Page 34 of Summer Skin

IT’S WAY TOOfucking hot.

There’s no air conditioning in their 1922 Craftsman home, and temperatures have hit the 90’s this week, which in Seattle might as well translate to a visit to Venus, what with the way everyone’s dragging around complaining they’re probably going to die.

Chase is bare-ass naked, spread out like a giant Pacific Octopus, taking up more than his fair share of space on Aven’s bed. His lips are stained cherry-red from an Otter Pop, the third ice pop he’s had today. He gestures to the fan Aven’s clipped to his headboard. “We need a bigger one,” he complains.

“That’s what he said,” Aven automatically replies, and Chase groans like the tired joke is well-past retirement age.

Aven rolls over, resting up on an elbow to kiss Chase’s popsicle-colored mouth. A slow kiss, lazy—it’s too hot to really take it anywhere—but his mouth is sweet and fruit-flavored, and it takes a long moment before Aven can pull away.

It’s good like this, with Chase. It’s been two weeks since they agreed to regularly hooking up, and besides Aven and Andi’s monthly movie night, they’ve not missed a single day of smooshing their bodies together.

It’s like when they first started dating as horny teens and every single thing Chase did was magnified sex. Chase brushing his teeth? Boner alert! Chase’s t-shirt riding up? Hello to the boner! Chase squirming next to him on the couch as they try—and fail—to keep their hands off each other in front of their roommates? Triple boner!

His brain is stuck on a constant loop of sex. Chase. Sex. Chase.

Sex.

With.

Chase.

It’s thrilling to learn Chase’s body again. To use all the new tricks he’s picked up and see how Chase so enthusiastically responds. To everything, like he’s dying for it. For Aven’s hands all over him, for his mouth, begging to get stuffed full of cock in a way that drives Aven wildly out of his mind.

But it’s not only sex he’s missed with Chase these past few years. It’s the effortless connection they’ve got outside of the bedroom that shows itself in the way they find simple comfort together, in how Chase still effortlessly takes Aven for who he is, and, lately, in the music they’ve been playing together again.

Being with Chase is so easy, so good. Like, Aven never has that moment that he inevitability gets with other people—even Andi—where he feels like he needs space.

The recognition of all of this scares the ever-loving shit out of him. Because soon he’ll need to get used to the idea of being separated. Six weeks before this day-to-day life with Chase comes to an abrupt end.

At least there’ll be a goodbye this time.

At least they’ll stay in touch.

And maybe ….

Well, maybe. This doesn’t have to be the end end.

“I wish we had air conditioning,” Chase groans, flopping a hand on Aven’s chest.

“We could go get lunch someplace that does?” Aven offers.

“I’m not hungry right now,” he grumps.

“You filled up on too much ice cream and Otter Pops this morning.” Aven rubs a thumb over Chase’s pretty mouth. He looks like a god of summer right now, lounging in Aven’s bed. A tattoo of the sun penned against his chest, all golden-tanned skin, a light sheen of sweat painted across his bare body.

“We could splash in the International Fountain,” Aven suggests.

Chase’s eyebrows draw together. “The what now?”

“The fountain over by the Space Needle? You ever been?”

“Mm.” He shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”

Aven lies back, linking his hands beneath his head. The whirr of the fan creating a soothing lullaby. “Mom used to take us there every summer, me and my sister.” It’s a warm memory, and it reminds him of how much he regrets not being close with his family as an adult, like Chase and Brooklyn are. “It’s this massive fountain over at the Seattle Center and it sprays water all day long to synchronized music. We can go play in the jets with the rest of the sweaty kids. You wanna?”

“Maybe.” He yawns, scratching idly at his belly. “But then I’d have to get dressed.”

Point, but Aven is craving a day filled with sunshine. It’s not like they’re gifted too many of those around here.

There’s a zillion places with water they could find around Seattle today, thousands of shops with air conditioning, but Aven’s caught a bug for the fountain. Maybe it was the childish stain on Chase’s lips, or the heat bringing him hazy reminders of early days. Or maybe … maybe it was about showing Chase another piece of himself, of his history.

“I mean,” he says, plucking at the corner of his pillowcase, “it’s barely considered getting dressed when you’re wearing swim shorts.”

A long-suffering sigh, as though peeling himself off this bed will take every ounce of energy Chase has. “Fiiiine. Let’s go.”

“You want me to go downstairs and grab your shorts, babe?”

Chase blinks up at him, a happy grin spilling across his face. “I like it when you call me babe.”

“Babe, baby,” Aven croons. “Sweetheart. Come to the fountain with me.”

***

It’s a madhouse. Kids howling with laughter, adults making their best attempts at wrangling them in when they get a little too Where the Wild Things Are, a scantily clad couple passionately making out on a park bench near the fountain. It’s total chaos. It’s—

“Awesome,” Chase declares, his mouth curving into a charmingly boyish grin. “You wanna?” he adds, jerking a thumb down to where people of all ages are darting in and out of streams of water like it’s some sort of sun-kissed theme park. The fountain’s a backyard sprinkler on steroids.

The first hit of water shocks a laugh out of Aven, and his eyes find Chase bopping his head along to the bouncy Caribbean music pumping from the speakers. Two young girls race by, chasing after a boy their own age who’s threatening to dump his ice cream cone over their heads, and an older gentleman chuckles as he splashes in the water puddled at his feet.

The sweet, pure memory of childhood summers seeps into Aven’s pores, and he’s alive with light. Like maybe he could still do anything—be anything—if he tried. His hips sway in time with the music, the magic of sunshine coating Seattle buzzing around his insides.

When super shooters launch jets of water a hundred-twenty feet in the air, the crowd goes wild, screaming like it’s a fireworks show on the Fourth of July. Aven shouts with them, loud and wild, from his chest.

When it’s over, and he glances in Chase’s direction, the other man is watching him with a euphoric expression that mirrors his own. “You cooled off now?” he asks as a new song begins to play.

“Not at all,” Chase replies, his eyes crinkling. “I could go for another song.”

***

Two iced coffees and a shared cinnamon-glazed almonds and pecans cone later, they’re aimlessly wandering around the Seattle Center with no mission other than to people watch.

“See that one?” Aven says under his breath, head nodding towards a young guy on a park bench with his head tipped back to the sky. “He was abducted by aliens last night.”

“And now he’s fallen in love,” Chase decides. “Praying for his alien soulmate to come back down and probe him one more time.”

“You could almost write a love song about it.”

“Sure,” Chase says, lips twitching. “We’ll create a number one single on interspecies boning when we get home.”

Home. Like what Aven craved when they were young. Chase, the summer sun, a place they could hole up together. But like all the very best dreams, this cannot last.

It’s quiet for such a long stretch that Aven imagines Chase zoned out, but then he hums a little under his breath, and says, “So I wanted to ask you about something but I also don’t want it to be super awkward?”

“Yes,” Aven says in an exaggeratedly serious tone, “I’ll wear a vibrating buttplug in public for you if you ask.”

“Okay. Not where I was going, but good to know. Actually I ... I sort of got an invitation for a touring gig, and since I can’t take it, I was wondering if you’d want me to pass your name along for an audition?”

Aven’s face must say it all because Chase quickly holds his hands up like he definitely means no harm. “Look, I know it sounds like a hand-me-down, but it’s not like that at all, okay? I’m already booked and you deserve this Aven. You deserve to be seen.”

“You see me.”

It’s the truth. He’s always gotten Aven’s music.

Chase plants them in the sun-break of tree shadow, reaching for Aven’s hand. “I do. And if that’s all you need, I’ll listen to you forever, I’ll listen all you like. But … you’ve been working towards a contract for so long, and if I can help get you there, that’s important to me. It’s not a hand me down, it’s an invitation to play for a band that doesn’t even deserve someone as fucking brilliant as you. Aven, you’re ...”

His thumb rubs over Chase’s knuckles.

“You’re so fucking good that sometimes I think I made you up.”

There’s a second before what Chase said catches up with his brain and melts his thoughts. “Nah,” he says, a corner of his mouth lifting. “Couldn’t have, ‘cause that’s the way I feel about you.”

“Can I give them your number?”

There go those goddamn puppy-dog eyes.

A touring and recording contract is exactly what he’s wanted. It’s what he’s been endlessly trying for, but something about this doesn’t feel right, and he can’t put his finger on why. But he answers, “Sure,” after a beat. Whatever resistance he’s feeling, he can’t pass this up.

“Yeah?” A grin blooms across Chase’s face. “If it’s not a good fit, you don’t have to say yes, but it might be great practice for a long tour run?”

And suddenly it hits Aven why his gut is so violently screaming no. If he’s offered this gig, it’s yet another increasingly difficult reminder that he and Chase are soon to be living separate lives. That these months spent together are borrowed time, only a season, when nothing about his feelings for Chase is temporary at all.

Because, no matter how hard he’s tried to keep what they’ve been doing together in a THIS IS GOING TO END box in his head, it’s useless. He’s still in love. He’s not sure he ever fell out of love with Chase Matthews. He just did the best he could to shove those feelings into a locked corner of his heart where a burning flame stayed lit all the fucking time, waiting for Chase to return.

His fingers grasp for Chase’s hand, turning it over to place a soft kiss on the center of his palm.

“If they have any clue at all what they’re doing,” Chase tells him softly, “you’ll get the job.”

Aven lets out an uneven breath, his stomach clenching at the thought. He doesn’t want this gig, he wants Chase. He wants—

“Aven!”

Turning towards his name, Aven spots a guy he’s brought home from the bar a few times ambling over, grinning like it’s his lucky afternoon.

“Heeey,” Brian or Byron, something like that, says. “Long time no see, man.”

“Been busy,” Aven answers truthfully. His hand moves to the dip of Chase’s spine. There’s something incredibly uncomfortable about having this man around. Chase knows Aven’s hooked up plenty, but there’s a difference between knowing and seeing, and Aven isn’t in the mood for standing around making small talk with someone he never planned on seeing again.

“We were just about to head out,” he says, hoping Brandon gets the hint.

“Oh sure, I get it,” he says, his eyes going back and forth between Chase and Aven. There’s a second where Aven’s sure he recognizes Chase and is going to do the whole fanboy thing, but by the grace of the summer sky, Billy only smiles a bit, shaking his head. Then with a crisp two-finger salute, he’s bouncing away, moving on.

The air hovers awkwardly around them. “I’m not having sex with anyone besides you.” Aven wants to make that very clear.

“I know, you wouldn’t fuck me bare if you were doing other people. I know that about you. Plus, you’d probably try to rope me into a threesome.”

This is the exact opposite of the truth. Aven, who only a few months back thought if he were ever to get into another relationship, it’d be a consensually non-monogamous one, would straight up murder anyone who dared touch Chase. Kill them dead and sew their flesh into a flag he’d wave from the front porch as a warning to anyone else who might get any funny ideas. Even the thought of the lucky few who got Chase in between their high school days and now—nameless, faceless men who meant nothing to Chase—gets Aven’s blood boiling in a way he realizes isn’t healthy, and yet …

“I would never be happy watching anyone else touch you, Chase.”

Chase’s gaze shifts to his own. “Me either,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to Aven’s mouth before they duck out from the shadow of the tree back into the sun.

“So,” Aven says, reaching for Chase’s hand, “does that mean we’re exclusively flinging with each other until you’re gone?”

“I don’t know,” Chase says, his voice going quiet. “Maybe even longer than that?”

Aven’s breath freezes mid inhale. “Really,” he says carefully, trying to make sure he’s understanding correctly, “you’d do long distance?”

Lately, he’s been imagining Chase’s homecomings from international travel, and the long stretches of silence in between, but he never thought that … he never considered maybe there could be a more committed way for things to work between them.

“It’s something we can think about, right?” Chase hesitates, and Aven gets the sense this is hard for him to spit out. “I mean, would that be something you’d want to talk more about?”

Aven tugs him closer. “It’d make me incredibly happy if we could work something out.”

“Yeah?” He pulls out a soft smile that sends Aven’s heart tumbling. “Today was a good day,” Chase continues, with a gentle squeeze of Aven’s hand. “A perfect summer day.”

The trees sway against the bold blue sky, with the Space Needle rising high above them, and Aven could linger and linger on.