The Luckiest (7 page)

“Oh, fine. I see how it is. You invite your friends to help you with your
very special occasion
and then they tell you nothing.” Alex makes a face at them and walks into the house, chattering about how eager she is to “hang this thing up.”

Aaron sets the bags on the porch and drops next to Nik. “Working on the arrangement?”

“Mm hmm, yeah, tinkering a little bit—no real changes, just think­ing about the balance of voices.” He picks out the opening notes of the song on his guitar. “How was your day?”

Aaron sighs. “Insane. But, on the plus side, Alex is finally fully dressed for Saturday and we found a dress for Jasmine that I need to take up a little tomorrow. I think their clothes are mostly done, although they still need to think about hair and makeup. I haven’t done makeup in years, since theater in high school.”

Aaron’s voice drifts softer and lower as the notes come up behind him, his own accompaniment, and the guitar sounds beautiful as it echoes against the houses. He watches Nik’s fingers move over the frets and strings, strong and square, and thinks about the way they touched him last night.

Nik picked up the guitar during their senior year of high school, and Aaron remembers watching him learn to curl around the instrument, remembers the night they’d been so into each other that neither of them noticed when Nik’s fingertips began to bleed until he left trails across Aaron’s torso. The calluses are still there, and Nik is still beautiful in motion, so
easy
and at home in himself when he plays.

Nik’s playing stops, and when Aaron looks up Nik is watch­ing him. “Aaron, can we take a walk, talk or something?”

Aaron looks at him, thinks about all the different kinds of trouble they could get each other into, and sighs. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” He pauses and stares down at the way Nik’s hands have curled around his guitar. “I know a place—come on.”

Nik tucks his guitar behind one of the giant porch pillars, and Aaron pulls him up, then drops his hand as they walk the few minutes to a wooden walkway to the beach. The moon is out, the mosquitoes haven’t started swarming and it’s quiet but for the sound of the water against the shore and the long grasses that cover the dune blowing in the breeze.

“This is where Alex wanted to have the ceremony—it’s a beau­tiful spot, and I can’t blame her. But it’s far enough from the house that we thought it might be a problem, so it’s been axed. I think it has, anyway. I think Tu wants some pictures here.”

“How is this walkway still here after hurricane Ike?”

Aaron shrugs. “The HOA rebuilt, just like everybody rebuilt their houses. Stephanie says that it’s so low-lying, they have to rebuild all the time anyway. Some people have enough money to keep throwing it at the same losing proposition, I guess.”

“They should. It’s pretty,” Nik says and drops to sit on the bottom step, kicks off his shoes and lets his toes dig into the sand. Aaron shrugs again, kicks off his loafers and joins him. Nik takes his hand.

They sit there for a long time. Now that there’s no audience, Nik has brought both of his hands into play, using one to cup Aaron’s hand while he traces patterns across Aaron’s open palm with the other, following the lines. He starts out looking almost blissed out, but the longer they sit, the more troubled his face becomes.

“Nik,” Aaron starts. When there’s no response, he says, “Nik, what are we doing?”

Nik keeps looking at their hands, although he stops the stroking and clasps Aaron’s hands between both of his own. “Aaron, I… God. I’ve thought about this so much, I think about
you
so much. I want to be with you. I still… don’t you? I thought maybe—Alex said she thought you—I just…”

Aaron has
never
seen Nik this flustered. When Aaron found out Nik was gay, it was from a chance meeting with a kid from Nik’s GSA; it seemed to cost Nik
nothing
to say it out loud. To hear him tell the story, he came out to his parents—traditional and pushy and loud as they both are, each in their own, very dif­fer­ent ways—without seeming to spend a moment worry­ing over it. This was the boy who’d once told him, so tenderly and easily, that he
loved
him.
He must be really thrown for a loop to be this inarticulate
.

Aaron knows the feeling—he’s reeling, but after everything they’ve been through, all the ways they’ve hurt each other, it’s so much easier to say, “A lot has happened. We can’t go back now and change it all—all of that
happened
and I can’t do this for just a few days, even for a very romantic long weekend. That summer at Alex’s house—we shouldn’t have done that. I don’t think we should do it again, not here.”

Aaron pauses and watches the water wash gently against the stone jetty a few yards ahead of them. “I was watching us last night, in those videos. I don’t know if you were watching, but I was. What we had was
real,
it was intense and as solid as anything can be at that age, and then it was over.” He waves a hand, encompassing the water and the two of them there. “This is just… a crazy summer daydream, it can’t—”

“It was you. And—Columbia,” Nik interrupts. Aaron blinks at him, confused. “Stephanie asked where I was going to grad school. Do you remember, last night at dinner? It’s Colum­bia—I got into Columbia. I’m going next month to find a place to live, and from August on, I’m living in New York.”

The line of Nik’s jaw is determined, set. And all of a sudden, Aaron gets it: Nik is coming to New York. He might be years too late, but he’s finally doing it, he’s taking that first step and he’s going to be
right there.
Aaron still has no idea what it means, and he’s
angry
that Nik can still do this to him, and he has so many questions and, somehow, absolutely nothing to say.

“Congratulations,” Aaron finally offers. “I—it’s a good school, I think.”

“Columbia, NYU and Brooklyn. Those were my top three choices, although I applied to Cornell and Rutgers too, just in case. I just—
Aaron
.” Nik’s voice is strained; he looks so ani­mated, and a little bit broken—he looks as if he’s about to cry. “I don’t want only this weekend. I don’t want to fall into bed and fuck around and I don’t want to hurt you. Can we try, just, let’s see—”

Somewhere in the middle of this monologue, Aaron gives in. He’s desperate to shut Nik up, frantic to get out of this, so Aaron does what he knows and he kisses him.

It’s gentle, messy at first because Nik’s still talking, but his voice rolls over into a low moan as his hands push into Aaron’s hair to hold his head in place. Aaron may have initiated the kiss, but Nik makes it his quickly, turning Aaron’s head and sliding his hands down to cradle Aaron’s face. The last time Aaron tried having a boyfriend, he had done that a lot, too; it had always felt presumptuous, fake, feigned. He’d forgotten how much he loved it when Nik cupped his jaw, splaying his strong, gentle fingers over Aaron’s temples as if his face were something precious, something beloved.

Aaron opens his mouth, needing the kiss to be stronger, deeper, because all he can think is they’re here, they’re here again and this is
everything.
He
wants,
God, he wants it
all,
and when Nik licks into his mouth, fierce and wet and hot, Aaron groans from the bottom of his belly and pushes, urging Nik onto his back right there on the walkway. Nik slides his hands back into Aaron’s hair, gripping and pulling him along with him, whining into the kiss and God, he goes, he’s going, nothing could keep him away.

Aaron rolls into a straddling position so that he’s on his knees over Nik and can get his hands into Nik’s hair and lean down over him and plant kisses all over his face, across his eyelids and his jawline and down to his ear. Nik is moaning and breathing harshly—”Oh, God, oh my God, Aaron, please, please”—and he tightens his grip in Aaron’s hair and pulls him back in for another kiss. Aaron can’t help it, he knows it’s too soon, but he carefully slides his knees down so that he can grind against Nik, just one time, because he fucking
needs
it. Nik rips his mouth away and groans so harshly that he sounds gutted, so Aaron rolls his hips again and Nik’s moan echoes through the night; one more time and Nik is pushing, rolling them and Aaron is lying there on his side.

He blinks at Nik, who is lying there beside him propped up on an elbow. His mouth is dark in the moonlight and wet, so wet, and his eyes are huge. His words and his breath come out in stutters.

“Jesus fuck, Aaron, you—fuck.” Nik’s hands push into Aaron’s shirt, pulling it out of his shorts to reach underneath, and the roughness of Nik’s hands sliding across his belly makes Aaron gasp. Fuck, he’s so hard. His hips buck up once. Nik is watching him with wide eyes and his hand stops.

Aaron whines and reaches for him, and Nik comes to him but settles into the crook of Aaron’s shoulder and whispers, “Shhh, shhh, listen.”

Aaron groans and Nik shushes him by pressing soft kisses against the skin of his neck. God, he still wants to fuck, to lay his hands all over Nik and relearn every inch of him, and he wants Nik all over him, wants that hand that still rests on his belly to slide and tease and pinch and press. But it’s good, lying here—he can see the stars, and hear the way he and Nik are breathing, ragged but easing up. Nik starts talking.

“God, I want you. You—you’re so fucking hot for it, and I can’t wait to watch you fall apart and see how it compares to what I remember, see what you’re like now, what you’ve learned. I still jerk off thinking about how you looked when you went down on me for the first time—remember that day?” Nik rubs slow circles on Aaron’s belly.

Of course Aaron remembers—they were in a hurry before Nik’s mom got home from work, and he felt nervous and a little scared and was sure he was doing it wrong, and his jaw had ached, but the taste and the
feel
of Nik were incredible. And he gets it—Nik is slowing them down because he has things he wants to say—but still. He grabs Nik’s hair and drags him up into a kiss that starts out hot; that memory is an important one for him, too. His first taste of cock, and it had been a heady vindication that yes, this,
this.
The memory can still make his mouth water.

Nik pulls away, panting. “Fuck. But, also, I… I’m—
I’m in love with you.
” Nik looks at him, his face drawn and pleading. “This… if we’re really, really lucky, and we still work as well as I think we will, and this all works out… as ridiculous as it may sound, I want this to be my last first time, Aaron. I don’t ever want sex with you to be about relief and gratitude. Well, at least not yet. I don’t know, I just… just slow down,” he says, brushing some hair out of Aaron’s eyes before flopping down on his back and finding Aaron’s hand.

Aaron blinks at him, waylaid once again by Nik’s bright and effortless admission. It’s so
tempting,
is the thing. Aaron’s not that sweet, romantic boy anymore; he told Alex and Jasmine as much just an hour ago. But they must have been right—that boy must still be in him somewhere, because he’s so fucking eager to just
take
what Nik is giving him
,
to snatch it up with both hands and run with it.

But it’s terrifying, too. Three years ago he’d ended a relation­ship with Michael, beautiful, sweet Michael, who had carried him through the end of his freshman year in college and then been dumped for his trouble because he told Aaron that he loved him. Aaron couldn’t say it back, didn’t even want to and had been annoyed by the presumption.

He should feel that way now. It’s too soon for Nik to say these things, way too soon, but Aaron can’t be angry. He can’t, because everything in him just wants to hear Nik say it again. Aaron wants it for his younger self, so he can be right, so Nik can be
wrong
to have left him; but he wants it for himself now, too, so he can be loved, so this man who had never left his mind, never left his
heart,
can be his again.

Nik has turned his head to the side and is watching him; his anguish at Aaron’s silence seems to deepen by the second, and Aaron says, “Nik, it’s been so
long.
How can you say that? Do you even… what does that even
mean
?”

Aaron turns to look at the sky. From the corner of his hooded eyes he can see Nik still staring at him, his eyes bright.

Then Nik takes a deep breath and says, with his voice quiet and earnest, “It means that I still think about you, all the time. It means that I sit beside Alex and wait for her to say your name.” He pauses and chances a quick glance up at the sky and then back down, and the rest comes out in a rush. “It means that I dress to see you and I plan what I’m going to say and then I watch you and wonder what you’re thinking, and wonder if you’re happy. I wonder who you’re sleeping with and hate him, hate
them
on principle, because if I had you in my bed again, just one more time, I’d never let you leave in the morning. It means that I fell in love with you five years ago, when we were still mostly kids, and nothing about that has changed—except for how it
has,
because I feel like I know you better now, understand you more even as I see you less often, because I’ve watched you grow and I’ve grown a lot myself. It means that I talked to my parents about you before I came here this week—both of them.”

Aaron turns his head to look at him, and Nik holds the eye contact with a fierce grimace. “It means that, when I gave Ollie that lap dance at that party, I was hoping you were watching me. And it means that, until I learned how to shut up when I was drunk, I said your name one time when I was having sex with Ollie, because even though we were young,
so
fucking young, oh my God, sex with you was… what it’s supposed to feel like. For me.”

Aaron steals glances at Nik’s open, honest face while he listens, and he wants write this down because goddamn, you don’t get declarations like this often and he wants to keep this one
forever,
but he’s also… he’s
melting,
is what it is. He’s falling, all over again, because after everything, after everything that happened, he somehow let himself forget about this, about Nik’s absolute willingness to risk himself, to lay it all on the line. And then Nik starts talking about sex, about that night they jumped in David’s pool and swam in their underwear, and Nik had ground his wet ass against Oliver. Aaron had wanted to
die
for wanting Nik and hating him. And then Nik reminds Aaron, all over again, of the heat of his body, of the way he felt against him, and that’s it.