In the Middle of Somewhere (14 page)

“So, how’d you end up going on to college if you didn’t like school?”

“Um, I really liked learning, even though I hated school. I’d read in the library for hours. Just wander through the stacks and pull out books on whatever seemed interesting. Sometimes when I was there, there’d be free lectures downstairs and I’d go listen and just never want it to end. It was mostly adults in the audience and they were quiet and respectful and they seemed to care. I saw this guy speak once and he’d written a book about the Essex, this nineteenth-century ship that got rammed by a whale and sunk. The crew had to abandon ship and try and survive in these small boats and eventually they had to resort to cannibalism to survive. He was a really good speaker and he made it so interesting. I got his book from the library and read it and I was just amazed because this had happened, like, almost two hundred years before and was kind of a mystery in some ways and this guy had done all this research and was able to reconstruct something after the fact and then write the whole thing like an adventure story. I think that was the first time I thought, oh, learning doesn’t have to be like it is in my shitty high school.

“And I loved to read, you know? Ever since I was a kid. Just not the same book for two months the way it was in school, reading it out loud torturously. I read all the time and when I was in school, I would daydream, pretend I was a character in a book. Sometimes that’s how I got in trouble too, because I’d be thinking, hey, this is the scene where the scrappy hero tells off the bully, so I would. But things don’t usually go the way you write the scene in your head.”

Rex smiles. “I used to do that with movies sometimes,” he says. I grin, picturing him as a noir detective, the collar of his overcoat turned up against the rain, brushing his strong jaw, but he doesn’t elaborate, just keeps looking at me like he wants me to say more.

“Anyway, that’s how I met Ginger,” I say, smiling at the thought of her. “My best friend. I skipped school one day when I was seventeen. Don’t remember why. I walked over to South Street, just for something to do, and I ended up looking through the window of this tattoo shop around the corner. Really old place, not fancy or anything. There was this girl in the shop tattooing an older guy. Fifties, maybe. And the guy was just crying. Not from the pain or anything, but, like, sitting there totally still with tears running down his face. I couldn’t see what the tattoo was of, just their faces. I must’ve stood there for half an hour just watching them. I remember thinking that anything that could have that kind of an effect on someone, I wanted to know more about. Finally, the guy left and the girl looked right at me. She gestured for me to come in. Of course, I tried to play it off like I hadn’t been spying on them, but she just rolled her eyes and came outside.

“She sat on the steps of the shop and just stared at me. I had no idea what to do. I wanted to ask her about the man’s tattoo, but it seemed so personal. I wanted to ask a bunch of things. Eventually, after we sat in silence for two cigarettes, the girl said, ‘I’m Ginger. Who are you?’ I told her my name and she said, ‘Okay. I’ll give you a freebie because I can tell you’ll be back. What do you want?’ And she did. She gave me a tattoo and we talked and she was right. The second I had money, I was back.”

I smile absently, thinking of Ginger. Of how she, though only four years older than me, seemed to know everything. How she gave me stern talking-tos that helped me graduate, convinced me to follow my gut and take classes at the community college. How she let me crash with her when I had nowhere to go, or when my brothers were making life unbearable.

“What was it of?” Rex asks, yanking me back to the present.

“Huh?”

“That first tattoo. The one Ginger gave you that day.”

“Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “It’s silly.”

“Tell me,” Rex says gently.

I unbutton my shirt, pull my left arm out of the sleeve, and roll up the sleeve of my T-shirt to expose the flowers among the other tattoos on my left biceps.

“They’re Irish primroses. They were my mom’s favorite flower. It was all I could really think to get when Ginger put me on the spot. She said to pick something small, since she was doing it for free.”

Rex’s head jerked up when I said they
were
my mom’s favorite. He rubs his thumb over the little flowers and smiles at me.

“Of course, my brother, Colin, saw it when he walked in on me in the shower about a month later and gave me hell for being a fairy with a flower tattoo.” I shrug. “Anyway, we’ve been friends ever since.”

Rex’s hand is still on my shoulder.

“Um, I should—here, let me do the dishes since you cooked. Thanks again for dinner. It was amazing.”

“Leave it,” he says softly, still looking at my skin.

Rex traces the exposed tattoos with curious fingers, his hands warm and rough. Birds and a memento mori skull and some designs Ginger was obsessed with for a while. Rex reaches for the other sleeve of my button-down.

“Can I? May I, I mean?” he asks, and when I nod, he pulls my shirt off. He rolls the other sleeve of my T-shirt up, exposing the Philadelphia skyline, a wolf, and, running down my arm, the Ben Franklin Bridge.

Rex traces the line of the bridge down my arm and his touch makes me shiver.

“You cold?” he says. “Here, let me make a fire.”

I follow him into the living room where Marilyn is lying in front of the fireplace, just like she was all those months ago when we first brought her here. Rex kindles the fire quickly and the flickering light illuminates the strong planes of his face. Only this time, instead of staring at the television, all his attention is on me.

“Can I look at you?” he asks again. I start to pull my T-shirt off, but his hands are right there, sliding underneath the hem and lifting the shirt over my head.

Rex is looking at me so intently that I can’t quite meet his gaze, and I stare into the fire instead as he looks over my tattoos. He doesn’t touch me, just looks at me in the firelight. I feel like he’s reading me, reading the story on my skin. Of course, the downside to having a best friend who’ll give you tattoos for free is that you end up with a few you wish you could erase.

Rex moves behind me to look at the ones on my back and I can feel his breath touch the nape of my neck. His big hands curve around my hips and he presses a kiss to my neck. I gasp at the sudden touch.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, low.

“I guess I’m lucky you’re not turned off by tattoos,” I say.

I turn to face him. I don’t know why, but suddenly I feel very exposed. I reach for his shirt and he lets me pull it off him. God, he’s gorgeous.

“I feel like that skinny kid I was in high school next to you,” I say, immediately cursing myself for speaking out loud. Ginger always says confidence is the most attractive quality. Guess I blew it with that one.

Rex grabs me by the wrists and pulls me into the warmth of his body. His eyes are blazing but he looks at me tenderly.

“No,” he says. “You’re so—” He shakes his head and leans in to kiss me slow and sweet, like his kiss can reassure. It’s a good kiss. A great kiss. I wrap my arms around his waist to tug him closer and then somehow his mouth is gone and I’m just hugging him. Am I supposed to be hugging him? I don’t think so, but I can’t make myself stop. His heart is pounding under my ear like I’ve startled him. Then he wraps his arms around me and his heartbeat slows. The fire is crackling and the smell of wood smoke combined with Rex’s scent is heady. He runs his hands up and down my back and then cups my ass and pulls my hips forward to meet the firm bulge in his jeans.

“Mmm,” I mumble. Rex tips my head back and kisses me again, smiling now.

“I bet you were cute when you were a skinny kid,” he says. “I can picture you looking pissed off at the world, glaring at people, only they thought it was cute because your eyes are so damn pretty.”

“Um, my rage at the world was
not
cute,” I insist, winking. He squeezes my ass and my knees go a little weak.

“Right there,” he says. “Your eyelids flutter and your eyes go all sleepy.” He runs a rough thumb over my mouth. “You go from mad to liquid so easy.” His voice must be hypnotizing me or something because my eyes do
not
go all sleepy. Do they?

“I bet you ran your hands through your hair until it stuck straight up, just like you do now,” he says, smoothing my hair back. “Right? You probably leaned back against the school with a cigarette in your mouth like James Dean and closed your eyes. I bet there was some guy you drove crazy.”

“Like you?” I ask.

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t have even looked at me twice in high school.”

“I bet I would have,” I say.

He looks at my face, runs fingertips over my eyebrows, my cheekbones, the bridge of my nose, mapping my features like a blind man.

“I was so shy I wouldn’t have known even if you had,” he murmurs. “Never talked to anyone.” His accent comes out a little when he’s not paying attention.

“No one?” I ask, my breath coming a little quicker as his hand drifts down to my chest and finds my nipples, his rough finger pads tracing them lightly.

“No one,” he says. “Never talked in class. Never talked period. Stuttered if I tried. Didn’t look at anyone. Not at any of the schools.” His fingertip slides into my navel and down to trace the edge of my jeans where they’ve slipped below my hip bones.

“Schools?”

“We moved a lot.” He presses kisses to my collarbones and my chest as he unbuttons my jeans and pushes them down. “Made it easier ’cause no one really notices the new kid anyway.” His hands cup my ass, squeezing gently, and I shiver against him.

I run my hands up and down his sides, feel the huge expanse of his ribs as he inhales. Compared to his hands, the skin here and on his back is smooth and untouched. His stomach’s another story. At first I didn’t notice because of his dark hair, but the flickering firelight casts a scar into relief on the right side of his stomach.

“What’s this from?” I ask, running my finger over the raised scar.

“Had my appendix out,” he says, then kisses me again, dragging me tight against him. I grab at his waist to keep my balance.

“Daniel,” he grinds out, his voice like crushed rock. “I want you so bad.” I feel an answering pulse in my groin.

I nod, try to answer, but it just comes out as “Mmphfhm.” Apparently Rex understands, because he takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. It’s spare but comfortable. There’s an iPod and a Discman on the bedside table. I didn’t know anyone still listened to Discmen. Rex’s sheets are—I see just before I end up on my back on top of them—green flannel.

Rex drops his pants on the floor next to the bed and crawls on top of me. His legs are powerfully muscled, his thighs twice the size of mine, and his plain white briefs fail to contain his erection. He is, all in all, overwhelming. His size, his heat, the fucking delicious smell of him that’s now mixed with a scent that must be his arousal. I cup his balls through the damp fabric and he growls, shimmying out of his underwear and dragging mine down too.

He flips me onto my stomach effortlessly and kisses the back of my neck and down my spine. When he gets to the small of my back, he licks his way back up. I shiver as the wet stripe catches the air. He nuzzles my neck and kisses my ear and I turn my head to try and catch his mouth.

“You don’t know what you fucking do to me,” he murmurs. I can feel his erection pulse against my ass with the beat of his heart.

My skin feels too tight but my hips and spine are loose with desire. He flexes his hips and his hardness slides between my cheeks. Rex moans and kisses the center of my back. I feel shivery and a little uncertain, realizing that I’m about to fuck Rex. Or, what seems more likely is that he’s about to fuck me. I want to just lose myself in his body, his strength, but my heart starts to race, and a little voice in the back of my head is whispering things I don’t want to hear.
It’s not safe to be this vulnerable
, it whispers.
You can’t trust someone like that
.
He’ll think you’re weak.

I shake my head to clear it and grab the sheets, the green flannel an anchor.

Rex’s heat recedes a little and I’m rolled gently onto my back. I open my eyes to see Rex leaning over me. His gaze is steady, hot with desire, but still calm. Like he’s totally in control of what he’s doing.

“You okay?” he asks. I nod and reach for him again. “What’s up?” I shake my head. “Daniel, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Rex says, sinking down next to me. His weight makes the bed dip and I roll into him.

“No, no, I want to. I totally want to,” I say, but my voice sounds a little shaky. “I just—it’s been a long time since I….” I look away.

“Bottomed?”

I nod.

“Just tell me what you want.” One big hand is stroking my back gently, but the look in his eyes is intense.

“I want to,” I say. “I want you.” I bite my lip. I can’t stand the sound of my own voice. I sound needy and weird.

Rex pulls me on top of him and tangles our fingers together. Then we’re kissing, our mouths and cocks straining together, but he won’t let us touch each other. I pull at his hands and he draws mine to his mouth and kisses each before he lets them go. I reach for his balls, hold them warm and tight in my hand and then I kiss him slow, watching his eyes drift shut. I tug gently and he gasps into my mouth. I reach underneath him and stroke his ass. It’s thick and strong and his whole body tightens when I squeeze, etching his muscles like stone.

Rex pulls me forward and kisses me deeply, our tongues sliding together, and I feel his finger at my entrance, just tapping there. But every tap zings a jolt through me and I shiver against him. Then the finger is gone and he cups my head, runs his hand through my messy hair and I moan into his kiss. He spreads me open with both hands and then his finger is back, slick with lube he must have reached for but I didn’t even notice. He rubs the slickness into my hole while he kisses me, then slides slowly inside. I tense up, but he runs his hand down my neck, stroking my back.