Chapter 12 #3
“No, you’re not. If you’re a selfish prick, then so am I.”
“You were the one who was roofied and sexually assaulted by some older college girl, Monte. Fuck.”
“Yeah, and you were the one who was kidnapped, tied up, and left naked by the creek, Iggs. Listen.” He gently turned Iggy’s head so they were eye to eye. “We both went through our own traumas that night. We were seventeen, and we chose to protect ourselves by walling ourselves off from the world.”
“And from each other.”
“Yeah, we did that. And we can’t change it.
I was hurt and angry. You were hurt and angry.
I’ve played the what-if game a thousand times, and no amount of second-guessing changes where we are today.
Maybe the only path to overcoming what happened to us and the choices we made was to go through it apart.
To prepare us for the conversation we’re having right now. To be the men we are today.”
Protective rage buzzed across Malcolm’s skin as he gazed at Iggy.
Rage that anyone back then had dared to drug his Iggs, to strip him down and tie him to a fucking tree.
To leave him, naked and terrified, and so fucking exposed to anything or anyone who might have found him.
Before his nameless, faceless rescuer loosened those ropes.
Rescuer my gay ass.
“Thank you for telling me,” Malcolm said. “For finally trusting me with this huge part of yourself.”
“Thank you for trusting me, too. God, I hate them all so much for what they did to you. To us. All of them. Whoever they are. I hope they’re all bald and have back acne, and that they’re miserable as shit every single day. And that college girl? I hope she’s—”
Malcolm placed a gentle, shushing finger over Iggy’s lips. “I know. But I’m okay, I promise. I’m sorry it took us seventeen years to talk about that night, but we have. And if I am thankful for one thing, it’s that you had Howie with you, to look after you after everything that happened.”
Iggy blanched. “But you didn’t have anybody. Your parents were divorcing, and you were assaulted at the party, and then I turned my back on you when you needed me most. I let you down.”
“We let each other down. But we were teenagers who took what we saw at face value, refused to confront each other out of fear and anger, and we fucked up the aftermath. Now we’re adults, and we’re making amends. We’re letting go of the past and stepping forward. Right?”
“Yes.” Iggy swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Do I get to say I’m sorry one more time?”
“If you want to, but it’s not necessary.
I’m sorry, too. I wished for years that I’d pushed more, that I’d bullied you into talking to me, and now I’m glad I didn’t.
Knowing what you went through? Me pushing myself on you, even just to talk, could have been even more traumatic.
” Malcolm swallowed back the urgent need to growl, to stake some sort of physical claim on Iggy, to mark him so no man dared to try and hurt him again.
“But those guys who tied you up…did they do anything else?”
Iggy shrugged awkwardly in his arms. “Nothing I remember, and other than a few scrapes from a tree root on my hip, I didn’t have any marks on me. I think they just wanted to terrorize the queer kid who refused to dim his shine. Maybe punish me a little for”—he made air quotes—“turning you.”
“As if.” He nuzzled Iggy’s cheek with his nose, happy when Iggy sighed and sank deeper into his arms. “All you did was help me embrace being gay, and I love you for that. I don’t think I ever stopped.”
“Same.” Iggy trembled.
“What’s wrong?”
“Scared.”
“Of what, sweetheart?”
“Losing you again. I loved you and lost you. I loved Darren and lost him. I don’t know if I could stand losing you a second time. My heart would shatter.”
Malcolm did his best to hold Iggy harder, tighter, while still allowing them both to breathe. “I want to promise forever, but we both know I can’t. All I can promise is today. That I love you today, and I’ll love you for a lifetime of todays.”
Iggy sobbed softly and clung to him, and Malcolm rocked gently, side to side. Iggy wasn’t crying, though, and they existed together for a long time, their mutual silence as loud a promise as they could make.
Silence that promised everything words could not.
It started slowly, without real thought, kissing first. Then hands strayed.
Each shed clothing on the shuffle-walk to the bed.
Fingers touched and groped; mouths sucked and licked; teeth nipped and grazed.
An erotic dance as new as it was familiar, that ended with Malcolm on top of Iggy, their hard cocks aligned, thrusting together between their taut bellies.
The supplies they’d bought didn’t matter, it was only this moment.
Only now.
The pure bliss of doing this with Iggy, his precious Iggs, speared Malcolm in the heart, and he shouted through his release. Iggy came not long after, and they relaxed together, sated, their bodies wrapped around each other along with their shared promise.
And they dozed.