Sunset Park (31 page)
Ignoring the last part, I sat up halfway. “If you’re not mad about me wanting you, then why do you keep backing off?” I was pushing even after I’d just told myself not to, but not speaking looked too much like letting him go, and I couldn’t do it. “If you want me to back off after tonight, I will, but damn… just tell me why.”
“Because.” David’s head bowed. “Because as much as I want to be with you, I’m afraid of being stuck in this situation where I’m locked back in the closet like a dirty secret. And I know how selfish that is, but I want you to be proud of us. Not to everyone but at least to the people who matter. Especially when you know they won’t judge you.”
He meant Michael and Nunzio. There was no doubt. And I had never been happier that I’d opened my mouth and blabbed about my feelings.
“So, if I tell you something that will make you feel better, you basically have no excuse to reject me.”
David looked up with a startled laugh. “I was never rejecting you, you ass. I’m just afraid of
you
rejecting me down the road.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I took the plunge. “Nunzio knows about us. I told him weeks ago. And earlier, I told Michael I loved you.”
I waited for it to sink in. David’s eyes went round.
“Are you serious?”
“No, I’m cracking a real funny joke.”
David swatted my leg, but there was no force in it. He kept searching my face for signs that I was jerking his chain.
“Do you mean it? I thought when you said it before it was just—”
“Just some heat of the moment thing. I know. And I thought the same about you.” I shrugged, pretending like that aspect didn’t matter. The situation was already running wild without me trying to force a declaration out of him. A wrong word or a shift in semantics seemed liable to shatter an already precarious moment. “I meant it then, and I mean it now. I’ve never been in love with anyone before, but that’s what’s going on, so in my opinion, you should just roll with it.”
A hint of a smile danced on his lips. “Oh, is that your opinion?”
“Yeah. It is. So just let me love you and stop being a punk about it.”
The slight smile widened, and I couldn’t help but return it. Déjà vu hit me out of nowhere, and I remembered the first time we’d gone out to dinner. He’d been nervous, and I’d been trying so hard to come off like a mean motherfucker, but I’d dumped the facade the first time he flashed that big smile. It was unselfconscious, and it had accompanied him when he’d informed me that we would be friends whether I went along with it or not. As if it had taken much to convince me.
David threw his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug. His lips brushed my tender jaw, then the corner of my mouth.
“Will you delete Grindr?”
“Will you delete Caleb?” I countered. “I’m not telling you how to live your life or anything, but as far as I’m concerned, the shit he said to you tonight should take away the privilege of getting to spend a lot of quality time with you.”
“I won’t ice him out completely,” David admitted. “But it won’t be like it was before. It can’t be. It’s not healthy, and that wasn’t… friendship.”
“You damn right it wasn’t. If you’re going to call someone when you feel upset or stressed out, you can fucking call me.”
“I agree.” David kissed me again, longer this time. “And I’m not telling
you
how to live
your
life, but you should tell Oli you’re my boyfriend.”
My hand shot out to reach for my phone. David laughed against my lips.
“Not right this minute!”
“Nah, I’ll do it now.”
“No,” he insisted, still laughing. “Seriously. Not now. Forget everyone else for a minute.”
I relaxed and let him curl against me until our bodies were interlocked like atoms. His mouth found mine again.
After a while, David pulled away just enough to say, “I feel the same way, you know. I’m in love with you too.”
“You better fucking be.”
Another laugh, this one made huskier by our closeness. “Sure, play it cool,” David said. “We’ll see how long that lasts. I know you have a gooey center even if you’re scary as hell when you’re mad.”
“And you love it.” I drew his lower lip into my mouth, sucking softly. “Don’t lie.”
“I wouldn’t. I love all of your parts. Your toughness and your sweetness, the way you look at me, the way you touch me….” David flicked his tongue out to brush against my mouth. “And it’s been going in that direction for a long time. I just fought it because I didn’t think it would happen.”
“Because you think too much.”
I kissed down and latched on to his Adam’s apple, sucking gently before licking down the concave center of his throat. David’s breath hitched, and he shifted beneath me, nudging his crotch against mine.
“I’m trying to get out of that habit. Less overthinking and more saying and doing.”
“We can get started on that now.”
I slid my hand up his shirt, the rough flat of my palm gliding over his chest. He pulled the shirt over his head and sighed when my mouth closed around one of his nipples. I grazed my teeth against it, alternating between nibbling and sucking, before returning to his mouth.
The hours I’d spent terrified of losing him were now superfluous in the face of our limbs twined together. The smoothness of his skin, the hardness of his hips and chest, and the silky strands of his hair were all things I’d felt before, but now I knew this wasn’t the last time I’d have the multitude of sensations hitting me at once.
It was tempting to crush him against me, to turn the kiss rough and demanding, but there was nothing to prove and no reason to imprint my touch onto his skin so it wouldn’t be forgotten later on. He was mine. The featherlight touch of his lashes against my cheeks, the taste and texture of the inside of his mouth, and the feel of his fingers stroking the exposed back of my neck… all of that was mine too.
This wouldn’t be the last time we kissed or touched because this was legit now. He was mine, and I was his, and we were together.
I pulled away only when my breath was short and his lips were swollen.
“Sleep with me tonight,” I said against his mouth. “And from now on.”
David smiled. “I’m planning on it.”
A Five Boroughs Story
Michael Rodriguez and Nunzio Medici have been friends for two decades. From escaping their dysfunctional families in the working-class neighborhood of South Jamaica, Queens, to teaching in one of the city’s most queer-friendly schools in Brooklyn, the two men have shared everything. Or so they thought until a sweltering night of dancing leads to an unexpected encounter that forever changes their friendship.
Now, casual touches and lingering looks are packed with sexual tension, and Michael can’t forget the feel of his best friend’s hands on him. Once problems rear up at work and home, Michael finds himself seeking constant escape in the effortless intimacy and mind-blowing sex he has with Nunzio. But things don’t stay easy for long.
When Michael’s world begins to crumble in a sea of tragedy and complications, he knows he has to make a choice: find solace in a path of self-destruction or accept the love of the man who has been by his side for twenty years.
Jeremy has been isolated and adrift since the death of his brother. Most people just see him as the skinny emo kid who wears eyeliner and plays drums. No one gets him. Nobody tries. He thought the indie rock band Stygian would become his anchor, but—lost in their own problems—they’re far from the family he sought.
Still, hoping to get close to Kennedy, the band’s enigmatic guitarist, he follows Stygian to northern Louisiana for a summer retreat. They had planned to spend six weeks focusing on new music, but things go awry as soon as they arrive at the long-deserted Caroway mansion. Tempers flare, sexual tension boils over into frustration, and Jeremy turns away from the band to find a friend in his eerily beautiful landlord Hunter Caroway.
Kennedy suspects there’s something off about the creepy mansion and its mysterious owners, but Jeremy thinks he’s finally found somewhere he fits. It isn’t until Kennedy forces the Caroways’ secrets into the light that Jeremy realizes belonging sometimes comes with a price.
“I couldn’t put this book down once I started it.”
—The Book Vixen
“This was my first contemporary from Hassell, and I am officially hooked. I gotta have more. I’m completely addicted to his writing at this point.”
—Reviews by Jessewave
“…Santino Hassell, he is definitely a talented author to watch.”
—Joyfully Jay
“I loved this world and was quickly pulled in… if you like things a little edgier with angst and tension and men who are all a little flawed one way or another, the reward is definitely worth it.”
—The Blogger Girls
“…the perfect combination of realistic fiction & contemporary romance.”
—Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
“I loved
Sutphin Boulevard
and I cannot wait to read the next in the Five Boroughs Stories.”
—Prism Book Alliance
SANTINO HASSELL
was raised by a conservative family, but he was anything but traditional. He grew up to be a smart-mouthed, school-cutting grunge kid, then a transient twentysomething, and eventually transformed into the romance-writing and sarcasm-loving guy that people know him as today.
Santino is a dedicated gamer, a former anime watcher and fanfic writer, an ASoIaF mega nerd, a Grindr enthusiast, but most of all he is a writer of queer fiction that is heavily influenced by the gritty urban landscape of New York City, his belief that human relationships are complex and flawed, and his own life experiences.
To learn more about Santino you can follow him here:
Website/Blog: www.santinohassell.com
Twitter: @santinohassell
Facebook: www.facebook.com/santinohassellbooks
Instagram: santinohassell
Stygian
FIVE BOROUGHS
Sutphin Boulevard
Sunset Park
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
