Love Me Like A Rock (10 page)

“Austin?”

That simply couldn’t be Vinnie’s voice.

And yet, of course, it was.

Vinnie, standing there in the hallway, dressed to the nines in his sharpest suit, the high fashion, skinny pewter-gray one. The one Austin knew Vinnie secretly wore when he knew he needed the confidence boost of being the best dressed man in the room. He wondered what brought on that sartorial display tonight.

“I thought you were going by yourself tonight. I wanted to come by and take you out for a drink.” Vinnie’s forehead was wrinkled, his eyes moving from Austin to Sean and back again. “I thought we could celebrate.”

“I already have plans. As you can see.” Which was kind of shitty, yes. But
now
? Vinnie was showing up
now
, when Austin had maybe just figured out that he was actually someone’s boyfriend for the first time in his entire life?

“Wait.” Vinnie’s eyes opened wider. “You two are actually
together
together?”

Austin almost felt bad right then, Vinnie’s surprise and hurt was so obvious on his face.
Six years
, he reminded himself. Six years of waiting for Vinnie to wake up and want to be with him.

Vinnie didn’t get to show up now, when Austin was finally smart enough to step away and let himself get involved with a guy who actually wanted to be with him. He turned to Sean.

Who had pulled back and wrinkled up his own forehead. Sean’s mouth was pressed in a flat line.

Austin held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Vinnie, I’ll see you later. Thanks for dropping by.”

And yes, maybe there was a smidge of snottiness on the final phrase, because wasn’t it just like Vinnie to show up after all the drama was over and expect to partake in the celebration? Austin knew he was being more than a little mean, but his pride had been stung hard by Vinnie’s refusal to come to the show with him, and fuck that noise.

“Whoa. He doesn’t know anything?” Sean’s frown drew hard lines on his face, ignoring Austin’s hand. “I didn’t think he didn’t know
anything
.”

“It’s none of his business who I’m sleeping with,” Austin argued, and then shook his head as both Vinnie and Sean flinched at his words. Fuck. He was screwing this up.
Focus.
“Vinnie and I haven’t ever been more than friends who sometimes fuck each other.”

Vinnie’s face grew paler.

And Sean wasn’t happy with that statement either.

“Don’t give me that. You two might be too fucked up to admit it, but you’re sure as hell more than friends. And even if you don’t owe him an explanation, it’s kind of shitty that you haven’t said anything at all.” Sean’s voice was loud enough to echo in the empty curve of the museum hallway.

“I thought you were just fooling around. That you were too busy to get involved in anything
real
.” Vinnie sounded stunned, as if it had never occurred to him that Austin might be off doing something,
someone
, who mattered. Who was
real
.

“I
was
busy,” Austin said, waving a hand at Sean. “Busy being with him, because he
wants
to be with me. He doesn’t go off for weeks without thinking about me and just expect me to be waiting there for him when he gets around to wanting me again.”

“Okay. I think I’m going to duck out right about now.” Sean shrugged into his jacket.

Austin grabbed his arm. “Wait. Don’t go. You’re the one I want to stay.”

“The thing is,” Sean said, turning his arm in Austin’s grasp until he could wrap his fingers around Austin’s wrist, fingertips meeting in a circle, “it doesn’t really feel like that to me right now. And I was okay with waiting, because I knew you needed time. But I thought you were giving us a real shot. Not just playing some hookup game on the down-low.”

“That’s
not
what I was doing.” Shit. Panic rose in his throat, swallowing the words he needed to find to make this right. “Sean…”

“I need a break. Listen—” Sean spoke over Austin’s protests. “—you know who I am. When I tell you I’m going to think about this, think about you, even if I’m taking a break from seeing you, that’s what I’m going to do, right?”

Fuck. His nose was running now and he had to sniff to keep from needing to wipe it with his sleeve. “Right.”

Because he knew it was true. Sean wouldn’t walk out of this room and forget about him. His attention would be on Austin even when they weren’t together, even when Austin got distracted and forgot to think about him back, because that was who Sean was. Someone who paid attention.

But this time maybe Sean would be thinking that Austin wasn’t worth it.

Getting folded in a hug, in Sean’s hug, before the man walked away only made his chest hurt more.

The hallway fell silent after Sean left. Austin pressed the heels of his palms into his burning eyes.

“Austin.”

“Fuck, Vinnie. Just leave me alone, okay? I think I really fucked up something good.”

“I’m sorry.” Quiet words.

“Not your fault.”

“Feels like it is.”

He dropped his hands and turned to face his friend. “What are you doing here anyway? You said you wouldn’t come with me and now you show up like this? What the fuck, Vinnie?”

“You didn’t tell me you were going with anyone,” Vinnie said, looking at the floor.

“And you didn’t think I’d ask anyone else? This is the biggest fucking night of my life. Didn’t you think I’d find
someone
to celebrate with?”

Vinnie was throwing up his hands and waving, like he could swat Austin’s words out of the air with his bare hands.

“Hey now. You made it all sound like a joke. Like you wanted to do some stupid, crazy thing and wanted me to come along for the ride. Which was likely to get me in a load of shit with my dad, so I said no.” Vinnie crossed his arms, the stubborn lines showing up on his forehead. “If I’d known it was important to you—the show, not the protestors—of course I’d have come with you.”

Austin headed for the door, Vinnie following him silently at first.

Because of course his show was important. And Sean had known that without Austin having to say it out loud. And maybe that was an unfair bar to hold up for Vinnie to jump, but the fact of the matter was that somehow Sean had ended up knowing him better than Austin’s best friend of seven years did.

When he pointed that out to Vinnie, though, the pushback was immediate and fierce.

“I don’t think you know how different you are with him than you are with us, Austin. You’re softer. More honest maybe. You joke about everything with us, act like it’s all a big game. And I love you for it, because you’re more fun than anyone I’ve ever known and I’ll always be glad you picked me to be your friend back in that first week at Choate. But I’m not psychic. I can’t always tell what’s important and what’s just you fucking around when you make it all sound the same when you talk to me.”

And it was true. Austin did do that. He’d gotten turned around somehow in the years of wanting Vinnie and never really getting him, not for his own. He’d ended up pretending that it didn’t really matter that Vinnie didn’t like him “in that way”, that Austin was okay with their occasional hookups and friendship that never managed to become the relationship he’d been hoping for, for so long.

But it wasn’t enough, and he’d ended up lying not only to himself but to Vinnie too, and probably the rest of his friends in the general fallout, because he wasn’t okay with it, not at all. But to admit that—that he’d been feeling rejected and hurt for years now—required the kind of vulnerability he’d stopped showing the world somewhere right around when his elementary-school friends started shooting up to new heights with puberty growth spurts and Austin…didn’t.

He was mostly over it, being the shortest guy in the room most of the time, and thank fuck he was gay, because he knew he’d have been screwed as a straight guy, with the way girls hated having boyfriends shorter than they were. Guys didn’t give a shit, although he’d had to threaten to junk-punch more than one asshole who’d referred to him as a
pocket gay
.

That shit was not to be tolerated.

“Okay, you’re right,” he said as they kicked through the piles of dry leaves that littered the path back to their dorm. “I’m different with him. I
like
that I’m different with him. He makes me happy.”

“I thought we had a good thing between us,” Vinnie said awkwardly, hands deep in his pockets, long legs moving half as fast as Austin’s shorter stride. “That you liked…didn’t mind the way things were.”

“Ah, Jesus. We did, I guess. For a while. But I’ve wanted more for a long time. Like, a
long
time.” That was kind of humiliating to admit, but he felt like he owed it to Vinnie after all the embarrassment.

Silence, except for the crunching of the leaves.

“I guess I…knew that,” Vinnie finally admitted, breath fogging in the cold night air. “But I figured there was time, you know. For that. Later.”

“I don’t want to wait for later,” Austin said after another long silence. “I’m not waiting anymore.”

Vinnie didn’t say anything.

“Plus, well…” This part was hard to say, but felt like maybe it was a bigger deal than Austin had wanted to admit during all of the past years of their occasionally getting off together. The words burst out in a rush. “He wants to fuck me. Like, all the time.”

He looked over at Vinnie and caught the curled upper lip, as if Austin had really crossed the line this time.

Austin slowed down, feeling silly now, but still determined to articulate the difference. “I always knew I wanted you more than you wanted me. Sometimes it felt like you didn’t even really want to be fucking me when we did it. Like I had to talk you into it, and that’s kind of a crappy feeling, you know?”

Vinnie waved his last sentence away like a bad smell. “I’m a grown-up, Austin. You didn’t talk me into anything I didn’t want to do.”

“Well, it felt like it,” Austin insisted, not letting this one go.

To his surprise, Vinnie’s high cheekbones pinked up and his friend looked away, over Austin’s shoulder.

“I don’t think I’m…into sex the same way you are,” Vinnie said. He shoved his hands back into his pants pockets. Austin didn’t think it was because his hands were cold. “I mean, I like it. It’s fine.”

“You couldn’t have liked it all
that
much,” Austin pointed out. “I mean, we hooked up maybe once a month.”

“Fine. Maybe I don’t need sex much at all.”

Austin didn’t get it. How could Vinnie not be into sex? Didn’t every guy enjoy it when his dick got hard and he came?

He wished he had Sean to talk it out with, because Sean was better at doing that thing where he could put himself in someone else’s shoes and understand where they were coming from. Austin pretty much assumed everyone came from the same place he did. But Vinnie obviously didn’t.

Sean would probably remind him that people weren’t all the same and Austin should stop being an asshole. Except Sean wouldn’t call him an asshole, because he was nicer than Austin was, which was kind of a pain because it made Austin want to be nicer too, so he didn’t look like an asshole in comparison.

Maybe not the most grown-up motivation for being a good guy, but he’d work with what he had.

“Or maybe—” He stopped walking and faced his friend, because there was no sense dancing around it anymore. “—you’re just not that into sex with
me
.”

He didn’t know why saying that out loud stung so much. He’d just stood in front of Vinnie and begged Sean not to leave. Vinnie wasn’t the guy he wanted to be with. To snuggle up with in front of a campfire. To fuck the breath out of him until he got dizzy. It shouldn’t bother him like this to admit it.

“No.” Vinnie’s denial was fierce. “I love you, Austin. I really do. And…if you could just give me some more time, maybe we could…”

Austin shook his head. Pressed his lips together.

Time to end this for good.

“I can’t go back, Vin. It isn’t enough. I want more. I want Sean.”

He just had to hope Sean decided he wanted Austin back.

Chapter Ten

Going home for Thanksgiving was absolutely miserable. Austin’s parents nagged him for details about his show, apologizing for not being able to be there, and Austin struggled to recapture some of his excitement and pride. He couldn’t talk about Sean, but the weight of his worry dragged behind him like an anchor.

Back on campus, he retreated into his art. Waiting.

Time in the studio was always Austin’s refuge. Whether the studio was in the art building or the common room of their suite didn’t matter to him. The hours he spent with his hands and his mind deep in the guts of a painting or a sculpture or forty-seven pages deep in newsprint sketches, working to capture the movement of the cat one of the first-years had smuggled into the dorm were where he found his balance. His focus. His control.

He ripped the sheet of watercolor paper off his easel and fisted it into a crumpled ball, whipping it at the trash can across the room and missing.

“Don’t leave your shit on the floor. Vinnie is already on a tear.”

Vinnie had indeed been on a tear. Austin felt kind of bad about that, because he knew he could have done a better job at not making Vinnie feel like shit, but he’d had his own crap to deal with.

“It’s total shit. All of it. This is fucking bullshit. I am not some down-low asshole. And Sean taking his sweet time about figuring out whether or not he wants to fuck me anymore isn’t fair.” He shoved a hand in his hair and pulled until his scalp ached. “Shit. I’ve totally screwed things up, haven’t I?”

Rafi sprawled on their couch, one leg propped up on the back, the other stretched out in front of him on the floor, pausing his video game.

“I gotta tell you, this conversation is feeling goddamn familiar,” Rafi said, smiling and shaking his head.

When Austin just looked at him, confused, Rafi elaborated. “Right around this time last year? I was having a major freak out about fucking up with Denny. Ring a bell?”

Vaguely. Austin remembered hooking Rafi up with his psychiatrist.
Probably ought to give her a call yourself, genius.
He hadn’t gone to weekly therapy since starting at Carlisle, and maybe after a couple of years off, his less-than-ideal mental habits were messing with him again. Dr. Laskie was always available to squeeze him in for a phone session when he needed one, but Austin hadn’t been taking advantage of that much recently.

“Yeah, but you were the one who was screwing up, right? Or worried about screwing up?” When Rafi nodded, Austin shook a paintbrush at him. And because his emotions didn’t sit still long enough for a fly to land on them, he was back to being mad at Sean. “This is different. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who’s fucking up now.”

“Really? Because you’re pretty stormy for a dude who isn’t feeling some major guilt.” Rafi ran a hand over the ’fro he was growing out, waiting for it to get long enough for twists, he said.

“I am not stormy,” Austin argued, throwing his paintbrush into the jar of water, which he missed, spattering burnt umber all over the floor.

“Sure you’re not.”

“Okay, maybe I fucked up. But he’s the one making it worse now.”

“I told you before, I get why you didn’t want to sit down for a long chat with Vinnie,” Rafi said, but he pulled his eyebrows together before continuing. “But maybe you should have.”

Austin sighed. “Apparently.”

Neither of them said a word for a bit. Rafi settled in to spawn camp, parking his guy right next to the enemy’s spawn point and so he could pick opponents off as they tried to enter the game.

Rafi could be an asshole like that.

“So what are you gonna do?” his roommate asked after another long pause.

“Wait, I guess.” Austin sighed, giving up on getting any painting done. He might as well have been finger painting for all the finesse he was managing. He dropped on the couch next to Rafi, tipping his head back on the cushion and sighing again. Dramatically.

Rafi shook his head. “Man, that’s not right. Doesn’t sound like our terror of a cox at all.”

Austin flipped him the bird and reached for the second controller.

“Just saying.” Rafi tugged the controller out of Austin’s grasp and skewered him with a look. “You sat around waiting for Vinnie, right?”

“I know.” Still embarrassing.

“How’d that work out for you?”

* * * * *

Austin hammered his fist on Sean’s dorm-room door, glad for once that security in the grad student res hall was so slack. Sean couldn’t screen visitors if no one riding the reception desk gave a damn who came in the building.

When the door finally opened, Austin took a step back in shock.

Talk about a baggy-eyed mountain man. Purple shadows stained the thin skin under Sean’s tired eyes and the man’s regular scruff had grown out to a seriously bushy beard stage.
It’s only been two weeks.

Before he could get distracted asking how often Sean had to shave…

“Listen, you.” He shook his finger in Sean’s face, which was rude as hell and Austin would have bitten anyone who’d done that to him. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to tell me you’re okay with waiting and letting me figure shit out, and then turn around and tell me I’m doing it all wrong. I was figuring. Shit. Out. And I didn’t need Vinnie’s goddamn voice in my head while I was doing that. I was trying to pay goddamn attention to my own goddamn voice.”

Sean leaned against his doorframe, arms crossed, face blank.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“No.” Although some of his momentum was steaming away at the lack of pushback he was getting. “I don’t care how much thinking you need to do about us. Unless you’re totally writing off the idea of there being an
us
at all, then you should be talking to me about this shit, not shutting me out.”

“How about now?” Sean raised an eyebrow. The corner of his lips twitched.

Austin opened his mouth. Realized he didn’t have anything else to say. Shut it. “Yes. I’m done.”

“You’re right,” Sean said. And then just stood there.

Austin blinked. “What?”

“You’re right. I told you I’d wait and then I got pissed when you didn’t do things the way I imagined them. I know that wasn’t fair.” He shrugged and crossed his arms a little tighter. “I’m sorry. My feelings were stung pretty bad when I realized you hadn’t told your roommate anything about us. I felt like an idiot.”

The bright ball of anger and hurt and outrage in Austin’s chest imploded.

“I know I acted like it didn’t bother me that you wanted something with no strings, but it did,” Sean continued. “I wasn’t really cool with that.”

“I didn’t know.” He really hadn’t understood. Although he probably should have when they’d stopped using condoms.

“I didn’t tell you. I just hinted at it. That wasn’t fair.” Sean straightened, dropping his arms. “I’m telling you now. I want strings. Lots of fucking strings.”

Austin grinned, pretty sure happiness was shooting out of his fingertips like Jimmy Stewart said the moon would do when Donna Reed swallowed it in
It’s a Wonderful Life
. He pushed Sean into his room, closing the door behind him. “Fucking ropes.”

“Yeah,” Sean said with satisfaction, walking backward to his bed, hands firmly wrapped around Austin’s wrists, tugging him until they both toppled onto the mattress.

“Speaking of fucking…” Austin murmured, settling in more firmly on top of Sean, wrapping himself around that solid body like a lamprey. Close enough to feel every muscle in the body beneath him clench.

The groan that rumbled out of Sean’s chest was sweet music to Austin’s ears. “Wait.”

“No waiting,” Austin said, attacking Sean’s mouth.

But Sean wasn’t done. He pushed up at Austin, holding him off. “Vinnie.”

“Is out of the picture,” Austin said firmly, leaning back enough to look Sean straight in the eye as he spoke.

“Does Vinnie know that?” Sean asked.

That stung. But the question was fair, after Sean had been blindsided by Austin’s keeping their relationship to himself. “We talked that night. Vinnie is…not happy. I think he really thought we were going to just go on like that indefinitely, until some future time.”

“And you’re really over him? This isn’t just you saying that so we can go back to having sex all the time again?” Sean’s eyes were worried, his hands hovering over Austin’s thighs as if hesitant to settle there.

Austin sucked in a breath. That more than stung. He wanted to protest that that was unfair, but he couldn’t blame Sean for needing reassurance. Austin hadn’t given him enough for the entire time they’d been together.

He kept his voice steady when he spoke. “I’m not with you for the sex, Sean.” He paused to correct himself. “Not
only
for the sex, although it’s definitely the best I’ve ever had in my entire life. By far. But what I have with you is about more than that. It’s about how…
present
you are in my life. The way you focus on us. How easy it is to be with you, and how fun. You make me see things differently. And
I’m
different with you. Because you make me feel safe. And wanted.”

Sean cleared his throat. “That’s good then. Really good. I’m glad to hear it. Because I want you like whoa. Always.”

Austin bit his lip to keep from grinning like a fool. Enough smushy stuff. He leaned down again, bracing himself on his elbows.

“But…I wouldn’t say no to epic sex,” he teased and licked a stripe up Sean’s neck.

His boyfriend growled and pulled Austin to his chest. “Oh my God, you’re going to kill me. Fuck me right to death.”

“But you’ll be so, so happy to go.”

“I’m already happy. Don’t need to go anywhere.” And Sean kissed him, soft at first and then hard and fierce, rolling Austin beneath him and trapping him between his legs and arms. “And you’re definitely not going anywhere.”

“Not planning on it.”

Getting clothes off would have meant getting up and neither of them wanted to let go. So Sean unzipped them both and Austin pushed their clothes down far enough to bare their cocks. He searched for Sean’s mouth with his own, eyes closed with too much happiness, and licked and nipped at Sean’s lips until they were both laughing.

Laughing, and then gasping, as Sean grasped their cocks in one hand and started jacking them off together, leg thrown over Austin’s hips.

Half pinned to the mattress in an entirely delicious way, Austin struggled just enough to let Sean know how much he loved being held down. His heart flew on the adrenaline rush of being unable to move anything except his hands, which raced over Sean’s body, pressing and scratching and pinching until Sean groaned with each sharp sting.

Austin meant to hold off until after Sean came, to watch him go over and think silently in his head,
That’s my boyfriend.
But just contemplating that picture had his balls turning themselves inside out as he spilled over Sean’s hand, groaning and crying out.

He roused himself while Sean finishing jacking off just in time to open his eyes and watch it like he’d meant to. Sean’s eyes were screwed shut tight as he came, and Austin memorized the picture.

Gonna paint that someday, boyfriend. Just for me.

Best reunion ever.

Maybe the arguments were okay if the making up was like this.

Sean draped an arm over Austin’s chest and pressed his face under Austin’s jaw, licking at the tender skin there. That last bite was going to leave a mark.

Austin gave a mental shrug. Not like everyone didn’t know already.

They snuggled up tight together, and Austin wouldn’t have admitted it, but the snuggling part was almost better than the sex.

Almost. He was swooping into love, not into dementia.

They talked and kissed and snuck out for grinders before coming right back to the bed, because that was where Austin wanted to stay for the foreseeable future. Until dawn practice, at the very least.

* * * * *

He’d just made Sean come for the third time in one night, mouth on Sean’s dick and fingers up his ass until he shouted loud enough that Austin felt bad for his neighbors, when the happy-ever-after vibe went up in smoke.

“Man, I really wish we didn’t have an end date, because I could just stay right here for-fucking-ever,” Sean said and sighed, which was totally audible over the sudden stopping of Austin’s heart.

“What does that mean?” he choked out the words.

Sean opened his eyes, staring at Austin as he sat up. “What?”

“That we have an end date. What the fuck does that mean?” he snapped out.

The puzzled look on Sean’s face was annoying as shit. “Austin, I told you my fieldwork is coming up next year. I’m hoping to stay in Massachusetts, but there’s no guarantees. I could end up in the Arctic, or the Andes. You knew that.”

“So I just went through all this…shit—” Austin waved his hands in the air like a cheerleader with pompons. “—freaking out that I’d screwed up this really good thing and figuring out how to make sure we stay together and you’re telling me that in six months this whole deal is gonna go tits up anyway?”

For once, Sean was the flustered one. “I don’t… I guess. But I didn’t think it would be bad. Even if I finish my dissertation here, I’ll still have to apply for jobs across the country after that. I just figured we’d…have a natural extinction point. Eventually.”

Being naked when he was trying to argue sucked. Made everything beyond awkward.

Yeah, it’s the awkwardness that’s making your throat tight. Sure, that’s it.

“And you didn’t even think we could try to figure something out? That we could find a way to be together for the long-term?” He could see by the look on Sean’s face that he hadn’t thought any such thing.

“I didn’t think…” Sean said slowly, sheet slipping down his chest as he sat up too.

“No, you sure didn’t.” Austin shoved Sean’s arm off him and launched himself out of the bed, halfway dressed and down the hall before Sean was even out of the bed.

“Fuck.”

So much for the happy couple.

Austin rubbed his temples, but the nagging pain there didn’t budge.

Fuck. This boyfriend shit sucked.