Chapter Ten #2
Now Wesley’s head really buzzed. He fully retreated into his room and pushed the door closed with a quiet click.
Backpacks and crayons and glue, oh my...
Nate had just done an incredibly brave and wonderful, but incredibly stupid thing.
Wesley climbed into his bed and pulled the covers over his head.
He scrunched his lids shut and tried to blank his brain, listing crayons by color.
Red. Yellow. Orange. Green. Blue. Purple. Pink. White. Black. Brown. Red-orange. Yellow-orange. Yellow-green. Blue-green. Blue-violet.
* * * * *
Pitch black silence blanketed Wesley as he stared at what he thought was the ceiling.
A quick peek at his phone told him the time was a little after one in the morning.
He’d slept through dinner. Which, fine. He’d obviously needed the rest. With slow movements, he rolled over and closed his eyes, snuggling down into the soft warm bedding and letting out a breath.
He breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, then did so again.
And again. Trying to relax his body. Anything to quiet his mind enough to fall asleep once more.
But then his stomach growled—a reminder that food was a distant memory.
Then the pressure in his bladder became too insistent to ignore.
Well, piffle.
He tossed back the covers and padded across the hall to relieve himself and then made a search of the fridge.
Opting for one of the yogurt parfaits Nate had batch assembled, he savored the thick, faintly sweet goop and the various tasty additions as he wandered to the big picture window.
The ascending lights of a plane taking off caught his eye to the northeast and he followed its trajectory eastward until the soft glow of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge lights captured his attention.
Wesley had visited the bridge once, shortly after he’d moved to Omaha. Had Nate ever gone?
A creak of the flooring alerted Wesley to Nate’s presence before he spoke.
“You okay? Head still bothering you?” A large rough hand curled around Wesley’s shoulder and then fell away. Wesley lamented the loss of its warmth.
He turned to find Nate standing there in nothing but boxer briefs clinging more snugly than necessary to a swath of body that seemed far too narrow.
His ghostly hair stood up in little tufts, his shoulders broad and rounded and pale in the dim lighting.
Hair, barely darker than his skin, was sprinkled across his upper chest and down his sternum, abs, and past his belly button—which was neither an innie nor an outie, Wesley noted—into those dark briefs.
He swallowed the yogurt and shook his head. His pulse kicked up and heat skittered up his cheeks. “No. I’m...I’m fine.” He lifted the handled mason jar of yogurt and sweet treats. “Just woke up hungry.”
Nate nodded. Stepped closer to the window, closer to Wesley, and looked out.
With the spoon, Wesley motioned to the bridge to the east. “You ever been?”
“No. What is it?”
“The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. Named after Bob Kerrey—obviously—to honor his contributions to the state.”
“Hmm.”
“There’s a spot where you can stand in both Nebraska and Iowa at the same time.”
“Huh.”
Wesley took another bite, watched another plane fly off to destinations unknown, watched Nate from the corner of his eye. “Thanks for what you did today. With Tommy.”
Nate shrugged. “You’re welcome. Tommy’s the worst kind of teammate.”
Want hummed under Wesley’s skin for this man who was so vulnerable, so caring, so in need of some TLC lavished on him. “Watch your back.”
“He’d better watch his back. I won’t tolerate that shit in the dressing room. I don’t care how new I am to a team. That shit don’t fly.”
“Still.”
“Yeah. Still.”
The quiet whispered between them. Nate’s fingers drummed slowly, quietly along the sill.
“Wesley?” Nate’s voice was soft but pitched with something. Oh. Oh God. Nate was horny.
“Yeah?” Wesley felt a little hungry for something other than food. How could he not after Nate had behaved like his own personal knight in shining armor? How could he not when the man was built like a tree and standing there in nothing but temptation?
“Can I kiss you?”
Wesley’s mouth went dry, his grip tightened on the spoon. Not what he’d been expecting to hear but okay. “If you don’t mind strawberry yogurt flavored kisses, then by all means...” Wesley set the mostly empty jar of yogurt parfait on the ledge and turned toward Nate.
Two large warm hands cupped his face, pulled him close; callused thumbs brushed lightly across his cheeks and back.
Heat emanated from Nate’s wide swath of bare flesh.
Agonizingly slow, he grazed his nose alongside Wesley’s, brushed his lips across Wesley’s, nipped and licked at the sensitive flesh.
Wesley savored every touch, his lips parting on a sigh. Like a hummingbird trying to escape a cage, his heart thumped against his ribs.
Nate’s tongue flicked across Wesley’s bottom lip, warm and slick; hesitant at first, but then bolder, warm and unmistakably him. He explored and tasted, caressed and lapped. Wesley’s pulse thrummed as this tantalizing man deepened the kiss, slow and thorough, as if he had all the time in the world.
Quite different from the explosive kiss in his trailer five days ago. Tender and sweet, exploratory, and not just physically. He sensed the shift in their connection, or maybe that was wishful thinking, he wasn’t sure.
Eventually, the kiss ended. Nate’s hands slid to Wesley’s shoulders; his forehead came to rest against Wesley’s.
His breath soughed in the quiet space between them.
A sense of tranquility flowed from their pressed-together brows down to Wesley’s toes.
If only this arrangement could last forever.
But it couldn’t. He settled his hands on Nate’s waist, the skin soft and warm against Wesley’s fingers.
“God, Wesley…it’s been ages since I’ve felt like this.”
Everything inside Wesley ached for this man.
Nate needed physical touch—soft, loving touch, as opposed to chiropractors, sports massages, and hockey hugs.
He needed someone who cared about him—the young man abandoned by his father, the teen forced to become the head of the household.
From the little Nate had shared over the course of the weekend, it’d been too damn long.
And not from anyone who gave a shit about him.
“When was that?” Wesley asked, almost afraid of the answer. It’d been a long time for him too, but Nate seemed to feel the lack so keenly.
Nate shrugged. “High school.”
So definitive, no question. Wesley’s heart broke. “Oh, honey.” He wanted to cart him off to Bora Bora and spend weeks just kissing and caressing his naked form. “Did you know you were gay then?”
“Oh, yeah. First kiss was with a guy at least.” Nate snorted, shook his head once, a small smile playing around his lips.
“We’d been practicing over at the OSU campus, and I’d seen a flier for a party.
One sponsored by the LGBTQ alliance or a gay frat or something.
I don’t remember, but I went. With my size, I passed as a college student, so no one questioned me.
It was...” Nate rested his lovely hind end on the ledge again and shook his head.
“...amazing. All these people, same gendered couples holding hands, loving on each other. People just drinking and talking. Dancing. A lot of drinking. I wasn’t drinking but I carried around a half-full bottle of beer for a while just so people wouldn’t keep offering.
“There were the cruisers, of course. I was chatted up multiple times, but I was too nervous to take anyone up on an offer. Some of the guys were too aggressive, you know? Sure, I was six-two, 185 pounds—but I was seventeen. Didn’t know shit about shit except hockey.
I was smart enough to realize that at least. I’d never done anything beyond masturbate.
I didn’t want to get myself in too deep. ”
Nate swiped his hand down his face; the rasp of callus against stubble floated on the air. He crossed his arms and continued.
“And then this guy just started talking to me. Vaughn. He was tall and looked bookish. But he was a sports fan, so we talked football and hockey for a while. We ended up on the back porch huddled under a blanket on the porch swing and, at some point, he just kissed me. We made out. He ended up on his knees in front of me.” Nate laughed.
“My first blow job and I was already so turned on from the kissing and groping that I didn’t last long at all.
But he was cool about it. Wouldn’t let me reciprocate.
Then he sent me on my way. I think he figured out I was underage. As first times go, I can’t complain.”
“I’m glad,” Wesley said, but his heart broke. Seventeen. That was the last time Nate had felt wanted—not for a role he played, but for himself.
Nate slid his palms down Wesley’s arms and twined their fingers. “Come to bed with me—just to sleep.”
Wesley wanted nothing more than to tuck himself in next to Nate in that big bed he’d discovered when he’d explored the condo the other day.
But doing so was such a dangerous game to play.
He squeezed his fingers with Nate’s, peered into the shadowed depths of Nate’s eyes.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
A low huff escaped Nate. “It’s a terrible idea. Doesn’t mean I want to any less.”
Wesley wasn’t sure which one of them would take their parting the hardest as it was. Sleeping together was bound to blur the lines between what they were and what they could be. Their eventual parting would be all the more painful. Blurring those lines, though…so, so tempting.