Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,68

find out if that click under my buddy’s boot in Iraq was a mine or just a scrap of metal on top of a rock. It had felt like days passed while we waited, unable to do anything except wait for either the all-clear or the bone-rattling thump of the worst-case scenario.

My buddy had been okay. Right now, it was anyone’s guess about my mom.

But getting out of the house, eating some fast food, and chilling with Tristan for a little while—it had given me a chance to catch my breath. The world and the worries would still be waiting for me we got home, just like they were always still waiting when we came back to earth after fucking each other senseless. Dairy Queen in the truck or sex in one of our beds didn’t fix anything, but they didn’t hurt anything either. This wasn’t like standing watch, where if I abandoned my post, someone could get on base and wreak havoc. My mom’s test results wouldn’t change because I’d called time out for an hour. The pandemic wouldn’t get worse because I took some time to shut it all out for a while.

And for right now, I didn’t care if we just drove around aimlessly for hours on end. I didn’t care where we went. I didn’t care how much it cost to top off the tank.

With as much bullshit as there was in my world right now, at least I could enjoy just riding around with Tristan.

Chapter 18

Tristan

I’d worried Casey wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, but he was out cold beside me, his feet partway on my side of the bed since Tilly had taken over his side. Maybe I should have expected that. After all, he’d been through the wringer today, and then he’d been almost insatiable when we’d gone to bed. A day like that chased by two orgasms was bound to knock anybody out.

I’d come a couple of times myself, and the day hadn’t been an easy one, but sleep? Not happening. Not when my brain was going this fast.

Ever since the pandemic had started, I’d had this undercurrent of worry that never completely went away. It was always there, even if I managed to ignore it for a little while, and it had kept me awake more nights than I could count. That was probably par for the course while living in interesting times.

That wasn’t what was keeping me up tonight.

Ironically, it was the man sleeping peacefully beside me who kept me from drifting off.

Today and tonight had been a stark reminder of why we were spending so much time together. Why we were leaning on each other so hard. What we were distracting each other from every time we got naked. The pandemic was real, and there was no avoiding it. Not just everything we had to do to hopefully mitigate it, but its effects. My parents were careless and didn’t think it was a big deal. Casey’s family took it seriously. Now his mom might have COVID. Meanwhile, my parents were fine. I was glad they were, but it didn’t seem fair that Casey’s mom had probably contracted the virus while mine continued thinking everything was normal. Nothing made sense and there was no escape.

Except being close to him made sense, and it was an escape from everything else. When we were lost in conversation, I didn’t think about anything but him. When we were hot and sweaty between the sheets, I didn’t think about anything but how to make him moan, shiver, and come.

The minute things were quiet, though…

I wiped my hand over my face as my heart sank into the pit of my stomach.

The fact was, if it hadn’t been for this pandemic, Casey and I never would’ve gotten this close. These days, with everyone social distancing to the point of near-total isolation, we were all each other had. He was the only face-to-face human contact I had aside from checkers at the grocery store or the drive-thru. Of course we’d gotten close—we didn’t have anyone else to get close to.

But our situation was complicated.

Prior to the pandemic, I’d been hyper aware of how dependent I was on him, and with the pandemic, I’d only become more dependent. Ever since we’d started hooking up, there’d been a part of me that worried I was obligated to keep putting out. That if he wanted it and I didn’t…

Except I didn’t think that was Casey. He wasn’t the asshole I’d