42. Drew

Ican't get it up for a while after the shower, but it doesn't mean I leave Olivier alone. I want to inhale him. Snort him. He responds to every way I lick or kiss or touch him like he's being paid for his performance.

I don't even care that I'm supposed to work tonight. I'm much more interested in soiling the sheets with his cum.

When I'm finally able to fuck him again, it's face to face with me back in control. I take my time with him. Kissing him and reminding him how good he is, how he feels so perfect, how I can't get enough.

We may not be experts at gay sex, but we're figuring out what works for us. It helps that every inch of him now blinds me with want. It makes me more adventurous. But after I come inside him for the second time this morning, he sees my eyes droop once and tells me to go to sleep.

"You're not leaving, are you?"

"No," he whispers, curling his body up against mine.

I fall asleep before I have time to start worrying again, but my dreams are stressful and vivid. I don't feel well-rested when my alarm goes off, but Olivier's hard cock against my thigh makes me grin. "You asleep?" I whisper.

"No, but someone's here—I heard them in the living room."

Christian.I sigh, groping Olivier's hip and waist, then the muscle of his thigh. Needing him again. Not wanting to let him go. Not liking the thoughts that overtake me when he's not by my side.

He kisses me, and it only makes the impeding time apart feel worse.

I never thought I'd be this person. The one who would fall so hard nothing else mattered. The one who would genuinely give anything to lose myself inside someone else because there's so little of me left to lose. If he wants what's left, I want him to have it. Take it. If he takes half as good care of it as he takes care of his clothes, I'll be in good shape.

"I don't want to work tonight," I say before I can stop the words from coming out because I know how easy it would be for him to convince me not to.

It's a door I know better than to open, but I'm not much more than a bleeding wound today.

"You don't want to hear what I want to say," he says, gently caressing my cheek as he murmurs against my lips.

I shouldn't want to, but I do. "What?"

"Fuck this place and its depressing shower. Move in with me. Forget rent and bills and all that stupid shit weighing you down. Come uptown and be my boyfriend. We can even go to college together if you want."

I smile, not because it's a great offer, but because it's a sweet one. Adorable, even. "Great. Just what I've been hoping to trap you into offering me all along."

"Too bad I trust you now," he says.

"Oh? When did that change?"

"I don't know. The fourth or fifth time you forced me to say I love you in the shower. I think it was the fourth one…"

"Too desperate, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that, but you definitely tipped your hand."

"I'm too tired to play games," I say.

"So now I just have to get you to trust me."

"I don't want to talk about this right now." I sit up, already feeling my heart rate pick up at the thought of him marrying Elodie and being in servitude to their parents for the rest of their lives. I don't want to think about how fucking tempted I am to spend all his parents' money either. Not because I'm some con artist, but because I just want to be that asshole.

"Can we talk about it, though? Soon? I'm serious about this, Drew. I want to be with you—all the time—and I want us to figure out how to make it work."

"I don't know," I answer honestly as I pull out a clean pair of boxer briefs from the dresser and make sure they're mine before I head back into the shower.

"We're running out of time," he says.

"Yeah, I get that."

"Are you saying you don't want this?" He makes a vague gesture between us.

"No." At least I don't think that's what I'm saying. Is it possible to hate the idea of someone but be in love with the actual person? It seems like love stories that start out like that always end badly. Romeo and Juliet for example. "What if it just can't work, though?"

He huffs out an indignant breath. "The only reason it wouldn't work is if you keep being impossible. Is it always about pride with you?"

"I think I can safely say it's not always about pride. But if we're not talking about sex and we're talking about the actual future, then yeah—I guess my pride does get involved."

"You know what sucks, Drew?"

"What?"

"I can literally see how much you want to take a fucking break. That's what all this shit about leaving town is about, you know? You've put yourself under all this pressure, and you're burned out. I might not offer much in the way of intellectual conversation, but what I can offer you is some time off even if it's just to sleep for two weeks, or regroup, or punch a bag, I don't care, but you can't afford this place. You kinda like me or whatever, your job makes you ragey and bitter, and you don't have anything else lined up at the moment. You can think of it like you won a vacation if it makes you feel better."

I glare at him, the sensation of being so fully perceived totally alien to me. I don't like it. And I don't like him very much right now either. I respect the hell out of him, though. "Sounds like you've got me all figured out."

I slam myself into the bathroom after that, taking a quick shower, shaving my face and running a nickel-sized dollop of gel through my hair while everything he said to me grows roots in my brain.

Olivier is fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when I come back into the bedroom. His hands are folded, his head is tilted slightly downward, and he's looking up at me. "You need more don't you?"

"Jesus—can we not?"

"I'm determined," he says.

"I see that, but now's not really the time. I need to get to work."

"Great, then we're heading the same direction. Circling back, what would ‘more' look like to you."

I want to answer that question. There are answers to it, I'm sure. But even the logical ones popping up in the still functioning part of my brain get knocked over and dismissed by the cloud taking over my entire psyche.

Nothing would help. Nothing would make this better. Because the problem isn't Olivier trying to make me stay and make me happy. The problem is my inability to be happy about anything—to envision a future for myself with any pleasure in it whatsoever.

Lesson learned: great sex is not the cure for depression. It's the equivalent of taking morphine for a broken arm. It takes the edge off, but in the end, the bone's still broken. "Do you really want to be involved with me?" I ask instead.

"I thought we covered this."

"But you never really said why, and that's what I'm getting at. I'm not fishing for compliments here, but ever since you've met me, I've been in this sinkhole. I'm really, really depressed, Olivier, and I have trouble thinking beyond right now. It's so much easier for me to tell you every reason it won't work than imagine one single way it could. Because everything I picture in terms of a future is flawed. Like I'm so deep in this hole, I can't imagine a life outside it."

"Ah… Maybe we find you a psychiatrist then."

"Jesus." I sigh and turn my back to him to get dressed.

"Who have you talked to about this?" he asks, undeterred.

"You. Jericho."

"Not your parents?"

I snort. "No. They have enough on their plate. I'm supposed to be the easy one."

"How do you figure?"

"Maybe not easy, but independent," I self-correct.

"Are you not close with them?"

"I'm one of five. They have their hands full with my sisters. I have seven nieces and nephews already. They don't need to be worrying about me offing myself in the East River."

Olivier startles. "Is that an option?"

"No," I sigh. "I'm not suicidal. My mood isn't an emergency."

"That doesn't mean you have to ignore it or just live with it."

"I can't afford a shrink, Olivier. I don't have health insurance."

He's silent for a long moment—long enough for me to button up my shirt and buckle my belt, and then he says, "So you're in a hole, I'm throwing down a rope, and you're turning your nose up at it. Am I hearing this right?"

"It's not that simple," I mumble.

"Actually, it is. You're the one making it complicated."

I grimace. "I realize that." I'm starting to, anyway.

"And you don't think that's stupid?"

I walk over to this sweet, sweet summer child and take his face in my hands, making him look up at me. "You've made your point."

"So you'll move in with me? Take a break and get yourself sorted out?"

I kiss his forehead. "I'm not answering that right now."

"What can I say or do to convince you?"

"You can stop talking." I lower my mouth to his, but he keeps his lips closed. I linger there, regardless, grounding myself in his scent, his warm breath, and his certainty. "I hear you," I say against his mouth. "Now it's your turn to be patient."

"I'm not very good at that."

"Why am I not surprised?" I press my lips to his cheek instead. "You want to take the subway or pay for a ride?"

"Are you joking?"

I give his thighs a tap. "Well, let's get going."

"Do you have time to eat?"

"No. But you can always order me something, sugar daddy."

"I would love to be your sugar daddy," he murmurs as he uses his phone to request a ride uptown. "Nothing would make me happier."

I think back to a few weeks ago when I was hoping some rich lady would take me on as a paid companion. Maybe the difference is that was my idea, and I didn't see feelings getting involved. But Olivier's offer feels like something else. Pity, maybe? No, that doesn't sound right, either.

I'll have all night to ruminate on it. At least I'm not angry anymore. And the sex didn't hurt either.

He stands and wraps his arms around me. As I return the hug, he says, "If you think of anything else I can do, you'll tell me, won't you? You don't expect me to read your mind and figure it out all by myself, right? I'm not exactly experienced in relationships."

"So, we're in a relationship, now?"

He growls and fists my shirt in mock frustration, shaking me. "Can you give me one thing today?"

I smile against his neck. "Sure, baby. You can have a relationship with me if you want."

"You're so generous."

"I love your indignant little huffs."

"More than you love my tight ass?" he asks.

"I don't love anything more than I love your ass."

That makes him laugh, and I extract myself from his grip. He takes a second to rearrange my hair, and I do the same with him, fussing with his sex-frizzed curls until they frame his face just right. Until he's the most perfect thing I've ever seen.