by Roan Parrish
“Mmmm,” he hums. “Tell me.”
I shake my head, not sure what the hell to say, and lean closer to kiss his collarbone.
“Tell me,” he murmurs again. “Please.”
His please sends shivers down my spine.
“I want to watch you jerk off.” Oh god, did I just say that?
Rafe groans. “Fuck. Whatever you want.” He pushes his briefs down his thighs but doesn’t bother taking them all the way off. “Won’t take much.” He shakes his head and presses his thumb to my mouth, distracting me from staring at his dick, which is thick and uncut, straining against his muscled stomach. “Practically came just watching you.” His words are matter-of-fact but his voice is raw, and it fucking gets to me.
He palms his erection and looks at me through lowered lashes. I nod, my mouth dry. Rafe starts to move, slowly at first, like he’s trying to make it last, but he’s looking at me like he’s barely paying attention to what he’s doing. His mouth falls open and he catches his full bottom lip between sharp teeth. His eyes keep darting down to my hand so I reach out to him.
I’m expecting him to pull my hand down between his legs, but he just holds it while he strokes himself with the other, squeezing my hand as he arches into his own. It’s… shit, it’s so hot. Like I’m jerking him off by extension. But then it’s not enough and I lean against his shoulder and reach down, tentatively resting my hand on his erection. Rafe startles.
“Hey, you don’t have to.”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. He releases himself. I move my hand on him and I guess it’s not so mysterious, since I do it to myself, but the feel of him, hot and hard and straining, makes my heart pound and sends a jolt of electricity through me. Rafe squeezes my hand and gulps.
“That feels amazing,” he says, bringing our hands to his mouth and kissing my knuckles. I squeeze him tighter and stroke him hard, twisting my hand a little over his foreskin. He shudders and groans and his head tips back. I press closer to him so I can feel the tremors running through him.
As I move my hand faster, Rafe lets out a string of curses and clamps his free hand down over mine. He strokes both of our hands up and down twice, and then he’s coming with a growl, his muscles rigid, our hands twisted up together.
He hisses as he strokes himself gently a few more times. I turn my head and press a kiss to his shoulder, and he leans into me.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. And it doesn’t really sound stupid at all.
8
Chapter 8
Over the next weeks, every few evenings after work, Rafe’ll come over, we’ll go running, eat dinner, and talk through movies I don’t care about. Rafe thinks about movies analytically, and he connects everything to politics and social justice. He’s explained a lot about the political organizing he’s involved with, but to be honest, I don’t get half of what he says. Fundraising and campaigns and direct actions and… well, really, a lot of it sounds like a shit-ton of meetings, and I’m not totally clear on what the end goals are. I try to listen but I kinda space out.
One night I guess I failed to hide my spacing out when Rafe was saying something about zoning exemptions, race, and charter schools, and he gave up and asked me to teach him the trick with the coin and the glass I showed the kids one Saturday.
I showed him over and over—coin in the center of the palm, tap the glass, slide the coin down, hit with the glass to pop the coin up and in—but he was hilariously hopeless, fumbling the coin and almost dropping the glass every time. He got frustrated at himself, and I teased him about taking everything so seriously. His very serious protests that he doesn’t take everything seriously cracked me up, and I finally got him to laugh too. Rafe doesn’t laugh much. Almost never. So when he does, it’s a total win. I celebrated by climbing on top of him and kissing him silly, narrowly avoiding shattering the glass.
He’s also told me a lot about his family. His two younger sisters are both crazy about him. Gabriela has two kids and is a nurse at Temple Hospital, and her husband, Alejandro, is some big-time contractor. She’s always inviting Rafe over for dinner so she can lecture him about settling down.
Luz calls Rafe to ask for advice about men, about problems with her apartment, and to talk about Camille, her fifteen-year-old daughter. Luz had Camille when she was sixteen and Rafe feels guilty about it because he thinks if he’d been home instead of in prison, she never would’ve gotten pregnant and dropped out of high school.
Rafe has a major soft spot for Luz and Camille, though, so I doubt he’d actually want to change anything. Whenever Luz calls asking about a leaky faucet or a stuck window, Rafe goes over and fixes it for her right away, even though her landlord lives down the street.
Saturday workshops have been going well. It’s clearer and clearer that the kids are up for learning anything if they like the person who’s teaching it to them, but what they really want is a chance to hang out with each other in a place where they feel comfortable. Sometimes Rafe and I end up just standing around while they gossip or talk about movies and music and TV.
Watching them has made me think more about Daniel in the last few weeks than I ever have before. About what it might’ve been like if he’d had something like YA to go to. He was small for his age in high school—skinny and clumsy. His hair was always a mess and he had this expression when he was pissed off, which was most of the time, that I’m sure he thought was intimidating but really just looked like he was in pain. It was a beacon to anyone who picked on the kids who showed weakness. He was always coming home with black eyes and bruises and split lips. When Brian was still in school with him, we’d sometimes ask who he fought with so Brian could take care of it, but Daniel would never say.
“What’re you thinking about so hard?” Rafe asks, startling me. He strokes a hand up my neck and into my hair.
“Um, about Daniel, I guess.”
“You always think about him after we’re at YA.”
“Yeah, maybe. I watch them and the way they are with each other. I don’t think Daniel had… friends. Anyone to talk about stuff with.”
“None?”
“Well, he never brought friends home.” Of course, that could’ve been because he was embarrassed of us. “And Brian was in school with him when he was a senior and Daniel was a freshman, and he said he never saw Daniel talking to anyone. He got picked on a lot. He was scrawny.” I snort. “And mouthy.”
“Imagine that,” Rafe says and raises an eyebrow at me, which is as close as Rafe gets to teasing.
But he settles onto the couch with me, and it feels right having him here, even if I’m still not clear on exactly what’s going on between us.
Earlier in the week, while I was doing the dishes, Rafe’s sister Gabriela called. I was half listening to Rafe’s side of the conversation, amused at how often Gabriela cut him off to lecture him about something. It sounded like it might be about some family dinner. After a few minutes of being interrupted, Rafe came up behind me and dropped his forehead down on my shoulder, sighing in irritation. He’s too tall for it to have been comfortable for more than a minute, though, so he wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed against my back.
“Gabri, no— No, thank you. I appreciate it but— Well, he sounds— No— Sí, but— I’m sure he is— I don’t even know what that means, Gabri— Yes, I’m sure doctors do make a lot of— I don’t— Por el amor de dios, sis, stop!— Porque!— Fine, because I’m already seeing someone, okay?”
Rafe glanced at me, but I was careful to give the dishes my full attention.
I don’t know why it freaked me out that Rafe would say that. I mean, I’m not an idiot. I know that’s what’s going on. I just don’t know what it means. About me. About the future. Anything.
Rafe was looking at me intently.
“Hermana, I have to go—no, I’m hanging up. I’ll talk to you later. Te amo. Okay. Colin?”
“Hm?”
“I think it’s clean.” He took the dish I’d washed three times ou
t of my hand and dried it. He tipped my chin up so I meet his gaze. “I probably should have confirmed that with you before I said anything.”
“What? No. I mean, no worries. I know that—that we’re… you know. Sure.”
“Well, you’re nervous rambling and you can’t even say the word ‘dating,’ so I think maybe it’s not fine.”
I shook my head and changed the subject, but things were awkward for the rest of the night and he hasn’t brought it up since. Of course, neither have I.
“You wanna watch the game with us?” Brian asks as work is winding down.
I search my memory, trying to remember if Rafe is going to come over tonight. Maybe we’ll go running….
“Dude, what is your deal lately? You never want to hang out anymore. You don’t come in on Saturdays, and you never stick around after work.” Brian’s looking at his feet and twisting his shoulders nervously like he did when he was a little kid. “You too cool for me now, bro?” He says it like a joke and slugs me on the shoulder, but he looks hurt.
And he’s right. Usually, I’d hang out here with Brian and Pop after work on Saturdays and a few nights a week. We’d get pizza, have some beers, and watch whatever games were on, arguing about players and stats, adding our bottle caps or beer tops to the jars where Brian and I have measured our rival victories for years, until Pop fell asleep in the permanently reclined recliner. But the last month I’ve barely seen them outside of work and I hardly even noticed.
“Well, I’m definitely too cool for you,” I say, throwing an arm around Brian’s shoulders. Brian gives a weak smile but shrugs me off. “Sorry, man. It’s not like that. Um, yeah, let’s watch the game. Pizza sounds good.”
“Yeah, well, we get it from a new place now,” Brian says, not quite ready to forgive.
“Okay, whatever you want.”
And Brian, incapable of holding a grudge for more than five seconds, grins and starts bouncing up and down on his toes, drumming on my shoulders.
“Sweet!” And he darts away.
It’s always been me, Pop, Brian, and Sam. Since Mom died, anyway. Hanging out with them always felt normal, easy. Now, though, the last repair done and the tools put away, following Brian into the living room feels strange. The house seems darker or something. And the smell of beer that starts in the kitchen and gets stronger in the living room seems sharper.
Pop comes in from his room looking like he just woke up, which is strange because I saw him in the shop an hour or two ago. Jesus, for the first time, when I look at Pop, I see an old man. He grunts when he sees me and settles heavily into his chair.
“Son,” he says, and he nods approvingly. Warmth washes through me. He immediately turns his attention to Brian.
“You order yet?”
“I’m about to.”
“Just not that crap place from the other day. Where’d you find that place, anyway? Pizza tasted like fuckin’ cardboard.”
Brian looks embarrassed. Guess they don’t have a new favorite after all.
As Brian and I walk to the corner to get the pizza and more beer, I ask, “So, what was that other pizza place you tried and how’d you live through Pop’s fury?”
Brian blushes. The only time I’ve ever seen Brian blush is when—
“Hey, did you go to a new place because one of the servers is in love with you?” That’s what Brian always says about any girl he thinks is cute: “she’s totally in love with me.” He’s a hundred percent cocky and only about 20 percent accurate when it comes to recognizing when someone’s actually flirting with him. But right now he’s practically tripping over his own feet to avoid looking up. I catch his shoulder.
“Dude. What’s up?”
Brian sighs like he’s been desperate for someone to ask. “Aw, man,” he says, shaking his head. “There’s this girl… I think…. Dude, I think she’s my soul mate.”
“Okay,” I say. Soul mate is a new one. “Who is she?”
“Callie,” he moans, like this is the end of the world. “I accidentally barfed on her cat and she was so cool about it, man.”
“You what?”
“I was drunk, right, and I kinda wandered into an alley, only it was more like a space between two houses, and there was this nice step and I sat down but then I didn’t feel well and I barfed. But I didn’t see that there was this cat on the porch—”
“You wandered into someone’s backyard and sat on their porch?”
“Well. Yeah. But I didn’t know that at the time.”
I shake my head.
“Anyway, the cat just sat there, man. It, like, let me barf on it. And then it started to try and lick it up. And this girl came out and saw me and I was like, ‘Dude, is this your cat, ’cause he’s messed up,’ and she was so nice and asked if I needed help, and she’s so pretty, bro, like, seriously, the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen.”
I have no words. “Um, and she works at this pizza place?”
“What? No. She’s a hairstylist.”
“So…?”
“Oh, she recommended it to me. I gave her my phone number and we’ve been talking.”
“That’s great, Bri. I kind of can’t believe that some girl whose cat you puked on wanted anything to do with you. But that’s great.”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen her again, but we’ve talked, like, every night for the last three weeks. And when I said Pop and I got pizza a lot, she was like, ‘Do you ever go to Blackbird?’ It’s her favorite. So I got it for me and Pop the other day. And, um, yeah, it did taste like cardboard. She’s one of those whattaya call ’ems that doesn’t eat anything that comes from animals? So it was that kind of pizza.”
“Vegan?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Oh my god, you fed Pop vegan pizza? That’s hilarious, bro. Did he know what it was?”
“Nah. He liked the fake sausage part. But, uh, I thought it kinda tasted like feet.” A look of panic crosses his face. “Don’t tell Callie, though! If you meet her, I mean. I, uh, I sorta told her that I liked it.”
I laugh. “I won’t tell her,” I reassure him. “But you should probably be honest with her, or you’ll end up eating vegan pizza for the rest of your life.”
I’m joking, but Brian looks horrified.
“Oh shit, that’s no good. Thanks, bro.”
The phone ringing jolts me out of a dead sleep, and I almost break Rafe’s nose with my head as I jerk upright.
“Fuck, sorry!”
“Hello?” Rafe says, instantly alert. I look over at the clock. It’s two thirty in the morning.
“Uncle Rafe?” says the tinny voice on the other end of the call. “Can you come get me?”
“Calm down, Cam. Tell me what’s going on.”
Her explanation is garbled, but I hear something about a party and her mom being mad and something about a boy that makes Rafe’s whole body go rigid.
“Where are you, sweetheart? … Can you ask someone? … Okay, listen. It’s going to take me a little while to get there because I’m not at home. I want you to go back inside, okay? Then use the GPS on your phone and text me exactly where you are.” Rafe’s voice seems to relax Camille the same way it relaxes me.
“Stand by the front door so you can see out the window when I get there. Don’t take anything from anyone. Not even water. Not gum. Not a damn Chapstick, Camille, do you understand me? I’ll call you when I’m a minute away and then you come outside. Not before that. If someone tries to get you to move away from the front door, you tell them your uncle is coming and you’re scared of making him mad, okay?”
Rafe is already up and searching around for his clothes in the dark as he hangs up the phone.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s stupid and dead, that’s what she is,” Rafe growls. “Sorry to wake you. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He leans in to kiss me briefly.
“Wait,” I say, climbing out of bed and pulling some jeans on. “I’ll drive. That way you can call Cam when we’re close and yo
u can just jump out of the car.”
“I—okay. Thanks, Colin.”
I smile even though I know he can’t see in the dark. It feels good to be able to do something for Rafe for a change.
He gives me directions from his phone between muttering about how much trouble Camille’s going to be in. “She went to some damn rave with a bunch of college kids. Little idiots with credit cards, I swear. And then went back to a house party with them. I know she took fucking E at that damn rave. And now some boy—”
He breaks off, furious, shaking his head at the idea.
“Has this happened before?”
He nods. “She only calls me when she and Luz have been fighting. Luz isn’t off work yet.” Luz bartends at some club in her neighborhood.
After a few minutes of silence, he reaches over and runs a hand down my arm. “Hey, how was hanging out with your dad and Brian?”
“It was… okay, I guess. But, I don’t know, I didn’t feel totally comfortable there… which is strange, because I always used to.”
“Did you?”
“What? Yeah. Why?”
“Well, I just mean, are you sure you used to feel comfortable as opposed to just being used to feeling uncomfortable?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, maybe spending more time not lying about who you are has made you aware of the ways you had gotten used to lying about it.” Rafe says this gently, hand on my arm, but it still packs a punch I can’t process right now. He squeezes my forearm and lets go, fumbling with his phone.
“Okay, Cam, come outside.” He points to a three-story brick house on the corner. At least the neighborhood doesn’t look as bad as Rafe seemed worried it would be when he told Camille to stay inside.
The door opens and a pretty girl comes out, walking unsteadily, clutching her phone. As Rafe opens his door and gets out, a guy runs out after Cam.
“Come on, Karen,” he calls, laughing, clearly wasted. “We were having fun, right?”
She whirls around to face him and screams, “It’s Cam, not Karen, you asshole!”