Page 81 of Point of Contact

“I messed around a lot in high school.” Trevor gave Jesse an abbreviated story of Riley’s conception. “And after he was born, there wasn’t anyone for years.”

“Why? Just too busy?”

“That, and he was born in ’87. The height of the AIDS epidemic,” he went on when Jesse looked mystified.

“Oh. Shit.”

“Back then we didn’t know how it was transmitted, thought maybe it could even be by kissing or shaking someone’s hand. No way was I gonna put myself or my baby at risk, so I didn’t date or go out.”

“That must’ve been lonely.”

“It was. Almost everyone I knew in the gay community, which wasn’t very big in the Springs to begin with, had lost someone somewhere. I was lonely, but I couldn’t take the chance of something happening to me.” He took a sip of his coffee and chuckled drily. “Of course when things settled down and we understood more about it, I made up for lost time, believe me.”

“You did?” Jesse put his cup on the nightstand, his eyes wide. “How?”

Trevor shrugged. “Clubs, cruising. Armed with a box of condoms, I felt bulletproof. Riley was a preteen by then, could be left home alone for a couple of hours, and I’d take advantage of it. Never brought anyone home, never spent the night anywhere else, but—”

He could see Jesse swallow hard. “Wow.”

“Eventually I got that out of my system and started dating, introduced a few of them to Riley, brought him around my circle of friends. He was mature enough by that point that I didn’t think he’d be hurt if things didn’t work out between me and whomever.” Trevor put his own cup down. “Carl was the only one I ever lived with, though.”

“I wasn’t out in high school, or right after, and then of course I went into the Army.” Jesse shrugged, and it hit Trevor that he might be a virgin. It was his turn to swallow, and he casually pulled a pillow over his lap.

Jesus, Trev! Get a fucking grip!

“Wasn’t it hard for you to join the Army, knowing you were gay?”

“Not at first. I mean, sex was fun but it wasn’t really my top priority. Not when I’d been dealing with my parents’ deaths and then trying to figure out what to do with my life. But of course after a while I started to get lonely.”

“And horny.”

Jesse’s eyes shot to his and then away. “Definitely. Also, it was hard to see guys get married, or show off pics of their girlfriends.” He snorted. “Dudes living together always wanna know who’s getting some and who’s not. If you’re not, they wanna know why. So I had to constantly make shit up, or act like a douche to cover. It was so fuckin’ exhausting, not to mention I hated myself a lot for the way I behaved, too.”

“So you haven’t been with anyone since...?” Oh, real subtle, Trevor.

“I used to sneak away and go to gay clubs when I could, but I couldn’t manage it very often.” Jesse lay down on the bed and propped himself up on his elbow. “Riley noticed that when I’d come home, I looked like you did when you’d been out, so I wasn’t being as careful as I thought I was.”

Well, that answers the virgin question. But the thought also made Trevor achingly hard, remembering those long-ago nights filled with hot anonymous sex, mostly blow jobs or grinding desperately up against someone in the back seat of their car.

He cleared his throat, trying with all his might not to picture Jesse on his knees...

“It shouldn’t surprise me he’d noticed that,” Trevor said huskily. “He was always really attuned to me.”

Desperate to change the subject before he did something stupid, Trevor went on, “So we’ve been here almost a week. What’s next? I’m getting a little tired of Waikiki.”

Jesse chuckled and rolled to his back, stacking his hands behind his head. “Well, we felt the same way, so we rented motorcycles.”

“Motorcycles? What the hell?”

Jesse blinked at him. “Yeah. We both had our motorcycle licenses.”

“Whoa. Whoa.” Trevor sat up straight, his pesky arousal forgotten. “Licenses?”

“Before we went on deployment, a bunch of us took the motorcycle safety course there at Fort Carson. It’s required if you ever wanna ride on a military installation. Then we got our licenses.” Jesse’s eyes were wary as he took in Trevor’s pained surprise at this new information.

“Wow. I, uh, I didn’t know that.”

Jesse’s eyes were steady on his. “We talked about buying motorcycles when we got back.”