Twenty-Five Ramin
twenty-five
Ramin
Ramin’s mouth tasted like the inside of an old car. It felt like it, too, that fuzzy, scratchy feeling that cars from the nineties always seemed to have. Actually, that might’ve been the pillow mashed into his face. He’d turned in his sleep, onto his belly, and he almost never slept that way.
A heavy arm still lay across his back. It took him a moment to realize where he was. He groaned. He’d made a complete and total ass of himself.
“Good morning,” Noah rumbled.
“It’s definitely a morning,” Ramin muttered.
Noah chuckled. Ramin twisted to find beautiful eyes peering at him, catching the morning light, a smile tugging their corners.
“You feel okay?”
Despite the horrible taste and dry mouth, Ramin didn’t feel all that gross. Not hangover-gross, just regular dehydrated.
“Yeah. Thanks for taking care of me last night. I should get out of your hair.”
Ramin made to slide out, but Noah’s arm around him tightened. “You don’t have to go.”
Ramin shook his head. He’d embarrassed himself last night. Getting drunk and acting a fool was bad enough. But spilling all his kinkiest secrets? By that point he’d been… well, not exactly sober, but definitely sober enough he should’ve kept his mouth shut.
He wanted to curl into a ball and hide. Or maybe live in the rafters of one of the churches here. There were so many to choose from. He could hang out with the gargoyles.
“I never did get to make it up to you,” Noah mumbled.
Ramin scrunched his face. What was Noah talking about?
“Back in Como. In the morning.” Noah tugged Ramin closer. “We got interrupted.”
Oh.
Ramin’s heart lurched.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“But you got me off, and I didn’t…”
“No one’s keeping score.”
Noah huffed. His brows drew down. He looked genuinely upset. Ramin reached out to poke the little crease between Noah’s eyebrows.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’ll think it’s silly.”
Ramin snorted. “I literally confessed my teenaged wet dreams to you last night.”
Noah smiled and hid his face in the pillow. But when it poked up again, he said, “I haven’t actually been with many guys. In fact, only two others before you.”
“Okay? So?” Ramin’s body count was higher than two, for sure, but it wasn’t like he was in Arya’s league.
“So both times it was really… uneven between us.” Noah’s cheeks were getting pink. “Like, it wasn’t reciprocal.”
“Reciprocal how?” Like, Noah didn’t like them back? Or Noah liked them, but they didn’t like him back? How could anyone not like Noah back?
“Like, this guy I used to work with at the Hollister up at Metro North—”
Ramin snorted. “You worked at Hollister ?”
“At least it wasn’t Abercrombie, okay? I was twenty-two. I had bills.”
Ramin imagined Noah standing shirtless in a haze of cologne at Metro North Mall, with the balloons hovering over the fountain in the distance. Maybe wearing one of those puka shell necklaces. He stifled a laugh. “Sorry. Go on.”
“So this guy, one of my coworkers, I think he was gay, though he never said anything. Just the vibe, I guess? Anyway, somehow he’d heard about my… uh…”
“Your uh ?”
“He’d heard I was hung, I guess.”
“Ah.” Ramin tried not to smirk. Noah was so proper sometimes. It was endearing. He wondered what Noah would be like if he let loose.
He hoped he’d get to find out.
“And one day we were in the stockroom and he asked if it was true, and I tried to get out of the conversation because I didn’t want to get in trouble—I really needed that job—but he kept asking, and he was pretty cute, and one thing led to another and he ended up giving me a blowjob.”
Ramin’s dick lurched at the thought. He bit his lip.
“Then when it was done, he got up and was like ‘Thanks’ and just left.”
“That’s really hot,” Ramin whispered. He imagined himself in that guy’s place, getting on his knees, worshipping Noah the way he deserved, and—
“It didn’t feel like it. It felt like being used.”
Ramin’s mouth went dry.
Of course it did. Noah was a person, not just a dick. He deserved to be treated better. Ramin swallowed back his shame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it that way.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine, but Noah shook his head and kept going. “I asked him out after. Told him I was bi. He got this look on his face. He said if he’d known I wasn’t straight he wouldn’t have gone for it. That it wasn’t nearly as hot.”
Anger reared up in Ramin’s chest. What kind of asshole says things like that? Does things like that?
“That’s fucked up. I’m sorry.”
Noah shrugged.
“Was it like that for the other guy, too?”
“Worse. It was another guy at Hollister, actually…”
Ramin wished he’d known to shop at the Metro North Hollister back then. Maybe he and Noah could’ve run into each other all those years ago. Maybe he could’ve shown Noah that not all guys were assholes. That there were guys out there who’d like him for every part of him.
But then, if they had, Noah wouldn’t have had Jake, and he knew without a doubt Noah would never want that.
“This guy actually saw me changing one day, and he started acting weird, and then said he wanted to compare, and ended up giving me a handjob. But when I tried to touch him, he jerked away, said he wasn’t gay, said it was just an experiment, and he never talked to me again.
He quit a few days later. Didn’t even give notice.
At least I got overtime for covering his shifts. ”
“Fuck him. Fuck both of them.” Ramin pulled himself closer to Noah. “You deserved a lot better. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
“It’s fine. Lots of people had it worse than me.”
“It wasn’t fine. That first guy was super biphobic, and the second guy was just a dick. And not the good kind.”
Noah giggled at that. Giggled, like a little kid, all high pitched and everything. Ramin had never heard anything like it. Now he knew where Jake got his laugh from.
“But still,” Noah said, “I’m a white, bisexual, cisgender man. I’m sure you’ve dealt with—”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ramin said. Noah acted like he wasn’t allowed to be hurt. Or worse, deserved it. “I’m glad you have the perspective to understand your privilege, but that doesn’t make what happened okay. It doesn’t mean you don’t get to be upset.”
Noah furrowed his brow, but finally nodded.
“Good. Also, I hope you know I’m not keeping track of orgasms like… like some sort of point system.”
“But—”
Ramin put a finger on Noah’s lips. Noah kissed the pad of it, but Ramin didn’t let himself get distracted.
“Whatever this is between us…” What was it? They’d spent the last two nights together. They’d kissed and had sex, and apparently Noah wanted more.
But Noah had also just confessed he was inexperienced with guys. And his two prior experiences had both used him. Was Ramin truly any better than them? He’d been lusting after Noah half his life.
Shame at his own behavior warred with tenderness for Noah, a desire to protect him.
He’d sort that out later.
“Whatever it is, our obligation isn’t to get each other off. It’s to be honest with each other. Yeah?”
“Okay.” Noah swallowed. “In all honesty, I really want to get you off.”
Ramin snorted, but in a flash, Noah was on top of him, pinning his hands above his head.
“You said you liked this,” Noah said. His cock lay warm and firm atop Ramin’s, pulsing when he flexed it, heavy enough to feel even through the layers of their underwear.
Ramin’s skin hummed with desire. His mouth went dry. “Uh-huh.”
“What about this?” Noah ground his hips against Ramin’s. Ramin whimpered as his own dick hardened swiftly. He nodded and bit his lips and pretended to struggle. It didn’t take much pretending: Noah was strong .
Noah reached for Ramin’s shirt. Ramin clenched his stomach, engaged his core out of instinct as he drew in a swift breath.
“I really want to see this tattoo of yours.” Noah’s eyes sparkled. He began to tug on Ramin’s shirt, but—
Knock knock knock.
Noah froze. Ramin did too. He stared up at Noah. Noah stared down at him.
“Noah?” Angela called through the door. “You up?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Ramin muttered.
He meant what he told Noah—that they weren’t keeping score of orgasms—but being cockblocked by Noah’s family yet again did feel like a huge cosmic thumb on the proverbial scales.
It was like the universe hated him. Why? He’d never done anything particularly nasty to it, had he?
Noah was still staring at him, and seemed to be trying to communicate something silently, but Ramin didn’t know what. They couldn’t talk with just gestures and expressions. They barely knew each other, when it came down to it.
So Ramin shrugged, and then Noah called out, “I’m up. Give me a sec.”
Noah rolled out of bed. He pulled on a pair of shorts (sadly out of Ramin’s view—seriously, when was Ramin going to get a proper look at Noah’s Ark?) and went to answer the door connecting his and Angela’s room.
Ramin sunk lower into the bed and pulled the covers up and over his head.
“Hey.” Noah’s muffled voice still carried through the duvet. “Is everything okay?”
The door closed with a snap. The room went silent. Ramin peeked out.
Alone, thank God, and his boner was, once again, thoroughly killed.
He got up and searched for his own shorts. He had a vague memory of throwing them over his shoulder last night. Maybe he’d been drunker than he thought.
He finally found them caught between the lamppost and the wall. He’d just slid them back on when the door opened again and Jake charged into the room. He launched himself onto the bed, then came up short, staring at Ramin.
Ramin stared back.
Caught.
What was the proper procedure when your hookup’s son caught you before you could make your walk of shame?
Was Noah just a hookup? What was he? What was any of this?
Jake was still looking at him. Shit, how long had Ramin been standing there like a deer hoping for an insurance payout?
“Hey, Jake,” he finally mustered.