Fall through Spring

by Amy Lane

  “Because Skipper and I can’t work together if I tell Tesko I have an MBA. I mean, your brother’s great and all, but he works long hours and shit, and he’s all serious about his job and… and that’s not the life I want. I want to work with people and do something real. Skipper’s talking about getting his degree and teaching. Maybe I could do that. We could do the program together. Anything, you know? Just not walking into an office and wearing a suit and focusing on how to make a company grow when I… I just can’t. I can’t think about making a company do anything. But one person at a time, or even a class or something—that I can do.”

  “But you and Skipper could still be—”

  “Dane, I love you—and it’s great that you’re not wincing anymore when I say that, by the way—but everybody loves you. You’ve got Mason eating out of the palm of your hand. Random professors stop by and offer you your dream job on a platter with a minimum fix to your paperwork. You just offered to take Mason’s place in the Holy Church of Soccer and Skip didn’t bat an eyelash.”

  He hadn’t either. Dane had rather been hoping to be worshipped for that gesture, but, well, he had been on the sidelines a lot. Maybe it was time to play.

  But Carpenter hadn’t stopped his rant. “So everybody loves you. I love you, so that seems totally legit. But my own family thinks I’m like a zit—yeah, sure, I’m part of the basic genetic makeup, but if only they could pop me a little so I’d shrink. I finally find a place I fit in, and the one thing different about me is a totally worthless piece of paper that I regret going to school for and I’m embarrassed to have.”

  “But… but why wouldn’t you tell me?” That’s what hurt. “And seriously, what the hell? What was your BA even in?”

  “It wasn’t a BA. It was a BS, as in it was another piece of bullshit but this one had to do with science. I think it was microbiology with a minor of molecular chemistry. I’d have to look it up. Seriously, my evaluator did my paperwork for me because by then, I practically burst into tears just thinking about another goddamned science class. So there you go. I got through college as a total loser with worthless pieces of paper to my name. At least you like what you’re studying.” The look of self-hatred on Clay’s face was hard to bear—and so was his out-and-out dismissal of all the work he must have put into something that gave him nothing but self-loathing now.

  “I’m a veterinary science student who doesn’t even have a cat!” Dane argued, at a loss, then finally understanding. This was the part of himself that Clay hated—all wrapped up in one convenient piece of paper. “And if you hated it so much, why did you get it? Why didn’t you get a degree in something you loved? I mean, you still have student loans, right?”

  “Because every time I tried to talk to them, they were like, ‘So, molecular biology isn’t your thing. You can still save the world doing something else you hate just as much, but that you seem to have an aptitude in. Here, take more classes! We love you, honey—and stop eating sugar; it’s starting to show!’”

  “Aw, man—Carpenter!”

  He turned away. “I don’t want your fucking pity, Dane. I… I just want what you give me. Whatever you can manage, however you’re doing that day, you give me what you can based on who I am. Not the better person you want me to be, or the person I’m trying to be, but who I am that day. That’s what Skipper gives me, and Richie, and even the fucking Holy Church of Soccer. But I never got any of that from school or those fucking worthless pieces of paper. I wish I’d done something useful after high school, like go on a mission or join the Army or something. But I didn’t. I tried to make myself into someone I really loathed, and I’m still trying to wash the taste of that person out of my mouth with donuts.”

  “That’s not true,” Dane defended staunchly. “Not anymore.”

  “Whatever.” Clay took a few random steps toward the pool, which glowed in the sun outside the sliding glass door like a jewel against the darkened living room. “Do you want me to go home? Are you that mad about it? Or can I swim? I love swimming. I feel like a god in the water. It’s not until I climb out that I feel like a manatee.”

  Dane sighed, completely out of anger. In fact, before Mason’s love life unspun, he’d been hoping this would be celebration time—and that Carpenter would be with him. He’d finished finals last week. He really wouldn’t mind hanging out by the pool and reading something that had nothing at all to do with his major.

  “Yeah. Let’s go put our trunks on and swim. Then maybe a nap.” He felt the corners of his mouth curl up. “But I think there’s more to say about this whole MBA thing—”

  Clay looked over his shoulder at him. “Please, Dane?” he begged. “Can we just… drop it? Pretend like you’ve known all along? Like… like it’s just a part of me, but not one we have to deal with?”

  “But why wouldn’t you tell me?” Dane said, feeling like a broken record. Then again, wasn’t that his biggest problem? Not letting things go. “Me. I mean… shouldn’t I be the person you can tell anything to?”

  Clay’s face did something painful, something that looked like he almost cried. “Because that’s such a shitty part of myself,” he said. “And I’m… I’m so much happier now.”

  He turned without words then, heading up to Dane’s room, probably to change. And suddenly Dane didn’t want to swim anymore.

  Dane wanted to give. Clay had said he loved Dane for giving what he could to the man Carpenter was right now. Well, right now, even when Dane was still a little pissed, he thought Carpenter was an amazing man. He had all of that to give.

  He followed Carpenter up the stairs and into the bedroom, noting that they’d all been leaving the lights off just because it made the already air-conditioned rooms seem even cooler. Carpenter was standing, shirt off, unselfconsciously rooting through the duffel he’d brought over after the soccer game, since he’d spent Friday night at his place.

  Dane needed to touch him, palm his skin, be close to him, so badly. His stomach shook with a visceral need to be taken.

  He moved quietly to the bed and planted a gentle kiss on Carpenter’s shoulder. Clay looked up from his duffel bag in surprise. “Weren’t we—”

  Dane kissed him, soft at first. Then, when he made a little “Oh….” Dane pushed the kiss further. Harder. Clay moved his hands to Dane’s shoulders and started to massage, like a cat.

  Dane pulled back just enough to turn around completely in his arms—and purred.

  “What’s this?” Clay asked breathlessly.

  “I want you,” Dane hummed, bumping his nose along Carpenter’s jawline. “Outside it’s hot and bright and hard and loud. In here, it’s cool and safe and you.”

  Carpenter let out a little “Oh!” and Dane captured it in his mouth, humming back.

  Carpenter moved from that thrilling little rub up and down Dane’s arms to wrapping his arms over Dane’s shoulders, engulfing him, protecting him from all the bad things in Dane’s own head.

  That protectiveness, that solid kindness, was the sexiest thing Dane had ever known.

  Carpenter moaned, rucking up the back of Dane’s T-shirt and sliding those gloriously wide palms along the skin of his back. Dane took his turn to rub Clay’s stomach under his button-up—and then to undo the buttons with trembling fingers.

  Clay brought his hands up to cover Dane’s and the shaking got worse. “Hey,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re wonderful,” Dane said, eyes burning. “You’re so wonderful. You told us that thing about the MBA for no other reason than to make my brother feel good—and you knew there’d be fallout, but you did it anyway. How do I… how is my love supposed to be good enough?”

  Carpenter made a hurt sound, then captured Dane’s scruffy chin on the edge of his forefinger. “You love me?”

  “Oh God. I really do. I love you so much.”

  Clay took over the kiss, the undressing, until they were naked and Dane was beneath him, and their bodies and hands were undulating, searching for contact,
looking for an effortless way to become one.

  There was no effortless way to join. Joining two human beings requires trust and preparation and careful, careful touch. Dane kept kissing him, kept arching his groin against his, while at the same time fumbling for the lubricant under the pillow.

  He pulled it out and slid out from under Carpenter, wriggling down until his mouth was level with Carpenter’s cock. He paused for a moment to lick Clay’s abs first, because he didn’t ever want him to think he’d skip that part, whether they were in six-pack formation or apple pie formation or, as they were now, a soft pillow top over some fairly solid muscle. Carpenter moaned softly and stroked his hair back from his face.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, voice all breath.

  “Giving a blowjob?” Because if Carpenter didn’t know that at this point, Dane had been doing things all wrong.

  “I know that, but—”

  Dane held up the hand with the lube and clicked the bottle open, dumped some lube over his fingers, and handed it off to Clay to shut it.

  “But—”

  Then he reached behind himself and thrust his messy slick fingers toward his cleft, taking Carpenter’s cock into his mouth just as he breached his own entrance with one finger.

  They both moaned this time, and Dane started to shudder with want. God, he loved that feeling, full, aching, burning. He always wondered if he should donate his asshole to science or something, because he seemed to have extra nerve endings right… oh God… oh yes… there.

  And at the same time, Carpenter thrust deep in his throat, making greedy little grunts as his hips arched forward and retreated. For a moment, Dane closed his eyes and fought the urge to come.

  He pulled back instead, rolled over to his stomach, and spread his legs. “Fuck me!” he begged. Then, in case Carpenter missed the hint, he put his hand back, spearing himself with two fingers and spreading them.

  Clay grunted and wrestled his hand away. “Oh my God, you’re impatient.”

  Dane whimpered and wiggled his ass.

  “And shameless,” Clay said with a laugh. He paused to nibble on Dane’s asscheek, and Dane buried his face in the bedding and screamed in frustration.

  “Too bad,” Carpenter growled. Dane felt the maddening tickle of one—one—of Clay’s fingertips tracing a pattern on his backside in the excess lubricant. “Did you leave any in the bottle?”

  “So help me, Clay Carpenter, I will—nungh!” Three thick blunt fingers speared into him, and he wanted nothing more than to flop about the bed orgasmically, like a fish spewing come. But that would have been a waste of a perfectly wonderful fuck, so instead he drove himself backward, the thickness spreading him, driving out his demons, his doubts, taking his greed and making him willing, a submissive, wanting nothing more than Carpenter inside him.

  Clay kept going, forward, backward, curling his fingers until Dane begged for a fourth and got it. “Oh God! God! Yes! Oh my God! More!” He wanted it all, and he wanted to scream for more—scream for a thumb, for a fist! But that wasn’t what he really wanted. What he really wanted was the length and girth of Carpenter’s cock. He wanted the joining, vulnerable nerve to vulnerable nerve, and he was just fumbling for the words to beg for that when Carpenter pulled out his fingers, leaving him practically weeping with emptiness.

  Clay’s cock, still dripping with Dane’s spit, thrust hard into him, filling him. Better than a fist—a cock—and still Dane wanted to cry.

  It was perfect. Wonderful. Taking him over, hitting his sweet spot. He howled into the mattress, gibbered, keened. And Carpenter had found his footing now. Their last week taking it slow, with tender touches, giggling through hand jobs, perfecting the blowjob—that had given him confidence, and he fucked like a master now.

  Dane felt the first wave washing up from the backs of his thighs, and it swept him hard, but not hard enough to come. The second wave, from his groin, down his spine, tightening his nipples, God, even his forehead tingled—that wave made him orgasm, and he fell into the sheets howling, body thrashing, all self-control gone.

  And still Carpenter kept thrusting as Dane lay spread-eagled on the bedding, his soft pants of exertion still quieter than the slap of his flesh. He groaned, low in his throat, and slowed, using Dane’s asshole with excruciating precision, catching the ridge of his cock right… there… oh God…. Dane shuddered one more time when he wasn’t sure he could still breathe, and in the aftershock, Carpenter orgasmed, climaxing mightily, filling Dane up and more, until come gushed copiously, leaving a glorious mess.

  When he collapsed, sliding to Dane’s side and breathing hard, Dane could barely turn his head, but he managed to raise his fingertips to trace the scruff on his face.

  They were quiet for a moment, and Carpenter moved to kiss Dane’s bare shoulder.

  “Think we woke your brother?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Dane slurred, eyes drifting shut. He wasn’t tired so much—just spent. Every nerve ending felt deliciously used, unable to fire, done.

  He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he felt the washcloth along his backside, taking care of his bits. A strong hand rolled him over and washed the come off his stomach, and with some fiddling, repositioned the sheets so that one was on top and one was on bottom.

  “So busy,” he mumbled, completely lost in subspace. “How can… so busy….”

  Clay chuckled lightly and climbed in next to him, not so close that they were mashed together and sweating, but not too far away either. Close enough to touch.

  “You’re super out of it,” he said softly. “Wow. This happen a lot?”

  “No,” Dane said, enjoying one moment of lucidity. “No. Gotta trust….” Because that was the thing, right? Bottoming was great if it was just nerve endings, but you had to trust the other person not to hurt you. Dane had perfected the art of wiggling, scrunching, and flexing to keep himself from being hurt—but with Clay, he’d just… relaxed. Because Clay wouldn’t hurt him. He hadn’t the first time, he wouldn’t do it now. “Never trusted like that, before you.”

  He closed his eyes, wondering how long the world would be so gorgeously swimmy.

  “Well, I’m honored,” Clay said softly. “Why me?”

  “Because,” Dane told him. “You’re Clay Alexander Carpenter. That’s really all you need.”

  Eventually they’d get up and make that swim and spend a decadent Sunday not doing very much. But every so often Dane would catch Carpenter looking at him like he was brighter than the sun and wonder what he’d said.

  Becoming the Quiet Bright

  SKIPPER COCKED his head. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  Carpenter nodded at the murmur of voices coming out of Mason’s office, and they both looked at Mason’s assistant, Mrs. Bradford. “Same guy?” he asked quietly.

  Lilian Bradford had graying hair styled into wide curls around her head and worn back with the prim efficiency of a ’30s film star. She was level-headed, nonfrivolous, and extremely competent.

  She also gave Skipper and Carpenter cookies when they brought Mason lunch and responded with small, luminous smiles to their conversation. They both agreed that Mason deserved someone as awesome as a Lilian Bradford in his life.

  She’d been a useful source of information on Mason since the breakup with Terry, and what she had to say was troubling.

  “Yes,” she muttered grimly. “Hugh Goodman. Comes in every lunch, stares at Mr. Hayes with enormous cow eyes, and tries to make excruciatingly boring dates that Mason doesn’t understand. It’s like Mason isn’t even trying!”

  Skipper grimaced. “Well… you know… excruciatingly boring, right? Maybe he needs his dates to be exciting?”

  Because whether he was squirrel bait or not, Terry Jefferson had fucked Mason’s brains out his ears, and that hadn’t been boring.

  “But he’s so sad,” Mrs. Bradford complained. “He’s… he’s not like Mason at all. And he has a perfectly suitable young man in there, practically
slobbering all over him, and Mason doesn’t know he’s alive!”

  Clay risked another look at the closed door, where their meeting was probably wrapping up. He and Skip had brought Noodle House—they had that zucchini noodle thing going that fit right into Carpenter’s diet. “Has he… you know… stuck his foot in it lately?”

  The look on poor Mrs. Bradford’s face broke his heart. “No! The man’s name is Hugh—Hugh Goodman. I haven’t heard even one What’s Up Doc joke from Mason, not in two weeks!”

  Skipper’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Carpenter for explanation.

  “It’s a Barbra Streisand movie,” Clay said helpfully. “It’s got a really great conversation about ‘I am Hugh!’ ‘You are who?’ We should watch it sometime.”

  Skipper brightened up—he did love new experiences—and then his entire demeanor fell. “Seems like it would be easy bait for Mason,” he said sadly. “I mean, even I can do ‘Are Hugh a Good Man’!”

  “Right?” Mrs. Bradford nodded. “Do you know how he greeted the board during his first meeting?”

  “No,” Carpenter said, entranced. The more he could tell Dane about Mason, the less Dane worried, and right now, less was good. “Tell us!”

  “Well, apparently he had some problems with chickens on his road—”

  “They’re all over the place,” Carpenter confirmed. “I worry about hitting them all the time.”

  “Well, yes,” Mrs. Bradford agreed. Fair Oaks was famous for them. A local shopping center had even made the dubious choice of erecting a six-foot stainless-steel rooster in honor of the local fauna. “Anyway, he walked into the boardroom, and as he was unpacking his briefcase he told the president of the company that he damned near—and I quote, ‘Squashed a cock,’ that morning, and he’d been so happy to see that thing ‘popping up and bobbing down the road.’”

  Carpenter had to sit down, and the only way Skipper could sustain his weight was by resting it on his hands as he leaned on Mrs. Bradford’s desk.

  “Oh my God!” Carpenter managed to say, trying to tone down his laughter and choking on it instead.