The self-tan thing was a bad decision, I admit it. A very, very bad decision. After the initial attempt turned outstreaky, I added more product to even things out. I ended up so orange that my teeth looked fluorescent.
“Okay,” I said when my eyes stopped watering, “Sweet Potato it is. What’s your potato name?”
His mouth twisted with indignation. “Who says I’m a potato?”
“If I’m a potato, you’re a potato.” I had him there. Even he couldn’t argue with that logic.
“I guess I’d be French Fry,” he said after giving the matter serious thought.
“Absolutely not.”
“Of course I’m French Fry! I’m long and skinny. What else would I be?”
“Baby Potato.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Tiger. I’m serious. Don’t you start. I know what you’re like. You give someone a random nickname and stick with it forever.”
“Um, excuse me? You’re literally the one who’s called me Tiger since the day you met me. That’selevenyears, Baby Potato.”
A soft rumble of laughter pealed out of him and the outline of him on the screen was so beautiful and so sexy that I checked to make sure only my face was on screen and then let my hand wander down my belly and under the waistband of my pajamas.
I didn’t stroke exactly. Not completely. I just held my dick in my hand and squeezed it every time he spoke. We talked more about potatoes. Romeo made another argument for French Fry, and after I shut that shit down for good, he said, “Okay, okay, I’m going. Night, Jude. Love you.”
I was about to hang up when he popped back into view. He had the same sweet, almost-innocent-but-not-quite look on his face that he always had when he said it.
“Show me?”
I quickly dragged my hand out of my pants and flipped the screen, aiming my camera at the window. It was opened a crack, like always.
It was getting late. Romeo was tired. His voice was smoother and even quieter than usual. “Aren’t the mosquitoes eating you alive?”
“Yeah, they fucking are.” I laughed.
“It’s ’cause you have sweet blood, Sweet Potato,” he said before hanging up.
My hand found its way back into my pants and my mind flicked through reams of memories of Romeo, and I plucked out one of my favorites.
It happened a couple of months before when I was home for Spring Break. Vacations in Alabaster had been different since we started college. Romeo had made newfriends, and they were around a lot. The dynamic was different from what it had been like when we were in school. These were friends he’d chosen on his own, not friends he’d inherited from me.
I didn’t mind it. I didn’t. I wanted him to have friends. I just noticed, that’s all. And it was just that with his new friends around so much, the two of us hadn’t been alone for a while and nothing had happened in the basement for a really long time. Areallylong time. Such a long time that I’d started to think it might never happen again.
The night in question was a Saturday. We’d been out, hanging out at the lookout on the outskirts of town with Romeo’s new friends. I’d been attacked by mosquitoes, and by the time we got to my place, I was scratching like a man possessed.
“Stop scratching,” said Romeo.
“I can’t! I’ve been violently assaulted by blood-sucking parasites.” I was wearing jeans and a tank, so most of the bites were on my arms. My wrists, in particular, had been mauled. The itch was unreal.
“Stop,” said Romeo again.
“Can’t!”
I started up again, frenzied, and Romeo stepped toward me with purpose. He grabbed my wrist from me and held it firmly in his hand. Various signals rushed from my brainto my dick. Several of them got scrambled so badly that my legs went lame.
Romeo moved closer. Somehow, I ended up backed against the hallway wall, though I didn’t think I was there when the interaction began. The plaster was smooth and cool behind me. An inferno raged in front of me.
Romeo looked down at my wrist, turning it this way and that as he inspected the damage. “You’ll break the skin,” he said softly.
My palm was open, fingers relaxed and splayed out. He stood close to me. So goddamn close. It was just the two of us, and for me, at least, electricity filled the space between us. He was looking down, long lashes spilling shadows onto his cheeks, making him look angelic. Almost, not quite. He looked like a seraph made for seduction. An angel created for the sole purpose of making me fall.
