Chapter 12 #2
Trey came almost immediately, and Dom drank down his load, licking Trey’s length until its very gasping owner pushed him away. Dom collapsed onto his side in the narrow space, and Trey flopped down next to him, red-faced and grinning.
“That was,” Trey said.
Dom smiled. “Yeah. That was. Hi.”
“Hi yourself. I meant what I said. About how you looked onstage.”
“I haven’t been that happy performing in a long time.” Dom soaked in the memories of peace and excitement and rightness of those precious sixteen minutes. “And we were good.”
Trey snort-laughed. “Yeah, you were. You guys put together a fantastic set.”
“Thanks. All of your songs were amazing, too, by the way. I am in awe of your songwriting talent. Seriously.”
“Well, I’m in awe of your violin skills, so we’re even.”
“Maybe one day I’ll play my violin in front of a crowd like that again.”
Trey’s gaze flickered to various points on his face. Dom could practically hear the internal debate going on—ask about that, don’t ask about that? Trey finally sat up without addressing it and tucked himself away. Dom stood and did the same, then started to explore.
“I’ve never been in a fancy camper like this,” he said. “Whose is it again?”
“Family friend of Andy’s.” Trey leaned his hip against the stove and watched him.
Dom poked into the bathroom. “You are so fucking lucky you have a shower. We have to walk a ways to the public bathrooms.”
“You can use ours while you’re here.”
“Yeah?”
Trey waggled his eyebrows. “It’s big enough to share.”
“Done.”
They spent more time teasing and touching each other than getting clean, but it was worth it.
Dom explored Trey’s body with his eyes and his hands, rubbing the hard planes of his pecs, and tracing the dips and valleys of his abs.
Trey gave as good as he got, too, spending quite a lot of time groping Dom’s ass, and that didn’t bother Dom like he expected it to.
He trusted Trey.
Dom paid attention while they were drying off, enjoying the view every time Trey bent over to wipe first one leg, then the other.
He considered dropping a nice smack onto one of those pale cheeks, until Trey straightened and turned.
Small, pale lines on his inner thigh stood out in the fluorescent light—scars.
His stomach soured. His big sister Taisha had scars like that on her left thigh from a bout of depression in middle school, the same year that the Boundses adopted her.
Their parents had discovered the cutting after finding bloody shorts in the hamper and gotten her help.
As she got older, she always wore a long cover up at the beach, but sometimes Dom spotted the scars.
Scars just like Trey’s.
Dom got dressed and followed Trey into the main room. To the back of the camper, where a huge mattress lay covered in a tangle of blankets.
“Don’t get any big ideas,” Trey said as he climbed up. “We’ve only got about forty minutes left.”
“I don’t need that long.” Dom soaked in Trey’s lusty look. “But I didn’t bring anything.”
“That’s okay, Dani promised to dump ice water in my shorts if we had sex in this bed.”
“I take it Danielle sleeps here?”
“Yeah, we share. Bobby and Andy are in the bunks.”
Dom stretched out on his back, head on a pillow. Trey curled up next to him, half draped over Dom’s slightly taller body, head on Dom’s shoulder. The embrace felt good. Really good. Trey traced his fingers over Dom’s tattoo.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Dom asked.
“Sure.”
“Why do you have those scars on your thigh?”
Trey tensed but didn’t pull away. “Put them there with a razor blade in tenth grade.”
Dom’s stomach churned. “From the bullying?”
He nodded against Dom’s shoulder. “I started not long after my father destroyed a song I really liked and thought had potential. Not even sure why but I pried apart one of his disposable razors and took one of the blades out. It was really thin and bendy, and the cuts burned in a way that made me feel . . . I’m not sure. ‘Alive’ isn’t right.”
“They helped you feel something.”
“Yeah. I did it more often after my music was found in my locker, and after a while it got harder to hide them during gym. This kid named Charlie, who was trying to get with Allison, told her about them and she confronted me. It was when we came up with the plan for me to write and keep music at her house.”
Trey’s fingers twitched. “Sometimes when I get super stressed I think about it again. Cutting. But it’s the wrong way to feel something.”
“I like this way better.”
“Me too. A lot.”
They existed in an easy silence for a while, Dom’s question asked and answered. It made him respect Allison even more, for standing by Trey’s side when he didn’t have anyone else, and it saddened him that he’d never be able to thank her.
“The waiting is the hardest part,” Trey said. “Two more days until we know.”
“Cosign.” Dom combed his fingers through Trey’s damp hair. Trey pressed into the touch like a cat being petted. “I hope we can steal more time together. I like being around you.”
“Me too. So you got the cutting story. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”
“Like what?” Dom hated being put on the spot. He did better with direct questions.
“Um, favorite vacation spot as a kid. You said you went all over.”
Dom hummed as he considered the question.
“Probably the first summer vacation after my parents adopted Starr and it was five kids and two adults. We used my dad’s brother’s time-share in North Carolina, way down in the mountains.
Stayed in this awesome condo, and we had access to mini golf, this amazing lake where you could swim or fish, hiking trails, even coupons for a white-water rafting trip.
It was amazing spending all of that time outdoors with my family. ”
“I’m jealous. I’ve never been white-water rafting.”
“It’s the best. I’m so taking you.”
Trey sat up, bracing his head on his palm, elbow on the bed. “Yeah?”
“You’d have to be in a car for a few hours.”
He chewed on his lower lip. “Will you think less of me if I admit I have Xanax on hand in case I need to take long car rides? I took one just to get here yesterday, and that was only an hour’s drive.”
“I don’t think less of you.” Dom stroked the back of Trey’s neck, unable to stop touching his man. “It’s pretty brave to admit you can’t handle something and that you need help.”
“I feel like a loser sometimes, but at least my friends don’t pick on me anymore.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About how my friends don’t pick on me anymore?”
Dom squeezed the back of his neck. “Dork. No, I meant why you hate the car.”
Those pretty green eyes shuttered, and Trey sat up. Dom didn’t reach for him, uncertain what was happening. He braced for a big fat “hell no.”
“I told you my dad used to destroy my music,” Trey said instead.
“So I started writing at school and hiding it in my locker, except I was kind of bullied a lot. Mostly because I was dirt poor and my sisters all got pregnant in high school, so I was white trash to them. One day a bully broke into my locker and trashed all my music. Called it fag poetry. I hated that asshole.”
Trey’s face was a study of misery, but a determination also rested there.
The strength of a guy who’d been beaten down and had gotten right back up.
“After that I kept my music at my best friend Allison’s house.
Me and Allison were super tight, had been since seventh grade.
She didn’t care that I was poor, or that I was a shitty student who probably smoked too much weed.
And she was the first person I came out to, at the start of eleventh-grade.
She was great, always so super chill about everything. She did so much for me.”
When Trey went silent for close to a full minute, Dom asked, “What happened to her?”
He swallowed hard, eyes shiny. “Two weeks before senior-year graduation, her mom took us both out shopping. Allison wanted a new dress to wear under her robe, and she wanted her gay BFF along for an opinion. As if I had any actual fashion sense at seventeen, considering my clothes budget was whatever I could find at the nearest thrift shop for under five bucks.”
Dom sat up and grabbed Trey’s hands. He didn’t like the misery and anger in Trey’s voice. Memories of poverty and what Dom was guessing to be a very painful loss.
“Some asshole fell asleep at the wheel and drove head-on into our car,” Trey said.
“Allison and her mom were killed instantly. I was conscious for part of the time I was stuck in the car, before help arrived. All I remember is being really cold, and staring at Allison’s severed hand, covered in blood.
I knew it was hers because of the chunky flower ring.
” He coughed hard. “That was the last time I saw her. Funeral was closed casket.”
“Goddamn.” Dom kind of wanted to cry for Trey’s pain. The agony of surviving an accident like that while his best friend and champion died in a horrific way. Instead Dom held tight while Trey battled his grief.
“I was so depressed for months I could barely get out of bed some days,” Trey continued, his voice stretched thin. But he maintained eye contact with Dom. “Once I turned eighteen, I got the Gerbera daisy tattoo in her honor. Her favorite flower.”
Dom glanced at the ink in question, grateful to know the meaning behind it. “Do you think Allison would approve of the tat?”
“I know she would. She always talked about getting a tattoo when she was eighteen, because no way would her parents consent.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, babe.”
Trey sighed. “It explains my idiotic fear of cars, though, right?”
“It’s not idiotic. No one can blame you for being afraid after going through that.” Dom could not imagine the pain of losing Lincoln in such a way, or the last time he saw his best friend being as a bloody hand. His heart ached at the very thought of Lincoln being torn out of his life.
“I’ve never even told Dani about Allison.”