by J. F. Smith
Matt said, “I’d rather see it how it really is. And believe me, after spending the night with Petey, the slums of Calcutta would seem like a Ritz-Carlton. Petey actually had a peanut butter and bologna sandwich for breakfast!”
Travis asked, “Did he put mustard on it?”
Matt wrinkled his nose in disgust. “No.”
“He adds mustard a lot of times. It’s like a secret Tuttle family recipe or something. He must be out.”
They stood just inside the door of Travis’ apartment for a moment, neither quite sure of how to make the next move now that they were both alone together. It was Matt that couldn’t stand it anymore and broke the stalemate. He shoved Travis against the closed door of the apartment and pressed himself against him, kissing him hard after going a week without it. Matt loved the feel of Travis’ tongue against his, in his mouth. He loved the taste of alcohol on his breath. He loved the feel of Travis’ eleven o’clock shadow against his face. Travis’ arms went around Matt and they kissed long enough to confirm that what they had started the weekend before wasn’t just a fluke. Matt was aroused like he couldn’t ever remember before. He was in his place. He’d be in his bed. He pressed his face into Travis’ broad chest and inhaled deeply. Salt air and cedarwood.
Travis finally invited Matt into the apartment proper, rather than just standing and making out against the front door all night. Matt went ahead and sent Petey a text letting him know he was going to crash at Travis’ place and would see him in the morning. With that out of the way, Travis gave Matt a quick tour of the apartment, which mostly consisted of pointing at the living room, accompanied by the words “living room”. Matt took note of the two sticker-plastered surfboards up against the wall near the door to the apartment, one taller and reaching almost to the ceiling, the other shorter and narrower. Travis pointed in another direction and said, “kitchen”. Travis would have been just as succinct with the bedroom, but Matt insisted on lingering for a moment. There was a metal cabinet on the wall opposite Travis’ bed with the door hanging open and a collection of guns neatly stored in it, both rifles and handguns. Something that would have freaked him out to see in anyone else’s bedroom was somehow reassuring to see in Travis’. The closet door was open and Matt could see several of the BDU’s he had seen Travis in before, as well as his civilian clothes.
Matt wanted to pay more attention to the bed than anything, though. Travis’ bed was an unmade mess, and he tried to move Matt out of the room quickly for the rest of the tour. But Matt was fascinated by it. It was like a nest of navy blue sheets and pillows and a wadded up white cotton blanket. There was no headboard or footboard, just a simple, unadorned bed. He wanted to be in his bed so bad it almost hurt. But, he let Travis lead him back into the living room. Travis lay down on his couch and pulled Matt down on top of him.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to get this close to those green eyes all weekend,” said Travis, one hand stroking Matt’s soft hair, the other pushing down into the back of his pants to feel his ass.
“Thank God Petey hooked up!” said Matt.
Travis thought about it and said, “This is all going to wind up sucking. You were the perfect wingman for him tonight. Now every guy in the fucking platoon is going to want you to wing for them. I’ll never get you to myself!”
Matt asked through a grin, “You a little jealous?”
“I didn’t like that Claire bitch coming on to you. I didn’t like that Petey got to spend all afternoon with you. I really didn’t like that! I didn’t like how Petey got to hang all over you all night, right out in the open. It’s all driving me a little nuts here! If you weren’t here with me now, I’d probably have to go find an all-night firing range just so I could go blow big holes in things for a few hours!”
Matt stared into Travis’ dark eyes sympathetically.
Travis asked, “Will you do that stuff with me? Help me buy clothes? Help me pick out better stuff for this apartment? It’s a shithole. It’s embarrassing.”
Matt thought about it for a moment. “Probably not.”
Travis looked hurt. And jealous, again.
“Petey needs the help. You don’t. I want you to dress like you. I want your bed to be yours. I want to be in your bed.”
Travis softened, understanding now.
Matt added, “And it’s not a shithole. Petey lives in a shithole.”
Travis finally admitted, “This is actually a little harder than I thought it would be. For the first time ever, I don’t like hiding. I don’t like hiding you and I don’t like hiding us. Too many secrets. Stupid secrets.”
Matt didn’t want this. He didn’t want to put Travis in this position. “Trav, I’ll not come to Virginia Beach again if this is going to be hard on you. Or, if I do, we won’t tell any of the guys and you can keep me locked up in your bedroom.” He wagged his eyebrows at Travis suggestively.
Travis ran his thumbs across Matt’s eyebrows. He didn’t like that answer very much.
“You would, wouldn’t you? You’d wind up sacrificing what you’ve got with Petey, with the other guys, for us, wouldn’t you?” Travis was asking a question he already knew the answer to.
Matt’s answer was to bury his face in Travis’ neck and hold on tighter.
Travis held Matt on top of him and stroked his hair gently again. He sighed, “No wonder it was so easy for someone like Brian to take bad advantage of you.”
Chapter 32 – Friendly Fire
Matt inhaled deeply, not even opening his eyes. Fresh salt air and cedarwood. God, how he loved that smell. He lay on his stomach and kept his face buried down in the warm pillows and sheets of Travis’ bed, allowing himself to wake up slowly. If it was left up to him, he’d never get out of this bed.
Matt had no idea what time it was and was about to fall back asleep when he felt it. It started as a slight tickle, but then he felt it more distinctly. He felt something brushing lightly in the small of his back, just above his ass. He shivered at the sensation, then groaned out loud when he felt the soft lips kissing and brushing around in that spot. Matt felt Travis’ strong hands plant on either side of him as the lips pressed down a little harder and he could feel a tongue start to lick in soft circles at the base of his spine.
The licking stopped and Matt felt warm breath on his back, slowly moving farther up along his spine until it stopped at the base of his neck. He could feel the heat coming off a body suspending itself just a few inches over him, watching him, smelling him.
And then with a lion growl deep inside a chest, the body lay itself down on top of Matt, pressing him down into the sheets and mattress. With all 225 pounds on top of him now, strong, rough hands ran along Matt’s arms to his hands, until their fingers laced together.
The breath above him tickled his left ear and he heard a guttural whisper in his ear say, “Mmmmm… you like this, don’t you?” It was a statement and not a question.
Matt felt the body on top of him. It felt like an animal, muscle and sinew and hair, on top of prey it had been stalking, now pinning it down for the kill. In the cleft of his ass, Matt felt something pressing insistently there, grinding into him.
Matt nodded a weak reply. There was an animal bite on his earlobe, tasting him. He felt hot breath on his face and the stubble on a muzzle rub against his ear and cheek.
The animal voice whispered low again, “There’s something I need…”
Matt groaned and shivered again. He moaned, “Yeah.”
The grinding continued, and with the full weight on him, he wouldn’t have been able to stop it if he wanted to. But stopping it was absolutely the last thing on his mind.
The voice purred, “Something you know you want…”
Matt smiled to himself and hummed into the sheets, “Mmm hmmm.”
The animal on top of Matt reared back a little and Matt felt bared teeth biting lightly into the back of his neck.
Matt felt a rough shock as the animal on top of him suddenly lifted all the way off, exposing hi
m fully, and he felt a sharp smack on his bare backside.
Travis said brightly, “Good! A five mile run on the beach it is!”
Matt groaned again, in complete exasperation this time.
Travis rolled over onto his back next to Matt. Matt shifted over, and put his head on the cruel animal’s chest, the dark chest hair grinding into his face and tickling his nose. “You’ve got to be kidding. And you’re a son of a bitch. Not necessarily in that order.”
One of Travis’ arms reached down along Matt’s back to play with his ass while the other reached up and ran through Matt’s hair. He kissed Matt’s head softly.
“C’mon. I’m getting flabby. It’s the best time of the day for a run on the beach.”
Matt didn’t move, and he didn’t grace the suggestion with a response.
Travis decided to bribe him. “And when we get back, you can do,” he kissed Matt’s head, “absolutely,” kiss, “positively,” kiss, “anything to me your sick mind can come up with.”
Matt turned his head over on Travis’ chest so he could look right into his dark eyes under those dark eyebrows and said, “Put it in writing and get it notarized and you’re on.”
Travis gently kissed the tip of Matt’s nose, which would have to serve as a notary seal for the day, but it was good enough for Matt.
Travis pulled Matt up and out of bed. The sun was up and filtering through Travis’ windows, but Virginia Beach was still quiet outside. For a Sunday morning, it felt way too early. Travis let Matt borrow some clothes to run in since all of his stuff was still over at Petey’s apartment for the weekend. As he watched Travis get ready, though, he couldn’t understand what Travis was doing. He had put running shorts on, but then had put on a heavy Navy sweatshirt. That was odd since it was warm outside, even in the morning. When he pulled his running shoes on, he grabbed a spare rucksack and went into the living room. Matt followed him and watched as Travis filled up the rucksack with as many heavy books off the bookshelf as he could cram in it.
“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asked.
“Five miles is a pretty short run, so I’ll load up a little bit to make sure I get more of a workout,” replied Travis.
Matt looked at the bag. There had to be forty pounds of books in it.
“I’m not even going to tell you how much of a jerk you are.”
Travis grinned unapologetically as he lifted the bag up onto one shoulder. He came over to Matt and kissed him on the cheek. He pointed at the kitchen and said, “There’s a cereal bar in the cabinet to the left of the stove if you want one before we go.” He trotted back into the bedroom without waiting for a reply.
Matt went into the kitchen to get one of the cereal bars or he knew he’d be cramping before the end of the first mile. As he was eating it, he could hear Travis on the phone in the bedroom talking to someone.
Travis came back into the living room a few minutes later, bubbling with energy, and kissed Matt again. He said happily, “I like having you here!”
~~~~~
Matt and Travis made it up to a low stone landscaping wall in front of one of the hotels facing across the boardwalk to the beach and ocean beyond. Matt collapsed panting on the wall, laying down on it and staring straight up for a little while. He had started sweating buckets by about the second mile of the run and was thoroughly exhausted now that it was done. The smirk on Travis’ face was digging into Matt and irritating him. Travis had only barely begun to break a sweat in the last ten minutes or so of their run and was barely breathing heavy. And the only reason he was sweating at all was because of the heavy sweatshirt he was wearing under the book-filled rucksack.
Travis took the bag off his back and put it down on the ground. He sat down next to it with his back against the stone wall where Matt’s feet were.
Matt said, between huffs and puffs as he watched that misaligned grin on Travis’ face that he loved to see so much, “You’re just showing off, aren’t you?”
The grin expanded across Travis’ face a little bit more. He looked out across the ocean and people on the beach, “Maybe. A little.”
He glanced at Matt sideways, shrugged, and admitted, “I want you to like me.”
Matt said after a pained groan, “I want to shoot you.”
Travis laughed at him.
After a moment of catching his breath, Matt got up off the wall and sat down on the ground next to Travis so he could look out over the beach, too. Virginia Beach was waking up and the people out and about had increased since they had started their run. There were walkers and beachcombers, people riding their bicycles and rollerblading, and families claiming their sovereign patch of sand for their day at the beach. There were also a group of surfers out in the water trying to catch some waves before the crowds got too thick and pushed them out. The sun inched its way up in the sky, poking through wispy feathers of clouds, but the sea breeze had not cranked up for the day yet.
Matt said, “Tell you what, let’s stop on the way back and buy some things and I’ll make you my world famous French toast for breakfast.”
Travis nodded, “Now that sounds great! I love a man that can cook!”
“Heh! I hope you like French toast then, because that’s about all I can cook.”
Matt was very much looking forward to having some time alone with Travis before he had to catch back up with Petey later.
“And when we’re done with breakfast, I’ve got some ideas for the syrup.”
Travis laughed again. “I said anything you could come up with, and I meant it. But you’re making me a little nervous now!”
“That’s your problem. You ready to go?”
Travis glanced down at his watch and looked around a little. He said, “Gimme a few more minutes. I might want to go jump in the water before we head back. Is that ok?”
“Sure.”
Travis leaned forward and pulled his sweatshirt off so he could cool off more easily. He asked, “You wanna try getting in the water with me a little?”
“Nuh unh! No way! I’ll get eaten by a shark or attacked by some rabid jellyfish or mugged by stingrays or something.”
They sat watching Virginia Beach waking up for a few more minutes. Matt would steal glances over at the man sitting next to him occasionally, liking the view of a bare-chested Travis better than the beach and ocean and rising sun in front of him. Everything about him was more than he might have hoped for, and he had never felt about anyone the way he felt about Travis. Not even when he first met Brian, when he was totally smitten with him, did it feel like this. It wasn’t just a puppy-dog crush on Travis, though. At least, it certainly didn’t feel that way. Their personalities meshed well. They could joke together, be serious together, talk, be quiet. Travis seemed to fit him in every way he might want. Matt found himself wishing his parents were still alive. He would have liked for them to meet Travis, something he had never even thought about with Brian. They would have liked Travis.
“How’s your dad doing, Trav? Did you talk to him this week?” asked Matt.
“Yeah, I’ve talked to him. He’s doing pretty good. He didn’t even mention Chris this time on the phone. And he always mentions Chris when we talk. It might not seem like much of a change to anybody else, but I know my dad. It’s good to get even small steps from him, Matt. It really is.”
“Does your dad know you’re gay?”
Travis sighed. “Yeah, he knows.” He rubbed his hand across his unshaven face. “I handled that like an asshole. I got tired of him, got really mad actually, after I became a SEAL and still got no respect or… anything really… from him. And so I told him. But I did it because I wanted to hurt him. I wish I could take it back and handle that differently, but that’s how it was. That’s how hurt I was. I wanted to hurt him back. To my surprise, he didn’t freak out or tell me he hated me or anything like that. Maybe he just expected it because he expected me to be a disappointment in every possible way. But he doesn’t talk about it, either. I tried a couple of times
to get him to talk about it, but he won’t. So I eventually just dropped it.”
Matt was quiet, feeling bad about Travis’ relationship with his dad. Getting so little when he deserved so much.
“It means a lot to me, you know,” said Travis, his voice barely a whisper over the sound of the waves, “what you did. Talking to my dad and making him actually see something in me. It may not seem like much changed to most people, but for me, even that little bit is a lot. It means something. It means something to me.”
He squinted at the beach in front of him. “I’m learning about you, Matt, through this kind of stuff. The fact that you’re willing to go do something like that for someone that you barely know.”
Matt shrugged, “You did kind of save my life. I felt like I should do something.”
Travis pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He looked over at Matt and said, “I don’t believe that. And… I think you’re a pretty shitty liar. I don’t like thinking that the only reason you’d do something like that is to pay off some debt you imagine you have. Like I said, I’m figuring you out a little. I think you would have done it anyway. I don’t think for one minute you did it because I saved your life.”
Matt didn’t know how to reply to that. He felt a little awkward at Travis making him out to be something more than he was. He would have done it for Travis, just out of admiration for him. But Travis made it sound like it was something.
Travis grinned and said, “You’re just a big fat liar. But the best possible kind, Matt. At first, I thought the best thing about you was those pretty unbelievable green eyes. But it’s that heart of yours. That huge heart.”
Matt really felt warm and awkward and even a little nervous now. He wondered if this was how it felt to have someone say things like this to you. He guessed it must.
Travis glanced past Matt, down the boardwalk. He said, “So, actually, I need to ask you a question… Do you trust me?”