Chapter 20 #3
Alex had done that. He’d reduced Mitch to sobbing breaths and a one-word vocabulary.
Mitch didn’t even seem to care that Alex was making shit up as he went—with pointers from Google—and Alex gave him all the goddamn brownie points in the world for not teasing Alex about his inexperience, especially since Alex was five years older than him and should, theoretically, know what the fuck he was doing.
Alex was a quick learner. And he knew that if he ran his thumbnail along the underside of Mitch’s cockhead just so, Mitch would unravel in his arms.
“Oh fuck, oh shit, Alex.” Mitch practically flew off the bed. His heels dug into the mattress and he moaned loud and long.
“Fuck.” Alex hissed out a breath and rested his forehead on Mitch’s thigh, taking a minute to regroup. Mitch was so hypersensitive, so responsive. That he was so turned on turned Alex on, and he needed a fucking minute to breathe.
“Inside me,” Mitch said, tugging on Alex’s hair. “Now.”
Condom in place, lubed up, Alex flipped off the glove and dropped it to the floor before lining himself up with Mitch’s stretched hole.
He pushed. There was a bit of resistance and his eyes flew to Mitch’s, but Mitch simply nodded and said, “Keep going.” So Alex kept going, sweat dripping down his back, legs shaking.
Once his head was past the ring of muscle, Mitch sucked the rest of him in with little resistance.
Alex clenched his teeth against the sensation of his cock rubbing against the walls of Mitch’s channel.
Heart hammering, extremities tingling with pleasure, he pumped once, twice, slowly, watching Mitch for any discomfort.
Mitch’s pupils were blown and he grinned wildly, meeting Alex’s thrusts.
Alex sped up in increments until Mitch’s body tensed.
Then he went to town, jacking into Mitch fast, leaving barely half a second between thrusts.
Alex wasn’t going to last, not with the sight of Mitch’s open mouth as he sucked in air and of his own cock stretching Mitch open seared into his retinas.
Mitch jacked himself frantically. Alex’s limbs went heavy when Mitch yelled and came, sending ropy white streaks across his stomach and onto the bed.
His clenching ass clasped Alex tight, tighter than anything he’d ever felt before, and Alex lost it, coming into the condom, body shaking uncontrollably.
Breathing hard, Mitch’s entire body went lax and he wiped sweat off his face with the edge of the bedcover. “Holy fuck.”
Alex propped himself up with one hand on the bed so he didn’t fall onto Mitch and squish him. “Happy Valentine’s Day?”
Mitch started to laugh.
* * *
The boxed books in Alex’s office space in the loft were in no order whatsoever.
Mitch found titles by John Grisham and Stephen King spread among four different boxes, interspersed with other mysteries and thrillers he’d never heard of, a few YA novels, school textbooks, and what looked like four different editions of Les Misérables.
It made no sense. None.
Mitch did Alex a favor—unasked, but whatever—and sorted them all alphabetically by author while Alex made breakfast. Then he started placing them on Alex’s new bookshelf.
He didn’t know if any of these were series, though, so he jogged downstairs, borrowed Alex’s phone so he could Google whatever he needed, and departed again with a kiss to Alex’s cheek and a pat on the butt.
Mitch’s own butt was sore this morning, but it was a good kind of sore, the best kind. The kind where he’d be walking funny for hours and perching on an asscheek in his seat on the flight back to Vermont this afternoon.
Last night had been amazing. Mitch grinned and did a happy dance wiggle while placing books on the shelves.
It wasn’t even that he’d had sex last night.
Okay, it wasn’t only that he’d had sex last night.
It was that he’d had sex with the person he loved, who, for some reason, loved him back.
It was this morning’s repeat after the best sleep of his life, a lazy consummation when the sun had barely been up, throwing muted sunbeams across the walls, Alex spooned around him and taking him from behind.
It was last night’s strawberry cheesecake in bed.
It was this morning’s yet-to-be-made breakfast.
It was this entire weekend. Alex had even indulged him by spending almost four hours with him at the aquarium yesterday. Really, who did that?
A man in love, that’s who.
Mitch was standing there smiling at nothing when Alex called out, “Mitch, breakfast is ready.” Mmm, it smelled like bacon and something doughy.
Pancakes maybe, or—Whoops. He’d missed a box.
It was tucked under the desk, half hidden by the desk chair.
He dragged it out, careful not to bump it into anything and topple the picture frame on the desk.
In the delicate, silver frame was a five-by-seven photo of Alex’s Grandpa Forest and a kid who wasn’t a day past ten—Alex presumably.
Alex wore a hockey uniform, stick in one hand, and Forest was bent over halfway, bringing him to Alex’s height. They were both grinning.
Lifting the box onto the table, Mitch removed the lid to see what titles were in it and how much rearranging he’d have to do on Alex’s shelf. But they weren’t books. They were journals, ten of them, all filled from the first page to the last.
August 27, 2005
It’s the first week of senior year. I should be thrilled—or sad, I don’t really know. But all I can think about is that Grandpa Forest’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse. I still can’t believe he has Alzheimer’s of all things. The man who can tell you what he had for breakfast five fucking years ago…
Mitch flipped forward a few pages.
October 4, 2006
Played my first NHL game today, on the third line.
It was exhilarating, like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
This is what I’ve worked toward my whole life.
Mom came. Grandpa Forest… Grandpa Forest doesn’t remember who I am anymore.
Thinks I’m Dad. All the support he’s given me, all the times he was there for me after Dad left, the money he sent Mom to help pay for hockey…
he’s never going to see the result of all that. Never see me play in the NHL.
Mitch put the journal away and chose another at random.
March 10, 2008
The spring breakers have descended on Florida. Kill me.
Chuckling, Mitch closed the journal.
“Mitch.”
“Jesus!” Heart jumping into his throat, Mitch swallowed guilty laughter and sent a small wave Alex’s way. “Um, hi.”
Alex leaned a hip against the wall. “What’cha doin’?”
“Um.” Mitch hid the journal behind his back. “Organizing?” Shit, Alex was going to be so mad that Mitch had snooped through his personal stuff. Well, they had to have their first fight sometime, right?
“Try again.”
Mitch’s shoulders slumped. “Fine, I was looking at your journals. But I didn’t read them. Okay, maybe I read a couple,” he said when Alex kept staring at him.
But Alex just shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“It’s…fine? What’s fine?”
“That you’re reading it.” Alex took the journal out of Mitch’s hands and flipped through it.
“Seriously? If I had a journal and someone read it without my permission, I’d be fucking pissed.”
Alex chuckled and sat on the desk. “But you’re not just someone. You’re you. And I trust you.”
The simple statement had Mitch swallowing past a lump in his throat made up of all the mushy feelings he had for Alex.
“If you want to read them, go right ahead, but they’re probably really boring,” Alex said.
“You have a lot of them.”
“Yeah.” Alex glanced at the box. “I started them when Grandpa Forest was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
It was a way to cope, a way to talk about it without actually having to talk to someone.
But I also didn’t want to forget anything, you know?
Depending on what research you believe, Alzheimer’s either is or isn’t inherited, and if I ever get it…
” He shrugged, sheepish. “I’ll have these as a way to remember.
I try and record the important stuff, so I never forget, but also the mundane to remind me that life isn’t always about ups and downs.
Sometimes it’s just a steady journey, and that’s okay too. ”
There was no swallowing past this lump. Eyes burning, Mitch moved between Alex’s legs, threw his arms around him, and held him tight. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Alex’s arms were iron bands around Mitch’s waist.
Mitch kissed Alex’s neck and drew back. He wiped his eyes and nodded at the box of journals. “Am I in there?” he asked, hoping to inject some levity into a morning that had turned blue.
“Yeah. Want to see?”
Did he? Did he want to know what Alex had written about him? “No,” he said before he could cave.
“Really?”
Mitch rubbed Alex’s thighs. “I already know how you feel about me.”
“Yes. You do.”
“I trust you too. You know.” Mitch’s shoulders twitched. “In case you were wondering.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Mitch ran his thumb over Alex’s nose, his cheekbone, through his beard. “I was so lost before I met you.”
“No—”
“I was. I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be.
Cody said he knew, but I didn’t believe it.
And then you came, and you insisted that I be myself if I wanted anything to do with you.
I didn’t know how to do that and I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.
” Mitch played with Alex’s sleeve. “But you make me feel safe. And just by being you, by being patient and kind and nonjudgmental and basically the most reliable and steady person I’ve ever met, you let me be me.
Let me find myself. And it turns out, you do like who I am,” he finished in a whisper.
“I love who you are.” Alex grasped Mitch’s chin and forced him to look at him. Alex’s gaze was a combination of fierce and gentle, and his eyes begged Mitch to take him at his word.
Mitch kissed him high up on his cheekbone and laid his head on his shoulder. “I know. I love who you are too. That’s what’s going to make it so hard to leave later.”
“I know,” Alex said, wrapping those huge arms around him again. “I know.”