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Then I start to move my hands—squeezing, pushing, twisting.
Massaging his shoulders feels like kneading a big stone and pretending it’s dough.
“You can really dig if you want,” he coaches me. “Get in there. Be rough. You aren’t gonna break me.”
“Obviously,” I grunt as I continue to twist and press (in vain) my thumbs into the meat on his neck and shoulders. It isn’t long before my own arms ache. Massaging a guy like him is hard work.
He groans. “Mmm. That’s it. Yeah.”
My body is turned awkwardly toward him, both of us seated, as I put as much force as I can manage into sinking my fingers into his muscles. I massage him with as much strength as I can. I press. I push. I knead.
I have never felt shoulders this strong before. I have never felt such a challenge in doing something so simple as giving someone a little neck massage.
Are my fingers giving his shoulders a massage, or are his shoulders giving my fingers a massage?
It’s literally giving me an arm workout.
“Good,” he moans, slouching slightly. “Good, bro. Harder.”
I smirk at the back of his head. “You want to make this sound any more like a gay porno, Stefan? Keep it up, then.”
A smile breaks along the side of his face that I can see. “Oh yeah,” he lets out, playing the part. “Give it to me, bro. Give it to me hard. Yeah!”
I laugh. He laughs. But something else happens inside me. Something very real. Something that reacts to the deep, masculine sound of his laughter. Something that makes me literally consider situations I might find myself in where he genuinely says that very thing he just said—and means it.
Something that I might catch myself fantasizing about later.
He turns his head slightly. “You alright?”
“Yep,” I practically squeak, working his shoulders as best as I can. “How am I doing?”
“Perfect,” he assures me. “Just keep doing … whatever it is you’re doing.”
“I’m breaking my fingers in slow motion.”
“Keep doing that, then.”
The more I rub his shoulders, the more turned on I get. This is clearly another of his tactics to psychologically and sexually own his gay best friend for life. He has to know what he’s doing to me.
Or does he think he’s doing this … for me?
Is his letting me touch him some kind of repayment for my letting him stay here? A compensation of sorts? That’s way too fucked-up to even consider, right?
“I’m lucky as hell to have you in my life,” he says suddenly.
The words cause my sore hands to freeze. Between what he’s saying and the weird, longing ways he’s been looking at me, I have to assume either Parker told him someone we knew from high school died and it’s making him clingy and emotional, or there is something else completely at work here that he’s not letting on.
He halfway turns his face again. “Why’d you stop?”
“Why’d you say that?” I ask, my hands resting motionlessly on his thick shoulders. “About being lucky?”
“I just …” He shrugs, causing my hands to bob up and down. “I think, as kids, we don’t tend to realize what we have. As adults, we slowly start to see how damned temporary everything is. It makes me realize I need to appreciate what I have while I have it. Hey,” he adds, shrugging his shoulders more deliberately. “Don’t stop. You were doing so good.”
My heart flutters, and then I resume massaging him.
He lets out a dry chuckle. “Seriously, though. You never really know the beauty of what you have right in front of you.”
The beauty. Of what I have.
Right in front of me. Gripped by my hands.
Stefan Baker.
Yeah, I do know exactly what I have right in front of me.
“Just one fateful slide into home base …” Stefan gives a rueful shake of his head. “One fateful slide, bro. Pop. The end.”
Oh, shit. That’s where his mind was going. “Not the end.”
“The end of baseball,” he clarifies, his voice soft.
“Not the end yet. You don’t know that.”
“You sound just like my dad did when I first got injured and called home. Not that I’m comparing you to that miserable old bastard,” he adds. “But he was all full of hope. Certain that I would just turn right around. He pushed and pushed, always did.”
“He coached the Little League team for a season,” I recall.
“Assistant coached. Half a season. Because Coach Eagle was on a business trip or something. And that season, we won the most games.” Stefan laughs with a hint of disbelief, shaking his head. “Guess that means you have to be a dick to succeed in this world.”
“I got my dream job by being nice,” I point out. “And by acing tests. Studying hard. Also not having a social life. Or dating life.”
I mash my thumbs into his shoulders, working my way down to the middle of his back. It’s breathtaking, the perfection of his form as my hands subtly explore him, muscle by muscle.
