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33

Jeremiah Blake

It’s early, three, maybe four o’clock in the morning, when the insanity of what I’ve done hits me. I got home hours ago, carried here by lust so leaden it kept me upright until I flopped into bed. The taste of Ben Stirling burned a path down the back of my throat and every time I swallowed, I could feel where he’d been.

I can still feel where he was, though given how long it’s been, it’s probably psychosomatic. I wouldn’t put it past me to be coming down with an ailment caused by questionable mental health and poor decision-making. I really wouldn’t. I rode the wave of blowjob euphoria all the way to the beach. All I did for hours, hours , after getting in bed was jack my dick with maniacal zeal.

It took three orgasms for clarity to hit, and holy shit, the staggering weight of the regret when it did. I’ve been in a cold sweat that won’t relent ever since. A hot shower hasn’t helped in the slightest. The lusty fog has lifted, and all I’m left with is the cold, harsh glare of reality—I blew a drunk straight guy who has been very open and honest with me about the fact that he’s grieving. Not only that, he’s my neighbor. He lives directly next door to me. I literally can’t get on or off my property without walking past his house.

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, I have, but this will take some beating. I’ve put myself directly in the epicenter of a situation so awkward I honestly don’t know how best to handle it. Without being histrionic, moving might be my best option. No. Not my best option, my only option.

I’ve been with guys who’ve regretted me afterward, and it’s horrendous. It doesn’t get easier with time. If anything, it gets worse.

What makes this time worse than all the other times rolled into one is that I care what Ben thinks of me. I truly care. I care so much that my eyes sting and my throat closes when I think of him looking at me with disgust. I care so much that when the tears start to roll, there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

The problem is that I like Ben.

I like him from the bottom of my heart.

I like him so much I’m almost delirious with like.

I can’t stand the thought of my life without him. I know I survived for twenty-seven years without him, and I know I’ve only known him for eight weeks and three days, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t stand the thought of a day when I don’t talk to him or see his beautiful face. I physically can’t stand it.

How will I be able to watch hockey if he hates me? I’ll never be able to watch a rerun of one of his games and enjoy it again. I won’t be able to leave my house ever again either, so I’ll be stuck here with nothing to watch, and I’ll have to call Marcus and tell him he was right.

A loud, tacky sob leaves me as a fresh sheet of tears pours down my face.

And Luca. What about Luca? I love Luca. The chats we have through the fence are often the highlight of my day. How am I going to explain why I can’t come over anymore? What if Ben doesn’t want me to talk to him anymore? How am I going to explain that in a way he’ll understand?

No. Ben is a good man. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Luca. Even if he hates me, he’ll probably still let him talk to me. He’ll probably tell Luca he can’t come over anymore, but I’m sure he’ll still let him talk to me through the fence.

He’ll probably just move house to get away from me, and oh God, they’ve only just moved here. That will be so unsettling for Luca. Moving is awful for children, and he loves his cousins so much, and this house is only ten minutes from them. It’s almost impossible that Ben will be able to find a house closer to them, so they’ll have to move farther away.

I can’t stand it.

I can’t let Luca go through all that again.

I’m going to have to move to Canada after all.

I get up at around six a.m., dizzy from lack of sleep, and start throwing a few things into a box.

If I leave early enough, I can be gone before Ben wakes up. I can ask Lissa to ship the rest of my things, so I won’t have to face Ben or Luca at all.

When I’ve filled the box with a collection of possessions that are in no way related to each other or particularly useful and have taped it shut with thick, overly sticky moving tape, I realize I’m spiraling.

I don’t have to move.

No.

Ben is an adult. He’s as responsible for what happened as I am. I’ll just have to apologize and return to my plan of phasing him out. Actually, I probably won’t have to. He’ll probably be the one phasing me out.

It’ll be awkward for a while. That thing with Jacob in college was intensely awkward for six months, and it was a normal amount of awkward for another six months. So, in all, it was awkward for a year, and oh God, I can’t survive being awkward around Ben for a year, but no, my point is it was awkward, and then it stopped being awkward. That’s my point. Awkwardness doesn’t last forever. Awkwardness is survivable.

All I have to do now is get through today. If I can get through today, I can get through tomorrow. If I can manage that, I can get through the week.

I might have to take Marcus up on his offer to travel with him in August. It’ll give me something to look forward to, something to focus on that isn’t beautiful Ben and his beautiful dick and the beautiful way he made me come simply by fucking my throat.

Or how I ruined a beautiful friendship with the best person I’ve ever met.

It’s mid-morning, and I’m at my wheel. I’m making a vessel for Luca. I’ve been planning it since I heard the news of his wiggly tooth, and it occurred to me while I was unpacking the box I packed earlier that I'd better get to it. It’ll take a while to dry and be fired, so there’s no time to waste.

I’m hand-building, but I’m using the throwing surface of my wheel because I find sitting here comforting, and God only knows I can use all the comfort I can get right now. The clay was cool to start off with, but it’s warmed to my skin now. It’s softer and more pliable than it was, and that’s almost enough to pull me down to the quiet place I go to when I work with clay. Almost. Not quite.

It’s not often I have a reason or the time to spend on something like this. In a way, it’s a luxury. I’m making a tiny vessel that involves tricky, detailed work. I try to focus my full attention on what I’m doing to stop it from wandering to hotter, worse, more beautiful things.

I’m largely unsuccessful.

“Jelly,” says a gruff voice from the other side of the fence.

The sound of Ben saying my name gives me one hell of a fright. One of those frights that gives itself a fright when it’s done giving you a fright. One of those frights that shoots up your spine, and as soon as you recover from that, you drop what you were holding and the clatter of metal and wood as it lands on terracotta gives you another jolt.

There’s a finality to his voice.

I give myself a moment, a last, nice moment before the next moment, the moment I know is inevitable, to appreciate what I’ve made. It’s good work. I think Luca will like it. I have one more thing to make, and I think Luca will like that as well.

“Jeremiah.”

Ben’s use of my full name makes me look up, though I’m not sure I decided to. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t ready to do it. He’s so tall that the top quadrant of his face is visible over the fence. His eyes are shadowed by the shade of an overgrown spartan juniper and, thus, unreadable from here. His hand appears in the hole in the fence, forefinger outstretched and pointed at me. He turns it slowly, a hundred and eighty degrees, so his palm faces the sky.

A single outstretched finger beckons to me.

I hurriedly plunge my hands into the bucket of water next to my wheel and wipe them on my pants as I walk. My palms are clean and mostly dry from being scoured by denim, though my knuckles will soon be coated in a fine dust that tightens if it’s not washed off thoroughly.

It’s no matter. This won’t take long.

“Hey,” he says as I approach. His face is still only partially visible and his hand has curled down around the opening in the fence now. There’s a slight sign of force where his thumb meets his palm so I think he’s applying pressure, leaning on the hole in the fence, using it as something to brace himself against.

It doesn’t bode well.

He pushes himself onto his toes. He must because his face is completely visible now, chin hooked over the fence, and fuck me sideways, he’s beautiful. I’ve berated myself a lot for what happened, but seeing Ben sleepy and a little disheveled lets me know once and for all that I didn’t have a choice. And if I did, it was a choice I made a long time ago. Before I was me. Before I existed. Before I knew things about getting hurt and being rejected.

A choice that went something along the lines of I’d let that man do anything to me .

“Hey,” I reply, unsure if I want this over and done with as fast as possible or to drag the small talk out to avoid the inevitable for a little while longer.

My knees are unsteady, but I’m upright, and later, I’m going to be super proud of myself for that. I’m going to buy myself a big fucking tub of salted caramel ice cream, and I’m going to eat the entire thing all by myself. I won’t even feel bad about it. Might have two tubs if the first one doesn’t make me feel queasy.

“Sorry about everything, lapse-in-judgment wine big mistake, totally understand how you feel, thank you and goodb—” I say in a single garroted breath.

“Jeremiah.” There’s something in his voice that’s unusual. An irrevocability almost, but not quite. It’s hard to place because I haven’t heard it before. He cracks a small smile. That’s not abnormal. Lots of people smile when they’re delivering bad news. It makes them feel better about ruining someone else’s day. “I couldn’t help noticing you were late with my coffee this morning.”

Ben’s brows raise a fraction, and he looks partially, if not all the way, pleased with himself. That is abnormal. People don’t usually look pleased with themselves when delivering bad news. Unless they’re psychopaths, and Ben’s definitely not a psychopath. A lazy swirl of confusion begins to wind itself up my legs.

“So I thought I’d come over to tell you that if you see me out with other people, be sure to come say hello, okay?”

It takes me the longest long time to work out what he’s saying. Seriously, I get stuck on the coffee issue, the lack thereof, and feel incredibly guilty about not taking it to him. Next, I detour to thoughts of his mug and how I should give it to him because I know he likes it a lot, and I’ll never be able to face using it or touching it if I’m out of touch with Ben. Finally, I circle back to what he said.

If you see me out…

…with other people…

…be sure to come and…say hello…

Say hello

Say hello

If you see me out with other people, be sure to come and say hello.

My eyes fill with tears when what he’s saying dawns on me. They’re big tears, and they’re hot. So runny and salty, they turn the trees and sky around Ben’s head into a haze of blue and green. They’re my tears, but they’re not just my tears. They’re the tears of men like me. They’re the tears of men who’ve loved men through the ages and been treated badly for it. They’re the tears of my younger self. The tears of every version of me that’s ever been hurt or felt used or cast aside. But most of all, they’re tears of joy.

I turn on my heel and bolt toward my house, wiping them off as I go. I run powerfully. Long strides, arms pumping in smooth, wide arcs. It’s not my usual gait. It’s the gait of a man with the ability and inclination to run a marathon and call it fun. A man nothing like me, in other words.

“What are you doing?” cries Ben.

“ Coffee !” I yell over my shoulder.

By the time I come out of my house armed with two steaming mugs of coffee, Ben is at the gate at the end of the path, waiting for me on the curb. I trot briskly to him. I’d love it if I could play it cool, but I think we all know how far out of the realm of possibility that is.

Ben opens my gate, takes his mug from me, and leads the way to his porch.

I’m aware that I’m smiling like the biggest idiot on the planet, but guess what? I don’t care. I don’t give a shit, not a quarter of a shit, not even a tenth of a shit, because I’m not the only one smiling. Ben’s smiling too.

His hair is rumpled, still damp from his shower, and he’s wearing a white linen shirt instead of his usual polo or T-shirt. He’s rolled it up to his elbows, and damn. Those arms. Those hands. Those veins running down those arms and hands. I want to memorize every single one of them. Every. Single. One.

It’s a lot.

When I’m able to meet his gaze, the same thing that happened the first day I met him, and the second, and every day after, happens again. Bone fractures. Brain matter fries.

I have coffee in my mouth and no clear notion of how to make it go down.

Ben seems to have no such problem. He takes regular sips and swallows without incident, though each time he raises his mug to his lips, I notice he holds it there for a second longer than he needs to in an effort to hide his grin.

I know it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that should be very hot, but it is. It’s scorching hot. So hot that when I finally work out how to swallow my coffee, the heat from the beverage flows all the way down. All the way. Down my throat, down my torso, down to my groin. It pools and swells where it lands.

I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been here, but I do think it’s longer than normal for two people to be together and not say a single word. Ordinarily, I’d be tempted to try and save the day. To land on a random topic and take off at a gallop.

Today, I don’t even attempt it because Ben’s here, and he hasn’t told me to do it.

He’s sitting closer to me than usual, but not as close as I’d like. The space between us sizzles with electricity, and for the first time, I’m a hundred percent sure it’s not only coming from me.

He lets his leg closest to me fall open and turns his body toward me. His arm stretches out on the backrest of the swing. The air between us crackles. He lifts his mug, but this time he doesn’t sip. He hesitates. Or he comes as close to hesitating as a man like Ben Stirling can come to hesitating.

He closes his eyes for a beat and shakes his head at me. No, not at me, at himself. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says with something sweet laced through his words.

“Like what?”

His lips part, curling up at one side. His eyes are the clearest I’ve ever seen them. The moon on a warm, still night. A night without a cloud in the sky. Life and humor and good things flicker in them. “Like you think I know what I’m doing.”

His fingers uncurl on the swing cushion behind me. I sense the movement more than I see it, but I know it happened because the disturbance of air is like a gentle breeze blowing through my hair.

He touches my neck with the back of his fingers, a light, tentative touch. It burns like a brand I want badly. Something I want so much that I don’t care what I have to go through to get it.

Ben’s gaze drops to my mouth. I think I might be affecting him, too, because he mimics my movements without meaning to. There’s a shy smile that mirrors mine. A hint of teeth. A quick breath out that clamps lips together before parting to show the tiniest flash of a wet pink tongue.

The heat between us is unreal. So is the tension. It’s a living, buzzing thing that’s almost solely concentrated on my lips and his.

He moves closer to me, the tiniest amount, and it almost kills me. I want him closer. So close, there’s no space between us. No air. Only skin. His skin and mine.

I want him to kiss me more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

I’ve wanted to be kissed before. Of course I have. Lots of times. I wanted to be kissed when I was a teen, and I’ve wanted to be kissed as a man. At first, I wanted it because I wanted to know what it was like. I wanted to know that someone liked me enough to kiss me. After that, I wanted kisses because kissing is a good way to get hot things started. A way to get clothes to come off and make sexy things happen.

That’s not the kind of kiss I want now. Not at all. Not anymore. All I want now is to be kissed by Ben. I want him to press his lips against mine and let me know I haven’t gone insane. I haven’t misunderstood what’s happening. I’m not crazy. I’m here, and all this is really happening. I’m here, and he’s here, and he wants me at least a tiny bit as much as I want him.

I need that. I need to know that.

“Do you know what you want?” It’s my voice, but not as I know it. It’s thick and swollen with longing.

Ben touches my neck again. This time, it’s harder, and this time, there’s nothing uncertain about it. He nods, eyes still on my mouth, lips slightly ajar as he breathes, “I know what I want, Jeremiah.”

“Then take it,” I whisper.

A rush of air leaves him and lands lightly on my skin. The hand on the back of my neck tightens, paralyzing me as surely as if my spinal cord had been cut through. It’s no matter. I stay seated without any issues. I don’t need to hold myself up because Ben’s here, and he’s doing it for me.

His lips part and he leans in. It’s a single, smooth movement that would make my head spin if I had the time. I don’t, though, because Ben’s lips are brushing against mine. They’re hot and soft. Gentle and demanding. They toy with my bottom lip for the briefest, headiest of moments before his tongue flicks into my mouth, asking for access.

I groan as I grant it.

There’s a distant crash of timber on timber that’s quickly drowned out by my thundering heart and the good things at hand. Ben’s kiss is like everything else about him. It’s beautiful.

Oh God, it’s so beautiful.

It’s the kiss. The kiss. The kiss of the ages. The kiss that takes me apart and puts me back together. The kiss I’ve spent my whole life waiting for.

I’m dazed when it ends.

“You were right,” says Ben matter-of-factly.

“Right about what,” I slur.

He hits me with a look that makes bone marrow hiss. “You are a good kisser.”

I make an unpleasant sound. It’s a ghastly bastardization of a squeal and a gurgle. I hate it. Fortunately, I’m saved from having to scrutinize it by a commotion across the street.

“What the…?” Ben says, craning his head to get a better view of Ant and Robbie’s house.

There are arms and hands visible in one of the ground floor windows but no faces or bodies. It’s odd.

“Did something break? I thought I heard a crash,” I say.

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure there was a blind on that window before. Looks like it came down.”

“God, I wonder what happened. Should we go over and see if everything’s okay?”

“Nah,” says Ben with a grin that gives me the distinct impression that even though he’s the sweetest, loveliest, kindest man I’ve ever met, he has the potential to turn into an animal. “You’re not going anywhere.”