Bombora (20 page)

“C’mon, Phel, you dick,” I growl at him. The words emerge sounding ambiguously like “your dick,” both an order and a plea. Christ, this is more than I can take, this relentless
toying
, and he knows it. What I’m less sure of is whether he cares, because this is a side of Phel I’ve never seen, not even when he’s been angry. But he must be getting impatient himself, judging from the speed with which he withdraws his fingers and slicks himself up.

I have to look away for this part, not from squeamishness or anything, but because my senses go into overload as he plants my right leg on the floor so I’m good and open for him. A gentle stroke of his cockhead over my entrance is all the warning I get before he guides himself inside, pressing in as relentless as anything. The stretch of him splitting me open is so goddamn good that I groan his name, long and low, arching my hips so he’s got a perfect angle at my ass. He takes advantage of it a split second before I’m ready, starts to move when he knows it’ll still burn. Unlike the first time he topped—and every time after, for that matter—he doesn’t wait to ask if I’m okay, just reads off my impatient shifts against him to start fucking me.

A thought occurs to me: we haven’t kissed once since I got here.

The impact of Phelan’s cock against my prostate makes me yell his name, over and over again, and when my voice gets too hoarse, I lose myself in his heavy breathing and stuttered moans, savor the slap of his pelvis against my ass as he fucks in and in and in. My hands clutch at the sofa cushions until my knuckles ache. It’s rhythmic, a pounding drumbeat I feel down to a molecular level, and I catch myself grinding my hips back and forth in counterpoint, building the friction against my own erection in addition to the unbelievable pleasure of Phel’s dick inside me. When he fists a hand into my hair, pulling tight to the point of pain, I arch against him even more, taking everything, offering everything. I’m so close to the edge, my whole body is a flayed nerve.

Phel falls forward to bite and kiss at the skin of my shoulders, muttering nonsense in my ears about how good I feel, how much he’s missed being inside me. I expect him to work his way around to my mouth, a kiss I need so badly, but what I get instead is his two hands around my neck, index and middle fingers pressing against my throat and Adam’s apple hard enough to make me think twice. Never in my life have I felt anything like that. I expect to panic at my dwindling air supply, but all I feel is an unbelievable calm at the trust I have in Phel. It’s a trust he hasn’t asked for, but has all the same.

My heart hammers, blood pounding straight to my dick as he continues to thrust and slide his chest against my back, both of us slippery with sweat. The undulations of his body feel as graceful as ever. Not quite knowing why his chokehold excites me—my mind keeps flashing between the need to fight for breath and the mental picture of how I must look, being used this way—I’m so surprised by the pressure that I suck in a labored gasp and spurt all over the couch cushions. I think it’s the sound of me coming that knocks Phel over the edge too, which he does with a choked-off shout, flooding me with slick.

“Fuck,” I whisper, breathing hard. My insides feel painted and raw, and all I can smell around us is sweat and sex. I feel Phelan heaving against my back and wish I knew what the hell just happened.

Though I wince and groan a little as he pulls out, I continue to lie facedown on the couch and make no effort to move. I take a minute to figure out why I feel so weird, and it turns out to be the sensation of Phel’s spunk leaking from my abused hole. That’s got to be one the most unlikely phrases I’ve thought of in this lifetime, and I want to laugh about it to Phel but can’t summon the energy even for that. The rest is probably best not to think about right now, because that way lies sheer fucking madness. He warned me, I remind myself, and I couldn’t leave it well enough alone. A part of me is conscious, in a vague sort of way, of having been punished. Used, at the very least. I get no further than that before I shut the whole ugly train of thought down. This was for him.

I do manage to turn my head when I feel Phelan’s weight withdraw from the couch. He stumbles down the hallway—headed for the bathroom, is my guess—and sure enough returns with a damp towel that he flings at my head. Taking the hint, I struggle onto my back and wipe myself down, trying not to notice the stony expression on Phelan’s face as he does the same. I don’t like it, even less the fact that he won’t look at me, and when he grimaces and starts to pull on his sweatpants, I guess he isn’t going to invite me to stay for lunch. My legs are rubber as I retrieve my own clothing.

I’m halfway dressed when I glance up from the buckle of my belt and see Phelan staring off into space, shoulders tense. He’s barely in the same solar system right now, let alone the same room, and for some reason the only thing I can think of to do is clear my throat and say, “I won’t tell Hugh.”

Those saucer-blue eyes swivel toward me, this freaky habit Phel sometimes has of looking at me without turning the rest of his head. “I wouldn’t imagine you would, no.”

“He’s been wondering where you are.” Catching the barely perceptible slump of his shoulders, I sigh. “Cut this bullshit out and go talk to him, okay? You and me—he’s got nothing to do with any of this. Call your friend. He’s worried. And don’t say you don’t want to, ’cause I know that’s bullshit too.” There’s an imperceptible nod. “Good.”

Hesitantly, Phel says, “Are you going to come back here?” not like he’s shy, but like he doesn’t trust himself to ask any more than he trusts my response.

“Are you asking me to?” By the muscle that leaps in his cheek, I know I’m not going to get an answer to that, so I go into the kitchen and grab a pen off the table, then scribble my cell number on top of the cover story of the newspaper. “I meant what I said, Phel. This is—whatever you want. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. But if you want….” Thought unfinished, I leave that hanging there and shift the newspaper closer toward the edge of the table so he’s sure to see it. My message is pretty clear:
day or night.

“You should go,” he says, finally.

“Okay.”

I’m still shirtless, but since I find my boots before I find my shirt, I put those on first, not bothering with laces, letting the tongues hang out of them like the wannabe gangsters we sometimes see down at the beach at night, teenagers with rich parents and aspirations to the ’hood. Phel watches me dress, staring almost, the way someone’ll stare you down when they’re waiting for you to take the goddamn hint and
leave
, though there’s no animosity behind it for once. That he wants me to fuck off is clear. That he wants me to stop talking, doubly so. But it’s like he’s just too tired to ask again.

Hoping this indicates a momentary weakness in his defenses, I say, “I came out to Liam this afternoon.”

Phel makes a sound between a grunt and a snort. He says, “Congratulations,” in the most deadpan tone imaginable, and I guess I misjudged his magnanimity just now, considering the iciness of his voice.

I frown. “‘Congratulations’? Seriously?” Not like I expected a parade, but that one word seems so inappropriate for the experience, I’m of half a mind to demand a do-over. Then again, I could have kept my mouth shut and walked out of here with, if maybe not dignity, composure. Instead it’s gonna be another fight, I can feel it.

“What else do you expect me to say?”

Growing angry—it’s so much easier to get angry about an offhand comment than it is to think too hard about what just went down, the sudden, painful pull of damn near every muscle in my body—I shuffle over to the kitchen entrance and snatch up my T-shirt where it lies discarded on the wood floor. Although I inch toward the door to let Phel know the change of subject doesn’t indicate I’m planning to stick around, I realize from the returning stiffness of his posture how desperate he is for me to GTFO. The look on his face makes it seems like my presence in his home is sheer fucking torture. Son of a bitch.

“Just thought you’d appreciate it, man,” I say, my voice steady as I can make it. “Seein’ as how you always longed to share yourself with your family and all.”

Phel steps closer to the front door, which he pulls open, and he stands there with his hand on the doorknob, glowering. That’s that, then. I get the message and walk past the threshold, though not before turning to him to say, “I’m trying to fix things. Make them right.”

With a hard twist of his lips, Phel shakes his head. “You’re trying to fix things for yourself, Nate. At least you can still do that.” He starts to close the door. “But don’t talk about it like it could possibly make a difference to me, because I’ve got nothing left. There’s nothing for you to make right here, okay? Understand that.”

He shuts the door in my face without another word, but I don’t knock again or try to get him to open up. He’s right, in a way. After that, there’s not a whole lot else to be said.

Hugh

W
HAT
’
S
the opposite of déjà vu? Is there a word for that? Because I feel like I might have it. I’m not trying to be thick or anything—I’ve experienced, many times, the feeling that I’m someplace I’ve already been, or that I’m doing something I’ve done before. This happens pretty frequently on drugs, as a matter of fact, so… I would know. But it’s far less often that I’ve felt like I’ve spaced out and come back while sober, only to realize a lot seems to have happened without my noticing. Kind of like how spring sometimes creeps up in climates with distinct seasons, the trees bare and depressing one moment and suddenly covered in fresh green foliage the next, like everything decided to bloom all at once while your back was turned. Except that California doesn’t have seasons like that, and I’m pretty sure my back
hasn’t
been turned. Still, I feel there’s a bunch of stuff I missed.

Part of it has to do with finding out about Nate’s divorce, the shock and unexpectedness of it, the realization that there was this life-changing event taking place in Nate’s world, something I didn’t know about or even anticipate until he showed up on my doorstep. That got to me, I admit. But I was beginning to adjust when Phel up and disappeared on me too, shut me out like a complete stranger for bordering on two weeks.

There’s no doubt in my mind there are a lot of explanations for where he went and why: obviously he’s got issues he’s still working on at Palermo, and that—that’s good
,
that’s as it should be. He needs to take care. After how he reacted to meeting Nate, even if I’ve yet to figure out the source of the problem, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he might need some time to himself. It’s none of my business, and besides, it doesn’t matter. Really doesn’t. But it would have been nice, when Phel suddenly appeared on my doorstep again, if he’d treated me to just a little insight, so I might have a better idea of what the hell goes through his head in times like these. None came.

For my part, I couldn’t help but feel surprised at how
happy
I was to see him when he turned up for surfing one day without warning. He had the good grace to look sheepish, like he knew he’d done something wrong but couldn’t quite talk about it yet, and I almost grabbed him into a hug before I realized that’s not something we
do
. Phel isn’t an affectionate person that way, but the sight of his rumpled hair and crooked smile made me want it all the same.

Instead I asked, “Did something happen?” the way my dad always used to do if I went too long without calling, immediately assuming something was wrong. I pulled him into the kitchen, where Nate was drinking a coffee and reading the paper. “I was worried.”

“No, nothing happened,” sighed Phel. My attention was momentarily distracted when Nate clattered his dishes down in the sink and stalked out of the room. Phel made an unimpressed face and settled his hands on his hips before his gaze flicked back to me. “I had a lot on my mind. Sorry I didn’t call you.”

I lifted my eyebrows at him like he could volunteer more information at any time, but he just continued looking at me like,
No, this conversation is done, Hugh. Drop it
.

I think I made the face Nate tells me not to make, the one that makes me look like I’m constipated. “I thought you were dead or something, man!” I exclaimed. We both knew how much of an exaggeration that was, and for a second Phel let that sink in before he gave a tiny eye roll.

“Had something serious happened, you would have received a phone call,” he said. “You’re my emergency contact.” While I was busy trying to process that information and the weird sense of warmth it gave me, Phel gestured vaguely. “Okay, well, if that’s settled, I’m going to hit the restroom and then we’ll go surf.” I nodded dumbly.

Phel wandered off down the hall just as Nate walked back into the kitchen. “You sound like a needy girlfriend, man,” he informed me, voice more sour than usual. “I’m sure Phel wasn’t half as concerned about what you were up to while he was off doing his own thing.”

There seemed to be no justifiable reason for this sudden peevishness on my brother’s part, except that these waspy comments would become par for the course when Phel was around, and Nate’s mood swings all the more frequent. At the time I didn’t think much of it, because Nate has always been a moody guy, and slow to trust; I was too glad Phel was back to think much of it. His reappearance made me relieved and happy, and gave me something to look forward to again each day, like when you meet a cool girl and can’t help but wonder when you’ll hang out again.