Page 5 of Try Me
Chet thunked his head back against the wall and blew out a long breath. “I don’t know. I guess so. Yeah. No. I’m not supposed to say anything, I don’t think.”
“And you had no idea?”
He fixed me with a steady, baleful look, and something came loose inside me. The only other time I’d seen that kind of hurt in his eyes was when I’d accused him of taking one of my PlayStation games when we were ten. He hadn’t. I’d just accidentally kicked it under the bed at some point. “Fuck no. Jesus.”
“Sorry. I just…fuck. Sorry. That was a dumbass comment.” I got up and crossed to my closet, pulling out a couple of old blankets. Chet shed his hoodie and shoes as I made him a pallet on the floor the way I used to. One corner of his mouth quirked as I dropped a pillow from my bed on top of the bedding.
“What?”
He toed the edge of the comforter. “It’s the same one.”
I glanced down at ugly gold-and-blue floral pattern and laughed. “Probably hasn’t been washed in a decade either. No promises the fleas you left behind won’t still be there.”
His smile faded as he rolled forward onto the balls of his feet, crawling the few inches to the pallet and then sinking down on it like he was eighty instead of nineteen. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t care anyway. Shit, I should probably get used to it.”
Fuck, that was heavy. I was probably the last person he should be talking to right now. He needed someone who actually knew what to say to a person whose life was falling apart. I thought about his room the way it used to be, walls covered in posters and art, the furniture some high-end shit his mom went on and on about, lamenting the way Chet buried it under all his clothes. The glass manor on the hill they’d custom built. I wondered what would happen to it. Could the government seize an entire house?
“It’s gonna be okay. Maybe not right now,” I hastened to add when he shot me an icy glare I felt all the way to the pit of my stomach. “But later. It’ll die down.” Even I wasn’t swallowing the Pollyanna bullshit, though. I sounded like my mom.
“Nothing will be okay for a long time. Let’s just not talk about it, okay? I can’t stand to keep fuckingtalkingabout it. That’s all my mom wants to do, and it doesn’t fix anything.”
“Okay. No talking, then. Got it.” I made my way back to my bed and crawled under the covers, reaching to turn off the light. In the darkness, I heard the quiet sound of his breathing and the few times it came out as a muffled hitch. Chet was an absolute bastard on the court, and frequently off, from what I’d heard and what I remembered of him myself, but I couldn’t help the pang in my chest as I listened to the sound of his life unraveling. It felt too intimate, too private, toounearnedgiven how long it’d been since we’d interacted regularly. I kept trying to think of something comforting to say, but nothing came to mind that didn’t sound like another spoonful of sunshiny crap. And even though we hadn’t been friends in years, I still knew he wouldn’t want that.
Eventually, I dozed off.
I surfaced again when the mattress dipped, found myself instinctively pulling the covers back as Chet climbed in next to me. It happened on occasion when we were kids, too. And just like he used to, Chet shifted around and put his back to me.
My arm brushed his, bare skin on bare skin, as I tried to make more room for him—much harder since we’d both almost doubled in size.
I muttered an apology as I bumped him again, this time my kneecap knocking into the back of his leg. Chet fumbled a hand behind him, and for a second I thought he was going to deadleg me in retaliation like he used to. Instead, he found my hand and closed his around it. He paused with it midair indecisively, then guided it gently to his hip.
Something inside me stuttered: my heart skipped a beat, or my breath caught with a sudden, full-body kick of tension. My muscles were wires, and every place where our skin touched wound me tighter.
He’d taken off his shirt and jeans at some point, and I splayed my fingers, half touching the fabric of his boxers, half touching his naked skin. I was scared to even breathe, afraid the incremental space between our bodies would spark off with the charge I felt between us. His bare back rose and fell, brushing against my chest with every inhale.
Tentatively, I moved my thumb and forefinger over his skin, trying to be subtle about it, but shit, I felt the heat in every millimeter I touched. And I liked it.
Maybe too fucking much.
I thought of the stories I’d heard about Chet as he shifted his hips and my middle finger brushed lightly along the stiff ridge of his cock. Swallowing hard, I inched my hand lower and stopped, the insane horniness that’d come over me at war with common sense—what little of it that remained.
Chet let out a deep exhale and tilted his hips closer, undoubtedly an invitation, and one my brain didn’t have time to parse before I was seeking the panel of his boxers and slipping my fingers inside.
Stifling a groan, I traced over the silky skin of his shaft, curled them under quickly when I encountered wetness at his tip.
“Pynch?” It was a question, I supposed. Or a request. I wasn’t sure which, and I was clueless as to what the fuck I was doing. Some instinct was guiding me that I didn’t understand and didn’t want to stop either. Maybe I was trying to comfort him, maybe I was just justifying it. Fuck, I didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter at all.
“Yeah, do it,” he grated out, voice strained as I unfurled my fingers and slid over his tip again. I freed his cock, let my thumb wander over the shape of his head. It was thick and prominent, and though we’d never gotten up to any funny business as kids, we’d examined each other once in front of a mirror, compared our lengths, pulled up our balls, made fun of each other with warm humor. We’d probably been too young even to get real boners, but I remembered thinking his was nicer than mine, the way his shaft hung over his balls, the darker purplish coloring to my meatier pink tones. I’d bet anything he sprouted pubes before I did. I combed my fingers through them now, imagining the musky scent as I chased the wiry nest down to his balls.
They were heavy in my hand and so fucking warm, slightly tacky. As I traced a finger up his length again, Chet shuddered out a breath. I dragged over his slit, and my fingers came away sticky.
I sucked in a breath, wondering just what in the hell I thought I was doing. But when I started to wrench my hand away, Chet caught me by the wrist.
“It’s okay. Feels good.” He didn’t yank my hand back to his cock, just held it, still low on his hip until my own desire, curiosity, and fuckingneedgot the better of me and I stretched my fingers out again, moving lightly over the infinite silk of his hard shaft.
“Your boxers…” I didn’t know how to finish the question, but he got the gist.
We shimmied his boxers down until his cock popped out, and when I closed my fist around it, he cupped his hand to his mouth and spit, then shoved my hand away to slick his length before wrapping his hand over mine again. My own dick throbbed and twitched, and I desperately wanted to buck into the firm curve of his ass as I gave him a few tentative strokes.