“I don’t,” I protested weakly.
Weak. Stupid. Pushed into a corner. And where the hell had that cup of tea gone? I’d be mopping up tea in a minute…
“Stop fighting this so hard!” he urged. “Because I get it. I do. God, Peter, I get it. I know what it’s like because I’ve spent all my life fighting who Iam. Being gay. Being weird. Being more interested in numbers than normal things other kids were into. Still got in trouble, all the time. Did stupid shit. Took stupid shit. I know. I have fought it my whole life, that urge to not do all the things that are so incredibly destructive in my life. But this? This, Peter? This is the one thing I am not going to fight against. I’m going to fightforit.”
“It’s…”
“It is.”
I didn’t know why I did it. What insanity possessed me to do what I did. But I got my hand free and fisted the front of that hoodie, then I threw him down on the bed and climbed on top of him. Held him down with everything I was. And he was right there.
I didn’t know what I’d expected to see? Maybe fear. Perhaps I had hoped he’d just run away. But no, he was all flushed and gorgeous, and his eyes were dark. So bloody dark.
My nose against his.Don’t make me do this.
This was so wrong. So insane. So very much not normal behaviour. I was a middle-aged dentist. I wasn’t…what was going on here.
I didn’t think I could have stopped if I’d tried.
“Your turn,” he whispered.
It was. And I did. And my lips were on his and my hand gripped a handful of his hair, and I kissed him with everything I was. Hard. Wet. My tongue in his mouth as my lips tugged at his. Bit gently on that plump mass. Pulled and let go. Dove back in and tasted the way his tongue felt against mine.
Maybe I should have thought about my technique. Marvelled gently over what a sensual kisser he was. Smiled at his taste on my tongue.
Instead I kissed his cheek. His skin. Warm stubble against my lips. His neck, marvelling at the little gasp I teased out of him. A collarbone undermy chin as I sucked at that skin. The smell of him intoxicating. The small noises coming from him making my heart jolt.
“Don’t cry,” I whispered into his mouth. “Please don’t.”
“I’m…” He tried to say something else. I silenced him with my mouth. Because I wasn’t ready. If I thought I’d been ready for something? I wasn’t. And I had lied. I had lied about absolutely everything.
I didn’t want this. Yet, here I was, yearning for everything I shouldn’t. So I did the only thing I could. I wrapped him in my arms and held him. Rocked him in my embrace, back and forth as he breathed into my chest.
“Dad, dinner.” And here was Ed, rolling his eyes, standing in the doorway like the badass kid he was. “And you two are disgusting.”
“Not,” I said.
“Fuck you,” Oliver whispered from beneath me.
“No,” I said gently.
I hoped he smiled. Because now I’d gone and done it.
And perhaps? Just perhaps it was time to start to own up to…a few small things.
Chapter 22
Oliver
Isounded like a freak. Like I hadn’t had a full panic attack in the back seat of Cal and Ed’s car earlier. I had. I didn’t want to admit that to anyone, and I hoped the two actual freaks in the front had been too busy arguing over who was the bigger slut to notice me panting heavily in the back.
They’d dragged me to football, wearing shoes that had been too big and a hoodie that had been way too small. Made me shake hands with a bunch of kids who’d all pretended not to know who I was. Maybe they actually hadn’t. Nobody had said anything, and then they’d made me run around after a ball in a muddy field.
It should have been hell, but in a weird way, I’d needed it. Just something normal to take the edge off the anxiety. Get some air in my lungs and acid in my legs.
The boys were…flaky idiots. I liked them.
“Can’t believe you pulled Dad,” Ed had muttered in the front, afterwards. On the way home. Cal driving and Ed slouched next to him, methrown on the back seat like a wet rag as Cal had just grinned in the rearview mirror.
