Games Boys Play (33 page)

“Fuck. What I
don’t
want is, a year from now, we’ve gone our separate ways, working on separate projects, running into each other a few times a year at family get-togethers, a little forced small talk while we count the seconds till we can get away from each other, and all of it tracing back to this. To what happened. To my not telling you all these years. It’s my fault if that’s what happens. But I hope that doesn’t happen.”

Brian gave a sharp nod, feeling something just as sharp in his throat. “So in a perfect world, we get past this, and everything goes back to normal?”

“Shit. If that could happen… I mean, that’s the least I could hope for, right?”

Brian felt like someone had put a key in his jaw and started tightening it, the muscle clenching, his teeth pressing together. Just go back to the way it was, like nothing had ever happened.

“I mean,” Dylan said, “in an
ideal
world… Shit.” He pressed his thumb and finger to his eyes and started rubbing. “In an ideal world, it’d be like I never came clean about it this morning, and we just went on like we were and saw where that led. Because if I had this morning to do all over again—” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You know, I’d keep my stupid fucking mouth shut and take it to my grave. So what if you thought you were the first guy I was with, the only guy? Who cares?”

“Did you ever think about me…that way…before?”

“I try to make it a policy not to jerk off thinking about family.”

Brian stared at him for a long stretch of seconds, then shook his head. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? It’s not like I’ll ever fucking find out if you really did think about me.”

“Can I make a promise to never say a lie to you again?”

“If you
mean
it.” His hands were still in his jacket pockets, and his jacket opened as he opened his arms. “But, I mean, how can I even know?”

“Bri…”

Brian chewed his lip.

“No, you’re right. I know,” Dylan said. “I know.”

“So. Are you gonna make that promise or not?”

Dylan looked at him for a moment before solemnly crossing his heart.

“All right,” Brian said. “So. Did you think about me before?”

“I never jerked off thinking about you.” Dylan crossed his heart again. “There might have been a time or two when I thought, ‘If he wasn’t my cousin…’ But I wasn’t harboring some fantasy we’d get together. When I offered to play around with you, I seriously didn’t think it’d be a problem. I didn’t really think about you that way, not after all these years of intentionally
not
thinking about you that way. I had a million reasons not to think about you that way.”

“And then I went and kissed you.”

Dylan let out his breath. “I already knew it was a problem before then. That’s why I tried to call it off.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“
I
didn’t want to. Look how easy I was to talk into keeping on with it. How fucking stupid I was, thinking, ‘I can do this without him knowing I’m getting off on it too. He hasn’t even noticed—what am I worrying about?’ I knew
I
wasn’t going to make a move on
you
, and I thought that would be enough.”

“And then I kissed you.”

“And
then
you kissed me. But I still thought… I was
determined
to make it work the way it was supposed to. I felt like I had an obligation at that point. I couldn’t just fucking drop you because you’d made a pass and taken it back. You’d have thought it was about the kiss, like I was disgusted by it or something. So I was like, ‘No, I can do this. I can take the sex out of this and make it work.’”

“And then I made another move on you.”

Dylan pointed his heart-crossing finger at Brian. “All your fucking fault.”

Brian smiled. “I guess I don’t have the same rules about how I think about family.”

“Patty’s gonna have our balls if she finds out about this.”

“Well. That’ll solve the problem, then.”

A laugh burst out of Dylan. “Right. Fuck.” He put a hand against his clavicle and pulled a slower breath in.

“You okay?”

“It’s bruised like a bitch.”

“Sorry.”

“What for? You didn’t drive into my bike.” He lifted his head. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No. I was asleep.”

“Glad somebody was.”

“Tired?”

“Yeah, but I hate to close my eyes. All I see is the road turning upside down all over again. And again. And a-fucking-gain.” He reached for his cigarettes. “Don’t stand there all night. Have a seat, unless you have someplace you have to be.”

“Nope. I’m free.” Brian got on the bed—the only seat in the room unless he moved layers of clothes and magazines off a wooden chair—and crawled along the wall until he could turn around and settle against the headboard beside Dylan. He laced his fingers over his stomach. It was kind of like being a teenager again, hanging out in Dylan’s room in the basement.

“So,” Brian asked, “what were you thinking after I made you start thinking of family that way?”

“Unfortunately, right on the heels of ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe this is happening’ came ‘I need to tell him,’ and we all know what happened from there.” He flicked an ash. “What about you? What’s your ideal outcome out of this? What do
you
want?”

Brian gnawed on the inside of his cheek.

Dylan watched him, waiting for his answer.

“If all of this hadn’t happened—you know, what we’ve been up to lately. If you’d just said out of the blue instead, ‘What would you think of getting together with me?’ I’d have probably thought, ‘Yuck. Dick.’ And also ‘Where the fuck did that come from?’ But. I’ve had your dick in my mouth—that horse has galloped out of the barn.”

“And?”

His throat tightened. Mostly, he didn’t want to look like an idiot. Mostly, he didn’t want to make a mistake, have Dylan go,
Whoa, back up there, pardner.

Mostly, having had a taste, when he looked past the anger and bitter feelings of betrayal…he wanted
Dylan.

Neither of them had shaved in more than a day. He touched the stubble darkening Dylan’s jaw.

Dylan did the same to him, a lazy curl of smoke rising from the cigarette between his fingers as they touched the corner of Brian’s mouth.

He lifted his eyes, looked into Dylan’s. “I think I want you,” he said. “I’m not— Don’t fucking hold me to it. But…” His chest felt not so much tight as
filled
. Like he’d breathed in too much air and couldn’t get it back out. He touched Dylan’s throat, the heel of his hand resting against the clavicle that hadn’t been bruised. “I don’t know. I wasn’t ready for this to be over when, all of the sudden, it was over.”

“I’ve always liked you better than anyone else,” Dylan said. “You know, overall. In general. You’re my best fucking friend.” His palm was against Brian’s chest, Brian’s heart beating against it. And then Dylan’s eyes swept closed. He pushed forward, his eyelids creasing for a second at the pain in his clavicle, but he didn’t let it stop him from pressing his lips against Brian’s.

Brian drew in a breath through his nose—Dylan’s smoke and a faint trace of sweat and the smell of hospital. He held on to Dylan’s neck, kissing him, breathing into him, thinking about this a whole different way than before, thinking
this
was
his.

His stomach jumped at the touch of Dylan’s tongue, just the tip of it, tentative—unsure. Brian pushed his hand into the back of Dylan’s hair. He took in every eyelash on Dylan’s left eye, the dark curtain of them laid against his cheek. He lifted his gaze to the hair falling over Dylan’s eyebrows, his forehead peeking out between the lazy curls. The corner of Dylan’s eye wrinkled as Dylan’s face tightened. As his lips drew back.

He pulled away, pressing a hand to his clavicle. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Here.” He helped Dylan get sitting up straight again, his back against the headboard, his head tipped against the wall.

He laid his hand on Dylan’s chest.

“I’m afraid I’m not gonna be good for much tonight,” Dylan said.

“What, you’re not gonna throw me on the bed and have your way with me? What a rip-off. Are you hungry? I haven’t had anything but beer and vodka since breakfast.”

“And I let you drive me home?”

“It’s been probably ten hours now. And I slept in between. Thanks, you know, to the sleeping pills.”

Dylan pushed his fingers into Brian’s hair. Brian leaned his face into the hand, against the wrist with the heart tattooed on the inside, where the veins looked like they were feeding right into his arm. “What’s this one mean?” He closed his fingers around that wrist.

“Nothing. I just thought it’d be cool as shit.”

Brian smiled. “You know what else would be cool as shit?”

“What?”

“Pizza. If you’re not up for it, that’s all right, but I’ve gotta get something in me. You need help with anything before I call? Help you get your clothes off? Get you to the bathroom?”

“Where’s my other crutch?”

“In the kitchen. I’ll bring it in.”

“I might need scissors too. I don’t know if these jeans will come off over the cast. They’re trashed anyway. It’s too bad. I liked them.”

“Crutch and scissors coming up.”

“You can do the cutting if you want.”

“Right after I put in the pizza order.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was later, after Dylan was down to his briefs, and they’d both had their fill of pizza, and the light was out, and Brian lay on his back with his head tilted against Dylan’s, their shoulders touching, that Brian said, “I guess we’re going to have to work on some new songs, since you won’t be breaking into my apartment or throwing me in the backs of any vans anytime soon.”

“Fortunately, I happen to know you’re good at getting yourself tied up. So, you know, you
could
just do what the cripple with the gun tells you to.”

“There’s that. But first you have to buy me.”

“What?”

“I’m on the market. Somebody else’ll snap me up if you don’t. I hear there’s already a buyer interested.”

“Fuck. Put me in touch with this guy.”

“Will do.”

“I hope you’re not too fucking expensive. I’m a starving artist, you know.”

“You’ll have to take it up with him.”

“Next time—” Dylan started.

After a second, Brian said, “Next time what?”

“Next time,
you
can be the one in the cast. Make that cast
s
. Two leg casts, all the way up…” He slid his fingers up Brian’s thigh, wakening a trail of nerves. “To here. With just your toes sticking out the other end. The tips of your toes.”

“Do you find it sexy, being in a cast?”

“No. I find it sexy thinking about
you
in a cast.” Dylan’s hand moved higher still. “Two casts. Maybe four. One for each arm too. Not a full-body cast, though. No, I want parts of you fully available.”

“Watch out what you do with my nipples. That’s a good way to get bonked in the head with an arm in a cast.”

“I think I can figure out a way to prevent that from happening.”

Brian reached under the sheets to push the waistband of his underwear down past his cock, freeing it for Dylan’s fingers.

“Tell me about that,” Brian said. “No, wait. Tell me about putting the casts on first. I want to hear details.”

“It’s probably too dangerous to knock you out, though the idea of you waking up to find yourself in casts…”

“We can pretend you knocked me out.” His cock twitched as he thought of it: making himself lie still with his eyes closed while Dylan manipulated his legs, his arms, wrapping them in increasingly hardening casings—pretending he was out of it until it was too late to
get
out of it.

“We can pretend I slipped you something that paralyzed you instead. You could hear me describe exactly what I was going to do to you, see me preparing the casting materials, watch me lift your leg, prop it up on a pillow, and start wrapping the padding around your foot and ankle, not able to do anything about it as I worked my way”—he slid his fingers up Brian’s thigh again, to where it met his pelvis. He grabbed hold, showing just how high the cast would come—“all the way up.”

Brian’s mouth was dry. He pushed the sheets down, exposing his cock, his thighs, Dylan’s hand. His eyesight had adjusted to the near darkness of the room well enough that he could make out the shapes of these things.

Against his ear, Dylan said, “Touch yourself.”

And while he knew it was because Dylan was in no shape to do the work himself, the two words still sank right down into the core of him, roiling in its heat. He wrapped his fingers around his cock and gripped tightly. Dylan cupped his balls.

“Do you have any lube?” Brian whispered.

“In the drawer.”

“Okay. I’ll get it in a sec.” He didn’t want Dylan to move his hand. He pushed his cock forward until it touched Dylan’s hand, then let go, letting it spring back to slap his stomach. Dylan gave a light squeeze against his balls.

He closed his eyes. Grasped Dylan’s wrist, his thumb pressing where the tattooed circle was, rubbing lightly.
Our circle now
. He wondered if it would be weird if he got one too.

“I’m gonna be a liar too, now,” he said with his eyes still closed.

Dylan laid his fingers on his arm.

“But it beats Aunt Patty finding out about this.”

“Christ,” Dylan said. “You ain’t kidding.” Then, “If you don’t want to lie, though, we don’t have to.”

“Shit. I’m in no fucking rush to be the next Wham. God, worse than Wham. The media will focus on us being cousins, and I’ll spend the rest of my life yelling ‘By marriage!’”

Dylan laughed.

“We can keep it under wraps,” Brian said. “If we change our minds later, we change our minds later.” He turned his head. “I think the only people who
have
to know is whoever we’re sleeping with. So, you know, and I know. We’re good. And if for some insane reason we decide to start playing cowboys and Indians with someone else, they need to know before the ropes come out. Otherwise, it doesn’t affect anybody else.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You still should have told me. I mean, forever ago. I wouldn’t have cared.”