Take It Outside (Trailhead #1)

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Adrian

I n time with his strokes, I’m equally slow when I rub my slick thumb over his hole, drawing circles when I’m not pushing forward a little, growing impossibly harder at how his body responds to my touch. I can’t see much—the darkened sky and twilight shadows are working against me—but as tight as he is, Beau accepts every intrusion, and when I stop teasing him long enough to add more lube and slide two fingers forward at once, he shifts to take more. I love him like this, pliant and eager and somehow still willing to wait for whatever I’ll give, but I love me like this, too. I need so little and ache with nothing but good things and working him open is half practical and half arousing as fuck, my fingers curling now and then just to catch the way his careful control slips for a moment or two.

He swipes a finger over the head of his cock and sucks it clean, and while I envy everything about it, Beau’s breathless moan reminds me I’m coveting things I can have.

It’s another several seconds before I’m ready to take it all, but then I leave him empty to pour lube into my hand, stroking my dick and then reaching for his just because. I only need to shift forward or pull him toward me, the way I’m straddling the chair—and the way he’s straddling me—making it easy to fuck him from here, except that I want to be so much closer to Beau now. I want to be held by Beau now. So, I taunt us both before I shift us instead, pushing his knees further toward his chest while I settle between his legs and rock into him with one steady stroke, his arms pulling me near until I’m exactly where I want to be.

My mouth is open over his for those first few thrusts, and when he finally kisses me, all I want is more. We’ve barely begun, but there’s a quick tinge of desperation now, the night’s chill giving way to the heat between us, and Beau says yes to every question without my having to ask. Now that his hand isn’t wrapped around his cock, both of them clawing at my body to encourage something harder or deeper instead, I wonder whether he’ll outlast me, even while I think I need this to go on forever.

I need him in ways I don’t think he fully understands, and I want all the time in the world to show him.

The lounge chair limits our choice of positions, especially when neither of us is small, but I’m grateful that it makes us hold tight to each other, variety traded for the chance to be here together. I’m also glad there’s some kind of concrete pillar behind us, because even when I’m not fucking him all that hard, the combined force of our bodies has pushed the chair into it. I’m not sure Beau has noticed the collision, but then again, after another several seconds, I’m completely overwhelmed by him, and I don’t care about a goddamn thing except all the ways he’s mine.

He’s mine. I’m his. It’s as absolute as that, and when I tremble with a rush of emotion I need to share, I slow us all the way down. It would be a tease except for how important it feels when his body welcomes me over and over and over again, and the suspicious shine to his eyes suggests he understands just fine.

“You always feel so good, but now—tonight, this is—” Beau trails off, the hand at the back of my head pulling me into another filthy kiss that can last so much longer when I’m barely moving inside him.

I ease back and slide forward again, mumbling against his lips. “We’re different tonight.”

“We are, yeah. And I love that we are.”

He’s so tight around me, and the physical sensation is incredible, but what's happening between us is more than that and we both know it. Have already said it out loud. And maybe I should keep the rest to myself, but I don’t think he’s ready to be done with the conversation, and I’ll let him have anything he wants tonight.

Even the weakest parts of me.

“So, why am I scared?” I ask, groaning when I slide deep again, and whimpering when he keeps me there. “This isn’t goodbye.”

“No?”

“No,” I breathe.

“Then it’s because you don’t want it to be,” Beau says. His strong body guides me through another slow thrust or two, and his mouth is open at my ear. “And you know as well as I do that we might not get a say in that. That if we’re really doing this, there’s a chance you’re gonna have to survive bone-deep grief all over again.”

The rhythm of my hips stutters with my heart. “Because one of us has to leave first.”

“Almost definitely.”

Something guttural crawls from my throat as I reach for one of his legs, and he’s ready for me, bending his knee further as I snap my hips forward and he moans in response. A second later, I match it with a moan of my own, and fuck him harder than I have in a while, part sorrow and part plea. I kiss him everywhere I can and lose myself in the warmth of his neck whenever I stop to bite him there instead. Beau says so many things I’m barely ready to hear between obscenities I know well, and with my fear swallowed whole, it becomes easy to forget where I am. Easy isn’t a thing I’ve had before, but Beau is holding on to me like he’ll give that to me with the rest of him, and I almost thank him out loud. But then I feel my body bending to the will of his, or maybe his is bending to mine, and I’m acting on instinct as much as anything, rising onto my forearms and using his shoulders for leverage as I fuck both of us breathless.

“Wish I could wait,” he pants. “Want more.”

“There’s more, baby. There’s always more.”

It’s a stupid thing to say—probably egregiously so when we’ve just acknowledged the grief that will outlive at least one of us—but he doesn’t have it in him to correct me and I don’t think he wants to anyway. He curls his hand around his cock again, unrestrained about the way he moves now, and I stare even as I refuse to slow. There’s nothing in the world I want more right now than to watch him come in the moonlight, as messy about it now as he was the night we talked on the phone and shouldn’t have admitted any of it.

I drop down to kiss him once more, reckless with precious seconds and as arrogant as I think I used to be, and then I brace myself above him again and feel him start to clench around my cock just before I watch him jerk a couple of times and spill all over his stomach. He’s so close to making me fall with him, everything about his orgasm making my body ache for mine, but I want to help him ride it out, and I keep fucking him while he shakes.

When I slow, I do it for both of us. When I pull out entirely, I think it’s all for me.

But I need this on a visceral level and won’t ask why, one of my hands braced on his bent knee while the other strokes my cock over him. I meet Beau’s eyes for the only moment I can, and then I’m coming where he already has, his skin covered with the evidence of more than his own pleasure. I meet his eyes again, and I understand so much more than he’ll say.

“That was fucking hot.”

And, well, yes, I understand that, too.

I’m careful as I back away and help straighten his legs, but when I could grab napkins to clean him up, I don’t. I lower my head to him instead, my lips skimming his inner thigh as I look up at him, and when he nods, I know. Then I nip at him a little, just because I can, and I kiss further up his body, unbothered when I feel him shift beneath me. The night sky seems to quiet everything that had never become loud, and the moon encourages me to surrender to temptation I wouldn’t have ignored anyway.

It’s slow, the way some of our cum rolls over his side, and with an almost-smile, I catch it with my fingertip and bring it to my mouth. My eyes fall closed for a second or two before I reach for Beau’s bare skin again, my touch landing among the goosebumps on his hip before it slides toward more, dragging our shared mess across his stomach, indulgent when I play with it throughout the up and down of each breath he takes.

I get so lost in the rhythm of both that it takes me a while to notice that my camera is in his hand.

When I finally blink up at him, sleepy and sated, I think I smile a little more before I bother to wonder what he’s doing. I don’t hide, though. Can’t really imagine why I would.

“Pictures? Really?”

“Not expecting you to frame them,” he mumbles. “Just wanna see.”

So, I let him see everything, taking my time to scatter kisses over his legs and hips and where his cock is soft now, but still mine. My fingers remain wet, and he can see that too, trails left behind when I adjust my position here or there. I want him to keep looking because he deserves to know, and I’m not sure how much else I can tell him tonight .

And framed or not, I might keep them forever.

But then I move a little more because I’m hungry or thirsty and one taste wasn’t enough, my mouth at Beau’s stomach when sucking another finger clean won’t satisfy the same craving. My tongue laps at him—at us—before I swallow and chase a rivulet over his ribs, and another settled near the head of his cock, my hum absorbed by the softness of his belly. And then before I can hum again, I feel Beau’s hand in my hair, gentle when he encourages me to look at him, and I realize I wasn’t any more aware of him setting the camera down than I had been when he first picked it up.

“C’mere,” he whispers.

I climb up his body without hesitation, Beau’s mouth open and ready for me when I kiss him, and then I’m sharing anything I can with the man who might’ve demanded more if he wasn’t already asking so nicely. The fingers of one hand are still in my hair, his other arm wrapped around me to keep me close, and he doesn’t seem to care about being sticky any more than I do. Our kiss is filthy, while being almost painfully intimate, and fifteen years ago we’d probably start working ourselves up for another round and the chance to slow-fuck each other into oblivion. As it is, we’re both content to rut against each other as we pass quiet sounds back and forth, none of it leading to anything but a moment in the dark we adjusted to a while ago.

It lasts as long as it can, and then I carefully kiss his cheek and back away to look at him. “Yes.”

“Yes? As in—yes? ”

“Yes, I will move in with you. And yes, I will talk to Mason about looking for a place in WeHo. Or wherever.”

Beau tilts his head. “But?”

The immediate crease between my eyes almost hurts, and I turn my head until I can make it go away. It’s not fair to either of us that I haven’t figured out how to do things the easy way, but Beau waits, of course—he always has. And as much as I'm not worried about him tonight, I’m glad when I find the deep breath I’ve needed to take, and a few of the right words.

“We should go on another hike first.”

When we left my studio that night, we both understood everything I’d said about waiting, but it didn’t stop me from following him back to his apartment to stay the night. I went home the next morning to shower and change for work, but I packed a bag and ended up at Beau’s again.

And the night after that. And another three after that.

It’s not the same as moving in, even if I start to leave a few things behind. Even if we go grocery shopping together once, and there’s room for me to hang my clothes or put a folded pile into a drawer, and a brand-new bottle of my classic body wash ends up in the shower next to Beau’s fancy aromatherapy kind.

That last one makes no sense and it makes absolutely perfect sense, but it doesn’t really matter either way because I haven’t moved in yet. I’ll have plenty of time to make fun of him later.

I slept at home last night. My home, where I still pay rent for now because it hasn’t quite been a year since Levi and I moved to California, and there’s no point in paying the penalties that would come with breaking the lease. But I’ve got another couple of bags with me this morning, and when I duck away from the dawn and into the lobby of Beau’s building, I only stop short because the elevator is still working today. It startles me awake in a way my alarm had not, and I hate that I’m not sure where my next step should land.

The stairs have always taken me to Beau. It’s where he guided me even when there was another way to his front door, and now I’m choking on the goddamn poetry of something that shouldn’t be that fragile to begin with.

Fuck it. I press the button for the elevator and wait.

If everything else is going to change today, I guess it’s not the worst way to start.

I let myself in with the key I have now—a purely practical gift given with a shrug because Beau didn’t see the need to keep jumping up every time I knocked at his door—and I find his back turned to me while he gets something from the fridge. After locking us in, I head toward the couch to drop off my bags.

“Good morning,” I call over my shoulder.

“Morning,” he answers.

The duffels fall, and I take a moment to clear my throat of nothing before I go back and forth about whether to bring my camera with us today. It’s bizarre to think for a second that I won’t—or shouldn’t—and I’m tugging my camera bag free without worrying further than that. Beau’s in charge of the backpack again, so there’s not much else for me to grab before I join him, but I do my best to stall, messing around with lip balm and sunglasses and my phone like any of those require all that much attention. And then I turn, finally, to join him in the kitchen, and I find him staring at me, two newly filled water bottles in hands holding them too tightly.

Oh. He's nervous.

I don’t rush to his side when I don’t think it’ll do either of us any good, but I’m there soon enough to take the bottles and set them aside. “Hey. Talk to me.”

“No, it’s—” Beau shakes his head. “I’m okay. I just—you’re still gonna stay here today? After we get back?”

“I am, yeah. Don’t want to go anywhere else.”

“You could change your mind.”

“We both could,” I point out, swallowing carefully when I nod toward his backpack. “You already packed it? Everything’s ready?”

“Yeah. You wanna carry it?”

I think about it while my shoulders rise and fall. “No. I’ll wait until we get up there.”

There’s not much else to do or say, unless Beau wants to tease me about my outdoorsy clothes again, so I touch my fingers to his beard and lead him into a kiss that lasts longer than I’d dared to hope. It settles something in both of us, at least for now, and leaving the apartment becomes easy, the drive into the mountains relaxed.

Beau had asked if I wanted to hike somewhere else this morning, but there will be other days for other places and I’m eager to cling to both him and a path I’ve walked before. There are a few more people around today, the world tiptoeing toward the summer, but it’s still early enough that we’ve avoided a crowd, and as we climb out of Beau’s truck, he squeezes my hand like he’s grateful for it, too.

He holds on to me for a while, and I breathe easily among the trees. “Mason and I are going to look at a couple of places tomorrow. I think it’s less about actually securing something right now, and more about meeting some people. Getting a better feel for what I’m jumping into.”

“Smart. It’s a big change, and I know you want to do it right.”

“Lot of things are changing.”

“They are,” Beau agrees, dropping my hand when he knows I want to take a picture of a beautifully crooked tangle of branches. “I had to pick up a karaoke night just to keep up with you.”

I try not to laugh out loud, trapping the sound for at least a few reasons, and then I let my body bump into his as we continue to walk. Beau has agreed to host one karaoke night a month, lovingly bullied into it by a group of friends who also made him promise he would never sing while he’s got a microphone in his hand.

“Ah, yes, that big change of having a regular gig at Trailhead,” I tease. “Very different from all the years that came before.”

Beau is far less cautious about his laugh, and I love it.

“Are we really gonna call drinking and fucking a regular gig?”

Some critter scurries across the path and I capture what I can before it’s gone, the interruption enough to quiet us again. The hike seems both longer and not today, my mind left with time to wander even while I know we’re getting so close to where we’ll stop for a while, and I don’t need to ask Beau how he’s feeling about that when I’m not totally sure it matters. I have things I need to do today. I think he does, too. We’ll get through it all, and then we’ll go home.

No, I haven’t moved in yet, but there won’t be anything stopping me after this morning.

The chatter near us becomes noticeable when it’s more than a bunch of birds excited about the sunshine, and I know we’re approaching the waterfall and however many people have already gathered there. Beau and I have no claim to it, and I’m not exactly upset, but I need a minute to myself.

“Go ahead,” I tell him, stepping to the side to lean against a tree. “I’ll catch up in a few.”

Beau’s eyebrows rise above the top of his sunglasses. “I guess this isn’t a physical break?”

“Of course not. Bitch. Mess. You know this song.”

“I do,” he says. “Wouldn’t mind sticking around to hear it, you know.”

I smile in spite of myself. “Pretty sure I’ll be humming it all day.”

“Okay. A few minutes, then.”

He leaves me there, and I watch him for as long as I can, finally closing my eyes when he’s joined the buzz of a crowd I can’t see. I kick my heel against the bark for a minute, lulling myself into something, and then I sigh and start part of a bigger conversation—the introduction to it all that Beau doesn’t really need to hear.

“I’m sorry, Levi.”

My voice catches after that much, the lump in my throat immediate and unwanted. It’s unfair that I’m having trouble swallowing around it when I have so many things to say, but eventually I steady myself and start again.

“I’m sorry, and I’m—it’s not what I thought I was sorry for. Years of our relationship spent wanting to leave you—that’s not it. That’s not where I went wrong. I was wrong to stay .”

A cloud gets pushed in front of the sun, the path dimmed when I go on.

“I loved you so much. I guess I always will—that’s not really the kind of thing that goes away, is it? And I thought—I don’t know. I thought that if you love someone, you can’t leave them when they’re sick. That’s a terrible thing to do, right?” I laugh to myself, a derisive little sound, because I keep asking questions I know the answer to, and it’s how it’s been all along. “Yeah, okay, it’s not great. But the truth is, the worst of us—the worst of both of us—wasn’t that you were sick or that I wanted to shed the weight of that. It’s that we stopped being anything else. So many other pieces of us had been abandoned until we became faded outlines of the people who’d fallen for each other a decade ago.”

I pause long enough to think about the stories Beau has encouraged me to share about Levi—all those seemingly inconsequential moments that make for a colorful life—and I press my left hand to my heart as I remind it to keep beating. I don’t know how Levi and I ended up where we did, only that it was far too easy to get there as soon as we forgot to see each other as anything but a few shades of gray. Another deep breath comes and goes, and I feel my thumb rub against my bare finger as my hand drops to my side.

“At some point, you bought a ring for me so we could vow something about bad times or sickness, but we’d already broken too much of ourselves to be able to promise anything like good times or health. And maybe there’s an argument to be made about our move here—that living in California and dancing with a handsome cowboy had brought us back to a few of those dreams—but I think maybe that was just the last gasp of something already destined to die. You shouldn’t have had to die, though. I should’ve left so you could’ve found someone who deserved to wear your ring, and I will always be sorry I didn’t go. That’s it—” I stop and I swear and I want to scream, but I’m not capable of more than a whisper. “I’m sorry. I love you and I’m sorry.”

I swallow hard one more time, and while I know there’s more to say, I’m eager to make it past the pain. I use my foot to push myself off the tree trunk and toward where Beau might be lost in a small crowd admiring the waterfall on the other side of the trail’s curve. Any panic that I might not find him easily melts away when I see him standing closer to me than not, fidgeting because I’ve left him uncertain for the second time this morning.

“Hey,” he says when I’m just a few feet away. “Welcome back.”

Whether I ask it to or not, my body stills, keeping me from Beau for a few final seconds my heart insists belong to me alone. The perfect roar of the waterfall silences my impatience, and I wait there with a smile that might belong to me, too.

Three. Two. One.

Then I close the distance between us and my hand slides over his beard when I pull him in for a kiss. “Okay, I’m here. All the way back here, with you.”

Beau hums his gratitude and takes my hand, and for the next several minutes, we have the same goals as the dozen or so others who have reached this part of the hike: breathing the fresh air and enjoying the views the open space allows. My camera still hangs around my neck, and I pull away occasionally to focus on one special thing or another, but nothing holds my attention for long when I want to be close to Beau and I want him to be close to me. The clouds are gone, and the mist of the waterfall finally reminds us we have more to do, another tender kiss shared as we mumble something about finding a good place to sit, as far from anyone else as is possible on a gorgeous morning like this.

There’s a fallen tree near the less accessible side of the falls, the dirt around it probably damp enough to give way to a little pressure, and we settle there together, Beau’s backpack on the ground just out of my reach. I’m pressed against his side, and our hands are clasped in his lap for now, though I don’t expect that to last. His thumb arcs over my skin, and I’ll take it while I can .

“If you’re not ready, love—”

“I am.”

“You think we’re gonna get in trouble if someone catches us?”

I chuckle. “Semi-public sex is okay, but you’re worried about digging a hole where people might see you?”

“We’re not really digging that much of a hole,” Beau argues. “Just kinda temporarily displacing some dirt and adding some heart.”

“Okay then.”

He lets me go, and the sound of the backpack’s zipper feels loud when he goes in search of the small container inside. I haven’t seen it yet, Beau left in charge of this part of my wish, and I have to bite back a laugh when I see the shape of it in his hands.

He bumps his shoulder into mine. “Are you giving me shit about this?”

“No, I—it’s really like a little time capsule, huh?”

“Seemed like the safest way to bury the past.”

I sober quickly at that and wonder if the entire day will be this same rollercoaster of emotions, my stomach already upside down even when I try to smile again.

“But we’re never going to come back for this, are we?” I ask, running my finger back and forth over the smooth silver of the capsule.

“I don’t think we should.”

He’s right, and I hope he’s strong enough to remind me of that if I break. We’re not going to bury this deep enough for it to stay hidden for long, but however much I might think I need to find it again, I never want to hurt enough to try. There are other things I can do when I need to feel close to Levi, but chasing a gift he didn’t give me—a question he never asked—isn’t one of them.

As Beau learned a long time ago, I would’ve said no anyway.

“Did you already put it in there?”

“Nah. Kinda figured I should give you that chance,” Beau says, unnecessarily gentle when he leaves the capsule on my thigh. “I’ll do it if you want, but it’s right here.”

He brings his hand to the pocket resting over his heart and it’s almost too much, knowing it’s been there the entire morning. I shake, I think, as I make a move to take back the wedding band Beau removed from my finger weeks ago, but he doesn’t bother to point it out as his next exhale becomes rougher than the last. With the ring wrapped up in my fist, I look at him again.

“What about you? Did you bring yours?”

When I’d told Beau that I wanted to come back here for a quiet goodbye, I’d made sure he knew it wasn’t all about me—that he could also take the chance to bury something precious—and it’s hard to decipher the quick twitch of his mouth now, his sunglasses hiding eyes that might give away more. It’s not as bright here though, and I take the time to push his sunglasses to the top of his head, doing the same with mine a moment later.

He's okay. I can see that much. But he sighs. “I did not bring mine, actually. It’s not the same for me, the end of my marriage and whatever I have left of that now. Darren didn’t leave me with the ugliest of my scars, and keeping my wedding band doesn’t leave me unable to breathe. It’s still in my drawer, and I want it to stay there.”

I tilt my head when the conversation feels unfinished. “You brought something else.”

“Yeah, I—” A frown is replaced by a relieved smile. “Am I really that easy to read?”

“Something, something, pot, kettle.”

Beau almost laughs. Almost. It gets lost when he turns away from me to reach into his backpack for something he’s kept further from where his body might have beat with it, and he’s already blinking back tears before he speaks again.

“Luca always wore a cross around his neck. A crucifix, I guess. It was a confirmation gift from his grandparents, and as far as I know, he never took it off.” Beau pauses and shrugs. “I’m not Catholic, so I guess you understand this better than I do, but it was a big deal to him.”

“Sure. And depending on his relationship with his grandparents, that mattered more than the crucifix itself,” I tell him, cautious about going on in case he’d rather finish on his own. He shakes his head instead, and I imagine the lump in his throat is painful, too much of it familiar to me from minutes ago, even if I’m the one who can talk now. “But he took it off and gave it to you.”

“After the first time we were together, yeah. Two boys trying to be tough, acting like we knew what we were doing when we were barely more than clumsy and crazy about each other.”

“And before you could be anything else, Luca left, and that’s the ugliest of your scars.”

“Don’t think I ever bothered to let that wound heal right,” he says, opening his hand so I can see the gold crucifix and chain that belonged to a stranger I don’t get to love or hate. “Maybe letting go of this will help.”

“The end of the story,” I nod, gesturing toward the capsule. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

He makes a bit of a face, embarrassed or overwhelmed or just suddenly back to being 18 again, and there’s plenty of time for him to drop the necklace into the capsule and keep his mouth shut if he’d prefer that. There’s always the chance that he’ll roll his eyes and laugh with that low rumble and be done with this makeshift memorial.

And then a tear tumbles over his cheek. Another follows. I’m not sure they’ll stop for a while.

“It’s been twenty fucking years.” Beau’s voice cracks, and I’m about to make it okay for him to grieve no matter how long it’s been, except that he’s not talking to me. “It’s been twenty fucking years, and we were just kids, and I’m not sure we would’ve lasted past that summer, but I sure as hell would’ve liked to try. You left though, and maybe I wish I could hate you for that, but if the past several months have taught me anything, it’s that hate is way too close to love sometimes. So, I don’t hate you. And I never got the chance to love you. And now I’m gonna let you go.”

Just like that, Luca’s crucifix is out of sight, and I stare down at the wedding band resting in the palm of my hand. I’ve already said plenty, so I simply let it fall on top of another soon-to-be-buried treasure and take a deep breath .

“I didn’t leave you , but I’m going to leave the ring by the waterfall. It’s the best I can do, but like I told Beau before, you would’ve loved it here. And I love you.”

We’re silent after that, Beau sealing the capsule while I grab a couple of sturdy sticks, both of us digging with them as inconspicuously as possible among the hikers lingering near the waterfall. When there’s enough space, Beau lets the damp earth cradle everything too heavy for us to hold, and I push the dirt over it until the ground is nearly even again. Then I turn and kiss the last of the tears from Beau’s face.

“What now?” he whispers.

“Now? I think it’s time to go to my place.”

“Your place?”

I smile against his beard. “I need help packing all my things.”