From the Ashes (13 page)

Zeke cut in. “Yeah, that’s why they always have firefighters volunteering. Kids don’t get hurt often, but it happens.”

Jesse’s eyebrows rose in alarm.

“Not really hurt,” Tomas explained. “The worst we see is a twisted ankle. But people get scraped by tree branches sometimes. They’re scared, so they think it’s worse than it is.”

Rick smirked. “We mostly hand out Band-Aids.”

“And shine brights into the woods during cleanup,” Zeke added.

“This sounds pretty scary.” Grinning, Jesse bounced in his seat. “I have a couple friends who said they’d come if I wanted to go.”

“Don’t you have some other parties to go to or something?” The message in Rick’s words was clear. He meant that Jesse would be at a
queer
party.

“Yeah.” Jesse darted a look at Tomas and then blushed. “Some guys I know are going to a thing at a club. But they said people don’t really show up until eleven.”

“How are you gonna get there?” Tomas asked him, surprised that Jesse wouldn’t have told him he had plans.

“Oh, I just got invited today.” Jesse waved his hand. “I’m not even sure if I’m going.”

Jesse, all country-boy innocent, going to a club without him on Halloween? That was not happening. “Come to Haunted Trails,” Tomas told him. “It ends early and I can drive you into the city after.”

Jesse was smart enough not to ask any questions about what would happen later in the night, and Tomas was glad.

Chapter Eleven

Jesse was three beers deep when he climbed into Tomas’s truck. He’d barely gotten a bite of the nachos Tomas had ordered. With the guys from the station descending on the food like a pack of wolves, Tomas’s plan to keep Jesse sober had failed.

“Wait a sec.” Jesse closed his hand around Tomas’s thigh, low enough that Saul in his truck and Rick on his motorcycle wouldn’t see.

Saul pulled out of the parking lot first. Rick was on his phone, but he put it down to roll from his parking space and kick-start his bike. After he left, Tomas’s truck was the only one in the lot.

“I’m so horny for you,” Jesse said close to his ear. He roamed his hand up Tomas’s thigh, and then cupped him through his pants. “Mmmm… Feels like you missed me too.”

Tomas looked in his rearview mirror, and then his side ones. No one was around, and it was plenty dark out, but he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to make out in the front of his truck. Sure, they were in Capitol Hill, but they were also right behind the fire station. “I can’t kiss you here,” he said.

“Who said anything about you kissing me?” Jesse unzipped Tomas’s jeans and scooted back in his seat to get his face closer to Tomas’s cock.

“Oh God.” If anyone saw into his truck cab, they wouldn’t know what was going on. They’d think he was sitting alone and…doing what? They’d probably think he was a drug dealer.

“You smell so good.” Jesse got Tomas’s dick out, at least partway. The root must have still been buried in his jeans because all he felt were Jesse’s fingers cuffing the midpoint and his warm, wet mouth closing around the tip.

“Jess.” Tomas stroked his fingers through Jesse’s soft hair. Jesse didn’t put much crap in it, so it always felt smooth.

Tomas leaned his head back, enjoying the feeling. Jesse’s tongue worked magic along his slit, and Jesse struggled with Tomas’s pants, trying to expose him more.

“God, I can’t wait to taste you,” Jesse said. He never would have talked like that sober.

It was too much like how other guys had sounded—guys Tomas had let suck him off, who he didn’t care about, who he could hardly look in the eye after.

Jesse moaned around Tomas’s shaft, getting excited. He worked his free hand into his pants.

Tomas’s balls hitched and gathered at his base, but he didn’t want to come. Not like this. He tugged Jesse’s shoulders to pull him off. Panting, Tomas pressed his hand on his dick.

“What?” Jesse looked at him with red, swollen lips. His jeans were undone and his white underwear showed. “Why won’t you ever let me do it?”

Tomas scraped a hand through his hair, and then did it again to grab a hunk to hold on to. “I don’t know.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but maybe part of it. He couldn’t turn off that sense that he’d be doing something bad to Jesse, something he’d hate himself for. Maybe even hate Jesse for. “I…”

“Am I bad at it or something?” Jesse shrank into his seat, fastening his pants. He seemed angry, but that may have been the beers talking.

“No.” Tomas touched his face, wishing he had the balls to drag Jesse in for a kiss. He wished they were home where he could lay Jesse down and make love to him the way he wanted. “I love when you do it.”

It felt amazing when Jesse went down on him. The problem was it made Tomas want to do things he wasn’t ready for. Besides, it wasn’t exactly risk free.

He grabbed on to the one explanation he felt he could say out loud. “It’s not safe to swallow.” Granted, every guy who’d blown him had been under a different impression. Tomas knew the risk was low, but still…

“Are you…?” Jesse looked at him with wide and scared eyes. “Oh my God. I never asked. Are you?” He didn’t seem able to say
positive
, though Tomas knew that’s what he was trying to cough out.

“No. No, I would have told you.” Tomas took his hand. With his other hand, he buttoned his pants. “But I’ve never been tested or anything. I wouldn’t want to expose you to stuff.”

Jesse sighed. “Well, then let’s get tested. I mean, I never have either.”

That wasn’t the response Tomas had been expecting. “What?”

“Well, I haven’t bothered because I’ve only blown three and a half guys, not counting you.”

Tomas chuckled. “Three and a half?” Had Jesse only gotten half of it in his mouth?

“Yeah.” Jesse rolled his eyes. “This one guy said he wanted to, but when we went back to his place, he only let me do it for a second before he wanted to do me.” He winced, as if he was embarrassed to be talking about it. “It wasn’t bad or anything, but I didn’t come. I guess I’m not even sure if it counts.”

“So you’ve never, um, done anything else with guys?” Tomas was pretty sure Jesse had never had sex. The way Jesse moved and acted seemed too uncertain.

“For real? Like penetration? No.”

Tomas leaned in and kissed him.
Fuck it.
He just couldn’t help himself. Jesse tasted like beer and a tinge of precome. He tasted delicious. “Neither have I, except with girls.” Tomas pulled away to start the truck. “But I’ve been sucked off by a lot more than three and a half guys.”

“You know it’s almost impossible to get it from—”

“It’s not just HIV. You can get other stuff.” Tomas wasn’t sure what you could get from blowjobs besides HIV and herpes, but he was holding tight to his argument.

“Fine.” Jesse took his shoes off and put his feet up on the dashboard as he liked to when Tomas drove him home. He pointed out the window to a nearby billboard. Only that second did Tomas notice it advertised STI testing.

How many guys had this same conversation in this neighborhood and then saw the sign?

“We’ll go in tomorrow. Michael’s always going off about the service. Supposedly, you get your results in twenty minutes.” Jesse leaned his seat back and settled in. His posture was a clear indication for Tomas to start driving.

“Twenty minutes?” Tomas had imagined that this process would take longer. A few weeks maybe, to get a doctor’s appointment, then Jesse would stress over the price tag for a while. They’d wait a month for the results… He should have known Jesse would know more about STI testing than he did. “That’s great.”

“Yeah, right?” Jesse smiled to his ears. “Then we won’t have to worry about using condoms when we…y’know…do it for real.”

Tomas was glad Jesse looked away right then—hiding his face by staring out the window—because Tomas’s mouth dropped open.

He’d planned to put their sex life in neutral, not hurl it into overdrive. He didn’t know if he could do this. Any of it.

What would he tell Jesse, though? That he didn’t want to fuck him? Tomas would sound like a pussy. He knew there was only one thing to say, so he told Jesse, “I can’t wait.”

Jesse met him at the café down the block from the fire station. The Capitol Hill streets were dotted with people in costume even though it was the day before Halloween.

“Oh my God, this is awesome.” Jesse cupped his drink and watched passersby out the foggy café window. “People really go all out around here, huh?”

Tomas had never been to Eastern Washington. “Halloween’s always like this. We should go to the Solstice Parade next year. It’s busy as hell, but crazier than this.”

“Sounds like fun.” Jesse smiled behind his coffee cup.

“Yeah.” Tomas wanted to keep the conversation going but didn’t have anything else to say.

“We should get going.” Jesse checked the time on his phone. “It’s not far from here, but I haven’t been there before. Maybe there’s some trick to getting in.”

“Sure,” Tomas said with false bravado. Half the coffee shop’s patrons were gay, but still—going to the STI testing center felt like an admission. If someone from the station saw him in front of a building with a flashing neon sign saying
testing center
, they’d know.

Jesse went outside, wrapping his scarf around his neck to keep out the fall chill. The weather always shifted from cool to downright freezing right before Halloween. “You nervous?”

Tomas matched his pace down the busy sidewalk. “No. Not really.” It was hard not to feel at least some bit of nerves. Tomas had been safe with the girls he’d been with and had never done anything more than blowjobs with guys, but there was always a chance. “How about you?”

“Well, you know.” Jesse walked faster, his face pinched. Tomas wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or if Jesse was scared.

“I’m sure we’re both fine.” Tomas had learned the basics of HIV prevention at the fire academy. That was more about protection from bodily fluids in first-responder situations, but his instructor had handed out a booklet about HIV as supplemental reading.

Most of Tomas’s firefighter buddies had tossed it out after class. A couple of guys had said they were taking it home to give to daughters or sisters. Tomas had read it cover to cover in the cab of his truck but thrown it away before he got home.

“Yeah, I know. It’s still scary though. My dad and mom told me I was going to get AIDS and die if I was gay. I’ve read all about transmission and stuff on the Internet, so I know it’s not true. But it’s still hard not to feel like…” he paused to take a shaky breath, “…like they were cursing me or something. Like I was cursed.”

Tomas put his hand on Jesse’s back and rubbed. He didn’t know how to comfort him or make him less anxious.

“Are you Catholic?” Tomas’s mom went to church most Sundays, but other than Easter and Christmas, she never expected the rest of the family to come.

“Not really.” Jesse blew out a breath, shaking out his head and shoulders. “My mom’s Catholic and my dad’s Lutheran, but neither one of them goes to church.”

They came up to the building, and Tomas was relieved to see there wasn’t a sign. Just a logo and initials on the buzzer.

Jesse took a half step back, so Tomas rang the bell for him.

A voice came through the intercom, saying the name of the service and asking if they had an appointment.

“Yes,” Tomas answered. “Five forty-five.” He leaned closer to Jesse and gave him a quick kiss on the temple. In the three weeks they’d been together, Jesse had only mentioned his family a few times, but each time he did Tomas felt sorry for him.

The poor kid had barely done anything. At twenty-one he was a hell of a lot more innocent than most straight teenagers, but Jesse had to go around feeling like he was diseased or something, just because what he’d done was with boys, not girls.

The door buzzed open, and Tomas pushed it wider to urge Jesse through. He held Jesse’s hand up the stairs. When they got to the third floor, he pulled Jesse close. “Hey, I’m the one who slutted around,” he whispered in Jesse’s ear.

Jesse snickered softly, and a smile took the place of his worried expression. “Yeah. I know.” He rolled his neck and walked inside.

The place was smaller than Tomas would have guessed, though the size made sense relative to the layout of the building. There were eight wooden chairs and a small window where a man in his twenties was typing away on a computer.

Tomas imagined that the window was bulletproof. Suddenly, he realized why there was no sign outside and why the place had a buzzer. They were scared of crazies getting violent or protesting outside. Tomas felt disgusted—and for the first time not at himself for liking what men liked to give him. It made him sick to think a place like this that made sure people were healthy would worry about that kind of crap.

“You’re early.” The guy behind the counter looked up. “That’s okay, we didn’t have anyone scheduled before you.” He handed two clipboards through a hole in his window. Each one had an attached pen. “Normally the rush comes after Halloween.” He rolled his eyes, as if maybe he’d been working this job a little too long. Either that or he was annoyed that people went out on Halloween to have unsafe sex. “Fill these out. Molly will call you back in a moment.”