36. Lane

My mom lets out a sob.

One of the defense attorneys actually groans.

The court records person types furiously.

Otherwise, the silence that fills the room is tense. After about a minute, the court reporter asks if there are any more questions or anything to add to the report. Across the table, the three men who have spent all day trying to fluster and trip me up have their heads lowered together, muttering. None of them look very happy, but they shake their heads. Details about the date, time, and court identifiers are repeated, the camera is turned off, and then we are all excused with the thanks of the court.

Ms. Clarke and Jamison stand up, so I do as well. She shakes each of the defense attorney"s hands, although they don"t look like they want to have anything to do with her. None of them so much as look at me.

"We"ll be in touch, Ms. Clarke."

"I"m looking forward to it, Mr. Howard," she says confidently, before turning to thank the defense attorney"s assistant and the court official.

I"m impressed by how quickly she clears the room, and as soon as the door is closed, she becomes almost an entirely different person. During the deposition, and while dealing with the defense attorneys, she was nothing short of intimidating. But now, she slips off her high-heeled shoes and beckons my family over, even wrapping my mother in a hug.

Shaking myself out of my stupor, I start to walk around the table, but Noah meets me halfway. He all but tackles me, pulling me against him in a tight hug. I"m exhausted, my emotions are all over the place, and I sob into his shoulder. He holds me like that for several minutes, until I become aware of my mom and Scott joining us, both wrapping their arms around the two of us.

We eventually pull ourselves together and turn to face our smiling lawyer.

"You did good, kid," she says. "You did real good."

"What does that mean?" I ask, because I can"t find it in myself to be happy about any of this.

"Did you see their faces when you said Christian"s name?" Ms. Clarke asks.

"Sort of. They didn"t look very happy."

"I thought the old guy was going to pass out," Noah says.

"Which one?" Jamison asks, wheeling in a cart with a sandwich tray and some drinks.

"Yes," Noah answers, getting some laughs.

I"m too tired to even roll my eyes. Noah"s hand pushes itself into mine, entwining our fingers. The lawyer raises a brow, but doesn"t say anything, quickly tempering her moment of curiosity.

"With the help of the ACLU, Christian Blakely"s mother wants to go after Gideon Larsen and a few of the other leaders for manslaughter. And you, my friend, just handed them an eyewitness account that could add not only another charge, but up to another ten years to an already hefty sentence."

"Wouldn"t that mean Lane would have to testify in court?"

"It"s always a possibility, but I have a good feeling that it won"t go that far. The defense is absolutely not going to want you in court. A jury would crumble at the prosecution"s feet with you as a witness. Not only is your testimony air tight, but you"re compelling, and having you up there invoking the name of Chris Blakely would not be good for them. Those old geezers are smart enough to know that. I"m expecting that I"ll have a plea deal on my desk come Monday morning."

"So it"s over?" I ask nervously.

"If you want it to be."

"What about the manslaughter charge?"

"Honestly? They wouldn"t be able to even attempt it without your testimony. And even with it, pursuing a manslaughter charge for a suicide victim is a long shot."

Noah squeezes my hand, and I meet his eyes. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he knows what I"m thinking. And I also know he"ll support me whatever I decide. "It"s alright," he whispers. "Whatever you want to do is alright."

Today has been a lot, and it"s barely two o"clock in the afternoon. My exhaustion reminds me of the time I had the flu, like all my limbs are weak and made of jelly. From our parents finding out about my illicit relationship with my stepbrother, to Ms. Clarke"s pre-deposition interview where she laid down her pen and had a long, serious heart-to-heart about how I haven"t been following up with my therapist. To intrusive question after intrusive question thrown at me by three men who were clearly trying to get me to lose it so I seemed like an unfit witness. And finally, laying bare all the traumatic secrets I"ve held inside all this time.

I"m wrung out. But for the first time, I also feel revived. And when Ms. Clarke mentioned that my testimony might be the key to making doubly sure that Gideon Larsen never sees the outside of a prison again, I felt an awareness prickle at the back of my skull. Something inside me says this is the right thing.

"I want to help Mrs. Blakely."

Ms. Clarke smiles warmly. "I thought you might."

"So, Chris is the reason you chose the last name Blakely?"

We"re lying naked in Noah"s bed, back at the dorms. After spending yesterday with our parents, we decided to leave a little early this morning so we can have some extra time to rest before our match tomorrow. I"m not sure that we"re getting much rest, but I feel more content than I can ever remember feeling.

"It"s kind of dumb," I warn him. "But after he left, I used to fantasize about what life would be like if I"d gone with him. Like if his family adopted me, and I became his real brother. When my grandfather told me he killed himself, I was devastated. I felt so lost, but I never let go of those daydreams. Sometimes they were the only thing I had to hold onto."

"Why Lane?"

"That day, when I asked him where he"d go if he could disappear and go anywhere in the world, he said Penny Lane. He was obsessed with The Beatles, and the song is based on a real place in England and that felt far enough away from where we were. He sang me a few lines, and it stuck with me for some reason." I push Noah"s dark hair back, away from his forehead and watch it drop back down. "I knew I didn"t want to be Isaiah Warren anymore, and I was too mistrustful of my mom to take whatever last name she had. So I sort of put it together on the fly."

"I like it," Noah says, leaning in to press a kiss to my lips. "But, do you ever think you"ll change it? Now that you don"t hate all of us, do you see yourself changing your last name to Milner?"

"Is this you proposing? Because I think we"re a little young for marriage."

His smirk tastes delicious. Even more so when he parts his lips and lets me lick into his mouth. My dick perks up, and Noah reaches for it, coaxing it harder with his hand, although there"s a chance he"s just playing with my foreskin again and my excitement is just a byproduct. He gasps and shifts his body closer to mine, eyes lit up, no doubt with some freaky idea he had.

"I"m going to put my cock inside it," he says excitedly.

"What?"

"You heard me," he says, pulling me further on my side to face him and hooking a leg around my hips. "I"m going to literally wear your skin like a suit."

I bark out a laugh, because he"s ridiculous, but quickly still, watching with rapt attention as he single-mindedly tends to my cock. He reaches between us and pushes back my foreskin as far as he can, and lines the head of his dick up to mine. Slowly, he rolls the foreskin down over both our heads, encasing both of us inside my skin.

"Oh, holy fucking shitballs, that"s amazing. I can"t believe I didn"t think of this before."

He moves the head of his cock around inside my foreskin, and I don"t so much as shiver as I do quake. Our eyes are glued on the movement of his head swirling around inside my skin.

"Tell me if it hurts," he says, absentmindedly, adjusting himself so our dicks are closer together.

He"s spent enough time toying around with my foreskin to know that it"s pretty stretchy. He likes pulling and sucking on it, sticking his tongue inside it, and seeing how far he can stretch it. It is surprising he hasn"t thought of trying to wear it until now. Nearly every other day he tells me some random thought he had about it, or considers asking his dad why they took his away. I guess now that his dad knows about us, he can ask without having to answer questions about why the subject came up.

All of his play is paying off, as he"s able to push himself further along my shaft, almost completely inside. My skin feels stretched, but not uncomfortably so, and the sensation is unlike anything I"ve ever felt. It"s raw and intimate, and incredibly sensitive, like my penis is covered in a web of electric current.

As beautiful as the sight of his dick rubbing along the length of mine is, the look on his face is even better. He"s completely enraptured, eyes dark with that dangerous kind of lust that used to frighten me so much. Noah releases a shaky breath as he holds us together and gently thrusts, jerking himself with my skin like it"s his own.

He throws his head back and makes the most delicious sound, like a cross between a groan and a cry. A wobbly, higher-pitched moan that says he"s far past a normal state of arousal. It makes me brave.

My cock twitches and thickens, and he strokes us faster, fucking his cock against mine. My lips press against his neck, licking and sucking. He gasps and I suck harder, pushing my fingers into his mouth. He"s so overcome he's unable to close his mouth around them, but I pet his tongue all the way to the back of his throat, forcing a gag before I pull my spit-soaked fingers from his mouth. Reaching between us, I press my middle finger against his hole and he shudders.

"I"m already so close," he warns me, glazed eyes watching our cocks writhe together under my skin.

Breaching the first tight ring with the tip of my finger, I bring my lips to his ear. "Do you want to come, Noah?"

He groans at my words. "Nnyghhhh—I want to," he pants. "I want to come inside your skin."

"Do it," I whisper. "Lube me up with your cum."

Noah loves it when I talk dirty to him. He groans loudly as I push my finger all the way inside, hooking it and pressing on his prostate. Moving my finger in a beckoning motion, I rub the spongy pleasure spot until Noah is shaking and shouts his release. My shaft is flooded with heat, and I feel every pulse of his orgasm against my most sensitive skin. I continue rubbing his prostate, milking him until he"s crying that he can"t take anymore. My mouth swallows his cries, feeding on them like a starving man.

Noah doesn"t pull his cock from mine, swirling his head around mine and allowing it to rest there while we make out, until the throbbing of my still-hard erection becomes distracting. Slowly, he pulls his softening cock out of the sleeve he made with my foreskin, pushing me onto my back so he can observe the results of his experiment. Thick, white cum leaks out around the edges, and I stroke myself, squeezing more of his cum out of my cock with every pass of my hand.

"Jesus fucking Christ, that"s almost enough to get me hard again," he says, settling himself between my legs to watch more closely.

My, how things have changed. In a matter of months, I"ve gone from feeling sick at the thought of him watching me masturbate, to spreading my legs wider so he can witness his cum leaking out of me in two different places.

He smacks my hand away from my dick and wraps his fingers around me, alternating between stroking me and playing with the skin. I groan each time he edges me close to orgasm and pulls back, finally growling and threatening to tear his ass apart. Eyes locked on mine, he wraps his lips around my cock and swirls his tongue inside the foreskin, licking up his own release. My head falls back against the bed.

"Bend your knees," he says, getting to his knees between my thighs, fingers sliding up the back of my thighs to my ass. "I"m going to make you come so hard, you"ll be silly for hours."

He"s not gentle, but he doesn"t need to be. My hole is already stretched and wet from use. The moment we walked in the door, he had me stripped and lying face down on the bed, where he covered my body with his and fucked me slow, whispering how much he loved me.

There"s nothing slow or gentle about the way he attacks my prostate now, thrusting two fingers, and then a third, inside my ass while he jerks my cock, wet with a mixture of my pre-cum and his orgasm. It"s intense, and I"m already oversensitive, gasping for air as I"m zapped directly in the balls by what I"m imagining a taser would feel like if a taser felt good.

My spine and legs straighten out as the orgasm shoots through me so viciously, I bite my own tongue. I"m barely aware of the taste of copper filling my mouth as my consciousness floats into the stratosphere. I"m floating once again, held down by the weight of Noah"s body, which he settles across my chest just how he knows I like.

I"m transcendent in my favorite place, floating above myself, looking down on the way Noah and I are wrapped around each other. He dozes with his head on my chest, my fingers combing through his messy hair. This man that I fought so hard not to love.

In my floaty space, I can think objectively of all the things that have happened recently, from falling in love with my stepbrother, to getting outed to both our friends and parents, to saying out loud all the things that I"ve been holding inside for such a long time. Each one of those events caused me indescribable pain, like being stabbed through the heart. They cut me open, and I bled out more with each pass of the knife. But I think it"s what I needed, to let all the pain and secrets and fear pour out of me. And now I can stitch myself up into someone new, someone stronger. Someone who isn"t afraid to face things head on. Someone who is able to love. Someone who is able to be loved.

The fight isn"t over. I"ll probably always be my worst enemy, the true rival coming up behind me to take me by surprise. There will be voices, and memories, and triggers, and nightmares.

But I"m not alone anymore.