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“So more BJs?”
“Yeah, but I don’t just want it for that. You’d have to kiss me too.”
“You like kissing?”
“Ilovekissing. Happy now?”
I can’t believe I fucking said all that, how easily it came out, but there it is. And there’s something empowering about owning the words, refusing to be shamed. He can mock me or use it against me all he wants, but I don’t give a fuck. This is all his fault for making that stupid bet.
“Pretty happy,” he says. “Now do you feel better?”
“What?”
Suddenly I realize this was all an attempt to distract me from my stress. “Yeah, I feel better.” I straighten out my blazer. “That’s so fucked up, A.”
He’s just staring at me, taking pride in knowing what’s been consuming my thoughts lately. It should feel humiliating, but it’s freeing. Like I just confessed my sins, and they aren’t only in my head anymore.
I open the front pocket of my blazer and pull out my tie.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Meant to grab a clip-on.”
“Here,” he says, and he takes it and wraps it around my collar.
He’s right in front of me now, his lips close enough that I could just lean forward and take them like he knows I want to.
“All those formals you have to do, I can’t believe you don’t know how to do this,” he observes.
“What you’re doing now, some guy would usually do it, so I’ve never had to learn. And…” I hesitate. I think about what he said about being honest. “When I was a kid, Brandon would always handle my ties. Dad taught him, and he was proud that he could do it for me.”
I barely bring up Brandon with my therapist, let alone Atlas. But something about Atlas’s fucked-up honesty game pulls it from me, and just like with the sexual stuff, I’m not mad about it. I’m relieved.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly.
Our gazes lock. The playful Atlas is gone, and I feel like I see him. The real him. And I know from his own bullshit that he gets what this feels like.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about it,” I say, “but when Dad disappeared on us, Brandon went to California to track him down. When he found the house Dad was living in, he figured he’d find him with a secret family, or that he’d moved on to some amazing life, but he was just by himself. Told his own son he’d decided he’d changed, and he would rather not stay in touch with any of us. His fucking kids.” Even after all these years, I still choke up trying to get those words out. “When Brandon came back home and told me, it broke my heart, but he said, ‘It’s just you and me, right?’ And I remember thinking that was enough. That everything would be okay as long as I had my big brother with me.”
Maybe everything would have been okay if he’d stayed, but he hadn’t.
“Losing people is hard,” Atlas says, a far-off look in his eyes.
He must be thinking about his mom, missing her the way I miss those I’ve lost, but in a very different way. I know our pain isn’t the same, but we both know some wounds don’t just scar; they continue to burn.
I reach out and place my hand on his chin, run my thumb over his bottom lip.
Why am I doing this?
It’s just what my body wants to do. My way of being honest with Atlas.
I trace his lips, like I’ve done with his picture too many times to count, and a calming sensation travels from my fingertips, through me, extinguishing the sting of that deep wound in me.
Maybe I just want the pain to go away. Or maybe I just want those lips.
It’s hard to know which of us initiated it, but suddenly our lips mash together, so fast that my thumbnail jams into my lip.
I can hardly think straight as I reposition my hands on either side of his face. We’re all lips, tongues, teeth, a torrent of fury, like all this pent-up shit we’ve been dancing around is gone. It’s like I black out in the frenzy because all of a sudden he’s got his legs wrapped around my waist, and I’ve pinned him to the wall. I must’ve forgotten to breathe because I have to pull away, gasping for air, then kiss along his cheek, unleashing all those fantasies I’ve had about him on his precious face, feeling his facial hair against my cheek. I push my hip against him, the subtle movement soothing my rock-hard dick.
“I want you, A,” I confess as I kiss down to his neck. “I want every fucking part of you.”
