Summer Stock

by Vanessa North

  Ryan, whose muscles had gone lax and whose bones seemed to have disappeared altogether, clumsily reached over his shoulder and tugged Trey’s face to his in a sloppy, desperate kiss. When Trey pulled away and left the bed, Ryan whimpered, too strung out to express his protest with words.

  “I’m coming right back. I’m gonna get rid of the condom and get something to clean us up.” Trey leaned over him and kissed him long and sweet. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  As if he could. Ryan flopped onto his back and threw an arm across his eyes, letting out a contented sigh. He could hear Trey in the bathroom, flushing the toilet, then running water and washing his hands. A moment later, Trey returned and washed their spunk from Ryan’s body with a hot washcloth before disappearing again.

  When he came back, the lumbering bulk of his dog followed him, then curled up onto the blue braided rug that dominated the floor.

  “I locked the doors downstairs,” Trey murmured as he wrapped his body around Ryan’s and tangled their fingers together.

  Ryan sighed and let his head loll back on Trey’s shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Mmm. Yeah. You fucked me senseless.”

  Trey’s laugh was a filthy rumble. “That was fun.”

  A smile dragged Ryan’s lips up. “Yeah, it was.”

  “Can we do it again?”

  “Ask me in the morning.”

  They didn’t make it until morning, though, before Ryan came down Trey’s throat as Trey milked his prostate with two fingers, or before Ryan returned the favor. By the time the sun came up, they’d shared so many orgasms, Ryan wasn’t sure how he’d be able to stand at rehearsal in a few hours, but he didn’t care. A sore ass and wobbly knees were a small price to pay for the kind of night they’d shared, and they were a price he’d gladly pay over and over again. Whatever would happen at the end of the summer, he had these moments with Trey, and he intended to enjoy them to the fullest.

  Trey sat up suddenly in an unfamiliar bed, alone, but surrounded by the scent of sex. He could hear a shower running nearby, and Ferdy was curled at the foot of the bed. Ryan.

  The images of Ryan that spun through his head had his dick hardening and his sore body screaming to life. God, what a night. When was the last time he’d had epic sex? Ever? Ryan hadn’t been kidding about how much he enjoyed ass play, and that was something Trey hadn’t gotten to indulge in with a partner in years.

  Absently, he stroked his cock. He’d be jerking off for years to the memory of Ryan coming hands-free. He’d never seen anything like it, and it made him feel powerful and hot.

  “Mmm, save that for me.” Ryan appeared in the doorway, smirking, with a towel hanging low on his hips and another wrapped around his hair.

  “We don’t have time.” Trey let go of his dick. “But if you want to take care of it tonight, I’d gladly consider it a date.”

  Ryan climbed back onto the bed, tossing the towel from his waist aside and straddling Trey. “I can’t tonight. The cast is going to the mainland to some stupid oyster bar David and Zach say is amazing. Bonding opportunity. But call me in the morning tomorrow and we’ll do something.”

  Their lips met—tentatively at first, then more confidently as Ryan rolled his cock against Trey’s. Reluctantly, Trey broke the kiss.

  “Okay. Tomorrow sounds good. Do you get up early on the weekends?”

  “No, god. Please, if you love me, let me sleep in.”

  Trey froze, felt an answering stiffness in Ryan, then relaxed. He didn’t mean it like that. He was only here for the summer, and he was being flippant with his words.

  “I seem to recall that last time I woke you early, there was filthy FaceTime sex.”

  “I would wake up for that.” Ryan laughed, kissed him one last time, and stood up. “I have rehearsal in an hour. I hate to kick you out, but the alarm system is complicated, and I—”

  “Say no more.” Trey held up his hands. “I’ll get dressed, get Ferdy, and we’ll go.”

  He didn’t need much time to get dressed. He hadn’t brought an overnight bag—an epic lack of foresight on his part—but he turned his briefs inside out, decided to forgo socks altogether, and borrowed Ryan’s deodorant. When his own T-shirt didn’t pass the sniff test, he swiped one of Ryan’s.

  It would have to do.

  At the front door, he kissed Ryan deep and slow, until they were both weak in the knees and gasping for breath. Finally, Ferdy shoved his head between the two of them, and they pulled apart, laughing.

  “Last night was amazing,” Ryan whispered. “And this time, I won’t forget it.”

  Trey smiled and ran his thumb across Ryan’s lips. “I plan on reminding you anyway.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  The phone rang early on Saturday morning. Expecting it to be Trey, Ryan reached for the phone with a smile already on his face, a smile that widened in delight and surprise when Ali’s grinning photo appeared on his screen.

  “Oh my god, baby, is it really you?”

  “Hiya, Rya,” she singsonged. “Did you miss me?”

  “God, yes. Are you out? Has it been eight weeks already?”

  “No, I wish. I’m still here, but I’ve graduated to phone-use-allowed now that I’m at the six-week mark. Of course, the only person I wanted to call was you.”

  “I’ve been dying to hear your voice. I’m so used to talking to you every day, I feel like my right arm has gone missing.”

  “I know, me too. This has been good for me, though. I’m so much stronger than I was even a week ago.”

  “It makes me so happy to hear that. I’ve been worried.” He twisted the corner of his sheet around his finger. Should he tell Ali about West’s visit? Hell, he never was any good at keeping secrets. "West came out here. It was nice to see him, but I think it just made me miss you more.”

  “Oh. Was he there about the pilot?” Her voice went all hushed.

  “Are you sure you’re allowed to have your phone? You’re whispering like you stole it.”

  “Don’t dodge. Was he there about our show?”

  “He was. How come you didn’t tell me you were writing a script?” He tried to keep the accusation out of his voice, but it stung to know that she’d been working on something so huge and had never mentioned it. Wasn’t he her best friend too? Didn’t she trust him?

  “You know how come. I was scared. What if it was a mess that never got sold? What if I was a complete fuckup failure? I didn’t want to get my hopes up, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up either. You look like a kicked puppy when I flub an audition.”

  “I do not.” A kicked puppy? He was disappointed for her when she didn’t get a job she wanted. But he tried to be encouraging.

  “Yeah, you do. You seem to care more about my career prospects than your own. So I didn’t tell you because if it didn’t work out, well. Better if you didn’t know.”

  “How can it be better? Better for who?” Wow, that sounded pretty butt-hurt, didn’t it? So much for keeping accusation out of his voice.

  “Better for me. I couldn’t handle your expectations and worries on top of my own.”

  “But I could have helped. I could have cheered you on. I—”

  “I had West for that, Ry.” She sighed heavily. “This wasn’t about you. It had literally nothing to do with you. I didn’t tell you because it was mine, and I wasn’t ready to share, okay?”

  Ouch. But what could he say to that? It really wasn’t about him. “Okay. I’m sorry. I am happy for you. I just wish I could have been happy for you sooner.”

  “You big goober. My keeping this a secret doesn’t mean I don’t love you, okay?”

  “I know.”

  “So, I need to ask you a huge favor.”

  Ryan blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Okay.”

  “I know you’re staying at West’s beach house. I’m leaving here in two more weeks, and I’m super not ready to go back to LA. Can I come stay with you? And can you maybe not tell West
? I need a place to re-acclimate to the outside world.”

  “You’re in rehab, not prison.”

  “Uh-huh. You dodged my question again.”

  “Of course you can stay with me, that shouldn’t even be a question. But why do you want to keep it a secret from West?”

  “Because he’s the reason I’m super not ready to return to LA? Please, Ry? I’ll explain everything when I get there. No secrets.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell him, but I’m not gonna lie to him either.”

  “You won’t need to, I promise. I would never ask you to do that for me.”

  Neither one of them pointed out that lying for Ali had once come as easily to Ryan as consoling her when she didn’t get a role.

  They talked for a few more minutes, mostly about summer stock antics, with Ali laughing along gamely in all the right places, and empathizing when he told her what had happened with Annsley.

  “That poor girl. Twitter is awful to women.”

  He didn’t tell her about Trey—and he wasn’t sure why. He told her about David hitting on him, and about Caro and Mason’s relationship that he’d been too blind to see, but every time he thought he was ready to tell her about Trey, the subject changed, and before long, she said she had to go to a therapy appointment.

  Ryan’s chest twinged—he hated saying good-bye to Ali. “Now you’ve got your phone, text me or call me when you can. I’m in rehearsals all day, but I can usually talk in the evenings, okay?”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you too, baby. See you in two weeks.”

  Two weeks. Ali was going to be here in two weeks. She’d be here for opening night. And she was going to be staying with him in West’s house, without saying a word to West.

  This was either going to be epic—or an epic disaster.

  Trey took Ferdy for a long walk on the beach Saturday morning before he called Ryan. As much as filthy FaceTime sex appealed to him, the idea of waiting until he could get his hands on Ryan in person again appealed so much more. He’d been floating around on a cloud of well-fucked bliss for more than twenty-four hours, and was sex drunk and shivery-spined, with aches in muscles that he’d forgotten how to use.

  Like the muscles that made up his smile.

  Now, he couldn’t seem to shake it off his face. He found himself grinning at strangers, those early tourists catching the last weeks of quiet before the summer hordes descended. A June morning on the ocean still clung to the chill of spring, but by afternoon the sand would shimmer with heat. He and Ferdy lingered until the beach was warm enough that girls in bikinis started sprawling out on bright towels and turning their faces and well-oiled midriffs to the sun.

  “C’mon, Peanut. Time to go.” He gave a little tug on Ferdy’s leash. “Time to call our boy.”

  When they got back to the house, he reached down to where he usually clipped his key to Ferdy’s collar, but it wasn’t there.

  “Shit. Fuck.” He tapped his pockets. Goddamn it. Okay, don’t panic. Don’t panic. Where could they be?

  Peering in the sidelight windows, he breathed a deep sigh of relief—they were lying on the kitchen countertop, safely locked inside.

  His relief was short-lived though—he was still fucking locked outside. With Ferdy, whose tongue was hanging out as he panted in the sun. And the only way into his house was to punch the code on the garage door and cut through.

  He could do that. So what if his palms had started sweating? So what if he didn’t use the garage, ever? He could do this. He could do it for Ferdy, if not himself.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hovered over the first two numbers in his speed dial. Kim and Caro both had spare keys to his place for the rare occasions he needed a Ferdy-sitter. But it would be stupid to call someone to come over when he could just go through the garage.

  They would understand.

  He tapped the recent calls and found Ryan’s smiling face, and before he could think better of it, he called.

  “Hey, oh my god, I’ve got the best news.”

  He couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “It’s good to hear your voice too.”

  “Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. Is this— I mean. Okay. Let’s start over. Hey, Trey—oh that rhymes! Okay. Hi, Trey, how are you today? Holy shit, does your name rhyme with everything?”

  Trey blew out a breath, looked down at Ferdy, and then ran a hand through his hair. He was a fucking idiot, and he was making an ass out of himself in front of the hottest guy he’d ever met—who just happened to be listing all the words he could think of that rhymed with Trey. “Hi, Ryan. Can you chill for a sec? I need . . . I need help. I’m locked out of my house.”

  “Okay. What can I do? Do you have a spare key somewhere? You should get one of those safe-things.”

  “I don’t need a safe. I just need to know, do you ever get scared, like before an audition or something?”

  “Sure. Of course.” The giddiness dropped out of Ryan’s voice. “What does that have to do with being locked out of your house?”

  “It’s hard to— Never mind that. Tell me how you work through it.”

  Silence stretched over the line for a long moment.

  “Are you there?” Trey prodded.

  “Yeah, um. Well, it sounds silly, but I sing lullabies to myself.”

  “Lullabies?”

  “Yeah. Like ‘Hush little baby, don’t say a word’ and ‘Rockabye Baby.’ It’s stupid, but it works, calms me down.”

  “Will you sing one for me?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Fucking-A, Ryan,” Trey snapped. “Do you think I’d be asking for this shit if I didn’t need it?”

  “Sure. Okay. Let’s do this.” Ryan hummed a few bars of something Trey didn’t recognize, then started singing in another language—French maybe? Trey couldn’t understand the words, but the melody was soothing and Ryan’s voice was nice—a little gravelly in the low parts but sweet and pure when he hit his falsetto.

  Trey took a deep breath and punched in the code on his garage door opener.

  He kept his eyes shut as the door rolled up, listening to Ryan’s voice. Ferdy tugged the leash, moving through the garage to the door. Trey let himself be towed along, sweating like a whore in church, until they were through the door, in the kitchen. He smacked the Door Close button, harder than he needed to, and then shut the door behind him and sank to the floor.

  “Thank you.”

  Ryan laughed, not like he was making fun, more like a sweet rumble of solidarity. “You’re welcome. My Cajun uncle—who I don’t think was actually related to my dad, but whatever—used to sing that to me.”

  “Yeah? What’s it about?”

  “Near as I can tell, something about a white chicken. Which is probably what I looked like as a baby.”

  Trey chuckled. “Didn’t we all? Listen, thank you. I—I can’t really explain. I don’t know, maybe I can. But it’s gonna be the most boring date ever. You want to come over and hang out with me while I clean out my garage?”

  Ryan took the keys to West’s Volvo off the hook in the garage, gave the Ferrari a longing look, and sighed. West’s affection for sports cars—and the collection of them he’d accumulated—was Hollywood legend. Ryan had promised his agent under no circumstances would he drive the flashy red supercar around the island. It attracted too much attention, and he was supposed to be lying low. It was one thing to ride along the coast with West—another to park it outside Trey’s house.

  Where he was going to find out more about Trey, in a “this is deeper than a summer fling” way. And is that even what he wanted? To get in that deep with this guy? He was the one who’d said he wanted a friend. Damn. He couldn’t just not be a friend back—no matter how much it would suck to leave at the end of the summer, he was in it now, and he’d see it through.

  When he pulled into Trey’s driveway, the man himself was sitting on the front steps, holding Ferdy’s leash.

  “Are you still locked out?” he called.


  “Nah. We were just waiting for you out here so this big drooly bastard wouldn’t knock things over saying hello. I think he likes you.” Trey smiled at him and let Ferdy off the leash. Ryan braced himself for impact, and sure enough, the dog came straight for his balls, then sniffed down his legs and back up, spreading drool the whole way.

  “Hi, Ferdy.” Ryan petted the top of the dog’s head gently. “How’s it going, big guy?”

  He walked past the dog to Trey, gave a quick peek over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been followed, and gave Trey’s hand a squeeze. “Should we go inside?”

  “Yeah. Um, before we—c’mon Ferdy—before we go out to the garage, I need to explain a few things.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat on Trey’s giant sectional, and Ferdy returned to his mattress, rolled onto his back, and fell asleep with all four feet in the air.

  “So, I bought this house with Vincent, my ex— Are you comfortable?”

  “Yeah, man. Are you?”

  Trey shook his head and stood up. “We bought this place when we first moved here, and um, we lived here together for a few years.”

  “It’s a nice place,” Ryan offered.

  “Thanks.” Trey ran a hand through his hair, and Ryan’s heart went out to him. He was obviously working up to tell his story, and his nerves were getting in the way.

  “Come here.” Ryan patted the couch next to him. “Come sit with me.”

  Trey did as he was told, almost absently. When he sat down, Ryan turned them both so Trey was lying on Ryan’s chest, between his legs. He wrapped both arms around Trey and squeezed. The skin of Trey’s back was damp through his T-shirt, and his breathing was rushed and shallow, but as he snuggled against Ryan, it began to even out.

  “Now, tell me about the garage.”

  “That was where he went to get away from me. It was his man-cave. Mine was the theater.”