by Ana Ashley
“I was practicing my English,” Fernando said in his defense. “Besides, who knew there were so many types of, well, everything!”
“What school do you go to, Lucy?” Diogo asked in such a quiet voice that it surprised me I’d heard it from my side of the table.
“Oh, er…” she looked at Max before she replied. “I go to Park East.”
“No way! I went to Park East, too. Is Mrs. Mason still there?”
“Yeah, she is, but she’s retiring next year.”
“About time. I swear she must be at least a hundred.” They both laughed at the joke.
Lucy leaned forward on the table as if to share a secret with Diogo. “It is true there’s a locker at the school that’s full of candy? I heard a rumor, but we never found it.”
“It was true when I was there, but I’m not sure about now.”
“Really? Where is it?”
Diogo mirrored Lucy so they were as close as they could be with a table between them and whispered, “In the supply closet. There’s a spare locker there. The code used to be 1234.”
“1234? That’s a rubbish code.”
Diogo laughed. “It used to be harder, but everyone kept forgetting it, and since so few people knew about it, we changed it.”
Lucy smiled, likely hoping to check out the closet for the locker the next time she was at school. Diogo smiled back at her and then, as if they both noticed how close they were, they both leaned back and looked away.
Fernando was oblivious, Max was livid, and I was laughing to myself.
The pastries were delicious, and the coffee hit the right spot, not to mention Max was stroking my leg absentmindedly under the table. It was so easy right there and then to forget the stress of the day and how we’d thought we’d lost Lucy. I interlinked my fingers with Max’s and squeezed.
We sat in comfortable silence.
“Max,” Lucy said.
“Yes, honey.”
“Can we go home? There’s something I need to tell you.”
I didn’t miss that she’d called Max’s apartment home. I hoped Max hadn’t missed it, either.
“Sure, let’s go then. Fernando, Diogo, are you still up for lunch on Sunday at our place?” Max asked.
“Definitely,” Fernando said, and I noticed Diogo blushing a little harder. The boy definitely had a crush. I would have to have a chat with Max before he went all big brother on Diogo.
34
Max
I was shaking as I took my key out to open the apartment door. I’d been trying really hard to hold it together both while we were looking for Lucy and then as we were sitting in the café with Fernando and Diogo.
Isaac put his hand on mine and took over from me. I didn’t know how I’d have coped without him today. After everything we’d talked about last night, I’d felt like the luckiest man in the world to have him beside me, but today had taken things to a new level. The little doubts were always there. What if this was too much for him?
“Lucy, why don’t you have a shower and try to get some sleep. We’ll wake you when it’s time for dinner and then we can talk, okay?”
“Thanks, Isaac.” Lucy disappeared to her room.
I put my arms around Isaac and pulled him close, not even trying to resist the need to kiss him. “You never signed up for anything other than a budding relationship, and here you are, taking over and making everything better. Again.”
“It’s easy for me to keep a clear head. I’m not the one who’s had a sister drop on the doorstep. I just hope that anything I do is enough to ease your burden.”
“You have no idea. It’s like I’m searching around for the oxygen I need to breathe and all I need is to look at you and my lungs fill up.”
“Let’s have a shower and some rest. We need to find out why Lucy didn’t come home last night, but you’re flagging.”
I pressed my half-hard cock to him. “Quite the opposite.”
He hit my arm and sauntered toward the room. “You coming? You’re not the only one with, er, not a flagging problem.”
Despite the teasing, we didn’t do much other than wash and make out in the shower. The events of the day had me feeling exhausted, so as soon as we got in bed, we both fell asleep.
The smell of bacon hit me as soon as I woke up, and for a moment, I wondered if Isaac had got up before me to prepare dinner, but he was still asleep right next to me. I took a moment to appreciate the form of his ass under the bedsheets.
I traced Isaac’s body from his shoulders all the way down the center of his back and over his gorgeous ass, squeezing gently.
“Don’t touch what you can’t afford,” he said with a sleepy voice but raised his hips to meet my touch.
“Name your price.” I leaned over and peppered his back with some butterfly kisses. He giggled as I found his ticklish spot and then turned over.
Isaac’s considerable tent under the sheets reminded me that we’d come to bed naked after our shower, and also the easy access that provided me with.
He motioned his eyebrows up and down, his blue-green eyes shining with a lot of lust and a little bit of challenge.
“Baby, looks like you have a problem under there.” I traced the outline of Isaac’s hard cock with my finger and felt it spring against his abdomen.
“And are you going to help me solve this problem or are you just going to stare at it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, putting a finger on my chin. “I’m not sure what’s in it for me. Plus, I smell bacon coming from the kitchen.”
“You fucking tease.” He pulled me down into a searing kiss as he pushed the sheets down to his knees.
I straddled him, lining up our cocks as his tongue explored mine. His moans were driving me insane, and I was already too close to coming, so I flipped over and took his cock in my mouth.
“You have to be quiet, baby,” I warned.
Isaac’s idea of keeping quiet was to turn on his side so he could take my cock in his mouth.
“Fuck,” I cried as he swirled his tongue around the head of my cock.
“Shhhh, quiet, remember?”
“Fuck you.”
“Not likely at this rate.”
I wanted to accept his challenge, but the creep went in for the kill and made me come in less than a minute, swallowing every last drop of my release. I happily gave as good as I got but had to put a hand in Isaac’s mouth to stop him from shouting the profanities that were leaving his mouth as he came.
We lay side by side as we came down from the high of our orgasms.
“Isaac.”
“Hmm.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s never a good thing. The last time you were thinking,” he said with air quotes, “I had to eat a cronut and those things should be illegal.”
“What?” I grabbed his hands and pinned them above his head. “Take that back.”
“No.”
“You take it back or…”
“Or what?”
“Or… I’ll tell Rich to take away the coffee machine I know you have in the office.”
“You wouldn’t!” he said in disgust.
“I would. I take my cronuts very seriously.”
“Fine,” he relented, “I apologize to the genius that decided croissants and donuts should have babies together. I shall never, ever disrespect the house of deep-fried pastries again.”
God, how I adored this man. He was the most genuine, funny, generous, loving, and all the good adjectives I could come up with.
“I would like us to get tested so we can ditch the condoms,” I said.
His face went serious. “Really? You want that?”
“With you, absolutely. I’ve never not used condoms, and I get tested regularly, but I’ve been thinking about it recently. I’m due a test, anyway, and I thought we could do it together. What do you think?”
“I’ve always used condoms, too. Yes, yes, let’s do it.”
I kissed him again and then
pulled him up from the bed. He moaned.
“Come on, it smells like Lucy is cooking us dinner,” I said as I threw him his clothes from the floor.
The scent coming from the kitchen paled in comparison to what it was like inside the kitchen. Isaac and I stood under the archway that separated the living room from the kitchen and observed open-mouthed what was going on.
Lucy had her curls piled up high on her head and tied with a hairband. They were the only part of her that wasn’t covered in spots of flour or what looked like tomato sauce. She was stirring something in a pot and moving to whatever music she was listening to on the headphones that were connected to the phone she was carrying in her back pocket.
Isaac was smiling at the scene in front of us.
He whispered, “See? I could have been loud.”
I bumped my hip against his and chuckled.
“Dios!” Lucy screamed when she turned and saw us.
I smiled wide at her, pleased that she’d spoken Spanish instead of English. I’d assumed she had very little connection to her mom’s ancestry in Puerto Rico and wondered how fluent her Spanish was. I wondered how difficult it would be for me to learn Spanish so we could keep a link with Lucy’s mom. I guessed maybe not that difficult since I’d already mastered Portuguese and vaguely remembered my high school Spanish.
“Sorry,” Isaac said, “we didn’t mean to scare you. What are you cooking?”
“That’s okay, and I’m sorry about the mess. I got a little carried away. I made spaghetti with a tomato and bacon sauce, a chocolate cake, and little enchiladas.” She looked proud of her efforts, and she was right to be. Everything looked delicious, and the smell was making my mouth water.
“Thank you, Lucy, that’s really nice of you to make all that. When can we dig in?” I asked.
“Let me clean up a bit of this mess and then we can start.”
“No way, I’m too hungry. We’ll all clean up after dinner.” Isaac went straight for the cupboard where I kept the plates while I made space on the table for us.
The food was to die for. I ate until I couldn’t stomach one more bite, and Isaac looked like he was about to enter a food coma.
“You’re never moving out if you cook like this all the time,” I said before I caught myself.
Lucy’s smile dropped, and she looked down at her hands. I saw Isaac sit up slightly from the corner of my eye.
“Lucy, what was it you wanted to tell me earlier?”
“Before my phone died yesterday, I had a call from Dad. He’s been calling me and leaving messages asking where I am, but I’ve been ignoring them.” She was playing with a napkin and wringing it around her fingers.
“The call came from the school number, so I picked it up, but it wasn’t my teacher. It was Dad.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. I hung up the phone. I was scared he’d tell them lies to make me go back home.”
Tears started running down her face, so I got up to sit next to her. I put my arm around her and she leaned in. I couldn’t believe how easily she trusted me.
“Shh, it’s okay.”
“No, don’t you see? Now I can’t go back to school because they’ll make me go back to him. I can’t go back to him, Max. Please.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Can I stay with you and Isaac? I’ll help out and do all the chores and get good grades at school. Please, Max. Please, Isaac.”
“Oh, honey, I will do everything I can to make that happen, okay? I can promise you that.” I kissed the top of her head and told her to go pick a movie while Isaac and I cleaned the kitchen. She protested, but I pulled the big brother card and she relented.
Despite the mess Lucy had made in the kitchen, it didn’t take us long to clear up. While Isaac finished the dishes, I made a call to Peter, a friend from college who had become a lawyer specializing in family affairs, and set up a meeting for the next day.
I needed to know what challenges I would face from my parents if they were to fight to take Lucy back. Considering they’d near enough neglected her and only provided the bare basics, it surprised me that they’d be looking for her.
Before Lucy came into my life, I’d thought the worst thing my parents ever did was to kick me out for being gay. Now other memories were slowly coming back.
The times when Dad was really stressed about work and would sometimes shout at me and send me to my room for the smallest infraction. He’d always had business trips when he was like that. Now I wondered if what he’d done was to go to Lucy’s mom and use her as a punching bag so he didn’t do it to me or my mom.
I wanted to cry and apologize to Lucy for everything she went through. Her mom suffered so mine didn’t, and she suffered so I didn’t. Except that wasn’t the truth. I had also suffered because I hadn’t been the good straight son they thought they had. Up until that day, I had never even heard my parents express any kind of homophobic opinions.
“How about some ice cream with a slice of cake?” Isaac asked.
“I thought you couldn’t eat anything else?” I approached him to tickle his sides. He moved quickly, but fortunately for me, his move also meant he was trapped between me and the fridge.
“You know there’s always room for dessert.”
“How about you leave that room open, and I’ll give you some dessert later?”
“I think you make a compelling case but, well, ice cream.” He shrugged.
“Let me make it a little more compelling.” I took his mouth, pushing him further against the fridge.
“Guys, I picked the—oh.”
We sprung apart like we’d been electrocuted.
“Sorry, Lucy, we shouldn’t—”
“Hey, I don’t have a problem watching Isaac making out, but you’re my big brother, so ew.” She wrinkled her nose, so I threw a wet dishcloth at her.
“Gross!” She threw the towel back, and I managed to catch it before it hit me square in the face. “I chose the film so you can come watch it or carry on with your, ahem, clearing up the kitchen.” And with that, she left us alone.
“Well, Max James, what’s it going to be?”
“I guess we could get some ice cream,” I said in mock defeat.
35
Isaac
Since we’d cleared things up last week, Max had been a lot more relaxed and even slept better at night, too. It felt like we were finally at a stage where we could learn to be a couple together. We had a routine of going to work together whenever we could and sometimes, when he was doing a late or night shift at the hospital, Lucy and I would take him dinner and sit with him during his break.
He’d introduced me to all the nurses and doctors in the ER, and I even exchanged numbers with Shelly. I remembered her from my brief stint at the hospital last year when I suffered from smoke inhalation. Shelly had a younger sister and told me if I needed any help or tips on how to deal with stroppy teenagers to give her a ring.
Max had also gotten closer to Lucy. They had competitions to see who could add more marshmallows to their hot chocolate and got ridiculously excited when a well-known TV channel started showing all the Christmas movies.
I was both dreading and looking forward to Christmas. I was dreading the holidays because it meant that for the first time in years, I wouldn’t spend Christmas with my family.
On the other hand, I was also looking forward to it because it marked a year since Max came into my life, and despite all the challenges we’d faced—and continued to face—we were together. I felt like for the first time in a long time I had a family that was mine. I felt responsible, but also loved.
Of course, every time I thought of family, I missed Alex, Joana, and especially Sofia. I felt like I was missing so much of her growing up, and I was definitely going to miss her first birthday.
We’d had a few video calls, but the time difference meant it was a challenge to find the right time that fit with both our schedules.
Last week, Alex had sent me a video o
f Sofia’s first steps, and I’d sobbed like a baby when I saw it. Max had come into the room as it happened. He’d been great at calming me down and reassuring me we would figure out a way of spending time with them, too, maybe fly there for a vacation. I’d been a brat and said I didn’t want to miss all these milestones in Sofia’s life.
Max had thought I was telling him I wanted to go home to Lisbon. It had taken a whole day and Lucy playing peacemaker for us to talk again and for me to tell him I wanted to stay in New York, but I still missed my family.
Max decided we all needed time out and to be tourists, so he made one of his “Max’s guide to New York” plans and told us to wrap up warm.
Fernando had also become a good friend since, like me, he was adapting to a new culture and way of life. He was happy with his job in New York and felt it had been the right decision moving here to support Diogo.
Diogo and Lucy’s shy introduction transformed into a fullfledged friendship. Or that’s what Max and Fernando thought. Individually, both teens had shared with me their feelings for one another. They valued their friendship, so they were scared that if they shared their feelings, it would ruin things. It was all too sweet.
“Baby.” I sauntered over to Max from our bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around my waist showing the outline of my erection.
He looked at my bulge with hungry eyes and made a slow move toward me. I took a small step back, looking at him with my best bedroom eyes. He kept moving slowly in my direction as I moved back. I’d started this game, but now I was as desperate for his touch as a thirsty man in a desert was for water.
I put my hands behind me to feel where I was going and came to a stop when I felt the chest of drawers on my back.
“Keep them there,” Max said in a low voice that resonated deep inside me. I left my hands where they were, resting on the chest of drawers.
He removed his shirt, exposing his beautiful body with those delicious muscles I so loved to explore in every which way I could.
“I know what you want.” His voice was low as he came close but not close enough to touch me. I shivered as his breath on my collarbone caressed my skin.