In the Distance

by Eileen Griffin

  Ethan slipped his hand in Jamie’s back pocket and leered at him. “Does this mean I get to grope you on the observation deck?”

  “Remind me why I put up with you?”

  Ethan smirked. “Because you love me.”

  Jamie sighed, “I do. Very much,” then lifted his face to the sky, probably reciting the same serenity mantra he used to recite when I’d done something to embarrass him. Once his moment of prayer was over, he looked at Tyler and me. “You guys coming with us?”

  The Empire State Building was a tourist magnet. It would have been a travesty for Tyler not to see it, but part of me wanted to be selfish with Tyler’s time in New York. Before I could act like a possessive dick, Tyler beat me to the punch.

  “Actually, I’m kind of tired. You guys go on without us.”

  “My parents invited us to join them for dinner tomorrow night. I figured we could roam around the farmers’ market in Union Square in the morning, then explore Central Park in the afternoon and still able to get cleaned up and make it to Cielo by seven.”

  Jamie’s face brightened. “Cielo?”

  I felt an old familiar tug of affection in my heart at Jamie’s question, but it was the kind you felt for friends. Nothing more. “Yeah. My parents loved it when you were there and thought you’d want to revisit your old stomping ground.”

  Jamie’s smile widened. “Thanks, Trev.”

  I tightened my grip on Tyler’s hand. “Anytime, Jamie. They’ve missed you and can’t wait to catch up.”

  Jamie and Ethan both man-hugged Tyler, then Ethan shot me an “I’m watching you” look before they took off down the street on their way to their grope session from the second tallest phallic-shaped building in the city.

  Once they were out of sight, I turned to Tyler. “Are you really tired? Or did you just want to ditch your dads for a little while?”

  “God. You know I love them, but can you imagine them with a baby?”

  I had a mental image of Ethan wearing the baby in one of those fancy baby slings, bouncing around and freaking out. It took me a full minute before I could stop laughing. “No.”

  “Yeah.” Tyler shivered, which started a whole new round of laughter for both of us. “Can we not talk about my gay dads for the rest of the night?”

  “Definitely. So, are you sure there’s nowhere you want to go tonight? Rockefeller Center? A ferry ride at night?”

  Tyler slipped his hand in mine, squeezing gently. “Actually, I just want to spend the night with you. No more crowds or attractions or noise. Just us.”

  I nodded as we left Times Square behind us. “That, we can definitely do.”

  We picked up dinner from a Thai place around the corner from my condo and spent the next few hours eating, talking and watching movies. It was the most natural thing, Tyler’s head resting on my lap as I ran my fingers through his hair while we watched one comedy after another. I’d never felt natural with anyone I dated. The thought of going back to one-night stands and random hookups seemed like the most unnatural thing in the world when I had Tyler next to me. After years of shunning monogamy, Tyler was the only one I wanted in my bed, which, judging by the soft snore coming from my lap, was something that might or not be happening tonight.

  “Tyler. Babe. It’s time for bed.”

  Without moving, Tyler mumbled. “M’kay. Be right there.”

  I chuckled and tapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon. We have an early day tomorrow and as much as I love my couch, it sucks ass to sleep on.”

  “Hmm?”

  I sighed and helped a half-asleep Tyler make it to my bed. Once I got him in, he immediately curled up on his side and fell back asleep. It took me a few minutes to turn off all the lights and shut everything down, but once I got into bed, he rolled toward me, draping his arm across my chest. It was the furthest thing from the hot and sex-filled night I’d imagined after being apart for three weeks, but when I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer to me, I couldn’t have cared less.

  * * *

  “So, after a heated thirty-minute debate over the right tomatoes to use in a puttanesca sauce, Tyler and I finally had to drag Jamie and Ethan away from the guy’s stall before it got ugly.”

  My parents gaped at Jamie. I doubt they’d ever heard him raise his voice about anything, let alone get into an argument with his husband in the middle of a crowded farmers’ market he’d frequented so much when he lived here that at least half the vendors had to still recognize who he was.

  Ethan shook his head with a patronizing smile on his face. “I’ve tried to tell him hundreds of times, Trust—um, Trevor. You have to use heirloom tomatoes for that kind of sauce. Everything else just makes another version of a marinara.”

  “Alright, E. We can settle this when we get back to Seattle. I’ll add it to our Kitchen Challenge menu this year. In addition to our own dishes, we’ll each prepare a puttanesca and let the staff decide.”

  “You’re on, golden boy. I’m pretty sure Tyler will be on my side when all the plates are thrown down.”

  Instead of shrinking away from the challenge, Tyler casually replied, “Oh, I don’t know. I guess it really depends on which one of you gives me a bonus for judging the contest.”

  Then he winked. Tyler winked. While everyone else burst into laughter, I just sat and watched him soak up all the attention. Six months ago, Tyler would have shrunk into himself with barely more than a nod in Ethan’s direction. To see him so comfortable, not only with Ethan and Jamie, but with himself, was so fucking attractive it took every ounce of willpower I had not to pull him over to me and kiss him senseless.

  A gentle touch on my forearm brought me out of X-rated dreams of what I planned to do to Tyler once we got back to my condo.

  “He’s funny.”

  I looked over at Tyler, then smiled what I knew was a goofy-ass smile at my mom. “He is.”

  My mom’s face softened and she patted my arm. “He’s also handsome.”

  I could feel my smile widen. “He is.”

  “And young.”

  I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes on Tyler. A year ago, I’d referred to him as a kid. Ethan’s and Jamie’s adopted younger brother. Now I could only see him as the man I couldn’t imagine my life without. Would my parents understand? Understand that the age difference might seem like a lot now, but in the long run—and more than anything, I wanted there to be a long run for us—the ten years separating us wouldn’t mean a thing? Ultimately, it didn’t matter if they understood. I would do whatever it took for Tyler to be a part of my life. My parents could either accept it, or not. Whether or not Tyler was a part of my life was my decision, not theirs.

  “Mom—”

  “And exactly what you need.”

  Relief flooded my body, and I placed my hand over my mom’s.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “It’s good to see you happy, Trevor. And Tyler obviously makes you happy. That’s all any parent wants.”

  While all my other friends’ parents were either divorced or in rehab, my parents had been in love for over thirty years. It was a good track record for any couple, but if you added in our wealth and the expectations that came with it, the stress of constantly being in the public eye and a gay son who’d often excelled at being in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, it was a Herculean feat to make staying happy and in love look this easy. That’s what I wanted. And I didn’t just want it with anyone. I wanted it with Tyler.

  My dad’s laughter joined Tyler’s as they watched Ethan and Jamie continue to banter about who was a better chef. Both my mom and I turned to look in their direction, both of us smiling at the men who’d captured our hearts.

  After coffee and dessert, we made our way outside. My parents’ driver was already waiting at the curb for them, but before my mother stepped i
nto the car, she wrapped her arms around Tyler and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and my mom hugged him tighter. When she finally released him, she turned to me, patted me on the cheek, then ducked into the car.

  “Your parents are pretty cool, Trustfund. You know, for parents.”

  “I’d like to think so. Being a parent is hard work, I’d imagine.”

  I winked at Tyler, which caused both of us to laugh at the same time. Ethan and Jamie both looked at us like we’d lost our minds, which only made us laugh harder. The sight of them walking off in confusion had totally been worth the eye-bleach-worthy mental image of Ethan and Jamie as parents.

  Tyler and I walked back to my condo, hand in hand, as if we’d done this a million times rather than just this once.

  “I like your parents. They’re different than what I expected.”

  “Well, I had to get all this awesomeness from somewhere.”

  Tyler tried to glare at me, but his snort ruined the effect.

  “Well, you obviously have good genes. Your mom’s awesome. That story she told about you stripping down to your Spider-Man underwear and trying to save the kids at the park is one I’m going to treasure for a long, long time.”

  “You mean bring up repeatedly to torture me, don’t you?”

  “That, too. It sucks this is my last night in New York. I really wanted to hear more stories about you when you were a kid.”

  Tyler tried to make the comment seem casual, but he couldn’t stop his voice from catching at the end.

  I tightened my hand around his, trying to savor what little time we had left together. We didn’t talk much after that, but there was a heaviness between us that hadn’t been there earlier.

  We’d barely made it into my apartment when Tyler grabbed my hand and lead me to my bedroom. He didn’t say a word the entire time he undressed me, but he didn’t need to. As he removed each piece of clothing, he brushed his lips over the newly exposed skin, kissing each part with a tenderness I’d never seen in him before.

  Once he’d gotten both of us naked, he pulled me to the bed and straddled my hips. My eyes rolled back the moment our dicks touched.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of touching you like this,” Tyler said, as he ran his hands over my chest, stopping every so often to roll one of my nipples between his fingers. “I love the way you shiver when I kiss you.” He flicked one of my nipples with his tongue. “Or how your breath catches when I do something you like.”

  My breath did catch, and I struggled to keep my eyes open when he flicked it again, this time grazing it with his teeth. Then, Tyler kissed over to the other nipple, exquisitely torturing it until all I could do was writhe under him as he explored my body. It was torturously slow, but I let Tyler take control of what was happening. I watched as his eyes shifted from lust to something more determined, catching my breath as he leaned down to place a tender kiss on my lips.

  Hovered an inch away from me, he spoke three words that I’d been longing to hear. “I love you.”

  “Tyler.”

  He placed his finger over my lips and shushed me. “I didn’t tell you so I could hear you say it back. I’m telling you because I can’t leave you tomorrow without you knowing how I feel. And the truth is, I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been for a while now, and even though all of this—you, us, living so far apart—scares the shit out of me, I’m glad I fell in love with you.”

  My heart beat so loudly in my chest, Tyler had to hear it. Three words. Just three tiny words that split me open and laid me raw beneath him. Without thinking, I flipped him over, straddling his hips this time. Tyler’s surprised oomph was smothered when I crashed my lips to his, pouring everything I felt into the one searing kiss.

  His lips were red and swollen when I finally pulled away, the surprised expression still on his face. Unable to hold it back any longer, I found his hands and linked them with mine. “I love you, too.”

  His surprise slowly morphed to relief, then pure need. I pressed my hips against his and said it again, “I love you. God, I’ve been waiting to say that for weeks now. I love you, Tyler Joseph Mitchell.”

  Laughter erupted from his lips. “I don’t remember telling you my middle name was Joseph.”

  I leaned down and kissed him again. “I might have asked Jamie.”

  Tyler laughed again and the sound resonated through my whole body. Never, not even when I’d thought I was in love with Jamie, had I felt like this. With Tyler, I didn’t have to impress him or buy his affection with fancy gifts and restaurants. I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t or run away from the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me. Letting someone have this much control over me and my heart scared the hell out of me, but I trusted Tyler. I was in love with him, and it was the most real and intense thing I’d ever felt in my life.

  We had one last night together, and I refused to allow one second of it to go to waste. I pulled away and rolled Tyler onto his stomach, grabbing a pillow to place under his hips. I almost came right then and there when Tyler turned his head to look at me over his shoulder, a sly grin on his face as he wiggled his hips at me.

  “God, the things I want to do to you.”

  Another wiggle. “What are you waiting for, then?”

  I leaned forward and nipped one of his ass cheeks and was rewarded by a deep moan. Tyler’s head dropped down in front of him again, his ass pushing back against me.

  “Do you trust me?”

  Without turning around, Tyler’s low, sexy voice wrapped around me. “Completely.”

  Completely. That single word pierced me deeper than anything else he could have said. I dug my fingers into the firm muscles of his ass, massaging them as I kissed along the base of his spine, letting my lips trail lower and lower. When I finally reached the cleft of his ass, I spread his cheeks and brushed my lips over his tight, puckered hole.

  Tyler’s skin broke into goose bumps as he shivered under me. “Trevor.”

  “I want to taste you.”

  Pushing his ass closer to me, Tyler moaned, “Fuck.”

  Spreading him even more, I traced his hole using gentle sweeps of my tongue. Tyler spread his legs wider. “Please. Oh, fuck, Trev. You’re killing me.”

  I blew a warm puff of air over his hole, then leaned forward and pressed my tongue to his hole, moaning when I felt his muscles spasm around the tip. I usually wasn’t a fan of rimming. It was too intimate, too close. But with Tyler, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to crawl inside his skin and worship every inch of him. With slow jabs, I pressed deeper into him, spurred when Tyler started rocking his hips to fuck himself on my tongue.

  Before long, Tyler was begging and pleading, “Fuck, Trev. I need you inside me. Now.”

  That single word now took me from aching to be inside him to ‘If I don’t get inside Tyler right now, I swear I will fucking die.’

  I quickly pulled a condom and lube out of my nightstand, rolling it down and coating my sheathed cock with lube in record time. Needing to see his face when I entered him, I tugged the pillow out from under his hips and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were barely open, his chest heaving with the same need that was coursing through me. I cataloged every sigh, moan and gasp as I slid in and out of his body. Tyler struggled to keep his eyes open, but lost the battle when he pressed his thighs up closer to his chest, taking me deeper than he ever had. Each thrust brought me closer to the edge, but this time I didn’t want to go over. This time, I wanted the moment to last, so I wouldn’t have to feel the loss of not being immersed in him.

  Tyler’s breath became more labored, his back arching higher to take more of me. When I knew he couldn’t take much more, I released my tight grasp on one of his hands and wrapped my fist around his hard length. He opened his eyes, locked them on me and cried out my name as he fell over the e
dge, surging and spasming onto his stomach.

  In the height of his climax, he tightened his muscles around my cock, pulling me over the edge with him. When the last wave of my orgasm rolled over me, I collapsed on top of him, both of us panting and out of breath.

  The rapid rise and fall of his chest brought me out of my stupor. Still connected, I leaned up to see he was laughing.

  “I think you shorted out my brain. That was fucking amazing. I’m definitely doing that to you next time.”

  I brushed my nose along his. “Yeah? Which part?”

  There was a hint of shyness in his eyes when he answered. “Both?”

  I didn’t normally bottom. Not because I’d had a bad experience or the initial discomfort. The few times I’d bottomed, it had felt fucking fantastic. The truth was, I didn’t want to give someone that much control over me. Just the thought of someone being that close to me, literally inside my body, had been enough to make me want to avoid being in that position. Tyler, though, was already inside me. He might not know it, but he fucking owned my heart. The thought of him owning my body, too, made me wish he wasn’t fucking leaving town in the morning.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  Tyler closed his eyes and nodded with a huge grin on his face as he lay back down on the bed. “Fucking hell. That image alone is going in my spank bank.”

  “You and me both.”

  Reluctantly, I slid my spent cock out of his body, tied up the condom and tossed it in the trash can by my bed, and wrapped Tyler up in my arms. It could have been seconds, minutes or even hours later, when I felt a gentle caress on the back of my neck and soft lips under my jaw. Pulling back only enough to see his face, I was once again stunned by how gorgeous he was.

  “I love you.”

  He rolled me over to face him and pressed his lips to mine, his expression way too serious not to send warning bells ringing in my ears, “I love you, too. But...”

  A tiny sliver of fear crept into what had been complete perfection just moments ago. “But?”

  “But I won’t do the casual long-distance thing, Trevor. Not after this weekend. This weekend showed me how much I want this to work, and I want it more than I’ve ever wanted something in my life. I can’t lie and tell you the whole East Coast-West Coast living situation doesn’t scare me. Because it does. Don’t get me wrong. I want this.” He placed his hand over my chest, my heart beating so loudly I knew he could feel it pounding through my skin. “I want you. But, if we’re going to do this, we have to have more than a few weekends together spread out over the course of a year. We both deserve more than that.”