Chapter 21 Caleb #2
He sobers for a second, hand on the doorframe. “You did good tonight, Burton,” he says. “We like… need you. Just so you know.”
I look at him, the words taking a second to land. Need you.
“Thanks,” I say, earnest and soft.
He shrugs like it’s nothing. “Text if you puke and die so we know to send a janitor or something,” he adds, then heads down the hall.
I snort, shaking my head, and step into my room.
Lights on. Curtains closed. Two queen beds—one empty, one mine. My weighted blanket is already spread across my bed. My duffel’s at the foot, half-unzipped. The air smells like a standard-issue hotel, with stale AC and generic cleaning products.
I sit on the edge of the bed and the room sways a little. My head feels detached from my body by about three inches.
I fish my phone out of my pocket.
Miguel
You alive or did the streets of Reno eat you?
I grin so hard my cheeks hurt.
Caleb
I’m in my room.
Martin walked me back. Bc he’s rude and thinks I can’t walk on my own.
Miguel
Can you?
Caleb
Debatable. Can I call?
Miguel
FaceTime me.
I wanna see your cute drunk face.
My heart does a stupid flutter-kick and I hit the FaceTime before I can overthink it.
It rings twice, then his face appears, and my grip on the phone loosens.
He’s in bed, hair loose around his face, a gray tank clinging to his shoulders.
The room behind him is dim, with just the lamp on.
His tattoos are shadows on his arms and chest. He looks unfairly good on a tiny screen a couple hundred miles away.
“Hey there, pretty boy,” he drawls, voice low and warm. “Look at you.”
I flop backward onto the bed so I’m staring at the ceiling, holding the phone above my face. “Look at you,” I giggle—actually fucking giggle. “You’re so hot.”
Miguel laughs, that deep rumble that I feel in my chest even through the phone. “You’re cute when you’re drunk,” he says. “Your little California boy accent comes out more.”
“I do not have an accent,” I protest, the words slurring at the edges. “Californians don’t have accents.”
“Okay, keep telling yourself that,” he teases. “How many drinks did you have?”
“Like three,” I say, squinting. “Maybe four. I stopped counting. But no tequila. I listened.”
“Good,” he says, nodding. His eyes scan my face like he can check my BAC through the screen. “You eat?”
“Fries,” I say. “And some nachos. I think. There was cheese. And chips. It was glorious.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. “I’m trusting you on that.”
I roll onto my side, propping the phone up against my pillow so I don’t drop it on my face. His image settles in front of me, a little pixelated, but still him.
“I missed you,” I say suddenly. The words tumble out unfiltered. “All day. During warm-up. During the game, I kept thinking, ‘Miggy would tell me to breathe right now.’”
His expression softens, eyes going soft around the edges. “Yeah?” he murmurs. “You breathe?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Better when I remember you were probably watching.”
“I was,” he says. “Watching you kill it on the court, baby.”
We talk for a few minutes about the game. He recites plays back to me like he was courtside, not hunched over a laptop in our living room. He tells me the commentators called me “a rising star in UCSC’s lineup” and that he yelled at them when they criticized my first-half shooting.
His voice is a lullaby and an anchor at the same time. The alcohol makes my head swim in a nice, loose way.
“You know what I really wish?” I blurt out.
Miguel’s mouth kicks up. “What’s that?”
“That you were here,” I say. “In this stupid hotel.” I glance around at the beige walls and generic art. “So we could fuck.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?” he says, amusement and heat threading through his voice. “Is that so, pretty boy?”
My face goes hot, but I don’t look away. “Yeah,” I say, licking my lips, feeling my dick twitch. “I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”
His eyes darken in a way I know too well.
“Go on then,” he says, voice dropping, slow and deliberate. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
Oh, phone sex. Haven’t done this since before Christmas break.
“I keep thinking about you in this stupid room. About you pushing me down on this bed and—” I break off on a laugh, covering my face with my free hand. “God, I sound ridiculous.”
“Hey.” His voice softens, but the heat doesn’t go anywhere. “You sound perfect. Tell me more.”
I swallow, staring up at the beige ceiling. “You,” I admit. “You walking in here like you own the place. Locking the door. Putting your hands on me.” My voice drops without me meaning it to. “Touching me.”
On the screen, his jaw flexes. “Yeah?” he murmurs. “You touching yourself right now, hermoso?”
My fingers curl in the sheets. I’m already hard as a rock. His voice. That heavy-lidded, hungry look. “Not yet,” I say, and my pulse stutters because we both hear the “yet” hanging there.
He shifts, propping his phone against something so I can see more of him—chest rising and falling, hand dragging over his face. “Do it,” he says quietly. “Touch yourself for me. I want you to pretend I am there. Tell me where you’d put my hands. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Only if you do it with me.”
Miguel’s lip quirks into a smirk. “Like I’d let you have all the fun. You wanna see it, baby? You miss your cock?” He picks up the phone and turns the camera around and his mouthwatering cock fills the screen. Hard, thick and having me wish it was inside me right now.
My other hand finally moves, sliding under the waistband of my shorts. Even that tiny act feels huge.
“Miggy…”
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Close your eyes if you need to. Just listen to me, okay? Breathe with me. In and out. And tell me what feels good.”
My hand wraps around my dick, and I can’t stop the shaky gasp that escapes me. It feels so much better with him watching, talking me through it.
“Look at you,” Miguel murmurs, his own hand moving slowly, teasingly, over his shaft on the screen. “So fucking pretty when you’re desperate for it. You’re already leaking, aren’t you, baby?”
Wetness slicks my palm as I stroke myself, falling into his lazy rhythm. “Yeah,” I breathe out. “God, Miggy, I want you to fuck me so bad.”
“Yeah? You want this dick splitting you open on that cheap hotel bed?” He says it, and my toes curl. “I’d bend you over the edge of it, pull your hips back, spit on that tight little hole of yours and just shove my way in. And you’d just take it.”
My hand speeds up, my grip tightening. “Please,” I whimper. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not teasing,” he growls. The camera shakes as he adjusts it, angling it down so I can see his heavy balls and the way his fist works his cock from base to tip.
“I’d fuck you so hard the headboard would beat against the wall.
I’d make you scream my name so loud that everyone on the team hears who you belong to. ”
The image in my head is so vivid it’s almost real. The phantom burn of him stretching me. His weight pinning me down. I pull my underwear down further, kicking them off so I’m completely exposed to him.
“Fuck, look at that,” he groans. “Spread your legs wider. Let me see that tight hole.”
I do, taking a pillow and propping the phone up and hooking one knee up to give him the view he wants. My free hand drifts down, fingers tracing behind my balls before circling my entrance.
“Yeah, right there,” he directs, his own strokes getting faster and more erratic. “Push one in for me. Pretend it’s my finger getting you ready.”
I moan as I sink a precum-slicked finger inside me. It’s not enough, it’s nowhere near as good as him doing it.
“Another one,” he commands. “Stretch yourself open for me. I wanna see how greedy you are for my cock.”
I add a second finger, scissoring them, and my back arches off the bed. “Miguel… I’m close.” My eyes roll. “Fuck,” I whimper.
“Not yet,” he barks. “You don’t come until I say so. You see how hard I am for you? This is what you do to me. I’m gonna paint your tight ass with my cum and mark you up so you smell like me. Make sure not a single person touches what’s mine.”
My hand is a blur on my dick, my fingers pumping into my ass.
“Please,” I beg, my voice cracking. “Please, let me come. I need it.”
“Come on then, pretty boy,” he groans, and the sound of his own release is a wet, frantic slap of skin on skin. “Come for me. Let me see you make a mess all over those perfect abs of yours.”
My whole body locks up, a ragged cry tearing from my throat as I spill all over my stomach and chest. Wave after wave hits, sharp enough to blur everything else.
I lie there panting and boneless. On the screen, Miguel is slumped back, his chest gleaming with sweat and cum, his softening cock resting on his thigh. He brings the phone back to his face, and his eyes are soft, sated.
“Fuck,” he says, a lazy, satisfied smile spreading across his face. “You look good enough to eat.”
I laugh, a breathless, happy sound. “Next time, you need to be here to just fuck me.”
He winks. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
With the phone propped up on the nightstand now angled so I can see him. Miguel looks wrecked in the best way—hair raked back, eyes soft and heavy-lidded. “You still with me, baby?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. My limbs feel like they’ve been replaced with warm sand. “Still here.”
“Good,” he murmurs. “Proud of you.”
I roll my eyes weakly. “You’re proud of me for jerking off, that’s a low bar, Miggy.”
“I’m proud of you for letting me be here with you,” he corrects. “That’s different.”
My throat tightens. “I love you,” I say, because it’s easier to say when my defenses are this low. When the world feels soft and muzzy instead of sharp.
He smiles, small and real. “I love you too. Now go shower before that dries and you stick to the sheets like a horror movie.”
I groan and drag myself upright. “You’re so romantic.”
“You knew what this was,” he says, smirking. “That quick nut to relax you enough to fall asleep.”
“Call me when you wake up tomorrow. Or text. I don’t care. Just… check in, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. “Wait… don’t hang up.”
“Okay, I won’t,” he promises.
I take the phone with me to the bathroom and set it on the bathroom counter while the shower heats, propping him against the mirror so I can see him as I step under the spray.
We talk nonsense while I rinse off—about how ugly the hotel curtains are and about how he’s definitely coming to the next away game even if he has to bribe his crew to cover him.
By the time I’m clean and dried off, my buzz has mellowed into a warm hum instead of a spin. I pull on a pair of soft shorts and then reach for the hoodie draped over the chair.
Miguel’s.
I bury my face in the inside of it for a second before I pull it on. It smells faintly like his cologne and home.
Weighted blanket next. I flip it back, crawl under, and let it fall over me like a shield. The pressure settles over my shoulders and chest, grounding me in a way even the alcohol couldn’t.
I grab the phone and Miguel’s still there, watching me, eyes half-lidded but awake.
“Comfy?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, voice already thick with sleep. “I’m… good.”
“You did amazing today,” he says softly. “On the court. With the team. I’m proud of you, Caleb.”
I blink slowly. The ceiling blurs around the edges.
“Stay?” I mumble.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Screen might go dark if you fall asleep, but I’ll be here.”
My hand curls around the phone like it’s his, like if I just squeeze hard enough, he’ll materialize in this ugly hotel room.
“Night, Miggy,” I whisper.
“Goodnight, baby,” he whispers.
The last thing I feel before sleep drags me under is the weight of the blanket, the warmth of his hoodie, and his voice in my ear.
The darkness doesn’t feel like a threat tonight.
Tonight it just feels like rest.