Chapter 29 Antidote
TWENTY-NINE
Antidote
The problem with giving several people keys to my house—Connor, West, Joey— is they think they can come and go as they please and also do whatever they want with the place.
This was a bold move.
A surprise Welcome Home Tristan party.
“You set him up. What if he’d walked? What if he said no?”
Connor blinks up at me with his lined eyes and lazy grin. “Why would he have done that? The plan was fool proof. Even Archer proof.”
I don’t know about that.
But here Tristan is, dressed for a party—oh, I’m sorry, I mean a date, holding Kate in one arm while his other arm side-hugs West.
Connor and I are also in my living room, holding this conversation at a volume loud enough for anyone to hear beneath the welcome home banner amidst too many balloons.
Yellow and white balloons, which I have to assume harken back to pina coladas.
We walked in to the song playing, clued in a little bit that we wouldn’t be alone by the fact that Joey’s minivan is parked three houses down.
I’d been running my hand up and down Tristan’s leg in the car.
He and I were both very hard and ready to make a night out of celebrating all the things we figured out in my studio, but when I saw the white van, I took back my hand and pressed the heel of it down on my erection, warning him to try and do the same.
He’d only laughed, which, I’ll grant, was the best sound ever.
The song ends and starts again. “Oh, fuck no. Is this coming from your phone?” I ask my brother.
He smiles. “Nope.”
Tristan hand lands on Connor’s shoulder. “You. We need to talk.”
Connor’s eyes widen slightly as he turns to look up at his friend. “Screen porch?”
Tristan glances at me then nods at his friend.
I wish them luck as they head out back. Kate launches herself at me, and I catch her. She giggles without restraint and plants a wet kiss on my cheek. “Someone change the song,” I call out.
Eliza rises from the sofa with her phone in hand and sidles my way. “This was a dumb idea.”
“I cannot argue that,” I tell her.
“Is he really back?”
“Not yet. He’s gotta move and everything.”
“But he’s going to move? Where’s he planning to live? Here?”
We talked about that in the car, too, and yes. Tristan will be living here. “Yeah. Hey, you were right by the way,” I say to head off whatever less than enthusiastic thing she wants to say about this latest development—this fucking miracle.
“About what?”
“He needed to hear I loved him.”
She sighs. “Obviously. What stopped you from saying it before?”
“Well, for one, I’m not as good at saying it as you guys are. But also, I get a lot distracted around him, and sometimes my mouth doesn’t cooperate with my brain.”
She purses her lips and thinks this over. “I like this song. I think I’ll let it play a few more times, then maybe I’ll think about changing it.”
“You know, the song is actually about two people trying to cheat on each other.”
“No,” she says. “It’s about two people who didn’t communicate with each other, but I think they will now, don’t you?”
I look at Kate who’s listening attentively to all of this. She says, “I’ve heard it like ninety bazillion times, and she’s right. They got lazy.”
“They did get lazy,” I’m forced to agree. “Not lazy enough not to hit up the dating apps, but I hear your point.” I set the little girl down and tuck a lock of hair that got loose back into her braid.
West approaches with a cautious look. “I saw a ring.”
I shrug.
“No one told me the stakes were high.”
“What would you guys have done if he didn’t come back with me?”
“Never crossed my mind he wouldn’t. You need to have some faith in yourself.” He pats my cheek where Kate just kissed it. “You’re a very compelling person.”
I huff. “Thanks. Now what?”
“Well, when Eliza’s done with this song, we’re gonna crank up some holiday classics and decorate your Christmas tree.”
“I don’t have a Christmas tree.”
“Oh, yes you do. It’s in the yard. We can bring it in once they get done with their thing.” He gestures to Connor and Tristan on the porch swing.
They’re already hugging.
Connor and I have talked a lot about the what ifs of all this over the last couple of weeks.
We even discussed the hypothetical of Tristan moving in with me.
Connor insisted he would want to, and I insisted it wouldn’t be necessary because—to be honest—until I saw him, this all seemed very far-fetched.
“I guess it’d be the universe’s way of telling me I need to learn how to be alone,” he’d said.
That comment didn’t sit well with me, but he’d given me a warning look. “Don’t start,” he said. “If you can do it, I can do it.”
“I hated it,” I told him.
“I’ve been doing it for a couple months. It’s not that bad.”
It was a good reminder. Connor’s been good about balancing his time at home with time with me and getting to know West, Joey, and the girls. He’s even done some car pool pick-ups.
But I think it’ll be different with Tristan in town. Here. With me. While I am finally convinced my brother’s feelings for Tristan aren’t romantic, the two of them are intensely codependent, and Connor very much feels like Tristan is choosing me over him.
It’s a tightrope we’ll all have to learn to walk if this is going to work, and a risk to this delicate glass bubble of happiness.
But I won’t stand by and do nothing anymore if someone starts to spiral.
Tristan won’t hold the burden of Connor and me on his shoulders anymore.
He’s done more than enough. It’s the one thing Connor and I consistently agree on.
But back to this Christmas tree. “I don’t have any decorations.”
“Of course you do,” West says like I’m a moron for underestimating the amount of planning these lying assholes have been doing since the day Eliza kicked my ass at chess.
Tristan and Connor come in from the porch, and no one looks like they’ve been crying. Tristan heads toward me, and I reach for him when he’s close enough. He takes my hand, and I wrap my other arm around his waist.
“I told you we should’ve fucked at the studio,” he says.
I let out a short laugh. “You were right, and I should have known better.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I just wanted to get you home,” I tell him, resting my forehead on his, taking a breath of his air.
“I love you.”
“Enough to decorate a Christmas tree and deal with these people for the next few hours?”
“Even enough to wait ten years for the chance.”
“Fuck, I love you, too,” I sigh. “Like so much.”
“It’s just my opinion,” Eliza says as she passes by us. “But you can do all that later.”
Tristan sighs. “Wow, she really hates me.”
“You’ll grow on her.”
Around then, West and Kate come in with the tree. Joey is already clearing a space by the window for it, and Connor is coming down the hall with several large shopping bags in his hands.
“I need a drink,” Tristan says. “Anyone else need a drink?”
“White Russians in the fridge,” Joey says as she puts my fiddle leaf fig in a corner. “And there’s egg nog, too, if that’s your thing. The girls like it, so be sure to notate somehow if you spike it.”
Tristan looks up at me. “Want some spiked egg nog?”
“If I’m ever gonna like egg nog, it’ll be tonight.”
Tristan gives me his brilliant smile and takes my hand, leading me to the kitchen where he kisses me until we’re both breathless and tries to tell me the rest of them won’t miss us for fifteen minutes.
I don’t give him the fifteen minutes, but he has my full attention a few hours later when everyone’s gone and we’re admiring my first Christmas tree from the couch.
The lights are multi-colored, and the decorations are a mishmash of various items from a ballerina to a squirrel holding an acorn.
There are lots of Santas and words like Peace and Joy and there’s even a set of glass paint brushes and a very nice replica of a violin.
Everyone is represented by a little something.
Tristan’s ornament is a porcelain quill, which immediately annoyed him, but eventually made him smile.
I ask him about it now while he stares at the beautiful tree with his arms around me and his legs in my lap. Everything is tied together with crystal and white balls, the occasional pop of red from a well-placed poinsettia bloom, and glass icicles.
“I like to write,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll think of a story that feels like it’s worth following through.”
“You ever finish anything?”
“Oh, all the time,” he says. “I have a computer full of short stories and a notebook full of ideas for longer ones.”
“So…fuck law school?”
“I’m not prepared to go that far,” he says. “I’m still honing my craft.”
I slide my hand through the short strands of hair on the back of his head.
I miss his careless waves, but I love him like this, too.
All put together like a damn model with perfect everything.
He still looks young, but he also looks polished and more confident.
More comfortable in his own skin, though I’m willing to bet his skin care routine is more regimented than ever, and this hair didn’t style itself.
He brushes a fingertip down my nose, and it makes my dick get hard. “I have such a thing for your nose,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“It’s like this weird fetish for Roman noses I’ve had since I was a kid. Crazy, huh?”
“It’s my mother’s nose.”
“Well, then that’s one nice thing she did for you. We’ll start a tiny list and burn it in the fire pit out back.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He gets closer to me until he’s nearly on my lap, and we’re chest to chest. “You’re happy,” he whispers.
“Are you?”
He nods, brushing a soft kiss to my lips.
“And how does the timing feel?” I ask.
“Pretty good. I’m done with finals. I haven’t scheduled the LSAT yet. I don’t have anywhere to be for a month at least.”
“I can think of someplace I’d like you to be.”
“Is this about your erection?” he asks.
“How’d you know?”
He moves, rearranging his legs to straddle my lap. “I’ve made quite the study of you. It’s my life’s work.”
“I could not possibly love you more.”
“It just rolls off your tongue now, doesn’t it?”
“Come to bed with me.”
“Is this about lube?”
I nod.
“Do you miss being with women when you didn’t need all that?”
“No,” I say very sincerely. “I only ever missed being with you.”
“Well, I have lube.”
I have to adjust my face and jaw, not loving the implications there. “Do you go on a lot of dates?”
“I hid it in the couch when Kate was putting the star on the tree. Just in case.” He reaches past me and pulls a bottle of lube out from behind the cushion I’m resting against.
“You wanted to have sex in front of the Christmas tree didn’t you?”
He smiles.
“Because you know how good you look right now, don’t you?”
“I mean, you’re very hard. It’s so affirming.”
I all but smash my mouth to his, and he opens instantly for me. The kiss is a catharsis. The antidote for everything that’s ever poisoned me.
He breaks it only to pull off his sweater and toss it aside. The black tank he’s got tucked into his waistband needs to go, too. I unbuckle his pants in a hurry, and he strips off the tank. His nipples have rings in them now, and I can’t stop myself from touching them.
“I haven’t had sex with anyone but you since the last time,” he says.
“Me either.”
“Really?”
I laugh shortly. “Yeah. Really. It’s okay if you’re shocked. But I’ve been kind of a mess and really fucking hung up on you, so…”
“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.
” He rises onto his knees, allowing me to pull down his pants, which I do, a little roughly.
I also take advantage of the space he’s giving me to undo and shove down my own.
He tugs upward at the sides of my black thermal shirt, and that’s what I take off next.
His hands immediately smooth up my torso, pushing me back into the cushions as he leans in to give me another hot, wet kiss.
I once said every kiss felt like he was stealing something from me that only he could ever hold, but it was love the entire time.
What he really stole from me was the wall surrounding it in my chest. He took it away brick by brick so that it can now flow freely between us, each of us giving it and taking it back.
I prep his little hole while he keeps a steadily moving hand on my cock.
His kisses are short and fervent, like he’s impatient with the fact that I’m trying to make this good for him.
But he’s also not stopping me, so once a third finger is getting less resistance, I deepen our kiss and readjust him on my lap.
Immediately his hips rise, and he moves my cock to his hole.
“I don’t need you to go fast,” he says, “But I don’t want you to stop yourself from coming, either.”
“I can come right now if you want.”
“That is not what I just said.”
“Sit on my fucking cock, Tristan.”
He does, sinking down with a soft moan and working the top half of my erection with a few dips of his hips before settling onto my lap. “Jesus,” I whisper. “You feel so fucking perfect.”
He puts his hands on my knees and leans back, showing me how perfect he looks, too.
He’s smooth with his body, an expert at rolling his hips and working his core.
His gaze already looks fucked out and hazy because he’s got me right up against his prostate, and so I give myself a little lube, take his cock in my hand, and stroke.
“Oh, fuck,” he sighs. “This is a great angle.”
“Damn right it is. Dinner and a show.”
His lips quirk before his mouth drops open with a gasp as I give him a tight squeeze and swipe my thumb across his tip.
“Still everything you hoped for?” I think he knows I’m not just asking about sex. I’m asking about me. About us. About this life he agreed to share with me by accepting that ring.
He pushes off my knees and wraps his arms around me, effectively making me stop touching him other than to hold him close.
We kiss, and something about the slide of his tongue against mine, the tug of his lips on my mouth and the hum that comes straight from his chest, gets me.
My thighs tense beneath him, and my ass comes off the couch as my orgasm hits me right in the groin.
I gasp as it numbs my brain and steals my breath. Resting my forehead against his shoulder, I ride it out inside him as he brings himself to his own finish with his talented ass and his cock smashed against my abs.
To be honest, I lasted longer than I thought I would. It’s a good thing he’s not going anywhere, which he confirms breathlessly against my ear. “We’ll do better next time. I think we needed that one out of our systems.”
Lax, vulnerable, and heart totally open, I say, “Let’s keep doing it until we get bored with each other, okay?”
I feel his smile when he kisses my cheek. “I will if you will.”
With zero hesitation and no reservations, I promise him what’s left of my life.