by Aiden Bates
My face must have shown my confusion. “Huh?”
“Like jacking off in the shower or…enjoying a beer every once in a while,” Pedro explained, chinking his bottle with mine. “To Jason.”
That caught me off guard. “To Jason,” I muttered.
I remembered a day much like this years ago with Jason. We’d found the perfect apartment before he left for Malmur for the first time.
“I want you to have the space you need for your studies,” he’d said.
“Is that all?” I’d asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Jason had laughed and grabbed my hand, pulling me into his broad chest. “Mmm, not hardly, Charlie Zimmerman.” His hot breath had trailed down my neck. “I want to come home to you without anyone else listening in.” He’d grabbed my hips, cradling them between his large palms, and even though I’d known the path ahead of us would be difficult, I’d felt prepared.
He’d come home four times in four years. That was all. He’d missed all my birthdays and all the Christmases, and I’d remembered being resentful at the time. I should have been grateful, but I didn’t know how much those four times were really going to mean in the scheme of things. It wasn’t just four times for four years. It was four times for the rest of my life.
I came back to the present all at once. I’d slipped into the memory like a hot bath only to be dumped right back out into the chill of reality. This couldn’t keep happening.
“Pedro, can you do me a favor?” I asked.
I guess my absence had been noticed. Pedro nodded, concern painted on his features in sharp contrast to the charming smile he’d worn only seconds before.
“Please, don’t bring up Jason again, if you don’t mind. It’s just… It’s a lot for me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course. I’m sorry, you know. I could tell yesterday made you uncomfortable. It’s hard for me too… I mean, not like it is for you, that’s not what I’m saying,” he added quickly. “It’s just, for me, this all feels like it just happened. Marcos had to tell me what had happened to O’Rourke, to Carpenter, to Long. It’s all so raw.”
Pedro had that blank faraway look I hadn’t seen on any of the boys’ faces in so long. It was difficult, in my grief, to remember much outside of myself in those first months, but even I remembered Roman’s deep eyes welling up with unshed tears or Garret’s mouth set like he wanted to hit something or Marcos, back bent and shoulders slumped with the burden of carrying his brother’s fate on his back. All of them had had that expression once upon a time. Pedro tightened his hand around the brown glass of his beer.
I reached over and put my hand on his forearm. “Hey, no, it’s okay. I really do understand. I’m sorry, really, I am. It’s just… It’s taken me a long time to move on, is all. I’ve worked really hard to get back to something that feels, well, not normal, but maybe what normal’s going to be for me moving forward.”
“I won’t bring it up again, I promise. I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have. Are you still okay with doing this?” he asked, gesturing down to the application.
“God, yes, of course! It’s not like that,” I explained. “I just needed to set some boundaries for myself, you know?”
“Yeah, I can respect that. I got you,” Pedro said, draining the last of his beer.
I realized then that my hand was still on his arm and pulled back from him slightly.
Pedro seemed a little withdrawn at first, but then he began to tell me more about the wellness routine that came along with Mitch’s yoga ritual. Even as we were laughing about Mitch making Kale smoothies and Marcos’s reaction to the taste, I still felt guilty. For Pedro, all of this was still raw. It wasn’t really fair of me to say that because of my trauma he couldn’t talk about his own, but how was I supposed to maintain my own recovery if Pedro was constantly dragging me back into the past? But it would be better for both of us to be able to move on.
Right?
6
Pedro
“Don’t pick that up, Pedro. I swear to god, don’t pick that up. I’m going to be right over there. If I see you bend down, I’ll kill you, I swear.”
I rolled my eyes and took my hands off the coffee table I’d been about to pick up. I held them out to show my brother, and then raised them dramatically in the air and knit my fingers together behind my head, like the cops had just ordered me to drop my weapon.
“Good,” Marcos said, doubling down on how ridiculous he was being as he hefted one side of a couch and disappeared from sight up the steps and into the apartment. Garret brought up the rear and chuckled snidely at Marcos.
“Oh my god, Acosta, stop clucking. I bet you Pedro wishes he could fall back asleep just so he doesn’t have to—”
“Watch it,” Marcos responded. “He’s going to hurt himself and—Don’t bend over! I’m not kidding! I’ll tell Mami!”
I gave up on my second attempt to move the coffee table and stepped back for good. Instead, I started to look around, trying to find small—very small, stupidly small—boxes or random objects I could carry. Anything to stop Marcos howling at me. Most of what I’d moved that day had been along those lines. Lamps, little boxes, baskets of things Charlie didn’t get a chance to pack away or clothes that needed to be put up into our respective closets. Even without Marcos fussing, I probably wouldn’t have gotten a chance to move too much of anything on my own considering most of the old squad had either been by to help, were actually here helping, or were dropping by later. I knew Marcos, Mitch and Oliver had made it clear to everyone they were supposed to wrestle things out of my hands if they saw me trying to help, but, other than that? We had frequent beer breaks, pizza was on its way, and everywhere you looked, little kids were underfoot. This was already starting to feel like the good old days.
I was going to make a beeline toward a medium-sized box I could see out of the corner of my eye when Bennet beat me to it.
“Quit,” he said in a playful grumble. “Silas said that Mitch said that Marcos said that if you—”
“I know, I know!”
“Anyway, enjoy it! You’re the only one of us that has an excuse to kick back and relax. Even though you’re definitely not the only one standing around doing nothing,” he said in a tone of playful cattiness.
“Um, we’re pretty clearly not ‘standing around doing nothing,’ Bennet,” Mitch answered breezily. He was right. As he spoke, he pressed his body closer into Oliver’s as Oliver tried to guide Mitch’s hips backward and forward. They were taking full advantage of the fact that, well, this was my move and Marcos and I never voluntarily did physical labor without cumbia music playing in the background. We were probably pre-conditioned that way from all the years Mami would blare music every Saturday morning as a kind of “wake-up-and-clean-alarm.”
“Left, step, right, step, left, step, right. Now, back. Back, Mitch, back. Come on, you have to set a good example for Juan,” Oliver said, trying to force Mitch into the rhythm.
“This isn’t my kind of dancing!” Mitch protested. Bennet just pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Are y’all going to do anything?” Marcos loudly asked his two omegas from the top floor balcony. “If y’all just going to dance, bring me and Long a beer!”
That was a mistake, as Mitch and Oliver both stopped in their tracks and stared up at Marcos. Whatever Marcos saw in their probably threatening looks made him stop and backpedal.
“Please,” said Marcos, a lot more politely. “If you don’t mind.”
Charlie chuckled as he walked by, balancing a chair in his arms as he lugged it up the stairs.
Call me a traditionalist at my very core, but at seeing Charlie strain, and at noticing the muscles in his arm bulge at the weight of the chair he was moving, I immediately took two steps closer to him.
“No!” There were at least four different voices from four different directions yelling at me all at the same time, making me throw my hands up in despair that I was ever going to get to do a goddamn thing this entire move.
/>
“Alright, shiftless maggots, come and get your grub.”
I couldn’t help it, I immediately straightened my spine all the way up.
Most of the guys had been out of the military long enough that Sarge’s voice no longer froze them dead in their tracks, but like with everything else in my life, Logan O’Rourke had been my Sergeant only a few months ago, so though he’d retired and I was no longer in the military, I still jumped to attention almost every time he barked out an order. It also didn’t help that almost everything he said sounded like an order, including the invitation to come get pizza out of his truck.
Being married to Bennet had definitely softened O’Rourke. I could have never, never, never imagined that Sarge would one day be walking around in cargo shorts helping me move into a new apartment, for Christ’s sake. But it didn’t stop him from complaining about the “shitty, loud music” and the “shitty, cheap beer” as he helped Bennet plate pizza for all of us. Still, he was definitely mellowing. You could tell in the way he talked to Bennet, and fixed Charlie a special plate and passed him a beer.
“Here you go, son,” O’Rourke said, handing him a paper plate that could hardly hold all the slices of pizza.
Made sense that they’d be close. Being Jason’s dad and all, it was probably hard to not think of himself as Charlie’s former future father-in-law. Logan seemed less impressed with being Garret’s current brother-in-law as he glared at him whenever Garret decided to mess with Bennet.
While we ate, Garret fussed at Bennet to get a move on as soon as he was done eating because he had to relieve Silas from kid duty back at their house.
“I’m eating as fast as I possibly can, and Silas can hang on,” Bennet grumbled.
“No, he can’t! I’m not dealing with an annoyed as hell omega when I get home. Fuck, no. Get a move on, little bro,” Garret said before catching O’Rourke’s glare.
Once we were done eating, Bennet traded with Silas who arrived to help Charlie and Oliver arrange the rest of the living room.
“Don’t put it there,” Oliver said, directing Logan, Garret, and Marcos. “Charlie says he wants the couch against that wall, right, Charlie?”
“Yeah,” Silas agreed. “And y’all be careful not to scuff the floors!”
“Hey, you heard him. Be careful not to scuff the floors!” Garret repeated, careful to make sure his husband’s directives were followed.
“Thanks, everyone,” Charlie said at the end when leftover pizza was being divided, beers were put up in the fridge, and it finally seemed like our move was done and our apartment was ready to live in.
“Of course, sweetheart, anything for y’all,” Mitch said, dismissing Charlie’s gratitude with a wave of his hand.
All the reassurances that this was no trouble really highlighted how protective they all were of Charlie. Protective of me, too, I supposed.
“Don’t. Move. Anything. Call us back if y’all need something rearranged. Or else,” Marcos had threatened before he left.
I rolled my eyes, but ultimately found myself appreciating all the work they’d done to help us, even if it did come with this kind of mothering, overprotective mode Marcos got into, and why I was moving out in the first place. He’d helped. A lot. They all had. And I’d genuinely missed being with all the guys.
Charlie had settled down on our brand-new, newly assembled sectional—with the chaise lounge, per Oliver’s insistence, for some reason—and was wolfing down some of the cold pizza we’d been left with. I pulled a beer out of the fridge, thought for a second, and then pulled another one before I joined him on the couch.
I plopped down beside him, my thigh muscles aching with relief that I was finally sitting. Not that I was ever going to admit it to anyone, but being on my feet all day, even doing as little as I’d done, had turned out to be more of an issue than I’d expected. But that was between my thighs and me, and no one else. The last thing I needed was Marcos knowing anything that would make him think he was right to worry so goddamn much.
I pushed the beer meant for Charlie across the coffee table at him and used the very edge of the table to pop the cap off of mine.
“Hey!” Charlie said. “That’s Papa’s table!”
“Oh, shit. Sorry, sorry, I just didn’t—” I covered the table with my hand as if the table were a kid who had scraped his knee up, and then pulled my hand back once I realized how stupid that was.
Charlie laughed and shook his head.
“It’s fine. I was just teasing. I mean, I wasn’t teasing about the table. It really is my papa’s table, and he’d really have a heart attack if he realized you did that. Probably still will once he comes over and notices the tiny, tiny chip on the side.”
“You can’t really tell,” I said, hesitantly.
“He’ll be able to tell,” Charlie said with a definite and certain nod. “But, don’t worry. I was teasing about it being a big deal. Right? That’s the whole point of moving out. Papa gave me this table. It’s my table. I can—and my roommate, of course—can do whatever we want with this table.” To kind of make his point, he took a swig from his beer, kicked off his shoes, and stretched his legs out onto the coffee table.
“It’ll be nice to just…be? You know? It’ll be nice to not have to operate on the same schedule as someone else. Have time to concentrate on my work. It’ll be nice to have time away from my parents. I need time away from my parents. Frankly, they need time away from me,” he said, suddenly looking like he was remembering something he didn’t want to remember. Probably having to do with his dad’s habit of sleeping naked, I figured.
“My mom starts banging on the door if your um…‘shower’ is taking too long,” I said, since we were on that kind of train of thought, but then I realized what I was saying. “Is that gross? That’s gross. I’m sorry.”
“What? Is talking about jerking off in the shower gross? Like, will it offend my omega sensibilities or something?” Charlie asked, chuckling then sipping more of his beer. “You’re fine. You don’t grow up in a town full of Army personnel without getting used to it.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, but I was kind of distracted. The motion of putting his feet up on the table and crossing his ankles was—and I would never, ever say it out loud—kind of…adorable? He seemed way happier, way more content than I’d seen him since I’d come out of my coma. He seemed more like the Charlie I remembered from before, back when Jason was alive.
That was definitely part of it. The other part of it is that I have eyeballs. To me, Charlie has always looked like…well, Charlie. God help me if I ever let myself think inappropriately of anyone who was dating one of the squad. Especially when they were serious. And Jason talked about him all the time, literally everything reminded Jason of Charlie. There was never another couple who was more into each other. How could anyone help but see Jason as sort of half-Charlie and Charlie as half-Jason?
Sitting here now though, post-Jason, with Charlie’s long legs stretched out and his light sweat vaguely reminding me of something fruity, maybe like apples and the kind of sweet smell of caramelized sugar, I caught myself seeing him in a way I’d never done before.
I almost expected to look over and see Jason watching me suspiciously. I had to go. I had to leave.
“Well, I better shower,” I announced suddenly. Given what we’d just been talking about—jerking off in showers—Charlie gave me a very strange look.
“No! What the fuck? No. It’s not like that. I still managed to work up a sweat, and unlike you, I’m sure I stink, so…” I shrugged.
“Unlike me?”
“Yeah, you smell fine. You smell good, actually,” I said. The strange look Charlie gave me morphed into one of surprise and then embarrassment.
Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean to do that, I was just trying to shower.
“I’m just going to shower,” I said more firmly.
“Sure. Yeah. Okay. Of course. Totally fine,” Charlie said, still wide-eyed.
“Okay
,” I said, turning around and making for the bathroom as quickly as I could without jogging down the hallway.
I was definitely not going to jerk off in the shower while thinking of Charlie. Nor was I going to imagine his long legs, stretched out onto the table—or stretched and open in any other context. I definitely wasn’t going to recall his scent or think back to his arms as he moved the chair earlier or how his sweat made his t-shirt cling to his back.
Nope, I thought, looking down at my hard cock and groaning as I forced myself not to touch it. I wasn’t going to think of Jason’s fiancé like that.
At all.
7
Charlie
I didn’t want to jinx it or anything, but the first week with Pedro had been great. I’d been afraid it would be awkward or strange, but it was hard to feel ill-at-ease with Pedro cracking jokes all the time. At first, Pedro had been weirdly careful around me. Not as careful as everyone else was sometimes, but as the week went on he’d become more and more obviously comfortable.
After Jason died, everyone treated me as if I were fragile, and hadn’t really stopped, but as soon as Pedro felt like he had permission to act utterly normal around me, he did. Actually, he quickly became almost the only person who was firmly, decisively, undecidedly normal around me. I could mostly measure his comfort level by how little he felt like apologizing for his humor.
On Tuesday, I’d been sitting on the couch, full to bursting after Pedro brought over tamales from his mother’s house. They were warm and managed to taste like home even though we’d never, ever had tamales at my house. They were almost addictive, and I’d put away like six. Between the tamales and the beer, I was so well-fed I’d been ready for a nap.
“I feel like I’m about to fall—” I’d glanced up at Pedro as I realized what I was just about to say.
“What?” Pedro had asked around a mouthful of tamale.
“Nothing.”
