20. Calvin
CHAPTER TWENTY
calvin
We have the flap at the top of the tent open, so we can see the stars above us through the black mesh above.
My heart is still racing as we lie there, flat on our backs, and look up at the dark sky with bright, twinkling stars.
His mouth on me is almost indescribable. I never thought I’d get that—I mean maybe I did, but it was going to be way, way, way in the future. But never now. I never saw this coming. My mind is reeling. “What are you thinking?”
He lets his head loll to the side to look at me, and I do the same, my eyes locking on his. “I think you blew my mind.”
He laughs, his shoulders shaking. “When I blew you.”
I roll my eyes, pretending to be annoyed by the corny joke, but I fail when a laugh slips out from between my lips. “Yes. When you blew me. I didn’t know you um . . .”
“I what?” he asks, clearly curious.
“Didn’t know you knew how to do that.”
He snorts, but I don’t think he’s making fun of me. “Yeah well, I haven’t had ton of practice and definitely not with anything so damn big. I thought my jaw might fall off, and I didn’t even get half of it inside.”
Not gonna lie, hearing him say he’s done that to other guys makes me jealous beyond words, but hearing that none of them measured up to me—yeah, that helps. I’m simple that way, I guess.
“Stop smirking.” He slaps my bare chest with his hand, and I laugh again.
“Can’t help it.”
“Yeah, don’t actually stop smirking. I’ll take a smile from you any time I can.”
I love and hate when he says things like that to me. Like a smile or laugh from me is some sort of reward.
“I was thinking about how I never really let myself think about having this before.”
The teasing tone is gone now. He seems to be thinking really hard over there. “Yeah. I get that.”
I smile at him, not trying to be cruel but not really sure he can get that. Jonah is just . . . free. I can’t imagine another version of him where he wasn’t. “Were you out at your old school?”
He uses his free hand to brush my hair back, his fingers feeling like heaven weaving through my loose strands. “I didn’t hide who I was. I fooled around with a few guys who were also gay or bi. But there was no official coming out or anything.”
“And they were all cool with it?”
He shrugs, not seeming like I’m pushing him too hard or like he’s uncomfortable. “Mostly. There were a few idiots here and there who thought they needed to say something, but for the most part, people were cool. It was a big town.”
I nod. Not like Big Bend. “You ever get tired of it?” I can tell he’s hesitant to ask, and I also know exactly what he’s talking about.
“Everyone pretty much knows.” I still can’t say the words, but it’s not like we don’t both know what I’m saying.
“Not your family.” It’s a statement and one I expect.
I shake my head anyway. “No. They can’t know.”
“Why not?” It’s an innocent question with real curiosity. He’s not trying to be an asshole but wants to understand. If only I can make it make sense to him.
“My grandfather quit high school his senior year. Said he already knew what he was going to do for the rest of his life and didn’t need it.
” He’s listening intently, letting me speak now as he rolls to his side and props his head up on his hand.
“He started Duke Drilling that same year. Just him and three employees, one being my grandmother who was his secretary.”
“Were they already a couple?”
I nod. “Yeah, she was a year older than him and had already graduated. They got married a started the business. Had my dad within the year too.”
“Wow.” He says it with no judgment.
“It was hard. I hear the story all time. They lived in a little apartment above the first Duke Dilling office for two years as they got the business going. It grew though. And grew. Now it’s pretty much the only drilling company around.
Everyone here winds up there if they don’t go to college or go into farming. ”
He scoots closer to me, laying his head on my chest, and I welcome him with an arm curled around his side. “So he’s a big deal.”
“The Duke name is a big deal. And they give money to the local churches. They give turkeys away at Thanksgiving and Christmas. They do a haunted house with lots of candy on Halloween. They are Big Bend.”
“So no one in that family can be gay?”
I swallow hard, the word for some reason being my Achilles heel. I don’t know why. “No. I remember growing up, always hearing about how being gay was a sin. How marriage is only between a man and a woman. About how I better grow up and marry a nice girl. Have lots of babies.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
I smile sadly. “Yeah. My grandparents could only have one child. My grandpa was upset when my parents stopped at two. He wants lots of heirs, I guess.”
His fingers start to trail over my stomach, light as feather, but making my body come alive. “It’s not your responsibility, and gay people can have families. They do it all the time.”
“I know that,” I say because I do know that. “They would never accept me.”
He peers up at me, not lifting his head. “Do you think they’d hurt you?”
“No,” I say easily because neither my grandfather or my father have ever laid a hand on me. “At least not my grandpa or dad.”
He frowns. “Curtis.”
I shrug. “That’s just big brother stuff.”
He cocks his head to the side, clearly a little annoyed. “Micah has never hurt me.”
“I didn’t say he hurt me, Jonah. He puts me headlocks and shoves me around sometimes. He doesn’t really hurt me.”
“He’s an ass,” he states.
“Yeah,” I agree. “But my parents and my grandfather would disown me. I wouldn’t have a family anymore.”
I looks pained, and I wonder for a minute if he understands. But honestly, how can he? He has Micah and Jenna and the girls. He has a family. “I sometimes call my mom.”
That surprises me. “What?”
He looks a little shy now, tucking his face into my side and tracing the trail of hair that goes from my belly button down to my groin, over and over again. “Late at night. When I can’t sleep. I’ll call her cellphone. She never answers. I know she knows it’s me, but she never calls back.”
My heart breaks for him, cracking in half because right now, in this moment, he doesn’t sound like the confident man I know. He sounds like a little boy who just wants his mom to love him.
“My dad is a total prick. A preacher who pretty much just preaches hate.”
“He’s a pastor?”
He nods. “Yup. A popular one who even has his Sunday sermons televised.”
I crinkle my nose. My mom watches those programs for fun. After she goes to the local church. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. He’s made a lot of money off his bullshit. Gained quite the reputation. Has everything he could ever want . . . except a gay son who refused to hide it.”
“That’s fucked-up.”
I can feel him smile against my bare skin.
“It is. When I left, I took the truck he bought me for my sixteenth birthday. I thought for sure he’d show up and take it back.
Or call and demand I bring it back, but he never did.
And I know it’s because he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t need it, and he just plain doesn’t care.
He’d rather lose he truck than have to deal with me. ”
I hold Jonah a little tighter to my body, protectiveness filling my soul, wanting to keep him safe, and honestly go down to Texas and beat the living hell out of his father. “But your mom . . .” I start, not really sure where I’m going with this.
“The obedient pastor’s wife, through and through. But I thought . . .” He’s silent for a moment and I think maybe he’s not going to finish what he started to say. A moment later, I hear his quiet voice say, “I thought she cared a little.”
“I’m sorry, Jonah. You deserved better.”
I swallow hard and hold him tightly to me. He moves up my body, slowly blanketing me with his body, chest to chest, face-to-face. Then he settles between my legs. My semi-hard cock taking notice of his slowly growing erection. “We both deserve better. We both deserve to be who we are.”
“I can’t,” I croak because I want to. God, do I want to. “They’re all I have. I’m not like you, Jonah.”
He looks hurt for a moment. He doesn’t pull away, but his entire body does go tense on top me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not free. I’m not brave. You are brave,” I say honestly. And I’m sure he thought I was going to deny being like him—gay. But I’m past that part. Sort of. “You are so brave,” I say, leaning up to steal his lips.
He gives in immediately, kissing me back until both of us are fully hard and leaking. I can’t get enough of him. I want more of him. I want . . .
“Fuck me,” I breathe against his lips.
He startles a little, clearly surprised. “We don’t have to do that, you know? We have time.”
But I can tell he’s lust-drunk—wanting it just as badly as I do. “I want it. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
I don’t want to pressure him, but I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have him inside me.
“Or you could fuck me?” he asks, but he looks a little nervous, his eyes trailing down between our body, zoning in on my hard cock. “Slowly. Like really slowly.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Soon? Maybe work up to that?”
He looks a little relieved now, but the nerves are still there. It’s oddly funny to me that he seems to be way more nervous than I am, and he’s not the one about to have a dick in his ass for the first time. “Are you sure?”
I nod immediately. “I may have brought lube.”
He smirks. “What about condoms?”
“I, uhhh, I may have stolen the lube a few years ago.” My cheeks heat at the memory. I left ten dollars on the counter at the corner store in town, but I couldn’t get caught buying that. “Me buying condoms would get back to my family.”
He frowns, looking a little sad—maybe some pity. “How do they not know?” he asks, and then his eyes widen, and he looks at me in this adorably sweet way. “I mean, not that it’s noticeable or anything . . .”