It takes fifteen hours, about ten cups of coffee, and a bunch of micro naps on top of my stuff, but I’m finally on a plane to Jackson. It’s cramped and I’m in the very back of the plane, but I sleep like a baby all the way through because I’m so tired.

I changed my outfit right before I checked in my bags, but I need to shower badly. I stink and I feel like shit and by the time we land, there’s a streak of drool all the way down my chin.

But at least I’m home.

It’s not even cold outside. I mean, it’s cold, I have to wear a coat, of course, but it’s not cuttingly cold. It doesn’t feel like it’s getting into my bones at least.

Alex is there to pick me up. He doesn’t get out of his car. Instead, he waves at me from the minivan. I put my stuff in the trunk and collapse onto the passenger seat.

“Good flight?”

I shrug. “Just glad to be home.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says. “I would have gotten out of the car but I can’t leave the kids.”

I look behind to see three sleeping kids strapped into their chairs in the backseat.

“Tina needed a break,” he explains. “Okay, bring it in. Give your big brother a hug.”

I lean over and hug him tightly, apologizing about stinking while I do.

He shakes his head. He tells me it's okay, that he's just glad I'm here. It's Christmas Eve, and it’s starting to get dark.

A lot of people are arriving at the airport, which means there are a lot of people also pulling out of the airport.

I'm worried about pulling out of the airport. I know that Alex doesn’t drive that much because he stays at home with the kids, but then again, he has been driving for longer than any one of us.

I'm just glad I didn't have to drive down here, even considering the wait. I don’t think I would have been able to do it.

Mom and Dad were really chill about it, but I'm sure they're looking forward to seeing me, and I'm looking forward to seeing them too.

Plus, seeing my family is going to keep me busy so that I’m able to keep my mind off Jason.

I mean, I'm going to still be able to see his house from my house, and I’m sure if I run into him it’s going to be a little awkward but as long as I don't see him I think I should be okay.

Anyway, I should just stop thinking about him, because I know now that nothing is going to happen. That's just the way life is. I need to enjoy this Christmas, because afterwards I don't know what's going to happen with me. I don't know where my life is going to go, and because everything is up in the air, I feel very stressed. A little broken hearted too, but very stressed.

We finally get to the house and I help Alex get the kids out. They’re excited to see me, probably as excited as I am to see them, so we spent a little time playing in the yard outside while the rest of the family comes out to say hello.

My family isn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we have a nice house. My mom was in real estate for most her life and when she saw this diamond-in-the-rough house in a nice neighborhood she decided to buy it and renovate it. The house has historical value, though my mom has added several things to modernize it.

Mostly, though, the house is just huge.

Perhaps the main reason we moved into this house was so that we could all have our own bedroom. Yes, there weren’t many bathrooms, but that’s because it’s a historical home. When we moved in, my siblings and I all got our own bedrooms, which was great. Then my parents renovated the pool house.

The inside of the house has five bedrooms, one of which we used to use for guests. The pool house has two bedrooms and one bathroom. That's where my brother and the kids stay during the holidays, when they're staying at the house. That's where they're going to stay tonight, before they go into the house to celebrate Christmas with all of us.

If any other one of us had a family of our own like Alex’s then we would rearrange things. But for the time being, all I really want to see is my childhood bedroom.

My bedroom has changed very little and I think that the reason for that is that my parents want to preserve it in case I have to move back in. I mean, they would never tell me that to my face, but I know it's the truth.

Because the moment my sister moved out they made her room into a gym, and the moment that Alex moved out they made his room into an office.

They are beautiful rooms, and my parents have good taste, but I'm the only one that's expected to have to move back in eventually. It makes sense. I'm the only actor, so I’m the one who is most likely to fail.

I don’t want to think about this. I just want to have a shower and then go in my room for a bit before I’m expected to socialize for hours on end.

After greeting everyone warmly and having people ask me a bunch of questions—not judgy questions, so this is already going better than I expected—I finally manage to excuse myself upstairs and get in a shower. I feel a lot better after I get out, but then I go into my room and look across the street at Jason’s house. He must already be there. I shouldn’t be thinking about him, I know that.

I look away and try to psych myself up to go downstairs. I do want to see my family, of course, but just seeing Jason’s house has put me off-kilter when I was feeling a little bit better about how everything went. I still feel like shit about what happened but I had started to come to terms with it.

I turn around, but before I can go downstairs, someone knocks on my door. “Come in,” I say as I finish putting on my shirt.

“Jason’s here,” Anna says.

“What?”

“Jason’s here to see you,” she replies, her eyes small. “Do you want me to go get him?”

“I—uh, yeah, I guess,” I reply. Of course I want to see him, but part of me thinks that he’s only going to come up here to beat me up. Not that I don’t deserve it, but I thought we would be past that by now. We clearly aren’t.

“Okay,” she says. She turns around then moves back and winks at me. “I’ll make sure that no one comes up here while you guys are talking.”

“Thanks?”

She smiles at me and then goes downstairs.

It’s only a few minutes, but I can hear people downstairs and I’m walking around and wondering what the fuck I’m going to say to him. If he punches me, I shouldn’t defend myself, I’m sure of that. But if he keeps punching me, fuck, I don’t know.

Maybe he’s just here to talk, but what is there left to talk about?

I don't understand it. And I'm nervous. Very nervous. I just had a shower, and I already have sweat dripping down my face. I want to look like I'm relaxed, but I clearly don't and when Jason finally appears in front of me, looking like he's just shaved, had a shower and is ready to go out, I can’t help but feel like absolute shit.

“Hi,” he says. “Can we talk?”

“Of course,” I reply, moving away from the door. “Come on in.”

He walks in and looks around my bedroom.

I close the door behind him and lock it. This feels intensely personal, way too personal not to do it locked away from everyone else here.

He cocks his head and frowns, but he doesn’t address it. “I know what you did.”

“You know what I did?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head. “Please sit down wherever.”

I say wherever, but I'm pointing at my bed because that's the only place that there is to sit in my bedroom. “They weren't supposed to tell you.”

“They didn’t tell me.”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Then how do you know?”

“I'm not an idiot, Max.”

“You're not?” I say with a smile. “I mean, you're here.”

He smiles back at me, a disarming charming smile that makes me feel dizzy. “Okay. So I may be a bit of an idiot.”

He sits down on the bed, and then he looks up at me for a second before he taps the space next to him on the bed so I sit down right next to him. I didn’t think that he wanted me to be this close, but it doesn't matter. If I have the chance to be this close then I'm going to take it. Even if it feels wrong.

“Why are you here?” I reply shaking my head. “I don't mean to be blunt, but I would totally understand if you never wanted to see me again.”

“I've been thinking a lot over the past few hours about how things went down between us.”

I cock my head. “Why?”

He looks right back into my eyes, his brown eyes shining. “I never gave you a chance to explain. What you did for me, it was unnecessary and it was also so, so kind.”

“My sister told me there might be something wrong with your step-dad.”

He laughs bitterly. “Well, he’s depressed, in a way.”

“So what’s going on?”

“It’s my mom,” he says. “She’s sick. They don’t know how sick she is, but I want to spend as many Christmases as I can with her. I think that was affecting how I was acting toward you because I was being a huge dick for no reason.”

“You had a reason.”

“But then you let me take your place,” he replies, holding his hand up to stop me from talking.  “You didn't just let me take your place. You went out of your way to make sure that I was on the next flight to Jackson. You didn't know what was going on with me, all that you wanted to do was make sure that I was okay.”

“I just wanted to make it up to you.”

“I know. And you did. Every step of the way, you did.”

“I’m sorry about your mom. I’ll swing by and say hello.”

“Good,” he says. “I’m sure she would like that. She’s already invited you to dinner since she found out we’re talking again.”

I shake my head. ''I don't just mean I want to make it up to you for what I said to you in that text. I mean for everything, for everything I did when we were kids. You deserve an apology and not just an apology, but like a genuine expression of regret. Please trust me, this is something that I’ve regretted every single day of my life.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “So that you can explain yourself to me.”

I scoff and rub the bridge of my nose. “What is there to explain? I was a huge dick. You are right. I called you a faggot and you stood up for yourself.”

He winces at that and he even seems to pale a little bit. I knew that it was going to sting, but I had to say it. Because before I apologize, I need him to realize the gravity and the weight of my words when I insulted him. Because I feel like if I softened him up by doing him a favor and then he forgives me, I won’t have earned it.

He won’t understand just how much I have hurt him and I need him to understand it even now.

“Even back then, you stood up for yourself. I know this comes as too little too late, but I'm too little. I want you to know that what I did to you was because I was scared,” I say quickly and quietly. My eyes are filled with tears but I don’t care that I’m crying in front of him. He deserves to know the truth, every single part of the truth.

“Scared of what?”

I swallow as I look away. “You weren't wrong. That night that you tried to kiss me. I had been thinking about it for so long.”

“About…”

“About you kissing me. About us being together,” my voice sounds shaky to my own ears.

His eyes widen. “You had?”

“I had. I had been thinking about you. I had been thinking about how much I wanted you. Ever since I was a little boy, ever since I first started to realize that I could have crushes on people, I realized that I liked you.”

“So... You're gay?”

I can feel how hot my cheeks are. “I mean, I thought you'd gathered that I was something from the bathroom experience.”

 “I don't know,” he says in a whisper. “You get to decide what to call yourself and just being turned on by another guy doesn't automatically make you gay.”

“As mind-blowing as that was?”

“As mind-blowing as it was. Having good sex doesn’t necessarily define your identity,” he replies with a smile. His hand is on mine and I feel a little bit sick. “There’s something you need to know about me, too.”

“What is it?” I can’t imagine that he’s going to tell me something that I don’t already know but this seems important to him so I can’t just launch into how I feel about him, though I wish that he would meet my point head on.

“I’m demi.”

I shake my head. “Demi what?”

“Demi-sexual,” he replies with a smile.

“What does that mean? You’re not gay?”

He smiles. “No, I’m gay. I’m also demi. You can be both.”

“So it’s not a sexual orientation, like being gay is?”

He twists his lips. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess it’s just something that I consider myself to be, like I consider myself to be tall or blond. But then again, I also consider myself gay, so maybe?”

My eyes widen. “I don’t think I get it.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s complicated.”

I nod, though I’m not quite sure that I understand. “So, what does it mean? To be demi-sexual, I mean.”

“It means that I’m only sexually attracted to people that I care about,” he says. “I can’t see someone as sexually attractive unless I already care about them.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand. So you can’t find actors attractive?”

“No, I can,” he says. “But that’s more like, I appreciate their aesthetic. I don’t want to jump their bones.”

I smile at him. “So whose bones do you want to jump?”

He doesn’t smile back at me. He licks his lips and doesn’t say anything, looking away from me instead.

I stop smiling as I swallow.

I think this is the part where I need to tell him the truth about how I feel about him in a clearer way. A way in which I somehow make him realize how in love with him I am, how in love with him I’ve always been. Ever since we were kids.

When I ran into him again, it brought all those feelings back for me.

I have been running away from him for so long and from what my feelings mean for him, but at this point, I have nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing.

I need to tell him the truth because it might be the only thing that will get him to stay in my life. And maybe he won’t forgive me, maybe he’ll never forgive me, but I think that’s okay.

He needs to know the truth about me because hiding it from him would be another thing that I’ve done around Jason that I would be ashamed of.

And if he rejects me, well, that’s okay. Or maybe not, but at least I can live with that.

Maybe it can mean that I’ll finally be able to move on with my life.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his hand still warm on mine.

“Yes, I’m fine, but Jason…”

“What?”

“I'm not turned on by guys as a rule. I'm in love with you.”

He sets his gaze on my face and cocks his head. “You're in love with me? You don't know me.”

“I know.” I replied quietly. “I made it so that I didn't know you, so that it would be easier for me to move on. But it hasn't been easier. In fact, it has been really, really hard. I've been trying my very best to make it so that you're not part of my life, but every time that I think about what I did to you, how I handled things back when we were in high school, I feel sick to my stomach.”

“Thank you for saying that,” he replies as he looks away from me.

I can’t see his face, but I know that his eyes are welling up with tears. I hate that I made him feel bad. I hate that this is what our relationship has become when we used to be so very close.

I hate everything about the situation except for the fact that his hand is on mine, warm and anchoring me down.

I'm about to apologize again when he turns to look at me, and then his mouth is on mine once more. His lips are soft and warm, and his face is pressing up against me hard. It's not an open-mouthed kiss, but it's passionate nevertheless. It's exactly what I needed, and I don't think I realized how much I needed it until he's kissing me again. He's guiding me down so that I'm on my back, and he's on top of me. That's when I open my mouth to let his tongue in and he’s stroking my sides over my clothes, his touch soft.

He's not being very insistent or fast, with his kisses or his hands.

This feels passionate instead of desperate, like the culmination of a very hot date. Shit, that's what I need to ask him. I turn my face away from him as I gasp and pause for a breath.

He’s frowning when he looks down at me, clearly concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you not into this?”

I shake my head. “No, no. I'm into this.” I reply as I smile at him. “But if I do it and I don't ask you what I'm about to ask you, I’m sure that I’ll regret it for rest of my life.”

“What are you about to ask me?” he replies frowning.

“If you’d like to go out with me sometime. So, would you?” I reply, grinning at him.

He chuckles. “You're asking me on a date while we’re making out?”

“Hey. Cut me a break here, I'm working with teenage parameters,” I say and pout.

He shakes his head as he smiles. “Fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he says. “When we get back to the city.”

“Or in a couple of days,” I say.

His eyes widen. “You know that’s… in town, right? Everyone will know.”

I scoff. “I know. I’m not ashamed of you, Jason. The only person I’m ashamed of is myself.”

“I don’t know why, but hearing you say those words shouldn’t have been as hot it was.”

I laugh. “Did I make you hard?”

“I was already hard when I started to kiss you,” he says. “Do you wanna see?”

“Are you asking me if I want to see your cock?”

He smiles as he nods. “Yeah, that's exactly what I'm asking you.”

I lick my lips. “Yes, I can’t wait to see your hard cock.”

He bites his lower lip. “Good.”

He stands up in front of me, and he starts to undo the zipper of his jeans.

I'm sitting down on the bed, and his crotch is right in front of me, so when he starts sliding his jeans down his legs, I can see his dick bouncing in his shorts.

I've only seen it once and I already loved it. My mouth is watering by the time he takes it out of his shorts, and it's there right in front of me in all its uncut glory.

I don’t think about it.

I’ve never sucked another guy off—my party experience was limited to things being done to me rather than the other way around—but Jason standing there like this is too much not to tempt me, so I wrap my mouth around his hardened cock and started to suck him off slowly at first, holding the base of his dick as I do to heighten the sensation. I don’t think I’m very good at this, but Jason seems to be enjoying it and he’s moaning quietly every time that I swirl my tongue around his cock. I take a page out of his book and start to move my head back and forth over his impressively sized dick, but he’s too big for me to be able to deep-throat him the way that he could me. He knots his fingers through my hair and he holds my head in place as he enters me more and more deeply.

I could resist him… I could tell him I want him to stop. But I don’t want him to stop, even though my eyes are watering with every thrust, despite the fact that I feel like I’m choking and I can’t breathe. I think I’m about to cum from the way that Jason is thrusting his dick so far into me, the fact that he seems to be claiming me by doing this.

When he moves away from me, he yanks my head back so that I’m staring right into his eyes.

He’s looking right at me when he speaks. “Do you want this?”

“Yes,” I reply as I nod my head.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”

My eyes widen. I hadn’t thought about that, but now that he’s mentioned it, I do know how much I want it. I think. I’m a little bit scared of what it’s going to be like, but if it’s anything like sucking him off, then I’m sure it’s going to be sublime.

“Yes,” I finally say.

He grins. “Good. I was hoping you would say that.”

“Right now?” My eyes widen.

“I want to cum inside you,” he says, his gaze never moving away from mine. His fingers are still laced in my hair and he’s holding me firmly in place. I think that I could cum just from hearing him say that, but instead I just moan and nod my head as quickly as I can.

“Get on the bed,” he says, letting go of me. “Get on all fours and wait for me. Touch yourself, but don’t make yourself cum. Got it?”

I swallow.

He smiles at me. “If you want to stop…”

I shake my head. I really don’t want to stop. The last thing I want to do in the world is stop. “No,” I say.

“You should strip first.”

I look down at myself. I’m a hot sweaty mess, even though I’m still wearing all my clothes, but luckily, I’ve just put them on.

I undo the buttons on my pants, take off my shirt and take my boxers off quickly. I’m about to do what he’s told me when he looks me up and down. “Goddamn,” he says as he bites down on his lower lip. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

I can feel myself blushing.

“I want to see your ass,” he says.

I have never felt so exposed and simultaneously turned on in my entire life. I crawl onto the bed, on all fours, like I have been told, and I can feel his gaze burning on me.

“Still keep condoms in your nightstand? I’m clean but…”

“No condoms,” I say. “There’s lube in there, though. I’m clean too.”

“Good,” he says in a low voice. “Fuck, you’re so sexy.”

I can hear him getting something from the nightstand. Then I can hear him walking toward me and I can feel him as he kneels down on the bed and his weight shifts.

“Take a deep breath,” he says. “This is going to hurt for a second.”

I suddenly panic. What if this is terrible? I’m letting a man fuck me. Not just any man either, Jason Mayes. I don’t know much about dicks but I know that his is on the bigger side of average and I don’t know how it’ll feel to have his dick up in me.

“It’s just for a second, okay? Then I’m going to blow your mind.”

“Promise?”

“Your world is going to change forever.”

But soon his hand is touching my ass, just cupping it softly as he strokes the light dusting of hair on it. His soft, expert touching is sending tingles up my spine and soon he’s leaning down so that his lips are against my skin. “It’s okay,” he says. “Relax.”

He splatters kisses all over my ass until I’m gasping for more and soon I’m moving my hips without even meaning to. Then he presses a finger between my butt cheeks—he doesn’t enter me, not yet, he just moves a finger up and down my crack.

“I’m going to eat you out,” he says. “Relax, okay?”

“But—” I protest. He’s going to eat me out? He’s going to eat my ass out? That makes me feel self-conscious just to think about.

His hand still on my ass, and he speaks quietly. “You don’t want me to?”

I take a deep breath. “I want you to, I’m just—”

“You’ll be amazing,” he says. “I promise. You trust me, right?”

I swallow. I trust him, but I’m worried. But my worry soon disappears when he spreads my ass with his hands and runs his tongue over my hole. He doesn’t enter me, not quite yet, but his expert hot tongue makes me look forward to this so much more than I thought I ever could. Then slowly, very slowly, he starts to press his tongue into me, preparing me for his large rod. When he moves away from me, it feels like I’m empty. But it doesn’t last long because soon he’s pressing a finger into me and he’s slowly moving it in and out of me. It doesn’t hurt, not at all, though the sensation isn’t something that I’m used to.

He presses up against what I think is my prostate, because soon the electrical tingle turns into something else. It feels like a million explosions of warmth all over my body, from where his finger touches up through my spine and then through my extremities. Every time that he thrusts his finger into me, I feel like I don’t exist anymore, like I’m only made of heat and electricity and pleasure. I have forgotten all about stroking myself like he told me to because I can’t do anything but kneel there and wait for him while I’m a mess waiting for him to fuck me.

“Tell me when you’re about to cum,” he says. “I don’t want to be fucking you after you cum.”

I nod though I have no idea why he wouldn’t want to fuck me after I have cum. I just want him to fuck me, I don’t care how long he does it for.

“Deep breath, Max,” he says. “Don’t scream out, okay?”

I nod again. He positions himself so that he’s right behind me and slowly enters me as I try my best not to cry out. He’s slathered in lube and my hole is ready for him but the sensation isn’t pleasant. In fact, it’s still a little painful. But I breathe my way through it and slowly, very slowly, he starts to thrust his impressive cock in and out of me and soon I’m gasping for breath again but for very different reasons.

“God,” he says. “You’re so tight.”

He reaches around and I feel him wrap his hand around my incredibly hard cock.

He starts to stroke me at the same time as he thrusts and I don’t know how he does it but the situation is suddenly too much for me to handle and I’m whimpering and moaning with pleasure with every thrust and stroke.

I think I tell him that I’m going to cum but I don’t even know if I’m speaking right now as my hips gyrate into him. He quickens his pace a little bit and his grip tightens on my hip and slightly on my cock and then I can hear him groan as he’s announcing that he’s going to cum inside of me and I’m begging him to, telling him that I need him to. My toes curl as I feel my orgasm building through me and we cum at the same time, groaning and moaning as quietly as we can until he rolls off of me carefully and giggles.

We’re both a mess and my legs feel like they’re made of jelly, but somehow, this moment is still the best moment of my life.

He puts his arms around my stomach and nuzzles into my shoulder. “Wow,” he says.

I swallow. “Is it always like that?”

“No,” he replies. “Not always. That was incredible.”

He kisses my shoulder. Then he closes his eyes and gets serious for a second. “Can I ask you something, Max?”

“Of course,” I reply. “You can ask me anything.”

“Is what you said true?”

“About what?”

“About being in love with me,” he says quietly.

I nod. “Yeah, it’s always been true. I mean, yes, you’re right. I don’t know you right now and you’re an adult so things might have changed for you, but I know the core of you and that’s the part of you that I’m in love with.”

He frowns as he tilts his head up to look at me. “The core of me?”

“Yeah,” I reply. I put my hand on his hand and squeeze it. “You know, the part of you that has always been there. The part of you that is always super kind and trying his best to help people, you know?”

“I could have changed,” he replies.

“But you haven’t,” I say. “You’re still the same person that you were then. I mean, you’re better, probably, smarter, and a better conversationalist.”

“Better at sex,” he says, smiling.

“Yes, better at sex,” I reply. “Though I wouldn’t know. I wish I could.”

“I’m happy with this,” he says. “I mean, it’s a shame it took so long, but I get it. I’m kind of glad, because now I have all this experience, and I really want to make it work.”

“Wait,” I say. “Are you saying that you want a relationship?”

He rolls his eyes. “Depends. First impress me on that date.”

“I didn’t already impress you enough?”

He doesn’t say anything so I smile at him.

“I’m joking,” I say. “I know I still have a lifetime of shit to make up to you.”

“Maybe not a lifetime.”

“Nevertheless,” I say. “Do you wanna go downstairs? Say hello to my family. I know you’re still friends with them.”

“Yeah,” he replies and smiles. “Okay.”