Max
It wasn’t likeI’d been sleeping well lately, so yesterday’s news had completely shot any chance of letting go andfinding somerest.
My favorite thing in the whole wide world was to feel Isaac buried inside me so deep I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began, so I’d near enough begged him to fuck me so I could escape all the noise in my head.
Halfway through our lovemaking, I’d changed from chasing the orgasm to fighting it. The more Isaac pushed my buttons, the more I pushed back. He touched, sucked, and licked every inch of my skin he could reach, all while moving in and out of me in a variation of slow and fast-paced thrusts.
When I finally let go, he swallowed my screams of pleasure with his mouth. I remember little after that, but since I couldn’t feel the evidence of my release, I assumed Isaac had made sure we were both clean before he came back to bed.
It was still dark when I woke up. Unusually, I was facing away from Isaac and he was wrapped around me. His breath was warm on the back of my neck and the pulse of his heart rate steady against my back.
I couldn’t remember how or when we’d fallen asleep, but somehow, we’d changed the dynamic. Maybe it was an unconscious move, or perhaps Isaac had decided I needed to be held tonight.
I reached to grab my phone. It was just after three in the morning. My mind was still deciding if it was late the night before or early the day after, so I unwrapped myself from Isaac and got up to get a glass of water.
The apartment was so silent it was deafening. Maybe if I listened carefully enough, I’d realize Lucy wasn’t across the hall in the spare room and that last night I didn’t really find out that not only had my dad cheated on my mom for years but he’d also brought home the child from his mistress after I wasn’t good enough to be his son just because I was gay.
There was no chance of that because when I walked to the kitchen via the living room, I noticed the small body curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace.
“Lucy?”
She stirred and then opened her eyes wide like a deer in headlights. She stood up like I had caught her doing something wrong.
“Why are you sleeping here?”
“I didn’t want to mess up your room.”
There wasn’t much light coming through the window, thanks to the heavy curtains, but there was enough thatI noticed she was holding her arms around her waist and looking down to the floor.
“It looked reallyneat and clean. I haven’t showered in a few days.” She looked embarrassed.
“There’s a bathroom attached to your room. Have a shower. There are towels in the closet. If you leave your clothes outside the door, I’ll get them in the wash and they’ll be all clean by the morning.”
“Oh no, that’s okay, I can wash my clothes. You don’t need to do that,” she said.
“Lucy, I’m awake now and won’t be able to get back to sleep. It’ll give me something to do, okay?”
She thought about it for a moment before agreeing with me and walking back toward the spare room.
I made myself a coffee and sat at the breakfast bar. Despite everything that had happened, when I was a teenager, I knew I’d been very lucky. I justhad to remember I was an adult now. What they did was in the past and I’d got over it. I had to focus on Lucy and figure out why she’d run away from home.
“You’re not on your own, you know?”
I looked up from my coffee to stare at the beautiful, rumpled face that was my safe harbor in this thunderstorm. He smiled and walkedto me. I turned so he could sit on my lap. He pulled my head to his chest and ran his fingers through my hair, making me feel better instantly.
There was silence for a moment until I heard a small cough.
Lucy was standing a few feet away, her long curly hair down and wet from her shower. She was holding her dirty clothes and wearing the bathrobe I had on the back of the bathroom door for when Joel came over. It made her look so small and vulnerable, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed.
“I’ll take care of these for you. Go get somesleep, yeah? Don’t worry about messing up the bedsheets.” I held out my hands to take the dirty laundry from her and winked. “Isaac is the best at making beds. If you make him cold chocolate milk in the morning, he’ll make your bed for you.”
“I heard that,” he said from the stool I’d been sitting on as he took a sip from my coffee.
She smiled and turned back toward the bedroom. “Thank you, Max. Thank you, Isaac. Goodnight.”
When we saw she’d closed her bedroom door, I refilled my coffee mug and got one out for Isaac.
“This is going to be a long day. I should call the hospital and take tomorrow off.”
