I’d convinced myself I just needed time and the solution would come to me, but I saw now that was a lie. I’d hurt both of us by not speaking up.
“There is one thing,” I admitted, hoping I wasn’t about to ruin everything. The worst-case scenario my mind kept looping back to was that he’d think I wasn’t serious about him. I was, one hundred percent, but what he’d asked me for, in the heat of the moment, was ahugedeal. Maybe that was exactly how I needed to explain it to him. “We’d talked about…things ahead of time, and it threw me for a loop when you told me I didn’t need the condom.”
“Because I know you’re on PrEP and I’ve never been with anyone,” Chase explained. “I saw the bottle on your dresser.”
“I get it, but that doesn’t mean I have a free pass to fuck bare.” When I’d asked about going on the preventative med, both my doctor and my mom had been blunt about the fact it didn’t protect me or my partners from everything. Mom agreed to pay for it, only after I promised her that I would be responsible and only ditch the condoms when it felt right. And even though part of me wanted to know if it would feel different, there wasn’t anything telling me Chase and I had reached that point.
“But I haven’t been with anyone but you,” he repeated.
“And I have.” I tightened my grip when he stilled, then tried pulling away. We weren’t going to run from this. The truth of the matter was I had a past. I hadn’t always made the smartest, safest decisions, and it was through sheer dumb luck that I’d never had anything bad happen. All my tests came back negative, and even now, I was routinely tested to make sure it stayed that way. I’d never forgive myself if we took the plunge and I unknowingly passed something on to him. “I really thought we were on the same page. Having you ask me for that when we were both turned on, didn’t feel good. I knew I needed to talk to you about it so it didn’t happen again, but I couldn’t figure out how to say something without you getting upset.”
“At some point, you have to trust me, Jay.” Chase combed his fingers into my hair, tilting my head back as he looked down at me. “Yes, I hand over a lot of control to you. No, I’m not as experienced as you are—in bed or out of it. But Iama functional adult. If I do or say something that upsets you, you have to talk about it. When you pull away, I’m going to think you don’t want to be with me, and that hurts.”
“It hurts me, too,” I admitted. “I don’t ever want you thinking you’re a burden or that I’m only here out of convenience. I meant it when I said I love you. And eventually, maybe we will go bare, but it will only be after talking about it when we’re both fully clothed.”
“That’s fair.” Chase wrapped his arms around the back of my head, pulling me to his chest. I felt guarded and safe in his embrace. I’d built this conversation to be something big and scary in my head, but yet again, my brave boy listened and proved me wrong. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry if you felt like I was trying to manipulate you. You’re right, wehadtalked about it, and it wasn’t fair of me. And I don’t know how I would have felt if you had listened to me. It’s one of those things I’ve always thought about doing, and we love each other, so I let the fantasy take hold in my mind.”
“And wewillget there,” I promised him. I refused to plant any seeds of doubt in his mind now that we both seemed more relaxed. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it sooner.”
“We’ll get there,” he said, parroting my reassurance back to me. He scooted down my legs and out of my grasp. “But, right now, we need to get ready to go. I want to show Matt the playroom!”
I envied his ability to let go so easily. Yes, he had been upset, but looking at him as he shoved his binkie into the backpack, you’d never know it. Meanwhile, my mind was reeling, both with relief that it had gone better than expected and fear that we wouldn’t come out of this unscathed. I couldn’t help it; I wasn’t used to life going my way.
* * *
If there’d beenany doubt that Matt had little tendencies, they’d have vanished within minutes of getting to The Lodge. While Brandon and I went to the bar to grab a round of drinks, Chase had taken Matt by the hand and dragged him into the playroom. It was a quiet night, which probably worked to everyone’s advantage.
Brandon and I settled in at the lounge area of the playroom, although settled may have been a bit of a stretch. Brandon looked about ready to crawl out of his skin. The only reason I didn’t turn around and walk out was the way he looked at Matt. It was the same expression I got when Ash was engrossed in play. Tonight, a man close to our age walked around, crouching to make sure the littles were having fun. When two littles started fighting over a stuffie, the guy intervened, calling over their Daddies when they kept fighting.
“It’s weird, right?” Brandon asked, still watching our boys playing with another boy. They seemed to be creating an entire city of skyscrapers on top of a rug decorated with roads. “Not like bad weird, but it’s strange that I’m happy for him. I can’t remember the last time I saw him so calm.”
“I get what you’re saying,” I said, letting him off the hook. His rambling wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought myself in the early days. Chase looked over his shoulder. When I smiled at him, he glanced down at the backpack. He’d done that a few times now, and I wondered if he needed a little nudge. “Hang on.”
I sat on the floor behind Chase. He scooted onto my lap, tilting his head back to rest on my shoulder. I hugged him, rubbing circles on his belly. He giggled when I kissed my way up his neck. “You having fun, buddy?”
“Yeah. Matty’s a good sharer. And this is Teo. He’s little like me.” Teo looked up when he heard his name, offering me a shy wave. I smiled back at him and he quickly looked away. “He’s very brave, though. He doesn’t hide his binkie and his Daddy gave him a sippy cup.”
“You’re brave, too,” I reminded him, snatching his hand away from his mouth. While sucking on his thumb was cute, he’d recently started chewing on the skin at the corner of his nail and it was raw. “If you want your binkie, I can get it for you.”
Chase glanced at Matt. Proving he was a good friend, Matt shifted closer and took Chase’s other hand. “It’s okay if you want it. I’m jealous you get to have one. Maybe someday I’ll be brave, too.”
“You will be.” Chase crawled off my lap and gave Matt a big hug. “You were scared to show your Daddy your little side, but you started. Finding a Daddy who loves you isn’t easy, but you have one. I bet he’d buy you all sorts of surprises if you tell him what you want.”
“Maybe,” Matt mumbled.
I left them alone while I grabbed the backpack. Brandon watched me as I pulled Chase’s blanket and cup out of the main pocket. “Man, it’s like a diaper bag.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” I told him. He gaped at me, and it took me a few seconds too long to figure out how I’d shocked him. I closed the bag quickly when he tried to peek inside. Some things weren’t for sharing. “To most people, it looks like a typical backpack but it’s an easy way to take his gear when we go out.”
“And that’s not strange to you?” Ugh. I was starting to despise that word. I knew Brandon wasn’t being a judgmental fuck, but if he said it any louder, some of the boys were going to overhear and they’d be upset. That wasnotgoing to happen.
“No, it’s not,” I responded flatly. I left him hanging long enough to slip Chase his mini Pika and his cup of juice. If he wanted to use them, they were there. Otherwise, he could keep them tucked under the table and no one would know the difference. I needed to get this out while it was just us bigs, so to speak. I turned to face Brandon when I sat down next to him on the couch. “Listen, I know you feel like you’re diving into the deep end, but you have to be very careful about what you say and how you say it. You said yourself that Matt looks like he’s having a good time tonight. How do you think he’d react if he’s just starting to learn things about himself and he hears you saying it’s weird or strange, or whatever other adjective you come up with?
“Yes, it was a little bit odd at first to know Chase likes letting go of the adult world. I’m not sure if it made things easier or harder for us, but Chase wasn’t the one to tell me,” I admitted because I didn’t want Brandon thinking it had been something Chase blurted out and I’d automatically accepted it.
I’d spent most of that weekend staring at the pacifier on my nightstand while I tried figuring out how I was going to bring it up with him. If anyone had snooped in my search history, they’d have wondered what I was doing. I’d even considered talking to William about it, but he’d been busy at the club and, at the time, I hadn’t been prepared for his meddling version of help. “If I’d left it up to him, I’m pretty sure I’d still be in the dark. And let me say, I’d rather learn how to deal with all of his gear and how to take care of him than think about what it would be like living across the room from someone who was scared to show his true colors.”
“I guess I didn’t think about it that way,” Brandon admitted. He sat back, watching the boys playing as he rubbed his palm against his cheek. His gaze never drifted from them as he spoke. “Seeing him down there is like looking back in time. It’s different for us, you know, because we’ve been friends as long as I can remember. I wonder if he’s always been little and just didn’t have the words for it until Chase came along. Whenever we go home, he still pulls out his old toys when we’re hanging out in the basement at his parents’ place, and he somehow goads me into watching these stupid cartoons I hadn’t even remembered. I thought it was just him fighting adulthood.”
