Page 119 of Creatures Like Us

That’s how he started going to the group meetings every Monday. When he comes home, he’s always bursting with energy, babbling on about all of the interesting people he met there.

Sometimes he simply walks up to me and starts tugging at my clothes, caressing my waist, slipping his hands up my shirt to tug at my nipple piercings, even if I’m cooking,especiallyif I’m cooking. One time, he even jerked me off while I was trying to make ramen from scratch. Said he wanted an “appetizer.”

Sometimes he tests my boundaries in other ways. Darker ways. But those, we reserve for the basement.

Ethan has called him a few times, and though he ignored the calls at first, I encouraged him to pick up the last one, and he ended up talking with his brother for hours. Apparently, Ethan has moved to a small town outside of Boston, and he’s gotten engaged to his college girlfriend. Doesn’t seem like he’s very focused on advancing his career. Maybe he got sick of managing his parents’ expectations.

This summer, he’s coming to Springvale with his fiancée, and I think I’m going to encourage Asher to meet up with him. If only to get closure. If only to lessen the pain I know still resides in his heart.

I sigh into his embrace now, trying to shake off the preflight anxiety. Being around all those people at the airport?…?The eyes, the questioning glances?…?That is one thing that hasn’t really changed: I’m still not good with being around people. But I’m good with being around the only person I care about, and right now, I’m warm and safe in his arms, and so I will be in twenty-four hours, after we’ve landed and situated ourselves in our cabin.

Asher stirs behind me. My distress, however quiet, always seems to wake him up.

“Noah?” he asks, voice muffled by sleep. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

He lifts his hand from my throat and takes my hand instead. “But there’s something, right?”

Yes. There is something. If only I could work up the courage to say it.

I clear my throat, feeling my chest tense as my heart kicks up a beat. “Remember?…?how I asked you long ago?…?if you felt safe with me?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Asher nuzzles into my neck, inhaling deeply.

“You said?…?you didn’t think you’d ever feel safe around me. Do you?…” My throat tightens, and I can barely get the words out. “Do you still feel that way?”

“Hmm?…” He slides a hand up my body, stopping at my nipples to gently tug at the piercings there, as he so loves to do. Even after all this time, I don’t think a day has gone by where he hasn’t put his fingers or his mouth on them. He hasn’t pierced me anywhere else, though, even though I’ve offered. He says he doesn’t need to.

He keeps tugging at my piercings, slowly, thoughtfully, to the point I feel him growing hard behind me. He sighs and lets go, planting a kiss on the back of my head.

“I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but I do feel safe with you, Noah. Of course I do. It just took some time.”

“Oh.” The wave of relief is so stark it washes away any pretravel anxiety, along with any lingering fears, any doubts, and the last bit of pain in my heart.

“Shh, don’t worry,” Asher says. “I’m here, aren’t I? With you. Don’t you see me?”

I turn around to meet his sleep-mussed hair, his smile.

My world.

I lift my hand and lay it on his cheek, softly and with care, as if it’s the most important thing I’ve done in my life. Because he is.

“I see you. Always.”

He smiles and leans in to plant a kiss on my lips, chaste at first, but as it usually goes with us, the kiss soon turns heated, his body writhing against mine, his hand coming up to grip my throat. He runs his tongue across my lower lip and looks straight into my eyes, letting me feel the heat of him, his full attention. His love.

“I see you too.” Between kisses, he asks, “What do you want to do when we get there?”

“Where?”

“The cabin,” he chuckles.

“Oh. I just?…?I just want to be with you. I just want you to hold me.”

He tightens the grip on my throat, cutting off the very edge of my breath. “Like this?”

“Yeah?…?Like that.”

“I want to hold you too. I want to be with you too. Forever.”

I close my eyes, and my chest fills with joy—a joy I can barely believe the gravity of. But I trust it. I trustus.

“Forever.”

THE END