Chapter Nine
“How is it so fucking cold all the time here?” Rusty asked, tucking his hands under his sleeves.
His leather jacket still looked extremely cool, but it wasn’t all that warm.
“I’m not cold,” Blake pointed out. “Because I have a weather-appropriate coat. And you keep coming here in winter and being surprised that it’s cold.”
“This is how I dress when it’s winter at home,” Rusty said.
Blake glanced over at him, taking in the thin sweater and the jacket over it. “You’re wearing two layers.”
“Three,” Rusty said. “There’s a t-shirt under.”
Blake sighed. “My poor delicate Australian flower. I thought you were made of tougher stuff.”
“I’m very tough!” Rusty insisted. “Just… cold.”
Blake stepped a little closer to him, their shoulders brushing together. His breath was turning the night air to fog, so he couldn’t argue that it wasn’t cold, and if Rusty was complaining, he was probably genuinely suffering.
As soon as he made contact with Rusty’s side, a flash of kissing him flittered through his brain.
He wanted more of that. Maybe it was loneliness, maybe it was clinging to the memory of something that was long gone, but… Blake couldn’t stop thinking about how good it had been to kiss Rusty again.
Rusty had been his first. Of course he was important. Having a special place in his memory for him was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I’m tougher than Chris,” he murmured, shivering again.
Blake chuckled. “It’s not a competition,” he said, turning around and pushing Rusty back against a nearby tree, opening his coat so it fell around him to shield him from the cold breeze.
“You’re definitely the better man,” he murmured, pausing for a moment to breathe in the familiar resin-and-citrus scent that Rusty had left on his pillow, letting it coil deep in his gut. He’d never really been turned on the way Rusty turned him on. Not before he met him, or since.
Just with Rusty.
He’d thought it was because Rusty had been his first, but now… now he could see it was something else.
Rusty grunted as Blake surged forward to kiss him, his lips parting softly, his chest heaving with short, sharp breaths. A spark of heat lit up Blake’s insides, arousal glowing like a hot coal in the pit of his stomach.
He moaned, soft and needy, a sound that would have been embarrassing with anyone else, but that he knew he could trust Rusty with. Rusty wouldn’t laugh, or tease, or do anything other than encourage him to moan again, louder, harder, to ask for what he wanted and not be afraid to enjoy it.
Blake had suspected at the time that he’d gotten lucky with his choice of partner, but now he knew for certain that Rusty was rare. Warm, and thoughtful, and hangup-free.
Rusty pressed his hand to the center of Blake’s chest, pushing him away just a fraction of an inch.
Blake’s stomach sank to his knees, his head aching the same way it did when he missed a stair.
Rusty was rejecting him.
He backed off, swallowing thickly, wishing he could stop the corners of his lips from turning down. He must have looked ridiculous.
This shouldn’t have meant so much to him.
Rusty was a thing of the past. He probably had a life to go back to. Maybe even a boyfriend.
No, not a boyfriend. He would have told Blake that before he made an idiot of himself.
And he wouldn’t have kissed him first.
This was all very confusing.
“We shouldn’t,” Rusty said. “I don’t want this to be any harder than it needs to be.”
Blake swallowed again, not sure he could trust his voice. Instead, he nodded and took another step back.
Rusty joined him on the sidewalk after a moment, falling into step beside him again as they started heading for home.
Well, not home. It wasn’t either of their homes. But it was the closest thing Blake had right now.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere. He’d spent so long in the wrong place that he’d gotten used to the wrongness.
And now everything was a mess, and he was clinging to Rusty like an idiot.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Rusty said. “You didn’t even bite me.”
“You like being bitten,” Blake said, remembering the way Rusty had encouraged him once they’d gotten comfortable with each other.
“I do,” Rusty agreed. His voice made it sound like he was smiling.
Blake really didn’t need to think about sex with Rusty. He was still nursing a rejection, and while he understood that it wasn’t really personal, that it wasn’t about him, it still stung.
An owl called out in the distance, punctuating the silence between them.
This was fine. Blake understood that it was over, and that wallowing in what might have been was pointless. What they’d had was magical because of the way it had happened.
Out of context, the magic was gone. He knew that.
So why didn’t it feel that way?