After School Activities (25 page)

downstairs. But he didn’t. He stood there, slouched against the door, eyes

closed. He looked exhausted. He looked defeated, though I can’t imagine

why. It seemed to me like he had won a victory against his brother. He

looked, well, vulnerable.

I said before that the sight of him naked captured my heart. This was

only partially true. It was seeing him vulnerable that really did it. He

showed me the scared little boy he hid deep inside. The naked only let my

cock catch up to what my heart had already begun to realize. And now,

seeing him like this, my brain started to catch up too.

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“Did you mean it?”

He opened his eyes and looked weakly at me. “Mean what?”

“That you love me.”

His eyes closed again. He slid down the door until he was sitting on

the floor, knees hugged tight to his chest. He buried his face in his arms

and shrugged.

“Oh,” I said. Not my best. I wasn’t exactly feeling quick on my feet

at the moment.

“I know,” he said, “I ruined it. The only good thing I’ve ever had,

and I wrecked it.” He looked up at me. Tears were streaming down his

face, but his voice was steady. “And now I’ve lost you. I know it. I’m not

trying to….” He paused, clearly struggling for words. He gave up and

dropped his head again.

“Adam,” I said. I slid off the bed and laid my hand on his arm. He

met my eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m here now. I told you, I’m here as long as

you need me.”

“But what about a month from now? How about two? When you

stop feeling bad for me, what then?”

“I….” I was taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. I didn’t know

how to respond.

“You’ll leave again, and I’ll go back to being alone.”

“Adam, I… I’m not okay with being your secret anymore, with

hiding from the rest of the school. I just….”

Adam cut me off. “Shit, I told my
brother
, and you think I’m

worried about the school?” He sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. I

didn’t mean to—you know. I’m aware it’s my fault. I’m not trying to

make you feel guilty. You have every right to…. It’s just…. Maybe you

should just go. It will hurt less later if you went now.” He stood up and

walked across the room, very deliberately putting his back to me.

I stood up too. “Fuck it.”

“What?” he said, confused.

“I said fuck it. You think you were the only one upset about this, the

only one who feels lonely? It would be easier for me to count the nights I

haven’t
cried myself to sleep, and most of those were because I just straight up wasn’t able to sleep at all. I’ve missed you, every day. You’re

right. It is all your fault. I do have the right to… to cut you out of my life, 151

Dirk Hunter

or make you pay, or whatever you were about to say. Instead, I say fuck

it.” He turned back toward me. “What are you saying?” he asked,

trepidation in his voice.

“Fuck it. I think we’ve covered that part.”

“Dylan, please don’t make jokes right now.”

“I’m saying that I don’t know if I love you, but this is the closest to

love I think I’ve ever felt. I’m saying that I don’t want you to not be a part of my life. I’m saying can’t we just skip the part with the reconciling and

the forgiveness-seeking? I’m saying why aren’t you over here kissing me,

right now? I’m saying—”

I never had a chance to finish saying what it was I was saying.

’Cause right then I was hit by about two hundred pounds of muscle, and

my mouth suddenly became quite occupied with other pursuits. Like

trying to find time for breaths between kisses.

“You didn’t let me finish,” I said, once the bout of making out came

to a close, with my back against the door and our foreheads pressed

together.

“Oh?” Adam said softly. “It couldn’t have been too important.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“What was it, then?”

“Remember how I was saying fuck it?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, I kinda meant that literally too.”

Adam’s face slowly morphed into a wicked, hungry grin. He picked me

up, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he carried me to his bed. We

were making out pretty heavily at this point. He dropped me on the bed and

tore my pants off with one hand. Only then did he stop kissing me. I had a

second to gasp for air before he took my cock in his mouth, deep-throating

me with reckless abandon, and making me lose my breath al over again. I

pulled his shirt up over his head. He hesitated to stop sucking me long enough to get his shirt off. I had to tug on it a few times before he let me get it off. I pulled his head up to kiss me again, and he ripped my shirt off—
not
a figure of speech, by the way, which made me glad it was
his
shirt. I reached down and freed his cock, already swollen and massive, from his pants. It was bliss to hold him in my hand again. But it wasn’t enough.

“Fuck me, Adam. I want you to fuck me!”

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As if by magic, Adam made condoms and lube appear. Seriously, he

could have pulled them from behind my ear for all I could tell. To this day, I still wonder if he’d had them in his pocket the whole time, or stashed under

the pillow for such an emergency. Still kissing me, he squeezed some lube

onto his fingers and began to rub it around my asshole. He slipped one

finger in, then two, working in and out, widening my hole. I gasped with

each penetration, as though surprised every time, and he laughed between

kisses. Then he tore open the condom, put it on, and positioned himself,

cock pressed against me. I looked up at him. He looked down at me.

And then he was inside me.

For an instant, it was uncomfortable. So tight, not painful, but like

my body was resisting an intrusion. Then he pulled out halfway, thrust

back in, and my back arched in pleasure. He did it, again and again, and

with each thrust I could feel his cock rubbing against my insides—my

prostate, said a small part of my brain, but I was much too far gone to

listen—sending waves of sensation through my body until my toes

curled and I cried out uncontrollably. Faster he went, and harder, until I

thought I would go blind from the ecstasy. He grabbed my cock and

stroked in time with his thrusts, while bending down to kiss me. He

grabbed my hips to pull me against him and add more power to his

thrusts. I wanted it to never end.

But it did, and way too soon. He called out my name as he came. He

collapsed on the bed beside me and gazed at me with heavy lidded eyes.

He tore open another condom, rolled it on my cock with a deft

motion, and said, “Now it’s my turn.” Whatever small disappointment I

might have felt vanished, replaced with lust.

I started with one finger, listening to him moan. When I switched to

two, he was writhing beneath me, begging for more. By the time I pressed

my cock against his taut hole, he was hard again, and his eyes burned with

desire. “Fuck me,” he moaned. And I did. “Harder,” he begged, and I

obliged. With each thrust, I plunged my cock deep into him, shoving him

hard against the mattress. He cried out with each thrust, louder and

louder, and before long I was too, shouting in unison. I grabbed his cock

and pumped it in counterpoint with each of my thrusts until, shuddering,

we both came. I collapsed onto his chest. We lay there, for several

minutes, panting, my slowly softening cock still inside him.

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“God, I missed that.” Adam pushed me gently off him. He pulled a

small towel from a drawer on his bedside table, wiped the cum off his

chest, then pulled the condom off me and cleaned me up. “Don’t get me

wrong. I missed you too….”

“Uh-huh,” I said lazily, “Sure. And what was it, exactly, you missed

about me?”

“Okay, you got me. I only missed the fucking.” We both laughed. It

felt good to be so carefree again. It had been so long.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.” Adam said.

“What made you change your mind? About all this?”

“I couldn’t resist the call of your manly allure any longer,” Adam

joked. “I mean, it is pretty overpowering. But seriously. I know you broke

it off with Tiffany over a week ago. Why?”

Adam’s smile faded, and that look of saddened introspection crept

back. He sat up, leaned against the headboard with a faraway look in his

eyes. Seeing the complete change in his demeanor, I regretted bringing it

up. I was about to apologize, say never mind, when he started talking.

“You skipped a question. Why did I do it in the first place?”

I tried to be reassuring. “I know why. You don’t have to—”

“I don’t think you do.” He took a deep breath. “My dad came home,

on Christmas.”

Not
what I was expecting. “Oh,” I said, because I’m always so good

at knowing what to say.

“Pete and I got home from visiting Mom, and there he was. Really

drunk. His friend was there, waiting with Dad. Said he didn’t know where

else to take him.” Adam smiled bitterly, nearly a grimace.

“Apparently Dad’s run away from everyone, not just us. He… said

some things. A lot of things, really. One thing he kept going on about was

whose fault it was. The cancer. Who he blamed. Doctors. God. Himself.

Me and Pete. I don’t know if he really blamed us the most, but that’s what

sticks in my memory. I can’t stop seeing him, standing there with that look

on his face….” Adam cleared his throat. “I remember that night, laying

here, I kept thinking, he’s right, but not for the reasons he was saying. It

was my fault. We were being punished because of me, because I was…

with you.”

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Holy shit. “Adam, of course it’s not—”

“Please.” He cut me off. “Just… don’t. I know it’s not my fault.

Obviously. But it’s what I felt then. I wish you would stop dismissing my

struggles because you think they’re easy.”

“I….” I don’t do that, is what I had been about to say. But before I

could even finish the sentence, our entire relationship flashed before my

eyes. I saw myself behaving like I always had to reassure him, hold his

hand, and lead him down the path to gayness. I had been trying to help, to

be understanding. I realized how it must have felt, to have someone

continually saying “I know why you’re scared. I was there once. But don’t

worry, one day you’ll catch up to me!” But mostly I remembered New

Year’s Eve, and the overpowering need I had felt to act superior.

Condescending.

“I’m sorry,” I said instead. “I don’t mean to.”

“I know. It’s okay. I mean, you’re stupid and I hate you, but that’s

not new.”

“Oh yeah. We covered that way back in the third grade.” We grinned

at each other. A small bit of that carefree atmosphere seeped back in, so

naturally I had to immediately go and ruin it. “So what happened?”

“I tried to be straight.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know that, dumbass. I was there for that part. I

meant, why did you stop?”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I just didn’t really want to talk about

it.” “I’m sorry. You don’t have to.”

“No, I want to.” He fell silent. I waited for him to continue.

“I visit her almost every day.” He winced. “Visited, I mean. Usually,

Pete wouldn’t come. She would ask what was bothering me. You didn’t

really know her, but she had this way about her sometimes. Like she

already knew everything, but was waiting for everyone else to realize it.

So when she asked, I kept feeling like she was expecting something

specific. But I’d always say it was nothing. Or I’d tell her about school.

Something. She always accepted my answer, believed it, but the next day

she’d say the exact same thing, in the exact same way, like she hadn’t

quite gotten the answer she wanted yet. I’m not dumb—I think a part of

me knew what she was driving at. I guess I was scared or couldn’t admit

that I hadn’t hidden it as well as I thought, or something. Then one day I

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realized that she—” He took a deep, steadying breath before continuing.

“That she might die, and I’d never have the chance to tell her. That I was

letting fear take my choice away. I started to think that she was holding

on, just for me, to give me that chance. The doctors had been saying since

January that any day could be her last. But every day, there she was,

asking what was bothering me.

“Then one day, when she asked, the words just bubbled up. ‘I think I

might be in love,’ I said. And she said ‘yes.’ Not, like, ‘oh yeah?’ like it

was a question, or she was confused. Only ‘yes.’ Like I had finally said

what she wanted to hear. ‘With a boy,’ I said. I was still scared, but I had

already started. I knew I had to say it. And she said ‘Good.’ She smiled at

me, made me promise I would be happy. Suddenly I didn’t want to

pretend anymore. The next day, I broke up with Tiffany. A week later,

Mom was gone.” He surreptitiously wiped away his tears with the heel of

his hand, looking annoyed at his own display of emotion. “And that’s how

it happened.” He looked down at me, his naked body bathed in moonlight

from the window, and saw something in my face. “What?”