39. Dylan
THIRTY-NINE
DYLAN
“Dylan!”
Adrian’s voice is so loud that I’m whirling around before my legs can catch up, and I almost topple over. I look around wildly, trying to see where his voice is coming from.
“Dylan!”
I take off toward the beach in a full-on sprint. Adrian’s standing at the edge of the water, jumping from one foot to the other like he’s doing some weird dance.
He lifts his head. He doesn’t look like he’s in trouble or anything.
“Come on,” he shouts. “Quickly!”
He’d probably gesture, but his arm is still in the sling.
When I get to him, I stop abruptly at the sight of the?—
“What the hell happened to your hand?”
He ignores me and instead points at the sand. “Look!”
I look down and the thing he’s holding still with his foot.
“What—oh!”
There’s a massive crab making its way toward the water. At least, it seems like it was making its way toward the water before Adrian stepped on it.
“Get it,” Adrian says. “Get it, get it, get it.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I mean… Whe—ho—where do I pick it up?”
“Side of the shell. Side of the shell!”
I pick the crab up. I never realized how many claws a crab has.
I whip my head toward Adrian. “Is that why you’re bleeding? Did you try to catch it yourself?”
“It’s a scratch,” he says.
“You’re not supposed to pick things up.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just drop it in the fire.”
I don’t really think about it and just do what he says.
For the next few minutes we both stare at the fire impatiently.
“How do we know if it’s ready?” I ask Adrian.
He considers the crab before glancing at me. “Guess?” he suggests.
I look at him, then the crab, then back at him before I shrug. “Sounds like as good a plan as any.”
While we wait, I go get the first aid kit and clean his hand where the crab snapped him with its claw.
It’s just a surface wound, but I still slather it with the antiseptic ointment.
More than half of it is gone now, even though we’ve been so careful with it.
I try not to think about what we’ll do when it runs out.
We fish the crab out of the fire after a little bit.
It’s turned a reddish color, so I’m going to guess that’s a good sign.
And then we spend a blissful half hour cracking the crab open and eating.
It’s by no means a full meal for the two of us, but it’s a bit of variation, and my stomach and brain both appreciate the fuck out of that.
I drop on my back on the sand and close my eyes once I’m done, just to prolong the feeling of contentment.
“That was awesome,” I say.
Little bits of sand shower my arm when Adrian carefully maneuvers himself onto his back next to me.
I turn my head to the side.
“How’s your arm?”
He rolls his eyes at the question.
“Better,” he says, like he’s done every day for about two weeks now. “I’m going to ditch the sling.”
We’ve been arguing about that for a few days now. I want to err on the side of caution and keep the sling on. Adrian is sick of it.
“Yeah, okay,” I say.
He turns his head and grins at me. “What? No arguments today?”
I flip him off. “You’re a big boy. I think you’re capable of deciding whether your shoulder hurts or not.”
“It could’ve been worse, you know,” he says thoughtfully. “I could’ve broken my brain.”
I don’t know what it is he sees on my face, but he winces. “Sorry. It feels better. Really.”
“But no climbing trees yet,” I say sternly.
He salutes me with his good arm. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
He laughs and wiggles around in the sand until he’s in his customary position with his head resting on my stomach.
And I do my customary thing where I think about disgusting things and take slow, deep breaths to get my heart rate back to normal. You’d think I’d be developing immunity after all this practice, but instead my whole body just seems to get progressively more sensitive when it comes to Adrian.
I close my eyes and will myself to relax.
It’s not going very well.
Adrian’s hair tickles my abdomen. My skin tingles.
A soft breeze blows over us from the ocean. The sun has set, so it’s getting chillier. We’re both shirtless, and Adrian’s nipples harden.
I want to lick them.
My stomach gets that I’m-looking-at-the-ground-from-way-up-high feeling—a mix of excitement and fear—and my heart starts beating faster again.
I want to lick him all over.
This whole thing makes me feel like a fucking pervert. This is pure friendship for Adrian, and here I am, thinking about licking his nipples.
Fantastic.
He turns his head and frowns at me. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I say, way too curtly.
He raises his brows at me.
“Fine,” I repeat and throw in a somewhat tense smile.
“Okay,” he says slowly. He absently scratches his chest, and his fingertips graze his nipple. That damn nipple! It’s going to be the death of me, because it pebbles into a tight, pointy bud again.
I screw my eyes shut and continue with my deep breathing exercises.
The smart thing to do would be to put some distance between the two of us.
Stop the using-my-body-as-a-pillow and the spooning thing we do at night.
But he’d definitely notice if I suddenly started doing that, and it’d be impossible to explain, and then things would get weird between us, and that would possibly mess everything up.
I can deal with the unrequited love and not being with him sexually. That’s fine. I’ve coped with those feelings for half my life.
But things getting weird between us? Him getting all tense on me and figuring out how I feel about him and then being all awkward about it forever? No, thank you.
“How the hell did you manage to turn me into your very own pillow without me even noticing it happened?” I grumble while I put one arm behind my head and lower the other so I can rake my fingers through Adrian’s hair, because bad decisions are carried through my bloodstream like oxygen.
He looks up at me and grins. “You’re comfortable.”
“Your head is really heavy.”
“It’s all the smartness I’ve got crammed in there.”
“So heavy but curiously it echoes.” I tap my index finger against his forehead. “Everything okay in there?”
In response, he lifts his head a bit and slams it back into my stomach.
I let out a loud grunt and an “Oof,” and then glare at the top of his head.
“Asshole,” I say.
In response, he settles in more comfortably and grins at me.
I tug at his hair, just a bit too forcefully.
He pokes my side until I start to squirm.
It’s silent warfare.
We used to do this when we were kids. The one who lets out a sound first loses.
I lift my head up and blow into his face.
He hates that.
He retaliates by pinching my thigh.
I hate that.
I rub my knuckles against the top of his head and mess up his hair so that strands get in his face.
He does that thing where he makes the joints in his hands crack. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard for me. It’s disgusting.
I stick my pinky in my mouth and then push it into his ear.
He shudders and scrambles to get away, and that’s when I realize the grave mistake I’ve just made. Because he’s not moving toward my head. He moves lower. Now his head is in my lap. And as retaliation for the wet willy I just gave him, he turns his head to the side and licks my abdomen.
Everything freezes.
Time.
Space.
The Earth stops spinning.
Because of that strip of wet skin below my navel, and the way every cell and nerve ending in my body goes haywire.
I let out some sort of noise that makes it sound like I’m choking.
He laughs and his eyes gleam with victory.
“Ha! Suck it,” he says, blissfully unaware of what he just did to me.
My toes curl, and I try to keep very still, as if there’s a world out there where it would possibly help.
Adrian’s head is still in my lap.
There is no world where he doesn’t feel what’s happening somewhere just against his cheek.
He blinks at me.
I can still feel the swipe of his tongue on my stomach. My heart is galloping in my chest. Adrian pushes himself into a sitting position, and I scramble to my knees.
We stare at each other.
Say something.
Laugh it off.
Say. Something.
My mouth isn’t working, and neither is my brain.
I know I have to fix this somehow, but the how escapes me.
Adrian’s eyes move down my body.
I’m still hard, and since we’ve already established that I’m a pervert, the wide-eyed look he sends me makes my dick perk up even more. It jerks. Visibly. In a way that’s impossible to miss.
“I…” I start to speak without any idea what I’m going to say, my voice all gravel and desire. The kind of desire that’s so clear it’s impossible to fool yourself into thinking it’s anything else.
I expect him to move away.
He doesn’t.
He shuffles closer, and the look in his eyes is the same kind of horrified fascination people have when they witness a trainwreck and are somehow compelled to get closer.
Until we’re only separated by a foot or so.
I don’t know what he’s thinking. Just… zero idea whatsoever.
He licks his lips, and almost absently scratches the spot just above the waistband of his shorts.
I don’t know how to explain what happens next.
How I lose whatever tiny increment of functional brain cells I have left.
How I lose my fucking mind in a spectacular way.
One moment I’m kneeling in the sand.
The next I’m on him.
My hand on the back of his neck.
My chest pressed against the arm in the sling.
Abdomen against abdomen.
Thighs against thighs.
I push my hand into the hair at the back of his head.
Hold him still.
And kiss him.
His whole body tenses.
It’s an out-of-body experience where very absently, in the back of my mind, I note that…
I’ve ruined everything.
I’ve ruined the only thing that truly matters to me in this world.
I’ve fucked it all up.
But…
He doesn’t push me away.
We’re still kneeling in the sand, bodies pressed tightly together. My heart hammers against his arm.
Fuck it.
I’ve already fucked up.
Might as well burn everything down while I’m at it.
Take what I can get.
I lick his lower lip.
He sucks in a breath, and with a guttural moan that makes my dick painfully hard, he opens his mouth for me.
My brain goes offline, and my body takes over. I push my tongue into his mouth with no finesse. I have to take as fast as I can, because any moment now he’s going to come to his senses and put a stop to it.
He smells like sweat and ocean and sand, and his lips have a salty flavor to them. All of it is perfect because all of it is Adrian. After all these years, I’m finally getting a taste of him.
All the years of craving and yearning and aching and wanting rush forward until my whole being is overtaken.
I kiss Adrian like I’ve been starving for him.
Fingers in his hair.
Lips on his.
Hot and hard.
Craving and yearning and aching and wanting.