Chapter Nine #2
“I think—” Dad’s voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “I think we just need some time to get used to it.”
Quietly, I said, “You’ve had four years, Dad.”
He hung his head, and Mom kept crying. I couldn’t be there anymore. I backed up and jammed my finger against the button for the garage door. It lurched up with a mechanical jolt. “I’m going to Charlie’s. I’ll talk to you later.”
Salt crunched under my boots as I ran down the block. Christmas lights shone from the houses I passed, blurs of color as I tried to stop crying. On the Yates’ driveway, I stood behind their SUV and breathed in and out for a few minutes. I was a snotty mess, and I needed to get in control before—
“Gavin?” Charlie’s voice rang out in the night. “Is that you?”
He’d shoved his feet into boots, and was only wearing a sweater and jeans as he came down the walkway to the front door, squinting. I wiped my face and attempted a smile, which was clearly unsuccessful given the way Charlie’s eyes widened as he rushed forward to wrap his arms around me.
“What happened? Gav?” I could only stand there sobbing, and he rubbed my back. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m here.”
And he was. God, Charlie was there, and warmth flowed through me, soothing all the jagged edges. “Thank you.”
He shushed me some more, and even though I was bigger than him, I felt so safe in his arms. It was below freezing, but he held me there on his driveway for what seemed like hours, until I was able to stand up straight and form complete sentences. I told him what happened, and he gripped my hands.
“They’ll come around,” he insisted. “I know they will.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I want to think so, but…”
“I do know it, because you’re too good for them not to.
They’re going to process, and work out their shit, and in the end, it’ll be okay.
It will. They’re not bad people. I’m not saying I don’t want to march over there and scream at them, because I do.
Like, a lot. For an hour at least. But they’re not bad.
They love you. It’ll be okay. They won’t be able to handle losing you. Trust me.”
I sniffed a few times, swallowing some snot. “I don’t deserve you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Get off the cross. Someone needs the wood.”
The laughter that ripped out of me was so unexpected and wonderful. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”
“It’s not like I haven’t made my fair share of dick moves in my lifetime. You’re not perfect. I’m sure as hell not. No one is.”
“God, I love you.” The words flowed out so naturally that I didn’t even realize I’d said them until Charlie’s jaw dropped.
“I mean…” Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath.
“Actually, that’s exactly what I mean. I love you, Charlie.
All these years, I watched you from a distance, and I loved you.
And I was a coward. You were hurting and scared and dealing with a nightmare, and I didn’t even have the guts to be your friend.
I know it’s only been—what, barely two weeks since we’ve even spoken again, and I don’t expect—”
He pressed his cold finger over my lips.
“I love you too. Even when I told myself I hated you, I still loved you. It was always you, Gavin.” With trembling hands, he held my face and pressed kisses to my forehead, chin, both cheeks, and the tip of my nose, his lips a whisper against my skin. “Always will be.”
I was going to cry again, so I kissed him instead and let go of the past, taking hold of joy with both hands.
Charlie
It wasn’t quite midnight when I edged open the door to the guest room, scratching the wood softly with my blunt nails. As I suspected, Gavin was wide awake. I tiptoed to the bed and pressed a kiss to his lips.
“Charlie, I’m not really…is it okay if we don’t…” He motioned his hand between us.
I brushed back his thick hair. “This isn’t a booty call. Just wanted to check up on you.”
“Oh.” With a sweet smile dawning on his face, he lifted the duvet. I slipped in, cuddling up close with our feet tangled. On our sides facing each other, I could make out his expression in the glow from the digital clock. Reaching up, I traced my finger along his eyebrows.
“I know it’s hard,” I murmured. “They really will come around.”
“It wasn’t hard for you.”
“Not really. They said all the right stuff. Supported me and made sure I knew it. It still felt like things had changed, though. Like they were looking at me with new eyes.”
“In what way?”
I slid my hands up under his tee so I could play with his chest hair.
I’d meant it when I said this wasn’t a booty call, but I wanted to touch him all the time now that I could.
“Like, we’d be watching a ball game after being at the hospital all day, and I’d say something about a player.
You know—‘Ramirez has a hell of an arm’ or whatever.
And they’d look at me, and then look at the TV like they were wondering if I wanted to bone the guy. It was just awkward at first.”
“But not anymore.”
“Nope. With Ava being sick, they really didn’t have time to think about me.”
His brow creasing, Gavin rubbed his hand over my hip. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I shouldn’t—I’m making it sound like I was hard done by. Of course they still thought about me. Still loved me. They always made sure I knew that. But in a weird way, it took the pressure off. If I wanted to fuck a baseball player, they were like, ‘Sure, great, whatever.’”
“I see what you mean.” He rested his hand on my hip, sneaking under my pajama bottoms to rub circles with his thumb.
“I met Tim and they were totally cool with it. I was definitely lucky in that regard.”
Gavin’s lip curled, his hand stilling. “Right. Tim.”
As it hit me, I tried to choke down the burst of laughter. “Dude, are you jealous?”
He seemed about to deny it, but then shrugged. “Totally. I saw him pick you up from school once, and I wanted to puke.”
“Now you know how I felt seeing you with Candace every damn day.”
Suddenly, there was a weird tension in the air, both of us still touching each other but not moving.
“That must have sucked so much,” he whispered.
“Yeah. But it’s over now.” I splayed my hands on his chest, rubbing his nipples with my thumbs.
Gavin rubbed our noses together. “I love touching you.” His hand dipped over my ass cheek, his fingers teasing my crease.
“I love you touching me too.” I kissed his smile away, exploring his mouth, my hands roaming down over his belly to tease the trail of hair leading to his groin.
“I thought this wasn’t a booty call,” he murmured against my lips.
With—if I do say so myself—an impressive amount of intestinal fortitude, I pulled back. His hand stilled on my ass. “It’s not. We can just talk.” I brushed my knuckles over his cheek. “I know you’re hurting.”
“I don’t really have anything else to say. Either they’ll accept me or they won’t. Right now I just…I’d rather you kissed it better.”
So I did.
We kissed and kissed, sweet and dirty and wet, and before long our clothes were tossed away. I honestly could have just kissed him all night and rubbed off against his stomach. He rolled on top of me, hard and heavy, and I spread my legs for him.
“I missed you so much the last few days,” he muttered. “Years.”
My heart clenched, and I took his face in my hands, slowing things down with a gentle kiss. I hooked my leg over his, rubbing steadily. “Years,” I agreed. “Now we get to make up for lost time. And we know what we’re doing, which makes it more fun.”
His puff of embarrassed laughter warmed my face. “You know what you’re doing.”
“You’re an extremely quick study. Trust me.”
“I dreamed of this so many nights. I can’t believe we’re really here.” He kissed my cheek, making my insides go all gooey even as we rocked our hips together, getting harder and harder.
“Tell me what else you dreamed of.”
He blinked. “I dunno. Stuff. I told you most of it. You know, with the thing.”
“Mmm.” Sliding my hand over his back, I traced his hole with my fingertip. “What thing was that again?”
“Charlie.”
I swore I could feel the heat of his blush. “You mean when you fucked yourself with the dildo and imagined it was my cock?”
“Yes,” he whispered, rocking our dicks together deliciously.
Biting back a gasp, I asked, “What else did you fantasize about?”
“That’s all. Just stuff.” He kissed me hard, cutting off my reply.
I let him kiss me for a minute, our tongues stroking and my cock leaking. Then I broke away. “What is it? There’s something you don’t want to tell me.”
He ducked his head to suck on my collar bone. Threading my fingers through his hair, I caressed him. “You can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you? Do you think it’s too weird or something?”
Lifting his head only an inch or so, Gavin sighed against my skin. “It’s kind of…out there.” His voice was muffled against my neck. “I’ve seen it in porn, but I don’t know if, you know. If normal people who aren’t porn stars do it.”
“Well now you have to tell me, or I’ll be imagining all sorts of freaky shit.”
His laughter was a wet huff. He kept his head down. “It’s rimming, okay?”
My brain exploded.
After a moment, he asked, “Is that weird?”
Somehow I managed to talk. “If by ‘weird,’ you mean super hot, then sure.” My dick throbbed, and I thrust up against him.
Gavin’s head shot up. “Really? Have you…?”
“Uh-uh. It’s never come up, so to speak.”
“But you’d want to?” His expression was so eager he looked like a puppy. A puppy thrusting his hard cock against me.
“You showered before bed, right?”
As he nodded, I was already urging him off me and onto his stomach. He spread his legs so hungrily it made my balls tighten. I kneeled behind him. “You want it? You want me to eat your ass?” Maybe I sounded like a cheesy porno, but with Gavin I loved saying it out loud.
He actually whimpered, nodding vigorously. We had to be quiet, and I couldn’t wait until I had him in bed again without my family down the hall. I pushed those thoughts away and spread his ass cheeks. “You have to be quiet, okay?”
He nodded again, and I eyed his pucker. I couldn’t see much in the murky night, so I figured what the hell.
Leaning over, I opened him and buried my face in his ass, licking around his hole.
Gavin jerked, his shout muffled in the mattress.
So far, so good. I licked again, sweeping my tongue along his crease.
As Gavin trembled and thrust his ass up for more, I held him still and tried to lick inside him. I’m not sure what I was expecting it to taste like, but aside from a bit of salty tang from us getting sweaty grinding each other, it didn’t really taste different from the rest of him.
I didn’t really know what I was doing, but he seemed to like it. Actually, he seemed to love it, his muffled moans making me so hot I had to stretch out and hump the mattress while I ate him.
Gavin shook all over, and with one hand, I fondled his balls while I spit into his hole and tried to lick deeper. Maybe it was weird, and maybe ‘normal people’—whoever the hell they were—didn’t do this, but I loved having my face in his ass.
I thought about how it would feel to have him do it to me, and I moaned against his flesh. With a mighty tremble, he came, groaning into the sheets. I reached down for my dick and only needed a few tugs before I joined him, the pleasure sweeping through me. I gasped against his ass.
Resting my cheek on his cheek—which made me chuckle to myself—I caught my breath. I rubbed the back of his thigh lazily, my eyes drifting shut. It would have been heaven to fall asleep right then, using Gavin’s ass as a pillow.
“I have to go back to my own room,” I murmured. I still didn’t move, though, trailing my fingers up and down his leg.
“Mmm.”
After another minute, I roused myself, pushing up over him and kissing my way up his spine. “Did you like it?”
“Is that a trick question?” After a moment, he asked, “Did you?”
Smiling, I nuzzled the back of his neck, holding myself up on my hands. “I loved it.”
“I’m glad we could…do something new for you.”
His face was turned to the side, and I stretched out beside him so we could kiss again. I’d never get tired of kissing him. “It’s all new,” I mumbled.
Gavin frowned, inching back and rolling onto his hip to fully face me. “But you did stuff before.”
I brushed my palm over his mussed hair. “That was nothing compared to this. It’s different with you.” Leaning in, I pressed our lips together. “It’s different when you’re in love.”
He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing so tightly for a moment that I couldn’t breathe.
Breathing was overrated.