Page 56 of Part & Parcel

They sat and listened to the music, and Nick soon recognized it as a salsa song from the late ’90s. It had been one of Eli’s favorites.

He clambered out of bed and searched through his jeans pockets for his phone, and when he found it, sure enough, it was blasting a song from the Pandora app they’d been running in the car.

“I thought Pandora required service and stuff,” Kelly said, giving Nick’s phone a wary look.

“It does. Looks like I picked up the network again. I must have left it running when we lost service in the car.”

They stared at each other, and at the phone. Nick opened up the Pandora app, silencing it. He closed out the app to make sure it wouldn’t malfunction again, then put his phone on silent so they’d be assured of no more shocks.

“That was super weird,” Kelly finally blurted.

Nick nodded, still frowning at his phone.

“Sounded like the kind of stuff Sanchez listened to,” Kelly added.

Nick hummed. “Interesting timing, too.”

“Does that mean no rule-breaking?” Kelly asked, shoulders slumping.

Nick nodded furtively. “He told me he’d haunt my Irish ass.”

“Motherfucking Sanchez!” Kelly rolled his eyes and flopped onto his back.

Nick laughed, albeit uncomfortably, and then he set the phone aside and turned out all the lights, crawling in next to Kelly. He felt guilty, but he wasn’t sure if it was coming from his adherence to the rules andnotfucking his boyfriend like they both so obviously wanted, or from the fact that he’d almost broken those rules less than twenty-four hours into the trip. The phone going off and the music choice from Pandora were a little spooky to him, too. Spooky enough that the hard-on Kelly had coaxed out of him was long gone.

It was for the best, really. He pulled Kelly close and they wrapped around each other, fitting together so well after so many months of being able to spend every night together. It didn’t take too many minutes of Kelly’s breath on Nick’s neck, of Kelly’s warm, lithe body against his to have him responding again. He groaned quietly, frustrated.

“Me too,” Kelly whispered. He kissed Nick’s collarbone, his cock growing harder against Nick’s hip.

“Fuck,” Nick growled. Kelly raised his head and Nick kissed him, rocking their hips together. “Why’d we think we could do this for a week?”

Kelly tossed his leg over Nick’s hip and dove his fingers into Nick’s hair, moaning into the kiss.

The music began again, blasting from Nick’s phone, which was now even closer to them since he’d stuffed it under his pillow like he always did.

Kelly’s hand tightened when he jumped, yanking Nick’s hair and causing him to yelp.

“Fuck, I thought you turned it off,” Kelly hissed.

“I did!”

“Fuck this,” Kelly said, and he pushed Nick to his back and rolled, stretching across him to grab Nick’s phone. Nick watched his face in the light of the screen as he did whatever he thought would keep the phone silent. Then he scowled as he turned it over to look at the buttons on the side and, Nick assumed, found that it was already on silent. He pushed the button that manually turned the volume down, then set it on the table carefully. “Okay, we’re being haunted then.”

Nick nodded.

“So. We can’t fuck, because Sanchez is obviously watching us like a transparent creeper. And you and I both know we can’t sleep in the same bed without . . . I mean . . . we’d probably fuck and not even be awake for it, it’s just what we do.”

Nick nodded again.

“Solutions?” Kelly demanded as he pushed himself up to sit. “I mean, I think maybe we need to not touch like we usually do. It’s going to be torture if we keep petting each other but can’t fuck.”

“Okay,” Nick said with a slow nod, even though the thought of not even being able to touch Kelly for the next week was almost physically painful. He found himself rubbing at the scar on his side, trying to make the throbbing stop. “If you think it’ll be easier.”

“I do. And you know what I think we need to do at night? If we’re going to be celibate?”

“We . . . don’t share a bed?” Nick winced as he said it.

Kelly’s shoulders slumped. “It’s just for six nights, right? We can do that. We’ll just get double beds from here on out, sleep alone.”

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