by Anna Martin
“Could I get a sundae?”
“Hot fudge or strawberry?”
“Hot fudge.”
“Good choice,” Jackson said, winking before relaying the order.
Back at the apartment, he gave the bags of food to Leo and helped Mitch up the stairs, taking them one at a time. Leo thought Mitch looked close to tears, either because someone was being nice to him or because he was embarrassed he needed the help.
Jackson got Mitch to the sofa and set one of the bags next to him.
“Eat,” he said. “You can have more painkillers if you eat.”
“You know how to treat a girl right,” Mitch said, though there was no passion behind his words.
Leo took the sofa next to Mitch. Jackson took Leo’s chair and split open the brown paper bag on his lap.
“Here,” he said, passing the sundae to Leo.
“Thanks.”
“Were you two fucking when the mean lady called?” Mitch asked bluntly, then took a huge bite of his burger.
Jackson choked on his milkshake.
“No,” Leo said. He was still stirring the sauce into the ice cream. “We weren’t.”
“Oh. Shame. You could do with being fucked, darling. It’d take the edge off.”
“Thanks for that,” Leo said acidly.
“I’m not gay,” Jackson said.
Mitch just raised an eyebrow at him. “Sure you’re not, darling.”
“I’m not. Seriously.”
“You don’t have to put a label on it. But just so you know, that sort of heated defense of your sexuality puts heavy implication that anything other than dead straight is not good. You might want to consider that when you’re in my fucking apartment.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“Jackson, it’s fine,” Leo said softly. “Mitch is catty at the best of times. He’s worse when he’s hurting.”
“I’m right here.”
“I know.” Leo leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Be nice to my friend, please.”
Leo took a bite of his ice cream and wished he could comfort Jackson so easily. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, either because of Mitch’s words or his presence. With Jackson it wasn’t always easy to tell.
With a gentle prod, Leo got Mitch to spark off a conversation that was mostly gossip, dropping names of people Leo barely knew in person but felt like he knew plenty about their personal lives, courtesy of Mitch. He nodded in all the right places and made questioning noises, giving them all time to finish their food.
“I’m just going to use your bathroom,” Jackson mumbled. Leo nodded and waited until he was out of earshot before fixing Mitch with a hard glare.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“No.”
Mitch was clearly sulking, and from experience, Leo knew the best way to get around Mitch’s particular brand of tantrum was to wait him out. Fine. He could do that.
He cleared all the trash from their late-night meal and cornered Jackson in the hall.
“Stay tonight,” he said, putting his hands on Jackson’s broad chest.
Jackson made a face.
“Please,” Leo added. “It’ll be almost four before you get home if you leave now, and I don’t want you going back there on your own. Stay here, get some sleep, and you can head back in the morning.”
“I can sleep on the couch if you want.”
He still looked conflicted. Leo pushed his hands up Jackson’s chest to grip his shoulders.
“You’re welcome to share my bed. To sleep in.” He chanced a soft smile. “Nothing more.”
“Nothing more,” he echoed.
“Right.”
He nodded. “Okay. I don’t suppose you have a spare toothbrush?”
“Under the sink in the bathroom. I’ll help Mitch get to bed.”
Jackson nodded again, then peeled away with a determined look on his face.
Jesus.
This was going to be interesting.
Leo gently coaxed Mitch into getting off the couch and to his own room, which had a little en suite half bath. He brushed his teeth, wincing as he did, which suggested maybe one or more of them had been damaged. Leo had to force him to accept help in getting changed into a clean T-shirt and shorts, even though he clearly couldn’t do it on his own, and by the time Leo switched Mitch’s lights off and headed back to his own room, he had the start of a headache blooming behind his eyes.
“Hey,” Jackson said softly, and Leo’s stomach flip-flopped entirely without his permission.
There was definitely something very enticing about Jackson sitting on the edge of his bed in just his underwear, his jeans and shoes and button-down all in a neat pile on the chair in the corner of Leo’s room. Leo hadn’t seen him like this before, not just undressed, but quiet. Vulnerable.
“I’ll just be a minute.” Leo grabbed his usual nightwear from the bed and scuttled back out to the bathroom to change.
When he stripped off, he checked over his body compulsively, like he did before a planned hookup, to check for errant zits or dirt or whatever. Everything was fine. Well, he needed to go work out, because he got soft around the middle way too quickly if he didn’t, but this wasn’t a hookup. So he wouldn’t stress about it.
Except he totally would.
Leo brushed his teeth and washed his face quickly before checking the front door to the apartment was locked and heading back to his room.
“Do you have a side?” Jackson asked as Leo shut the door behind himself.
“I take the middle, normally,” Leo said, grinning. “I don’t mind.”
At the last moment, he remembered to grab his phone from the pocket of his jeans and plug it in so he at least had a hope of it being charged in the morning. He flicked the lights off, then crawled into bed and stretched out on his belly. A moment later, Jackson’s hand spread over Leo’s back, gently trailing down to his ass.
So they were going to pick this up where they left off.
Leo wanted to ask a lot of questions. A lot of questions….
Fuck it. The questions could wait.
He shifted onto his side and wriggled closer to Jackson, letting his hand fall on Jackson’s waist. Jackson met him halfway, and his lips caught the corner of Leo’s, blind in the darkness, and it only took the smallest adjustment for them to be kissing again.
They were getting good at this.
Leo kept it easy, pulling away and teasing when Jackson licked at Leo’s lips and grunted in frustration.
“Leo.”
“Mmm.”
Leo rolled onto his back and tugged Jackson on top of him. Jackson got with the program and slipped his knee between Leo’s, a perfect angle for them to grind on each other.
When Jackson leaned down and starting mouthing at Leo’s neck, his patience snapped and he shoved Jackson onto his back.
“I wanna blow you,” Leo said.
His words hung in the darkness for a moment.
Then, “Okay.”
Leo kicked the covers out of his way as he shifted down the bed and tugged at Jackson’s boxer-briefs until he lifted his hips up enough for Leo to pull them down and off. Jackson was almost all the way hard. When Leo leaned down and nosed at the base of his cock, Jackson grunted and got the rest of the way there.
Leo licked tentatively, giving Jackson plenty of space to back out if he wasn’t comfortable. Jackson’s hand came to the back of Leo’s head, then moved to his neck instead and stayed there. Leo wasn’t going to try to interpret that.
Instead he did what he knew he was good at, licking and sucking at the head of Jackson’s cock while working the shaft with a loose grip. It didn’t take long for Jackson to get into the rhythm of it, rolling his hips in time with Leo’s mouth.
Leo slipped his other hand into his boxers and gripped the base of his own cock hard. He was not going to blow before Jackson.
He didn’t really need to worry. While Leo was persistently working the underside of
Jackson’s cock with his tongue, Jackson grunted some kind of warning and his grip on Leo’s neck tightened. Then he shuddered through his orgasm and Leo’s mouth was filled with hot spunk. He swallowed it eagerly and allowed himself the quick, tight jerk of his wrist that roughly pulled his own orgasm out of him.
When the ringing in his ears finally subsided, Leo laid his head on Jackson’s hip and took a deep breath. They smelled like sex.
“Come here,” Jackson said, his voice gravelly-soft, and Leo obediently shuffled up the bed. He was surprised when Jackson kissed him again, a barely-there brush of lips that made Leo shudder.
Suddenly self-conscious of his own body, Leo stripped off his boxers and used them to clean himself and Jackson off, then tossed them in the direction of his laundry hamper.
“You want to borrow some pajamas?”
“I like sleeping naked.”
Jackson was almost asleep. Leo could tell. He was quietly endeared. He curled himself into Jackson’s side, one arm over his waist and his head on Jackson’s chest.
On a deep exhale, he fell asleep.
Chapter Nineteen
JACKSON WOKE early the next morning, considering how late they’d stayed up the night before. He wasn’t sure if it was the unfamiliar bed or the person he was sharing it with or the weak sunlight slanting in around the curtains. Whatever it was, it woke Jackson up before seven, and he knew the rest of the day was going to suck.
Leo had rolled away from him in the night and was curled into a tight ball on the other side of the bed. Even while human-shaped, Jackson could smell the lingering scent of sex on their bodies from the night before. He was trying not to think about it too hard just yet. He brushed a light kiss over the ball of Leo’s shoulder before rolling out of bed and pulling on his boxers.
The apartment Leo shared with Mitch was nice. Jackson had always been nervous about the thought of sharing an apartment with someone else, which is why he’d chosen to live in the frat house at college. Sure, that meant living with a dozen other guys, but at least he had his own room and plenty of space in it.
This apartment was fairly big, and the bathroom separated the two bedrooms, which meant far more privacy. Both bedrooms opened onto the open-plan living space, though, so there wasn’t much chance of a private walk of shame.
Mitch was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal and looking like hell. Jackson nodded to him, then went into the bathroom to take care of the essentials.
When he got out, Mitch was still there.
He looked like he’d had the snot beaten out of him, despite his enhanced healing factor. Jackson guessed it would be a few more days before he was looking like normal again.
Jackson went to the kitchen, found a tumbler, and poured himself a big glass of water. He turned around and leaned against the sink.
“So, you fucked him,” Mitch said. His split lip looked worse this morning, all red and swollen. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so the blooming bruises over his torso were all too visible. “Don’t try and deny it. I can smell it on you.”
“Is that any of your business?” Jackson said mildly.
“When you’re doing it in my home, it is.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“So?”
“Do we need to get into the semantics of it?”
Mitch dropped his spoon into his empty bowl with a clatter. “I know you,” he said acidly. “I know men just like you. He blew you, right? And you didn’t touch him. So you get to still claim you’re a straight boy because you haven’t even seen his dick.”
Jackson wasn’t entirely sure how Mitch knew all this. He took another gulp of water.
“He’s my soul mate,” he said eventually, like it was an answer.
“Yeah, and you’re treating him like shit.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are,” Mitch said, stabbing a finger in Jackson’s direction, then dropping it with a wince. “You’re leading him on, letting him think there’s a chance in hell that you’d actually care for him. That you would maybe, one day, love him.”
“I do care for him.”
“No. No, Jackson. You’re willing to be friends, you’re willing to let him blow you occasionally, at night with the lights off, but that’s not a fucking relationship. That’s not what it means to be soul mates. That’s you taking and taking and throwing him the occasional tidbit of affection to keep him hanging on. You’re a piece of shit.”
“That’s enough,” Leo said from the doorway to his room.
Jackson snapped his head around. There was no way of knowing how much of that Leo had heard. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, making everything feel tight and sick and awful.
“If you don’t want Jackson to stay over, then say so, and we can make other arrangements,” Leo said. “I’m old enough to look out for myself, Mitch. You’re not exactly in a position to talk right now, anyway. Since I’m pretty sure you didn’t get that stunning black eye from a podium.”
“Fuck you,” Mitch snapped.
Jackson turned, rinsed his glass, and set it on the draining board. Leo and Mitch were still making murder eyes at each other, and he really didn’t want to get in the middle of that particular catfight. He went over to Leo, touched his arm gently, then went to get dressed. A moment later, Leo followed him into the room.
“Sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Jackson said. He pulled on his jeans, hopping into them, then grabbed his shirt too and quickly buttoned it over his T-shirt. “Your friend needs you. I don’t know what happened to him, but he looks like he could do with someone to take care of him.”
Leo nodded. “I’m still sorry. I was going to take you out for breakfast.”
“That’s okay.” Jackson grinned. “The deal was somewhere to sleep, not breakfast as well.”
“Rain check?”
“Sure.”
Jackson looked at Leo for a moment, really looked at him. All bare freckled shoulders and slim torso and flat chest. Those sweet, sleepy eyes.
Jackson was nothing if not rebellious.
He pulled Leo in close and wrapped a hand round the back of his neck. After checking his eyes for permission, Jackson leaned in for a quick, sweet kiss. He hoped it held a promise—that Jackson was going to not be the piece of shit Mitch seemed to think he was. He could do this. He could be a decent person.
“I’ll call you soon,” he murmured. Leo nodded and brushed his lips over Jackson’s jaw.
He left without saying goodbye to Mitch.
Chapter Twenty
MITCH DIDN’T talk to Leo for the whole of Sunday. Monday either. By Tuesday the fight seemed to have left him. He was still battered and bruised, his face a mess of colors. He looked less like a vengeful, spitting tomcat, though.
When Leo got home from his shift, he dumped his stuff in his room before taking a seat on the couch next to Mitch, pulling his friend’s head onto his lap, and gently petting his hair.
“You ready to talk?” Leo asked.
“You’re not my fucking therapist.” There was no bite in Mitch’s words, though.
“No. Just your friend. You know you can tell me anything.”
Mitch was quiet for a moment, then huffed and rolled onto his back, his head still on Leo’s thigh.
“Sounds like I don’t need to tell you.”
“It would be nice to hear the words,” Leo said gently.
“What, that I get paid—and well, thank you very much—to fuck guys for money?”
“Hmm.”
Mitch snorted in dry unamusement. “I’m fucking good at it too.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Those words drew a smile out of him, and Leo was finally relieved. “Is that what got you in trouble on Saturday night?”
“Yeah. Some asshole decided he didn’t want to pay for my asshole. Heh. If I give it up for free, it’s certainly not to guys as fuck-ugly as he was.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Sure. It’s the truth.”
“Oh, Mitch,” Leo sighed. He ran his fingers through Mitch’s hair again.
“I’m going to quit it for a while,” Mitch said. His fingers brushed back and forth over the bandage on his healing wrist, an almost unconscious action. “I’m good for cash right now. At first I did it because I liked it. It was fun, you know? It made me feel sexy. I don’t think I like it anymore.”
“That’s okay. If you need help with anything, you know you can ask me.”
“I’m sorry for being a bitch to Jackson.”
Wow. Mitch didn’t directly apologize for anything unless his mama was on the phone telling him to. For him to offer an apology apropos of nothing was groundbreaking.
“I’ll be sure to tell him you said so.”
Mitch’s nose twitched, but he didn’t object. Leo petted his hair again.
“I could probably have voiced those opinions in a less aggressive way.”
“Is that you telling me you stand by what you said to him?”
Mitch waved his hand airily. “Something like that. He seems like a nice enough guy, Leonardo. But I just don’t see it. I don’t get it. You’re sure you’re his soul mate?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Do you even like him?”
“I adore the miserable asshole,” Leo said with a laugh. “He’s got more issues than Vogue, but he’s a good person. We’ll work through it together.”
“That’s disgustingly positive of you.”
Leo grinned. “I try.”
Chapter Twenty-One
HE COULDN’T stay at the house. He wanted to, in some deep, visceral, masculine way: to defend his property from further threat. But it was difficult to summon up the intestinal fortitude for that kind of defiance when everything about the property that mattered was gone.
For the few days it took for the insurance assessors to go through it all, Jackson moved back in with his mom. She was coping surprisingly well with two of her three grown children back in the house, even if Jackson was insisting that this was going to be a short-term arrangement.
After a few days of soul-searching, Jackson decided he was going to look for a place in the city.