A rumbling groan fell from my mouth and I leaned into the touch. He kept touching me, working his fingers from my hairline to the back of my head over and over until I felt heavy and hazy with sleep.
“You were out there awhile,” he murmured, “considering you only crossed one thing off your list.”
I sighed and rolled my neck, pressing my forehead against his stomach and bracketing my hands around his slender hips.
“I finished your car,” I told him.
“So…” His voice was barely louder than a whisper. “So, it’s all fixed, then?”
“Fixed.”
The confirmation had my chest tightening, my organs suddenly too big for my ribs, the curved bones constricting around my lungs, my heart.
“You gonna take off?” I asked, even though the words sliced my tongue as I forced them out.
“Uhm…” Liam joined his fingers together at the back of my head, tight enough that I couldn’t not be aware of the pressure he used to hold our bodies together. “Not quite yet, if that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah.” I breathed in the smell of my soap on his skin. “That’s okay with me.”
22
Liam
I stayed in Jasper’s kitchen with my fingers in his hair until I took him to the couch and kissed him until our cocks hurt to touch, then we lazed around together until our stomachs growled. We cooked a meal together, side by side in his kitchen, and we ate at the small table beneath the window, listening to the gentle patter of rain against the roof.
As far as days went, it was as close to perfect as I could remember, and when the sun dipped below the tree line, Jasper threaded our fingers together and led me upstairs to his bedroom. He stripped us both out of our clothes and we lay on his bed, skin against skin, fingers and mouths roaming each other’s bodies leisurely. Like we had all the time in the world when we clearly didn’t.
I fell asleep with my mouth against Jasper’s lips and woke up facing his back, my body curled around his massive frame, arms holding him tight. I snuggled closer and pressed a kiss against his shoulder blade, not willing to open my eyes.
If I opened my eyes, I would have to admit it was morning. I would have to admit there was no reason for me to still be in Vermont. My dad was at home waiting for me, and the weight of his expectations loomed in the distance. If I’d realized anything the few days I’d spent with Jasper, it was that I couldn't keep running. He’d been running away from his life and his feelings since his husband died. If I kept avoiding and denying the things I needed to face the way he had, I’d end up the way he was.
Or, at least, the way he’d been a week ago.
He loved me now, and I loved him, I thought, even if we hadn’t said as much.
Beneath the sheets, Jasper stirred and stretched, then took the hand I had pressed flat against his chest and dragged it down, down, down, until my fingers grazed over his erection.
“Are you awake now?” I whispered, kissing his shoulder again.
“No.”
I smiled and made a fist around him.
“Yes,” he mumbled, voice scratchy and tired from sleep.
I settled against him and stroked his cock until he came, hot spurts of cum sticking against my fingers, and I stroked him until his entire body trembled and seized and he murmured pleas for mercy, and then his cock was hard again and the begging turned to more, more, more.
If this was the last I got, I was going to take advantage.
I milked a second orgasm from Jasper’s balls, then climbed out of bed. Gus barked at the door, and I went to him, following him downstairs and giving him a scoop of kibble.
“I’m gonna miss you,” I told the furry beast, sitting down beside his bowl and scratching my fingers through his fur while he ate. I stayed with him until he finished his food, then made coffee and took a steaming mug up to the bedroom with me. I left it on the bedside table for Jasper, who’d fallen back to sleep, and tiptoed into the bathroom.
The door closed quietly enough behind me and I grabbed a fresh towel, turning the shower heads on as hot as I figured I could manage. I sat on the stone bench and let the water wash over me, using Jasper’s pine-scented soap for the last time and pretending I wasn’t crying.
Shit.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to go back to California and face the things I’d been running from. I didn’t want to leave Jasper. I didn’t want to leave this life. Vermont was beautiful and easy and Jasper might need a little bit of work, but so did I. But that was… that wasn’t what we’d talked about. The thing between us was supposed to be only sex and if we’d both gone and gotten our feelings involved, that was our own fault.
I turned the shower off, getting deeper into my head with every second of silence, and I used the hall door to leave, going downstairs to the sitting room. My bag and guitar were still tucked against the side of the couch, and I dressed, mood darkening. I tried to not look at the gouges in the floor, the handiwork on the bannister, the ornate shaping of the handle on the wood stove.
It wasn’t for me.
This place.
That man.
The conversation I’d had with Devon before he’d left rattled around in my brain, even as I fought to not let his words take hold. I didn’t want his implications or his accusations tainting my memories of Jasper.
“He’s in love with you,” Devon said.
I chewed the inside of my cheek between my teeth and avoided Devon’s gaze.
“I know you’re sleeping with him. I know you’re leaving,” he continued, even though I didn’t acknowledge what he’d said. “Just…don’t encourage him.”
My head snapped up and I narrowed my eyes.
“I haven’t,” I protested.
“You’re leaving and he’s still going to be here with a dead husband.”
I pursed my lips, pulling them into my mouth and biting down to keep myself from saying something regrettable. I didn’t think anything I could say or wanted to say would make a difference anyway. There was no point in telling Jasper's friend that maybe I loved him too, maybe I didn’t want to leave. There was no reason to tell this man who clearly didn’t like me about what waited for me in California, so I didn’t.
“Well, Devon.” I leaned back in the rocking chair and tried to affect a casual smile. “I think this is the most you’ve ever said to me. I’ll be so sad to leave now.”
I cleared my head and zipped up my bags, taking them out to the garage. My car was a bright and wholly unwelcome sight. I threw my bags in the back, but instead of climbing into the driver’s seat I went back through the house, to the porch, allowing myself one last sit and one last look.
The grass was mostly yellowed, and the trees stood tall and jagged, barren of all their leaves, but the sky was a rich blue and the clouds looked like actual cotton balls. I didn’t know how the sky in Vermont could look so different from the sky in California, and if I had to pick a favorite…
Well…
Devon’s words continued to roll around in my head, his accusation that Jasper was in love with me sitting heavy in the forefront. When he’d said it, I didn’t know if I would have preferred it be the truth or a lie, but it was plain to see now.
Three indisputable facts stood between us.
Jasper loved me and I loved him, and it was time for me to go home.
I stalked through the house and into the garage. I climbed into my car, which used to be my pride and joy now felt like the ostentatious and overhearing proof of my father’s ownership of me. My keys were in the cupholder and a smudge of grease streaked across the ignition button. I pulled the door closed and pushed the start; my car roared to life in the reliable way it had done since I bought it.
“Fuck.”
I turned the car to accessory mode and banged my head against the steering wheel.
“Call Manny.”
The monitor lit up and the sound of a ringtone echoed around the cabin of the car. It rang and rang, then went to
voicemail.
“Hang up,” I said. “Call Manny.”
This time, he answered on the third ring.
“Are you dead?” he asked, words slurred.
“It feels like it.”
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“Vermont,” I said.
“Vermont.”
“It’s what’s wrong and it’s where I am.” Because wasn’t that the truth? Hadn’t this city, the size of a small neighborhood in Los Angeles, completely ruined my life? Burlington had shown me how slow and easy life could be, how soft and tender. How beautiful.
“Still?” Manny sighed.
“My car is fixed. I’m… I can leave whenever.”
“Did you talk to your dad?”
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“How was that?”
“As expected.” I sighed and turned my face on the wheel, staring at the door into the kitchen. “I don’t know what to tell him when I get home.”
“That you don’t want to go into politics,” Manny suggested.
“Clearly, but you know he won’t accept it.” I swallowed. “I was thinking more about the being gay thing.”
“There’s no easy way to do that.”
“How did you?” I asked.
Manny gave me a tired laugh. “I didn’t. It wasn’t a thing. One time I brought a girl home for a dance, the next time a boy. My parents didn’t care.”
“I want your parents.”
“No, you don’t. They come with their own shortfalls, Liam. Just different ones.”
“Being a homophobe is more than a shortfall,” I said. “Introducing legislation to make it illegal for me to get married to… to whomever I want. That’s not a shortfall.”
I thought about Jasper, and I thought about Michael, and I thought about how happy they looked in that picture Jasper had shown me. The way Jasper had smiled so big. I tried to imagine what the house had been like when it was filled with active and bursting love, not just a patchwork of memories and history.
“You know you don’t need to tell him,” Manny said. “You don’t owe it to him.”
The thought had crossed my mind on more than one occasion.
“I know.” I sighed. “I’m leaving today. If I pull full days on the road, I’ll be home before the weekend.”
“You don’t sound like you want to come home.”
“You know I don't,” I snapped.
“If you’re going to come home and tell your dad that you don’t want to go into politics and you’ve dropped out of school or whatever your plan is, you might as well take your time about it. He’s not going to be more or less mad about the news if it happens in three days or three weeks.”
“I know. He said there’s an event this weekend.”
“Jesus,” Manny groaned.
“I know. But he didn’t give me a chance to say no!” I leaned back and banged by head against the headrest. “You know how it is.”
“I know.”
I exhaled and stared at the wall, counting the planks of wood and the crossbeams, wondering how long it had taken Jasper’s dad to build the garage. I wanted to know what it was like to have things that mattered. Things that were priceless, that money couldn’t buy.
“I think he loves me,” I whispered, as if Jasper sleeping two floors above me would be able to hear.
“It’s hard to not,” Manny teased.
“Seriously.”
“Oh.” My best friend went quiet.
“He’s asleep right now,” I said. “I feel like I should just go before he wakes up.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“You love him back,” Manny accused.
“What? No.” But the protestation fell weak, even to my own ears.
“This isn’t like you,” he went on. “You’ve never been attached. You would have been halfway to New Hampshire or back to California by now if you didn’t.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You don’t like complicated.”
“I know!” I shouted, covering my face with my hands. “I know.”
“Are you going to leave before he wakes up?”
I swallowed, stare flickering toward the Mustang, toward the house. I knew leaving without saying goodbye would be a shitty thing to do. Jasper didn’t deserve that. But I worried I wouldn’t survive it. Just thinking about kissing him for one last time, seeing the house for one last time, saying goodbye to Gus…
My guitar was still inside, so I’d have to brave some of those finalities, and maybe I had time for one last sit on Jasper’s porch before leaving. But I needed to rip the Band-Aid off before it was too late. If he woke up before I left, then I’d deal with it. If not, then…
“Yeah,” I answered, a hot blanket of misery settling on my shoulders. “I am.”
23
Jasper
I woke to find a mug of room temperature coffee on the nightstand and a cold pillow behind me. My stomach was sticky from where Liam had made me come earlier in the morning, and I rolled onto my back, stretching out.
I didn’t hear any noise from downstairs, but the house was big and who knew where Liam could have gotten off to. I sat up and kicked away the blankets then decided to shower, smiling when I realized Liam already had. His damp towel hung on the curtain bar on the back of the door and drops clung to the corners of my loofah.
My cock plumped against my leg when I washed the dried cum off my stomach, but after an otherwise uneventful shower, I dressed and headed downstairs. Gus was circling the laundry room, so I gave him a scoop of food, but he didn't eat it. He paced from the garage door to the table and back, over and over.
A flare of panic sparked in my chest and I shoved the door open, letting out a nervous breath when my stare landed on Liam’s SUV in the far end of the garage. He hadn’t left. Closing the door, I closed my eyes and cursed myself. Why would it matter if he’d left? We weren’t anything. It wasn’t….
“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked Gus, giving him a quick pat on the head. “He hasn’t left yet.”
Gus followed me to the sitting room, and the noticeable absence of Liam’s bag and guitar hit me like a ton of bricks. This was too much. These feelings weren’t what he and I had discussed or agreed on, and more than that, they weren’t what I wanted. It was one thing to admit that I needed to move on from Michael, but another thing to think about having feelings for someone else, Devon’s accusations be damned. I didn’t know anything about Liam besides the fact he was young and he was a liar and he knew how to make me come better with his hand than I could with my own.
I put some more wood into the stove and then heard the familiar noise of Liam’s guitar coming from the porch. I straightened and went to the front door, my jacket missing from the hook. I found Liam on the porch in the rocking chair he’d claimed as his own. The one Michael always favored, guitar on his lap and my coat buttoned up to his throat.
When the door opened, Liam stopped playing, a pained noise tumbling out of his mouth instead of whatever words he’d been singing. I wavered in my resolve, unsure if I should stay or go back inside, but I wanted to stay. I knew he was leaving soon and I felt like maybe it was the right thing to do. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do, or how to say, or how to act. I was in completely uncharted territory.
“Hey,” Liam said weakly, adjusting the guitar in his hands.
“Hey.” I sat down in the other rocker, the one that had always been mine, and leaned back. Gus paced the porch, tail tucked between his legs. Liam reached over and trailed his fingers down Gus’s back as he passed.
“He’s acting weird,” I said, frowning as I watched Gus continue his patrol. I hoped he wasn’t sick again. Months before, when I’d had to take him in to Emmett for the bloat had been some of the scariest moments of my life. I hadn’t realized how attached I’d gotten to the damn dog until then, but now I wasn’t ready to lose him.
“How so?” Liam asked.
“He didn’
t eat. He’s just pacing around like he’s scared.”
“I fed him when I got up.”
I swallowed, folding my hands together in my lap. I hadn’t asked Liam to take care of Gus. It wasn’t his place—or his right—and for some reason, it set me off. It was one step too far. Everything tangled in my chest. Worry and want and fear and… that goddamn four letter word Devon had leveled at met the day before.
Liam’s chair rocked forward as he rearranged his guitar on his lap and I cursed myself under my breath. It wasn’t Liam’s chair. It was Michael’s chair, or my chair. My house. My home. Liam was leaving. In fact, he should have been gone already. I clenched my jaw and stared at the tree line. I could survive another handful of minutes. The car was done and Liam’s bags were out of the living room, so it was clear he planned to get on the road soon anyway.
Liam strummed a series of chords that were all at once familiar and long forgotten. By the time the music registered in my head, he’d already started to sing the song that played when I walked down the aisle to meet Michael on our wedding day.
“Why are you still here?” I snapped, jumping out of the chair and bracing myself on the porch railing. I couldn’t look at Liam, couldn’t listen to him, but none of that mattered because I could still feel him inside of me.
“What?” he stuttered, music coming to a blessed halt.
“Why are you still here?” I asked again, not turning to face him. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to. “Your car is fixed. You can go.”
“Sparky.” The guitar made a hollow noise as Liam set it against the side of the house and then his hand pressed against the small of my back.
“Don’t.” I stepped away from him and walked to the far edge of the porch. “It’s too much. This wasn’t… you’re not…”
I couldn’t get the words out of my throat and I didn’t know if it was because they were a lie or because they were too true. Liam wasn’t supposed to matter, but he did. Liam wasn’t supposed to fit into my home, but he did. And he didn’t even try. Liam didn’t aspire to fill the void created by Michael’s absence, but somehow, in a handful of days, he’d found other nooks and crannies to pour himself into. Places in my life that I hadn’t even realized were empty before he’d come around and filled them.
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