Life has a way of shitting on your dreams and tearing you apart. It didn’t help that I was a fool. That I’d let my fears overrun what I really wanted. If I’d only been brave enough to act. I’d spent eight years dealing with a loss that I put on myself, and the grief had never gone away.
Mostly, because I wouldn’t let it.
I’d spent so many years stuck so deep in denial that when I finally pulled my head out of my ass, there was only room for anger at myself and the overwhelming desire to fix it and make up for what I’d done. The phone in my hand was a blaring siren telling me it was time. That all that hard work and determination wasn’t for nothing, providing I didn’t fuck this up.
James,
This morning when I went to use the kitchen sink, I noticed the water wasn’t draining very fast. Then, after my shower, I found another inch of water standing in the sink. I was wondering if you could send someone out to take a look? I can’t seem to get it unclogged.
Appreciate it,
Elliott
The email hadn’t changed in the fifty times I read it. And it was the last word I kept getting stuck on.
Elliott.
When I bought Callahan’s house from his estate and set out to fix it up, I’d hoped to somehow draw Elliott back into my life. When someone named Amie Penn contacted me, looking to book the rental for her boss for an entire month or more, I wondered if my wish had finally come true.
I’d reno the house a thousand times over again if it was truly him.
The sink had been a problem for a few weeks, and I’d been planning on fixing it when the first email from Amie came through. Now, I grabbed the plumbing supplies I had gathered, then snagged my tool bag from the shelf. The drive to the house from my office wasn’t horribly long, and I’d spent so much time there the past few years, I felt like I could find my way with my eyes closed. But I was so worried this was all a dream, I barely blinked on the way there.
There was a rental car parked in the driveway, far enough away from the garage to leave plenty of room to shoot hoops at the new basketball net I’d installed last year. The thought of Elliott out there, playing the way we had when we were young, had my chest tightening around the breath I couldn’t expel. My skin tingled as I walked to the front porch and knocked.
Then I knocked again.
That tingling feeling left me, swirling through my churning stomach like an open drain when no one answered the door. I stood there, waiting longer than I should have. When that churning, swirling mass in my stomach cycled through me, bringing every single fucking what-if I could think of to mind, I put my key in the lock and shoved my way inside.
What if he was hurt? What if he didn’t hear me knocking over and over? What if I couldn’t hear him and he needed my help? What if he was this close and I lost him again?
Those questions and more bubbled through me as I stomped my way through the living room. By the time I’d hit the dining room, quiet music trickled through my hysteria, slowing my steps. And when I reached the kitchen, I stumbled to a stop as I caught sight of eyes the color of the bluest skies I’d ever seen.
Elliott was there, sitting on the floor with his guitar in his lap and a pair of headphones on, a dusting of light brown hair covering his cheeks and chin. He didn’t blink, and I got lost there in the depths of his eyes, just as I had when we were teens. Just as I had eight years ago.
Elliott’s body slammed into mine as he jumped for the basket. I didn’t see it go in, but I could tell by the look on his face that he made it. Wide eyes and an even wider smile broke through his calm features, and when he turned his gaze on me, my breath stopped in my chest.
I forced that breath out, but when I sucked in again, the smell that wafted toward me from his body was enough to make me dizzy. I shook my head and leaned closer, hovering over him.
“You think you’re good, Van Ness?” I asked, the words full of a forced bravado I didn’t feel. I bumped my chest into his and he pushed back, that smile never leaving his face.
“You seem to be distracted, Rosenberg,” he chided, his lips so fucking close to mine.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t distracted, and it was all because of him. We’d spent more time together this summer than we had since we were little kids. Every day, we’d meet at Callahan’s house to check on it, to water the houseplants and walk the property to make sure nothing was amiss. And every weekend, we’d ignore the world outside as the two of us stayed here, playing basketball, swimming in the pond, getting into Callahan’s stash of alcohol and staying up until all hours of the night.
Elliott and I had always been close. We’d grown up together and had been inseparable for so many years. It wasn’t until recently that we’d started drifting. His passion was his music, mine was basketball. He spent his free time playing on his guitar, while any time I had was dedicated to school and sports and my father’s construction company.
Callahan’s request for house sitters for the summer had been the spark that rekindled our friendship. And that spark had lit flames inside of me I wasn’t sure what to do with. I was feeling things for Elliott that I’d never felt about anyone, especially a guy, and it had me reeling.
“I am.” The words tumbled from my lips, the truth wrenching free from my chest. Elliott’s smile faltered as his gaze dropped to my mouth.
“Maybe we should take a break.”
My nod was slight, and at first, I didn’t think he’d noticed because he didn’t move. With his chest still pressed to mine, with his head still tilted upward and his lips within inches of my own, I hoped that he hadn’t.
How easy would it be to drop my face to his? How easy would it be to kiss this boy, who’d once again become my best friend? What would it feel like to taste his smile and run my thumbs over the slight stubble on his cheeks?
“Let’s get something to eat.” Was it my imagination, or was his voice shaky and rough? “Then maybe we can chill out in the hot tub?”
Fuck. It was all I could do to hang on to my sanity as Elliott edged back and gave me a smile. Did he notice the way I’d been staring at him last night when we’d been soaking in Callahan’s hot tub on the back patio? Did he realize the reaction my body had when he’d torn off his shorts and climbed into the water completely naked? A reaction that had happened repeatedly so many times today.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck.
“Okay.” I reached for him, intending to push him away from me, to bring some levity to the heaviness that had fallen between us. But all I managed was to grab his arm as he walked away. And what’d he do? He snagged my hand as it slid down his sweat-soaked skin and dragged me inside, like being with me and holding my hand was natural.
I grabbed the first bottle of beer I found when I opened the fridge, then chugged the liquid courage until it was nearly empty, without tasting a thing. Elliott stood there watching, his hands moving expertly over the food he’d somehow managed to prepare when I was fixing the loose board on the front porch earlier. He snagged the bottle from my fingers when I lowered my hand and chugged everything that was left.
Which only made me want to lick away the tiny drop that hovered on his top lip.
“Come on,” he murmured, setting the bottle down and picking up the large plate of food. “Grab a couple beers and meet me outside.”
He didn’t have to tell me again. I scrambled for the fridge, grabbing two more beers and the bottle of Jack from the cupboard on top. Then I raced outside in time to see him dropping his drawers.
Elliott turned to me, letting me see every last inch of his body as he motioned to the table where he’d set the food. “Eat what you want, then climb on in.”
What I wanted wasn’t something on the table. What I wanted wasn’t something I should want. That much had been drilled into me since I was a child. But right now, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I dropped the bottles on the tabletop, popped the tops off the beers before chugging half of mine, then shucked my shorts and met Elliott inside.
“For you.” I handed him one bottle, and the bastard rose from the water before taking it from my hand, showing off every goddamn growing inch of him as he did. My own body reacted, but fuck if I was as comfortable as him. I lowered myself into the water, only to come face to face with his hardened dick.
He drank his beer as if he was unaffected, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his crown as I ignored what was left of mine. It wasn’t until he took my bottle from my hand and turned away from me that I could even force myself to move.
“It’s not polite to stare,” he said, all quiet laughter in his voice. With his back to me, he bent over the edge of the tub, placing the bottles on the table next to our food. When he sank back into the water, he met with resistance neither of us was expecting. “Fuck.”
My fingers wrapped around his cock as my own dick pressed against his naked back. His head lolled back onto my shoulder, and I lowered my face to taste the skin on his neck. He cursed again, then spun in my arms before he crushed his mouth against mine.
This was wrong on so many levels. But with his lips on mine and his legs wrapped around my waist, with his hands tugging at my hair and sliding across my shoulders, with his smell surrounding me and my cock rubbing against his bare ass, I couldn’t remember why any part of this would be wrong.
I slid my thumb over the head of his dick and he sucked in a breath that felt like it was pulled straight from my lungs. I did it again, rubbing my fingers along the smooth, velvety skin of his shaft, and was awarded with another curse and his bared throat.
“Elliott,” I murmured as I dipped to taste his salty skin again, then gasped myself as he gripped my dick and pressed the length between the cheeks of his ass. I hissed out a strained breath. “Fuck me!”
“You like that, babe?”
Those words from his lips had an effect on me like no girlfriend I’d ever had. Never once had I so desperately wanted to be touched. Elliott wasn’t all soft and gentle, the way those girls were. His hands were big and rough and knew exactly what strings to pluck to have me writhing against his palm.
Without answering—because fuck, how was I expected to string together coherent sentences when his touch felt so good?—I crushed my mouth against his again, pressing his hard length between my stomach and my hand. He rocked into me, and every fucking movement he made had his ass stroking along the shaft of my dick until I felt like I was going to explode.
“Elliott.” It came out like a curse, and I struggled to say more. “I’m gonna come if you don’t stop moving.”
I felt his smile against my lips as my own smile fell. His hand on my back stopped its circular path, then slid lower into the water. It slid lower, and the other hand joined it. Slid lower, until his fingers had cupped my ass cheeks, sliding against my heated skin and plucking those strings that had never been touched.
“Fuck.” I thrust against the nothingness that surrounded him, let his cheeks and his balls rub against me as his fingers eased out a melody I found racing through my soul. And as he strummed that tune, sliding in and out of me, I let loose the most powerful release I’d ever had.
He was kissing me as I came back down to earth, his tongue dipping into my mouth before his lips dropped open, his hips thrusting into my hand, and his whole body seemed to convulse in my arms. The hot water turned cold in light of the heat emanating from his body, from the flames that had engulfed me from the moment our chests had touched out in the driveway.
And as those wide blue eyes opened and rained the beautiful sunny skies down upon me, I was sure that what we had between us would never, ever be wrong.
“Sage.” It was a whisper on his lips, before his lips whispered over mine. He slid his hands up my shoulders and one slipped into the back of my hair. “That was…”
“Shh.” I put a finger to his lips, then covered his mouth with mine. We kissed until our bodies overheated, until the night air cooled our skin and the songs of the frogs out at the pond were the only sounds. Elliott slowed, then pulled back and looked deep into my eyes.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
My nod was as slight as before, but this time, Elliott took my hand, not giving me a moment to second-guess my thoughts. He pulled me into the master bedroom, where we’d been sleeping on opposite sides of the bed each night. I thought it was easier that way, easier lying next to him than dragging our drunk asses to another room. And when he led me to the bed and sat me down, when he knelt down between my knees and looked up at me with his hands on my bare thighs, any thoughts simply left my mind.
I wanted nothing more than his lips on my dick, his hands on my balls. I wanted to feel what he was doing to me before he’d even started. One swipe of his tongue across the head of my dick was enough to have me dreaming up new ways to soak up as much pleasure as I could. This feeling had been building all day, the need to touch him in ways I never had. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone.
After I’d fucked his hot mouth, after he’d sucked down every drop of cum I had to give, Elliott pushed me onto my back and crawled over me. He rested his head on my chest as his fingers strummed across my skin.
My mind started spinning even as my body hummed, and questions stacked up one by one. Elliott was my best friend, but this was the first time we’d ever done anything like this. Until now, I’d only ever been with girls. And Elliott… I couldn’t remember him ever having a girlfriend.
Was he gay?
Did my being with him mean I was too?
What would my family say if they knew what we’d done? How badly would they hate me for this, when they’d made it clear in the past that this kind of behavior was not okay?
Could I keep this a secret?
Did I want to?
Elliott sighed, then lifted his head and rested his chin on my chest, fingers playing some melody against my skin only he could hear. “I think I’m in love with you.”
My heart thumped hard against my rib cage in response to his words, but something sick slithered in my gut. I couldn’t be with Elliott the way he wanted, the way the thumping organ in my chest told me I did too. But I wasn’t ready for our time to end.
Reaching down, I caught him under the arms and pulled his naked body over mine. Already, I could feel myself getting hard for him again, and I wondered if I was brave enough to take this further, to do the wild things I’d been trying so hard not to think of the past few weeks.
I wondered if I was brave enough to walk away from the life I lived in order to be by his side.
But tonight, those questions circling my brain wouldn’t be answered. Tonight, I just wanted to be with him.
I moved my face toward his, ready to taste his gorgeous smile. “Shut up and kiss me again.”
His lids fell shut over his wide blue eyes, and it was enough to pull me from my daydream. Whatever expression he held on his face when I walked in suddenly dropped. His eyebrows dipped into a deep V, and his perfect lips fell open.
“What the hell are you doing here?”