by J. M. Lamp
“I thought you were driving here yourself?” I say.
“I did,” he says. “She just so happened to be here when I got here.”
“Just tell me,” I say. “If it happens, don’t keep it a secret. If you’re going to see my best friend then I’d like to know about it.”
“I promise you, Cod,” he says, “I’m not going to try to get with Carrie.”
“What are we whispering about?” Carrie says, making her way into the living room and sitting down on one of the recliners.
“Nothing,” I say. “You look nice.”
“Thank you, friend,” she says. “I’m glad you guys invited me. I’ve wanted to meet the rest of your friends and I wanted to see Hadley again. I have your gift in the car, by the way.”
“Yours is at the apartment,” I say.
“I know,” she says, “I saw it on the table before I left.”
“Here you go,” Hadley says, handing Carrie a glass of wine. “What are we talking about?”
“Cody was just getting ready to talk about the fact that him and Ethan are planning on buying a house together.”
I look over at Carrie and my eyes grow wide.
“How in the hell do you know about that?” I ask her.
“Ethan talked to me about it last night when you went to bed,” she says. “He wanted to make sure that I was OK with it because we’ve lived together for so long. He doesn’t want to take you away from me. It was really cute, honestly. I think it’s great, by the way.”
“Does this mean—“
“No,” I say, cutting Hadley off. “No marriage or anything. Ethan just wants to move into a bigger place.”
“Good,” Hadley says. “Now I’ll have more room in my storage stall. You probably don’t know this about him, Cody, but he’s a hoarder. Almost everything in my storage stall is his. It’s ridiculous.”
“I did not know that, actually,” I say, laughing.
“He has good taste, though,” Hadley says. “That makes up for it. Besides all of the old looking junk.”
“Talking about me?” Ethan says, wrapping his arm around Hadley’s shoulders. He makes his way over to me and sits on my lap.
“Of course,” I say.
“How’s Nathan doing?” he says. “Haven’t seen you since you saved my life.”
“I’m good,” he says, smiling. “Glad you guys are doing good with it all.”
“Getting there,” Ethan says.
I look into the kitchen and see Ethan’s mom laughing. Will is telling her something as she mashes potatoes and she brings her hand to her chest as she continues to laugh.
“Is Ian not coming?” I ask Hadley.
“He wasn’t feeling good,” she says. “He’s been sick all week.”
“That sucks,” I say to her.
“Yeah,” she says. “He’ll be alright, though.”
“Do you realize how cold it’s going to be next week when you two get married?” Ethan says to Elliot as he walks in the room.
“The thought, actually, didn’t cross my mind until the other day when we were talking to Sam about marrying us.”
“Sam is marrying you?” Ethan says.
“Certified and everything,” Sam says, sneaking up behind me into the living room. “The power of the internet.”
“Food’s ready,” Will yells from the kitchen.
***
“I just can’t see Ethan as a relaxed child,” Elliot says to Ethan’s mom across the table.
“He was,” she says, “I swear. He was always keeping to himself with his computer stuff and his picture taking. Hadley was the wild one.”
“What?” Elliot says, laughing.
Hadley rolls her eyes and says, “I Just had a few boyfriends.”
“She was a whore,” Ethan says.
“Basically,” she says, laughing. “I didn’t end up pregnant or with any diseases, though, so whatever. I had fun and that’s what mattered.”
“And so did everyone else at our high school,” Ethan says, smiling.
Hadley throws a roll across the table at him and everyone starts laughing.
“So,” Carrie says, “how long have you guys been engaged?”
“Seven months or so,” Will says. “I proposed before we went over to London and we are just now getting the time to go through with it.”
“That’s exciting,” she says, smiling.
“It really is great,” Ethan says. “That you guys are finally going through with it, I mean. It’s about time.”
“There’s a house up for sale down the block, by the way,” Elliot says, looking from Ethan to me.
“We’re not going to look until after we get back from the beach,” Ethan says. “But thank you. How do you even know about that?”
“I heard you guys talking in there,” Elliot says. “I think it’s awesome. Houses are way better than apartments.”
“You can have big parties like this one in houses,” Will says.
“And kids,” Elliot says. He looks over at Will and smiles.
“Jesus,” Ethan says, “don’t tell me you’re already planning on kids?”
“We’re thinking about it,” Will says. “Nothing serious, though.”
“It won’t be until late next year,” Elliot says. “I have a lot going on with the new publishing house and Will’s organization is getting bigger every day.”
“So, basically, we have a year to enjoy you before you have kids and can’t play anymore?” Ethan says.
“Basically,” Elliot says, laughing.
“I gotta go, guys,” Sam says, getting up from the table and putting his jacket on. “Last minute edits on some design work for a new game coming out soon.”
“I have to go, too,” Hadley says.
“Why?” Ethan says.
“Because I do,” she says.
“I can take mom home,” he says. “Unless she wants to leave now.”
“I’m fine with staying longer,” his mom says, smiling.
“Thanks for everything, you guys,” Hadley says.
We wave them off and everyone starts cleaning everything up. I help Elliot clean off the plates, while Ethan, his mom, and Will go into the living room with the others.
“You guys seem to be holding up good,” Elliot says to me.
“It’s been hard,” I say, looking back into the living room at Ethan. “For him, mostly. I’m just trying to help him through it.”
“I know you already know this,” he says, “but Ethan loves you more than he loves anyone else in this world. I, honestly, never thought he would find someone again after Rick. I know this, probably, sounds terrible, but I’m glad that son of a bitch is dead.”
“I didn’t realize how bad it must have been until I had a knife to my throat,” I say.
“He’s gone now,” he says. “I’m just glad he has you. He’s a different person, now, and every change I’ve seen in him has been a good one.”
***
It’s the day of the wedding and Ethan already has me exhausted.
“I just want to look decent, Cody,” he says. He throws his tie on the bed and picks up a different one.
“You look fine,” I say, already dressed and ready to go for an hour now. “We’re going to be late.”
“Fine,” he says.
We get to the car and I wait while Ethan checks himself in the rearview mirror.
“I can only imagine our wedding,” I say.
He glares at me and says, “There will never be one if you don’t let me do my thing.”
“Fine,” I say, throwing my hands out in front of me. I laugh as he starts the car and pulls out onto the road.
***
The sidewalk is, basically, blocked off with several chairs when we pull in along the road and make our way over to where everyone has gathered.
“Why couldn’t it be in a church or a barn like normal people?” Ethan says to me.
“It means something to them,” I say, smiling.
“We could do that.”
“When the day comes that we are ready for the m-word,” he says, “we won’t be doing it in a hospital.”
I laugh and kiss him on the forehead as I sit down beside his sister and he makes his way over to Elliot and Will.
“I figured you guys would have been one of the first ones here,” she says.
“See his outfit?” I say, pointing over to Ethan. “It took him an hour and a half to decide on the tie for it.”
She laughs, rolls her eyes and says, “He amazes me sometimes. When are you guys leaving to go down south?”
“Tomorrow morning,” I say. “I’ve never been to the beach, so, I’m a tad excited.”
“I’ve seen pictures of the house, but haven’t went down yet. With work and everything, I haven’t had time to really think about it.”
“Going to go down with Ian?” I say, smirking.
“Maybe,” she says, laughing. “He’s a nice guy. We’re still just taking it easy, but I don’t know, I think things are going well.”
“I can say this,” I say, “I’ve never seen him have a smile on his face as much as he does when he’s with you.”
“This has to be the weirdest wedding I’ve ever seen,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “It’s sweet, though. This place is that special to them that they’ve chose to get married here.”
They both say I do and, as we get up to clap, I look over at Ethan who looks from them to me. His smile glistens as everything around him seems to fade and the only thing the light shines on is him and his beautiful smile.
***
“Is that all you’re drinking?” Elliot says, making his way over to me at Gregor’s Pub.
“Someone has to not be hung-over tomorrow,” I say.
“True,” he says. We look over towards the jukebox where Ethan and Sam are rocking back and forth. Ethan lifts his beer to his mouth and smiles as Sam puts a dollar in the machine.
“You two are next,” Elliot says.
I look at him and shake my head back and forth. “I don’t think we’re there yet,” I say.
“You’ll know when you guys are ready,” he says. “Will and I weren’t even together a year, but I knew.”
I look over at the bar where Hadley and Ian are sitting and laughing.
“Well,” Elliot says, “they may have you beat. I’m gonna go find Will.”
“Congratulations, again, man,” I say, holding my hand out to him.
“Thanks, Cody,” he says.
“Hey, friend,” I hear to my left as Elliot makes his way over to Will. I look over and see Carrie who’s dressed in scrubs with her hair up in a bun. “I’m a little underdressed.”
“You look fine,” I say.
“How was the wedding?”
“Great,” I say, looking over towards Ethan. “Really cold, but really nice.”
“Ethan looks gorgeous,” she says.
“He spent all morning on himself,” I say.
“You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I was going to ask you, would you want to fly down with us? I know you still have some time before school starts and you could get away.”
“I would love that,” she says, smiling. “I need a break from the hospital, anyway, and they just hired all those new nurses. Ok, well, I just stopped by to see you guys, so I’m going to go say a quick hello and then go pack.”
“Bye,” I say, hugging her.
Ethan makes his way over to me and stands between my thighs.
“Hi, boyfriend,” he says. “You ask her?”
“She said yes.”
“Awesome!” he says. “This is going to be fun.”
“And cold, probably.”
“That’s OK,” he says. “We can always go back whenever the hell we want.”
“Today was really nice,” I say, wrapping my hands around his waist.
“Yes,” he says, taking a drink of his beer. “This love thing is pretty great. I’m about ready.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “I really just want to go home and be with you right now.”
Epilogue
Ethan
“W E PICKED AN AWFUL time to come here,” I say, looking over at Cody.
“It’s still nice, though,” he says.
“But we can’t swim.”
“We would get eaten by something, anyway,” he says, grinning.
Me make our way out of the house and down the sandy, wood-laden path that ends close to the water. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and I lock my fingers with his, bringing them close to my heart. We walk along the edge of the beach and I pick up every shell I find.
“We should’ve brought a bigger bucket,” Cody says.
“We will tomorrow.”
“Only a few days left,” he says. “I don’t really even want to go back.”
“Me either,” I say. “We could just move down here.”
“What about our future house in Chicago?” he says.
“We could have both,” I say, laughing. “We can have whatever we want.”
“I don’t need anything else,” he says. “Everything I want is right beside me.”
“There it goes again.”
“What?” he says.
“Me wanting to jump on top of you, right this minute, and fuck your brains out.”
“I wonder if Carrie is still out shopping?” he says.
“Let’s go find out.”
***
Cody slams me into the screen-glass door when we make it back to the house. I can feel my cock jump as he sticks his hand down my pants and bites my bottom lip. He lifts me up and I lock my legs around his waist as we move inside and onto the couch.
The leather is cool against my back as I lie back on the couch, taking my shirt off and throwing it across the room. He runs his hands down my stomach and palms my cock. It surges in his hand as he jerks it back and forth. I kick my pants and underwear to the side as he does the same with his and he instantly pulls me in closer to him, his cock poking into me when he does.
I look down and he lathers his cock with spit, moving it up and down along the middle of my ass. My eyes slowly close as he shoves himself into me and then, slowly, pulls back out.
“That feels so good,” I say.
He pounds into me a few times and repositions himself so he can shove deeper into me. With each thrust, his moans grow louder and his grip on my hips get tighter. He goes to move again and I sit up, pushing him against the couch. I sit on top of his lap and spit into my palm, lathering up his cock again. I can feel the pleasure vibrating off him as I massage his tip and suck on his neck.
“Fuck,” he says as I position myself over him and sit down - his cock going into me with little effort. He leans forward, wraps his hands around me and I start moving up and down, faster and faster each time I go down.
I lean back and he grabs my cock as I place my palms on his shoulders and look him in the eyes.
“I love you,” he says.
I grin at him and say, “I love you, too.”
I let out a loud, beautiful moan as I come all over his stomach and his hand. He unloads inside of me and I lean back into him again, resting my head on his shoulder. I get off of him and I lie there as he gets up and I admire the beautiful, tight-ass walking away from me.
He looks back says, “Are you coming?”
***
Carrie gets back a few hours after our shower and her hands are full of random bags.
“I went a little nuts,” she says. “Like craaaazy spender.”
“Anything good?” I ask her.
“Clothes,” she says. “Just clothes and that’s it. I’m awful.”
I get off the couch and make my way over to her. She shows me what she got and I laugh, a
s she tells me what was going through her mind when she bought some of the stuff.
“I like this,” I say, holding up a blue dress. “You should wear this to dinner tonight.”
“What time did you guys want to go, anyway?” she says.
“We can go soon,” Cody says.
“Good,” she says, “because I’m starving.
***
We grab our drinks and make our way down towards the water. The sun is starting to set and I’m beyond tired. Carrie lays down the blanket we brought and Cody helps her spread it out. I sit myself down beside Cody and lean my head against his shoulder. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and I close my eyes.
When I met Cody, I didn’t think I’d be sitting with him, here on the beach, with my head rested against his shoulder and my mindset in a trance of awe and passion.
I never thought I’d find someone after Rick that would treat me like a human, rather than a possession. I never thought I’d find someone who I wasn’t afraid of during sex. I never thought I would have sex again, in general, for pleasure.
Cody is like that wish you make late at night that you truly never thought would come true, but it does. I look over at him, into his eyes, and realize that for the first time, everything in my life is perfect. Everything in my life is the way that it should be and, from here on out, I have nothing to fear.