by Roan Parrish
“You deserve way better than who I was in high school.”
I could tell from Felix’s expression that he’d make me tell him all about it later. And somehow, the knowledge didn’t fill me with dread, but with tentative joy that he wanted to know me—even the versions of me that weren’t worth knowing.
“Pretend,” he murmured. “Pretend we’re boyfriends and you see me from down the hall?”
His hands were at my hips and he was looking up at me, eyes wide and brow furrowed like he actually thought I might say no to him.
“Turn around,” I whispered, nudging his shoulder.
He turned to face his locker and I retreated a few steps, as if I were coming down the hallway. I slid behind Felix and wrapped him in my arms, kissing the side of his neck.
“Morning, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Been looking for you since first bell.”
“Hi,” he said, turning and throwing his arms around me. “You found me.”
I kissed his lips, tipping his head back and flicking my tongue against his. He moaned and deepened the kiss and his shoulders hit the locker.
“We’re gonna be late for next period,” I said, tugging lightly on his hair. He let me ease off and rested his forehead on my collarbone. He nodded reluctantly and we made our way down the dark hallway.
“Best retroactive first kiss ever,” he said, taking my hand.
“Me too,” I agreed.
Felix strode off down the hall, trailing me behind him, but as we reached the stairwell I tugged on his hand and drew him back.
“Felix, I—”
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to tell him. Too many things. I wanted to tell him that I would have been lucky to get to kiss him at his locker when I was in high school. That I would kiss him anywhere, anytime, any way he wanted, and all he ever had to do was ask. That I would do anything to see him happy. Anything.
He put his hands on my chest.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head.
“I kissed my girlfriend. At her locker. In high school.” I hadn’t thought about Naomi in years. She’d been kind to me at a time when I needed kindness, but it hadn’t been enough. “I wish…” I traced the line of his nose and cheekbone with my finger. “I wish it could have been you.”
Chapter 16
Felix
When we got home after the play, Sofia was waiting for us in the living room. It looked like she’d been crying.
“I’m so sorry,” she said the second we walked in. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t believe her.” She shook her head, looking lost. “I couldn’t believe that here…anyone would…”
I went to her and wrapped her up in a hug.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
Adrian snorted.
“It’s completely her fault,” he said. But we all knew he wasn’t upset, just being a dick as always.
When I let go of Sof, Mom took my place and hugged her close, stroking her hair. She whispered something I couldn’t hear, but it seemed to make Sofia feel better. After a few minutes, Coco came downstairs and we fell into conversation.
Dane was quiet, the way he often was around other people, but unlike usual, he seemed tense. He said nothing as Adrian asked Coco and Sofia dozens of questions about Riven, rock star life, and Theo Decker. Even Ramona couldn’t resist asking about the tour. At first I thought he was bored, but the set of his shoulders that never relaxed and the straightness of his spine that never softened said he was nervous.
I slid a hand to the small of his back and he immediately curled an arm over my shoulders, pulling me up against him. At his movement, Mom looked toward us and smiled. Dane started to pull his arm away, so I grabbed it. But although he kept his arm around me, he didn’t relax.
After an hour or so we all drifted upstairs to go to bed, Ramona with Coco and Sofia, Adrian with Dane and me.
“So you guys’ll take the bunk beds, right?” Adrian said with a wink. The thought of Dane in a twin-sized bunk bed was ridiculous but amusing. He stood next to the wall as if trying to make himself seem as small as possible.
“Why don’t you use the bathroom first,” I told Adrian.
“I don’t need—”
“Go to the bathroom.”
When we were alone, I turned to Dane.
“So, uh. This isn’t the most romantic situation, I guess. Sorry.”
“Don’t need romance,” he said.
“Then what’s up? You’re all…frozen.”
He blinked fast, looking at the ground.
“Overloaded?” I asked when he said nothing.
He gave one jerky nod.
“Too much family?”
“Keep waiting for your mom to ask me shit. Keep waiting for when I’ll have to tell her about me.”
“About…what, exactly?”
He shrugged one massive shoulder.
“Being an addict, I guess.”
“Oh. Um.” I bit my lip, realizing I might have fucked up. “She already knows. I’m really sorry. Should I…I should have asked you first. Shit, of course I should have. I didn’t think about it. I’m so sorry.”
For a moment I couldn’t read his expression. Then he sagged against the wall and took a deep breath, hand pressed to his stomach.
“She knows.”
“Yeah, I…Is it okay I told her?”
He nodded, eyes on me.
“She knew before we got here?”
“Yeah. I…I’ve told her all about you. I talk to her all the time, as you keep reminding me. But I should’ve asked you. I see that now.”
He swallowed hard and pulled me against him in a hug. I could feel his heart beating faster than normal.
“Is that why you were so nervous before?”
He nodded abortively.
“Figured it wasn’t fair not to tell her. Not when you guys are so close. So I was just waiting for the question that seemed easiest to…”
I knew the word he was thinking: confess. No matter how firmly he insisted that addiction didn’t make other people less, he couldn’t believe it about himself.
“Plus. Don’t really know how to…be. A boyfriend. In front of your family. Don’t know if I can touch you in front of them or…”
He pressed his lips to my hair and sighed.
Dane’s gruff, blunt brand of emotional honesty turned out to be my undoing. Watching him try to honor my request that he open up more was like watching a bear cub trundle to its feet for the first time. It was lumbering and clumsy and so intensely sweet, it turned my guts to warm honey.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
He nodded.
“There’s never a moment of the day that I don’t want you to touch me.”
He tensed in my arms and made a choked sound.
“Never?”
“Nope. Always touch me. Whenever you want. However you want.”
“Oh, God,” he breathed. “I always want to.”
“Can I be done in the bathroom yet or what?” Adrian hollered.
“Just a minute!” I called through the door. “Well,” I amended. “Okay, don’t touch me in ways that will make me embarrass myself in front of my little brothers while we’re sharing a room with them.” Not that I thought Dane would ever do that.
He stroked my hair and dropped a kiss to the top of my head.
“When we get home,” he murmured, low voice curling around me, “I’m gonna touch you everywhere.”
I shuddered at the thought and groaned at having to wait.
The door banged open and I turned to yell at Adrian, but it was Lucas.
“Hey. Gonna crash, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. Clearly the moment w
as over. “You make any progress with the stage manager?”
“Ugh, shut up.”
Somehow both of my brothers got into their bunk beds without further drama. I climbed into bed, sliding to the far side to make room for Dane. The bed had been secondhand when I’d gotten it in middle school, and it protested mightily at Dane’s muscular addition. He sagged so far into the middle that it rolled me right on top of him and let out an ungodly groan in the process.
Snickers came from the bunk beds.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Dane said quietly.
“Shut up, you will not.” I settled against his chest. “This okay?” He nodded, but he was tense with trying not to move and make the bed squeak any more. After fifteen minutes of trying to fall asleep on his tensed muscles, I clambered over him to the floor.
“What’re you doing?” Lucas said from the top bunk.
“Here, can you help me?” I asked Dane, motioning him to get up. With another mighty groan, he extricated himself from the bed. “Let’s just put the mattress on the floor so it won’t make noise.”
Dane pulled the mattress off the sagging metal frame with one hand, leaning the frame upright against the wall. He let the mattress thwap to the floor and we rearranged ourselves on it. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it was quiet, and it couldn’t sag so far down in the middle.
“Better?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he drew me into his arms, pressing his nose to the back of my neck. It was his favorite way to sleep, his second favorite being with me lying completely on top of him. But that led to a very particular result when we awoke, one I didn’t relish indulging in with my brothers in the room.
“ ’Night, baby,” I said. I felt him mouth ’Night, sweetheart against my skin before I drifted off to sleep.
* * *
—
When I woke up, Dane was gone.
Lucas and Adrian were still asleep, and the way the sun came through the window told me it was before seven. Dane was an early riser.
I crept down the stairs, skipping the one that squeaked. I thought I might find Dane quietly reading or listening to a podcast in the living room, seeking some downtime before the chaos that ensued whenever more than two people were awake in my mom’s house. But instead of Dane’s familiar silence, I heard soft voices coming from the kitchen. Dane and Mom.
I snuck to just outside the doorway and pressed my back against the wall, shamelessly straining to hear what they were saying.
There was a pause, and then Mom said, “What have you been wanting to ask me?”
Dane made the noise that always meant he thought he was being more subtle than he was.
“Felix said you know. About me. About…my…about being an addict.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It bother you?”
The question sounded neutral, but I knew how much Dane cared about the answer.
“I’m sorry you’ve struggled,” Mom said. I felt a rush of affection and appreciation for her. “It’s really rough. But, no, it doesn’t mean I don’t want you to date my son, if that’s what you mean.”
Dane grunted. I could picture how he’d look—the slow nod, the set mouth. Relieved but not quite able to believe it could be true. Never quite able to believe that he deserved kindness, forgiveness, empathy, even though he gave them to others over and over.
“What else?”
Mom’s voice was the one she’d used to wheedle countless secrets and woes out of her children over the years. The voice that said: I already know everything but the particulars, so you may as well fill in the blanks so we can get on with it.
“D’you…” Dane cleared his throat. “Mind that I’m…older? Than Felix.”
There was a silence, and I appreciated my mom considering the question, even though I was pretty sure I knew what she would say. Our age difference bothered Dane; I knew that. He was convinced that I was giving something up to be with him—some capaciousness he granted youth. Sometimes it caused problems for me too. In the moments when I felt immature for having big feelings when he seemed so in control. In the moments when I didn’t know a reference and I could see Dane calculate my age all over again. I’d known it bothered him far more than it did me. I hadn’t known it bothered him enough that he’d want my mom’s blessing, though.
“No,” Mom said finally. It was such an amusingly Dane-like one-word answer to a complicated question that I almost gave away my position by laughing.
“No?” Dane echoed, his version of asking for more information.
“Felix is a grown man. He’s responsible, he’s selfless, and he’s been taking care of people his whole life. I’m not that surprised that he might connect more with someone a bit…more mature than with someone in their twenties who wants to party and have fun.”
Dane made another Dane-like noise of affirmation.
“Besides,” Mom said wryly. “I had five kids with two men who were my age, and that particular commonality didn’t count for shit.”
God, I loved my mom.
“All relationships have issues,” she went on. “You’ll know if the age difference is one for you guys. So, is it?”
I could practically hear Dane’s brain chugging through all the protests he’d given me about why we shouldn’t be together. My future, his past—I knew them all by heart.
After a long pause, Dane said, “Maybe sometimes. But not too often.”
“There you go,” Mom said.
There was the sound of scraping china and the clink of a spoon. The shift in mood was palpable.
“You know,” Mom said, voice cheery and just a tiny bit teasing. “Felix practically raised his brothers and sisters. He would make a wonderful father, if it’s something—”
At that, I launched myself around the corner before the conversation could go any further, praying that Dane wasn’t going to run screaming from the house all the way back to New York.
“Morning!” I called as I entered the kitchen.
They both looked at me. Mom’s expression was happy and amused.
“Morning, honey,” she said.
But Dane’s…Instead of the dread or awkwardness I was expecting, he looked soft and open. And he was looking at me with what I could only call…consideration.
After a moment, he blinked and looked like himself again. He gave me a small smile, his blue eyes bright in the early-morning .
I could feel his thoughtful eyes on me for the rest of the day.
We put together a big breakfast and ate together, chatting and catching up. Being around my family gave me a deep sense of comfort, and getting to be with Dane at the same time made it even better. I hoped maybe he enjoyed it too. Since he didn’t really have family of his own, I figured he could share mine.
My mom had to work at three, so around two, we gathered our things and got ready to go—Coco and Sofia to the airport and Dane and I to the train station. We said our goodbyes, and Ramona even gave Dane a quick hug this time, much to his apparent surprise. Adrian and Lucas both attempted slightly longer hugs with Coco, and Sofia told them not to be creeps. Clearly abashed, they said goodbye to Dane with a shocking lack of teasing or innuendo.
Mom hugged Coco and wished her good luck on the rest of the tour. Then she turned to Dane and pulled him down into a hug too.
“You’re welcome here anytime,” she said. “Thank you for being good to my son.”
Dane’s eyes got wide, and he thanked her without blinking.
“I’m proud of you,” Mom said to Sofia. “For following your dreams without compromising yourself. You remember who you are, even if the people around you don’t.”
“I will, Mama. Thanks.” Sofia squeezed her tight.
“And you,” Mom said, hugging me. “You take c
are of yourself for once, okay?”
“Okay.” I buried my face in her dark hair and breathed in the familiar smell of her shampoo. “Thanks. For everything.”
* * *
—
The second Dane’s door shut behind us I threw myself into his arms.
“Touch me,” I said. “Touch me the way you said you would.”
Dane groaned and I knew he remembered what he’d said.
Everywhere.
I was mad for him, and we stripped each other naked in seconds, kissing hotly. He turned me around and pushed me over the arm of the couch, mouth burning a line down my spine. I was already panting at the sensations, then he cupped my ass in his big hands and pulled my cheeks apart.
“Wanna eat you out,” he said, voice thick with arousal.
I whimpered as my erection swelled instantly, and I pressed my hips back toward his face enthusiastically. Dane dropped to his knees behind me and kissed my hole, softly at first. Then he teased with his tongue, getting me wet. I slumped over the arm of the couch, head spinning. His mouth was warm, and his clever tongue was working me into a frenzy of need. When Dane slid his tongue inside me, I cried out at the bolt of lust that shot through me.
My legs shook, the effort of holding myself up under the onslaught of Dane’s mouth too much to take. He pressed deeper inside me, fucking me with his tongue, and I would have fallen if I hadn’t had the couch to hold me up. When my knees gave out, Dane caught me, pressing himself close behind me.
“What do you want, sweetheart? You wanna come like this?” His voice was dark and filthy, the way I loved it. “Want my fingers? My cock? Just tell me what you want. I’ll give you anything.”
“Oh, God.” I shuddered, wanting everything. “Yes, yes. Will you—” I looked over my shoulder and reached a hand back to him. He stood up and I stared at his glorious cock, rock hard and leaking against his stomach. I ran a trembling finger over the tip. I wanted it inside me more than I wanted to keep breathing. It jumped at my touch and Dane gasped.
I sat him on the couch and straddled him, grabbing the lube from the coffee table drawer.
