by Anne Tenino
Speaking of jokes, it was finding out their joke of a history professor hadn’t even discussed Barbegal with them that pushed Toby into taking the guys. It may not be a major tourist destination, but it was the sight of one of the greatest hydraulic mills ever built. Plus it was a great spot for a picnic.
Jock just shrugged when Toby suggested bringing them, too. “They’d probably like it. Besides, they’ll just play commando, right?”
Unfortunately, Toby couldn’t argue with that.
At breakfast, Danny said, in the manner of one inviting a guest lecturer to speak, “So, how about we let Tobes tell us about this place we’re going.”
Toby ignored Jock’s soft snort. “Well, it’s part of an old Roman aqueduct system.”
“Cool,” Danny said, nodding encouragingly.
Toby didn’t roll his eyes. “This isn’t a tour, guys, we’re just going to hang out.”
“Sweet!” Ricky gave the table a fist pump. “More field exercises.”
They really were taking this beer terrorist thing too far, but Toby’d decided to pretend it was perfectly normal. Apparently that worked with similar behavior in children, like imaginary friends. Research showed that kids whose guardians didn’t make a big deal of it were better adjusted in the long run.
At least, according to what he’d read online. Toby was hoping that was the case here.
He really should have worked harder in that psych class. Or at least paid attention. But how was he to know at the time that one day he’d be responsible for a pack of mutant fratbros and the information would come in handy?
The guys loved Barbegal. They weren’t sure about it at first, when the parking area turned out to be a wide spot on the road, but even from there the brick arches of the former aqueduct were visible. Two of the old waterways had been put in side by side here, the original and the second, larger one built for Arles at the beginning of the fourth century. At the site of the grain mill, about a quarter mile from where they’d parked, the original aqueduct had driven the production of enough flour to feed the entire population of Arles, while the second one took a sharp turn west toward the city.
He and Jock hiked out to the mill site, losing guys along the way as they found cool things to look at, calling to each other. Only Noah made it to the channel cut into solid rock that had fed the mill. This was Toby’s favorite thing about the site. Walking through this narrow, man-made gorge and reaching the other side, where the hill fell away steeply and the ruins of the mill overlooked a huge flood plain. It was dramatic. Not in the way Les Baux or Glanum was, and he could see that Noah and Jock thought it was kind of cool, but neither one of them got how amazing it was until Toby explained how the mill worked.
Noah wandered off about five minutes into Toby’s explanation. Toby could understand that—he’d probably try to escape some shining-eyed zealot going on about some subject he had no interest in as well. Jock stayed though, asking questions and getting gradually more impressed. Toby could see it in the way his eyebrows drew together just slightly, and the set of his lips. His thinking frown. “It shouldn’t be that hard to believe they engineered this, considering all the other stuff they did, but no one ever talks about it.”
“It takes a lot of imagination to see it.” Toby climbed up the slope a few feet so he could reach the top of one of the columns that used to support a waterwheel. It was covered with rubble and shrubbery grew out of it, but he found a clear spot to sit on a small ledge, letting his legs dangle over the edge a couple feet off the ground. From here he was mostly hidden from the aqueduct hikers. “I think that’s part of what I like about this place. A few thousand people come here every year, but most of them only take pictures of the aqueduct, then they leave, and a minority of them make it through the rock-cut channel to see these ruins, but most people don’t understand how it worked or how significant it was. Only a chosen few.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s the elitist in me.”
Jock turned toward him, grinning. “It’s the intellectual in you. You like knowing shit others don’t even care about figuring out.”
Toby sniffed and stuck his nose in the air. “Someone has to be the repository of historical knowledge.”
Laughing, Jock came over to the wall Toby was sitting on, and placed his hands on Toby’s knees, head just about level with his shoulders. “You’re smexy.” He ran his palms up Toby’s thighs slowly, building tension in Toby’s gut with every millimeter he traveled. Toby’s dick had totally taken notice of Jock’s proximity and touch. He was the perfect height to simply lean forward and rip Toby’s jeans open with his teeth. Equally exciting was the pressure he exerted to spread Toby’s legs open until he could stand between them, clasping Toby’s hips and smiling up at him.
Jesus, he was going to suffocate in Jock’s eyes someday. Atmospheric blue and capable of holding him captive until he didn’t even notice his surroundings. Well, surroundings that weren’t part of the Jock package. Toby very much noticed his boyfriend’s heat and firm muscles where they pressed into him. Jock’s fingers on Toby’s pelvis were impossible to forget. Toby took a chance, even knowing they were in a public area, and any one of those people oohing and aahing over the aqueduct might wander out here and see them. But there was no one below them, and anyone coming from above would make noise. Shoving the possibility away, he reached for Jock, tracing along his jaw and tilting his head up, bending forward for a kiss.
Maybe it was the position, with Toby above him, but Jock didn’t muscle his way in and take over. He let Toby coax him into the kiss, responding to him even when Toby drew Jock’s tongue into his mouth with his own. Toby realized then what he’d been doing. What he wanted. That he hadn’t just fallen into this sexual dynamic with this boy because it made Jock happy and it worked for Toby—he desired it. Was possibly addicted to letting Jock have his way. Even like this, with Toby in the nominally superior position, he let himself sink into Jock, almost unconsciously encouraging him to take over.
And Jock was doing it, fingers working up Toby’s spine under the hem of his shirt, pressing Toby closer to the edge. Using his other hand, he cupped Toby’s jaw, adjusting the angle of their kiss. Pressing forward until Toby’s cock was right against his abdomen.
Toby slid his hands down, following the contours of Jock’s pectoral muscles through his shirt to just above where his dick rubbed against him. Fuck. It so perfectly matched the fantasy he’d been having, one that was too out there to share easily, but as he found Jock’s nipples with his fingertips and Jock groaned softly, pressing hard enough to qualify as grinding, Toby began to think that maybe it wasn’t so impossible to ask if he could rub off on Jock’s chest sometime until he came all over his very muscular neck.
The noise of a rock skidding downhill made Jock pull away, and Toby jumped too.
Jock hadn’t leapt away, at least; he’d only stepped back, still touching Toby, hands on his thighs. The kiss at Glanum hadn’t been just a fluke. “We could find someplace more secluded,” he suggested, looking around quickly.
“Where do you think that rock came from?” Toby asked, lifting his brows. The TAG commandos could be lurking around, infiltrating their privacy right now. Probably were.
Jock made a face. “If they see anything, it’s their own fucking fault for sneaking up on us. But yeah . . .”
“I don’t want to, like, scar them for life or anything. Between us, I’m fairly certain their brains aren’t fully formed yet. They’re still at an impressionable age.”
Jock arched his brows and pressed his lips together, looking away toward that utterly European manor house on the flood plain.
“What?” Toby asked.
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“I can tell you’re thinking something.”
Jock’s dimple flashed in his cheek. “Just, you know, wondering if you’d really turn down a blowjob.”
“People have survived worse trauma. They’ll get over it.” They could find a more secluded spot in the bushes and—<
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“Toby!”
“Oh no,” he groaned, hanging his head, holding on to Jock for one more second. Another moment of pretending he didn’t have to watch over the most trouble-prone college students in Europe. He could tell by the pitch of the voice calling his name that this was going to be a problem.
Jock sighed, leaning to the side to see uphill. “It’s Jules.”
Toby bowed to the inevitable, standing up and heading for the dude scrabbling down the slope toward him. “What is it?”
“Someone broke into the van,” he panted.
Following Jules, they started back, but unlike him they didn’t run. Whoever had smashed in the window would already be gone. As soon as he cleared the last arch of the aqueduct and saw the group of downhearted boys staring at the broken-out glass, Toby started his lecture. “I told you not to leave anything in the vehicle.”
“It was just my sweatshirt,” Turbo protested.
“And my sketchbook,” Julian admitted. “And drawing supplies.” Ever since Jules had decided chicks were into artists, he’d been carrying those around. Not actually using them, just toting them everywhere.
“And that case of Heinie we picked up when we got the stuff for lunch. What?” Danny protested when Toby glared at him. “It was still warm.”
“Lovely. I’ll tell the police to follow the trail of beer cans to the drunk artiste wearing the TAG hoodie.”
The police in Fontvieille weren’t interested in that much detail. Not that they didn’t file the report, or promise to look for the perpetrators, but tons of people had their cars broken into at Barbegal. Toby knew it was almost useless, but he went through the motions.
Driving back to EuroTAG, cardboard taped over the window, Toby glanced in the rearview mirror just as Danny opened his mouth. Toby stomped his foot on the brake, like that could keep Danny quiet, but of course he didn’t manage to say anything useful, like Shut up! before the guy uttered his words of wisdom.
“Well, it wouldn’t have been much of a trip to France without visiting a police station.”
He was so close to done with his thesis. And that was what it was about at this point, simply being done with it. Good or not as good, Toby didn’t care anymore (although bad wasn’t an option if he wanted to graduate). He’d finish, get the degree, break the news to his mom, and then . . . do what all the other overeducated, underqualified guys his age did.
Friday went really well—he was totally in the zone. When they got back from Saint-Rémy and the guys decided to go swimming before dinner, he put on his swim trunks and sat out by the pool with a glass of chilled white wine and his laptop. He had to unpeel the skin of his bare back from the chair every once in a while, and occasionally the fratbro antics would make him look up—especially those of Jock in his trunks. He had such an amazing body, and Toby found himself wondering how he’d gotten so lucky.
Coming back from his little house after refilling his wine, Danny called out, “Hey, what’s that on your back?”
Toby sat on the edge of his lounger, looking around, trying to figure out whose back had something on it.
“Tobes!” Danny said. “You got some, like, dirt on your back.”
Oh, they were talking to him? He whipped his head around to see Danny and Turbo walking toward him. Ricky and Jules were either uninterested or lazy—they only leaned forward in their chairs and squinted at him. Toby craned his neck, trying to see over his shoulder to his back. That worked about as well as it ever had—not at all. “What does it look like?”
“Like a streak of dirt,” Danny said, nose wrinkling up.
Toby shrugged. “I’ll take a shower later.” He started to lay back in his deck chair, but Danny’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Why is this so fascinating to you?”
“’Cause it just looks like . . .” Toby couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the intensity of Danny’s mental ruminations in the air behind him. Then his finger poked Toby’s spine, and that’s when it hit him what it was they were looking at. A token of Jock’s possessiveness he’d forgotten about once it’d stopped hurting.
He tried to shrug Danny’s hand off and lean back, but the guy had a good grip. “Danny, just drop it.”
“Dude! Is that a friction burn?”
Toby closed his eyes and sighed, jerking them open again when a spray of cool water droplets hit his foot. Jock stood next to him, soaking wet, shoving his sopping hair off his forehead and glaring at Danny. “Leave him alone.” He reached for Danny’s wrist and yanked the hand off of Toby’s shoulder, then straddled the lounge chair behind him, sitting and pulling Toby’s back against his front.
Goose bumps erupted all over Toby’s skin, but it wasn’t from the cool water—it was from being held like this by Jock in front of all these guys. He shifted, trying to adjust to it. Not that he cared about them seeing, but he couldn’t help his conviction that Jock cared. He’d jerked away that time the guys had caught them kissing. Obviously, he was getting more comfortable with it, but Toby hadn’t imagined he’d be more than willing to hold hands in front of them yet. The only reason he was doing it now was to protect Toby.
More goose bumps.
“How do you get a friction burn on your back?” Danny mused. He was either stupid or had a death wish, but since he’d already proven his stupidity many times over, Toby didn’t have to devote a lot of energy to figuring out which. “What do you think, Turbo?” he turned to the other guy.
Jock growled. Toby was fairly sure he was turning red.
“Uhhhh . . .” Turbo gurgled, definitely turning red. “Dude, let’s just—”
“Oh my God!” Danny slapped himself in the forehead, unfortunately not knocking any sense in. “You have a rug burn on your back from fucking!”
“Oh Christ,” Toby moaned, covering his face.
“C’mon,” Jock said, pushing on Toby’s shoulder until he leaned forward. Jock climbed out from behind him and picked up Toby’s laptop, then held out his hand. Waiting for Toby to take it.
Which of course he did. Letting Jock glare at all the guys while they walked toward their hut. He should probably protest Jock’s behavior, but he didn’t. Sometimes, when a guy was embarrassed by a rug burn on his back, he needed a champion.
“Sorry, babe,” Jock whispered, kissing under his ear, bumping his nose against Toby’s cheek as they walked along. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.”
“You know I was into it,” Toby said. “That’s not the issue.”
Jock halted, pulling Toby to a stop with him. “What’s the issue?” They were right below the pool deck, visible to all the guys still, but out of hearing range, Toby thought. He refused to turn and find out how many of the boys were watching.
“Do you ever feel like we’re in some kind of unnatural relationship pressure cooker?” he asked before he’d fully thought it through. “All these guys around us, practically shoving us together sometimes, and we’d be running into each other all the time even if they weren’t. And now they’re, like, prying into our sex life.”
Jock frowned. “Yeah. I mean, it bugs me, but I guess I thought you were okay with it. Like, freaking over them watching us was my thing.”
“That’s not the issue.”
Jock tugged gently, getting them moving again. “’Kay, so let’s go talk.”
Toby followed, focusing on their hands, his chest filling up with dread, drowning him slowly. Now that he’d let himself say that, know it, he couldn’t lock the thoughts back up in whatever box he’d been hiding them. Jock stopped again, setting the laptop on the patio table in front of the cabanon. He turned to Toby.
“Tell me.”
Toby shook his head, not sure where to start, and ashamed of himself for feeling this way. He was normally a confident, laid-back guy, but with Jock he was tied up in knots half the time. Adding in this unnatural situation where he had so much responsibility for so many people who could barely get themselves dressed in the morning . . . “The way we are here may not
be the way we are at home.” Judging by Jock’s expression, which hadn’t changed, he didn’t get it, which wasn’t surprising since Toby wasn’t displaying his usual powers of clear communication. Desperate, he took the first analogy that popped into his brain. “Okay, um, my mom told me once that when she goes on a trip, she almost always ends up buying clothes that seem perfect for where she’s visiting, but are totally wrong for when she’s at home. Even knowing she’s done it in the past, she’ll go ahead and do it again, convincing herself that this time it’s right. But then she gets home and that shirt that looked so exuberant and chic in Paris looks tacky in central California.”
Jock frowned even harder, really working his brow into it. “Are you saying I’m the shirt you shouldn’t have bought in France because I won’t fit right once we’re in Oregon?”
“No.” Toby placed his hand on Jock’s chest, still a little damp from the pool. “I’m saying I’m the shirt you bought.”
“So . . . this is about whether we’re actually going to stay together once we get back to Oregon?” Some of the wrinkles in Jock’s forehead eased. “I don’t get why you’d think we wouldn’t.”
“Because.” Toby swallowed, trying to work moisture into his throat. “When we were in Oregon, you didn’t think I fit you right.”
Jock massaged the back of his neck, looking into Toby’s eyes a while, but Toby couldn’t read them like he often could. He had to wait until Jock spoke to discover what was going on in his head. “In Oregon, I did want you. Even after we hooked up I did, but . . . I didn’t get it. Everything was so confusing with all the shit going on. I mean, that sounds like a lame ex—”
“It doesn’t.” Toby shook his head.
“I thought about you a lot. When I got here, that’s when I figured out I wanted more, and I guess, you know . . .” He shook his head. “I got scared.”