by Knight,Riley
Adam was touching him. Adam had Liam’s cock in his hand. If Liam hadn’t been hard and ready to go already, he would have been then.
There was only one thing to do, and Liam did it. He reached down and took Adam in his hand, loving the hot feel of the silky smooth shaft as he palmed it, as his fingers wrapped around him and he started to stroke him.
They kissed feverishly as they moved together, and it was like they fell into a rhythm perfectly, as though the years of being best friends had created a bond between them that also translated to sex.
Liam didn’t really do commitment in sex. It just wasn’t his style. So why did it feel, for the first time, like sex was an expression of so much more?
He knew the answer to that question. It was because he was in love, that was all there was to it. He was in love, and while he no longer believed that Adam was straight, that didn’t mean that being in love with him was a good idea.
Closing his eyes, Liam let himself get lost in the sensations, the feel of their lips and tongues moving together, the feel of Adam’s cock in his hand as Liam found himself thrusting his hips, rutting into Adam’s hand.
They’d rubbed against each other until they came, and that had been startlingly intimate, but the fact that they were touching each other felt somehow even more so. Liam felt his own heart pounding in his chest, and when he pressed close to Adam, he could feel the same from him, and he knew somehow it wasn’t just about the physical reactions for their bodies.
“Liam,” Adam whispered, a slight catch in his voice, “Liam, you’re gonna make me come.”
Liam opened his eyes. He loved watching Adam come. It had only happened once, and already, he was addicted to it.
“Me too,” Liam realized. His body had been building toward it the whole time. “Together, Adam.”
He wanted to look down into Adam’s face and watch as his best friend came while at the same time feeling the pleasure radiate through his own body. And that was exactly what happened.
At almost exactly the same time, both men cried out with pleasure and Liam felt the hot gush of Adam’s come on his own hand just as he coated his best friend’s hand with it. He got to look into those green eyes and watch through the whole process, and it was beautiful. Of course, Adam was always gorgeous, and Liam had thought so long before he’d watched him come, but that definitely took it up a notch.
“Thank you,” Liam whispered, and he meant it with every single cell in his body.
Adam shook his head, and though he was still laying close to Liam, it was like a distance was suddenly between them that hadn’t been a few moments before.
“Nothing to thank me for. I barely know what I’m doing.”
Liam frowned. That was probably true, at least on some level, but the fact was that Adam had been amazing, and Liam hadn’t even had the opportunity to think about his best friend’s lack of experience. Not as a negative thing, anyway.
“Hey. You were great,” Liam chided, and then he looked over at Adam and frowned a little. There was a disconnect on the other man’s face, and Liam sighed. “This has nothing to do with what we just did, does it?”
Adam sighed and shook his head.
“No. It was a weird day at work yesterday,” he admitted, and Liam turned onto his side, surprised. Adam rarely talked about work, at least with Liam. The fact that he would now meant that something fairly serious was going on.
“Tell me,” Liam invited, and Adam sighed, but did.
* * *
When the telling was over, Liam felt a little bit like he’d been punched in the stomach. Maybe without the actual feeling of physical pain, but the sensation of being winded, that was the same.
After Adam stopped talking, Liam just lay there for a moment or two, processing everything. For a good five minutes, Adam had talked, and there was a lot of it.
“Okay,” Liam finally said slowly. “So Josh came to see you and said … Pretty much nothing, right? Other than something about how he wants to make sure you’re good at work.”
Adam nodded.
“Yeah. The whole thing was weird. It was like he was trying to make sure that I didn’t get any ideas about leaving the bank,” Adam said, and Liam nodded. From his information, which was admittedly secondhand, that’s what he got too.
“Okay. And then your mom came and said that she’s getting a promotion and more or less offered it to you if you keep your nose clean. Part of said clean nose would be presumably not spending time with undesirable people. Like me.”
Adam nodded, and Liam shook his head. This was intense. He knew that Adam’s mother had never liked him, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks with the divorced parents, the boy who never had quite enough growing up, but this was a new level for her.
“What are you going to do?” Liam tried to keep the fear out of his voice. After all, he should trust Adam. Through everything that had happened, they’d been together, and nothing was ever going to be able to take that away from them. Nothing.
“I think I’ll go for the promotion,” Adam said quietly. “But what I do in my social life, the way I see it, that’s none of the bank’s business. Or, really, my mother’s.”
Liam nodded, and he found those words encouraging, but the whole situation made him more than a little bit nervous. How would he be able to live with it if Adam did move away from him? Not physically, but emotionally?
On top of that, he was going to have to have a talk with Josh once more, it seemed, this time about harassing people at work. The guy was starting to be way more trouble than he was worth.
If only he could get Adam to come back. Then he could kick Josh to the curb without any compunction whatsoever. The guy was poison, it seemed, but more than that, to Liam it felt like Rapture Coil was never going to really be complete without Adam in it.
Chapter Nine
Adam
There were no answers yet, not really. Adam’s mother was still going to be herself, and she was still going to see herself as being at war with Liam, though Liam had never wanted to be at war with anyone. She was still going to see her way as the only right way.
Despite that, Adam felt better. Talking to Liam had put some stuff into perspective, and Adam had realized something for perhaps the first time since he’d started climbing the corporate ladder.
He didn’t want this job if it meant he couldn’t be himself.
Of course, that was a scary realization.
The next day at work, Adam started to pay attention to how often he had to say or do something insincere, and it worked out to about twice an hour. He denied a loan to a young couple that were obviously in need, but didn’t have the greatest credit. He smiled and tried to placate a woman who was too old to be acting like the spoiled brat that she was far too old to be emulating. That smile was on his face again as he listened to some boring, tired old joke from one of the account managers.
He sought solace in his office, and looked around at the boring beige walls, the completely unremarkable art on the wall, the tidy desk. Then he thought about how the band had reacted when they’d signed on with Casey, the manager who was going to propel them all to stardom.
Of course, that was all just based on hopes, but what hopes did Adam have anymore? He hoped that he might get the next promotion, but only because he became so bored with the work that he was doing. The money, the prestige, they meant far less to him than they did to his mother.
Staring at his computer screen, Adam tried to find some meaning in what he was doing, but there was none. His job was to help rich people get richer, when it came down to it, and to make a tidy profit for the bank while he did so.
It was then that his mother came to visit him once more, knocking on the door with a curiously reptilian clacking of long nails and then pushing the door open and walking in.
Her visits were usually not quite this close together, and Adam arched an eyebrow at her as he looked away from his screen. She looked just as polished as ever, like a woman made
more of plastic than flesh.
“May I help you?” he asked, his tone just a little pointed. He was, after all, at work, and she didn’t really have the right to just barge in. Maybe she was more or less his boss, but that didn’t mean she could just do whatever she wanted.
“I wanted to let you know that the job posting has been put up on the internal site. If you’re going to apply, you should do it quickly. I expect quite a few applications from other branch managers in the area.”
Adam nodded tightly. An email would have said the same thing, but for some reason, this seemed to be important to her. Enough that she wanted to come by in person to make sure he got the message.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a little bit tight. With everything he’d been thinking about, with all of the doubts that he’d been having, it was hard for him to care about this as much as she clearly did.
“Remember what I said,” she said quietly, and then she gave him a tight, restrained little smile. “And your hair is getting a little bit long, Adam. Might I suggest a haircut?”
With that last blow, she sailed out of the office, then went to visit with some of the other account managers. That’s one thing she was good at, staying in the loop with other people, at least those she considered high enough up the food chain to bother with. She remembered names, she chattered easily, and all the while she managed to keep up this air of superiority.
It was a knack that Adam knew that he didn’t have, and he could only shake his head as he watched her do her thing. She was such a corporate animal, and despite all of his efforts, he wasn’t.
Despite that, he made an appointment right then to get his hair cut, because it had gotten a little bit shaggy recently. Then he went into the internal web site where all sorts of bank news and job postings were, and found the one that his mother was leaving.
Reading it over, he sighed softly. Did he even want this job? He couldn’t be sure. It would involve a lot of traveling, all over the state, and while California was lovely, he didn’t really want to leave Los Angeles. Not all the time, like the job would entail.
Besides, the job itself sounded deadly dull. More pay, yes, but also more paperwork, and less interaction with people. Less creativity, because at least at the branch he got to decide how to roll certain campaigns out.
Rubbing at his eyes, Adam paused, then saved the posting to his favorites before closing the tab. He would do it later, maybe. It could wait. He still had a few weeks before the application would have to be in.
Though it was hard to imagine a world in which he would even want that job, he was coming to realize.
* * *
It was a weird week. Tax season was winding down and the bank was starting to get much less crazy busy, which was a very good thing. Adam’s branch had brought in record profits for the bank, which should have been a good thing, but Adam found himself fairly indifferent to the whole thing.
It was more than that, though. Time after time, Adam opened the job posting, intending to attach his resume and send it off, but he kept just closing it. It was like something deep inside him would not let him do it.
Toward the end of the week, Adam’s mother was due to come by for her monthly visit to make sure that everything at the branch was running smoothly. Adam found himself dreading it, that unanswered job posting burning a hole in his conscience.
As always, Adam made sure everything in the branch was running smoothly, all the signs were up to date, before she came. There honestly wasn’t a lot to do. Adam had some people working with him who were very good at what they did, and there wasn’t a lot that needed to be tweaked.
When she arrived, there was a professional handshake, though he was sure that her eyes saw the fact that his hair was still uncut. He had an appointment for the weekend, though, and surely even she didn’t expect him to be able to make there be more hours in the day. He was at work for the hours that most barbers would be open.
She had someone with her, a pretty young blonde who bore a startling resemblance to how Adam remembered his mother looking when she was younger. She was introduced as ‘Chelsea’ and was clearly some sort of aide for his mother, carrying things for her.
Adam sighed softly to himself as he looked at her. The truth was, his mother didn’t need Chelsea, just as she didn’t need Desiree or Natalie or any of the other pretty girls that she’d tried to push on him over the years.
A long time ago, Adam had figured out that his role was to fall for one of these girls, get married, and give his mother one or two grandchildren. That was the American Dream, right?
Chelsea was just one more girl in a long line of them, and he wasn’t at all surprised when his mother leaned in and whispered in his ear, “She’s single, you know.”
Adam shook his head, but for the first time, he didn’t just smile politely and change the subject. For the first time, he turned to his mother and did something impulsive, something that he hadn’t thought about at all before he said it.
“I’m actually seeing someone,” he said, his tone admirably casual, his eyes fixed right on her face like he had nothing to hide.
For a moment, there was disappointment on her face, because of course she would prefer that he be with someone that she’d handpicked for him. Then there was happiness, real and sincere, one of the few true reactions that he’d ever seen from his mother.
“Good. You can bring her to dinner Sunday night,” she said, and Adam blinked. Her. Of course she would be expecting it to be a her, but the truth of the matter was that the person that Adam had been thinking about when he said those words had, of course, been Liam.
While he was still reeling from that, his mother and Chelsea smiled at him and left, and Adam was left alone with what he’d done.
There was only one person that he’d want to bring to Sunday dinner with his mother, and it wasn’t a girl. Even if he could find some poor girl to cover him and bring her, it wouldn’t feel right on a couple of levels.
He didn’t want to bring some random girl. He wanted to bring Liam, and he wanted to bring him as his boyfriend. He didn’t even know if that’s what Liam wanted, and he knew his mother would have kittens if he actually did it.
To his credit, Adam remained professional. After his mother left, he went to his office and neatly and quietly shut the door before he groaned and buried his face in his hands.
This was why he thought things out thoroughly before he acted. Because when he didn’t, stuff like this happened. His mother was expecting him to bring a non existent girlfriend to Sunday dinner, and he only had a boy to bring. Assuming, of course, that Liam would even consent to come, since Liam, not being a total idiot, was very aware of just how Adam’s mother felt about him.
And meanwhile, there was still the haircut after work the next day, which he was not looking forward to for some reason, and of course, the unfinished matter of the application for the promotion that he had done absolutely nothing about.
At this point in his life, it was becoming harder and harder for him not to question everything, and he knew that the way he’d become more intimate with Liam had had a fairly big part to play in that.
The question was, what was he going to do about it?
Chapter Ten
Liam
It was a long, slow, boring day at work, and Liam, though he liked interacting with the people and needed the money, was glad that he didn’t get more than a couple of shifts a week here.
Oh, it paid the rent, but only just, and as Liam looked around at the store which sold skateboards and accessories, as well as trendy t-shirts and that sort of thing, had to admit that he wasn’t going to be too sad to shake the dust of this place off of his feet.
Of course, it would also be a little terrifying.
The skate shop wasn’t glamorous, but it did provide just enough money that Liam didn’t need to worry much. He didn’t need a lot, and while he worked here, he could dream about Rapture Coil making it big.
Dreams were one
thing, but reality was the other. Was Liam even really ready to say goodbye to this life? After all, living like this, barely making ends meet, it was how he’d lived his whole life. He didn’t really know how to do anything else.
He could still hear his mother screeching at him when he was a teenager about how this music thing was a waste of time, how he was an idiot, and how he wasn’t even good at playing. Once, she even said that it was his singing that had driven away his father.
The fact that Liam’s father had left long before Liam had laid hands on a guitar had never stopped the comment from hurting.
It hadn’t stopped him from working hard, though. At least Liam could say that. Even when there had been bumps in the road, he’d kept going, and now his band actually had a real live manager. Nothing was garenteed, but there was definitely cause for hope.
Only, on some level, hadn’t he always assumed that he would fail at this? That he’d be working at this shop, or one like it, for the rest of his life?
The shop was quiet and slow, with barely any customers at all. They were all out there enjoying the sun, and Liam wished that he could, too. Sitting still like this, it brought out doubts that he wasn’t sure anyone else in the world even knew that he had. Doubts that he hid very well.
If he had failed before, there wasn’t very far to fall. It looked like that was about to change.
Sighing, Liam forced his thoughts away and started to straighten displays that were already more than neat enough. But it gave him something to do other than think about failure, and about how much he wanted to be out in the sun rather than stuck in the dingy little shop.
The door opened, and Liam turned to look, though not with much interest. At least talking to a real live person would be some entertainment, though it would likely be someone just a little too stoned to make a lot of sense. They got a lot of that there.