Focus on Me

by Megan Erickson

  I was. I was a total idiot because I ever doubted Riley wouldn’t come back. To me. “Yeah, yeah I am.”

  I opened up the door to my apartment and Dallas went berserk. He saw Riley and lost his damn mind. He barked and leapt, even though I’d been working with him not to jump. But Riley was crouched down, laughing while Dallas licked his face. Then they were on the floor, wrestling. I rolled my eyes. “I need to shower all this barbecue off of me. I’ll give you guys some alone time.”

  I stripped quickly as I walked down the hall, tossing my dirty clothes into the hamper in the bathroom.

  I showered quickly, not wanting to spend much time away from Riley. I ran a towel over my hair and dried off, then threw on a pair of shorts, not bothering with a shirt. I had air-conditioning in my apartment, but it was no match for this humid heat.

  When I walked out into the living room, Riley was on the couch, scratching Dallas’s head where it rested on his knee.

  He looked up as I came closer and his hand stopped. His lips parted. His eyes widened. And in that moment, the memories came rushing back to me like a tidal wave. Our first kiss. Him on his knees at my feet, dark eyes watching me as his lips sucked me in. Riley undoing that robe in our hotel room and prowling toward me like panther.

  He stood up and walked toward me slowly, then stopped inches from me. I told myself to breathe normally despite my racing heart as his fingers softly traced my collarbone. He circled a nipple, then continued down to lightly scratch the ridges of my abdomen.

  His cheeks were flushed, his pupils blown. It’d been so long since I’d seen him like this.

  “Col, I—”

  I didn’t want him to speak. I didn’t want words. I just wanted his mouth. I closed the inches between us, crushing his hand to my chest as I pressed my lips to his. He pressed back instantly, then parted them on a gasp. I dove my tongue inside as I raised my hand and threaded my fingers through his hair.

  This . . . this kiss was everything. It was the culmination of promises we’d made to each other. It was the proof that everything that happened this summer had been real and true and something that could last.

  I groaned and pressed closer, rubbing my hardness against him. My other hand gripped his hip, wanting to melt him into me so he’d never leave.

  This was how I pictured our reunion—frantic rubbing and clothes flying and needing to be closer, so close . . .

  I separated our lips when I realized what I felt. Or rather, what I didn’t feel. Riley wouldn’t meet my eyes. He tried to kiss me again, and I pulled back, glancing down and cupping Riley over his shorts. I knew what he felt like in my hand, like it was burned into my memory. So that’s how I knew he wasn’t hard.

  He shoved my hand away and turned his back to me. He gripped the side of his thighs in a white knuckled grip and made a strangled sound of frustration.

  “Hey—” I started.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck!”

  “Ri—”

  “My meds. Th-this is a side effect.” His back was still to me, his shoulders trembling. “But I thought . . . when I saw you . . . I thought . . . Fuck!”

  “Look at me, Riley.”

  He stayed frozen where he was.

  “Baby, I need you to turn around and focus on me.”

  He shuddered and slowly turned. The wrecked look on his face nearly shattered me. I pulled him to me, shoving his face into my neck. His arms came around me, clutching my shoulders. “Hey,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m so—”

  “If you even apologize for this, so help me God, I’ll throw a tantrum.”

  He huffed a laugh into my neck.

  I began to sway softly to some invisible music, like we’d done all those weeks ago in the Laundromat. “We’ll take it slow. I like a challenge. And if it doesn’t work, that’s okay. We’ll try again another time.”

  His fingers flexed into my back. “But you—”

  “I’ll live, Catwalk. And you will, too, and we’ll get through this together.”

  He pulled his head back to meet my eyes. “What did I do to get you?”

  “Uh, you needed a ride in a shitty gas station in Vegas?”

  He laughed. And I laughed, too, and we kept swaying.

  I nuzzled the hair above his ear and gently removed his shirt, so my skin met his. I ran my fingernails down his neck and over his shoulders. I nipped his earlobe and I whispered “Baby,” and “I missed you,” and “I love you” in his ear over and over again. He opened his lips on the skin where my neck met my shoulder and sucked until I was sure there would be a lasting mark.

  I was making this difficult for myself. I knew that. I was hard as a rock and of course Riley felt it, but I ignored it to focus on him. I touched him just to touch him, not that I needed it to lead further. I touched him to show him that that was enough for me, because it was. Feeling his skin on mine, his warmth under my palms, was all I needed.

  And then I felt it, the slight bulge in his jeans. His lips were still on my neck, sucking up another bruise, and he groaned and shifted his hips into me. “Bedroom,” he said.

  “Ri, we don’t—”

  “If you don’t take me to your bed now, you’ll see what a tantrum really is.”

  I smacked his ass and he laughed into my neck. I grabbed his wrist and led him the ten feet to my bedroom door.

  My bed took up most of the room, and we stripped quickly at the foot, knocking knees and elbows as we struggled with our clothes in the confined space.

  Then I was on my back in my bed, Riley straddling me, grinding our erections together in one of his palms. He was hard now, fully hard. The setting sun streaking in through my windows cast a pinkish glow over the room, highlighting his blond hair. I ran my hands down his thighs, over his hips, squeezing as he watched me with heavy-lidded eyes.

  He kissed me, then said against my lips, “Do you have stuff?”

  I nodded and pointed at the box beside my mattress. “In there.”

  He reached for it and I waited patiently. I wanted him to see the unopened box of condoms and the untouched tube of lube. He held them in his hands, blinking a minute, then met my eyes. “I love you, Col.”

  I squeezed his hips.

  He took out a condom and opened the packet. I closed my eyes and waited for him to roll it over his cock, but instead, felt the cool latex on the head of mine. I popped my eyes open, “Wait, Ri—”

  “Shhh,” he said, pouring lube on my cock and stroking me. “This is what I want.”

  With lube-covered fingers, he reached around to his backside and closed his eyes. He rocked against me as he prepared himself and I continued to stroke the skin of his thighs and hip and chest. I didn’t think about the last time we did this, and how it ended in complete disaster. Because this was the real Colin and Riley. With nothing to prove. This was us.

  He leaned forward, one hand on my chest the other behind him. His fingers closed around my cock, and then I felt my tip at his entrance. He closed his eyes on a moan as he sank down onto me. I sucked in a breath as I entered Riley’s incredibly tight, incredibly hot body.

  “Christ, baby,” I whispered.

  He shuddered and took me in the rest of the way, until his ass rested on my thighs. His eyes were still closed, both palms firmly planted on my chest. He swirled his hips once, twice.

  And then he opened his eyes, locked gazes with me, and moved.

  Up and down, he rode me, slowly at first. His cock had softened slightly as I entered him, so I reached down and began to stroke him again, taking my time, until he was hard again in my hand.

  He was fucking gorgeous, his blond hair in a swoop over his forehead, those impossibly dark eyes on my face. His full lips parted. The sounds of slapping skin filled the room and I raised my knees to cradle him against me. It changed the angle and his mouth fell open on a silent moan. He moved faster and his cock grew harder in my hand, leaking precum on my stomach.

  I continued to stroke, and he sai
d, almost in wonder, “I’m about to come.”

  “Me too,” I said, grinding my teeth to hold back my own orgasm. “Come on.”

  His cock pulsed once and then he threw back his head and came on my belly. His inner muscles clenched me and then I was done, releasing into the condom.

  I crushed him to my chest as the aftershocks shook both of us. I rolled us onto our sides, peeled the condom off, then rolled back to face Riley.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that expression on Riley’s face before. Complete satisfaction and contentment. And pure happiness.

  He reached out and ran his fingers through the stubble along my jaw. “I know the last month or so was hard, but . . . I realized I still wasn’t trying to get healthy for me. When you visited, it was a wake-up call at how much more work I had to do to get there. I’d been so set on proving something to you, that’d I’d completely forgotten about me.” He swallowed and I tugged him closer. “I didn’t want to talk to you again until I could promise you that I wanted to live and be healthy for me. I finally reached that point. Where I realized my worth.”

  “I want that for you,” I said.

  He nodded. “I know. And I want that for me, too. I still need to stay on my medication and go to therapy.”

  “Of course,” I said softly.

  “And I-I still want you.”

  I thought I’d need those words, but I didn’t need them anymore. Riley had shown me that was how he felt over and over again. “You know I want you back.”

  He smiled. “We’ll have to talk about how this works. I have a job.”

  I didn’t hide my surprise. “A job?”

  He swallowed. “Not modeling. I’m working at an LGBTQ youth shelter. SkyHope helped hook me up with it, and I’m grateful. Because I’m excited about it. I’m going to start taking some college classes to work my way toward a degree in social work. For now, they’re letting me assist in counseling at the shelter.”

  I cupped his face and couldn’t stop the stupid grin from spreading across my own. “Are you kidding? You’ll be perfect for that!”

  His smile was full of pride. In himself. “I-I think so. Yeah.”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  “I’m proud of me.”

  “Where is this shelter?” I braced myself for the distance.

  He bit his lip. “Okay, so I don’t expect anything, can I just say that? We can still take it slo—”

  “Ri, where’s the shelter?”

  He hesitated. “It’s in Crawley.”

  Crawly was a half hour away. Only thirty fucking minutes from my apartment. “You’re shitting me.”

  He shook his head. “I told SkyHope that I wanted to be . . . near here. If possible. If that’s okay with you, I—”

  I kissed him. I kissed him so hard that our teeth clacked together. I separated on a smack, staring into his wide eyes. “Of course it’s okay. It’s perfect, you beautiful bastard. It’s fucking perfect.”

  His smile was brilliant. Pure, happy, brilliant Riley. It was the best sight I’d ever seen.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  One year later

  Riley sat between my legs in the sand, staring at the fire blazing brightly on the dark beach. He ran a hand over my bare foot and ankle, gently scratching with his blunt fingernails.

  Justin and Landry stood on either side of the fire in front of us, throwing a baseball back and forth over the flames.

  I dangled my empty beer bottle in my fingertips and leaned my head back to stare at the night sky. I ran my other hand through Riley’s hair. It was much blonder now. The North Carolina sun had bleached it, and he’d cut it shorter recently. It tickled my palm. Riley leaned his head against my thigh and sighed. An ocean wave crashed off to our right.

  “I’m not doing that damn parade again, Lan.” Justin’s voice filtered to my ears through the salty air.

  “Come on,” Landry said, the humor clear in his voice. “Last time was fun.”

  A baseball smacked into a glove. “It was not fun. That damn silver sequin tank top you wore was anything but fun.”

  Landry laughed.

  Over the year, I’d gotten to know Justin and Landry a lot better. They’d been best friends since middle school. And while Landry came out in high school, Justin hid his sexual orientation. When Justin’s father died, they took a road trip across the country to spread his ashes, and that’s when Justin could no longer deny that he was in love with Landry. They’d been together ever since. And that’s how they’d met Riley. Landry had used Riley’s modeling photos and pretended Riley was his boyfriend. He came clean that it was fake, but then reached out to Riley through e-mail.

  I was grateful for that.

  “You’d probably dye your hair rainbow colors and hide it all under a hat,” Justin grumbled.

  “Ooh, good idea,” Landry teased.

  I smiled. Justin’s mother was the conservative mayor of their town and liked to use her son to further her political career. He was less than thrilled.

  “Okay, I’m done throwing the baseball because it’s starting to hurt my hand.”

  “Aw, poor Landry.” It was Justin’s turn to tease.

  “I’ll hurt you.”

  “You’d never hurt me.”

  A growl, then a scuffle, and next I heard kissing. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, they were over there eating each other’s faces off.

  I tugged on Riley’s hair. “You asleep?”

  “Nope.” He gestured toward Justin and Landry, who were grabbing beers out of the cooler. “They’re funny when they bicker.”

  Landry plopped down on the sand beside Riley and opened his beer. “So what’re we doing tomorrow?”

  We were here for a week. The four of us had rented a tiny little house a couple of blocks away from the beach. Riley and Landry were determined to make it an annual tradition.

  I liked hanging out with Justin. He was quiet and a lot of times had his camera up to his face, but we talked about collegiate sports. He’d played baseball out in California for four years.

  He sank down into a chair beside me. “Thanks for bringing food this week.”

  I’d brought a whole bunch of stuff from the restaurant. “No problem.”

  “I can’t stay away from that mac and cheese. Man, I’m going to end this week about fifteen pounds heavier. Landry’s gonna leave me for some young stud.”

  “Damn right I am,” Landry said from the sand at Justin’s feet.

  Justin cuffed him lightly on the head, and Landry retaliated with an elbow to Justin’s calf.

  “You two fight like elementary school kids with a crush,” I said, laughing.

  Landry turned around, the fire reflecting in his blue eyes. “We pass notes in class, too.”

  Riley moved at my feet and turned his head. “You wanna take a walk?”

  I stared into the darkness. “Uh, sure.” I looked to Landry and Justin. “You want to come?”

  Landry shook his head. “I think we’re going to stay here and make out.”

  “Jesus, Lan,” Justin said.

  Riley laughed and hopped to his feet. He held his hand out and I took it, standing beside him.

  “We’ll be back in a little bit,” Riley said. “Keep the fire going.”

  Justin saluted us with two fingers as we headed down toward the water. Riley kept our fingers linked, swinging them slightly between us as we walked in the cold, wet sand. After a couple of minutes, I broke the silence. “You enjoying it here?” It was only our second night. And we weren’t far from the pier where this all began a year ago.

  “Yeah, I mean,” Riley said, “I really like Justin and Landry, and you deserve a vacation.”

  My parents had given me more responsibility at the restaurant. I was the manager now, a position they’d always wanted to give to me. It paid better. I was never going to be rich, but I was happy. Riley loved his job. He was never going to be rich, either, but he came home every night, exhausted and happy. He said he f
elt like he was making a difference.

  We still had our ups and downs. Riley went to therapy and took his medications. Not all days were good days. But the good ones far outweighed the bad ones.

  And we loved each other. It wasn’t a cure for Riley’s illness. But he said he’d begun to heal at SkyHope by trying to see himself how I saw him. Along with the medication and therapy, he said it was what pulled him out of his black hole.

  “You know,” he said, bringing me back to the present. “I used to wonder why you stuck with me. Why you didn’t just tell my crazy ass to get out of your Jeep.”

  I opened my mouth, but he squeezed my hand.

  “And then . . . I reversed it, in my head. You were the one making this one-way trek across the country. You were the one I had to drag out of a sweat lodge. You were the one huddled on that pier. And I realized . . . I would have done the same thing for you.”

  “Baby,” I said softly.

  “I’m serious. I would have done the same thing for you. And this is what we are, right? This team. We each matter and we’re each worthy.” He took a deep breath. “So I focus on that, and when I do, everything seems brighter.”

  I stopped walking and yanked on Riley’s hand. He stumbled into my chest with a huff. “Hey, we were walking.”

  “Yeah, we were walking. But now we’re kissing.” I pressed my lips to his as the breeze from the ocean blew through my hair.

  When I pulled back, I focused on his dark eyes, his brilliant smile.

  “I love you, Col.”

  “Love you back, Catwalk.”

  Megan Erickson is the author of the In Focus series, including Trust the Focus. She worked as a journalist covering real-life dramas before she decided she liked writing her own endings better and switched to fiction. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kids, and two cats.

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