Chapter 28 Mickey #2
Mickey: Yeah. Can’t sleep. Too excited about going home.
Benji: Same. Can I videochat you?
Mickey: Sure.
The call comes in four seconds later. I prop the phone against the pillow and accept it.
The screen fills with Benji from the chest up, his hair messy, his chain catching the light at his throat.
Just sweatpants, slung low on his hips, the waistband sitting on the cut of muscle that disappears below the fabric.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is easy and warm and slightly too casual. “I need to show you something. Don’t laugh.”
“When have I ever laughed at you?”
“You laugh at me constantly. You just do it with your eyes instead of your mouth.” He flips the camera.
The screen fills with a showerhead the size of a dinner plate, mounted flush to the ceiling, chrome, with a wide circular face that could cover a grown man from shoulder to shoulder.
“Look at this. This is the reason I signed the lease. Not the location. Not the balcony. This showerhead. Rainfall. Twelve inches. Full coverage. The water pressure in this building could strip paint. I walked into this bathroom during the showing and I turned this thing on and I looked at the realtor and I said where do I sign.”
“You chose your apartment based on a showerhead?”
“I chose it based on the best showerhead in Miami-Dade County. This shower is a walk-in. No door. No curtain. Just glass on one side and tile on the other and enough room for three people, not that I’m using it for three people, but the option exists.
” The camera pans down to show the tiled floor, the glass panel, the depth of the space.
It’s massive. A shower the size of some bathrooms I’ve been in.
“Are you seeing this? This is what I come home to every night. This is my religion.”
“It’s a nice shower, Benji.”
“It’s the best shower. Respect the shower.”
He flips the camera back to himself. He’s grinning. The grin I can feel through a screen, the one that means he’s about to do something and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Okay, hold on. Let me prop you up so you can see.”
The screen tilts and shifts. He’s setting the phone on the bathroom counter, adjusting the angle. The frame settles and now I can see him full-length in the mirror’s reflection and straight on. The bathroom is white tile and he’s standing in the middle of it in those sweatpants and nothing else.
He turns around with his back to the phone.
His shoulder blades shift under the skin as he reaches for the waistband and pushes the sweatpants down.
The sweatpants slide over his hips and down his thighs and he steps out of them, then kicks them to the side.
He’s completely naked with his back to me.
Jesus Christ.
His back is a long line of smooth tan skin from his shoulders to the base of his spine, the muscles shifting under the surface as he moves.
His waist tapers to narrow hips and below that his ass is round and tight.
An ass that makes me think about gripping it with both hands, pulling it toward me, feeling the muscle tense under my palms. The curve of it catches the bathroom light and I think about how it would feel pressed against me.
How the skin would be warm and firm under my hands if I dug them into the flesh there, right at the crease where his ass meets his thigh.
I’ve been keeping these thoughts in a box for weeks. The box just shattered into a million pieces. I’m gripping the phone with both hands. My pulse is pounding and I’m praying the connection doesn’t drop.
He reaches into the shower and turns the handle on. The rainfall head opens up and water falls in a wide sheet, hitting the tile floor with a sound like heavy rain on a roof. Steam starts curling into the frame almost immediately.
“Anyway,” he says, stepping under the spray, “so this DJ for the Ramos wedding. You will not believe what he’s asking for now.
A fog machine. At a cocktail hour. I told him absolutely not.
The aesthetic is garden party, not haunted house.
He sends me a Pinterest board and I swear to God, Mickey, every photo looks like a Halloween rave.
I told Dante and Dante said, and I quote, fire him into the sun. ”
The spray hits him and runs down his body in sheets. His hair goes dark and flat against his skull. Then he tips his head back and the water pours over his face and down his neck and across his chest.
He hasn’t stopped talking. He’s telling me about the bride’s mother who wants a twelve-piece band instead.
His hands are in his hair, combing through it, the muscles in his arms flexing.
His eyes are closed and the intentional performance of this is the most transparent thing I’ve ever seen and also the most effective.
He knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s enjoying every second of it. This is Benji with the safety valve off. And I’m here for it.
He reaches for a bottle of shampoo. He squeezes it into his palm and works it into his hair with both hands, his head tipped forward.
The foam runs down his back, tracing the line of his spine, following the curve at the base of his back, disappearing.
His hands move from his hair to his neck to his shoulders, rubbing the lather across his skin, and he’s touching himself the way I burn to touch him.
“And then she tells me the centerpieces are too tall,” Benji says.
“I spent three hours with the florist getting the proportions right and now she wants them shorter because her aunt can’t see across the table.
Her aunt is five foot nothing and sits on a cushion.
I said ma’am, we can lower the centerpieces or we can raise your aunt, pick one. ”
He’s soaping his chest now. His hands slide over the planes of muscle, over his stomach, across the V-line at his hips, his palms flat and moving in circles.
He turns sideways and I can see everything.
The curve of his chest. The trail of light hair below his navel that leads down to his cock, which hangs heavy between his thighs, thick and wet, swinging slightly as he shifts his weight.
I’ve never looked at any man and wanted to put my hands on him the way I want to put my hands on Benji right now. I want to wrap my fist around his cock again and feel the weight of him. One time was not enough. I want to hear the sound again he makes when he comes and know I’m the reason why.
Fucking hell.
Something is happening below my waist. Not a faint whisper. Or a vague murmur. This is bigger. A warmth and heaviness that is specific and unmistakable.
My cock is getting hard.
There is a definite sensation in my cock that I did not imagine. Not a full erection, not even close, but blood moving to a place that has been dark for weeks. This is a real physical thing happening to my body because Benji is naked and wet and touching himself.
I don’t dare move or breathe too hard. Because if I think about it too clinically the fog might come back. I grip my phone case so hard I’m afraid I might crack it, and watch Benji soap his body.
His head goes back and the spray pours over his face. He stands there with his arms at his sides, his eyes closed.
Before the bullet, I would’ve known exactly what to do with Benji right now.
I would’ve had him against the tile wall in that shower with my hands on his hips and my mouth on his neck.
I would’ve pressed him into the glass and felt him get hard against me and the shower would have run for an hour.
The bill would have been worth every cent.
Benji has stopped talking. He turns sideways and reaches for the handle. His hand closes around the chrome and he starts to twist.
“No.” The word rips out of me. I’m shouting loud enough for him to hear me over the water. “Benji. Please don’t stop.”
His hand freezes on the handle. The shower is still falling in a heavy sheet behind him, steam rolling through the frame in thick curls.
He stands there in profile with his hand on the chrome and his chest rising and falling.
His shoulders drop half an inch. His chin tilts down. Then he turns to face the phone.
The grin is gone. His eyes are wide with a naked hunger that he’s not even trying to hide. The water is hitting his shoulder and running down his side in a sheet and he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Tell me what you want from me, Mickey. Tell me and I won’t stop. I’ll give you anything you want. Name it.”
My pulse is slamming in my ears and there’s heat spreading through my body. My cock is still there. Still interested. I’m terrified that if I say the wrong thing everything will stop.
But Benji is standing there, looking at me through the phone with eyes that are asking me to be brave. And I have been so careful for so long. Careful with every thought that gets too close to the thing I actually want. And I am so fucking tired of being careful.
“Benji. I want to see you. Everything. Please.”
He holds my gaze through the camera for a split second more. Long enough for me to understand that whatever is about to happen he’s doing it for me.
He steps back under the shower. The rainfall catches him full across the shoulders and pours down his chest. He tips his head back and lets the water run over his face and his neck and I watch it travel the length of his body until it reaches his cock.
His right hand moves down. He knows I need this. His fingers trail down the center of his stomach, past the V-line at his hip. He wraps his hand around his cock. The harsh breath that comes out of him is audible even over the shower.
He’s not hard yet but he’s getting there.
His hand moves in one long stroke from root to tip and back again and his cock thickens under his palm, lengthening, the head darkening as blood fills him.
His hand tightens slightly around the shaft and he pulls again, his wrist turning at the top in a motion that is devastating to watch.