December to January (17months since everything changed)
I get a text message when I’m lying in bed half-asleep. It’s New Year’s Eve, but I’m not staying up this year to watch the ball drop on TV. Well, okay, I don’t actually have a TV, but that’s not the point.
The point is, I have a gold medal hanging on my wall, and apparently that means Andrey is going to work the hell out of us every second he can. Because when you win the National Championships, you get to go to the World Series for real, instead of as a last-minute pity replacement.
Which is to say, it’s New Year’s Eve and I just finished a four-hour training session on the ten-meter, so I’m achy and sore. It’s ten o’clock at night, and my bed might be hard as a rock, but it’s still the only thing I want in the entire world right now.
At least until my phone buzzes, and I see Jeremy’s text.
Come over?
Okay, maybe there are things I want in the world more than my lumpy, uncomfortable bed.
I’m wearing a ragged pair of cotton shorts that are frayed along the hem, strings tickling my knees when I walk. It’s cold as balls outside though, so I find a pair of sweats, shove my feet into thick socks and boots, and layer on a T-shirt, hoodie, jacket, and a scarf that Val gave me for Christmas that’s soft and heavenly warm.
Ok, be there in ten, I text back.
Then it’s out into the bitter December night.
Jeremy’s apartment isn’t far, but it feels like it’s fifty below, and the wind cuts through my clothes. My teeth are chattering by the time I get to his building and knock on his door.
“Oh hell, Brandon.” Jeremy practically yanks me inside, then moves quickly, stripping me of my frozen layers, right down until my boxers and socks are the only things left. He guides me onto the couch, lies down and pulls me on top of him, grabs a blanket off the back, and covers us both. He’s like a human furnace at the moment, and I feel his heat spread from my chest down to my fingertips, my socked feet tangling with his bare ones.
“I hate winter,” I mutter against his neck.
“Texas boy,” he says fondly.
“Mm-hmm.” Aaron texts me daily with a screen cap of the weather. Today it was in the low fifties, balmy compared to Ohio.
We lie in silence for a few minutes, until my body is warm enough to realize that I have Jeremy stretched beneath me, like a feast waiting to be devoured.
“You feel nice,” I mumble.
He laughs. “So do you.” His hands tease up and down my spine. I’m almost naked, and he’s still fully clothed, which doesn’t exactly feel fair.
“You should get undressed.” I prop myself up to see him better. “Which, actually, is kinda why I’m hoping you texted.”
Jeremy flushes and looks away shyly. I thought I’d mostly weaned him off of the shame and embarrassment that he’d clung to early on in our relationship, so it’s a surprise to see him blush when I’m pretty sure he called me over for a bit of Netflix and Chill.
“I, um, was thinking.”
“Always dangerous.”
My teasing earns me a sharp pinch on my side, and I laugh and squirm away.
“It’s the New Year. That feels . . . important. Symbolic.”
Now I’m silent, waiting.
“We made a bet back in March,” he says.
I inhale. “Yeah, we did.”
“And you did win at Nationals a few weeks ago.”
He’d given me a look after we’d won, one I couldn’t even begin to decipher, but it had made my lungs ache and my heart beat overtime. I’d thought, maybe now, but nothing else had happened. We’d competed in our individual event, and Jeremy had won like I knew he would. I’d placed tenth in the semifinals and hadn’t advanced with the top eight to the finals, surprising no one. And then we’d gone home, life had returned to normal, and I’d waited, wondering if this day would come.
Don’t get me wrong: what Jeremy and I have, what we do? It’s perfect. The trust he gives me every single time he relaxes and lets me touch him is staggering, and I think I could be happy with hands and mouths for the rest of my life knowing that I get to watch Jeremy fall apart beneath them.
But I’m not going to lie either. I do want him. I want more with him. I want to make him feel incredible, and I want that connection between us, the moment where we’re so entwined in one another that we’re one being.
I want to make love to him.
And then, after, I want him to turn me over and fuck me until we can’t move anymore, because I’ve seen how he gets when he’s bossy and in control and it’s seriously hot.
Jeremy bites his lip and reaches for me hesitantly.
“Jeremy, you have to say it.” I intercept his hand, lacing our fingers together. “I need to know what you want.”
He exhales shakily.
I kiss him, catching his lower lip in my teeth and tugging until my teeth scrape over it. “Jeremy. You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”
“I am.” He doesn’t sound uncertain, but his eyes are a bit wide. “I want this.”
“Will you tell me what changed?” After our date before Nationals, I had the feeling he wouldn’t be ready anytime soon.
He swallows. “I didn’t go home for Christmas.” He pauses, and I wait for him to continue. “So my dad called and passed the phone around. And I was talking to Isaac—that’s one of my brothers—and he hollers over at Nick, who’s watching a soccer match on TV because there’s nothing else on. And he just ignores me, yelling at Nick about how the team he’s rooting for are a bunch of queers and how some famous soccer player is probably taking it up the ass.”
He says the words woodenly. No emotion, no disgust. Like they’re just normal words that he’s heard a million times over.
Things suddenly start to make a lot more sense.
But Jeremy isn’t done. “And I was listening to Isaac and Nick yell at each other, and it hit me: they think if you’re a fag, you’re weak.”
“I don’t like that word.”
Jeremy bites his lip and jerks his head in a quick nod. “Yeah. Sorry. I—I guess, I should use . . .”
“Gay,” I finish for him.
The word clearly does not sit naturally on his tongue, and I have the feeling he’s never really used it before, certainly not to describe himself. “But I realized that being g-gay isn’t bad. Because you’re not bad; you’re a national champion, and we’re going to the Series together.”
I almost laugh. Of course, it figures. Jeremy doesn’t speak the same language as the rest of us, and he doesn’t see the world the same way as I do. To him, winning means being strong. Being World Champion showed him that he was strong enough to let me kiss him and touch him. Me winning a national competition means that I’m strong too. In Jeremy logic, all I needed to do to convince him to have sex was to get on a podium.
But Jeremy seems completely serious, so instead of laughing, I duck and kiss him, smiling. “You’re something else.”
He kisses me back eagerly. “And I looked it up online,” he continues. “So I know that it’s supposed to be good. It’s supposed to feel good, and . . . well, I trust you.”
The thought of him watching porn on his laptop, all focused and frowning in concentration, is enough to get me hot and bothered. “It’s gonna feel better than good.”
“Like when you put your mouth on me?”
I put my mouth on him now, on his neck and his ear lobe, nipping the skin as I go until he’s gasping and arching into me. “Yeah, way better than a blowjob.”
“I bought stuff. I wasn’t sure what to get.”
I’m delighted by the mental image of shy, timid Jeremy braving the lube and condoms aisle in the local pharmacy store, but then he turns his head, and there’s a small, plain box from Amazon sitting on the coffee table.
Still, he gets a kiss to reward him, and then I sit up, letting the blanket fall off my shoulders. “Come with me?”
His eyes are wary, but he nods, collects the box from the table, and follows me down the hall.
Jeremy’s bedroom is my favorite part of his apartment, because it’s the place where his character most shines through. He’s obsessive about keeping things where they belong, but there are subtle signs of a college guy living alone here: a sock that didn’t quite make it into the hamper, a day-old shirt hanging off the back of a chair.
There’s also a wall with a few dark-wood shadow boxes. I was surprised the first time I realized that Jeremy frames his medals, because he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to display them. Then I realized that they’re directly opposite his giant calendar counting down until the Olympics, like he uses them as a reminder of his goal in life.
Jeremy’s bed is my favorite part of the room. In direct contrast to the rest of his apartment, his bed is never made properly. We had a housekeeper when I was little who would fold down my comforter and sheets for me; Jeremy, at best, flattens a blanket out over the bed, but mostly it’s rumpled and messy.
And I really love seeing Jeremy spread out on it.
He seems nervous when I finally stop in front of the bed, so I step into his space. “Kiss me?”
The simple request helps to ease some of the tension.
I’ve never been anyone’s first before, unless you count Aaron—and we were each other’s first. I’m pretty sure all those romantic books and movies say you should, like, take it slow and have rose petals on the sheet, make it last. But if I give Jeremy slow, he’s going to have too much time to think, to panic, and to doubt.
And I don’t just want this to be good; I want it to be explosive.
So I get to work.
Stripping us down is easy. Jeremy lifts his arms above his head and lets me work his T-shirt off, then pulls his own sweats down and tosses them against the wall. He has no shame about his body—being a diver, you get over that quickly enough—and we’re well past the stage where he’s timid about being naked with another man.
Once all of our clothes are on the floor, I settle on the bed and draw Jeremy onto my lap, straddling my thighs with his knees on either side, our cocks bumping together as we kiss. He’s a massive ball of sensitivity; everywhere I touch provokes a shudder or a gasp. I rub the pad of my thumb over one of his nipples and get a rumbled groan, and teasing my nails over the tender skin inside his elbow makes his eyes flutter shut.
“Lay down with me.”
When I stretch out on the bed, Jeremy plasters himself to my side. I have to reach to grab the box he brought in with him, a little innocuous cardboard thing that makes him turn a pretty shade of pink when I open it. Inside are two different types of condoms and three different lubes.
“The websites said these were the best ones.” Jeremy has buried his face against my neck, so I wrap my arm around him and scratch his scalp lazily while I inspect the contents on my own.
“Babe, you did fine.” I only have one free hand, but I manage to tear a box open and tug out a strip of condoms, and find the lube that will work the best. The rest is shoved off onto the floor, to be cleaned up later.
Jeremy is watching me now, and I hand him the lube, much to his confusion.
“What do I do with it?”
“Open it up and put some on your fingers.”
He takes the tube, but hesitates. “I thought . . . Aren’t you going to, um, do it? To me?”
I can’t decide whether to laugh at how adorable he is, or ache because he’s spent his entire life hiding from this and now even talking about it scares him. “I’ve noticed that you like to know every step of a process before doing it. And if I just start trying to stretch you out, you’re going to be tense, because you won’t know what’s going on. You don’t like not knowing.”
His face clears a bit.
“So I want you to finger me, first. So you can see how I react, and see what I’m going to do to you. That way it won’t be a mystery.”
He’s clearly not fully convinced, but he does finally open the lube and spread some on his fingers. He looks entranced by the slickness, how it drips down his hand. “Is that enough?”
“Oh yeah.” It’s probably a bit too much, but more is better here. I dislodge him from my arm so I can reach down and pull my knees up to my chest.
“What do I do?”
Jeremy’s eyes are dark and full of fascination when I meet his gaze. “Start with one. You’ll meet a little resistance, but just keep pushing.”
My body turns molten when I feel a shaking finger trail down my ass until it finds the pucker of muscle. I’ve always loved bottoming, loved the feeling of being full. It’s tempting to let Jeremy stretch me out, slide one of those condoms on him, and let him shove that beautiful dick inside me. Another time, though; tonight I want to show him what it feels like.
The finger presses into me, and I force my body to relax, sighing when he pushes past the ring of muscle and slides easily into my body. My own content sigh is buried beneath his loud gasp.
“Brandon.” His voice is awestruck.
“Slide your finger in and out, get me loose, then add a second.”
Jeremy has a concentrated frown on his face, the same as when he’s learning a new dive, and he applies himself to the task with the same dedication. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but my body knows the motions, and staring up into Jeremy’s rich-brown eyes makes the experience even better.
“Crook your fingers,” I tell him, and then practically levitate off the bed when he does and, a second later, finds my prostate.
“Oh. That’s what they talked about on the websites.” He grins and keeps rubbing his fingers over that bundle of nerves until I’m writhing against the sheets.
“Jeremy, oh shit, hold on.”
He pulls free, looking sheepish but pleased. “Was that okay?”
I can’t talk for a moment, trying to catch my breath. “Better than.” I lean up to kiss him.
“I want you to do that. To me.” Jeremy’s nerves are almost entirely gone. He’s hard, sweating, and breathing heavily.
Yeah. Yes, please.
He lets me position him on the bed, arms pillowed beneath his head and ass up in the air, displaying a long line of pale skin that I want to kiss and lick and suck every inch of. And then it’s my turn.
“I’m going to start with one finger, just like you did.” I walk him through it, the same way he walks me through a dive, detailing every single step. “It’s going to feel weird, but just try to relax. Push back against me, it’ll help.”
He tenses when I slide in, but I can tell that he’s trying to follow my instructions. His head is turned to the side, eyes clenched shut, so I press kisses into his shoulder blade and down the back of his neck, pausing over every vertebrae. Slowly, he stops fighting the intrusion, until I can slide in and out with ease. After pausing to add more lube, I slide a second finger in, and twist hard, going straight for his prostate.
“Holy fuck.”
Yeah, his eyes aren’t shut anymore. They’re wide open, mouth slack, and I lean over to kiss him sloppily. The angle is weird, but Jeremy responds with desperation when I pulse my fingers over the nub, working my fingers in and out, getting him ready.
“Brandon,” he gasps.
“Yeah, babe.”
I fumble the condom when I try to put it on, but thankfully Jeremy doesn’t seem to notice. He might not be nervous, but suddenly I am, because I want so badly for this to be good for him and it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex like this.
I’ve never been anyone’s first. That thought resonates over and over as I run my left hand over Jeremy’s side before leaning forward and lacing our fingers together. He grips my hand tightly, and I use my right to add more lube, then line up.
“Jeremy,” I say.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, like he does before a dive. And I push in, slowly, and god, he’s so tight, but he just takes another breath. I can tell that he’s in pain by the way his forehead creases, but he doesn’t say a word or make a single sound until I’m all the way in.
Then he says, “Move, please,” in this broken voice, but it’s not pain that I’m hearing anymore.
“Yeah.”
I pull out, then push back in a little faster, and this time I try to angle for the spot that I know will turn him into jelly. As sensitive as Jeremy is everywhere else, I’m not surprised when he practically melts against me with a moan as I graze his prostate, and then his voice goes up an octave when I hit it again and again.
Finding a rhythm is easy enough, especially once Jeremy shifts against me and starts pushing back. His fingers are digging into my hand and the pillow beneath his head, and his mouth is open in a round O. He looks completely blissed out, pupils blown like he’s high as a kite.
He chants my name over and over, alternating it with please and god.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” I tell him, and he flushes, his eyes falling shut.
I’m going to come so fast that it’s embarrassing, especially since Jeremy is twisting against me, alternating between trying to push my cock deeper into his body and trying to rub his aching dick against the mattress, desperate for friction. The sound he makes when I wrap my hand around him and tug is the most obscene, perfect groan I’ve ever heard.
“Brandon,” he says again, “I need—”
“Yeah.” He tightens around me, hips stuttering and losing the rhythm. “Come for me, babe.”
And he does. His jaw goes slack, and his eyes clench shut, and his entire body tenses as he coats my hand with his release. The second he relaxes again, I’m moving, and I only manage another two or three thrusts before I’m coming too, filling the condom and sinking down against his back.
Later, when we’re showered and curled up beneath his blanket, I kiss his eyelids. “Happy New Year.”
He smiles at me, sleepy and sated. “Happy New Year.”