Boyfriend Material

by K.A. Mitchell

  “That is so rude.”

  Uncle Owen shrugged. Take from her tip.

  I muttered the explanation to Ethan.

  Ethan didn’t have a lot of vocabulary so he spelled, Complain to manager?

  Not worth it, Uncle Owen said.

  Ethan nodded slowly. As Uncle Owen and I waited for mushroom-covered cheeseburgers and Ethan for his chicken sandwich, we talked about school. I figured Ethan would probably push to get every signed word explained so he could be in on the conversation, but he didn’t. That was a major disconnect, since I was so used to him being the center of all those Fisher Hall lunches.

  He tried to follow along, though. His lips moved as he sounded things out, and his eyes lit up when he caught on to something, brow wrinkling when he couldn’t follow us.

  What’s your major? Uncle Owen asked Ethan just as a different server, a guy this time, brought our lunches.

  Ethan repeated the sign for major and shook his head, ducking a little. I wondered if that was what I looked like when I tried to hide under my hoodie.

  “Your major.” I grabbed the ketchup as Uncle Owen finger spelled it.

  “Ah-uh.” He signed hesitantly, I forget.

  Off Uncle Owen’s confused expression, Ethan turned to me.

  “Don’t know?” I signed it.

  “Yes. Er,” he looked back at Uncle Owen and spelled slowly, lips moving as he said the letters for himself, undecided.

  We hadn’t talked about it, since most of our academic conversations revolved around me trying to help him drag up his failing grade in calculus, but at least Ethan had abandoned the idea that he’d be happy teaching elementary school. That had been part of the plans he had with Blake. Patience was not in Ethan’s wheelhouse, though. The idea of him with a class full of kids was terrifying.

  He’s freshman, I explained to Uncle Owen.

  After I checked in with Ethan about his calculus final, Uncle Owen asked if I’d tutored him.

  Yes. He’s good tutor. Ethan repeated the sign with a smile and only a trace of hesitation over the new word.

  How you met, tutor? Uncle Owen asked.

  God, I think we both blushed. I’d bet Ethan was wracking his brain for a sign that meant sort of, but he only nodded.

  Uncle Owen gave a sly smile. Nice work. He waggled his bushy white eyebrows.

  I stared at the sesame seeds on my bun. Ethan laughed.

  Uncle Owen insisted on paying for lunch and then we transferred my stuff into Ethan’s—well, Ethan’s mom’s—car. After shaking Ethan’s hand, Uncle Owen told me to email or text if I needed anything and gave me a quick hug.

  I slid into the passenger seat next to Ethan and pulled on the seat belt. Now that it was here, I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this, spending six days at Ethan’s house. With his parents. There was a buzzing in my head like both my ears were fucked up. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t fake being someone who fit into Ethanland for almost a week.

  Maybe I could still catch Uncle Owen if I got out now.

  Ethan put his hand on my thigh. He said something, but the words got lost in the buzz.

  I turned my head. “That’s my bad side. What?”

  His hand came up to rest on my shoulder. He started to pull me toward him. A kiss would be so awesome right now. Kissing Ethan could make those doubts disappear, or at least shut up. But then I remembered the waitress. Remembered we weren’t at Coborn.

  I pulled back. “Not here.”

  I thought he’d push back with an argument and was a little bummed that he gave in so easily. He started the car.

  I got a grip. “Sorry. What did you say before?”

  “Oh.” He smiled and shifted the gear stick. “I’ve got a surprise.”

  He tapped his phone where it rested on the dash.

  The computer voice came on to say, “Getting route to 16550 Lincoln Highway.”

  “What’s at 16550 Lincoln Highway?”

  I found out in less than five minutes. It was an Econo Lodge. Two stories, maybe 40 rooms. As he pulled into a spot near the small lobby, I shifted in my seat to look at him.

  “They rent by the hour?” I asked.

  “No.” He put the car in park, but his palm rubbed over the top of the gear stick.

  It was a nervous gesture, not erotic but I couldn’t help looking at his long fingers and thinking of the way they felt on me. Around my dick. Fucking me.

  “So.” His throat bobbed. “I got some money for Christmas and I wanted to use it for something special.”

  I knew what he meant, but I was pretty nervous too. “And that’s an Econo Lodge in Breezewood?”

  His mouth twisted, and he put his hand on my thigh, almost on my dick. “No, that’s a night with you without anyone else around to interrupt us.”

  God, there were a lot of things we could do with a whole night to ourselves. It was my turn to swallow. “Aren’t your parents going to wonder where you and their car are all night?”

  “No. See, I told them I was picking you up in Pittsburgh. They worried that it was too long to drive all in one day, especially when I told them you didn’t have a license.”

  Spending your sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays in lock up made driver’s ed a little hard to come by. I had a non-driver ID. Uncle Owen had helped me get one.

  “I didn’t tell them why,” Ethan said before I asked. “So I said I’d stay overnight and break up the trip.”

  “You just flat out lied?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Not completely. I did come to pick you up, and I am staying overnight. And I’m paying for all the gas and the hotel on my own with my Christmas money.”

  It weirded me out how unaffected he was about lying to his parents. They didn’t seem to be strict, didn’t care that he was gay, let him take a car to the other side of the state. I’d thought Ethan was the good one.

  “Why not just tell them? I mean they know,” I gestured between us. I didn’t want to think about Ethan’s parents thinking about us fucking, but they had to know right? I controlled a revulsed flinch.

  “It’s just easier. They don’t have to know things they would rather not. I’d tell them if I thought it was really important.”

  Easier. That’s what he’d said when I asked why he hadn’t told his parents he was having trouble in calculus. Why he’d waited to tell them I wasn’t coming with him to Thanksgiving. His mom had been really nice on the phone. I felt guilty enough for both of us.

  Isn’t this what sociopaths were supposed to be like? Able to lie without blinking? But he did blink. His eyes cut to the left when he was trying to be evasive. At least with me.

  “Christ, Ethan, do you lie to me all the time too?”

  “No.” He squeezed my thigh. His eyes looked straight into mine, no guilty shifts. “Ask me anything.”

  Do you really love me? Is this something I should believe is going to last or should I get ready for you to move on?

  I shrugged. Yeah, so sometimes not saying things was easier.

  It’s not like I was so principled I didn’t want to spend the night with him. That I wasn’t already half-hard at the thought of getting off until I was too sore to get it up. And I wanted to sleep next to him, in a bed that wasn’t so tiny we kept elbowing each other, where I didn’t feel like I needed to sneak back off to my dorm to shower.

  “So are we good?” Ethan asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He grinned. “Thank you.” His face got more serious. “For everything. I mean it. I know you’re freaked out, but I really am glad you’re coming to visit. That’s why I wanted to do...” his voice trailed off, then came low and soft “...something special.”

  I was nervous enough to fuck it all up by sneering Like it’s prom night or something? but I bit m
y lip and nodded.

  The smile on his face hit me like one of his kisses. “Thank you.” He opened the door. “Want to come in while I register?”

  I shook my head. This was not a college town. Not even a city. There was no way we came off as anything but queer registering for a room together. And Ethan might think that didn’t matter, but I had eighteen years of living in a place like this and I knew better. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. You’ll live longer, Tanner’s cousin had told me when I got to juvie. As if life hadn’t already taught me that.

  Chapter 9

  “More bags?” I asked as Ethan headed back to the door.

  “Just the cooler.”

  He’d already brought in three reusable grocery bags, taped shut to hide some new surprise he was threatening me with.

  I drew the drapes over the front window as he came back in with the cooler. After locking the door and putting up the security chain, he bounced onto the king bed. “Now can we kiss?”

  That made me much less curious about the bags. I crawled on top of him, and his arms locked around my back. We didn’t kiss right away. One of my legs rested between his. His dick firmed up against my hip while my own enjoyed the pressure from his thigh. His hands were hot on my back, even through my long-sleeved T-shirt. We just looked at each other.

  I kept thinking he would move that last bit, or I would, but neither of us did. Our breaths bounced off each other’s mouth. I’d missed him, missed making out and getting off, yeah, but horniness wasn’t all that hit me at weird times when we were apart. It was thinking about whether he’d find something funny, if the laugh would go all the way to his eyes or not. It was wanting to hear his voice. Weird, I know, because I complained about him talking too much. It was part of what I missed, though. Part of him.

  No wonder Blake had been acting like such an asshole. He’d had this and threw it away.

  “Hey,” Ethan said.

  “Hey.”

  Once we started kissing there was no slowing down, no stopping. I felt too good. Thank God we had the whole night because as soon as Ethan’s hand was on my dick I was desperate to come, and it would be a shame to waste the room, but oh shit that felt so much better than my own hand.

  We wiggled our jeans and underwear down far enough to get our dicks touching, our hands around them. Ethan tore his mouth away, panting for breath. Remembering the sounds he’d made when I’d dragged my teeth on him in the ASC office, I licked and sucked and then bit lightly around some Ethan-sweet skin just under his ear.

  “Oh fuck.” He was so loud I felt the vibration in my bad ear. He jerked hard and then shot. His jizz laced our fingers, slicking the rub and thrust for my dick.

  Ethan moved his head so he could whisper in my good ear. “So fucking hot. I can’t wait for you to come in me.”

  The words, the idea, the imagined sensation of it hit low, and heat flooded me as I tipped over into coming, hips bucking, groans deeper than I thought I could make tearing my throat.

  “Damn.” Ethan brought his hand up and sucked spunk off his fingers.

  My balls tried to make another shot, muscles pumping. He rested his wet hand on my ass and yawned in my ear. “No smart comments. I got up at seven to make sure I had time to get everything.”

  “Poor baby.”

  He squeezed me, ass and shoulders, a smile against my cheek. It was the first time I’d called him anything but Ethan. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. But he wasn’t babe, or bae, and I couldn’t see me calling anyone sweetie.

  “No sneaking a look in any of the bags either,” he warned me.

  He didn’t need to worry about that because I dozed off too, waking when he shifted.

  I lifted my head.

  “Ha. You fell asleep too. You drooled on me.”

  I swiped at my mouth in embarrassment, but he smiled before dumping me off him. He got up, stripping his jeans off the rest of the way, before tugging his boxers back into place.

  I kind of wished he’d left the jeans on, the fly open, that sexy hint of his dark-blond pubes rising from them. But Ethan was getting his mysterious bags ready.

  “Cover your eyes.”

  “What?”

  He threw a pillow at me. “Cover your eyes.”

  I put the pillow over my face, listening to him rustling around. Plastic noises, definitely. Leather? If he had some leather kind of thing going on with restraints, I—I’d have to think about it.

  “Okay,” he said finally.

  I pulled the pillow away and sat up.

  He’d turned off the lights, the better to show off a foot-high Christmas tree shining from the small round table top. Every branch was smothered by rainbow lights.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  I blinked, tucking my hair back behind my ear.

  “I know you had Christmas with your uncle and Christine, and my parents still have their tree up but I wanted us to have one. Just us.”

  It was so... Ethan. I swallowed, blinked again.

  “Too much?” He reached for the wall plug and the tree went dark.

  “No. Plug it back in.”

  Of course Ethan had had lights around the window in his dorm room. It seemed most of people on campus had some kind of decorations striving for seizure inducement. Not me or Russell. Still, I’d had Christmases. It wasn’t that my mom hadn’t ever given me presents or put up a tree. Even the Industrial Home for Boys had a tree and some gifts.

  I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the tree.

  Ethan sat next to me. “I’m trying so hard to be patient but please use some words. You can even finger spell.”

  I looked over at him. The lights splashed over his face, his bare chest and arms, sparkled in his eyes. Maybe I did have lots of other Christmases, but none that were just us. None where I could lean over and kiss Ethan, where the little bubble of hope inside didn’t have anything to do with what-did-I-get and everything to do with maybe I already have what I want.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said to him. “Thank you.”

  “Real—”

  I pinched his lips shut before he could ruin it. “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” He leaned back out of reach. “Oh my God, you’re making an expression. I think...wait, are you happy?”

  I swatted him in the head with a pillow. The pillow was soft. The swat knocked him off the bed.

  * * *

  One of Ethan’s bags held crackers and chips to go with pre-sliced cheese and a bacon dip from the cooler. We snacked, stretched out on our stomachs on the bed, wearing just socks and underwear, rubbing our legs together as we channel surfed some sad cable offerings.

  My gaze kept sliding toward the Giant Eagle logo on the one remaining bag, still taped shut. I was pretty sure it wasn’t multipacks of ramen noodles. Ethan stopped the TV on some action movie from the ’90s and muted it.

  I thought he’d say something, but he only rested his head on a propped elbow and looked at me.

  I pursed my lips. “Dick. You’re going to make me ask.”

  “What?” He grinned pure innocence and stroked his socked toe along my bare calf.

  I gritted my teeth. “What’s in the last bag?”

  He bounced up, but when the bag was in his hands his expression turned thoughtful, and I could tell he wasn’t faking. “Maybe I should shower first.”

  “Oh God, it’s flavored lube?”

  “You peeked?”

  “Seriously?”

  He brought the bag back to the bed. “No. Only because I didn’t think of it. Where do they sell that? Amazon?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  He put the bag on the floor and lay back down next to me.

  “Can I open it?” I asked.

  �
�Go ahead.”

  There was a drug store bag inside. I fished out an orange package of lube. “Warming sensations.”

  My balls tingled with interest. I tore the bottle free of the cardboard package, then the plastic safety wrap before I could pop the cap. I put some on my fingers. Slippery and thick, but not particularly warm.

  “I think you have to rub it,” he said.

  I dribbled more on my fingers and ran my fingers down his spine, then made circles in the dip at the base.

  “I don’t—Oh.” He took the bottle from me. “Feel this.” He smoothed some on my shoulder and then worked it in.

  Only smooth and silky at first, then I felt the heat, like his fingers had been sun-warmed and he was pouring that into me. “I could see where that would feel nice.” Hell, I could see where a full massage would be awesome and some of that in my ass would be hot as fuck. But... I glanced over at him. “It might be a little too intense for a first time.”

  “Yeah.” The ear closest to me was bright red, and I didn’t think that was just the Christmas lights. “I got this,” he reached into the bag but then dropped it right away. “Uh, wait, not that one.”

  “What?” I found the one he’d thrown back. “Desensitizing? You definitely don’t want that.”

  “Not for my ass, for my dick.”

  I studied the label. “Do you seriously think because one time you came before—?” Looking at his face, I didn’t need to finish it. Of course, he did. “Ethan, don’t be nuts. You’re amazing in bed.”

  He looked down at the bottle in my hand. My opinion probably would have counted for more if I’d actually had sex with anyone else.

  “Listen,” I tossed the bottle back into the bag, “you make me feel really good. Every time. I’m usually wondering if I’m... Hey, I’m the one who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “You do fine.”

  But the mood had been killed, dragged off and buried. “And you wonder why I’d rather not talk about it.”

  He rolled his shoulder into mine. “Or, you know, pretty much anything.” He felt more carefully in the bag. “Okay, this one is supposed to be super good for anal.”