by Roan Parrish
He collapsed on top of me, hips circling slowly as he came down, groaning. I held him tight and clenched around his softening erection.
He surged inside me again, slick and hot.
“Fuuuck,” he moaned when I did it again.
I just wanted us to stay connected, and I used my body to keep him inside me a few more minutes. We kissed lazily, and he stroked my hair back from my face. When he finally slipped from me, wet heat leaking from my hole, we both moaned, hands searching for warm skin.
“Oh my God,” I moaned, nuzzling into his chest.
Dane rolled us so I was on top of him, and clutched me tight to his chest, burying his face in my neck and holding tight to me.
“You okay, baby?” I murmured sleepily.
He nodded.
“I’d forgotten,” he mumbled.
“Hmm?”
“I forgot how different it is. From jerking off.”
I remembered his awkward comment on our first date and smiled.
“Better, I hope?”
I leaned back a little so I could see his face and was shocked by what I saw. He looked so vulnerable, so uncertain. I cupped his cheek.
He shook his head.
“Not better?” I teased gently. But he wasn’t smiling.
“I write things. On my body. Things to remember. To hold onto.”
I nodded, sliding a hand to his stomach.
“Is this a Frank Herbert quote?”
He nodded.
Seek discipline and find your liberty, it had said.
“You make me want to…” He broke off, biting his lip.
“What?” I took his hand in mine and squeezed.
“I forgot what it was like to touch another person,” he choked out. “To make someone else feel good. To…be close. I—”
He shook his head again and pulled me back down on his chest. I could feel him trembling, feel his heart pounding against mine.
“Will you stay?” he whispered, arms so tight around me that I couldn’t actually have left if I’d wanted to.
“Yes,” I said immediately. “Yeah, baby, I want to stay.”
Chapter 7
Huey
“Uh, you okay, dude?” asked Morgan, my sponsee. We were in a booth at the Starlight Diner, fresh from a meeting. Morgan was nursing a plate of soggy fries and I was picking at a turkey sandwich that was curling disturbingly at the edges.
“Yup.”
“You sure? You seem a little…”
Their gesture could’ve meant anything from distracted, which was true, to in need of a sponsor yourself, which was not.
During the meeting, as I listened to people talking, thoughts of Felix kept slipping through. The bow of his back as he’d arched in pleasure, the desperate clutch of his hand, the softness of his neck, the murmurs and hitched breaths and gasps and the eventual throaty cry.
I nodded, focusing my attention on Morgan.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“No, actually I meant you seem kinda…” They cocked their head, like what they were considering was implausible. “Uh, like…a little bit happy?”
I blinked at them.
“Okay, never mind, now it’s gone,” they said quickly. “Jesus, eat a fry or something, wouldja? Your healthiness makes me wanna die.”
“Those fries look disgusting.”
“Yeah.” They sighed, slumping into the booth. “They kinda are.”
“The food here certainly leaves something to be desired.”
They snorted. “Ya think?”
Once I’d gotten them smiling, I turned us to why we were here: to make Morgan a check-in plan with me and their younger sister, who was game to help them get sober.
“Tell me about Helen and how this will work.”
Morgan looked exhausted.
“I think…maybe because Helen’s younger, she looked up to me, thought I had my shit together. So now she wants to help make that true, ya know? Like, she cares about helping me, I know she does. But people really want the shit they think about people to be true, ya know?” They shrugged. “Whatever, doesn’t matter why, I guess. Anyway, yeah, she’s down to be a support for me. She works nights, that’s the only thing. Which is when I…ya know.”
I nodded. The nights were the worst for so many of us. Dark and quiet, leaving us unwatched and unneeded for hour upon hour.
“You’ve got me for when Helen’s not available and Helen for when I’m not,” I assured Morgan.
“Thanks. I know. I just feel like such a fucking drain, you know? Like, who the fuck am I to take up all these people’s time and attention and—” They shook their head and poked at the congealing fries. “Probably not really worth it.”
“Morgan.”
They made a frustrated noise and kept their eyes firmly on the fries.
I knew this feeling as well as I knew the ceiling above my bed, having spent hundreds of hours contemplating both. The conviction that the world would be better off without someone who seemed to take and take and never give.
“Morgan,” I said again. “You are worth it. You’re worth people’s time and attention.” A shrug. “Not sure? Then commit to making yourself worth it.”
They looked up. “How?”
“Give something back. Help the world. Help your family. Help a stranger. For every hour that someone gives you, give an hour to someone else.”
Morgan’s eyes got wide. “Fuck ton of hours.”
I nodded.
“Is that what you do, then? That why you do this? Help all of us?”
I nodded.
Morgan looked down and pulled their hood up.
“So you don’t really…care about us. You’re just, like, doing your pay-it-forward community service?”
“Nope. It’s both. It’s always both. Helping helps; it also feels good. Feels useful. Like I matter a little. Like I’m proving the people who helped me right. Making the time they spent helping me worth it.”
“Okay. Yeah, I get it.”
I signaled the waiter and ordered Morgan some new fries, and then we got to work.
* * *
—
As I walked home from the diner I returned a missed call from Caleb, the one sponsee who had transitioned to a friend.
“Huey, thank God,” Caleb answered. “Theo was trying to make me take pictures with the damn dog.”
He was grumbling, but I knew he’d gladly take any number of pictures with the dog if it’d make Theo happy.
“Send me one,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah. How are you?”
Whitman knew I wasn’t much for idle chatting, so I assumed he’d called for a reason.
“Fine. How are you?”
I heard a door close and the sound of barking receded.
“I’m good, man. Really good.”
“I’m glad, Whitman.”
“Yeah, thanks. I had a weird thing last week. I had a doctor’s appointment. Just a checkup. And they had to take blood for testing. And the nurse was new, nervous. She was jabbing me all over the place and her face was getting redder and redder. And I…I took the needle from her and I did it myself.”
There was a long pause.
“It was the first time I’d held a needle in…a long time. But my fingers still remembered everything. The angle, the pressure. It was…I don’t know.”
“You should’ve called me, Whit,” I said gently.
“No, I know. But…that’s the thing. I was okay. Well, I was embarrassed at the time ’cuz this nurse looked at me like a freak. But after…I came right home. Theo was in the garden and I saw him and he smiled at me and I just…I was okay. I worked out there for a while. For a
long time. Theo could tell I was a little off but then, by the evening…yeah. I was okay.”
“Proud of you, Whitman. That’s real good.”
“Yeah, thanks. Me too.” Then he called, “What? Oh, yeah. Theo wants me to tell you that Riven ended up hiring that woman who sang karaoke at your place. Uh, Sonia…something?”
“Sofia Rainey,” I corrected absently.
“Right. Wait, how’d you know that?”
I rolled my eyes at myself.
“I was there. At the bar. And I saw the announcement.” All true.
“Aw, Huey, were you checking up on Riven because of Theo? He’ll be very touched that you care.” Whitman said this loudly so Theo would hear.
I heard a muffled shout and then Theo’s voice near the phone.
“ ’Cuz her brother was giving him eyes.”
“Oh really?” Caleb said. “That true, Huey? Did her brother put the moves on you?”
He was teasing, fully expecting me to dismiss this. I sighed.
“Yup.”
“Wait, really?” Whitman said.
“I just said that!” Theo called.
“Well, I hope you let him down easy, bro. Remember that girl whose heart you broke at the bookstore?”
I said nothing.
“Huey?”
“I…well.”
“Gimme the— Here, put it on— Okay, hi, Huey, you’re on speaker,” Theo chirped. “I told him. Cute bro was all googly-eyes looking at you.”
“Huey.” Whitman again. “Were you mean to him?”
“No! I’m not mean,” I snapped.
“Of course not,” Theo soothed. “You’re just, um, what’s the word? Like, kinda…”
“Brusque,” Caleb said at the same time Theo found, “Blunt.”
“I didn’t let him down easy because I didn’t let him down,” I said to shut them up.
“Wait, what!?”
I immediately regretted my choice.
“So you, um, got with him?” Whitman said reluctantly.
“Oh my God, no one says got with—how old are you?” Theo teased.
I cursed my honesty for the thousandth time.
“I’m…seeing him,” I managed to choke out.
“Seriously? Holy shit, man, tell me everything!” Whitman said.
I grunted.
“Tell us something at least,” Theo amended.
I wanted to hang up the phone.
“Huey?” Whitman’s voice was more even now. “Sorry, bro, I didn’t mean to be all whatever about it. It’s just I’ve never heard you mention dating anyone in all the time I’ve known you. You’ve always been real private about it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Huh, really? I seriously can’t remember you ever mentioning anyone.”
“I haven’t been private. I haven’t.”
“Haven’t—ohhhh, okay, gotcha.”
His voice was gentle and I let out a sigh of relief. I should’ve known Caleb of all people wouldn’t judge me for not being with anyone. He of all people knew the risk. Hell, he’d called me in a panic about falling for Theo a number of times.
“So what’s he like?”
Since it was only Caleb now, I figured he’d sensed my discomfort talking about this and kicked Theo out of the room. Of course he’d tell him everything later, but I appreciated the gesture.
“He’s…” I shook my head. “Young. Too young, probably.”
“What’s too young?”
“Twenty-five.”
He snorted. “I meant that philosophically, not literally.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Huey? What does that mean?”
He’s vivid and new and has his whole life ahead of him and I’m a brittle, used-up structure standing in sheer stubborn persistence.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“So come on, what’s he like, then?”
“Sweet. So damn sweet. And he feels shit real hard. He’s…genuine.”
“Oh man, that sounds kinda like Theo. My kryptonite.”
I swallowed hard. Caleb knew. He knew how sometimes someone else’s emotions could leak into your own. How that person’s needs and desires could make you do things you might not otherwise choose to do. Which, for an addict, was frighteningly close to things we tried to avoid.
I didn’t talk about this shit with Whit. It had always been the other way around.
“Feel your feelings, Huey.”
I snorted. I’d said it to him a hundred times.
He makes me feel alive. Like I’ve been asleep this whole time. Frozen. Just marking time. He makes me feel like I could have more. But I can’t risk it.
“He’s…I…”
Caleb let me off the hook.
“Listen, man. If you like him, then that’s great. You’re so generous to me, to us. And so damn stingy with yourself. You deserve something that makes you happy.”
I grumbled something indistinct.
“You’ve gotta trust yourself a little bit. Trust yourself the way you’ve told me to trust myself. It’s not good to be afraid forever.”
“ ’M not afraid,” I said instinctually.
“Okay,” Whitman soothed. “You’re not afraid. Sure.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, and he chuckled.
“Nothing wrong with being afraid, man. God knows we’ve all been there. You remember how shit terrified I was that falling in love with Theo meant I’d become addicted to him and shit?”
“Yeah.”
“You told me that only I could know if my relationship with Theo was a good thing or a dangerous thing. And that if it was good, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be scary as fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“And you told me that I had to trust myself, otherwise what was the point of being sober and having another chance.”
“Yeah.”
“You gonna say anything besides ‘yeah’?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed. “Asshole.”
“Yeah.” He stayed on the line with me. “Thanks, kid. I needed that.”
“They’re your words, Huey. You already know these things.”
“Easier to tell your ass to do it than to do it myself, though.”
“Yup. Yeah, I like this side of things. Maybe I should be a sponsor.”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. You don’t have the patience.”
A huge part of being a sponsor was watching people make mistake after mistake and have to start over, from farther down each time, just like I’d watched Caleb do. It was being patient and keeping hopeful that this time would be the time it’d stick. It was a heartbreaker a lot of the time. Caleb would hate to think it about himself, but he wouldn’t be able to stand watching people fail. It would hurt him too much.
It was part of why I had to be impervious.
“Shit, that’s probably true,” he said. “Listen, want me to come hang for a couple days? I could crash on your couch, make fun of your complete lack of creature comforts, play guitar while you’re trying to sleep? Total package.”
I chuckled.
“Nah, I’m all right.”
“You wanna come here for a bit? You can play with Solo.”
Theo was utterly in love with Solo and he and the dog were inseparable. But it meant that when Theo left the house, Solo was devastated.
“No, but thanks.”
“Don’t wanna leave your man?” Whit teased.
“Shut up.”
“We’re still on for dinner next week, though, right? You can borrow a car?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, you should bring Felix. I wann
a meet him.”
“Hmm. Maybe. But, Whit,” I said sternly.
“Yes, dear?”
“If he comes, you…just go easy on him.”
“Damn, man,” he said.
I didn’t have it in me to ask what he meant.
* * *
—
Two days later, as I was about to shower before Felix came over, I got an incoherent call from Helen, Morgan’s sister, saying that their mom was back in the hospital and she had to go to work and Morgan needed me. She was crying and rambling, and I couldn’t get any details out of her. I promised I would take care of it.
My stomach was tight when I called Felix.
“Hey!” he answered. “I’ll be there soon. Need me to pick anything up?” I could hear the city in the background.
“I’m sorry to do this. A sponsee needs me.”
There was a pause and the noise coalesced.
“Oh. Okay. Should I wait a bit? Or, sorry, you’re cancelling.”
I pressed my palm against my stomach, hard.
“I’m really sorry, Felix. Not sure how long this will take.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“Sorry,” I said again. Felix sighed.
“Okay, well. I hope your sponsee’s okay.” A siren on his end of the call; a child crying. “Um. Are we still on for Saturday?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Absolutely.”
“What if another sponsee needs you?”
He didn’t sound bitter; he sounded dejected.
“They won’t.”
He sighed.
“They might.”
“Saturday,” I said. “I’ve gotta go.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
* * *
—
Saturday we left early. Felix had the day off and I was taking him to Coney Island. He’d said he took me to the Museum of Natural History, which was his favorite place, so he wanted me to take him to mine. He’d never been.
He listed sleepily against my shoulder on the subway as the city gave way. When we disembarked, the smell of the ocean was in the air. In late September the beach wasn’t crowded, but there were plenty of people on the boardwalk and among the amusements.