Chapter 7 #2
Adam wrenched his eyes open to watch Mo spill hot over his fingers, between their bodies. Then the sensation registered—the forceful involuntary clench and release of Mo’s hole around his dick. Adam lost control and slammed forward into Mo’s body, once, twice—
Orgasm hit him like a blind check, overwhelming his nervous system and whiting out his vision.
Only the help of the wall and years of experience on the ice kept him on his feet as months of pent-up irritation flooded out of him.
Miraculously, Mo held still, like he knew the slightest movement would send them both tumbling to the floor in a sticky, uncoordinated heap.
Finally, with every muscle in his body burning, Adam eased Mo off his softening cock and back onto his feet.
Sort of. Mo held the position for two seconds before he folded to the ground like wet laundry.
No point pretending to be macho, then. Adam sat too. Maybe in a minute, his legs would stop shaking.
For a few heartbeats, Mo didn’t say anything. He only stared at the kitchen wall opposite them with an expression that was somehow both blank and thoughtful.
After a moment Adam asked, “So did it work?”
Slowly, Mo turned to him. His face registered nothing but confusion.
Adam hated to bring it up, but—“Wall sex as, like, anger management.”
A noise escaped Mo’s mouth. It took Adam’s brain an extra beat to recognize it as a laugh—involuntary, slipping out through his nose. “Yeah,” he said, laughing openly now if a little disbelievingly. “It worked. Good job.”
Adam nodded seriously, as though he weren’t experiencing it from a thousand miles away. “My pleasure.”
Their eyes caught. There was that weird, strangled laugh again, only this time in stereo as Adam joined in.
“Okay,” Mo said finally. “I need to get up. You need help getting off the floor, stud?”
Adam considered his legs. Considered the practice he had to go to tomorrow morning. Told his ego to stuff it. “Yes,” he decided. He could work out how he felt about the pet name after he ate.
Mo climbed to his feet and offered him a hand. The strength in that wiry body no longer surprised Adam. “Okay. Here’s the plan. Shower.”
Adam nodded. Sensible.
“Snack.”
As if on cue, Adam’s stomach rumbled to remind him that he had not fed it the required number of calories. “Snack,” he repeated.
Mo nodded. “And then I think you’ve earned a nap. I’ll drive you home tomorrow morning. Deal?”
Adam knew better than to refuse an offer that good. “Deal.”
On some level, Mo expected climbing into bed with Adam Murphy, onetime archnemesis, to be awkward.
But he couldn’t say it surprised him to find the opposite after they’d survived the torment of his parents and fucked it out against a wall.
Mo handed Adam a stack of fluffy towels and his bathrobe and left him to shower.
They reconvened in the kitchen, where Mo treated Adam to a feast of chicken strips from the freezer.
He ate half the box right off the oven tray, leaning against Mo’s counter in his boxers, with Mo’s too-short, too-narrow bathrobe bunched awkwardly around his shoulders.
“Now I’m the one getting indigestion,” Mo joked.
Part of him still expected Adam to bristle. Instead, he just squirted another line of honey mustard directly onto a chicken finger. “This isn’t even that bad. In a couple weeks, we’ll get to the part of the season where I have to eat so much, I get tired of chewing.”
Mo might occasionally still feel the slightest twinge of regret over quitting hockey, but that sounded horrifying. “Then what, do you like throw the whole chicken in the blender?”
Shrugging, Adam devoured another chicken finger.
That was… Mo didn’t know. Though considering he’d personally reaped the benefit of Adam’s workout and nutrition plan, he probably didn’t have the right to feel vaguely ill about the way Adam put away protein.
“I’m not watching you drink chicken puree like a milkshake,” he said finally. “That’s beyond the scope of our fake relationship. You drink your shame smoothie in private.”
Adam polished off the last chicken finger, slid the baking sheet into the sink, and started the water. “If you can’t handle me at my shame smoothie, you don’t deserve me at my wall sex.”
“Speaking of wall sex…”
Adam turned his head and cocked one eyebrow. He looked… interested, like he’d agree to go another round. Which, Mo did want another round, but not right now. Right now, he wanted sleep. And also to give his thighs time to recover.
Mo cleared his throat and continued. “Real sex kind of goes against the fake dating.”
“Right.” Adam turned back to the sink. Was he disappointed? Was he hoping wall sex meant feelings?
“Don’t get me wrong, the sex was good, ten out of ten, would bang again—”
Adam snorted. That was a good sign, right?
“—but I don’t want any wires crossed here.”
Adam set the tray aside to dry and turned to face him. “Mo, I’m not going to drop to one knee. I know casual sex is a thing. I have, on occasion, even had it before.”
Mo didn’t know what to say to that either. For some reason, hearing Adam casually talk about one-night stands was weird. The whole night had been one mindfuck after another. Instead of trying, he grabbed the dish towel so his pan wouldn’t rust and started drying.
“Besides, you’ve made your feelings clear. I know you’re not interested in dating a hockey player for real.”
“Right.” Of course, Adam had a good point. Why did he want to argue? Mo put away the pan and hung the dish towel. “So… wanna have more casual sex? I mean, we’re still fake dating, but orgasms would definitely make things more bearable in the long term.”
“Yes.” Adam nodded, but then bit his lip. “It’s late. Too late for me to go home, but sleepovers seem…”
“Like a horrible idea?” Mo quipped. “Agreed. Tonight is a freebie, your one shot at gracing my bed with your comatose presence. Take advantage while you can, sir.”
Adam rolled his eyes.
“Hey, you don’t know what you’ve been missing out on. My bed is a queen among beds! You will be sorry once you are banished from her!”
“Yeah, yeah. Can we go see Her Majesty now? I’m tired.”
Mo sniffed but herded him toward the aforementioned bed.
Naturally, Adam insisted on brushing his teeth first. Mo could’ve made fun of him, but he wouldn’t want to go to bed with chicken-finger breath either.
Or to sleep next to it, for that matter.
“Wow,” Adam said when Mo finally pushed open the door to his bedroom. “When you said she was a queen, I didn’t think you meant literally. How do you even manage to have a decent orgy in here?”
Mo flushed. “Don’t be dumb or I’ll make you go sleep in the orgy room. There’s no sheets in there.” He’d bought a king-size bed when he moved in. After three months, the emptiness got to him.
It felt less conspicuous to sleep alone in a queen. The space next to him didn’t seem so vast. So he’d moved the king-size bed into the guest room.
Adam gave him an assessing look, like he was reading more into Mo’s snappishness than Mo intended. “Small-bed jokes are off limits. Got it. The Mo version of global warming.”
“Oh my God.” Mo face-planted onto his mattress before digging under the covers. “We just got that stress out of our systems. Let’s not go there again.”
“Seriously, though.” Adam pulled the cover and top sheet back and pushed on the mattress like he was testing it.
What was he going to do if it was too soft?
Sleep on the floor? Mo didn’t find out, because apparently, it passed muster and Adam climbed in.
“What’s their deal? Why do you even talk to them? ”
“Money.” Mo pressed his face into his pillow. “They’ve got my trust fund until I’m twenty-five.”
“What amount of money could possibly be worth them?”
“Enough to set me up with a garage I can tinker with for fun and never worry about anything for the rest of my life. Besides, they get to keep it otherwise.”
“Ugh. Fair. But they piss you off so much, you have to get fucked against a wall about it.”
“It didn’t have to be against the wall.”
Adam made a soft, noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. Mo’s brain translated that as, It definitely did. Well. At least they could communicate in bed.
He didn’t have the chance to say so out loud, though. Between the wine and the sex and the warmth of another body in his bed, Mo quickly fell asleep.
When he woke up in the morning, however, it was a different story.
For one thing, apparently, Mo needed to turn the thermostat down, because in the middle of the night, he and Adam had gravitated so close that he woke up with his face pressed to Adam’s chest. And not just touching, either; they were plastered together by Mo’s drool.
Fortunately, Adam slept through Mo’s horrified crisis about that, and his subsequent sneak of shame out of his own bedroom.
The shame was for the drool only, of course. And maybe the illicit snuggles. He wasn’t ashamed of the sex.
He did wonder if he’d woken up in the twilight zone, though, when he opened his phone to find a text from Claire hoping Adam had recovered from his indigestion, and commenting that she and Orson were pleased Mo had picked such a nice young man.
That was just… too weird. Thank you. He is feeling better this morning, he typed out, aware that Claire would find it rude if he responded with a simple thumbs-up.
And then he opened his thread with Sage.
So, good news, bad news. Bad news: Claire and Orson were on their worst behavior last night. Good news: I got laid about it.
He sent the text, then paused and considered.
Is it still laid if you’re vertical when it happens?
There should be a specific euphemism for getting railed against a wall.
Not that Mo believed in euphemistic language most of the time—being direct had its advantages; case in point, last night—but sometimes, it was just more dramatic.
Sage didn’t bother to text back before putting in the FaceTime request.
“Girl, did you fuck Adam Murphy?” they all but screeched.