Page 20

The week following the ritual was packed. Demetrius was glad to be back in his own body, but he really wanted more time to think about what they’d lived through. The Bower family had left town on Sunday. Cody’s parents’ SUV had been drivable, and before they went, Greg had hugged them both tight, then handed Cody a check.

“A gift from your grandmother,” Greg had said with a sad smile. “Your brothers will all be getting something, but not this much. You did the most for her. She loved you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Cody had said, his voice tight.

Demetrius had been amazed at the amount. It wasn’t going to allow them to retire, but it would definitely help, especially since Cody had been fired. That hadn’t surprised either of them. Cody said he was actually relieved.

It was Friday evening, and they’d been busy all week. After they’d finished cleaning up after dinner, Cody had kissed Demetrius, told him to be ready to go out in an hour, then left the house. Now, almost exactly an hour later, someone knocked on the front door. Demetrius peered through the peephole, saw Cody grinning back, and opened the door.

“Don’t you have your key?”

He stopped. And stared.

Cody stood framed in the porch light, one arm up to lean against the door frame. He wore his old Parson's Hollow High football uniform, stripped of its pads but not its power. The red jersey—emblazoned with the white number 21—had sleeves cut generously for padding that was no longer there. Without that bulk, the openings instead revealed tantalizing glimpses of the dark, curling fur of his armpits and offered fleeting views of the broad expanse of his chest.

The jersey was tight on him, the hem riding up enough to expose his navel, a small shadowed hollow surrounded by a light dusting of hair that thickened into the soft, dark promise of his treasure trail. It disappeared beneath the straining white waistband of his pants, which clung to his hips. Those white pants, so tight they left little to the imagination, ended just below his knees, showcasing the muscled calves dusted with the same dark hair. On his feet, he wore an old pair of white high tops with no socks; classic high school Cody Bower.

Demetrius felt his mouth go dry as he ran his gaze slowly down the long, beautiful length of him. He took his time, savoring each detail. When his eyes lingered on the impressive bulge of Cody's crotch, he felt heat bloom across his cheeks and spread down his neck, a warmth that mirrored the desire pooling low in his belly.

“My eyes are up here,” Cody said.

Demetrius blushed and looked up to find him grinning.

“What’s all this?” Demetrius said.

“You left right after the game.” Cody’s smile widened. “I came to pick you up so we can celebrate the win.”

Demetrius took a step back. “What?” A chill ran through him and his heart pounded. “Oh, shit. You’re not stuck in the past in some goddamn time loop, are you?”

Cody laughed and leaned in close. Demetrius could smell the body wash—their body wash, thank God, and not something from the past—as well as the fresh but dusty scent of clothes that had been tucked away for a long time.

“No time loop. Just treating you to a fantasy I may have stumbled on while we were swapped.”

The thought of it got his cock to take serious notice.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Cody grinned and leaned back. “So come on, play along. I’m fresh off a win, I’ve got my parents’ car, and we can cruise around and celebrate. Tell your folks you’ll be out late.” He widened his eyes and lowered his voice. “Or tell them you’re sleeping over at my house. That way we can stay out all night. Dude, yes.”

“Okay!” Demetrius laughed and stepped out the door, pulling it shut behind him. He fell into their old best friends pattern pretty easily, unsure if that was a good or bad thing. But at that moment, he didn’t care. It felt good to turn away from their modern-day problems and embrace his younger, more innocent and unspoiled self.

Cody led the way to the big car parked in the driveway, and Demetrius couldn’t help a laugh.

“When did your parents get a Cadillac?”

“Not too long ago,” Cody said, opening the passenger door of the Sedan de Ville and waving for Demetrius to get in. “Some crazy old relative died and left it to them.”

“God bless those crazy old relatives.”

Demetrius slid into the passenger seat and was surprised to find he couldn’t stop smiling as Cody closed his door and rounded the front of the car. He slid behind the wheel and twisted the key. The Cadillac roared to life, and Cody turned to look out the back window, one arm slung over the back of the seat, his fingers tantalizingly close to Demetrius’s shoulder.

Even though they were now married, this setup of them being back in high school, with Cody taking him out for a cruise through town after a game was incredibly arousing. It felt like their drive home from Florida all those years ago, when all their unspoken feelings had packed Amelia's SUV around them, leaving barely enough room to breathe.

“Chuck wanted me to go get wasted with him and a bunch of the guys,” Cody said, driving with one hand on the bottom of the wheel, the other resting on the seat between them. The white football pants were so tight Demetrius could see the outline of his dick beneath the material. And he was pretty sure Cody wasn’t wearing underwear.

"You didn't want to get wasted with Chuck?" Demetrius asked, his voice falling naturally into the higher pitch of his teenage self. It surprised him how easily the old mannerisms returned, like muscle memory awakened after years of dormancy.

The familiar nervousness fluttered beneath his ribcage—that was never hard to access. What felt different now was the freedom to drink in the sight of Cody without the crushing fear of exposure that had once defined his every glance. Back then, each look had been stolen, counted, rationed like something precious. Which it had been. Still was.

Stepping back into the shadow of his former self felt strange—this anxious, closeted boy he'd worked so hard to evolve beyond. Yet after everything they'd been through together, including the surreal experience of inhabiting each other's bodies, perhaps this role-play wasn't so bizarre after all.

Demetrius glanced Cody's way. "Chuck's the quarterback. I bet he'll have a lot of girls with him."

"Nah, I don't need any girl drama right now." Cody shot him a smile that pierced straight through his heart, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. "Tonight it's just me and you. Two friends who know each other inside and out. Right?"

Demetrius swallowed past the lump in his throat, the words catching like barbed wire. "That's right."

Cody stopped for the red at the traffic light on Main Street. He took the opportunity to turn toward Demetrius, his expression softening. His eyes were dark and serious when he said, "Best friends. For life."

"You know it," Demetrius said, nodding and quickly turning away, afraid his face might reveal too much of what churned beneath the surface—the decades of love that had transformed from something forbidden into something cherished. Tonight wasn’t about what they had become. It was about returning to what they’d once been, and making it better.

“Oh damn, I almost forgot.” Cody leaned over, elbow resting on Demetrius’s thigh as he popped the glove compartment open. He withdrew his iPhone and sat up, smiling as he tapped at it. “I know it’s from the future, but I made a playlist that hopefully counteracts the modern technology.”

Another couple of taps and “This Love” by Maroon 5 started to play from the phone’s speaker.

“Oh my God, this song was everywhere the summer we graduated,” Demetrius said. The music made him smile and he started to hum along.

Cody grinned, tapping the beat on the steering wheel. “I know. It’s a whole playlist.”

The light changed, and Cody cruised down Main Street, the Caddy gliding like a boat on calm waters. A few people recognized the car—hard to miss, as it had practically been a touchstone for the town for decades—and waved with the easy familiarity of small-town life. They waved back, and Cody tapped the horn a few times, the sound echoing against the storefronts.

As they left the town behind and cruised out Highway 118, heading for the Hollow Leg bar and, beyond that, Harriettville, Demetrius lowered his window halfway. The evening air rushed in, mild and fragrant, carrying scents of the land around them. He could smell the freshly tilled earth of the fields, rich with possibility, along with the heavy and familiar stench of manure—a staple odor all his life. These earthier scents nearly overwhelmed the sweet whisper of something recently bloomed, but Demetrius was able to detect its delicate notes. Beauty was everywhere, if you just knew where to look.

"We going to Harriettville to soap their school windows and TP the trees?" Demetrius asked.

Cody laughed—a sound so big and loud and easy that it seemed to fill the car. The warmth of it washed over Demetrius, buoying something a little dark and heavy that had been sitting in his chest for a long time.

"No, not tonight," Cody said, beginning to tap out a rhythm on the steering wheel with those long, familiar fingers.

"Going to Lou's for pizza?" Demetrius suggested, though something in Cody's expression told him otherwise.

"Nope." Cody smiled over at him. "Thought we'd find a place to park out on one of the old farm roads and just, you know, talk."

Demetrius's cock roared to attention. He licked his lips and looked away out his window, grateful for the darkness that hid his immediate reaction. Outside, the moon had risen lopsided and bright, transforming the turned earth of the fields into a landscape of silver and shadow.

"That okay with you?" Cody asked, his voice dipping lower, the question carrying more weight than its simple words suggested.

"Yeah." Demetrius glanced back at him, a nervous laugh escaping as he tried to maintain the pretense. "Sure. We never get a chance to talk."

They both laughed at that, and their laughter melded together in the confined space of the car. Cody resumed drumming the wheel, and Demetrius couldn't help watching those big hands move, hands he knew as well as his own. With a small jolt, he noticed Cody had removed his wedding ring. The sight of that naked finger sent a thrill through him, both unsettling and exciting.

Deciding to commit just as fully to their fantasy, Demetrius eased his own ring off and slid it into his front pocket. His finger felt cool and strangely vulnerable, but he resisted the urge to put it back on. Cody had put thought and effort into crafting this night for them. The least he could do was surrender completely to the game, to this chance to rediscover each other by returning to the boys they’d once been.

"Did you talk with Jugs after the game?" Demetrius asked, searching for something mundane to anchor himself.

"Yeah. He was crying about the calls the ref had made. Said they were being picked on. He's such a baby."

Demetrius chuckled. That response could have come from high school Cody or modern-day Cody. Some things never changed.

A road appeared on their right, and Cody slowed. It was two tracks of sand and dirt with a grass berm running down the middle. In the near distance, Demetrius could see it wound through a small cluster of trees, the perfect place to hide a car—to hide two people from the world. His stomach tightened with sudden nervous excitement, a flutter that belonged to a teenage version of himself he thought long buried. He was going to discover what it would have been like to have gone parking with Cody Bower. Almost twenty years late, but still…

The sand shifted beneath the Cadillac's tires with a soft hushing sound, but Cody kept the car steady on track. Across the field, the windows of a farmhouse gave off a golden glow like distant stars, and Demetrius could smell woodsmoke in the night air, earthy and primal. Cody slowed as they entered the trees, the headlights slicing through darkness to reveal a few spots just off the road where past cars had pulled off to park.

Tonight, however, they were the only ones. Cody eased the Cadillac off the dirt tracks, pine cones and small branches crackling under the tires as he slowed to a stop. He turned off the engine and the headlights, and they sat listening to “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers as the motor ticked and cooled, and crickets and frogs rose in a night chorus around them.

"Nice night," Demetrius said, feeling ridiculous over his nervousness. They were married for God’s sake. He glanced over to find Cody leaned forward, hands draped over the top of the wheel and head turned to look at him with an intensity that stole his breath. "Do you bring a lot of girls out here?" he asked.

Cody shrugged and looked away, shadows playing across his face. "A few. Not many. None who are important to me."

"Ah," Demetrius said and looked away, unable to hold the weight of those words. “Good idea not to go out to the pond. I hear that place is overused.”

Cody snorted a laugh. “Haunted more like it.”

More silence, then Demetrius asked, “So, how are you?"

"Want a beer?" The sudden shift felt like Cody throwing him a lifeline.

Demetrius looked at him in surprise. "You brought beer?"

"Yeah. In the backseat. Come on." The invitation hung between them, heavy with possibility.

Cody pushed open the door and stepped out into the night. Demetrius peered over the backseat and saw in the glow of the dome light a small soft-sided cooler that had been in their basement for years—a relic repurposed for tonight. When Cody opened the back door on the driver's side, Demetrius decided to surrender completely and got out as well. He slid into the backseat and was surprised all over again at the space.

"Big backseat," Demetrius said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

"Oh, yeah." Cody twisted open a couple of beers and passed a bottle to him, their fingers brushing in a way that sent electricity racing up Demetrius's arm. "Big family means a big car."

"Your parents must have been really grateful for this."

"I guess so." Cody leaned back against the door, one leg curled under him, his arm stretched out across the back of the seat, fingers extended toward Demetrius like an unspoken question. He looked at Demetrius in silence for a moment, his face half in shadow, half in pale moonlight, then leaned forward to clink their bottles together. "To best friends."

Demetrius smiled and lifted his bottle, suddenly shy in a way he hadn't been with Cody in years. "To best friends."

They each took a long drink. The beer was cold and good, the bitter taste bursting across Demetrius's tongue, grounding him in the present even as they played at the past. He turned to mirror how Cody sat, the door firm against his back. Moonlight filtered through the tree branches and car windows, making Cody's tight white football pants glow with an otherworldly light. It was enough illumination to reveal he was fully erect, the outline unmistakable, and Demetrius took another long drink of beer, heat blooming across his skin.

"We've been friends for a long time, haven't we, Demmy?"

"Yeah. Since kindergarten." He glanced back but couldn't hold Cody's intense gaze for long, as if looking directly at him would be like staring at the sun.

"It's funny how you can be with someone every day for so many years, but you don't really understand what they've come to mean to you, you know? It’s like, all of a sudden, you realize they're always in your thoughts. From the moment you wake up, while you're getting ready for the day, all through the day, and then at night. You can't wait to see them again. You know?"

Demetrius looked Cody in the eye and nodded, his heart pounding against his ribs. "I do." It sounded like a wedding vow, an echo of promises already made, and maybe because Cody was so invested in his role, or possibly because they really had slipped back in time, it sent a whip crack of anxiety zinging through him. "I know. Yes. I know what you mean." He cleared his throat and took another drink. Was it the beer making him feel this way, or the intoxicating rush of pretending they were discovering each other for the first time?

Cody tipped his bottle up and drained his beer. His throat worked as he swallowed, the strong column of his neck exposed, and Demetrius stared, breathless, as if seeing this familiar sight for the first time. Cody finished and slid forward, moving closer on hands and knees like a predatory cat, eyes locked on Demetrius as he reached for the cooler. Demetrius's heart pounded so hard he was certain Cody must hear it. He tightened his fingers around the cool glass, the surface slick with condensation, mirroring the dampness of his palms.

"Want another?" Cody asked, his voice lower, rougher than before.

"No. I… I’m good." The words felt inadequate for the storm of emotions churning inside him.

Cody stayed where he was, halfway across the seat, one hand on the cooler which was now pressing against Demetrius's leg. He could feel the cold leaching through the soft side of it, a counterpoint to the heat building between them. Then Cody lifted it over the back of the front seats and used the handle to set it down gently. He never took his eyes off Demetrius, and Demetrius's gaze was locked on Cody's face, unable to look away, trapped in the gravity of the moment.

"I think I'm good, too," Cody said. He put his hand around Demetrius's on the bottle he held so tightly. "You done with this?"

Demetrius nodded, not trusting his voice. Cody took it from his hand, pressed his lips to the mouth of the bottle and tipped his head back, swallowing the last of the beer—an indirect kiss that somehow felt more intimate than many they'd shared. When he'd finished, he leaned forward, coming in so close Demetrius smelled the heady musk of his sweat as he set the bottle on the floor mat.

"Cody, I—" The words caught in his throat, trapped between past and present.