Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,72

when I was at the door.

“Yeah?”

“Will you come back?”

I laughed and said, “Yeah.”

In the kitchen, Mom and Dad were drinking coffee. Dad was reading the paper. Mom was playing Bejeweled on her phone.

“Elien’s going to stay the night if that’s ok.”

“Door closed,” Dad said firmly.

“Oh, Dagobert,” Mom said, one hand over her heart.

“As a friend,” I said. “I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

Dad folded the paper and stared at me. “Why?”

“Your father is right, Dagobert. He’s a perfectly lovely young man.”

“And he’s into you,” Dad said. “Like, really, really into you. He practically melted when you touched his shoulder at dinner.”

“And you were so cute when he spilled wine, dabbing at his shirt. I think he had an erection.”

I covered my face with my hands and backed down the hallway.

“Go get him,” Dad stage whispered.

“Rock his world,” Mom said.

“This is why superheroes always have parents who died in a tragic accident,” I called back to them.

Shutting the door behind me, I prepared for Elien’s smirk. But he wasn’t smirking. He was asleep, his lean legs falling off the bed, drooling a little onto my quilt. I slid my arms under him and moved him up to the pillow. Then I got my iPod, popped in my earbuds, and put on some Humpback Whales of Monterey Bay. I stretched out next to Elien, enjoying the warmth of him next to me, liking the vanilla and bourbon I could smell on his breath after his second serving of bread pudding. My eyes closed. I drifted.

When I woke up, the room was in shadows, and Elien’s hand was soft on my cheek, turning my face toward him. The green in his hazel eyes glowed like jade. After a moment, he pulled out one of my earbuds and slid it into his own, and then his hand was back on my cheek again. The whales sang to me. I was floating deep out in the ocean. His fingers smelled like red wine.

“I want to kiss you,” I whispered.

He blinked and said, “God, I thought you’d never say that.”

So I kissed him. And then I kissed him again, my hand moving to the back of his head, into that mess of blowout hair, pulling his mouth harder against mine. Rolling onto him, I tangled the earbuds, and then I pulled them free and slid the iPod to the floor. I kissed him again. His hands fiddled with my waistband, and my jeans popped open. He slid the zipper down.

“We should go slow,” I whispered.

“I don’t want to go slow. Do you want to go slow?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t want to go slow. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

It could have sounded cheesy anywhere else, but we were in our own universe, and it was simple and true. My heart was brass, ringing out under those words.

He undid the zipper, and he helped me slide my jeans and boxers down to my knees, and then he took me in his hand.

“Shit,” I whispered, shuddering as I thrust into his grip. I had to clench my teeth, and not being able to make noise made it hotter somehow. “Oh shit, Elien, shit, it’s been a long time, shit, shit, stop.”

He pulled away; I was shaking on top of him. Elien used the cooldown to wriggle out of his shirt, and he pulled my hands to his nipples, and I flicked them and twisted and pulled and pinched. He made these little noises under his breath that were even hotter than his hand had been. I could see him going wild and not able to let it out, and it made me wild too. He rolled his hips, grinding up into me, and his pupils were huge.

“Fuck me,” he whispered. “I need you to fuck me.”

Nodding, I slid off him, and we both stripped, and I came back to the bed with a condom and lube. I knelt between his legs, ran my hands down his thighs, enjoying the way he shivered.

“Dag.” He bit his lip. “I’m probably going to cry after. I might freak out. I just need you to . . . to hold me. And let me be upset, ok?”

“What? Why?”

“It’s just—I don’t know. All these associations.”

And I remembered: his first time, some asshole he’d picked up that night, and then staggering out into the house to find his family dead.

“Oh Christ,” I said. “I didn’t even think.”

“No, Dag. Please. I want this. I want you.”

“But I don’t want—”

“Please.”

I