Page 36 of The Night I Lost Him

A young woman was making her way down the stairs in the entryway. She had platinum blonde hair and was as tall as Jamie. She didn’t look like either of them, but she grinned. “My baby brother is finally back!” he was only a year younger than her, but I knew she was protective of him. He had told me stories of going out in public with her when they were younger. Some of the people in the small town didn't like it when he dressed a little too femininely for their tastes. She’d yelled at people over him more than once, and had thrown down a couple of times, too. People had learned to leave him alone because his sister wasn’t having it. He told me he’d barely even had to defend himself once he'd met Tara, because she got so upset when people messed with him that she never even gave him the chance to. I had a lot of respect for both his mom and his sister before I even met them, I just hoped they liked me, too.

As Tara went in to hug her brother, his mother stepped back and looked at me. I smiled through my nerves and held out my hand to shake hers. She grinned at me. “You must be Caden. I’m Angela. But you can call me Mom if you’d like.” She took my hand but instead of shaking it, pulled me in for a hug. I was a little surprised, but I hugged her back. Jamie and Tara were both grinning at me.

“Welcome to our humble home, Caden,” Tara said, introducing herself after their mother released me. I knew she didn’t live there anymore, she was living in Orlando and interning in some big office there, but I also knew it would always be home to both of them. She smirked at her brother and added, “I have so many tales of my brother for you. Some with pictures.”

I grinned back at her, but Jamie cried, “Hey! We just got here, at least let me enjoy being home for a minute.”

“Well,” his mom spoke up, “Jamie, your room is all ready, and I set up the sofa bed in the living room for Caden.” I gulped at the thought of being separated from him, but we hadn’t really talked about sleeping arrangements. Jamie looked confused, though, and he opened his mouth to speak right as his mother burst out laughing. “Oh, my word you both fell for that.” She looked at Tara. “I can’t believe you were right.”

Tara was laughing, too. “I told you if you could say it with a straight face they’d believe you. Even Jamie.”

His mom looked at me, still laughing. “I’m sorry. Once Tara said she thought you guys would believe me, I just had to see if I could pull it off.” She shook her head, still chuckling, and looked at Jamie. “I can’t believe you bought that. What do you think I am, a Puritan? You know me better than that. I moved Tara’s twin bed out of her room and put it in your room a while back because I got a day bed and made her room a little library where she can still stay when she comes home. I pushed the two twin beds in your room together to give you and Caden a little more room. I haven’t changed anything else in your room, Jamie. I don’t have many overnight guests, and I like having it for you when you come home. At least until you get your own place and want to take your stuff. Both of you have grown up on me too fast, but there will always be a place for you here when you want to come visit. And you aren’t that far away, you know.” She looked at him with a mock-scolding look.

I was much more relaxed by then. I really liked his family. “I know, mom,” Jamie said, “I’ve just been busy lately. You know, school and work and…”

“Boyfriend,” Tara added.

He glanced at her, but then looked at me. “Yeah,” he said with a smile.

“How is everything with work?” his mom asked, concern lacing her voice. I knew she was aware of what he did for a living. His sister was the one who’d originally started taking pole dance classes because it was a good way to exercise and less boring than aerobics. Jamie had expressed interest, because it looked graceful and fun to him, so Tara had taken him with her. Once he’d figured out the basics, the instructor had called him a prodigy.

His mother couldn’t afford college tuition, and while Jamie got his grades up enough in his last two years of high school to get accepted into the program he wanted to, with the toll all the turmoil in his past had taken on his studying, he didn’t qualify for any scholarships or any real financial help. He’d taken out student loans, but even though his mom wanted to help him, he knew she couldn’t actually afford to do so without hurting her own finances, and he insisted on doing it on his own. He knew he was good enough at pole dancing to support himself financially, so he’d gone for it.

Jamie’s mom didn’t have a problem with what he did, other than worrying about him. She’d told him she knew he could handle himself, but she wanted him to remember that there were dangerous people out there and she needed him to stay safe. “I love you, and if anything were to happen to you, it would kill me,” she’d told him, “Please always keep your guard up.”

I wasn’t sure why she was asking him if everything was ok. I wondered if she knew about Weird Wally, or if she was just a mother who cared about her kids and worried in general. I wasn’t sure how much he told her. He seemed to be open about most things, but he also didn’t seem to want her to worry about him.

Jamie glanced at me, a brief panic flickering in his eyes. “It’s great,” he said, a little too quickly. Probably not enough for her to really notice. “It’s fine. Going good and paying my bills. You know there are always people who annoy me and offend the hell out of me, but no biggie. Propositions get them nowhere. The regulars have already learned that.” He glanced at me and went on, “And then sometimes unexpected people show up and I accidentally flirt with them while giving their best friend a lap dance.”

I snorted out a laugh, but he’d successfully evaded any other questioning about the people at work who annoyed and offended him. Tara smirked. “Yeah, I’m sure it was accidental.”

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it worked, didn’t it?” I tried to look offended but ended up laughing instead. He grabbed my hand again. “Come on. Let’s take our stuff upstairs.” Our stuff being the single backpack we’d crammed with a couple changes of clothes, and I’d carried, since there was very minimal storage on his bike. He had a small storage bag he used to carry the things he took to work every day, but there was definitely not enough room for everything we’d need for a weekend away. We still didn’t have everything we’d need, but he'd assured me his mom would have everything that didn’t fit. He pulled me upstairs to the only bedroom amongst many in his first sixteen years that he’d ever called home.

I looked around the room with a smile, taking in the Lady Gaga and Emo band posters. There was a full bookshelf, mostly lined with young adult horror and sci-fi books, but with some science nerd stuff snuck in. There was a little trophy that I took a closer look at. Third place in a science competition, placed in a prized position because it was probably the only trophy he’d ever won. There was a framed high school diploma near it. Another wall was more ocean themed, from marine life posters to photographs of the beach. There was a magazine on the desk about ocean research that honestly looked boring as all hell.

He just watched as I wandered around, and I stopped near the window. There was a record player that looked old but probably wasn’t. There was a telescope in the window, not a big one but one that would do the job, positioned between curtains made to look like water. I noticed the little figurines of sea life and a small, empty fountain on the desk, and thought of the woman who’d taken in a battered teenager and tried to give him a good life with nice things even though her funds were limited. “Your mom is amazing,” I commented.

He smiled. “I know.”

We had Chinese takeout for dinner that night, since his mom was still preparing things for Thanksgiving the next day and the kitchen was a mess. We helped with some of the prepping, and with making desserts we got scolded for tasting. We all had wine in the living room after we ate, the TV on but mostly ignored as we talked.

Jamie was snuggled up to me on the couch, my arm around him. We talked mostly about school and Tara’s job, but there were some tales of Jamie’s youth thrown in for my sake. Most of them had him yelling at Tara to shut up, like when she told me about the time they’d been walking into the school and he was staring at a guy he had a crush on, and proceeded to run right into a metal pole that made a loud, echoing clang everyone around him noticed. He’d sported a bright red welt on his forehead the entire day.

I laughed along with them, and I felt more at home there than anywhere I ever had other than my actual childhood home. We all went to bed at the same time, and it was pretty late. I heard his mom and sister close their own doors across the hall from his room as Jamie closed ours. He turned the light off, but the streetlamp shining through the curtains left the room fairly well-lit. We took off our shirts and climbed into the makeshift full-sized bed, but we weren’t there for long before he gave me a kiss and whispered, “Thank you for coming home with me. It means a lot.”

“I was happy to, baby,” I whispered. I kissed him back. This soon led to us groping each other as the kiss grew more heated, and in our enthusiasm realizing just how squeaky both twin beds were. I backed off, because I didn’t want to face his mom the next day after keeping her up half the night with our noisy sex, but he wasn’t having it. We were both wearing nothing more than shorts, and it was quite obvious that neither of us really wanted to stop.

“I can be quiet,” he practically whined, even though we both knew that was an absolute lie. He didn’t care, though, and I guess I didn’t, either, because I let him pull my shorts off. He climbed out of bed and got rid of his own, rummaging in the backpack for a minute before standing up triumphantly, because of course lube was an absolute necessity in a small bag for two people on a trip to his mom’s house for Thanksgiving. I laughed at how absurd it was, and yet how grateful I was that he had it.

He climbed back into the bed, and I tried to ignore the squeak as he did so, telling myself it wasn’t that loud. He started kissing me, and his kisses gradually grew sloppy and uncoordinated. It wasn’t until the third little moan into my mouth that I realized his hand was behind him and he was opening himself up as we made out. When I finally caught up to my surroundings, my already-hard dick gave a little jump. He was obviously in a hurry to get to the main event.

I started to sit up, but he pushed me back down, onto my back on the bed. It creaked below us as he swung a leg over me, straddling my hips and looking down at me with lust-filled eyes. He reached a lube covered hand back and stroked my cock a few times, lubing it up while making me whimper. He grabbed the base and lifted himself up, lining up while never breaking eye contact with me.

I bit my lip to keep quiet and his eyes closed as he sunk down slowly and stayed there for a minute, waiting for his body to adjust. He probably hadn’t prepped himself as thoroughly as he should have but his eagerness was hot. He finally opened his eyes and gazed down at me, the look on his face mirroring how I felt. There was more than lust there, and more than like. I didn’t have the words for the way I was feeling, but I was pretty sure I’d never been so happy.

Jamie started rocking his hips slowly, letting out a little, “Mmm,” as he did so. I put my hands on his legs, near his hips, rubbing gently and hoping that the touch would convey my feelings, the ones that wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I wanted him to know just how much I cared. And he must have felt it, because his dick responded to my touch.

He fell forward, hands landing on my shoulders as he leaned over me, moving up and down my dick slowly. Whimpers fell from his lips as he managed to hit his sweet spot every time. He was still looking down into my eyes, and god, how was it so much more intense than all the other times we’d done it? There were unspoken words hanging between us, words that wouldn’t even form completely in my brain, but I needed more of him. I needed all of him, every part. Body, mind, and soul.

---