“Yeah.” Jalen looked away, chewing on his bottom lip. “I told people you were bushed after the mall, but they have this movie deal for us in twenty minutes. We’re all meeting in the living room, and they’re going to premiere a made-for-TV movie that will air on the same network as our show, and we’ll all give comments that they’ll use for joint promos and tie-ins.”
“Only this show could make movie night work.” Trevor was so not in the mood for anything public and in front of the cameras, not so close on the heels of the mall disaster.
“I know. But, hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Getting to see a movie before anyone else. It’s not all bad.” For all their differences, Jalen clearly shared his sister’s ability to find the sunshine in the middle of a downpour of suck. “Tell you what, I’ll go grab us some seats. You finish eating and come on down when you’re ready.”
That was going to be south of never, but Trevor still nodded as Jalen stood up and headed for the door. Fifteen minutes later, food eaten, blood tested, and rank got-sick-in and slept-in clothes changed with the world’s fastest rinse off in the tiny shower, he headed for the living room, hair still wet. When he got to the living room, he discovered a big flat screen TV set up in the middle of the room, Heat Loss on one of the long brown leather couches and Keg Stand taking up the other, with Austin sprawled on the carpet in front of the other three. Carter and Carson had claimed big floor cushions right in the center of the room, cuddling up like they might make out as soon as the lights went down.
Jalen was in the big oversize leather chair that matched the sofas. He patted the space next to him. It wasn’t quite a love seat, more like a chair and a half, and no way was it big enough for both of them. From her spot standing next to Kaitlyn by the TV, Dawn nodded at him.
Hell. He headed over to Jalen. Trevor had promised to be more cooperative. And not to act like it was the biggest burden in the world to sit next to Jalen. Despite his inclination to roll his eyes and pout until the cameras started, there was nothing he wanted more than to spend the next two hours squished against his warm bulk. And therein lay trouble . . .
“Hey.” Jalen scooted over and tugged Trevor next to him. Deep inside, the part of Trevor that really did want this went as quivery and nervous as his grandparents’ poodle—wanting the attention and dreading it nonetheless.
Whenever he got what he really wanted in life—cuddling with Jalen, chocolate pudding, singing with an audience—bad things always followed. Always. But today had been so shitty that maybe the singing disaster and his low blood sugar could count as the bad thing and he could simply enjoy how Jalen rearranged their bodies so that Trevor was more or less in his lap, with Jalen wrapped around him. His breath was warm against Trevor’s scalp, his smell made more intimate by the hours Trevor had spent in the guy’s bed. The cameras weren’t even rolling yet, but Jalen still held him close with a muscled arm before dropping a kiss on the top of his head.
“Feeling better?” Jalen asked, lips against Trevor’s ear. A delicious shiver wound down his spine.
“Yeah,” he said, and meant it, even as his stomach continued to do the Dougie dance. The line between pretend affection and real was getting awfully blurry.
As if sensing Trevor’s thoughts, Jalen whispered, “Relax. You’re going to stay healthier if you stress less. You said you don’t hate me, right?”
There was just enough vulnerability in Jalen’s voice that Trevor had to answer honestly. “Yeah.” A bit too much.
“Then just enjoy this boyfriend stuff, okay?”
“Okay.” For the first time, Trevor truly relaxed in Jalen’s grip, let his head settle against his shoulder, and let the tension leave his fence -post–stiff spine. He put his hand against Jalen’s, who promptly laced their fingers together.
From his perch on the floor, Carter met Trevor’s eyes and glowered. Guess someone’s still pissy. Gaze still locked with Trevor’s, he leaned down and kissed Carson. With tongue. Lots and lots of tongue action before he broke away.
This. This right here was about as far from Fair River, Iowa, as he could possibly get; far from Mount Monticello, too, where even the presence of a GSA did not mean you saw guys draped all over each other. But here you had Carson using Carter as a pillow and him and Jalen looking like they were going for an A in cuddle sutra with a position that was going to be hard to untangle later, and neither of the other groups was paying either couple any attention.
Maybe bad things won’t happen.
“Okay!” Kaitlyn clapped her hands, and the camerapeople moved into position. Dawn gave the signal for taping to start, and everyone turned their attention to Kaitlyn. “We have a special treat for you! Now this movie is what you might call a chick flick—it’s The Loneliest Bridesmaid—but that’s exactly why we’re showing it to you. We think it would be adorable to get a bunch of guys’ reactions to this movie. So after, I’m going to be asking a bunch of questions for your honest opinions.”
Behind him, Jalen snorted.
Honest. Yeah. Trevor was fast losing sight of what that word even meant anymore.
Jalen hated top bunks. Every time he moved, he felt like he was doomed to pitch right off the metal-framed bed. When they had returned to their room, Trevor had tried to claim the top bunk again, but the only thing Jalen wanted less than himself falling off the bed was Trevor having another low blood sugar episode and toppling off. He wasn’t convinced that Trevor was all the way better from the earlier one. He’d seemed really tired when they got back to the room, and his color still wasn’t the best.
But now, thanks to his insistence that Trevor sleep on the bottom bunk, Jalen was stuck awake what felt like hours after Trevor had drifted off. Jalen rolled over—carefully—and . . . Oh crap. His foot hit nothing but air. He grabbed the mattress like a drowning sailor, gulping air hard. Fuck this shit. The floor would be more comfortable. He grabbed the pillow, the top sheet, and the thin blanket and tried to be quiet as he made his way down the ladder.
He doubled the blanket over and stretched out on it. He’d just have to make do with the top sheet from the bed as a covering.
“What are you doing?”
Jalen glanced up to find Trevor hanging off the edge of the bed, face inches from his.
“Go back to sleep,” Jalen ordered.
“Here. I’ll move back up top—”
“You will not.”
“Well, I don’t want you sleeping on the floor. What’s your deal with hating top bunks anyway?”
Jalen sighed. Not many people knew this story, and it wasn’t one he enjoyed revisiting. “When I was about eight, I was in this one foster home—really strict place, with a dad who threatened to spank me if I came out of my room at night one more time. He was always going on about how I needed to toughen up.”
“Bastard,” Trevor said with conviction. “But not unlike my father or my brothers. With them, it’s hunting and football—neither of which I wanted anything to do with.”
“Yeah. This dude loved his sports, too. And his beer. Wife was totally under his thumb, too. Anyway, I shared a room with their bio son. And this one night, he’s gone at a sleepover, and I fall out of the top bunk. I was too scared to call out for help.”
“So you just lay there?” Trevor reached out and rubbed Jalen’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Stupid, I know. I broke my arm and my collarbone.” Jalen couldn’t think back to that night without remembering the long cold hours on the hardwood floor, scared to cry too loudly, scared of what Mr. Saunders would do if Jalen came to the parents’ bedroom door. He’d already learned that bad things could happen when you called for help. But he wasn’t telling Trevor that part of his story. Not right then at least.
“Here.” Trevor scooted away from the edge of the mattress. “We can share.”
“You sure?” Jalen rubbed his face. He knew exactly what would happen if they tried to share that small full-size mattress. He could go up there with the best of intentions, but he wasn’t any too sure of
his ability to keep his hands off Trevor, especially in his sleep. His body might forget and cuddle him up. It was hard going from being able to touch Trevor whenever he wanted in public to having these rules and restrictions for when they were alone.
After spending two hours in that chair together, Jalen had been so hard he’d had to jerk off in the shower before getting in bed. He’d barely registered the inane comments of the other guys as they tried to say nice things about the movie—he’d been too wrapped up in the warm weight of Trevor against him, the way Trevor’s hair was damp against Jalen’s neck, the way he smelled even sweeter up close like that, the way he shook when he laughed at something stupid in the movie—
Enough with the memories. You wanna get a full-on stiffy again?
“Yeah,” Trevor said slowly. “Just for tonight, okay? I . . . don’t want you on the floor.” There wasn’t an ounce of sexy to his offer, just guilt and the sort of inherent niceness that always undercut even the worst of Trevor’s moods.
Aw. Hell. Jalen was going to have to play this like he could just sleep next to Trevor without jumping him. Not gonna be able to do it.
Even knowing that, he still took his blanket and pillow and laid down on the bed, keeping as close to the edge as he could. There were only a couple of inches between their bodies, and he swore he could feel the warmth radiating from Trevor.
“Jalen?” Trevor whispered. “Why were you in foster care? I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but you said something about a dead body in the confessions scene. Were you joking?”
Oh if only he was. “I was talking about my bio grandma. I found her passed out in her kitchen when I was six. She’d had a heart attack and was already gone.”
“Oh my God. And that’s how you got in foster care?”
“No.” Something about the dark loosened Jalen’s tongue, made him more able to tell the truth. “Three months later my bio mom shot her idiot boyfriend dead. With Grandmamma gone, there was no one who could take me.”
“Oh man.” Trevor reached across the bed, touched Jalen’s chest. Kind of a one-armed hug that from anyone else would have felt patronizing, but from Trevor it simply felt good. Like Jalen was ripping off old scabs and Trevor was there to cover him back up, make him feel a little less raw. “Is she still in jail?”
Jalen nodded, then remembered it was dark. “Yeah,” he said softly. “My moms have taken me a couple of times. I never know what to say.” That last part he didn’t even share with Dawn or his moms. His legs and arms always got stiff and uncooperative, throat closing up in the presence of this near stranger who should be anything but.
“I wouldn’t either.” And that quiet admission was exactly why Jalen had confessed. Trevor didn’t judge or offer suggestions or advice. He simply squeezed Jalen tighter.
“It’s fucked up, man. She’s clean and sober now, supposedly, and all religious, and that makes me even madder . . .” He trailed off as he remembered Trevor’s family. He probably didn’t need to sound quite so bitter about his mother’s newfound convictions. She hadn’t taken the news he was gay well at all and closed every communication offering to pray for him, making an awkward and tense situation even worse. He’d turned down Mama Kern’s last couple of offers to take him to visit her. “Sorry. I don’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay. I get it. Trust me. I get it.” Trevor found Jalen’s hand and laced their fingers together. “If anyone understands the ways religion can make things even worse, it’s me.”
“Yeah?” Jalen was only too happy to move the conversation back to Trevor. “But I thought you liked that school you went to?”
“Oh the school’s a paradise compared to my family.” Trevor hesitated, and his grip tightened on Jalen’s hand. “You’ve heard of Westboro right?”
“Yeah.” No shit Jalen had heard of the guys who protested funerals and blamed everything on gays getting rights.
“Imagine a church like that but without the national protesting. That’s the church my grandfather founded. And now my dad’s head of it. My uncle’s a state representative. The parts of my family that don’t work for the church work to keep Uncle Chuck reelected so that he can keep proposing legislation for The Daily Show to tear apart later.”
“For reals?” Jalen rolled closer to Trevor. “And you still came out? You’re like—”
“Incredibly stupid. I know.”
“I was going to say a hero. And lucky they didn’t stick you in one of those conversion programs.” Seriously, Jalen was in awe that Trevor had had that kind of balls. Only reason he’d told his bio mom was that he knew Mama Kern and Mama Ivy had his back. That, and maybe a small part of him had wanted to piss her off.
“Oh it was discussed. Believe me. I hightailed it back to campus on a Greyhound before they could force it on me, but my dad made it really clear that was my only option for remaining in contact with my family.”
“Like at all? Like you can’t even talk to your siblings?” He knew from casual stuff that Trevor had mentioned he had brothers. He couldn’t imagine a universe where Mama Ivy and Mama Kern cut him off from his sisters.
“Nope. Not that I think my brothers want to talk to me, but the birthday card I sent my little sister was returned to sender. I haven’t really tried since that.”
“But you weren’t alone on campus right?” Jalen couldn’t explain why the image of Trevor holding the returned card was enough to clog his sinuses, make his chest feel all funky. “I mean, you had friends?”
Trevor gave a bitter laugh. “Most of my friends graduated the year before. But yeah, I’m not a total loser.”
“Of course you’re not.” Jalen lightly punched his shoulder. “And you had the guys you hooked up with, yeah?”
He didn’t know why it mattered to him, just that he figured a guy like Trevor needed someone to look out for him, needed not to be alone.
Trevor snorted and moved away. “I don’t do friends with benefits, if that’s what you mean.”
Oh yeah. Of course he didn’t. This was the dude who thought reciprocation was a dirty word. “That’s right. Just straight guys for you. And you weren’t friends with any of them? Not even the dude you lost your virginity with?”
“I never would have pegged you for being a romantic.” Trevor sighed, the long-suffering sound of someone who was about to educate Jalen. “That dude was some guy in the restroom at a gay bar in Des Moines. I thought he just wanted oral, like all the other guys, but he didn’t, and I was just wasted enough to think him fucking me was a good idea.”
“That doesn’t sound very safe. Or consensual.” Jalen sounded like Mama Kern, but dude. A restroom for your first time? Drunk? No thanks.
“Oh I was into it. That’s the thing. I’m not how I look.”
“No shit.” Jalen had already figured that out. Trevor was so much more complicated than his angelic looks would suggest.
“I’m not nice. I’m not sweet. I don’t do relationships or regular hook-ups. I suck off jock boys on campus who’ve figured out what I am. I do the same with dudes at bars. I’m into anonymous. That’s my kink.”
“That’s your kink?” Jalen rolled so he could look down at Trevor. “One where you don’t get off at all? That’s a pretty lousy one, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you. Look. I’m fucked up. Maybe you get a whole soul connection with the dudes you fuck, but not all of us are like that. I go for straight dudes who only want one thing from me. It’s easier that way.”
Jalen made a scoffing noise. He wasn’t so sure.
“Don’t you have any fantasies? We’re talking all about my issues, but everyone’s got something they get off on.”
“Yeah. I’ve got fantasies. But some things aren’t meant to be acted on.” And why the fuck did he admit that? There was something about it being the middle of the night, being so close to Trevor but not able to fully see him, where his mouth kept sharing shit that really should stay hidden.
“Like what?” Trevor’s eyes glittered i
n the dark, dangerous little gems tempting Jalen to reveal more than he should. But it was the undercurrent of pain in Trevor’s voice that really got to him. Jalen was all for people having whatever kink they got off on, but he wasn’t so sure Trevor’s came from a healthy place. “Come on. I shared mine.”
“Like . . . wrestling. I tried out for the team in high school, but I quickly figured out I liked it way too much.” That had been more than a little humiliating. He’d already had more than a feeling that girls weren’t for him, but it took a single sweaty afternoon of wrestling tryouts to confirm that fact with a 100-decibels surround-sound bell. Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner! Not straight. He’d gone right home and told Mama Ivy no way in heck he could do the team. And why. But he’d never once confessed to anyone how that afternoon had gotten under his skin, spawned his deepest fantasies.
“So like you have wrestling fantasies? Don’t leave me hanging here.” Trevor poked Jalen in the chest, a sizzle that Jalen felt all the way to his bare feet. This was a terrible, awful idea, but as usual, his mouth didn’t listen to him.
“It’s not wrestling fantasies like the outfits or anything as much as fantasies about pinning some guy down and grinding off on him, but that’s not something I act on—”
“Why not?” Trevor’s voice was breathy and he scooted closer to Jalen. Centimeters separated their faces, and he could feel Trevor’s breath hot against his cheek. “That’s like hot. Grabbing some guy and throwing down . . .”
Oh hell. The way Trevor said throwing down was enough to send all the blood rushing to Jalen’s dick. Then he remembered Trevor’s thing about dirty anonymous sex with jerks. Of course he thought it was hot. It wasn’t like he actually shared Jalen’s kink.
“I know the guy’s name in my fantasy. He’s like a friend. And we’re both super into it. Everyone gets off,” Jalen clarified. He didn’t dream about really overpowering someone—that was what made him uncomfortable about his fantasies. He wasn’t a rapist. He didn’t want to force the unwilling. But a willing guy pretending to struggle? Yeah, that got him off. He liked to jerk off watching Olympic wrestling videos, imagining the guys naked and grappling. And okay, that was weird, and he couldn’t believe he’d just shared this with Trevor.
Love Me Tenor Page 9
