Page 46 of The Art of Drowning

It’s a date

I got out of my car and waited. It took a minute or two, but then the front door of Callum’s house opened and the light sliced through the darkness. Stepping outside, he pulled the door shut behind him and then looked down at his phone screen. My phone buzzed with a text, and I spared it a glance before I approached.

Okay, I’m outside

I stepped out of the shadows and into the soft glow of the streetlight. “Me too,” I said, answering his text. Callum’s head snapped up and he stared at me for a long moment before launching himself at me. I opened my arms and caught him as he crashed into me. He buried his face in the curve of my neck, and I breathed him in, clutching him close.

“You’re here,” Callum breathed, his voice unsteady. “I can’t believe you’re here. We said⁠—”

I cut him off. “I know what we said, but I don’t agree with it.”

He laughed and held me tighter. “Me either.”

TWENTY-THREE

callum

THEN

If I were a better person, I’d have felt the smallest bit of guilt for sneaking around behind my brother’s back with his best friend. But, in my opinion, Sam was a pretty shitty brother, and he wasn’t a very good friend to Damien either. He treated Damien like a toy he could put on a shelf and forget about when something shinier and more fun came along.

Right now that shinier, more fun thing was Jessica Hammond. All spring long, Sam had been canceling plans with Damien to go see Jessica. Sometimes he offered to bring Damien along, and I got to witness such an invite one day. Damien arched an eyebrow at Sam and said that yes, he supposed that’s what every girl wanted. Time alone with her boyfriend and his best friend.

Sam’s girlfriend demanded a lot of his time, which suited me just fine because it meant more time with Damien. Sam had no sooner left than Damien sneaked into my room. We never hung around in Sam’s room, just in case he came home unannounced. It would be easier to explain Damien coming out of my room than me coming out of Sam’s.

So far, we hadn’t been caught.

Damien shut the door behind him and walked over to my desk where I’d been sitting, pretending to do homework for the past hour. But in reality I was doodling, lost in daydreams of what it might be like if I could date Damien the way Sam got to take Jessica out.

In order to do that, however, I’d have to come out to everyone. And I’d have to find a way for Sam to not murder me in my sleep. Sam could be generous with other people, but when it came to me, he very much had an I licked it so it’s mine approach.

I turned away from the homework I wasn’t doing and looked up at Damien. He bent over and stole a kiss. We’d done a lot of kissing. Some grinding. We’d gotten off together a few times, both by jerking ourselves and by jerking each other. Everything we’d done was mind-blowingly awesome. I never realized how much fun coming could be until I wasn’t doing it alone in the shower every time or jerking late at night, hoping my bed didn’t squeak too much or I didn’t breathe too hard and give myself away somehow.

“Hey, you,” I said right before he kissed me again.

“Hey, you,” he answered back.

“I thought Sam promised that today was just the guys?” I slid my hands up the outsides of Damien’s legs, stopping at his waist.

“Jessica had some sort of emergency that required Sam’s immediate attention.”

Damien smiled at me, but I could tell he was torn. On one hand, he’d been looking forward to hanging out with his best friend. But on the other, every moment Sam was preoccupied was one we got to steal for ourselves.

Maybe I was a shitty brother, or a shitty person, but I didn’t feel bad for sneaking around. If Sam wasn’t a jerk, I could come out to him. But I didn’t trust Sam to have my back, and I certainly didn’t trust that he’d take the news that I was falling in love with his best friend very well. Sam didn’t even like me existing in the same location as him. He wasn’t about to share his best friend with me.

Damien’s fingertips brushed against my forehead, smoothing the furrow between my eyebrows.

“As cute as you are when you scowl, I’d rather see you smile.”

Gah. My heart couldn’t take it when he said stuff like that to me. And the worst part was that it worked. Like an idiot, I smiled on demand.

“That’s better,” Damien said, and then he was bending over again. This time his hands cradled my face, and he kissed me longer, deeper. His tongue swept into my mouth and I let it, dancing with it as it moved.

The thing about kissing Damien was that we never stopped for air and after a while it made me lightheaded, and I’d still cling to him, kissing him deeper as the world spun around me. Today, though, he broke the kiss and his mouth traveled down to my neck. I tilted my head to give him room and resisted the urge to palm my erection. Mostly I was worried about jizzing in my pants if so much as a stiff breeze touched my cock.

“Callum,” he whispered, his voice dancing over my skin. “I want to taste you.”

Oh, holy shit. We still hadn’t done that yet. We’d dry humped and jerked and done all manner of things over our clothes and with our pants around our knees, but we’d hadn’t explored oral yet. Mostly I hadn’t initiated it because what if I was bad at it? I’d never sucked a dick before. Not that Damien had, but there was no way he’d be bad at it. And even if he was, I’d probably enjoy it anyway because it was Damien.