18. Adam

18

ADAM

M y pulse hammered in my ears as I followed River to the living room, my lips tingling, my dick way too hard, and my brain too blood-deprived to hold a coherent thought.

River had questions. I got it. But how was I supposed to give him answers when I didn’t have any? All I knew was that kissing River had shifted my alignment, and I was struggling to figure out which way was up.

A problem my dick clearly didn’t have.

We sat facing each other on the bigger couch, and I couldn’t help smiling at the situation.

“What’s the grin for?” he asked, his smile mirroring mine.

“I kissed a boy and I liked it,” I sang.

A cushion hit my face, and I laughed harder. Whatever had just happened, I was on a high. I could only imagine this was how it must feel to skydive, or go white-water rafting.

The kiss had been a revelation. River’s lips had been firm, insistent, but also pliant. He’d let me take charge and given me time to adjust, but when he finally responded and took over, it had hit me like no other kiss in my whole life.

He’d left me dizzy and craving more. How could I get this conversation out of the way so we could get back to breathing each other’s air?

“God, Adam, I have so many questions.”

“Can we not bypass all that and go back to kissing? I’m so fucking hard.”

He groaned and ran his hands over his face, scratching his short scruff.

“You’re killing me here.”

I shifted closer to him on the couch and put one arm over the back, holding my head in my hand. The other free hand pulled the string on his hoodie.

My mind raced with questions, doubts tangling with desire as I came to the realization that I wanted River in ways I couldn’t fully comprehend.

“I wish I knew what to say, but this is as new to me as it is to you.”

“You know, this isn’t the first time we kissed.”

It was my turn for my jaw to hit the ground.

River chuckled, and I looked at him. “Should I be hurt you don’t remember?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if his smile was covering up hurt feelings.

I shook my head. “No, I remember it. I guess I haven’t thought about it in a long time.”

“You wanted to kiss the girl from English class you were dating, and you didn’t want to mess it up, so you asked me to kiss you for practice.”

I’d asked him for help with the kiss. My embarrassment was only slightly less than the mortification of kissing a girl and being bad at it. My dumb fourteen-year-old self hadn’t enjoyed the kiss because I’d been too preoccupied with the technicalities.

As it was, while no catastrophes happened when I kissed the girl, I’d also been disappointed at the nonevent. I couldn’t even remember the girl’s name now.

River put his hand on my chin and tilted my head so our eyes met.

“Is this some kind of experiment? Something to get back at Victoria with? Fuck, I hate that my head is going there, but, Adam, I’ve been your best friend since we were kids. You’ve never indicated that you have any interest in guys—until now.”

I lowered my gaze to his hoodie, tracing the pattern of our college logo with my eyes.

“Honestly? I don’t know when it started. Maybe it was a combination of lots of little moments between us. Maybe I’m traumatized from being jilted on my wedding day.” I let out a choked laugh, and River held my hand. “I just know that for a few weeks, all I can think about is you. At first, I thought it was because I was relieved that we could finally spend time together without me having to justify it to Victoria or be sneaky about it, but…”

Fear stopped me. Fear of losing River or, worse, hurting him with my uncertainty. Could I even call it a bi-awakening when it was only River who stirred these feelings in me? Was it fair to explore this part of myself at the risk of his heart and our friendship?

“Figuring out your sexuality takes time,” he said. “Even when you feel strongly about someone, it’s okay to step back to ensure those feelings come from the right place.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I just…can’t stop thinking about you. I must have been really blind before to not notice the curve of your ass or the way you bite your plump lip when you’re trying to figure something out or how strong and put-together you always look.”

“Adam,” he said, exasperation tinged with lust.

I drew in a shuddering breath. The intensity of our kiss lingered on my lips like a phantom sensation. I needed more of it even as my rational side begged for caution.

“River, I—” My voice cracked.

“Shh.” River’s fingertips brushed my cheek. “We don’t have to figure this out right now.”

Except I felt the weight of urgency, the need to protect what we had even as I stood on the precipice of wanting more.

My hand trembled in his. “I—God, I’m sorry, River,” I stammered.

“Sorry for what?” River asked, his voice barely above a whisper. We were seated on the edge of the couch, our knees touching and our hands still linked.

“Do you regret it?” he asked, and I didn’t miss the vulnerability in his voice.

I placed my hands on either side of his face. “No,” I breathed out without hesitation. “I don’t. Since that night at Haven—dancing, laughing, the way the lights made your eyes shine… I was blind to it at the time, but now I can tell that’s when it started. I haven’t been able to shake you from my thoughts, River.”

“But you were going to marry Victoria? What if she hadn’t left?”

“I don’t know. That morning, before you came into my room, I planned to marry her. Would these feelings have surfaced in the future and put my marriage on the line? I don’t know. There’s not much point in focusing on the what-ifs now.”

“It’s a lot to process.”

“I know.”

“Let’s just take it one day at a time,” he said.

“Okay.” My hand trembled slightly, and River ran his thumb in circles over my skin, the touch sending an electric jolt through me.

We stood in silence for a moment, a contrast to all the loud thoughts in my head.

“Can I confess something?” I asked.

“I’m scared to say yes.”

“I’ve thought about you,” I said, “in ways I probably shouldn’t have for a best friend…even touched myself, thinking of you.” I dropped my gaze, a flush of heat creeping up my neck. Why was I telling him this? It could only push him away. “I’m…I just want you to know this has been building. It’s not something I woke up today thinking about. It’s been under my skin, itching to come out. You have to have noticed. I thought…”

I thought I’d noticed it in the way he looked at me. Was I wrong?

“Adam,” River managed to choke out. “Maybe we should get some sleep.”

“Talk about this another day?”

“Yeah, okay.”

We walked through the hallway, stopping by the space between our rooms.

There was something else on my mind that I couldn’t shake. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“You got hard when we kissed.”

“Adam,” he groaned.

“No, I’m not trying to, you know… Well, I’m not gonna lie. I’d love a goodnight kiss and maybe a hand job.” Hell, you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

River pressed me against the wall, one hand placed by my head and the other on my waist.

“You’re making it really difficult for me to do the right thing and leave you alone in your room.”

I don’t want you to leave me alone in my room.

I smiled. “That’s the thing. I want to understand how this all fits with your sexuality. You got hard.”

He pressed his body against me, and my throat caught when I felt his erection again.

“You are…hard.”

“Your point?”

“How?”

He leaned over and inhaled in the space between my shoulder and my neck. “I’m not asexual, Adam. Quite the opposite. I just need a true connection before my body is interested sexually.”

“And we have that connection?”

“Since we were five fucking years old, Adam. Even before I knew I wanted to kiss boys and not girls, you were the only person for me. So yeah, call it whatever you want. Friendship. Connection. We have it. My dick has no problem getting hard for you.”

“How long?”

He pulled away and stared into my eyes. The green was almost black in the darkness of the hall.

“Goodnight, Adam.” He pressed his lips briefly against mine, and then he was gone.

As we settled in our separate rooms, I had never been aware of a person on the other side of a wall as much as I was now. Every creak, every tiny sound grabbed my attention.

What was River doing? Jerking off? That was probably what I should do, but after confessing to him that I’d done it before, it felt wrong to do it now. Or was he replaying our kiss in his head over and over again like I was?

I was thirty years old, and kissing River was the biggest mic drop of my fucking life.

Sleep would come eventually, but for now, all I could do was lay here and think of the ways in which I wanted to change my relationship with River while simultaneously keeping it the same.