by J. M. Snyder
Wes laughed, the breathy sound ending in a slight moan as Nathan rubbed him with long, gentle strokes. “Welcome to my world,” he whispered. His fingers massaged the front of Nathan’s underwear, slipping into the fly to do delicious things to his swollen dick. “I’ve wanted you forever.”
“Hmm.” Nathan closed his eyes and rested his head on Wes’s shoulder, savoring the hand that kneaded him.
“I have some condoms,” Wes suggested. “In the bathroom. If you want…”
Opening his eyes, Nathan studied his friend. This close, he could count every scraggly hair that curved on the end of Wes’s chin, waiting to be shaved away in the morning. “Is that what you want?”
From the way Wes shrugged, Nathan thought maybe it was the first time anyone had ever asked if he actually wanted to have sex and didn’t just tell him that’s what they were going to do next. “Don’t you?” Wes asked, worried.
“I do,” Nathan told him, and he kissed his jaw, the short sideburn in front of his ear. “And I know you do.” He squeezed Wes’s dick for emphasis and got another breathless laugh in reply. “But I don’t want to rush through this. I don’t want you to think it’s just sex for me.”
“I don’t think that.” The hand in Nathan’s boxer briefs slipped free and caressed its way up his stomach, around his waist, pulling him closer, hugging him tight.
“Can we wait?” Nathan asked. “Just until you’re mine, all mine, and he’s out of the picture?”
“Nathan,” Wes sighed. “He mostly is.”
Nathan stared into Wes’s light eyes. I don’t want to be like him, though. I don’t want to jump into this and have you think that’s all I want.
“I want him gone completely,” Nathan murmured. “We’re out of high school now; I don’t need a boyish crush. I want something else, something more. Years from now I want to look back and say you know what? What you had with that guy was nothing compared to what we have between us.” In a quiet voice, he admitted, “I’ve never had anyone for very long, ever. Eight months seems like an eternity.”
Wes laughed. “Each day it gets harder and harder to break away,” he admitted. “I know he’s started drinking again. I know he’s not the nicest guy at times, and he makes me feel like shit, and sometimes I don’t even know why he bothers to stick around. But at least I’m not lonely, you know? And when he’s sober, he’s sweet to me, Nathan. You two would be great friends.”
“I don’t want to be his friend,” Nathan reminded him, kissing any part of Wes that he could press his lips against without moving too far. “I want his boyfriend and somehow I don’t think he’s going to go for that. Call me silly…”
Wes laughed again. “Will you at least stay the night?”
Nathan grinned against his neck. “I didn’t want to ask and make you think you had to say yes.”
With a slight frown, Wes asked, “Are you saying yes?”
Nathan crawled back on top of him, their erections meeting between them in a sweet crush. “Of course I’m saying yes.”
Then he kissed away any reply Wes might have had.
Chapter 19
In the darkness of his bedroom, Wes’s eyes flew open.
The clock on the dresser read 4:03 and, as Wes watched, the last red number flickered into a four. Strong arms encircled his waist, holding him tight, and beside him he heard soft breath, steady in sleep.
Nathan.
He still couldn’t believe it—Nathan Gayle was sleeping with him, in his bed. After all these years. If someone had told him back in high school that one day he’d be here in Nathan’s arms, he would never have believed it.
Gently, so as to not wake his friend, he reached out and clicked on the lamp on his bedside table. A cone of muted golden light illuminated the table and the dog, sleeping on the floor by their discarded underwear. Angling the lampshade so the light didn’t fall on the bed, Wes rolled over and looked at Nathan, his face unlined in sleep, his eyes closed. His eyelashes cast long shadows down his cheeks and, as if he felt Wes’s gaze on him, he scrunched up his forehead in consternation, clutched Wes closer beneath the covers, and snuggled deeper into the pillows.
Wes smoothed a hand across Nathan’s brow, erasing the thin furrows. Then he ran a slow hand through the dark hair that fell back from Nathan’s face. The one thing Wes had always envied about this guy was his hair. As a freshman, Nathan’s hair had been the length it was now, and whenever they passed in the halls, Wes would watch the careless way Nathan ran a hand through the length to push it out of his face. Wes had ached to comb his fingers through that thick hair, too.
By Nathan’s sophomore year, the hair was longer, curling at the edges and shook over one shoulder to get it out of his face. During basketball games, Nathan kept the long locks tied back in a sexy ponytail that accentuated his profile. Even back then, Wes knew Nathan liked guys—once or twice he’d seen Nathan pressing another boy against the lockers for a quick kiss, or flirting in the lunchroom, or checking out the other players on his basketball team from the sidelines. His heart broke each time Nathan glanced his way and his gaze kept on looking, past Wes, through him, as if he wasn’t even there.
He’d been a shy kid, too insecure to even talk to someone like Nathan—star of their school’s basketball team, one of the rowdy, popular kids who just seemed to float through life, couldn’t walk down the hall without calling attention to himself. One of the beautiful people. Someone so confident, so self-assured, so everything Wes always wanted to be. How could he even hope to approach someone like that?
When Wes found out Nathan was going to be at his senior prom, he did the only thing he could think of to do—he asked a girl he knew was a friend of Nathan’s if she’d be his date. The girl was a sophomore and couldn’t say yes fast enough. Wes still remembered bending down at his locker between classes when suddenly the light had dimmed and he looked up to find Nathan standing above him, smiling that gorgeous smile of his that made Wes want to melt. “So you’re taking Kelly to prom,” he’d said.
Even here, now, in the darkness of his bedroom, Wes could hear the words spoken again, could feel a flush of heat burn through his body like wildfire.
He hadn’t trusted himself to speak and just nodded in agreement. “We’ll have to hang out then,” Nathan told him before walking away.
Wes watched him disappear into the crowded hall, unable to stand, his knees weak and unsteady. He wants to hang out with me. With ME.
And now he’s here.
Wes studied Nathan’s features as he brushed his fingers through the curtain of hair that longed to grow again. He pressed his lips to the point of Nathan’s widow’s peak, where the hair came down a bit on his forehead to give his face a heart shape. He breathed in deep the clean, cottony scent of Nathan’s hair, felt the strands tickle his nose and chin.
He’s with me, and all those other guys in high school who thought they were hot shit, all those guys he teased and played with, where are they now? He’s with me. It was almost like a dream come true, and Wes didn’t want anyone to wake him up. He didn’t want it to end.
But what about Roger? a voice inside his mind whispered.
Roger.
Wes had met him his last year at State, and had to admit there was something untouchable about the guy that made his stomach flutter. He’d sat behind Wes in Music Appreciation, a one-credit lecture course Wes had signed up for at the last minute just to fill his schedule. The second day of class Wes had been running a little late; when he rushed into the room, Roger was already seated. As he slid into his chair, Roger made an appreciative noise in his throat, loud enough for Wes to overhear. “Damn,” he’d growled, his low words making Wes blush. “Baby got back or what?”
It was a heady thought—to know Roger was checking him out, looking at him. Somehow he’d managed to attract that attention; for the first time in his life, he had made someone notice him. There had been Nathan, and the night they fooled around in the back of his pickup still stood out sharpl
y in Wes’s mind, and he mistook Roger’s sexy smile for something similar to what he’d been looking for ever since.
Roger was upfront with him. “Don’t let me drink,” he had said, and for the first few months Wes thought it was him keeping the alcohol at bay. Roger was sober most of the time, and he always told Wes how he never needed a drink when they were together. “You’re my poison,” he’d say, grabbing at Wes in a suggestive manner that ended with the two of them naked enough that Roger could get in a quick fuck. When he came, he would kiss Wes’s neck or shoulders or face, whatever he could reach, then massage Wes’s ass in both hands and murmur, “So sweet. They should bottle you, babe. Look at me—I’m already addicted.”
Wes couldn’t remember when he began tasting the liquor on his boyfriend’s breath. But then the sex became rough, demanding, almost constant. Roger had to have him, had to prove that he was the one in control, and if Wes balked, his boyfriend left or turned away. That hurt worse than the biting words and the stinging slaps, worse than the hard thrusts that left him sore and bleeding and torn.
At those times Wes would do anything to get Roger to look at him again, anything at all. If he were lucky, Roger let him make it up to him with more sex. At least he’s with me, Wes would tell himself, eyes closed tight as his boyfriend drove into him, while in his mind he imagined gentle hands and it wouldn’t be Roger but Nathan, Nathan, Nathan in him, above him, loving him.
What would Roger say if he knew that?
Wes kissed Nathan’s forehead, a soft peck so he wouldn’t wake his sleeping friend. The arms around him felt so safe, so right. If Roger had known it was always Nathan in Wes’s thoughts, in his dreams… If he’d had any clue… What would he say if I told him it was always the three of us when we had sex?
Who was Wes kidding? He’d known Roger long enough to know he didn’t want to find out the answers to those questions.
Beneath the covers Nathan moved in sleep, rubbing his foot down the length of Wes’s calf with a smooth rasp of skin on skin. His thigh settled between Wes’s legs, pressed up against his crotch. Wes shifted to alleviate the pressure but Nathan cuddled up to him, grasping, like a child holding a favorite teddy. A sudden pressure in Wes’s bladder made him pull away but he couldn’t seem to untangle himself from the sheets or Nathan. “Nathan,” he whispered. No response. “Let me up.”
Nathan mumbled something unintelligible and buried his head into Wes’s pillow, his hands tightening on Wes’s waist for a second, then falling open to let Wes slip from the bed. Still whispering, Wes promised, “I’ll be right back.”
Though they were alone and it was his apartment, Wes still felt silly walking around naked. Earlier that evening, after they had finished eating, Nathan had been at ease in his boxer briefs, despite the erection that strained the fabric so much that Wes was almost embarrassed to look at it head-on. As Nathan cleaned their plates off the dining room table, Wes had said, “Nathan, do you have to parade around like that?”
With a laugh, Nathan had pulled down the front of his underwear and held his dick in one hand. “What?” He laughed when Wes covered his eyes. “You’re so cute.”
“It’s called modesty,” Wes answered, all too aware that he only wore a pair of white briefs himself, and seeing Nathan prance around half-naked was enough to make his own dick take notice.
Nathan had pulled his underwear up and laughed again. “Modest, my ass.” Then he caught Wes around the waist and covered his shoulders with kisses as he held him close, the dirty plates and take-out containers forgotten on the table.
Wes still felt those kisses, those hands on his skin. By the thin light of the bedside lamp, he picked up his underwear from the floor and stepped into it, tugging it over his nakedness. Then he hurried from the bedroom; he wanted to get back to that warm bed and Nathan as soon as he could.
When he stepped out of the bathroom, the loud flush of the toilet followed him into the quiet apartment. Wes closed the bathroom door and tiptoed down the hall, guided by the golden light beside his bed. He was already smiling at the thought of slipping back into Nathan’s arms as if he had never left when the phone rang.
Wes’s blood ran cold. Roger.
With quick steps, he crossed the hall before he could stop to think about it. The phone rang again, a high, shrill sound in the darkness. It had to be Roger; who else would it be this time of the night? Wes’s hand hovered above the receiver, unsure. He didn’t want to answer it, God knew, but it was so damn loud.
If he didn’t answer it, Roger would want to know why.
A third ring, and then the answering machine clicked on. Hang up. Don’t leave a message, Roger, just hang up and go to bed. You’ve been out all night at the clubs and I’m sure you’re drunk off your ass, so just sleep it off and I’ll call you in the morning. We have to talk anyway.
Then he remembered the phone call earlier, the one he also didn’t answer. His mind blurred in a panic. I forgot all about that.
Oh, fuck.
At the beep, his boyfriend’s soft voice slurred through the apartment, bitter and angry. “Pick up the goddamn phone, Wes. I know you’re there. You hear me? I ain’t fucking around here. Pick up the phone—”
Wes jerked the receiver out of the cradle and pressed it to his ear, cutting off the furious message. “Roger,” he whispered. He hoped he sounded as if he just woke up. He hoped the fact that he was sleeping with someone else tonight didn’t ring out loud and clear in his voice. “Do you know what time it is?”
“You didn’t call me back,” Roger said. Wes could hear something harder than beer in his boyfriend’s voice.
“You said you’d be out,” Wes explained, mind whirling. “I didn’t want to leave a message.”
Roger moaned in his ear. “I’m coming over.”
You’re drunk, pissed, and looking to score, and I’ve got someone else here. What would happen if Roger found Nathan in Wes’s bed? “No,” he said. “Roger, it’s late, and you’ve been drinking—”
“I can still drive.” He could hear the pride in his boyfriend’s voice. “I have to drop Jay off and I’ll be right over—”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Wes told him. He didn’t ask who Jay was—he didn’t care. You can’t come over. Not now, not when things are starting to go right for once. “I don’t want you driving. How many drinks did you have?”
Roger’s voice hardened. “I thought we talked about this,” he said, angry. “I thought you were going to work this shit out—”
“Roger,” Wes warned.
“And I thought you weren’t going to make me beg for a fuck,” Roger continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “So I’m calling you up, saying I want to get with you, and what, you tell me no? What kind of shit is that?”
“It’s late. We can talk in the morning—”
“I don’t want to fucking talk to you,” Roger exploded.
Wes sighed. I shouldn’t have answered. Hang up already.
But he couldn’t. “Roger—”
“Fuck you,” Roger muttered. The phone went dead in Wes’s ear.
Numb, Wes replaced the receiver. He crossed the hall back to his bedroom and crawled into the bed beside Nathan, whose warm, strong hands weren’t enough to smooth away the coldness that threatened to swallow him whole. He lay for hours staring into the darkness, unable to breathe, unwilling to blink, oh-so-sure that Roger was in his car, speeding across town, on his way to smash apart the one good thing he had.
Chapter 20
Wes didn’t mention the phone call to Nathan. He didn’t think he had to—when he woke up from a fitful doze a little after eight, Roger wasn’t banging down his door and Wes knew his boyfriend well enough to know he was probably still in bed himself, sleeping off the alcohol from the night before. Give him another couple hours, Wes thought as he stretched awake beside Nathan, who was still curled against him. He’ll be here before noon, already apologizing and looking for make-up sex, and then we’ll talk. I’ll tell him a
bout Nathan, and…
Well, he’ll just have to deal with it. Because I’m not his anymore. I’m with Nathan now, that’s all there is to it.
He wondered if he would manage to sound so brave with Roger standing in front of him. He hoped so…
Beside him, Nathan let out a leonine yawn. When he spoke, his voice was thick with sleep. “You awake, babycake?”
Turning, Wes found himself face to face with his friend. He had never believed those deep eyes could look any darker and yet there they were, staring back at him, depthless and amazing in the morning light. “Hey,” Nathan murmured.
“Hey.” Wes smoothed a hand across Nathan’s cheek, smiling at the rasp of his fingers against the stubble along his friend’s jaw. As he rubbed his thumb over Nathan’s lower lip, his friend puckered, kissed him, and then leaned over and planted a quick kiss on his mouth. “I never thought I’d wake up beside you.”
With a laugh, Nathan took his wrist in his hand and held his arm above their heads, out of the way. Crawling closer, he began to kiss Wes’s neck and the thick muscle in his shoulder, the ticklish underside of his arm. Then he lay his head on Wes’s chest and released his arm so Wes could drape it over his shoulders. “It won’t be the last time,” he said, picking at Wes’s nipple.
Wes slapped his hand away and laughed. “Stop that.”
But Nathan started pinching him, his fingers dancing over Wes’s skin. This tender moment was so different from Roger’s idea of playfulness that it made Wes’s throat close. “Nathan, I said—”
“I heard you.” Nathan wrapped his arms around Wes’s waist, hugging him tight. Then he puckered his lips and kissed Wes’s nipple. “I’ll stop.”
Can I say I love this? They lay together, their breath soft in the still morning. Roger was never like this, never—in the mornings when Wes had to wake him up, he was surly and hung over until he’d had his coffee and his paper and his morning cigarette. Then he might be a little better, if Wes made him something to eat or suggested a shower together or something along those lines. I want to wake up like this every day.