Page 78 of Our Own Light

Ollie caught his mouth in a kiss.

Once they had both stripped down to their last layers of clothing, which posed a challenge since they were both soaking wet, Floyd hopped onto the bed and pulled Ollie on top of him, wetting the sheets, too. As soon as he raked a hand through Ollie’s still-wet hair, his cock started to stiffen, and it wasn’t long before they were lost in their pleasure, with Ollie thrusting his hips on top of him. Floyd liked seeing Ollie take what he wanted, pleasure-wise. Not that Ollie was selfish in that way, but it sparked a unique kind of passion inside of him to see Ollie be so confident and comfortable. Floyd had the thought that Ollie was probably hungry—hungry for love and acceptance and all the rest of the things it seemed he had never received—and if Ollie needed to focus on himself and his pleasure, Floyd was plenty fine with it. Ollie could take whatever he needed from him.

Typically, this meant that Ollie came first, and then Floyd either pleasured himself or, more often, Ollie touched him and helped him come, too. Floyd could sense that Ollie still wanted more. But Floyd couldn’t make himself ready for more just yet.

When they were both spent, Floyd wrapped Ollie up in his arms and let Ollie rest his head on his chest.

“Thank you for helping me earlier,” Ollie said, his voice soft. “It was nice of you to kill the worm so I wouldn’t have to.”

“Yeah, I’m a real nice worm killer, huh?”

Ollie poked his side. “Shhh . . .”

Floyd poked him back, which made Ollie squirm. He seemed not to appreciate that too much, which made Floyd start to poke him some more to be funny.

“Stop, stop, sweetheart,” Ollie choked out as Floyd continued poking. “Please.”

Floyd stopped, though he had to resist the urge for one more poke.

“Really, I wanted to make sure you knew that I appreciate all the ways you care for me,” Ollie said.

Floyd smoothed back Ollie’s hair and kissed his forehead.

“I been thinking ’bout something,” Floyd said, and Ollie looked up at him. “I remember you said that you left New York for silly reasons, but you never told me more than that. What were them silly reasons? I bet you I wouldn’t even think they were silly.”

“Just that my family wasn’t very nice to me. Not that they were especially rough with me or anything, but they weren’t very loving. I think they thought I was a nuisance. I’m sure I was in some ways. I’m fairly certain that they only put up with me because they couldn’t have other children and, well, they wanted someone to take over for my father eventually, so...” Ollie shrugged. “So, they kept me alive and educated me and made sure I knew how to look presentable. But they never really cared for me, sweetheart. Ugh, it sounds so childish to me now.”

“No, I think I understand.”

“I feel silly because... because I left home and cut these people out of my life for not loving me the way I wanted to be loved, which...” Ollie climbed up to settle on Floyd’s chest. “Which sounds so pathetic. You and Effie have real stories with real hardships. Both of you had real reasons for leaving your old lives behind. Big, important, impactful, meaningful reasons. Mine seem so... small.”

Floyd hugged Ollie closer as sadness clutched at his heart. It hurt to hear Ollie talking about his pain that way, making it smaller. Because it seemed like Ollie wasn’t hurt in one big way, but in a lot of little ways. Even though paper cuts were small, cuts like those could still hurt plenty, especially if a person had a whole bunch of them. He hoped he could make Ollie see it that way.

Floyd kissed Ollie’s head and said, “Remember when you were a breaker boy for a little while?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, remember how you had a whole ton of cuts from the slate and the rocks and such?”

“Yeah?”

“I reckon your life has kind of been like that. Even if you weren’t never hurt in one big way, like someone crushing your foot with a whole heap of coal, it sounds like you were hurt in a lot of little ways, like when the pieces of sharp slate leave a bunch of little nicks in your skin. I can imagine how having enough of those kinds of cuts could hurt you so bad that it’d make you feel like you need to leave that life behind.” Floyd caressed Ollie’s back with his fingertips. “Ain’t nothing wrong with wanting to stop the hurt, Ollie.”

Ollie was silent for a moment, and Floyd started to feel worried that he might not have liked that comparison so much, but then Ollie looked up at him with tears in his eyes. For a few seconds, Floyd lay there waiting for those little pieces of sadness to tumble down his cheeks, but they stayed right where they were. Floyd felt a little tug on his heart, thinking that maybe Ollie still wanted to keep some of that pain inside.

But then Ollie said, “Thank you, sweetheart,” and the tears started to fall.

With a feather-light touch, Floyd wiped them away with his thumb, happy that he could take care of Ollie like this.

“You’re a real wonderful person, Ollie. I wish your parents had seen that.”

In response, Ollie pushed himself up on his elbow and captured Floyd’s mouth in another kiss, one that somehow had a lot of softness behind it, while still overflowing with urgency. Hooking a hand behind Ollie’s head, Floyd tried his best to match that liveliness, and the two of them kissed for a long, long time.

Later, when Ollie had fallen asleep, Floyd was still holding him close, thinking ’bout how perfect it was that the two of them were spending the whole night together. Burying his nose in Ollie’s hair, Floyd breathed in his scent and thought back to the way they had been physically close for hours and hours. Never before had Floyd ever kissed someone so long and so passionately. Not even Matt.

As soon as that troubling thought entered in Floyd’s head, the copperhead came back, writhing and twisting in his stomach, and Floyd had to squeeze his eyes closed to try to shut out the pain.

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