Page 130 of College Town

Tommy kisses him sweet, and slow, and surprisingly chaste, gentle presses while he rests chest to chest on top of him and uses both hands to trace delicate patterns on Lawson’s face and neck. He strokes his hair, and traces the outer shells of his ears, and scrapes his thumbs the wrong way through his buzzed-close sideburns.

Lawson can’t remember the last time someone was so careful with him. Tommy never was, and any time a hookup showed a tendency toward softness, Lawson either left or changed things up.

It feels…worshipful. Like Tommy’s trying to tell him something with his trailing fingertips, and his slow, clinging kisses. Lawson knows what message he’s sending, and he wants to receive more than he’s ever wanted anything. He lets himself. For a little while. Lies still with his hands anchored on the small of Tommy’s back and lets his mouth go pliant and responsive as Tommy kisses him, and kisses him, and hums quietly against his lips. When Tommy lifts his head, his eyes are half-lidded, and so, so tender, naked in their longing and affection, and it’s too much.

It's always been too much, even before Tommy left, even before the heartbreak. He’s always thought of Tommy being pushy, and bratty, and prickly with him…but he has a revelation, now, staring up at his kiss-warmed face. Memories cascade, one after the next, a whole waterfall of them: times when Tommy would go malleable, and yielding, and sweet under his hands, and his mouth. Quiet little murmurs, whispered endearments. Pleading stretches of his neck, and needy, grabbing hands; ankles hooked together behind his back and all those prettypleases. And every time, Lawson would nip at his lip, or swallow his cock, or thrust extra hard; pin his wrists by his head or say something he knew would get Tommy all flushed and pretend-angry. He would tickle him, or tease him, or rile him up; he would bury his face in Tommy’s throat while he fucked him, so he didn’t have to see the raw love shining out of his eyes.

Because how could Lawson be the object of such a feeling? His parents love him because they made him, birthed him, raised him. He knows they love him, and not just because they have to, but theydohave to.

Tommy chose him. When they were thirteen, and fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen, and seventeen, and thirty-seven, Tommy looked at him with wonder, still does, and Lawson can’t…

Warm thumbs smooth over his cheeks and temples and pull away shiny with tears he didn’t know he was shedding.

“What?” Tommy asks, hushed and searching.

I love you. I love you, I love you, and I don’t know how I’m going to let go this time. You might have to kill me.

In answer, Lawson closes his arms tight around him, cups the back of his head, and rolls them so he’s on top. He bangs his shoulder against the wall because the bed’s not big enough for that, but Tommy’s safe in the cage of his arms, so it’s fine.

Tommy’s legs fall open as if on instinct, so Lawson’s hips can settle between them, and his hands are still on Lawson’s face, steadying and warm and encouraging.

“You’ll have to be quiet,” Lawson says, right before he kisses him. “You can’t let my parents hear anything.”

Tommy nods, and tugs him down.

~*~

Lawson dreams of soft things. Pillows, quilts, clouds. He dreams that he’s drifting slowly down through an endless sky, the clouds stacking up to slow his descent further, cottony tatters through his fingers when he tries to grab hold of them.

He stirs, and cracks his eyes open, and his shitty old mattress is definitely not made of clouds. He also definitely forgot to turn the lamp off before they crashed.

He pushes up on an elbow to do it, blinking against the gummy way his contacts have glued themselves to his eyeballs, and notices that he’s alone in bed.

He sits the rest of the way up, shivering when the covers fall down around his waist and the cool air touches bare skin. He blinks some more, and sees that Tommy’s sitting at the desk. Lawson’s laptop is open, and Tommy’s pitched forward in his seat, reading off the screen.

Lawson checks the clock. It’s three a.m.

“Uh…” he says, voice scratchy from sleep, and Tommy whips around so fast in the chair he almost falls out of it. “That’s password protected.” He’s not angry – not really, not all fucked out, and tired, and after Tommy was so meltingly sweet to him before. But still.Rude.

Tommy recovers, and has the decency to look guilty. A little bit. He flicks the orange Post-It note on Lawson’s corkboard with the back of a fingernail. “You have all your passwords written down right here.”

“Well. Shit.”

“I found the space opera,” Tommy says, and turns back to the computer.

Just like that.

He’s going to keep reading!

Lawson heaves a sigh and then heaves himself out of bed and across the room. He leans down and folds his arms across the back of the chair. This close, he can smell sex and dried sweat on Tommy, and his own detergent from the sheets. Tommy’s wearing Lawson’s shirt, which hangs off of him and threatens to slip off his left shoulder. Lawson tugs it back into place and scratches his hand into the hair at the back of Tommy’s head.

Tommy hums and leans back into the touch, tapping the touchpad with his right index finger to make the page scroll up.

Lawson squints and recognizes the scene he’s on: the main characters – the six adult friends, three couples – have just awakened inside the alien spacecraft that abducted them. “Oh,” he says, “this is when things start to get good.”

“Shh,” Tommy shushes him, and tilts his head to encourage Lawson to scratch in a different spot on his scalp while he keeps reading.

As his vision clears, Lawson finds himself reading along, too, over his shoulder. They always used to read at a similar rate, and it appears they still do.

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