“Just give me the bottle.”
“How many?”
“Jesus, you would think it was heroin or something.Six, okay?I need six.”Or more,but not in front of Eli.
Eli wrinkled his nose but handed the pills over.“You're going to get ulcers, you know that.Maybe kidney failure.”
Tyler sighed, and took the Sprite that Eli opened for him with his other hand.“Now I don't have to drug test anymore, I can get better meds.”He tossed the pills in his mouth and washed them down with soda.
“And the perks keep coming.”
“Yeah, that's a good one.”
“Although hopefully once you stop abusing your back, you won't need so much.”
Tyler closed his eyes.“Don't lecture me again.Not tonight.”
“I'm sorry.”Eli shifted closer to him.“Really.I am so sorry about all of this, about you having to give up your dreams.I know what they meant to you.But I'm glad too.Because I've been so scared.”
Tyler opened his eyes to find Eli looking down at him, wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer-briefs over all that tanned skin.
Eli said, “Every time you came home from the gym moving like an old man and went to the bathroom to pop more pills, I just knew that one day you wouldn't come home and there would be a news story about, 'Olympic gymnast paralyzed in gym accident.'”
“You were moving out.”
“Because I couldn't stay and watch that.”
“As my roommate.”
“As your anything.”Eli shook his head.“You have to be the blindest man in three states if you couldn't see how badly I wanted you...aaand obviously you were blind, because look at that blush.”A small smile transformed Eli's face.
“Make fun of me while I'm down,” Tyler muttered.
“Gladly.”Eli reached out a careful hand and brushed a strand of hair off Tyler's forehead.“I thought maybe you just weren't interested in me.”
“No.”Even that simple touch of skin on skin was electrifying.
“So you are interested?”
“Maybe you're the blind guy.”
Eli hesitated and then leaned in for another kiss, and lips were even better than skin.Tyler opened his mouth, silently asking, but Eli kept the kiss sweet and pulled back much too soon.“So obviously, we need to talk.”
Tyler captured Eli's hand and licked his finger.“You sound like a girl.”The prospect of sex was both scary and breathtaking, and best of all, the way it swamped his senses would keep him from thinking.He’d had a little experience with guys in high school, and remembered the way the smallest touch had made his mind go blank with heat.With Eli it was bound to be ten times better.
But Eli pulled his hand free slowly.“I'm not...damn.Listen, Tyler, we shouldn’t do anything tonight.”
Tyler thought about Stephen's bet.“Tell me you didn't buy condoms.”
Eli colored, but said steadily, “That has nothing to do with it.You just had a major meltdown and I'm not going to turn around and fuck you for the first time an hour later.”
“Maybe I would fuck you.”Tyler couldn't believe he'd said that, but he kept his eyes on Eli, reaching for him, bold with wanting something, anything but the emptiness he’d been feeling.
“Not tonight.”Eli gasped as Tyler slid a hand down his chest, but he caught Tyler's wrist and continued, “You need to sleep.Then in the morning, we both need to figure out where we go from here.”
“And then you'll kiss me?”
“Yeah.Probably.”
