Page 9

EIGHT

JAXON

I didn’t want to wake up. It was the sweetest, nicest dream I had dreamed in years. It took me back to the sweet and torturous nights throughout high school when all I did was dream of this. Except, it wasn’t a dream at all.

Elio had knocked on my door.

He had kissed me.

He had held me.

He had fucked me.

I could still feel the tension in my throat long after his hand had released me.

Blinking awake despite my desperate desire to stay asleep and let this night continue forever, I was rewarded with the full view of Elio’s sexy body sprawling on my bed, my arm thrown over his torso, my leg resting between his legs.

We stayed naked after the shower. We hadn’t spoken much, but the silence was filled with pleasure.

He was asleep still. His chest rose and fell gently under my hand. His body radiated incredible heat, but it didn’t deter me from tucking myself as close to him as I could. His hair spilled over the pillow in unruly curls, a darker brown than mine, and his eyelashes threaded together with all their incredible length.

Two years ago, I had rolled a small snowball off the top of a very large mountain. It had taken it all this time, but the snowball was not a ball at all. It was an avalanche. It had swept me off last night, and I didn’t regret a second of it. Even if it left me buried alive and locked in a cold, white coffin, I would go with a smile on my face.

Finally. Fucking finally. This wasn’t the resolution I had been expecting. Triggered by refusal, I had spiraled out of control. Who would have thought that giving myself to Elio after all this time could cure my fractured heart rather than smash it into dust? But it helped. It smoothed out all the wrinkles and showed me the truth that I had been seeking all along. I hadn’t been crazy. I hadn’t imagined his secret affection. I hadn’t tricked myself into thinking that every glance had carried some hidden meaning. It had all been true.

Elio stirred, and I sent up a quiet prayer that he wouldn’t open his eyes and regret last night. The fear became very real the moment his eyelashes fluttered and his brown, almond-shaped eyes opened. A small frown creased his brow, and he turned to look at me.

The moment his gaze met mine, time froze. I was stuck between one heartbeat and the next. It all moved so slowly that I grew aware of my entire body and my soul in that instant. I felt the hairs on my neck rising in wariness, felt the contact of his flesh and mine, felt the heat our bodies exchanged.

And Elio smiled. The curly corners of his lips ticked up just enough to dispel the fears. The relief that washed over me was more powerful than if someone had shoved me, my head dropping down and my face burying in the crook of Elio’s neck.

For one moment, nothing else happened. Then, he shifted slightly and touched my arm, pulling me closer to him. With my hand resting on his chest, I could feel his speeding heartbeat, but Elio held me anyway.

This couldn’t be easy for him. I understood that much, and I decided to be quiet about it. Years ago, when my brother wouldn’t answer his phone and when the reporters cropped up in front of our house, Elio had been with me. He had come just before the news crews had arrived, even though there was nothing he could offer that could solve the clusterfuck Ronan had created. I forever knew that as the moment I fell in love with him.

Oh, I was crushing on Elio before that. Maybe even since the first time we’d crossed paths. Just the way his intense gaze examined me that first time had been enough to make me feel all sorts of ways, mostly flushed and tingly, keen to impress him. But that evening, when Ronan’s name covered all headlines, had been different. I hadn’t just wanted our hands to touch by chance. I hadn’t just hoped we would step out of the gym shower at the same time and see one another naked. It was so much more powerful than the constant pull of attraction I had felt.

Elio had followed me into my bedroom. He sat on the chair while I lay, staring furiously at the ceiling, and then he joined me, his arm around me much like mine was around him now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he’d asked.

“No.”

And the silence that followed was the fertile ground for the feelings that would follow me for years.

Ronan had been seen by several journalists booking a floor at the Orbit to celebrate the string of victories he had single-handedly brought his team throughout the season so far. It was lavish but not too out of the ordinary until the tabloids scratched the surface and discovered that Ronan’s guests weren’t just friends and rising celebrities. The truth leaked quickly after the staff had called the police because of the behavior of Ronan’s guests and the sheer destructive force they had all become. Sex, drugs, alcohol, and total disregard not just for the private property of the hotel but the image Ronan had cultivated for years.

My brother had given it all up for the attention of people who only liked him because he paid them to. Not directly, but the supplies of cocaine and speed and ketamine flowing up into Ronan’s circles were payment enough. He had given up the one thing he was good at for the sake of mindless sex while his wife was home with their one-year-old.

Never in my life had I seen someone cause so much damage in such a swift move. I’d always imagined that the destruction was something you did to people with your fists and with fights. Ronan had unleashed a whole new level of destruction. The one person I had admired all my life had ruined it all.

And the one person who stayed with me all night, holding me in total silence, was Elio.

As I dragged my gaze from his sweet, perfect lips to his sculpted torso, I knew I would never be free of him. I would never not fall for him. I would never not love him with all I had.

And that was a tragedy of a different kind because nothing guaranteed he would love me back. All I knew was for sure that he was attracted to me.

“What time do you need to leave?” I asked.

Elio let his head sink into the pillow and thought about it. “Around ten. I have a rough week ahead, Jax.”

“I figured something happened,” I said.

Elio let out a small sigh and turned to his side. He opened his eyes and looked at me, taking in every trace of my face, neck, and collarbones. There was a plea in his eyes, and I decided not to pry.

“We have enough time for breakfast,” I said.

Elio considered this, then sat up. His shoulders were broad and square, his hair messy from sleeping, his back knotted with tense muscles, but his voice was soft. “Let me bring us something here.”

So nobody can see us together , I thought and swallowed the words fueled by years of anger. “That’s a good idea.”

He shot me a somewhat surprised look over his shoulder, gratitude welling in his eyes. He got up first, naked and divine, and I almost begged him to forget about the breakfast and just stay. But he found his underwear and pulled them on before scouting the floor for the rest of his clothes.

Elio sent me one more lingering look before walking out of my room, and it stayed with me long after the door was shut behind him. Few people I’d met throughout my life could say so much with so little. However, I didn’t know anyone as intimately as I knew El. Sometimes, people could speak without saying a word, and that had often been the case between us.

And you wonder why you’ve had a lifetime of misunderstandings? I asked myself skeptically, then ignored that voice.

By the time Elio knocked on the door again, I had dressed and brushed my teeth. I’d meant to make us coffee in the shared kitchen at the end of the hallway, but he had returned quickly. In his hands, there were two paper bags, one containing two large cups of black coffee. “Not sure how you like yours,” Elio said as he unpacked our breakfast on my desk.

“That’s perfect,” I assured him.

He unpacked the other bag, setting out sandwiches, doughnuts, and croissants on the desk and taking a seat in my office chair while I settled for the bed. “Tuck in,” he said, picking a ham sandwich to start with.

“I was afraid you might just keep walking,” I said before I could stop myself.

El looked at me with a mixture of understanding and mischief. It was a strange combination but one he delivered clearly. “Why would you think that?” he asked, irony adding a lilt to his voice.

I blanked for a moment before a smile grabbed the corners of my lips and stretched them wide. I shook my head.

“I, uh…” El said, looking at his sandwich.

Here it comes , I thought and swallowed a bite of my breakfast. “Look, I’ve been through this,” I said, my tone cooling down but holding on to a sliver of compassion I was able to dig up. “I’ve been with guys who got curious.”

Elio was still, his gaze flicking to my face. “You’ve mentioned.” His tone could chill champagne bottles.

My heart skipped a beat. “I’m just saying, I kinda know how this goes,” I said.

Elio’s eyes narrowed a little. He was at his most beautiful when he was lost in thoughts like this, and I could hardly get the words out.

“Those guys,” I said, and Elio’s facial muscles clenched. “Sometimes, they just realized it wasn’t for them. Fun, sure, but not much beyond that.”

Elio nodded once, slowly.

“And I don’t know how you feel, El. God, I can’t read you at all. But I know that this is all just a big, confusing mess at times. We’ve all lived with strict rules about who we could and couldn’t be attracted to that it’s impossible to imagine that everything’s allowed. But it is. You’re allowed to like me. You’re also allowed to change your mind after last night.” I shrugged, trying to hold down the words please don’t change your mind .

“I know that,” Elio said.

My shoulders sank a little lower. I grabbed my coffee and took a long sip, trying to look away from him.

He kept his gaze locked onto my face, and avoiding it was impossible. The intensity pulled me in and tempted me to lean forward and touch him. All I had ever wanted was to touch him, feel his presence, and know he wasn’t going to pull away.

“I liked it,” Elio said.

And of all the things that could have happened next, I didn’t expect the heat to soar up my neck and into my face. I didn’t think I was capable of blushing anymore.

Elio shrugged. “I liked everything about it, Jax.”

“You did?” I asked.

“Couldn’t you tell?” he asked, one corner of his lips ticking upward. “You made me feel…” He shook his head when the right word wouldn’t come. “‘Incredible’ isn’t even close to describing it.”

“Really? Because it was all I hoped it would be.” The words tumbled over my lips.

His eyebrows lifted playfully. “So, you were hoping?”

“El, I’ve been hoping for this since the day I met you,” I said.

And he winced.

I cursed myself for never holding my tongue. “Sorry,” I added lamely.

Elio’s left hand reached over, fingers brushing my face, and he put the tip of his thumb on the round bump on the bridge of my nose. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and bit it hard, shaking his head. “I’ve done some terrible things, Jax,” he whispered.

I leaned my head in just enough to tell him I didn’t want him to pull his hand away. I wanted to feel his fingers on my skin for as long as he would let me. It poured confidence and strength right back into me after the reserves had been dangerously depleted. “I got what I wanted in the end.”

His gaze remained on my eyes for a long while, his hand caressing my face, his thumb moving over the mistake we had made. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and blinked once. “It’s not just you,” he said. “Although this is the worst thing I’ve done.”

“What do you mean?”

“My best friend,” he said, his eyebrows contorting in thought. “My other best friend. God, I keep fucking things up, Jax. He was outed last week in front of everyone, the whole team, and I…” He pulled his hand away from my face and looked out the window, his eyes still and gaze lost a thousand miles away. A tremble passed over his lips, and he pressed them together tightly. His head shook once. “I can’t fix this.”

“What did you do, El?” I asked, my heart clenching.

Pain tightened the muscles in his face, and he looked down where his hands rested in his lap. “Nothing,” he said softly. “Not a goddamn thing.”

The relief was instant. Having been to heaven and hell with Elio, I had expected worse. “I’m sure he’ll understand…”

Elio shook his head. “We’re not…” He hesitated and closed his eyes. “He doesn’t want to hear it.”

To that, I had nothing else to offer.

Elio tapped his knees and forced a calm expression to his face before he looked at me. “I just needed to tell you, Jax. I’m not a very good person. Not sure if I ever was.”

I held my breath for a long time, looking at the tension in his face. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, either.”

“Really?” he asked. “After what I’ve done to you?”

“El, there isn’t a gay guy on this planet who didn’t hate himself at the start,” I told him. “We’d all do well to remember that sometimes. We’re born with that hate.” I tried to take myself back to the moment I had first realized I was different. “Do you remember Callum Connery?”

Elio squinted. “Think so. We had chemistry together.”

I closed my eyes as I invited the memory. “He was my first crush. The one before I met you. I had to be twelve, maybe thirteen, when his family had a pool party for his classmates. We weren’t friends. He was always the cool kid. Rich. That was before Ronan…” I rolled my eyes. My brother’s wealth had buried us as quickly as an avalanche. “Anyway, we were still kinda poor, so I was really looking forward to the party. My friends were gonna be there. We’d get all the hot dogs we wanted. And Callum never stopped talking about his pool. For a week, that was all we talked about—all the stuff we’d do, who could hold their breath underwater the longest, speculating if there was a slide. Kid stuff. Until I got there and Callum’s dad opened the door with Callum running behind him. His hair was lighter than usual because he spent all his waking hours in the sunlight. He was tanned almost to the point I didn’t recognize him.” I paused, wondering if I should even go there. Why the hell not? “Anyway, he’d already been in the pool, and he wore these bright yellow shorts and a snorkel attached to goggles, and just the sight of him made me numb. I’d never felt anything like it. Like I’d never been aware of my body until that moment. Or anyone’s body, really. Because I realized, as Callum’s dad ushered me inside the house, that Callum had been developing muscles with all that swimming. And I was gone like that.”

Elio looked at me like I was retelling him some sweet story from childhood, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I wanted to run home and hide. I think I knew instantly, but it took me a while to work up the courage and think the words consciously. Like weeks, El. But I couldn’t run, so I followed Mr. Connery inside and had a hot dog off his grill, which took me all afternoon to finish eating. There was this lump in my throat. I had this stupid, instant urge to do something big, something nobody else would dare, just to impress Cal, but I knew it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t how I’d behave if I hadn’t seen him in that light. So, yeah, I pretty much knew the truth.” I snorted. “I spent the day in the shade, refusing to take my clothes off and swim with everyone else. I munched on that hot dog until it was cold and dry, then I carried it around on a plastic plate until Mom picked me up a few hours later. And I kept searching the pool for Callum, kind of daring myself to look at him. And every time I found him, the same feelings flooded me. And it wasn’t the gooey softness of a first love. It was the realization that I was cursed. Why else would I be so afraid whenever he met my eyes? Why else would I be embarrassed?”

The softness left Elio’s face. “So you hid it.”

I nodded. “Like I said, it took me weeks to form that big, bad word inside my head. It took months before I whispered it to a mirror. And then I started high school and met you and forgot all about Callum.” I barely kept the smile off my face. Elio had never been full of himself. He was friendly, full of hope and optimism, full of kindness. It was like he befriended me because he sensed I was an outcast. And I’d made myself an outcast by my own choices.

His smile had been the first thing I noticed. Our gazes had met across the classroom, and he’d let his lips spread into a broad, genuine grin. All thoughts of Callum Connery were obliterated by the honesty of Elio’s smile.

I missed the smiling Elio. The man sitting in front of me was broody, burdened with all the sorrows of the world, and just a crack away from being utterly broken. I doubted people saw under the mask he wore. I wanted to help him take it off. I guess, at the end of the day, my heart would always belong to him.

“And after…” Elio said, hesitating. He inhaled and tried again. “After that kiss, when I left you on the floor with a broken nose, everyone knew.”

It was not a fond memory, but I went to it. “Right,” I said. “When it didn’t go as planned, the cat was out of the bag. My parents weren’t too happy, but the way it all played out made them hold their tongues at first. They processed it a little more by the time they felt I could handle the talk. It played in my favor, to be honest.”

Elio nodded. “I have to tell you something.”

My ears perked, and I waited.

“And if you hate me because of it, I’ll understand, Jax. It took me until yesterday to know for sure, but when you kissed me that night, it wasn’t the kiss I was afraid of. I was afraid of how it made me feel.” He leaned in a little closer, his gaze intense and locked onto my face. “It felt so right and good that I was terrified. I wish…” He shook his head. “Then Summer opened the door, and I freaked out. I thought I was mistaken. And I chose fear over what I really felt.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you so suddenly,” I said.

He snorted. “Like you have anything to be sorry for, Jax. It’s my fault. Most things always are.”

I acknowledged that with a nod. “Even so, I can’t hate you, El. I tried my best, and I just couldn’t hold on to it.”

He was quiet for a moment, then lifted his hand and caressed the side of my face before sliding his palm to the back of my head. He leaned in, his lips hovering near mine. I could feel his anxiety, and I loved him all the more for letting his lips touch mine despite it. He kissed me with growing confidence, then pulled back enough to speak, his brow still touching mine. “I don’t deserve you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. After years of wandering in total darkness, I wasn’t exactly a prize. So I said nothing. My head tipped forward, and I pressed my lips against his. I kissed him deeply and slowly, savoring it, holding on to it for as long as I could. What else was there to want?