Chapter 24
I’ve just gotten out of bed to hit the lights when there’s a knock. And this time, I know it’s him. I take a second getting to the door. He can wait.
“Hey,” I say, barely giving him anything.
“Hey,” Diego says back.
“You didn’t wanna call first?”
“I tried that last night. You didn’t answer me.”
Fair enough.
I nod through the silence, and we continue standing at the door.
“Congratulations on today,” he says like some sort of peace offering.
“Yeah, you too. That was a big comeback.”
“Didn’t think it was going to happen.”
I don’t think he’s being modest there. I think he means it. “What turned it around?” I ask him.
He pauses, dips his head. “It was funny. I…During the set break, they put your match point on the screen. I tried not to watch—I didn’t want to get distracted—but…
I did.” He continues to stumble through his response, his voice hushed and raspy, like he’s just spent every ounce of himself to return from the dead, but a glimmer of life appears in his eyes during the next part.
“I don’t know. I was just—I was happy for you, and I didn’t want this to end,” he continues. “So I got up and made sure it didn’t.”
That would sound so sappy if I hadn’t had that same experience when I was playing Dimitris, and now he’s slowly starting to win me over again—a little.
“You owe your win to me, you’re saying?”
He shakes his head. “I know it sounds stupid.”
“It’s not,” I say, giving him a little bit.
And right on the heels of that, he asks, “Why did you get so weird last night?”
He asks the question like it’s been burning inside him, like it’s the reason he’s here.
And as mad as I am, I want answers too. Opening the door wider, I let him in.
He walks around awkwardly for a bit, unsure of what to do or where to sit, and eventually he stands by the TV, placing his hand on his Nintendo Switch.
It’s been living there since he left it.
That first night feels like ages ago, but it’s been only a week.
“Have you hooked up with guys before?” I ask him.
“What?” He looks genuinely shocked, but I carry on.
“Because we had a whole conversation in the park about our histories, and I was really honest about mine. And I was honest when I told you about my anxiety. And I don’t think you’re being as open with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Auz.”
Auz, he says. Not Austin. Not Hardy Boy. Auz, like Mom and Char call me. And now I feel like I’m being manipulated.
“Emiliano joined me in the bathroom—supercool conversation—and he mentioned that you get easily distracted by things. Girls and guys.”
“He said what?”
“That’s what he said.”
“He was fucking with you. He was trying to get in your head. He sees you as a threat.”
“No, he doesn’t. But now he fucking should,” I say, and the room turns cold as our eyes lock. “Have you hooked up with guys before? It’s fine if you have, obviously. I just don’t know why you didn’t bring that up, and why I’m learning about it while being harassed by your coach in a bathroom.”
“I’m sorry he did that. He gets intense.”
“What did he mean?”
“It’s not guys. It’s not. It’s—it was—one guy. And then…you.” Diego exhales. “So, yeah, two guys. Sure.” He looks away. “That’s what he meant.” His eyes drop to the floor.
“Okay. Yeah, okay.” I take a beat as I process this. “I mean, it’s not that you had to tell me about that. It’s just, we had a whole conversation.”
“I know.”
“So it just sounded strange to me.”
“I know.”
“And you told me you felt straight before I came along.”
“That’s still true. He didn’t mean anything to me.”
“So…who’s the other one?” I ask.
“It was stupid and fast and it’s over.”
“Someone from school?”
“No. Someone from…” He pauses like he doesn’t want to say it. “Here.”
“Here, like, on tour?”
No answer.
Oh. Oh shit. I’m really putting the openly in openly gay around here. Sure, there are rumors about other players, but they’ve never sounded true.
“Who is it?” Maybe I have no business asking, but I can’t fight my brewing jealousy.
“I’m not gonna out somebody, Austin.”
I can’t stop the names floating through my head, but I regret the question after that response. “Yeah, right, of course.” Now it’s my turn to retreat. “Sorry.”
Another silence.
“So, you had a thing, and then it ended,” I say, like I’m telling myself.
“It was barely a thing. And then he got weird and didn’t want to hang out anymore,” he says with a shrug. “So I just make him pay for it every time we play.” He smirks. I smirk too. But I also clock the irony.
“Is that what you’re gonna do to me on Sunday?” I ask, teasing, as he shuffles to the other side of the room. He glances down at my bedside table and finds the drawing he gave me, right where I left it, sitting next to my book. He picks up the paper and studies it.
“What happens when we both need to break a leg?” he asks.
I nod. It’s a fair question.
“There was a world where I didn’t want you to win today,” he says.
He keeps describing thoughts that I’ve also had—like he’s in my brain. “I also imagined that world,” I say, “but here we are, two days away.”
“Two days away,” he repeats, and reaches for the sleeve of his hoodie. “You left this at the table after dinner.” Diego unfastens his watch, holds it up to me. “It looks too good on you for your wrist to be naked.”
The way he says naked…I let him take my hand, and he slides the cold metal of the watch over my fingers. The bracelet pinches a hair on my wrist, but I don’t flinch. He fastens it as my heart thumps faster in my chest.
I wonder who his other guy was. I wonder how far Diego went with him. I wonder why the thought of it makes me feel this piercing jealousy. But most of all, I wonder why it’s taking Diego so long to kiss me.
I lean in. He meets me halfway.
It starts small, no tongue at first—at first. Maybe we’re too tired from our matches. His lips are cracked from the sun, but I don’t care at all. His hand finds my cheek.
Moving my arm below the sharpness of his ribs, I pull him closer to me.
And that’s the green light he wanted. He grabs me, kissing me harder, tongues twisting in circles.
Our feet stumble as he guides me to the bed.
He pushes me onto it and climbs on top of me, his weight sinking my body into the comforter.
His nose pushes warm air against my face, our mouths too busy to breathe.
Against my leg I feel his dick growing through his shorts, and a jolt of lust rushes through me, transforms me into someone I haven’t been able to be in a long time.
Suddenly, I push him up and off me and straddle his crotch.
I kiss everywhere I can find—his lips, his cheek, the square of his jaw…
His cologne enters my body like a drug. I drag my tongue across his neck, all the way up to his ear, and he lets out a moan so deep that it makes my mouth water.
Through our clothes, I grind harder and harder against him, and he reaches up to wrap his arms around me.
He squeezes me into him, willing us into one.
And when he finally lets go, I move my hand down, down, across the dark hair circling his stomach, to the edge of the elastic on his briefs—and into the heat below. His lips part.
There’s still a piece of me that can’t believe what’s happening, believes that I’ll wake up from this, that I don’t actually have Diego Cruz in my hand.
“Austin,” he says in a whisper.
I kiss him, holding on hard.
“Austin,” he says again. I look over to meet his eyes. “Can we—” he starts, then pauses.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck, is this the part where I wake up?
“I haven’t done…very much…with a guy, I—” he says, fumbling.
Is he calling this off? Did I go too far?
“I’ve never had sex with a guy,” he says. “And I don’t know what…position…you’re into.”
A wave of relief. He’s not objecting. He’s asking if I’m a top or a bottom.
“No, no, it’s okay. We don’t have to do that,” I say, omitting that I haven’t had full-on sex with a guy either. I can have secrets too. “There are lots of other things we can do.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve been on the internet,” he says.
After our laughter settles, I ask another one of my burning questions as I settle next to him. “What did you and your other guy do?” I can’t help myself. The thought of him with someone else, a guy, still eats at me.
“We—” He shakes his head, embarrassed. “We didn’t really do anything. We jerked off together a few times. No touching, really. It was weird.”
I can show him a better time than that.
“You jerked off…like this?” I say, my hand still deep in his shorts.
He laughs, but soon his eyelids drip closed.
I don’t want him to feel embarrassed by how far he’s been with a guy.
It’s not that different from how Jake and I started—secret escapes to his room to test the waters, both of us afraid to be the first to ask, to try, afraid of it all, but so unstoppably curious.
I can see Diego’s heart beating through his chest as it rises and falls, up and down.
His eyes still closed, he’s lost in pleasure.
I wish I could make him feel this way forever, erase any sadness that lives inside him—from his dog, from his shitty time with whoever the mystery guy is, from anything else he may be keeping from me, too afraid to share.
Diego reaches down, slides out of his shorts and briefs, pushing them down to his knees, leaving all of him in full view.
A grin finds my face as I continue to stroke him.
He’s ranked higher than me, he’s taller, more muscular, hairier, certainly, but there’s one area where I have him beat, and it’s currently rock-hard in front of me.
He reaches his hand to my hair, drags his fingers down my cheek, pushes them across my lips. I part them slightly, letting his thumb slide against the ridges of my teeth and into my mouth, like he’s begging me to replace it with something else.
“Is that what you want?” I ask him, teasing.
He looks at me, practically begging. “Please,” he says in a whisper.
A man with manners.
Moving over him again, between his legs, I lower my mouth to give him exactly what he’s asking for.
Slowly, I circle the head of his dick with my tongue until I can’t take the wait.
I shove the rest of him against the back of my throat.
I want all of him. His hand immediately grips my shoulder.
“Fuck, Austin,” he moans, his voice dark.
I want to hear him say it again. I want my name to live in his mouth.
So I work harder. “Fuck,” he says again as I slide my other hand under his shirt, up his chest, to his nipples, his neck.
His hand returns to my face. “Okay, okay—wait,” he says out of nowhere.
I stop, looking up at him as he lets out a breathy laugh.
“I’m getting close. I’m sorry,” he whispers with a nervous grin.
I smirk back, still holding on to him. What a feeling—to know that I have the power to make him explode with a tiny flick of my tongue.
I’ve spent so long wondering whether he actually likes me, and now his body is proving that he does.
Moving up to my knees, I gaze into his brown eyes, narrowing with desire. His hand lingers on my leg, and soon it travels up, tickling my inner thigh, and entering the bottom of my shorts. He brushes against my balls, and the warmth of his fingers wraps around my dick.
“Come here,” he says. “It’s your turn now.”
He removes his hand, and a chill hits my bare ass as he yanks my shorts down. He gazes at my dick, standing right in front of him, inches from his lips, harder than it’s ever been before. “Whoa,” he says.
“Whoa, what?” I reply.
“I think…you’re bigger than me.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Problem?” he asks. “It’s a fucking perk.”
And my eyes close as he fits me in his mouth.
—
His heartbeat—that’s what I think I’ll remember most from this night.
Not his moans, deep and frequent. Not the little mole beside his dick.
Not his fingers running down the crack of my ass.
Not the two hand towels it took to mop him up.
There’s a small spot we missed, trapped in hair on his stomach, and I’m staring at it now, my head resting on his chest, my ear glued to—his heartbeat.
That simple sign of beating life…It proves to me that he’s here and he’s real and I didn’t imagine any of this. For the moment, as long as I can hear his heartbeat I am his, and he is mine.