The Locker Room (10 page)

entire body went cold, and his vision went black, and everything in his

universe centered around his balls, and his cock, and dumping come into

Chris"s ass.

He came so hard he almost passed out.

When he was done, he collapsed sideways, and watched detachedly

as the dark spots did the Macarena in front of his eyes. He was brought

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to earth slowly by Chris"s hand on his face, and although he moved

slowly, he did manage to trap that hand against an already stubbled jaw.

“Going to live, big guy?”

Xander blinked sleepily at him and smiled. He wasn"t sure what

was in his smile, but Chris"s bemused smile suddenly became darker,

intense, and Chris claimed his mouth hard, and a little bit desperately.

They were both sweating and sticky, and covered in lube and come, but

Chris opened his mouth and mashed that clean, hairless, muscled chest

against Xander"s, and Xander engulfed him in a deep, shivering kiss.

They didn"t necessarily pull away so much as fall apart, lulled by soft

pillows and the threat of sleep.

“That felt amazing, Xander. Do you trust me enough to do that to

you?”

Xander was too sleepy, too replete to freak out about trust. All he

knew was that Chris had trusted him, and what they"d just done… it had

been amazing. Glorious. Beautiful. He owed Chris.

“Yeah,” he said, without thinking about it. “Tomorrow. After we

go surfing.” Because the hotel was right across from the beach, and

surfboard rentals. They"d planned to be there for three days, just to go

surfing, because the sea was crystal blue and the sky was, too, and the

idea of being free inside that world of blue had made them howl and

laugh and roll down the windows for most of the trip down Highway 1.

Chris laughed softly, and pressed his hand next to Xander"s jaw

again. Xander seized it and kissed it as he closed his eyes. “I didn"t need

a date and a time, Xan—just an affirmation.”

Xan fluttered his eyes open, and saw a brief breath of something

like worry or anxiousness pass over Chris"s face. He didn"t understand it

then. As they grew, as their education progressed, and the full weight of

their careers landed on their shoulders like a clanging anvil, he would

understand it, but now, he assuaged it with all he had.

Years later, it was still the only bandage he had.

“Love you, Chris. You know that, right?”

That anxiousness eased, and Xander felt the top sheet and

comforter pulled up around his waist, and then Chris settled into his

arms. “I love you back, Xan. Don"t forget it, ever, okay?”

“Mmm… "kay.”

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THEY surfed the next day. They surfed until their bones turned to

overcooked macaroni and their muscles turned to melted cheese, and all

they could do when they trudged back to their hotel under a sky of

velveteen black was shove some salami in pieces of French bread and

eat, and then pass the carton of milk back and forth until it was gone.

They managed a shower and then fell asleep limply on top of each

other, like jungle cats in the heat, and woke up with the sun pouring

down on them from the skylight.

They were both wearing underwear, and that was it, but Xander"s

stomach was nearly howling with hunger, so they kissed briefly then

dressed and went out for breakfast.

When they got back, they looked at each other in confusion.

“Sex or surfing?” Chris asked, putting his thumb on it exactly, and

Xander gave a crooked grin.

“Sex in the morning, surfing in the afternoon?”

Chris shook his head and grinned back. “Surfing in the morning,

because once we hit the sheets, I don"t think we"re going to stop.”

And so it was. Chris didn"t push to top that night, nor the next, nor

even for the rest of the road trip. He just… explored. Used the lubricant

and tested the boundaries, stretched, stroked, made Xander come. It took

Xander a week to figure out that he"d taken Christian, possessed him,

pinned him to the mattress with a hand spanning between his shoulder

blades, or one giddy time, with Chris"s thighs over his shoulders, and

one of his inhumanly large, attenuated hands pressed at the base of

Chris"s throat, in the center of his chest, and Chris hadn"t taken him like

that yet, not completely, not at all.

It was after that moment face to face, somewhere in Oklahoma,

where the air conditioner had broken down completely, and they were

left sopping and flopping in the inhuman humidity, that Xander said

something about it.

“You don"t trust people easy, Xan. I know it. I could be the one

person in the world to ever see your face when you don"t know what"s

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on it. I could be the one person in the world you ever touch skin to skin

like this. Do you think I want to fuck this up?”

Xander was forced to, in the span of a heartbeat, reassess

everything he"d ever assumed about the nature of love.

He was hurting Christian by his lack of trust, and he thought

Christian had been hurting him by his lack of commitment. All the love,

the hand-holding, the sweet touches of lips to skin—all of it meant

nothing in the face of their insecurities. Xander blinked once, looking at

the face of his best friend, the man he would love for his entire life, and

he was a frightened kid, fucking around at fucking around.

He blinked again, and he was what Christian needed him to be: a

man in love.

“You could never fuck up loving me,” he said throatily. “You

never could. It"s not in you. You grew up knowing how to do this, you

see? I took the high school crash course, and I"m learning the rest by

feel. You… if I like it, keep doing it. If I"m all soft and boneless, ask me,

and I"ll tell you—”

“Yeah, but Xan, I
beg
you!”

Xander flushed. “Then I"ll beg you,” he promised, hoping he could

keep that one. “I"ll beg you. I swear, next time we do this, I"ll beg for

your cock in my ass, right?” If those were the words Chris needed to

hear, well, those were the words Xander would say. Anything to make

Chris know that he wasn"t alone in this. Xander needed his touch,
craved

his touch, just as much as Chris needed Xander"s. It was only fair, right?

Two nights later, they were just west of North Carolina. Xander

told him to stop at a hotel, because, he lied, he didn"t want to have to

deal with dorm people or moving in when it was all dark.

The truth was, he wanted Christian all to himself just one last time,

dammit. One last time before they were the freshman dream team for

UNC, one last time before they had to hide every touch of the hand or

brush of lips on skin from the rest of the world.

The day before, they"d been coming down from Kentucky, and

they"d gotten lost in what felt like an endless horizon of thick trees.

Christian had been driving, and he"d gone into a turnout to turn the car

around, and they"d gotten out a map to check and see where they were.

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(Ten years later, Chris would never be without the latest smart phone,

just to make sure he never got them that ass-fucking-lost again.)

Christian had been a little panicked, and Xander, for once the

lighthearted one, had tried to jolly him out of it. “C"mon, Chris. We"re

going to be okay. We"ve got three-quarters of a tank of gas, even if we

turn back around to go to the next gas station.”

“Yeah, but we didn"t plan this trip so we could spend it fucking

lost!”

“Well, duh! But we"re not lost!”

Chris had glared at him, annoyed. His hair had been pulled back

into a ponytail, and some of it had curled out of the queue to pester his

face in the humidity. “Yeah? Well, where in the hell are we?”

Xander smiled. “Together.”

Chris made a show of redoing his queue before he let his smile

escape. “Together?”

“Yup.” Xander had to smirk—he knew he had the guy by the balls.

“You asshole, you really think that"s going to work with me?” It

was a full-fledged grin now, and he was looking at Xander sideways

from those vast, dark eyes.

“It already has.” Xander had taken charge then, cupping the back of

Chris"s skull and hauling him forward for a kiss that left him, literally,

weak-kneed. He"d snuck his hand under Chris"s T-shirt, unsnapped his

shorts, and pulled the lever to lean the seat back before he even broke off

the kiss. Chris found himself flat on his back, with his cock in Xander"s

hand before he could protest, and Xander gave him a quick and dirty

one-off, right there in the turnout, without another car in sight. (He was

too tall to go for the blow job. He knew; they"d already tried somewhere

in Kansas, when Chris said it was either car sex or insanity. That was

when they discovered that unless they were careful, the two things were

truly synonymous.)

Chris spilled quickly, the throb of his prick giving Xander a rush of

power and adrenaline that was like nothing he"d ever felt on the court,

but that he couldn"t help but compare to winning a game—or a string of

them—effortlessly and cleanly, when the crowd was on his side.

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After Chris gave his final gasp and simply lay back in the seat,

replete and twitching a little, Xander leaned over him and kissed him one

final time before grabbing a towel from the crowded backseat and drying

him off.

“Oh, Jesus,” Chris panted. “That was glorious. I don"t know how

it"s going to help us figure out where we are, but it was awesome.”

“I"ll tell you how it"s going to help,” Xander said confidently. “It"s

going to get you to get in the passenger side so you can cop a nap, and

I"m going to drive the rest of the way, because I know which turnoff we

missed, but I can"t think of the words to describe it, and I"ll just get all

confused when you"re talking to me, okay?”

Chris had been skeptical at first, but after a few moments of

fumbling as they got out of the car and stretched in the August heat

before changing seats, he
had
been ready for his nap. When he was

asleep, unconsciously trusting Xander to do the right thing, Xander

found the turnoff and had them to town (and someplace to eat; they were

starving) within half an hour.

As they were waiting in the drive-through, Chris had blinked at

him sleepily, trying not to be hurt. “Wow, Xan, way to show a guy he"s

not needed.”

Xander had shaken his head adamantly. “No, man. You don"t get it.

I couldn"t have gotten it done unless you needed
me.”

Chris had smiled then, quietly, and eaten his cheeseburger, but that

night they"d been too tired to do more than collapse on their beds and go

to sleep.

Two nights later, after taking some detours and going up the

Atlantic coast a little, they were checking into a nice hotel (the best since

the one in Carlsbad) and Xander was trying the same approach to making

love as he"d tried for getting unlost.

He claimed the shower first, and since usually he let Chris shower

first, Chris said he figured that was about fair. After he got out and Chris

jumped in, he listened. As soon as the water started, Xander called room

service and ordered everything they could afford. (It wasn"t much—their

travel budget was thin at best.)

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57

While he was waiting for the cart to arrive, he dug into Chris"s

luggage and pulled out the tube of lubricant (their third on the trip—

Xander was really starting to appreciate this stuff) and the sex toy that

Chris had laughingly purchased when they got lost in an old military

neighborhood in Texas.

It was larger than three of Xander"s fingers, and smaller than

Chris"s cock. Xander figured it would do just fine.

When Chris got out of the shower, Xander had set up their little

dinner and was sitting down gingerly, wearing his sleep shorts on the

outside and the hot-pink rubber thing on the inside. It made him squirmy,

and put his dick on high alert, and he wasn"t sure if he could just
sit
there

and eat, but he had to try. It wasn"t a good surprise if you just threw

yourself on the bed and begged shamelessly in the middle of dinner.

Xander wasn"t sure about a lot of romantic shit, but he was pretty sure

that was true.

Chris was appreciative of the chow, and Xander
always
got hungry