by Ryan Taylor
“Please, Aaron, talk to me.” Oh, that’s Matt, for real. “You’re soaking wet. What’s wrong?”
Twenty minutes later, when I’d firmly separated dream from reality and made Matt cry in the process, I calmed him down with some hot kisses.
“Ugh, get off me,” he finally said. “We’re both sweaty now.”
“Mm.” I used my weight to press him down into the mattress. “I like it when we’re both sweaty.”
He gave that remark one of his trademark eye-rolls. “Me too, usually, but you’re kind of gross right now.” He slapped my ass and nipped my nose at the same time. “To the shower! Last one in gets on his knees first.”
Matthew
Aaron sidled up against me, and I gently poked him in the side with an elbow. “So much for sleeping in on our first day of unemployment.” His nightmare woke us up about seven thirty, so even after thirty minutes in the shower, it was still early. I was frying bacon and making batter for French toast.
“I can help,” he said, wearing an eager-beaver expression. “I’ll make coffee.” He opened the freezer.
I felt a little impish. “I’ve got the bacon going. Why don’t you do the French toast, and I’ll make the coffee?”
He froze. “Oh….” He turned slowly, in time for me to watch his very talented pink tongue dart across his lips. “Maybe you should do the French toast. I’m pretty sure I can handle coffee.”
We dissolved into happy laughter, and I grabbed the kitchen towel and snapped it against Aaron’s boxers-covered ass. “Helpless!”
“Ow!” His hand flew down to rub the stricken spot. “Fuck, that hurt!”
Grinning, I snapped the towel again as soon as he moved his hand. “Helpless ass!”
In a flash, he had me pressed back against the refrigerator, his nose at most half an inch from mine. “Don’t. Do. That. Again.” His breath was hot against my nose. “It fucking hurts.”
“Want me to kiss it? Kiss your helpless ass all better?”
His jaw fell open a little. “You want to kiss my ass?”
“Should I kiss your ass?” I licked a trail in the soft spot under his throat. “Or your asshole?”
His eyes darkened as he took a quick breath. “Think you could handle it?”
I reached for his hand and moved it over my heart, but my eyes didn’t budge from his. “Try me. I might even give you a really hard time right where you need it, after I kiss it better.”
A few heartbeats later, he broke into a nervous chuckle. He may have been laughing, but that rigid pole in his shorts, poking into my leg, told its own story.
“You’d like that,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t you, Aaron?”
His ears turned crimson, and he opened his mouth a time or two. “It’d be my… f-first time.”
The French toast forgotten, I brought his hand to my mouth and started sucking his index finger. This was so going down.
Aaron
I’d never considered letting a guy fuck me before, but I wanted Matt every way I could have him. His warm mouth around my finger, the way his hot tongue slithered around it, made me a little dizzy
“I…. Yeah, I might like—”
My phone rang and I jolted to attention. Fuck! It was Dad’s ringtone. He never called in the morning, and I immediately thought about Mom. It must have been important, not to mention that I needed a minute to get my dick under control before I unloaded in my boxers in the middle of Matt’s kitchen.
“Don’t move. More to say.” I laid my hands on Matt’s shoulders for a second before I ran for my phone.
Matthew
“Where is she?”
Something was wrong; I’d never heard Aaron’s voice sound so stressed. I found him in the bedroom, leaning against the chest of drawers on one arm. All the color had vanished from his cheeks and he was white as a ghost. I could hear a voice through the phone but didn’t understand any of the words. Aaron’s eyes filled with tears. I hurried across the carpeted floor, took him by the elbow, and guided him to the unmade bed. We sat on the edge of the mattress, holding hands.
“What does the doctor say, Dad?”
After listening some more, he started nodding. “Okay, I’ll be there this afternoon. I’ll be driving.” He looked at me, and my heart kicked hard when I saw the hurt in his eyes. “Hey Dad? I’m going to bring my boyfriend.”
What?
Aaron pulled the phone away from his ear and scowled at it. “Yes, boyfriend,” he said, once he’d put the phone back against his ear.
His father said something else I couldn’t quite hear.
“That’s enough.” There was an edge in Aaron’s voice I hadn’t heard before. “Tell Mom I love her. See you soon.”
He tossed his phone on the bed and turned toward me, taking a shuddering breath. “Mom had a heart attack.”
I sat blinking at him, wishing like hell there was something I could do. “I’m so sorry. How is she?”
He shook his head. “Dad said they’re taking her for something called angioplasty. Probably to put in a stent.”
“A tube in the artery, right?” I wished I’d paid more attention to the documentaries I watched whenever some bastard stomped all over my heart.
“I think.” His eyes darted around the room while he plucked at some of the hair on his knee. “I guess.”
Gathering him into a hug, I pulled him snug against me and smoothed my hands over his back while he sniffled. After one hard sob, I could tell he was trying to rein it in. “Let it out, Aaron. It’s just me here.”
After he cried for a little while, he sat back wiping his eyes. I crawled across the bed to get the box of tissues off the nightstand, and after he used a few to wipe away his tears, he took my hands again. “Please go with me? To Wainscott.”
My heart took off and so did my mouth. “Aaron, I-I’m not sure. I mean, your mom invited me, but she’s in the hospital. Do the rest of your family even know about me? It didn’t sound like your Dad did. I wouldn’t—”
“Please.” He caught his lower lip between his teeth, and I could tell he was struggling to hold back more tears.
This is your boyfriend, the man you love. He’s had an awful thing happen, and he needs you. Shame on you for making him beg.
I nodded quickly. “I’ll go. Of course, I’ll go.”
Aaron
Matt threw a few things into a bag, and after a quick stop at my place so I could do the same, we hit the road. We drove up I-95 and had a good trip, considering—ate a lot of junk food, laughed at talk radio, and mused about life.
In New Jersey, we’d just passed the signs for New Brunswick when I asked a question. “I don’t know what we’re going to be walking into with Mom’s health. Is it still cool to plan on spending the holiday in Wainscott?”
He cocked his head and his reassuring gaze made me feel warm all over. “I want to be wherever you are. As long as your family doesn’t throw me out, I’m there as long as you want me to be.”
“Your first Hanukkah!” I started singing (well, that’s a euphemism, to be sure) the “Dreidel Song” and was surprised as hell when Matt joined in. He had a great voice and carried us to the end.
“How do you know that song?” I asked.
He grinned, squinting his eyes a little. “Didn’t I tell you? I was in chorus all through school, even college. We sang a lot of different kinds of music.”
“Chorus, huh? No wonder you sound so good.” I waggled my eyebrows. “I always thought chorus guys were sexy.”
“Bullshit,” he coughed into his hand. “You were a hockey god. You never even looked at chorus guys.”
I scoffed. “Did too!”
“Did not!” He slapped the top of my hand.
“If you were so busy singing, how did you have time to— Hold on! What makes you think I played hockey?”
He laughed again, and it was so much fun I had to join in for a moment. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
I cut him a look. �
��Hockey.”
“Due diligence.”
I pulled a Matt and rolled my eyes at him. “Explain?”
“Google provides a wealth of information. Aaron Roth started playing hockey when he was four. Star defenseman at Georgica Prep, a private school near where you grew up that won the state championship your senior year. Hockey scholarship to Hamilton College, team MVP three years out of four.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
Matt reached for my free hand. “Why? Apparently, I hadn’t told you about being in choir. We’re still learning about each other.” He threw a sultry look in my direction, and my heart flipped. “You’re the hottest guy I’ve ever been with, which makes sense because I always got hard-ons for hockey dudes.”
We both snickered, and he started playing with my thumb. “You were way under my skin before I googled you. Playing hockey has nothing to do with why I love you. Besides, being so modest you never mentioned it shows what’s important to you.”
I grinned at him, noticing how the light brought out the red in his hair. “You’re really sweet. There’s just some things about my life that I don’t want to…. I want to make it on my own, on what I can do professionally.”
He sighed and squeezed my hand. “Aaron, most guys would be advertising that star-athlete bullshit from the rooftop, using it any way they could to get ahead. It impresses the hell out of me that you don’t. I love you because of who you are, not because you can skate and shoot.”
Maybe it was the stress, but I broke into a hard laugh. I took my hand back and drove, still snickering. “Maybe just a little bit because I can shoot?”
“Ass.”
“What?”
“Silly ass.”
I tried hard to keep a straight face. “Man, that really hurts.”
After a bit, he looked over at me, grinning. “You are a pretty amazing shooter, actually.”
It was about five thirty when we got to Wainscott. Ben had called earlier to tell me they implanted a stent and Mom made it through the procedure just fine. He said she was awake and doing well.
When we found her room, an efficient looking, sterile space with two beds, one of them empty, I introduced Matt to everybody. While I talked to Mom, he chatted with Dad and Ben. Or maybe he got interrogated; I didn’t overhear enough to be sure. Mom looked good, considering what she’d been through. After a few minutes, she waved me in closer. “Your young man seems wonderful,” she whispered. “Even handsomer than I pictured. He’s in love with you.”
The kooky grin that overtook my face was so big it almost hurt. “I love him, too. I’ve got a lot to tell you when you’re feeling better.”
“I want to hear all of it.” Dad had disappeared, and Matt and Ben were talking. Mom gave my boyfriend a long once-over. “I’m happy for you, son. Make the most of it because there’s no guarantee you’ll ever fall in love again.”
I teared up. Fuck, Mom! “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Go get something to eat, then bring him back. I want to get to know him.”
Matthew
Aaron was hungry, so we went to the hospital cafeteria for a quick dinner, and afterward, we went back to his mom’s room. His brother Benjamin left when we got there, saying he’d give Aaron some time with their mom and would see us when we got home.
Probably in her fifties, Mrs. Roth was astonishingly good-looking, and it was easy to see where the two brothers got their amazing looks. They both had her olive complexion but hadn’t inherited her black hair and eyes.
She was a lot of fun, with a sharp wit and keen mind that shone through whatever fog the day may have left behind. I adored the way she doted on Aaron, her baby boy, and she treated me like we’d known each other for years. The nurse came in a few times to ask if she was tired, and she kept telling him she wanted us to stay.
After visiting hours, we drove straight to Aaron’s parents’ house, and my jaw dropped. There was a drive, not a driveway, and I got a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach when the house came into view. I couldn’t see clearly enough to be absolutely sure, but it looked like it was covered in dark shingles. Angles and windows were everywhere, and the house was huge. When we got out of the car, I wasn’t even sure which way it was to the front door.
The inside was even more impressive. Big rooms with hardwood floors and high ceilings were filled with modern furniture that was obviously expensive. There were steps everywhere, and from what I could see, every room looked to be on a slightly different level. My insides quivered, and my throat was dry as sand in the desert. Aaron and I were from completely different worlds. “Oh my God, Aaron. This is amazing.”
He had his hand on the small of my back. “I’ll show you the house, but can we head up to my room first? I’ve really got to take a piss.”
Aaron’s ‘room’ was as big as my apartment. We walked into a spacious sitting area decorated in blue and cream, with a plaid sofa and huge recliner. An entertainment center held a ginormous TV and three different gaming systems. Around a corner on the left was the bedroom. One wall was all windows, and a king size bed sat off to one side. The other end of the room had a niche with a desk and bookcases, and there was a loveseat in front of the window just in case he didn’t feel like walking around the corner to the sitting area. After Aaron came out of the bathroom, I went in. Sure—every kid I knew growing up had a bidet, shower, and jacuzzi tub in their own private bathroom.
By the time I made it back into the bedroom, I’d broken out in a sweat. Aaron had our bags open and was putting things into drawers. He turned, smiling, and immediately froze. “What?” He hurried across the shiny oak floor and cupped my face. “Matt?”
“I-I don’t…. I didn’t know your family was like this. I mean, this house is a mansion.” I paused to swallow and take a breath. “Sorry if that’s tacky, but I… well, my family….”
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Matt, it’s not—”
“Yes, it is! My dad manages a furniture store. My mom used to be a bookkeeper at a medical office but had to take early retirement when they cut back on staff.”
“You think I—”
“We lived in a small, three-bedroom house on a normal street. There’s only one full bathroom.” I tried to pull it back, but my mouth was running away on its own. “I have student loans from college. It’s a big deal to my folks when they can go to Florida for two weeks.” My knees were shaking. “I’m afraid I don’t belong here.”
Aaron pulled me in, one hand cradling the nape of my neck and the other caressing the middle of my back.
My arms went around him tight, holding on for dear life. “I love you, but this isn’t—”
He gave me a couple of tender kisses before he teased my lips open, and the sweet kiss deepened into one that took my breath away.
When my heart stopped galloping, he guided me back out to the sitting area, where we sat on the sofa. “My sweet Matt, with his heart always on his sleeve. You belong anywhere I am, and I belong wherever you are.” He smoothed the hair back off my forehead. “This house belongs to my parents. It’s….” He used a hand to gesture around. “This is not me. I’ve got my own life, my own values and goals. They’re different from all this.” He caressed my cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“But I’m—”
“The most incredible man I’ve ever met. The man I love.” He took my hand between both of his. “My man.”
Warmth spread up my arm and into my heart. “But I don’t even know how to use a bidet.”
His smile made my heart skip a beat. “I’ll show you. Right now, if you want.”
“Hey guys!” Benjamin’s knock, the door opening, and his greeting all seemed to happen at the same time.
Aaron’s head snapped toward his brother. “Ben, how about knocking, man? We could’ve been busy.”
“Nah, I heard voices through the door.” He looked at me, his grin as disarming as Aaron’s. He was in great shape, but his body wasn’t as
big as Aaron’s. They shared the same brown hair and amber eyes—even the same low, rumbly voice. “Glad you’re here, Matt. Nice to have somebody to keep my asshole brother in line.” He laughed, the same goofy laugh I heard from Aaron sometimes.
“Thanks, Benjamin. It’s—”
“Call me Ben, man. Benjamin’s way too much.”
My boyfriend and his brother were genuine people. Whatever the house was, whoever their family was, those two guys were great.
Ben nodded toward the door. “Come on downstairs, both of you. Nothing like a little ice cream and video games to make things feel normal.”
We played for a couple of hours in the recreation room downstairs and had a few beers, which helped everybody relax. Ben and Aaron talked about their mom, and Ben told me a little about his job with a big law firm in New York. Both brothers had two beers for every one I drank, and by the time we went back upstairs, Aaron was feeling no pain. I helped him into the bathroom, and then managed to get him to the huge bed, where I undressed him. He was asleep before I got under the covers.
Wednesday, December 21
Aaron
It was almost seven when I woke up. Matt was still asleep, lying on his side with one of his arms across my chest. I enjoyed his closeness for a few minutes, but the need to take a leak got the best of me. He usually slept later than I did, so I decided to go work out and let him rest. I left a note telling him to enjoy his morning, that I’d be back in a couple of hours and we’d go see Mom.
Downstairs, I scrambled a few eggs, grabbed Mom’s gym card from the shelf by the door, and headed out. It was chilly, but I took a minute to go stand by the pool. There were so many good memories out there, and I couldn’t wait to make even more with Matt.
The gym was surprisingly crowded, and I realized my workout was going to take a while. Hopefully, Matt would enjoy having a leisurely morning to himself.
Matthew
I was discombobulated when I woke up, but soon realized where I was. The question was, where was Aaron? When I got up to use the bathroom, I saw the note in the middle of the floor, under a heavy piece of colored glass.