by M. J. O'Shea
“It’s not snowing right this moment, but it was earlier. It’s pretty, but I’d take the sun and the beach any day.”
“Hey, it was cold here today.”
“Please. What’s cold?”
“Sixty.” Fen heard the grin in his voice. “I had to get my jacket out and everything.”
“Oh God, shut up. It’s negative five hundred here.”
“I bet you’re freezing.”
“Yeah, in bed all by myself and shivering.” Fen couldn’t help being cheesy and a little flirty. They were always like that anyway. Kevin never turned down a chance to participate.
“Aww, I bet you’d be warmer if I was there with you.”
And he didn’t turn it down that time either. It was a little weird with his family and half the people he’d ever known on the other side of his door, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “Yeah, I think I would be too.”
“I miss your skin against me in bed. It’s so soft.”
“Me too.” Fen hadn’t slept well since Thanksgiving.
“Remember that one morning last summer, when you were sleeping and I woke you up with my tongue?”
Fucking hell. Yes, he goddamn remembered. That had been one of the hottest mornings of his whole life. Kevin had kissed his way down Fen’s spine and licked into him, slowly working him open with his tongue and fingers and… fuckfuckfuck.
Fen groaned. “Yeah,” he said a little breathlessly.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I miss all those sounds you make. If I was there with you, we’d have to be so, so quiet, so your family didn’t hear.”
Were they…? It wasn’t something they’d done before, which surprised Fen a bit. They were flirtatious and cute on the phone, but not… well, whatever this was.
“What would you do?”
“Fuck,” Kevin moaned through the phone. Fen palmed his steadily growing erection. Part of him felt so wrong for doing it in his old room, in his parents’ house for fuck’s sake, but Kevin. “I’d start like I did that morning. Kiss your back, all your pale skin and the little freckles, roll you onto your belly and get between your legs and taste you, loosen you up with my tongue before I slid in, just bare skin and tight slickness.”
Fen had to keep from panting. “You’d feel so good.”
“Are you?”
He knew exactly what Kevin meant. “Yeah.” Fen laughed softly. “This is so wrong. There’re so many people here.”
“You wanna stop?”
“No.”
So they didn’t. Not until Fen was a sweaty exhausted mess, flopped on the bed.
“Still cold?” Kevin asked. Fen heard the smirk in his voice.
“Not so much,” he said.
“That was really hot,” Kevin murmured. “Made me want to touch you even more, though.”
“Yeah.” Fen sighed. “Me too.”
HE SLEPT through the night after he hung up with Kevin. Good thing, because the next week and a half were intense. Hectic and fun and crazy and way too many people, but good in a way. He didn’t talk to Kevin much. They exchanged a few texts back and forth, but mainly Fen was with his family, and that was more than fine. Except for the times when his mom-grandma-sister-whoever decided he was way too old to be single and they needed to harass him about it.
“Fenny, there have to be pretty girls in California. Why haven’t you brought one of them home?” First of all, Fen wanted to kill his sister for coining Fenny and saying it in front of Ben. Second, he wanted to strangle her for saying that within hearing distance of his aunt.
“Mellie, darling.” He draped his arms around her shoulders. “None of the girls on the west coast are nearly as good as my beautiful sister. I just get so disappointed any time I try to get close to one of them.”
Mellie pushed him away. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Language!” his mother called from the kitchen. They might be thirty and thirty-four but they could easily get in just as much trouble as they had when they were ten and fourteen.
Fen’s grandmother and aunt wandered over to join the “why is Fen single” conversation. He was single but he didn’t feel like he was, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in looking. For the first time in his life, he felt like he’d already found the person he would want to be not single with. He just knew there was no way he could explain it to his family. It would be a mistake to bring it up, especially in the middle of the holidays with all of his relatives around.
He didn’t want it to be a mistake anymore.
He’d always been an honest guy and he wanted to tell his family about the person he’d met who turned him inside out in the space of nine amazing weeks. But he was scared that they’d treat him differently after they knew that he’d had sex with a man. He wished it didn’t have to come down to sex, but it always seemed to. He remembered when he’d brought Ben out for the summer. They weren’t super offensive about their questions—at least they didn’t think they were—they just didn’t understand it, didn’t get why a man would want to do those things with another man. It wasn’t about love when people objected, but came down to what body parts were doing. That so wasn’t the only thing he and Kevin were about. Maybe it had been at first, but not anymore. Maybe it never had been.
And that was what it came down to. He couldn’t fit in with his family if they didn’t know him anymore, and he also didn’t know how to let them into his life. So, as nice as it had been at times, Fen was pretty relieved to get on a plane and head back to California right before New Year’s Eve. He knew he had some thinking to do.
Chapter 15
SUGARSHACK WAS crowded as hell on New Year’s, more than it had been even the year before. Things felt different for Fen. Last year he’d been happy just to bounce around with their friends, kiss Pinky on the cheek, and gawp at Ben and Rory making out when nobody knew they’d kissed before that night. This year, he watched couples on the dance floor and wanted to be one of them. He wanted his own kiss, but not from some random, sort-of-attractive stranger. He wanted it from Kevin.
When they’d spoken earlier that day, for the first time since that night back at his parents’ place, Kevin had told him he was spending the night at his parents’ place, chaperoning Jani’s party so his parents could go to their own. Fen had laughed and told him not to end up making out with any teenage girls. Kevin had said the girls were safe but there might be a boy or two that he had his eye on. Fen had gagged when Kevin said “hey, they’re all over eighteen,” even if he knew Kevin was kidding. They’d both steered away from the “I wish you were here” conversation. They’d been having it a lot lately and there were only so many times they could say it before the “what do we do about it?” came out. Fen was afraid the answer was the same as always. Nothing.
“HEY, LET’S go get shots.” Ben said, slinging a sweaty arm over Fen’s shoulders and dragging him to the bar. Rory and Pinky had managed to get a booth with Laura Katherine, whom they’d invited before school got out for the holidays. “We haven’t had any alone time in months. I miss my life partner.”
Fen wrapped his arm around Ben’s waist. “I know. You’d better not get all domestic and lame and leave me alone forever. I might have to get a bunch of cats.”
“Like you and Kevin aren’t going to end up together. I give it eight months tops.” Ben scoffed.
“We live nearly six hundred miles apart.”
“You’ll make it work.”
“So you’d be okay if I got a job in San Diego and packed it up and moved?” Fen teased.
“You’d better fucking not! I have five and a half more months, and when I come home, you’d better be here.”
“You and Ro going to move in together officially?” Fen asked. He already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Ben said with a shy smile. “It might seem fast, but we’ve been on our way to this since we were sixteen years old. Maybe even longer. I’m never going to want anyone else.”
“I know.�
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Oddly enough, Fen kinda knew how he felt. He’d managed to make it to thirty without feeling for anyone the way he felt about Kevin. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for marriage, love, and the whole nine yards, but—
Holy hell. Love. He hadn’t thought it, hadn’t even let himself think it, but he… Jesus.
“Dude….”
“Yeah?” Ben turned from where he’d ordered a tray full of shots for everyone.
“I think I’m in love with Kevin. I just….” He didn’t know if it was the vodka he’d already drunk, the streamers, or the romance of the night, but he felt it. And he wanted Kevin there to tell him.
Ben simply gave him a small smile and rubbed his shoulder. “I know, babe.”
ABOUT AN hour and a few more shots later, Fen felt his phone buzz in his pocket. It’s him. There was something weird about talking to Kevin, well, after. After he realized how he felt, after he realized there was no way he was going to say it on the phone, mostly drunk, in a club. But he wanted to talk to him, so he answered the call.
“Hold on, baby, lemme get outside.”
“Baby….” he heard Kevin whisper.
The outside was cold and clear and refreshing after how hot and sticky the club had been. “Okay, I can hear you now.”
Kevin laughed. “Are you drunk?”
“How could you even tell? I spoke perfectly cleverly. Clearly. Okay, yes. I might be a little drunk.”
Kevin chuckled. “I could tell. You having fun?”
“Yessss, the boys say hi. And Pinky and Laura Katherine, even though they don’t know you, they say hi too. Time is it?”
“Only a few minutes till midnight. I just wanted to say have a good time and be safe and Happy New Year. I won’t keep you.”
“No, stay on the phone.” Fen thought he might have whined, but Kevin didn’t hang up, so he considered it successful. “I want to kiss you at midnight. You aren’t kissing anyone are you?”
“Fen, babe, I’m with a bunch of teenagers, remember?”
“No hot jailbait?”
Kevin snorted. “Nah. I seemed to have developed a taste for ginger science teachers anyway.”
“Strawb’ry blond. I’m not a redhead.”
“You keep telling yourself that. What have you guys been doing tonight?”
“Dancing. Ben keeps buying shots. I did a blow job. Or maybe two of them.”
Kevin burst out laughing. “No flaming orgasms?”
Fen had to think about it. “Don’t think so. Maybe we should do that next.”
“Those are practically all sugary shit. You’re gonna be hurting so bad tomorrow.”
“You can come rub my forehead. And my other parts too.” He grinned into the darkness.
“Which other parts?”
“All of them.”
Kevin groaned. “I like you when you’re drunk.”
“I l-like you all the time.” Shit. He almost said it. And that was such a bad, bad, bad idea on the phone and drunk and way too soon, right? It had to be too soon.
Fen heard people counting down in the club. “Hey, it’s almost midnight,” Kevin said softly. Three… two… one… “Happy New Year,” he whispered.
Fen wasn’t sure if his voice sounded wistful or if it was the alcohol clouding his judgment. He didn’t want to get off the phone. He wanted to talk to Kevin the rest of the night. It was probably weird to stand outside in January on the phone when his friends were all in the club, though.
“Happy New Year to you too. I’ll give you a kiss next time I see you.”
“I hope it’s a little more than a kiss.”
“What sort of girl do you take me for?”
“I know exactly what kind of girl you are.” Kevin snickered. “People are probably looking for you.”
On cue, Ben stuck his head out the door of the club. “There you are. We were looking all over for you. You missed it.”
Fen closed his eyes, then opened them and stared at the glowing, starry night. “No, I didn’t.”
He’d been exactly where he wanted to be.
He did say good-bye to Kevin, though, and let Ben drag him back into the club to be sucked into the throng of his sweaty, happy friends on the dance floor. And he had fun. And only missed Kevin a little tiny bit.
WINTER SPED by more quickly than Fen expected. He’d gone back to school dragging his feet, but as usual, the minute classes started and his routine kicked back in, time flew. There was the typical end-of-semester flurry, finals, the beginning of second semester, which always felt like the first day of school all over again—every part of his professional life conspired to keep Fen busy. But he still talked to Kevin every night, nearly, and texted off and on all day. It was like whatever corner they’d turned right before Thanksgiving had changed everything. They never went back to the way things had been in the fall with no phone calls and only sporadic texts. He was in the longest monogamous relationship of his life and they barely saw each other. Still. He was happy.
And amazingly enough, though the physical distance between them never got any smaller, he and Kevin had gotten closer every day. They moaned and groaned about how much they wished they were in the same room with each other. Fen both loved and hated it. He was happy to have Kevin back in his life full time, and he’d take him any way he could get him, but it was frustrating to know things couldn’t really change between them the way things were. Still, Fen looked forward to their nightly calls more than anything in the world, only managed to grin when the guys gave him shit about how glowy and happy he looked, and smiled his way through the end of winter and the first part of spring. He couldn’t seem to help it.
“HI THERE,” Kevin said one early spring night when he’d finally talked Fen into Skyping with him. His face, right there on Fen’s screen, was weird, like he was right there but Fen couldn’t touch him. Still, it felt more immediate than just a voice over the phone. Fen had tried this once before, with Ben and Jeremy, but that didn’t have the same sort of stress of making sure he looked good and didn’t pick his nose or something. It also didn’t come with the same unfair urge to touch. Still. Kevin. Right there.
“Hi.”
Kevin shook his head. “Damn. You look so good. I’d nearly forgotten.”
Fen figured they’d probably be able to see his blush from the moon. “You can’t say stuff like that. I wasn’t prepared for that. Jeez. But you look amazing too.”
“It’s been too long since Thanksgiving.”
Kevin had on a navy blue T-shirt, one of Fen’s favorites. He was paler than he’d been over the summer, maybe even a bit paler than he’d been in November, but his skin was still smooth and golden and beautiful. Fen remembered how soft it had been, how his shirts always smelled so good, how strong his arms were. He shuddered.
They talked for a while, about normal things, Fen’s classes, Kevin’s job, their odd neighbors, and the things they had planned for the weekend. Fen waited for the moment when he got used to Kevin right there, breathing and talking and looking so beautiful on the screen. Didn’t happen.
“Maybe this whole Skype thing was a bad idea,” Fen finally muttered.
“How come?” Fen wondered if he was imagining it, or if Kevin’s voice had gone all gravelly.
“Because I want you, and it’s distracting, and you’re too far away.” He almost couldn’t believe he’d said it. But it was true. It was easier to talk when he couldn’t stare at Kevin and remember every part of how good he felt.
“I know exactly what you mean,” Kevin rubbed at his belly. “I miss touching you. It’s been months.”
Fen was tempted to get in his car and start driving. Just… keep going until he was in Kevin’s bed and there was nothing between them but sweat. He groaned. “You can’t say stuff like that without warning me.”
“Consider this a warning.” A sly grin slipped over his face. “I wish you were here so bad right now. I’d have you naked and inside me in a heartbeat.” Kevin pulled his shirt up a lit
tle and rubbed under it. Fen felt like he was going to start panting. He couldn’t say anything, all he could do was moan. “I love how you feel. Your skin is so soft, and you’re so tight and warm, and I love how it feels when you stretch me out. Fuck, I miss your body. Nobody else ever feels as good as you.”
Fen gr—Wait, what? Nobody else? Kevin had been with other people? Fen felt a quick shot of bile in his throat. All of a sudden he felt like puking. He reached out and slammed his laptop shut.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He felt like a moron. He felt like a moron for assuming that Kevin wouldn’t have been with anyone else, even more like one for getting hurt by it. Yeah, he didn’t want other people, he hadn’t wanted to so much as kiss anyone else since the day he and Kevin had met. It didn’t mean that Kevin felt the same, or even that he should. Fen flopped back on his couch and groaned. Why couldn’t he be cool about this? Like, no big deal, Kevin had slept with other people, it was still hot when they managed to hook up, and he didn’t care that some guy had his hands all over Kevin’s skin. Right? No. So, he wasn’t cool about it or even cool with it. He was hurt, and embarrassed that he was hurt, and he pretty much didn’t know if he could ever talk to Kevin again. Especially after the way he’d just essentially hung up on him, or whatever it was called if you hung your computer up. Fen felt awkward and humiliated, kinda that feeling when the science geek likes the popular girl and then her friends tell him that just because she’s nice and smiles at him doesn’t mean she likes him. Yeah, kinda like that.
Of course his phone rang. Fen wanted to pick up and act like his connection was dropped, or something that would explain why he’d flipped out and shut his computer in the middle of… well, that. But he didn’t. He couldn’t do it. His phone rang a few more times, then silenced before it buzzed with a message.
