by Dirk Hunter
“What’s this?” I asked, reaching out to take hold of the pendant.
Adam came up behind me, dressed now in the plain T-shirt and sweatpants I was used to. “It was for you. I was going to give it to you for Christmas, but I never got the chance.” I was speechless. But even if I hadn’t been, Adam didn’t give me the opportunity to respond. “Here, you can wear these,” he said, handing me a neatly folded pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and even a clothes hanger for the suit I was wearing.
I took them from him. “Thanks. I’ll just —” But he had already stepped out of the room. I stared at the shut door for a second after he left.
Had he left to give me privacy? Or was there something else going on?
Either way, I was going to take advantage of it to change. Sure, Adam had seen me naked, but that was before. I was grateful for the privacy.
Adam’s clothes were pretty baggy on me. Luckily the sweatpants had a drawstring, or I’d have had to hold them up with one hand throughout the night. I finished changing, hung my suit neatly on the clothes hanger I’d been given, but Adam still hadn’t returned. So I took the opportunity to send my parents a text.
I won’t be home tonight.
I hesitated sending it. How honest should I be?
Spending the night at Kai’s.
My mom responded almost immediately. Uh-huh. Sure you are.
Dad’s reply came right after. Does this mean I’m not gonna have to make cookies every night from now on? ’Cause your mom’s gonna be disappointed.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t respond.
The door opened. “I found a toothbrush for you, if you want.” Adam tossed me an unopened toothbrush.
“Thanks,” I said and followed him to the bathroom.
We brushed our teeth, side by side and in silence. I watched Adam in the mirror, gave him sidelong glances, but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the sink. I started to get annoyed. Why was I even here? I was being ignored so thoroughly, it was almost as if I weren’t. We brushed in silence, finished in silence, walked back to Adam’s room in silence. Adam lay down on his bed — you guessed it — in silence. He rolled over, putting his back to me.
Well, here it comes, I thought, looking down at him in the darkness.
The “comforting.” I wasn’t sure I was okay with this. I was still upset with him. It was one thing to put that aside, for now, but being a grief-fuck was quite another. Come on, Dylan, his mom just died. He needs you to be there for him. Yeah, but I wasn’t planning on being quite as “there” as this. What would you regret more, a quick comfort fuck or abandoning someone you care about, whether you want to admit it or not, to deal with his grief alone?
Fuck.
So I lay down too, crawled under the covers, and tried to force my trepidation aside.
Adam immediately rolled toward me, put his arm around my waist and his head on my chest. Okay, not what I was expecting. Awkwardly, I placed my arm on his back, gave him a little pat. After a minute, I felt a wetness seep through my shirt.
He’s crying, I realized. Not sobbing — he was making no noise, only shedding silent tears. Weeping, I guess, would be the word to use here. I had never seen anyone weep before. When Kai’s dad died, he had sobbed for days. Granted, that was Kai, and we were twelve, but Adam wasn’t sobbing. I think I assumed he was… not okay, obviously but… I don’t really know. Suddenly, I realized Adam hadn’t been ignoring me before.
He’d just been sad and probably felt like he couldn’t let it out until we were alone. In the dark. That’s probably also why he avoided me all day, because he didn’t want his composure to slip. I was right that he needed comforting, but I didn’t expect it to be, well, literal comforting. Holy fuck, I’m an idiot.
I didn’t say anything. I just brushed his hair with my fingers until we fell asleep.
I WOKE up with an intense thirst. The clock on Adam’s bedside table read 1:00 a.m. in harsh red light. Sometime while we slept, Adam had rolled off me, and now he lay at the far side of the bed. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him up, and made my way downstairs to the kitchen to grab a drink of water.
The house was still. I self-consciously glanced at the hallway leading to the stairs to the basement, where I knew Pete’s bedroom was. It was silent, but I could see the faint glow of a light left on. I tried my best to locate a glass in silence, but was continually thwarted by the kitchen’s propensity for noises. Stepped on the wrong part of the floor, creak.
Opened a cupboard too quickly, squeak. Opened a cupboard too slowly, groan. I half expected the refrigerator to start singing, just to spite me.
Eventually I found a cup — a mug, but at that point I wasn’t about to be picky — and filled it with water. Noisy faucets. Surprise, surprise.
“Who the fuck are you?” I heard slurred behind me.
I turned around. Looming in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hall, was Pete. He still wore his ill-fitting suit, though it was unbuttoned and extremely wrinkled. Even across the room, I could smell the alcohol on him. He was enormous, intimidating, and radiating menace.
With as much dignity as I could muster, I cowered. “I’m Adam’s friend.”
Pete stepped closer. “You’re that faggot, aren’t you?”
He seemed to expect some response. “Um….”
“What the fuck are you doing here, faggot?”
He was getting really close. “Adam asked me to stay,” I said.
“You’re disgusting,” he continued, not seeming to have heard me.
“You’re trying to convert him, aren’t you? Exploiting his grief so you can have your way with him.”
“What? No, it’s not like that at all,” I said. Pete snarled and shoved me, hard. My back hit the pantry with a loud thud. Pain shot up my spine, and I collapsed to the floor. Pete stared down at me, hands balled into fists. “I won’t let you take advantage of him,” he shouted.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t stop staring at his fist as he raised it to strike.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IN AN instant, Adam was there. He grabbed Pete’s arm.
“You will not touch him.” Adam didn’t yell, or even sound particularly angry. Instead, his voice was soft and almost dangerous. “It’s one thing to hit me. I’m your little brother. I’m supposed to get beat up every now and again. That’s all well and good. But I will not stand by and watch you hurt the guy I love —”
Wut.
“— because you are too big of a coward to deal with what you’re feeling. Just like Dad. Well, I can act like Dad too. If you so much as look at him wrong again, I’ll leave. And I’ll never come back.” With that, he pushed Pete’s arm away. He didn’t use all that much force, but in Pete’s inebriated state, it was enough to send him stumbling and land flat on his ass. Pete stared up at his brother, mouth moving wordlessly as his booze-addled mind was reeling for purchase. In that instant, I finally saw him as he really was. He wasn’t this aggressive older brother to be feared, a tyrant, pillar of imposing strength. He was just a person — a kid, really — already developing a beer belly from drinking, probably by himself more often than not, hair thinning way too early. One can only hope that isn’t in Adam’s future, but I digress. A guy whose mom had just died and who was trying desperately to be the adult he suddenly needed to be, but without any example other than a drunk, sometimes abusive father who ran away. A guy who was too weak to do any better. Though, in his situation, it’s hard to believe that very many people would. In that moment, I pitied him.
Ha, that’s a lie. I mean, I’m awesome and smarter than, like, everyone else, but not even I’m that perceptive on the fly. It was actually about three days later while telling this story to Kai that I made this realization.
In reality, and this seriously is the last time I’ll admit this, as I lay on the floor (okay, cowered, really. Classy, I know), all I could do was look up at Adam standing protectively over me, hands balled into fists, his broad, muscle
d shoulders tensed with anger — to be honest, like, 95 percent of my memories of this moment are Adam-muscle-related — and swoon. A mini, I’m-already-on-the-floor-type swoon, but a swoon nonetheless. In my imagination, my suddenly adrenaline- and pain-enhanced imagination, he was suffused with a halo of righteous wrath, an aura of hero that seemed plucked straight from a fairy tale. I knew the whole damsel-in-distress thing was really not a good look, but that was where I was at. It didn’t help matters when a second later he turned and scooped me up in his arms and carried me upstairs. The only thing that could have cemented my damsel status any further was if I were being carried from a tower or some shit. It was magical. It made my stomach tingle in that “someone fulfilled my secret wish and I won’t ever even have to admit I liked it” kind of way.
But for the sake of my ego, let’s pretend I picked myself up, told Adam that Pete wasn’t worth it — or maybe something compassionate instead — and walked upstairs myself in a dignified, manly manner, because I am the hero of this story. Definitely not the damsel. If anyone was the damsel, it was… well, not Adam, certainly. Far too many muscles there. But someone else, someone not me. Kai, probably.
Heh. Yeah, it was definitely Kai.
Where was I?
Oh yes. Back in Adam’s room, in his bed — I was not placed there by Adam’s big, strong arms, how dare you even think it? I walked, remember? — I expected Adam to pace back and forth, quivering with pent-up energy, or something, especially after how he had acted downstairs. But he didn’t. He stood there, slouched against the door, eyes closed. He looked exhausted. He looked defeated, though I can’t imagine why. It seemed to me like he had won a victory against his brother. He looked, well, vulnerable.
I said before that the sight of him naked captured my heart. This was only partially true. It was seeing him vulnerable that really did it. He showed me the scared little boy he hid deep inside. The naked only let my cock catch up to what my heart had already begun to realize. And now, seeing him like this, my brain started to catch up too.
“Did you mean it?”
He opened his eyes and looked weakly at me. “Mean what?”
“That you love me.”
His eyes closed again. He slid down the door until he was sitting on the floor, knees hugged tight to his chest. He buried his face in his arms and shrugged.
“Oh,” I said. Not my best. I wasn’t exactly feeling quick on my feet at the moment.
“I know,” he said, “I ruined it. The only good thing I’ve ever had, and I wrecked it.” He looked up at me. Tears were streaming down his face, but his voice was steady. “And now I’ve lost you. I know it. I’m not trying to….” He paused, clearly struggling for words. He gave up and dropped his head again.
“Adam,” I said. I slid off the bed and laid my hand on his arm. He met my eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m here now. I told you, I’m here as long as you need me.”
“But what about a month from now? How about two? When you stop feeling bad for me, what then?”
“I….” I was taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. I didn’t know how to respond.
“You’ll leave again, and I’ll go back to being alone.”
“Adam, I… I’m not okay with being your secret anymore, with hiding from the rest of the school. I just….”
Adam cut me off. “Shit, I told my brother, and you think I’m worried about the school?” He sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to — you know. I’m aware it’s my fault. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. You have every right to…. It’s just…. Maybe you should just go. It will hurt less later if you went now.” He stood up and walked across the room, very deliberately putting his back to me.
I stood up too. “Fuck it.”
“What?” he said, confused.
“I said fuck it. You think you were the only one upset about this, the only one who feels lonely? It would be easier for me to count the nights I haven’t cried myself to sleep, and most of those were because I just straight up wasn’t able to sleep at all. I’ve missed you, every day. You’re right. It is all your fault. I do have the right to… to cut you out of my life, or make you pay, or whatever you were about to say. Instead, I say fuck it.” He turned back toward me. “What are you saying?” he asked, trepidation in his voice.
“Fuck it. I think we’ve covered that part.”
“Dylan, please don’t make jokes right now.”
“I’m saying that I don’t know if I love you, but this is the closest to love I think I’ve ever felt. I’m saying that I don’t want you to not be a part of my life. I’m saying can’t we just skip the part with the reconciling and the forgiveness-seeking? I’m saying why aren’t you over here kissing me, right now? I’m saying —”
I never had a chance to finish saying what it was I was saying.
’Cause right then I was hit by about two hundred pounds of muscle, and my mouth suddenly became quite occupied with other pursuits. Like trying to find time for breaths between kisses.
“You didn’t let me finish,” I said, once the bout of making out came to a close, with my back against the door and our foreheads pressed together.
“Oh?” Adam said softly. “It couldn’t have been too important.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“What was it, then?”
“Remember how I was saying fuck it?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, I kinda meant that literally too.”
Adam’s face slowly morphed into a wicked, hungry grin. He picked me up, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he carried me to his bed. We were making out pretty heavily at this point. He dropped me on the bed and tore my pants off with one hand. Only then did he stop kissing me. I had a second to gasp for air before he took my cock in his mouth, deep-throating me with reckless abandon, and making me lose my breath all over again. I pulled his shirt up over his head. He hesitated to stop sucking me long enough to get his shirt off. I had to tug on it a few times before he let me get it off. I pulled his head up to kiss me again, and he ripped my shirt off — not a figure of speech, by the way, which made me glad it was his shirt. I reached down and freed his cock, already swollen and massive, from his pants. It was bliss to hold him in my hand again. But it wasn’t enough.
“Fuck me, Adam. I want you to fuck me!”
As if by magic, Adam made condoms and lube appear. Seriously, he could have pulled them from behind my ear for all I could tell. To this day, I still wonder if he’d had them in his pocket the whole time, or stashed under the pillow for such an emergency. Still kissing me, he squeezed some lube onto his fingers and began to rub it around my asshole. He slipped one finger in, then two, working in and out, widening my hole. I gasped with each penetration, as though surprised every time, and he laughed between kisses. Then he tore open the condom, put it on, and positioned himself, cock pressed against me. I looked up at him. He looked down at me.
And then he was inside me.
For an instant, it was uncomfortable. So tight, not painful, but like my body was resisting an intrusion. Then he pulled out halfway, thrust back in, and my back arched in pleasure. He did it, again and again, and with each thrust I could feel his cock rubbing against my insides — my prostate, said a small part of my brain, but I was much too far gone to listen — sending waves of sensation through my body until my toes curled and I cried out uncontrollably. Faster he went, and harder, until I thought I would go blind from the ecstasy. He grabbed my cock and stroked in time with his thrusts, while bending down to kiss me. He grabbed my hips to pull me against him and add more power to his thrusts. I wanted it to never end.
But it did, and way too soon. He called out my name as he came. He collapsed on the bed beside me and gazed at me with heavy lidded eyes.
He tore open another condom, rolled it on my cock with a deft motion, and said, “Now it’s my turn.” Whatever small disappointment I might have felt vanished, replaced with lust.
I
started with one finger, listening to him moan. When I switched to two, he was writhing beneath me, begging for more. By the time I pressed my cock against his taut hole, he was hard again, and his eyes burned with desire. “Fuck me,” he moaned. And I did. “Harder,” he begged, and I obliged. With each thrust, I plunged my cock deep into him, shoving him hard against the mattress. He cried out with each thrust, louder and louder, and before long I was too, shouting in unison. I grabbed his cock and pumped it in counterpoint with each of my thrusts until, shuddering, we both came. I collapsed onto his chest. We lay there, for several minutes, panting, my slowly softening cock still inside him.
“God, I missed that.” Adam pushed me gently off him. He pulled a small towel from a drawer on his bedside table, wiped the cum off his chest, then pulled the condom off me and cleaned me up. “Don’t get me wrong. I missed you too….”
“Uh-huh,” I said lazily, “Sure. And what was it, exactly, you missed about me?”
“Okay, you got me. I only missed the fucking.” We both laughed. It felt good to be so carefree again. It had been so long.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.” Adam said.
“What made you change your mind? About all this?”
“I couldn’t resist the call of your manly allure any longer,” Adam joked. “I mean, it is pretty overpowering. But seriously. I know you broke it off with Tiffany over a week ago. Why?”
Adam’s smile faded, and that look of saddened introspection crept back. He sat up, leaned against the headboard with a faraway look in his eyes. Seeing the complete change in his demeanor, I regretted bringing it up. I was about to apologize, say never mind, when he started talking.