by Roan Parrish
“Had a lot of time to think the last few days. Not sure how well I can explain it, but, back when I was newly sober, my routines, they were like a safeguard. I didn’t want downtime because downtime was dangerous time. Time I could think about wanting to escape, time I could score, time I could use, time I could be scared of doing all those things. Keeping busy helped. Then when I started sponsoring people, they took up more time. And not just time, but energy. And I could help them. That helped.”
Dane’s eyes darted around the room and landed on his bookcase. With a pinch of fear, I realized I’d have to confess my breach of privacy from the day we fought. But maybe not right this second.
“Reggie said after a while I wouldn’t need that stuff anymore. That it was training wheels. But the more it worked, the more I kept doing it. Guess it became a little…compulsive. The schedules and routines and reps and facts. Control. Trying to convince myself that it’s possible to have control over everything. But…it’s not. And trying really hard doesn’t change that. It just makes me more s-scared.”
I slipped my hand into his and felt the tremble in his fingers.
“So I’ve been thinking about taking a step back.”
He was holding himself very still, but I thought he wasn’t quite frozen.
“Yeah?”
“Whitman noticed, even. Just…shit gets to me now. More than before.” He frowned. “Never really meant to be…like this. I took on one sponsor and then one became two. Two became more. And one morning I woke up and looked around and there were all these people depending on me. And I figured that was just how things were. But now…”
He shook his head.
“It’s like a door opened or something. Everything that used to stay on the outside hits me real hard these days.”
He sounded so confused by that. Like the reemergence of his feelings after years of numbness was a surprising betrayal. Then he leaned and bumped my shoulder with his.
“Not all bad, though,” he said shyly, and my heart soared.
“I hit you hard?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, Felix,” he said. “You have no idea.”
I swallowed hard.
“Um. So. Taking a step back. You’re going to, you think?”
“Already did. We’ll see…”
“You can always do more,” I said quickly.
He nodded again, looking a little lost.
“Are you…okay? Do you feel…How do you feel?”
“Guilty,” he said. “Because I know I could be doing more and I’m choosing not to.”
“Yeah, but, doing more before was hurting you.”
He just stared at me, like that was an insignificant point.
“Listen, I have to tell you something. I think, uh, you’ll probably be mad.”
“Felix,” he said slowly. “Are you scared of me?”
“What? No! Why?”
“You keep saying I’m going to be mad or trying to see how mad I am. No matter how mad I got at you, I’d never hurt you.”
“No, God, sorry. I know. I mean, I’m not scared of you scared of you. I’m…I don’t like people to be mad at me. And I don’t want you to…not want to be with me when we were doing so good with this conversation.”
He brushed fingers over the tangled ends of my hair.
“I want to be with you,” he said simply.
“Okay, good. Um. IdidaterriblethingandlookedatyourjournalsImsorry!”
“Uh. Pardon?”
“Oh God. I, uh. After you left. The other day. I got all—you know. And I was…I found your journals and I looked in them, okay? I’m sorry.”
I had squeezed my eyes shut at some point, and now I cracked one open just enough to see Dane’s face.
But he didn’t look mad. He looked embarrassed.
“Oh.” He ran his hand through his nonexistent hair.
“Yeah. I was…” I cringed. “I was looking for something you’d written about me. ’Cuz I felt like you didn’t care and I was hoping maybe you’d, like, secretly written love letters to me or something? Oh God, I’m so mortified. I’m really sorry.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t keep a journal. I just…when I can’t sleep, sometimes I copy things. Calms me down, I guess.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
“Dane, I’m sorry. Are you upset that I snooped? You should be. Of course you are.”
Now he looked at me, vaguely exasperated.
“Felix. Stop telling me how I should feel. I know I’m not that good at expressing my feelings,” he added sheepishly. “But I assure you I have my own.”
“ ’Course, right, sorry.”
“The journals aren’t a secret. Just a little embarrassing.”
He paused and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find a love letter. Fuck, I wish you had. I’m so sorry I let you think I didn’t…didn’t care about you when I do.”
His eyes opened, and I could see all the words he couldn’t say.
“I do, Felix.”
“You promise?” I whispered.
“I fucking swear,” he breathed.
“Me too,” I said. “Damn, we’re doing a really good job with this whole talking thing.”
Dane chuckled.
“Also, can I just say,” I went on. “Like as a conclusion to my apology. The other day, I was…insecure. And sad. And I just wanted to be with you. But you had an obligation and you honored it, and I respect that. I really want you to know that I respect the work you do. Or don’t do. Anyway, I wish I could’ve been a little less, um…bratty. And I wish you could have told me we’d talk later instead of just leaving.”
“Me too.”
I smiled.
“You don’t like when I’m bratty?” I teased.
His lip twitched.
“Well. Actually…”
I slid into his lap and put my hands on his shoulders. I was pretty sure this conversation was about to be extremely over.
“Actually…?”
“Not, uh, in that context, no. But I really—” He slid a hand up my spine and cupped the nape of my neck. I shivered. “Really.” He stroked the sensitive skin there with his thumb and a shudder of lust ran down my spine. “Really like it when you tell me what you want.” He leaned in close and spoke next to my ear. “When you tell me what to do.” In my other ear: “When you beg for it.”
“Oh God.”
I was instantly hard and wanting. I’d never gotten turned on so fast in my life.
“Dane, I—please, I—”
I pressed my erection against his stomach and whined.
“What, sweetheart? What do you want?”
“I want you, I—”
“Want me to what?” he purred in my ear.
“Want you to fuck me. Please.”
I rocked against him, wanting nothing more than to lose myself in the closeness and pleasure of his arms, his body, his cock. To feel that even though we had a lot more to figure out, we were okay. To take care of each other, since we both needed to get back some of the care we gave.
Dane held me still and kissed my neck and I shuddered. His lips trailed fire up to my ear and along my jaw, and when he took my mouth in a bruising kiss I shook in his arms. All the stress and worry of the days since our fight—I wanted to let it all go.
“I want—ungh! I want…Can you…”
“What?”
“Will you…hold me down? Tight. So I feel like…there’s no space between us.”
Dane’s eyes flashed with heat and I was swept into his arms as though I weighed nothing. He carried me into the bedroom and pressed me to the bed, stripping our clothes off as he kept o
ur bodies as close together as possible. Every time I shifted, a new part of me made contact with him.
He hesitated for a moment with his shirt, but I tugged it off and kissed the scribbles of marker. I kissed up to his nipples and bit at them lightly, until he groaned and pressed me back down again, with nothing between us.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he said against my skin.
“You are.”
I traced his gorgeous muscles with my fingertips, feeling them tense and bunch. His skin was incredibly sensitive, like he had been so starved for touch that even the slightest brush of my fingers or lips made him shiver.
Dane groaned into my shoulder as his thick erection dragged against the crook of my thigh, hot and slick.
“Want you,” he said. “Want you so fucking bad.”
“Please, please. I don’t wanna wait.”
He fumbled for the lube and slicked his cock, then slid two fingers inside me. The intrusion was thick and fast and made me strain and clench around him, desperate for more.
“Okay?” Dane asked gently. I pulled him down and kissed him as his fingers moved inside me.
I relaxed around him as the fullness turned to a teasing stroking that sent fire licking my every nerve ending. I wanted us to be joined so close I would feel him inside me forever, to be locked together, us against everything.
“Inside me, please,” I gasped.
Worry furrowed his brow and I begged him with my body, clenching around his fingers until his hips jerked.
He added more lube and laid himself over me, braced on his powerful forearms.
“Keep looking at me,” I whispered, and his eyelashes fluttered.
His thick cock pressed slowly inside me, the sting giving way to a deep, full pressure that had me writhing. It was too much and not enough, and we were so close I could hardly breathe. Dane’s eyes blazed and his arms shook from moving so slowly.
I rolled my hips up and wiggled into a better position, thighs around his hips, and he slid the rest of the way inside. We both cried out and I locked my legs around him, keeping him deep inside me.
“Fuuuck,” he groaned.
“Stay, stay,” I begged.
I could feel the weight of his hips and thighs, the heat coming off his chest, the press of his arms on the bed. I wanted to pay attention to every single thing about him. I looked deep in his eyes and slowly clenched around him. His hips jerked, and he groaned. I shuddered as liquid pleasure curled inside me. I did it again and again until we were both panting. I could feel him swell inside me and his composure broke.
He dragged me against him and began thrusting in deep, muscular drags that had me shaking and clutching at his back. He pressed my knees up until I arched my back, and when he sank into me it took me apart.
“Oh, God, Dane, please, please,” I babbled.
Every muscle strained and I shivered. Dane fucked me hard and deep, and added a wicked grind of his hips when he was as deep inside me as he could get. When he pressed closer and curled a hand around my leaking erection, pleasure blasted through me.
He kissed my neck as I screamed out my orgasm. Jolts of shuddering pleasure tightened everything as I exploded again and again.
“Fuck, sweetheart, Jesus,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to mine as I whimpered through the lingering tendrils of my orgasm. I clenched my ass around him, and another shiver of pleasure shook me. Dane let out a choked sound and started to fuck me again. He bent me nearly in half and pounded into me, roaring as he came.
Heat blasted through me, and I shook in his arms as he lost himself to his pleasure.
We melted together, after, kissed slow and sweet. I winced when he pulled out and he slid two fingers inside me to soothe the sting, stroking gently at my hole until I was jelly on the bed, moaning. He cleaned my spent cock with his mouth, licking and sucking me so gently I wanted to cry.
Finally, I pushed him onto his back and kissed him softly.
“Stay here.”
In the bathroom, I got a wet washcloth and, after a moment of hesitation, grabbed the Sharpie Dane kept in the toothbrush holder. It had gotten a lot of use lately. I was going to give it a little bit more.
I’d been reading about Frank Herbert on the bus home from Baltimore. It made sense to me that he’d be one of Dane’s favorite authors.
He looked up as soon as I came out of the bathroom, fear naked on his face. When he saw the washcloth, he relaxed back onto the bed.
“You okay?” I murmured, cleaning him off.
His eyes went soft and unfocused at my touch. He nodded.
“You?”
“Yeah, I’m great.”
I kissed him again and tossed the washcloth into the laundry hamper. Then I eased back onto the bed beside him, palm flat on his chest to keep him from sitting up. I held up the Sharpie and he looked away.
“Can I…give you a different quote?”
He bit his lip but nodded. I straddled him and his hands came up to steady me at the hips. I kissed his chest and stomach, then I wrote the quote I’d liked so much when I read it on the bus.
There’s hope left in these dusty chords. There’s a song left in our rusty hearts. We are torn and frayed but love remains.
“That’s…that’s Frank Herbert,” he said when I capped the marker and put it aside, voice a low scratch.
“Yeah. But it’s also me. I…I know it hasn’t been that long. I know we still have a lot to talk about. But I love you, Dane. I love spending time with you. I feel better when I’m around you than I feel anywhere else. I want to cook with you and listen to podcasts with you and do all those things that you do when you’re…” I stopped myself from saying a thing. “When you’re together. Like, really together. I want to figure things out together.”
“Together,” he murmured, like it was the key to a lock he’d stared at for years.
He pulled me to his chest so hard I nearly cracked my nose on his chin, and his arms came around me, holding me tight.
“Felix,” he said, voice choked. “Sweetheart.”
He squeezed me and wouldn’t let me go. He didn’t have to say anything else.
“I got you,” I told him. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Chapter 15
Huey
I dreamt I was in a cocoon of warmth and woke with Felix sleeping directly on top of me, naked, thighs splayed and tangled hair tickling my neck. I stroked up and down his smooth back and he made sleepy sounds of pleasure against my shoulder. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to make him come so hard he screamed again or savor the comfort of waking up slowly, skin to skin.
Watching Felix come was the hottest thing I’d ever seen in my life. His abandon, his need, the way he didn’t try to hide how affected he was. Scorching hot. Add to that the way his big brown eyes squeezed shut when he threw his head back and screamed his release, and I wanted to make him come over and over again.
But then he made a little snuffling sound and hooked his chin over my shoulder and all I wanted was to lie here with him forever.
Last night I had been so overwhelmed—by the amazing sex, by the words he wrote, by the things he said—that all I’d been able to do was clutch at him. But now…
I let my fingers drift up to his scalp, scratching softly in his hair. He nuzzled into me and my heart was so full I could hardly think. I could sense I was starting to get overloaded, so I just kept petting him, loving the feel of his smooth skin and soft hair. I let my hand go lower and lower, until I stroked all the way from his scalp to the swell of his ass.
He squirmed closer and I felt his cock start to fill.
“Felix,” I murmured, so softly it was only breath.
“Mmm?”
“I love you.”
Saying the wo
rds shattered me nearly as much as hearing them had. I’d only said them to two other people. One of them had died when I was twelve and the other had been destroyed by her death.
“Hmm?”
I smiled. It felt like my heart had swelled to twice its natural size.
“I love you.”
“Sayngn.”
“What, sweetheart?”
He curled around me, awake now.
“Say it again.”
“Felix, I love you.”
My voice sounded frayed from sleep and emotion, but I felt more alive than I ever had.
“Dane, I love you,” he murmured into my neck. “Love you.”
We both fell back asleep with murmurs of love on our lips.
* * *
—
Something had changed. I felt both lighter and more substantial. That week, Felix stayed over nearly every night, and little by little we sank into what it might feel like to be together the way Felix said he wanted. The way I was learning I wanted too.
“Hey!” Johi called as I came into the bar. “I put together a new cocktail to try and use up all that pineapple juice we got by mistake. It’s like a jalapeño pineapple margarita kind of thing. Can I make it a special tonight?”
Johi stood, perfectly comfortable, the bar her domain. I studied her. She was responsible, she took initiative, the other bartenders liked her and so did the customers.
“You like working here?” I asked.
A nervous look flickered across her face.
“Am I doing something wrong, boss?”
“Nope.”
“Uh, well, yeah, I love working here. You know that.”
“Ever be interested in taking on more of the business side of things?”
She narrowed her eyes, expression sharp.
“You mean like making up new cocktails to account for excess stock and instituting karaoke nights? That kind of thing?”
I snorted. “That and more. Look, I fell into running this place. You’re better than I am at the idea side of things. You’re younger. You know what customers want. You enjoy it. Might be good for both of us. Just think about it.”
“I don’t have to think about it. You’re offering, I’m accepting. As long as the money’s fair.”