Chapter THIRTEEN

 

 

David

 

FROM OUR very first meeting, I’d wanted Caleb to like me. Not simply to want me, but to actually like me as a person. I’d wanted him to understand and respect my goals. Maybe even admire them. I’d wanted him to think I was special enough to deserve his attention.

Everything about Caleb’s polished exterior and poise screamed sophistication. It screamed success. He was someone who mattered, and he was making it in New York City. He was also completely out in his personal and professional life, and he’d come out knowing he wouldn’t have the approval of his wealthy family. He was everything I’d aspired to be. I’d just known that if Caleb liked me, and if I was with him, it would mean I was headed in the right direction. It would mean… things were okay. I was okay.

But they weren’t, and I wasn’t, and he hadn’t been right for me. We hadn’t been right for each other.

“You look more upset than I am, sweetheart.”

I hated it when he called me sweetheart.

“Will you come sit by me?”

I hated it when he addressed me in that patronizing tone.

“David?”

And I hated how impatient he was when I didn’t respond or react within the first few seconds of him speaking. Never any time to think, or to consider my words, or to just lapse into a silence without it being a big deal. Caleb liked having things when he wanted to have them, and he didn’t like waiting. I wondered if it was a New Yorker thing or just an alpha thing, but it grated on my nerves. Sometimes I wanted to be moody and quiet, and sometimes I didn’t want to have to explain why that was. And I hated feeling like I was explaining my feelings to someone who would inevitably nod, smile, and proceed to give me unsolicited advice in that tone.

“David, what’s wrong?”

Sighing, I threaded my hand through my hair. “I’m worried about Raymond.”

It wasn’t what Caleb had expected to hear, but I only knew that because of the way his lips pursed. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. We got in an—he left after my parents.”

Caleb looked at me evenly. “You got in a what?”

Damn me and my big mouth. Raymond asked me time and time again not to blab about what happened between us, but I couldn’t help myself. The words came flying out no matter what I did. And Caleb wasn’t the type to let it slide.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

At that, surprise washed over Caleb, and for the first time he didn’t push. We stared at each other until he looked away, focusing instead on a small, framed picture of Raymond, Michael, and their mom, which sat on the side table. I’d found it in one of Raymond’s boxes along with her memorial card from the funeral home. It had been crammed inside an old, worn Bible. On a different page, I’d found the memorial card for his father. It had an image of St. Jude on it, the patron saint of lost causes. Raymond had chosen it.

After finding the Bible and other pictures of them as children, I’d cried for an hour. I’d been mortified when he found me sitting that way in the middle of the floor with the box open beside me. I couldn’t even think about losing both my parents so close together, and I couldn’t imagine how he must feel, let alone actually feeling it. I’d tried to explain this to him while blubbering, expected and pleaded for ridicule just to distract myself, but he’d kissed my forehead and let me sniffle into his shirt while rubbing my back.

God.

He was so sweet and good and generous.

I hated myself.

“Are you sleeping with him?”

Rubbing at my eyes with the heel of my hand, I said, “No.”

“Are you sure? He’s your type.”

I dropped my hand and balled it into a fist. “Don’t start, Caleb.”

“I’m making an observation,” Caleb said. “Wasn’t the boy you sexted on Grindr also tall and muscular? Rough around the edges? And then there was the time you started talking to that Italian firefighter from Staten Island…. He had a mouth on him too.”

“Do. Not. Go there.”

“Where am I going?” Caleb spread his hands. There was not one emotion visible on his face. “Every time you want to have a fun, sexy fling, you go for the same type. Devastatingly hot, tough, angry about something, maybe someone you can shepherd in some way….”

“I said stop. Please don’t do this right now.”

“Why? Am I wrong?”

I jumped to my feet and jabbed a finger at him. “Yes, you are wrong. You are so wrong about everything you just said, and the worst part is that you don’t even see how condescending and haughty and horrible you’re being. You might as well say I’m sowing my wild oats and slumming it.” At his slight smile, I nearly launched myself across the room and punched him in the face. The worst part was that he didn’t seem to care if his mocking smile was a trigger to my temper. “Raymond isn’t some hobby project I’m trying to take on to fix up. He is not a fetish. He’s… just….”

“What?” Caleb rose from his elegant pose and crossed the room to watch me lose my cool. “What is he to you?”

I wiped my eyes again and took a large, shaking breath. “I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Why? You said we’re friends now.”

“Because you’re enjoying it,” I said fiercely. “And don’t say you’re not. You’re enjoying me being hurt because I hurt you.”

“Is that wrong?” Caleb waited for me to speak and sighed when I refused. “I gave you two years of my life. Years that could have been spent finding someone who actually wanted to be with me. And you don’t give a damn.”

“I did want to be with you. But it didn’t work out.”

The words were hollow even in my own ears. Weak and shallow, not a good enough explanation as to why I’d thrown away the love of someone I admired so much.

“It could have worked.” Caleb always said the same thing, and his conviction was as fierce as it had been a year ago. Back when we’d been on a break that had resulted in me getting wasted and fucking my way through Lower Manhattan. “It should have worked, but your head is so full of a fantasy that you can’t see anything else.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, Caleb. That’s part of the problem.”

“No, the problem is that you think everything is a romance novel,” Caleb said with contempt. Cracks appeared in the smooth visage of his countenance; the glitter of frustration that preceded him ripping into me. “What was it you said? We didn’t have any chemistry? Maybe not. Maybe I didn’t give you what you needed in some ways—”

“I never said that!”

“You didn’t have to say it,” Caleb said coldly. “Why else would you go looking for it somewhere else?”

Shame crept into me, eating away at the last remnants of my self-control. I turned away, hating him for breaking me when I was already so frayed, and hating myself for hurting everyone who cared about me.

“Why do you still want to be with me?” I asked. “If you can’t forgive me?”

“Because I love you even though you don’t love me.”

I shook my head, but I didn’t say anything else. I knew how the conversation would go, and I couldn’t deal with it right now.

“David, I’m sorry. I didn’t come here for this.” He stood close behind me, hovering but not touching. “You were kind to spend time with me when I feel so lost, but I’m a big boy. I’ll find another job. I’ll make it work even though I’m starting to feel like I have no idea where to start.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “You’ll succeed no matter what.”

“Thank you.” Caleb patted my shoulder. It was awkward, stilted. I don’t know if he wanted to comfort me or if he just felt obligated. “I’ll go.”

“No.” One look out the window was all it took to realize that was a bad idea. It was windy, several inches of snow had already built up, and the mayor had shut down the MTA and ordered people off the roads. “Just stay here until the storm calms.”

Caleb didn’t disagree, and time staggered by.

I was quiet, but Caleb spoke about his jobs, his plans, and the conversation slowly circled back to his obvious confusion about what to do with his life. His family was wealthy enough that he didn’t have to work, but he did because he wanted to. I’d always respected him for that, but I didn’t know what to say while I was so distracted with thoughts of Raymond. All I did was nod and listen.

It got late, and I went to my room feeling wrung out and exhausted. I didn’t stop him when he followed, and I didn’t suggest he sleep in the living room when he stretched out on my bed beside me. I knew he wouldn’t touch me. He barely had when we’d been together.

Caleb fell asleep, breathing deeply as the wind howled outside, and I watched the snow rush down from a black, unforgiving sky. I wondered where Raymond was, whether he would come home, and counted the regrets I’d managed to accrue with disturbing consistency in only a year’s time. My handling of the situation with Caleb would always be my biggest regret, and I could never explain exactly why I had behaved the way I had. There were so many ways to explain the death of our relationship, but the words were never good enough for him.

We’d tried to make it work for two years, but I’d foreseen the failure after the first. I’d tried many times to end things before it had gone completely to shit, but I’d allowed him to talk me into staying after every conversation. He would weigh the pros and cons, dissect every issue we had and make a game plan for change, and I’d walk away defeated, thinking I owed it to him to fight. If he was willing to make it last, why wasn’t I?

Anyone else would think he was perfect. That I didn’t was clearly a character flaw of mine. It was my fault for not being happy. It was my fault for expecting too much from my first adult relationship. Life wasn’t always fun, and sex wasn’t always fireworks and explosions, craving each other and needing it so badly you visualized your partner throughout the day. That was always his implication, and I’d accepted it every time.

I’d forced myself to fake being happy and content, and it had worked until last summer. He’d gone away on business for an entire month, and I’d broken down and had gone seeking what I’d hungered for, for two years. Things had crashed into a fiery pit the moment I’d realized I could get what I needed… somewhere else. From someone else. But still… I’d let him convince me to keep trying, to keep working, because I cared for him even if it wasn’t romantic anymore. And now, as we lay next to each other and I stared at the clock, I wondered if that very thing would ever happen with Raymond.

Was he off getting what he needed from someone else? Would that person realize how special he was, the way I had, and pursue him the way I’d failed to do?

The very idea shriveled my heart.

So I waited while Caleb slept. When I heard keys jingling in the door, I threw myself out of bed. Relief gripped me. Raymond was damp and disheveled from the snow, but safe and home.

“I was worried about you.”

“It’s just some snow.”

I watched him shed his black overcoat and kick off his boots, not missing the way he was shivering.

“Were you—” I stopped. Not my business. “Do you… want anything?”

“It’s, like, two in the morning.”

“I don’t care. I’m not tired. I’ll make coffee or something so you can warm up.”

A flicker of exasperation crossed his expression, then amusement, and I swore things were close to being okay until Raymond saw the long wool coat hanging on a peg by the door. It was accompanied by Caleb’s size eleven boots—far too large to be mine.

“That motherfucker is here?”

“I couldn’t make him leave in the storm. It wouldn’t be right.”

Raymond pushed by me and stormed past the kitchen to enter the living room. When he didn’t find Caleb sleeping on the couch, his body became taut.

“Why the fuck did I come back here?”

“Because this is your home. And it’s not a big deal,” I said again, moving closer. “He’s leaving first thing in the morning.”

“You….” Raymond’s voice was unsteady, close to either laughing or spitting anger. “You’re unbelievable.”

I expected him to grab his coat and walk out again, but he headed to the inner hallway. I wondered if he would march into my open room and yank Caleb out of the bed, but he kept going. I followed, catching the door when he almost slammed it in my face, and wasn’t surprised when my intrusion resulted in him spinning on me with a snarl.

“Get out of my room.”

“No.”

“No?” Raymond backed me against the door and it slammed shut with a resounding thud. “Why? What do you want from me?”

Nothing. Everything. I didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, I get it.” Raymond smiled then, slow and nasty. His breath guttered out, betraying his distress even as he tried to make himself look mocking and mean. “You got your man with his good job and his 401K, but you still want a piece of Rican ass on the side who can give you that good dick.”

The words mirrored Caleb’s so perfectly that I didn’t resist the urge to lash out. My nostrils flared, and then I was shoving him away with a sharp inhale.

“Fuck you.”

“You want me to, baby? Maybe he didn’t fill that ass the way you like it.”

I turned away, prepared to leave him the hell alone before he drove me to violence, and found myself crushed face-first to the door. He pinned me with his body and used his hands to pin mine to the sides all while canting his hips against my ass. I knew I should push him away, but I didn’t make a move to do so.

“Just let me leave,” I whispered. “I don’t want to fight.”

“No?” One of his hands slipped down and around my hip, dropping to my crotch. He squeezed, kneading my traitorous, hardening cock. “Feels like you get off on it.”

“Go to hell. I’m not playing this game with you.”

“Who’s playing? I’m just giving you what you want even if you won’t say it. That’s why you like me, right?” He ground harder. “’Cause I’ll touch you when I want, without asking, and I’ll do you right. But he treats you like you’ll break. Doesn’t like to get messy.”

I flinched. “Don’t use things I told you against me.”

“So admit it,” Raymond said, pushing my pants down. “You like me because I’m not scared to get nasty.”

“That’s not—” Words dissolved into a harsh cry, and my clamoring thoughts centered around the dick he was now pumping. I tried to rally my thoughts so I could end this before it went too far, but he only twisted his wrist and worked me into a trembling mess. “We shouldn’t….”

“That dick is dripping already. You want it,” he breathed in my ear.

The words only sharpened the ache, my eyes rolling back and my hips chasing the tunnel of his hand. “I—I shouldn’t. Don’t start something we can’t—”

“You want it,” Raymond repeated. “You want me.”

“You know I want you,” I panted. “But Caleb is right down—”

Raymond’s free hand clamped over my mouth while the other jerked me off, and I lost myself somewhere between protesting and wanting to come. He felt so good, and his tight grip was milking clear fluid from my cock like a fountain, but Caleb’s words were still careening through my mind. Him not being good enough, me wanting someone who could do it for me the way I needed—all of it was true even if I denied it. And Raymond was right even if he thought he was just being mean.

I felt the hard, smooth length of his bared dick before I realized he’d undone his pants, and I wondered wildly if he had been inside of anyone else tonight. Had some random Grindr guy sucked or ridden his cock? It was possible. But yet here Raymond was—still so hard for me. I was jealous and turned on at the same time, and I reacted to both. Growling out curses and baring my teeth, but yet I couldn’t stop myself from wanting him. Even with Caleb down the hall, I couldn’t stop straining my neck, turning and seeking Raymond’s mouth.

He evaded and jerked me around before pushing me to my knees. The hunger erupting in me warred with the awareness of what we were doing, and I was ripped from the haze of lust. I started to rise but was enraptured by his glittering eyes staring into my own as he rubbed his cock against my face. I leaned away, but he gripped the back of my head, and the sticky tip of his dick smeared my lips. I darted my tongue out instinctively, wanting to taste. Once, and then again, until I opened wide so he could fuck my mouth so hard that his balls slapped my chin.

“So good.” Raymond guided my head forward as I moaned around his shaft. “So fucking good.”

We were being too loud. His deep voice, the wet sloppy sound of his dick sliding into my mouth, my muffled grunts… It was too much, but I couldn’t stop. I just took him deep enough to gag.

“Yeah, baby,” Raymond panted. “Choke on that fucking dick.”

I tore my mouth away with a louder moan. His cock dragged along my face and spit smeared everywhere. I couldn’t imagine what Caleb would think of me if he woke up now, but even that didn’t stop me.

Raymond dragged me forward and shoved me against the end of his bed. My mouth was filled with the thick fabric of the comforter, my knees in the rug, and my ass in the air. I turned my head to the side to say something urgent and pleading, something about ending this and picking up later when we didn’t have an audience, when Caleb wouldn’t have to walk in on me with someone else, but I couldn’t utter the words. Not with Raymond holding my face against the mattress while he rifled around on the nightstand, knocking things over and swearing under his breath.

I urged myself to speak again, but the words didn’t come.

He stopped rifling around and positioned me to be ridden thorough and deep. My concerns were burned away by searing heat sluicing through me and sending shocks through my system. I’d expected pain, but it didn’t come. Raymond had wrapped and lubed up, and the delicious length of him glided in and out of me like a hot, smooth piston. The possibility of stopping was a distant dream.

Raymond wanting me, touching me, and taking me this hard was something I needed so badly that Caleb ceased to matter. I didn’t think I would have been able to disengage even if he walked right into the room.

I tried to muffle the sounds as much as I could when Raymond drove into me with one powerful thrust, but it was a lost cause. A brief streak of pain gave way to supernova bursts of pleasure, especially when he found my spot and hammered it. I couldn’t think. It was hard to breathe. I stopped caring about the volume of my voice and didn’t protest his hard usage of my hole until he pulled out to shove me up onto the bed.

We switched positions so I could ride him. The bed springs creaked loud enough to emanate down the hall, but I clenched around him while he lifted his hips to meet my rocking motions. I threw my head back and bounced on his cock, living out the fantasies I’d had for months while he fell to pieces below me.

Raymond no longer seemed interested in controlling the situation. He just scrabbled at my hips and gazed up at me until a slightly panicked look crossed his face. He pulled out.

Some wordless, desperate sound ripped from me but was soon muffled by his lips. He sat up with me on his lap, my legs wrapped around him while he worshipped my mouth. I didn’t know if he’d excised his aggression with the vigorous fucking, but now everything was slow and gentle, his fingers cupping the base of my head, tongue sliding against mine.

I tilted my head back, and he sucked on my throat before guiding his dick into me again. We moved together, slow and steady before things turned frantic. Pleasure built and built until I was on the precipice, ready to stagger over the edge into a whirlwind of white noise and bursts of color. He wrapped his fingers around my throbbing dick, and I free-fell from that edge into an orgasm that blanked out every thought. I heard his ruined moan as he came, but I failed to understand why my lips were forming words that sounded suspiciously like I love you too.

After a long moment of harsh breathing and trembling limbs, Raymond eased me onto the bed so I was lying on my back. I expected him to follow, but he curled toward the bottom with his face pressed to my chest. He stayed that way as my heartbeat steadied. We didn’t speak, but I raised a hand to rest on his head, gently massaging his scalp.

It felt surreal to caress him in a blissed-out daze, my eyes half-open, my body overstimulated and sensitive. After his anger and near-violent fucking, it also didn’t seem possible that Raymond was clinging to me now, still breathing hard against my damp chest.

Gradually, coherent thought returned, and I became aware of other, smaller details. The scrape of blood beneath my fingernails from the welts I’d dug into Raymond’s shoulders and back, the ache in my ass and thighs, and the slurry of words he’d rasped as he moved inside of me. I replayed them slowly, piecing everything together now that I wasn’t strung out and reduced to a single desire to be taken hard. Everything filtered into my brain—Raymond’s hushed claims of ownership of me, my ass, and lastly… the faint, fragmented syllables that, put together, had sounded like I love you.

“Raymond,” I said, my voice so husky that I didn’t recognize it. He didn’t speak, but he held me tighter. “I have to get up….”

“No.”

Satisfaction coasted along my overheated body, imploding in my chest. “Why?”

“Why do you think?”

I grazed my fingers along the side of his face and down to the swell of his lips. I wanted to ask if he’d really said those words to me, if my hearing hadn’t been distorted due to the all-consuming feeling of my prostate being battered over and over again. And I wanted to know if he’d heard my response, but bringing it up now that we were calm and sated, boneless and peaceful, seemed like poor planning. Maybe he’d deny it, or maybe I had heard wrong, or just saying it aloud now would mess everything up.

“I didn’t have sex with Caleb.” Raymond looked up at me, his chin pressing into my chest. I cupped his cheek with my hand. “I didn’t even sleep. I just waited for you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he said hoarsely.

“I wouldn’t. And if I did, you’d see through me.” I stroked his cheekbone with my thumb. “Did you… spend the whole day with some other guy?”

“Yeah.” Raymond’s mouth tipped up at the side when I started to withdraw my hand. “I went to Chris’s house.”

“You ass. I was—” I shut up, biting my lip. Big mouth.

Raymond pushed himself up on his elbows, scooting closer so we were face-to-face. “You were what?”

“Angry. At myself mostly, but… jealous too.” I wet my lips, shifting beneath him. “You know I get jealous. I almost jumped my own friend for daring to touch you.”

“Yeah, because you was drunk.”

“I was drunk, not insane. The feelings were real.”

His gaze skimmed my face, seeking lies or half-truths, or maybe just taking me in now that I was sweaty and swollen-lipped. Again, I thought about how bad it would be if Caleb came to find me. If he found us naked and twined together, bruised and destroyed from the fierce kind of sex he and I had never had. But it was more than that. The way Raymond was looking at me, the way he brushed his mouth against mine so tenderly, was much more than that. Or maybe it wasn’t, and I was just playing make-believe again. It was hard to tell when I wanted to have heard those three little words. As if those words changed any of my other doubts and concerns.

Maybe Caleb was right. I did want a fantasy.

“Give me time,” I said. “I need to figure things out.”

“Like what?”

“Everything. With you… and with him.” Raymond’s face darkened. “Stop being like this. I have a lot of history with him.”

“A lot of history?” Raymond scoffed. “You were together for two years. I have more history with my car.”

“Not everything is the romance of the century like Nunzio and Michael,” I retorted, relinquishing my hold on him.

“It don’t have to be. But it also don’t have to be this complicated.”

It was true, but it didn’t change things. I’d jumped in feet first with every guy I had ever been with, and it had ended up a disaster with Caleb. I wouldn’t do it again. Especially now that I could see warning signs. For the first time, I wanted to be smart about things.

Even so, I dressed slowly and found myself continuously distracted by Raymond’s silent contemplation of me. I started to leave, but he yanked me back and kissed me roughly one last time.

“I don’t want him here anymore,” he said after releasing me. “Don’t rub it in my face unless you want me to start doing the same.”

Nodding, I retreated from the room, walking backward until his door shut with a quiet click.