Page 136 of String Boys

Seth shrugged. “I got no idea. I have sort of an agent. Gianni found her for me. She puts the money in the bank, and Dad tells me when he takes something out. There’s always enough for what I need, you know?”

Kelly rolled his eyes so far back in his head, it almost hurt. “You know, I’m pretty sure we could hire a maid. Just saying. You’re a world-class soloist—you get that, right? What little kids want to be when they pick up a bow, you’re that!”

Seth cocked his head, wrinkling an entire side of his face. “No,” he said, absolutely positive. “’Cause when I started at Bridgford, they told me that a good musician doesn’t get that good until they hit their thirties, at the very least. So I haven’t even peaked. We’ll have to wait another ten years to hire a maid.”

He was totally and completely serious, and Kelly wasn’t sure whether to cry or to bang his head against the table or to kiss him, through ice cream and coffee, and possess him, completely, over the kitchen table.

He did the kitchen table thing—it was a sturdy piece of furniture, and it held up terrifically.

And he didn’t have to explain to his lover that Sethwasthe giant who walked with his feet among the stars and his head in the clouds and that Kelly was the mortal who climbed the money-stalk every so often just to visit his world.

Kelly loved him. God, sometimes it just had to be that simple.

Today, with the family arriving in three more days, and the clock ticking in the back of their minds—always, always the clock—Kelly was going to let it be that simple.

He stared out at the sea with the cocoa butter next to him, grabbed a fingerful and reached behind him, allowing the breeze and the sun to play on his skin as he let his fingers play around his orifice, burning, stretching, filling.

Knowing Seth was behind him, sitting at his desk for a moment to do some composing, where he would look up and see Kelly, pleasuring himself.

And if he didn’t look up?

That was okay too, because Kelly wastrulypleasuringhimself.He was celebrating how wonderful this felt, the freedom from the fear this act might have brought him once, how much his body felt likehis, so much like his that he would give it to Seth without inhibition.

He heard a sudden intake of breath. A gasp. An “Oooooooooooh….” on the exhalation, and turned his face to the dazzling sky.

Three… two… one….

Seth’s hands were shaking too hard to be gentle, but Kelly didn’t need that, not now. He was bent roughly over, his hands gripping the wooden railing, his ass thrust out, as Seth breached him and surged inside, his breadth stretching, his length stuffing, his body the most welcome of invaders.

Kelly let out a cry—happiness, triumph, pure sex—and begged.

“God, Seth, took you long—enough!”

Hard. Seth liked to fuck hard, and Kelly liked it too. They liked it all, hard and fast, soft and slow, the heavy-duty power fuck.

His body wouldnevertire of having Seth’s inside him, and Seth would bend over and plead for Kelly as often as he could.

But not now.

Now Seth was taking over, fucking him from the inside out, and Kelly was disintegrating, flying outward, soaring over the ocean under the sun. His body was life and sex and hope—and Seth, human music, playing his soul like the violin.

Frayed and Broken

Two and a half years later…

LATE. SETHwas late.

Kelly frowned at his phone in annoyance. Seth had needed to attend an out-of-town engagement right before Agnes’s appearance in the high school play. It wasn’t a big deal, really, but Seth had such a stellar record of sneaking into these things, holding Chloe, taking them out to dinner, and then sneaking away—often with Kelly to his apartment in San Francisco—that the lateness seemed out of character.

But then, so had Seth’s excessive workload, until Kelly had gotten shitty with him the night before.

So you’re in New York again but you’ll be here?

Yes.

Do you need me to walk away?Kelly had been kidding, mostly. It was their code, every time they saw somebody in the photo record who showed up a lot, or who seemed… interested in the other person. It was a way to ask, politely, if there was anything to be worried about without getting stupid and mad and jealous, and as codes went, it wasn’t bad.

Kelly’s sentence was almost up, and he wanted Seth more than ever. Every text, every Skype, every cheap hotel for privacy and phone sex—all of it had been worth it. Kelly was almost free, and Seth had been saving for a house, browsing the property outside of San Francisco with an idle eye.