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ISAAC

B rody moved his hand away and I wrapped my own around his cock. It was so hot and so hard, like silk over steel, that I couldn’t help stroking him. Feeling him. And he felt good . So fucking good. He groaned and thrust his hips into my strokes, making my thumb slide along the sensitive underside, and his entire body shuddered.

Oh, I liked this. I fucking loved this. Making Brody feel good was my new favorite hobby, and like most things I set my mind to, I was determined to be good at it. The best, despite this being my first time. But I’d watched porn. Lots and lots of porn. All I had to do was apply the techniques I’d observed, right? Pay attention to his body language and let him guide me if that’s what he wanted to do.

I licked my lips, then lowered my head so I could slide my tongue along that wet seam and taste him. I moaned the second the salty, musky flavor hit my tongue, and when I pointed it and slipped it inside his slit, seeking more of that taste, Brody gave a rasped shout and fisted his fingers in my hair.

“Fuck,” he panted. “Christ, Isaac.”

I pulled away a few inches and looked up at him. “Bad? Should I not do that?”

“No, fucking good . You can do anything you want as long as you don’t bite me,” he said dryly.

I laughed, then lowered my head again to lick a long line up the underside of his cock, playing my tongue along the edge of his crown and then sliding it around the head. Brody’s fingers in my hair flexed and released, flexed and released, and I could hear him breathing heavily. When I closed my lips around the head, teasing it with my tongue, he groaned.

“That’s it, baby. Just like that. Fuck, Isaac,” he rasped. Still holding the base with one hand, I let my other hand rest on the side of his hip. I couldn’t resist playing with the tip for a bit, lashing it with my tongue, sucking it in and out of my mouth, rubbing it along my cheek.

“God, you’re so damn soft. Soft everywhere,” Brody said. His hips were slowly pumping, like he couldn’t help but move them, and when I closed my mouth over him again and slid down his length, he made a sound that was almost pained and his fingers clenched my hair tightly. “Fuck yes,” he gasped. “Look at you, taking my cock like that. So fucking good for me. So good.”

The sounds he was making, combined with his words, had made me start throbbing in my pants, and I moaned around his dick as I hollowed my cheeks and sucked on my way back up. Fuck, this was so hot. He was so hot. And I wanted to make him come so hard he wouldn’t be able to move for an hour. That probably wasn’t realistic, but still, I could try.

“Take me deeper,” Brody instructed. And because I would do anything he asked of me, I slid back down his shaft, as deep as I could go, until he hit the back of my throat and my jaw was stretched wide. “Oh god , baby, yes, just like that.” I gagged when he pumped into my throat, and when he groaned so loudly that I felt it vibrate through his skin to mine, a sharp burst of arousal pulsed through my groin, drawing a long, whining moan out of me.

He fucking liked it when I gagged on his dick. And I fucking liked that he liked it. I moved my hand away from his base and pulled back enough so I could inhale, and then I looked up at him through watery eyes. His focus on me was blindingly intense, his pupils completely blown, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed.

He looked perfect.

I swirled my tongue around his tip, and then slid down and took as much of him as I could. He hit the back of my throat again, but this time I tried to relax it, tried to get him deeper, gagging and choking and listening to Brody’s grunts and harsh exhales. I had both hands on his hips now, my fingers digging into his skin. I bobbed up and down, trying to get him deeper.

“Yes, fuck, baby, it’s so fucking good. Take it deeper,” he said, and he thrust himself into me as his hands held my head in place. My fingers curled into his skin as saliva dribbled from my mouth, and my cock was spasming now, my balls drawn up so fucking tight. When he finally got himself deeper, past that resistant ring of muscle in my throat, when I started choking, when Brody groaned and shouted my name and I felt the first spurt of his cum down my throat, my vision blinked out and my entire body tensed up as my own orgasm crested through me, sweeping me away from reality for a long, long moment where nothing existed but mind-numbing pleasure and Brody’s dick in my throat as my body tried to swallow what he was giving me.

When I came back into myself, Brody was sliding me off his cock and murmuring low words as I gasped for air. “You did so well, baby. You made me come so fucking hard. God, I’ve never felt anything as good as your throat, Isaac. You’re so perfect.” He was brushing my hair back, and I could feel cum and saliva pooling in my mouth and dripping down my chin. I felt dazed, like I was the one who wouldn’t be able to move for an hour. “Come here, beautiful,” he said, his hands tugging on my upper arms. I tried to help him get me up his body, but my limbs were shaking and he had to drag me up. He wrapped his arms around me and splayed one hand across the nape of my neck, idly massaging me. “You okay?”

“Mm,” I mumbled into his skin. I was past okay, launched right into I-will-never-be-the-same-again-but-in-a-good-way territory.

“Is that a yes, baby? Did I hurt you?”

I finally sucked in air and gathered the strength to say, “I wouldn’t have come so hard if you hurt me, Brody. That was…that was…” I guess I couldn’t even find the words for what that had been.

“Incredible? The hottest thing I’ve ever experienced? Mind-blowing? Life-altering?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Any of those work.” I slid my hand under his shirt, needing to feel his skin. “Well, now you can’t say I’m a selfish lover anymore.”

He kissed my head. “You never were. And I like making you feel good. It makes me feel good.”

“Ditto,” I said tiredly, making him laugh.

We lay like that for a while, lightly stroking each other, until the mess in my pants started to get uncomfortable. “So,” I started. “I think I’ve ruined all my clothes and officially need to do laundry now.”

Brody’s laugh rumbled through me, and he let me climb off him so I could go clean up and change. When I checked my phone, I suggested we go to sleep soon since it was almost midnight and even though classes were canceled, I was fucking exhausted.

I fell asleep with Brody’s arms around me and my ear pressed to his heart, listening to the one thing I wanted more than anything and feeling, for the first time in my life, like maybe I was worthy of keeping it safe. Worthy of being its protector. Wanting so desperately for this to all be real, and not just some drawn-out hallucination.

God that would suck.

The next two days passed in a blur of happiness and excitement and arousal that I never wanted to end. Every day, without fail, I asked him to fuck me. And every time, without fail, he would say I’m not ready and make me come so hard on his fingers that I screamed until my throat was raw. I felt like that was a fair enough compromise.

I still helped Brody with his assignment, catching up on the days we missed, and caught myself up on my own work and then some. It was still looking like I’d graduate with a perfect GPA—thank god—and the only complaint I really had was that I didn’t have my book with me. The one I was working on. It was still under my bed back home, but even so, when I felt the itch to write something, I did it in the back of one of my notebooks.

Brody and I watched every single movie in the Alien franchise, and I was extremely pleased that he agreed with me on the second film being the best out of all of them. Although it was a little discouraging that Alien: Covenant was his second favorite and I briefly considered braving the storm to escape him and his poor judgment. Briefly. Like a fleeting half second.

Brody asked if he could take me bowling for our date. Bowling . I told him I’d never been bowling, and he just said, “Good.” As if he wanted all my firsts. But there was one first he would never be able to have. One that had been stolen from me. One that I wished I could give him more than anything in the world. But I didn’t dwell too long on that. What was done was done, and he could have every other first. Any one he wanted, I would give him.

The snow stopped on Tuesday, and that was when it began.

This muffled whispering in the back of my mind. A buzzing hum of sound that had unease prickling under my skin. The idea that reality was going to set in soon, that we’d have to return to the real world. The world outside of Brody’s basement. Outside of the safety and comfort of Brody’s presence. Of his touches. Of his looks and his laughs and his easy company.

But we had one more day. The school had sent another announcement that classes would start back up on Thursday, that the campus would be cleared by then and the county would have the roads back in order. One more day.

He lent me his huge flannel jacket and I helped him clear snow off his car. And by help I mean I made snowballs and lobbed them at him while he had his back to me. When he started doing it right back, I realized the error I’d made. The miscalculation in judgment. Because Brody was far more athletic than I was, and his huge snowballs paired with his ability to hit me every time had me begging him to stop, and when I fell into the snow laughing, and he fell right on top of me, kissing me and warming me up, he had me begging for other things.

But the buzzing in my head never faded. By Wednesday morning, a somber shroud had settled across my shoulders, dousing the flames that Brody had been stoking for the past four days. We’d agreed that he would drive me back this afternoon, even though I never wanted to be anywhere else anymore. Anywhere he wasn’t. Maybe I was becoming dependent on him, and maybe it wasn’t healthy. But I didn’t care.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. We’d just eaten some ramen noodles and were laying on the couch with our food babies. My head was resting under his chin, his strong arms holding me as I fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Nothing,” I lied. But I didn’t know what to say, exactly. Because I didn’t truly know what was wrong. I just knew something was wrong, and it had to do with leaving him.

His hand began to stroke long, firm lines up and down my spine, making me arch into him. “Hm. I don’t believe that,” he said.

I turned so that I could prop my chin on my hand and look up at him. “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I just…I’ve had a really good time with you, and…” I sighed. “It just sucks that we can’t stay like this for a little longer.” For forever. “You make me happy,” I admitted in a whisper. Like if I said it too loudly, the illusion would shatter and I’d find myself alone, in bed, at home again.

His expression was soft, and his lips pulled up into a small smile. I reached a finger up to touch the piercing on his bottom lip, and he kissed it. “You make me happy, too,” he said, filling me with pure joy.

“Well, that’s not something anyone’s ever accused me of before,” I joked. His laugh vibrated through me, making me shiver. “So, I just realized something,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t even know your last name.” It was true. He was just Brody to me. Like Seal, or Bono. And when I’d woken up this morning, it had hit me that I didn’t know his last name, or his middle name, or his birthday, or what his favorite color was. I wanted to know everything.

He laughed again, louder this time. “It’s Correlli.”

“I knew it! I knew you were Italian,” I exclaimed.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, dude. You look very Italian. Or Greek. Possibly even Spanish, if we’re stretching a few boundaries. Who was Italian in your family?”

He started tracing little shapes on my back. “My grandfather on my dad’s side. He immigrated over here during the Second World War. I never met him, though. He died before I was born. But Bri and I both got my mom’s eyes.”

I looked into those eyes, soft and gray. “The first day I saw you,” I said quietly, “I couldn’t believe the color. I’d never seen anything like it before. They’re so pretty and unique. I just wanted to stare at you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I like your eyes, too. Usually, they tell me everything you’re thinking. They give everything away. But not right now.” He slid his hand into the hair at the nape of my neck. “So maybe you could tell me what’s really bothering you.”

There was concern in those gray eyes now, and a determination to wring every last secret from my lips. I turned my head away, resting my cheek against his collarbone.

I was afraid. If I had to identify any single emotion, it was that. Fear. More specifically, the fear that this was all going to collapse at some point. That this, right here, was the best it would ever be, and somewhere down the line, I’d be left behind, holding my broken heart in my hands and wondering if I’d ever be able to put it back together again. And, when I realized I couldn’t, maybe I’d leave that part of me behind, too. Just become a shell of a person, walking around without a beating heart, all my other organs trying to function without it. And when they couldn’t, I’d just…vanish. Like a wisp of smoke. Slowly dissipating until there was nothing left.

But I was probably getting ahead of myself. That was just my typical catastrophizing, and even though I couldn’t help it, I could mitigate the morose thoughts. And if I shared them with Brody, would he laugh or would he understand? No, he wouldn’t laugh. I knew him enough to know that. He was kind and accepting. Never cruel. Never that.

So I said, “I’m just worried, I guess.”

He waited for me to go on, and when I didn’t, said, “About?”

Ugh. Was this what it meant to be with someone? Having them pick your brain like my therapist loved to do? But, in all honesty, if the roles were reversed and Brody obviously had something on his mind, I’d try to squeeze it out of him and wouldn’t stop until he told me. Because I wanted him to give me his worries, I wanted to bear his burdens with him, and I wanted him to let me do those things. Because I cared.

Because he cared.

“I’m worried about…” I found his nipple under his shirt, tracing my finger along the tiny barbell. “This. Us. I’m worried that this is just another thing I’ll mess up. That you’ll realize I’m not someone you want to actually be with, and even though that’s okay if you do, if this isn’t what you thought you wanted, I’m worried about what happens after that. Because I like you a lot, Brody, and this all feels too good to be true. I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Brody didn’t even take time to think before he said, “Well then you’ll be waiting forever because there is no other shoe. And even if you mess up—whatever that entails—I’ll be right here to help you sort through that mess. Unless you cheat on me or start murdering cats in your spare time, you’re not getting rid of me.”

His words from that first day came back to me. I’m not that easy to get rid of. It had terrified me then, but now it was something I clung to. Something I believed, something I cherished. Appreciated. Needed.

“Damn. I guess I’ll have let those kittens I’ve been keeping in my closet go,” I said. “I didn’t realize that was a hard no for you.”

He laughed so hard, I moved up and down on his chest. And just like that, the buzzing began to fade into the background. Not completely gone, but almost.

We spent the rest of our time together talking about everything and nothing, and I learned his favorite color was green. A dark forest green. I learned he lived with his uncle, after his mom died and his dad went to prison. That he loved his uncle, who was a better father than his real dad had ever been. That they had all lived in the house his parents had bought, and his dad had sold it to his uncle after he’d been sentenced to a prison term that was three decades long. That he had moved to this house because it was hard to be living in the mire of so many bad memories, and he’d wanted something different for himself. Something less saturated in sadness.

I learned that Bri was exceedingly intelligent—a genius, he said—but was not good with people and hated school, so she’d stuck around Gardiner to be close to Brody and work on her first book. It was a horror novel, Brody said, which made me both excited and a little nervous, because knowing Bri, it would probably be truly deranged. Still, she and I had something in common, it seemed—a passion for writing and a love of horror.

I learned that he couldn’t stand his space being untidy or cluttered, and he cleaned the basement twice a week. That he loved Chinese food and hated burgers. That he played little league baseball before his teammates started bullying him and he quit. That he liked to go hiking. That he’d been alone for most of his life, but preferred it that way. I learned that he was only taking two classes per semester because school wasn’t easy for him with his dyslexia and his work schedule.

I learned what it was to truly be in awe of a person.

When three o’clock rolled around, when all my things were packed and loaded in his truck, when I’d spoken to Jamie again and thanked him for what he’d done and made sure he was okay, that buzzing hum started to emerge again. I ignored it, choosing to focus on Brody as he slid behind the wheel and gave me the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. I leaned over and kissed his lips, a gentle press of mouths, and he cupped my cheeks with his hands. It was slow and sensual and I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to tell him that I’d decided to stay, even though he hadn’t asked me to, and he would just have to deal with it.

But Brody pulled away, kissing the corner of my lips, the tip of my nose, my cheekbone. “I think I’m really gonna miss you, Isaac,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

He pressed his lips to mine again, and I melted into him. He caught my bottom lip between his teeth, sucking, and I moaned.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “I’m really gonna miss you. You’re so fucking sweet.” His eyes were half-lidded, inches from mine, and staring at me like he never wanted to look away. But he closed them and groaned, pulling back. “If we don’t stop I’m just gonna fuck you right here.”

“You should,” I said, pressing for the one thing we hadn’t done yet.

“Oh, believe me, I want to. And I will. But not now.” He started the car, and I felt like a knife had been shoved into my kidney.

“When?” I asked as he backed out of the driveway.

“Mm. When you’re ready,” he said.

“I’m ready,” I said, despite the small sliver of fear that was ever-present.

“You’re not,” he argued amicably. “But you will be. Soon.”

How soon was soon? I wanted to keep arguing, but he held out his hand and I slid my fingers between his.

We were both quiet on the ride back to my house, and I got lost in my thoughts while staring out at a white landscape. When Brody said, “We’re here,” I hadn’t even realized the car had stopped moving. He helped me carry my bags back inside, where Jordan greeted me by telling me he’d taken advantage of my absence by masturbating every single moment I was gone and to definitely, definitely not use any black lights in the near future.

Lovely.

When I walked Brody back to the door, he crushed me to his chest and laid his cheek on my head. “Call me later,” he said.

“I will,” I told him. He kissed me once and left. I closed the door before I could stand there like a sorrowful sap and watch his taillights disappear into the edges of my reality. Before I could go running after him like a sad, dumb sack who didn’t know that no human could ever catch up to a car.

I missed him already.

When it was just the two of us in our room, Jordan immediately brought up the incident with Gavin.

“Jamie told me everything. I knew that guy was an asshole. I knew there was a reason I never liked him!”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was pretty bad.”

“So? How hot was it, having Jamie come to your rescue? What did he look like, laying into Gavin? Tell me every single detail, Isaac, no matter how small or insignificant.”

“Um, hot isn’t the word I would use…” I said, laying down and staring at the ceiling. “More like terrifying. They were both really going at it. I’m just glad Joe and Ash came down and broke it up.”

“Did Jamie say anything about me? Anything at all?”

I looked at Jordan. “You have a thing for Jamie now? Since when? I thought you guys were just friends.”

“I mean, yeah, we are, totally just friends, but I wouldn’t be opposed to moving to the next level, if that’s something he wants. Did it seem like that was something he wanted?”

“Oh my god, you have a crush on Jamie!? Jordan, you’re ridiculous. He’s straight. You’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re in a completely different forest . Don’t waste your time with that.”

He sighed dramatically. “Maybe so. But tell me, Isaac, why did I catch him checking out my ass a few weeks ago? And speaking of trees,” he said, before I could comment on that little nugget of information, “How’s that big, sturdy oak of yours?”

“Wow. I think all that masturbating might have affected your IQ. Brody is not a tree . If he’s anything in this analogy, he would be the sun or something. Big, bright, and beautiful.”

“I think all the sex you’ve been having has affected your IQ.”

I pursed my lips, then blew out a long breath. “We haven’t had sex yet,” I admitted.

Jordan squawked. “What!”

“Yeah, I mean, we’ve done literally everything but that. Even though I told him I wanted to. A million times. He just kept saying I wasn’t ready.”

“Well, are you though? Is he right?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I feel like I am. But who knows what’ll happen when the time actually comes. Maybe I’ll have a complete meltdown. Maybe I won’t. But putting it off is only making me more nervous about it. I just want to do it. I want that…that connection with him.”

“Oh boy. You’re totally in love with him, aren’t you?”

“What? No, I’m not! I just really like him and trust him and he makes me feel safe and…”

Jordan stared hard at me. “I’m not !” I reiterated. Because if I was, then I was fucked. My heart was fucked. So it was simple: I wasn’t. Definitely not.

Jordan kept staring at me, then shrugged and said, “Okay. I’ll let you stay in your little bubble of denial a little while longer. But, you know, I’m here if you ever want to talk things through. If you’re scared or having doubts. I know you, hon, and you always get too in your own head. Too hung up on false beliefs and the millions of ways things could go wrong. Just…try to live in the present, okay? Try not to get too ahead of yourself. Because I have never— never —seen you look at someone like you look at him. And the way he looks at you?” He fanned himself. “Whew, honey, it’s all fire in those eyes. He adores you.”

I let Jordan’s words roll around in my mind, tried to let them sink in. Was Jordan right? Did Brody… adore me? I mean, yeah, we liked each other, but did we have something special? Something lasting? And what did that even mean to me? I had no idea how to navigate a relationship. I’d never been in one. I had no idea how I was supposed to feel or what non-platonic love even felt like. Was it this need to be around him? To see him smile? To be proud of who he was? To think about him constantly? To physically ache when he was near me? To be perpetually excited and nervous at the same time, always on the edge of euphoria? To want to know every last detail about his life, his likes and dislikes, his hopes and fears? To let myself be…vulnerable with him in a way I never had with anyone else?

I didn’t know.

But I’d never been so vulnerable with another person. For the first time in my life, letting down my walls for Brody didn’t make me scared or nervous. Didn’t make me feel like my skin had been peeled away to reveal everything beneath it. For the first time, I felt like I’d been given something for daring to be vulnerable. I’d been rewarded. And fuck me, Brody was the sweetest reward there ever could be. It made me want to keep letting him in. To pull back my heavy coat of armor and yank him inside with me so that only he and I were privy to the things I’d hidden for so long. So that I could shed that armor and let him be my shield. My last line of defense against a world that was cold and brutal and everything he wasn’t. I wanted to give him all my secrets and to take his in return. An even exchange. I wanted to be as hard to get rid of as he was for me.

I wanted Brody . Plain and simple. As uncomplicated as it got, really. I just wanted him. Forever, him.

Wait, hold up. Forever? Forever ? What did forever even mean? Wasn’t it way too soon to be thinking like that?

“Isaac.”

I blinked, turning my head to see Jordan just staring at me. “I asked you like five minutes ago if you wanted to order a pizza.”

“And you’ve just been sitting there staring at me for five minutes?”

“Yep. What were you thinking about?”

“Forever,” I mumbled.

“Well, I’ve been waiting forever for you to tell me if you want pepperoni or cheese.”

“Cheese,” I said. “And please don’t get those garlic breadsticks because your breath smelled for a week straight last time.”

“Why do I put up with your blatant emotional abuse? You’re lucky you’re so cute,” he griped.

I sighed and dug under my bed for my notebook. Working on my poems or doing some free writing might help me parse through all these emotions. I just needed to let the thoughts take shape, let them go where they needed to, and maybe I could make sense of everything. Of just what, exactly, I was feeling about Brody.

But I definitely was not in love with him.

“I’m not in love with him,” I told Dr. Varu. She nodded her head and jotted something down on her notepad. I imagined her scribbling out He is, with the utmost certainty, in love with Brody, but is unable to admit it to himself.

It had been a whole week since I’d seen Brody—he had to cancel last Saturday’s study session because his uncle needed his help with something. But a little voice in my head had started telling me that he was lying, that he really just didn’t want to see me. That all this space and time had made him realize that I was not worth his attention. I tried hard not to listen to that voice, but it kept getting louder and louder. I mean, we still texted and spoke on the phone every day, but it wasn’t the same. At all.

“And what makes you think that,” Dr. Varu said, adjusting her glasses.

“Because I don’t even know what it means to be in love with someone. Because I don’t know how .”

“What makes you think that you don’t know how to love someone?”

“Because I’ve never done it before. Outside of Jordan, who I love platonically, I’ve never been this close to another person. And I’m too…too, uh—I’ve got too many issues, I think. Yeah. I’m definitely not capable of it, I don’t think.”

“What if Brody told you that he loved you ? How would that make you feel?” Her blue eyes were staring straight into my soul as her mouth asked the question that struck me to the bone.

“Um. Well, I think I’d have a hard time believing him. I mean, I know he likes me, and he tells me I’m beautiful, and perfect, and good, but…I’m not. Doesn’t he know I’m not any of those things?”

“I would take his words at face value unless experience tells you to do otherwise. His perception of you differs from your own perception of yourself. To him, you are all those things. So it’s not that he’s wrong, it’s that you don’t want to believe that he’s right, in his own way. Because then it means maybe you’re wrong—that the perceptions you’ve held onto for so long don’t have any value anymore. Not when it comes to your relationship with him. And that can be scary. It can be terrifying to let go of beliefs you’ve held onto for such a long time. But it’s also very brave to be able to let them go. So. Just ask yourself if you want to be brave enough to believe him. Because from everything you’ve told me, he believes what he’s saying. And that’s very, very promising.”

Fuck. Me. Dr. Varu, this is why I pay you the big bucks. Actually, I didn’t pay her the big bucks. She worked with me on a sliding scale and I paid very, very little. But this was exactly why I kept coming back to her.

“Hmm,” I said, still trying to parse through the revelation she’d poured over my head. There was a lot to it. “Can you write that down for me?”

She laughed, and I muttered, “But I wasn’t joking.”

Still, I left therapy that day feeling less hopeless and more optimistic about my ability to handle whatever may come with Brody.

Which I hoped were only good things.

They would be. Right?