“What if I mess up again?” Trevor kicked at the tread of one of the nearby risers. He had lead on three of their five songs. Carter hadn’t been too happy about that, but they had to go mainly with stuff they’d already recorded videos for—doing a bunch of new arrangements would have taken too much time.
“You won’t.” Jalen squeezed Trevor’s hand. “Would it help if I told you to picture the audience naked?”
“No!” Trevor laughed. “That never works.”
“Fine. How about remembering that we never have to see these people again.” That thought was helping Jalen a lot. “They don’t know us. They don’t have any assumptions about us either. So I can just get up there and sing. Leave it all on the stage. If they hate it, well, I’ll be back at the house in two hours and jumping your bones. I’m not gonna care about the audience.”
“Jumping my bones, huh?” Trevor lowered his voice, looking over to make sure Carter and Carson were still deep in conversation.
“Yup. That’s my motivation. Maybe think about that instead of assuming you’re going to suck.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind sucking.” The look Trevor gave him would melt steel.
“And I might let you—if you get out there and sing. I want to see you stop worrying about whether your voice is too high or your runs too girly or whatever the hell goes through your brain and trips you up. Sing for you. Sing like you do when it’s just you and me.”
“And you? What are you going to be doing while I’m singing my heart out?”
“Oh, I’m totally going to be picturing everyone naked,” Jalen said dryly, gratified by the huge laugh from Trevor.
Leave it all on the stage. The announcer introduced them, explained that they were one of the groups from the show, and described the contest going on between the groups. That got a pleasant round of applause and then it was their turn. They were opening with the song Carter did lead on, which was totally fine with Trevor. Less pressure on him.
Carter’s number, however, led right to Trevor’s first song. And he was . . . okay. Not brilliant, but no major flubs. Jalen was next, and he was transcendent. There really wasn’t any other word for it. To say he was a natural would be an insult to all the hard work they’d put into the songs, but Jalen worked the stage and the crowd better than the most seasoned groups had on Perfect Harmony. He got the crowd clapping along and interacted with the audience down front, getting low and slapping a few hands without losing a note.
It was no wonder their social media numbers were up this week. Jalen as lead was a brilliant move, and one they needed to exploit more. Who wouldn’t want to download a video with that smooth voice? Heck, the song gave Trevor a hopeless crush, and he had the real deal in his bed each night. Jalen’s singing made one want more—more songs, more connection, more of his soulful voice.
Unfortunately, Trevor had to follow that amazeballs performance, and his next number was more than a little stilted. The audience response was equally tepid, and his feet felt like they might as well be trapped in the big heavy speakers at the edge of the stage.
As they took their mark for the final number, Jalen caught Trevor’s eyes. He tapped his chest right over his heart, then nodded.
Sing from the heart.
He believes in me. More than any word of advice or positive imagery, that knowledge propelled Trevor forward. More than that, he owed this song a good performance—it had been the sound track to his week, brought him closer to Jalen, made Jalen more invested in the group, pushed Trevor out of his comfort zone. He closed his eyes as the opening bars sounded and put himself back in their room, back in their bed, singing with Jalen, knowing that it was only a matter of time before they traded singing for kissing and wanting to impress Jalen with his range—not holding back but instead opening up.
“This is me broken, but not shattered,” he sang, and he meant the lyrics. Claimed them as his own. Reshaped the song until it was the story of this past week, the story of where he was with Jalen—uncertain but hopeful, scared but charging ahead.
And when the run came, he nailed that sucker to the floor, gave it everything he had. Every trill and every note that would be a reach for most guys. He didn’t reach; he simply sang.
And when it was done and the applause deafened them, he looked first at Jalen. His smile warmed Trevor all the way through, a fire he hadn’t known he’d lit. They weren’t halfway off the stage when Jalen grabbed him in a tight hug, pressing his lips to Trevor’s ear. “You are getting so epically laid later.”
Chapter Thirteen
@NextDirectionShow The @HeatLoss_Guys raised the most money but Stand Out! wasn’t far behind! Bring on week three!
@StandOutJalen Survived our set! Shout out to Vancouver for all the love!
“Is it later?” Trevor asked as soon as their room door banged shut.
“I was thinking five minute shower—” Jalen bent to kick his shoes off.
“You know I don’t care about sweat.” Trevor pushed Jalen against the wall, one shoe and all. As far as he was concerned, Jalen smelled delicious—sweaty from the performance sure, but it was a clean, earthy scent that reminded Trevor of how Jalen always smelled after getting off as they fell asleep.
“Yeah, well, you’re weird.” Jalen laughed and shoved him back. “At least let me get my shoes off.”
Trevor kicked off his own shoes and pulled off both his T-shirts, making sure he had Jalen’s attention as he stripped. As predicted, Jalen’s eyes went hooded and glowed like a copper kettle. He paused in removing his shirt and reached out to touch one of the marks on Trevor’s chest.
“Those shouldn’t make me so hot.” Jalen worried his full lower lip with his teeth.
“But it does?” Still holding Jalen’s gaze, Trevor dropped his pants and boxer shorts in a smooth motion. He was still riding the high of performing, too keyed up to worry about crashing later, body thrumming with a need he couldn’t name. Edgier than usual. Bolder.
“Oh yeah.” Throwing his shirt to the ground, Jalen dropped to his knees right in front of Trevor, kissed his stomach, sucked up a love bite right below his belly button. Growling, he licked the spot before heading south. And okay, that was something other than lust fluttering around Trevor’s stomach.
“Bet you can’t catch me.” Trevor took a big step backward into familiar, safe territory.
Jalen raised an eyebrow like, you really gonna turn down a blow job?
Yeah, he really was. It wasn’t the first time Jalen had hinted that he’d be willing to go down on Trevor, but the prospect of wrestling around together was usually enough to distract him away from the notion. Trevor scrambled across the room, trying to put less terror and more sass into his movements, goad Jalen into wrestling without letting him see how nervous Trevor was.
“I’m feeling more like celebrating and less like play fighting,” Jalen said as he removed the rest of his clothes. “I don’t always need that. But if you want . . .”
“I want. Come get me.”
And then it was on, them rolling around the bed together until Jalen had Trevor pinned facedown. His dick rode the curve of Trevor’s ass until all that need swelling in Trevor coalesced into something solid, something he recognized.
“Fuck me.” The words escaped without permission, but he wasn’t about to recall them. He pushed up against Jalen.
“Oh yeah. You want me to rub off like this?” Jalen asked as he thrust harder against Trevor’s ass, firm hand against the back of Trevor’s neck. He leaned forward to bite Trevor’s shoulder.
Trevor moaned. The friction of his dick against the sheets was almost too much and not nearly enough.
“Don’t worry if you can’t get off like this.” Jalen’s words came between heavy breaths as he kept rocking. “I want to suck you off soon as I’m done. Want to suck you so bad.”
He shifted his weight, and then his dick was dragging along Trevor’s crack. Holy fuck. Trevor whimpered, needing more. “Fuck me,” he said again, more forcibl
y this time.
“Gonna make you feel so good—”
“For reals,” Trevor said when Jalen kept up his maddening rhythm and didn’t seem anywhere close to getting with the program. “Not rubbing off. Want you in me. Wanna fuck.”
Jalen stilled above him, hand relaxing on Trevor’s neck. “I’m good with this. And I didn’t exactly pack supplies—”
“I’ve got condoms and lube,” Trevor said, jerking his head in the direction of his dresser. He wasn’t a complete idiot—when he went out to clubs, he went prepared. “Told you. I’ve done this once before.”
“Yeah? Well, I haven’t. And maybe it’s not a big deal to you, but it is to me.” Jalen rolled off Trevor, leaving him cold and more than a little confused.
“You’re a virgin?” Trevor said it like Jalen had just fessed up to a third arm. “But you’re . . . you’re . . .”
“Think really carefully about what your next word is,” Jalen warned, not really in the mood for any of Trevor’s assumptions and stereotypes.
“Hot. I was going to say hot. How are you a virgin?”
“Hot guys can’t be virgins?” For the record, Jalen was pretty sure Trevor was alone in finding Jalen hot—sure he was built and all, but he was a realist. Being five-foot-ten didn’t even qualify as big and sexy in a lot of people’s minds. Further, his neck was a bit too thick, lips way too full, his nose a bit too broad, and skin too pockmarked from acne that had finally gone away when Mama Kern took him for meds. All that together did not equal hot, no matter how many times Trevor proclaimed it. “And I’m not exactly a virgin.”
“Oh.” Trevor’s face scrunched up. “You’ve bottomed but not topped?”
“No.” Jalen flopped back against the mattress, one arm over his eyes to block the light. “It’s not all about the butt, okay? Look, I’ve been getting off with you the last week. I had friends I fooled around with in high school. I’ve sucked cock. I’m not a virgin.”
Jalen could practically hear Trevor squint. “Technically—”
“Technically? Seriously, man? What if I had a long-term partner who wasn’t into anal at all but we got off every night and twice on Sundays? Would I die a virgin?” Jalen wasn’t sure why it mattered to him, but it did. Mama Kern was from the south originally, and she always said, “You can’t fix stupid.” Watch me try. “You and I’ve had kinky sex. Surely that counts?”
“Sorry.” Trevor put a hand on Jalen’s back. “I didn’t mean to piss you off. If you count it, that’s cool.”
“I just don’t get why the whole world’s hung up on butt sex.” Several years’ worth of frustration bled into Jalen’s voice.
“Ah.” Trevor’s noncommittal noise made Jalen feel like a bug being examined. A really, really angry bug who just wanted Trevor’s magnifying glass to go fuck off.
Before, he’d been craving something slow and sweet, something where he could show Trevor how amazing his singing performance had been. He’d taken that last song to church and taken the audience and the rest of the group right there with him. Jalen wanted to bottle up that fire in Trevor, preserve it. Savor it.
But now all Jalen wanted was to shake some sense into him. Not the right mode for either kinky playtime or getting off.
“So you’re just not into fucking?” Trevor asked.
“Are you gonna put me back in the box labeled ‘straight’ if I say yes?” Jalen countered. “No, actually, I’m waiting. Not because I’m trying to stay a virgin or something like that. But I think fucking should be special. It should be making love.” And okay, that sounded really stupid, even to his own ears, which was why he didn’t voice these thoughts to anyone.
“That’s cool. A lot of my gay friends at college took this pledge to wait until marriage. The whole school takes it, actually. I technically signed it too, but—” Trevor waved his hands like he was making something disappear.
“It’s not like a religious thing. My moms’ church doesn’t really talk much about premarital sex.”
“Hold up. You go to church?”
“My moms do. I used to go more, but I’m too busy mainly right now. It’s a Unitarian one. Not all churches are like your dad’s or your college.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t sound so shocked that I go to church. Or that I’ve never fucked. Your stereotypes are hanging out all over the place, man, and it’s not pretty.”
“Sorry.” Trevor laid down beside him, put his head on Jalen’s chest. He managed to look like a sorry puppy. Hard to stay mad at that. Jalen stroked his hair as his frustration receded a bit.
Trevor looked up at him with big eyes. “You’re right. I’m being a dick. I think it’s cool you’re waiting. Really. You should wait, like you said, for something special.” Trevor’s voice got all small at the end and he addressed Jalen’s ribs, not his face.
“Oh, Trev, man, I didn’t mean you’re not something special.” Oh hell. How had he bungled this? He’d thought they were just pretend, with a side of bonus nighttime entertainment, figured he was alone in wishing things were real.
“It’s okay.” Trevor lifted his head and gave Jalen a weak smile. “We’re just temporary right? Heat Loss is winning this thing, and you’ve got a life to go back to. Me, I’ve got to find a life. I get it, J.”
“Yeah.” Jalen wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t know how to put into words the mess of feelings inside him. He needed Trevor to understand where he was coming from. “See, my bio mom, she had me when she was only sixteen. And it was always one relationship drama after another with her—even before she shot the dude. Constant parade of abusive assholes at our place.”
“That sucks.” Trevor kept his head on Jalen’s shoulder.
“I don’t want to be like her.” It was easier to admit these things with his hand on Trevor’s warm head, sifting through his silky hair. “Impulsive. Reckless.” Violent.
“You’re not.” Trevor tapped Jalen’s chest. “You’re solid and steady. You’d make someone a great boyfriend.”
How about you? Jalen ruffled Trevor’s hair, playing with it, letting it fall through his fingers. “You’re paid to think that. But anyway, yeah, I’ve always been . . . selective about who I get it on with. Friends mainly. No random hookups.”
Trevor coughed and mumbled something like “Guilty.”
“Hey, I’m not judging. Just keeping it one hundred. But Mama Kern and Mama Ivy, they’ve been together almost thirty years. And they’ve got a lot of friends who’ve been together even longer.”
“You want that?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t something Jalen said out loud a lot, or even let himself really think, but he wanted what Mama Kern and Mama Ivy had—stability. Sure he’d had a few friends in high school he’d gotten off with, but what he really wanted was a boyfriend. Someone with a future.
“My parents have been together around that long, but I don’t want what they have.” Trevor’s tone was wistful. “He makes her miserable, but she can never, ever show it. What your moms have sounds nice, though.”
“It is.” Jalen laced their fingers together. I wish it could be you. “I figure if I’m with the right person, he’ll understand.”
“Understand?”
Jalen had not meant to say that part aloud, but something about lying here with Trevor, all snuggled up even though Trevor had been ticking him off minutes earlier, made a safe little bubble in which he could say things he’d never told anyone else. “Promise you won’t say it makes me straight?”
“I promise. I was being stupid earlier.”
“Well, okay. Thing is, I’m not sure I’ll like anal. Almost all my fantasies are about rubbing off and oral. And the wrestling thing. I’m not sure I’m gonna be that into anal—either top or bottom. And I’ve always figured the right person would understand that. And we’d try it, but if it didn’t work . . .” He trailed off, his throat too thick to continue.
“They’d still love you anyway?”
“Yeah.” Exactly. “
And if I sucked at it, they’d forgive that too.”
“You wouldn’t suck at it.” Trevor sounded way more certain than Jalen. “Trust me. Anyone who can use their hips like you . . .”
“It’s more than just banging away right?”
“Wanna know a secret?” Trevor petted Jalen’s chest. “It kind of sucked. It hurt, but not the good way.”
“There’s a good way?”
“When you hurt me? Oh heck yes. I never knew biting or pinching could get me turned on before.” Trevor shivered a little and burrowed closer. “And sometimes when I play by myself, it burns, but in a good way. But the reality wasn’t like that. I was glad when he was done.”
“You like it when you play with your ass by yourself?”
Jalen had never been the most in to videos of guys fingering themselves or using dildos, but the thought of Trevor doing it was strangely appealing.
“Yeah. It can feel intense. I used to feel really guilty for touching myself there, and I’d get more of the let-down feelings afterward, but then I started doing so much other stuff that touching my butt didn’t feel like so much of a sin.”
“I’ve tried it,” Jalen admitted. “But it seriously doesn’t do anything for me. It just feels like fingers and kind of uncomfortable, even with slippery stuff.”
“Did you find your spot? I’ll put up with a lot of uncomfortable to get to that.”
“Yeah. Felt like being bit by an electric eel. I’m not saying I couldn’t like it, or that I won’t try it, but when I want to get off I close my eyes and think of . . .” You. He realized he hadn’t rubbed one out on his own all week. And it was two weeks or more since he’d gotten off while thinking about anyone other than Trevor.
“Kinky stuff.” Trevor elbowed him.
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