“I want it to stay like this. I don’t want this week to end.”
“Neither do I,” she whispers, kissing my cheek, her lips trailing over my beard and down to my neck.
“Even after what I just told you? After what I did to him.”
“Nash, this is how you are. The harder you love, the more you fight. You made a mistake, but you need to make it right. Apologize to him. Prove to him you’re not going to hurt him again.”
“Why would he take me back?”
Holding my face in her hands, she kisses me again. “Because he loves you.”
27
Amsterdam
I have never had so much sex in my life. Even if I could keep my hands off of Ellis, I wouldn’t want to.
What started as just once and just to see if I liked it has become an addiction. Ellis’s touch consumes me, day and night. After work every day, I go to his apartment where we fuck almost immediately then usually again after dinner and sometime in the middle of the night. Most of the time, I bottom and sometimes, he does. Either way, it’s fucking mind-blowing.
There’s something about the way he is with me. How it doesn’t feel wrong or strange. Like nothing about me has changed.
It’s been over three months since the first time. One Saturday evening, we’re lying naked in his bed, both of us putting off ordering something for dinner, and he’s laying between my legs, trailing his fingers over the plane of my stomach. If he hadn’t just sucked the life out of my cock, it’d be aroused and ready for more.
“I have bad news,” he says without looking up at me.
“What?” I’m scrolling mindlessly through my phone, but I set it aside to look down at him. There are a million things he could say right now. Ellis and I never really established the boundaries or labels for whatever this is, but I know he’s not fucking anyone else strictly because he is literally always with me.
“My contract with the company is being absolved at the end of the quarter.”
“What?” I snap.
“This is what happens. I’m a temporary contractor. These things only last so long. I thought I had until the end of the year, but they want to cut it off in October.”
I don’t speak because I’m waiting for him to drop the weight he’s holding over me, ready to crush me.
“I can do some freelance jobs for now. My work visa isn’t up for another year, so I don’t need to leave right away.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying I’m going to stay here for you, you stubborn ass.” He places a kiss on my stomach, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Why would you do that?”
“What do you mean why? Do you want me to leave?” He’s getting defensive, and I’m suddenly regretting the way I answered him just now, so I drop it.
“Of course, I don’t want you to leave…but I just feel weird, you staying for me.”
“I’m staying for us,” he mumbles with a little affection lacking in his tone as he climbs off me, grabbing his underwear and getting dressed quickly and walking out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
Us.
Fuck, I still haven’t even told my dad I’m here with him let alone fucking…and what, dating him? What am I supposed to do? Come out? It doesn’t feel right. I can’t.
I mean...I don’t want to do it with anyone else, but that’s because I trust Ellis. We’re friends. Best friends. My brain does a little dance of denial over and over as it often does when I get lost in my thoughts when my phone rings.
Looking down, I see Zara’s picture on the screen.
Fucking great. There’s still a little buzz of worry or excitement when she calls. Worry because I don’t want her telling me something bad happened between her and my dad, but then there’s also excitement because…well, I’m still a fucking idiot after all.
“Hey,” I say into the phone.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” she asks, and already I can tell there’s some hesitation in her voice. Something’s going on.
“No. What’s wrong?” I cut to the chase.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re calling to tell me something, I can tell. Is Dad okay?”
“He’s fine, and yeah, I did call to tell you something, but nothing is wrong,” she says with tightness in her voice.
“God, don’t tell me you’re pregnant,” I say in a joking manner, but I guess I shouldn’t joke about that. Sure, they’ve been