TEN

 

It wasn’t like Dane hadn’t had sex before, for crying out loud. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been with lovers, some of them incredibly skilled. It wasn’t even like he hadn’t been with beautiful, sexy young men.

It was just that none of them had been Taylor, and for some reason, that made all of the difference. It was Taylor who was haunting Dane’s thoughts, his every waking moment, and even in his dreams a lot of the time. The night before had been the most intense experience of Dane’s life, and for the first time, it struck him as a real tragedy that he was going to have to leave in just a few days.

Five days. Four now, really, he realized, as he started up at the sun, which was already halfway through the sky, and shrouded partially with clouds. Dane shivered and tugged his leather jacket more firmly closed. Damn this weather. It was never decently warm here. It hadn’t been even the year before when it had been the middle of the summer, and it wasn’t any better now, as it moved toward fall.

So that was a good thing, right? The fair would be moving on through Oregon and down into California, and he knew that the further south they went, the more comfortable he would be. That was surely a good enough reason for going with them, just to get away from this weather, not to mention all of the awkwardness.

Not to mention, it was boring, standing around and pretty much doing nothing. The kids were all in school, and even though the fair had opened late in the day, at one o’clock, that still meant at least two hours of doing pretty much nothing. There might be nothing as depressing in the world as a fair with no kids at it. There were a few people, sure, but not very many, and most of them weren’t riding the rides.

The exception, he couldn’t help but notice, was the Ferris wheel. He hadn’t been posted there today, he was at the bumper cars, instead, and when he glanced over at the giant wheel, he saw it turning slowly, lazily, in the few errant gleams of sunshine which made it through the increasing cloud cover. It was probably going to rain. From everything Dane had seen and heard, it rained here a lot.

“Dane?”

At first, he thought that he had just imagined the voice, that he had been thinking about Taylor so hard that he had summoned an illusion of the other man. But when he turned around, he saw the enormous, round blue eyes, the full, wide mouth, and the sandy brown hair gleaming in the sunbeams which struggled through the thickening clouds and brought out the glints of blond.

“Hey, darlin’,” Dane murmured, trying to hold back his surprised pleasure, though he was pretty sure that it showed anyway. He couldn’t help it. He had just been feeling bored and lonely, and there was Taylor. It seemed like fate, somehow, and not caring who saw, not caring what his boss thought, he reached out and took Taylor’s hand in his own, squeezing it warmly.

“I missed you,” Taylor admitted, though he sounded almost resentful of the fact, and somehow Dane knew that if he hadn’t reached out and taken Taylor’s hand, Taylor never would have said it at all. It was a moment of vulnerability, and Dane ignored the twisting of nerves in his gut as he tugged Taylor against him, feeling the way that his slender, small body seemed to slot so perfectly against his own.

It was—he allowed himself to think it for the first time—like they belonged like this, Taylor’s head trustingly on Dane’s chest, Dane’s chin resting perfectly on the top of Taylor’s head, the clean scent of Taylor’s hair filling him.

It’s more than just sex.

He wanted to say those words more than anything, but if he did, he had the idea that Taylor might just take off running. The rapport which they had achieved here was new and fragile and delicate. Dane knew that he was a bit stunned by it, and surely Taylor, who had been every bit as determined to keep his distance as Dane was, was feeling the same thing.

“C’mon. Let’s walk,” Dane prompted, and Taylor laughed, amazement on his face as he pulled away to look up at Dane.

“You’re working,” he protested, and Dane gave a little shrug and put up a sign, just a paper sheet enfolded in protective plastic, which said that the ride was closed.

“Ain’t like people are lining up around the block to get at the bumper cars,” he pointed out. “I’ll take my lunch now.”

He knew it would be better to take it now than after school when the amusement park would be full of kids again. His boss would probably even approve, and he slung his arm possessively over Taylor’s slender shoulders as he led the bemused young man away from the ride and to a slightly less desolate part of the park.

“You know, I haven’t been on a big ride in years. Probably about eight or ten years,” Taylor mused, almost to himself, his body a warm, welcome pressure against Dane’s side.

“What?” Dane looked down at him, startled. Taylor was only twenty, so for him to have not been on a ride for that long, that was quite something. He had seen plenty of people Taylor’s age, and even a little older, who still went on the rides, though in his experience it usually tapered off soon after that. Still, it struck him as a little bit sad.

“Yeah. I had this nightmare,” Taylor explained, looking thoughtfully up at the Ferris wheel as it spun majestically through the slightly chilly air. “I was on a roller coaster, and I looked down, and there was no track anymore. I didn’t really want to go on any rides after that.”

Dane laughed, not really because of amusement but mostly because that was just so perfectly Taylor right there. He had a nightmare, so he, cautious as always, just outright stopped going on amusement park rides?

Not that Taylor was always so cautious, Dane had to remember. The night before, when he’d ridden Dane in the backyard, that hadn’t been the careful thing to do at all. It was that memory that he acted on then.

Besides, why had Taylor said something if he didn’t want Dane to do something about it?

“C’mon,” he urged, keeping his grip around Taylor’s shoulders and tugging him over to the short line for the Ferris wheel. Taylor went willingly enough, at least at first, but then he dug his heels in and gave Dane a terrified look when he realized where they were going.

“No, hold on, I can’t,” Taylor protested, but Dane saw something in his eyes, in the uncertain set of his mouth, which made him realize that Taylor wanted this. One of the Ferris wheel carts was resting against the platform, and Dane’s coworker arched an eyebrow at him, as though to ask if he were getting in.

“I ain’t gonna force you, sugar,” Dane promised him. “But I wanna go up with you. Will you come?”

Taylor caught at his lower lip, nibbling at it in a way that Dane found honestly quite distracting, and then he gave a soft sigh and started to walk toward the low flight of stairs which led up to the platform.

“I must be out of my mind,” Taylor muttered, but he held his breath and stepped onto the cart, dropping down into the seat quickly as it swayed gently beneath his weight.

“Have fun, Dane.” His friend and co-worker smirked at him, and Dane didn’t have much time to wonder what that was all about, because he was stepping in and sitting down across from Taylor, giving him a reassuring smile.

It was better than it could be, Dane knew. A lot of these rides were just a single bench, with a restraint, but this one was two benches facing each other in a half enclosed space so that they were pretty much caged in. Somehow, that didn’t seem to encourage Taylor much, and Dane softly sighed as he watched his pale face.

Maybe this had been a mistake, he thought, as the ride lurched into motion. Dane’s friend was loading people into the other carts of the ride, so they only went up a little bit at a time, which seemed to help.

Reaching across the space, Dane offered Taylor his hand. The young man took it and gripped it tightly, and Dane tried to be reassuring as he slid his fingers through Taylor’s, squeezing lightly and getting a strong, almost painful pressure in return.

“See? It ain’t that bad,” Dane watched Taylor’s face, which was slowly regaining some of its color as the younger man looked around him. The wheel spun another notch upward, and they were higher up, and fear turned to a sort of wonder as Taylor looked out on his little town as he must not have seen it for quite a while. Eight to ten years, he’d said, since he had last been on a big ride.

“No,” Taylor admitted. “It’s sort of pretty. I forgot.” The ride moved again, one more step up toward the top, and Taylor didn’t inhale sharply this time like he had the previous times. They were nearly at the top, and Taylor seemed to be relaxing.

A few more pauses, a few more carts loaded up with people, and then the ride started to roll faster. Taylor let out a little yelp at the quicker movement, but he was soon grinning as the wind ruffled at his short hair, and Dane watched with satisfaction as Taylor seemed to enjoy himself.

“This isn’t so bad …” Taylor started to admit, and then, right when they were on the very apex of the wheel, the cart froze in place, and Taylor looked around and gasped, then hid his face in his hands in a way that Dane couldn’t help but find adorable.

“Shh, darlin’, it’s okay,” he soothed, gently pulling those hands away. “Nothing to be scared of. He’s probably just unloading now, and we’ll move again in a second.”

But it was a bit suspicious, he realized, that it had happened to stop with Dane and Taylor right at the top. That wasn’t how it should have been, with the point in the cycle that they had boarded. Still, anything to distract Taylor from his fear, which was obviously growing again.

“Kiss me,” he demanded suddenly, seeing that his words weren’t enough. Taylor needed some other distraction, and Dane could think of nothing better. Besides, he was fairly sure he had never kissed anyone on a Ferris wheel, and this seemed like a damn good time to start.

“What?” Taylor looked at him like he had suggested something utterly ridiculous. Like Dane had said they should open the little gate and step right out of the cart into empty air.

“Kiss me,” Dane repeated, and then he used his grip on Taylor’s hand to tug the smaller man right off of his seat and against Dane. The cart swayed a bit, but Dane was in a position to know that there was no danger at all, so he just kept on pulling until Taylor was right against him and clamped his mouth down onto Taylor’s.

Once they were kissing, just as Dane had hoped, the tension all went out of Taylor’s slim body. Taylor’s arms slipped around him, and his mouth opened. His tongue swept into Dane’s mouth, that curious sort of demanding submission in every movement which Dane had never felt from anyone else before.

There was something in Taylor that was every bit as wild, as untamed, as Dane, if not more. Taylor had just never had the chance to show it before. But he showed it now, his hand shifting between their interlocked bodies, resting on Dane’s crotch through his jeans, gripping his dick and squeezing with mischief in his big, deceptively sweet blue eyes.

Someday, Taylor was going to stop being able to shock him so easily. And it was then, having that thought, that Dane knew what he had only allowed himself to suspect before, what he had pushed away each and every time he thought of it.

“Sugar,” Dane murmured, his voice deep and thoughtful as he looked at Taylor, who still had his hand firmly on Dane’s dick. But then, Dane had always been delighted by the irreverent, the adventurous. Which was part of what had Taylor winding his way so firmly into Dane’s heart. “I gotta say something right now.”

Taylor tilted his head to the side, the faintest hint of wariness in his eyes now. He didn’t let go of Dane’s cock, which was hardening nicely, but he wasn’t stroking Dane. He was just sort of holding him, searching his face as though nervous about what he was going to say next.

Well, that was fair enough. Dane was nervous, too, which was why he wanted to say this right now before the moment slipped by, and he changed his mind, just by force of habit. He knew that he tended to do that.

The cart swayed and then started to move again. Which meant that Taylor’s hand slipped from his cock as the younger man moved back to his seat, which was unfortunate but probably for the best. They could hardly get into much up here.

“I wanna stay.”

The three words came out all in a rush, and the moment they were out, Dane felt both better and worse at the same time. They hung in the space between them, and once they were there, floating across into Taylor’s ears, Dane knew that he couldn’t take them back. With one short phrase, he had admitted that things had changed, and he had no idea how Taylor was going to take that.

In fact, for a moment, Taylor showed no reaction at all, and the cart slowly descended, bringing them closer to the ground with every second. And Taylor still wouldn’t say anything, or do anything but look at him with those vibrant, soulful, and intense blue eyes.

Just when Dane thought that he should say something, anything, to break the silence which stretched between them, and thought that maybe the best thing for him to do would be to laugh, to pretend that it had all been some sort of joke, the cart swung to a stop and Taylor, moving quickly and still so silently, stepped out. At least Dane had distracted him successfully from his fear. He could tell that much.

Dane followed them, shooting his friend a suspicious glance as he passed him. The guy grinned at him, and it was then that Dane knew his suspicions were correct. As a joke, or maybe even as a favor, he had deliberately stranded Dane and Taylor up there. It wasn’t as cruel as it seemed since the man could have had no way to know how scared Taylor had been.

Which brought him back to Taylor, who was just looking at him now, his shoulders visibly tense, his eyes searching Dane’s face as though he could somehow find the answers he was clearly seeking there.

“You’re not joking?” Taylor whispered, almost too quietly for Dane to hear over the creak of the ride, the conversations which whirled around them. This was his chance, but Dane just shook his head. Suddenly, saving face, keeping his pride, wasn’t worth it. He had said what he had said, and he was going to stand by it.

“No. I ain’t joking. I’d like to stay around for a bit,” Dane admitted, looking down into Taylor’s wide, scared eyes. “And I’d like to spend some time with you. I dunno what I’m gonna do for work or …”

And then, just like that, Taylor had his arms flung around Dane, and he was stretching way, way up on his tiptoes. Right out in the middle of the fair, where anyone who cared to look could see, Taylor, who had always been fairly inhibited in public though very affectionate when they were alone, actually kissed Dane.

Not a light little kiss, either, but an extended, prolonged embrace which left no doubt at all in Dane’s mind about how Taylor felt about this. Maybe, while Dane had been busy falling for Taylor, Taylor had been having the same thing happen. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but now, he was starting to wonder.

That kiss seemed to say so much, and at that moment, when Taylor gave his slender body over to Dane, it felt like there might be some hope, and that someone like him could maybe even have a future of some sort. After running for so long, it was hard for him even to imagine, but Taylor’s lips promised a lot.

Dane just had to hope that Taylor was willing and able to deliver on those promises.