CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Mike
Istared out of my window in wonderment. The street where I lived looked exactly the same.
Literally everything was as I remembered.
The decorations, the smells, the posters on my childhood bedroom walls, Mom’s incense wafting up the staircase filled my brain with nostalgia and longing.
I’d wondered whether Cooper would look or be the same.
He was still seventeen. Apparently, I was too.
On the outside. But I had a secret. I was twenty-seven on the inside.
Walking into the bathroom I leaned closer to the mirror above the sink. “Holy shit,” I whispered, touching the skin around my eyes. “You’re actually seventeen again.” I widened and then relaxed my eyes again. Not a single crow’s foot. I looked amazing.
Mom hadn’t mentioned the possibility that I could land in another dimension and remember where I was from.
Was I supposed to remember everything? But then again, I’d never read a firsthand account from anyone who had actually achieved interdimensional time travel, but if they existed I’m quite sure it’d involve more than drinking some marigold juice.
Who exactly was my mother and where’d she get this gift?
Who was Druzella for that matter? How on earth had those two loon-boon spirit heads come up with this trick?
Now that same mystical creature was downstairs acting like nothing out of the normal was happening.
She didn’t know. Should I tell her? If I did, would she believe me?
Knowing the old Mom and now this Mom, she probably would.
I blinked my eyes over and over again. This shit could not be real, but every time I opened them, the seventeen-year-old me was staring back from the mirror.
I questioned how the necklace with Mom’s ring traveled with me.
When I was downstairs eating breakfast I casually checked the kitchen for any evidence that adult Mike had been there.
There was no wallet, car keys, or cell phone of his anywhere in the kitchen.The kitchen was similar to the one I’d been in a day ago except that the French doors weren’t in yet.
Mom had those installed two years ago in the future after wanting to invite her garden into her kitchen.
Mom looked amazing, especially compared to the last few months of her life.
I wondered if the cancer was growing in her yet.
I had wild thoughts like wishing I could have returned to an even earlier date and talked Dad out of going to work that day.
My mind was in overdrive as I considered the consequences of being here.
What could I affect? What should I change?
Suddenly the bathroom door burst open and Cooper stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. “Okay, mister. What the heck was all that about?” he asked, moving to my side while I returned his gaze in the mirror.
“What was what about?” I delayed, knowing full well what he meant.
“Nice sage, Mom. Wasn’t that Dad’s favorite, Mom. You look pretty, Mom,” he mimicked.
“Well, she did.”
“I know that, Mikey, but clue me in next time we’re going on an all-out schmoozefest. I want some credit too,” he said.
“Now tell me, what are we after?” He ran his hand across the back of my neck, smoothing down some fly-away hair along my neck line.
“Let me trim your hetero hair,” he stated, opening the top drawer for the hair trimmers.
“You still call it hetero hair?” I asked, forgetting that I needed to try and act like everything he said was normal.
“Of course I do, silly. Only straight guys like you allow bushy hair to grow along their necks. It’s gross and you know I hate it.”
Cooper rubbed against me, holding my hip while he buzzed along my neckline.
He blew the falling hair, then swiped across my back.
His touch sent fire ripping through my body.
I’d forgotten what his touch felt like from all those years ago.
Years which had evaporated, but now I was reenacting, reliving, re-something-ing again.
“Do I need a haircut?” I asked, hoping to prolong the feeling of his touch. He spun me around gently and moved the bangs of my long hair to the side. After mussing the top, he smiled.
“Nope. You look great, Mikey,” he replied before tossing his tank top to the corner and tugging his sweat pants down.
He had a pair of tight Calvin Klein’s on.
The waistband rested just below his sharp obliques and small waist. I had an urge to drop to my knees and suck his cock, but how would I explain the change of heart?
Even though that was what I desperately wanted, I was still as inexperienced as he was.
I hadn’t had sex with a male. “Let’s shower,” he announced.
“And then I need you to take me to the mall in your mom’s car,” he said, stepping back.
Cooper pulled his briefs off and headed for the shower, his round and adorable butt cheeks moving slightly when his lean legs stepped away.
I swallowed hard. Seeing him again after all these years with the fresh eyes of a man who’d discovered far too late how much he loved and desired him was overwhelming.
His naked body was stunning to look at. He was beautiful and perfect in every way. Why had I been so blind before?
“I’ll wait,” I croaked, looking away when he stopped short and turned around, his cock on full display. “Go ahead,” I urged, keeping my eyes diverted while gesturing for him to get in without me.
“Wait for what?” he asked, turning away from me and adjusting the shower’s spray and temperature. “I’ll warm it up first. Gimme my toothbrush.”
“No, go ahead. I’ll wait till you’re done,” I said, fumbling to locate his toothbrush.
“I don’t think so, mister man,” he stated, stepping closer to me with his front fully displayed again.
My heart skipped a beat as my throat dropped to my stomach.
His cock was gorgeous with a light dusting of blond pubic hair above it.
The rest of his entire body was as smooth as silk.
“Come here,” he said, reaching for my gym shorts and holding my hips while looking up slightly as if he was waiting for me to move my hands out of the way.
I moved my hands so he pulled my shorts and boxers off in one swift movement as he kneeled, then tapping each ankle to get me to step out of them.
His head was looking down at my feet but was only inches from my cock.
My breath hitched as I fantasized about grabbing the sides of his head and forcing him to suck me off.
He used my arm to pull himself up. He was standing mere inches from me.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
He wrinkled his nose and his eyes scanned my face carefully. “What is going on?” he asked softly. “Are you hiding something?”
Tell him you love him. Tell him you always have. Beg him to be yours forever and ever. Kiss him you fool. “I guess I’m just tired, Coop.”
Cooper wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me closer. “I’m always here for you, Mikey. No one loves you like I do. No one,” he repeated.
I buried my face in his neck and inhaled his nostalgic smell. A scent that had occupied my deepest memories for years. The smell, him, his touch, everything was exactly the same.
The only difference was that now I knew I was in love with him. I had a ten-year head start on my maturing love for him. I had a decade of rehearsing what I would say, what I would do if ever given the chance to see him again. But here I was, wordless.