Center of Gravity

by Neve Wilder

  “Is this going to happen?” Alex’s voice was harsh and full of need. Not desire, but need. It was shocking how clear the difference was in that moment.

  “Yes. Where are you?” Phone sex I knew how to do. I’d gotten a lot of practice in during the early days of Sean.

  “On some dirt road off the highway. I pulled over. I was—never mind. It doesn’t matter.” I could fill in the blanks well enough. He was upset, probably driving around with no clear destination, searching for an outlet. He’d been crying. I could hear it in his voice. The ache in me deepened. I wanted so badly to be close to him, to touch him.

  “What are you wearing?”

  “Jeans and a T-shirt.” He spoke mechanically.

  I sighed.

  “What?”

  “You’re incredible in jeans and a T-shirt.”

  He gave a startled, brief laugh. “I am?”

  “Of course.”

  “‘Of course’ he says.” I could hear the eye roll in his tone and for just a second it was as if we were sitting there together. “You?”

  “A suit.”

  “Still? Are you working late?”

  “Yes.” I stood to close the office door, then returned to my chair, and tossed my suit coat onto the desk so I could lean back. “I’m sitting behind my desk, in fact.”

  He made a little breathy noise that sounded close to satisfaction. “I can work with that, imagine you like that.”

  I wondered if he imagined me as often as I imagined him. “Put the phone on speaker and set it down beside you, then unzip your pants. I want to hear everything.” I heard the rustle of his hand as he adjusted the phone, put it on speaker, and laid it down beside him, then the zip of his fly as he undid it. Blood rushed to my cock with such speed it was pathetic.

  “I like your voice, how it gets low sometimes when you get bossy.”

  I chuckled in spite of myself.

  “And I like that, too,” he said, voice thick, “That soft, sexy laugh. I didn’t forget it but I— Yeah.” His exhale was rough and fractured. Frustration, something else. I wasn’t sure.

  “Wet your thumb and touch yourself. Lightly. Just the very tip of your cock.” I paused to give him time, listening to the quiet, wet pop of his thumb as he pulled it from his mouth, then the slow, low exhale that followed. I closed my eyes and saw him sitting in the truck, his head tilted back, eyes drifting shut, the blond-brown fringe of his lashes.

  “Mm.”

  Just that quiet hum from him was enough to dash fire through my veins.

  “You too,” he said, “I want to hear you, too.”

  I started to protest, make an excuse about being in my office and then thought, fuck it. I got up again and locked my door, darkened the blinds, then returned to my desk and sat back down, phone wedged against my neck and ear, legs splayed as I unzipped my pants.

  “Are you hard?”

  “As fucking forged steel.” My cock all but leapt into my hand, and I gave the shaft a slow, desultory stroke that made me groan.

  Another low, breathy gasp from Alex.

  “Get your hand good and wet.”

  He spat into his hand and I listened to the slick squish of his palm moving up and down his cock, then followed suit. I wished I could see him. God, I’d loved watching him.

  “You drive me fucking crazy.”

  I didn’t mean for it to come out as a snarl, or even to come out at all, but he whimpered again and croaked out, “More.”

  “The first time I saw you again, you walked into the living room and stood in front of the bookshelves and my first thought, aside from how gorgeous you were, was that I wished I could stretch your arms out across them. Curl your fingers over the edge of the wood…” I paused to take a breath as my hand stoked building pleasure, eyes falling shut and filling with the scenery of that day—the warm light on his tan skin, the gold in his eyes, the wiry muscles that twitched with his movements.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “Keep going. Keep fucking going.” The fragmented demands told me he was going outside himself, losing himself to the pleasure of the act, and it had me dripping.

  “I imagined your skin warm from the sun, warm in my hands as I stretched you out there, pressed up against your back so you could feel me against you— how badly I wanted you, how hard I was for you.” My dick was slippery, my movements quick and fastidious, drawing myself out, teasing myself. When I groaned helplessly, so did Alex. “Wanted to push your pants around your thighs, not even undress you, just push them down and pull your body into me, make you arch your back so it would be easy for me to slide right into you.”

  “I would have,” Alex gasped. “I would have let you. I wanted you. First it was just this little thing, this crush, and then it was just…I just wanted you so badly.”

  “Me too.” I said it so softly I didn’t know if he heard.

  For a few moments, neither of us said anything. We listened to the noise of each other—the rise and fall of breaths, the little unbidden utterances of mindless pleasure, the whisk of skin slipping wetly over skin.

  “Spread your legs and slouch down in your seat.” I heard him shifting around. “Wet your fingers and slide them into your ass.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and let out another groan. Thinking about him in that truck, with his cock in his hand and his fingers plunging in and out of his ass was destroying me. “You feel me?” I whispered.

  “God, that’s good. Fuck. I’m so close. Keep going. Talk to me like you’re right here. Tell me what you’d do to me, how much you fucking want me.”

  Pinpricks of pain burst through the charade and the haze of my lust, threatening to deflate me. I wanted to be right there, goddammit. And he wouldn’t let me. Was this what he’d felt like with me? Granted limited entry into my life? Christ, it was horrible. I swallowed hard, gritting my teeth.

  “I’d haul you out of that goddamn car so fast, leave the door open and push you up against it, the metal warm, soaking through your body, soaking into me. Shove your pants all the way down to your ankles and get on my knees in front of you, take your dick deep in my mouth and suck you hard. God, I love the way you taste.”

  Alex moaned, his breaths ragged, and premonitions of pleasure began to surge through me, sending shudders racing over my shoulders as I continued.

  “My hands around your thighs, my throat full of you, you driving into me over and over, fucking my mouth until I feel you quivering in my hands, hear that little gasp you make just before you lose it…” That gasp came right then, followed by a low, throaty moan and a string of whispered curses that undid me. I gripped the root of my cock and murmured his name as I spilled hot into my own hand, milking myself dry.

  After, I sank back, boneless into my chair, chest wracked with the same guttural pants I heard on the other end of the line.

  A minute passed. Another. Our breathing evened out, and reality made a brutal descent.

  It was a harsh comedown from suspended disbelief—worse because I was alone in my office—the overhead fluorescent lighting mercilessly puncturing my fantasy. I was just a guy in an office sitting in a pool of cooling jizz with a guy on the end of the line trying to overthrow his grief with phone sex. It was humbling and depressing.

  I tucked myself back into my pants, rested my forehead against my palm, and closed my eyes against the light. I heard Alex’s zipper, him shifting, and when he spoke again, his voice was closer. He’d picked up the phone.

  “Fuck, I really needed that.” It was almost gentle with gratitude. My heart gave a joyful leap. I didn’t want to miss this chance.

  “Alex, I’d like to—” He didn’t give me the opportunity to finish.

  “That’s all I needed. I’ve gotta go.”

  And just like that, he disconnected. I stared at the phone in disbelief, stung to my core. When I dialed him back, it went directly to voicemail. And again after that. And three times more. I considered throwing my phone, but I was too fucking old for that. So instead, I rea
ched for a box of tissue and cleaned myself up.

  The knock on my door a minute later disoriented me. I balled up the wads of tissue and tossed them into the trash when I got up to open it. Sean’s five o’clock shadow and disheveled hair greeted me. He had a strange look on his face and glanced over my shoulder as I peered at him. We hadn’t spoken much since my promotion and dinner shut-down unless we had to.

  “What?” I was tired and depressed and just wanted to go home and collapse in my half-painted apartment.

  “Who were you talking to?” He smelled faintly of alcohol, but didn’t seem drunk.

  I frowned. “Have you been standing outside of my door?”

  “I saw you were still here and I had a question and…yes,” he confessed. “Are you seeing someone else? Is that why you turned me down that night?”

  I gave him an incredulous stare. “I’m not even getting into this. It’s none of your goddamn business, for one, and I thought we were decisively past all of this.”

  “That guy who showed up at your place? That kid?” Sean’s eyes narrowed. “Is he even legal? You could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, are you drunk?” I waved my hand and turned away, fuming at the audacity of him standing there, his tie loose around his throat, that stupid smirk on his face. “Never mind. Don’t even bother answering. I’m going home. You should, too.”

  “You’re kidding me. Tell me you’re kidding me, Rob. Jesus, even I can do better than a fucking kid.”

  The impact of my fist against his jaw sent streaks of pain shooting through my forearm before my brain fully registered that I’d taken a swing at him. For a brief second, it felt as righteous as I’d always imagined it would. And then just as abruptly, it didn’t. Sean flailed and sagged back against the doorframe, wide-eyed as he cradled his jaw.

  “The fuck you do that for?” As if he didn’t know. Even the look in his eyes admitted as much, though in a flash they shifted from vulnerable and hurt to angry. “You better hope I don’t go to HR.”

  “You’d better hope I don’t beat you to it,” I bit out, grabbing my coat and keys off the desk. I flicked off the lights in my office and pushed him out of the way before locking my door and stalking off.

  I kept hoping Alex would call me back, that he’d see all the missed calls or listen to the voicemail I’d left, which was little more than a pleading request for us to talk. But he didn’t, and I sat on the couch in my apartment staring at a partially painted wall, feeling the edge of panic gather in my lungs. I thought about Nook Island, thought about Savannah and my job. My hard-won promotion and my career track. What was there to look forward to now? Another pay raise? More assistants? More time spent in the office, crunching numbers and filing taxes for other people and other companies and coming home to my three-legged dictator of a dog?

  What did I want? Alex had accused me of serving only myself, but I didn’t know what I wanted. Had I ever asked myself that before? Ever done more than falling in line and shuffling along with other cogs in the machine in the pursuit of a vague American Dream? I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever closed my eyes, asked the question and found a definitive answer. Maybe I wasn’t alone in that, maybe most of us were shuffling along in pursuit of something we only felt peripherally, searching for the dream as it had been told to us rather than the one of our own making.

  I’d been a dutiful son, I’d made good grades in high school. I’d gone to college and graduated. I had taken care of my parents when they were ill. I paid my bills on time and contributed to my retirement fund every year. I had a steady job and a recent promotion, and I was still nothing but bruising ache and emptiness. I could see my future laid out before me: the promotions and backslapping, the poker once a week. Client dinners. Eventually, golf. Someday I’d probably wear a sweater and refer to it as a cardigan. Christ, what was I doing?

  I may not have known what I wanted exactly, but I knew what I didn’t want and that was more of this. I didn’t want a job that seemed as if the sole purpose was climbing the ladder. And I didn’t want to be the kind of person who used a job as an excuse to shut people out.

  Alex might have been off the table now, but he’d been a step in the right direction.

  That night, in the yellow-orange spotlight of the lamp on my desk, with the scent of new paint tickling my nose, I wrote my resignation letter.

  When I finished, I turned out all the lights, sat in my dark, half-painted apartment and stroked Winslow’s belly with my foot as he snored. And for the first time in a long time, I thought I’d gotten something right.

  26

  Alex

  My dad and I had taken to driving around after dinner. There was never a destination, we just drove. Sometimes into the city, down the wide avenues of live oaks and hanging moss, sometimes to the edge of Nook Island where we’d park and roll the windows down, listening to the surf and the birds. He was declining fast, worse even than when I’d called Rob in a panic after a round of scans that showed the cancer had spread farther. It was in his lymph nodes, his organs, everywhere—this dark, malevolent thing eating him alive from the inside out. It was a matter of weeks, the doctor said, maybe a month or two. It was hard to predict and blah blah blah. We’d rented a hospital bed and he had pain meds that left him in varying states of lucidity. He was too weak to do much else, but he still had most of his wits about him, so we drove. Sometimes we’d talk, sometimes we’d just drive in silence.

  I spent almost all of my free time with him, as if I could shore up an oversupply of his company and divvy it out to myself after he died. I knew it didn’t work like that, but I had this fear that I’d feel guilty later or miss something important if I was gone. I stopped sleeping around. It hadn’t made me feel better, anyway. It had just highlighted a widening gulf of ache in me. Even my anger was tired. And mostly, I was just sad. I found myself hovering on the cliff’s edge of calling Rob again, sometimes, but it seemed pointless. What did I have to offer? I wondered sometimes, too, whether this was how he’d felt with me: raw and exhausted and spent, only capable of taking and sometimes not even in the mood for that. It was hard enough for me to keep up with school, and I did it solely because of the promise I’d made to my dad.

  The Eagles played through the radio, the volume low. Dad had a window cracked an inch, listening to the air whistle through and letting the chill blast against his cheeks. I thought he was dozing. He nodded off a lot lately.

  He straightened a bit in his seat. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but isn’t there something you should be out doing? Or someone? You’ve been stuck to my side like a leech for weeks.” His head lolled a little, sallow gaze landing on me.

  “How do you even know what day it is, old man?” I teased.

  “No clue, honestly. I just keep waking up to that stupid piece of metal in your face. Tired of looking at it,” he grumbled. There was a glimmer of humor in his eyes, though. When he tapped his fingers lightly on the seat, I gave him my free hand, lacing my fingers with his. “When we get back home, go out, see the living. You’re not missing anything around here, I promise.”

  “I want to be here.”

  His fingers were cool and smooth, all of his calluses softened. When I was little, his hand on my cheek or shoulder had been like sandpaper, catching on my clothes or skin. I liked holding his hand. I would miss his hands.

  I pulled onto Mulberry and slowed. Sometimes we’d crawl past the houses, peeking into the windows and making guesses about the families inside until we’d come up with outrageous and obscene stories that made us snicker. I’d miss that too. That was another thing that had started happening. My father was still alive but all I could think about were the things I would miss. It was the weirdest feeling to miss someone who was still sitting next to me.

  Dad didn’t appear in the mood to make up stories tonight, but as I passed Rob’s darkened house, he studied it, craning his neck to keep it in sight as we passed.

  “So was tha
t whole deal your doing or his? Who fucked it up?”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. I sighed and gave him the pat answer. “It was never a serious thing. It was just hooking up.”

  “Hmm.” He didn’t sound convinced, even when I gave him the side eye.

  “You’re a bit of a slut, son, is why I’m asking. But you were happy.”

  His comment knocked a laugh out of me, genuine and wild, and for a second it felt so fucking good to laugh like that, especially when he joined in.

  “Seriously. I’d be jealous of your game if you weren’t batting for the home team.”

  “Oh Jesus,” I wheezed. And then, out of nowhere, I was crying. Had to pull to the side of the fucking road and everything, the way it hit like a sudden downpour. That’s how it happened for me. I’d be going along fine and then out of the blue, I’d get a kidney punch of emotion and gut-churning awareness that every minute passing was one less in Dad’s hourglass.

  Dad squeezed my hand.

  “Fuck.” I pressed my fingers to my eyes, squeezing the bridge of my nose until I staunched the flow of tears. “I’m really going to miss this.”

  “Me too, son.” He squeezed my hand again and fell silent. He never rushed or interrupted me and I did the same for him the few times he broke down in front of me.

  Another few minutes and I’d recovered enough to start driving again. We continued coasting down the street until we ran out of asphalt and the dunes rose up in front of the windshield, pale and gray in the early evening. I turned off the car and rolled the windows down halfway, listening to the engine ping.

  “You know he helped me with our finances? Offered to help out with our mortgage more than once,” Dad said.

  I forced my fingers to relax when they threatened to close into fists. “I told him not to.”