Chapter 11 #2
Nally didn’t break into a smile like he was sure Jude wanted him to. The comment felt designed to deflect from what was really going on, but it did the exact opposite.
“We need to talk,” he said, standing from the hearth, where a reasonable fire was starting to catch on the logs.
Jude’s face pinched into misery. “Do we have to?” he asked, almost whining.
“Yes,” Nally said, sighing and shoving a hand through his bedhead hair. “We’ve been dancing around this for too long, and it’s starting to get in the way of what really matters.”
“You’re what really matters, Nally,” Jude said quietly, taking a step closer to him. “You’re the only thing that really matters to me, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”
“Neither do I!” Nally said forcefully. It simultaneously felt like they were arguing and like they were avoiding an argument, which left him completely off-balance.
He sighed, lowering his shoulders. “Let’s make some tea and figure out breakfast, then we’ll sit down like the grown men we are and discuss what we can do about—” he gestured between them and the room, “—all this.”
“Fine,” Jude said, starting toward the stove. “But I’m going to insist that there isn’t an ‘all this’ for as long as I possibly can.”
Of all things, that made Nally smile. Anyone who didn’t know Jude wouldn’t see that it was an admission of the truth.
And in a way, it began the conversation before either of them could even gather their feelings into thoughts and their thoughts into words.
Nally knew that Jude loved him. He’d always known.
As they worked together to heat the water enough for tea and a skillet enough for bacon and eggs, the first seeds of confidence that taking their love to the next level might not destroy them after all began to sprout.
“Once again, I would like to commend the women of the past for keeping the rest of us alive under extremely trying circumstances,” Jude commented in his influencer persona as they finished their meal.
He saluted Nally with his tin teacup, took a sip, then winced and made a disgusted sound after swallowing. “We’re rubbish at this.”
“We’re rubbish at a lot of things,” Nally said, grabbing the opportunity before he chickened out. “Admitting how we actually feel about each other, for example.”
Jude’s goofy grin dropped. He lowered his arm and his head for a moment, then peeked up at Nally. “We can’t just ignore it, can we.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, we cannot,” Nally said, resorting to crisp formality to shield his vulnerability. “We’ve both felt things changing between us for a while now.”
Jude nodded, then drew in a breath and straightened, facing the truth like a man. “I can’t deny that,” he said. “Our relationship has been changing for a while. But I’m terrified—”
“—of a Timothy repeat,” Nally finished his sentence. “So am I.”
Jude relaxed by a hair, but that quickly shifted to guilt. He grabbed his plate and got up to take it to the wash basin instead of facing Nally as he said, “That whole thing was a terrible mistake. I ruined everything by hooking up with Timothy.”
“You didn’t ruin everything,” Nally said, twisting in his chair but not getting up to join Jude yet. He needed the slight distance between them to keep his head in order. “Who made the first move anyhow? You or Tim?”
Jude turned back to Nally, his brow lifted. “You don’t know?”
Nally shrugged. “I never thought it was my business to ask.”
“I made the first move,” Jude confessed, lowering his head as he scrubbed his plate in yesterday’s water, then set it aside. “I mean, things had been heating up between us for a few weeks. I felt so guilty about it, too. I knew you would feel left out or slighted.”
Nally kept quiet. He had felt left out. Jude had started spending more time with Timothy than him. He’d barely known what to do with himself if he couldn’t hang out with Jude. It was codependent as fuck, but it was just how things had been.
“I was going through a phase where I was gagging for dick,” Jude went on, turning to lean against the counter.
“I made a joke to Timothy about it, and Tim joked right back that I could always suck his cock if I was that desperate.” He shrugged.
“So I did. And then I ended up bent over the arm of the couch while he nailed my prostate until I came screaming.”
“Is that what that stain was?” Nally asked.
He hadn’t intended it to be funny, but Jude laughed, and immediately, the tension was broken.
“I’m sorry,” he said, striding back to the table and sitting in his vacated chair.
He reached across the table to grab Nally’s hands.
“If I had known that hooking up with Tim would nearly destroy us, I would have looked elsewhere to have my insides rearranged.”
Heat flooded Nally’s face. “I didn’t know what to do without you,” he whispered.
“I know, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.” He paused, then said, “We should have had a threesome.”
It was Nally’s turn to laugh out loud. “That would have been even worse.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jude asked, one eyebrow raised.
No, he absolutely wasn’t sure. But thinking about it only made him stupid hot, which made everything else seem so much more dangerous.
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Jude,” he said, squeezing Jude’s hands.
“I can’t even think back on that time without shitting myself.
We have all these feelings between us now, but I think it would kill me if we tried something and it fell apart like that. ”
“Yes!” Jude shouted, making Nally flinch. “I’ve been thinking the exact same thing for weeks now.”
“You have?”
“Of course I have,” Jude said with a sly grin. “No matter how hard I try, when I’m rubbing one out in the shower these days, it’s you I’m thinking about.”
“Oh my God, me, too,” Nally gusted out. He stiffened and straightened, then said, “So what do we do about it? What the fuck are you supposed to do when you suddenly want to fuck your best friend ever?”
“In all fairness,” Jude said, his grin even more impish, “it’s not suddenly. I think it’s been coming on since we started wanking to porn together.”
Just those words sent a burst of heat through Nally that had his dick pushing against the flannel of his pajama bottoms. “You’re right,” he said, and since they were in full honesty mode, he went on with, “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to use my mouth instead of my hand to get you off.”
“Same,” Jude said, imbuing way too much heat into that one word. “So what do we do now?”
Nally shrugged. “I think there’s only one thing we can do.”
“Which is?”
“We have to fuck.”
Jude flushed. Paradoxically, Nally’s growing erection started to flag. They’d crossed the line with their words, and now it all felt too real. The risk of what he was proposing screamed like the sea birds outside the cabin.
“You’re right,” Jude said, pulling back and sitting stiffly. “That’s the only way to get over this block between us. We have to fuck and then deal with whatever we feel afterwards.”
“Yep.” Nally nodded.
They sat there in silence, barely looking at each other. Nally’s heart pounded against his ribs.
“I guess we should just get on with it,” Jude said, pushing his chair back and standing. “I’ll use the outhouse to clean up first.”
“Good idea,” Nally said, standing as well. “I’ll make sure the bed is ready.” Whatever that meant. “Did you bring any lube or condoms?”
Jude froze halfway to the cabin’s door. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I think so,” he said. “I tend to always be prepared. There should be some of both in the front part of my backpack.”
Nally nodded again. “I’ll make sure everything is ready.”
As Jude continued out of the cabin, Nally walked over to where Jude’s backpack sat on a rustic sofa closer to the fireplace. There was indeed a small bottle of lube and half a strip of condoms in the front part of the backpack. Nally’s hands shook as he took them out and moved them to the bedroom.
He straightened the bed, but there wasn’t much else he could do. His erection was long since gone, as terrified as he was of what might happen once he and Jude passed the point of no return.
“It’ll be fine,” he whispered to himself. “We’re strong. We’re stronger together. This will bring us closer instead of pushing us apart.”
If only he believed it.