by J P Barnaby
A symphony of sound came from Spencer, sweet, wild, unguarded cries that made Aaron throb inside him. The slick slide of skin against skin was so much better than the ineffective jack-off sessions he’d had watching other guys in the act. They got him off, yeah, but this, this was an explosion of feeling and sound and color and light. He slid his arms under Spencer’s, pressing his face into Spencer’s shoulder, hiding the tears in his eyes. The emotion welled so high in him he couldn’t stop it.
He whimpered against Spencer’s skin, uncensored because Spencer couldn’t hear him anyway. He had no reason to be restrained. Spencer turned his head, searching, and Aaron covered his lips, their cries mingling in the razor-thin space between their mouths as they raced toward oblivion.
Aaron reached it first, shocking them both.
The tingling in his stomach spread to Aaron’s groin, his movements stuttered, and he jerked with quick, awkward thrusts.
“Come., baby.,” Spencer said in a breathless cry against his cheek, and Aaron nodded so Spencer could feel it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the all-encompassing feeling building inside him. The buzz of alcohol had started to wear off, and the images came to him then, but he pushed them aside. They were so close, almost there, and he would not let the monsters steal this moment. No fucking way. Instead, he focused on the pleasure in Spencer’s voice, the smell of sweet sweat and sex, and the feel of Spencer’s ass gripping his cock in almost painful pressure.
He laughed in triumph and pure joy as his orgasm hit, and he pushed deep into Spencer, jerking slowly, filling him.
“Yeah., Honey., Oh. My. God….”
Spencer’s arms and legs tightened around him, almost like a spasm, just for a second, holding him against Spencer’s warmth. He tightened his arms around Spencer too, clinging as his balls emptied and he panted against Spencer’s shoulder.
“Your turn,” he said, though Spencer couldn’t hear him. He reached down and batted Spencer’s hand out of the way between them, stroking as he continued to thrust his half-hard cock.
Beyond words, Spencer threaded his fingers with Aaron’s on his cock so they could both stroke him. It didn’t take long for Spencer to tense, his head thrown back against the pillows, eyes closed, mouth open in an almost silent scream. Aaron started to get hard again at the sight and fucked him a little faster even as Spencer’s cock erupted into his hand.
“Aaron.,” he whimpered. “Aaron….” Jets of warm, sticky semen pooled on Spencer’s stomach while Aaron’s thrusts slowed and he collapsed, his smaller body landing on Spencer with his huge smile buried against his lover’s skin. It took several minutes before either of them moved or spoke or maybe even breathed.
“That. Was. Amazing.,” Spencer whispered into his hair, but Aaron would have to sit up in order for Spencer to see his face, and he didn’t want to move, so he just nodded. It was amazing. Beautiful and fucking amazing, every minute of it. The dark thoughts came, they tried to destroy him, but he had power they didn’t have anymore, and he won. He won.
“Please., Look. At. Me.,” Spencer said and rolled them to their sides. He put a finger under Aaron’s chin and tilted his face up. His mouth opened in surprise, maybe at the smile on Aaron’s face.
“You. Are. Okay.?”
“I could not be better,” Aaron said, snuggling into the safety of Spencer’s arms.
“You. Know. What. This. Means., Right.?” Spencer asked, his voice suddenly serious. Aaron sat up and looked at him. Spencer sat up too and held his hands up in a sign that took Aaron’s breath away before he mimicked it.
Forever.
For Aaron Downing, whose voice I hear in my head every day. I promised you a happy ending for your brother, baby. I hope it helps to clear the burdens on your heart.
For Jodi, without whom this book would have been completely wrong. Thank you for asking the perfect question.
And finally, for my Cody. I promised you a cover the day I met you. I was just waiting for the book that would do you justice. You are a beautiful, kind, and loving soul. Yes, sometimes you’re a mess, but you’re my mess and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you, kiddo.
Acknowledgments
A VERY heartfelt thank-you to the Goddess, Ms. Amy Lane, for allowing me to quote lyrics from Outbreak Monkey. Mackey Sanders and Outbreak Monkey are from the amazing book Beneath the Stain, which I still fangirl over.
A thank-you also to Kage Alan, my Detroit and Ferndale tour guide. I actually made that exact drive from Chicago to Detroit. The bookstore was his idea, and we spent a morning roaming around inside. There’s nothing like getting setting help directly from a local, and he did an amazing job.
Author’s Note
NO ONE reads notes from the author, I know. You’re anxious to get to the main event. But for those of you who have stopped here, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for taking such good care of the Downing family, the Thomas family, the Martin family, and now the Mears family. They’ve been through the wringer in these books. They are the light and the hope in my world.
I also want to take a moment to express my gratitude and love for Dreamspinner Press. For five long years, they’ve stood beside me in this literary journey. When I needed time, they waited with the door open, whispering encouragement. No other publisher would have done that, and I wanted them to know what it means to me.
Thank you for waiting, Elizabeth—he’s worth it.
One
ANTHONY DOWNING slammed the basement window open, daring them to catch him. He’d finished high school; they couldn’t say shit to him anymore. When no one came down the stairs, barking for him to go back to bed, he stood on his mattress and lobbed an unopened bottle of Absolut up to the unkempt grass outside—grass he should have cut that morning; grass he didn’t give a fuck about. He hoisted himself up, ripping his jeans on a jagged piece of the metal windowsill. It missed his skin by a breath, and he wished it hadn’t, wished for the pain so he could feel something other than numbness.
Smothered by his parents’ indifference, a soul-deep need for freedom drove him into the cool night air.
A faint chill clung to his skin, and he caught the soft scent of burning as he bent to pick up his vodka. Someone must have been using a fire pit in the quiet of a Saturday night in suburbia. Anthony liked the smell. It reminded him of the backyard barbecues they’d thrown when his family was whole. Before Aaron proved Copernicus wrong and became the center of the fucking universe.
Before Anthony became the invisible boy.
He scanned the side of the house and the yard beyond, searching for any witness to his flight, but saw no one. Neither of his parents seemed to notice that their seventeen-year-old son had crawled out the window for yet another night of debauchery. They’d rather watch the news, celebrating their newfound freedom from Aaron’s madness.
Just once, Anthony wished they’d ask him to join them. He’d fucking watch the paint peel if it meant getting out of the basement and back into their lives. He’d even contend with their constant disappointment. Anything, if they’d just notice he was still there.
Headlights moved past his house, and Anthony glanced up with grim determination. After one final check of the dark windows over his shoulder, he ghosted across the lawn toward the street. The beat-to-fuck Dodge stopped a few houses down, and Anthony headed that way. At some point, the car had been blue, but the primer seemed to have spread since then. Chase loved to work on the thing, only he never actually finished any of the projects he started. He replaced the bumper but never painted it. Hot rims took priority over balding tires. The rumbling engine idled when Chase pulled up to the curb, and Anthony grabbed the door handle with another glance back at the darkened street. He climbed in the passenger seat and whipped the door closed behind him.
“Hey.” Chase barely waited for Anthony to hold up the bottle of booze, his ticket to ride, before gunning down the rest of the street.
“Hey.”
“Nice nails, Princess.”
“Fuck off.” Chase’s dig stung. So what if he’d gotten bored in math and colored them in with a black Sharpie. Everybody did it. It was the princess bit that got to him. All of Chase’s recent throwaway comments about his sexuality pissed him off. Anthony liked guys. It wasn’t a secret. He didn’t hide how he felt about Chase either. Why the fucking shade now? They’d been friends for years.
He glanced at his friend around the edges of his hoodie. Chase’s greasy blond hair hung in lank curtains on either side of a pale face. His shadowed eyes and unshaven jaw betrayed every late night party they’d hit that week. The rumpled button-up worn over clean jeans showed at least some effort to be respectable—an effort Anthony hadn’t shared. He hadn’t wandered by a mirror lately, but given his mother’s increased bitching, Anthony figured he must look pretty rough. His hair, grown out to a dull brown, hung in his face no matter what he did with it. At least it covered his painfully average looks. He’d have killed for his father’s crystal-blue eyes, but Aaron got those, just like he got everything else. Anthony had ended up with the leftover dull brown instead. His clear, pale skin probably glowed in the dark with how little it saw the sun. And even as tall and lanky as he was, somehow he’d also gotten feet too big for his body.
It all came together in a package custom-made for the back of a discount shelf.
So yeah, he fucking colored his nails black with a Sharpie.
“Dude, when are you gonna grow some balls and start driving yourself to this shit?” Chase flipped a cigarette butt into the quaint suburban night. Not another soul occupied the street right then. The two of them were alone, a bright future of hard edges against the two-car garages and white picket fences.
“You know the Mustang sounds like a plane landing when I start it up. You want the night to end before it ever starts?” Anthony couldn’t hide the petulance in his voice. He hated it, but goddamn, couldn’t he find just one person who didn’t look at him like a fucking burden?
“You’re practically eighteen, Downer, a fucking adult. Why do you give a shit what they say?”
“I’ve got a month. And that’s easy for you to say. Your parents don’t give a fuck about anything you do. They just throw money at you to make you go away.”
“I’m not sure which is worse.”
After a minute of silence, Anthony spoke again. “They’re on me again about college.”
“Yeah, mine are too.”
“My mom rubbed it in my face that even Aaron went to college. Because everything in the fucking universe revolves around Aaron.”
“Did they give you the ‘if you want to live under our roof’ shit?”
“Yep. It’s their way or the highway.”
“Wouldn’t they flip their shit if we chose the highway?”
Chase turned up the volume on his car radio and fiddled with the iPod plugged into the aux port. Anthony watched in disbelief. Chase couldn’t mean they’d just leave, could he?
With one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road, Chase flipped through his seemingly infinite playlist and switched to a song Anthony had never heard. He didn’t comment because Chase wouldn’t be able to hear him over the music anyway. Instead, Anthony leaned back in the seat and stared out the window, picking at the bits of marker on the skin where he’d missed the nail. For a long time, he wondered if maybe they could leave. If they could have a different life. Maybe they could even have one together.
Too bad he was too much of a fucking coward to ask.
The song hadn’t ended by the time Chase rolled to a stop in front of a ramshackle house on the wrong side of town from where they’d grown up. Anthony hadn’t been there before, but since the place belonged to Skylar Logan and his junkie mother, Anthony figured it would be one hell of a party. They pulled up behind a soft-top Jeep and climbed out of the car. Anthony reached back in and grabbed the vodka. The edge of his favorite Outbreak Monkey T-shirt caught on the broken piece of window handle, and he pulled it away gently. There were few things he gave a shit about. That shirt topped the small list.
“Dude, I can’t believe Jenny left her Jeep open like that around here. Dumbass. We should fuck with it just because we can.”
Chase stopped on the sidewalk in front of the red Jeep and peered inside. Anthony put a hand on his arm when he made to open his fly. His words caught on the dryness in his mouth.
“Come on, I want a drink, and Jenny’s okay.” He didn’t want Chase messing with Jenny. An assload of people at school gave him shit on a daily basis, because of his music, his looks, or his freak brother, but Jenny didn’t. Her older sister Kerri had dated Allen, the middle brother, for a while. Plenty of those fuckheads deserved to have their cars messed with, but not her.
Anthony dragged Chase by a belt loop and jerked the screen door open, rattling it on busted hinges. The erratic bass thumped in his shoes as they crossed the threshold into the house. A beer can lay on its side in the entryway. Wasted amber liquid pooled around the half-crushed aluminum. They stepped over it and a girl sprawled on the floor. Leaning against the wall, she stared at them with a glazed look in her dilated eyes. Battered tile gave way to stained carpeting when they came out of the short hall and into a family room filled with people from school lounging in various states of drunken mess.
Trisha Marik straddled the big junior Gavin Carter on one of the low couches. Their high school football coach would kill Gavin if he saw where his star player was right then. Gavin held up a capsule for little Trisha to take. She smiled at him and opened her mouth. He slid the pill between her lips, and she sucked his thumb with an erotic twist of her tongue.
Stupid trusting fucks.
Chase’s brother had taught them at the very first party he’d ever taken them to: never take something unless you knew what it was. Never take shit someone else gave you, and for fuck’s sake, never leave your cup of booze unattended. Don’t follow those rules and, guy or girl, you’ll end up the ass-up, head-down cum dumpster of the football team.
Anthony weaved around a drunken couple dancing with their hands in places he didn’t need to see and followed Chase into the kitchen. Skylar stood next to the sink with his tongue down the throat of some girl Anthony didn’t recognize. Their host must have picked her up on the side of the road somewhere with the promise of drugs and booze.
“Hey, where do you want this shit?” Chase held up the bottle of Absolut and two baggies of unidentified pills.
“Nice,” the girl said as they finally came up for air.
Skylar grinned. “Throw it on the counter over there with the cups Gina brought. Isn’t she pretty?” He slid a crooked finger under her chin. She giggled and Anthony wanted to vomit. Instead, he cracked open the Absolut, grabbed a cup, and poured himself a drink. At least if he drank from his own bottle, he knew it was good quality and no one had messed with it. The others just took what they could get.
Stupid. Trusting. Fucks.
“Come on.” Chase washed down two pills, ones he’d brought, with a drink from Anthony’s cup. Anthony watched the muscles in his throat work and tried not to get hard. Fuck, that’s all he’d need, these jocks seeing him pop wood over his best friend. Half the school already thought they were fucking. Anthony wouldn’t have cared if he were actually getting sex out of it. Since it was just a rumor, it only depressed him. Just like at home, the only time anyone at school saw him, they were giving him shit.
Being invisible was exhausting. Like bouncing off transparent walls in an attempt to escape, only no one else sees the walls.
Ever.
Anthony tagged behind Chase as they did the obligatory tour of the house, which always served to make them feel either better or worse about their lives, depending on what they found. Skylar’s house made Anthony feel way better about his life. The place was a dump, a tiny two-bedroom house with one floor, tube televisions, and no imagination.
Chase continued through the only hall, marked by four closed doors. He tried the first door on the left, but the
lock didn’t give. As they started to move away, a gruff voice yelled from the other side that he’d be out in a minute. They’d found the bathroom. Good to know. Anthony tried the door on the right and found it unlocked. As he pushed it open, a high-pitched squeak made him jump. Two girls pulled a blanket over their naked skin just a second too late, and his face flushed with heat.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, closing the door before he got a real education in female anatomy. Chase would probably have gone in and tried to join them, but Anthony had never had the desire. Well, unless Chase wanted to….
Two more doors and they could return as champions, the Lewis and Clark of high school parties. Again, Chase took the one on the left and found a linen closet full of towels, spare toilet paper, and a teenage couple making out so hard they didn’t even notice the door open. The guy Anthony couldn’t place, since the girl seemed to be swallowing his face, but there was no mistaking Sarah Mitchell’s purple-streaked blonde hair. Her shirt shifted higher as the guy’s hand fondled her under it. Chase snorted before closing the door. Sarah Mitchell had been a party legend since Anthony and Chase were freshmen. He had no idea how she wasn’t pregnant or dead.
Anthony turned the knob for the last door, the room on the right, and its emptiness surprised him. He stepped in followed closely by Chase. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as Chase shifted behind him, awareness prickling through his skin. A light flared on overhead, and Anthony turned to see Chase looking around.
They never stole anything at these parties. Most of the houses where they partied had nothing to steal anyway, and this one didn’t disappoint. A worn quilt lay strewn across the lumpy bed, threadbare and from some generation other than theirs. Someone had pushed the bed against the far wall, but a folding tray table hugged its side. It was slick with dust and a film of something foul beneath the round yellowing lace thing that decorated it. A ticking alarm clock broke the monotony of thumping bass from the party in full swing down the hall.
