“You must be wiped out. Do you want to talk about it? We should go inside.” He stood and held out his hand. “It’s been a long evening, and I want to be alone with you.”
Chess reached for him at the same moment footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Spencer came into view. His lips were reddened, and even in the moonlight, the flush over his cheekbones was obvious. Holding his shoes in one hand, he stopped short on the top step, his glittering eyes growing wary.
“Hey. What’re you two doing out here?”
“Same thing you are. Enjoying the evening.” With his hand in André’s, Chess stood. “Enjoy your walk on the beach?”
Spencer nodded. “It was nice.”
“Meet anyone?” He couldn’t help it, and from how quickly Spencer’s smile faded, Chess knew he’d hit a nerve.
“What do you mean?”
Oh, Spencer, you’ll have to do better than that.
“You know, when you see another person and say hello to them?”
“A comedian you’ll never be, Chess. And no. I didn’t meet anyone.”
André squeezed his hand. “We’re going inside for the night. Why don’t you sit and enjoy the firepit?”
“I might. I don’t get a chance to sit outside too often.”
“Are you okay?”
Spencer blinked and smiled. “Of course. Now go to bed.”
If he’d learned anything in their years of friendship it was that if Spencer didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t. “Night, Spence.” He gave a tug to André’s arm, and they left Spencer staring into the flames.
The house lay silent as they made their way to their bedroom. Once inside, they removed their clothes, and without speaking, Chess went to the shower stall and turned on the taps. André got in behind him, and they spent quiet moments washing each other, stoking the flames of need and desire.
Afterward, they lay in bed, holding each other, Chess almost purring with satisfaction when André stroked his naked back. “You always have a way of calming me whenever I’m stressed. Just your touch.”
“But you’re still feeling stressed. Is that from what happened earlier? You want to talk about it?”
He rolled away from André to stare at the ceiling. “You can’t even know…the absolute blackness that swallowed me up, leading to doing what I did. I never wanted to be that person.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“Losing my mother…” He stopped, choking on the words. André remained silent but shifted lower to kiss his bare shoulder.
“Tell me about her.”
“I remember she loved taking me to the park. It was right across the street from us. I used to think I was the luckiest kid in the world to have that as my playground. She’d push me on the swings for hours, or color with me. On the weekends we’d make popcorn and watch movies. She made the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Embarrassed at the tears rolling from the corners of his eyes, he brushed them off his cheeks impatiently.
“She sounds like she loved you very much.”
“I thought so.” He remembered her laughter and her hugs… “None of what happened to her was her fault.”
“You said she was injured?” André rubbed his shoulder. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
He settled into the crook of André’s neck, the comforting warmth and scent of his skin a panacea for all the hurt bubbling under his skin.
“I don’t know much since I was only thirteen at the time, but she was drunk and slipped on the ice, injuring her back and knee badly. I remember hearing her cry from the pain. They prescribed muscle relaxants and pain killers for her.”
“And she became addicted?”
He closed his eyes, recollecting his mother stumbling through the kitchen, looking for more pills when the ones she’d taken had worn off.
