I hesitated for a moment, looking at the door to my room, then looking back at Owen.
“C’mon,” I heard him whisper.
And that was all it took. I made my way inside, tiptoeing, and slowly shut the door.
Owen was grinning at me as I got under the sheets. “You’re so funny,” he said. “Quiet as a mouse.”
“This house isn’t exactly sound-proof,” I whispered.
“Oh, come on, everyone’s asleep,” Owen said. “You worry about nothing.”
“Good night, Owen,” I said, lying on my back, closing my eyes, trying to think of absolutely nothing.
He let out a long hum of a sigh, like he was contented. “G’night, Max,” he said. “Love you.”
Something twisted inside me. Owen and I had been saying we loved each other for years—I knew how he meant it. But why did it feel different to hear him say it while we lay next to one another in bed? While I strained to ensure I was not thinking about my cock?
I started to drift to sleep, focusing only on the faint ocean sounds in the background. But a few minutes later, Owen’s weight shifted, and then suddenly his arm was around me; he was drawing me in close, pulling me toward him, squeezing against me like he had last night.
It felt amazing. It was so much. I felt overloaded, like if I spent another second that close to him I might lose my mind, lean over and kiss him, or get so hard my cock would leak.
So I pulled away. I turned on my side and faced away, going to the cold far side of the bed.
“Mmm?” Owen hummed, half-asleep. “You okay? Sorry if—”
“I’m fine,” I said, my voice clipped. “I’m just—I’m way too hot. Sitting around that fire was a lot. Need some space.”
It was a lie. I was cold, actually, and the warmth of his body against mine had felt like stepping into a perfect, soothing bath. But I couldn’t deal with it. Couldn’t bear the guilt of how fucking good he felt against me. It was like cheating on a test: I couldn’t appreciate the glory of success if it wasn’t meant for me, if I didn’t really deserve it at all.
5
Owen
In the dream, the cliff had come right up on me. One moment I was on a leisurely run through the summer trees, midmorning sun streaming through the leaves, and the next I’d become distracted by an iridescent butterfly and ended up stopping short of falling off the ledge.
It was at least hundreds of feet down, and if I’d taken one step further, I would have been plummeting. Tremors of residual fear washed over me, and I thanked God that I was still alive.
“Owen!” I heard a familiar voice calling from behind me. I turned and saw Max running toward me, sweet and dutiful as always.
And then the ground under my feet gave out. The ledge I was standing on was crumbling, I was falling fast, and I didn’t stand a chance at scrambling back up to safety.
“Owen! No!” Max called, and as I was falling, grasping for loose dirt to hold on to, he was there. He gripped my hand, pulling me up, rescuing me like in some cheap thriller movie. He hoisted me to the side of the cliff, pulling me closer and closer to stable land, resting me on a sturdy patch of grass far from the plummeting drop.
I felt like I had cheated death. I was lying on my back, looking up at Max above me, his breathing just as labored as mine.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
I reached up to hold the sides of his face in my hands, my eyes searching his, panic giving way to total relief. Max had his hands pressed to the ground on either side of me as he watched me below him. My whole field of vision was just filled with him.
“I thought I was as good as dead,” I said.
And in the dream I couldn’t think of anything to do other than draw his head close to me, bring his face right to mine, and press my lips to his. I kissed him over and over again, my way of saying thank you, as I slid my hands around him, pulling him as tight as I could.
And then at some point, somehow, the kisses turned slower. They became more sensual. The cliff and the near-death experience were all but forgotten, and now all I knew was that I was there with Max, pinned under him, kissing him like it was the only thing keeping me alive.
When he pulled back and I looked into his eyes, all I felt was desire, and it was all I saw in his eyes, too.
“I’m yours if you want me,” Max said, in his deep, velvet voice, and I knew from the look in his eyes that it was the truth.
And then I woke with a start, dripping with sweat in my beach house bed. Light was pouring through the open window, warming me, and I was alone. My heart pounded in my chest, and the sheets clung to my skin. I quickly tossed them off, the breeze from the window chilling me.
What the fuck?
I caught my breath as I slowly came back to reality, remembering where I was, who I was.
It had just been a dream. An extremely vivid, shockingly realistic dream. In which I was pinned under my best friend making out with him, wanting more.
Max had clearly gone downstairs already—it had to be at least nine-thirty in the morning by now—and I was fully glad for it because I was achingly hard. It was something entirely different from morning wood. When I peeked down, I even saw a small wet spot had formed where the tip of my cock met my shorts.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath as I laid my head back down to the pillow. For a few moments, I just stared up at the ceiling, hoping and waiting for my cock to settle down, but after a while, I knew it was futile.
I had to get rid of it. It wasn’t going to go away on its own, and I’d be in agony if I didn’t do something about it.
I wrapped my hand around my cock, trying to think about nothing. I thought about the pure sensation of each stroke, of how nice it felt to be out from under the covers. I thought about past sex I’d had with beautiful women—a lot of it during drunken benders, but I could still remember fairly well how nice it had felt.
But none of it made me feel any closer to ridding myself of the near-painful ache. It wasn’t enough; it wasn’t taking me to the edge.
And then, uninvited, the images from my dream floated right back into my brain, and near instantly, I felt like I was on the edge again, like electricity had shot through me and I could come at any moment.
I took my hand off my cock for a moment, my heart beating fast again, my breath coming heavy. I looked down and saw that I was dripping precum again, my cock throbbing every few moments.
And after a moment of utter frustration and confusion, I could only come to one conclusion: fuck it.
Fuck it.
It was weird as hell. I couldn’t explain it. And I certainly didn’t want to analyze it right now. But I knew that if I had somehow gotten turned on by that weird fucking dream, I was just going to have to go with it. It was clearly the only thing that was going to make me come.
And so as I wrapped my hand back around my cock, I let my mind wander where I’d been blocking it off before.
I let myself picture Max how he’d been in my dream: hot and breathing heavily, pinning me to the ground, gazing into my eyes. It had felt strange at first but so good to have kissed him. I felt saved by him. He had saved me from death and then saved me from something else. I didn’t know what.
And in the dream, when Max had been pressed to me, his cock had been pushed up against mine. I’d never felt anything like that in real life—I’d never… done anything with a guy, so I had no way of knowing what it would feel like to have another cock lying against my own. Max’s cock, specifically.
But I certainly had enjoyed it in the dream. And the thought of it now was driving me absolutely crazy. Why was it so nice to be pinned under my best friend, to feel like Max had everything under control, including me? His lips had felt perfect against mine. Would they feel like that in real life?
I almost lost it when the thought came rushing into my head. Thinking about the strange dream was one thing, but wondering how Max would feel in real life was something else. Something that made me feel
like I was going to come in two seconds flat.
And I really, really needed to come.
So I let myself imagine that Max was really here, that he was on top of me in bed, that it was his hand on my cock instead of my own. And as I stroked myself closer and closer to coming, I didn’t stop myself from picturing something totally wild: Max’s eyes. Not his eyes in the dream, but how they’d looked last night while we sat around the fire. And then how his body had felt in bed next to me, and how all I’d wanted was to be closer to him.
How close did I really want to get? God, if in another world, Max would let me—let me roll over, let me beg him to touch my cock, to give me this. To let me come for him.
And then, as I pictured Max’s hand on my cock, I started to come. It wasn’t at all like other orgasms I’d had. It was intense in a way I hadn’t experienced in years. I lost control as I came over and over again, shooting so far up along my stomach and chest and even hitting my own cheek. It rippled through my body, and I had to stifle a loud moan, knowing I couldn’t be too loud in the house.
But I was amazed I even had that amount of control. For minutes after I came, I lay in bed, catching my breath, twitching, my mind blissfully blank. I mindlessly pawed at the tissues on my side table, cleaning myself up from the mess I’d made.
Holy fuck.
Jesus Christ.
Finally, my mind felt clear, and I was unburdened. I’d come harder than I knew I could come. Once I was clean and my breathing was normal again, I got out of bed and crossed quickly over to the shower, letting the cool water wash over me.
Everything was fine. It wasn’t like I’d never had a weird dream before—it happened, and now I could face the day with a level head. I got dressed and headed down the stairs to find everyone chatting and mingling in the kitchen while Dad made waffles.
“Owen, baby!” Mom called out. “I was just about to come up and make sure you were okay. You really needed a lot of sleep, didn’t you?” She was already in her apron, hair done up, halfway through breakfast.
I nodded, heading over to where she and my dad were working in the kitchen. “I guess I really did. I haven’t slept that late in a while.”
“Well, we’ve got waffles going. Megan is being her usual wonderful self and helping us squeeze oranges for juice.”
I turned to Megan at the other side of the kitchen counter, smiling as she pressed halved oranges against the juicer.
“Sorry I didn’t wake up in time to help,” I said, grinning at my parents.
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m sure you’ll make up for it at lunch,” Mom said.
I sat down at the kitchen table with Patrick and Taran, picking up the local Pearlview Beach newspaper and idly looking over the local town summer activities.
But then the back door opened, and Max walked in. He was wearing his sunglasses after being outside, and he sat at the table right across from me, setting down three beautiful seashells on the tabletop. When he took off his sunglasses, his eyes were downcast, only looking at the shells, inspecting them closely. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was seeing him in some different light than I ever had before.
And then he lifted his eyes to mine. It was only for a brief moment that our gazes met, but it was as if I was looking into a firing squad. I felt dizzy.
It was overwhelming. Those were the eyes that had been in my dream, the eyes that had made me come just a few minutes ago. I suddenly felt frozen.
Max didn’t say anything to me. I couldn’t figure out if that was weird or not. Would he normally say hi? Did he somehow see it written all over my face, could he somehow tell I’d had a dirty dream involving him and knew that I’d gotten so strangely turned on about it?
“Jeez, Owen, you sure are red,” Mom said, leaning over the kitchen counter and inspecting my face. “You really did get some sun yesterday, huh?”
My mom pointing out my tomato-red face probably only made me blush further. When I gathered the strength to glance back at Max, he was no longer looking at me, inspecting his shells yet again.
“Yeah, probably too much time in the car yesterday with the windows down,” I said. “It was a hot one.”
“And it’s gonna be another hot one today,” Dad said.
“No better way to enjoy the beach,” Patrick said.
“I see lots of ice cream in our future today,” Taran agreed.
Suddenly my mom was at my side, and her proximity made me jump a little bit. I looked up at her as she ruffled my hair like she used to when I was a little kid.
“Well, I suppose now is as good a time as ever,” she said, grinning down at me. She glanced back at Dad and then looked at me again. “I may have gotten a little surprise for you and Megan.”
Megan caught my gaze, and immediately I could tell what she was thinking, which was the same thing as me: Ruth is on her crusade to make us fall in love again. And very quickly, we were proven right.
“What is it, Ruth?” Megan asked, smiling sweetly.
My mom scurried over to the little side table at the entrance to the room, then came back to my side. She had a little envelope in her hand, and she pulled out two small pieces of paper from inside.
“I was reading online about fun activities in Pearlview Beach before we came here. And.. this one just seemed too good to pass up. It’s something I did with your father a few years ago, and we just loved it, but I wanted you to have something special, Owen.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s two tickets to a little boat ferry evening tonight. Basically, you get on the little boat, they serve dinner, have live music, and you get a sightseeing tour of all the little towns around this area,” she said. “It’s all nice, but the real reason for going is that you get to watch the sunset while you’re out on the water. Oh, honey, I think you’ll love it. And I figured Megan would appreciate it the most.”
“Wow, Ruth, that is awesome! Thank you so much,” Megan said, smiling.
“Hey, why didn’t Taran and I get anything cool like that?” Patrick protested, half-kidding.
“Oh, hush,” Mom said, waving Patrick off. “You and Taran are totally self-sufficient. The boat tours go every night. I’m sure you can book one for another night if you really wanted to. But I thought Owen needed something for himself.”
I forced a smile, standing up and hugging my mom. But inside, her words stung slightly. “You’re totally self-sufficient,” she’d told Patrick. The implication was that I wasn’t self-sufficient, at least to me.
And really… I knew that I wasn’t. I still hadn’t found a permanent job since coming back from wilderness, and every time I thought about it, my mind went into overdrive.
Because I had no clue what I really wanted to do. For so long, I’d just been “going with the flow”—really, my priority had been partying, not setting myself up for a productive life.
And now here I was, twenty-six, currently unemployed and living with my parents. I knew I’d been through a lot, and that I’d only just become sober. But it was still time. It was time for me to get my act together, to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
But every time I tried to think about it, my mind came up blank.
Of course, I was also minorly annoyed that my mom kept clearly trying to set me up with Megan. It didn’t bother me too much, because it was a little bit cute, but I didn’t know how Mom was going to get the message that Megan and I just weren’t ever going to date.
But still. It would be fun to go on a boat trip with her, and I was grateful that I had solid plans tonight that would let me avoid thinking too much about Max.
“Thank you so much, Mom,” I said, looking down at the tickets. “I’m sure we’ll have a great time.”
Max had barely said a word all morning, and even now he was still just staring down at a newspaper, quiet.
I had no idea what was going on in his mind. All I wanted was to have a normal day, and hopefully forget about my dream. I just didn’t know if it wa
s possible.
Megan and I clinked together our two champagne glasses full of ginger ale, tipping them back as we looked out over the boat deck at the setting sun.
My mom had been right: the boat trip was most spectacular for the incredible views, and already I was grateful to be able to experience it. There were many other people on the boat ride, mostly older couples and probably all tourists. But Megan and I had found a little section at the end of the boat deck where we could have space to talk and just look out at the water as it rushed past.
“To us,” I said, grinning before taking another sip.
Megan laughed. “Yes, to us, the happiest couple in your mother’s mind.”
“It’s adorable how she thinks we are going to end up together, but I also don’t know how to break it to her that we aren’t.”
“I know,” Megan said. “Do you think once I’m ten years into my marriage with another man, and I’m pregnant with my third child, she will finally accept that it isn’t going to happen?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No way. She’ll still think that guy isn’t your true love, and that I’ll be waiting in the wings once you get divorced.”
Megan grinned. “You’re so right.”
“I don’t know why, either. It’s not like we aren’t going to be lifelong friends. You’ll still always be in my life, always be special to me, even though we aren’t a couple.”
“Exactly!”
“We can sit her down and have a talk, if it ever starts to really bother you,” I said.
She shrugged. “It’s not too bad,” Megan said. She turned to me, leaning against the railing. “Except….”
“Ooh, what is it? Do I get to hear juicy gossip?”
“A little bit, yes,” Megan said.
“Hell, yeah. Lay it on me.”
“Well… this is ridiculous because we’ve only been at the beach for one day, but I met a really awesome guy this morning on my run,” she said, a smile growing on her face.
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