Chapter 12
ISAK
Year made.
This week, I got to touch Lachlan’s hot skin. Taste him. Smell him. See him come.
It was so much better than in my dreams.
I love giving blow jobs. I already knew that, but I extra love the surge of power it gives me to leave the captain of the football team a whimpering mess.
I love how sexy he is when he comes. I love having him command me, even though I can always say no, because it makes me feel like I matter to him.
That’s an illusion. I don’t care. It’s fucking hot and gets me off.
We’ve come twice a day every day we’ve been here.
Today is the last day of the retreat, and we’re at arts and crafts for the final time. The counselor has us making leather bracelets, necklaces, and other items using a leather-stamping kit. We use hammers and metal dies to emboss the leather, creating a huge racket in the otherwise peaceful camp.
I’m making a tiny sun-and-moon pendant. After I pound the design into the leather, I paint it silver and gold. When it’s dry, I string it on a suede cord.
I hand it to Lachlan. “For you.”
His fingers close around it, and he smiles, his eyes somehow both intense and soft. “Thank you.” Ducking his head, he slips the loop around his neck.
Okay, so now he’s wearing my bracelet and my necklace. I know that will only last until we get home and the spell of this place breaks, but I still like the feeling: like he’s mine.
I only wish it were as easy for us as for Zanita and Malik. When I asked her how it was going, she squealed, “So good. He says he’s into me, too.”
Lucky them; they can be open about it. I don’t know what Lach and I are to each other.
Back in the cabin, we’re packing up to return home. Lachlan and I are going slower than our roommates, who basically used this cabin as a storage room and only came back a few times to get supplies.
“See you,” Josiah says on his way out.
We both nod. “Yeah, see you,” Lach says.
When we’re alone, Lachlan comes over to me, close enough to touch. “Let me have your number,” he murmurs.
A thrill rushes through me. I tilt my head at him and grin. “I dunno. Do you deserve it?”
“Please?”
Damn. He looks cute when he’s almost begging.
“Why do you want it?” I’m going to give it to him. I just want to make him sweat a moment.
Lachlan rubs his face. “If … Do you think you’d want to do this again?”
“Maybe,” I say, forcing my face to look more doubtful than I feel.
I will take any chance to get my hands on him, under any circumstances. If that makes me pathetic, I don’t care. In my mind, I rationalize it as me taking control. I’m manifesting my crush or something. I don’t know. Zanita would have something to say about it.
“Forget it,” Lachlan mutters.
“Wait,” I blurt, reaching out and grabbing his bicep.
We both freeze. All this week, I haven’t touched him anywhere but the places necessary to get him off.
I snatch my hand back like I’ve set it on a hot burner.
In a way I did. He’s untouchable except when and where he allows me.
If I relent, am I giving up power or keeping it?
Keeping it. This is my choice.
“What’s your number?” I ask.
His shoulders loosen. He tells me his number, and I text him. I enter him in my phone as “Boy Next Door.” He’s entering mine, too. Fifty bucks says he’s doing the same—putting my name in as something other than “Isak.”
“What …” I clear my throat. I don’t know what I want to ask him. “What are you thinking … I mean, when we get back home, what do you want?”
He gives me the sexiest half smile I’ve ever received. “I want to keep doing this with you—if you want that, too. We can find a place off the beaten track. I have a few ideas. Perks of being in student government. You get to know the school well.”
“Okay,” I say. “But what about—” I wave my hands. “Other people.”
He clears his throat, and my stomach clenches. “We need rules,” he says. “I can’t have anyone finding out about us.”
I squint at him and weigh the pros and cons. “Fine. I’m good with keeping it quiet. What else?”
“We can only do what we did here.” His cheeks redden. “You know.”
“Hand jobs?”
“Yeah.” The word sounds like it’s sticking in his throat.
“Blow jobs?” Suddenly, I’m picturing Lachlan on his knees before me. The image is almost better than him begging.
Lachlan is shaking his head. “I’m not sucking your dick. I—I can’t. I’m not gay.”
No, he’s in denial. And even if it’s true that he’s not gay, he could still be bi or somewhere else on the “not straight” spectrum. But okay.
“I just … My uncle.”
This sucks. But I get it.
I want more, and I can’t have it.
“You don’t need to explain.” I stare at his lips, and his eyes trail downward so that he’s looking at my mouth. I lick my lips, and his nostrils flare.
“I wish I could do more,” he whispers, almost pleading with me. “But this is it.”
“So we wouldn’t be doing anything other than getting off together?” I ask. “Either we jerk off or I blow you?”
“Yeah.”
“No kissing?”
Another long look at my mouth. Lachlan gulps and shakes his head. “Never. Sorry.”
“Why would I agree to that?”
“You don’t have to,” he rushes to say, and it makes my heart squeeze. Because I’m getting the idea of what’s going on here: Lachlan wants me; he just doesn’t want to admit it. I bet one of his asshole relatives is in his head right now, telling him some homophobic shit.
Maybe I’m being too understanding, but go eighteen years living next door to a house where people yell as much as his family does, and you hear some things you shouldn’t. Lachlan’s terms are unreasonable, but I understand them.
Also.
I never thought I’d have even the slightest chance with Lachlan, so I’m already ahead of the game.
Plus I might want to improve his life in some small way.
“Tell you what,” I say. “Text me and see what happens. If I’m in the mood, I’ll meet you. If I’m not … then no.”
“Yeah? I mean, okay, yeah, cool.” Lachlan flashes me his most sincere smile, and I melt inside. He holds up his fist for me to bump. I do.
Then he walks out of the cabin with his sleeping bag and duffel, and a few minutes later, I follow.
At home that night, fiddling with my new silver paperweight while lying in bed, I have a crisis.
One part of me is absolutely elated. I got to touch my crush. I got to spend time with him. See him naked. I made him a bracelet. He gave me a rock.
But what have I gotten myself into?
My phone buzzes.
Boy Next Door
I have an idea where we could meet at school.
One of the janitors gave me a key when I needed supplies for a pep rally. I never gave it back.
I saw where he got it from, and there were spares.
I’ll get you one.
An absolute thrill rushes through me. We’re doing this. OMG, we’re going to keep doing this. I drum my feet on the mattress.
Me
K
Back at school on Monday, Lachlan comes up to me before first period. He slips a key into my pocket and whispers, “Text me your schedule.”
I nod, smoothing down the front of my shirt and swallowing a shout of glee. A few moments later, I screenshot my schedule and send it to him, trying to keep from giggling.
Boy Next Door
4th looks easy to ditch.
Me
K
What room is the key for?
Boy Next Door
First closet in the IA building next to the 3D printing lab.
Me
K
When I get home, my insides vibrating, I put the key on a chain and wear it around my neck. No one needs to know what it’s for.
It’s my secret.
The following day, heart beating so fast I think it’s going to fall out of my body, I meet up with him. The space is dark and cramped, but I fucking get to touch him.
I make him beg. I don’t think he realizes how much he’s begging, but I do.
And I love it.
For the rest of October, November, and December, every couple of days I get a text from Lachlan. I’m not sure what triggers it—if he’s just horny or if he’s bored or what. I only rarely turn him down, trying to balance not making it too easy for him … with really wanting to be with him.
Other than texts, we don’t communicate. I can’t call the sex we have any form of communication. We don’t say much to each other besides a “hey” in between classes now and then.
It’s good enough for now, especially when I hear what goes on at his house at night.
I wish I could help him, but I don’t know how. So I do the only thing I can: suck his dick.