But I didn’t have anyplace else to go. The housing policy that had frustrated us when we’d tried to sign up as roommates on campus next year suddenly made a lot more sense. I bet they got tired of same-sex couples demanding room changes after they broke up.
I stared down at him. I didn’t know how to do this. Ethan was always the one who had the answers. He was the one who knew about feelings and relationships and all that stuff.
Finally Ethan opened his eyes. “You said you’d tell me later.”
“Tell you what?”
“About your internship.”
“Right.” I had that burst of excitement again. All that shit from school actually having a purpose, the incredible computers with the 3-D imaging, the scope of it. I’d swear I heard that bubble of happiness pop as I remembered I couldn’t tell Ethan about any of it because of the absolute prohibition against saying what I was doing at Travers International.
“They made me sign all this confidentiality stuff.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, me too.”
“Mine came with all these scary legal clauses, threats of criminal prosecution and fines spelled out with lots of zeroes.”
Ethan sat up. “Really? Like spy shit?”
“I don’t know. But they weren’t kidding around. The first three hours were all about that before they’d tell us anything else.”
“So what do they do, besides engineering consulting?”
I swallowed. “Well...”
Ethan rolled his eyes again. “Right, like I have someone to tell about this secret?”
“I can’t.” I knew damned well if my record with a felony on it hadn’t been sealed when I turned eighteen, I’d never even have gotten the internship. I wasn’t about to fuck it up. This was what I wanted to do with my life.
“But—so what about people who are married? They can’t tell you you can’t tell your husband or wife. That’s nuts.”
“They can.” My answer was immediate, because they’d covered that, but as I looked into Ethan’s intent eyes, a thought made me sweat harder in the breathless room. He wasn’t about to—he wouldn’t—suggest we were going to get married just so he could hear about my job, because that was something to put in the nut-shriveling terror column. We were nineteen.
The thing was, Ethan didn’t tend to do things halfway. It was something I loved about him. I loved that intensity when he kissed me, when we fucked, when he looked at me like I was the most important person in the world. But it also scared the fucking shit out of me.
“Freedom of speech, association, spousal privilege.” Ethan started ticking stuff off on his fingers. One day and he’d turned into a civil rights lawyer. He hated to lose. Tried to turn every no into a yes. That’s why I’d thought he’d make a good lawyer.
“No one is making me work for them. So I guess they get to make the rules. I can tell you it’s really cool. And the tech stuff is amazing. Five percent of their interns end up permanent hires.”
He repeated, “Permanent—” then cut himself off so sharply I heard his teeth click.
I wedged myself onto my back next to him and stared up at the ceiling. It was my first day. Maybe I’d hate it in a week. Wasn’t that what internships were for? To get experience before you graduated and had to settle on a job so you could pay back a dizzying pile of loans?
“It was just something they told us in orientation.” I snuck a look at his face out of the corner of my eye. His jaw was still clenched. I reached for his hand. He let me interlace our fingers. I squeezed. “I saw myself in one of those offices, all that glass and chrome, rolling like a boss.”
He snorted a laugh and the tension eased from my lungs, my shoulders, all the way down to my toes.
“Did you picture yourself a hot blond secretary?” He brought our hands toward his mouth and flicked his tongue over one of my fingertips.
“Nope. Hot blond legal consultant.”
He kissed my knuckle but then let our hands drop and pulled his free.
“What?” I said.
He huffed a sigh. “I didn’t feel like that at all. It felt more like college, which I can handle, but...” He was silent for a second, then shifted onto his side to face me. “I expected this to be different.”
I knew he wasn’t only talking about his internship and that squeezed the breath out of me again. Now that he was talking about what was bothering him, I wanted him to shut up.
But it was Ethan and once he got going it was all out there. “I thought if we were living together and had jobs I’d feel, I don’t know, like an adult. Like I had shit figured out.”
What made him think any adults had shit figured out? Then I remembered his parents, that house. Yeah, I guess that did look perfect.
I put my arms around him and he rested his forehead on my shoulder. As usual, I had no idea what to say. I did know that a lot of times what I said made things worse. I tried stroking a hand down his back. His skin was damp. It was hot, especially with the door closed.
Bill and Bob, our roommates, had said they were cool with the “gay stuff” as long as we kept it in the bedroom. But maybe Ethan would feel better if we opened the door.
I rubbed his back right above his waistband.
He scooted his hips away to the edge of the mattress. “I’m too hot to.”
I’d only been trying to make him feel better. I guess I wasn’t any better at comforting touches than I was at comforting words.
Chapter Three
Ethan
The next couple of days were as shitty as I figured they would be. Allan still acted like God’s gift to gayness, and I didn’t get to do much but answer the phones and file the complaints. Wyatt left for work before I woke up and was asleep when I got home from the call center out in Edgewood. He always left me something in the fridge, though, like a container of mac and cheese or ramen noodles with a note taped on it, his block print reading: If your name isn’t Ethan, don’t eat it. Maybe Bob and Bill were afraid of the way he looked under his hoodie and dark bangs because the food didn’t disappear.
Wyatt didn’t have to work at the sorting station on Friday morning. I didn’t have to go to the ACLU either. During my break at the call center that night I checked my phone.
Makayla had sent me pictures from her trip to the beach—like seeing it on Facebook hadn’t been enough, thanks. Stuck in my summer hell, I felt bitchy enough to send back The tankini was a good choice. Then, guiltily, You look adorable. I ate an apple and a bag of popcorn and was about to head back to my seat when I got a text from Wyatt.
Got a surprise waiting for you.
That sent a shivery lick over my balls. I pictured something nice and bohemianly romantic. Candles and wine on the fire escape—did we have a fire escape? Then a good long fuck. Maybe in a lukewarm shower if the B-bros were off property.
In my rush to get back to the apartment, I caught the local instead of the express and jolted along, resenting every stop that loaded more hot and sweaty people onto the bus. By the time I got into the apartment, I swore eight different strains of B.O. came with me from the bus. Along with whatever the fuck someone downstairs was cooking.
I dropped my messenger bag on one of the threadbare chairs in the main room—no one could call it a living room—and headed straight into the bathroom.
“Ethan?” Wyatt called.
I stuck my head out. “You so don’t want to smell me. Be right there.”
I’d just stepped into the spray, the blissfully cool spray, when he came in. I’d tried to get him into the shower with me when we were moving in, but he’d said he didn’t want to freak out the B-bros. Maybe the heat had gotten to him. I raised my eyebrows as I peered around the curtain.
“Bill and Bob went out.”
His hair was wet, though it looked lik
e he’d washed it instead of it being soaked with sweat. The bangs he usually used to hide his eye were behind his ear.
Fuck any candles and wine. “Mmm. Wanna join me? Help with those hard to reach areas?”
He had on a T-shirt and boxers, so I reached out to drag him in.
He shook his head, and pulled free, then tucked the bangs around his ear again.
I grabbed the soap and started scrubbing off the stink of Pittsburgh’s public transportation. “It’s the coolest room in the house.” I deepened my voice. “Wet. Slippery.” I stroked a soapy hand over my dick and let how that made me feel put a hitch in my voice. “We’d fit nice and tight in here.”
“Maybe.”
There was something in Wyatt’s voice. Almost shy, but not exactly. Wyatt wasn’t someone who talked much during sex, but he had no problem getting what he wanted. This was... I pulled the curtain back enough to study him for a clue.
He wasn’t doing his disappear-while-standing-still pose, hunched and defensive. He looked directly at me, giving me the kind of look he gave me when I finally figured out a calculus problem. It made both his eyes bright and soft at the same time.
He grabbed my chin and leaned in, letting his shirt and hair get soaked as he kissed me, hungry but quick.
“Hurry up.”
I did.
I wrapped a towel around my hips and grabbed my clothes, then prayed my bare feet skipped any roaches as I dashed through the kitchen. Our bedroom door stuck a little, but I gave it a shove and stepped into heaven.
Sweet, beautiful, air-conditioned heaven. My skin prickled with goose bumps, and my balls shrank. I totally loved it. I dropped the towel and clothes before moving toward the object of my worship where it labored in the window frame.
I put a hand out, but I was afraid to touch it. If this was a dream, I was going to be so fucking pissed off when I woke up. “Where?”
“One of the bosses at work. He lives on Squirrel Hill and they just put central air in their house. He said if I hauled it away, I could have it.”
It was an old unit, and it had to have weighed seventy pounds. “How did you get it here?”
“Talked a kid into letting me rent his scooter for thirty bucks.”
I pictured Wyatt pulling the scooter down one of the hills. At least he’d been going downhill, but still, it had to have been over a mile.
Turning and lunging for him, I clutched his shoulders. “I fucking love you. I owe you like a billion blow jobs for this.”
“Yeah, you do.” He gave a little laugh as he stared up at me.
I wasn’t sure if he meant that I loved him or that I owed him the blow jobs. “Fortunately, I also love sucking your cock.”
I kissed him. Dove into him. I held his head and inhaled him. I got buried under the sensation of lips, tongue, and whatever that amazing spark between us was that got me in the belly—and lower—every time. He was warm and the air was cold and I was happy.
“Now?” Wyatt suggested when I took my tongue out of his mouth for a second.
“Yeah. Now.”
We stripped and got on the bed. Our bed. In our room. I’d made all these plans to try to get everything right, to make us work. But every part of this summer seemed to have gone wrong. Until Wyatt dragged an air conditioner for over a mile on a scooter and turned this ten square feet into our sanctuary.
He’d taken care of me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Off balance, a little dizzy and desperate to up my game in order to match his. Because this was boyfriend on a whole other level.
I rolled onto him, holding his face in my hands. I let a little frantic gratitude out: “Thank you. Thank you.”
“There’s another way you could be using your mouth to really show your appreciation. Just saying.” He ground his dick against mine and tried to look mean, but narrowing his eyes didn’t hide a happy spark in them.
“I love you.”
His eyes widened. “I think you love the air conditioner.”
But he was the reason it was here.
I didn’t feel like kidding around anymore. I kissed him. Hard. And he kissed me back, his tongue against mine, his dick against mine, all that sweet friction making me crazy. His hand in my hair pulled me off.
“Are you growing a beard?”
I reached up to my chin. I hadn’t shaved in days, mostly because I felt lazy. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
He rubbed a thumb across the bottom of my chin, the edge of my jaw where the stubble was thickest. There was a sharp prickle above my lip too.
“It’s your face.” He dragged his nails through the tiny hairs. “But try not to slice open my balls.”
“Maybe I should fuck you then.”
“Maybe you should.”
I loved sucking cock. I loved sucking Wyatt’s cock. But I didn’t think I’d ever get over how it felt to be inside him. How his face changed and the crazy desperate sounds he made from the second I got my dick in him. Maybe it mattered so much because the rest of the time there was a barrier between him and the world—even me. But when I fucked him, the shield was gone. It was just him feeling and fucking and begging me to go harder. Not to mention his hot, tight ass felt fucking amazing on my dick.
I popped open the bin where we kept the lube and knelt between his legs. He lifted up on his elbows, shaking his hair off his face so he could watch me. His dick was hard and dark with blood against his belly. As much as I wanted in him, I needed a taste.
As I licked, my mouth watered so I had to get my lips around the head. I teased around the ridge, rocked back and forth. I wanted to fuck him, but I wanted to give him this too. Like he’d given me the air conditioner, dragged it through a city made up of hills because I was whining about being hot. I licked the rest of his shaft wet, then swallowed him in.
I heard his sharp intake of breath over the wheeze of the air conditioner.
I drew back off, lips tight, and flickered my tongue under the head until he bucked and gave me a little spurt of precome to taste.
The muscles of his thighs shivered against mine as I crouched. He panted. “Uh, I thought you were going to fuck me.”
“I got distracted.”
“By my dick.”
“Yup.” I slurped at the head.
He huffed.
I grinned at him and lubed my fingers before sliding them under his balls.
He pulled his legs up, knees wide. He definitely liked it. I liked getting fucked too, but it took me a lot longer to get there. I wondered if us switching was worth it to him when he liked this so much. As I rubbed my fingers on the hard muscle around his hole, his dick came up off his belly. I couldn’t ignore an invitation like that, and wrapped my lips around it as I slid my middle finger inside him.
Hot, slick muscle squeezed my finger, as another splash of precome bathed my tongue. I groaned and so did he. No matter what happened between us, sex was never going to be our problem. And right then I swore it could solve any damned problem. I wanted this, us, forever. Why was that so weird? My parents had met in college.
I bobbed on him as I finger-fucked him, every sound he made vibrating right to my balls.
“Wait.” He gasped, “Wait.”
I froze and lifted my head. “Out?”
“No.” He shuddered through a few breaths, his muscle clenching around me, dick shining and moving along with his rib cage. “I was close.”
“Oh.” I rubbed closed lips back and forth across the silky head, then raised my head and licked the taste off.
“Jesus, Ethan. Thought you wanted to fuck.”
“I do. But we’ve got time for another round. I know I’m planning on never leaving this room again.”
“Ethan—”
It was his calculus-tutoring voice, his we-just
-went-over-that-Ethan voice, and I cut him off. “We can just fuck and suck and come until we pass out and do it again.” I curled my finger inside him and kissed his dick. “And again,” I whispered.
His hips opened wider, head falling back, and I smiled.
“I’m going to make you forget your name.” But he wouldn’t forget mine. I imagined him chanting it like he did when he was close to coming.
He lifted his head and his eyebrows, smirking at me like he knew what I was thinking.
I shoved in a second finger and he said, “Oh God,” pretty loudly at the exact same time I heard a voice outside our door—plenty loud over the a/c.
“Holy fuck, do they ever stop?”
Wyatt jerked away from my hand with a wince.
There was a more muffled voice I couldn’t understand.
Then the first voice. “I mean, c’mon. That door is always closed.”
Because you disgusting pigs never clean the kitchen.
Wyatt’s dick softened. That was bad enough, but I could see him putting up the barricades, shutting down behind his bangs, locking me out as he pretended not to give a shit about anything.
These fuckers did not get to screw this up.
Steps came closer to the door. An exaggerated sniff. “Smells like ass.” Whichever B-bro it was gave a sneering laugh. “Don’t you think?”
That was it. I jumped up.
“Ethan, don’t.”
Don’t what? We were paying for the room, and a double share on utilities. I wasn’t putting up with that shit. I held a towel in front of my junk, yanked the door open and stepped out, closing it most of the way behind me.
Bob—I think it was Bob—took a couple steps back and bumped into the counter. Bill posed like a mannequin next to the fridge.
“You know who spends a lot of time obsessing about gay sex, dude? Gay guys and bigots. Which are you?”
Bob’s face got bright red. He stared up at me. Intimidation is not part of my skill set. I’m skinny, and the last time I was in a fight I think it was over someone ripping the head off my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. Raphael was a bad boy, and I had a major crush. There was no anthropomorphic turtle lust involved now, but I guess tall, naked and pissed off gave me a little something extra.
Relationship Status (Ethan & Wyatt) Page 3