Page 78 of After the Siren
Jake ran his palms down Stavs’ bare chest. Stavs sighed, his hands settling on Jake’s thighs.
‘Well?’ Jake asked. ‘How’s your mood now?’
‘Might have changed a bit.’
It turned out Stavs wasn’t very good at giving orders in bed. He couldn’t get through, ‘Suck my dick, pretty boy,’ without starting to laugh. It was nice to see him laughing, though, so Jake sucked his dick anyway. Lazily this time, because they’d done it hard and fast earlier, and he liked the way Stavs gasped when he slowed it down. Liked the way he tried to keep quiet and couldn’t.
At some point, Jake was going to raise the subject of fingering, and then he was going to have a good time making Stavs get louder.
Once he’d taken a moment, Stavs rolled them over and kissed his way purposefully down Jake’s body. Stavs was a quick learner. Good attention to detail. He liked it when Jake got two hands in his hair, not pushing him down or pulling it, just gentle pressure against his scalp. He liked it when Jake talked to him, too, even though Jake had never been any good at talking dirty. He didn’t even try these days, just saidyesandfuckand variations onso good.
This time Stavs didn’t pass out immediately after; he flopped back against the pillows and let Jake tuck his head against his chest.
‘Hey,’ Jake said, tracing a finger over one of Stavs’ pecs. ‘I’m going home for the bye weekend. Wanna come? Paddy and Xen are in.’
Stavs blinked at him. ‘What, to meet your mum?’
Jake pushed himself up onto his elbow. Stavs was looking up at him. ‘Well, yeah, my mum will be there, but that’s not the point. The point is the beach. We’ll teach you to surf.’
‘It’sJune.’
‘Wetsuits, bro,’ Jake said. ‘No stress if you’ve got shit on here. It’ll be fun, though.’ It occurred to him, too late, that Stavs might read too much into the invitation. ‘Paddy, Xen and I usually go down for a few days when we can.’
Jake was pretty sure Stavs was going to refuse. He didn’t know why the thought made something in the vicinity of his stomach sink.
‘Sure,’ Stavs said instead. ‘Sounds great.’
Theo walked across the foyer feeling sick with dread. Was it too late to bail? Probably. The tug towards sayingsorry, family stuffhad been growing stronger every minute since he’d started packing an overnight bag.
They’d been hooking up for four weeks, and despite Priya’s scepticism, he thought he was doing pretty well at the casual-sex thing. He mainly just followed Jake’s lead. Jake had an uncanny ability to switch fromwe’re bros watching this gametoI’m going to make you come so hard you see God.Theo had decided he just needed to roll with it.
There was a corner of his brain that insisted that whatever version ofcasualthey were doing looked a lot likecouple, butit wasn’t like that. Having a toothbrush at Jake’s place was just practical, and he hadn’taskedXen to add him to the house group chat used for messages likecoffee?,where the fuck is the remote?andsome of us are trying to sleep.
(Hetriedto be quiet, he really did, but sometimes Jake didn’t. Or sometimes Jake triedreallyhard, and that was the problem.)
Eva had asked a couple of times whether he was seeing someone. She hadn’t looked very convinced by his ‘Sometimes it’s easier to crash with the boys.’
His thoughts snagged, every now and again, on the conversation they’d had the afternoon Jake had shown him the messages he’d been getting. Jake would come out. Theo wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he did. Something in the way Jake had looked when he’d talked about it. Jake would come out, and then he could date whoever he wanted. And it wasn’t as though he was going to have any trouble finding people to date. He’d be fending them off.
Theo knew Jake liked him – he didn’t doubt they were really friends – and there was no doubt Jake was attracted to him. But the fact of the matter was that, at the moment, Jake didn’t have many options. What they were doing made sense. It was ridiculous for Theo to experience pangs of jealousy about the idea of Jake coming out, because it wasn’t as though Theo had suggested they make things official.
It had been very easy to say yes to Jake’s suggestion they spend the bye weekend together on Phillip Island, because it was easy to say yes to everything Jake suggested, especially in bed. He regretted it now. It felt ... it felt like too much. That was probably stupid. Paddy and Xen would be there, and apparently Jake’s friend Keeley would be around, but it was still ameeting of the parents.Theo was typically good with parents, but he’d never met the parents of his friend-with-benefits before. If that was the right term.
All the small logistical things had combined into a rolling snowball of anxiety: where he’d be sleeping, how to behave with Jake, how much privacy they’d have, whether Jake’s mum and Lydia knew he was a vegetarian. And, yes, he should just ask Jake these questions, but he didn’t want Jake to see how caught up he got on little things. Having a panic attack was one thing, but admitting that he couldn’t stop thinking about the minute details of what was supposed to be a chilled-out weekend was different.
He wished he could flick an off switch on parts of his brain. Things were better, most days. The meds helped, Jenny helped, and a lot of the time the anxiety was a background hum rather than a roar.
Most days.
Some days just sucked, and no matter how many times he told himselfthey’re just thoughts, he couldn’t make his nervous system agree. There was no rhyme or reason to it. He could have a great game and then wake up the next day with a disjointed sense of unease.
He could still bail. It wasn’t as if Jake would have to go alone; Paddy and Xen would be there. They were taking a separate car, because apparently two cars were necessary.
He pushed open the door to the gym and froze.
Jake had gotten into the habit of working out at the same time as Gabby, Dex and Drips once or twice a week. Theo didn’t recognise the song that was playing, but Jake was dancing with Gabby next to the weight racks, both of them laughing, while Dex cackled and tried to hold their phone steady to capture it on camera. Drips was egging them both on. Gabby sat down on a weight bench and beckoned Jake closer. Jake stepped in between her thighs and stole her baseball cap, putting it on backwards.
If he’d been asked, Theo would have guessed that Jakecouldn’tslut drop. He would have been wrong.
