Chapter 14

Fourteen

Josh

I bolt upright in my bed, blinking twice before I register—that’s screaming . It’s so loud and intense, I grab a baseball bat I keep beside my dresser before bolting toward Ezra’s bedroom.

By the time I get in there, he’s sobbing.

Oh, fuck!

There’s a second where my heart is throbbing and my feet are glued to the floor. Then he makes this choked sound, and I’m across the room and on his bed in milliseconds. His muffled noises hit me right in the chest. He’s got his face buried in a pillow.

“Hey Ezra? Wake up, man.” Another swell of sound comes from his throat. I shake him lightly. “Hey…it’s Miller.” His whole body jerks on what sounds like a fucking whimper. Shit . I wrap my arms around him from behind and try to flip him. I can tell it wakes him up because his body tenses. I ease him onto his side, and his eyelids lift a little.

“Hey… ”

His face twists like he’s still asleep. I shake him again. Motherfucker groans and recoils from me.

“Hey Ezra?” I press my palm to his forehead, and his eyelids crack open.

“Miller?” he moans.

“Yeah.” I sort of cup his face. It’s warm and damp. His eyes are glazed. “Are you okay?”

He puts his hand over mine, pressing hard for just a second. I can feel his fingers shaking.

“Yeah.” He scoots himself away from me and then turns onto his side, so I can only see his back. “You can go now.” His voice is hoarse. It doesn’t sound like Ezra.

I swallow to loosen my own throat. “Is it your head?”

He inhales…blows it out. “It’s okay,” he says softly.

I can’t tell for sure, but I think maybe he’s still shaking. I reach my hand toward him, resting my palm on the bed, and…yeah. He must be fucked up from that dream cause bro is shaking hard enough to quake the fucking mattress.

Damn.

I sit fully up, hesitating for a second before I reach down and grab his duvet. I pull the thing over him—over his waist and shoulders and back, all the way up to his neck, the way my mom tucked me in when I was a kid.

“Don’t be a homophobe now, angel face,” I whisper—trying to pre-empt him, I guess.

There’s a moment of silence. Feels like a lifetime till he replies in a hoarse version of his normal voice. “You with the faggy nicknames.”

“You with the death wish.”

He doesn’t move for what feels like an eternity. I stretch out on my back beside him. He’s on his side, so I can’t see his face. There’s maybe a foot between us. I fold my arms behind my head and look down at myself. I’m wearing only boxer briefs tonight. Christmas ones with little Santas. Not even the right season…

I shut my eyes and breathe deep but quiet. “I don’t like you, okay? You’re not my type.” I scoot a little closer. Then a little closer still, so he can feel me nearly brushing up against him. Fuck . My heart is beating so hard. I inhale quietly and move over just another half inch so my shoulder is touching his back—an anchor. I can feel how fast he’s breathing, and it makes my chest ache.

“You go for the boys with G-strings and nice makeup?”

I smile, closing my eyes again. “I go for people who like me.”

He doesn’t reply, and my chest craters, like I can’t pull in air. I turn over on my side, too—facing away from him. Now we’re touching just above the hips. Just above my ass. I shift myself so that’s angled away from him. Just our upper backs are touching.

“I’m staying in here for a while,” I tell him. “Make sure you don’t croak from that concussion.”

I feel him take a long breath, and I brace for something shitty. Nothing comes. It’s the two of us on his bed…in the middle of the damn night. I keep still and listen as he sniffs then shifts his weight and takes another long breath. He doesn’t move his back away from mine. I can feel him breathing, feel the heat of his skin through his shirt.

“I’ll be able to tell if you’re not okay,” I explain.

It doesn’t even make sense. I’m not sure that’s true, either. But it’s something.

When another minute or so passes, his whole body shudders, and he draws slightly away. At one point, he takes a sharp breath, and I feel like he’s going to tell me to get lost, but he never does.

I shut my eyes, trying to pretend I’m not here in his bed. Just as I’m wondering if I should get up, I feel his body jerk, and then he’s still. He’s breathing slow and steady, and his back presses to mine again.

He’s relaxed now.

He’s asleep now.

I’m in Ezra’s bed with him, and he’s sleeping beside me—for a little while. I’m almost asleep, too, when I feel his body tense up. He lets out a groan, and I roll over, wrapping one arm tight around him without time to second guess myself.

“Hey there, angel. You’re okay.”

He moans, his whole damn body tense, and I hold him against me.

“You’re just having nightmares. Probably from the concussion.” He shudders, and I notice he feels sweaty. Shit. I press my forehead to his shoulder, feeling like hell for not making him go to the ER. And then he’s out again—in seconds.

I wake to sunlight and the muffled rain sound of the shower.

Wow . So I slept in here with him? I look down at myself, at my boxers and the morning wood that’s pushing at them. Jesus. When did he get in the shower? Guess he didn’t share the covers with me…

I go to my room via the hall and wait for him to turn the shower off. He does, and I try the door twice before I hear his footsteps on the stairs and realize fucker locked me out, the way he likes to do.

I go into the bathroom through his bedroom door, then shower fast and throw on old jeans with a hole in one knee, plus the vintage Smiths T-shirt I found at Goodwill and the first pair of Air Jordans I can grab. My heart is racing by the time I get down to the bottom of the stairs. I peek out the front window and bite my lower lip. His car is gone already.

Okay.

It’s not like it matters to me. We all know that Ezra is a fucking prick. A stubborn prick.

I hope he’s okay.

He comes to homeroom after me. I’m looking down at a notebook, tapping a pencil on the spirals, when I catch him out of the corner of my eye. I flick my gaze back down so he won’t see, and then he’s sliding into the desk right in front of mine.

I wait till he’s pulled something out of his bag, and then I let my eyes move over him the way they want to. He’s got on a black, collared button-up shirt that looks like it’s made of linen, and the fabric stretches tight across his shoulders when he moves a certain way. I can’t see his pants—wait, okay…now he shifted. Dude’s got on gray shorts. The sort of dressy kind. Not really dressy, but like Ralph Lauren type khakis, just in gray. The shirt is untucked, so he looks almost like a model in the middle of some photoshoot. He stretches a leg out, and I see low-rise, black Air Jordans on his feet.

Fuck, even his leg is gorgeous. Where he was looking lean and muscle-corded a few weeks back, now he’s looking sculpted—like something out of marble.

That calf.

I look back down at my notebook, rubbing my forehead.

Moron.

It was one thing to think ultra-lite Ezra was striking. But I’m wading into dangerous waters perving on this bulked-up Ezra I hugged last night in his fucking bed. Watching his hands as he rubs his neck. Admiring his fingers and his golden tanned nape.

I try to knock it off. Fuck knows what he would do if he knew how I’m feeling. I wonder what he thought when he woke up today—if he remembered why I was in his damn bed. I wonder if he remembers me hugging him.

He doesn’t, because he’s not gay, asshat. You’re just thirsty—for a bully. It’s pathetic.

It doesn’t get any better from homeroom. At lunch, I sit at his table like an automaton set on EZRA, and I try to listen to what he’s saying to others while I talk to Jenna. At one point, she tilts her head and gives me a weird look .

“Are you okay?”

I’m faking a smile, trying to convince her I am, when Ezra’s eyes catch mine. It’s only for a second. I look down and carry on the same as usual for the rest of lunch. I think I’m doing a good job until the bell rings and Jenna laughs.

“You’re such a liar,” she says.

“What?”

She rolls her brown eyes. “Josh, you didn’t even eat your food.”

I tell myself to get my shit straight before physics, and I try. I get to class early, feeling strong—until he sits on the stool by mine and he lays his muscular, suntanned right arm beside my left atop the counter.

He says, “How’s it hanging, DG?” and I nearly swallow my tongue.

I guess I frown, because he smiles. It’s a big smile—like, a real one. He looks relaxed as he shows off his flawless white chompers. I notice he’s wearing a peach baseball cap backwards.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asks.

“No.”

My eyes seek out the podium, hoping Bumble will arrive to save me.

“Saw him in the hall,” Ezra reports. “He was talking to a woman with a film projector on a cart.”

Oh, hell. Today we’re watching one of those damn physics shows.

“Not a fan of lateness, eh?” He reaches down to get his books, and I can smell him. It’s the same smell I get after he showers. “You early everywhere you go?” he asks me.

“No.”

He gives me a smirk, and it’s gorgeous on his tanned face, with his long-lashed, fuck-me lake eyes moving down my body.

He opens his textbook, and I watch as he starts working some problems. They’re from the middle of the book. He moves through them fast, as if he’s racing.

I think of asking if he’s showing off, or if he’s really doing them at all. He’s writing so fast, I can’t tell if he’s doing the work. Then Bumble’s there, and Ezra shuts his book. He rests his arms on the tabletop, clasping his hands together. I try desperately to keep my eyes on the screen.

Five minutes later, he’s gone—who knows where. He doesn’t come back until the end of class. This time, I notice Bumble says something to him. Ezra murmurs something back, and the man smiles and nods.

What?

I’m still wondering what bullshit he fed Bumble as I walk from band practice to the soccer field. I search for him on the field behind ours, feeling like I’m in a dream with heavy eyelids and a head full of cut-grass smell. But I can’t find him without really staring. Maybe he sat out today.

But…he didn’t. I get home and find his car is missing—presumably still at the school. He doesn’t get home in the next half hour, which I spend talking to my mom while eating Fritos in the kitchen.

He gets home after I’m in my bedroom. I hear him clomping toward his room, and then I hear the shower come on. I guess he didn’t shower in the locker room. I wonder if he ever does.

I trudge down for dinner late, already worrying about how I’ll react to him. But he’s not at the table. Carl says he’s out with James; they’re eating with a Fairplay grad named Chauncey. The guy plays football for the University of Alabama now.

“It’s so lovely how your friends have welcomed him,” my mom says.

So lovely.

I end up getting lowkey scolded for not going out enough, like social butterfly Ezra. When I slide into bed at 11:30, dude still isn’t home. I walk to the window that looks out over the front yard. I can see a cigarette butt out on the roof’s dark shingles.

I go to bed hugging my pillow, thinking about college. Things will be better once I’m out of Fairplay. It’s the only thing I really need—to get away from here and be able to be myself and start my real life.

The next thing I know, I’m upright in bed, my heart racing as I blink around the dark room.

What the—

I hear moaning. Ezra. Fuck . A bolt of adrenaline flushes through me as I climb out of my bed and hurry through the bathroom. I’m not relieved to climb onto his bed and wrap my hands around his shoulders. That’s not how I feel as I shake him awake.

“Hey, Ezra…”

“Miller,” he moans.

He rolls from his stomach onto his side, peering up at me with sad basset hound eyes. Then his eyelids drop shut. His body jerks just like last night as he sinks back into dreamland.

I lie on my side with my back to him, hugging myself as my mind races. I should maybe go away now. But…I shouldn’t. Maybe he wakes up again. What’s wrong with him? Sympathy and pity, desire and irritation tighten my throat.

This is not supposed to happen.

What can I do?

You can leave him in here.

Untrue.

So…I stay.

I stay on my side. I stay smelling laundry detergent and the fragrant, spicy, minty scent that maybe is deodorant and mouthwash. I stay feeling him behind me, body pressed into the mattress, body moving every time he inhales, exhales.

I stay feeling like a fucking crazy person. When he twitches again and his exhalation sounds like a rasp, I turn over so we’re facing one another. He’s got his arms drawn up, his hands half curled against his throat. I can see his eyelids tremble with his dreaming. I can see the slit of darkness between his lips.

Then, as if we’re living a computer code, and this was always its end point, his eyes open. Find mine.

His mouth twitches and his heavy eyelids slip shut. “DG.” I can smell the mouthwash on his warm breath.

He pulls his eyes open a little. Then he grins—soft from sleep, but smirky too. “Need a little snuggle from your big bro?” he asks in a whisper-rasp.

I shift onto my back and he scoots closer to me. I don’t know why I move onto my side, facing away from him. Maybe I can feel it coming. His hand moving over my hip, his hand big and warm over the bulge in my briefs.

Time stops. Narrows into nothing but the darkness and the weight of his hand cupping me.

“You like this?” Ezra murmurs as he rubs his palm over my dick. He slides his hand toward my cockhead, folded, half-hard, down on my balls. I can’t speak, can’t even get my breath as his hand wraps around me.

“If I do this” —he strokes toward my base and then back downward, fingers squeezing the tip of my dick—“will it make you harder?”

My erection thickens, tenting my briefs as he teases the rim of my cockhead.

“That’s right…” His voice is dark and velvety near my ear. I can feel it curl up in my throat and move down through my belly, settle into my balls.

His hand pumps up and down my shaft, stroking through cotton.

“Would this make you come, if I kept going?”

He can’t really grip me good because of the fabric, but he tries. He gives me a few more strokes, and I can’t help groaning as pleasure swells all through my lower body.

“You get off on a big, rough hand?” His grip on me loosens. His hand delves behind the waist of my briefs, fingers brushing my skin. He pulls the briefs down so my dick pops out. I’m panting as his fingertips trail over my shaft, now aching hard and pointed straight up. “What is it you gay boys want?” His free hand squeezes my ass as he grips my cock and starts to pump it again.

“So damn hard,” he whispers. His teeth nip my shoulder. “Would you get wet if I fuck with it long enough?”

Oh Jesus, I’m about to come. Ezra cups my balls and gives them a tug as he beats my meat so hard and fast that I do just that. I come in an earthquake of sensation, blowing all over myself with his long fingers wrapped around me. Ezra chuckles as he pushes my cock down and rubs his hand over it, smearing jizz on my abs.

“That was easy. Someone’s a hair trigger, huh?” His fingers do something new with my cock, stroking so I feel another wave of pleasure so intense it almost turns to pain. “You ever come from a dude’s hand around you?” he asks softly.

“Mine,” I manage.

He bites my neck again, so hard it hurts. “Bet you like mine better.”

Then he gives my ass a pinch and slaps it hard enough to sting through my briefs. “Get moving, DG. You’re welcome.”