Page 20 of Another Chance
“Eric, come on, I’m not sleeping in that room,” Theo protested, and then he felt Eric’s hands on his shoulders, warm and strong but surprisingly gentle. He was spun around but caught and held by the bright pressure of Eric’s eyes seizing his own, and the look of worry on Eric’s face.
“Look, man, no one should live here. It’s a mess. You look like crap with all the shit in the air that you’re breathing. But maybe you don’t care about that.” Eric reached out and offered Jupiter, who was still, remarkably, sitting contentedly in Theo’s arms, his fingers, which the kitten deigned to sniff. “I’m willing to bet that you aren’t willing to let him live here, though.”
Theo stared at Eric for a long time, trying to break through the determination he saw, like a brick wall, behind Eric’s eyes. But there was no way. Eric could out-stubborn pretty much anyone else in the world, and the truth was, Theo didn’t even want to resist. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped as he realized that the man was right, and there was nothing he could really do about that.
“I’ll get my stuff,” Theo said quietly, and whatever he had tried to say to Eric, however much he’d tried to convince himself that he would be okay on his own, he had to admit that it was a relief to pull shut the front door behind him, Jupiter safely in his arms.
It took only a few seconds for Jupiter to get settled, and the little cat seemed to be almost euphoric, beyond pleased to get out of the house. It might have irritated Theo, seeing that Eric was right, if not for how adorable Jupiter was as he ran around, pouncing on everything that moved, from their shoelaces to specks of dust which seemed to have personally attacked him.
A long, blissful shower followed, because there had been no water at his house, and Theo groaned as the hot, steamy water washed away what felt like layers and layers of mold spores and dust and grime. As the gray water swirled away down the gleaming silver drain, Theo started to feel nearly human again.
He grabbed the soap and made quick work of the rest of the dirt, but as his fingers caressed his cock while he cleaned himself, he let out a soft, almost soundless, whimper. He swelled up immediately, half erect in seconds, and as he closed his eyes, he could almost swear that he saw Eric, crouched at his feet in the bottom of the tub, his former friend’s fingers touching him, running over him, just as Theo was doing to himself.
“Fuck,” Theo whispered, and before he could stop himself, he was gripping the thickening length of his dick, his thumb rubbing over the head as he felt it grow rigid under the embrace. He was not thinking of Eric as he jerked off. He was not.
Only he was, and it felt good, damn good, better than any other time that he had touched himself. It felt good to imagine those glistening eyes, wide and round, looking up at him, those beautiful full pink lips parting and a clever, sweet tongue coming out to lick at the leaking head …
Out of nowhere, it seemed, the pleasure ripped through him. One second, he was telling himself that he would stop jerking himself off any second, that he could stop, and was going to stop, and just one more stroke … and then the next, his body was arching and a surprised grunt was going through him as his cock twitched and spurted out fresh cum into the spray of hot water.
God, he was such a bad person. How was he supposed to look at Eric the same way now? The guy took him in, seemed like he might even forgive him after what Theo did to him, and this was how he repaid him?
At least Eric would never know. At least, if nothing else, he could keep what had just happened a secret. Or so he thought, until he pushed aside the shower curtain, and saw that Eric was standing right there, staring, and Theo realized that the shower curtain was not exactly opaque. It was, in fact, sheer enough that what he’d been doing in the shower must have been more than clear.
“I … I brought you a towel,” Eric commented, and Theo could tell, by the way that the man was looking at him, that he had seen everything. Desperately, Theo tried to think back. Had he said something? Anything which could make Eric realize that it was because of him that Theo had been touching himself and coming so damn hard?
Theo accepted the thick, fluffy green towel which Eric had proffered to him, and he wrapped it around his waist, very aware that his cock was still plumped up quite a bit, that he’d hardly had a chance to soften.
“Thanks,” Theo whispered, and he wanted to step out of the shower onto the bathmat, but the bathroom just wasn’t very big, and if he did, he would be very close to Eric, who didn’t seem to have any interest in leaving at all.
For a long, long moment, their eyes met and held, their gazes mingling in a way Theo had never felt before. He’d flirted before. He’d had sex, with women, anyway, and he’d done sexual things with men. He wasn’t inexperienced, not completely, but he’d never felt this sort of heat, this sort of tension.
It was visible in the air between them, almost, tangling with the puffs of water vapor from the shower. There was lust there, and all of the emotion of a lifetime, minus eight years, of friendship, and there was the knowledge of that eight years which they’d spent apart.
Theo could barely breathe, but his mind was racing. It was his fault that they’d missed out on those eight years. He could blame his father, but he’d had the chance to stay, and he’d let his fear get in the way. And for what? He hadn’t ended up being straight, anyway. His sexuality hadn’t been something that he could control, and he’d tried, but it had been completely futile.
He had ruined this thing between him and Eric, and if anyone was going to fix it, it was going to have to be him, as well. So he took a deep breath, and he made his choice. He stepped out of the shower, careful of the high lip of the tub, and stood on the mat in the warm, moist air, his body so close to Eric’s, vulnerable and almost naked.
Maybe Eric would laugh in his face, push him away. Let it happen, if it was going to happen. Theo couldn’t deny that Eric deserved the chance to do it. He’d ruined this, and now he was going to do his best to fix it.
Everything else swirled away, like water down the drain, water under the bridge. The girl Eric had been with, who had been in the back of Theo’s mind since he’d seen them together. Liam. The fact that Theo wasn’t even going to be staying here for long. All of it, it didn’t matter at that moment, though it surely would later.
Theo leaned in and, with his heart pulsing so hard that he thought it must inevitably burst, with his stomach home to what felt like a rabid hummingbird, he cupped Eric’s face with his damp fingers and leaned in.
He gave him time. He let his intentions be known long before his lips touched Eric’s. Nice and slow and easy, his body keeping as much of a distance as it could, in this limited space, Theo’s lips caressed over Eric’s, just lightly, and just for a second.
The first time they’d kissed, Theo had felt tingles, shocks of pleasure, of pressure, through every part of his body. But it had been over so quickly, and he’d been so afraid, that he had convinced himself for a long time that they hadn’t really been there. They hadn’t been, those delicious shivers, when Theo had kissed anyone else, man or woman, and part of him had thought that he must have imagined them. Or that they were the sort of thing you could only feel when you were eighteen years old and half in love with your best friend.
He hadn’t been imagining it.
The kiss lasted a second, maybe two, little more than a brush of their lips together, almost in greeting. In that incredibly brief time, Theo knew that he hadn’t been imagining anything eight years ago. If anything, those little shivers, those tingles, those shocks of pure delight, were stronger than ever.
This time, he wasn’t even afraid.
