Chapter 10
Ten
River was entranced. He’d been jacking off for years, but it was fucking magical making another guy come. It had been a revelation. He hadn’t even thought about himself because he’d wanted to make Newt see stars. Though now River’s cock was achingly jealous.
Yes, he’d taken a risk.
No, he probably shouldn’t have.
Yes, Max would be pissed off with him. If he finds out. Which he wouldn’t.
I don’t fucking care if he does.
“Oh my God. Where did you learn to do that? You were really good. Anyone would think you’d been practising for years.” Newt’s chest shook as he chuckled.
River grinned. Newt was breathing heavily, his eyes were closed, mouth slightly open, looking blissed out, sated and…
sexy. I did that! Some of that. Newt looked sexy when he was fully clothed.
River brought his come-covered fingers to his lips and licked.
Would the taste be the same? Not quite. Newt’s come was a bit saltier than his, maybe.
As he took another lick, he saw Newt’s eyes widen as he watched.
“Your turn.” Newt pulled down River’s sleep pants. “Fuck, look at you.”
Newt scooped come from his abs and wrapped slick fingers around River’s cock.
“Now I know what to do…” Newt gave him a cheeky grin.
River would like to have believed he lasted at least as long as Newt, but he didn’t. He was almost at boiling point before Newt had laid a hand on him. One thumb-brush over his slit and River arched his back, jetting over his chest and Newt’s fingers. Shit.
“So hot, so fucking hot.”
When River opened his eyes, Newt was still staring at him.
“Wow,” Newt whispered. He dropped onto his back and slid his hand into River’s. “Let’s pretend we’ve been at this for hours. If we’re both lying about the same thing, then it’s fine.”
River laughed. No going back now. Though that didn’t mean he was coming out of the closet. What he did in his own home was up to him.
It was Newt who eventually pushed to his feet and headed for the bathroom. He came back with a warm wet cloth and gently wiped River down. “Well done for not messing up the sheets.”
River didn’t know if Newt wanted him to return to his own bed, but when Newt climbed in beside him, tugged the duvet up and pulled him close, River sank into his embrace.
He refused to think about what this meant, what would happen tomorrow, or the day after that.
He knew how quickly life could change. This was something to enjoy while they could.
The following morning, they woke late. The new physiotherapist was due to arrive in ten minutes and all River’s plans for what he wanted to do with Newt went out of the window. It was as much as he could manage to shower and get ready. By the time he got downstairs, Newt was talking to call me Ed.
The physio was painful at times but nowhere near as bad as it had been with Jorge. Ed was patient and encouraging and didn’t force him into anything that made him yelp. River hoped that wasn’t just because Newt was watching.
After Ed had gone, Newt dangled the car keys. “Want to go out?”
“Yes.” River was tired but he could rest in the car.
“Good because I’d have dragged you out otherwise. We have a thing booked.”
“W…wa…”
“What. You have to ask me properly.”
“What…thin…thing?” River forced out.
“Not telling you.”
“Fuck off.”
“It’s a surprise.”
He kept glaring and Newt glared back.
“I’m just going to check if the delivery has come. I’ll see you in the boot room. Shoes, coat, hat and gloves, right?”
When River spotted two letters on the hall table, he picked them up.
One looked like a bill. Brown envelope with a window for his name and address.
For Mr L. Miller. Look at me reading. The other had been hand-written for River Lawson.
It had the look of a birthday card except River only ever had one from Max, and his name and address were always typed.
He slipped them in the drawer. When they got back from wherever they were going, he’d get Newt to open them. He’d been happy to let Max take charge of his mail until he could handle it himself but seeing that hand-written envelope for River Lawson had him worried. Who knew he lived here?
By the time Newt joined him in the boot room, River sat holding his jacket. Newt was carrying a large box.
“I ordered face masks.”
River widened his eyes. “Mill…million?”
Newt laughed. “Not quite. I needed some clothes too.”
He ripped open the box, then used his teeth to tear the plastic on what looked like a blue jacket.
Newt put it on and looked down at himself. “It fits.” Then he took it off again.
River had never bought clothes on . Newt took a hat and gloves out of plastic bags and pushed them into the pockets of the new jacket. River could see other clothes in the box. It made him wonder again why Newt had brought so little with him.
“Ready?” Newt grabbed a pack of the face masks and headed for the garage. “It’ll take us over an hour to get there so we can do some speech therapy on the way. How about singing?”
River shrugged.
“We tried it before, remember? With Waterloo? Singing uses different areas of the brain to those we use for spontaneous speech.”
River vaguely remembered being told that by the first therapist who’d come to the house, but he’d been in awkward mode, not willing to accept he wouldn’t suddenly return to normal. Okay, so it still wouldn’t be sudden, but he had hope now. Proper hope.
The gate closed behind them.
Newt entered a destination into the system, then glanced at him and said, “Hey, Mercedes, play Newt’s mixtape for River.”
When Newt started to sing along to a Bruno Mars hit, Just the Way You Are, River joined in but kept his voice low until he realised how easily he was singing words he’d have struggled to say. When he sang louder, Newt glanced at him and smiled. “I knew you could do it.”
There was a wide range of music. A lot of Bruno Mars.
Talking to the Moon, Grenade… Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger.
James Morrison’s Undiscovered. Coldplay hits—which were a hit and miss for River.
More by Take That than he’d have expected, but he guessed Newt had picked songs he was likely to know well.
Some he remembered from his teenage years, and some he didn’t know, including an ABBA track called Tiger.
River sang along to a Queen hit and was shocked when he managed almost all of it without faltering.
“You were really good,” Newt said as the song ended. “A bit out of tune…”
River growled.
“Not really. But do you feel better?”
“Yes. Be…ten…Hmm. Bet…ter. Better.”
Maybe Newt could hear the disappointment in his voice because he squeezed River’s leg.
“Do not slide down. Right? Close your eyes now. We’re nearly there.
I want you to be surprised, shocked and amazed, possibly slightly terrified but not enough to piss yourself because I didn’t bring a spare set of clothes. ”
River closed his eyes and only opened them when Newt switched off the engine. The sign was right in front of him. A wildlife sanctuary?
“Can you guess what we’re going to see? There were a couple of clues in the songs.”
“Don…key?”
“Damn it. On your first guess? I knew Little Donkey would give it away.”
That had not been on the playlist. Whatever they were here to see, it wasn’t a donkey.
“Face mask on. No scarf. If you feel comfortable taking the mask off, that’s fine. It’s a private thing we’re doing. Just us and two members of staff.”
“And don…key.”
Newt smiled. “Yes, Shrek.”
River looped the mask over his ears and pulled it up over his nose before he exited the car. He walked with Newt to the entrance—I’m not limping at all! — and Newt showed his phone at the desk.
They were a little early, so were told to wait in the gift shop.
“Want to guess again?” Newt asked.
River looked around at all the cuddly toys on sale. Lions, cheetahs, gorillas, snakes—please not them—meerkats…tigers. Those two songs… My God. Really?
“Ti…ger?”
Newt nodded and River’s heart thumped hard.
“You have laryngitis, so don’t speak,” Newt whispered. “Well, you can squeak with fear. But try not to sound like something a tiger would eat.”
A tiger? River didn’t think there was much that could surprise him anymore but this did.
When the uniformed employee came to them, Newt stepped forward with his hand out. “Hi. I’m Newt. This is Sol.”
Sol was the name of the character River had played in the time jumper movie.
“Sol’s lost his voice. It’s not contagious. Too much karaoke.”
The keeper laughed. “I’m Jacob.”
River shook his hand.
“We thought a face mask was a good idea, just in case, or will it frighten the tiger?”
“I think Luca will be fine with a face mask. There’s not much that scares a tiger apart from fire, loud and unfamiliar noises or big powerful animals like elephants, rhinos, and grizzly bears. And humans with guns.”
“Wow, I have something in common with a tiger,” Newt said.
As they walked through the wildlife sanctuary, Jacob talked to them about the tigers they had and how they’d come to be there. All rescued from other zoos where they’d not been treated as they should have been.
“I read that their pee smells like buttered popcorn. Is that true?” Newt asked.
“Yes. So does that of the binturong. They’re bear cats from south-east Asia. There’s a chemical compound in their urine that’s the same as in freshly popped popcorn.”
“I know that an impala’s pee smells like cheese,” Newt said. “And a maned wolf’s smells like weed and a male Western Grey kangaroo smells like curry.”
Jacob chuckled. “Been googling?”
“I couldn’t stop once I’d started. Google is just… My final contribution is that a millipede’s pee smells like cherry cola or almonds.”
“Hints of cyanide,” Jacob said. “And here we are.” He led them through a staff only doorway. “This is Alice. She’s backup in case I get eaten.”
Alice rolled her eyes as she shook their hands.