Track 26: Side B

17 Condoms

 

Lincoln

My hands were shaking as I lit the candle beside my bed. I checked my cd player to make sure I put the right cd in, and then I took one last look around my room to make sure it looked perfect.

I was seventeen, and Jace and I had been dating for two years at this point. We’d become experts at getting each other off with our hands and mouths, but I was ready for more. I just hoped Jace was on the same page.

Our parents had gone out together to some party on the other side of the lake, and they likely wouldn’t be home until the wee hours of the morning. I’d decided that morning that no more perfect night would come around anytime soon. I’d gone to the convenience store and bought condoms, lube, and this candle that I was starting to worry might be a bit over the top. Then, I’d showered and made sure I was squeaky clean and ready for this. Even as nerves fluttered in my stomach, I knew this was what I wanted more than anything. Jace already had all my other firsts, and I wanted him to have this too. I wanted him to be my only.

The back door creaked open and my heart leapt into my throat.

“Linc?” Jace called out. I heard the sound of his shoes sliding across the floor as he kicked them off, and the door clicking closed behind him.

“In my bedroom,” I called out with a shaky voice.

I sat down on my bed and held my breath, listening as his footsteps drew closer. Finally, my door let out a quiet groan as Jace pushed it the rest of the way open and he took in the scene in front of him—the flickering candle, the Boyz 2 Men playing from my cd player (I know, cliché much?), and me sitting nervously on the bed in nothing but my boxers.

“Linc?” His eyebrows were scrunched as he tried to add it all up.

I patted the bed beside me, and Jace made his way over to sit down beside me.

“I love you,” I told him, pulling him against me and kissing him urgently. His lips responded to mine with equal passion, moving feverishly against mine. “I want…I want you to…” I panted, trying to come up with the best wording. Fucking sounded so impersonal and not at all right for asking Jace to take my virginity. But making love was too flowery and awkward. Sex sounded too clinical in my mind. Then, as Jace stripped out of his clothes, the right words came to me. “I want you inside me.”

Jace bit down on his bottom lip and smiled, nodding his head fervently. “I thought, um…do you think next time I could bottom?” he asked as I reached under my bed to grab the box of condoms and the bottle of lube.

“If our parents stay out late enough, you can bottom later tonight,” I agree.

I won’t lie and say our first time was perfect…it was awkward as we both tried to figure out exactly where all of our limbs were supposed to go and trying to decide how much prep time and lube were necessary. But when Jace was inside me, and he looked into my eyes and whispered his love for me…yeah, it was actually pretty perfect.

 

 

Jace

The sound of Linc’s parents coming home woke us in the early hours of the morning. His door was closed so we weren’t worried about them catching me in his bed. But if his parents were home, that meant mine would be too, and chances were high my mom was peeking into my room right now and finding my bed empty. It would be okay, she already knew about Linc and me, but I’d hear about it in the morning and how I shouldn’t worry her by staying out all night.

“Don’t go,” he begged, tightening his arms around me when I tried to slip out of bed.

“You know I have to. But you’ll see me again in a few hours when the sun is up.”

“I like you sleeping in my bed. I can’t wait until next year when we graduate; we’ll get a place together and share a bed every night.”

“Really?” I asked, running my fingers down Linc’s nose and over his lips. We’d talked about this at least a dozen times, but I never tired of hearing Linc’s plans for our future.

“Absolutely. It’s me and you against the world, Freckles. We’ll get a place together near campus and you’ll become a brilliant doctor, and we’ll get a dog and live happily ever after.”

“I like it,” I agree.

“It’s you and me forever,” Linc promised, and my heart heard the truth in his words. There was no one else for me but Lincoln, and there never would be.