Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Enzo
Footsteps pad toward me.
“Axel?”
“Sorry. I thought I heard something. You’re still awake?” Axel asks.
“Um…”
“We have another game tomorrow.”
“I know,” I say miserably.
“That’s it,” Axel says. “Come to the bedroom.”
My breath catches. He didn’t… I must have misheard him.
“You’re not getting any sleep on the couch,” Axel grumbles.
Maybe I didn’t mishear him.
“Is there another bedroom here I’m unaware of?”
“Nope.” He grabs hold of my hand, then pulls me off the couch.
I squint at him through the dark.
His hand is warm against mine, and when he releases his grip, I realize I should have stopped holding onto his hand long ago. My palm feels cold without it.
I follow him toward his room, quiet so we don’t wake up Luca.
He ushers me into his room, then I whirl around. “You have a game too! You can’t give me your bed.”
“I have no intention of doing that,” he says.
“Oh.”
I glance around the bedroom. The door is closed, but light still comes in from the shades, and I make out shapes.
Yep, there’s only one bed.
I wonder if there’s something I’m missing and I drift into the dim room.
“Do you have another bed?” I ask.
Axel snorts. “I Love Lucy style? Nope, that wouldn’t be popular with the Puck Bunnies.”
My face goes hot.
I don’t want to imagine Axel doing acrobatic activities here.
Axel marches to the bed, then jumps on it. “Get on.”
“But—” I shake my head. “I can’t share a bed with you.”
“We used to share a room,” Axel says. “Of course we can share a king bed. Do you have any idea how many times you’ve fallen asleep on my shoulder on bus trips?”
“I’ve never done that!” I say hotly.
“New York?”
I don’t really remember that trip. Was I sleeping on him? No. No, I wouldn’t have.
“Maybe I dozed briefly.”
Axel giggles, then sobers. “It’s in both of our interests that you sleep tonight.”
“I know,” I say. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So get on.”
Right. I inch toward the bed. I try not to think that I’ll be sleeping next to Axel. Couples share beds.
I feel like I need to let him know about me. Let him know I might like this too much.
“Axel…
“You’re overthinking, Enz.”
“There are things you don’t know. I-I don’t want you to hate me—”
“I could never hate you,” Axel says at once.
I blink.
He seemed to really hate me when I arrived.
“Not really,” Axel says, his voice soft.
“Oh. I-I could never hate you either.”
“I’m glad.”
“Um—” My throat tightens. My tongue thickens. The room heats. “So…”
This is where I tell him. This is the perfect opening, just like the last one. And the one before that.
Each time I don’t say it, the words calcify a little more. What started as nervousness has hardened into something heavier—shame, maybe, at my own cowardice. At how easy it should be and isn’t.
Two words. Two syllables. I’ve scored goals in overtime. I’ve blocked shots with my body. But this—
“Get in the bed, Enz. No overthinking.”
I get in the bed.
It’s nice to be on a real bed, and not a couch.
But I’m too aware of his presence beside me. In the quiet room, I can hear every inhale and exhale he makes. I hope he can’t hear the thunder of my heart.
“You’re stiff,” he grumbles. “Relax.”
I shift positions, then realize I’ve curled beside him, as if I want my face to be closer to him in the dark. Shit.
We’re face to face. The proper etiquette for us would to both be turning away from each other. I don’t move. Neither does he.
“Luca is quiet,” he whispers. “Time for unc-unc to sleep.”
“Unc-unc?”
“That’s you.”
“Sounds like a pig.”
“You said it, not me.” Axel chuckles, the sound impossibly throaty. How does he make even a chuckle sound sexy? Isn’t that something that old men in bars might do? But vital organs seem to have turned to butterflies.
“When’s the last time you’ve gotten off?” Axel asks.
“What? Um…”
“Was there someone in California?” he asks.
“Uh…”
“Is there someone in California?”
“No.” I laugh.
That would have been the smart thing to do. Get into a relationship with someone so I don’t spend my whole time obsessing about former best friends who live thousands of miles away. Though now he’s not even a foot away. Eight inches perhaps. I could count his eyelashes if there were more light.
The mattress sinks. He’s scooting toward me, as if even eight inches isn’t separate enough.
“I have a special solution for making you fall asleep.” His voice rumbles in my ear, and his breath is hot against my neck. The only thing I can smell is him.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh.” He chortles. “I discovered it in middle school. I’ve been testing it regularly since then.”
“Axel… I hope you’re not going to suggest we watch dirty movies or something.”
“What? I wouldn’t do that. Might not be able to decide on something we both like.”
He doesn’t know how correct he is with that statement. At least, I hope he doesn’t know how correct he is with that statement.
I wonder if it’s strange he never talked to me about porn back when we were sharing a room in Boston. I didn’t think it strange at the time, but from the way that later roommates did when I was a rookie for Los Angeles, I wonder now.
“You’re overthinking,” he says, and his voice sounds almost regretful, which doesn’t make sense.
Unless he’s regretting inviting me to his bed.
“I’ll go to sleep,” I promise, squeezing my eyes, as if that will usher me to sleep faster.
“Jerk off,” he whispers.
“What?”
“Jerk off,” he says, his voice seductive, though I’m not sure if he knows that he’s doing that on purpose.
“I can’t—”
His hand lands on my cock. Just like that.
Well, technically, his hand is on my pajamas, and underneath is also my boxer briefs.
Two layers of fabric that suddenly feel like nothing at all.
I’m hardening against his palm before I can think to stop it.
My cock hasn’t shown interest in anything since my sister died. Not that I hooked up that often before that. Trust is important, and the more times people recognized me outside my apartment, the more I stayed inside my apartment. But it comes to life now.
Axel rests his hand on my cock, and it rises to meet him. “Is this okay?”
“So I’ll sleep?” I say softly.
“That’s right, Enz,” he says. “So you’ll sleep.”
Axel’s hand is on me. After ten years of pining, his hand is on me.
And though I know this isn’t a romantic declaration, I—well, there’s no way I can tell him to stop.
He hesitates.
“Yeah,” I whisper, my heart beating wildly.
He curls beside me, then untucks my cock from my pajamas.
This is wrong on so many levels, but there’s no way I possibly could ever tell him to stop.
Axel is beside me. Axel is touching me.
“You’re going to need to pull that down,” he says, and then he lifts me up and pulls my pajamas and boxers to my knees.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I say.
He pulls back, and panic floods me. My whole body goes cold.
Oh, God. This was a joke. Of course, this was a joke. Axel still hasn’t completely forgiven me for ghosting him. Of course he would prank me. That’s what bros do, right? Tease each other?
They don’t actually invite them into their bed, slide down their pajama bottoms and boxer briefs and start touching their cock. That’s not a thing. I’ve been in locker rooms for a decade. That is definitely not a thing.
My face flames. I pull my pajama pants back up.
This was a joke.
“Sorry,” I apologize. “You got me. For a moment, I actually thought—”
“Did you say something?” Axel is suddenly beside me again.
He reaches for my cock, then frowns, maybe wondering why he’s touching flannel and not skin. “You cold, Enz?”
My chest is too tight. I can’t find the right words.
“Hey. You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You thought I’d left?”
“I—”
“Well, now you have to take your pajama bottoms off completely,” Axel says matter-of-factly. “I just rubbed lube all over them. Good thing they’re not silk.”
And with that he pulls my pajama pants back down, then pulls my boxer briefs down, then flings both off the bed. “You’re going to have to sleep naked.”
“Axel! You can’t do that!”
“Orgasms release oxytocin and prolactin,” he says, like he’s reciting from a health textbook.
“Knocks you right out. Works every time.” His hand wraps around me again—warm, slick—and yeah, I don’t protest anymore.
His hand is covered with lube. Guess he wasn’t pranking me, just going to his bedside cabinet.
My cock comes back to life immediately.
“Just relax,” Axel says soothingly. “Everything is going to be okay. You’ve got me.”
Axel strokes me in steady movements. It’s been so long since anyone touched me like this. He holds it differently than I do. His stroke is the perfect mixture of gentle and strong.
“Do you often stroke men’s cocks?” I ask.
“Are you saying that I’m doing it wrong?”
“No,” I say, “you’re not doing it wrong.”
“Good. Would be embarrassing to know that I’ve been doing it wrong on myself all these years.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“I might be doing it wrong if you’re still speaking though.” He does more interesting things, and I can’t think anymore. I can’t remember why this is a bad idea, and surely it can’t be if it feels so good.
He shifts nearer, close enough that his hair grazes my skin. His breath is warm against my shoulder.
His hand moves over me, and I inhale his scent and the sound of his soft breathing as he concentrates.
“That’s it,” Axel murmurs. “Just let go.”
And I do. I come harder than I have in months, maybe years, gasping into the air as Axel works me through it with steady, practiced strokes. I spill over my stomach.
“Better?” he asks, his voice casual, like what we did was completely normal.
“Yeah,” I manage.
He chuckles softly, then turns away from me. He comes back with some tissue paper. He pats my stomach carefully, the touch oddly tender, then tosses the paper to the side, and curls beside me. “Go to sleep.”
Within a minute, his breathing evens out: he’s asleep. Just like that. Like he didn’t just take my entire understanding of our relationship and throw it off the bed along with my boxer briefs.
I stare at the ceiling until my pulse stops racing. Maybe the oxytocin and prolactin are doing their thing, just like Axel said.
I remember Axel’s hand on me there. His voice lingers in my mind: I could never hate you. Not really.
I smile.