Page 81 of Diamond Ring
Alex’s knuckle brushes against his cheek, almost tender, if not for the rough skin there, and he’s looking at him like a revelation and—
“Fuck.” Jake comes like that, shuddering through it, a mess on his belly and the bedding, pleasure quickly turning to embarrassment. He breathes through the aftershocks, then lets out a long, deflating sigh before collapsing facedown onto the comforter, eyes squeezed shut. “This fucking sucks.”
“That wasn’t good?”
“It felt great.” Which it did, like being hit upside the head but pleasurable, better than Jake’s felt in months.
“Looked pretty good.” The faint pressure of Alex’s fingers on his back, an attempt at comfort that nevertheless rankles Jake’s nerves.
“You don’t have to do that. I know this is all...” A lot of words he doesn’t particularly want to say out loud. Because Jake can take a lot of stuff, but not pity. “It’s not exactly what I signed up for either.”
Alex presses down more firmly, fingers against the wing of Jake’s shoulder blade. “Who says I didn’t sign up for this?”
When Jake opens his eyes, blinking slightly in the dim hotel light, Alex is looking at him in question, a slight pinching of his eyebrows accompanied by another stroke of his hand down Jake’s back.
“You shouldn’t,” Jake says. Honest. Too honest. “I’m kind of a mess.”
“I can get you a washcloth.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Alex’s voice doesn’t shake, exactly, but there’s a threadiness to it that sounds distinctly un-Alex. A blink of a look toward one of the high corners of the ceiling. “I’m trying to respect that you wanted this to be casual. But I missed you. For the past ten years, give or take.” A flex of his hand against the comforter. “If you still want to fuck, we can.”
Like that’s all there is to it. “I don’t know if I’m good at casual,” Jake says. Not with the stutter of his heart in his chest.
“Okay.” Alex gets up and begins scouring the floor for his shed clothing, leaving Jake to scramble after him.
“Alex. Stop.” Jake tries to put all the authority he can muster into that, enough that Alex looks up from the process of unwadding his shirt. “This goes both ways. Don’t let me think everything’s good when it isn’t.”
“It’s been a long week.”
Jake replays it from Alex’s perspective: gripping Jake’s hand in his on the plane, talking Jake through throwing in the park, eating next to each other, Alex depositing a few bites of his dinner on Jake’s plate so that he could try it without being asked. Jake, texting him, asking him to come over. Because of course, Alex would.
And he wanted Alex to justtell himwhat was going on, but he has been, for days, for weeks, in that particular language Jake used to be better at hearing, especially knowing how people mistake Alex’s toughness for invulnerability. “Hey, c’mere.”
That gets Alex’s attention. He releases his shirt, letting it drop to the floor.
It occurs to Jake they haven’t kissed since Alex came into his room, something he wants to fix. He gathers himself and walks to where Alex is still standing, adrift on the carpet. Like he might pull on his clothes after all. Disappear up the hallway to his room, leaving Jake, the way he does when he’s hurt.
Jake’s hands fit over Alex’s shoulders. Touches Alex leans into, minutely.
“I missed you too,” Jake says. “I spent ten years trying to get back what we had. Even now, nothing feels certain.” Except for the barreled strength in Alex’s chest and stomach, the way his breathing picks up. “I’ve been telling myself that it’s easier to have one foot out the door in case I have to leave. But I should have told you that.”
A fraction of a nod. An inhale, and Jake steps closer, into the heat coming off him, to the familiar solidity of his chest now bearing scars he’s accumulated in their decade apart.
“I don’t think I’m good at casual,” Jake says again. This time Alex doesn’t mistake his meaning, leaning into Jake’s palm at his cheek. A kiss, a cautious press of their mouths, then Alex’s arms around him.
A kiss that goes on for a while, deepening, slow, but with an edge of teeth, the bite of Alex’s fingers pressing into his back. That hot-all-over feeling returns, the one Jake’s had since the restaurant, and the park, and the plane. Since he encountered Alex in players’ lot at the beginning of the season. Since the first time Alex stormed into the Oakland clubhouse, his shoulders squared up, like he was gonna leave only if they dragged him out.
With it, the more immediate issue of Jake’s come drying on his skin. He pulls back, glancing down at his own increasingly uncomfortable stomach. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I kinda need to rinse off.”
Alex smiles. “You want company?”
The hotel shower is modestly sized, especially when Alex crowds him against the wall, kissing him, Jake’s back against the cold tiles.
“I want to blow you,” Alex says after Jake’s soaped and rinsed himself off.
“I don’t know if I can get hard again.”
