ways."

"Oh yeah? What would those be?"

"I think I'm going to have to show you."

Luca raised an eyebrow at me, a small smile dancing on his lips and he dropped his hands onto the bed beside him. My eyes drifted to his crouch where a bulge was forming, pressing against the fabric of his shorts. "I think so too."

In one quick movement, I pushed the desk chair out from under me, sending it spinning across the room as I dropped to my knees in front of him. Luca watched me, Lust clouding his eyes. He swiped his tongue across his lips in the same way he knew drove me insane. My cock hardened at the action and I intended to get revenge on him for it.

I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the waistband of his shorts and boxers. Luca lifted his hips and allowed me to pull them down, discarding them somewhere on the floor behind me. His cock stood at attention, precum flowing down his length. No matter how many times I saw it, it still made my mouth water.

"Cal." Luca whined, rolling his hips and desperate for my touch.

"Just admiring the view." I grinned at him. "I don't think it's one I'll ever get bored of."

"You're an idiot."

"Yes, but this idiot has all the power over you right now."

He opened his mouth to speak but those words turned into a soft groan as I licked up his length, slowly sliding my tongue from base to tip. I sucked on the tip of his cock and swirled my tongue to collect the still flowing precum. It tasted as good as it did the first time I sucked his cock.

Despite how desperate I was to feel his cum in my mouth, I took it slow. I bobbed my head up and down his cock at a slow, almost agonizing pace, swirling my tongue as I went. Luca's gentle moans filled the room, his back hitting the mattress behind him. The sound was music to my ears, a song I didn't want to stop playing, and a melody I would remember for the rest of my life. I wanted to savor that for as long as I could.

Luca grew impatient. He rolled his hips, thrusting them alongside his small moans in a desperate attempt to reach his peak. I placed my hands on his thighs, gripping them tightly to limit his movement. He opened his legs a little more and exposed his hole. He didn't need to say the words for me to know what he wanted.

I pulled myself off his length, still swirling my tongue around it before moving down and lightly flicking my tongue along his balls. Luca moved his hips a little more. My hands were still gripping his thighs as I licked down to his hole. I lapped at it with my tongue, feeling him wrap his hands in my hair and tugging lightly, expecting more. Who was I to disappoint?

My right hand inched up his thigh as I continued to lap at his hole, my cock hardening at the sight before me. I jerked Luca off a few times, his precum and my saliva coating my fingers before I ran them over his balls and down to his hole. Slowly, I pushed my index finger into his hole. Luca's grip on my hair tightened and a guttural moan left his lips as his hole accepted my finger. One knuckle and then two disappeared, stretching around my finger.

He rolled his hips on my finger, adjusting to it and lightly fucking himself against it.

"Fucking hell." He groaned, still moving his hips. "Another."

"What's the magic word?"

"Please, Cal!

"I like it when you beg."

A small smile appeared on my face and I pushed my middle finger into his hole, reveling in the groan that ripped from his throat. Luca wasted no time in rolling his hips against my fingers to bring himself to the edge, desperate after all the teasing. I let him, angling my fingers to hit his prostate and wrapping my lips around his cock.

With each roll of his hips against my fingers, Luca fucked my face with his cock. I continued to swirl my tongue along it. My left hand remained on his thigh and after a few minutes, I felt his muscles tighten. Luca groaned, arching his back. His warm cum hit the back of my throat in a series of spurts. I swallowed it thirstily as though it was the first thing I'd had to drink in days.

Luca's body went still, his chest heaving. I slowly pulled my fingers out of his hole, noting the slight shiver of his body at the lack of contact. I took my time pulling my mouth off his cock, licking him clean as I went to savor the taste of him. He didn't move as I rocked back on my heels, my breathing a little labored and my cock aching against my pants.

"How are those nerves?" I said, clearing my throat a little.

"What nerves?" His voice was weak as he propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me. "You are incredible."

"I aim to please."

Luca's eyes drifted down to the prominent bulge in my pants. "Need some help with that?"

"As much as I would love that, I don't want to tire you out before the game." I stood up, pressing my stomach against the bed and getting close to his ear. "If you win, it can be your reward."

"Fucking hell, Cal, you make it so hard for me to keep my hands off you when you talk like that."

"You're going to have to learn." I stood up laughing. "Go take a shower before someone from the team comes looking for you."

"I would, but someone threw my pants away."

Luca pushed himself to a standing position, his cheeks tinged red, sweat beading on his forehead, and his soft cock hanging between his legs. He scrambled to find his boxers and pants, pulling them on but his eyes remained focused on my cock which pushed painfully against my boxers.

His eyes stayed on me, taking a few small steps until he stood in front of me. Lust clouded his face once more and he leaned in close to my ear, his soft breath tickling my skin. "You're not the only one who can be a tease, Cal."

"Wha--"

The words were silenced by a moan as Luca pressed the palm of his hand to my bulge. He pulled away from my ear, smiling a little. I watched, speechless, as he grabbed his stuff and left for a shower before the game later that evening. My mind went blank, all possible thoughts disappearing along with Luca as I was left alone in the room.

A small shiver of curiosity went down my spine as I tried to process just what Luca meant and where we went next. We didn't talk about what was happening between us, we never said the words or tried to explain what was going on. I tried to reason it away as Luca experimenting like most people at college tended to do, but the longer it went on, the less I believed it.

He invited me to the game as a friend, but the small comments he made changed the context, even if he didn't mean it. I didn't want to get ahead of myself but that small voice at the back of my mind had me questioning a lot more than I should have. There were some thoughts I just couldn't entertain.

I shook my head, trying to push all those thoughts, and the small voice, to the very back of my mind. With several hours to go until the game, I decided to distract myself by finishing the essay I started that morning. I'd always been nothing if not dedicated to the nerd lifestyle. I plugged my headphones in, played my music as loud as I dared, and focused on the words on the screen.

Luca returned half an hour later in nothing but a pair of jeans, drying his hair with a towel and his shirt nowhere to be seen. He looked at me and grinned. I knew what he was doing, but I refused to let him get to me in the way he wanted.

"Are you allergic to shirts?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and placing my headphones around my neck.

"Weren't you the one who said you didn't mind?" He laughed. "Do you find it distracting?"

I rolled away from my desk and grabbed a pillow, hurling it at him. "You're so annoying."

Luca caught the pillow between the tips of his fingers. The smile didn't move from his face once. "It's all part of my charm." He threw the pillow back onto my bed, crossed to his dresser and pulled out a dark blue shirt, tugging it on. "What are you working on, anyway?"

"An essay about the American Revolutionary War. Not the most thrilling topic."

"Are any essay topics interesting? I have to bribe myself to get them done and even then I end up eating the bribe before I've written a hundred words."

"Tudor England is always a good one. Lots of murder, executions, treachery, all the good stuff."

"I'll take your word for it." He raised an eyebrow, shaking his head a little and fighting a small smile on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing! Your eyes lit up when you mentioned murder; it was unnerving."

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at him. "Why were you gazing into my eyes?"

"Get back to your essay, nerd."

Luca laughed and kicked my desk chair so it rolled across the floor and towards the desk. His laughter couldn't hide the blush rising in his cheeks or the small flicker of his eyes to a spot on the wall just behind my head. I made the comment as a joke, but his reactions told me I might not have been that far off the mark. Perhaps the voice at the back of my mind wasn't making things up.

We did our own thing for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Luca played video games on his laptop and I tried to concentrate on the essay, but the causes of the American Revolutionary War escaped me. All I could think about was the blush on Luca's face and the speed at which he directed his eyes away from me.

Once or twice during the morning, I could have sworn he turned to look at me; his eyes staring into my back, but I didn't turn around to confirm it. The last thing I wanted to do was send the voice in the back of my mind into overdrive by catching him staring at me. I tried to ignore it as best I could, but it was hard. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him, but I couldn't allow myself to broach the subject.

If Luca just wanted to experiment, I knew that asking the questions ran the risk of ruining our friendship and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I had felt bad enough after our first encounter.

My chair swiveled a little and I removed my headphones, placing them on the desk and turned around to look at Luca.

"I told Brandon I'd be at the field early. You coming?" He grabbed his bag from the floor and flung it onto his shoulder.

"Now?" I looked at the clock on my laptop. "Can't I just meet you there later on?"

"We might have only known each other for a few weeks, but I know you'd get ready to leave and then never leave the room. This way you're definitely going to be there."

I sighed, knowing he was right. "Alright, give me a second."

I turned my laptop off, removed my headphones from around my neck, and pulled on my sneakers. Although I'd been to football games in the past -- both Ryan and Damien played -- I didn't like them. They were loud, hot even in the dead of winter, and crowded. It was an introvert's nightmare, but I promised Luca I would go and I wasn't about to turn him down, not when those small nervous jitters started to return.

He shifted from one foot to the other, played with the strap on his bag, and chewed on the inside of his cheek. The game was still a good deal of time away, but anxiety was a hard thing to shake. If me being there went a little way to calm those nerves, then I was willing to put myself through it. What was one football game?

Once I tucked my phone and wallet into my back pocket, we left the dorm room and headed off to the field for the game. Luca continued to play with the strap of his bag as though it were the most interesting thing in the world. He tugged on the straps, moved the zipper, and shifted it on his shoulder to try to find a comfortable place for it. I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

The closer we got to the field, the more jittery he became. Luca moved the bag between his shoulders on five separate occasions and zipped and unzipped it more than double that. I was grateful to see Brandon already in the parking lot when we arrived; he would have been better equipped to help him out with his nerves then I was. I couldn't even get my own anxiety in check most of the time.

Brandon pushed himself off his car when he saw us approaching, cupping his around his mouth. "Luca!"

"Hey."

"And Cal." Brandon nodded at me. "Didn't think football was your sort of thing."

"I'm full of surprises."

Luca looked at me, raising an eyebrow, but that slither of anxiety was still etched onto his face. "I made you come."

"Nah, you asked, I agreed. If I didn't, I'd have Ryan on my back about not leaving the dorms and he's already annoying me. This is me. Socializing."

The lie left my mouth easier than I thought it would. I figured Luca wouldn't want Brandon to know the real reason he asked me to go to the game and it seemed I was right. Relief flooded Luca's eyes but it wasn't enough to take the anxiety away. He continued to fidget with his bag and struggled to stay still for longer than a few seconds.

"Well, it should be a good game. This is the best way to see how we work as a team before we start championship games. They're usually a good laugh."

I offered Luca a sideways glance. "So nothing to worry about?"

"Just a bit of fun, though we do have a winning streak to uphold. Rhodes will make us do extra conditioning if we lose the friendly in his final year, no pressure or anything." Brandon laughed and I could see the anxiety lift a little from Luca's face. It was still there, but not as prominent.

We waited in the parking lot for the rest of the team to appear. I was introduced to each one of them, but struggled to put names to face because of the overload of information in one sitting. Facts were easy to remember, but I'd always found it hard with names, especially when there were so many of them to remember. I figured I'd probably never meet with most of them beyond the game, especially since several of them were Seniors.

Derek was the last one to arrive. The team Captain, Rhodes, a heavy-set, dark-haired twenty-four year old, rolled his eyes as Derek sauntered across the parking lot with his bag slung over his shoulder. I'd managed to avoid him for several weeks, deliberately stayed away from him if I saw him in the corridors, but there was no way to avoid him in the parking lot.

He stared at me with the same pinpoint stare he had at the party, the same ice-cold glare that sent a chill down my spine. That had been our last interaction and it certainly wasn't going to be one I wanted to repeat. I tried to ignore him, but it was hard when I could feel his gaze on me in the same way I felt Luca's early on. At least Luca hadn't been trying to melt holes into my back.

In response to Derek's arrival, Luca edged himself a little closer to my side and I was grateful for that small movement.

"What's he doing here?"

"Cal's just come to watch the game," Luca said.

"Speaking of the game, we should go." Rhodes pulled out his phone to check the time. "Coach is going to want to do his pre-game speech." He nudged his head towards the field and everyone started to follow, except Luca. "Greene?"

"Give me a sec. I just wanna speak to Cal."

Rhodes nodded, leading the rest of the team across the parking lot. The only one who glanced back was Derek but a light punch in the arm from Brandon snatched his attention once more. I turned to look at Luca, shoving my hands in my pocket and trying to forget about Derek and the way he stared at me. Luca scratched the back of his neck, his face pale which made his eyes stand out that little bit more.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Me?" I raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who looks like he's about to puke. You heard Brandon, it's a friendly game so no stress."

"I don't want to be the one who lets the team down."

"What makes you think you will? I'm not an expert on anxiety, I can't even manage my own, but you wouldn't be here if you weren't good enough. You'll be fine."

Luca nodded slowly, the grip on his bag strap so strong that his knuckles were turning white. "I hope so."

"And don't forget--" I took a few steps towards him. "--what you get if you win."

"That's the only motivation I need." Luca licked his lips in the way he knew drove me crazy and I shifted from one foot to the other.

"You should go before someone comes looking for you."

"See you later. Enjoy the game."

Luca stared at me for a few seconds longer, color returning to his cheeks, before he turned around and headed towards the field.