Chapter 33. Liam
The pizza sits warm and heavy in my stomach as we stumble back into our room. My face still aches from the punch, but I don't care. I'm full, I'm happy, I'm with the man I love, and I just had the best time with my friends.
Life is good.
Ethan shuts the door behind us softly, then turns and leans against it, arms crossed, watching me with this look that's part hunger, part some other kind of hunger, and part you're the cutest thing on this planet.
"I love when you're smiling like that," he says.
I flop onto the bed, face-first into the blanket. "I'm high on carbs and humiliation."
He snorts. "You didn't embarrass yourself."
"I'm literally the only person who got knocked out in the first round."
He shrugs out of his hoodie and tosses it onto the other bed, exposing his arms, which should be illegal. "You got up. Twice."
"Once. The second time I just flopped."
"Still counts."
He crosses the room and kneels on the bed next to me, hands on my back. I'm not ready for how good that feels, his thumbs kneading my shoulders, so I just lie there, face pressed into the white comforter.
"We're covered in pizza grease and sweat," he murmurs, working a knot in my neck.
"Speak for yourself, Daddy. I'm mostly cheese."
He digs into the knot harder, making me groan, and then he's laughing, his mouth at my ear, warm breath skimming my skin.
"You want a shower?" he asks.
I shake my head, then regret it because the movement sends pain flaring through my cheekbone.
"I want to die here, on this bed, and have them bury me in it."
He keeps massaging, but now he's not pretending it's about my back anymore. His hands slide under my shirt, nails grazing my sides. I squirm. I can feel myself getting hard already.
"Daaaaddy," I mumble.
He knows.
He's got me pegged, in every sense of the word.
His hands go to my waist, fingers catching in the waistband of my shorts. He drags them down slowly, then stops halfway and tugs my shirt up instead, exposing my back and the tattoo just under my left shoulder blade.
He traces it with a fingertip.
"I love this," he says. "It's so you."
I snort into the pillow. "It's a dumb butterfly."
"It's a moth," he corrects. "You always minimize things about yourself."
I roll over, and now he's straddling my thighs, his hands braced on either side of my head, looking down at me with those green eyes like he's about to devour me.
He pins my wrists to the bed, his hands dwarfing mine. My breath stutters. He leans down and kisses me, tongue pushing into my mouth like he owns it, and he does. He owns all of me.
I can't move.
Don't want to move.
His weight is perfect, just enough to remind me how strong he is, how easy it would be for him to do anything he wants with me.
I buck my hips, desperate for friction. He grinds down, our cocks rubbing through layers of fabric, and I whine because I can't help myself. Fuck, he always turns me into this horny mess, and my mouth actually waters.
"Shh," he says, breaking the kiss, lips brushing my ear. "Walls are thin."
"Like you care," I say.
He laughs. "You want Jack to hear?"
"I want you to make me scream."
He presses his mouth to my jaw, biting just below my ear. "Not a chance. You'll be quiet like a good boy for Daddy."
He keeps my wrists pinned with one hand and slides the other down, sneaking under the elastic of my underwear, palming me.
My brain short-circuits.
"Already hard?" he teases. "God, you're such an easy thing."
"Maybe you're just really hot," I gasp.
He strokes me slowly, drawing it out. I try to thrust up, but his weight keeps me pinned. The sensation is torture, just enough pressure, his thumb brushing the head, smearing the pre everywhere.
I bite my lip to keep from making noise, but it doesn't work.
"Daddy," I hiss. "Please."
He kisses down my neck. He worships every inch of my chest, tongue circling my nipple, then scraping over it with his teeth, and I almost lose it right there.
"Fuck," I whisper. "If you don't…"
He laughs against my skin.
"Patience, baby."
He lets go of my wrists and yanks my shorts and briefs down in one motion, leaving me exposed. The room is cold, but I'm burning up.
He kneels between my legs and wraps his hand around my cock, jerking me slowly, then fast, then slow again.
Every nerve ending is awake, raw.
"God, I love how you smell. All sweaty, all musky for me."
Fuck.
I reach for him, grabbing the front of his shirt. "Undress," I say.
He grins and pulls it off, tossing it aside. He's beautiful, all muscle, the way his skin tightens over his ribs when he moves, the trail of hair disappearing into his shorts.
He gets rid of those too, and now we're both naked, and I can't stop looking at him.
He's perfect, cock hard and leaking, the head flushed red. I want to taste him, but he's already moving, shifting me up the bed so my head rests on the pillow.
He reaches into our bag by the nightstand for the lube, slicking himself before coating two fingers and sliding them between my thighs, gentle at first, teasing me, then pressing in.
I gasp and try not to arch off the bed.
"Relax for me, baby," he murmurs.
He works his fingers in and out, scissoring me open, his other hand stroking my cock slow and lazy.
I'm losing my mind.
"You good?" he asks, voice soft.
I nod, desperate.
He lines up and pushes in slowly. The stretch is incredible. He bottoms out with a grunt, both hands on my hips, holding me still.
I bite my knuckles, but a sound leaks out anyway, a whimper I can't stop.
He waits.
Lets me get used to it.
Then he starts moving, shallow at first, then deeper, finding the angle that makes my vision stutter.
He's good at this. Perfect, even, because he pays attention. He knows exactly where to touch and how hard and for how long.
He worships me.
I dig my heels into his back, needing more, and he obliges, fucking me harder, the bed starting to thump against the wall.
I laugh even as I moan because I'm suddenly imagining everybody listening to us.
And I don't even hate the thought.
He leans down and kisses me, sloppy and desperate, then bites my lip. His hand strokes my cock in rhythm with his thrusts, and I know I'm close.
I'm so close.
"Daddy," I whisper. "I'm gonna…"
"Do it," he says. "Cum for me."
Three more strokes and I do, all over my chest and his hand, and it's so intense my body locks up.
I see stars.
I can feel him get even harder inside me, and then he shudders and comes too.
He collapses on top of me, panting into my neck.
After a minute, he pulls out and wipes me off with the corner of the sheet.
We lie there, tangled and sticky, breathing in each other's air.
From the other side of the wall comes a thud, followed by Jack's muffled voice.
"If you're going to do that, can you do it quieter? Some of us are trying to sleep off our trauma!"
Ethan laughs.
I bury my face in his chest, shaking with silent laughter.
"Sorry, Jack!" I yell.
"Don't apologize, just shut up!" he yells back.
Something—maybe a shoe—slams into the wall.
Ethan kisses the top of my head. "Worth it," he murmurs.
"Worth it," I agree.
We're lying there in the dark, catching our breath, when I roll over and pull the curtain aside to look outside.
That's when I see him.
"Ethan," I say.
"Mm."
"Reed is outside."
A pause.
Then Ethan sits up.
Through the window, across the parking lot, Reed is sitting on the low concrete wall right next to the HOIDAY INN sign.
One foot on the hotel side, one foot dangling over the other.
He's right at the edge of the property, maybe one step from the sidewalk, staring at the street like he's waiting for a bus that isn't coming.
His championship medal hangs around his neck.
"That's basically the property line," I say.
"I know."
"If Griff sees him…"
"I know."
Ethan is already pulling his shirt back on. "Come on."
"We're naked," I point out.
"Then get dressed."
We throw on clothes and slip out, down the stairs, through the lobby, past a front desk clerk who pointedly does not look at us.
Outside, the air is cool. Grit crunches under our feet as we cross the parking lot.
Reed doesn't look up until we're almost beside him. Then his eyes flick to us, flat and unimpressed, and he looks back at the street.
"Griff can't see you here," Ethan says.
"I know where the property line is."
"You're practically on it."
"Almost isn't the same as over it." He turns the medal over in his hand. "Go back inside."
I sit down on the wall next to him.
Ethan stays standing, arms crossed, doing his Ethan thing.
Reed glances sideways at me. I can tell he wants to tell me to leave.
He doesn't.
"You're not going to run, right?" I ask.
"No."
"Then what are you doing out here?"
He's quiet for a moment.
The HOIDAY INN sign buzzes above us, that missing L a dark gap in the orange light. A car passes on the street, headlights sweeping across the pavement.
"I like it here," he says finally. "Right on the line. Not in, not out."
He pauses.
"I do it everywhere. Find the edge of whatever's allowed and stand on it. See how it feels."
"That sounds fucking exhausting," I say.
Something moves in his face. Not quite a smile.
"Yeah," he says. "It is."
He keeps turning the medal over. I watch his hands. He looks almost boyish. Younger. It’s so weird.
"There was a guy at my school in senior year. He made this girl's life hell for two years. Everyone knew. Nobody did anything."
He pauses.
Ethan and I exchange a look.
"So I did something. Put him in the hospital. Orbital fracture, fractured jaw, two cracked ribs." He says it flatly, shrugging. "Aggravated assault. My uncle called in every favor he had to get me Aspire instead of prison. I was eighteen already."
Nobody speaks for a second.
"She moved schools after," he says. "I don't know where she ended up. I never got to ask if she even wanted me to do it. Maybe she even loved him."
He finally looks over, and he's looking at me, not Ethan.
"I don't know if I should have done that. I wonder about it all the time."
I hold his gaze.
"I understand," I tell him.
And I do understand.
He nods once and looks back at the street.
"The part I can't shake," he says, quieter now, "isn't that I did it. It's that I knew when he was down, and I kept going anyway."
He's quiet for a moment.
"I'd have killed him."
The street is empty.
"I'm not running," Reed says again, and this time, it sounds like he's saying it to himself as much as to us. "I've got things I'm not done with yet."
He stands.
Pockets the medal.
His face closes back up, the usual Reed reassembled, but not completely, and I don't think any of us are pretending otherwise.
Ethan looks at him. "Why are you telling us this?"
Reed turns.
Something in his expression sharpens.
"Because I fucking felt like it," he says. "And I was telling Liam, who's my friend, not you. You just happened to be here listening too."
"Who said I want you as my friend?" Ethan says. "You've spent four years making my life difficult."
"You've spent four years acting like you're the only person in Aspire with a moral compass. It's exhausting to be around."
"Someone has to have one."
"Sure," Reed says. "Very inspiring. Put it on a poster."
I press my lips together. I'm staying out of this. I find it a little bit hot that Daddy has a rival.
Ethan crosses his arms. "You know what your problem is?"
"I'm sure you're about to tell me."
"You're used to everyone either being afraid of you or wanting something from you. So when someone just doesn't like you, you don't know what to do with it."
Reed stares at him. There’s a long pause. The sign buzzes and it’s a funny sound.
"Hm," Reed says.
"Hm?"
"That's actually not wrong." He says. "You're still annoying. And I know you don't actually dislike me."
"Yes, I do. You're a nightmare."
"Yeah. You suck." Reed tilts his head slightly. "But you're not completely useless. At least you're good for Liam. For what it's worth."
Ethan looks at him for a moment.
"That's genuinely the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't get used to it."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Reed starts toward the hotel. He sighs and gets up from where he’s sitting.
"Fuck you, Farley, for ruining my evening. Thanks, Liam, for worrying about me. Good night, fuckers."
He walks inside.
Ethan and I stand there for a second.
"Huh," I say.
"Yeah," Ethan says.
"You gotta admit he's not that bad, Daddy," I tell him.
He shrugs and rolls his eyes, something he almost never does.
"Fine," he says. "Don't ever tell him that, though. Come on. We can't let Griff see us out here."
He puts his arm around my shoulders, and we walk inside.