Chapter 5 #2
“Good, because this is the important room.” He shoves me through the door of his bedroom and shuts the door behind us.
It’s not a particularly large room, but it has muted olive walls and a king-sized bed with a soft comforter printed all over with broad green leaves.
Cole is eyeing me hungrily, shrugging out of his pink button-down shirt and then stripping his white tank top over his head, leaving him in nothing but his low-slung jeans.
The bedside lamp is casting a soft glow over his willowy contours, the breadth of his shoulders and the hollow of his belly, and I’m pretty sure I’m already dead.
“You’re so goddamn pretty, Jesus fucking Christ —”
I’m walking towards him, grabbing him by the belt loops and dragging him forward so that I can kiss him roughly. His hands are scrabbling down the front of my chest, undoing my buttons one by one, and I let him push my shirt to the floor. But when he grabs the bottom hem of my undershirt, I balk.
“Is it okay if I leave it on — I mean, I don’t look like you —”
Cole studies my face, and for a moment his eyes flicker — whether it’s hurt or disappointment or sadness is hard to tell. But then he nods curtly, and pushes me back toward the bed until I’m collapsing onto the covers, pulling him down with me.
We’re both fumbling, trading kisses as we wriggle out of our jeans and underwear, and soon I have him spread out bare beneath me, his hair fanning across the pillow, my hand cupping his jaw as I kiss him.
And I can almost make myself believe that no time has passed, that we’re back in my bedroom at home, that everything is fine, that we still have our road in front of us, unblemished and free. But then —
“How do you want me?” I brush my thumb along Cole’s cheek and he freezes, his eyes blue saucers.
“Um —” He rolls away from me, pushing himself up on his knees and grasping the headboard.
“Are you sure?” I smooth my hand down his spine. God, he still has all those moles down his back. I think back to all those afternoons I spent tracing them, imagining they were constellations, that Cole belonged in the stars. “Back then, you didn’t like it this way.”
“I do now.” Cole’s voice wavers a little, but when he looks over his shoulder at me, he puts on a smile. “If we’re gonna do this, it has to be no strings — no feelings — please, Ezra —”
“Okay.” I straighten up, moving to kneel behind him. “Uh, do you have —”
“In the bedside table.”
I reach across the bed, finding the bottle of lube and a condom.
It feels wrong, not kissing him as I slick two fingers, dipping into his cleft to find the furled muscle there, to help him relax.
But I’m grateful when he leans back against my chest, riding my fingers with his eyes shut, tilting his head to offer the column of his throat to my mouth.
And I think I could stay here, watching the flush heating his cheeks, his eyelashes fluttering as he licks his lips.
I could reach around to finish him off and not even worry about myself, and somehow it would be an evening well spent.
But then he opens his eyes, hazily focusing on my face as his head lolls against my shoulder.
“You know I’m not a virgin,” he slurs.
“Are you trying to tell me I’m going too slow?” I drag two fingertips down the midline of his torso, and he shivers as I brush over his cock.
“No, I’m just saying that I remember how good your cock feels, and I want that.” He pulls away from me, splaying his hands out on the mattress in front of him, showing off the sway of his spine, and peeks over his shoulder at me with one eyebrow raised. “I know you want it too.”
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
And then I’m budging up behind him, grasping his hips as I find my way in, pushing past his resistance, giving him time to adjust, to breathe.
When I bottom out, we both sigh, leaning into each other.
And then I’m setting a pace, not too fast, trying to keep myself under control, not to spill too early as I feel him clenching around me.
He’s a vision, even if I can’t see his face, his shoulders flexing as he braces himself, spine bending as he rolls back to meet me, to take me deeper inside him.
I know that I must be a disappointment in a lot of ways — that Cole must see that the years have only made me more brittle, less open to change, that I’m chafing inside this skin that has never fit.
But this — keeping my hips moving, listening to every little intake of breath to know when I’m hitting him exactly where he needs me, giving him what he wants in this moment, right now — this I can do, even if I fuck everything else up.
And so I tamp down the heat roiling in my belly, burning in my thighs, the urge to let go — and I fill my mind with him.
He’s whimpering, percussive little cries with each thrust, going down on one elbow as he reaches to wrap his hand around his cock, to finish himself off. And I can feel us both teetering on the edge, my jaw aching as I clench my teeth, as I give him everything I have, as I push him over —
“Ezra — fuck — I’m so —”
It’s not until I feel him convulsing, until his walls are clenching around me, that I dare to let myself go, to spill deep with a groan that shakes my very foundations.
And then I’m draping myself over his back, peppering kisses between his shoulder blades, both of us sinking onto the mattress, drunk on pure sensation as we drift.
I think I hear a deep sniff, and I gather Cole’s hair from the nape of his neck. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Cole sounds like he’s under water, but I’m not going to make him tell me anything unless he wants to. He rolls onto his side, facing away from me as he curls up into a ball, and I curve myself around him as well as I can, draping my arm across his waist.
I’m not sure how long we lie there, but the longer the silence stretches out, the more I can feel the air change in the room, all that snap and crackle that brought us here turning to dust. I’m feeling out of place again, sitting alone at the bottom of a well while my arms and legs bumble around of their own volition.
So I pull away, rolling onto my back as I prepare to stand up and gather my things.
Cole reaches for my arm in a flash, his fingers descending vice-like around my wrist. “Where the fuck are you going?”
I shrug apologetically. “Um, the Q isn’t running on weekends right now? So if I don’t go, I’ll never get back to Brooklyn.”
“Nope — you are not fucking doing this again.” He rolls on top of me, throwing one leg over my hips, sitting up as he pins me to the bed. “You’re not going anywhere until we figure out what the fuck we’re doing here.”
Even though my cock is completely spent, it twitches hopefully as Cole settles over me. “Hey, it’s not fair to ask me to negotiate while you’re sitting up there looking like that.”
Cole grabs both of my wrists, pinning them on either side of my head as he leans down, ghosting his breath over my face. “No, babe — not fair was waiting until after I finished blowing you to tell me that I mean nothing to you.”
God, the accusation in his eyes. “I’m really sorry about that,” I blurt, not thinking about the words. “It was just — seeing you again, out of nowhere. And my family — I wasn’t — I freaked out,” I finish lamely.
“And what do you think now?”
His tone isn’t unkind, but my brain is a jumble, tectonic plates shifting under my feet.
I’m not — I’m not good enough, we’re too different, Cole is — Cole, and I don’t belong in his world, not the way I am.
And there’s too much hurt, knot after knot that we’ll never be able to unpick, and I just can’t —
“I —” I don’t even know where to begin.
Cole softens, the fight going out of him as he rolls to the side, pulling me with him until we’re sharing a pillow, one of his long legs thrown over my thigh.
He takes my hand, twining our fingers together and kissing my knuckles before folding my hand against his chest. “Can I tell you what I think?”
“Okay.” I shift a little closer, our foreheads nearly touching.
“I think this is a fucking mess. You didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t ask for it, and all the shit — I dunno, I’m not ready to touch it either.
I can’t do this if it’s going to be about rehashing the past. We’re never gonna be what we were.
But now we’re thrown together, and there’s this wedding, and — fuck, I can sit here and promise you that I’m gonna leave you alone, but I just know in my bones that the next time I see you in a suit and tie I’m just gonna shove you in a broom closet and blow you again. Know what I mean?”
The giggle that slips out of me is profoundly unlike me. “Yeah.”
“And — I dunno. I’m not seeing anybody right now. I’ve never really been a relationship guy, at least not since —” He pauses and looks away quickly, swallowing hard. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is — if you want to keep this up, no strings, I don’t think we’d be hurting anybody.”
I’m pretty sure that’s debatable, but I don’t say that, because I’m not exactly thinking with my big head. Instead, I clear my throat. “I’m — I’m not either. Not into relationships, I mean. Because I’m — me. But were you thinking — just when we see each other for wedding stuff?”
“Fuck, no — I was thinking I might follow you out to Brooklyn and ride your cock again tomorrow. Or, you know — whenever you’re free. Just for sex, though.”
My stomach flips over, sending shivers all through me. I can already picture myself rolling him onto his back, pressing him into the mattress and slipping inside him once more. But all I can do is squeeze his hand.
“Um — okay. I’m in. But if sex is all we’re doing — I mean, maybe it should just be between us? It feels complicated telling people if we’re not trying to be — you know.”
There is a little frown line between Cole’s brows. “If that’s what you want, I guess that works. But — why doesn’t your family know you’re queer? Would they be cool about it?”
“It’s just private, I dunno. I’ve never — introduced them to anybody. Not a woman, not a guy, nobody. It’s not you, it’s just — how I am. I don’t really have that kind of relationship with them.”
Cole studies me carefully, and he must see whatever he wants to see, because he seems to relax. He leans forward, kissing me on the forehead. “Okay, that’s good enough for me. I’ll call you the next time I need somebody to nut in me with no strings attached.”
It doesn’t take me long to gather my things and get dressed.
Cole, meanwhile, slips into a clean pair of briefs and a dramatic silk robe with bell sleeves that sweeps all the way to the floor.
Of course he has something like that, probably custom-made for him.
The silk is a shimmering emerald green that makes his eyes glow, and it swishes softly as he walks me to the door.
“Until next time, hmm?” He leans down, tipping my chin up to give me a kiss that’s full of promise.
“Mm, yeah. Night, Cole.”
The spring evening has cooled considerably, and I’m grateful for the gentle breeze on my face as I walk to the subway, grounding me back in reality.
The scent of Cole’s cologne is still clinging to my shirt, and I can taste him on my tongue, but the sidewalk is firm under my feet and I can hear the ever-present honk of taxi horns, the rumble of the subway deep below the street.
The world is moving on, and I have my place in it, even if just the thought of Cole sends vibrations through the very axis of my being.
I just wish it was still simple, like it was when we were kids. I mean, I guess I didn’t think so then, but compared to this —
Not for the first time, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t fucked it all up.
But I guess all I can do is keep my feet on the path in front of me.