My Favorite Sin

by Lina Langley

  He exhales. When he speaks again it’s slow, deliberate. “Fine,” he says. “I’m angry because… oh, fuck it. I’m angry because I’m jealous, okay? There. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  I cock my head and pinch the bridge of my nose. He’s serious, or at least, it sounds like he’s serious. “Why? I’m not going to start paying less attention to you right before I leave because I’m suddenly hooking up with someone,” I say. “In fact, if anything—”

  He laughs, but there’s no humor in his voice, just answer. “Wow, you really don’t get it, do you?”

  “I don’t,” I say, licking my lips. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

  “Fine,” he says. “Then I’m going to spell it out for you very slowly, because you seem to need it direly. I’ve spent years, literally years, respecting the fact that you didn’t want to be in a relationship,” he says. “Because you were going to what, marry Jesus?”

  I blink. “I mean, I wouldn’t put it like that, but…”

  “Then, okay, you call me and you tell me that Montgomery has a crush on you. Montgomery! The guy who has treated you like shit for the last few years,” he says. “The guy that calls you choirboy instead of your name. And you’re thinking about pursuing it.”

  I sigh. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad,” I say. “But wait. What do you mean, you’ve spent all this time respecting me marrying Jesus?”

  “Figure it out,” he says. Then he goes quiet and I’m left staring at the phone, wondering if he’s just hung up on me.

  “Cy?” I ask into my phone. I remove it from my face and look at it. It says the call has ended. He just hung up on me? Just like that? I shake my head. I have no idea what I did wrong, but I’m almost sure it didn’t warrant that reaction.

  I stare at my phone, which is hot in my hands. I don’t know what I did, but I sure as fuck wish I hadn’t done it, because I think I might have put my friendship with Cyrus at risk. Pushing Cyrus away was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I’m going to have to talk to Montgomery and tell him that nothing can happen between us. It might have been tempting, but it’s not worth sacrificing my lifelong friendship for him.

  Montgomery doesn’t have to happen, but I know I need Cyrus in my life.

  CONTINUE

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, there’s a part of me that’s really tempted, because Montgomery is hot.”

  “Right…”

  “And I mean, I think he’d be good in bed,” I say, biting my lower lip. “Is that wrong? Is it wrong that I’ve just said that?”

  “Nah,” he replies. “I think he’d be good in bed, too, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “But you’re a slut,” I say quietly.

  He laughs. “Yeah, and? At least I’m having fun.”

  “That’s a fair point,” I say and close my eyes. I swallow before I speak. “I don’t know, though. Something feels wrong about wanting to hook up with Montgomery. Like… like I would just be doing it for him and not for me?”

  “Right,” he says. “Like you’d be doing it out of pity.”

  I nod. “Yeah, something like that,” I say. “And I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a part of me that thinks that might not be so bad. Like he clearly knows we’re not going to end up together for life, and it would be fun, but I worry it would be… complicated.”

  He snickers. “He’s your roommate,” he says. “Of course it would be complicated.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “So anyway, the answer, I guess, is no. I need to find a way to let him down gently, because the last thing I want to do is make him feel bad for confessing.”

  “He will,” Cyrus says. “Then he’ll lick his wounds a bit and feel better. I mean, things are going to be awkward between you no matter what.”

  I swallow. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he says. “I guess I’m glad he got it off his chest.”

  Cyrus is quiet for a little while. “Do you think he did the right thing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He confessed, you don’t want to pursue it, but you think he feels better,” he says. “But it could change your relationship for good. Even with that, do you think he did the right thing?”

  I lick my teeth. “I suppose,” I say. “Keeping secrets, it hurts people. That’s why confession helps.”

  “Not the absolving of sins part?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, I mean, that helps too,” he says. “But the dumping all your problems on someone who can’t do shit about them, you know, other than spiritually, it’s great. It’s helped me out.”

  He tuts, snickering. “What do you even need me for?”

  “Street cred.”

  He’s quiet again for a little while. I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when he speaks again. “Do you have to be catholic to confess?”

  “You can… I guess not, I mean, you have to be catholic to be absolved of your sins,” I say. “But you can just go and talk to a priest during confession, if you want. I mean, it’s not like he can kick you out.”

  “Right,” he says. “Well, let me know how it goes when you dump Monty…”

  “Cy,” I say. “What’s wrong? You can talk to me. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” he replies. “I do… I’m just… you’re part of my life and I’m worried that what I say now is going to affect our friendship.”

  “I won’t let it,” I say, sitting up. Fuck, I’ve been so selfish, worrying only about what’s going to happen to me, not even thinking about what’s happening with Cyrus. He doesn’t just have to hear all my shift, I’m supposed to be there for him too. “What’s going on, Cy?”

  He’s quiet again. “Can we talk?”

  “We’re talking,” I say. “And you’re worrying me.”

  “No,” he replies. “In person. I’ll come pick you up. You want to go to Annie’s?”

  “For… for coffee?”

  “Yes,” he replies. “For coffee. Ten minutes?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Cy, are you sure you’re okay?”

  I swallow before he answers, my heart beating fast. “I’ll pick you up,” he says. “See you soon.”

  CONTINUE

  I’m pacing around, wondering what the fuck is going to happen when I hear Cyrus’ car pull into the parking lot. I walk out and look at him. When he gets to the door, he looks me up and down and doesn’t say anything. I throw my arms around him before he can, because something is clearly wrong and I’ve been so preoccupied with my shit, I haven’t even noticed it.

  He takes a deep breath and hugs me back, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. He’s taking deep breaths and it seems to me like he’s not trying to cry. I move away from him. “Fuck Annie’s,” I say. “Montgomery isn’t home, we’re going to talk here.”

  “No,” he replies. “It would be better if we did this in public—”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I say. I grab his hand and pull him into the apartment. “Sit down.”

  I drag him toward the living room, then sit him down. He doesn’t seem to be doing much other than letting me navigate him through my apartment. I sit down next to him, furrowing my brow and putting my hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know if I should tell you,” he says.

  “You’re going to have to now.”

  He nods. When he looks at me, his eyes are welling up with tears. “Okay, so… you told me that Montgomery told you about his crush on you and it seemed like you were thinking about pursuing it and I realized I felt like shit about it.”

  I tilt my head as I watch him. I want to ask him if he likes Montgomery, but I don’t know if I should talk right now.

  “And I realized I didn’t want you to,” he says. “Because… that’s why I asked you if it was better that he told you. Because I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.”

  I close my eyes and shake my head. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he says. “I didn’t know if you wanted to
know, but now that you don’t know if you’re going to seminary, I figure I might as well tell you the truth.”

  I blink. “The truth about what?”

  “The truth about me,” he says. “The truth about us.”

  I swallow, my throat dry. My head has started to swim. “Us?”

  “Yes,” he says, his eyes darting toward my face. He’s staring at me, his eyes small. “Us. You and me, Alex.”

  I have no idea what he means. I mean, I have some idea what he means, but the idea that we’re a unit seems preposterous, particularly because he has never mentioned this before.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you—”

  “No,” he holds up his hand to stop me from talking. “Not like that.”

  I swallow. “Cyrus…”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to say anything back. In fact, I would rather you didn’t. I know that you’re leaving and I know that I’m saying this for my benefit rather than yours. And I know, I know I might be fucking things up right before you leave, but you were right. Secrets destroy people. I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”

  He sighs, leans back on the sofa and lets out a deep breath. He blinks a couple of times. It’s like he doesn’t care about what I’m going to say.

  “I… thank you?”

  He laughs, no humor in his voice. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Okay, I’m gonna go.”

  “What? No,” I reply. “You can’t just leave after that.”

  He stands up and looks down at me. “There’s nothing to talk about, Alex,” he says. “I just need some space. You understand, right?”

  I nod, but I don’t know if I understand. I don’t want him to go. I want him to stay and talk to me, so that we can sort something out. I stand up and grab his wrist. “No,” I say. “We need to talk about this.”

  “What is there to talk about?” he asks, a sad smile on his face.

  He’s right. There isn’t much to talk about. I’m going to leave in a couple of weeks and then I’m going to become a priest, so it’s not like we have a future together. But he’s right there, telling me that he loves me, and it would be cruel not to do anything about it. I mean, I’ve thought about it. Cyrus is gorgeous, smart, funny… and my best friend. I’ve never wanted to risk our friendship just because I’ve wanted to have sex with him.

  There are only two choices here. I could kiss Cyrus or I could let him go.

  I pull him toward me and kiss him on the mouth before I can think about it. Fuck the consequences, this is what I want to do. I want to feel the way his lips feel on mine, I want to feel his body near mine.

  Fuck friendship. He’s already thrown it out the window. Everything has already changed and there’s only one thing I can do. I kiss him on the mouth, my eyes closed, my lips on his. He kisses me back at first, his kisses soft and warm, his tongue making its way into my mouth. I put my hand on the back of his head and try to push him closer to me, because I want to get closer, I want to be closer to him.

  But before I can do anything, he moves away from me and his eyes widen. “What the fuck, Alex?”

  I blink. “What?”

  “What are you doing?” he asks, his voice breaking.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I mean, nothing. You said that you loved me, so I…”

  “You kissed me, and you decided that was a good thing?” he asks, shaking his head. His arms are firmly over his chest, his nostrils flaring.

  “I don’t… I thought you loved me,” I say. “I don’t understand why that made you mad.”

  He scoffs. “You’re using me,” he says. “Oh, my God, you’re doing the thing you didn’t want to do with Montgomery.”

  I swallow and pull him close to me again. I kiss him on the lips, this time more hungrily. That seems to have an effect on him, because this time, he kisses me back. I open my mouth and let his tongue slide into it, our tongues wrestling with each other.

  I pull away from him and swallow. “No,” I say. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “It feels like it’s what you’re doing,” he says. “I don’t want you to be your pity fuck, Alex. If you’re just doing this because I told you I loved you, then…”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m doing this because you told me you loved me, yes, because I wouldn’t have done it before. But I want to do this. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

  He sighs. “So this isn’t a pity fuck?”

  “No,” I reply. “It’s not a pity fuck.”

  He closes his eyes. “God, you’re such an asshole,” he says. He pushes me back on the sofa and climbs on top of me, sticking his tongue in my mouth, our kisses sloppy. He’s grinding on top of my cock and I’m hard as fuck. I could come from just having him on my lap like this.

  He leans down and kisses my neck, his breath tickling my skin. He bites down on my skin, hard enough to make me groan. “You made me wait this long,” he says. “You get to fuck me, but only right before you leave?”

  I close my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You should be,” he replies into my ear, then bites my ear again, doing it hard enough to make me groan once more. He moves away from me and looks into my eyes. “What the fuck, Alex?”

  “I love you too,” I say.

  His eyes widen. I thought he would have been excited about this, I thought he would have been happy, but he seems offended instead. He leans close to my face, his eyes ablaze.

  “Fuck you,” he says quietly. He leans into me again, kissing my bottom lip, nibbling on it until it feels like it’s shredded. “I’ve never wanted to punch you as much as I do now.”

  I scrunch up my nose as he moves away from me. “Do it,” I say. “You want to hurt me? Hurt me.”

  He’s staring at me. He moves his hand away from me. I’m sure he’s going to slap me, but before his hand makes contact with my face, he slows down. It’s close enough to make me flinch but it doesn’t hurt, his hand lands softly on my cheek and he strokes my cheek.

  He puts his forehead on mine. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

  He kisses me on the mouth again. I pull away from him. “Do you want to take this to the bedroom?”

  He swallows. He pales, then slowly, very slowly, he nods. I kiss him again, my lips on his, on his chin and his neck and pawing at the collar of his shirt.

  “Come on,” I say. I stand up, his legs still wrapped around him, and I’m carrying him toward my bedroom as I kiss him. He never let’s go, his legs on me, his lips on my own. He only moves away to catch his breath, at least until I push him against the wall and kiss him on the mouth again. “If you want to hurt me, now’s your chance.”

  He’s heavy, but it’s easy to maneuver him into the bedroom. I push him on the bed and get on top of him. I don’t stop kissing him.

  As far as I’m concerned, Cyrus and I could kiss forever and it would be amazing, but I need release. Just kissing him is making my dick throb.

  “I want to fuck you,” I say. “Can I fuck you?”

  He looks at me, his eyes glimmering and a smile playing on his lips. “You’re a top?”

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  “You can fuck me,” he says into my ear, nibbling on it again.

  “Good,” I reply.

  I grab the bottom of his shirt. He raises his arms so I can pull it off him. I kiss him on the mouth, then move down over his skin, which is warm under me. I stop for a second when I see the scars on his chest. I look up at him to find him staring. I kiss his chest, his scars, then move down to kiss his stomach. He’s breathing heavily, his stomach moving up and down as he takes sharp breaths.

  I get to his jeans and start to unzip them. “Lube,” I say as I move his jeans down his legs, scratching his skin as I do it. “It’s in my nightstand.”

  He passes it to me when I’m done with his jeans. Our gazes meet for a second and then he nods slightly. I smile at him. He looks so beautiful like this
, so vulnerable, so very fuckable. I grab my hard dick, slather it with lube, and then look down at Cyrus again. “Are you ready?”

  Cyrus looks at me. “Yes,” he says. He’s still on his back and now he’s lifting up the lower half of his body so that I have easier access to his to him.

  “Do you want—”

  He smirks at me. “You know I don’t have a prostate, right?”

  I smile at him. “I just didn’t want to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  “I want to do this,” I say. I’ve been hesitating, so he extends his arm and grabs my cock, guiding me into him. I feel like I’m going to come the second I’m inside of him, and then he tilts his head back and groans loudly.

  It takes me a second to get my bearings, because this is a lot, and I don’t know how much of it I can take. I lean down so I can kiss him as I thrust into him, his hips moving while I fuck him. We’re staring into each other’s eyes when I realize I’m not going to be able to last much longer, not while he looks like this, not while he feels like this.

  He bites his lower lip and his gaze meets mine. “Are you going to come inside me?”

  “If you want me to. Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” he says. “It’s more than okay.”

  “Cy—”

  “I want you to.”

  He’s quiet and I lean forward to kiss him on the mouth before I start moving faster, fucking him harder, and then I can feel the orgasm building up inside of me as he moans and screams, his body twisting under me, his skin flushing, his fingernails digging into my back and my name on his lips. I can’t feel anything but electrical explosions through my body, my orgasm so intense that I don’t think I can hear or see anything else.

  When I’m done, I roll off Cyrus. I notice that I’m panting. He grabs my hand, our fingers interlacing. I don’t look at him. My mind is racing, and I’m thinking about what I just did, what it means. I know I need to ask him, but a huge part of me is too scared to say anything.

  He doesn’t speak either. He grabs my hand and holds it and the only thing either one of us can hear is our breath filling the room, which smells of sex. I turn to look at him. He’s staring at the ceiling, saying nothing. His breath is still quickened and his chest is moving quickly up and down. “We shouldn’t have done that,” he says quietly.