Dash picked up the remote and hit pause. “Say Anything. It’s a classic. Come here right now and watch the rest with me.” Dash spread his legs, making room for Thorne to settle between them. Thorne was powerless to resist the offer.

At first he was too busy tracing patterns on Dash’s firm thighs and enjoying the feel of Dash’s hard chest behind his back to pay much attention to the movie, but by the time John Cusack held up his boom box, blasting Peter Gabriel at his girlfriend’s house, Thorne could see the appeal, at least if you were overly romantic.

“I still can’t believe you hadn’t seen this,” Dash said as the credits rolled. “I love all these old movies.”

“Casablanca or Breakfast at Tiffany’s are old movies, not the Brat Pack.”

Dash waved off his comment as if it shouldn’t matter.

“I didn’t watch a lot of movies as a…” Thorne’s words trailed off in horror. “Fuck, how old were you when this came out?”

“Not born.”

“Wow. Now I feel ancient.”

“After last night? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got life in you yet.”

Thorne shook his head. Dash was born in the ’90s; that was mind-boggling.

“So what about The Breakfast Club, have you seen that one?”

Thorne nodded.

“Sixteen Candles? Some Kind of Wonderful?”

“Nope.”

Dash sighed. “You were so deprived.”

He had been, deprived of a social life anyway, not of other things, education included. “I was busy.”

“Studying?” Dash asked.

“You guessed it.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have needed to study too much in school. You seem like the naturally smart type.”

Thorne sighed. If only that had been the case. “I’m dyslexic. I’ve learned to deal with it, but it kept me from reading well when I was a kid and that affected my grades. My parents got me a tutor, and while I’m thankful for a lot of what I learned from her, they weren’t okay with me simply improving my skills. I had to be the best in school. No kid of theirs was going to let a disability cause them to make anything other than straight A’s. I spent a lot of time with my tutor. And a lot of time on my schoolwork.”

Dash shook his head. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, it did, but look at me now. I’m the success story my father wanted me to be. By the time I was in high school I was thriving academically, but my parents, my father especially, could never believe I’d succeed if he let up the pressure even a tiny bit. I graduated top of my class, exactly like he wanted, but I did it for me, not him. I see my parents for major holidays or if I can’t avoid it. Otherwise, I only talk to my sister.”

“Are you two close?”