It's Enough

by McBryant, Julia

  Julia McBryant

  It's Enough

  A Southern Seduction Short

  Copyright © 2019 by Julia McBryant

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Julia McBryant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Julia McBryant has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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  Contents

  It’s Enough

  Just Say It

  Believe

  About the Author

  Also by Julia McBryant

  1

  It’s Enough

  Crispin sees Wills across the Savannah ballroom and he’s gone.

  Perfectly fitted tux, perfectly fucked-up hair, perfectly hand-tied bowtie. All six foot two of him, pure muscle, dark hair, dark eyes, enough stubble to look dangerous. Just barely nineteen to Crispin’s eighteen, Wills is drinking from a flask and laughing with his identical twin brother. Crispin can tell them apart, is one of the few who can, though he keeps that secret to himself. He hasn’t seen Wills since the night his best friend left for the University of Georgia. It hurts and it’s good, seeing him. He wonders what (who) Wills has been doing since they’ve seen each other. Neither of them are big talkers or texters or emailers. They’ll Facebook each other occasionally, send stupid memes or whatever. But nothing real.

  Nothing like I love you. Nothing like I’ll miss you. Nothing like This hurts but it’s all we can do.

  He knows Wills. This is what will happen: Crispin will slap Wills on the back, or punch him on the shoulder. They’ll share liquor and dance with some pretty girls, then slip out a back door later in the evening. Go back to the barn at Wills’ place. It’s always the goddamn barn, like fucking farm boys.

  This is what happens. “Hey, Crispin,” Wills drawls in his deep Georgia coast accent, like no time has passed. They lean against the wall next to one another, whirl some hot girls around the dance floor. Get their pictures taken for the society page. Wills hardly looks at Crispin, and they talk: UGA football. What are you up to in school. End of the semester sucked. You see any plays this year? No, too busy getting drunk. Stupid shit.

  Finally, Wills leans over. “I’m heading out. You wanna share an Uber?”

  “Sober enough to drive,” Crispin says. He planned it this way. “You want I could drop you off at your place.”

  “‘Preciate it,” Wills says.

  They climb into Crispin’s ancient Land Rover. Wills unties his bow tie and lets it hang. “You fuck any guys this semester?” he asks, like it’s a casual goddamn question.

  “No,” Crispin says. “D’you?”

  “No. Said I wouldn’t, didn’t I? A few girls, though.”

  “We said they didn’t count, long as they weren’t girlfriends,” Crispin says.

  “Didn’t have any of those,” Wills says.

  “Missed you,” Crispin ventures. He never knows how far he can go with Wills. They may have lost their virginity together in eleventh grade, but they’ve been best friends since kindergarten. Going from best friend to I love you, Crispin’s never sure where the line is.

  “Missed you too,” Wills says. “You think I didn’t miss you?”

  Crispin shrugs.

  “I fucking missed you,” Wills tells him. “You never get it, do you, Crispin?”

  Crispin is too scared to ask what he doesn’t get, so he keeps his mouth shut. He knows what he wants it to be. You don’t get that I care about you. You don’t get that I want to make this work even if it’s across the state. You don’t get that I love you.

  He pulls up the long drive of the Culliver house. All the lights are off. Everyone’s at the Christmas ball at the Bastian Club.

  “You wanna come in?” Wills asks. “Actual room this time, rather than the fucking barn?”

  “You worried we’ll get caught?” Crispin asks. But his stomach flips. Because it means Wills wants to. He wasn’t completely sure.

  “By who? Only person that would walk in is Henry, and he won’t fucking tell.” He means his twin, who shares a room. “Anybody else, we came back here to do shots, you got too drunk to drive home and passed out in Henry’s bed.”

  They walk through the silent house, surrounded by the ghosts of silent portraits, dead people’s possessions. Wills doesn’t turn on a light until they reach his bedroom, and then it’s only the small one in the corner. The room’s still the same: all St. Albert’s pennants, football trophies, bookshelves stuffed full of Hardy Boys and Scout Manuals and fossil identification guides. Double-width bunk beds, extra high.

  “Take your own goddamn tux off,” Wills says. “It’s bad enough to get one off myself. Let alone someone else.” They strip with the shamelessness of boys who’ve been taking their clothes off in the same locker rooms since middle school. But once they’re naked, Crispin lets himself stare. Wills is still the same: cut like the football captain he was, all bulked muscle, kinetic energy.

  “Carpentry school is good to you,” Wills says. He’s the one that crosses the gap between them; he always is. Crispin’s too afraid. He touches Crispin’s biceps, looks him up and down. “I’ve been looking at your ass all night. And you let your hair grow.” Wills twirls one of Crispin’s blond curls around a finger. Suddenly, he pushes Crispin down on the bottom bunk. “I want you,” he says baldly. “I wanted you when I saw you walk in the Bastian Club.”

  Then he’s on top, his mouth crushing down on Crispin’s, the familiar taste of Wills after a party: bourbon and something sweeter Crispin can never pin down. His tongue is in Crispin’s mouth, and they’re making out with no finesse, like the high schoolers they were a few months ago: rough, hard, sucking. Rubbing their cocks together, bucking on each other, driven by pure need.

  “You want me to fuck you?” Wills asks, a little breathlessly. “Or you wanna fuck me?”

  “Fuck me,” Crispin says. He knows Wills likes that better.

  “Then you fuck me after,” Wills says.

  “Won’t feel as good for you,” Crispin objects.

  “Then I’ll suck you off.”

  Wills gets out the lube — he must have planned this, Crispin thinks, it’s in his side table, and his stomach flips again to think of Wills planning for them to fuck each other in an empty house tonight — motions for Crispin to get on all fours. But instead of the cool feel of lube on his ass, Crispin feels a hot tongue. He jumps with surprise.

  “Not okay?” Wills asks, a little anxiously.

  “No, just surprised me.”

  That wet tongue returns to his ass, and it’s so go
od, hot, probing, licking his entrance, teasing inside it. Crispin can’t help but moan, especially when it works into him, when it licks and licks like Wills is trying to open him up with it. Then the wet, cold lube replaces it; a long finger starts sliding into him, a little at a time. Wills knows how to do this; they’ve been been very careful with each other since the beginning. His finger slides all the way in; he crooks it and hits that perfect spot inside. Crispin moans again. Wills presses while he slicks Crispin’s cock and begins jerking it slowly. Another slicked finger slowly joins the first; Wills works on relaxing the muscles at Crispin’s opening while he jerks him off. Then a third finger. He starts fucking them in and out and after the first shock of it, the first stretch and initial, oh-god fullness of it, the fucking feels so good, Wills hitting the right spot every time. Then his fingers withdraw, and Crispin hears him rolling on a condom.

  “Turn on your front,” Wills says. “Wanna see you. Put your legs up on my shoulders.” Then Crispin feels Wills’ cock at his entrance. “Okay?” he asks.

  “Okay,” Crispin answers.

  Wills starts the slide into him. It’s better, they decided a long time ago, to do it all once, but very slowly, let the other person get used to it. “Just relax,” Wills says soothingly. “I’m sorry, Crispin.” And it hurts, but it’s a good hurt, because it’s Wills, and it’s gone soon as Crispin remembers to breathe into it and Wills’ hand closes over his cock. He stays still, his brown eyes searching Crispin’s, waiting to make sure Crispin’s alright.

  “Okay?” Wills finally asks.

  “Yeah,” Crispin says, almost overcome by the feeling of fullness and the perfection of Wills’ hand on him, jerking him exactly the way he wants it: plenty of pressure with a twist at the end, random passes over his glans. Wills starts out slowly, mostly just rocking in him, hitting that spot. Crispin tries to be quiet. But then Wills starts fucking him for real and he can’t anymore, because it’s too good: his best friend really stroking in and out of his ass, the sheer pleasure at taking it from him again. Wills is big, god, Wills is big, and Crispin is being filled up again and again. Soon he’s talking nonsense: fuck me, fuck me harder Wills, please, oh god, give it to me, please fuck me, fuck me Wills, Wills, Wills, Wills.

  And that hand on his cock, jerking him the way he loves, so practiced at it: practiced like someone who’s been with you so many times they know you almost as well as you know yourself. He feels Wills tensing; Wills jerks him harder, strokes his balls. Then suddenly Crispin’s arching up off the bed, spilling white ropes of cum all over his best friend’s hand and his own belly. Wills keeps jerking him, but slower as he’s dragged into Crispin’s orgasm, shuddering and pushing deep inside, thrusting hard, head bowed. Crispin knows that Wills is shooting cum with every thrust, so hot to think of Wills letting go inside him.

  When he finishes, he tosses Crispin a washcloth. He had that in the drawer, too. The condom gets balled up in a tissue and buried in the trash. They pull their boxers on. Wills picks up his phone. Crispin hears the beep of a message sending, another coming back.

  “What was that?” he asks.

  “I thought you might want to stay,” Wills says. “I mean, you don’t have to. But I told Henry you were and he needed to sleep in the guest room. I thought I’d lock the door, and we could actually, you know, sleep in the same bed.” He’s looking away. Wills only does this when he’s embarrassed or shy or unsure.

  “Yeah,” Crispin breathes. “I’d like that. You want — you want lay in bed with me, then?”

  “Yeah,” Wills says. He climbs into bed and suddenly he and Crispin are face to face in each other’s arms. “I missed you,” Wills says.

  “I missed you too,” Crispin says. “It was hard, being in town without you.”

  “I still —” Wills looks down, then looks back up, like he’s forcing himself to say something important. He looks into Crispin’s eyes. “I still miss you bad, Crispin. Every single day.”

  “I miss you more than anything,” Crispin says. He swallows the lump in his throat. This is perfect. This hurts worse than anything because it’s going to end when Wills goes back to school.

  “At least we have break.” Wills tucks some of Crispin’s curls behind an ear. “And then — no guys again? No girlfriends?”

  Crispin nods. “No guys. No girlfriends.” He burrows his face into his best friend’s neck. He smells the same way he always has, Old Spice and clean laundry. “I only want you.”

  “It’s not too late to transfer. You can —”

  “Don’t want to go to UGA, Wills. I want to be a carpenter with my dad. We’re fucking stuck.”

  Wills sighs, hard. Then looks away. Crispin can feel him struggle. “I miss you so bad. Can that be enough, right now?”

  “Has to be.” Crispin sighs too. “It’s enough, Wills,” he says. “It’s enough.”

  They curl towards the wall. Wills is the big spoon. His lips rest on Crispin’s neck. He throws an arm over his best friend. “It’s so good,” he murmurs. “So good, to sleep like this. Come up and see me, Crispin. Come up on weekends. We can make it work. You’re the only one I’ve ever been in — you know —” He feels Wills tense up, swallow hard. His best friend shifts in bed and it takes him a long time to finish. “Felt like this about. You know how I feel, Crispin.”

  We can make it work.

  Come up on weekends.

  “We’ll make it enough,” Wills says. “It’ll be enough, Crispin.”

  And in the gathered dark of the house, the quiet spread around them like a warm blanket, Crispin can begin to believe him.

  2

  Just Say It

  Wills saunters into the Savannah Yacht Club with his twin brother, both in perfectly fitted tuxes, different colored bow ties so the society page can tell them apart (Wills’ is pink, Henry’s red; they always fight over the pink one). He spots Crispin immediately: in the back, drinking from the inevitable flask, talking to one of their prep school friends. He can always find Crispin first in a crowd. God, carpentry school has been good to him: Crispin’s always been cut, but carpentry has bulked him out some, given him some serious biceps. Built his forearms into something Wills wants pinning him down. And that longer hair: those curls Wills wants to twirl around his finger. If Crispin were a girl, he’d ask for a lock of it to take back to school.

  But he’s not.

  That means, in the staid upper crust of Savannah, Crispin and Wills are a secret. They always have been. No one knows they lost their virginity together in eleventh grade. Wills still can’t imagine how he finally mustered the courage to kiss Crispin behind the gym after they won the prep league championship. Maybe it was the high of his touchdown run, maybe the sheer giddiness of it all, maybe the liquor they’d been sneaking. But Wills had known their best friendship had turned the corner to something else a long time ago. There were too many looks, too many accidentally-on-purpose touches. Too many glances in the locker room.

  And once Wills had kissed Crispin he was gone.

  But Wills acts like he’s supposed to. Plays the role. Slumps against the wall next to his best friend. Steals Crispin’s flask and kills his bourbon so they have to share Wills’ for the rest of the night: Crispin’s lips where Wills’ were, kisses mediated by the metal flask. They dance with the pretty girls, spin them around the dance floor like they learned in cotillion, that Southern manners class for children. Get their pictures snapped. They’ll be on the society page tomorrow and their parents will be so proud of their handsome, hetero sons.

  “I’m too drunk to drive tonight,” Wills says to Crispin conversationally, casually. Like this is nothing at all.

  “Me too,” Crispin confesses.

  “I know a place,” Wills tells him. He planned this. Crispin never plans for this, is content to let it happen. Wills doesn’t know if it’s because Crispin’s too scared. Everyone else is off dancing. “We stayed out til dawn drinking. Then got breakfast to sober up. I’ll text Henry.”

 
; Crispin leans over and whispers in his ear. “But I wanna fuck you tonight.”

  Wills keeps a straight face. He’s good at that. But his stomach somersaults. He loves when Crispin fucks him and he wants those forearms holding him down on the bed tonight. Then he wants Crispin’s knees on the goddamn floor, Wills’ fingers threading through those perfect curls.

  They slip out the back. Wills looks around and dares to grab Crispin’s hand on the deserted street behind the Yacht Club. No one’s going to see them; it’s almost midnight. His best friend’s hand is callused, a sharp contrast to Wills’. They could hold their palms out and you could name the schools they attend, Wills thinks bitterly. Who spends their time flipping through pre-law books and who spends his time with a lathe.

  They walk into the back entrance of the Marriott, one of the poshest hotels in town. “Reservations for Culliver,” Wills says. They hand him a key, one bedroom, king bed. Wills has what they need in the pockets of his tux.

  They hold hands walking down the hallway, in the elevator. Neither of them speak. Wills uses the keycard to open the door. 1013, like they said downstairs. It’s as if some kind of spell lifts, and they can finally talk.

  “Christ, that was long,” Crispin bitches, undoing his bow tie. He flops in the chair. “If I had to dance one more time —”

  “It’s over,” Wills says. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Crispin says. “We’re here. You want to —”

  “Course I do.”

  “Sometimes I worry —”

  “Always want to.” Crispin never gets it. It’s like he’s afraid, all the time, that Wills doesn’t actually care about him. Why the fuck would Wills go to these lengths, set everything up, lie to his parents, push Crispin down on the bed and fuck him and ask him to sleep in his arms and basically beg him to come up to the University of Georgia, if he wasn’t in love with him? Crispin can be so fucking dense. And he knows Wills in and out. Has known him since they were five. He knows how hard it is for Wills to say things. Knows how scared Wills is of getting shot down. How much he struggles.