Chase in Shadow

by Amy Lane

  That was fine with Chase. He loved to try new stuff, and Thai wasn’t one of his and Mercy’s usual go-to places, so he put a little bit of everything on his plate and tasted carefully. He looked up and caught Tommy smiling at him when he had a mouth full of noodles and semi-spicy curry, and he had to take a quick drink from the glass of milk that he’d set on the end table.

  “Wha’?” he asked, still trying to swallow down his food.

  Tommy shook his head. “You’re just cute, that’s all. You eat at a buffet like a little kid. You’ll try anything, but you look at it with deep suspicion before it leaves the plate and graces your lips, you know?”

  Chase blinked. “Graces my lips? Have you been reading our press releases or something? That’s sort of corny.”

  Tommy giggled and gestured with his chopsticks. “Eat your food, Chase, your eyes are drooping, and I want to give you a body rub while you’re still appreciative.”

  Chase looked out Tommy’s windows and realized that the late late afternoon when he and Kane had left the suite had turned into night. He gave a half laugh.

  “You’ll lie down next to me, right? God, that’s what I’ve missed. It’s like with you, I’m not all alone.”

  Tommy sighed and reached over and took his almost empty plate from him.

  “Lie down and let me clean up, okay?”

  Chase wanted to object, but it was easy, so easy, to let Tommy take care of him. He longed to return the favor, of course, but this time, he thought it might be okay if Tommy got to do the honors.

  Cleanup took minimal time, and Tommy came back shaking his head and saying, “I hope the damned cat sticks to the stuff I put in his bowl. Anything else is going to just rip up his stomach, you know?”

  “You didn’t eat a lot,” Chase mumbled, his head pillowed on his hands. “Why didn’t you eat that much?”

  Tommy stood up and started stripping off clothes until he was in his sleep shorts and a plain T-shirt, just like Chase.

  “Because the less I eat is the less I have to throw back up, baby,” Tommy said, his voice so casual that Chase practically hit him in the face with a hurriedly thrust up shoulder.

  “You do what?” Chase asked, sure he had misheard.

  Chase saw Tommy’s shrug and felt his food congealing in the pit of his stomach. He knew that shrug. He made that shrug.

  “I can work out all I want, but that doesn’t mean food doesn’t go straight to my ass. If I don’t watch my calories like a madman, sometimes that’s the price you pay, you know?”

  “Tommy, that’s horrible.”

  Tommy bent down and kissed his temple, then put his hands firmly on Chase’s shoulders and pushed inexorably down.

  “It’s life, Chase. I’m pretty sure you’ve figured out by now that it’s not always pretty. Now relax. I’m so hungry to touch you, I’ll probably get off just rubbing your back.”

  He didn’t use oils or anything, just touch. He rubbed Chase’s skin, mostly, although he put enough counter-pressure on Chase’s muscles to make Chase’s body relax even more, and Chase lay there with his face pillowed on his hands and tried not to cry, it felt so good.

  Above him, as Tommy was rubbing, he started to make “mm-mm” yummy porn-sex noises, and if Chase hadn’t been so relaxed—and so sexed out—he would have gotten hard just from those sounds alone. As it was, Tommy’s hands grew slower and dreamier on his skin, and when Tommy went to straddle Chase’s hips to work on him better, Chase felt his hard-on through both layers of sleep shorts, riding the crease of his ass.

  He actually felt some stirring in his groin, and his hips moved sinuously to prove it.

  Tommy rewarded him with a flick to the flank. “Stop that,” he ordered. “You keep doing shit like that and I’m going to forget all the shit I need to remember.”

  “Like what?” Chase asked lazily. He wasn’t going to disobey that order; he just liked Tommy talking about something besides hurting himself to stay pretty.

  “Like the fact that you really don’t want sex right now and that you’ve never bottomed.”

  “Mmm…,” Chase mumbled. “They’re gonna ask me soon. Nervous.”

  The pleasant sensation of Tommy’s hands on his shoulders was interrupted by a string of gentle kisses down his spine, and his groin started to throb quietly, reminding him that he may have had sex all day, but it hadn’t felt like this.

  “Don’t be nervous, baby. I’ll show you how, if you want. It’ll be good.”

  A buzzwire of tension that Chase hadn’t known he’d been carrying just flattened and eased, making him that much more relaxed—and, unfortunately, less turned on. The same could not be said for Tommy, however, who was grunting in frustration behind him. Chase pulled himself out of his torpor long enough to take pity on his savior.

  “Tommy, where’s your lube?” he asked, and Tommy made a little whine and bucked his hips, not even asking why Chase would ask.

  “That drawer that your milk’s on top of.”

  Chase was close enough to reach over and open it, and then hand it back to Tommy. “Use me,” he mumbled. “Whatever you want. I want to hear you make yourself happy.”

  “Oh God,” Tommy moaned, kissing his back some more, “you do love me.”

  “Never doubt it.” It was the last thing he said for a bit, because Tommy had straightened up and scuttled out of his shorts, and Chase turned sideways to see him standing by the side of the bed, oiling his cock with lube.

  “Mmm….” Chase thought he looked beautiful, his chest and stomach muscles so taut and defined Chase could count them, and his long, bony fingers wrapped solidly around his cock. “You’re sooooo pretty,” he said with dreamy wonder, and Tommy slid his fist down to his base and then forward, twisting his fist when he got to the end.

  “Pull on my balls, wouldja?” Tommy begged, and it was such an easy thing to do, just reach out and fondle him, tugging a little as Tommy groaned.

  “God, yeah. Keep doing that.” Chase did, and scooted closer to the edge of the bed so he could turn over and take Tommy’s testicles (which were large and heavy and hairless, thank you, stylist) into his mouth and suckle on them delicately, applying just enough pressure to hear Tommy moan.

  “God….”

  Chase kept doing that, and then, since the angle was right, he snuck a finger backward, using spit as lube to just barely tease Tommy’s rim. It was hard—Tommy’s body was trembling and his hand was moving violently and fast—but Chase didn’t want him to do this alone.

  Tommy gave another groan, and then hollered, “Oh yes!” and then erupted, the come spattering across Chase’s chest. Chase pulled his hand from between Tommy’s legs and gave his balls a chaste kiss before scooting back a little so he could prop himself up on his elbows.

  “Stay right there,” Tommy told him, bending down to kiss him quickly on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”

  There were sounds from the bathroom, and then he came back with a warm washcloth. He used it on Chase’s chest first and then on himself to get the last of the lube, and then he pulled on his shorts and told Chase to get under the covers.

  “It’s not bedtime,” Chase grumbled, although it was nearly ten o’clock by now, and he was so relaxed, sleep seemed the only option. It just didn’t seem fair: the first night of this week, this precious week, in Tommy’s arms, and it was almost over. He’d had to lie for this week—hell, he’d had to fuck for this week. He’d had to hide his car and tell Donnie and Kevin he’d miss video night (when Donnie had barely forgiven him for missing football on New Year’s Day) and shop for groceries for Mercy and clean the apartment, right down to the windows, until he felt like he was even capable of leaving. He’d bought Mercy a floral arrangement that cost at least two tanks of gas and left it on the table before he’d gone. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt more like slime.

  But not now. Not when Tommy was sliding in next to him and his flesh was so warm and so pliant, and his muscles were so taut underneath his hands. Thei
r full bodies, together and under the covers, legs tangling, skin soft and clean rubbing together. This was that moment, that feeling he had wanted so badly in the car on the trip over. He felt foolish for forgetting that moments like this had to be worked for.

  Tommy grabbed a remote off his end table, clicked on the television that was mounted on the opposite wall, and started going into his menu of taped shows. “Hawaii 5-0,” he said happily, pressing start. “Alex O’Laughlin—now there’s a guy I’d do a shoot with.”

  Chase laughed a little and rested his head on Tommy’s chest. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. How ’bout you?”

  “Mmm….” Chase thought about it. “That Jinx guy from Warehouse 13. He’s sort of beautiful.”

  Tommy laughed softly and the hand not draped over Chase’s shoulder came up to rumple Chase’s hair. “So’re you,” he said.

  The show started then, and Chase settled into it, enjoying the normalcy of it all. He and Mercy would probably be doing this same thing—even this same show—if he was home this night, but for some reason, it just felt better with Tommy. It felt real, in a way that didn’t feel real when he was sitting on the couch and Mercy was leaning on him.

  But still, his attention was wandering and his eyes were half closed by the time the first commercial came on. Later he blamed it on the relaxation, on the endorphins from the sex and the Jacuzzi and the massage, but as he drowsed on Tommy, the door opened for a moment. He opened his mouth to ask if Tommy had something sweet, remembered that Tommy would probably throw that right back up, and in the space between pain and honesty, some truth slipped out.

  “Your mom loved you,” he said, too tired to tell if Tommy tensed up when he said it or not.

  “Hope so,” Tommy said softly. There was a soft puff of air at Chase’s brow, and Chase wished he wasn’t just weighted down, because he’d stop talking and kiss Tommy instead.

  “Mmm. Did she know you were gay?”

  “No.” The word was a whisper.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Chase said. “She didn’t want to leave you anyway. My mom didn’t even know and she left.”

  “Chase….”

  “Maybe if someone knows all of me, that’s just too much fucked up to stand.”

  “Chase….”

  “Show’s on, Tommy.”

  Tommy’s arms were tight around his shoulders and Tommy was dropping kisses in his hair, but Chase was too close to sleep to tell him it would be all right, the door was all the way closed now and Chase wouldn’t let anything more slip out.

  IT WASN’T a honeymoon, really. Chase still had school—he just had to look really carefully to make sure Donnie didn’t spot him on the few days when they had overlapping classes. They both still had to work out in the morning and they both went running in the afternoons. Chase still had homework and Tommy still had to clean the catbox. But they were playing house. They were together. It made even stupid shit like cleaning the catbox or stopping to get milk on the way home a hell of a lot better than real life. Chase had the shoot with Kane on Monday. On Wednesday, they reroofed the garage (because Tommy said it had been leaking and he wanted to fix it while the gray, constipated weather held), and the next day they went down to the outlets in Vacaville to go shopping.

  The shopping thing happened by accident. They’d finished the roof and Chase threw his clothes into the washer and fished out another pair of faded jeans and a Henley shirt. Tommy looked at him and winced.

  “What?”

  “You can actually afford real clothes now, you know,” he said.

  Chase looked down at himself and shrugged. “Why would I want clothes? I’m not working in an office yet. And even if I was, I gotta tell you, we took a tour of Intel with my electronics class last year, and those guys do not dress up.”

  Tommy looked at him and shook his head. “Chase, do you dress up to go dancing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dress up for the holidays?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that’s enough for you?”

  Chase sort of boggled at him. “Isn’t it enough for everybody?”

  Tommy shook his head. “Why do you dye your hair?”

  That was easy. “So I can look like Donnie.”

  Tommy blinked then, hard, his eyes big and dark. “And that’s important to you?”

  “Donnie….” Chase looked away. “See, his mom was my best person. His house was… it was like everything I wanted to have. It was messy and there were toys and there was always food. And Donnie was beautiful, you know? And open—his heart is as open as a puppy’s. Did I tell you how he got together with his boyfriend? He’s house-sitting for Alejandro, right? And he goes in there right after his shower, looks around, finds the visual porn collection, and jerks off. I mean… you know, because he’s there, and it feels good, and why not? So he falls asleep, buck naked on the guy’s bed, and Alejandro gets home early. And you know? It turns out, ’Yandro had a thing for him all along. He was just waiting for Donnie to get a little older, right?”

  Tommy laughed a little, because the story was funny, and then just kept looking at him, searchingly.

  “So Donnie comes out, right? And my old man—” SLAM! The red door wasn’t going to open on that one. “Anyway. Donnie comes out. And I don’t. Donnie comes out, and he’s honest with me, and I think he was scared to death, and I tell him it’s all good, right? I mean, because he’s Donnie, and even if I didn’t already know I was… the way I am, it would have to be okay because he’s Donnie. So he comes out, and… and nothing. Nothing happens. He gives me a couple of hand jobs when I ask, and then I stop asking because I’m being a douche bag and not giving them back, and I… I love him a little, you know? But not enough. Not enough to admit I want to do more than let him touch my dick. So I love him a little, but not enough, and he says straight up he’s always loved ’Yandro, and even if I loved him enough, it’s not like it would be worth it, right?”

  Chase was babbling. He was babbling and not making any sense, and he tried to remember where this came from and then he remembered that it all started about why he bleached his hair.

  “So I figure I don’t have anything he’s got. I don’t have the boyfriend or the family or the balls… but… but damn, he’s cute. His hair is just naturally this blond color. It’s gonna go silver when he’s forty, and he’s going to be beautiful. So.” He stopped and swallowed and looked away, feeling like an idiot. Jeans and T-shirts or Henleys. Good enough for school, good enough for everyday, good enough for life, right? Didn’t mean anything was wrong. Just meant you’d never thought you’d be the kind of person who would dress up and have people pay attention to you, or even if they did, they wouldn’t want to be the people you wanted to pay attention to you.

  “You just wanted to be him,” Tommy said softly, and Chase smiled weakly.

  “Yeah. Because, that’s real fucking mature, right?”

  Tommy nodded, and then smiled, and Chase prayed there wouldn’t be a hug or tears or pity or anything, because the week had been going pretty damned awesome, and he didn’t want to come apart in the middle of it. Tommy was putting up with enough from Chase, thank you, and watching that red door crash down—that wasn’t what he’d signed on for.

  “So, you wanna go shopping and see if you can find a look that’s you? You’ve got the cash now, right? I mean, I know you’re saving some of it, but you don’t need to save all of it, right?”

  Chase smiled. Christmas had been exactly as awful as he’d expected it to be, exactly as painful and disappointing. But this… this felt like a hidden Christmas, a surprise bike under the tree that not even Santa or his dad had known about. It was a Christmas do-over, in the first week of February.

  It was grand.

  CHASE had seen Tommy on the set, and in his mom’s home, where he was wearing jeans and sweaters. He’d seen that he had a fleece-lined leather coat in Boston, and that it looked pretty cool, and he’d seen his hair was almost always cut short, and it alway
s looked good. Their first three days together, when Chase wasn’t at school, they worked out and worked on the roof—or stayed naked.

  Chase had never really seen Tommy dressed up, but before they left for Vacaville on Thursday, he actually got to open the closet in the guest room, and he was amazed.

  “Ohmygod—I thought this place would be fuckin’ empty!” he breathed.

  Tommy leaned over his shoulder and rested his pointed chin on Chase’s shoulder, because he knew it hurt and he was waiting for Chase to say “Bug off, dammit!” but Chase was too impressed.

  “Jesus, Tommy. I need to see you around town some more.”

  Tommy made a “hmm” sound. “Sacramento has a club scene,” he said, “but mostly I wear this shit when I’m going to The City.”

  Like everyone else who had grown up in Sac, Chase had grown up thinking of “The City” as a mystical place—a real city, where there were lots of music clubs and world-class food and science and art and a real business district with a skyline that people knew around the world. It was a place with history and an ocean—a place where Chase could walk hand in hand with Tommy and no one would spit on them for just being.

  “God,” Chase breathed, thinking dreamily about being in a club where dancing and grinding was something wonderful—where being on the club floor and dancing with all those bodies surrounding you and one you really loved touching you was nothing to be feared. “Do you think we could go to the city after we go shopping?”

  Tommy wrapped his arms around Chase’s bare chest and rubbed his cheek on the back of his shoulder. “How long do I have you?” he asked quietly.

  “I told her I’d be back Sunday evening,” Chase responded, and both of their bodies had gone still, like maybe if they didn’t breathe, this moment of talking about Mercy didn’t count.

  “You don’t have school this morning?”