Chapter 5: Scotty—Headaches and Cures

“PSST, SCOTTY!”

Ryan’s voice was coming from right next to Scott’s ear in the night, and Scott grumbled. He’d been fast asleep in the comforting dark, but now Ryan was snuggling right up to his back and wiggling his hard groin up against Scott’s backside, and Scotty, dammit, was getting all squirmy with need. He hadn’t gotten off for three days, not since that hand-job in the car, and he and Ryan were usually a helluva lot more active than that!

And it hadn’t just been the other people in the house that had caused the dry spell, either. It was the one specific person that was drying up Ryan’s libido like a freeze-dried hot dog. Scotty couldn’t blame him in the least. If he had to hear one more refrain of “Scotty, you know, spending money on your tan is a little frivolous if you’re thinking of buying a house,” followed by Ryan’s brave charge of, “Nothing’s frivolous if it makes Scotty feel good,” or any of the other debates about Scotty’s spending habits and their plans of the future, Scott’s thing might get limp and twisted too.

“What?” he asked, straining back against Ryan. His eyes opened a little, and he felt back under the covers. Oh God. Ryan wasn’t wearing any sleep shorts or any underwear…. Oh God. He totally meant business. Scott’s hard-on went from limp biscuit to porn star in one brush of his fingers on Ryan’s bare hip.

“Do you still have a headache?” Ryan whispered furiously, and Scott cringed. The only really bad thing about that lie was a boyfriend who might hold back on sex because of it.

“That depends. What’s your mother doing?”

“Hanging upside down in her cave, I think. Why?”

Scott giggled a little and fumbled for the waistband of his sleep shorts. “Because if she’s in her cave, my headache just got cured,” he said truthfully. Ryan slid up against him, his already full cock nestling just right there between Scott’s cheeks, and they both groaned.

“Oh God,” Scott muttered. Ryan’s warm hand wrapped around Scott’s chest and found his nipples with lover’s sonar and then pinched, but that’s not what really turned Scott’s key. What really flipped his switch, sparked his chassis, made his blood flow, turned him on, was the fact that Ryan—handsome, confident, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer Ryan—had already greased up his cock with lube.

Scotty loved sex, and he loved being the bottom, and although he loved foreplay, sometimes when Ryan just totally took charge, he loved being fucked quick and dirty, and now was one of those times. He raised his leg and propped up on his toe, and Ryan took his cue and positioned the head of his exceptionally large cock.

Scott bit his lip and whimpered, his breath coming in fast pants with anticipation only, because he needed it so bad… oh God… he needed it… he needed it….

“Fuck me, Ry… oh God….”

He didn’t need any preparation. Ryan was lubed, and Scott didn’t mind a little rough at the beginning. Ryan had been inside him so often in the last three years he was practically pre-stretched. So when the head of Ryan’s cock brushed his rim, he didn’t move forward, waiting for fingers or foreplay; he wriggled, he thrust backward, he whined, he begged, he pleaded, and Ryan loved him, Ryan would do anything for him, and Ryan obliged. He slammed forward and back as hard as he could from this angle and kept his hand around Scott’s chest, playing roughly with his nipples.

“Stroke yourself,” Ryan commanded roughly, and Scott whimpered and complied. It was difficult. Scotty didn’t used to get hard when someone was stretching his ass, sliding inside him, pounding on his prostate. He used to just flail on the bed, whimpering, loving this particular sex act but not really getting hard from it, not really coming. But Ryan didn’t let him do that—not after he got the hang of things. Ryan made sure Scott stroked himself hard, made sure his cock was worked, gave Scott a place to focus. Ryan was fucking him hard and sure, but Scott didn’t just get to flop around anymore: he needed to be active while he was being dominated, and he was. He wrapped his hand around himself, stroked hard, rubbed his thumb over the head and gave a vicious twist at the end of the stroke, then did it again. Oh God, was Ryan good at fucking him hard. He looked like the boy next door, and he had the kindest heart Scott had ever known, but he could fuck like a dom with a whip.

“You stroking yourself?” Ryan asked, his voice gruff in Scott’s ear. Scott felt the rasp of teeth at the joint of his neck and shoulder and then a hint of tongue. He made a sound, torn between the stretching in his ass and the sensual pain of Ryan’s fingers on his nipples and the glorious twisting of his own hand on his cock.

“Yeah,” he panted. His hips bucked, wanting to take more, but Ryan bit harder and moved his hand to Scott’s hip, keeping him in place while he kept thrusting. He changed his angle, pushing up on an elbow while Scott leaned forward so Ryan had more leverage, and Scott was practically bent over his erect cock and oh geez. It was beautiful, the pressure in his groin, his stomach, behind his balls, the stretch, the fill, the edge of pain when Ryan brushed his prostate, and most especially, Ryan’s hand, possessive and hard on his hip.

That beauty built up, rushed his spine, shattered behind his eyes, and he turned his face into his pillow and cried out, exploding in a mess of come and trying not to double up with the convulsions of orgasm, because that would throw Ryan out of his ass.

Ryan held him still, though, and kept thrusting for another couple of pushes while Scott continued to shudder from those expert brushes over his gland. Finally Ryan groaned loudly and collapsed over Scott’s shoulder, enveloping him in his heavily-built, freckled shoulders as they both trembled in aftermath.

Scott had to crane his head around to reach Ryan’s mouth, and Ryan had to loom over him, resting some of his weight on Scott’s arm, but it didn’t matter. Touching lips while Ryan slid—wet, veiny, and barely deflated—out of Scott’s backside made Scott shiver. He closed his eyes and, heedless of the mess and the chill, rolled into Ryan’s arms and kissed him hard and solid on the mouth, and Ryan moaned into him, and then even the kiss broke off, and it was just them together, cuddled against the chilly dark of the strange room.

Ryan was the responsible one. He pulled away and dropped a kiss on Scott’s cheek before trotting to the bathroom and coming back with a washcloth—warm!—and a drying towel. Scott reclined on his elbows as Ryan washed him off, looking at Ryan with amused eyes because he took the job of cleanup so seriously. He moved the washcloth down to his own groin and then looked up and caught Scott’s eyes on him. Even in the darkness, Scott could see his blush and the embarrassed grin, and Scott had no choice but to lift a hand to his forehead and run his fingers through the little auburn forelock that came loose when he tugged.

“I’ve seen that thing before,” he chided. “Up close and personal, even.”

Ryan looked up and then looked away, blushing harder. He pulled away and wiped at his groin with his back turned. “I can’t explain it,” he mumbled. “Before and during, I’m all He-Man, fucking with decision.” His voice got fainter as he moved to the bathroom and rinsed out the washcloth. He came back and kept speaking like he’d never left. “I’m all done, and I’m like, ‘God, I can’t believe he fell for that!’”

Scott laughed and held out his hand. “No,” he said when Ryan went for the sleep shorts crumpled at the foot of the bed. “Don’t put them on—we can dress later. Come to bed now.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows—Scott could see the expression in the dark—and it was his turn to blush. Scott was not usually that assertive, he knew. But the little death of sex had turned him melancholy, and three days of dodging Ryan’s mother’s game of pin-the-barb-on-Scotty’s-ass had worn down his usual cheerful good will.

But even if Ryan was surprised, he still crawled into bed with a naked Scott and pulled the comforter and wool blanket up to his chin, and then pulled Scott so that his head rested on Ryan’s wide chest. Scott wiggled, making himself at home, and turned a little on his side so he could run his hand over the little nest of cinnamon curls that rested right between Ryan’s pecs.

“What?” Ryan said gently, and Scott struggled for words.

“You know how you blush after sex?” Scott said softly, and Ryan’s sound was embarrassed. Scott took it for a yes. “I love that,” Scott said. “That’s the reason I fell in love with you, you know. I mean… I was pretty sure I loved you in that bathroom, right? But….” Scott stopped petting Ryan’s pec and looked up to see those adorable brown eyes looking at him seriously. “Anyone can be arrogant, Ry. It’s why there’s so many assholes around. But you—you go for what you want, and I love that. But then you make sure it’s what I want too, and I’d never had that before. I know you’re stuck, okay?” Scott had to rush this part or he wouldn’t say it. “I know you’re stuck, and your mom’s being—” God, how did he say this?

“A snide bitch,” Ryan substituted dryly, and Scott sighed, because that was pretty much how you said it.

“Yeah. Anyway. I know that, and I know it sucks. But you keep making sure I’m okay. Every time she says something, you make sure I’m okay, and even though this is the worst Christmas ever, and I miss the hell out of my sisters and my folks’ place and that gawdawful borscht shit that my grandmother brought over from the frickin’ old country, I’m still not sorry we came.”

Ryan dropped a kiss in his hair and wrapped his arm even tighter. “There’s a reason we’re toughing this out, you know,” he said, semi-seriously.

“Besides the fact that the roads are crap?” This was true—the radio said they might be able to leave on schedule, but right now, a new coat of snow had made driving a nightmare.

“Yeah,” Ryan said softly. “Let’s just say I’ve got a plan, Scott. I swear. I’ll make this trip worth it, okay?”

Scott’s eyes were closing, and he was settling in on Ryan’s chest dreamily. “With you, babe. Always worth it.”

Of course it was. Everything with Ry was worth it—and with what Scotty had in the small box he’d hidden under the tree, he hoped Ryan would agree.

THE NEXT day he wasn’t so sure.

Taylor had planned to cook. Scott was not exactly sure the woman knew how.

Since that first morning, Scott had been the unacknowledged cook of the family. The kids would come ask him for sandwiches and soup because they knew he’d do fun stuff like cook parmesan into the bread with the grilled cheese sandwiches and dress their vegetables into things that looked like cars and kittens and Mickey Mouse.

Yvonne or Ryan had started dinner for the prior three nights, and both of them had asked his advice and followed it in matters of cooking time, seasoning, and side dishes. He’d enjoyed that time. He sat at the counter and drank a beer while Ryan and Yvonne moved like things were choreographed. He remembered Ryan talking about how he and Yvonne had woken up as kids and made their own cereal and sat and watched cartoons together. He could see that here in the way they moved, in the way they talked in shorthand, and the way they told effortless stories about each other as they moved.

Those were the times he was happiest about coming up to see Ryan’s family at the cabin instead of staying back in Sacramento to spend Christmas Eve with his own and then Christmas morning sleeping in like he’d planned. He’d had other plans, too—a midnight mass, hot chocolate on their couch, Ryan’s expression when he got his Christmas gift, and really hot sex including some Christmas gifts that hadn’t made the cut for the trip up to Tahoe. But those plans seemed small and selfish (well, not the hot sex—he’d planned to give a lot for that) compared to watching Ryan be quietly happy with the sister he rarely got to see.

But Christmas Eve. Shit. Scott had seen the flank steak and the frozen vegetables and the olive oil and the wine—he’d been the one to bring everything out of the outside freezer the night before. He’d gone into the kitchen and had started marinating the steak and sautéeing the vegetables and suddenly….

Suddenly there was Ryan’s mom, looking hurt, like Scott had stolen her favorite pair of earrings or was putting his big stinky man-feet into her new pumps or something.

“Oh, but Scott, I was going to cook.” Her eyes were blue and she was petite and blonde, but that didn’t mean Scott couldn’t see Ryan in the shape of her mouth and her nose and even the little line between her eyebrows when she was hurt.

Like now.

“Oh,” he said swallowing. “Uhm, Italian flank steak—there’s sundried tomatoes in the fridge. Uhm… unless… uhm… what were you planning to cook?”

Well hell. It was her cabin and her stocked refrigerator and basically her hospitality, and Scott had been stepping on her toes. He knew that. But he hadn’t seen the woman in the kitchen once, even to clean up when somebody else had cooked (and in Scott’s parents’ house, that was the rule,) and he’d been so good about staying out of her way. The kitchen seemed to be the safest place to do that!

“I can make flank steak,” she said pleasantly, and then shooed Scott to the other side of the counter, where he debated whether to sit on the stool and offer what was probably unwanted advice or run away and let her destroy his dreams of Italian stuffed flank steak without his supervision.

“How long were you going to sauté the veggies?” she asked pleasantly, and Scott kept his sigh to himself. He was going to have to stay—if she even needed to ask that question, he was going to have to help her if this was going to be at all edible.

“Until there’s only a little crisp left,” he said. “The onions went in first, so they should be caramelized by then. And I was going to simmer the baby potatoes—”

“Don’t mind that,” she said confidently. “I was just going to skin them and mash them.”

“But they’re red potatoes… baby ones. Why would you…?”

She looked at him, nonplussed. “Because that’s what you do to potatoes, Scotty—at least in our house. We don’t have time to cook fancy when you’re running a business with kids.”

Scott tried to make his vision opaque beyond the countertop and vainly wished he’d managed to get his beer before he’d sat down to be tortured.

“I know,” he said instead. “I started cooking when my mom needed help. She’d be so tired when she got home—it only seemed fair.”

Taylor looked surprised at that, and she looked up from ruining some perfectly good baby red potatoes to ask him, “What does she do for a living?”

“She works in the family salon,” Scott said. “She was a first-generation immigrant, and my dad was already established. His family had a bunch of businesses. She was groomed for one.”

Taylor’s eyes opened wide. “Um, Russian?” She asked the question delicately, as though Scott’s heritage was a secret or something.

“That is one of the big immigrant groups in Sacramento,” he said with a shrug. There were Russian businesses all over the suburbs. Even Ryan’s mother, who lived in L.A., must have seen them.

There was an awkward silence, punctuated by the big chef’s knife clumsily cutting the cute little baby potatoes ruthlessly into fourths. “So why don’t you work for one of the businesses?” she asked politely. “Ryan always wanted to be a lawyer. I knew he’d never be a part of the landscaping, like Walter, or the interior decorating, like Yvonne. What was your excuse?”

She said it with a playful smile, but that didn’t keep Scott from trying to smooth down his chafed feelings. He looked out into the living room again and realized that Ryan and his father had taken the dog and the kids outside into the last of the afternoon sunlight so they could work off some energy before changing into their Sunday best for dinner and games.

“My mom always said she didn’t work in a nail salon for thirty years so we’d have to do the same, and my dad pretty much agreed with her. Two of my sisters followed Mom’s footsteps because they liked it—they liked the color and the style, and they loved doing hair and wearing the clothes. My brother, the oldest, he went to business school to help Dad manage everything he got from my grandpa, and Mama always told me to go my own way. I ran with that, you know?”

“Well, you’re awfully good at cooking. Why not do that?”

Scott shrugged and grinned, the same grin that seemed to melt Ryan no matter what Scott was doing, but without the sexual wattage. Taylor Connors was not amused, so he gave her an honest answer, but it wasn’t as much fun as the smile.

“I like to do a lot of things,” he said, and it was true. “There’s just not a lot of things I like to do for money.” Oh God. Taylor was looking at him like he was a wayward sixth grader who had cracked a dirty joke. He took a deep breath and tried to explain better than that.

“It’s like my mom. My mom does this thing with a needle and sewing thread—it’s called tatting. It’s gorgeous. She makes some of the most beautiful stuff—she made the wedding veil for my oldest sister’s wedding, and all four of the girls have worn it because it was so beautiful. It’s in mothballs waiting for my nieces to grow up. It’s amazing. It’s something she really loves to do. And she made this… I guess it’s a doily or a decorated runner, that she keeps in the salon to make the place look more homey, right? And all these rich women come in, and they’re begging Mama to make them something, and she flat out refuses.”

Taylor really was looking at him now, and he was glad she was done massacring the potatoes; otherwise he’d be off to fetch the first aid kit. “Why would she do that?”

Scott shrugged again. “Because we have enough money, and tatting is something she loves to do for fun. Once people start paying her for that, it takes all the fun out of it. She loves doing the hair and the nails now, but she started out knowing it was a trade, so she can love doing it and it’s not going to get ruined. But tatting is something she does just for her. She makes stuff for other people, but it’s the stuff she wants to do. That’s cooking for me—and shopping for people and helping them pick out their furniture or their clothes. It’s something I could do for money, but that would take all the fun out of it. So I work at Starbucks for the money, and I go to school to learn a trade, and I work my business because it’s sort of a meld between the stuff I learn at school and the stuff I’m interested in anyway—it’s got trade all over it, so it doesn’t feel ruined when I do it for money.”

Taylor was looking at him as though this was a totally foreign concept, and he was really glad that she’d never met his mother. Sofia had been raised to be a good Russian woman, and although she was strong enough to raise six children, she was also sensitive enough to have her feelings hurt when an idea that was dear to her was popped under the pressure of that glare like a summer strawberry under an icicle.

“So if you’re not going to do any of the things you really love for money, how do you expect to keep making your end of the house payment?” she asked after a moment, and Scott blinked slowly.

“Well, there never really was a ‘my end’,” he said truthfully. “There was a ‘combined income’ thing—you know, like married straight people without the functioning uterus, right?”

“Well, doesn’t that feel like you’re freeloading off my son’s bigger income?”

“No,” he whispered, hurt in a way he hadn’t really thought about. The house had been a bone of contention between Taylor and Ryan for the last three days. Taylor thought it was a risky venture in such an uncertain market, but Ryan had been confident in that same way he’d been confident in bed the night before. They could make it. Scott had taken the business courses. He knew the extent of their income, and he’d developed some of Ryan’s confidence too. They could do it. They could have a home and a yard and a place for Blitzkrieg to run where she couldn’t eat all the garbage when she was left alone for the day. Scott had known Ryan was paying a bigger portion, but that wasn’t the way they did things—it never had been. Ryan hadn’t once suggested they do it any different.

“No,” he said again, trying to find his way past that word “freeloader.” “Ryan and I… we… we didn’t think that way. We just added up what we made, you know, and together it was enough. It… I mean, it didn’t matter who made more. It just mattered that we could make it togeth—”

“But you’re getting a business degree, Scott. You do know Ryan could pay for that house by himself, right?”

“But he doesn’t want to,” Scott said, hearing his voice rise childishly at the end. Scott knew that. He knew he was right. Ryan had said it with words, with his body, with the way they laughed their way through everything from Ryan’s cut pay to Blitzkrieg’s outrageous vet bills. “He doesn’t want to. He keeps saying the only way the house would be a home is with me.”

Oh geez. Scott’s voice was as hurt as a socially mauled second grader’s, and his chest literally ached with the idea that Ryan’s mom would think so poorly of him. It wasn’t fair—Walter’s business had just been starting out when he and Yvonne had married. Ryan had told him that. That’s why it had made so much sense for Walter’s landscaping business to become a part of Taylor’s decorating business. Walter did the outside, and Yvonne and Taylor did the inside. But no one had ever accused Walter of freeloading.

Taylor’s hurt from earlier, when Scott had been taking over in the kitchen, seemed to have dissipated completely. Her pale blue eyes—so different from Ryan’s warm brown ones—looked at him composedly, and not a strand of her silver-blonde pageboy seemed to have moved from place. “That’s really romantic and everything, Scott, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

Scott nodded and shot his one volley in the war. “Ryan can pay his own bills. Your lover shouldn’t be the thing you do for money.” And then he stood up and walked to the Christmas tree to snatch the tiny present he’d hidden among all of the kids’ stuff and crammed it in his jeans pocket before going out to the mudroom to find his parka and his gloves, scarf, and hat. He wasn’t foolish or emo—he wasn’t planning to go outside and freeze—but just for a minute, he needed to be far, far away from Ryan’s family, and, hell, even from Ryan himself, or he’d never be able to go back and look Ryan in the eyes ever again.