Chapter Forty-One
TAD HAS no memory of the drive to the hotel. One moment he’s battling to stay upright between the front door of his parents’ house and the rental car, and the next, they’re in a parking lot with the car shut off. They sit there until their breath starts fogging.
“Hey,” Lewis says softly. He’s in the driver’s seat. “Let’s go inside, okay?”
“Okay.”
As they get their bags from the trunk, Lewis leans in to kiss Tad on the cheek—which is the first time a man has ever openly shown affection to Tad in his hometown.
Their room is standard hotel-chain modern. Clean lines, mostly soulless, but comfortable. Tad flings himself on the bed and puts a pillow over his face. He can hear Lewis puttering around the room, unzipping bags, getting toiletries out. “You can scream if it’ll help,” Lewis says.
“Urrrrrgghhhh,” Tad responds, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Or make that noise.” The bed depresses and Tad feels Lewis’s warmth at his side, then Lewis’s hand on his stomach. “I’m sorry that didn’t go better, babe.”
The haze in Tad’s mind is clearing like fog burning off with the sunrise. Groping for Lewis’s hand, he says into the pillow, “Yeah, well.”
There’s more to be said, but for once, it’s not that words are crowding into his throat while his mouth refuses to let them out—he can’t think of a single thing to say. He grips Lewis’s hand tighter and shoves the pillow off his face. “Thank you for being with me for that train wreck.”
Lewis lies down and puts his arms around Tad. “I’ll always be there for anything you want me for.” Lewis holds him tight and strokes his hair. “I’m so fucking proud of you, you know that?”
Tad’s eyes sting. “Why?”
Somehow, Lewis hugs him harder. “Because you were so brave. You did something incredibly scary and—Jesus, Tad. You’re so fucking brave.”
Tad starts crying.
Lewis holds him through it, stroking his hair and kissing his forehead, his temples, the top of his head, murmuring nonsense until eventually, Tad’s sobs subside to sniffles. When he raises his face from Lewis’s—now soaking wet—sweater, Lewis gently wipes his cheeks. “I look disgusting,” Tad says snottily.
“You look like the most fucking courageous person I know.” Lewis tips Tad’s chin up and kisses him softly. “I love you so much.”
Tad makes a noise and wraps his arms around Lewis. “I love you too,” he whispers.
They stay that way awhile, hearts beating together. The only reason Tad moves is because he promised Walt to let him know how it went, and he can tell from the frequency of the texts he’s receiving that Walt’s getting concerned.
It’s not just Walt texting, though. He has texts from… everyone. All his friends. Ava, Stacy, Alang. Callie sent a gif, and even Matthew, who Tad barely knows, wished him luck.
He almost starts crying again, but he gets it together enough to text Walt back.
Didn’t go well
FUCK. Dude I’m so sorry. I’ll talk some sense into them
Dad wasn’t too bad actually. He gave me a hug at the end. But Mom was, idk. Not happy
You don’t have to talk to them
Whatever you want bro. You need to talk or anything rn?
No that’s ok. Lewis is here. I’ll call you tomorrow
K. Love you
You too
The fact that his brother has now become a confidante is one of the best things to happen to Tad in… ever? Closeness is regrowing between them, like a plant you think has withered and died, until you give it the care it needs—and then it surprises you by coming back just as strong as before. Maybe stronger.
That’s the thing—even though coming out to his parents didn’t go the way he wanted it to, Tad feels so much green growing into all the cracks and crevices in his life. All the empty places he thought were dead and lifeless were waiting all this time to be nourished, and now he has….
Tad puts his phone on the desk and looks at Lewis, who’s still spread out on the bed. Something catches in his chest, and he crawls onto the bed next to Lewis. Nose to nose, Tad says, “Hi.”
“Hey.” Lewis rubs circles into Tad’s back. “You don’t have any responsibility to do anything else with your mom.”
“I know,” Tad says, and he even almost means it. “But I still kind of want to drive back and tell her—I don’t know what, exactly. That she’s wrong? Or that, I don’t know. I won’t flaunt it around her. I’ll act so not gay that she can pretend I’m not.” At the heartbroken expression on Lewis’s face, Tad fists a hand in his sweater. “But I don’t want to say that, not really. I just… I knew this was a possibility. But it still really fucking sucks to have it happen.”
He squeezes the wool of Lewis’s sweater in his hand. “I guess I had this fantasy that I was wrong all these years. Like maybe my family could be like yours.”
Lewis’s arms slide around him. One of his hands strokes up and down Tad’s spine.
“What if you don’t want to be with a guy whose family isn’t accepting like yours is?” Tad asks quietly.
Both of Lewis’s hands come to rest on Tad’s face and Lewis kisses him softly. “I want to be with you, Tad. I’ll help you with your family however you want me to. I’ll support you no matter what you decide to do after today, whether you figure it out tomorrow or in a year, whether it’s what I personally would do or not.”
Wait. A year? Sparks crackle in Tad’s chest.
After another soft kiss, Lewis says, “I’m with you for you. I just want to be with you.”
Tad remains silent. Then, with a smile so bright he can practically see the glow reflected in Lewis’s eyes, he asks, “A year?”
With a sheepish laugh, Lewis replies, “I mean. Yeah. Or like. Five. Or ten. And I’m doing the thing where I throw everything I have into a relationship even though it’s still pretty early—”
Tad cuts him off with a hard kiss, so much heat in it that clothes come off within minutes. If Tad had his way they’d be fucking within minutes, too. But Lewis wraps him up in his arms and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him, hands stroking through his hair and down his neck, over Tad’s shoulders that are still tight with tension, down his back to his ass.
Hot, heavy pleasure unspools low in Tad’s stomach, in his cock and balls, and the more Lewis touches him, the further it spreads across his skin. Hot, prickly need coils in his thighs and throbs deep inside him.
“Lew,” he groans. “Please.”
Lewis kisses and licks down his neck slowly as his hands push Tad’s legs open. Everything is hot and sticky and some kind of liquid gold—honey or syrup or caramel, molten and just this side of scorching.
Lewis teases Tad’s opening with a wet finger. Pressure gives way to the feel of Lewis’s finger breaching him, and oh oh god it feels good. Tad bucks his hips, demanding more, and a second finger curls inside him and— there —oh—oh he’s just crackling nerve endings, he can’t take it, he’s raw and scraped so close to the bone that the pleasure teeters on the knife’s edge of pain.
When Lewis withdraws his fingers, Tad makes a noise that leaves him hoarse. Then Lewis’s lips are on his again, and soon they’re positioning Tad’s legs against Lewis’s shoulders. It’s such an exposed position, and Tad loves it, loves how Lewis grips his legs hard enough to bruise as he lines himself up, loves how Lewis looks down and watches himself slide inside.
When Lewis is buried tip to root, he pauses, shoulders heaving, sweat shining across his chest and matting his chest hair to his pecs. His eyes flutter shut and he rolls his hips, slow and shallow, which makes Tad fist the sheets and grunt.
“Fuck, Tad. You feel so good.”
All Tad’s nerves spark like live wires, his skin scorching and damp with sweat and screaming for more. The hot, swirling pleasure in his gut reaches out greedily.
Tad arches, burying Lewis’s cock deeper and sliding it against his prostate. Heat floods him and—that. He needs more of that. “Fuck me,” he says hoarsely.
Lewis draws out and oh that drag, the sweet burn of friction and piercing ache of emptiness. And then he snaps his hips, and his cock hits Tad in the exact right spot, leaving him seeing stars and white-knuckling the sheets.
If Lewis was all slow tenderness before, need has burned it off. He fucks Tad hard. Tad’s heels dig into Lewis’s back as he hoists himself higher, always trying for a deeper angle, wanting Lewis closer, inside him further. Just—more. His toes curl and he’s spiraling closer and closer to the edge with each hard thrust. The muscles in his back and legs tense; everything tightens, throwing off sharp heat.
Lewis is panting and god he looks so hot, hips pistoning, sweat sheening his skin, his face contorted in concentration and agonized pleasure. “Oh Tad—baby—fuck, I’m gonna—”
“Fucking yes ,” Tad manages.
It’s only another few seconds, and Lewis is crying out, his thrusts sloppy and fast, as he clutches at Tad’s legs and bites the meat of one calf. Searing pleasure crystallizes deep inside Tad, teetering on a cliff, before it explodes, thundering through his body until he’s coming in thick, hot pulses, one after another across his stomach and chest.
Gradually, Tad realizes the vision whiteout he’s experiencing is actually because he’s staring at the ceiling. “Fuck,” he says.
Lewis groans his agreement.
Woozily, Tad unsticks his eyeballs to look at Lewis, who looks pretty dazed himself. “You,” Lewis says, then gives his head a shake. “You shouldn’t be allowed to be so sexy.”
“I’m banned in three states,” Tad says.
Lewis laughs and kisses Tad’s leg, then the other. “Stay here.” Slowly, he pulls out, which is when the soreness twinges. Good soreness. Tad loves the feeling of being well-fucked, of being able to feel Lewis still inside him.
Lewis returns with a wet washcloth and gently cleans first Tad, then himself. Tad probably needs to do some more thorough cleanup, especially before they go out for dinner, but all he wants to do now is lie in the circle of Lewis’s arms, skin to skin all down the lengths of their bodies.
When they eventually rouse themselves, Tad checks his phone. There’s a text from Mom: I love you so much , it says.
He almost taps into it to see if there’s more, or maybe to respond. Why, though? Why, when he’s let fear of his parents’ approval shadow most of his life? So his mom loves him. Great. Is it conditional on him still pretending not to be gay around her? Does she want to discuss how Lewis maybe shouldn’t come with Tad when he visits? Instead of assuming, Tad will ask. Tomorrow, though. He’ll deal with it tomorrow.
Hands slip over his shoulders and rub gently. “You okay, babe?” Lewis asks.
Tad puts his phone aside to sink into the circle of Lewis’s arms. Lewis’s embrace feels like home. “Yeah,” Tad says, hugging him back. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
This time, he believes it.