Page 132 of Finance Bros

He’s exposed—cock and balls, his goddamn nipples in my face. I wish he’d grabbed the lube on his way over. My own cock is thick and heavy, wanting out of my pants. I want to fuck himlike this. Facing him. Kissing him. Looking into his eyes. Thinking about that, I wrap a hand around his neck and pull him down for a kiss.

He humors me a moment, licking a hot wet trail through my mouth before shaking his head slightly and pulling away. “I love you,” he says, gaze locked on mine like he’s daring me.

I nod.

“What do you have to say about it?” he asks.

“I believe you?”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah, you’ve said it like twenty times. I believe you love me.”

“So the tables have turned, I guess.”

I frown. “Meaning?”

“Meaning only one of us knows how the other person really feels again,” he says.

Does he think I’ve changedthatmuch? That I would let him anywhere near me if I didn’t love him fundamentally? The trick here though is that he doesn’t just love me. He thinks he’sin lovewith me. It’s hard to believe this is actually happening. Having sex with him is easier to wrap my mind around than us being in love with each other.

I always sort of thought—if he ever forgave me for what I said, and he accepted my love—that we wouldn’t have to have a physical relationship. Not any more than holding each other and maybe sharing a bed at night.

I imagined it monogamous and intimate, but not necessarily sexual, not if that was a bridge too far for him. I could have lived without it. After all, when you fall in love with someone at thirteen, believe it or not, sex is not the primary motivator. Just affection. Being close. I wanted to be his partner. The only one he ever touched the way he used to touch me. I wanted him all to myself.

It sounds stupid now with my dick straining to get to him—wanting him so much it stretches credulity. “I love you, too,” I tell him, which isn’t a lie.

His mouth twists at my tone. Granted, my delivery was a little flat. “You do, huh?”

“You want me to think about it?” I ask.

He sighs, wilting. “Not really. You’ll just start remembering all the reasons you have to hate me.”

I reject that. “No. I know you’re sorry. Dumb kids do dumb shit, right?”

“It’d be very generous of you to let me off the hook on that logic,” he says.

I counter with, “I mean, it’s obvious I don’t disgust you anymore.”

“Never,” he says. “You fucked with me, but you never disgusted me.”

“You had a lot of people convinced I did,” I remind him.

“I almost had myself convinced, too,” he says as he runs a hand through the hair above my ear. “Almost.”

“And then I showed up with an eight pack?”

He puts his other hand there, on my abs. “I’m not sure I’mthatshallow.”

“But you missed me?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“And you forgive me.”

“Fuck,yes. Of course I forgive you. I was the one who shit all over what we had. You didn’t do anything wrong, Ryan. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. You still are. So, amIforgiven?”

Wow. “A hundred percent,” I tell him, meaning it.

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