by Max Walker
14 Gabriel “Fox” Morrison
This was moving at a breakneck speed. I had whiplash. Maybe I was hit on the head on the way here and this was all some kind of concussion dream? There was no possible way that I had my half-naked coworker sitting next to me, knee to knee, hand in hand, and heart to fucking heart. This all had to be some kind of glitch in the system.
Jonah leaning in to kiss me told me it wasn’t. His wet lips against mine told me this was all very real.
And so were my feelings, which were spiraling out of control in a way I’d never experienced before.
And all for a man who wasn’t even available to me. Regardless of the kisses and the handjobs, tonight Jonah’s life had been thrown into chaos and he was getting all his frustrations and fantasies out at once. Maybe he missed the experimental college years and was working out that buildup now. Or maybe he was simply toying with me, using me to get his rocks off and a decent place to sleep.
I had to remind myself that I had just met Jonah barely a day before. Regardless of how real this all felt, of how passionate our kisses were, of how hot his touch made my skin, I had to remember that I barely knew the guy. And the last time I trusted someone I barely knew, I ended up getting my back stabbed with the same information I had opened up to them about. It was a hard lesson, but one I didn’t fail to learn.
Except, when our kiss broke… I wanted more. My entire being was crying out for more. And I wanted to give him more. I wanted to give Jonah all of me, so I could show him exactly what pleasure really was, what happiness really was.
And then you’d be one hell of a dumb motherfucker.
I couldn’t give Jonah anything. I had to stop myself from falling into that trap. This was a onetime, purely sexual kind of thing.
“You’re a good kisser,” Jonah said, a little giddiness coloring his voice. “Like, really damn good.”
“It takes two to tango.” A question popped up in my head, one I asked before even thinking twice. “Am I the first man you’ve ever kissed?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” There was a curiosity lighting up the ocean blue in his eyes.
“Annnd?”
“It’s… good. Like fucking great actually.” He let out a nervous laugh. “There’s something really different about it. Something really hot… and it feels… right? Is that weird to say?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t know… obviously, I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now.” The ocean eyes looked away from mine, leaving me with an immediate longing. “I’m sorry.” And then he got up, separating from our touch, making that longing all the more potent. “I’ve got a lot to sort out. I’m… it’s… I don’t know…”
“Hey, hey, it’s all right.” I could see him getting flustered. It was in the way he wrung his hands, and how his cheeks began to flush with a violent red. I stood up and went to his side. “You’re okay. There’s plenty of time to sort through all your feelings.” I wanted to reach out, to cross the distance that separated us, but I felt like staying a couple feet away was the right choice. I didn’t want to crowd Jonah, make him feel any more anxious than he already was.
“There isn’t, though,” Jonah said, shaking his head. “Time’s so damn short. You know that. One day to the next, all the ‘time’ we thought we had is gone. It’s like we think having all this time is a right, when it’s really just a privilege. A privilege that can be easily, easily revoked, man.” He took a deep breath. The urge to grab his hands was stronger now. I wanted to pull him away from the chaos, into my arms.
“So then what are you going to do about it?” I crossed my arms. Military training was beginning to kick in. I lived my life by seeing a problem and tackling it head-on. I’d seen some of that in Jonah tonight when he cut off his empty relationship, but I knew there was more in him. He had a grit and determination to live that was proven after his battle in the hospital, where he came out alive.
I also knew exactly what Jonah was talking about. Time was short. I had seen it firsthand during my deployment. Like the sand that stung my eyes on blistering hot days, time was granular. Especially if you zoomed out, looked at the entire scale of life. What we consider as “time" is infinitesimally small compared to the endless stretch of infinity. Life was meant to be lived, and sometimes that meant being pushed out of a comfort zone in order to live the way we were meant to.
“I… I’m going to…” And then his shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.”
I saw defeat reflected in his expression before his head dropped, blocking my view of that picturesque face of his. “You will know.” I made sure to keep my tone firm. I wanted to get through to him. He looked up from the floor. “You’ll know what to do when the time is right. You’ve already got the gut and the courage to make big changes in your life. You’re good, Jonah, and you’ll continue to get better. Trust me.”
He nodded at that. “I hope so.”
“No, you know so.” My tone was harsh. I took a step forward, keeping his eyes on mine. “You’ve got this.”
“I’ve got this,” he parroted, sounding a little more sure of himself. “I’ve got this.”
“That’s right. You’re going to find a new place, and you’re going to excel at your new job, and you’re going to live your best fucking life. This is all up from here, all right?”
“All right,” he said, nodding. I could see him straightening his neck, feeling the confidence return. “Thank you, Fox. For everything. For this, for the place to stay, for…” He drifted off, although I was pretty sure I could guess what he was about to thank me for.
“Don’t worry about it. I’d help out any of my friends. You’re a friend now.”
“Right… friend.” His lips twisted for a second before returning to a smile. “You know… for a second there, you got so intense… I thought you were about to yell at me to drop and give you twenty.”
I was caught by surprise at that and laughed. “No, no. I’m not a drill sergeant.” I cocked my head to the side, smiling. “Unless you want me to be?”
“I mean…” He laughed then, the heaviness of our previous moment lifted. “Go, do it. Tell me to squat or something.” He wiggled his shoulders, flexed his neck side to side.
“I’m not drilling you, Jonah.”
As badly as I want to, I won’t.
“Come onnn, just a minute of it. Give me a ‘drop and—’ Okay?”
“Jonah, it’s—” I glanced at the clock and my jaw dropped. “Holy shit, it’s three thirty in the morning.” Had Jonah lost it? Had I lost it? Was this all some kind of crazy fever dream that I was about to wake up from?
“And? Did you have a bedtime you didn’t tell me about?” Jonah asked.
I crossed my arms, smirking. “Listen here, Mr. Gerber, I’m actually saying the opposite: I’m usually out starting my nights in the club at this time. I’ve got places to be. Drinks to have.” I fist-pumped feebly into the air.
“Mhmm,” Jonah said. “Whatever, yell at me for a minute. I want to get pumped up. It’ll take me back to my time in the academy.” He took a step back and began to stretch, holding his arm against his chest and twisting, making the skin pull tight against his abs, highlighting that lithe body of his. He repeated with the other arm and then did a few other stretches. I shook my head, smiling and having a hard time believing this was real life.
“Oh, and enough with the Gerber baby thing, all right?” Jonah’s face was stern. For a moment I thought I had crossed a line with my last jab. “Focus on my Pedialyte sponsorship instead.”
I snorted in surprise at that. Jonah joined in the laughing.
“Okay, and… go.” Jonah clapped his hands and got into a ready position, still laughing.
“All right, now that I know I have the face of Pedialyte with me, go ahead and give me five push—”
“Wait, wait, wait, what is this? The preschool edition? Is Barney about to come out wearing a combat uniform? ‘Go ahead’? I didn’t come over here stoope
d over on a walker with tennis balls for wheels, okay? Give me the full army deal, Fox. Or sorry, sir!”
I scoffed at that image. “You want me to get hard on you, huh? All right, tough guy.” My lids narrowed to slits. I built up the energy in my chest and made sure to project as loud as I could. “Drop down and give me twenty fucking push-ups, you little fucking rotten lima bean!”
Jonah dropped but not before I saw his face contort into a hidden laugh. “Lima bean?” I heard him say under his breath as he went into the push-ups.
“Yes! I accidentally ate a bad one this afternoon for lunch! And I’m still thinking about it, you puny little stick ant!”
Jonah collapsed at that, falling onto the floor in a heap of laughter. There were even a few snorts in the mix, although those may have come from me.
I helped him back up onto his feet. “You owe me about nineteen and a half push-ups,” I said, back in my regular speaking volume.
“You can get them tomorrow,” Jonah said, residual laughs still sounding from the two of us.
We moved over to the couch and slumped down. Even with how late it was, I didn’t feel like the night was over.
“Where are you from, Fox? I can’t place you.” Jonah was looking my way. He sat on the opposite end of the couch, arm on the armrest, legs out and open. He looked comfortable. For some reason, that made me really happy.
Funny. And here I am wanting to place you on my lap.
“My father was born in London. His entire family was—still is—over there. He came to the states when he was twenty. Met my mom here in Miami. She had just come from Cuba, working at a sandwich shop at the time. The rest is history.” Talking about myself—not something I enjoyed, but as comfortable as Jonah looked was as comfortable as I felt. There was something about his presence that dropped some of the walls I had built around myself.
It could also be that double shot of rum pulling the strings right now.
I did feel pretty drunk, don’t get me wrong, but…
No. No there’s nothing else going on. It’s the rum. That’s it.
“And are you and your dad close?”
It was like a gong sounded through the room. A warning bell. I shut down, giving him a half nod, half head shake and staying quiet, understanding damn well that I hadn’t answered his question. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to open up wounds right now. The night was going fine. Great. I didn’t want to bring it all down.
I got up from the couch, not knowing what to do next. The air felt heavy, and the silence was thick.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean… I shouldn’t have asked…”
“No, no.” I made myself busy with cleaning up, as if I had gotten up for that purpose to begin with. “It’s fine. Just kind of a touchy topic.” And I am an emotionally stunted potato cosplaying as a functioning person. I’m sure I would have felt a whole fucking lot better if I opened the floodgates and told Jonah about all the bullshit that still followed me around on the daily. It would have made me feel like a million bucks, I was sure of it.
So why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I hand Jonah the key and let him in?
“Totally get it, man. Totally get it.”
I continued to clean. Jonah offered to help, but I made sure he stayed sitting, with a glass of ice-cold water in his hand. We chatted some more, time seemingly nonexistent. I knew that wouldn’t be the case tomorr—nope, today, in a couple of hours when my alarm went off for work. I didn’t think Jonah realized we had partied straight through a weeknight, but that was okay, I was already counting him out for the day. I’d let him sleep it off and come in fresh and ready when the hangover had weaned away.
When the living room was relatively cleaned up and our conversation was dwindling, I excused myself to the bathroom. Inside, I took a moment to reflect, to breathe.
What the hell was going on with me? With this?
With Jonah?
He was an enigma. I didn’t know him, even though my soul was shouting out that I did.
I did know one thing for sure: the smile that was being reflected in that mirror was wide and genuine. Jonah made me feel good. He made me feel.
This new Stonewall gig is going to be very fucking interesting.
I finished up in the bathroom and went into the living room, expecting Jonah to be sitting up and ready to ask me some more deep-dive questions. Instead, he was slumped over on the couch’s armrest, a gentle snore coming from the cave he had created for himself. His feet were up and curled under him, and I just knew that he was not going to be comfortable if I left him like that.
I was quickly coming to learn that all I wanted was to see Jonah comfortable, see him happy, thriving. He was a soul that absolutely deserved to shine, and I was determined not to let anything dim that light.
15 Jonah Brightly
What woke me up first was the sound of a closet door sliding shut. The next thing that assisted was a pounding headache that made itself known the second I opened my eyes, causing me to immediately close my eyes and roll over on the bed with a groan.
“There’s a glass of ice water next to the bed. I’d chug it if I were you.”
“Please,” I said in a cracked voice, “don’t ever say the word ‘chug’ around me again.” Even thinking it made my stomach do a backflip. “Ever.”
I leaned up on the bed and reached over, grabbing the icy cold glass off the nightstand. “Thank you for this.” I chug—nope, no. I downed the glass, the water feeling like it had been pulled straight out of the fountain of life.
And then realization pushed through the am-I-still-drunk fog.
“Wait, how’d I get into your bed?” I looked to Fox, who was standing by the door to his bedroom, already fully dressed for the day in an olive-green button-up shirt that made his hazel eyes pop like they were being lit with a spotlight. The khaki shorts he was wearing were short enough to show off those thick thighs of his. “The last thing I remember is…” And then I remembered and…. Holy fucking mother of pearl shit.
Fox jerked me off. He had stroked me until I came.
And it was—and this isn’t an exaggeration—one of the hottest things I had ever done in my entire existence on this planet.
“I can’t remember much,” I quickly said, hoping the burn in my cheeks wouldn’t give it away.
“Well—” Fox’s fiery smile told me his memory was sharp and my cheeks were giving me away. “—you crashed on the couch, and I told you I was dead set on sleeping on the pullout. So I carried you here and took the bed out there.”
“Fox.” My head dropped to the side. I was stunned. “You really didn’t have to.” And although there certainly wasn’t any obligation to have me sleeping on the good bed, my neck, back, and head were definitely thanking him. I wasn’t about to complain to my host the night before, especially since I would have had to settle for some shitty hotel if it weren’t for Fox’s kindness, but sleeping on the couch bed was something I had been dreading. Ever since I was shot, my entire body had become much more sensitive. Some days felt like I was a live wire, bare and broken, flailing in a harsh wind. Thankfully, those days were few and far between, but I knew that sleeping on a spring-busted mattress was going to have me feeling like death. This hangover was already doing a well-enough job of that, so the fact that Fox took the hit and carried me to his bed overflowed me with gratitude.
This man was truly something special.
And he carried me? That was… Jesus, that was actually really nice. Kind of… romantic?
The most romance I’d ever had in my life was when I tried making a candlelit dinner for Wendy, only so that she could tell me she hated how I cooked and that the candlelight gave her a migraine.
So, granted, my bar for romance wasn’t exactly set high, but being carried by a handso—
I caught myself. This was spiraling. My thoughts were running off-script. This must have been happening because of all the chaos surrounding me, that was all. I was torn up, not over Wendy exactly, but over the loss of
stability in my life. A stability I had fought so hard to regain after I was shot. Sure, I wasn’t happy, but I was comfortable.
Now, though? Now, the name of the game was being uncomfortable. So I was projecting my emotions onto Fox. A man who came in like a white knight, swooping me up (literally) and fixing things I thought couldn’t be fixed.
And now, not only was I lacking a permanent place to live, but I was also growing fast and furious feelings for the man who’d come into my life only yesterday. Feelings I had no control of and absolutely zero understanding of. These were feelings I had to take out to the back and put them out of their misery, because nothing was ever going to come from them. That was one thing I could understand: the emotions that were beginning to develop from the explosive chemical reaction that was our meeting were emotions that spelled trouble.
“You can hang out here until that headache goes away. I also left a bottle of aspirin on the nightstand for you.”
And then it hit me. “Wait… today is… holy shit.” I was an idiot. A massive fuckup.
I partied yesterday as if it were a Friday night. Like there wasn’t a care in the world and there weren’t any responsibilities to handle the next day. As if I were a college kid all over again, hanging out with my buddy, shooting the shit and drinking until we passed out. Of course, my buddy had never jerked me off before, but hey, there was a first time for everything.
That would all be fine and dandy if last night were Friday. I’d have the entire weekend to deal with my tangled-up thoughts. Figure out what the hell was going on with me. I’d have that time to take to myself and wonder why the hell Fox’s body made me so hard, why his hand on my cock felt like being shown a glimpse of nirvana.
Why? Why was I growing so attracted to another man? Yes, I’d been physically attracted to guys before, but that was easier to deny. This attraction ran deeper than just the physical. It was an intense magnetism that made me blush by just locking eyes with him…
