Chapter 11 #2
The truck was freezing. The vinyl seats bit through Finn’s jeans, the steering wheel dull in the lot light filtering through the windshield.
Evan’s palms found Finn’s face before either of them had settled, his fingers rough at Finn’s jaw, and Finn grabbed the front of his coat, twisted the wool in both fists, and pulled him in hard.
Evan’s teeth caught Finn’s lower lip hard enough to sting, hard enough that Finn tasted copper.
Finn pulled him closer, his spine hitting the door panel, the metal biting through his jacket. His fists twisted in Evan’s coat and dragged him forward across the center console. The anger and the wanting were the same thing and he stopped trying to separate them.
Evan’s grip was in his hair, close to the scalp, the pull enough to make Finn’s eyes water.
Finn tilted into it, his head going, the line of his throat exposed for one second before Evan’s lips were there, hot, open, teeth scraping.
Finn got a hand between them and worked at Evan’s belt, his knuckles scraping the buckle, the leather stiff.
He got it open and yanked it free with a snap that cracked through the cab.
Evan kissed him rough and urgent, his teeth finding the bruise on Finn’s lower lip and pressing into it.
The sting layered on itself until Finn gasped.
His head hit the door panel, a metallic thud, and Evan’s grip tightened in his hair, holding him there.
The gear shift jammed at Finn’s hip hard enough to leave a mark.
Finn got his jacket off, and Evan’s lips went to his throat, teeth scraping collarbone, stubble burning at his skin.
The cold hit his bare arms and raised goosebumps from wrist to shoulder.
He shoved Evan’s shirt up until his palms found warm skin, the muscles of Evan’s stomach contracting under his touch.
The angle was wrong, and neither of them fixed it.
His knee wedged at the door panel, the console pressing into his thigh, the seatbelt buckle digging into his lower spine.
Evan’s elbow caught the steering wheel, and the horn bleated for half a second.
Evan breathed a curse into Finn’s neck. Finn gripped the nape of Evan’s neck, nails biting into the skin below his hairline, and Evan’s weight came down fully.
Cold metal and warm body, and nowhere to go between them.
Finn shoved Evan’s waistband down. Evan’s hips jerked forward, and the noise he made was open and helpless, filling the cab and fogging the glass. Finn wrapped his fist around him and gripped. Too tight. The way you held something you were furious at and afraid of losing at the same time.
Evan’s forehead dropped to Finn’s shoulder, breath coming in rough pulls at Finn’s neck, each exhale a small collapse.
Evan found Finn through his jeans. Pressed.
The heel of his palm dragging, the friction of denim almost too much.
Then Evan’s fingers worked the button, the zipper, found him, and skin on skin in the cab was so intense Finn’s hips came off the seat.
They worked together in the cramped front seat with the windows going opaque. Graceless. Urgent. Evan’s rhythm matched Finn’s, rough, uneven, speeding when Finn sped, slowing when Finn’s fist tightened. Finn pressed his forehead to Evan’s shoulder and held on.
Finn didn’t close his gaze. Evan’s face close enough to see the individual lines at the corner of his eye, the gray at his temple where the snow had melted, the bitten-raw lower lip.
Evan. Who’d waited in a parking lot with his coffee turning to ice on the hood.
Who was here now, graceless and not hiding.
Finn tightened his fist and pulled a gasp from Evan’s throat, a noise that cracked in the middle.
Evan’s rhythm stuttered and then sped up, going ragged, his breath breaking apart at Finn’s neck.
The peak built from the base of Finn’s spine and broke through him, and Evan said his name once, rough and stripped of everything, and Finn pressed his lips to Evan’s shoulder and came without making a noise.
After. They caught their breath in the cramped front seat, the windows opaque. The tap of flakes on the roof was the only noise.
“This doesn’t fix it.”
“I know.”
“I’m angry.”
“I know.”
Finn pulled away. Evan’s hair was pushed in three directions, damp at the temples. His coat was half off his shoulders and his lips were swollen and his gaze was even. Even now.
Finn got out of the truck.
The cold bit at him. He adjusted his jacket and stood in the snow coming down in earnest now. Evan’s cup sat on the hood of the vehicle beside him. Snow had buried the lid.
Evan got out the other side. They stood on opposite sides of the F-150, the truck between them.
“Go home, Evan.”
Evan looked at him across the hood. The snow settled on his collar, on the gray at his temples. Evan nodded once. Walked to his vehicle without looking back.
Finn watched the taillights flare red at the stop sign at the end of the street. Then they turned and disappeared.
Finn stood in the snow. It didn’t fix anything. He’d meant that. But Evan had shown up. That counted for something, even if Finn wasn’t ready to say what.
Finn got in the truck and drove home through the snow. The heat took a while to kick in. The streets were hushed, porch lights behind bare trees. By the time he pulled into his apartment complex, his hands had stopped shaking.
Finn sat in the cab, engine idling. His lip throbbed where Evan’s teeth had caught it. He pressed his tongue to the bruise and tasted copper.
Tomorrow there’ll be practice. The same routine. The draft was getting closer every time he stepped on the ice.
Tomorrow he’d be angry.
Finn went inside, took a shower until the hot water gave out, and fell asleep with his phone on the nightstand, face up, the screen black.