One More Time (15 page)

“I’m glad you’re here.”

I nodded. I could have told him thanks for letting me come with him, or that I was glad to be there. But neither of those would have been honest. I simply gave him a little smile and squeezed his hand.

We sat like that for at least another half hour without either of us saying anything. I didn’t mind the silence, and I slowly became more comfortable being there. I could see where I stood in Trent’s life and, in a small way, that was something I needed to know. Along with that, though, I guessed I could understand why he did what he did with all the guys in his life. He got his needs met without ever having to risk getting hurt. And he had been hurt, badly. I could see that now. Losing someone was probably one of the hardest things to get through in life, and he’d just lost someone he loved.

I was ready to leave the room long before he stood up. Some nurses came in as we were walking out, but Trent didn’t stop to see what they were doing. We’d stopped holding hands as soon as we were out of the room, but I kept mine near his in case he reached for me and needed the support.

He didn’t take me up on that offer until we were back in my SUV. “Where do you want to go to now?” I asked as his cold palm fit snuggly against mine.

“Hotel. I’ll direct you.”

That sounded just fine to me too. I was hungry, but once we were checked into the hotel, I figured I could find something to eat. At the very least there had to be some Chinese restaurant nearby that would deliver to my room. When I pulled into the parking lot, though, I saw there was a grocery store right next door, and I gave a little sigh of relief. But at the same time I’d been kind of looking forward to some Chinese food. I couldn’t find a single place to deliver to me in Thornwood and orange chicken was one of my weaknesses. Trent was a weakness of mine too, but I tried not to think about that as I slung my backpack, with just a few things that I thought I’d need overnight, over my shoulder.

I followed Trent into the hotel, we checked in, and then I watched him as he walked silently into his room. I shook my head and let myself into my room. It was small, but it smelled clean, and the sheets were soft once I’d stripped off the flowery comforter. I tossed my bag onto the bed, then headed back out to go to the grocery store.

Nothing really caught my eye in the aisles, especially since I didn’t want to eat microwave popcorn for dinner and I had no way to cook anything else, and the deli counter was closed this late. I ended up with a tub of ice cream, a bag of plastic spoons, and a six pack of beer. It wasn’t much of a dinner, but I hoped maybe it would help me tempt Trent into coming out to eat something later with me.

I knocked on the door to his room and gave him a smile when he opened it. “Hey. Snack?” I asked.

He’d been crying, not that I blamed him, and stepped aside to let me in with a little nod. Once I was in, he stripped off his shirt, and I tried not to stare as he stood in the middle of the hotel room in just a beat-up pair of jeans. And with how low they hung on his hips I could tell he wasn’t wearing anything under them. I had to force myself to look away from the bit of dark hair I could see above the button of his pants.

I felt wrong for wanting him right then, given everything that he’d been through that day, but it was hard not to stare at him when he was showing off such perfect abs and nice arms. “I brought ice cream and beer,” I told him as I took the ice cream out of the bag. I figured vanilla would be a safe choice. I preferred mint chocolate chip, or rocky road when I could find a really good brand that made it, but I hadn’t wanted to eat the whole thing by myself. “It’s vanilla. Hope that’s okay.”

Trent shrugged and sat down on the bed with his back propped up against the headboard with a pile of pillows. I joined him with the ice cream and beer. He turned the TV on to an old sci-fi movie, and we ate together. It wasn’t all that filling, but that didn’t really matter to me right then. I just wanted to spend time with him, to make sure he was okay.

“You’re going to think I’m an ass,” Trent said when we were nearly at the end of the pint of ice cream and I was on my second beer.

“For what?” He shook his head, like maybe he didn’t want to tell me, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easy, despite the shitty day he’d had. “C’mon, tell me.”

He handed the ice cream to me, and I put it on the bedside table as he stretched out next to me on the bed. He sighed and I waited for him to start talking. We had all night. I wasn’t going anywhere unless he kicked me out of his room, and I could have patience when I tried to.

But what he said when he looked up at me really did rock me pretty hard.

“I’m going out tonight. I won’t tell you about it, and you won’t ever meet him. I’ll make sure of it this time. But I can’t do this. I feel like I’m breaking apart inside, and I need to feel better.” His voice was quiet, like he didn’t want to say the words, like he was ashamed of them almost.

I just stared at him, a thousand thoughts rushing through my mind, none of them good. “Tonight?” I mumbled, not believing him. I’d heard him just fine. But Simon…. He’d just died a few hours before. I shook my head, not understanding how he could want someone else when he was hurting as badly as he was.

Trent narrowed his gaze at me. “Yes, tonight. Sex relaxes me. It makes me feel better. I’m telling you because you’re my friend and because I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I’m worried about you anyway,” I snapped at him.

He got off the bed and shuffled around a little, like he was anxious and uncomfortable.

“Look, I know you’re hurting and upset, but don’t go out and have sex with some random person tonight,” I told him. I was angry at him, and I didn’t understand what his point was in all of this. “Go for a run, get drunk, go punch something. But stop screwing people when you don’t even know their first names.” I jumped off the bed too and got in his face so he couldn’t just walk away and ignore me.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried those things? You think I started off by sleeping around years ago after the accident? I like having sex, and there’s nothing wrong with what I do. I’m not asking for your permission here, Caleb. I’m telling you that I’m doing this, and I need you to let me go.”

Shaking my head, I knew that wouldn’t be good enough. He tried walking around me so I put my hands on his chest, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t go out tonight,” I told him again.

“You can’t stop me.” He stopped struggling against my hands and just stood there with his hands around my wrists.

Licking my lips bought me a little time as I decided exactly what I wanted to say, and do. I could have let him go so easily. I would have been mad at him for doing something I considered to be stupid, but that could have been the end of it.

I didn’t do that, though. Instead I shook my head and lowered my hands, with his fingers still wrapped around my wrists, to curl around his hips. “If you have to do this…. If you have to have sex with someone tonight, then do it with someone who wants you, has wanted you. Just one thing, make me believe that you want me too. We’ll go back to being friends tomorrow, but for tonight be mine and let me be yours.”

I thought he was going to tell me to fuck off, to push me away, to leave and do exactly what he wanted to do all along—which was to find someone who could be just a mouth and an ass for him to fuck and nothing more. I couldn’t be that for him, but I didn’t want to see him do that to himself either.

“I don’t want to hurt you and you don’t do sex like that,” he reminded me.

I shrugged. I didn’t, and he knew that. “I’ll make an exception for you, just for tonight. If you brought someone back here, I’d be able to hear everything anyway since these walls are very thin. And I care about you. I want you. I want a relationship with you, if you’re ever interested or want one, but I know you don’t want that tonight. So this is what I can offer you.” It was a compromise, and I didn’t know how I’d feel in the morning after being with him. But if it kept him here, with me, then I’d do it. And it wasn’t like I wouldn’t enjoy sex with him. I knew I would.

He herded me back to the bed and laid me down across it with him on top of me. His mouth met mine, and he ran his tongue against my lips, seeking entrance. I gave in to him and sank into the bed a little more with his weight as he slid between my thighs and pressed himself against me.

Trent ran his mouth over my chin and down my jaw until I felt him resting his face against my neck. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you,” he murmured.

“In my house?” That’d been it for me too.

He chuckled, and I felt him lift up my shirt and press his palm against my ribs. “No. You were getting gas a few days before I stopped by your place. West side of town, little gas station. I heard you complaining that the pump didn’t take credit cards.”

I blushed as I remembered. “All of the pumps I was used to back home took credit cards, and I never had to go into the building. What were you doing out there?”

He pushed my shirt up over my chest, and I helped him get it the rest of the way off me. Once it had fallen to the floor, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, loosely holding him against me. He was restless. I could feel it in the way he moved his hips against mine. But he wasn’t insisting on rushing this, which I needed.

He kissed my collarbone and I sighed a little. I knew he probably didn’t take this much time with the guys he was with, which made me special, I supposed. I wanted to be that to him, to matter to him, to be more than just friends.

“Putting out live traps for some feral cats the owner had seen around.”

I nodded, because I guessed that seemed plausible enough. Really, though, as he brought his lips over my left nipple and slowly circled that hard point with his tongue, he could have told me that he’d been out hunting unicorns, and I wouldn’t have cared.

When he bit down on my nipple, giving me a little pain to go with the tendrils of pleasure he was sending through me, I arched against his mouth. “Are you like this with everyone?” I gasped out as he licked my sensitive nipple before moving down my ribs.

“Like what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing to me.

He didn’t wait for me to reply as he kissed down my stomach and began unbuttoning my jeans. “Caring” was the best way I could describe him right then. He wasn’t loving, I knew that. I’d seen Trent be loving when I’d found him with Simon. But he wasn’t flipping me over and pushing into me without saying a word either, like I’d imagined him doing with the guys he was with on the nights when I couldn’t think of anything but him no matter how hard I tried to focus on something else.

He lifted his head to look down at me from his place right by the button of my jeans. “Because I do care about you, Caleb. I can’t give you the relationship you want, but I can be good to you tonight.”

I nodded, accepting what he was able to do for me. It was something for me, and it kept him here, with me, where I knew he was okay. I tried not to think about what the morning would bring or how we’d go back to being friends after this. That didn’t matter tonight when all I wanted was to chase away his pain and sadness in the only way he seemed to allow anyone to do. This would be enough for tonight.

Touching his hair, running my fingers through the long strands, I rested my head back on the bed and smiled as he undid my jeans and slowly unzipped me. I lifted my hips for him, helping him take my pants off, and was glad I’d worn flip-flops that were easy to remove as I lay naked in front of him.

Having only been with three people before, being naked with someone new came with a bit of nervousness. I was self-conscious, and also a bit modest, even though I tried to keep in shape the best I could. I figured with the number of guys he’d been with, that he didn’t feel like that anymore. Curiosity had me asking him just to be sure, though. “Do you ever wonder what the guys think of you?”

He put his hand around my shaft, and I jumped a little at the feeling of him tugging me since I couldn’t really see exactly what he was doing unless I grabbed some pillows to prop up under my head. I’d thought they were too far for me to grab, but once I reached out for them, I managed to hook just the edge of one, which brought another closer and soon enough I was able to watch him as he leaned over me.

“What do you mean? Like my personality?” he replied.

I shook my head and kept playing with his hair. “No, like your body. Are you self-conscious at all when you’re with them?” Talking about the other guys who had been right where I was now, even as vaguely as I was, still felt odd in a way. But at the same time it also felt like maybe talking about them made it more real, like I was realizing where I stood with Trent and how this was going to be. It hurt, but it felt more realistic too. I knew sex with me wouldn’t make him change his ways, though I kind of wished it would work out like that.

Trent ran his tongue up the underside of my cock, and I jerked back as I watched him. My fingers curled in his hair, seemingly on their own, and I quickly released him. No one had ever liked me doing that to them so I was pretty sure Trent wouldn’t either.

“I tend not to care,” he answered.

“You don’t?”

He shook his head and slowly began running his hand the length of my shaft, all the way from my sac up to the head, just as I liked it. “I figure we’re both there for anonymous sex, so what does it matter? I see their pictures ahead of time, typically from the neck down to their knees, and I have a photo of my abs down to my thighs posted. If they like what they see there and if I like what I see on them, the rest of it really doesn’t matter. I don’t spend the night looking at their faces.”

He laughed as if he’d made a joke, and I felt a little sick. But I’d asked and I was getting the truth, so I couldn’t exactly complain about it now that I’d heard it.

“I do feel a little self-conscious around you though,” he admitted as he continued to gently stroke me.

I frowned and couldn’t understand why that would be. “Really?”

He kissed my tip and gave me a little nod. “Yeah. I mean, you I’ll actually be seeing tomorrow. We’ll hang out, we’ll watch movies. And I know you want me, but I also know I could be a bit bulkier and that I eat too many carbs sometimes.” He shrugged and I had to laugh.