Chapter 6

six

ADELE

It wasn’t like Adele minded not being in the loop. Really. He understood boundaries. Even if he was struggling with the need to be a helicopter parent, he practiced boundaries at home. He taught his son to hold them fast and enforce them no matter who the person was asking him to bend.

And he’d once again vowed to sit quietly and let Kash do this on his own without help.

But it was killing him, sitting there knowing that Kash was inside, possibly learning more about himself, and he was doing it entirely by himself. He’d seen how much this was hurting his best friend. He’d distracted himself from thinking about how bad it was by creating this fantasy that Kash was falling in love with some nameless, faceless stranger on a dating app, but deep down, he’d known it wasn’t that.

But at least when he was creating that little lie in his head, he’d been distracted. Now that Kash had firmly shot that theory in the foot, he was forced to reconcile that whatever illness ravaging Kash’s body had no easy fix.

It might not have a fix at all.

And there was no telling how it was going to end.

The thought made him sick to his stomach, so he spent the hour and ten minutes waiting on Kash in the group chat. The guys were great at making him feel better, but even Kylen’s dad jokes weren’t cutting it today.

He was on edge, ready to jump out of his skin at any given moment.

Then the door swung open, and there he was. He was…smiling? No, it wasn’t a smile, but it almost looked like it because his lips weren’t turned down in the frown he’d been wearing for weeks and weeks.

He looked okay.

Maybe he was okay?

He fought the urge to jump up and demand answers. Instead, he watched Kash chat with the woman at the front desk, then take a stack of papers from her. He was leaning heavily on his cane, and his legs were still very stiff, but there was the barest bounce in his step that hadn’t been there on the way in.

“Well?” Adele demanded as they hit the sidewalk. He couldn’t contain it any longer.

Kash took a breath. “I’m not terminal.”

For a second, Adele’s ears were ringing. Terminal? Did he hear that right? “Was that on the table?”

Kash looked properly ashamed. “One of my specialists back home thought I might have ALS.”

Don’t get mad , Adele told himself. People cope in different ways, and he had a right to keep it to himself. This isn’t his fault. You cannot demand he handles this any other way but his own.

He took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. “I wish you’d told me. That had to be a very heavy burden to carry. ”

Kash didn’t look at him as they made their way toward the metro entrance. “I was afraid to say it aloud. I thought if I did, I might manifest it or something. I know how that sounds, but?—”

“No.” Adele stopped him right before the escalators and tugged him to the side to get out of the way of the small stream of passengers going both up and down. Kash’s back hit the wall, and Adele stopped him short of hitting the titles too hard. “Look, my feelings are hurt, okay? I’m not going to lie to you. We used to tell each other everything, and it’s hard for me to accept that we live in a world where I didn’t know the moment you did. But I also understand that our lives diverged.”

Kash swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean for them to.”

Bowing his head, Adele knocked their foreheads together. “Neither did I. But life happened. We grew up. You’re back now, but I’m not going to force you to let me in the way you used to. I’ll be patient. I can accept this new space. I just need time. And I hope you still trust me.”

Kash’s voice was soft and thready when he said, “I do. You have no idea. And I’m really glad you were here with me for this. I really didn’t want to do it alone.”

Adele was still hurt and in shock because he’d been worried about it being bad, but not terminal. Still, he wasn’t going to lay all that bare. Not right now. Probably not ever. It would only ruin things, and it didn’t matter now. Whatever this was, Kash was going to live. His fear had risen and fallen in a single breath, and it was all okay.

Now, he could focus on having Kash back. He wasn’t going to let his dipshit heart, dipshit pride, and dipshit dick ruin it.

“Let’s get back to the hotel. We can celebrate.”

“Yeah. I have a couple more tests tomorrow, but I can finally breathe easy.” Kash shifted to the side and used his free hand to take Adele’s. It was warm, and Kash’s fingers slotted perfectly in the gaps between his.

Adele squeezed gently, then led the slow way to the escalators and pretended not to feel it right in his soul when Kash stood a little closer and held on a little tighter.

“Right now,” Kash said, lying prone on the bed with a chocolate lava cake to-go container resting on his chest, “the official diagnosis is still dystonia with no cause. This guy has a couple ideas of why it hit me the way it did. There’s one that’s muscular…” His brow furrowed.

“Dystrophy?” Adele offered.

Kash clapped his hands over his cake, then grabbed it before it fell. “That’s the one. Sounds kind of terrifying. The other one is the same one that French Canadian Titanic singer has. Stiff person syndrome? He’s testing blood stuff and brain stuff and muscle stuff.” Kash ended on a sigh. “It’s a lot. But I’m not dying.”

He wasn’t dying. Adele had needed to remind himself of that once every ten minutes since Kash had dropped the bomb that it had been a possibility. He swallowed heavily. “And what if it’s not those things?”

“Then he said he’s confident it’s due to the head injury on the job.”

Which meant he’d get his full pension and be able to retire with benefits. Adele didn’t want any of this for him, but it was the best-case scenario.

“The important part is that I’m alive, and I’ll get to live to see you get old and wrinkly,” Kash said softly.

Adele knee-walked toward him from his spot in front of the second bed and leaned over Kash’s head. “Trust me, you would have anyway. If you think I would have let you go that easily, you’re out of your mind.”

“Gonna single-handedly cure the uncurable because you’re too chickenshit to live without your best friend?”

Their gazes connected, and Adele felt something shift. It was almost physical. He wasn’t touching Kash, but it felt like it. “I’m not a chickenshit. I love you. I refuse to exist in this world without you, but I also can’t leave Gage while he’s so young, so what choice do I have? Cure a disease. Make a deal with Hades. I don’t care as long as I get to keep you.”

Kash closed his eyes. “I’ve always been yours.”

That wasn’t true. That had never been true. Not completely, but in that moment, Adele didn’t care. They were drunk on relief and heavy carbs and basking in each other’s presence. He was going to let himself feel every second of this moment. It was late—past one in the morning. The entire city was quiet—lights out, dark skies. They had switched off their bedside lamps and kept the curtains open, and in the distance, he could see a faint glow from a large cathedral on a hill.

It was strange and beautiful, just like the moment they were sitting in.

“I’m yours too,” he finally said.

Kash said nothing for a long while. His hands moved slow and stiff, his fingers not very cooperative, but he got the cake off his chest without spilling it, then slid off the bed and practically into Adele’s lap. Adele adjusted them so he was holding Kash between his legs, and he’d never felt so at home.

He buried his nose in the back of his neck and breathed him in. Even after all these years, it was the same .

“Want me to move?” Kash asked.

Not on your life . He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but he clung on tighter, hoping Kash would understand and hoping that this wouldn’t change anything. He knew there was a line they couldn’t cross. Not really.

They weren’t hormonal teenagers in their experimental phases anymore. This was real life, and there would be consequences if they crossed those lines. But he was willing to toe them. He was willing to step as close as he could get and indulge the part of himself that wanted to be unforgivably selfish.

“It’s been a while since anyone’s touched me like this,” Kash told him very softly.

“Didn’t have to be. You know I’m the best big spoon.” Adele rubbed his nose back and forth against the back of Kash’s neck, feeling the way that made him shudder. “All you have to do is let me in.”

God. Was this real?

“I, uh…” Kash’s voice was hoarse. “I should shower.”

Adele bit back the offer to help him. Instead, he loosened his arms. “Do you want any help?”

Kash was quiet for a long, long while. Eventually, he shook his head. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Okay. Shout if you need me.” Kash nodded as he pushed to his feet, but Adele knew that unless it was life or death, he wouldn’t. And that was the way it was now.

There was no going back.

Lying in bed, Adele did his best not to hyperfocus on the sounds of Kash in the shower, but he was both turned on and nervous. Thinking of Kash naked and touching himself did things to him, but he was also terrified that Kash was going to have another muscle spasm episode, fall, and concuss himself, so he couldn’t let himself sink into any kind of fantasy world where Kash could be his.

He was in his boxers under the covers but ready to jump up at any second. He stared up at the dark ceiling, partially regretting turning the lights off but also grateful Kash wouldn’t be able to see him half-hard and on edge when he came back into the room.

It felt like an eternity before the water shut off, and then another passed by as Kash was likely drying himself and getting dressed. Eventually, he heard the door slide open, and a shadowy figure appeared.

“I can’t see shit.”

“Sorry, let me?—”

“No,” Kash said as Adele fumbled for the light. “Just keep talking. I’ll find you.”

Adele sat back and watched as Kash’s shadow shuffled forward. “You’re a few feet from the empty bed.”

Thud ! “Ow! Fuck!”

“Sorry,” Adele said, trying not to laugh.

“Asshole.” The word was angry, but there was still a smile in his tone. Another thud told Adele he knocked his shin against the bed frame again, and then there was sudden stillness and silence.

“Kash?”

The blankets on his bed shifted, tugged down.

Adele cleared his throat. “I’m in this one.”

“I know.” Kash swallowed so heavily Adele could hear his throat clicking. “Is that…is it…okay?”

“Come here.” He shifted to the side, fluffing the pillow he wasn’t using, then pulled the blankets back. Kash slid beside him—naked save for his own boxers—and Adele tried to keep his dick away from Kash’s hip because it was now rock hard, and there was no hiding it.

Kash settled on his back, then rolled toward Adele. He could see the glint of his open eyes from the barely there lights coming from outside the window. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to start charging you for saying that instead of rent,” Adele warned.

Kash laughed—the sound kind of thick and hoarse. He pulled his knees up slightly, and Adele reached between his legs to adjust himself so he wouldn’t be as obvious as he leaned in to cuddle his best friend.

“I am sorry though. For hiding. For pretending like nothing was wrong when it was. For thinking you were better off without me.”

Adele’s heart began to race. “You—are you fucking kidding me? When have I ever seemed better off without you?”

Kash shook his head against the pillow. “I’m not saying it was a rational thought. I just…I don’t know. I figured once you processed your divorce and started realizing that she was wrong, not you, things would get better. You’d meet someone else and be a happy family.”

“Even if that had happened, my family is neither happy nor complete without you. You’re my other fucking half, and you know this.” Adele tried to stifle his anger because it wasn’t really Kash’s fault. He hadn’t been great at showing all that over the years. “We both suck at this.”

Kash laughed and rested his forehead against Adele’s arm. “Yeah, we do.”

Silence fell, and then Adele said, “Talk to me now. Tell me everything.”

For a while, he thought Kash was going to ignore him, but then he began to speak so softly Adele had to strain to make out the words. “I’m relieved but still afraid. Anything I have is probably lifelong. This could be my new normal, and it sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“Every one of my specialists thinks I need to get a wheelchair for days when walking is too hard—and it’s not like I’m ashamed of that. But it’s forcing me to acknowledge out loud that this is it. I don’t get my old life back.”

Adele cracked. He didn’t care if Kash felt what his body was doing. He curled into him and pulled him tight against his chest. Kash breathed out a sigh of relief and went boneless, like he’d been waiting for Adele to take him into his arms.

“Some days, it’s fine. Some days, I find clever little workarounds to do shit like brush my teeth or put my socks on with fingers that won’t function, but…sometimes I can’t.” He let out a frustrated noise and pressed his hands to Adele’s chest. It was then he felt it. They were in tight fists, and he knew that wasn’t on purpose. “I can’t even jerk off anymore. My arms get tired when I try, and my fingers won’t cooperate, and…and it’s dehumanizing. You keep mentioning me falling in love, but who would want to put up with spending a lifetime with a guy who can’t even jerk you off?”

Adele would. And he knew a few other folks who would easily fall for a man like Kash—a good man with a heart of actual gold who would give his life for a stranger if it came down to that being the only choice. None of them would care what Kash could or couldn’t do.

But he also knew a lot of people were shitty and cruel, and Kash wasn’t talking out of his ass. He was talking from experiencing the world. Adele had seen it with his own two eyes as people abandoned their own children because of disabilities.

So he understood the fear.

But he was on the verge of something—maybe moronic, maybe it would ruin everything—but it was late, and the veil he was holding up between the thing he wanted and knowing what it would ruin was too thin.

“I could help.”

“Adele—”

“I’ve done it before. We both have.”

Kash’s whole body went stiff. “That was different.”

“I know, but so is this.” And he meant it. He couldn’t turn off how he felt, but he could also do this with no strings. No expectations. He could give Kash something no one else could. “I told you anything I could do to help, I would.”

“This is going a little far, isn’t it?” Kash laughed, the sound thready, but he was leaning in toward Adele, his hips rocking almost unconsciously.

He was hard. Oh God .

“It doesn’t have to be anything other than a hand,” Adele whispered. He ran his fingers up Kash’s naked spine, then over the top of his shoulders, and down along his sternum. “Just a hand.”

“Your hand,” Kash said tightly. “You’re not just some guy.”

Adele started to pull away, but Kash let out a soft whimper, and he froze. “Keep going?”

Kash was silent, but then Adele felt him nod. “Just your hand?”

“Just my hand.” Adele swallowed heavily. His own dick was straining against his boxers, but he kept his hips back so Kash wouldn’t feel it. He trailed the pads of his fingers over Kash’s thick chest hair, over his stomach, which jumped beneath his touch, and then to the waistband of his boxers, which were tented and damp in the front.

He opened the slit, and Kash’s thick, uncut cock slipped free, hitting the fabric with a dull thud. Adele swallowed thickly, hungrily, against a dry throat. He wanted nothing more to undress him. To kiss him. To lean in and take all this skin on display.

But that wasn’t on the table.

“Are you hard?” Kash asked.

Adele’s cheeks flamed red, and as much as he wanted to lie, he couldn’t. “Yeah.”

“Then…both of us? Like it was before. I mean, I can’t…I can’t help like I did back then, but it was better back then when it was both of us. It was nice.”

“You don’t think that’ll make it weird?”

Kash burst into laughter and groaned. “It’s already so fucking weird. I don’t think it’ll make it worse.”

But would it make it better? That was the question of the hour, and the only way to find out that answer was to do it. He was terrified of taking the risk, but he was also terrified of not taking this opportunity, knowing that he might not get a second chance to touch the only man he wanted to touch.

Adele wasn’t going to deny him, no matter how afraid he was. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d say no to anything Kash asked him to do.

Rolling Kash gently onto his back, he settled himself next to him. Kash would get his right hand, and he’d take himself in his left. He knew it would only take a small squeeze and the sound of Kash getting off to send him careening over the edge, so it didn’t matter how he touched himself. He was already too close .

He fumbled for a moment before he was able to get his hand around Kash’s cock, and then he shuddered as his foreskin began the perfect, wet slide. Kash was so, so turned on. He groaned, rocking his hips upward.

Adele wanted to talk him through it, guide him, praise him. But the moment would have been shattered.

He was only supposed to be a hand, after all. Just a hand.

His elbow began to ache as he stroked them both, the timing off, but he didn’t care. Kash was moving with him, his breath coming in soft pants. He squirmed, and then his tight fists hit Adele’s forearm, and he lifted up with his shoulders.

“Fuck, fuck. I’m going to come. Faster. Adele, Adele, please …”

He abandoned his own dick, rolling over to take Kash in a firm grip. The room was filled with the sound of skin slapping skin, of Kash’s soft cries, of Adele’s unchecked moans.

“Like that,” Kash gasped. His arm came up, curling around the back of Adele’s neck, and he tugged him until their mouths touched. They weren’t kissing. Not really. That wasn’t part of the deal.

But Adele could taste mint on his breath and feel a rush of air hitting his cheeks.

He thrust his hips against the sheets as he jerked Kash closer and closer to the edge. His balls were tight. Christ, he was going to come all over the bed.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Kash moaned. Three thrusts upward into the circle of Adele’s fingers, and he let go. Come burst out in thick, hot ropes, hitting Adele’s knuckles, spurting in a thick puddle on his belly. He stroked Kash until he began to whimper, and it was only as he pulled back that Adele realized there was a wet spot beneath him .

His orgasm had been quiet, lost in the throes of Kash’s climax that had overwhelmed his senses. His dick felt sensitive as he rocked it in the spill, and then he fell back with a heavy sigh and covered his face with his clean hand.

“That made a mess,” Kash said with a weak laugh.

“Yeah. We should move over to the next bed. Unless, ah…well, I can take the floor if you want me to.”

“Don’t make it weirder,” Kash said quietly. He rolled to the side, and now that Adele could see better in the dark, he watched the round curve of his ass move as he took two small steps and yanked the still-made covers to the side.

It was only when he was lying back down again that Adele forced himself to get up and get a cloth from the bathroom. He swiped himself down, then grabbed a second for Kash. When he walked back into the room, Kash was still awake and staring at him.

Neither of them said a word, and Adele felt a pulse of determination in him. That wasn’t just a hand. It wasn’t nothing. It was weird, yeah, but his resolve had shattered into a billion pieces. It was nothing more than stardust now. He wanted Kash, and he wanted to find a way to make this a reality.

He was done living with fantasy. He was done not knowing if they could have something real.

He laid a knee on the mattress and leaned over Kash, staring at his face as his hands felt their way along to clean the mess drying in his coarse curls. The silence persisted. Adele threw the cloth to the ground, then swung over his best friend’s body and settled under the covers.

The hotel room was cold now, but it would be hot later with their shared body heat, and he had no plans to change that. He shuffled close, and the moment they were touching again, Kash relaxed with a heavy breath and turned toward him.

“Sleep well,” Adele murmured.

Kash said nothing, but he did reach for his hand. His fingers had uncurled just enough to link them together, and it was with that small gesture Adele finally allowed himself to close his eyes and sleep.