by Shawn Lane
True.
“So, are you set to convince me?”
“Michael, you know what’s best for you. You always have. And anything I say isn’t going to make up your mind if you haven’t already decided one way or another.”
I sighed. It was all so complicated. I loved my life in Miami. I liked my job. The area where I lived. And Zach. I had other friends. Sort of. But none of them were Zach nor ever could be. I had no boyfriend, though. No commitment other than my job that could keep me from coming back to California. Even my apartment was rented, and the lease was up in just a couple of months.
“Do you think I should move back?” I asked. “I’d really like to know.”
“What about this guy you’re seeing? Zach?”
I didn’t want to explain Zach to my dad. I went with, “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t everything?”
I never knew my dad was a philosopher.
“Your sister would like it. Your mother, too. It would be nice to have the whole family together in the same place again.”
I glanced at him as he swung away. “Is that a yes?”
“No. Look, you’ve built yourself a life there in Miami, haven’t you? You have a great job that you’re good at.” Dad shrugged. “Or I assume so.”
“Yeah.”
“Not that you couldn’t get one here. But you’d have to take the bar exam here. Pretty much start your life all over. The only people you still know here are family.” He smiled crookedly. “And some of them you haven’t talked to in a while.”
I felt a pang of guilt. It was getting harder not to feel guilty over the estrangement with my family. “So…no?”
Dad laughed. It was a good sound. “You’re a lawyer, son. Weigh the pros and cons, and see what you come up with yourself. If you do decide to stay in Miami, I have a request.”
“A request?”
“I’m fine with you living wherever you want. It’s your life; you get to choose. But maybe don’t shut us out of it anymore. There are all kinds of ways to communicate now. It would be nice if you used one.”
I had a lump in my throat as big as New York. I glanced away and nodded.
“And just because you live somewhere else doesn’t mean you can’t visit once in a while, right?”
I exhaled very slowly. “Right.”
Chapter 8
“You turned my sister into a smoker?” I asked Zach later that night as I lay beside him on the bed. He had his laptop out, going over e-mails, he’d said. He’d changed into just a tank top and boxer shorts.
“I did not,” Zach replied, not looking up from his perusal. “She asked for one.”
“Hmm.” I laid my head on the pillow, turned on my side, facing him. “Did she act like she knew what she was doing?”
“Mick, why don’t you just ask her if she smokes if you want to know?”
“Because under the circumstance I don’t want to be all in attack mode.” And besides, it was entirely possible Raine did smoke. Or was a “social” smoker.
“Apparently it’s okay with me, though.”
I smiled a little. “Do you feel attacked?”
Zach shrugged.
“You’re in a mood.” Normally Zach was a pretty cool guy. Not exactly easygoing but not exceptionally prickly. Once in a while, though, he got moody as hell. Pissy, I’d tease him. It seemed to be the mood I was dealing with tonight.
For the first time since I got on the bed, Zach glanced at me. His dark eyes were unreadable, as was his expression.
“You and your dad seemed pretty intense when you came back to the house,” he said. Not at all what I expected the topic of conversation to be. Although what I had expected, I couldn’t say.
I nodded. “I think that’s the first time we’ve ever talked.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Yeah it is.”
“Mick, you must have talked to your dad before you left.”
“Not like that, no. Okay, sure, pass the salt, please. But a real conversation? No.” Something made me reach over and put my hand on his arm. Instead of stiffening like I somehow thought he would, he seemed to relax. “What did you say to Raine?”
“The usual platitudes. This too shall pass. Ignore Joe’s mean mom. That kind of thing.”
I was pretty sure there was more to it, because before we’d gone to bed, Raine had stopped me to tell me how much she liked Zach. I decided not to push it, though.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
I began to rub his bare arm, and he let me. “I thought I’d take a drive, actually. Maybe head to the beach. There are a couple of old places I used to go with Joe. Raine has some people coming over again, so I thought this might be my opportunity. Want to come along?”
“Sure.” His gaze strayed once more to his laptop. “I have our flight reservations up.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re still going back the day after the funeral, right? Saturday?”
Even if I did decide to move back to California, I’d still need to go back to Miami to get everything in order.
“Yes. Raine knows that’s when we’re going back.”
Zach visibly relaxed. “I’m going to choose our seat assignments, then.”
I was surprised he seemed so anxious about going home, but I guess no one had a good time visiting during such tragic circumstances, and Zach didn’t really know anyone here except the couple he’d already had lunch with.
A perverse part of me wanted to make a joke about him being anxious to hook up with the flight attendant he’d met on the way to Los Angeles from Miami, but the remark died on my lips. Probably because I thought maybe it was close to the truth. Or maybe I was being unfair like I had been before. Jealousy was an ugly thing.
When I rubbed my fingers up his arm to his shoulder, Zach’s pursed lips curved upward.
“Like that?”
“Are you flirting with me, Mick?”
I chuckled. “My version of it anyway.”
“Let me finish this, and then I’m all yours,” Zach promised.
I nodded and turned onto my back, closing my eyes.
“No falling asleep.”
I smiled. “You can wake me up if I do.”
And somehow I must have dozed off, because my eyelids fluttered open when I felt Zach’s fingers on my cheek.
“Sleeping beauty,” he murmured, leaning over me to fasten his lips to mine.
“You finished?” I asked when he let me up for air. His laptop was gone, and it was just the two of us on the bed.
“Obviously.” He yawned, which seemed to be a surprise to him the way his eyes widened afterward.
“You tired, sweetheart?” I realized almost immediately I’d used an endearment for him, but I couldn’t take it back. And after the way his gaze seemed to get warmer, I didn’t even want to.
“Not too tired to make you scream.”
“Considering we’re in a house full of people, I think screaming is out of the question.”
“Yeah, okay.” Zach nodded. “That’ll have to wait until Miami.”
I opened my mouth to ask if there would be a time in Miami, but I thought better of it before the stupid words managed to escape. I didn’t want to ruin what was happening now with talk of a very uncertain future. This might be all I ever had with Zach, and though the timing was a little odd, coming during a trip for a funeral, I would cherish it anyway.
Instead I asked a far more important question. “You got the goods?”
Zach smirked. “If you mean a condom and lube, of course.”
“Right, you’re never unprepared. Forgot.”
He kissed me then, one of those curls-your-toes kind that could make me forget my own damn name. Anyway, the time for talking had passed.
His hands framed my face as he drank from my lips. My dick grew harder the more he pressed me into the mattress. I lifted my pelvis up to rub more against him. He pressed and rubbed back, and we were like a cou
ple of inexperienced teenagers kissing and dry humping each other.
I struggled to get my T-shirt off while being squashed underneath his weight. He wasn’t much help either, as his hands stayed steadfastly on my face, holding me in place.
I got my mouth free for a few seconds. “Zach, let me—” He nipped at my bottom lip, his teeth sinking in with a sharpness that stole my breath. “Ouch. Just let me get this off.”
He sat back enough to pull at my shirt, yanking it roughly over my head and letting it fall from his fingers onto the bed. His own tank top came off next.
Instead of our kissing resuming, he slid down my body. He mouthed my erection through my shorts. I bit the palm of my hand to keep from screaming out. He slipped his hand in through the wide leg of the shorts to wrap around my straining cock.
“Zach, fuck.”
He pushed the shorts off me and brought my cock to his mouth. I leaned up enough to watch as he swiped his tongue across the precum that glistened on the tip. I was coming undone.
He patted my leg. “No screaming, remember?”
“Just-just fuck me. Now.”
Zach shook his head. “You’re not ready.”
“Well, get me that way.”
He chuckled, his warm breath ghosting over my sensitized flesh. But he flipped me over onto my stomach and pushed my legs apart.
I heard the snick of the lid being popped on the lube bottle just before Zach’s fingertips tapped lightly at my entrance. Zach slipped his finger inside me, just to the first knuckle, then stopped. I blew out a breath, adjusting to the small intrusion.
Zach only paused a moment though before he pushed his finger all the way in. I’d been getting more action with him since arriving in California, so I was already looser than I’d been. There was only a brief sting.
I moved my legs farther apart and arched upward, giving him better access to my ass. He swatted my right cheek, not enough to hurt really, but it got my attention.
“Hey!” I looked back at him to see he was grinning. “Behave.”
“Where would the fun be in that?” He arched a dark brow, and then, as I watched him, he added another finger.
I gasped and bit my forearm. He really was determined to make it difficult for me not to scream.
“You have the greatest ass,” Zach murmured. He’d said that before. And I shouldn’t have been surprised when he leaned down and sank his teeth into my left cheek, but I yelped. Zach laughed.
“Quiet. Remember? No yelling.”
“No biting, then.”
“I’m a biter, Michael. You’ll have to get used to it.”
I didn’t have too much time to get into my head to analyze that remark, because he wiggled his fingers inside me, sending shivers of delight up my spine. I moaned into the mattress.
“Somebody’s eager,” he said softly.
Zach withdrew his fingers and tore open the condom’s foil package. I kept my face buried against the mattress, though I could hear his every action as though I had super hearing, I was so attuned to him.
Then he placed himself between my spread legs, his big hands lifting me up to give him better access to enter me. He pushed in and let out a shaky breath.
“Hurts?” he asked, a definite note of concern in his voice.
I shook my head. “Just adjusting. And relief that you finally got around to it.”
That earned me a smack on the ass. “Behave.”
Zach began to thrust, with short, tentative strokes, as though he wanted to be careful with me. I rose up, trying to take in more of him, and as I did so, he pushed in deeper, increasing the force and speed of his thrusts until I was gasping breathlessly. I liked it fast, rough, and thorough. I didn’t need nor want a soft touch.
He gripped my hipbone hard enough to leave bruises, but I didn’t care. I pushed back against him, demanding more, urging him to fuck me deeper still.
I got one of my hands underneath me and curled my fingers around my shaft, stroking with short jerks. My orgasm was building, tightening my groin muscles, fluttering my stomach. He pistoned just right to brush against my prostate, and I went off like a rocket. My release slammed through me with an intensity that shouldn’t have been possible. Cum splattered my fingers and the mattress below me.
Zach leaned close and bit the back of my neck as I felt him shudder and shake with his own orgasm. I collapsed flat under him, the weight of him somehow more comforting that it should have been.
* * * *
I woke up when the bed shifted, and I turned over onto my back, shielding my eyes with my arm from the glare of the bedroom’s overhead light.
“Zach?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.” He was pulling on clothes. Pants he’d worn earlier, a T-shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Was going to go out for a smoke. And I’m kind of hungry, too.”
I blinked rapidly. “What time is it?”
“About five.”
“In the morning?”
Zach laughed softly. “Yes, Mick.”
“Why are you up so early? And how the hell did I sleep so long on my stomach?”
“Second question? I have no idea. You were sleeping like the dead, though. First question, I just woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.”
“I’ll get up, too. Maybe we can go have breakfast.”
“You don’t have to. Go back to sleep.”
“I’m awake now,” I said, sitting up and swinging my legs to the floor. “I smell like sex though. Do I have time for a shower?”
Zach sighed, clearly annoyed at the delay. “Yeah. A quick one.”
Chapter 9
At my third yawn, Zach grimaced. “This is why you should have stayed in bed.”
“Sorry. Didn’t know you found my yawning so offensive.”
I reached for the coffee the waitress had just brought for me and added a healthy amount of half-and-half. I’d thought I remembered a twenty-four-hour diner a few miles from Raine’s house that I’d spotted on the drive from the airport, and sure enough that’s where Zach and I had gone for breakfast. We weren’t the only ones there, and more arrived every few minutes. It was Thursday, and some appeared to be dressed for a workday ahead.
“You’re so dramatic,” Zach responded. “I just meant you’re obviously tired.”
I ignored that and instead picked up my plastic menu. “What are you getting?”
“Eggs Benedict.”
I eyed him. “You always get that.” And for some reason that comforted me in a way it probably shouldn’t.
“Right, so why ask me?” He smirked. His smirk was too cute, really, and sometimes I hated him for it. Not to mention he seemed endlessly amused at my expense.
“Thought maybe you’d go against your usual.”
He shrugged. “I’ve never had it here. Might be the best ever.”
I glanced around the restaurant. “Somehow I doubt that.” I sank my teeth into my bottom lip. “Denver omelet or Denver potato pancakes?”
“Go with the potato pancakes.”
The waitress arrived, and we gave our orders. Zach was drinking espresso, and it looked thick as mud.
“How is that?”
“Eh. Acceptable.”
I lifted my cup to my mouth and took a sip. “Why are you so grumpy, anyway?”
He tapped his fingers against the table. “It’s not exactly an occasion to be cheerful, is it? It’s not like we’re here for Disneyland.”
“I know. You just seem extra surly this morning. Is it because I came with you?”
“Back to the dramatics, I see.”
But I saw that he didn’t exactly deny it either. I glanced out the window. It was going to be hot later. Even now I could see the little waves off the pavement in the parking lot.
“You want to just do the sights while we’re out instead of returning to the house and going out later?”
“Whatever you want, Mick. I’m just here for you.”
For some reason the way he said it rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t think he meant it to sound snarky, but it did, and I started wondering why he’d even come with me to California. In the past Zach had said more than once he didn’t care for the West Coast.
“You didn’t have to come,” I said defensively. “I could have done this without you.”
For a moment he stared at me, looking slightly hurt. Then he shook his head. “No.”
He didn’t elaborate, and for some reason I didn’t ask him to.
When his eggs Benedict arrived, Zach dove right in. He was always one to eat with gusto, and I totally loved that about him.
I smiled. “Good?”
“Surprisingly. You want to try?”
“Yeah.” I reached for my own fork to have him scoop up a bite, but he was holding out his, already heaping with poached egg, sauce, and muffin. I opened my mouth, and he shoved his fork inside.
“Good, huh?”
I chewed, swallowed. “Actually, yes.”
He smiled, flashing his teeth in a rare true smile. “How are your potato pancakes?”
“Fucking great. Want some?”
“Uh-huh.”
And just like he’d done, I fed him with my fork. It was a good breakfast.
* * * *
“What is this?”
“Zuma Beach,” I told him, parking the rental car. “Joe and I used to come here all the time when we were teenagers.”
He followed me onto the sand, both of us wearing flip-flops, but it didn’t prevent the sand from getting between our toes as we made it down toward the ocean.
“Joe was into surfing.”
“What about you?”
I smiled and shook my head. “I was into surfers.”
It was breezy and filled with beachgoers sunbathing themselves and playing with their children and dogs. The water would be cold, no matter the time of year, but that never stopped people from going out into the ocean and waves. The surf wasn’t particularly high at the moment.
I found a rock that both of us could sit on and was pleased when Zach sat beside me without question.
“Actually, this is where we were the first time Joe kissed me.”
Zach grimaced.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s definitely something, Zach.”