Chapter 14 Ethan #2
I remember kissing Ethan. I remember it vividly.
There was a rhythm and a process to the way we kissed.
Lips only first, then we added tongues, then back to lips only, then tongues again but for longer and deeper than the first round.
It was automatic, something we just did, an unspoken understanding between us.
I’d touch his hair and his neck. One of his hands would find a home on the small of my back.
Sometimes he’d grind his hard-on against me through his jeans.
Sometimes I’d grind right back. And every single time I’d end the kiss because a nagging, unsexy voice in my head would psyche me out over getting caught.
It was predictable and stable and hot all at the same time. And we would emerge from it with messy hair, glassy eyes, and throbbing dicks.
But it’s different now. Not just because of the long span of time or because we’re kissing in a shower, but because he doesn’t kiss the same way.
I can tell by how smooth and sensual he is about it, by the subtle and incredibly arousing way he drags his teeth over my bottom lip that he’s picked up some new things over the last few years; he’s added some new punctuation.
He’s changed. He’s grown and made mistakes.
And he’s done this with other guys.
I don’t want the pang of jealousy to ruin this because he doesn’t have to kiss me the same way. He can kiss me however he wants.
I completely forget about the shower until the water turns cold and we break apart. I shut the water off and keep my eyes on his face.
“Should we talk?” I ask him.
He wipes a hand over his forehead and reaches out of the shower for a towel. He presses it to his face, to his chest. “I don’t want to talk.”
“Okay.”
He gets out and I follow him, catching a glimpse of his bare ass before he wraps the towel around it and walks out of the bathroom.
I grab a towel and do the same, following him over to the bed, where he sits down on the edge and leans back on his elbows like a display. Scattered all over the bed behind him are the pictures. I kind of want to take a picture of the entire scene.
I stand in front of him. He looks up at me, almost like he expects me to do something.
“Did you notice,” I say, “that there’s a picture missing?”
He stares up at me.
“Ev took it. The night of the graduation party.”
Ethan blinks. “What are you talking about?”
“He never showed it to you?”
Ethan shakes his head. “Everett had a picture of us?”
“That’s why all this happened.” I sit down next to him. “I mean, basically that’s why. Ev saw the picture of us by the river. Remember, it was the one we took with my arms around you? Everett saw it. And he got upset. Well, more than upset. He was pissed.”
Ethan stares straight ahead at the TV. There’s a news program on now.
“I had all those pictures in my car, and he picked it up. And it was...” I pause there for a second. “It was like he didn’t see me the same way anymore. It hurt. And I tried to explain, but I didn’t know what to say, so I just took off in a panic.”
I can’t read Ethan’s expression. He watches President Clinton give a speech on the screen, then he looks at me. “That’s it? That’s why you ignored me for five years? Because Everett saw a picture?”
Shame creeps over me. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“About what? You and me?”
I hang my head. “That I’m gay.”
“It’s bullshit.” He shakes his head. “Such fucking bullshit. You know, Everett told me to just stop wondering about you and asking about you. Because I did. I asked Ev before he moved into his dorm if he’d heard from you, and he said I should just forget about you.
He said you told him I was a pain in the ass.
And you know what? I didn’t believe him.
I didn’t believe you’d say something like that about me.
I thought there’d have to be more to it.
But maybe you did and don’t want to admit it. ”
“I never said anything like that. Everett saw us together. He had that picture. I was afraid he’d tell everyone.
I was worried it would get back to my grandparents…
It was stupid, I’ll admit it, but I never told Everett or anyone that you were a pain in the ass.
” My face burns with the ridiculousness of it, because I’ve never really said this out loud before.
It sounds so flimsy. The defense of a coward. An absolute coward.
Ethan is fuming. “I don’t fucking believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“If Everett had a picture of us, he would’ve told me.”
“I swear to god, Ethan. That’s what happened.”
He stands up, the towel around his waist slipping down a little. “I have a boyfriend.”
My stomach is suddenly filled with ice.
“What do you think of that? Huh, Shane? Did you think I’d never fuck another guy and be hanging on to you years later?”
I shake my head. “Why did you do all that stuff with me then? Why did you kiss me?”
He looks away from me. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Why not?”
“Now you’re lying. You’re just trying to hurt me.”
Ethan doesn’t answer. He stares at the TV, his jaw clenched.
“Why are you even telling me all this?”
He glares at me. “To make you jealous.”
“So, there’s no boyfriend.”
“Are you jealous?” He gets closer to me and gets in my face. “Are you jealous, Shane?”
It’s not that I never thought Ethan would be with somebody else.
Of course he would be. Why wouldn’t he? Of course, some other guy would take one look at that angelic Grecian prince face and fall in love with him.
I knew all of this. I’ve known all of this for the past five years, but it’s always been in an abstract sort of way.
And even though I know Ethan’s lying about a city boyfriend, I know what he wants me to say.
“Yes.” I grab his shoulders and pull him to me. I kiss him. Hard. “Yes, it makes me jealous, Ethan.”
Then I kiss him again.
And again.
And again.
Towels come off and we roll around on the bed, photos and memories scattering onto the floor.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a tiny voice is whispering a warning.
It’s the same voice that was there when I was with Ethan before.
The voice that worried me over what people would think if they found out I liked boys.
The voice that wanted me to be afraid of what others would say if they knew that in the dark, where no one else could see, I liked kissing boys.
I liked kissing Ethan Sawyer.
But we’re illuminated here by motel lamplight and what should have been but never was. We’re not in the dark anymore, and in a way it’s a relief that we can see one another now. Not just here in the flesh, but in other ways too.
Somehow, I wind up rolling on top of Ethan.
I didn’t plan to end up in this position, and I don’t think Ethan did either, but he breaks our kiss and looks up at me, his hands slowly rubbing up and down my arms. We probably both think it at the same time, because my dick reacts with the thought right when I feel him getting harder against my stomach.
I know he’s not a virgin. I know he’s had experience.
Maybe with the boyfriend he says he has—that I’m sure isn’t real—but I try to block that thought from my mind, nonetheless.
I try to shove away any thoughts of him with anyone else as he gets up from underneath me.
I watch him get something out of his bag and go into the bathroom.
He shuts the door and a couple seconds later I hear the shower cut on again.
I lie on the bed, my heart pounding and my erection waning.
I’ve heard of this being a thing. People wanting to fuck after someone has died.
When my grandpa died, Gina told me about a friend of hers that worked at the lodge in Lyons Falls.
She got a room for me and him. He was older than me, and even though I didn’t see a ring, I got this sneaking feeling there was a wife or a girlfriend in his life somewhere.
It would make sense in our little neck of the woods.
But I understood that people like to fuck after a funeral because fucking means life. It means hope.
And that’s what Ethan wants from me right now.
He comes out of the bathroom and gets back onto the bed with me, but this time he’s not empty-handed. He’s got lube and a condom. So, at some point, he learned then. He learned to prep himself, and I feel a little hurt he didn’t let me do it. I feel a little hurt he kept that part of it from me.
That’s not what I say, though, as I watch him crawl over top of me. Instead, I say, “Are you sure?”
He nods and then moves down my body. His tongue flicks one of my nipples sending a jolt through me. I raise my head to watch him kiss down my abdomen to my hip, where he nips at the skin with his teeth.
I wasn’t expecting it, so I gasp.
He glances up at me as he licks the head of my cock and takes me in his mouth. I suck in a breath and my eyes flutter closed. “Ethan…”
His tongue traces the underside in a zigzag pattern as if he’s had this exact move planned all this time. One of his hands moves up my thigh to my balls.
“Holy shit,” I stutter.
He sucks my dick and fondles me for a few minutes, and right when I reach down to touch his hair, he stops. I look down and the first thing I think as Ethan rolls the condom onto me is that he’s done this before.
There’s been another guy and another condom. More than one maybe.
The second thing I think is why does he have a condom with him to begin with? And lube. He puts it all over his hand and runs that hand up and down my cock and squeezes.
“Ethan—”
He quiets me with a kiss. “No talking,” he whispers, still stroking my dick.