Love Me Like A Rock (5 page)

Bob shrugged, which was about as expressive as Bob got outside of a race. “Not really.”

“I feel like most straight guys would feel weird,” Austin said, thinking of Sean’s buddies from the department. If he’d been asked before meeting Sean, Austin would have said he had all kinds of friends, straight, gay, undecided, whatever.

But since he’d started hanging out with Sean—although admittedly they didn’t get past the bed four times out of five—he’d noticed a definite difference in their social crowds.

Austin pictured himself with a wide variety of friends because he did know a whole lot of people who crossed the social spectrum. But between crew and his general obsession with his own artwork, he really only spent time by himself or with his suitemates or his team.

Everyone else was basically an acquaintance. Austin’s core group? Gay boys.

And Bob.

Who was staring at him and waiting for the next question.

“It really doesn’t bother you?”

Bob shook his head and slumped down farther on the couch, picking up the Xbox controller and thumbing it on. “Nah. I grew up with four sisters, so I’m used to being the odd man out.”

Austin sat back on his heels, as Bob cycled past the introductory video for Portal and started a game. “Did you really just compare being a gay dude to being a girl?”

“Um, no. I compared being the one straight guy in a group of gay dudes to being the only guy in a group of girls. It’s an odd-man-out feeling, not an equivalency.”

It was easy to forget that Bob had a very sharp brain under the laid-back attitude and tendency to keep his mouth shut.

“You’re right,” Austin admitted, rewinding the words in his head.

“I know.”

“Also, modest.”

“Only because the girls like it.” Bob’s slow smile reminded Austin that his roommate had no trouble pulling female attention. “Besides, most of the time I don’t think about you guys being gay, unless you and Vinnie are doing that thing you do where you pretend like you’re not fucking every time he turns in a term paper.”

After a thoughtful moment, during which Austin attempted to pick his jaw up off the floor, Bob added, “Or if Rafi and Denny are fucking. Those boys get loud.”

“Jesus, Bob.”

“What, it’s not like you’re gay football players. That would be weird.” Bob scrunched up his nose, eyes glued to the TV. “Usually it just feels like I’m hanging out with rowers, like me. That always feels normal.”

Which was the point, Austin guessed, about Sean’s crew too. They were all rock geeks, and that didn’t feel weird to any of them, no matter who they were banging in their tents on those camping trips Sean kept mentioning like it hadn’t been driving Austin crazy not to be invited.

He couldn’t really blame Sean for not picking up on his hints. Austin had been the one to lay down the
it’s just casual
rules back in the beginning, but somehow in the past few weeks, he’d stopped spending most of his time with Sean thinking about Vinnie, and now had the Redheads-R-Us channel playing in his brain nonstop.

Since hints weren’t working, Austin gave in and made a blatant play for an invite.

“So, do outsiders ever get to come along on any of your nature jaunts?” he asked casually post-sex on a Sunday afternoon, his butt snugged up against Sean’s crotch, tugging the heavy arm draped over him until he could tangle their fingers together.

The cuddling thing had gotten to be a habit.

“Sure. Not the class trips, but when we go for fun sometimes. Why?”

The excitement that lit Sean up when Austin confessed he might possibly, maybe, be interested in tagging along sometime was enough to make Austin grin into the pillow.

Which was how he’d ended up lying to Vinnie and getting in way over his head on the edge of a wooded area as Sean parked behind a couple of cars in a layby that was nowhere near an actual campground.

“I think maybe we have different definitions of the word outdoors,” Austin said, his hand clutching his seat-belt buckle, as if keeping that buckle locked down would mean he didn’t have to get out of Sean’s crappy Subaru.

Ever.

The man in question laughed at him and got out of the car, unfolding himself to stand and stretch next to the open door, taking obnoxiously noisy snorts of air in through his nose.

“Ahh! Smell that fresh air.”

Austin locked his door.

They were camping.

Camping-camping.

Not the type of camping where you threw up a tent next to your car and the cinderblock building with the toilets and the showers was a short hike with a flashlight away at midnight after you finished your last beer around the campfire.

The knock on his window was too cheerful for words.

“Come on. You’re gonna love it. I promise.” Sean’s muffled voice reached through the glass and patted Austin on the head.

Austin glared at him through the window.

Sean blew him a kiss. “Come on, babe. Let’s get your nature on.”

Giving up, because Sean’s enthusiasm was starting to wriggle under his skin the way it always did, Austin unlocked the door and got out of the car.

It really did smell good. Crisp air and leaves moldering and Sean, who wrapped Austin in a bear hug and snuffled against his neck like a wild animal until Austin laughed and pushed him away.

Sean wiggled his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to do it in the woods.”

Austin’s experience with doing it in the woods was limited to giving his first blowjob to a fellow student just off boarding school grounds. He’d gone back to his room and shown Vinnie what it was like immediately after, scratching his mosquito bites all the way through.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to fuck in the woods?”

Before he could blink, Sean had him pressed against the car and Austin’s legs were curling up and around him because there was never a moment when this man didn’t make Austin want to climb him like a tree.

Fucking trees, everywhere.

Before he could open his mouth to complain that no wonder people couldn’t actually see the woods when there were so many damn trees in the way, Sean’s mouth was on his, warm fingers sneaking under the edge of Austin’s shirt to tickle at his waist.

Five minutes of that had Austin’s dick hard and his balls aching as he tried to get friction where it counted.

Sean peeled Austin’s arms away from his neck and kissed him swiftly on the mouth.

“Hold that thought. I brought a pack for you. Let’s figure out what you actually need from that massive pile you dumped in the backseat.”

Austin sighed and consigned most of his stuff to the trunk of Sean’s car for the weekend.

“Is this even legal? Camping here? I thought you had to have a permit.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Sean said and winked. “Trust me.”

Trust me. Famous last words.

But strangely enough, Austin did.

Chapter Five

Okay, so maybe camping-camping was all right.

Admittedly, he was wearing every layer he’d packed, because the temperature had plummeted with the sunset to what felt like Arctic levels to Austin, although all the other guys were joking about how warm it was compared to the trip they’d made this time last year. He was close enough to the fire to feel it toasting the side of his body nearest to the flames, but the rest of him shivered harder in contrast.

Sean had taken his guitar out of its case and brought it over to the fire, but he set it aside before he’d even started playing it and hauled Austin over to sit between his knees while he rubbed his hands up and down Austin’s arms.

“Cold?” he asked.

“I think I need another hat,” Austin joked, although his ears did tingle with the cold, unless he had one pointed straight at the fire pit.

“How about this?” Sean asked, holding up a blanket he’d magicked from God knew where. Austin was simply grateful for the sorcery as he yanked the fleece out of Sean’s hand with a cry of happiness.

“You gonna get under here with me?” he asked, holding his left arm out, clutching the blanket in that hand. Sharing body heat sounded fucking ideal.

“Maybe later,” Sean said with a wink and bent down for a swift kiss that turned into a slow fucking of Austin’s mouth, one hand plunged deep into his hair so Sean could tug him closer.

By the time Sean let go, Austin was breathing hard and happy for the cover the blanket gave to his hard-on, because he didn’t really need his dick to be the focus of half a dozen dudes’ curious stares.

Not that anyone was staring. Everyone was pointedly looking away, although the rest of the guys were definitely catching each other’s eyes and freaking out a little about the kiss. Sean had told him their normal group was mixed gender, but this weekend the women had ditched them for a girls-only trip of their own.

“Are we scandalizing them?” he murmured, enjoying a little thrill at the idea.

“Sorry, babe,” Sean said, laughing at the disappointment Austin frowned at him, but keeping his voice low enough not to be overheard. “They’re surprised I brought you, I think, because people usually only bring dates on these trips if they’re pretty serious about them.”

“And you’re not serious about me?” Austin didn’t know why the idea bothered him. He was the one who’d told Sean about being hung up on Vinnie and only available for something casual. He couldn’t blame the guy for not wanting to get himself all invested with a guy who’d already told him he was only there for the fucking.

“No, I’m totally serious about you.”

Which pretty much made Austin’s heart skip a beat, even though he wasn’t serious. Couldn’t be serious. Was going to spend the rest of his life pining after fucking Vinnie and screwing up possible things with really good guys like Sean.

It couldn’t mean a damn thing to him to hear Sean say that.
I’m totally serious about you.

But somehow it did.

He told himself it was the fire heating his cheeks as he cleared his throat and looked away from Sean’s steady gaze.

“Then why are they so surprised?”

Sean shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against Austin’s. “Because I haven’t ever brought anyone before now, I guess. Maybe it seems fast.”

“Yeah, but you wanted me, like, a year ago. That’s pretty slow, actually.”

“Why do you think I jumped you the first chance I got?” Sean asked, and leaned close again with a wicked smile that Austin wanted to lick off his face. “And now…I offer you the king of camping treats.” He held up a plastic CVS bag bulging with odd shapes. “You know what to do with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, right?”

The third time Austin licked melted chocolate off his fingertips, sucking on them one at a time after smashing the remainder of a S’more into his mouth, he caught Sean staring at his mouth with lust-dazed eyes.

Actually, Sean wasn’t the only one.

A couple of the rock geeks seemed equally mesmerized by Austin’s absent-minded finger-sucking, to the point where he started playing it up a little, just to fuck with them. After a particularly in-depth assault on his own mouth with a chocolate-and-marshmallow-sticky index finger, Sean grabbed his chin and sucked a hard kiss from his lips.

“Stop. Teasing,” he said into Austin’s ear, sparking a shiver that felt like quicksilver up his spine.

“This is a really homoerotic kind of hobby you guys have, you know that? Are you sure none of these dudes are gay?” Austin whispered to Sean as he passed him a S’more.

Most of Austin’s camping experiences had revolved around the ability to smoke pot in the fresh air. Making S’mores felt oddly childlike.

“Anybody mind if I smoke?” the guy with the dirty blond mane like a lion asked as everyone had settled back down around the fire after post-dinner cleanup.

I knew it. No one camps without getting high.

But almost no one put their hand out for a toke when Lion Man passed around the joint he’d rolled, although the rest of the guys didn’t look like they minded either.

Though his ears had perked up at the word smoke, Austin hesitated when the joint came around to him, glancing up at Sean where he sat on the log at Austin’s shoulder, messing around now on his guitar. Shit. He didn’t want to get high if that was going to bother Sean. Austin had spent more than enough nights babysitting wasted friends to want to be a drag for anyone else.

“Go ahead,” Sean said, rubbing his head. “But if you get the munchies, I’m warning you right now. All we’ve got when the S’mores run out is trail mix.”

“With M&Ms?” Austin asked.

“Yeah.”

“Works for me,” he said and took a drag before passing the joint back to Lion Man. He held the smoke deep in his lungs until it stung and then let it out slowly, sinking back against the log. When the joint came back around, he waved it by.

“You don’t have to take it easy for me, you know. I was just kidding about the trail mix. I’ve got a shitload, to use the technical term, of chocolate stuffed in my pack. And beef jerky. The good kind.”

“Yummy,” Austin said, rolling his eyes and grinning. “Nah. I don’t like to get wasted. I just like a little buzz. It quiets down my brain for a bit. Lets me focus.”

By the time Sean switched up from the low-key strumming to an actual melody, Austin was buzzed enough to relax into the music, finding himself singing along to songs he didn’t even know he knew the words to. “Feelin’ Groovy” and “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” and “Yesterday”. The other guys teased him when Sean started playing “Wagon Wheel” and Austin mentioned the Hootie and the Blowfish guy. Apparently cool kids knew the song from a band named Old Crow Medicine Show and Bob Dylan. Whatever. Austin was just happy he could somehow manage to sing along. Maybe he’d absorbed the words through osmosis over the years, or maybe it was just easier to sing along in a group of people who all laughed at themselves when they stumbled over the words, but either way it was cozy and fun and made him deeply happy in a way he hadn’t expected to experience on a fuck-buddy weekend.

Happy enough that it felt kind of weird to think the words fuck buddy in connection with Sean. Surely nobody who made him feel this…content was just a fuck buddy.

Don’t go getting attached, damn it. He’s the one who’s going to get hurt when he figures out that you’re still hung up on Vinnie. And then you’re going to feel like shit too.

Keeping it casual was key, but that didn’t help when the yellow light of the fire glinted on the red-gold hairs of Sean’s arms where he’d pushed up his sleeves. Or made the shadows on Sean’s face tremble while he sang until Austin wanted to reach out and touch his cheek. The arch of his eye socket. The thick curve of his fat lower lip, buried in that scruff.

Sean paused at the end of a song to swig some beer and shake out his fingers, and when he spoke it was just loud enough for Austin to hear him.

“Stop it.”

Austin shook his head, confused. “Stop what?”

“Stop staring at me,” Sean muttered, mock-glaring at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re making me hard and I’m starting to forget the fucking words to the songs.”

Which only made Austin stare harder, of course. Stare harder and lick his lips, pausing to chew on the bottom one, suck it in between his teeth and let it pop out again, until he knew his mouth was pink and wet.

He was pretty sure the original version of “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” didn’t include “Jesus fucking Christ” in the chorus.

He was also pretty sure the singing and bullshitting around the campfire normally stretched on a lot later than it did that night, given the laughing looks they received when Sean abruptly announced that he was tired and pulled Austin away with a tight grip on his wrist while Austin giggled and waved goodbye to the rest of the rock geeks.

Sean’s hand on his head helped him duck into the tent without bringing the whole contraption down on him.

Austin had expected the smell of mildew and a claustrophobic fit. But Sean’s tent was roomy, and so sparkling clean it smelled more like plastic than the accumulated breaths of a thousand nights inhaling your own sweat.

It smelled so much like plastic it was as if the tent were still outgassing. But Sean had been camping for years now and…

“Hey!” Austin stood up so fast his head bumped the fly roof. “Did you buy a new tent?”

“What?” The innocent look on Sean’s face didn’t fool him for a second.

Austin “Did you buy a new tent just for me?”

“I’m going to use this tent a lot more than you are,” Sean said, which was confirmation enough for Austin.

He threw himself at Sean, draping himself all over the man who was the sweetest thing ever. Super sweet. Sweeter-than-milk-chocolate sweet.

Oooh, chocolate. Sean had chocolate.

“You have chocolate.”

“Munchies kicking in, huh?”

“Like whoa.”

Sean knelt on one of the sleeping bags and started digging into his pack. “Come here, you spoiled brat,” he said lightly, holding a fancy German chocolate bar just out of Austin’s reach.

Austin stuck his tongue out at him. “You know, I’m not really a spoiled brat.”

“I like spoiling you,” Sean said, ducking his head before looking up again, serious now. “But I was just teasing. You’re not a brat. Except for fun.”

“I know. Thanks.” Then he tackled Sean to the tent floor, which involved some yelping and enough shrieks they were lucky the rest of the crew didn’t come running. He ended up underneath Sean, who shook with laughter, which didn’t deter Austin from making threats. “Now gimme the chocolate. Or else.”

“Here, you little monster. But you have to share,” Sean said, rolling off him.

Austin enjoyed the ritual of breaking off tiny pieces and feeding them to Sean, who chased Austin’s fingers with his tongue. Saving the biggest pieces for himself was only fair because Sean wasn’t squirmy with the need to eat junk. He propped himself on Sean’s chest with his elbows and traded kisses for more chocolate until all he could taste in Sean’s mouth was himself and the dark sweet cocoa.

Before Austin could get super comfortable, Sean was easing himself out from under Austin’s weight and leaving the tent again.

“Gotta cash the food,” he explained, which didn’t make any sense until Austin figured out he meant “cache”.

“Why? It’s not like we’re in the Rockies or something,” Austin said, to prove he was a totally chill camper who’d done this kind of thing a million times and knew what was what. “This is Massachusetts, for God’s sake.”

“Black bear population has been booming lately, even in Massachusetts,” Sean said, like it was nothing, and then left the tent with a plastic bag and a length of thin rope.

By the time he returned, Austin had dug out the spare flashlight and was sitting bolt upright in the middle of the tent, both hands clutched around the barrel of the tiny but powerful LED light.

“What are you doing?” Sean asked, ducking back inside and knee-walking over to him.

“There are bears?”

“There are probably not bears.”

Probably was a fucking weak guarantee when there might be teeth as big as your head crunching on your skull because somebody—a fucking bear—needed a little more beef jerky before settling in for some serious sleep time.

Sean sat down behind Austin, spread his legs wide, and scooched his butt forward until he was pressed up against Austin’s back from hips to shoulders. Thick arms wrapped around Austin and tugged him back to a hard chest as Sean wrapped his hands around Austin’s on the flashlight.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m sure there isn’t anything bigger than a squirrel for miles.”

“I’m not freaked out.”
Deny, deny, deny.

“I can tell,” Sean said dryly, cradling Austin between his knees. “I always hold my flashlight in a Vulcan death grip too.”

Sean rubbed Austin’s arms and kissed the side of his neck until Austin started to get squirmy and turned on, which was distracting him from the bear watch.

He thought of something terrible and sat up straight. “What if they can smell it on my teeth?”

“What?” Teeth on the muscle that ran along his shoulder made Austin shiver.

“The bears. What if they can smell the chocolate on my teeth?”

“C’mere.” Sean turned Austin around in his lap.

“Why?” Maybe it was safer to look for bears ripping through the tent in two different directions at once.

“I’m gonna help you with that chocolate-on-your-teeth problem.”

They made out in some kind of couples yoga pose, wrapped around each other, until Austin forgot about the bears and yawned so hard his jaw cracked. Sean made him strip down to his undies, claiming Austin’s sleeping bag would heat up faster if he was mostly naked, which Austin took for a ploy to get the sexytimes going, which woke him right up again.

But no. Sean kissed him on the forehead and lay down next to him, like he was going to sleep. Sleep, when there were bears—which stopping kissing let him remember again—and a mostly naked Austin to distract him.

“There are boulders under me. Boulders.” He squirmed, searching for a spot on the skinny little mat beneath his sleeping bag. Then he shrieked—just a little and not at all like a girl—as his sleeping bag and he were yanked across the slick fabric of the tent floor.