CADEN #3
I opened my mouth to blurt some of this out before it escaped me, but Beckett lifted his hand to stop me.
He inhaled and continued. “I couldn’t stand watching it, that’s true.
I just didn’t realize why. I thought…I thought you were being an ass, rubbing your sexuality in my face, when in truth, I couldn’t stomach you leaving with some guy who wasn’t me. ”
My lips parted, not to speak, but in surprise.
“I think I have been attracted to you for…a while,” he said, forcing a small smile, then hiding it with the can he tipped to pour beer into his mouth.
“Fuck, Beckett, I don’t…I don’t know what to say.” My eyebrows rose so high that it hurt. He grinned and shook his head, but I found a few words I could share. “These two weeks meant a lot more to me than I can say.”
“You really think that?” he asked softly, his words almost drowned out in the river’s murmurs.
“You’re a good bottom,” I teased.
He jabbed his elbow into my ribs. “You’re a good bottom.”
I sucked my teeth. “Let’s agree just once in our lives, we’re both good bottoms.”
Beckett lifted his head solemnly. “It’s time to order a double-sided dildo.”
I laughed so hard I nearly slipped from my seat and into the river, even though the rocky bank was only slightly inclined.
After a short silence, Beckett directed his gaze at the island and sipped his beer. He swallowed and sighed. “Is this what you hoped for when you asked me to meet you outside?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I hadn’t dared to hope for anything from Beckett. Maybe that was why every word from his lips was a surprise. “I couldn’t sleep and I kept thinking how I needed to get out.”
“Mm.” He twisted on his rock to look at me clearly.
“I’m glad you were still awake,” I admitted.
“Me too,” he said. The light grew a little brighter behind the black outline of the island. “I just wanted you to know that,” Beckett said. “It’s the only thing I’m sure of.”
My eyebrows trembled on the verge of an inquisitive frown, which urged him to go on.
“You asked me what kept me awake. I don’t even know where to start, really, but…
” He gave a deep, innocent shrug and tipped his can back to slosh some more beer down his throat.
“It’s not the least because my whole world turned on its head.
I swear, it never crossed my mind that I could like a guy. It’s all very new.”
I bit my lip. I’d asked him, in passing, if he was alright. I’d meant it more in the physical sense, asking whether I’d hurt him or gone too far. “Fuck, Beckett,” I muttered. “I kinda failed you as your fairy godmother.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “What were you supposed to do? Throw glitter and summon a unicorn? I’m fine the way I am.”
I couldn’t imagine Beckett appreciating a coming-out party, but I could have asked. God, I was a prick. No wonder he had hated me. “Are you okay, though?”
“Er, I am. Obviously. So long as I don’t think too much about it, I can even breathe steadily.
See?” He inhaled, exhaled, and smiled like he expected me to applaud him.
When I held his gaze, he searched his mind and went on.
“I keep wondering if I’m bi or what. I don’t think I’m gay.
I can’t think of a single guy I want aside from, well, the obvious.
So, am I even bi? Maybe it’s just you. Maybe it’s the therapeutic quality of our sex that resolves our conflicts.
Maybe you just have some special pheromone that makes me horny.
Maybe it’s your cheekbones, dammit. I don’t know. ”
I was stunned. He was doing the exact thing he had been avoiding. He was thinking. But the words leaving his lips were too adorable for me to stop him right away. My cheekbones? My heart staggered.
“And I know you’re the last person I should be telling this to.
We never understood each other through words, you and I, but I don’t have anyone else to talk to.
Jordan’s too busy and too straight. Others gossip.
My uncle…” He fell silent, his face falling like he was nauseous to even think about it.
“He’s the only other guy I really talk to. But how could he understand?”
I drank beer from my can because my mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. “You can talk to me,” I rasped. “It’s not awkward.”
Beckett found some humor in my words. “That’s what people always say about awkward things.”
“I mean it,” I said, annoyed that he wouldn’t take me seriously. That alone made me see how right he had been. I had never learned his language, or he mine.
He looked at me bluntly, his brown eyes catching the first glimpses of sunlight. “How do I look you in the eyes and tell you how confused I am?” he asked. “And how do I retain any dignity or hope to be your equal when you take me by the hand and walk me through it?”
“It’s not a competition, Beckett. If you’re trying to understand your sexuality, ask a gay guy’s opinion. I went through this.” My can was empty when I shook it.
Beckett nodded cautiously. “I’m not entirely sure there’s anything to understand.
It’s so much easier when I don’t think.” That brought a smile to his face.
“When we just…fuck, it’s great. Everything else falls off the cliff.
It’s just you and me and that damned condom between us, and it’s pure fun. ”
It made me chuckle that he should say that. I hadn’t wanted to spook him. “If it’s damned, I’ll help you get on PrEP and we can ditch the rubber.”
Beckett’s eyes flashed with unmistakable desire. “The things I’ll do to you, Jones,” he whispered musingly.
“I’ve got a few ideas of my own,” I replied with quiet confidence.
The sun was rising from behind the horizon. Another gray day was upon us. Mist hovered in the distance and frost crystallized on the lawns and rocks. November was almost here. I hadn’t expected to seek warmth next to Beckett Partridge when the cold days came.
Spontaneously, Beckett and I looked at each other and silently agreed it was time to head back.
We each took the last cans of beer and opened them for the walk back.
As we sipped them and walked through the park, I slowed down and looked at him.
There was no mistaking his beauty, but I had mistaken his vulnerability. And I was sorry for it.
“What happens next?” I asked.
Beckett squinted in thought, then looked into my eyes. “Well, we successfully had an entire conversation with our clothes on and neither of us ended up at the bottom of the river. I’d call that a win.”
“A win for sure,” I agreed.
“I’d say we take it one step at a time,” he suggested. “Tell me more about PrEP, will you? That other stuff can wait.”
I equally dreaded how skilled he was at ignoring the glaring issues and admired his appetites.
If he wanted to bareback me, I was all too willing to create the right conditions for it.
And for once, I decided to live in the moment.
Not too long ago, I had been a detailed planner of every aspect of my life.
I had planned my path to captaincy and was lost when it didn’t play out quite like I had expected.
It was a topic I strictly put off limits as I wasn’t sure whether I had gotten over the twist of events.
Either way, planning had gotten me nowhere.
Maybe there was something in embracing living in this moment as Beckett had always done.
“Okay,” I said with rising determination.
Then, as we walked, I told him everything he needed to know about the trust necessary for ditching condoms. I told him about PrEP, then reminded him that it only affected one kind of sexually transmitted bug, with all the others still being a threat, even if much more easily treated and with far less stigma.
I told him about the advances in medicine and then I told him about the ease of access to the necessary tests.
As we walked, Beckett listened, nodded, commented, and asked questions when I went too quickly over something.
At the end of it all, still a few streets away from campus, Beckett put a finger on his chin. “Are you sure about hockey? You seem more interested in medicine.”
“Hey, when you’re closeted, you have to learn this shit on your own,” I replied. We stood at the corner while the city around us still slept. “Are you sure you want to go take that step?”
Beckett feigned a doe-eyed expression as though I had proposed to him. “Yes, Caden, yes. A million times yes. I’m ready to take things to the next level.” He paused. “Creampie me.”
I punched him in the shoulder instead and he laughed, then dragged me toward him.
It didn’t escape me when he glanced around to make sure we were alone before he kissed me.
Call me weird, but the smell of the beer we had shared on his breath turned me on and the sweet flavor on his lips made me hungry for his kisses.
I whimpered, rubbing myself against him and wishing I could have him right here and now.
“Holy shit, I knew it,” the voice came from a few paces away, just down the street we had passed. It chilled my blood and made Beckett jerk back from me.
We both turned to see Sawyer strolling down the street at the crack of dawn.