Chapter Ten #2
“Why can’t we stay here?”
“Let me see,” Ben said drily. “I’m Phil’s boss. We’re not paying rent. I haven’t registered this as my current address anywhere—”
“So what?”
“So, we have to go!”
Charlie remained petulantly silent the entire way to school.
Since the team had a rest day, Ben went home afterward, only to find Phil in a similar mood.
He’d thought, maybe, with the house to themselves and the question of Ben and Charlie’s living situation on track to be dealt with, that he and Phil could have a real conversation about what was going on between them.
But Phil vanished into his gym, and Ben didn’t dare follow.
The image of Phil’s thighs haunted Ben, and if he saw them now, he’d do something he’d regret before they could get as far as “So, you’re not gay, but are you maybe bi? ”
Instead, Ben spent the day at his computer, writing up his interactions with Trout into a rough semblance of an article. At a quarter to three, Ben got into his car and drove over to Charlie’s school, picking him up for the long, silent drive up to Oakland.
At the first apartment, the only thing Charlie said was, “I’d have to switch schools again if we lived here.”
He had a point.
Worse, the thousand a month, two-bedroom apartment was a shithole.
If Ben were by himself, who cared that the bathroom had no windows, and Ben had to hunch his shoulders if he didn’t want them to brush against the walls on either side?
Or that the kitchen consisted of a narrow hotplate in the hallway, right under the smoke detector?
But with two of them, there’d be no communal space.
They’d have to put a table and chairs in one of the bedrooms, both of which were so small getting a bed and a dresser in would be pushing it.
Neither of them liked other people in their space to begin with, but moving to the cramped quarters after coming from the comfort and luxury of Phil’s place was almost unthinkable.
Almost.
A thousand a month was always worth thinking about.
Ben plastered on his best smile and asked the landlady about Oakland High.
The expression she made before assuring him it was a great school was enough to strike the apartment from Ben’s list.
The next place they toured meant another long, silent car ride to North Berkeley, nearly Richmond.
It was on the ground floor, a plus in Ben’s book, but twice as expensive as the first place.
The upstairs neighbors turned out to be the landlords, who wanted to downsize since they didn’t need both floors, which rang a few alarm bells.
Landlords living in the same property meant they’d be overinvested to the point of intrusiveness.
Ben would take a soulless corporation any day.
More concerning was the apartment itself. The listing had it down as a two-bedroom, but closer inspection revealed one large room with a curtain separating it into two.
“Our kids did just fine with it,” the landlord claimed, but his kids were notably not living there anymore.
The summer before Ben went to college, he’d tried arguing against his father’s stance on “the queers.” As a result, his father had taken his bedroom door off its hinges and locked it in the garage for the six weeks before the start of the fall semester.
Ben knew this behavior went far beyond what most Mormons dealt with to the point of bordering on child abuse.
He also knew that should he and Charlie need to share space for whatever reason, he would not be performing psychotic middle-of-the-night checks or taking away Charlie’s things.
Still, Ben couldn’t imagine inflicting such a lack of privacy on Charlie if he didn’t absolutely have to.
The last place was all the way back through Oakland again to Fremont. It cost the most of the three, and Ben nearly hadn’t sent the landlord a message about seeing it, but looking around the airy, spacious rooms, he could actually imagine living there.
Charlie hated it.
That and the cost were reason enough for Ben to decide against it.
“Guess we’ll have to keep looking,” he said as they walked to the car.
“Phil told me we could stay forever.”
Ben choked on nothing. “What did he—how did—why?”
“He’s stupid into you, he’s the nicest person I’ve ever met, and he said I could play hockey with him sometime.”
One thing at a time. “Hockey is a dangerous sport. Are you sure—”
“Oh my God.”
Ben shut up.
He opened Maps on his phone, only to find Phil had texted him. The Fremont apartment must not have had any signal. Another strike against it.
Tom’s coming over for dinner.
Did that mean he wanted Ben and Charlie to stay away? Or that he would cook for all four of them? It definitely meant tonight wasn’t the night he’d ask if Ben could bite his thighs a little, or for Ben to ask exactly what Phil had meant by telling Charlie they could “stay forever.”
Either way, Ben definitely couldn’t handle pretending to be hockey coach while having dinner with Tom Crowler.
“How about we get Chipotle on our way back?” he suggested to Charlie.
The detour lasted them the time it took for a fourteen-year-old boy to eat a burrito bowl, sitting in the car in a parking lot, plus traffic.
Thankfully, the line in the Chipotle had been long and the traffic heavy, and Ben pulled into the garage to the sight of Tom’s taillights heading down the driveway.
Judging by the darkened downstairs windows, Phil must have gone up early. Ben hoped he hadn’t had a bad pain day.
“I’m going to bed,” Charlie announced as soon as he kicked off his shoes. He stomped off toward his room, just as taciturn and ill-tempered as he’d been all afternoon.
Ben breathed through the frustration. “Good night,” he called.
No answer, only the distant slamming of a door followed by running water.
What could he say to get Charlie to understand how bad it would look in court if they stayed here?
Or if they moved and Charlie acted this immature about it?
He didn’t want to endanger Charlie by telling the truth about his job and wanted to spare him from having to lie to Phil, but maybe he needed to know.
Upstairs, another door slammed. Ben closed his eyes and drew a hand over his forehead. He’d give Charlie the night to cool off and then talk to him about it on the morning drive to school—when Charlie couldn’t escape.
With a sigh, Ben rounded the corner of the couch and let himself fall into his spot on it.
“Am I a homophobe?” Phil’s voice came from right next to him, loud in the empty, dark, and silent living room.
Ben scrambled away from him. “Holy shit! What the fuck!”
“Sorry.”
“Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
Phil’s phone lit up. He hit an app and pressed a button, and the living room light came on, much too bright. Of course he had an app for the lights. “It was a weird dinner with Tom. Seriously, Ben. Do I seem like a homophobe to you?”
Ben stared at him. This didn’t appear to be a practical joke, but what else could it be? “You didn’t punch me when I kissed you.”
“I also kissed you back. And I haven’t totally fucked up with Charlie, have I?”
“Phil, you’ve been perfect.” Yet another reason Ben had to leave. It did things to him to see a man he liked so much treat his nephew so well, when all Ben could repay him with were lies.
Phil scanned Ben’s face as if searching for something. He must have found it because the next thing Ben knew, Phil cupped his face between his hands and kissed him deeply.
Phil’s thumb skated across Ben’s shoulder and dipped under the V-neck of his shirt. He rubbed the pad over the jut of Ben’s collarbone.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Phil said when they pulled apart long enough to breathe.
“You have?”
“That picture you sent…” Phil’s eyes were dark and wanting, and the thread Ben had been hanging by since Thanksgiving snapped.
He grabbed Phil by the front of the shirt and pulled him up.
Then, absorbing the shock of Phil’s weight, he half supported/half dragged him to the home gym.
Ben locked the door behind them and deposited Phil on the weight bench before dropping to his knees.
A few tugs at the waistband of Phil’s track pants made Ben’s intentions clear, and Phil lifted his hips to push them down and out of the way, leaving his loose black boxers on.
Ben eased the material up and aside and finally, finally got his mouth where he’d been wanting it.
The skin of Phil’s thighs felt soft beneath his fingertips, but the muscle underneath wasn’t. Ben found it impossible to stay gentle as he kissed and licked the newly revealed skin, and he had to bite.
When he did, Phil gasped.
If Phil meant the sound as a disincentive, it failed. Ben sucked a line of blood-hot spots down Phil’s left leg halfway to his knee and then turned around and repeated the process on the right. When his mouth wasn’t enough, he added his hands, caressing the outside of Phil’s leg.
Somewhere above him, Phil said, “Oh God.”
“Good?” Ben asked into the dark, warm skin.
“I’ve never…you…just, fuck, please, Ben.”
Ben took that as permission to keep going. He laved his tongue across the line left by the inseam of Phil’s pants and nosed into the leg hole of his boxers. He clutched tight to Phil’s other leg, fingernails digging in.
Against his cheek, Phil’s cock twitched and swelled. He couldn’t resist nuzzling into it, feeling the strain through the soft fabric.
Phil squirmed under him.
Ben let his hands stroke down the full length of Phil’s legs, dragging against the coarse hair on his shins. He traced his fingertips along the crease of Phil’s good knee, pressing kisses on the other leg where his brace met skin.
When he chanced a look up, Phil’s head was thrown back as he stared blankly at the ceiling.
Slowly, carefully, Ben reached out to palm the rigid length of Phil’s cock, tenting his boxers.
“Is this okay?” he asked.