by Neve Wilder
Jesus, did we have time for a quickie? I was rock hard, grinding against the hand Eric snuck down between us as he licked into my mouth, while my fingers dug into his waist. I wanted to get down on my knees for him right there and let him order me around with his cock down my throat or his fingers while I jacked him off. I was on my way toward doing just that, my shoulders sliding down the wall while his fingers wound through my hair when my mom’s voice chirped out from downstairs. “You boys up? Could use some help down here.”
“Definitely up,” I called out, and Eric snickered as I levered myself back upright with a groan.
“To be continued,” he promised as he shoved the bathroom door wide and bullied me through it.
“It’s a running theme for us, huh?” A moment’s hesitation ran through me for the us, but Eric only laughed.
“Lucky we’re good at grand finales.”
Well, eventually.
It wasn’t just the Finleys for Thanksgiving lunch. The Rosens came, too, with their two preteen twins and a six-month-old baby that in the first half hour managed to cram in the entire fucking pantheon of human emotion from happy gurgling to a ragefest that ended in projectile milk vomit. My mom darted around the kitchen like a dragonfly in overdrive, stress lining her face over the last-minute addition. Even Dad was in there, trying to be helpful before Mom finally shooed us all away.
“Nate, y’all take the kids outside to play some basketball or something. Please,” she added, and I didn’t even give her any guff because I could hear the strain in her voice. In the next second, she was barking at my father for turning the oven on too hot.
“She does this every year,” I told Eric as we headed outside. “She always thinks she knows who’s coming, then more people show up and she panics. I don’t know why she bothers.”
Eric dribbled the basketball I tossed him a couple of times as the twins dropped down at the edge of the driveway near the basketball goal. “She must get something out of it,” he mused, then aimed at the net. The ball bounced around the rim before swishing through and Ross, the Finleys’ ten-year-old, retrieved it.
“I don’t know what, other than compliments on her cooking, which she’ll dismiss anyway. Then tonight she’ll pop two Advil, pour a glass of scotch, and say ‘never again.’ Watch.”
Eric grinned, then oofed as the basketball nailed him in the stomach. “A little heads-up maybe?” he called to Ross, who grinned.
We made it through five slow rounds of H-O-R-S-E with Ross and his incredibly uncoordinated sister, Jane, while the twins looked on, whispering and giggling frequently.
“You’re cute,” the one whose name I was pretty sure was Lexi said finally with a nod, as if they’d come to some sort of agreement and now were now announcing the mutual judgment call. Eric cut a glance aside at me as I dribbled back from under the net.
“That’s an S for you, boss,” I told Ross in passing, who muttered a yeah, yeah. “Pretty sure that was for you,” I said, since Eric still had bewilderment written all over his face.
“It was,” Lexi confirmed.
Eric blinked back over at them. “Uhhh, thank you.” And then the fucker blushed. Actually blushed. It wasn’t full-on, but a tinge of pink loitered in his cheeks and he turned away from the twins only to run into me.
“Watch where you’re going, dude,” I teased, taking a step back and bouncing the ball a couple of times before passing it hard to him. “Didn’t know a couple of girls could get you all discombobulated.”
“What the fuck do you say to that without coming off as a perv?” He passed the ball back to me and fumbled at my return pass.
“You are a perv.”
“Yeah, well, not that kind of perv.” Eric rolled his eyes and took his shot, whiffing it by at least two feet.
“Keep it coming, girls,” I called over to them, then wiggled my brows at Eric.
“Ass. I’ll get you back for that.”
“We’ll see,” I smirked and didn’t miss the flash of heat that passed through his eyes. If we hadn’t been surrounded by rug rats, I imagined that whole exchange would’ve ended differently. I mentally bookmarked that fantasy to revisit later.
“So have you started job hunting yet?” Mrs. Finley asked, of course catching me as I shoveled a bite of mashed potatoes in my mouth. I swallowed fast and shook my head.
“Not yet. I still have a while to look and see what’s out there, but I’ve got some places I’m eyeing.” Right. I was supposed to be thinking about my future since that would happen at some point, rather than getting fucked underneath a basketball net.
“DC,” my mom chimed in. “We have a senator friend who said he’d be interested in interviewing Nate once he was closer to graduation.” She beamed with pride, as if it was all a done deal when it was far from it. I had no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do with my degree yet.
Under the table, Eric’s foot nudged mine. It was light enough that it could’ve been accidental. But the hand that brushed over my thigh wasn’t. I banged my elbow hard on the table as I set my fork down, and saw Eric smile from the corner of my eye as he let his hand fall away. I coughed out an apology and then picked up my glass of water, taking a quick swig. “DC is one of the places I’m looking at, yeah.” I should’ve known better than to sit next to him. “I mean, yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Finley turned to Eric next, her smile bright and polite, oblivious. “And how about you, Eric? You’re majoring in structural engineering—did I hear that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and God did he do manners well, that faint whiff of an accent catching on the vowels and shooting straight to my gut in a bolt of aural lust. Was it normal to find someone’s voice boner inducing? “And I’m not sure yet either. I like the idea of contract work, but something steady that keeps me in one place could be good, too. So I guess it just depends.”
“On a girlfriend?” This time it was Lexi’s twin, Leena. She was bold, I’d give her that. But no match for Eric’s prowess at evasion.
Eric grinned. “Who knows?”
“So do you have one?” Leena was undeterred, and it was almost funny except for the cramp that had started in my side along with a feeling of breathlessness. Possessiveness, desire, and anxiety simmered in an uncomfortable brew.
“He’s too old for you,” Mrs. Rosen chided with a little laugh.
“Not in ten years.” Jesus Christ, this girl was relentless. Even my mom looked humored now, sending a quick wink Eric’s way.
“I uhhhh…no, not really…” Eric scraped his fingertips down the side of his jaw, lighting on the spot I’d cleaned up for him earlier, and before I could think—really fucking think—about what I was doing, the bottom dropped out of my stomach, my mouth opened, and…
“You’re looking at him. Meaning me. He’s my…he’s mine,” I stammered out, just lobbed the awkward clusterfuck of grammar and poor syntax on the table to sit there alongside the stupid turkey centerpiece. Why I couldn’t say boyfriend, I had no idea. It sounded too cutesy for a guy who regularly turned me inside out in amazing and obscene ways, while lover sounded too fucking bourgeois. Mine was maybe too possessive, but since Eric pretty much owned my body and all my thought processes, it seemed a fair claim in return.
Someone dropped a piece of silverware against Grandma Barbara’s china. I didn’t know who because my vision had gone blurry, even the turkey centerpiece swimming in a sludge of brown feathers. I literally felt the sweat break over my forehead and saliva pooling in the back of my mouth. Mrs. Finley’s smile dimmed, then brightened again. Maybe I imagined it. For a second I thought I was going to puke. My eyes darted over faces, locking onto my parents—both of whom had their heads tilted to opposite sides in an eerie reflection of each other. Eric’s gaze burned into the side of my face, and I knew if I looked, I’d see surprise. So I didn’t look.
“That’s kinda hot. So who—”
“Lexi,” Mrs. Rosen hissed, and Eric cracked up, his hand sliding over my
thigh again, his thumb making that sweeping arc like he’d done on several occasions before. It floored me how much that tiny bit of motion soothed me. Not completely; I was still sweating like a fool, my heart sprinting like it was on a mission to break free of my chest, but the nausea ebbed. I didn’t dare look at my parents again, certain I’d shocked the hell out of them. They’d never given me any sign or inkling whatsoever that they were homophobic, but then again I didn’t think I’d ever given them any sign that I was anything other than a Grade A skirt chaser.
The baby burst into a loud cry, breaking through the weird tension and forcing me to take back the mean thoughts I’d had about the little hell-raiser earlier as Mrs. Rosen picked him up and shh’d him. Thank you, grumpy baby.
“This centerpiece is fantastic, Lana. Is it an antique?” Mrs. Finley asked, and my mom sounded grateful as she launched into an overly enthusiastic spiel about how Grandma Barbara had made it herself with real turkey feathers. My dad kept quiet, though, and I could feel his stare like a shadow in the desert falling cool across one side of my body.
Blindsiding parents at Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t the suavest of tactics, but the more I sat there and thought about it as conversation resumed, the more it seemed like maybe the best time. If I’d tried to make some formal announcement to them, who fucking knew how long it would’ve taken me to work my way up to that? I wanted to be with Eric, I knew that without a doubt. This was just the beginning of the proving grounds.
As the chatter around us grew louder, I took a deep breath and focused on my plate and on the feeling of Eric’s hand on my knee. He’d stopped rubbing his thumb over my jeans, and now there was just the silent presence of his touch. Oddly enough, it was the only place on my body that didn’t feel like it was overheating or freezing.
“Okay?” His voice came low and inconspicuous probably to everyone except my dad.
I gave him a short nod. “Yeah.” Never mind I had trouble swallowing my next bite of food. I set my fork down and reached for the wine I’d hardly touched and took a good long swallow, then another until I felt my stomach settle underneath the warmth of the wine coating it. No one was fucking dying because I liked a dick up my ass, after all.
I leaned over the bathroom sink, slurping water from the faucet, then turned it off and swiped my face against my shirtsleeve before opening the door and immediately startling. “Fuck!”
Eric bit the smile forming over his lower lip and shook his head. He was leaning against the opposite wall and made no move to leave it behind. His smile ebbed as I flicked off the bathroom light and just stood there, running my hands up and down my biceps.
“Your timing was…interesting. Unexpected.”
I snorted. “Tell me about it. I wondered for a second if my dad stroked out.” I moved past Eric into my bedroom, jerking my head to show he should follow me in. He trailed behind, diverging as I turned on a couple of lamps. “It just sort of came out, and I guess I figured if not now, when? It’s not a big deal, right?”
“Depends. Is it?” Eric shoved his hands in his pockets as I walked a couple of paces to pick up the clothes on the floor and toss them toward the laundry basket. My shirt and jeans from last night were wrecked with mud stains and still damp in places.
“In the grand scheme of life? No. Or it shouldn’t be.”
Eric’s mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, but I’d watched him closely enough to recognize the subtle disagreement in the movement. “But we’re not talking about grand scheme. We’re talking about how it feels right now. To you. Screw everyone else.” He rested against the edge of my dresser, running his thumbnail along a seam in the wood. “You didn’t have to do it at all. I like pushing your boundaries and all in a lot of ways, but that’s the one place I don’t want to.”
“I know.” He’d wanted the acknowledgment, not some proclamation, wanted to know I was just as invested as he was and that I wasn’t going to flip out and bail. I understood that. I yanked a sock from underneath the bed, then hunted for its match, finding it under the dresser, then picked up another pair of boxers and examined them before tossing them toward the basket, too.
Eric stepped away from the dresser and reached to catch me by the wrist. “Nate.” There was something so finite about the way he said my name. Crazy how he could give something I’d heard all my life new worlds of meaning just by his inflection.
With his fingers locked around my wrist, the jittery buzz bouncing around my body settled into a warm hum. Moving his hands up my arms, he squeezed my biceps and pressed against my back. The rampant beating of my heart seemed to slow with the firmness of his touch. I’d stopped asking why; it was just the effect he had on me. I let out a long breath that felt like it’d been hibernating in my chest since dinner and dropped my head back against his shoulder, closing my eyes. “I’m not freaking out. Not the way you think I am. Or, I am a little bit.” I rolled my eyes at myself, stared at the ceiling.
“Did your parents flip?”
I shrugged against him. “Not flip. They were surprised. Especially my dad. In case that didn’t come across from that zombie gape he gave me through the rest of dinner.”
Eric chuckled and released my arms to lock his forearms around my chest, instead. The feeling of intimacy without the nudity or as some precursor to fucking was foreign to me, but not unwelcome. Not at all. Eric and I were trysts and tension and smack talk, but the idea that there was a whole other dimension to us that I’d caught only fractional glimpses of when we were together was surprisingly alluring. Not that I was ready to walk through the U’s quad holding hands with him—and I didn’t even think either of us were the schmoopy handholding type anyway, but still. The concern in the way he’d wrapped himself around me didn’t scare the shit out of me like it would have early on. And right now it relaxed me.
After everyone had left, my mom, dad, and I had sat at the kitchen table, awkward party of three. I’d felt the need to apologize for catching them off guard, and for possibly embarrassing them. My mom had waved her hand agitatedly over that last bit.
I ran my hands over the forearms Eric had crossed over my chest, followed the bend of his elbows up to his shoulders, and locked my fingers behind the nape of his neck. “My dad’ll come around. He just has to get used to it.” It was almost a verbatim parroting of what my mom had said after he’d left the kitchen. He hadn’t blown up or stormed out or anything, just kept looking at me like he’d missed some huge clue about my identity over the years, like I was now a half stranger. “I mean, he’s not homophobic or…biphobic, I guess?” I laughed and pulled away from Eric to flop onto the bed, the mattress dipping as he followed me down. “Did your parents act weird about it?”
Next to me, Eric laced his arms behind his head, and I heard the thump of his shoes on the floor as he kicked them off. “Nah, not really. We weren’t exactly a traditional family to begin with. There wasn’t some big discussion about it. I just had a guy with me one day and casually announced it. Later, when the guy was gone, my stepdad told me to be safe. That was about the extent of it.”
“My dad said that, too.” I hope you’re being safe. It was the only time during the conversation that he’d gone gruff and stern, holding my eyes until I told him I was. Then he’d blinked away uncomfortably. “I think my mom thought…” I paused. We weren’t one of those families who navel-gazed out loud to each other or talked about deep life meanings, but after my dad had gone, my mom said a single name and just let it hang in the air. “She had an idea I’d messed around with a guy before.”
“That guy from right before freshman year?” Eric’s gaze flickered over me.
“Yeah.” I’d asked her how she’d known, and she’d shrugged, saying, “Just mom instinct, I guess.” And then she’d wrapped me in a hug and told me she loved me and asked if Eric was good to me. I’d sat there, thinking about that for a minute, about how the whole thing started between Eric and me, how he’d gone back to the library to get my backpack, how he’d waited
for me to be the one to kiss him; his face last night, the vehemence in his voice, and the ache behind it. “Yeah, really good,” I’d said.
I rolled onto my side, propping up on an elbow to face Eric. “And then she said you’re ‘cute as all get-out.’”
“Cute, huh?” A smirk spread slowly over Eric’s face.
“I’ve noticed her sight’s been getting worse lately. You’re not cute.”
He lifted a brow. “No? Not even a little?”
“You’re a lot of other things, but cute has never been something I’d apply to you, and you can go ahead and quit looking at me like that because I’m not about to sit here and feed your massive ego with compliments.”
“But it’s hungry. It’s had a rough few weeks.” That word from his mouth—hungry—just the way he said it made my cock twitch.
“That’s your own damn fault,” I said, just to be argumentative, and then inhaled sharply as his fingers crawled over the bedspread between us and landed on my hip, an upward stroke carrying my shirt up the side of my ribs as he caressed them. “You’re not going to sway me on that, dude.”
Eric laughed and relented, starting to pull his hand away until I caught it and pressed it back to my skin.
“So what do you want to do with the rest of the night?” he asked. “Hang out with your friends?”
I shook my head, sucking in another harsh breath as he rubbed over my nipples and dragged his thumb down the middle of my abdomen. “I was thinking maybe we could go get something to eat, just you and me. Hang out like we were supposed to weeks ago.” I wanted to spend time with him alone, make good on that night we hadn’t gotten to before the conversation with Mark had upended things. I was asking him for a date, I guess, and it honestly felt pretty good. The prickle in my stomach this time wasn’t the sick sludge of anxiety, but anticipation.