24
Nick wasn’t all right. He felt frenzied and wild, a river gushing past a crumpled dam. It rolled through him, and for the first time ever, he allowed it.
Dex’s arms around him were the only grounding thing about this room, the whole world, maybe. His ears still rang with all the things he’d never said before, and now that he was saying them he felt nearly empty, hollow in spaces that had been too crowded for too long.
He was so hard. He squirmed in place not to give himself away too soon, but the more they kissed, the harder he got, the less he could stop himself from sidling even closer.
He wondered if he was crushing Dex, but Dex was holding him so tight, Nick couldn’t escape if he wanted to. Not that he would want to. What he did want, or what he could pick out of his myriad wants, was to get more. He wanted more of Dex’s mouth and his tongue and his breath and his skin.
Dex broke them apart. Dex wasn’t pushing him away. Instead, his hands moved until he was caressing Nick’s cheeks, which already felt too hot to bear, and looking at him. Dex’s look, usually warm and attentive, was enflaming.
“Nick.” If Nick had felt undone by the way Dex said his name back in his kitchen that December Sunday, it was nothing compared to now. The consonants sounded so soft on his tongue, the ‘k’ a gentle click of his throat. Nick barely breathed.
The next moment, when Dex brought his thumb up to Nick’s mouth and touched his lower lip, Nick felt his breath stutter back.
Dex’s touch. The way his finger slid gently over Nick’s lip and his eyes followed the movement, hot, sending shiver after shiver down Nick’s back.
“Your mouth.” His finger was gone and replaced by his lips. Nick surrendered to the feel of him. He felt it again, that cleaving in two—before and after. With each kiss, the after drew him deeper and deeper in. He hadn’t ever felt like this before, and he had never known he could.
His heart beat even harder when Dex placed his palm against it over Nick’s shirt. Nick’s hands roamed, touch-hungry, over Dex’s arms and sides and neck. Their breath was hot and damp, electrifying.
It smelled like a kiss.
Nick had always loved kissing. That had been the best part of the physical stuff he and Lena had shared. If everything else made him feel clumsy and awkward, kissing her he could have done for hours. And had.
After a while, it had become a delaying tactic.
With Dex, it was a prelude to everything he could have ever wanted and had no idea how to ask for. But beyond the want and need and the hesitant freedom, Nick couldn’t stop thinking about all those boys Dex had been with, all the ones who’d probably known exactly what to do when Nick had no idea where to even start. So Nick kissed him as best he could, and then, between one moment and the next, closed the distance enough that his erection ground against Dex’s hip.
“Oh fuck.” Dex’s voice ran through Nick like a knife. He shuddered. It was, all of it, so much. It was too much, and he probably should have been stopping, but the crack in Dex’s voice, his breath so hot against Nick’s mouth, and the feel of him, even through layers of fabric, was close to sending Nick over the edge. He didn’t want to stop. Couldn’t.
“Can we—” He didn’t know how to ask for it. He didn’t know what to ask for. He was filled to the brim with too much sensation and not enough thought.
“Yes, God. What do you want, I’ll do—whatever.”
Nick kissed Dex. Ground so hard that they both gasped in just a little bit of pain, but he didn’t know what to say. He felt small and stupid and completely out of control. Dex ran his hands all the way down Nick’s back, setting him alight in the wake of his touch, grabbed Nick’s ass, and pulled him in.
Nick rocked against him. Dex’s hands guided him away, then pulled him back in. Nick squeezed his eyes shut and rocked once more, rolling his hips in a way that felt unbelievably dirty and unbelievably good. He let Dex guide him.
Dex’s touch was hard, nearly painful, but it felt like purchase and allowed him to lose himself in the rhythm. Dex moved his mouth down Nick’s jaw, to the spot that had nearly undone Nick the first time they’d kissed.
Nick gasped. All his bones felt liquefied. Dex sucked. Moved them both faster. Nick tried to stop himself from making noise, tried to contain it, even a little, but then Dex’s harsh breath ghosted over his ear and he murmured, “Just like that, baby, yes. God. So fucking good.” And Nick couldn’t have stopped if his life depended on it.
He rode the wave, rode Dex’s hips, let it wash him so far off shore he may as well have been lost to sea. He didn’t fucking care. He was lost to it, all of it. To Dex, to his truth, to all that had been laid bare in this small, warm room.
He wrapped his arms around Dex’s neck, his dreads dry and a little prickly against his skin, pushed himself even closer, lost the rhythm of it but kept going anyway, and then Dex took hold of his hair, pulled him back, and crushed his mouth against Nick’s. It wasn’t even a kiss. Mouths hungry, tongues seeking and finding filthy contact. Nick’s blood rushed south. He tried to stem the tide, to get enough control not to come, but Dex whispered against his mouth, “You’re close, aren’t you? God, so fucking hot.” Nick shuddered uncontrollably and came.
A murmuration of starlings, this release, like a vast emptying of thought. He trembled in place, but Dex had hold of him and Nick felt, for the first time, like he could fall apart and not hit the ground on impact.
When he came down, he could tell Dex was still hard—and that was a revelation, the sheer physicality of Dex’s want—and Nick tried to give something back. He hid his face in Dex’s neck and snaked his hand down in between them until he felt it. Then he ran his palm all the way down Dex’s erection, felt Dex shudder against him. In the silence where all he could hear was Dex’s breath, Nick worked his palm up and down the hard length.
It felt like—nothing else. If he had allowed himself to think of it before, he would have thought it would be like getting himself off, mechanical and easy. He hadn’t expected to feel that longing tug in his belly, or the way in which his own pulse stuttered under his skin. This was Dex, and Nick was making him feel good.
Spurred on by the way Dex grabbed onto him and let him do this in silence, Nick fitted his fingers against as much of Dex’s dick as he could with denim in the way and worked him faster, pressed against him harder. He licked a stripe up Dex’s neck, bit his earlobe. Tasted the salt of his skin again and again. And then Dex tensed, gasped, and shuddered as he came. Nick felt the heat of it against his hand a moment later, and a lightness stole over him, so fizzy and bright he had to hide his grin in the darkness of Dex’s neck.
They breathed against each other as Dex came down. Dex stroked Nick’s hair and held him. Nick let him.
+
Dex roused them. Kissed the side of Nick’s head, forcing a tiny wave of shivers down his skin, then pulled Nick gently away.
“You all right?”
Nick nodded. The situation in his pants wasn’t too pleasant, but he would endure it tenfold if it meant staying this close to Dex. “I’m good. I mean … really good.”
That was when Dex’s dimples appeared. Nick relaxed at the sight of them, breathed out.
“Yeah?” Dex’s voice was soft and a touch uncertain.
In a fit of courage, Nick placed both thumbs in his dimples. “I love your dimples.”
Dex huffed out a tiny laugh, and Nick watched as he shut his eyes, looking lost in—well, Nick, he supposed. In pleasure. He looked content. He had such pretty eyelashes.
Emboldened, Nick let his hands wander. Touched Dex’s cheeks, then slipped lower, felt his jaw, his neck. A rasp of stubble against his skin. He had no idea that something as simple as stubble would do a thing for him, but it did. He spread his hands and then ran them down to Dex’s collarbones, letting his thumbs stretch out the collar of his T-shirt, exposing more skin. Even though he’d seen Dex shirtless before, his heart still sped up at the idea of being able to see it again. To be allowed to look his fill. He cupped Dex’s shoulders, gave them a bit of a squeeze. Hard but yielding.
He checked that Dex’s eyes were still closed, then ran his hands towards the middle, over Dex’s chest. Across his heart. The room was still around them.
Dex’s breathing changed again. So did his own. He took in air deliberately, followed thought with movement, slipped his hands further down, over the planes of Dex’s abs. This time when he looked at his face, Dex was watching him. No trace of a smile now, and his eyes so dark. Nick didn’t let himself stop.
He ran his fingers down until he could catch the edge of Dex’s shirt and tug it up. Just the smallest bit, exposing a thin strip of skin. He dipped his hands beneath it.
Dex stayed still. Nick felt him tense beneath his touch, but not like he didn’t like it. More like he was trying to stay still for Nick.
Dex’s skin was smooth and warm. Again, a revelation. Not like he’d never touched other people’s skin before, and not like a person’s stomach was some great unknown, but his pulse sped up just from this. He never wanted to stop. He swept his thumbs toward the middle and felt a change in texture and springy curls. He leaned in. He had no direction. He knew now that he had started, he never wanted to stop touching Dex, and Dex was letting him.
So he touched his lips to the rounded edge of a collarbone. Dex was breathing fast and shallow. Nick shut his eyes. Kissed the spot again. Dex’s fingers twitched where they were planted on his hips—and how could he have forgotten that he was being touched too? But he had.
He moved until he could kiss the dip of his throat. In the stillness, he felt Dex drop his head back to give him room. Nick took it all. He licked his neck, kissed the side, sucked on a spot. The frenzy was returning. Not even five minutes after coming, he was filled with heat.
Nick moved his hips and felt the answering fullness of Dex’s cock against his own.
If they were going to do this again, they’d need fewer clothes.
Nick stilled. He wanted Dex naked more than he could remember wanting anything in his whole life, but—that was Dex.
And this was him, in all his gangly, pasty-white, awkward glory.
Dex didn’t give him a chance to question it. He was grabbing Nick’s hair and pulling him into a kiss. No preamble, it was a full fucking kiss, his tongue melting Nick from the inside out. Now they had started again, they weren’t stopping.
Dex plucked at the back of his T-shirt, rucked it up, and Nick broke off the kiss to raise his arms and let Dex do his worst. His T-shirt landed on the other side of the room, but he barely noticed, because Dex touched Nick’s back. His skin was coming alive under Dex’s fingers. He was trembling.
“Fuck, Nick.”
Nick could have sobbed with how good that felt. He leaned back enough to grab fruitlessly at Dex’s T-shirt, but the angle was wrong. “Can we—”
“God, yes, please. Here.”
He grabbed Nick’s bare waist with both hands—Nick nearly buckled—and lifted him up enough that he could get his legs underneath him. Then they were somehow up and scrambling to get Dex’s T-shirt off him.
Dex reached for Nick’s sweatpants and Nick reached for Dex’s jeans, and he knew they were both a mess inside their pants but he didn’t fucking care.
Dex succeeded first, and Nick stilled with his hands on Dex’s zipper, which in itself felt like the most intimate thing he’d ever been permitted to do.
He swallowed hard as Dex nudged him to step out of his sweatpants.
“Oh.”
Dex wasn’t watching his face. Oh God. Was he not enough? He couldn’t figure out Dex’s expression. “What?”
“I thought—you’re intact.”
Nick frowned.
“I mean, you’re Jewish,” Dex said, smiling. “I thought you’d be cut.”
“Oh.” Nick grinned despite himself, like he wasn’t literally on display in front of the person he wanted most in the whole fucking world. “No religion, remember? No religion, no mohel. No mohel, no bris.”
Dex pulled him in and kissed him. “Well. I know just what to do with you.”
He was so fucking hard. He wanted so much. He wanted everything.
“C’mon,” he whispered and tugged on Dex’s zipper. “Now you.”
Dex stepped back and took care of his own situation. Nick watched with wide eyes as he stepped out of his jeans and briefs all in one go.
God. Dex was fucking breathtaking. He looked like a picture. He was everything. Nick’s throat went dry, but he couldn’t stop looking. Dex’s cock was so dark, and so hard.
“Oh, God, is that a tattoo?”
Dex looked unfocused as he glanced down. “Wha— oh, right. Yeah. It’s—it’s stupid, I know.”
It wasn’t. It was beautiful. Black ink curving around his upper thigh in the space where the cut of his hip ran into sparsely haired leg. Three lions, it looked like, two lying down, one standing tall behind them.
“Is that—”
“Pride. I know.” Dex rolled his eyes. “Corny.”
“No, it’s beautiful.” Without thinking, Nick reached out and grazed a finger across it. Dex hissed. Nick splayed his fingers, marveling at his own bravery, and took the final step that separated them. He looked up and wove his free hand under Dex’s dreads, pulled him close. Felt the wetness of their tips licking at their bellies and hips. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
Dex grabbed him around the waist and kissed him. “God. C’mere.” Dex sat and pulled Nick down until they both toppled onto his stripped-down bed, and oh. There was so much skin touching skin. Nick was drowning in the feel of Dex, so close and warm and alive next to him.
It took a while, but they eventually managed to settle the right way on the bed, and when they did, they couldn’t stop kissing. Nick’s hands didn’t know where to land, so he touched Dex everywhere he could reach. His inexperience became a problem when Dex showed every sign that he wanted to move beyond aimless groping and Nick tore his mouth away from Dex’s to try and—he honestly didn’t know what.
Dex latched onto his throat with his lips and teeth, forcing a shuddering gasp from Nick’s mouth and gooseflesh all down his skin.
“God, you’re so—fuck,” Dex said against him, and Nick was probably in a dream, because this felt too fucking good to be real. “What do you want, baby, what can I do?” Dex talked as he moved, his lips barely touching Nick’s skin and still forcing endless shivers from him. Hot breath, hard teeth, soft tongue, and Nick was losing his mind just from the endearment alone.
“I don’t—”
He could barely think, much less talk, much less know what to even ask for. With Lena, it had been a sort of done deal every time. Some touching to start off with, but mostly it was just … sex. And then a vast emptiness for a long moment after, filling him up with postorgasmic sadness that felt absolute. Like he was broken inside.
He realized with a belated clarity that he hadn’t gotten the same flooding sadness in his chest after coming with Dex. He’d simply felt good.
Dex moved further south, interrupting Nick’s thoughts. Dex moved until it was no longer a question of what he was doing. His dreads spilled messily against Nick’s belly, and Nick swallowed, watched helplessly as Dex wrapped one hand around Nick’s waist and pulled back the foreskin with his free hand and licked the tip of Nick’s dick.
Nick’s neck arched. It wasn’t—he wasn’t—fuck.
“God, you’re so wet.” Dex’s breath ghosted over the sensitive skin, and Nick squeezed his eyes shut in a panic, tried to think of anything that wasn’t Dex’s mouth a breath away from his cock, because he was liable to come before Dex even got his lips around him. Nothing, absolutely nothing was coming to mind, so he reached down and squeezed the base of his dick in an attempt to stem the tide. His heart was going to burst.
He heard Dex mutter a curse under his breath.
“I’m sorry, I just—” Jesus. He was gonna die of embarrassment.
“Are you fucking kidding me? That is so fucking hot. Nick.”
Nick had no words for him, because the next moment, Dex wrapped his lips around him and went down. Nick bit his own wrist. He still had a grip on the base, and so he felt the movement of Dex’s jaw against his wrist, the swallow of his throat. His skin came alive where Dex’s dreads caressed it, and his spine arched off the bed from trying not to come.
Dex was amazing. Nick had gotten blow jobs before, hell, he’d even gone down on Lena, but it wasn’t—it hadn’t ever been this ownership. Because that’s what it felt like. Dex owned what he was doing, with his whole body and heart, and with that, he owned Nick. For just this moment in time, he had Nick’s pleasure in his hands and his mouth, and Nick felt it overwhelming him as he lost himself to sensation. So tight, so wet, so hot.
Then Dex pulled away and wrestled Nick’s thighs apart enough to settle in between, splaying him, putting Nick on show, and before Nick could do a thing about it, went back down. Nick cried out. He felt so fucking wanton with his thighs spread by Dex’s shoulders, completely at his mercy, trying not to thrust up but failing. And Dex wasn’t playing around. He wasn’t taking his time about it, he was laser-focused and so fucking good, Nick could no longer hold back.
He let go of his dick and patted Dex’s hair, babbled, “Gonna—gonna come,” and finally, Dex pulled up. But it was just enough that when Nick shuddered, tensed, and came, Dex had the head in his mouth and looked at Nick. If Nick could get hard again, he would have in that very moment. Dex owned him, all right. It felt as if he came forever, pulse after shuddering pulse until he was run dry.
Done, he fell back and tried to get control of his breath.
Dex finally let go with a dirty popping noise that made Nick’s bones quiver, and Nick felt him drop onto the bed next to him.
Nick drifted somewhere around the ceiling, vaguely groping for the familiar sadness of posteuphoria, but all he found was the awareness of Dex lying beside him. He managed to raise himself up on his elbows, and when he looked down, Dex had his dick in a grip, hand not moving.
“Come here,” Nick whispered.
Dex looked tense and beautiful, sprawled naked on Nick’s bed, watching Nick like he was all he wanted to watch forever. There was a trace of Nick’s come at the corner of his mouth.
Giddiness welled up in Nick’s belly. He reached out a hand and said, “Let me.”
Dex moved up until they were lying face to face, and Nick kissed him, tonguing that bit of come from Dex’s lips. Dex shuddered, opened his mouth. Nick tasted himself on Dex’s tongue. He went slow, swallowing Dex’s gasps. Dex was so generous with them. Nick drank him in, inhaled him, and it was—everything.
“I can’t—yet.” Nick fought through embarrassment. “But I want to—”
“Anything. Just touch me, anything, please.” His breath ghosted against Nick’s mouth. Without thinking, Nick kissed him again, bit his chin, reached for his dick.
The next moments were filled with their ragged breathing and the sounds of Nick’s hand learning the feel of Dex. Nick wasn’t getting hard anytime soon, but he was so turned on, so tuned in. Everywhere he touched Dex felt like a relearning of himself.
Where his fingers gripped Dex, he felt an awakening of every bone and tendon and skin that did it. Dex’s cock was like silk to his touch, the thickness of it different from his own, and God, so much more. Dex was still, but his shallow breathing was giving him away. His mouth hung open, shiny, hint of pink tongue behind his teeth.
Nick sidled closer, sped up his hand to a rhythm he could control. He didn’t want to blink for fear of missing anything. He was rewarded with a ragged moan, a thrust of hips. He wanted Dex to move, to lose control the way Nick had, so he grew bolder. On the upstroke, he cupped his hand around the tip, deliberately slid it down so he exposed the head, spread the moisture he found there, and Dex hissed through his teeth, eyes squeezed shut.
Hand beginning to cramp, Nick went on, just a little faster, a little harder, a little slicker.
“God, yeah, just like that.” Dex’s voice was grit and sand. Nick hid his face in the crook of Dex’s neck, which smelled so good. Smelled like the both of them.
Dex stopped being still.
He thrashed against Nick, hips pumping, belly pressed up hard against Nick’s hand. They were so close.
Dex was so close.
Nick squashed the urge to slide down the bed and reciprocate the blow job. His mouth flooded at the thought, but he’d just mess it all up, and Dex was getting closer. The thought wouldn’t leave him alone, though, so he did the next best thing he could think of and put his mouth back to work on Dex’s neck. Dex made a strangled noise and flopped backward, giving Nick the unexpected freedom to roll over him and continue working him just like that. Dex laid out on his sheets, struggling to breathe, hips pumping, and Nick with the newfound freedom of pinning him there and watching his face.
It didn’t last long after that. They panted together in the silence of the room until Dex’s voice broke and he tensed up—so, so hard—then shuddered beneath Nick for a wild moment as he came. Nick worked him through it, couldn’t seem to let go, because he felt and looked so good, but eventually Dex pushed his hand away. It was gentle, and Nick barely had time to feel stupid because the next moment, Dex tangled their fingers together and pulled until Nick landed on his chest.
“Fuck. That was one hell of a hand job, man.” There was laughter in his voice, and Nick hid his smile against Dex’s chest. He felt a kiss on top of his head just as Dex squeezed him harder from all sides. “Well worth waiting for.”
Nick, still smiling like an idiot, bravely settled his thigh on top of Dex’s. “You were waiting for it?”
“Babe, you’ve no idea.”
Despite himself, Nick lifted his head enough to catch Dex’s eye. “How long?”
“You really haven’t got any idea, do you?”
His face grew serious. He ran his fingers through Nick’s bangs, pushing the wet curls off his forehead. Nick followed every movement as if from outside of himself. He was both sluggish and completely, utterly aware. The duality of it all was threatening to upend him. He welcomed it.
“So pretty. You’ve been sort of driving me mad for months now. Months. If you don’t believe me, just ask Izzy.”
“Izzy knows?”
“Mate, Izzy knows everything. Well, most things. Hell, she knew about you, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.” They reeked. Nick inhaled, reveled in it. Both of them had done this. Made this thing happen between them.
And Nick hadn’t chickened out.
His reward was this. Dex, content beneath him. Dex, running a slow hand down Nick’s back, soft and electrifying, and like it was something he did every day. Dex, welcoming Nick against him, showing him everything he was made of. So beautiful and open and—and wanting Nick.
Nick smiled and drifted off.
+
He woke up to a dark room, huddled against the wall. Not where he’d fallen asleep. Startled, he sat up and nearly elbowed Dex, who was awake and lit up by the glowing screen of his phone.
“Hey,” Dex said as soon as he saw Nick.
He lay back down, careful, unsure how much of Nick Dex wanted covering him. Dex switched off his phone, threw it aimlessly over the side of the bed, and turned over so they were facing each other. He reached for Nick and Nick reached for him, and then they were kissing.
Nick had beard burn. His chin pricked against Dex’s, just the smallest bit of pain in all the pleasure, and his lips felt just a little sore. He was filthy, too, he could tell. A bit crusty, definitely sweaty.
He inhaled through the kiss.
So was Dex.
He smelled so good. No hint of anything but Dex—his skin, his sweat, his come, his breath. They kissed until Dex had Nick pinned beneath him, his cock hardening against the groove of Nick’s hip, his hands tunneling through Nick’s hair. Nick wrapped his leg around Dex. It felt like a place out of time, this silent darkness around them. Nick never wanted it to end. He ran his hands down Dex’s back, learned every shift of muscle, every bump of his spine. Each movement turned him to liquid. He went lower until they were rocking against each other with Nick’s fingers digging marks into Dex’s ass. God, he was perfect. He felt perfect. Everything felt perfect.
They came one after the other, mouths open on silent gasps. Nick was pinned by Dex, and Dex was heavy. Solid.
This time, they managed to clean themselves up, Dex sacrificing his shirt to the cause. Dex climbed off the bed and padded to the bathroom. Nick wished the light were still on so he could watch him in motion. Dex didn’t close the door, and Nick listened, half amused, half embarrassed, while Dex peed. That, too, felt intimate. Maybe a bit too intimate. Nick squirmed on the bed, pulled the sheet over himself, and waited.
When Dex climbed back into bed, they just lay there, staring at each other in the dark, tiny grins barely visible. This high up, the streetlights didn’t really reach, so all the illumination seemed to come from the moving haze of London, like a shifting, glowing sky blanket stretching out from below.
“You couldn’t sleep?” Nick whispered.
“I slept a bit. But then my phone went off. Forgot to set it to silent.”
Nick wanted to ask if it was anything important but decided it was probably not for him to know.
“And couldn’t really sleep after that.”
“How come?”
“Thinking.”
The dark really did give Nick courage. “About what?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
A rustle as Dex reached out and tugged a stray curl away from Nick’s forehead. The touch was light, but Nick shivered anyway. “Dunno, just—this.”
“This?”
A silence. “Yeah. This. I guess I’m just … happy.”
A flutter of wings in Nick’s belly. He reached up and touched Dex’s hand where it still rested against Nick’s hair. He curled his fingers around it, tugged it until he could touch his lips to Dex’s palm.
“And I was thinking about what you said earlier.”
“Which part?”
“About how you felt like you weren’t supposed to exist.”
He still couldn’t believe he’d blown up like that, but it had felt … good. Like a tiny door inside his chest opened and let some of the pressure out.
“And in a way, I know that feeling.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You never really see queer black kids portrayed much, either.”
Nick thought about it. He wasn’t sure what it was like in England. He only knew Michigan, really. America. “But … you’re so.” He didn’t know how to end that thought. Confident. Yourself. All the time. “You seem so comfortable.”
“I know. Wasn’t always like that.”
“I can’t even imagine that.”
“I hadn’t really … thought about it for years.”
Nick waited as Dex struggled to find words of his own.
“Man, I—maybe—fuck, sorry.”
Nick’s heart was beating fast, thump-thump-thump. In the meantime, Dex dropped Nick’s hand and ran his fingers over his dreads. Nick thought he saw them trembling.
“Fuck, I’m tired,” Dex whispered. “Okay, so … basically, my family are great, right? I love them. I knew I was gay really fucking early.”
“When?” Nick whispered.
“Like … eight, maybe? Nine?”
Nick couldn’t begin to imagine that. “How?”
Dex shrugged. “I just did. I can’t really explain it. It was part of me. Just like anything else.”
Nick couldn’t say anything to that, so he just waited.
“And I was fucking scared. ’Cos I didn’t know anyone else like that. Growing up, we lived in … well, definitely not where my parents live now. Birmingham was totally different, working-class and all that. There were black families around us, and brown families, and it wasn’t easy, but it was, you know. Fine. Good. My parents had good jobs, we were totally fine. Al was just a baby, or toddler, I guess, and it was good.”
“And then?”
“Dunno. I was a bit of a loner as a kid, to be honest. A real nerd.” Even in the dark, Nick must have been easy to read, because Dex laughed and raised a palm. “Swear to God. Proper Star Trek–watching and science geek. Don’t believe me, ask Alex, man.”
“Did you guys know each other?”
“Nah, we met at uni, but he’s seen it all by now. He’s quite the nerd himself.”
A part of Nick squirmed in not a bit of resentment. He hadn’t known that. He didn’t know so much about Dex. But, of course, that was how he operated. Sit back and don’t ask questions. Don’t make yourself known. He never learned to be an actual friend.
Dex laced their fingers together as he spoke, and Nick memorized every touch, took in every word. “Anyway, I just—I knew that gay kids got the crap beaten out of them, heard enough queer jokes to last me a fucking lifetime.”
“Did anyone ever mess with you?”
“Yeah, a bit. Luckily, my growth spurt came early.”
There were some days when Dex seemed invincible to him. He was probably just over six feet, but he felt like a mountain of intimidation to Nick’s five eight. He always took up room as if it belonged to him. It was hard to imagine him ever being small.
“And then what?”
“Then I guess it wasn’t a good idea to continue calling the big black kid a fucking queer if you didn’t want consequences.” Dex’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Parents sent me to counseling once, though.”
“What—why?”
“Well … I came out to them sort of … dramatically.”
“How?”
“I came home one day with a gay porn magazine practically sticking out of my bag.”
Nick let out a sound like a croak.
“I’d sort of been trying to figure out how to tell them. I mean, I was thirteen, so I felt, you know, like a man. Rawr, my balls have dropped, I’m wanking off left right and center, so I must be brave and all that rot. Can’t live a lie, right?”
Nick swallowed.
“But I realized I couldn’t actually say it to them in words. So much for being a man. So I let my mum take my homework out of my bag, and dad was there, too. So was Al, by the way—he got an eyeful that day. An earful, too.”
“Were they mad?”
“Yeah, I mean—no. They weren’t happy. They wished I’d used my words, instead, and had at least made sure Al hadn’t been in the room.” They were palm to palm. Dex drew his hand up, and Nick’s followed like it was glued to it. “But in the end, they made their peace with it. Not the Al part, mind you. I got grounded for that stunt. But they pulled through.”
“And the therapy?”
“To make sure I was doing all right. I was. I guess. All right. But—” He broke off, made a frustrated sound. “I’m sorry, it’s stupid … here I’ve been all. I dunno. Ragging on Al and wailing on you, but I sort of … forgot, I guess.”
“Forgot what?”
The air between them felt thick, charged. He didn’t know that was possible when just talking, but … this felt like more than just talking.
“What it felt like to feel so alone. So different. Because my family’s … we’re different just in who we are, or, like. That’s what white people think.”
“How?” Nick suppressed the desire to squirm. Was he one of those white people?
It was impossible to tell what Dex was thinking. “Being black is different for everyone. But my dad’s family has been here for centuries. Like, genuinely, he can trace them back to the seventeen hundreds, but … he still gets asked where he’s from.”
Nick’s heart pounded in his chest. Thump. Thump. Thump. Dex was staring at the ceiling.
“Because people don’t believe that we’re British, you see. Fuck’s sake, he’s called Michael Cartwell, it’s not like—anyway, a lot of the other families we knew growing up were immigrants. From Ghana, from Trinidad, Nigeria … all over. So I guess it’s normal I got asked where my parents were from, but it fucking—I hated having to say it each time. Brum. Like, where the fuck do you think we’re from, the same bloody place as you, innit?”
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
“Nobody thought we were supposed to exist, either. And they saw us, every day, but on telly and everything, you just kept seeing segments on fucking … immigration this and that, and so much of the time, it was mostly dark faces. I know it’s all exploitative crap, but it sticks with you, doesn’t it? My dad’s a fucking accountant in a lucrative firm, my mum’s a head nurse, but we’re still seen as outsiders, I suppose. Because we don’t fit into their little narrative of who we should be.”
His voice had risen enough that Nick forced himself to stay still and not flinch, because raised voices always scared him, but Dex never had. Maybe at first. Now there was nothing separating them but air, and the only thing Nick flinched at was what Dex had unspooled before him. He thought back to when they first met. Had he been surprised that Dex was a biochem major? Yes, a tiny, vicious voice inside him said. Yes. You were.
He knew he had to say something, something to let Dex know that he was listening. Listening with his whole entire being. Nothing came to mind that sounded right, though. I’m sorry was pathetic, even he knew better than that. You’re so fucking brave was even worse. I wish I had your strength was equally bad.
In the end, it was Dex who lifted his head off their shared pillow and asked, “You all right? Was that … was that too much?”
Nick screwed up his courage, tried to line up proper words. They refused to marshal themselves into obedience, so what came out was, “I didn’t … I didn’t know.”
Which was the stupidest of all. Dex had said something to him once. He had pointed at himself and let Nick know he knew exactly what it was like to feel different. Black. But if difference curdled into fear and humiliation in Nick, it seemed to blossom into confidence and strength in Dex. Nick hadn’t known because Dex had never shown it. But here he was, naked in Nick’s bed, laying it out in stark works, and all Nick could think was, How do you do it? I could never—will never—be as brave as you.
Before Dex could say anything in response, Nick rose up on his elbow. He felt his entire body flush as he said, “I mean, I knew intellectually, obviously, but you’re—you never—” He swallowed. “I guess you never show it.”
Dex was quiet for some time. Nick became aware of the prickling of shame all down his spine. How quickly could he ruin a beautiful thing? Or for how much longer could he hide the truth of his own cowardice and cluelessness from Dex, and how had he even managed to do it for this long? In fact, how was Dex even here? Nick had had an emotional fucking breakdown and spilled beer down his own duvet, but Dex had held him, and had stayed, and called him pretty. Had kissed him. Was … was telling him things that felt so private, Nick could only hear them in the dark.
“I guess I was just always annoyed,” Dex said. “Annoyed and a bit angry. I guess I translated that into not giving a fuck after a while.”
“And do you?”
“I do. I give a lot of fucks,” Dex said, a flash of white teeth in the dark. His fingers were threaded through Nick’s curls, a heavy, comforting weight. “But I only give fucks I’m willing to give, if that makes sense. I know who I am, I’ve known it all my life, but … it took me a while to be all right with that, so I guess once I did, I managed.” He ran his fingers down until they were warming the skin of Nick’s nape and treading the dip of his spine. Nick shivered. “I liked how it felt to be me. So I made myself forget how it had been before.”
Nick took that in. Could he possibly ever come close to feeling like that? He didn’t think so. Nick wasn’t Dex. Dex, who took all that life had thrown at him and made himself powerful with it. Nick had let his own troubles pelt him into cringing submission.
He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t ruin the moment, so he took the cue from Dex and ran his own hands down Dex’s body. He started with the spot over his heartbeat, his hand pale against the expanse of Dex’s chest. Then he let his fingers wander over the dips and bumps of Dex’s abs, not washboard but hinting at the strength beneath. Dex was rounded, beautiful, warm. When Nick’s palm reached the fuzziness below his navel, Dex scooted closer, took in a hissing breath.
Nick felt the heat of Dex’s touch progress all the way down to his ass and shuddered. With some force, he willed all his other thoughts away, filed them away for after, after, after. Please, let him think about it after.
“Yeah,” Dex breathed against him. “Fuck talking.” Dex grinned and closed the distance between them.