Chapter Nine
TEACHER HAPPY hour started at four thirty. By the time the typical party crowd showed up, the remaining stragglers from McCleary were well and truly shitfaced. Nunzio and I were among them, which was a surprise to nobody at all.
The good thing about the outing being at a so-called beer garden in Williamsburg was that it was spacious enough for conversations to be carried out in the brisk October wind, and I was a good distance from the rest of our colleagues. Things were fine until I saw David and Nunzio getting cozy at the bar.
I choked on my beer, causing bubbles to rise in the Viking-style stein that I was holding with both hands. My throat burned in protest, and I gasped a couple of times before setting the stein on the table I’d moved to on the side of the patio. Nunzio had only invited a select group of teachers from McCleary, but they talked about work with a single-minded focus that I couldn’t handle—especially not when Nunzio was playing games.
All of a sudden, Nunzio was leering at David and giving him come-suck-me smiles. Even David had seemed caught off guard by the sudden shift in Nunzio’s behavior and had avoided him for most of the night.
Until now.
An enormous guy with a blond beard and a faux-hawk got in my line of sight, and I had to stop myself from shoving him out of the way. He stood there with his miniature can of PBR and ranted on like a goddamned idiot about being a bona fide zombie survivalist. The conversation was so absurd that I quit eyeballing Nunzio and David to sneer at Mr. Faux-Hawk and his skewer of minisausages. He beamed up at me, oblivious to my hatred, and asked if I watched The Walking Dead.
I shot him my most baleful stare and walked around him to return to my spying. David was close to Nunzio’s side, grinning as they looked at his phone while one of his hands rested on the small of David’s back. The motherfucker was rubbing it, but the movement was so subtle, I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t zeroed in on it with guided-missile precision.
What the hell was wrong with me? What did I care if Nunzio suddenly wanted to bang David? We both hooked up with random people all the time. Why did it matter if his fingers were slipping under the hem of David’s T-shirt? When had I reacted this adversely to the sight of Nunzio about to score?
For the past two decades, I’d watched him suck in scores of guys and had never felt this level of irritation, but I wanted to punch someone in the face at the sight of Mr. Ivy League leaning into Nunzio’s touch.
I could suggest a threesome, but David was off the table for me. There would be no nooky and no helping this poor, confused baby gay cheat on his oblivious premed/lawyer boyfriend.
With that in mind, I decided to inform my best friend of that decision. Just to give him the option of following suit.
A phone rang—the ringtone a blend of pop and dubstep—and David hightailed it like his ass was on fire. He answered and made his way to the entrance of the bar.
I took his place at Nunzio’s side. “Having fun?”
“Why are you standing in the corner and watching us like a creep?”
I grabbed Nunzio’s glass. It looked like cranberry but smelled like vodka, and I confirmed that by draining it. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“So you just stood there?”
“Yeah, why not? I was curious.”
“About what?” The sides of Nunzio’s mouth curled up.
“About your plans. So are you going to smash him all of a sudden?”
“Maybe. He’s a cute kid.”
“I’m just letting you know”—I scanned the row of bottles behind the bar instead of looking at my best friend—“that he’s got a man.”
“Yeah, but I don’t.”
“So where’s your moral compass?”
“I left it in the West Indies with Christopher Columbus.”
I wasn’t going to laugh at Nunzio’s stupid jokes. I refused to humor him no matter how adorable he was when his eyes crinkled at the sides.
“You know, what if it was me? What if I was David’s man and you were helping him to do me dirty?”
It was a weak line of reasoning. I knew it, he knew it, and the bartender with the eight-inch chops hanging off the side of his face most likely knew it. My desperation to keep Nunzio out of David’s pants was so crystal clear that a voice in the back of my head screamed at me to shut up and quit being so pathetic. I was embarrassing myself and the inner part of my psyche that still had a mote of pride. I crushed it mentally and tilted the glass to eat the ice.
“That’s really all you got, Mikey?”
I crunched the ice with my back teeth. “Whatever, Nunzio. I’m just saying—if I was you, I wouldn’t mess with him. He has a man. He’s like a little helpless baby gay who needs guidance and not cocks up his ass every time he gets drunk. Be a better gay guide, sucio.”
Nunzio’s elbows thumped on the top of the bar, and he listed forward, smelling like vodka and cigarettes. I wanted to lean in and inhale him, bury my face in his neck and just breathe. It was a weird urge, but this whole situation was weird. Including the fact that I now found his angular jaw so tempting and the way I kept admiring how his shoulders looked covered in a tight Henley.
“This is what I hate about queer people,” Nunzio said. “They always think you have to be some kind of activist. Why can’t we just not care about shit like everyone else?”
“Because that’s what’s wrong with this country.”
“What are you? My mother?”
“No, because your mother is part of the problem with this country.”
“And those are true facts.” Nunzio laughed, slapping his hand on the bar and so cheerfully drunk that I nearly regretted coming down on him for his life choices—but not if it kept his dick out of David.
“Look—don’t do it. Just leave him alone. Let him figure out his life. Don’t be a scumbag.”
Nunzio sighed through the remaining bursts of chuckles, wiping his face with the back of his hand. The music changed and grew louder, a remix of a song I hated even more with the inclusion of dubstep drops. The bass vibrated so loud that I winced and ducked my head as if we were under siege. I didn’t protest when Nunzio grabbed the front of my shirt to drag me closer so he could be heard.
“But maybe I just don’t want to go home alone?”
“Why not?”
“Maybe I’m lonely.”
“You can go home with me.”
Nunzio dragged his fingers across the bar, tapping a beat until they bumped into my hand. His skin was cold, and I covered the back of his hand with my palm, rubbing in a halfhearted attempt to warm him up.
“Yeah, but what if I need to let off some steam?” He looked down at our hands. “You know?”
Behind us, a cheer went up and filtered in from the patio. I didn’t have to avert my gaze to recognize the voices—Danielle, Charles, Karen, a couple of other teachers from our floor and at some point David had returned. He must have taken a roundabout route along the perimeter of the bar to avoid me and Nunzio, which was smart, since I was almost positive he’d been on the phone with his allegedly ex-boyfriend.
It solidified my own decision to keep off him. At some point the kid would figure out what he wanted, but I had a feeling he wasn’t the type to be satisfied with being passed around like a toy, which would be the case whether he slept with me or Nunzio. He wanted perfection, and not being someone’s top choice didn’t fit that goal.
David’s laugh rang out again, and I almost turned to seek him out in the crowd, but I kept looking at my best friend and the tiny grin playing around his generous mouth.
No, David would never be my or Nunzio’s top choice. Not even for a casual fuck. Not anymore, anyway.
“We can figure something out,” I answered finally.
The grin got wider and Nunzio slid off the barstool. “Bet. Then let’s go.”
WE TOOK two trains to get back to the West Side of Manhattan, and the entire time Nunzio’s gaze was on me. The Medici bedroom eyes were near infamous for those who knew him, but I’d never had them aimed at me other than on that one drunken night.
Since high school he’d always been the playboy, even though I had become sexually active first. I’d gone for whatever I could get as a teenager, but Nunzio had always set his sights on the hottest and the most unattainable. One look into those Sinatra-like baby blues and even the straightest of the hottest jocks or thugs at our school in South Jamaica melted in front of him and wound up with their knees in the air. Everyone I introduced Nunzio to always went on about how fuckable he was but I’d known him for so long I’d never truly understood what they meant until I’d felt his hands and mouth on me.
Was this what other people felt once they’d had Nunzio’s hard, muscular body against them? Did their stomachs go all hollow and fluttery when he pinned them with that filthy eye-fuck? I was hard just from the expression on his face, and I felt like the other straphangers had to know that he was thinking something dirty—about me. About whatever he wanted to happen in the next hour.
Jitters crawled through my body. I licked my lips, overly aware of how warm I was and of the sweat gathering beneath my jacket. When we arrived at our stop, I was grateful.
The station at 50th was deserted when we got off the train. As soon as it took off through the tunnel, rushing by and causing my hair to fly about wildly, Nunzio dropped his backpack and shoved me against one of the columns lining the platform. My heart caught in my throat.
His tongue slid between my parted lips and caressed my own. I dug my hands in the folds of his leather jacket and tried to regain a measure of control.
Everything about him drove me crazy—how good he smelled, how strong he was, the menthol and vodka taste of him, and the way he immobilized me so casually with one arm pinned alongside the column above my head and the other cupping the side of my face.
He knew what he was doing, and he knew what he wanted, and I was just along for the ride.
I peered at him, but all I saw were lashes and delicate eyelids as Nunzio coaxed a response out of me with talented strokes of his hot velvet tongue. He made a sound low in his throat, a soft hum of pleasure, and it cut through my scattered thoughts.
I returned his kiss, intending to make him as breathless and frantic as I was, and released one hand from his jacket to tangle it in his hair. I gripped hard and attacked his mouth. I didn’t resist when he pushed me harder.
Nunzio rocked against me, but the layers of denim made the friction less intense. He hissed in frustration and dropped a hand between us, aggressively pawing at my belt and fly before yanking his own.
“Wait,” I muttered when my jeans loosened and sagged.
He shushed me with his lips, and I heard his zipper slide down. “I just wanna touch it.”
My heartbeat spiked again. I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to get through this. I was too conscious that this was Nunzio playing me like a goddamned symphony and making my dick ache. This was Nunzio turning me into a wreck in an empty subway station in the middle of the night.
I started to say something, but the words dissolved into a hoarse gasp when he stroked both our dicks with slow, measured tugs of his hand. I arched my hips into his touch, using the column for leverage.
My concern about our state of undress, and the faint sound of voices on the other side of the platform, disappeared. Every thought centered on his fingers sliding along the veiny slickness of my dick, and the way he explored the inside of my mouth.
He sucked on my tongue, nursing at it and then released it to nip at my lower lip. My fingers tightened in his hair, a death grip that kept his face close to mine so I could kiss him with bruising force. I didn’t let him pull away, didn’t want to see his knowing smile and hooded eyes. I wanted to taste him without thinking, feel him without seeing, and enjoy the sensation of my body turning inside out with a fierce desire to never let this end.
His hand moved just enough to stimulate, but the intensity of our kiss swelled until my mind was void of everything but him. The sound of his breathless sighs, the feel of his hand releasing my dick to slide upward so he could hold me tighter, our bodies grinding languidly together, and the way we both poured everything into the other until we were raw and undone.
A tremor stole over me, and, finally, I had to pull away. He stared at me wild-eyed and shattered with his lips damp and parted.
“Train coming,” I said, voice scraping out low.
“Oh.” Nunzio fumbled with his pants. “Yeah, okay.” He zipped up around his erection and winced a little.
I did the same, fixing my jeans, and trying to ignore the sharp pang of unsatisfied lust. “You good?”
Nunzio nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
I shifted away from the wide column that had shielded us, but he jerked me back. “Wait a sec,” he muttered and leaned in for one last kiss. He licked in slowly, deliberately, and then traced my swollen lips with his tongue before pulling away.
I stared dumbly and was forced into mobility by the sudden rush of the train hurtling through the tunnel. No one departed from the car nearest to us, but we started walking anyway, acting as though we hadn’t just spent ten minutes kissing on the filthy platform.
I stole glances at him as we strolled toward the staircase, but he looked no different than usual, as if us fooling around was now just a normal part of our friendship.
Maybe it was and I was overreacting, but I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing his every move, like a teenage boy with a crush. Things were better off with my dick in his hand, when I was too distracted to think about the implications of what was happening between us.
“Damn, it’s cold out here.”
I nodded but didn’t feel it. It was after two in the morning, but crowds of people stood in front of restaurants and bars along Eighth Avenue. I nearly asked Nunzio if he wanted to get a drink or go dancing, but got tongue-tied when I noticed his eyes locked on me. It was the first indicator that this was going to veer off into the land of complicated really fast.
We stopped to wait for the light and I shot him a nervous smile.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked.
A flood of taxis rushed by, lights flashing in the darkness and nearly blinding me. I looked away, back down the street and toward a large gay sports-themed bar that had just opened.
“I could go for another drink.”
“We could just pick up some bottles at the liquor store and go to my place.”
“We could pick up another little friend.”
“What do I need someone else for? I got you.”
I turned my head so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. He looked serious and a little annoyed.
“You had fun last time.”
“Mikey, I thought you were cool with this. If I wanted some little twink, I’d have stayed with David. You know?”
“Yeah, but are we seriously just going to your place to screw around?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re such a horndog.”
Nunzio shrugged, unashamed, and snagged my hand. “Come on, gorgeous. It’s so much better when it’s just us. We can just get off and then we can chill. Sex without the song and dance and having to spend a fortune on drinks.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, opting to cross the street when the cars stopped. It was more than a little absurd that I couldn’t bring myself to discuss the situation when I’d just had my tongue in his mouth, but it was different when we were out in the real world.
He didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t pull away, so we wound up walking to his door looking like we were about to go skipping through a field with flowers in our hair. I was momentarily embarrassed when his neighbor ran into us and gave Nunzio a knowing grin.
Once we entered his apartment, déjà vu hit me like a mallet, and I saw myself stumbling into the dark living room on wobbly legs before throwing myself on top of Nunzio as he slept on the sofa. Flashes of wet mouths and soft gasps accosted me, and the memory of my name dripping from Nunzio’s mouth in a sultry groan rang in my ears.
Swallowing, I snuck a glimpse of him in the dark, but he was just a rangy form moving through the apartment before jerking the cord on a lamp. Golden light flooded the room.
Nunzio kicked off his boots. “So what are you in the mood for?”
“Regarding what?”
“Regarding alcohol.” Nunzio shrugged off his leather jacket, then took mine, and threw them over the back of an armchair. “How drunk do you need to be right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“It means whatever you want it to mean, Mikey.” Nunzio dropped onto the couch, extending his legs in front of him and folding his arms behind his head. “How drunk do you need to be for your best friend to rail you?”
There was an implication in there that was wearying. I just shrugged and watched him snag a bottle and two shot glasses from the bar. It was not more than a narrow, beat-up cabinet wedged between the wall and the door leading to his bedroom, but Nunzio had arranged the bottles inside with meticulous precision.
“You cool with vodka?”
“I guess. Especially since you’re trying to imply I need to be drunk to get it on with your ugly ass.”
“Oh, screw you.”
“I’m so serious.”
Nunzio flipped me off and poured two shots. We downed them, and I nearly gagged. It was sweet.
“Ugh.”
“Want me to change it up?”
I smacked my lips, tilting the bottle so I could see the flavor. Coconut.
“It’d be better with some pineapple juice, but it’s fine if we’re going for gayest drinks ever.”
“Shut the hell up.” Nunzio watched me measure out the next set of shots. “So you really never thought about having sex with me?”
“Not really.”
“Seriously?” He threw back the next shot. “What about when we sleep next to each other or whatever? All those times we wound up in the same bed on a trip or even after going out drinking?”
“Nope.”
Nunzio’s brow knitted together. “When we used to pick up guys and spend the whole night wrecking them in the same room?”
“Nope.”
He seemed so disbelieving that I chortled, sliding my shot glass back onto the coffee table. “I’m not joking. I never considered it before we had that threesome with David.”
“That’s messed up.”
“How the hell is that messed up?”
“Because, that makes it seem like you don’t find me attractive or something.” Nunzio jutted his chin at me. “That ain’t what you’re saying, is it?”
It was tempting to say yes and make up some flaws about him, but I just waved him off. “We’ve been friends since I had braces and you had acne. I didn’t see you that way for a long time. You remember how weirded out we both were after kissing in middle school.”
“Uh, yeah, that was before I knew how to use my dick.”
Even while flipping a shot glass between his long fingers, Nunzio’s features were creased in an accusatory glare.
“Are you really that offended?”
“Hell yeah. You’re trying to play me.”
I snickered again. “You need to relax.”
“Who’s not relaxed?” Nunzio put the shot glass on the table with a thunk. “I’m fine. Just wondering where your head is.”
Unconvinced, I spread my hands. “Anything else to this inquisition?”
“Yeah. You said you never thought about it before this summer, so what about after?”
I’d backed myself into a corner with that admission, and the sharklike smile sliding over Nunzio’s face made it obvious he’d clued in to that same detail.
“I thought about it sometimes.”
“What’d you think about?”
A tableau of pornographic stills flitted through my mind like a slideshow on fast forward, but I hesitated to say which one I’d gotten off to for the past three months. Especially since I’d analyzed each one while naked under my ceiling fan and fucking myself with a dildo.
“C’mon,” he cajoled. “I’m curious. If you never considered touching me before that night, there must have been something that stood out. Like for me….” Nunzio raised one broad shoulder, face intent and one hand curling around the edge of the couch cushion. “I kept thinking about you sucking on my fingers and grinding back on me like you wanted my dick.”
“I did.” The words were out before I could stop them, but his eyes were hypnotizing me. “I wanted you in my ass. I thought about you shooting inside me all summer.”
“Yeah?” His voice was so low and husky I barely heard it over a fire truck careening down the street outside.
“Yes. I hardly even let Clive fuck me raw.”
One of his hands dropped to his crotch, squeezing and adjusting his dick. It was an unconscious gesture, but I could see the outline of his cock snaking down the thigh of his jeans. My mouth went dry.
“You like it raw, Mikey?”
“With you I do.”
“Mmm.”
Nunzio slumped down on the sofa, spreading his thighs wide and giving me a better view. The slow slide of his smile and the twitch of his eyebrows were so arrogant that I wanted to laugh him off, but my dick throbbed at the sight, demanding stimulation and diverting all coherent thought to its needs.
I grabbed the vodka and poured another couple of shots. I shoved one in his face and the clear liquid sloshed over the rim and onto my hand. When Nunzio declined to take it, I pushed it to his mouth and forced his head back until his lips parted.
He drained the glass and dropped it on the table before turning his face to lick the spilt vodka off the back of my hand. Nunzio closed his fingers around my arm, kissing up higher until his mouth warmed the inside of my wrist.
“Nunzio, don’t be a weirdo.”
It was meant to be light, a way to laugh him off, but my voice dropped an octave. His only response was to part his lips wider so the warm wetness of his mouth enveloped my skin before he pulled away with a sucking sound.
“Come on, Mikey,” he said. “It’s just us. No one watching. No one’s going to find out.” He shifted so he could straddle me and hold my shoulders against the back of the couch. “Just have fun with me. No one’s gonna know.”
“It’s not that.” I swallowed again, and my eyes slid shut when he dove in, mouth attacking my throat and sucking on the bobbing lump of my Adam’s apple. “Jesus Christ, Nunzio. What’s with you?”
His tongue dragged along the rough stubble on my throat. “Just really horny, and you’re right here. And I haven’t stopped thinking about stretching that ass out since July.”
His hand slid between us, massaging the hard length in my jeans. I groaned.
“I like when you make noise,” Nunzio whispered. He pressed down harder, drawing another gasp out of me. “Sexy motherfucker.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I whispered, arching up.
“I’m speaking facts, son. You have no idea what you do to me.”
I tilted my head back to look up at him, but his face was cast mostly in shadow.
“Nunzio, this is just fucking, right?”
Nunzio’s hips jutted forward, and the movement sent zings of fire spreading through my nervous system, making my toes curl.
He dipped down again and this time his mouth latched onto the side of my neck. The sound that poured from my mouth was uncontainable, but I tried anyway, biting my lower lip.
“Yeah,” he murmured.
I clamped my hands onto his hips, guiding him faster. “You swear?” I gritted, releasing my savaged lip.
“I swear.”
The words were muffled in a flurry of movement. Nunzio slid off my lap and evaded my desperate, grasping hands. With rough, impatient motions, he wrenched me around, undid my belt and fly, and pushed me down with my arms digging into the back of the sofa. The blunt edges of his fingernails dug into my skin when he tugged down my jeans. He let out an annoyed growl when they caught around my boots and tossed them aside before arranging me on the couch so my knees were bent and my ass was sticking out.
The sound of him panting and swearing, so impatient to touch me, to fuck me, caused everything I had been trying to hold back to release in a trickle of precome from the tip of my cock. I pressed my mouth to the microfiber fabric and rocked against the throw pillow that was trapped between my abdomen and the back of the couch.
The fire in my gut threatened to spread, and overtook me until my hand twitched with the need to grab my dick. I gripped the cushion with clawed fingers to prevent jerking off even though the throb was unbearable.
Behind me, I heard the metallic glide of a zipper, the thud of clothes hitting the floor, rustling, and the jingle of keys.
“What—”
Something cold and gooey slid down the cleft of my ass. I recoiled in surprise and hoped that he had lube or lotion in his backpack because using hand sanitizer to slick up wasn’t my idea of a good time.
I planted one foot on the floor for leverage when he splayed me open and rubbed my pucker with the pad of his thumb. My ass clamped up, resisting the sudden intruder. He replaced it with the blunt tip of his cock, and the part of me that was starved for contact—for a hard, thorough pounding—crested. I pushed back on him and bit the sofa’s padding as the sweet burn of him sliding home overshadowed the ache of my cock.
“Yeah,” he uttered, freezing in place once he was fully sheathed in my ass.
Nunzio sucked in deep, shaky breaths while allowing me to adjust to his girth. But I didn’t want to wait.
The feel of him raw and buried balls deep was like a drug. I couldn’t think straight, and I couldn’t react to anything but the unquenching desire to be ridden without any consideration or care.
I took the initiative and flexed my ass around his dick. Nunzio dug his fingers in tighter before slamming me back with a rough pull that descended into a brutal railing. He punched into my ass so hard it seemed he would screw me through the couch.
The constant mash of pressure against my hole made me see stars, and was intensified by my dick grinding along the pillow. It shouldn’t have been enough to make me peak, but I could feel it coming in the way the flames licked up from my balls, spread to my belly, and turned me into a babbling mess.
A mantra of right there and yes filled the room while I clutched the sofa with one hand and reached back to grip his thigh with the other. I tried to guide him faster, but my hand slipped on his sweaty flesh, so I settled for ramming myself back on his cock.
The repeated words lapsed into a series of senseless groans, and the fabric beneath my gaping mouth grew damp from drool. I didn’t care. I had no shame. I didn’t even know who I was anymore, because Nunzio’s gorgeous cock was nailing my prostate over and over until the combination of such sweet precision and the friction of my erection against the pillow caused me to seize up with a strangled shout.
I felt the orgasm approaching, but I wasn’t prepared for the hands-free eruption that led to me shooting all over his sofa with a wild cry. I blanked out in a daze of boneless limbs and tingling nerves, and returned to reality once Nunzio pulled out.
I expected to feel the warm spatter of his jizz on my ass, but Nunzio manhandled me onto my back and splayed my thighs open wide enough for them to burn. He slid back into me and I spread my knees as wide as possible, steadying one foot against the coffee table, and replicated the filthy smile he’d given me earlier that night.
I watched his face flush darker and could tell he was about to bust. I knew it by the way his cock pulsed, the way his fingers tightened hard enough to break capillaries beneath my skin, and from the steady stream of nonsense he guttered out.
“Your ass feels so fucking good.”
I tightened up around his cock, and he tilted his head forward. Sweat dripped down to my chest.
“Yeah—oh fuck, squeeze that dick, Mikey.”
Nunzio’s hips battered my ass. He didn’t try to swallow the rising volume of his voice as I did my best to rip the orgasm out of him. When he came, he filled me deep while moaning my name so beautifully that I had the senseless urge to drag him down and suck his tongue into my mouth.
The delicate arch of his brows winding together and the red, abused curve of his mouth combined to make him look raw and open. His thrusts slowed and he pulled out with a quiet, “God.”
He licked his lips and blinked before clumsily trying to fit us both on the couch without having to unstick himself from my chest. It felt so right that my first instinct was to shove him away, which couldn’t be healthy at all.
“Damn, Mikey. You got me feeling some type of way.”
I bucked my hips, spent dick trapped against his thigh, and ass still holding in the streams of semen he’d shot into me. “What way?”
“Like I could get by pretty well fucking only you and be really okay with that.”
I snaked my hand around his waist and rested it on his ass, squeezing the plump cheek. “Thought this was just about sex.”
“It is. But fucking you is like shooting up, and I don’t think one more time is going to be enough.”
Nunzio skimmed a sluggish kiss to the side of my jaw, flicking out his tongue. I shivered, and he followed it up with a kiss.
“Does that freak you out?”
I shook my head, but truthfully, I didn’t know.