by Lisa Henry
She stared at him. “What?”
He was too terrified to respond.
“So it didn’t count because it was just a BJ? Because it’s not sex if it’s a dick in a mouth and not an ass?”
“Marissa—”
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded.
Where to start?
She went on. “Yes, you’re struggling. Yes, you’re in a rough situation. And yeah, you made me your beard, and I pretended not to notice that you’re not, like, attracted to me at all. But Nate? None of that gave you the right to cheat on me. Do you understand?”
Nate shook his head helplessly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” Her eyes shimmered. Tears of anger or despair, he couldn’t tell. He hoped it was anger. She deserved to be angry. He wanted her to walk away from this with her dignity. And then he immediately felt like a jackass for thinking that. As though a part of him didn’t need to feel as guilty, as long as she kept her dignity and didn’t break down and cry. Marissa balled her hands up into fists.
“I’m sorry.” He was on autopilot now. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “Shut the hell up!”
Nate clamped his mouth shut.
“Who was it?” Marissa tilted her chin up. “Do I know him?”
“I—” Nate couldn’t speak, but he knew it was written all over his face.
Marissa’s mouth fell open slightly. “Oh. Oh God. Don’t tell me it was Jason fucking Banning!”
Nate’s heart clenched.
Marissa shook her head. “Oh, Nate.” She gazed around his room, as though she was taking one last long look. Then she shook her head again. “Goodbye. And good luck. You’re going to need it, aren’t you?”
She slammed the door as she left.
When Nate arrived at the lookout, Jason’s car was already there. Jason was down a ways, standing behind the guardrail and watching the bats fly over the canyon. The sky had just enough light to back his silhouette, and the tall, feathering shadows of the pine trees. Jason heard him coming; Nate could tell by the way he tensed, stood a little straighter. But he didn’t look at Nate until Nate was right beside him.
“How are you?” Jason had one large hand on the rail. Nate wondered what would happen if he put his own over the top of it.
Nate tried to smile. “Good.” I have no idea what I’m doing. No fucking idea. Every time things start making sense, I get pushed back again into this fucking sludge.
Jason took his hand off the rail and placed it on Nate’s shoulder. Moved his fingers up and down the swishy material of Nate’s jacket. Then dipped under the jacket, under Nate’s shirt, and traced a serpentine up his back. Nate’s dick hardened, and he closed his eyes. “You sure?” Jason asked.
“Weird day.”
“Weird, how?” Jason’s fingertips between his shoulder blades made him shiver.
“Um. Camp stuff. Marissa stuff.” Stuff that was his responsibility to deal with, not Jason’s. He didn’t need the burden of Jason’s guilt as well. Not when his own was heavy enough. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Jason kept stroking Nate’s back. His touch was hypnotic. Nate couldn’t have moved away if he’d wanted.
“How was your day?”
Jason’s hand faltered. “Good.”
Nate let the lie go unchallenged.
What they had here, together, was fragile. The outside world—their lives, their families, their pasts—would kill it. He didn’t want that. Not tonight. Tonight, he needed this.
“There’s a blanket in my car.” The words came out too fast, riding the nervous rush of air behind them.
Jason splayed his hand over Nate’s back. “Are you asking me down to Makeout Point?”
That was what the kids called it. Follow the narrow, twisting path down the side of the steep hill from the lookout, and you came eventually to Makeout Point. A grassy promontory that overlooked the town. The view wasn’t as good as from the lookout, but nobody went there for the view.
Nate tried to joke. “What? You never went there in high school?”
“Actually, no. That was for football players and cheerleaders, and neither of them were really my type.”
Nate smiled. “No. Mine either.”
“Anyway, I doubt I’d make the walk.”
“I could go and get the blanket and we could just sit up here.”
“Is that what you meant in the first place?”
Nate laughed, but the sound was shaky. “Um, no. I was thinking of Makeout Point.”
“Maybe we could try the woods somewhere above Makeout Point?”
Nate laughed again, a little hysterically. Too many feelings and nowhere to put them. Marissa’s words playing on a loop in his head. He’d lied to his dad and to all of Moving Forward, he’d cheated on Marissa, and he couldn’t shake the idea that he’d failed Isaac somehow. And here he was less than two hours after breaking up with his girlfriend, asking Jason to Makeout Point. This didn’t feel like sinning boldly. It felt like being a shitty person. “I don’t like the woods at night.”
Jason looked at him. “You serious?”
Nate shrugged. Forced a self-deprecating smile. “Yeah. Scared of the dark.”
When he was younger, he’d pictured Hell as an endless dark tunnel, even though he knew it was supposed to be fiery. Jason’s fingertips pressed hard into his skin for a moment. Then Jason said, tentatively, “I’d be right there.”
For a second Nate fell back in time to that night at UW, when he’d believed Jason’s reassurances. With everything else he’d screwed up, he didn’t want to screw up with Jason too. And yet part of him wasn’t ready to trust Jason to be there for him. With him. Not yet.
If he was going to walk into Hell, he needed to do it on his own, and not just because Jason was at his side. He had strength enough to be accountable for his own decisions, right or wrong.
“I’ll get the blanket,” he said. “And we’ll go into the woods.”
He headed back to the road, climbing over the guardrail. He opened the trunk of his car and hauled out the blanket. It was a big, thick blanket, great for picnics. Nate couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on the sort of picnic that required a blanket, but he’d kept it in his car anyway, along with his spare tire. Just in case. He’d never invited Marissa on a picnic, because the idea of sitting close to her, knowing that she’d try to get closer, had scared him.
God.
What a terrible person he’d been.
Two years, scared to touch her in case she wanted to take it further.
His shoe caught on the guardrail as he stepped over, and he nearly fell. He clutched the blanket tighter. His only thought was God. Not a specific prayer. Not asking for help. Just thinking His name helped. It had always been like that for Nate. As a child, he’d never known exactly what to pray for. What to thank the Lord for. He hadn’t wanted to have a conversation with God so much as he’d just wanted to know He was there. Wanted to reach out and touch him—not physically, but using something deeper.
Jason was waiting with his hands in his pockets. He and Nate walked side by side to the trees. Twigs cracked underfoot, and Nate struggled to adjust to the absence of moonlight. Tonight, he almost liked the darkness. It cloaked him, erasing who he was, hiding the ugliness in his soul.
“Here,” Jason said. A patch of grass and pine needles at the base of two thick trees. He helped Nate spread the blanket on the ground.
“Okay,” Nate said, more to himself than to Jason.
“And we can still see where we came from.” Jason motioned to the gap in the trees, the deep blue sky tinged silver by the weak moon.
Nate sat, and Jason eased himself down, extending his bad leg awkwardly to one side and slowly rolling onto his hip bones. “I feel like I’m ninety.” He laughed.
For some reason, that made Nate incredibly sad. Jason had seemed old when Nate had visited UW Tacoma. But he was really just a kid, wasn’t he? He’d wanted to change the wo
rld, and the world had chewed him up pretty good before spitting him back out.
He thought he was doing a good thing.
Nate might never truly forgive Jason. But at least he could start to understand. Jason believed that homosexuality wasn’t a sin. And he thought that if he could shout into silence the people who said it was, he could make sure kids didn’t live their lives feeling like Nate—confused, torn, ashamed.
Nate had once, however fleetingly, believed what Jason believed. He’d been prepared to tell his dad who he was, prepared to speak out against the camp. Why couldn’t he find that person again? Why couldn’t he stand alone, unbolstered by his faith?
Because then he would be Jason. Bitter and hard and too proud. Then God would punish him by ruining his leg.
God.
Where had that come from? Jason’s injury wasn’t a punishment. Was it?
Nate didn’t know anymore. Didn’t know how God worked, what He wanted.
“What are you thinking about?” Jason asked.
“You,” Nate said honestly. The silence stretched between them. Nate was afraid to touch Jason. “I, um. I broke up with my girlfriend tonight.”
“Marissa?”
“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, then forced them open again. “I’m always going to be ashamed of something, right? Either what I am, or who I...who I hurt?”
“What’s that mean?” Jason asked softly. “‘What I am?’”
Nate looked at him.
“You’re Nate,” Jason said. “That’s all.”
He leaned in, and Nate panicked for a moment, thinking Jason was going to kiss him and that he wasn’t ready yet. But Jason just brushed the hair from Nate’s eyes and pressed his forehead to Nate’s. Nate matched his breathing to Jason’s, so that each breath they took collided. Finally he nodded.
“We don’t have to do anything but sit here,” Jason said.
“I want to fuck,” Nate said harshly. He met Jason’s gaze. “I mean I seriously want to fuck. I want it to feel—like—like everything, and I want it to—to be real. I want to forget all the bad things I’ve ever done.”
“Me too.” Jason’s voice was thin and hushed.
Nate leaned back. Stretched out on the blanket and stared at the barely-distinguished black silhouettes of the tree branches. The blanket wasn’t quite long enough, and pine needles scraped his calves.
Jason pulled off his shirt. Tossed it aside. He looked down at Nate. “We’re gonna start slow, okay?”
Nate shifted. Imagined the dangers that lurked in the woods. Sharp-toothed animals and poisonous plants and all the fucking shadows that kept you from seeing where you were going, where you’d come from. He wanted this to go fast. He wanted to get out of here.
But Jason lifted his shirt, just enough to expose a few inches of Nate’s belly. He scooted back on the blanket and rolled onto his stomach, his head at Nate’s hip. He kissed Nate’s hip bone, his lips soft and slightly damp. Nate sighed and tried to relax.
What if someone sees?
Jason kissed his way across his stomach. Nate’s muscles flexed and released, and his breathing roughened into sharp gasps. Jason paused and licked a slow circle around his navel then pushed his tongue down the trail of light hair leading to Nate’s groin. He undid Nate’s fly, and Nate, shaking, lifted his hips so Jason could pull his jeans down.
The cool air made Nate’s exposed skin prickle. What if someone sees? The thought wouldn’t go away.
Jason ran his tongue along the edge of the waistband of Nate’s briefs. Nate’s stomach contracted, and then he exhaled, some of the tension leaving his body.
Jason pressed his nose against the front of his briefs and let out a warm, damp breath Nate could feel through the fabric.
“Oh, shit,” Nate whispered as Jason nosed his swollen balls. Kissed the outline of his dick. Took the cotton in his teeth and tugged, until the head of Nate’s cock poked through the slit. Jason released the fabric then slowly leaned forward. Nate knew what was about to happen, and his lower body clenched, his hands forming fists as Jason pressed the tip of his tongue to the slit of his dick.
Nate jolted, one knee bending. His head snapped back, his eyes closed, and he gripped the blanket, willing himself not to end this too fast. Jason’s tongue remained where it was, and after a moment, Nate forced himself to open his eyes. Jason was watching him. Jason grinned, then placed his lips around the head of Nate’s dick. Slowly sucked the fluid that was beading at the slit.
“Jason...Jason…” Nate panted. He bent both knees, his legs falling open. He wanted to kick his jeans off. Wanted to lie here spread open for Jason, and who the fuck cared if anyone saw?
“Take these down,” Jason whispered, hooking his finger under the elastic of the briefs. He moved his finger back and forth, tickling Nate’s hip.
Nate hesitated, then lifted again and slid his briefs to his knees, squirming as his bare ass made contact with the blanket.
Jason traced the crease between Nate’s hip and groin. “You look freaked out.” Nate could hear the smile in his voice.
“Maybe I’ll always look like this when I’m having sex. Would that be hot?”
Jason laughed. “You always look hot. But you should definitely relax.”
“Okay.” Nate took a deep breath, then let it out. Gave himself a moment to study the stars before turning his gaze back to Jason. Jason looked so fucking gorgeous that for a second Nate was stunned. He’s mine. Even if it’s just for tonight. His breath caught and his back arched slightly, and he smiled at Jason. “Better?”
Jason responded by tracing Nate’s hard shaft with his fingertips. Nate immediately tensed again.
Jason’s other hand drifted up his stomach, pushing his shirt above his pecs. Nate swallowed as Jason grazed his nipple. He wanted Jason to touch him there, but he didn’t know how to ask.
Will you touch my nipple?
Nate would rather throw himself off the lookout point than say those words out loud.
Without thinking, he caught Jason’s hand in his own. Moved it slowly to his left pec and guided Jason’s fingers in a circle over his hardening nipple. Jason met his gaze, and Nate was nervous because it was almost too dark to see his expression. But he caught the flash of Jason’s teeth and hoped to God Jason wasn’t laughing at him. He moved Jason’s fingers faster, harder, until it almost hurt. Then he let go and allowed Jason to take over.
Jason’s lips brushed Nate’s cheek. Nate gasped as Jason continued to roll his nipple and gently stroke his cock.
This is so good.
All sex had ever been for him was a source of stress. He’d spent his teenage years dreading the day he’d be expected to do it with a woman. And when he’d done it with a guy…
It had fucked up his whole life.
He wanted the freedom to love this. He looked up through the twisting branches at the stars and prayed. No words to the prayer; he just wanted to know that God was present. That He was loving, and that he would protect and love Nate no matter what.
I just want someone to protect and love me no matter what. Doesn’t have to be God.
Jason lowered his mouth to Nate’s other nipple and sucked. Nate shifted slightly. “Please,” he whispered, running his hand through Jason’s hair. Jason paused to kiss between his pecs, then went back to work, taking the nipple gently in his teeth and tugging.
“Shit!” Nate’s toes flexed.
He placed his other hand over Jason’s on his dick, urging him faster. Jason hummed, the sound buzzing across Nate’s skin. He let go suddenly and pulled himself up into a sitting position. He was breathing hard. Nate sat up too and kicked off his pants and underwear. He helped Jason undress, ignoring Jason’s muttered curses of frustration. When they were both naked, he urged Jason onto his back and positioned himself between Jason’s legs. He ran his hands over Jason’s thighs, enjoying the sensation of hair and muscle. Thought he felt Jason tense when he touched the scars.
He stretched out on his stomac
h between Jason’s legs, not sure what to do, and kissed the inside of Jason’s left thigh. Breathed in Jason’s smell and the crispness of the night air. He licked Jason’s balls tentatively and was rewarded with a soft moan.
Nate studied the shape of Jason’s dick in the darkness. He wanted to taste it. Wanted to suck it until he choked. He rose slightly and ran his tongue along the shaft’s thickest vein. Jason’s head snapped up, and Nate focused on the whites of his eyes as he wrapped his lips around the hard, pulsing length, and sank down.
Jason exhaled. He moved his hand carefully over Nate’s hair, not forcing him. Touched the back of his neck, then skirted Nate’s shoulder. Nate tried to remember what Jason had done when he’d blown Nate. Tried to bob his head rhythmically, applying his tongue when it felt right. He liked the feeling of the ridge under Jason’s cockhead. He circled it a few times, and when Jason’s thighs tensed and his groans of pleasure deepened, Nate tried flicking his tongue against it.
“God, Nate.” Jason tightened his grip on Nate’s hair.
Nate felt that in his groin. He wanted Jason to pull his hair, wanted Jason to shove up into his mouth until it hurt. He bobbed quickly, trying to somehow communicate that need to Jason. He accidentally scraped Jason’s shaft with his teeth, and Jason hissed. He slowed and tried to soothe the spot with his tongue.
He ground his hips against the blanket, frustrated by his inability to articulate what he wanted, more aroused than he’d been even at eighteen, in Jason’s apartment. He thought he’d die from it, this need, this sense that his body would burst apart, an explosion of gratification and guilt and fear and contentment.
“Come here.” Jason tapped Nate’s shoulder and then patted the blanket beside him. Nate scooted up.
Jason kissed him again, forcing his tongue past Nate’s lips, running his nails up Nate’s sweat-slick spine until Nate squirmed.
Nate twisted, trying to rub his erection against Jason’s, but nothing was enough. He tried what had worked for him so far, taking one of Jason’s hands and placing it on his hair. Curling Jason’s fingers around a hank behind his ear and pulling with Jason, pulling harder and harder until Jason was doing most of the work. Then he let go and dug his nails into Jason’s shoulders as Jason yanked his hair and kissed him roughly. He moaned, slamming his hips against Jason’s until his balls tightened.
