Chapter 9
NIK
T ristan and I kept our eyes on the kids while they ran laps around the infield. The team had a lot of newcomers this year, most of whom were eager to show off their skills.
“All right, y’all, let’s line up for some exercises. There are balls over near the bleachers, and I want everyone to find a partner and begin doing throws for a bit,” Tristan said with a loud clap, pointing at home plate.
I shuffled my feet, unable to stay still. The entire practice I’d been thinking about Micah and trying to figure why the hell I’d agreed to seeing him later. It’d be easy to shrug it off and say it was about getting my dick wet, but I knew it wasn’t.
Hooking up with Micah was the freest I’d felt in years. But there were risks, and I didn’t take risks. Working at Sunrise showed me how all it took was one crappy week and I could be off the wagon.
God, was I making a mistake?
It was a gamble to bring it up to Tristan because he may not even have an answer, but what the fuck else did I have to lose?
“Do you think it’s bad if you play it safe with life?”
Tristan didn’t answer for a while. I stole a quick look and saw his mouth twisted to the side, eyes squinting in the distance. He looked like he was about to answer, but the kids were going into the restless part of practice. I jogged over and told them to get in their positions and gave a ball to the first pitch.
Our attention stayed focused on the game, pumping out praise to one of the kids who caught a high kick and gained an out. The game continued, and Tristan and I slipped into our roles, which was basically to make sure none of these five-year-olds hurt themselves and ended up in the hospital.
We hooted at a home run, handing out high-fives. After the kids settled down, Tristan returned to his stance, eyes on the field. “Everyone feels like that at times,” he finally answered.
I had a real hard time believing that Tristan felt like that. He had a guy that made him look goofy as fuck in love, and if it wasn’t that, Maddie sure as hell kept these dudes on their toes.
“Sure, but I’m not that normal dude who’s got something to offer. I got no education. Hell, I barely got a GED. The only things I do in my life that isn’t dealing with recovery is a weekly pottery class and coaching for this team. That’s it.”
It felt like lying that I left my relationship, or whatever it was, with Micah out of the conversation, but I had this urge to protect it. As much as I’d been trying to convince myself that it was because of the mind-blowing sex, it wasn’t. It was how he hit me up at random and pulled me out of the safety of my routine, how he made all those boring bits seem less annoying.
Tristan faced me. He had his serious eyebrows going on, which meant he was deciding what to say. I called it his professor stare because I imagined it was a look he gave his students at the university.
I watched the kids play, their joyous faces like warm sunshine. Their laughter was the purest sound I’d ever heard. They had so much love inside of them and all this potential. Yet I knew that some of them wouldn’t make it very far, just like I hadn’t, because they’d seen some shit.
It made me want to protect them even more, but I knew the world was way bigger than me, and it would eventually sink its dirty claws into them. It always did.
“How would you describe me to these kids?” I asked, knowing I’d thrown Tristan off by my random shift in conversation. It may not have made sense to him, but I really felt like I was on to something, and I was able to say what was bugging me out loud. “You wouldn’t just tell a five-year-old I’m an ex-junkie?”
“Of course not. That’s—” Tristan rubbed his fingers along the side of his jaw and drew a harsh breath, his cheeks puffing. “You’re not obligated to give all the details of your life to people. Everyone has demons. Some are trying to make amends with them, and others push them away so they don’t have to look at them. Not many people can face them like you do.”
I rubbed my thumb along the scars on my veins, the ones I spent an extra ten minutes every day covering up. “I just don’t wanna be a cliché, man. But I have to be careful because all it could take is a bad week and I’m back where I started.”
Tristan gave me a kind smile and said, “You have way more wisdom than you give yourself credit for, so try to follow your gut every once in a while and see where it takes you. There’s nothing wrong with being a little impulsive now and then.”
Tristan’s advice sounded eerily close to Duncan’s. As much as I believed what they had to say, recovery didn’t stop. My throat grew tight, and I rubbed over the scars on my arm.
“Hey, Tris... could you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
I covered the scars with my palm, and with my pulse thudding against my neck, I asked, “Can you not talk to Duncan about this conversation?”
Tristan bumped his shoulder against mine and smiled. “Wouldn’t think of it.”
We got through another game before practice was over without any more tears, which Tristan and I always counted as a huge win. After the kids were all picked up, I always made Tristan go home, enjoying the time to pack up the equipment alone.
I was getting in my car when my ring tone went off, Micah’s name on my screen. A heady rush flooded my veins, leaving my skin tingling and head floaty as his deep tenor slipped through the line and said, “Hey, I sent you a text, but I realized you might’ve still been in practice. You busy?”
“Not anymore.”
“I’d still like to see you again,” Micah said, his tone dipping to a murmur so silky and sweet it rose the heat of my blood, awakening my cock without a wink of warning. “Can’t seem to get you off my mind.”
In the past, euphoria needed multiple steps. Steps that weren’t natural. It took brute force—literally punching into my veins—to achieve it, and I chased it until I couldn’t anymore. I nearly died because of it. I’d figured nothing would come close to touching that again.
Until now.
Normally, I’d go home, take a shower, and chill before going to bed and getting up before dawn. It would be another day ticked off, alive but not quite living—bored, but clean.
Now I had Micah’s voice humming in my ear with the option of a different evening before me, and there was no way I was gonna say no. He made me wanna take a chance, even if it freaked me out later.
Still, I needed to chill, or I’d be risking walking like I sat on a sharp rock all the way to my car. I wiped my hand over my mouth and, before I could lose courage, said, “I’m down.”
There was an awkward pause in the conversation before Micah cleared his throat. “Mind if I come to your place? Figured it’d even things out since you’ve already seen mine.”
“Sure, I’m already heading there,” I said, my heart rate kicking up as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward my neighborhood. “I’m a couple minutes away from my place. I’ll text you the address as soon as I park.”
“Good deal. See you soon, then,” Micah said, his smile radiating through the speakers of my car as the call ended.
By the time I parked in the driveway, I barely had a foot out the door as I shot the text off to Micah. Immediately, he texted back that he was ten minutes away. Well, better than nothing. I flicked up two fingers to the sky in gratitude and jogged into the house to get a quick shower in.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at my reflection. Water dripped from my hair to my arms, to my elbows. The path slithered and curled, catching in the bend between my biceps and forearm.
Paths of destruction still marred my skin. They’d looked far worse in the beginning, but through work, the evidence had mostly faded. Like the memories, though, the scars never fully disappeared.
The edge of my mouth curled as I jerked the drawer open that held my new arsenal of equipment. Two pumps of liquid and a few precise pats with a sponge, and my history vanished from the naked eye.
I’d just finished my other arm when several sharp knocks rattled on my front door. With a small curse under my breath, I rushed into my bedroom to put on a pair of joggers and headed to the front door.
Whatever internal struggle I’d been feeling about myself in the bathroom vanished when Micah’s gaze took one slow drag down my body and up again, his eyebrow taking a quick lift up to his hairline. My pulse skipped a beat.
Taking a few steps back, I widened the door. “Um, sorry for a taking a minute to answer. I just got out of a shower.”
“All good,” Micah said as he stepped inside, his keys spinning around his finger as he did a quick visual sweep of my living room. It wasn’t much to look at, just a small TV that sat on a stand I’d snagged from a yard sale at the Collective. The rest of my furniture was a clash of colors next to each other, secondhand purchases I’d found through Facebook Marketplace.
They’d been with me through the years, and despite being able to afford a whole new setup, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not with the nightmares of being back on the streets haunting me.
Micah stopped to check out the bookcase I kept in the corner. It’d been a birthday gift Chance made for me last year. The first two shelves were covered in pottery I’d made over the last few months. Some I was damn proud of, most were failures, and still others brought comedic relief.
The third shelf was for photos. Kickball teams Tristan and I coached, including the kickball tournament the Collective had a couple years before. A snapshot of me and Duncan at his wedding, laughing during the reception about something I couldn’t remember. A small trophy Duncan got me for when I celebrated being one year sober.
Micah took in each shelf, his fingertips running along the pointed side of the shelf with the pottery. It left a funny flutter in my throat that I couldn’t swallow.
I waited for a comment on the condition of the apartment, but all Micah did was point to the empty side table next to the couch. “Mind if I put my stuff here?”
He had on a skintight black shirt with bright green lettering for the Hard Knox Roller Derby. I didn’t have the slightest clue what the hell that was, but I appreciated how much it showed off the firmness of his chest and stomach. And his black skinny jeans clung to him like a second skin. Those pants were too distracting.
He cleared his throat and pointed to the side table with a questioning look on his face. I blinked, coming back to my senses. “No, yeah, it’s totally cool.”
Micah set down his wallet and phone and walked to me, his eyes roaming down my body to my toes and slowly roving back up, stopping at my lips. “I have a question.”
“Okay,” I said, my pulse jackhammering so hard in my throat the word felt numb on my tongue.
His eyes locked on to mine, a devil’s smile curling at the corner of his mouth. “If we fuck now, how long will it take for you to go again?”
Well, that was definitely not the question I was expecting to be asked. “Dunno. Haven’t tried it before.”
Micah brushed his thumb over my bottom lip, eyes assessing as he pulled it slightly downward. “Wanna find out tonight?”
I licked the tip of his thumb, then pushed out my tongue so that he could run the flat of his finger along the middle. My cock immediately hardened, my entire body already on fire. I tilted my head away so I could say, “Hell yeah, let’s do it.”
A smile played around Micah’s lips as he joined me in the middle for a kiss. By the way he’d been checking me out, I expected things to start off in a similar fashion as they did the first three times, but they didn’t.
Micah ran the tip of his tongue teasingly over the seam of my mouth, coaxing it open and dipping inside for a taste. His hands were just as busy as his mouth, one palm running over my chest and stomach, the fingers of the other tangling through my hair, nails scratching along my scalp.
With his wily tongue taking the lead in this slow dance of a kiss, I somehow activated the two functional brain cells I still had and pushed him against the wall with a little more force than I meant to. The impact pried our mouths apart, and I pawed at his shirt and said, “Get this off.”
Micah breathed a husky chuckle, crossed his arms in front of him, removed the T-shirt, and dropped it onto the floor. He canted his hips forward, accentuating the dark trail of hair on his long torso, a bulge straining in those low-rise jeans that clung to him more like a second skin than actual clothing.
There was a flush spread across his chest, and I leaned in to run the flat of my tongue along it, humming happily at the way he groaned. I licked toward his nipple, circling a path around the hardened bud before latching my mouth on to it.
“Hm, yeah,” Micah murmured, his fingers tightening in my hair and holding me in place. “Suck it.”
Micah’s words didn’t sound like a command. It was a plea. His voice quivering on the edge of begging. I latched on to the hard nub, humming encouragingly at the resulting moan. As I switched between teeth and tongue, Micah continued his hums of approval, his grip on my hair unwavering.
This was good. So good. The question that’d been pounding in my head at practice was answered by the hitch of Micah’s breath, the trembling muscles of his stomach. Being with him felt dangerous, but worth it.
A part of me wanted us to take it slower than we had before, coax more sounds out of him, and learn how to make Micah melt under my touch. There was still so much to learn and catalogue, so many places to explore, but I also wanted to get these fucking clothes off.
Micah let out a confused hum when I released his nipple and pulled his hand out of my hair. His eyebrows scrunched together when I stepped out of his reach when he tried to rock his hips against mine. My hard-on was just as frustrated, but I didn’t want this to end too quickly, even if there was the promise of a round two.
I reached out to Micah’s belt and dragged the leather strap out of the buckle, the metal tinkling after I let go. He watched me work open the fly of his pants, and when I slipped my hand inside his briefs to release his cock, he exhaled a harsh breath.
“Fuck, I was so close to just doing that myself,” he said, his head hitting the back of the wall with a small thump. “Thought you were trying to edge me or something for a second.”
“Naw, that ain’t my thing,” I said while I carefully tugged his jeans over his ass and down his thighs.
I brushed my knuckles over the newly exposed skin and ran my fingertips across the crease where Micah’s thigh and hip met, coming dangerously close to the base of his cock. He hissed a breath between his teeth, his hips jerking forward, nose flaring. I could see he was gearing up to say something, but I reached for his hand and wrapped it around his cock.
Micah’s eyebrows rose, and I watched, mesmerized, as his long fingers adjusted into position before he slowly jacked himself off. He kept a steady pace for a bit, pressing his hard-on against his stomach as his other hand slithered below and touched his balls.
He exhaled a breath that held a hint of a groan before his other hand took a hold of his cock again, the art adorning the muscles of his arms dancing as he picked up a rhythm.
A fever took control of my body, burning my blood and making my skin itchy. Desperately, I yanked my joggers low enough to free my cock, the relief so good my knees went weak. I planted a hand on the wall, spat into the other, and matched Micah’s pace.
Sex was, in general, a messy process from start to finish, and it usually took a few rounds to leave the awkward stage and into more familiar territory. I half expected the awkwardness to show up, but it didn’t, even when our wrists knocked into each other or an elbow got in the way when one of us tried to adjust. It felt natural, sharing moans and breaths, swears, and declarations to god.
“Nik, look at me,” Micah said, the words choked but his voice pleading.
I’d heard these words before, out of the mouths of countless people: lovers, family, friends, dealers. There were people I’d had to do things with out of desperation for a fix, them spitting out a command while holding on to my throat.
I’d heard it through the sob of heartbreak from people who loved me, my body shaky to get back to my dealer, holding back the bile that threatened to punch out of my mouth.
But no one had ever comeas close to saying it the way Micah said my name, hushed and special, filled with heat, arousal, and desperation all at once; it was an experience branded in my mind forever.
Being witness to Micah like this—bottom lip wet and reddened from his teeth, cheeks flushed, and mouth parted as small bursts of air pushed out of him—was also something I knew I’d never forget. It was startling to know that I had made him look like this.
That knowledge also spurred me to the edge, until Micah’s eyes widened a little, and his mouth dropped, and he let out a shocked moan. Warmth splashed on my stomach and my hand, evidence of Micah’s orgasm, and the warmth of it was the very thing to rush mine to the finish line.
Without warning, I pitched forward and sunk my teeth into his shoulder, screaming into the heat of his skin while I came so hard my knees nearly gave out. Micah’s shocked gasp was distant over the roar in my ears, his fingernails abrading a sinuous trail down my spine to my ass.
I ripped my mouth off his shoulder with a pop, stroking my tongue around the indentations and pressing a small kiss on it. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be pissed about me ripping into him. “Sorry, I didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late.”
The snort I got in return vanquished any worry. “I don’t break that easily. Don’t worry.” Micah shifted under me, and as we separated, I caught the wrinkle bunching up along the sharp slope of his nose. “And these jeans are done. Mind if I borrow something? I promise not to do any untoward harm to them.”
“Sure. Try not to move. I’ll be back,” I said, carefully untangling myself so that I wouldn’t end up with more mess than I already had. I gave a quick assessment and lifted a hand.
It was certainly comical having to walk to the bathroom with my joggers still hanging off my ass, but the giggle it got out of Micah was worth it.
“Next time we’re doing this in the bedroom,” I said, handing the washcloth to Micah to clean up his hand. “At least there I have baby wipes on the bedside table.”
Micah smirked at me for a moment and returned to cleaning up a rather impressive spot on his jeans. “Won’t hear me complain about that.”
“Hey, you hungry?” I asked as I walked into my bedroom to grab two options of sweats from my dresser and one of my shirts with sleeves that covered my elbows. I put the shirt on, catching Micah walking toward my bedroom out of the corner of my eye.
“Starving, actually,” Micah said, leaning in the doorway, his fly still open. He hadn’t fully adjusted his briefs yet, a patch of moist pubic hair exposed. Jesus, he was like a walking sex idol even with a jizz stain on his skinny jeans.
I held up a black pair and a gray pair of sweats, lifting my eyebrows in question, and Micah pointed to the black ones.
A lamp I snagged at Goodwill for cheap on my nightstand was the only source of light I had in the room. It was awful at its job, but even in the weak glow, Micah was the hottest dude I’d ever hooked up with. He shimmied out of his pants before sitting on the bed so he could tug and wiggle the ankle loose enough to free a leg.
Standing in my sweats, shirtless, with every bit of ink on his body exposed, Micah’s beauty was on full display. His hair was a mess, eyes still dazed, and I wanted to kiss him so badly it made my heart hurt.
Instead, I spun around to head to the kitchen. Micah followed.
“So, my friend Duncan cooks a lot and gives me all the leftovers. I’m not sure what you’re in the mood for, but he makes an incredible pad Thai if you’re up for that. But if you’re not feelin’ it, that I always keep at least two emergency pizza-esque dishes on hand at all times.”
“Yeah, I’m down for the pad Thai. But I’m intrigued—why two pizzas?”
With a shrug, I opened the freezer and pulled out two servings. “Sometimes bad days can turn into two, and I’ll never stop hearing my therapist tell me how getting out of bed and having a meal at least once a day is better than staying in bed and not eating at all.”
I braced for Micah to give me some sad eye look because that’s usually what everyone did in his position. And I hated it when people did that, looked at me like I was some beaten up puppy the SPCA put in those ridiculous commercials. But I got nothing but a simple nod, and then Micah slipped out of the kitchen and toward the living room.
Huh. That was a pleasant surprise. This dude kept me on my toes, that was for sure.
I grabbed the food from the microwave and headed to the living room. Micah stood in front of the bookcase, staring at the pottery more closely. He tilted his head to the side as he studied a photo and pointed at it. “You know, I hadn’t snagged you as a kickball guy.”
“I’m not.”
Micah looked at me. His hair was an absolute riot, cheeks still reddened, a small patch of red under his jaw from my teeth. A smiled played at his swollen lips. “Did you lose a bet?”
I placed the food down, walked to Micah, and looked at the photo. Tristan and I stood in the middle, surrounded by a group of five-year-olds holding up the medals that hung around their necks. I’d been out of rehab for two years at that point, and to anyone who didn’t know, I just looked like a young college kid working two jobs and not eating enough.
“I joined all on my own. A friend of mine asked me if I’d help coach and I figured, well, I ain’t got nothing else going on. Turned out to be more fun than I thought.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Micah said, jogging his finger along the side of the shelf and stopping in front of the first pottery piece I’d ever made.
“Did one of the kids you coach make this?”
“No.” I ducked my head and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to calm the burn of embarrassment crawling over my skin. “I did.”
I peeked up at it, knowing it was the saddest excuse of a mug. I’d made it in a class with my brother when he came to visit me a few months after I got clean. We’d spent years not talking, and that ugly-ass piece of ceramic meant more to me than anything else in this apartment.
It was one of my first steps of moving forward into a new life.
“I like it,” Micah said.
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Why?”
Micah glanced sideways at me and shrugged. “Because it’s not perfect. Growing up, there wasn’t much room for mediocrity, and I am very mediocre.”
There was a tightness in his eyes as he chewed at the corner of his mouth, and I was pretty shocked when I realized he actually believed what he said. I didn’t agree with that at all. There was no way he didn’t catch the eye of anyone as he walked by. Shit, all it took was a couple of sentences and I was hooked.
I reached up and brushed my knuckles across the edge of his jaw and curled my fingers under his chin, turning him toward me. “You? Mediocre? Naw.”
Micah turned his body fully toward me and wet his lips, unlocking a heat in my chest that spread toward my fingertips and toes. Curling my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him toward me and captured his lips with mine.
I wanted to take this slow, but it was hard since usually we were in a rush to get to the point. The moment I touched Micah, all I was doing was trying to figure out how to get him out of his clothes.
I kept my mouth closed on purpose, not giving in to his invitation when the tip of his tongue dragged along the seam of my mouth. Breaking away earned a groan of frustration, but I made up for it by nipping down the column of his throat, because Micah was a slut for having his neck touched.
My hands slid up his sides, fingernails scratching up his spine, followed by a soft sweep of my hand. I nosed away his shirt so I could lick at his collarbone, smiling against his skin when he shuddered.
Micah jerked back and cupped my face, slamming our mouths together. He always kissed like he was giving everything he had, the easy curl of his tongue against mine distracting me enough for him to rub the pad of his thumb over my nipple.
My cock jerked to life again, and Micah smiled against my lips when I gripped his hips and pressed him against me.
“Bed,” I said, my voice ragged as I grabbed his hand and headed toward the bedroom again.
“I thought you were starving,” Micah asked, laughter in his tone.
I pushed him down on the bed, tugged off my sweats, and dropped to my knees, leaning forward to nuzzle at his crotch. “Fuck the food. We can reheat it.”
When I mouthed against the thick fabric of my sweats, Micah let out a burst of breath, his fingers knotting tightly in my hair. “Well, I’m glad we know how long it takes for round two.”
I couldn’t admit that this would only happen with him. Micah wasn’t the first guy I’d fucked around with since I’d been clean, but he was the first one I’d call a lover. The first one that made me want to be brave enough to take risks again.