Chapter 17

Seventeen

Josh

W e have a pattern. He skips homeroom. (I heard him tell Cara at lunch that he’s gotten permission to go over football footage with Coach Nix). Lunch, I sit at the usual table with Brennan, Marcel, and the rest, but I don’t get within three or four seats of Ezra. I make sure that I can hear him, but not too well. That I can see him, but only in my periphery.

Cara fawns all over him, and even though I’m pretty sure she’s trying to make James jealous, I don’t like the sight of it—so I try not to look their way. Mostly what comes through to me at lunch is his laugh. I don’t hear it often, but sometimes he lets one out, and it’s a really good sound. He looks happy at the lunchroom table. Like a hot, straight football player with a girlfriend.

I see him again in physics. That’s the best and worst part of my day. He’s close enough that I can’t help but look at him. When I glance down, I see his bare knee inches from mine. His quads have gotten thick and strong and tanned from being outside at practice. The more he lifts, the thicker his forearms are getting—and more veiny. They’re always on the table, moving, flexing. His hands. I can feel the pattern of his breathing. Every time he shifts on his bar-stool seat, I get a little jolt. Sometime in the last week, we’ve reached an unspoken consensus: Try not to look at one another. My whole body sweats and prickles, but we rarely make eye contact.

Then it’s only glimpses of him outside on the practice fields. I get home before he does, since soccer ends before football. I shower first and head into my room to do homework and some bench press. He comes home and showers. Finally, my mom calls us to dinner, and it’s just the same as always, somehow.

I treat him like he’s annoying. He acts like he finds me quaint and amusing. There’s a lot of smirking. He eats everything my mother gives him, while I try to pick at my food. I don’t want him touching my stomach and not feeling six-pack abs like his.

After dinner, study more and I watch something in my bedroom. Usually ESPN. When my eyelids start feeling heavy, I make myself brush my teeth. Then I strip down to my boxer briefs and climb into my bed and wonder.

Will this be a night that Ezra wakes up screaming? I make myself hope it’s not. But almost every night, I wake to the sounds of him caught in a nightmare. I run to his room like Super Miller. Usually, he’s on his side, curled up and trembling, murmuring. I hold his shoulders, gently shaking him awake.

His bedside lamp is always on, so I can see his eyes wet when he opens them. I can see the fear on his face. Fear, or sometimes anger. I don’t know what’s in his head, what’s in the dreams, but I know he seems wrecked before he blanks his anguish off his face and dives for my dick.

These past few nights, he’s seemed more startled when he wakes up, breathing harder like he’s scared…and he’s been rougher. Likes to shove me, wrestle me onto my back, straddle my hips and squeeze me too hard. He’s started sleeping in a pair of loose, faded jeans, so I can’t fully see his erection. Maybe he be lieves I think there’s not one. But there is. I have eyes, and he’s got a bulge the whole time he messes with me.

He’s really good at it—so good that I’m damn near helpless when he starts up on me. He gets me off in minutes. And that’s the nights he doesn’t tease my asshole. Usually, he does. He licks back there or prods or tickles that spot between my balls and my hole. It makes me come harder and faster. When I come, he’s got a hand around my balls, a hand around my shaft, and usually his mouth is sucking on my head.

The sucking’s perfect.

He says mean shit between blowing me. Stuff that sort of bothers me, like, “That’s right, homo. Give me what you’ve got,” or “this dick creams just like a pussy.”

Sometimes he’s damn brutal with my balls. I’ve come once or twice in some level of pain—but the night it hurt the worst, he saw me cupping my nuts when it was over, and I’ve noticed that he hasn’t squeezed that hard again.

“Oh look, it’s the little gay boy,” he says one night as soon as I wake him up. This time, he was crying when I found him, and his eyes are still red and puffy as he pushes my briefs down my hips.

“What a perfect doll. A perfect dick and perfect balls.” He licks down my happy trail. “I like how you get those chills. Such a virgin.”

His mouth wrapped around my dick is heaven. His hand works me just the way I like, a little firm but not too tight, and lots of long, smooth, rhythmic strokes, with fingers teasing my balls and his tongue lapping my cockhead. I come fast and hard, sensation building in me then exploding in an inferno of pure bliss. Always blacks me out for half a second.

When I open my eyes, I find Ezra over me, his eyes hot but his face grave—the way it almost always is.

I lift my knee, wanting to rub between his legs and feel where I know he’s hard, too. But he sits back on his haunches. I reach for him, thinking to return the favor. I know for a fact he’s gotta want it. Even if he’d never say so. When my palm brushes his bulge—tight and hard behind his jeans—everything happens fast.

I have the thought: Thank God he's hard too . Followed by: I touched him!

Then my wrist is aching, and I’m yelping at the pain. I gasp, and he lets go before moving off me.

My head spins as my wrist throbs.

"I'm not gay, Miller."

He says that with his boner pushing at the denim of those beat-up jeans. His cheeks are flushed in the light of the bedside lamp, his eyes aglow with what I know is lust.

"Right." I sit up, messy from where he smeared cum all over me. My heart pounds so hard that I can feel it in my temples. "You're not gay," I tell him, getting off the bed. "Not bi either, are you? Just an ordinary liar."

"I like to fuck with you.” He gives me a pretty sneer—the Ezra sneer I’ve come to know so well. “You’re just a toy."

"So you're...gay for me?"

His face hardens into fury. "I'm nothing for you. No…that's not true." He looks more confident. "I'm… amused by you. It’s entertainment."

Hurt—first. His words hit like a slap. But he's a liar. That big boner proves it.

"Don't be a coward, angel face. If you're not gay you're bi, and if you're not bi then you're a coward and a bigot. Because you’re a liar."

He smirks the way he used to at me—hard, as if he hates me. He waves at the bathroom door. "You got what you came for. No one said I wanted you to stick around."

The fucking prick. "I come to your room to wake you up from nightmares, dickface."

He arches a brow. "Why not let your mom or my dad do it?"

"Because they're downstairs ." This is unbelievable. When I get to him, he’s usually crying or screaming. I would be a monster if I left him there a second longer than I had to. Even if he wasn’t playing my dick like a damn harmonica, I’d still rush into his room to help him. "Tonight, they're not even here." They're traveling for a few nights due to Carl's work.

He shrugs. "You know what will happen once you come in here. Don't pretend you don't want it."

I want to tell him he's fucked up. That he's trying to wall me in. Gaslighting, even. In fact, I'm about to when I notice that his eyes are welling with tears.

I step closer to him. "Ezra—"

"Fucking go already. I don't want you in here, faggot."

I step into the shower with a tight chest and a racing mind. He's so confusing. Also, such a fucking bluffer. Full of nothing but shit. Why can't he be honest?

I think about his nightmares as I soap myself up. I’ve had bad dreams before, but what happens with him—it’s seriously next level. I'm not going to take this dumb shit personally. I’d put money on it being a defense mechanism. It still hurts, though. If I'm being honest. Being treated like a fuckboy bothers me. So I should stop this with him.I soap my dick, which twitches at the memory of what he did to it. I don't know if I can.

I'm getting addicted to that moment right after he wakes up. I don't get it every night. But if he’s bad off enough, he’ll grab onto me. He's panting, his heart racing so fast I can feel it through my own chest, and I get to hold him. I try to hold him tight so he'll feel safe. I feel him breathe, and in those seconds, there's no space between us. Once or twice, he tucked my head to his chest as he was holding onto me. It felt so good.

I shut my eyes and try to feel that feeling right now. Something to ease the weight I still feel dragging at my chest. I should be able to—I summon that feeling of being held by him almost every night, when I’m drifting off to sleep—but for some reason, my mind is feeling fuzzy right now. I guess the lack of sleep is getting to me.

I wrap my hand around the base of my dick. Fuck, I came so hard just now. I’m dizzy.My hand starts to shake as blood rushes to my cheeks. There’s a feeling back behind my eyes somewhere—a sort of pressure.

Ezra , I think.

But I can’t say it.

I can’t do anything as my knees buckle.