Page 107 of String Boys

Breakfast was as lively as dinner had been, and Seth and Kelly promised the girls that they’d go to the aquarium and sightsee with them the next day. But sitting next to Kelly, feeling the thrum of blood under his skin, remembering the night before, both of them flesh to flesh, Seth knew he and Kelly wouldn’t be any good at all to them if they didn’t get some time to themselves.

He needed, in a way that precluded food and air and even music.

He needed Kelly to be a part of him.

They showered after breakfast, while everybody was gathering together to leave, like they were getting ready for a normal day. Seth used the bathroom in his dad’s room so they could get done faster, in time to hug everybody on their way out.

As he was shutting the door, Craig said, “We’ll call on our way home.” He gave them both a look that spoke of that long-ago day when he’d seen more than he’d cared to through a two-inch strip of curtain. “We’ll give you an ETA, so remember to keep your phones on!”

And then they were gone.

Seth eyed Kelly with a certain grim awkwardness. “Should it bother us that they know what we’re gonna do?”

“Whocares!” Kelly gasped back, grabbing his hand. “I’m just so excited we’re gonna do it!”

They ran upstairs together, shedding their clothes as they went—but leaving their socks on.

“It’s cold,” Kelly muttered, crawling into bed. “I don’t care how dumb it looks. I’m not sucking on your feet.”

Seth pulled the covers over their shoulders and giggled. “I hope not. My thing is about three feet north.”

Kelly rolled his eyes and reached under the pillow, producing a bottle of lubricant and a washcloth from the bathroom. “You’re taller than that. I’d say three and a half.”

Seth snickered. “Wouldn’t that make me seven feet tall?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” Kelly pulled down the covers, mindless of the chill. “You have a bruise on your chest—and oh my God. Your chest!”

Seth grinned a little. “Still working out.” The grin faded as he traced Kelly’s collarbone with his fingertips. “You’re still too thin. I….” He shrugged and brushed Kelly’s chin. “I miss when this was rounder.”

Kelly captured his fingertips and kissed them. “Not my fault,” he said. “I grew two inches.”

Seth knew his eyes widened. “Nuh-nuh—serious?”

“Yeah. Mom measured me on my birthday. I’m actually taller than Matty.” Some of his glee faded. “As tall as he was the last time we measured.”

Seth rubbed his full lower lip with a careful thumb. Neither of them wanted to talk about Matty—he knew that. But Seth had fed his daughter that morning, held her sleeping weight in his arms.

Chloe was the little burden that would keep Kelly home after Agnes had left, would keep them apart if Seth couldn’t find a way to go home.

“You were always bigger than Matty,” he said soberly. “Always kinder. You ever wonder why I didn’t crush on him?”

Kelly shrugged. “’Cause I would have committed fratricide?”

Seth laughed softly. “Sure.” His thumb found the silky hairs of Kelly’s upper lip. “Are you growing this out? Like a chia-stash or a goatee?”

“Naw. I just really wanted to rim you, and I figured I’d give you less razor burn this way.”

“Uhm… uh… so….” The warmth, the intimacy that had formed around them as they took their familiar inventory of the changes time had wrought boiled and steamed around them. Seth’s head sank into the pillow, and he dropped his shoulder back, spreading his body out for Kelly’s plunder, inviting him to live up to that reckless promise.

Kelly’s laugh had a raw edge to it, a fully adult sound that said he knew what he’d just done, and he was unrepentant. He thrust his tongue into Seth’s mouth and took and took, leaving Seth breathless.

Kelly’s hands weren’t idle.

He tormented Seth’s nipples without mercy, stroked Seth’s upper arms, his stomach, his hips. One hand, rough from doing laundry and dishes, slid along his thigh and around his groin, and Seth actually found some words.

“Don’t tell me you forgot where it is!”

Kelly’s chuckle made him, if anything, harder.