Jaywalking

by Rachel Ember

  Copyright © 2020, 2021 by Rachel Ember

  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  First edition published 2020

  Second edition 2021

  Cover Design by Mixteran

  Edited by Jennifer Collins

  Beta Read by Blue Beta Reading

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  ISBN: 978-1-954950-04-7

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not meant to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Jaywalking

  Rachel Ember

  About this book

  Emile leads a quiet but contented life as a university professor, with a perfect dog, comfortable home, and loyal friends. Maybe there’s something—or someone, missing. But dating is hard enough for vanilla people. Emile doesn’t just have to find someone he wants to date—he has to find someone he wants to kneel for.

  Jay likes playing soccer, reading poetry, and handsome men in tweed vests. Men like Emile, who Jay can’t forget after they connected on a rainy July night. Their encounter awoke a powerful urge in Jay to take, command, and control that has haunted him ever since. Jay had hoped that starting college would distract him, but that hope died when he showed up for the first day of his literature class and discovered Emile was his professor.

  When Emile tells Jay they can’t be together, Jay is still determined to figure out a way for the two of them to explore what they share. And Emile craves Jay’s gentle dominance too much to resist him.

  Jaywalking includes an age gap, a professor-student relationship, BDSM, a very polite dog, explicit sex, and a happy ending.

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  This book is a second edition. The original novella was approximately 30,000 words in length. The second edition has been revised and extended, and is approximately twice as long.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel Ember

  One

  Jay

  July

  By the time Jay found a parking spot, it was raining hard, and he was still three blocks from the bar with no time to spare. So, instead of waiting for the downpour to let up, he sprinted down the slick sidewalk, dodging a couple and their umbrellas.

  At the entrance to Laramie’s Bar, a bouncer stood under the shelter of a semicircular awning. The rain beat a flat staccato rhythm onto the fabric above their heads as Jay joined him.

  The bouncer barely looked at Jay before he tore a yellow bracelet off of a coil in his pocket. ‘Under 21’ was printed on the plastic in bold.

  “Is it that obvious?” Jay asked wryly. He knew he didn’t look twenty-one, but he was over six feet tall and fit from playing soccer. The street was dark. The guy could have given him the benefit of the doubt.

  “I ought to card you to make sure you’re not a minor,” the bouncer muttered. He was a big guy, some of his mass from muscle and a lot of it not. His black T-shirt was snug over round arms and a barrel chest. “You know it’s eighteen and up, right?”

  Jay frowned down at the bright bracelet that was now cinched immovably around his wrist. “I’m almost nineteen. Starting at Walland in the fall,” he couldn’t keep himself from adding. He loved the excuse to say it out loud. He was so ready to leave home and start school.

  “Thank you for that touching life story,” the bouncer told him. “Go on in.”

  With a single step, Jay exchanged the cool, wet outdoors for the warm, stuffy indoors. The contrast made him pause, blinking, as he re-calibrated.

  He peeled off his jacket and raked his wet hair out of his eyes with one hand, looking around with mounting anxiety. The place was packed, with people clustered tightly around every high-top table and lining the bar.

  Jay had known he’d be out of place here, and not just because he was young. He’d skimmed Laramie’s Facebook and Instagram profiles. The place aimed for a certain vibe. Everyone in sight was striving for it, too. Jay wasn’t exactly sure how to describe the atmosphere, but settled for ‘deliberately artsy’: abstract scrap-metal sculptures were mounted here and there on the walls, interspersed with framed vintage posters, and the patrons wore dark, understated clothing, sporting lots of long hair, messy updos and piercings or tattoos in nonstandard locations.

  Jay felt conspicuously clean-cut, like someone would be able to smell the locker room on him. His effort at blending in had been limited by a wardrobe that ran toward T-shirts, jeans, and athletic shorts. But he had found a long-sleeved, charcoal-gray v-neck in his closet, and it didn’t even have a designer emblem or a team logo. A forgotten Christmas present. When he’d pulled it on earlier that night, however, he’d also discovered it was probably a size too small. It had been stretched over his pecs and upper arms even before the rain, and now that it was damp, it clung to his abdomen, too.

  For a second, Jay’s discomfort overwhelmed him. He strongly considered shrugging back into his jacket, turning on his heel, and going straight back to his car.

  Then he shook himself. He was starting school soon, and he’d sworn he would be someone different in college than he’d been in the small town where he’d grown up. A version of himself where he hid nothing—where he just was who he was. And part of that was being a jock who liked poems. He needed to get used to people giving him funny looks for it. Besides, he was rarely in Andersonville; he’d likely never see these people again.

  When he’d heard that Mac Talley was performing here, under a two-hour drive from him, he’d known he had to battle his self-consciousness and be here to hear it.

  Now, here he was. And he wasn’t going to self-sabotage himself into bailing.

  Fortunately, any curious looks he’d drawn had been averted after a moment or two. Unfortunately, Jay was worried he’d gotten the time wrong. He couldn’t see where in this crowded room a performance could be staged. Had he missed it? Or was he way early? If the performance didn’t start within an hour or so, he’d be fucked trying to get home before curfew.

  Forgetting that he stood blocking the entrance, Jay checked his phone for the event details. He remembered where he was only when the door opened with a gust of cold air and a lean man a few inches shorter than Jay stepped into his side with so much force that they had to cling to one another so they didn’t both stumble into the surrounding tables.

  That was how Jay found himself holding a sinfully handsome, slightly older man by the biceps, their bodies so close that Jay could feel the roughness of the guy’s vest through Jay’s own thin shirt. Fuck, a vest. Jay had a thing for the scholarly look. Like Jay’s, the guy’s thick, dark hair was wet from the rain. His black eyelashes were wet, too—a startling, glossy-black fringe around eyes almost the same color. Hi
s medium-brown skin was rough from the center of his cheeks to his square jaw with the beginning of stubble. Jay also had a thing for five o’clock shadows.

  “Um,” said the man, one side of his mouth quirked in an uncertain smile. His voice was low and melodic. “Excuse me.”

  “No, it was me,” Jay hurried to say. He reluctantly let go of the man’s taut arms. Luckily, Jay couldn’t get far; they were locked together in the scrap of floorspace by the door. “I just got here,” Jay went on, rambling a little. “Now, I wonder if I made a mistake? I’m not sure where to go.” Jay was mesmerized by the dark glow of the man’s eyes, and the fact that Jay was, however briefly, the center of attention of the most attractive guy he’d ever seen in real life. Apparently, hypnosis loosened his tongue. “I’m here for the poetry, or I thought I was, but now I’m not sure if I’m in the right place or if I got the right time…”

  The uncertain smile Jay’s captive audience wore grew into incredulity—either at Jay’s babbling in general, or at the particular words he was saying, Jay couldn’t tell. The stranger said, “You’re in the right place. I’m here for the poetry, too.” His eyes slid away from Jay’s, then back. “They do the readings in the basement. I could show you? I’m Emile, by the way,” he added, a touch of color rouging the bright amber complexion of his cheeks.

  “I’m Jay.” Now that he was introducing himself, Jay seized an excuse to touch Emile again, and took his hand. The feel of his fingers, cool with rainwater, and the slide of his palm, filled Jay with a strange, nonspecific longing. He realized belatedly that what he was doing with Emile’s hand was holding it rather than shaking it, which was a move that would probably leave Jay horrified if he paused to self-reflect.

  But he didn’t pause.

  Jay had two modes. Without an object to focus on, Jay was plagued by anxiousness and doubt. Give him an object, though, and he became single-minded. It was this aspect of himself that he poured into soccer. Tell him the rules—show him the metaphorical ball—and he could play with unthinking ease, with confident capability, with joy.

  At some point in the past twenty seconds, Emile had become Jay’s object. And Jay hadn’t won three state soccer championships and a coveted full-ride scholarship through dumb luck. He played to win.

  “Come on,” Emile said, using their linked hands to lead Jay through the tight maze of tables. As they moved, Jay saw a staircase leading down to a lower story that he hadn’t noticed from the doorway. Having a handsome stranger lead him by the hand wasn’t something Jay had ever realized he should be longing for, but it felt dreamlike now that it was happening.

  Back home, he hadn’t had the opportunity to publicly hold hands with another guy. Jay had been out at school since middle school, but only in theoretical terms. Everyone knew he was gay, but they’d never seen him do anything about it. Jay hadn’t had many prospects in a small, rural town; his experience mostly consisted of flirting and some inexpert make-out sessions. He’d never felt the way he was feeling now—never known his heart could beat so hard that his entire body became a single, pulsing nerve. He gripped the stair railing for dear life, trying not to trip as he followed Emile to the more dimly lit lower story.

  The bar was just as crowded downstairs. The floorplan was basically a reproduction of the one above, a narrow rectangle dominated by a long bar, with just enough room behind the stools for a row of four-top booths. At the far end past the bar was a more open area with a half-dozen freestanding tables and, against the wall, a small plywood stage and two crooked microphone stands.

  Serendipitously, though most of the tables already had people sitting at them, there was an open two-seater where the bar met the wall, only thirty feet from the stage. By unspoken agreement, Jay and Emile navigated the room to reach it, squeezing between the packed barstools and booths. Though their hands separated so they could slide onto their respective stools, they wound up sitting so close together that one of Jay’s thighs was between Emile’s splayed knees. Jay’s every cell lit up all over again.

  “Damn,” Emile murmured, his voice barely audible over the noise of people talking and laughing, all reverberating under the low ceiling.

  Jay leaned toward him and smelled a hint of aftershave, nice soap, and something else. A hair product? Emile’s hair was amazing, full of soft volume. Jay wanted to pull it. “I didn’t catch that,” he lied, hoping Emile would get even closer.

  Emile’s smile made it clear that he knew Jay was full of shit, but didn’t mind. He tilted his head so his breath warmed Jay’s ear. “I said, damn, I wasn’t expecting this.”

  Jesus, his voice. Slow and measured as a song, but rough at the bottom of his vowels. There was a hint of an accent there that Jay couldn’t place. He wanted to ask what Emile meant by ‘this.’ The crowd? Jay?

  Instead, Jay asked him, “Are you reading tonight?”

  Emile’s dark eyes widened. “No,” he said emphatically. He huffed a laugh. “Why do you ask?”

  “You sound like someone who talks for a living,” Jay said, watching with fascination as Emile’s cheeks flushed again. God, Jay wanted to kiss him, from his blushing cheek to his stubbled chin.

  “I’m not a performer. I do write a little, but I’ve never even read my work aloud.” His mouth curved into the small smile that had captivated Jay since the doorway. “Well, except occasionally to my dog.”

  Jay felt warm laughter bubbling up in his chest, but he didn’t want Emile to feel laughed at, so he held it back. “Lucky dog.”

  Emile laughed. The sound was warm and bright and even better than his voice. Jay smiled so broadly his cheeks hurt, hoping he didn’t look like an idiot.

  A waiter came by to get their drink orders. He had a barbell in his eyebrow that Jay found himself admiring. Jay got a Diet Coke, glancing self-consciously at Emile and then down at his ‘Under 21’ bracelet. Jay hadn’t thought he could like Emile even more, but Emile ordered the same and proved him wrong.

  A woman’s voice, tinny through the cube-shaped, sticker-adorned amp by the stage, cut across the room. “Testing, testing? You hear me okay?”

  Jay had never imagined he’d be disappointed to hear Mac Talley being announced at a live venue, but given the choice, he’d rather have talked to Emile all night.

  Instead, Emile discretely untangled their legs so that Jay could twist to face the stage. Jay felt like he’d just pulled up from a hard sprint or surfaced after diving to the bottom of a deep pool. The spell Emile had cast on him in the doorway wasn’t broken, but it was disrupted just enough for Jay to feel unsure.

  Emile seemed to be just as interested as Jay, but how was that actually possible? Emile was handsome and put together, with an enigmatic air that had to attract people all the time, just like it had attracted Jay.

  Jay, on the other hand, was a small-town, eighteen-year-old kid whose only area of expertise was complex soccer plays. The sum total of his sexual experience equaled out to a lot of unsatisfying frottage over clothes and one exciting but awkward exchange of blowjobs.

  Emile was out of Jay’s league. Jay told himself he should calm down while he still had his dignity.

  The waiter dropped off their drinks as the woman on the stage swept a smile over the room. “Our performer this evening joins us from Tulsa, his hometown and home base. Some of you were probably lucky enough to meet him when he was a student here in Andersonville. We are so proud to have him back at Laramie’s. Please welcome Mac Talley!”

  Jay clapped along with everyone else, refocusing on why’d he’d come to the bar in the first place: this slight guy, with wire-framed glasses and a shiny, shaved-bald head, now trotting up the two uneven plywood stairs to the makeshift stage.

  “Hi y’all,” he said into the mic in an Oklahoma drawl, flashing a dimple. The accent and his voice transformed him from odd to endearing in an instant. “I’m gonna jump right in with a poem. This one’s called ‘Meant No Harm.’”

  Jay smiled. He’d seen the YouTube video of Mac performing t
his poem at a New York City venue about a hundred times. He snuck a glance at Emile, who caught his eye and smiled back. A moment later, Emile’s knee pressed against the outside of Jay’s thigh, and Jay’s pulse jumped.

  Maybe he was out of Jay’s league, but the way Emile looked at him told Jay he was interested in something. Jay was willing to offer Emile whatever he would take.

  Meanwhile, one of Jay’s favorite living poets was well into the first stanza. He ignored the mic, feet apart in a wide stance, in just the way Jay had been taught to stand if he thought he might need to throw a punch—or take one.

  Jay had suspected YouTube recordings wouldn’t hold a candle to hearing the poet’s performance live, and he’d been right. For one thing, Mac’s charisma didn’t fully translate onto a two-dimensional screen. He wasn’t just a plain-faced guy with a shiny head and a gap in his teeth; he was an artist. His body and his voice were his medium, and he transformed himself through his performance. So much so that, even with Emile this close and distracting, Jay got caught up in the show.

  When you left, my lost love, you said you were sorry, and that made me remember

  * * *

  a long-ago day when another tear-streaked face told me they never meant me any harm.

  Mac picked up speed and energy, the poem turning humorous for a rambling section about bad first dates and worse last dates. Emile’s laugh echoed in Jay’s ears. But not just his; Jay looked around the room at other people hanging on every word, the same delight Jay felt reflected on their faces.