Author's Note: This chapter will be divided into two halves, so check back for the second half sometime tomorrow. This chapter contains a great deal of graphic sexual content and not too much else at all.
"I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things, too." --Neil Gaiman
215 days sober
I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing from where it’s wedged under the pillow. Next to me, Travis groans and tries to hide away under his own pillow. “Christ, G,” he says. “Not gonna let you sleep in my bed anymore, if you wake me up before the alarm.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter. The caller ID bears the words dc—dont fuckin steal charlies phone again. I answer, “Yeah?”
“Rise and shine,” Declan says. “Still planning to come over to the dorms today?”
“Do you still want me to come over?” I ask. “Now that you’re sober—”
Travis rolls over and tries to shove me out of the bed. “If you’re taking a call, get out. I’ve got another half an hour before I have to get up, and I don’t want to waste it listening to you talk.”
“Hang on, Dec, Travis is yelling at me. Give me a second to get out of bed,” I say to Declan. I let myself be shoved the rest of the way out of bed.
His raised eyebrows are easy to picture. “I see. And do you always share a bed with your roommate?”
“When I’m in a bad mood and feel like spooning somebody, yes, I do,” I hiss. I slip into the hall and shut the door behind myself. It’s a strangely chilly morning for April, so I step over Omelette’s still-snoozing form, shuffle over to my own room and crawl back into bed. “It’s not even weird. It’s totally platonic.”
“Of course it is,” he says. “Now, would you like to come over this afternoon and platonically share my bed?”
I roll onto my back and slip a hand past the waistband of my pajama pants, idly touching myself, but not doing anything particularly thrilling just yet. “Depends. Do I get to platonically put my dick in your ass?”
“You can put it wherever you want to,” he says. When he speaks next, his voice is low and heated. “I’ve got my tongue stud in, just in case you decide you want my mouth.”
I shiver even under the pile of blankets, and the movement of my hand on my dick becomes a lot more purposeful. “That’s definitely something I could be interested in.”
“Good. I’m going to go out and run the obstacle course a few times, but… head over here in a couple of hours, maybe sometime around one o’clock?”
“See you then,” I say. He hangs up without saying goodbye, but it’s Declan, so I’m not too surprised by that. I haul myself back out of my bed and down the hall to Travis’ room. If I don’t have to worry about getting up yet, I might as well enjoy a lazy morning in a warm bed. When I lift up the edge of the covers to sneak back under, Travis’ eyelids flutter, like he’s rolling his eyes without bothering to open them. Once I’m tucked under the blankets again, he shuffles closer to resume our previous state of sprawling out all over each other, then immediately draws back.
“Seriously?” he says flatly. “Turn over. You’re the little spoon now, I don’t need you to spend the next twenty minutes stabbing me with that.”
I slip a hand under the blankets to adjust my semi-hard dick as I wriggle around to face away from Travis. “I don’t know what you expect from me, dude. I’m nineteen, and I just woke up. Of course I’m going to be at action status. You probably are, too.”
“I am not,” he grumbles, slipping an arm around my waist and curling closer. And it’s true, he’s not, but…
“Do you want to be?” I ask around a mischievous, slowly widening smile. One of my hands sneaks backward under the blankets to settle on his hip.
“Garen,” he says warningly. “If you’re not going to let me sleep, I might as well get up and start getting ready for work--oh my god, fucking behave yourself.”
“I’m not doing anything!” I protest. The words are a blatant lie, but I can’t seem to stop myself from rolling my hips back to grind my ass against his groin a second time. His fingers clench around the fabric of my t-shirt, and maybe he’s making some lame attempt to keep me still, but if that’s the case, he’s not doing a very good job of it. All he’s really accomplishing is pinning me to him as I press back again.
He exhales a shaky breath against the back of my neck. “You’re such an asshole. What is wrong with you this morning?”
“Nothing. I’m just in a good mood today.”
Truthfully, I’m in a good mood because he’s in a good mood. Or, I guess, he’s not in a bad mood. He doesn’t seem like he’s ready to hang himself the second I turn my back. He seems like he might even be better—at least, better enough that I’m sure he’ll live long enough to attend his next therapy session and see if there’s anything his doctor can do for him. Even if he has to leave for work soon, even if I’m going to spend the afternoon in bed with someone else, it’s still a good day right now.
He’s still holding tight to my shirt. I reach down to cover his hand with my own. I don’t mean anything by the gesture—it’s meant to be a quick acknowledgment, like a hello—but he spreads his fingers apart just enough that mine can slip between and intertwine with his. Suddenly, all I can think of is the times I’ve been behind him, holding him the way he’s holding me now, fucking him just like this. It feels heavy and real and too much, and I can’t help myself.
“Trav,” I say hoarsely.
He brushes his lips over the nape of my neck and breathes, “Yeah?”
“Do you want to?” I ask.
“Do I want to do what?” he asks, even though I’m sure he already knows what I’m asking.
“Do you want to?” I repeat, slowly dragging our joined hands away from where they’re resting over my pounding heart and towards the top of my pajama pants. Probably without thinking, he licks his lips; I feel his tongue touch the skin at the top of my spine, and that feels like answer enough. I untangle our hands and reach back to grip his thigh so I can pull him as close as possible. If he wasn’t hard before, he’s getting there now. He makes a quiet noise when I grind back against him again. I say, “You want to, don’t you? We can, I want to. Call in sick to work.”
“I can’t,” he says, even though his hand is dipping under my waistband now. He wraps his fingers around me, and it’s so good, I want to fucking cry.
“Yeah, that’s—god, it’s been so long,” I say, and I can feel him nodding behind me. “Please stay. I want you to stay, I want us to spend all day in bed. Don’t you want that?”
Another nod, more hurried, and he’s really stroking me off now, with his free arm coming out from under the pillow to wrap around my shoulders and keep me still as he works me over. It’s kind of pointless—I’m not good at keeping still under the simplest of circumstances, and any time he gets his hands on me, all I want to do is squirm around until I find a way to get myself inside of him.
His phone starts chirping where it rests on the window ledge while it charges. His hand jerks out of my pants, and I roll right over on top of him so that I can silence the alarm.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” I say quickly. “Don’t get up. You can call in sick, I’ll cancel my plans, come on.”
Part of me is expecting rejection, because every time I get caught up in the feel of him, he pushes me away and tells me to slow down. He tells me I need boundaries. But today, when he grabs my shirt, it’s to pull me towards him, not push me away. Three and a half months since the last time we slept together, a month since the night he let me kiss him outside the laser tag arena—it must be getting to him, too, because there isn’t any hesitation in the way he pulls me down into a kiss.
A kiss that is, admittedly, a little bit gross, because it’s morning, and neither of us has had a chance to brush our teeth yet, but it’s still perfect. This is what I’ve always wanted—to wake up in bed with him in our house, to feel his body warming the sheets I’ve slept on, to kiss him when he’s still sleep-heavy and relaxed. When our mouths breath apart, one of his hands shifts from my chest to the back of my neck so that he can keep me close enough to have our foreheads touch.
“We should go to your room,” he says.
“We’re fine here,” I say, ducking down to kiss him again.
He lets me, then nudges me back just enough to say around a tiny, breathless sort of smile, “Yeah, but there aren’t any condoms in here. I haven’t bothered to buy them since December.
“There aren’t any—” I start to echo, and then I stutter into silence as the full, glorious weight of his words settles on me. He doesn’t have any condoms. He hasn’t needed any condoms, because he hasn’t been fucking anyone else in these past few months. God, I’d hoped for that, but I’d never been sure, and now… I press another hard kiss to his mouth before swearing, “You have no idea how good this is about to feel.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Come on,” I say, scrambling off him and towards the edge of the bed, excitement buzzing under my skin. “Let’s go play.”
Travis’ fingers are tangled up with mine, but all that means is that I get yanked to a stop when he freezes on the bed. “Wait, what did you just say?”
“I said, let’s go,” I say, twisting to raise my eyebrows at him. “What’s the prob—”
“No, you said, let’s go play,” he says. He looks thunderstruck by the words, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why it matters. My face must show as much, because he pulls his hand away from mine, his surprise melting into something horrifyingly close to hurt. “This isn’t play to me, Garen. I kind of thought you understood that this, what we have between us… it’s not a game to me.”
“No, I know, I get that,” I say quickly, crawling back onto the bed with him. “I know, I didn’t mean—that’s just how I talk. It doesn’t mean anything.” I hadn’t thought it would be possible, but his face falls even further at that, and I hasten to add, “The word! The word doesn’t mean anything, Travis, sex with you means so—”
“Sex with me isn’t on the table anymore,” he says shortly. He nudges me out of the way so that he can tumble off the bed and patter down the hall. “I have to get ready for work.”
I open my mouth to call after him, but he slams the bathroom door shut behind himself before I can get a word out. I can hear the shower start up, but I don’t get out of the bed. Instead, I curl up under the blankets again and wait, pulling at a loose thread on the hemmed edge of his pillowcase. He can’t just storm off like this, not when things were so close to getting back to where they’d been. It’s impossible. He’ll get out of the shower, and he’ll have calmed down, and I’ll make him understand what I meant.
He can’t leave now—not if he really wants me like I want him.
When he gets out of the shower ten minutes later and returns to the room with damp skin and a towel around his waist, I’m still waiting patiently under the covers. I open my mouth to say, I’m sorry, but what comes out instead is, “You’re overreacting.”
He turns to stare at me in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” I say, yes, there are the words I was looking for. But it doesn’t seem to really matter.
He opens his dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of boxers, tugs them on under the towel like he’s afraid to let me see his junk for the ten thousandth time. He drops the towel on the hamper and starts to pull on an old pair of khakis that have coffee stains on the bottom hem of each pant leg. He finds himself a thin white t-shirt, then his uniform shirt, and he still hasn’t said a fucking word.
“You fight just like your mom does,” I say without thinking. He pauses with the shirt halfway over his head, his face still hidden beneath its folds. More than anything in the world, I wish I could rewind the last thirty seconds to keep that horrible sentence tucked away in my throat. I feel like I’m about to be sick. Very slowly, Travis pulls his shirt the rest of the way on. His face is completely blank. I claw my way out from under the blankets and all but fall out of bed, scrambling over to crowd up in front of him. “I didn’t mean that. Th-That was really fucked up, I didn’t mean that, Travis, you have to—”
“I know. It’s fine,” he says dully.
I shake my head. “It’s not fine. I’m sorry, please don’t be—”
“It’s fine. I’m not mad. I just—I have to go to work now.” He kisses my cheek, but I barely feel it. He heads for the door, steps over the dog, and halfway down the hall, he calls over his shoulder, “Have fun playing with Declan this afternoon.”
I close my eyes, but that does nothing to alleviate the dull throbbing in my skull. Surprise, surprise—I fucked up everything with Travis. Again. Just like I always do. Downstairs, the front door clicks shut behind him; a minute later, I hear his car stuttering to start out front. I crawl onto the bed so that I can peer out the window and watch him back out of the driveway, onto the street. I can’t see his face from this angle, but I’d bet anything he’s frowning.
I flop back onto the bed and scowl up at the ceiling. My brain might be pissed off, my heart might be aching, but my body is still turned on. I feel restless, frayed at the edges, with no way of getting away from that feeling. And seriously, fuck Travis. Let’s go play. Three words that aren’t exactly what he wants to hear, and suddenly, he’s done with me for the day. I’m dismissed. I act too casual, and I get it’s not a game to me; I act too serious, and I get you’re just not ready yet. He’s not being fair to me, so fuck if I’m going to be fair to him.
The rest of my morning is spent jerking off in his bed. He isn’t here to see it, but I put on a show like he is anyway—I bring myself right to the edge, but don’t let myself come. I do it over and over again until my muscles are practically vibrating with tension, until I can’t keep quiet anymore, until I have to come. When I spill over onto my hand, I don’t even try to hold back the loud groan that wants to burst out of me. For a few long minutes, I lie there, eyes closed, body shaking. I thought I’d feel… better. More relaxed, less annoyed. Less keyed-up. I don’t; I feel exactly the same, wound too tightly and ready to split into pieces. Just to remove any doubt he might have about what I’ve done here, I unhook the corner of the fitted sheet and use it to wipe the sweat from my forehead and the spunk from my hand. I leave the sheet crumpled up like that; if he can turn me into a mess and walk out, I can do the same to his bed.
I take my time in the shower afterward, then spend maybe half an hour dicking around the house. I make a sandwich, take the dog for a walk, do a load of dishes. By the time twelve-thirty rolls around, I’m still feeling ready to jump out of my skin, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s not like Travis has never shot me down before; it’s not like he didn’t spend the entirety of last spring doing exactly that, with repeat performances every few weeks since then. I should be used to it by now. Scowl still fixed in place, I fill my jacket pockets with a handful of condoms and two different bottles of lube, then lock up the house, shuffle out to my car, and drive to Patton.
Declan is still running the obstacle course when I get there, and he’s pretty gross-looking—his skin is smeared with sweat, mud, and something that looks frighteningly similar to a streak of half-dried blood on his shoulder. His face still bears the evidence of the beating he got dealt at Friday night’s party; the skin around his left eye and cheekbone is swollen and mottled purple. His lower lip is a little swollen, too, split down the middle but healed over enough that I still can’t wait to kiss him.
I lope over to him the second he finishes his last run; he sprawls out on the grass and takes a few long sips from a water bottle, and I collapse half-next to him, half-on top of him, slinging a leg over him so that I can seat myself comfortably on his thighs.
“Why, hello there,” I say. “You know, I had some pretty exhausting plans for you this afternoon. I hope you haven’t worn yourself out already.”
“Not a chance,” he says, even though he’s panting. He hauls me in by the front of my shirt and slings an arm around my neck to steady me so that he can kiss me, but I inch just out of reach. He frowns at me, and I reach up to brush the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip.
“Not hurt too badly, are you?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not too badly to do this.”
This time, I let myself be pulled in. His lips taste salty with sweat and feel gritty from the dirt that seems to have worked its way into every last inch of skin.
I pull back and say, “You’re gross. You need a shower, and I, for one, would be delighted to help scrub your back.”
He snorts and shoves me off of him, stands of his own accord, then helps me to my feet. “If you join me in the shower, we’ll never make it to the bed. Come on, you can wait in my room.”
Whitman Hall is eerily quiet. The entire building is empty, save the desk attendant in the front lobby who waves us through. By the time Declan and I reach his dorm room, get it unlocked, and get inside, my ears are ringing. I’ve never done well with absolute silence, and right now, my whole head feels slightly off-kilter, like it’s full of cotton. Declan’s laptop is open on the desk. I collapse in the chair in front of it and hit the spacebar. A locked screen comes up, and I say, “What’s your password? I need to put on some music. I feel like I’m in a zombie movie, right at that part where the hero finds a seemingly abandoned building, only to realize the basement is full of shrieking, snarling undead.”
“If I’m not back from my shower in fifteen minutes, you should assume they’ve gotten me and push the desk in front of the door to buy yourself another few minutes,” he says as he strips off his t-shirt and hunts down his towel and shower caddy.
I snort. “Fuck that, I’ll come save you. Where’s your pistol?”
Declan leans around me to type in his password, then grabs my jaw and twists my face towards him so that he can land a deep kiss to my mouth. When he pulls back, he bumps his forehead against mine and says, “Locked case in the closet, top shelf. Combination’s the same as the model number. They’re doing inventory in the weapons room this week, so the ammunition is in the side pocket of the duffel on the floor. Remember: headshots are the best way to waste zombies.”
To satisfy my own amusement and curiosity, the moment he leaves to go take his shower, I check the top shelf of the closet. Sure enough, there’s a locked Smith & Wesson handgun case tucked behind a carelessly folded stack of t-shirts. I shake my head and set myself up at his computer to peruse his iTunes.
It’s worse than I could ever have imagined.
Four thousand songs, and there’s nothing but country music. I didn’t even know they made that much country music. I kind of assumed there were just a hundred songs that got recycled over and over, and all of them were about your woman leaving you for your momma so all you’re left with is your dog and your truck, and then your dog leaves you for your truck, so you drink a lot of whiskey and blast your head open with a shotgun, or whatever. But there are hundreds of names listed here, and half of them don’t even sound real. I double-click a song at random, and a banjo starts playing. I make a face and say, “Yeah, no.”
It takes me eight minutes of sorting through the bullshit until I finally find the holy grail: a dozen of Johnny Cash’s albums. I immediately cue them up and step back from the computer. I won’t find anything better than that—probably anywhere, but definitely not on this computer—so instead of bothering to continue my hunt, I decide to make myself more comfortable. I shrug off my jacket, then my t-shirt, and sling both over the back of the desk chair. As an afterthought, I retrieve the bottles of lube from the pocket and set them down on the nightstand. I fling myself back onto Declan’s bed, then toe off my boots and socks. I’m in the middle of unthreading the belt from my beltloops when Declan returns to the room. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants that are damp at the heels and a pair of the rubber flip-flops everyone wears in the showers. He cocks his head to the side and surveys me.
I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing from where it’s wedged under the pillow. Next to me, Travis groans and tries to hide away under his own pillow. “Christ, G,” he says. “Not gonna let you sleep in my bed anymore, if you wake me up before the alarm.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter. The caller ID bears the words dc—dont fuckin steal charlies phone again. I answer, “Yeah?”
“Rise and shine,” Declan says. “Still planning to come over to the dorms today?”
“Do you still want me to come over?” I ask. “Now that you’re sober—”
Travis rolls over and tries to shove me out of the bed. “If you’re taking a call, get out. I’ve got another half an hour before I have to get up, and I don’t want to waste it listening to you talk.”
“Hang on, Dec, Travis is yelling at me. Give me a second to get out of bed,” I say to Declan. I let myself be shoved the rest of the way out of bed.
His raised eyebrows are easy to picture. “I see. And do you always share a bed with your roommate?”
“When I’m in a bad mood and feel like spooning somebody, yes, I do,” I hiss. I slip into the hall and shut the door behind myself. It’s a strangely chilly morning for April, so I step over Omelette’s still-snoozing form, shuffle over to my own room and crawl back into bed. “It’s not even weird. It’s totally platonic.”
“Of course it is,” he says. “Now, would you like to come over this afternoon and platonically share my bed?”
I roll onto my back and slip a hand past the waistband of my pajama pants, idly touching myself, but not doing anything particularly thrilling just yet. “Depends. Do I get to platonically put my dick in your ass?”
“You can put it wherever you want to,” he says. When he speaks next, his voice is low and heated. “I’ve got my tongue stud in, just in case you decide you want my mouth.”
I shiver even under the pile of blankets, and the movement of my hand on my dick becomes a lot more purposeful. “That’s definitely something I could be interested in.”
“Good. I’m going to go out and run the obstacle course a few times, but… head over here in a couple of hours, maybe sometime around one o’clock?”
“See you then,” I say. He hangs up without saying goodbye, but it’s Declan, so I’m not too surprised by that. I haul myself back out of my bed and down the hall to Travis’ room. If I don’t have to worry about getting up yet, I might as well enjoy a lazy morning in a warm bed. When I lift up the edge of the covers to sneak back under, Travis’ eyelids flutter, like he’s rolling his eyes without bothering to open them. Once I’m tucked under the blankets again, he shuffles closer to resume our previous state of sprawling out all over each other, then immediately draws back.
“Seriously?” he says flatly. “Turn over. You’re the little spoon now, I don’t need you to spend the next twenty minutes stabbing me with that.”
I slip a hand under the blankets to adjust my semi-hard dick as I wriggle around to face away from Travis. “I don’t know what you expect from me, dude. I’m nineteen, and I just woke up. Of course I’m going to be at action status. You probably are, too.”
“I am not,” he grumbles, slipping an arm around my waist and curling closer. And it’s true, he’s not, but…
“Do you want to be?” I ask around a mischievous, slowly widening smile. One of my hands sneaks backward under the blankets to settle on his hip.
“Garen,” he says warningly. “If you’re not going to let me sleep, I might as well get up and start getting ready for work--oh my god, fucking behave yourself.”
“I’m not doing anything!” I protest. The words are a blatant lie, but I can’t seem to stop myself from rolling my hips back to grind my ass against his groin a second time. His fingers clench around the fabric of my t-shirt, and maybe he’s making some lame attempt to keep me still, but if that’s the case, he’s not doing a very good job of it. All he’s really accomplishing is pinning me to him as I press back again.
He exhales a shaky breath against the back of my neck. “You’re such an asshole. What is wrong with you this morning?”
“Nothing. I’m just in a good mood today.”
Truthfully, I’m in a good mood because he’s in a good mood. Or, I guess, he’s not in a bad mood. He doesn’t seem like he’s ready to hang himself the second I turn my back. He seems like he might even be better—at least, better enough that I’m sure he’ll live long enough to attend his next therapy session and see if there’s anything his doctor can do for him. Even if he has to leave for work soon, even if I’m going to spend the afternoon in bed with someone else, it’s still a good day right now.
He’s still holding tight to my shirt. I reach down to cover his hand with my own. I don’t mean anything by the gesture—it’s meant to be a quick acknowledgment, like a hello—but he spreads his fingers apart just enough that mine can slip between and intertwine with his. Suddenly, all I can think of is the times I’ve been behind him, holding him the way he’s holding me now, fucking him just like this. It feels heavy and real and too much, and I can’t help myself.
“Trav,” I say hoarsely.
He brushes his lips over the nape of my neck and breathes, “Yeah?”
“Do you want to?” I ask.
“Do I want to do what?” he asks, even though I’m sure he already knows what I’m asking.
“Do you want to?” I repeat, slowly dragging our joined hands away from where they’re resting over my pounding heart and towards the top of my pajama pants. Probably without thinking, he licks his lips; I feel his tongue touch the skin at the top of my spine, and that feels like answer enough. I untangle our hands and reach back to grip his thigh so I can pull him as close as possible. If he wasn’t hard before, he’s getting there now. He makes a quiet noise when I grind back against him again. I say, “You want to, don’t you? We can, I want to. Call in sick to work.”
“I can’t,” he says, even though his hand is dipping under my waistband now. He wraps his fingers around me, and it’s so good, I want to fucking cry.
“Yeah, that’s—god, it’s been so long,” I say, and I can feel him nodding behind me. “Please stay. I want you to stay, I want us to spend all day in bed. Don’t you want that?”
Another nod, more hurried, and he’s really stroking me off now, with his free arm coming out from under the pillow to wrap around my shoulders and keep me still as he works me over. It’s kind of pointless—I’m not good at keeping still under the simplest of circumstances, and any time he gets his hands on me, all I want to do is squirm around until I find a way to get myself inside of him.
His phone starts chirping where it rests on the window ledge while it charges. His hand jerks out of my pants, and I roll right over on top of him so that I can silence the alarm.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” I say quickly. “Don’t get up. You can call in sick, I’ll cancel my plans, come on.”
Part of me is expecting rejection, because every time I get caught up in the feel of him, he pushes me away and tells me to slow down. He tells me I need boundaries. But today, when he grabs my shirt, it’s to pull me towards him, not push me away. Three and a half months since the last time we slept together, a month since the night he let me kiss him outside the laser tag arena—it must be getting to him, too, because there isn’t any hesitation in the way he pulls me down into a kiss.
A kiss that is, admittedly, a little bit gross, because it’s morning, and neither of us has had a chance to brush our teeth yet, but it’s still perfect. This is what I’ve always wanted—to wake up in bed with him in our house, to feel his body warming the sheets I’ve slept on, to kiss him when he’s still sleep-heavy and relaxed. When our mouths breath apart, one of his hands shifts from my chest to the back of my neck so that he can keep me close enough to have our foreheads touch.
“We should go to your room,” he says.
“We’re fine here,” I say, ducking down to kiss him again.
He lets me, then nudges me back just enough to say around a tiny, breathless sort of smile, “Yeah, but there aren’t any condoms in here. I haven’t bothered to buy them since December.
“There aren’t any—” I start to echo, and then I stutter into silence as the full, glorious weight of his words settles on me. He doesn’t have any condoms. He hasn’t needed any condoms, because he hasn’t been fucking anyone else in these past few months. God, I’d hoped for that, but I’d never been sure, and now… I press another hard kiss to his mouth before swearing, “You have no idea how good this is about to feel.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Come on,” I say, scrambling off him and towards the edge of the bed, excitement buzzing under my skin. “Let’s go play.”
Travis’ fingers are tangled up with mine, but all that means is that I get yanked to a stop when he freezes on the bed. “Wait, what did you just say?”
“I said, let’s go,” I say, twisting to raise my eyebrows at him. “What’s the prob—”
“No, you said, let’s go play,” he says. He looks thunderstruck by the words, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why it matters. My face must show as much, because he pulls his hand away from mine, his surprise melting into something horrifyingly close to hurt. “This isn’t play to me, Garen. I kind of thought you understood that this, what we have between us… it’s not a game to me.”
“No, I know, I get that,” I say quickly, crawling back onto the bed with him. “I know, I didn’t mean—that’s just how I talk. It doesn’t mean anything.” I hadn’t thought it would be possible, but his face falls even further at that, and I hasten to add, “The word! The word doesn’t mean anything, Travis, sex with you means so—”
“Sex with me isn’t on the table anymore,” he says shortly. He nudges me out of the way so that he can tumble off the bed and patter down the hall. “I have to get ready for work.”
I open my mouth to call after him, but he slams the bathroom door shut behind himself before I can get a word out. I can hear the shower start up, but I don’t get out of the bed. Instead, I curl up under the blankets again and wait, pulling at a loose thread on the hemmed edge of his pillowcase. He can’t just storm off like this, not when things were so close to getting back to where they’d been. It’s impossible. He’ll get out of the shower, and he’ll have calmed down, and I’ll make him understand what I meant.
He can’t leave now—not if he really wants me like I want him.
When he gets out of the shower ten minutes later and returns to the room with damp skin and a towel around his waist, I’m still waiting patiently under the covers. I open my mouth to say, I’m sorry, but what comes out instead is, “You’re overreacting.”
He turns to stare at me in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” I say, yes, there are the words I was looking for. But it doesn’t seem to really matter.
He opens his dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of boxers, tugs them on under the towel like he’s afraid to let me see his junk for the ten thousandth time. He drops the towel on the hamper and starts to pull on an old pair of khakis that have coffee stains on the bottom hem of each pant leg. He finds himself a thin white t-shirt, then his uniform shirt, and he still hasn’t said a fucking word.
“You fight just like your mom does,” I say without thinking. He pauses with the shirt halfway over his head, his face still hidden beneath its folds. More than anything in the world, I wish I could rewind the last thirty seconds to keep that horrible sentence tucked away in my throat. I feel like I’m about to be sick. Very slowly, Travis pulls his shirt the rest of the way on. His face is completely blank. I claw my way out from under the blankets and all but fall out of bed, scrambling over to crowd up in front of him. “I didn’t mean that. Th-That was really fucked up, I didn’t mean that, Travis, you have to—”
“I know. It’s fine,” he says dully.
I shake my head. “It’s not fine. I’m sorry, please don’t be—”
“It’s fine. I’m not mad. I just—I have to go to work now.” He kisses my cheek, but I barely feel it. He heads for the door, steps over the dog, and halfway down the hall, he calls over his shoulder, “Have fun playing with Declan this afternoon.”
I close my eyes, but that does nothing to alleviate the dull throbbing in my skull. Surprise, surprise—I fucked up everything with Travis. Again. Just like I always do. Downstairs, the front door clicks shut behind him; a minute later, I hear his car stuttering to start out front. I crawl onto the bed so that I can peer out the window and watch him back out of the driveway, onto the street. I can’t see his face from this angle, but I’d bet anything he’s frowning.
I flop back onto the bed and scowl up at the ceiling. My brain might be pissed off, my heart might be aching, but my body is still turned on. I feel restless, frayed at the edges, with no way of getting away from that feeling. And seriously, fuck Travis. Let’s go play. Three words that aren’t exactly what he wants to hear, and suddenly, he’s done with me for the day. I’m dismissed. I act too casual, and I get it’s not a game to me; I act too serious, and I get you’re just not ready yet. He’s not being fair to me, so fuck if I’m going to be fair to him.
The rest of my morning is spent jerking off in his bed. He isn’t here to see it, but I put on a show like he is anyway—I bring myself right to the edge, but don’t let myself come. I do it over and over again until my muscles are practically vibrating with tension, until I can’t keep quiet anymore, until I have to come. When I spill over onto my hand, I don’t even try to hold back the loud groan that wants to burst out of me. For a few long minutes, I lie there, eyes closed, body shaking. I thought I’d feel… better. More relaxed, less annoyed. Less keyed-up. I don’t; I feel exactly the same, wound too tightly and ready to split into pieces. Just to remove any doubt he might have about what I’ve done here, I unhook the corner of the fitted sheet and use it to wipe the sweat from my forehead and the spunk from my hand. I leave the sheet crumpled up like that; if he can turn me into a mess and walk out, I can do the same to his bed.
I take my time in the shower afterward, then spend maybe half an hour dicking around the house. I make a sandwich, take the dog for a walk, do a load of dishes. By the time twelve-thirty rolls around, I’m still feeling ready to jump out of my skin, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s not like Travis has never shot me down before; it’s not like he didn’t spend the entirety of last spring doing exactly that, with repeat performances every few weeks since then. I should be used to it by now. Scowl still fixed in place, I fill my jacket pockets with a handful of condoms and two different bottles of lube, then lock up the house, shuffle out to my car, and drive to Patton.
Declan is still running the obstacle course when I get there, and he’s pretty gross-looking—his skin is smeared with sweat, mud, and something that looks frighteningly similar to a streak of half-dried blood on his shoulder. His face still bears the evidence of the beating he got dealt at Friday night’s party; the skin around his left eye and cheekbone is swollen and mottled purple. His lower lip is a little swollen, too, split down the middle but healed over enough that I still can’t wait to kiss him.
I lope over to him the second he finishes his last run; he sprawls out on the grass and takes a few long sips from a water bottle, and I collapse half-next to him, half-on top of him, slinging a leg over him so that I can seat myself comfortably on his thighs.
“Why, hello there,” I say. “You know, I had some pretty exhausting plans for you this afternoon. I hope you haven’t worn yourself out already.”
“Not a chance,” he says, even though he’s panting. He hauls me in by the front of my shirt and slings an arm around my neck to steady me so that he can kiss me, but I inch just out of reach. He frowns at me, and I reach up to brush the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip.
“Not hurt too badly, are you?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not too badly to do this.”
This time, I let myself be pulled in. His lips taste salty with sweat and feel gritty from the dirt that seems to have worked its way into every last inch of skin.
I pull back and say, “You’re gross. You need a shower, and I, for one, would be delighted to help scrub your back.”
He snorts and shoves me off of him, stands of his own accord, then helps me to my feet. “If you join me in the shower, we’ll never make it to the bed. Come on, you can wait in my room.”
Whitman Hall is eerily quiet. The entire building is empty, save the desk attendant in the front lobby who waves us through. By the time Declan and I reach his dorm room, get it unlocked, and get inside, my ears are ringing. I’ve never done well with absolute silence, and right now, my whole head feels slightly off-kilter, like it’s full of cotton. Declan’s laptop is open on the desk. I collapse in the chair in front of it and hit the spacebar. A locked screen comes up, and I say, “What’s your password? I need to put on some music. I feel like I’m in a zombie movie, right at that part where the hero finds a seemingly abandoned building, only to realize the basement is full of shrieking, snarling undead.”
“If I’m not back from my shower in fifteen minutes, you should assume they’ve gotten me and push the desk in front of the door to buy yourself another few minutes,” he says as he strips off his t-shirt and hunts down his towel and shower caddy.
I snort. “Fuck that, I’ll come save you. Where’s your pistol?”
Declan leans around me to type in his password, then grabs my jaw and twists my face towards him so that he can land a deep kiss to my mouth. When he pulls back, he bumps his forehead against mine and says, “Locked case in the closet, top shelf. Combination’s the same as the model number. They’re doing inventory in the weapons room this week, so the ammunition is in the side pocket of the duffel on the floor. Remember: headshots are the best way to waste zombies.”
To satisfy my own amusement and curiosity, the moment he leaves to go take his shower, I check the top shelf of the closet. Sure enough, there’s a locked Smith & Wesson handgun case tucked behind a carelessly folded stack of t-shirts. I shake my head and set myself up at his computer to peruse his iTunes.
It’s worse than I could ever have imagined.
Four thousand songs, and there’s nothing but country music. I didn’t even know they made that much country music. I kind of assumed there were just a hundred songs that got recycled over and over, and all of them were about your woman leaving you for your momma so all you’re left with is your dog and your truck, and then your dog leaves you for your truck, so you drink a lot of whiskey and blast your head open with a shotgun, or whatever. But there are hundreds of names listed here, and half of them don’t even sound real. I double-click a song at random, and a banjo starts playing. I make a face and say, “Yeah, no.”
It takes me eight minutes of sorting through the bullshit until I finally find the holy grail: a dozen of Johnny Cash’s albums. I immediately cue them up and step back from the computer. I won’t find anything better than that—probably anywhere, but definitely not on this computer—so instead of bothering to continue my hunt, I decide to make myself more comfortable. I shrug off my jacket, then my t-shirt, and sling both over the back of the desk chair. As an afterthought, I retrieve the bottles of lube from the pocket and set them down on the nightstand. I fling myself back onto Declan’s bed, then toe off my boots and socks. I’m in the middle of unthreading the belt from my beltloops when Declan returns to the room. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants that are damp at the heels and a pair of the rubber flip-flops everyone wears in the showers. He cocks his head to the side and surveys me.
“With the exception of what is playing right now, you have the absolute fucking worst taste in music,” I say before he can even open his mouth. “And just for the record? Men who have names like ‘Travis Tritt’ and ‘Clint Black’ shouldn’t be doing music for a living. They should be doing gay porn.”
“You probably wouldn’t say that, if you had any idea what either Travis Tritt or Clint Black look like,” Declan says. He sets his shower caddy on the corner of his desk, then reaches behind himself to flip the lock on the door. “By the way, I’m curious—why are you still wearing pants?”
“Because you haven’t taken them off me yet,” I say in a sing-song voice.
The side of his mouth ticks upward, and when I crook a finger at him, he approaches me at a saunter and braces one knee on the edge of the mattress. His eyes track down the length of my body. A moment later, he taps two fingers against my collarbone and slowly walks them down my sternum, over the ridges of my abdominal muscles, right to the waistband of my jeans. He flicks the button open, drags my zipper down; he curls his fingers into my pockets and pulls my jeans down to my ankles. I kick them off before he can spend another six goddamn hours getting them off my feet. He finally climbs the rest of the way onto the bed, and just when I think he’s leaning in to kiss me, he ducks down to kiss my neck, then my shoulder.
Christ, this is taking forever.
I throw an arm around his waist and roll over, dragging him with me so that we end up tangled together, his back against the wall, his front pressed against mine. That must be the only encouragement he needs, because he grabs the back of my neck and drags me into a deep, rough kiss. It barely takes any time at all before my hips are rolling against his—I’ve been hard since he came back from his shower. Fuck, I’ve been hard over this kid since I met him, and now, all I want is for us to fucking get somewhere.
“Turn over,” I say, and he makes a distracted, questioning sound. I kiss him again and repeat, “Turn over, on your stomach. So I can get to your ass.” I give Declan’s hip a soft push, but he doesn’t budge.
“I was under the impression that there would be a hell of a lot more preparation before I was expected to take a dick in the ass,” he says.
“Oh, really? I was kind of hoping I could just roll you onto your stomach and thrust around until my dick goes somewhere tight. That’s how it works, right?” I say brightly. Declan does not look amused, but fuck Declan, I’m hilarious. I wriggle my fingers under his shoulder and tug until he allows me to roll him onto his side. I lean in to lay a kiss on that same shoulder. “I have done this before, you know. I’m not going to fuck you just yet.”
“Then why am I turning over already?” he grumbles, though even as he speaks, he rolls the rest of the way over and pushes at his pillow a few times to get it out of the way.
“Because I want to eat you out,” I say. He stops shoving at the pillow long enough to pin me under a blank, unblinking stare. My hand is outstretched towards one of the bottles of lube, but the look on Declan’s face is enough to make me reconsider my words. It’s not like I’ve asked for anything particularly weird; I came here to get at that ass, not so we could sit around and jerk each other off again like a couple of freshmen. But he still hasn’t blinked, so I slowly amend, “Unless you’re not into that, in which case, I don’t have to do it.”
He blinks, then folds his arms on the pillow and ducks his face against them even though it does nothing to conceal his grin. “It’s your tongue, Anderson. If that’s what you want to do with it, far be it from me to stop you.”
I kiss my way down the notches in his spine until I reach the pair of dimples on his lower back. I drag my tongue over one, then the other, then lean back slightly to say, “Thought you told me you’ve had girls try to initiate ass stuff with you before.”
“I meant a finger or two. Never a mouth,” he says. There’s a laugh in his voice, and it makes me want to bite him. Instead, I bite down on the waistband of his sweatpants and start to tug them down. He raises his hips and reaches down to help, pushes the sweats halfway down his legs, then kicks them the rest of the way off. “I know you’re not entirely familiar with the standard method of seducing seventeen-year-old girls, but asking one of them to lick your asshole tends to get you kicked in the nuts, rather than laid.”
“Girls are fucking stupid,” I tell him, probably not for the first time. He laughs at me, but it doesn’t matter—I’m right. Only a complete moron could see an ass like Dec’s and not want to bury their fucking face in it. I nudge his legs apart and settle myself between them, then change my mind and back up enough that I can tug on his hips. “C’mon, get up on your knees.”
The way Declan moves is a fucking revelation. He braces his weight on his forearms and drags his knees up the mattress in one fluid motion. For a minute, I find myself stunned by the slope of his back, the flush already rising under the freckles on his shoulders. That minute is all he lets me have before he twists to give me a bored, expectant look over his shoulder. “Any day now.”
I sneer and shove his face back into the pillows. He lets me, but I’m pretty sure that’s only because he can see me reaching for one of the tubes of lube. I pop the top on it and make another face, this time because of how overpoweringly sweet the scent of it is. Entirely for my own amusement, I pour a bit more than necessary onto my fingers and take my time rubbing it over Declan’s hole, waiting for the smell to hit him as hard as it’s hitting me down here. Sure enough, a minute later, he squirms in place and says, “Christ, Anderson, are you trying to stick a pack of Juicy Fruit up my ass? What the hell is that?”
“That would be the delightful scent of ‘juicy watermelon’ flavored lube,” I announce. “I bought it as a joke a while back, but the joke’s on me, because it’s actually delicious.” I grab his ass with both hands, spread him open, and add, “Don’t worry, the label says it’s kosher.”
Declan breathes out a laugh, but that breath changes into a sharp inhale the instant I actually get my tongue on him. His spine goes rigid, like he can’t decide whether to move away from my mouth or towards it, and has compromised by remaining completely still. “Relax,” I breathe, almost against his skin. I duck further down so that I can briefly take one of his balls in my mouth, and he nods into the pillow, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The second he has been soothed by that, I go right back to his ass, spreading his cheeks apart so I can flatten my tongue over his hole, slicking him up with spit and tracing his edges so he’ll let himself start to loosen up. After a few minutes of that, I pull back and say, “Are you sure you don’t—”
That’s all I get out before he throws a hand out to cup the back of my head and shove my face back into his ass. Which I guess is an answer in itself. The gesture is so bratty and disgruntled, I’d probably be laughing, except his hole is relaxed enough that I can work the very tip of my tongue inside him. He makes a noise like getting kicked in the stomach, then breathes out an, “Oh, fuck.” I wiggle my tongue as much as I can, and he arches his back like a cat, makes a noise sort of like a purr, too.
He seems sufficiently distracted, so I sneak one of my hands off his cheek and closer to his hole, pulling my face away and sinking my middle finger into him up to the second knuckle when he doesn’t protest. He makes another noise, this one less pleased and more contemplative. I swipe my tongue against where my skin meets his, but it doesn’t get the same pleasurable sounds it did before, so I ask, “You good?”
“Yeah, it’s, uh—” He ducks his head and coughs, and okay, cool, I always wondered if being a proctologist would be any fun. Before I can make this joke aloud—even though I doubt it would be appreciated—Declan adds, “It’s new. Not bad, not good. Just new. Strange.”
Slowly, I twist my finger until I’m perfectly positioned to brush the pad of my finger against his prostate. His whole body shakes as he moans. A smile curls slowly onto my lips. I might be a fuck-up, I might make a habit of ruining my own life and the lives of everyone around me, I might be one of the world’s biggest, most self-centered assholes, but they say everybody’s good for something, and this… this is something I’m so, so good at.
“You want another finger?” I ask, and he says, “I can take it,” which isn’t really an answer to the question I asked.
Still, it’s an affirmative, so I go for it, opening him up with a second finger, licking around and between the digits as best I can, because for all his initial argument, he seems to really love having his ass eaten. His noises are nothing but appreciative, and all of his movements are towards me, not away. But the second I try to work in a third finger, the muscles in his back all go taut again, and he says, “Two is fine. Don’t—”
“Two isn’t fine, if you plan to take a dick without crying,” I interrupt. “’M kinda thick, I usually see if guys can take four before I try to—”
“Four?” Declan repeats flatly. “You want to put four fingers—you want to put all the fingers in my ass? Why don’t we just add the thumb, while we’re at it, turn this into a very special afternoon fisting session.”
I grin and say, “Well, I’m not usually into fisting, but if you really want me to—Dec, I’m kidding, Jesus.”
He stops digging his nails into my wrist, but he doesn’t let go. “Look, either fuck me or don’t, but I don’t want to spend the entire afternoon listening to you make jokes. You’re not anywhere near as funny as you think you are.”
And he’s not anywhere near as subtle about covering up his nervousness with meanness as he thinks he is, but he doesn’t see me complaining about it. My third finger is still tracing the rim of where I’ve got the other two buried, slowly spreading the lube around so that I can push in the moment he okays it. For now, I wait in silence. And it’s not the longest wait. A minute passes, and he sighs, “Okay. You can go for another. But not four, alright?”
“Not four,” I agree, but I doubt he can hear my words over the sound he makes when I press my ringer finger into him and go right for his prostate, curling all three digits against it while he shakes and swears and shoves his hips back.
He’s a lot less contrary after that, which is fucking fantastic, because at this point, my dick’s so hard that I could probably use it to chisel a block of marble into a statue. In a display of typical Garen Anderson subtlety, I rub myself against the back of his thigh and focus more on opening him up, less on making him feel good, until he finally reaches over to retrieve a strip of condoms from the box in his nightstand. Without comment, he tears one off the strip and and hands it off over his shoulder. I rip off one edge of the wrapper and roll the condom on in a single stroke, then slick myself up with more of the lube.
“Any day now,” Declan says for the second time, and I don’t bother trying to conceal my eyeroll. But then he quietly adds, sounding truly apprehensive for the first time all afternoon, “Don’t bullshit me—this is going to hurt like a motherfucker, isn’t it?”
I shake my head, even though he still can’t see me from this position. “Shouldn’t. ’s why I’m fingering you and using an epic amount of lube. It’ll feel, you know, weird, sure, but it only hurts like a motherfucker if something’s going disastrously wrong.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Declan says.
He still can’t see my face now, and thank god for that, because I have to bite down on my lower lip and fix my eyes on the freckles on his back to keep myself from sinking into memories that’ll make it impossible for me to fuck anyone today. I twist my fingers to make him sigh, to distract him. It feels like at least a minute before I can unclench my teeth from my lip and say, “Yeah, I guess. But that’s not—” I swallow, lean in, and kiss his shoulder. “This is going to be better. Trust me.”
He lets his head roll forward so that it hangs down between his shoulders. “Yeah, okay. Do it.”
I let my fingers slip back out of him. Before he can change his mind and panic his way back to virgin tightness, I set the head of my dick against his hole and carefully press inside. He makes a faint noise, something like a grunt, and I smooth a hand down his spine, but don’t stop pushing further inside. “You alright?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, just—” He breaks off and reaches back, digs his fingers into the side of my thigh.
“Just what, Dec?” I prompt.
He twists in place enough to shoot me an annoyed look. “Just new, like I said before. Can we speed this along a bit? I’d like to get to the part where it feels good, rather than the part where it just feels like I’m getting stretched.”
“Not my fault you’re tight,” I say, and god is he ever tight. I haven’t felt something this good in god knows how long, and all I wanna do is fuck him hard, deep—I want to take, but this is Declan Campbell. If I fuck this up, if I make it uncomfortable for him, if I’m not better than he ever dreamed, he won’t hesitate to end whatever we’ve got here and move on to someone else. Declan tries to rock back onto me, but he only manages to get another inch inside before I catch him by the hips and stop him. “Slower. Gonna hurt yourself if you do that again.”
“I’m going to hurt you, if you don’t do this right, Anderson.”
Seriously? What the hell does he know about doing this right? He’s fuckin’ cherry at getting done by a guy, he doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing. I’ve barely gotten in two thrusts, and he’s already being a bossy little shit. And that’s really not how I do things. I’m gnawing on my tongue, trying to keep my annoyance in check, when he heaves a frustrated sigh, pushes back against me again, and says, “Come on.”
“Shut up, Declan,” I say, rolling my eyes even though he can’t see it. For good measure, I put a hand between his shoulderblades and shove down so that his face is buried in the pillow, his hips hitched higher up against mine as I finally bottom out. I’m expecting an admonishment, or, worse, a noise of genuine pain that I’ll have to apologize for and remedy.
Instead, I get a punched-out noise of total relief, and then a rasped, “Yeah, like that.”
Like that is apparently Declan-speak for like he’s someone who has done this before, because when I repeat the motion—harder, faster, more than I’d normally do with a guy who’s new to this—he groans and moves with me. And this… this, I can do. His hard-on has gone down noticeably, but it thickens up again under my hand when I reach around to jerk him off. He reaches for my hand, like he’s going to correct my grip, but then changes his mind and braces his palm against the headboard so he can use it as leverage to thrust back against me. A flush is coloring the span of his shoulders, the back of his neck. I’d bet anything it’s spread over his chest, too. All of him.
I slide the hand between his shoulderblades higher up to hook over his shoulder so I can drag him back harder. He picks up that rhythm easily on his own, so I let that same hand sneak around to curl over his throat and tug him fully upright. We wobble in place a little, and he has to reach back and grab my thighs to steady himself, but it’s worth it, because with his ear near my mouth like this, I can murmur, “Next time, ’m gonna get you on your back. I wanna see if that blush reaches your face.”
Declan thrusts back again, a little too enthusiastically, considering our position, and I have to sit back on my heels and let go of his throat so I can throw a hand out behind myself to stop us both from falling off the damn bed. Dec must not really care—he follows my movement like it was intentional, starts to ride me. I’m torn between wanting to stare at his ass as it sinks down over my cock and wanting to stare at the ceiling, because Christ, he looks good. Part of me is a little worried I might come if I don’t look away, and I don’t want this to be over just yet. I tip my head back and close my eyes, but even then, I can’t stop myself from blurting out, “My god, that’s so hot.”
He might laugh. I can’t really tell, can’t hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears. I curl my hands over his hips so I can try to guide his movements, but I must be fucking failing, because it isn’t long before he starts to get… frustrated, I guess. He grinds his ass down experimentally, trying to find the angle I had him at before, but to no avail. He lets out an angry little huff of breath, and I push him off me.
“I’ve got you,” I assure him. “Get back on your knees, I’ll get you.”
He gets back on knees and elbows, and I scramble into place behind him, guiding my dick right back into him, right where he needs it. He moans out something, and it takes maybe ten seconds for me to actually process the fact that he’s moaning my name.
And that’s when I kind of lose my cool.
I stretch out over his back with my left hand clenched around his headboard because it’s the only way I can keep fucking him but get my other hand on his cock. Part of me wonders if I’m fucking him too roughly, but he seems into it—not in the beat me, beat me, make me feel cheap kind of rough that Ben is into. It’s almost like Declan has just fucked so many people and done so many things that he needs everything to be harder and faster for it to even register, like how he always grips just a little too tight when he jerks me off. And right now, with my hips banging bruises into his ass and my teeth set against his shoulder, the dude seems goddamn euphoric.
When he comes, he clenches his own hand over mine, tightening my grip even more. He makes this gorgeous little noise, too, half-groan, half-laugh, like he’s genuinely surprised at how good he feels. It seems like he comes forever, shooting all over my hand and the bed, collapsing the rest of the way onto his forearms when he’s finished.
I try to thrust in again, but he practically flinches, so I pull out instead. It’s fine, I can just jerk off on his face or some shit like that—but he turns around and shoves me flat onto my back on the mattress and crawls up onto me. He tears the condom off me, flings it into the wastebasket, and says shortly, “Don’t push my head down, don’t try to fuck my throat, and don’t come in my mouth.”
Before I can get another word out, he leans down and takes me in his mouth. It’s an awkward, kind of clumsy blowjob—like that initial suck is the only one he’s prepared to do just yet, and then he needs to steel himself with a few languid, experimental licks along my shaft. It doesn’t matter at all, because I’m so fucking close that by the time he does work his way back to actually sucking me, I have to warn him, “I’m going to come,” so he can pull off and finish me with his hand. The moment I’ve stopped striping his hand in white, he smears the mess onto his comforter and collapses backward, a mirror of my own pose. My head is at the foot of the bed, his is on the pillows, and our legs are sort of tangled around each other in the middle.
I lift my head a few inches so I can look at him. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is slightly open. He’s flushed, panting, and I can’t help but be a little proud of that. Then, mostly to be an asshole, I nudge his knee with mine and say, “You know, that didn’t completely suck, for your first time.”
Declan doesn’t open his eyes, but he does smirk.
218 days sober
It’s around two in the morning by the time I crawl out of Declan’s bed and head home, but he doesn’t expect me to stay home for very long. At nine o’clock on Monday morning, he wakes me up with another phone call, summoning me back to the Patton dorms. I don’t really need to be convinced.
It’s the start of probably the most exhausting spring break I’ve ever had, and considering the fact that I usually spend my spring breaks in bed with Jamie, that’s saying a lot. For the next three days, I head over to Patton first thing in the morning, have a few hours of incredibly athletic sex, and let Declan badger me into running through the obstacle course with him for an hour or two. On the bright side, my runtime—which wasn’t exactly shitty to begin with—is steadily improving; on the not-so-bright side, being forced to repeat a military obstacle course a dozen times in a row sucks gigantic dicks, and I’m possibly beginning to hate Declan for it. After that, I can only manage to summon enough strength for a short shower and a single round of lazy, sleepy sex before I have to tap out and head home.
For three afternoons in a row, I spend the next few hours napping, doing my homework, playing with Omelette, and desperately shoveling food into my mouth in an attempt to gain back some of the calories Declan has had me working off during the day. And for three evenings in a row, I end up calling Dec right around eight o’clock and informing him that, now that my energy has been restored, he should come over and pick up where we left off.
On Monday night, he laughs at me, says he’ll think about it, hangs up on me, and shows up an hour later.
On Tuesday night, he laughs at me, says he’s looking for his keys already, hangs up on me, and shows up half an hour later.
On Wednesday night, he laughs at me, hangs up without saying a word, and walks through my front door without knocking less than a minute later. It isn’t until that night—or, really early on Thursday morning, to be more truthful—that I realize how fucking stupid it is that he’s bothering to get dressed.
“Are you going to call ’n wake me up at go-fuck-yourself-o’clock in the morning again?” I ask, rolling onto my back and watching him crouch down to dig one of his sneakers out from under the bed.
“Probably,” he says.
“How ‘bout you just stay over instead?” I suggest.
There’s silence for a few seconds, and then Declan surfaces from his shoe quest so that I can see his grimace. “I don’t really do sleepovers.”
“Oh, damn, I was really hoping you’d let me braid your hair while we watch Mean Girls,” I say. “I said stay over, not have a sleepover. God, I thought I was supposed to be the faggot here.”
He settles back on his heels, not really sitting down, but not searching for the shoe anymore either. “I’m just saying, usually when a girl asks me to stay over—”
“I’m not a fucking girl.”
“—it’s because she’s angling for me to start getting, you know…” He pauses, makes a face, and actually raises his hands to make air quotes as he finishes, “‘Serious.’”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the bed,” I say, giving him a glare that I hope conveys exactly how ridiculous he sounds right now. “We both know we’re gonna do this same thing tomorrow, so we might as well save some gas money. Trust me, I’ve got enough condoms here to tide us over.”
“Do you also have an obstacle course in your backyard that I’m somehow unaware of?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes and promise, “We can go for a run instead. And if that’s not enough to satisfy you, I can stack some boxes in the yard and have you jump over them—that’s what Trav and I do for Omelette sometimes, he loves it. Afterward, I’ll even put some peanut butter in a Kong toy and give you belly rubs.”
Declan continues to look apprehensive. I yawn and scoot closer to the wall. “Quit being gay, dude. I’m not asking you to be the big spoon, I’m just trying to do what’s most convenient for me and my lazy ass.”
It takes another minute of dubious, suspicious looks before he sighs, strips back down, and climbs into the bed. I’m almost asleep when he quietly warns, “If you try to snuggle with me in the middle of the night, I will leave.”
I’m too tired to bitch back, so I just hold up my middle finger, wave it around in front of his face a little bit, and let my arm flop back onto the bed.
It’s such fucking bullshit, anyway—when I wake up right before sunrise, Declan is plastered against my back with his hand halfway down my boxers and his stupid face snoring in my ear. I snort, wrap my fingers around his wrist, and fall back asleep.
219 days sober
Declan is just getting out of the shower when my phone chimes out a text alert. The phone’s charging only barely out of reach on my nightstand, and I’m too exhausted to sit up. I contemplate waiting for Dec to come back so he can hand it to me, but I’ve got a feeling he’d be unimpressed enough to move it further away. Instead, I unplug the cord from the wall and use that to drag it closer.
Travis and I are planning to grab dinner after class tonight, around 8 o’clock, Jamie has texted me. Think you might be able to tear yourself away from the well-muscled arms of your jailbait lover long enough to join us?
I wince—I haven’t seen Jamie since Saturday night, when I kicked him out so I could talk to Travis. I quickly reply, of course, cant wait to see you. u pick somewhere to eat yet? Before he can respond, I send, dont worry, i’ve got someplace in mind. take the 1 to 50 st, see you later tonightttt.
If you are trying to take us to that diner in Midtown with the singing waiters, you will be dining alone.
SEE YOU TONIGHT XOXOXO, I text back, then fling my phone further down the bed where I can pretend not to acknowledge any further protests.
“Hey, you were planning to head out soon, right?” I ask as Declan wanders back into the room in just his jeans. “Jamie wants me to head into the city and hang out with him and Travis tonight.” Dec is still toweling off his hair, so I can’t really see his face to know if he’s glaring at me. Just in case, I add, “You could come, if you wanted to. Even though you, uh… don’t really know Jamie. Or like Travis.”
Declan lets the towel drop; his eyebrows are drawn together in confusion, and he echoes, “Travis?”
“Yes. Travis,” I repeat. His expression doesn’t change, so I grab one of my pillows and whip it at him. “The guy who lives here with me? My ex? You fucking know who Travis is, stop pretending.”
“Oh, him.” Declan shrugs, then grabs his t-shirt off the back of my desk chair and tugs it on. “Anderson, I don’t even know the guy. I’ve met him once—twice? And to be perfectly honest, he didn’t make much of an impression on me either time.”
I blink. It’s… insane, really, that anyone could meet Travis and not be awestruck by him. That anyone could look at him and not see how gorgeous he is, or talk to him and not hear how funny and smart he is. I’m kind of convinced that Declan just hasn’t been paying attention, and my dubious expression must make that clear, because he laughs and shuffles over to kneel on the edge of my bed.
“Hey, it’s nothing against him. I’m sure he’s a cool guy, but there’s just something so… Captain America about him. It bores me.” He braces a hand on the bed and leans down to kiss my frowning mouth. “Go hang out your friends, and I’ll catch up with you later. I’ve gotta meet someone anyway.”
The spark of annoyance at him not “getting” Travis is immediately replaced by a flare of jealousy. When he tries to leave, I catch his wrist and say, “Who? A chick?”
He grins. “Not that kind of meeting. I’ll explain the next time I see you, alright?”
I smirk. “You mean, tomorrow? When you call to ask if I’ll come over and fuck you into your mattress again?”
Wordlessly, he leans in to steal another deep, languorous kiss, then squeezes my hip and saunters out of the room. Only when he’s halfway down the stairs does he call back to me, “You should leave your phone on.” My laughter follows him to the door.
I’m still loose-limbed and satisfied a few hours later, when Jamie and Travis get to the Stardust Diner. Jamie is too busy eying the building in distaste to acknowledge me, so I weave around him and sling an arm around Travis’ shoulders. “Hey,” I say, and smack a quick kiss to his cheek. “You’ve never eaten here before, right? It’s so fucking cheesy, you’re going to love it. How was class?”
“Class was fine,” he says. He pinches the sleeve of my jacket and carefully unwinds my arm from his shoulders. “How was the fucking? Or, whatever it is you’ve spent the last five days doing.”
I look down at my arm, now hanging limply by my side; I didn’t know it was possible for me to feel rejected when I wasn’t even trying to make a move. I look up again in time to see Jamie pinch Travis’ shoulder and say sharply, “We talked about this, McCall.”
Does he really think that saying that is going to help?
“You guys talked about me?” I say, blinking. “What, on the way over here?”
“We talked about how I don’t intend to spend this entire meal listening to you two idiots make passive-aggressive comments back and forth. Now, come on, let’s get a table,” Jamie orders.
The initial tension only lasts for maybe fifteen minutes. By the time our meals have been delivered and we’ve begun eating, Travis has shelved his piss-poor attitude, and my hackles have mostly lowered. At least, enough that I’m comfortable telling them, “Tomorrow’s my audition for the dancer job at Rush.” I glance between them. “Either of you want to come show your support for my sex worker aspirations?”
“I can’t,” Travis says around an apologetic smile. “I’m working until eleven tonight, and I’m opening at five tomorrow. If I’m out at a club all night, I’ll pass out at the espresso machine.”
“You know I’d love nothing more than to watch you put on a pair of hotpants and shake your ass about,” Jamie assures me, “but unfortunately, I’m leaving town tomorrow night, after my classes get out.”
I glance over at Travis, who seems to share my apprehension. I pinch the top of my straw and stir the ice around in my pop glass. “Are you going back to Savannah?”
Jamie pauses with a forkful of penne halfway to his mouth. I wish I hadn’t said anything. Slowly, he lowers his fork, pushes his plate further up the table, and folds his hands together. “No. The law firm that’s handling my parents’ estate has a New York office, so I’ve been able to handle much of the paperwork through there.” He unfolds his hands so that he can upend the sugar bowl on the table and fiddle with the packets. There are twelve. First, he makes a single row of twelve, then changes that to two rows of six, then three rows of four. He stacks them all together, shuffles them like playing cards, and replaces them in the bowl before finally looking up at Travis and me again. “I won’t need to return to Georgia until the first weekend in May. That’s when the Historical Society has their next meeting, and I’ve been asked to attend in my daddy’s place, until everything regarding the home has been decided.”
“If you decide you want company on the trip, you know I’ll go with you,” I offer quietly.
He nods, but says, “Thank you. I know. However, I’m sure I’ll be… quite alright. And if the house gets a bit too quiet while I’m there, Marcus and Robin Chandler have said I’m more than welcome to take over their guest bedroom.”
“So, if you’re not headed to Georgia for another two weeks, where are you going tomorrow?” Travis asks.
The corners of Jamie’s mouth curl up into the first smile I’ve seen from him all night. “Connecticut.”
I knock my knee against his under the table. “And what exactly is it that entices you to the Nutmeg State?”
His smile turns wry. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Just for a couple of hours, or for the entire night?” I ask.
“The latter.”
“Uh, how are you planning to have that work out?” Travis says doubtfully. “If you’re still trying to keep this off Alex’s radar, isn’t having a sleepover kind of counterproductive? I mean, Al’s kinda stupid, but nobody’s that stupid.”
“I’ve reserved a room at a hotel in town. We’ll be spending the night there, not at the apartment,” Jamie says with a shrug. “It’s the same thing I did when Alexander and I were trying to keep our interludes quiet. Though, I must admit, I’m getting much more entertainment out of terrorizing Ben and his modest sensibilities than I ever did with Alex.”
I leer. “If memory serves me correctly, Ben isn’t too big on modesty anyway.”
“I meant financially,” Jamie says. “I told him I’d be happy to have the hotel send over a car service to pick him up from work tomorrow evening, and when he refused, I told him that was alright, and to simply leave his car with the valet. I’ve also suggested that he bring a change of clothes, so that he might ‘dress for dinner.’”
“He’s going to smack the hell out of you when he sees you,” Travis warns, and Jamie flashes his bright white smile.
“Well, I certainly hope so.”
“Uh,” says our waitress, appearing at Jamie’s elbow and causing him to dart a slightly guilty glance towards her. “Is there anything else I can get for you guys? Some dessert, maybe?”
I practically dive for the dessert card in the middle of the table. “Yeah, absolutely.” I scan the menu, while Travis orders a milkshake and Jamie refuses anything. I point to the menu. “Alright, see this chocolate-coconut-caramel cake thing? I want that. Except, see this apple pie you’ve got here? I want that, too. So, if you just like, put one on top of the other and kinda smush them down a little bit—”
“Are you serious?” Jamie demands. “That is truly revolting. I will never speak to you again if you actually eat that.”
“No, you know what? Make it like a sandwich. A slice of the coconut thing—” I hold one hand up flat, then flatten my other hand on top of it, “—and then the apple pie—” I move my bottom hand to the top, “—and then a second slice of the coconut thing.”
The waitress blinks. “Wait, are you serious?”
“Completely. Don’t worry, I’ll tip you really, really well to make up for how gross this is,” I promise. The waitress shrugs and wanders away. I look back at my friends, both of whom are looking somewhat sick. I adopt my most innocent, helpless expression. “Come on, guys, I need to eat as much as I possibly can. Declan has been making me run that stupid fuckin’ obstacle course over and over. I’ve lost like, three pounds in the last week from all the cardio.”
“Cardio, right. Is that the euphemism we’re using for the fact that you guys have barely left the bedroom for the past week?” Travis mutters.
I open my mouth to tell him that it’s none of his business who I’ve got in my bedroom, but before I can get a word out, Jamie snaps his fingers right in front of my face, then in front of Travis’, like we’re a pair of naughty puppies who’ve just been caught pissing on the carpet.
“None of that, children,” he says. “I don’t want to listen to the two of you bicker.”
“Fine, let’s go back to talking about you,” I snap.
“Fine, let’s, I’m utterly fascinating, I can’t wait to talk about myself,” he snaps back.
“Fine, how ‘bout you tell me why you haven’t asked Ben to be your boyfriend?” I say, and that pretty much shuts him up. Our waitress reappears to deliver the dessert, and I only stop smirking at Jamie so that I can take a huge bite of my coconut-chocolate-caramel-apple cake-pie-sandwich.
It’s a long time before Jamie finally recovers enough to say, very haughtily, “Because I don’t want to.”
I take another bite and stare at him. Travis slurps his milkshake and stares at him, too. Jamie’s bravado dims, and he reaches for the sugar packets again. “Because he doesn’t want to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say immediately. “You’re smart, you’re hot, and you’ve the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on someone who wasn’t an honest-to-god porn star. He’d be stupid not to want to date you. Besides, if you’re worried that he’d reject you because you didn’t get along well from the start, keep in mind that he and Travis couldn’t stand each other when they first met, and they dated for four months. Granted, you’re doing things in a different order than they did, but all the ass-fucking can only work in your favor here. You just have to ask him.”
Jamie rounds on Travis and demands, “How did you do it?”
Travis freezes in the act of sucking down his milkshake through his straw. His cheeks are hollowed and his eyes are wide, and for a minute, he looks so cute that it’s hard for me to remember how fucking annoying he’s being today. All I want to do is reach over and drag him closer. He glances at me, then back to Jamie, then sits up straight. “How did I do what?”
“How did you get him to be your… boyfriend?” Jamie says the word like it doesn’t fit safely in his mouth, but I can’t figure out why; he’s been dozens of people’s boyfriend before. The label has never made him look so anxious before. He makes a vague gesture. “That is, officially. How did you make it real?”
“Well, if I’m being honest, I kind of just… um.”
“You kind of just what, Travis?” Jamie prompts, rolling his eyes.
Travis winces. “I think I just told him I hated him, and then made out with him?”
I snort. “And he said he’d be your boyfriend?”
“No, then he ran away,” Travis admits.
“But I’ve already done all that,” Jamie says indignantly. “I’ve done those exact things, in that exact order. Repeatedly. There must be something else I’m supposed to be doing.”
“I mean, the opposite of that would probably be a good start,” I suggest. “Maybe you could tell him you like him, and he could not run away from you. I think that’s closer to how relationships are supposed to go.”
“Oh, did your straight boyfriend teach you that?” Travis snipes, but when Jamie turns a glower on him, he hastily adds, “After he ran away, though, I went to his house and told him all the things I like about him. Pretty sure that’s why he agreed. If you just sit him down and tell him you’d like things between you two to be serious enough for exclusivity, he’ll appreciate your honesty. And he’ll say yes.”
I scoop up one of the last bites of my cake-pie-sandwich, but before I pop it in my mouth, I add, “You should do it after you guys bang, just to be sure he’s in the right mood. And make sure it’s good—maybe do that thing he likes, where you edge him for nearly an hour so that when you finally let him get off, he comes so hard he cries.”
“He cries,” Travis repeats blankly.
“I’m not talking about like, gross sobbing or anything. Just a couple tears and some mild hyperventilation. He’s crazy into it.” I glance up, but Travis is still just staring. I swallow my bite of cake. “What, you never did that with him?”
Travis purses his lips slightly and says, “No, I didn’t. So, thank you for helping me add that to my ever-growing list of sexual insecurities.”
“You shouldn’t be insecure,” I say without thinking. “You’re phenomenal in bed.”
He goes red and ducks his face to try to hide it, and I find myself echoing the movement—not because I’m embarrassed to be talking about my sex life, but because god, when am I going to stop saying shit like this to him when I know it’s not going to bring him any closer?
Oblivious to the fact that I’m now stewing in a pool of my own self-loathing, Jamie sighs, releases his stranglehold on the sugar packets, and concedes, “I’ll speak with him this weekend. But if he laughs at me and says no, I will murder both of y’all.”
He still looks nervous and uncomfortable, but he doesn’t have any reason to be; as far as I know, I’m the only one in the group who regularly finds himself getting rejected by the guys he likes.
“You probably wouldn’t say that, if you had any idea what either Travis Tritt or Clint Black look like,” Declan says. He sets his shower caddy on the corner of his desk, then reaches behind himself to flip the lock on the door. “By the way, I’m curious—why are you still wearing pants?”
“Because you haven’t taken them off me yet,” I say in a sing-song voice.
The side of his mouth ticks upward, and when I crook a finger at him, he approaches me at a saunter and braces one knee on the edge of the mattress. His eyes track down the length of my body. A moment later, he taps two fingers against my collarbone and slowly walks them down my sternum, over the ridges of my abdominal muscles, right to the waistband of my jeans. He flicks the button open, drags my zipper down; he curls his fingers into my pockets and pulls my jeans down to my ankles. I kick them off before he can spend another six goddamn hours getting them off my feet. He finally climbs the rest of the way onto the bed, and just when I think he’s leaning in to kiss me, he ducks down to kiss my neck, then my shoulder.
Christ, this is taking forever.
I throw an arm around his waist and roll over, dragging him with me so that we end up tangled together, his back against the wall, his front pressed against mine. That must be the only encouragement he needs, because he grabs the back of my neck and drags me into a deep, rough kiss. It barely takes any time at all before my hips are rolling against his—I’ve been hard since he came back from his shower. Fuck, I’ve been hard over this kid since I met him, and now, all I want is for us to fucking get somewhere.
“Turn over,” I say, and he makes a distracted, questioning sound. I kiss him again and repeat, “Turn over, on your stomach. So I can get to your ass.” I give Declan’s hip a soft push, but he doesn’t budge.
“I was under the impression that there would be a hell of a lot more preparation before I was expected to take a dick in the ass,” he says.
“Oh, really? I was kind of hoping I could just roll you onto your stomach and thrust around until my dick goes somewhere tight. That’s how it works, right?” I say brightly. Declan does not look amused, but fuck Declan, I’m hilarious. I wriggle my fingers under his shoulder and tug until he allows me to roll him onto his side. I lean in to lay a kiss on that same shoulder. “I have done this before, you know. I’m not going to fuck you just yet.”
“Then why am I turning over already?” he grumbles, though even as he speaks, he rolls the rest of the way over and pushes at his pillow a few times to get it out of the way.
“Because I want to eat you out,” I say. He stops shoving at the pillow long enough to pin me under a blank, unblinking stare. My hand is outstretched towards one of the bottles of lube, but the look on Declan’s face is enough to make me reconsider my words. It’s not like I’ve asked for anything particularly weird; I came here to get at that ass, not so we could sit around and jerk each other off again like a couple of freshmen. But he still hasn’t blinked, so I slowly amend, “Unless you’re not into that, in which case, I don’t have to do it.”
He blinks, then folds his arms on the pillow and ducks his face against them even though it does nothing to conceal his grin. “It’s your tongue, Anderson. If that’s what you want to do with it, far be it from me to stop you.”
I kiss my way down the notches in his spine until I reach the pair of dimples on his lower back. I drag my tongue over one, then the other, then lean back slightly to say, “Thought you told me you’ve had girls try to initiate ass stuff with you before.”
“I meant a finger or two. Never a mouth,” he says. There’s a laugh in his voice, and it makes me want to bite him. Instead, I bite down on the waistband of his sweatpants and start to tug them down. He raises his hips and reaches down to help, pushes the sweats halfway down his legs, then kicks them the rest of the way off. “I know you’re not entirely familiar with the standard method of seducing seventeen-year-old girls, but asking one of them to lick your asshole tends to get you kicked in the nuts, rather than laid.”
“Girls are fucking stupid,” I tell him, probably not for the first time. He laughs at me, but it doesn’t matter—I’m right. Only a complete moron could see an ass like Dec’s and not want to bury their fucking face in it. I nudge his legs apart and settle myself between them, then change my mind and back up enough that I can tug on his hips. “C’mon, get up on your knees.”
The way Declan moves is a fucking revelation. He braces his weight on his forearms and drags his knees up the mattress in one fluid motion. For a minute, I find myself stunned by the slope of his back, the flush already rising under the freckles on his shoulders. That minute is all he lets me have before he twists to give me a bored, expectant look over his shoulder. “Any day now.”
I sneer and shove his face back into the pillows. He lets me, but I’m pretty sure that’s only because he can see me reaching for one of the tubes of lube. I pop the top on it and make another face, this time because of how overpoweringly sweet the scent of it is. Entirely for my own amusement, I pour a bit more than necessary onto my fingers and take my time rubbing it over Declan’s hole, waiting for the smell to hit him as hard as it’s hitting me down here. Sure enough, a minute later, he squirms in place and says, “Christ, Anderson, are you trying to stick a pack of Juicy Fruit up my ass? What the hell is that?”
“That would be the delightful scent of ‘juicy watermelon’ flavored lube,” I announce. “I bought it as a joke a while back, but the joke’s on me, because it’s actually delicious.” I grab his ass with both hands, spread him open, and add, “Don’t worry, the label says it’s kosher.”
Declan breathes out a laugh, but that breath changes into a sharp inhale the instant I actually get my tongue on him. His spine goes rigid, like he can’t decide whether to move away from my mouth or towards it, and has compromised by remaining completely still. “Relax,” I breathe, almost against his skin. I duck further down so that I can briefly take one of his balls in my mouth, and he nods into the pillow, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The second he has been soothed by that, I go right back to his ass, spreading his cheeks apart so I can flatten my tongue over his hole, slicking him up with spit and tracing his edges so he’ll let himself start to loosen up. After a few minutes of that, I pull back and say, “Are you sure you don’t—”
That’s all I get out before he throws a hand out to cup the back of my head and shove my face back into his ass. Which I guess is an answer in itself. The gesture is so bratty and disgruntled, I’d probably be laughing, except his hole is relaxed enough that I can work the very tip of my tongue inside him. He makes a noise like getting kicked in the stomach, then breathes out an, “Oh, fuck.” I wiggle my tongue as much as I can, and he arches his back like a cat, makes a noise sort of like a purr, too.
He seems sufficiently distracted, so I sneak one of my hands off his cheek and closer to his hole, pulling my face away and sinking my middle finger into him up to the second knuckle when he doesn’t protest. He makes another noise, this one less pleased and more contemplative. I swipe my tongue against where my skin meets his, but it doesn’t get the same pleasurable sounds it did before, so I ask, “You good?”
“Yeah, it’s, uh—” He ducks his head and coughs, and okay, cool, I always wondered if being a proctologist would be any fun. Before I can make this joke aloud—even though I doubt it would be appreciated—Declan adds, “It’s new. Not bad, not good. Just new. Strange.”
Slowly, I twist my finger until I’m perfectly positioned to brush the pad of my finger against his prostate. His whole body shakes as he moans. A smile curls slowly onto my lips. I might be a fuck-up, I might make a habit of ruining my own life and the lives of everyone around me, I might be one of the world’s biggest, most self-centered assholes, but they say everybody’s good for something, and this… this is something I’m so, so good at.
“You want another finger?” I ask, and he says, “I can take it,” which isn’t really an answer to the question I asked.
Still, it’s an affirmative, so I go for it, opening him up with a second finger, licking around and between the digits as best I can, because for all his initial argument, he seems to really love having his ass eaten. His noises are nothing but appreciative, and all of his movements are towards me, not away. But the second I try to work in a third finger, the muscles in his back all go taut again, and he says, “Two is fine. Don’t—”
“Two isn’t fine, if you plan to take a dick without crying,” I interrupt. “’M kinda thick, I usually see if guys can take four before I try to—”
“Four?” Declan repeats flatly. “You want to put four fingers—you want to put all the fingers in my ass? Why don’t we just add the thumb, while we’re at it, turn this into a very special afternoon fisting session.”
I grin and say, “Well, I’m not usually into fisting, but if you really want me to—Dec, I’m kidding, Jesus.”
He stops digging his nails into my wrist, but he doesn’t let go. “Look, either fuck me or don’t, but I don’t want to spend the entire afternoon listening to you make jokes. You’re not anywhere near as funny as you think you are.”
And he’s not anywhere near as subtle about covering up his nervousness with meanness as he thinks he is, but he doesn’t see me complaining about it. My third finger is still tracing the rim of where I’ve got the other two buried, slowly spreading the lube around so that I can push in the moment he okays it. For now, I wait in silence. And it’s not the longest wait. A minute passes, and he sighs, “Okay. You can go for another. But not four, alright?”
“Not four,” I agree, but I doubt he can hear my words over the sound he makes when I press my ringer finger into him and go right for his prostate, curling all three digits against it while he shakes and swears and shoves his hips back.
He’s a lot less contrary after that, which is fucking fantastic, because at this point, my dick’s so hard that I could probably use it to chisel a block of marble into a statue. In a display of typical Garen Anderson subtlety, I rub myself against the back of his thigh and focus more on opening him up, less on making him feel good, until he finally reaches over to retrieve a strip of condoms from the box in his nightstand. Without comment, he tears one off the strip and and hands it off over his shoulder. I rip off one edge of the wrapper and roll the condom on in a single stroke, then slick myself up with more of the lube.
“Any day now,” Declan says for the second time, and I don’t bother trying to conceal my eyeroll. But then he quietly adds, sounding truly apprehensive for the first time all afternoon, “Don’t bullshit me—this is going to hurt like a motherfucker, isn’t it?”
I shake my head, even though he still can’t see me from this position. “Shouldn’t. ’s why I’m fingering you and using an epic amount of lube. It’ll feel, you know, weird, sure, but it only hurts like a motherfucker if something’s going disastrously wrong.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Declan says.
He still can’t see my face now, and thank god for that, because I have to bite down on my lower lip and fix my eyes on the freckles on his back to keep myself from sinking into memories that’ll make it impossible for me to fuck anyone today. I twist my fingers to make him sigh, to distract him. It feels like at least a minute before I can unclench my teeth from my lip and say, “Yeah, I guess. But that’s not—” I swallow, lean in, and kiss his shoulder. “This is going to be better. Trust me.”
He lets his head roll forward so that it hangs down between his shoulders. “Yeah, okay. Do it.”
I let my fingers slip back out of him. Before he can change his mind and panic his way back to virgin tightness, I set the head of my dick against his hole and carefully press inside. He makes a faint noise, something like a grunt, and I smooth a hand down his spine, but don’t stop pushing further inside. “You alright?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, just—” He breaks off and reaches back, digs his fingers into the side of my thigh.
“Just what, Dec?” I prompt.
He twists in place enough to shoot me an annoyed look. “Just new, like I said before. Can we speed this along a bit? I’d like to get to the part where it feels good, rather than the part where it just feels like I’m getting stretched.”
“Not my fault you’re tight,” I say, and god is he ever tight. I haven’t felt something this good in god knows how long, and all I wanna do is fuck him hard, deep—I want to take, but this is Declan Campbell. If I fuck this up, if I make it uncomfortable for him, if I’m not better than he ever dreamed, he won’t hesitate to end whatever we’ve got here and move on to someone else. Declan tries to rock back onto me, but he only manages to get another inch inside before I catch him by the hips and stop him. “Slower. Gonna hurt yourself if you do that again.”
“I’m going to hurt you, if you don’t do this right, Anderson.”
Seriously? What the hell does he know about doing this right? He’s fuckin’ cherry at getting done by a guy, he doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing. I’ve barely gotten in two thrusts, and he’s already being a bossy little shit. And that’s really not how I do things. I’m gnawing on my tongue, trying to keep my annoyance in check, when he heaves a frustrated sigh, pushes back against me again, and says, “Come on.”
“Shut up, Declan,” I say, rolling my eyes even though he can’t see it. For good measure, I put a hand between his shoulderblades and shove down so that his face is buried in the pillow, his hips hitched higher up against mine as I finally bottom out. I’m expecting an admonishment, or, worse, a noise of genuine pain that I’ll have to apologize for and remedy.
Instead, I get a punched-out noise of total relief, and then a rasped, “Yeah, like that.”
Like that is apparently Declan-speak for like he’s someone who has done this before, because when I repeat the motion—harder, faster, more than I’d normally do with a guy who’s new to this—he groans and moves with me. And this… this, I can do. His hard-on has gone down noticeably, but it thickens up again under my hand when I reach around to jerk him off. He reaches for my hand, like he’s going to correct my grip, but then changes his mind and braces his palm against the headboard so he can use it as leverage to thrust back against me. A flush is coloring the span of his shoulders, the back of his neck. I’d bet anything it’s spread over his chest, too. All of him.
I slide the hand between his shoulderblades higher up to hook over his shoulder so I can drag him back harder. He picks up that rhythm easily on his own, so I let that same hand sneak around to curl over his throat and tug him fully upright. We wobble in place a little, and he has to reach back and grab my thighs to steady himself, but it’s worth it, because with his ear near my mouth like this, I can murmur, “Next time, ’m gonna get you on your back. I wanna see if that blush reaches your face.”
Declan thrusts back again, a little too enthusiastically, considering our position, and I have to sit back on my heels and let go of his throat so I can throw a hand out behind myself to stop us both from falling off the damn bed. Dec must not really care—he follows my movement like it was intentional, starts to ride me. I’m torn between wanting to stare at his ass as it sinks down over my cock and wanting to stare at the ceiling, because Christ, he looks good. Part of me is a little worried I might come if I don’t look away, and I don’t want this to be over just yet. I tip my head back and close my eyes, but even then, I can’t stop myself from blurting out, “My god, that’s so hot.”
He might laugh. I can’t really tell, can’t hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears. I curl my hands over his hips so I can try to guide his movements, but I must be fucking failing, because it isn’t long before he starts to get… frustrated, I guess. He grinds his ass down experimentally, trying to find the angle I had him at before, but to no avail. He lets out an angry little huff of breath, and I push him off me.
“I’ve got you,” I assure him. “Get back on your knees, I’ll get you.”
He gets back on knees and elbows, and I scramble into place behind him, guiding my dick right back into him, right where he needs it. He moans out something, and it takes maybe ten seconds for me to actually process the fact that he’s moaning my name.
And that’s when I kind of lose my cool.
I stretch out over his back with my left hand clenched around his headboard because it’s the only way I can keep fucking him but get my other hand on his cock. Part of me wonders if I’m fucking him too roughly, but he seems into it—not in the beat me, beat me, make me feel cheap kind of rough that Ben is into. It’s almost like Declan has just fucked so many people and done so many things that he needs everything to be harder and faster for it to even register, like how he always grips just a little too tight when he jerks me off. And right now, with my hips banging bruises into his ass and my teeth set against his shoulder, the dude seems goddamn euphoric.
When he comes, he clenches his own hand over mine, tightening my grip even more. He makes this gorgeous little noise, too, half-groan, half-laugh, like he’s genuinely surprised at how good he feels. It seems like he comes forever, shooting all over my hand and the bed, collapsing the rest of the way onto his forearms when he’s finished.
I try to thrust in again, but he practically flinches, so I pull out instead. It’s fine, I can just jerk off on his face or some shit like that—but he turns around and shoves me flat onto my back on the mattress and crawls up onto me. He tears the condom off me, flings it into the wastebasket, and says shortly, “Don’t push my head down, don’t try to fuck my throat, and don’t come in my mouth.”
Before I can get another word out, he leans down and takes me in his mouth. It’s an awkward, kind of clumsy blowjob—like that initial suck is the only one he’s prepared to do just yet, and then he needs to steel himself with a few languid, experimental licks along my shaft. It doesn’t matter at all, because I’m so fucking close that by the time he does work his way back to actually sucking me, I have to warn him, “I’m going to come,” so he can pull off and finish me with his hand. The moment I’ve stopped striping his hand in white, he smears the mess onto his comforter and collapses backward, a mirror of my own pose. My head is at the foot of the bed, his is on the pillows, and our legs are sort of tangled around each other in the middle.
I lift my head a few inches so I can look at him. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is slightly open. He’s flushed, panting, and I can’t help but be a little proud of that. Then, mostly to be an asshole, I nudge his knee with mine and say, “You know, that didn’t completely suck, for your first time.”
Declan doesn’t open his eyes, but he does smirk.
218 days sober
It’s around two in the morning by the time I crawl out of Declan’s bed and head home, but he doesn’t expect me to stay home for very long. At nine o’clock on Monday morning, he wakes me up with another phone call, summoning me back to the Patton dorms. I don’t really need to be convinced.
It’s the start of probably the most exhausting spring break I’ve ever had, and considering the fact that I usually spend my spring breaks in bed with Jamie, that’s saying a lot. For the next three days, I head over to Patton first thing in the morning, have a few hours of incredibly athletic sex, and let Declan badger me into running through the obstacle course with him for an hour or two. On the bright side, my runtime—which wasn’t exactly shitty to begin with—is steadily improving; on the not-so-bright side, being forced to repeat a military obstacle course a dozen times in a row sucks gigantic dicks, and I’m possibly beginning to hate Declan for it. After that, I can only manage to summon enough strength for a short shower and a single round of lazy, sleepy sex before I have to tap out and head home.
For three afternoons in a row, I spend the next few hours napping, doing my homework, playing with Omelette, and desperately shoveling food into my mouth in an attempt to gain back some of the calories Declan has had me working off during the day. And for three evenings in a row, I end up calling Dec right around eight o’clock and informing him that, now that my energy has been restored, he should come over and pick up where we left off.
On Monday night, he laughs at me, says he’ll think about it, hangs up on me, and shows up an hour later.
On Tuesday night, he laughs at me, says he’s looking for his keys already, hangs up on me, and shows up half an hour later.
On Wednesday night, he laughs at me, hangs up without saying a word, and walks through my front door without knocking less than a minute later. It isn’t until that night—or, really early on Thursday morning, to be more truthful—that I realize how fucking stupid it is that he’s bothering to get dressed.
“Are you going to call ’n wake me up at go-fuck-yourself-o’clock in the morning again?” I ask, rolling onto my back and watching him crouch down to dig one of his sneakers out from under the bed.
“Probably,” he says.
“How ‘bout you just stay over instead?” I suggest.
There’s silence for a few seconds, and then Declan surfaces from his shoe quest so that I can see his grimace. “I don’t really do sleepovers.”
“Oh, damn, I was really hoping you’d let me braid your hair while we watch Mean Girls,” I say. “I said stay over, not have a sleepover. God, I thought I was supposed to be the faggot here.”
He settles back on his heels, not really sitting down, but not searching for the shoe anymore either. “I’m just saying, usually when a girl asks me to stay over—”
“I’m not a fucking girl.”
“—it’s because she’s angling for me to start getting, you know…” He pauses, makes a face, and actually raises his hands to make air quotes as he finishes, “‘Serious.’”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the bed,” I say, giving him a glare that I hope conveys exactly how ridiculous he sounds right now. “We both know we’re gonna do this same thing tomorrow, so we might as well save some gas money. Trust me, I’ve got enough condoms here to tide us over.”
“Do you also have an obstacle course in your backyard that I’m somehow unaware of?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes and promise, “We can go for a run instead. And if that’s not enough to satisfy you, I can stack some boxes in the yard and have you jump over them—that’s what Trav and I do for Omelette sometimes, he loves it. Afterward, I’ll even put some peanut butter in a Kong toy and give you belly rubs.”
Declan continues to look apprehensive. I yawn and scoot closer to the wall. “Quit being gay, dude. I’m not asking you to be the big spoon, I’m just trying to do what’s most convenient for me and my lazy ass.”
It takes another minute of dubious, suspicious looks before he sighs, strips back down, and climbs into the bed. I’m almost asleep when he quietly warns, “If you try to snuggle with me in the middle of the night, I will leave.”
I’m too tired to bitch back, so I just hold up my middle finger, wave it around in front of his face a little bit, and let my arm flop back onto the bed.
It’s such fucking bullshit, anyway—when I wake up right before sunrise, Declan is plastered against my back with his hand halfway down my boxers and his stupid face snoring in my ear. I snort, wrap my fingers around his wrist, and fall back asleep.
219 days sober
Declan is just getting out of the shower when my phone chimes out a text alert. The phone’s charging only barely out of reach on my nightstand, and I’m too exhausted to sit up. I contemplate waiting for Dec to come back so he can hand it to me, but I’ve got a feeling he’d be unimpressed enough to move it further away. Instead, I unplug the cord from the wall and use that to drag it closer.
Travis and I are planning to grab dinner after class tonight, around 8 o’clock, Jamie has texted me. Think you might be able to tear yourself away from the well-muscled arms of your jailbait lover long enough to join us?
I wince—I haven’t seen Jamie since Saturday night, when I kicked him out so I could talk to Travis. I quickly reply, of course, cant wait to see you. u pick somewhere to eat yet? Before he can respond, I send, dont worry, i’ve got someplace in mind. take the 1 to 50 st, see you later tonightttt.
If you are trying to take us to that diner in Midtown with the singing waiters, you will be dining alone.
SEE YOU TONIGHT XOXOXO, I text back, then fling my phone further down the bed where I can pretend not to acknowledge any further protests.
“Hey, you were planning to head out soon, right?” I ask as Declan wanders back into the room in just his jeans. “Jamie wants me to head into the city and hang out with him and Travis tonight.” Dec is still toweling off his hair, so I can’t really see his face to know if he’s glaring at me. Just in case, I add, “You could come, if you wanted to. Even though you, uh… don’t really know Jamie. Or like Travis.”
Declan lets the towel drop; his eyebrows are drawn together in confusion, and he echoes, “Travis?”
“Yes. Travis,” I repeat. His expression doesn’t change, so I grab one of my pillows and whip it at him. “The guy who lives here with me? My ex? You fucking know who Travis is, stop pretending.”
“Oh, him.” Declan shrugs, then grabs his t-shirt off the back of my desk chair and tugs it on. “Anderson, I don’t even know the guy. I’ve met him once—twice? And to be perfectly honest, he didn’t make much of an impression on me either time.”
I blink. It’s… insane, really, that anyone could meet Travis and not be awestruck by him. That anyone could look at him and not see how gorgeous he is, or talk to him and not hear how funny and smart he is. I’m kind of convinced that Declan just hasn’t been paying attention, and my dubious expression must make that clear, because he laughs and shuffles over to kneel on the edge of my bed.
“Hey, it’s nothing against him. I’m sure he’s a cool guy, but there’s just something so… Captain America about him. It bores me.” He braces a hand on the bed and leans down to kiss my frowning mouth. “Go hang out your friends, and I’ll catch up with you later. I’ve gotta meet someone anyway.”
The spark of annoyance at him not “getting” Travis is immediately replaced by a flare of jealousy. When he tries to leave, I catch his wrist and say, “Who? A chick?”
He grins. “Not that kind of meeting. I’ll explain the next time I see you, alright?”
I smirk. “You mean, tomorrow? When you call to ask if I’ll come over and fuck you into your mattress again?”
Wordlessly, he leans in to steal another deep, languorous kiss, then squeezes my hip and saunters out of the room. Only when he’s halfway down the stairs does he call back to me, “You should leave your phone on.” My laughter follows him to the door.
I’m still loose-limbed and satisfied a few hours later, when Jamie and Travis get to the Stardust Diner. Jamie is too busy eying the building in distaste to acknowledge me, so I weave around him and sling an arm around Travis’ shoulders. “Hey,” I say, and smack a quick kiss to his cheek. “You’ve never eaten here before, right? It’s so fucking cheesy, you’re going to love it. How was class?”
“Class was fine,” he says. He pinches the sleeve of my jacket and carefully unwinds my arm from his shoulders. “How was the fucking? Or, whatever it is you’ve spent the last five days doing.”
I look down at my arm, now hanging limply by my side; I didn’t know it was possible for me to feel rejected when I wasn’t even trying to make a move. I look up again in time to see Jamie pinch Travis’ shoulder and say sharply, “We talked about this, McCall.”
Does he really think that saying that is going to help?
“You guys talked about me?” I say, blinking. “What, on the way over here?”
“We talked about how I don’t intend to spend this entire meal listening to you two idiots make passive-aggressive comments back and forth. Now, come on, let’s get a table,” Jamie orders.
The initial tension only lasts for maybe fifteen minutes. By the time our meals have been delivered and we’ve begun eating, Travis has shelved his piss-poor attitude, and my hackles have mostly lowered. At least, enough that I’m comfortable telling them, “Tomorrow’s my audition for the dancer job at Rush.” I glance between them. “Either of you want to come show your support for my sex worker aspirations?”
“I can’t,” Travis says around an apologetic smile. “I’m working until eleven tonight, and I’m opening at five tomorrow. If I’m out at a club all night, I’ll pass out at the espresso machine.”
“You know I’d love nothing more than to watch you put on a pair of hotpants and shake your ass about,” Jamie assures me, “but unfortunately, I’m leaving town tomorrow night, after my classes get out.”
I glance over at Travis, who seems to share my apprehension. I pinch the top of my straw and stir the ice around in my pop glass. “Are you going back to Savannah?”
Jamie pauses with a forkful of penne halfway to his mouth. I wish I hadn’t said anything. Slowly, he lowers his fork, pushes his plate further up the table, and folds his hands together. “No. The law firm that’s handling my parents’ estate has a New York office, so I’ve been able to handle much of the paperwork through there.” He unfolds his hands so that he can upend the sugar bowl on the table and fiddle with the packets. There are twelve. First, he makes a single row of twelve, then changes that to two rows of six, then three rows of four. He stacks them all together, shuffles them like playing cards, and replaces them in the bowl before finally looking up at Travis and me again. “I won’t need to return to Georgia until the first weekend in May. That’s when the Historical Society has their next meeting, and I’ve been asked to attend in my daddy’s place, until everything regarding the home has been decided.”
“If you decide you want company on the trip, you know I’ll go with you,” I offer quietly.
He nods, but says, “Thank you. I know. However, I’m sure I’ll be… quite alright. And if the house gets a bit too quiet while I’m there, Marcus and Robin Chandler have said I’m more than welcome to take over their guest bedroom.”
“So, if you’re not headed to Georgia for another two weeks, where are you going tomorrow?” Travis asks.
The corners of Jamie’s mouth curl up into the first smile I’ve seen from him all night. “Connecticut.”
I knock my knee against his under the table. “And what exactly is it that entices you to the Nutmeg State?”
His smile turns wry. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Just for a couple of hours, or for the entire night?” I ask.
“The latter.”
“Uh, how are you planning to have that work out?” Travis says doubtfully. “If you’re still trying to keep this off Alex’s radar, isn’t having a sleepover kind of counterproductive? I mean, Al’s kinda stupid, but nobody’s that stupid.”
“I’ve reserved a room at a hotel in town. We’ll be spending the night there, not at the apartment,” Jamie says with a shrug. “It’s the same thing I did when Alexander and I were trying to keep our interludes quiet. Though, I must admit, I’m getting much more entertainment out of terrorizing Ben and his modest sensibilities than I ever did with Alex.”
I leer. “If memory serves me correctly, Ben isn’t too big on modesty anyway.”
“I meant financially,” Jamie says. “I told him I’d be happy to have the hotel send over a car service to pick him up from work tomorrow evening, and when he refused, I told him that was alright, and to simply leave his car with the valet. I’ve also suggested that he bring a change of clothes, so that he might ‘dress for dinner.’”
“He’s going to smack the hell out of you when he sees you,” Travis warns, and Jamie flashes his bright white smile.
“Well, I certainly hope so.”
“Uh,” says our waitress, appearing at Jamie’s elbow and causing him to dart a slightly guilty glance towards her. “Is there anything else I can get for you guys? Some dessert, maybe?”
I practically dive for the dessert card in the middle of the table. “Yeah, absolutely.” I scan the menu, while Travis orders a milkshake and Jamie refuses anything. I point to the menu. “Alright, see this chocolate-coconut-caramel cake thing? I want that. Except, see this apple pie you’ve got here? I want that, too. So, if you just like, put one on top of the other and kinda smush them down a little bit—”
“Are you serious?” Jamie demands. “That is truly revolting. I will never speak to you again if you actually eat that.”
“No, you know what? Make it like a sandwich. A slice of the coconut thing—” I hold one hand up flat, then flatten my other hand on top of it, “—and then the apple pie—” I move my bottom hand to the top, “—and then a second slice of the coconut thing.”
The waitress blinks. “Wait, are you serious?”
“Completely. Don’t worry, I’ll tip you really, really well to make up for how gross this is,” I promise. The waitress shrugs and wanders away. I look back at my friends, both of whom are looking somewhat sick. I adopt my most innocent, helpless expression. “Come on, guys, I need to eat as much as I possibly can. Declan has been making me run that stupid fuckin’ obstacle course over and over. I’ve lost like, three pounds in the last week from all the cardio.”
“Cardio, right. Is that the euphemism we’re using for the fact that you guys have barely left the bedroom for the past week?” Travis mutters.
I open my mouth to tell him that it’s none of his business who I’ve got in my bedroom, but before I can get a word out, Jamie snaps his fingers right in front of my face, then in front of Travis’, like we’re a pair of naughty puppies who’ve just been caught pissing on the carpet.
“None of that, children,” he says. “I don’t want to listen to the two of you bicker.”
“Fine, let’s go back to talking about you,” I snap.
“Fine, let’s, I’m utterly fascinating, I can’t wait to talk about myself,” he snaps back.
“Fine, how ‘bout you tell me why you haven’t asked Ben to be your boyfriend?” I say, and that pretty much shuts him up. Our waitress reappears to deliver the dessert, and I only stop smirking at Jamie so that I can take a huge bite of my coconut-chocolate-caramel-apple cake-pie-sandwich.
It’s a long time before Jamie finally recovers enough to say, very haughtily, “Because I don’t want to.”
I take another bite and stare at him. Travis slurps his milkshake and stares at him, too. Jamie’s bravado dims, and he reaches for the sugar packets again. “Because he doesn’t want to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say immediately. “You’re smart, you’re hot, and you’ve the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on someone who wasn’t an honest-to-god porn star. He’d be stupid not to want to date you. Besides, if you’re worried that he’d reject you because you didn’t get along well from the start, keep in mind that he and Travis couldn’t stand each other when they first met, and they dated for four months. Granted, you’re doing things in a different order than they did, but all the ass-fucking can only work in your favor here. You just have to ask him.”
Jamie rounds on Travis and demands, “How did you do it?”
Travis freezes in the act of sucking down his milkshake through his straw. His cheeks are hollowed and his eyes are wide, and for a minute, he looks so cute that it’s hard for me to remember how fucking annoying he’s being today. All I want to do is reach over and drag him closer. He glances at me, then back to Jamie, then sits up straight. “How did I do what?”
“How did you get him to be your… boyfriend?” Jamie says the word like it doesn’t fit safely in his mouth, but I can’t figure out why; he’s been dozens of people’s boyfriend before. The label has never made him look so anxious before. He makes a vague gesture. “That is, officially. How did you make it real?”
“Well, if I’m being honest, I kind of just… um.”
“You kind of just what, Travis?” Jamie prompts, rolling his eyes.
Travis winces. “I think I just told him I hated him, and then made out with him?”
I snort. “And he said he’d be your boyfriend?”
“No, then he ran away,” Travis admits.
“But I’ve already done all that,” Jamie says indignantly. “I’ve done those exact things, in that exact order. Repeatedly. There must be something else I’m supposed to be doing.”
“I mean, the opposite of that would probably be a good start,” I suggest. “Maybe you could tell him you like him, and he could not run away from you. I think that’s closer to how relationships are supposed to go.”
“Oh, did your straight boyfriend teach you that?” Travis snipes, but when Jamie turns a glower on him, he hastily adds, “After he ran away, though, I went to his house and told him all the things I like about him. Pretty sure that’s why he agreed. If you just sit him down and tell him you’d like things between you two to be serious enough for exclusivity, he’ll appreciate your honesty. And he’ll say yes.”
I scoop up one of the last bites of my cake-pie-sandwich, but before I pop it in my mouth, I add, “You should do it after you guys bang, just to be sure he’s in the right mood. And make sure it’s good—maybe do that thing he likes, where you edge him for nearly an hour so that when you finally let him get off, he comes so hard he cries.”
“He cries,” Travis repeats blankly.
“I’m not talking about like, gross sobbing or anything. Just a couple tears and some mild hyperventilation. He’s crazy into it.” I glance up, but Travis is still just staring. I swallow my bite of cake. “What, you never did that with him?”
Travis purses his lips slightly and says, “No, I didn’t. So, thank you for helping me add that to my ever-growing list of sexual insecurities.”
“You shouldn’t be insecure,” I say without thinking. “You’re phenomenal in bed.”
He goes red and ducks his face to try to hide it, and I find myself echoing the movement—not because I’m embarrassed to be talking about my sex life, but because god, when am I going to stop saying shit like this to him when I know it’s not going to bring him any closer?
Oblivious to the fact that I’m now stewing in a pool of my own self-loathing, Jamie sighs, releases his stranglehold on the sugar packets, and concedes, “I’ll speak with him this weekend. But if he laughs at me and says no, I will murder both of y’all.”
He still looks nervous and uncomfortable, but he doesn’t have any reason to be; as far as I know, I’m the only one in the group who regularly finds himself getting rejected by the guys he likes.