Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Future Shocks

Future Shocks

“YOU CAN wait out in the car,” Hal said, fidgeting with his key fob. “This’ll take—”

“Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour,” Pierce gauged, looking the medical clinic over grimly. “Anything hospital inclined is a crapshoot.”

“I can drop you off at Walmart—it’s right down the road.” Hal still wouldn’t look at him.

“Dammit!” Pierce snapped. “Hal! This isn’t the end of the world! It’s an HIV test—I got my first one in college.” Oh God—Ass. Hole. Pierce took a deep breath and tried to be a unicorn, which was hard since Hal had been an evasive sprite all damned morning about the HIV test thing.

“I hate making you a part of my bad decision making,” Hal said after a moment, and oh holy crap and pass the potatoes, something real .

Pierce took a deep breath. “Forgetting the rubber happens.” He let out a laugh. “Ask my sister. I wasn’t joking when I said shaming people for sexual activity is high on my list of douchebag things to do.”

“But it wasn’t just once,” Hal muttered, staring out the window. “I broke up with Russ, and Russ called me all sorts of… you know, prude and baby, and I was a stupid dumbass kid about it and set out to….” He flailed, avoiding Pierce’s eyes like Pierce was a red-eyed dragon who hypnotized his prey.

“Set out to fuck everything that moved to prove him wrong?” Oh Lord, college.

Hal looked at him sideways—but at least he looked at him. “After Loren?” he said softly.

“After Katrina,” Pierce said with a grimace. “First relationship. Freshman year. True love always, until Derrick found out she’d done everybody at school while we were going out.”

“Ouch!”

Pierce shrugged—distance gave perspective. “You know, everybody has their damage. Whatever happened to her to make her need that? And I really do believe it was something she felt compelled to do—breaking up hurt her, mostly because she felt like she couldn’t help herself. But yeah. I went out to prove I could bang all the things.” Pierce did the unthinkable then—they’d had sexual activity and they’d even had kissing, but they hadn’t yet done this.

He reached out and grabbed Hal’s hand and brought the knuckles to his lips.

“I had a friend,” he said, smiling a little before holding Hal’s hand to his cheek. God, tenderness. He wanted to give Hal all the tenderness. “Derrick came to clubs with me and fucked all the things too. I forgot rubbers left and right and pretended I was hip and devil-may-care. Derrick forgot once and had a panic attack. So I… I said, ‘Hey, let’s just go check it out together, so we can not freak out about it,’ right?”

“You were both negative, right?”

“Right,” Pierce said, nodding. “I wouldn’t bullshit you. But I had blood tests run in the hospital anyway—I would have told you that first night, Hal.” He frowned. “Although I wish you’d asked.”

Hal swallowed and tugged at his hand. Pierce let him go with some disappointment, but then Hal turned his palm and cupped Pierce’s cheek.

“I’ll get tested now,” he said, stroking Pierce’s lower lip with his thumb. “And… and I’ll remember to ask the… if… uh, if I ever need to again.”

Pierce kissed the inside of his palm and moved away so he could open the door and climb out with his cane. He avoided saying the obvious thing, the thing neither of them were saying.

They had less than a week and a half. Unless they decided to make this a long-distance thing, he was getting tested so they could share a handful of nights together.

The thought left a terrible ache, an empty void in the center of Pierce’s chest.

Today. I’ll be with him today. And tomorrow. And the next day. It will have to be good enough.

FIFTEEN MINUTES later they came out of the clinic, Hal looking disgustedly at his phone.

“They’ll call me in one or two days?” he asked, upset.

“That’s what they said,” Pierce said mildly.

“Two days.”

“So they said.”

“We have to wait two days?”

“I hate to tell you this, but I can still give you blowjobs. You heard the guy—the risk of HIV through swallowing is—”

“Too big to risk,” Hal snapped, glaring at him. “Handsies all the way.”

Pierce glared at him, making diabolical, slow, and sensual plans that would make “handsies” look like a gift from the gods. “Sure,” he said. “Handsies. ’Cause we’re fourteen-year-olds grabbing each other in the locker room. Handsies.”

Hal unlocked the doors with a gentle beep, hiding a smirk.

“What?” Pierce asked, swinging into the CR-V and cursing the stiffness left over from his morning workout. Dammit—he was seriously going to have to keep swimming if he ever wanted to move again.

If he ever wanted to possess Hal, completely, or pull his knees up to his chest and let Hal take him.

“Thirteen,” Hal said, closing the door and starting the car. “I was thirteen, old man. What? Did you save your hand job cherry for college?”

“Graduation,” Pierce muttered, embarrassed. “Some of us were not that cute in high school.”

Hal paused in the act of pulling his seat belt on. “What makes you think some of us were ? Cute in high school, I mean.”

Pierce rolled his eyes. “Do I have to say it?” he asked, mortally embarrassed. “Are you really going to make me tell you this?”

Hal stared at him through those big amber eyes. Pierce had noticed, this last week, how lush his black eyelashes were, how strong his nose was, straight bridged and not too big. What a strong jaw he had, and how his smile was as innocent and bright as his mouth was sinfully wicked.

“Tell me what?”

Truth was a compulsion. “You’re beautiful,” Pierce said, embarrassed. “You… I was so embarrassed, that first day, because you were so pretty—so beautiful, and you were talking to me, and I was at my worst in my entire life. I couldn’t even see your eyes then. And your eyes are beautiful. And your mouth is beautiful. I don’t know how you could have been anything but beautiful in high school. I… I just don’t understand.”

It was his turn to look away, avoiding Hal’s eyes.

Hal fumbled for his hand, but Pierce still couldn’t have looked at him.

“I so would have blown you when I was in high school,” Hal said fervently.

“And that would have made me a creepy old guy molesting an underage boy.”

Hal laughed shortly. “Look at me. We’re wasting gas.”

Pierce turned reluctantly because he was right. “What?”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“I know that.”

“I’m only a little stupid.”

Pierce couldn’t help the faint smile. “Aren’t we all.”

“I wanted you from that first day. Hurt and pale—it didn’t matter.”

“Because you’re crazy,” Pierce said slowly, like you spoke to crazy people so as not to set them off.

Hal dragged the knuckles of his free hand down the side of Pierce’s scarred cheek. “Because you’re a unicorn,” he said. Then he kissed Pierce, one of the softest, most tender kisses Pierce could ever remember. Aching with gentleness, it undid him, leveled everything in his heart, in his mind, that could have stood against Hal’s incursion into his soul.

Hal pulled away and stroked his lower lip again. “Don’t try to deny it,” he whispered, and while Pierce was looking for words that wouldn’t shatter either of them, Hal pulled away from the clinic. “So—should we try for wrapping paper this time?”

“How about rubbers and lube,” Pierce muttered, unsettled and vulnerable. “We could start there.”

“Sure. Zombie Apocalypse Central, here we come.”

THEY REMEMBERED wrapping paper, ribbon, condoms, and lubricant.

They forgot scissors and tape.

“I don’t even believe this,” Hal said as he stared at the paper on the table in disbelief. “This is… this is epic . I’m, like, if I never see another Target for the rest of my life, it will be too soon for me in my next life and the guy I bang after that!”

“How can Derrick not have any scissors?” Pierce asked, rifling through the drawers. “I mean, we bought ribbon—if I just had, you know, scissors, I could cut the ribbon and wrap everything and use the ribbon to secure it.”

Hal turned his head to gaze at Pierce in disbelief. “So you admit to being a Boy Scout, but you’re going to deny the unicorn thing?”

Pierce wrinkled his nose. “Fine. Yes. Whatever.” He flopped down in the love seat, which was where Hal usually sat when they watched television. “I’m at a loss,” he said, shaking his head. “I say I skip Christmas at my sister’s, turn down the job, and start living at the beach. You can throw me money when you visit from college.”

“That’s not a plan!” Hal told him, horror coloring his voice.

“It is too,” Pierce insisted. “It’s a plan. It’s very much a plan.”

“Well, it’s a shitty plan. How about you stay here, watch some TV, and let me go get scissors and tape at the little drugstore up at the corner. They’re crappy for Christmas shopping, but scissors and tape they can handle.”

Pierce gazed at him in naked gratitude. “I would do unmentionable things to and for you just so I didn’t have to go to Target again.”

Hal rolled his eyes. “Same here.” He handed Pierce the remote control and bent down, squeezing his shoulder and nuzzling his temple. “Nap. I’ll get takeout. We’ll work out double tomorrow, how’s that?”

Perfect.

PIERCE JERKED awake about an hour later, looking around the condo muzzily. He’d fallen asleep watching a rerun of 2 Broke Girls and now a rerun of Castle had taken its place. Hal had opened the shades over the sliding glass doors, and the sun, which had been sulking behind clouds and haze when he’d first sat down, was now glaring at him on the horizon.

He yawned and stretched, trying to remember if he’d heard Hal return.

Takeout boxes sat on the table—unopened and still steaming—so he must have been there somewhere.

Pierce stood, shivering, and made his way over the rubber mats toward the bedroom, wondering if Hal had gone down for a nap of his own. He approached the doorway, which stood dark, and heard Hal’s voice.

“No, I haven’t decided. I told you that ten minutes ago.” He paused, and in the darkness, Pierce could see him stretched horizontally on the bed, facing the window and not the doorway. “You said I had until after New Year’s—why is this a problem?” He grunted and swung his feet over his bottom, the gesture absurdly young. “What do I want you to do? Well, maybe not kick me out for Christmas—that would be a start. But how about letting me get my massage therapy certificate—I mean, I could go for sports medicine if you want, but I’ve been trying to get that done between my coursework for two years. You have to know I mean it by now!”

Whatever the reply, it was not what he wanted to hear. He groaned and rolled over to his back. “Yeah! I get it! I’m not good enough to be your kid anyway—you’ve made that clear!” He spotted Pierce and held out his hand.

For a moment, Pierce thought about retreating into the living room to give him his “space,” but two things stopped him.

One was that Hal had been there—two of the worst phone calls of his life, and Hal had been there, holding, supporting—making love. Pierce couldn’t just leave him to work out his own shit.

But Pierce didn’t want to leave him—that was the second thing.

He stepped into the room and threw himself lengthwise on the bed next to Hal, then rolled over on his side and slid his hand up under Hal’s T-shirt so he was touching bare skin.

Hal captured his hand and clung.

“No, I’m not being overdramatic—and it’s not a gay thing. You don’t want me home because I’m gay—excuse the hell out of me for being gay. You don’t want me to leech off your fortune unless I’m doing something worthwhile. Like be a lawyer. And only be a lawyer. And be nothing else but a lawyer.”

The next thing over the phone made him sit up explosively, and Pierce had to scramble to sit next to him.

“How do I know that? Because I’ve been telling you. Yes I have. Yes I have. No, yes I have! I’ve been telling you for years that I want to do something else. Well, maybe if you’d have let me take the general ed I wanted to instead of the prelaw, I would have had a better idea sooner, but I know now!” He took a deep breath through the next flurry of conversation—from a woman, it sounded like, so Mom, probably—and then blurted, “If you guys cared at all about who I am instead of who you want me to be , maybe this wouldn’t sound like drama to you!”

He listened for another minute and then burst out, “I’ll tell you after New Year’s like I said I would! No! Don’t call me on Christmas Day, because I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing, just like you don’t give a fuck about me!”

He hit End Call, but that apparently wasn’t satisfying enough, because he cocked his arm back, and Pierce had to rescue the phone.

“Oh oh oh! Hold up there, Chief—if you’re thinking about going solo without backup, paying for a phone is a bad way to start.”

Hal let go of the phone and threw himself back onto the bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Augh!”

Pierce lay down next to him again, keeping that bare skin contact with his hand to the soft skin of Hal’s taut middle.

“I’m so pissed!” Hal raged. “Called me up right when I pulled in, and it was all, ‘Why haven’t you signed up for classes?’ and I was all ‘Because you gave me extra time!’ and they were all….” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Like it was all predetermined. That I would go be this thing they wanted me to be and I wouldn’t argue with them, and it would all be okay.”

“They really don’t know you very well,” Pierce said, pulling air from the hollow of his neck and shoulder.

Hal turned so quickly their lips touched before he had a chance to decide. Pierce went with it, parting his lips, delving into his sweet mouth for a few breaths, a few heartbeats. Hal pulled back, and he almost keened.

God, he wanted all the time he could possibly get.

“Why do you say that?” Hal asked softly.

“They don’t know you?” Pierce frowned. “Because… you’re not… docile. You… you push back. You fight. You make decisions. I… I know you’re young.” He grimaced. “But God, Hal, do you think we’d be… do you think I’d… I mean, I wouldn’t be having a relationship with you if you didn’t know who you are.”

A slow smile spread over Hal’s godsbedamned beautiful face. “I was a pushover with Russ,” he rasped. “I’ve been a good kid all my life. When push came to shove, I think they just expected me to….”

“Bend over and take it?” Pierce said throatily. There was no question at all—none—who would top between them. Who would have his hands most comfortably on the reins, who would gauge the situation, the heat of their bodies, the susceptibility of flesh, more competently of the two of them.

Pierce could top, was comfortable doing so—but Hal was made to be in control.

Hal blinked, slowly, expression turning sultry in the dim light of late afternoon. “I will take you,” he promised. “I will… I will shove myself so far inside you that you’ll taste me coming when I’m in your ass.”

Pierce closed his eyes, hard, painfully hard, at the sound of Hal’s voice promising dire things. “That will happen,” he promised rashly, because what if he couldn’t? His body was looser now, but still—not 100 percent. Creeping past 50 percent. He leaned close to Hal’s ear and whispered, “I want you inside me so bad….”

Hal’s sound—raw, wanting, primal—did things to Pierce’s body that actual sex had missed. Oh man—how could he have lived this long and not known what it was like to be wanted like that?

With a feral growl, Hal rolled over, lying on top of Pierce and claiming his mouth in a hard, wet mauling of a kiss. His tongue swept inside, and Pierce’s defenses disintegrated, his good sense annihilated at the hard pressure of Hal’s groin against his.

Pierce yanked at his shirt, wanting that chest—golden, soft-skinned, hard muscled—under his hands. He was starving for touch like this, for Hal’s mouth slanting over his again and again and again.

Hal moved faster than he did, and he pulled back to haul his shirt over his head and shove his jeans and underwear down off his feet, finishing before Pierce could even unbutton his own shirt.

Hal took over the task with shaking fingers.

“You”—button—“are trying”—button—“to kill me.” Button, button, button.

Pierce opened his arms so Hal could help him struggle out of the shirt, and then his T-shirt.

“I need you alive,” Pierce told him as Hal yanked at the waistband of his cargo shorts. Pierce lifted up his ass and let them be hauled down.

They paused for a moment, naked in the twilight, vulnerable and wanting.

Hal groaned and crashed his mouth down again, his hand going straight for Pierce’s cock.

Well, two could play at that game.

It was a rough, rocky race to the finish line, a carnal stroking of each other’s cocks while their mouths never stopped the mutual ravishing. Hal’s hand was a rough, strong wonder on Pierce’s erection—no finesse, no titillation. Pure hand-fucking that made the phrase “handsies” even more juvenile—a diminishment of the power knotting Pierce’s belly, his thighs, his taint.

He groaned into Hal’s mouth, brought abruptly to the edge of a spinning climax, and Hal bucked and spurted, apparently hitting his own peak just that fast.

“Ah!” Pierce broke off from the kiss, wanting to revel in the feeling of come over his fingers. Hal bit his neck, hard enough to leave a mark, and again, lower, and again, sucking the flesh in his mouth without apology.

Pierce gave Hal’s cock one more frantic, expert stroke, squeezing at the head, oiling the whole member with the precome. Hal bit his shoulder and growled, bucking, coming undone in Pierce’s hand while Pierce let the white light and tumbling surf of climax crash over them both.

When their bodies had stopped convulsing, they were left in a trembling, chilly aftermath, breathing harshly into the shadows of each other’s flesh.

“Eventually,” Hal panted, “we’re going to need condoms.”

“Sure,” Pierce said. He thought, Once you’re inside me, I don’t know if I can ever leave you.

Oh hells. Oh God, oh hells, oh damn.

Hal, a week and a half isn’t going to be enough.

THE NEXT morning, Hal really did double down on the workout to make up for their laziness the night before. Pierce went along with it—well, he grumbled about slave drivers and torturers and fucking sadists until the older couple who had been thinking about coming to the pool toward the end of the workout looked at each other in alarm and retreated—but by God, he did it.

He still had the idea that maybe he’d be up to using the condoms and the lubricant by the time he left for Sasha’s.

Artificial deadline, you fuckwad.

Yeah, his inner voice was bitter, but it was hard to talk it off the ledge when he was pushing so hard he could barely breathe.

“Okay, slow that down a little,” Hal said. “We’re doing the open-gaited run—not so fast, but active stretching. Make sure you stretch a lot , because—” He paused in his torture and grinned lasciviously. “—well, just because.”

Pierce wanted to roll his eyes, but he also wanted to do more of what they’d been doing at night, so he refrained.

The overbright ting of Hal’s phone cutting through the music it played made them both pause. “Don’t stop!” Hal snapped, and Pierce did manage not to roll his eyes—but he didn’t stop.

“Hello. Hal Lombard.” Suddenly Hal went very still. Pierce paused to look at him in concern, and Hal didn’t stop him. “Yes? Yes. Negative?”

The slow smile across his face told Pierce the negative was exactly what they’d been hoping for. He caught Hal’s eyes and smiled.

“Thank you. Yes—happy holidays to you too.”

He hit End Call and the music resumed, but Pierce didn’t head toward the other side of the pool. “Negative?” he asked softly.

Hal bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Hal frowned. “ You need to get moving again or you’re going to cramp like a guy kidnapped in the trunk of a car. Now go!”

“Sadist.”

“Whatever. Do you want a rubdown in the hot tub?”

Yes. I want a rubdown in the hot tub, and in the bed, and all over my body.

“Maybe.”

“Then move your ass, Pierce—thataboy!”

Pierce finished his workout with a minimum of fuss. He’d seen the soft smile, the pleased relief. He’d been a part of that.

He’d be a part of the celebration too.

THAT NIGHT Pierce wrapped presents while Hal finished the Lego Christmas tree.

“Do you want me to wrap your bear?” Pierce asked, just to make sure.

“It’s the only thing I’m going to have to open,” Hal told him without self-pity. “Of course.”

“Okay, then. Just remember the Legos are yours too.”

Hal grinned at him with the glee of a five-year-old. “Yeah?”

“Of course they are!” Pierce grinned back. He would have to give Hal Legos for Christmas every year.

Shit. Crap. Whatever.

Pierce would get his address and send him Legos for Christmas every year, even if that was the only time ever after they talked to each other after Pierce left on the twenty-fourth.

That was a promise he made himself. Legos for Hal Lombard, forever. It was a deal.

Hal was concentrating on putting details on the tree, though. Teeny-tiny corner pieces in red, blue, and yellow served as Christmas tree lights. Pierce was very impressed.

Pierce, clumsy this year but still able, wrapped the Keurig and the two giant teddy bears and the big boxes with glee. He wanted to give Hal something else, he thought as he arranged the gifts on the floor near the end table, where the Christmas tree would go.

“What do massage therapists need ?” he asked himself.

Hal didn’t even look up. “We need a certificate,” he said promptly. “From a reputable school or apprentice program, and about 500 hours of practice. In some states it’s 1100. Who knows.”

Pierce grimaced cheerfully—you couldn’t say his boy wasn’t focused. “I mean materially. Is there a kind of massage oil you like? Do you need a folding table? What things do you need to be a massage therapist?”

Hal shrugged. “A sturdy table—the kind that can hold up to 500 pounds but wheels in on its own. Massage oil. An internship. It’s pretty simple, but it takes dedication. And, you know, not being a dick with people’s bodies. I mean, I took a couple summer classes and have about 300 hours, but it’s not close yet.”

“Okay,” Pierce said, thinking hard. “Okay.”

“So, what do you think? Should I add non-Lego touches? Ribbon? Cotton balls? Tinsel?”

Pierce looked at it critically. “I think non-Lego touches would be awesome. Come on, raid the stash pile—let’s see what you can do.”

“Yeah, well, thank God for tape. Okay—here we go.”

Pierce finished stacking his gifts and sat down at the laptop desk while Hal worked away, industrious and absorbed. Some of the fury of their lovemaking the night before had abated, but the underlying tension, that continual need, was gnawing away at Pierce’s stomach.

He was going to need Hal again that night. He was going to need him in the morning. Pierce had been mildly paranoid about becoming addicted to pain pills when he’d been released from the hospital—he’d had no idea his most frightening addiction would be the body of the pushy aqua instructor who had just sort of bossed his way into Pierce’s life.

How did you recover from that?

He started searching the internet for massage tables, not even batting an eyelash at the prices. He could do it. He should do it. He should buy Hal a massage table, so when he decided not to take his parents’ prefab life, he could have a head start into the life of his own.

Two things stopped him from just pushing the button.

The first was that delivery wouldn’t be until after he left for Sasha’s. He imagined Hal, sad and alone—and possibly hungover—the day after Christmas, getting the massage table from the lover who’d wandered into his life and then wandered out again.

He imagined him trying to set a world record for bingeing on greyhounds. He imagined the headline “College Student Dies of Alcohol Poisoning After Receiving a Really Expensive Gift from a Thoughtless Bastard.”

Imagined smashing his own head against his keyboard until the computer didn’t go anymore.

But that was only the first thing.

The second thing was that, even if Hal got it and loved it—took it and became a world-class massage therapist who catered to the stars and owed it all to Pierce and his fabulous gift and the faith he had such a short time to impart—it wouldn’t be enough.

It would feel like a real expensive tip to a therapist—and that’s not what Pierce wanted to give him at all.

“Ta-da!”

Pierce had no idea how long he was lost in an agony of indecision, but he turned around, and Hal stood holding the Lego Christmas tree out in front of him with all the aplomb of an excited twelve-year-old.

Pierce’s heart almost throbbed right out of his chest.

“Let me get a picture,” he said, his smile hurting his cheeks. “C’mon, stand right there—” He motioned to the light, and Hal moved to the optimum spot, a proud smile on his face.

Pierce took the picture, and then another one, and then three more, before Hal snatched the camera out of his hand.

“Jesus, nobody needs that many pictures of me!”

“I do,” Pierce defended grumpily. “It’s important.”

“Whatever. Here—selfie with the tree!”

“That’s not gonna—”

“Ugh.”

They both stared at the picture, with Pierce’s eyes half open and a Lego Christmas tree sprouting from Hal’s mouth like a deformed tooth.

“Okay—just us.” Hal set the tree down and looped his arm over Pierce’s shoulder, and both of them smiled at the phone with such optimism and hope, Pierce almost didn’t believe it was him in that picture. Hal snapped it, then grabbed the phone.

“Here,” he said, and his voice dropped like he’d realized, hey, this might be the only evidence that both of them ever existed in the same space and made multiple trips to Target and dominated the pool in the morning and sometimes took halting, pointless, beautiful walks along the beach. “Let me send it to my phone.”

“So I have your contacts,” Pierce said, which sounded obvious, but they hadn’t done that yet. Exchanging numbers would mean they were thinking about beyond this moment.

Hal looked up at him sideways. “So I can look at your smile,” he said.

Pierce nodded, his throat tight. “I can text you the next time I go to Target.”

Hal’s laughter sounded false to his ears, but Pierce didn’t have the heart to look him in the eyes. “Here,” he said quietly. “Set it on the end table—I’ll text Sasha. She can show the kids.”

The neighbor made a Christmas tree—we’re both very proud.

He sent one of the ones with Hal and one with the wrapped presents, both looking festive and out of place in the bright bold and white of the condo, and then sent the same thing to Derrick.

Neither responded, but as Pierce looked up, he realized something.

“Hey,” he said, musing. “Don’t you have a bestie? A buddy? A girl you wish you could marry? Something?”

Hal shrugged, ambling away from the Christmas corner, looking embarrassed. “I, uh, lost my peer group in the divorce,” he said, trying to look like it was no big deal. “And… well, I took a lot of different classes. No time to hang out with the other biology majors or history majors because… you know….”

“You were taking six other things,” Pierce said, getting it—but only a little. The answer hit him then, and his stomach knotted. “Tough being a judge’s son?”

Hal screwed his eyes shut and flopped on the small couch. “You have no idea.”

“All the kids in high school were—”

“Affluent, white, and shitty to other people,” Hal muttered. “Yeah. I mean, the gay thing, fine. The massage-therapist thing?”

“Not so fine,” Pierce said, getting it. “I went to a commuter school. If you weren’t in the same major, you just didn’t meet that many people.”

Hal cocked his head. “Why a commuter school?”

Pierce shrugged. “Not much money, I guess.” He thought about it, suddenly feeling like a crappy human being. “I had to help Sasha through school, but I guess I wouldn’t have gotten through without my parents.”

Hal looked like he wanted to say something—desperately. But he bit his lip and grabbed the remote instead.

“Wabbit season,” he said softly.

“Duck season.” Suddenly all Pierce wanted to do was kill time until they could be bodies moving in the dark.

THAT NIGHT, as they stood up to go to bed, he moved quickly enough to wrap his arms around Hal’s waist and whisper in his ear.

“Go in, get undressed, lie naked on the bed.” At Hal’s indrawn breath, he added, “Turn off the light and close your eyes.”

He heard Hal’s swallow and let him go ahead while Pierce got the lights and locked up. On his way, he grabbed the lubricant off the table, where it had sat, chaste, in its little bag with the condoms.

He left the condoms on the table—his body was sore from the extra workout that morning, and cramping up in the middle of sex was not attractive.

Besides. He wanted to take care of Hal tonight.

When he got to the room, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the dark. And because he wanted to see Hal, legs splayed indecently, naked and vulnerable.

And for that night, his.

He undressed as quickly as he could, leaving his boxers up near his pillow to make them easier to find when they were done, and then, without saying a word, positioned himself between Hal’s knees.

He heard the little gasp that meant Hal felt him, and then ran his hands up and down Hal’s calves. Hal groaned softly, so Pierce followed through on the caress, behind the knees to his inner thighs. Pierce didn’t know anything about massage, but he did know about the wonders of skin against skin.

He ran both hands to Hal’s inner thighs, where he could run palms around the soft flesh of his legs and his thumbs down the juncture of leg and erogenous zone. When he extended the caress to part Hal’s asscheeks, Hal’s groan almost rocked him off the bed.

Pierce stretched out on his stomach, putting most of his weight on his good side, and bent his head, tracing a path with his tongue where his thumbs had been.

“Killing. Me.”

Hal’s voice, loud and demanding in the dark, startled Pierce badly enough to slip, face-planting with his mouth over Hal’s balls.

Disgruntled, he sucked one into his mouth, pleased when Hal’s feet came off the bed and he made a happy, turned-on sound.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Hal whispered. “No talking.”

Pierce sucked a little harder in acknowledgment and positioned himself again, this time with his hand on Hal’s thickening cock.

He licked a line between his fingers and his thumb—because there was a space between them, because damn. He got to the bell and played, excited because tonight was his turn. He widened his mouth and lowered his head, letting his lips barely brush the head, his tongue flutter around it, while his hot breath promised the cave of wonders was right there .

Hal grunted and tried to buck but held himself back.

Pierce repaid him with a lick over the head, while his other hand fumbled for the lube bottle. Hal groaned, and Pierce gave another butterfly lick, and another, tasting precome.

“You know what that means,” Pierce whispered into the darkness.

“You want to swallow?”

Just hearing the words was dirty enough to make Pierce hard.

“Sure.” He tightened his mouth then and lowered his head, putting pressure all the way down to the root. Hal moaned and massaged Pierce’s scalp through his hair while Pierce wiggled on the bed and tried to remember his plan.

Oh yes.

Lubricant.

He one-handed the bottle while he worked, his weaker arm trembling for the seconds it took to make his fingers slick and snap the top back on.

But once that was done, he could explore, sliding his fingertips down the center of Hal’s warm cleft, finding the pucker in the center. A part of him yearned for sunlight and an entire day to make love, but most of him knew that his body had maybe a half an hour in it.

He would make it count.

He slid a fingertip inside and played the edge of Hal’s bell with his tongue and the very delicate edge of his teeth. Hal let out a deep shudder and hunched down on the finger, taking Pierce up to his second knuckle.

“Getting cheeky,” Pierce whispered, making sure his breath ghosted over the wet skin of Hal’s cockhead.

“Not. A. Virgin,” Hal graveled from a constricted throat.

Pierce grunted and took Hal’s cock all the way down to the back of his throat—and added another finger.

The sound Hal let out was not quite human.

Oh, he was tight. His ass clamped down hard on Pierce’s fingers, and Pierce thrust them in deeper and then pulled them out. Hal planted his feet farther apart and lifted his hips, giving Pierce free rein, and Pierce took it, lowering his mouth to the root and shoving his fingers in harder.

Hal moaned, shaking, and spurted just a little bit of pre.

But he didn’t come. Not yet.

Pierce added a little more lube—and then he added, very slowly, another finger.

Hal screamed into his forearm, and Pierce thrust hard, digging his tongue into the slit at the top and widening his fingers at the root on the bottom.

Pierce knew himself, knew he’d be gibbering by now, begging, needing , but Hal—Hal kept more inside. He grabbed his thighs, spreading himself wider, and Pierce fucked him harder, sucking him, swirling his tongue for all he was worth.

Hal let out a groan and let go of his thighs. He banged his hands into the bed as he chased his elusive orgasm, and Pierce changed tactics.

He kept his fingers in the searing heat of Hal’s body but started to move them slowly . He pulled his head back to torment the head of Hal’s cock, but he used his other hand to squeeze and stroke slowly .

He continued to tease—tongue and the faintest edge of his teeth—but he went slowly .

Hal lost his mind.

His arms went first, flailing and pounding the bed on either side, and Pierce stopped for a moment, fingers still fucking, and issued an order. “Your nipples, Hal—pinch them!”

Hal did what he suggested, and Pierce kept up the slow pressure, the caress, the driving Hal out of his mind.

He kept squeezing the head of Hal’s cock whenever he got to the end of the stroke and… one more time… and another… and another… and….

Hal screamed, his chest lifting off the bed like he was being hauled up by strings, his head tilted back as he cried out. Pierce didn’t stop, not even when his mouth flooded, and he had to swallow, and again.

Hal collapsed against the bed in a limp heap, whimpering, “Done. I’m done,” and Pierce finally stopped. He wiped his fingers on a washcloth he’d brought, and wiped his mouth on his bare shoulder while Hal curled up on his side self-protectively and caught his breath.

“Pierce?” he said, voice quavery in the moonlight coming from the window.

“Yeah?”

“Come here. I need to kiss you.”

Pierce didn’t ask if he’d mind tasting his own come—that was part of the celebration, he figured. He scooted up to lay his head on the pillow, and Hal took his mouth, sweeping his tongue in, taking over again and again and again. Pierce kissed him back, aroused, but just as happy to neck in the dark until they fell asleep.

But Hal had words for him before that happened.

“That was amazing,” he whispered, and Pierce smiled, justifiably proud.

“You’re fun to make love to,” he said. He couldn’t remember another lover—not Cynthia, not Loren—who would have abandoned himself so thoroughly. “I could suck your cock for a month.”

Hal laughed weakly, but he was apparently thinking about something else. “I’m… I think tomorrow I’m going to go get you a gift. Is that okay?”

Pierce smiled, though, darkness and all. “Okay but not necessary,” he said, nuzzling Hal’s sweaty chest.

“I… I need to do something else, though, up in my condo.” Hal grunted. “Just, you know, some housecleaning stuff. I haven’t really been living there. I should….”

Pierce frowned. “You don’t want to move ba—”

“No! Not… not until I have to.” Hal let out a frustrated puff of air. “Just… tonight, I took care of my old business, and you did something really awesome for me. And I just want to take care of my old business again. But I don’t want you to have to—”

Pierce shoved up on his good elbow. “You’ve done nothing this month but deal with me and my old business,” he accused. “Why wouldn’t I want to help you with—?”

Hal kissed him, hard, demandingly, until Pierce was an amoeba, melting into the mattress. “Please,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to see me like… like the condo would let you see me.”

Pierce scowled, but he had to admit—he’d been out-bossed. “I could take it,” he protested, feeling young and protected and not liking it. “I actually am older than you.”

Hal laughed and kissed his cheek. “Believe me, Captain Recovery, I am aware. Just….” He licked the corner of his own mouth delicately, where a shiny drop of come threatened to trickle down. “You let me be the boss between us,” he said after a moment, running his hand over Pierce’s naked chest.

“Maybe I’m just naturally submissive,” Pierce admitted, feeling like that was a big step.

Hal’s raucous laughter told him maybe he hadn’t said anything that insightful after all. “You think?” He ran his hand to Pierce’s groin and began to tickle. “It’s why we need you stretched and mobile, my friend—you have the makings of a sexual dynamo, and we just need recovery to free it. Like letting the Tasmanian devil out of his cage.”

Pierce chuckled weakly and allowed Hal to fondle his cock.

“Feels like you came already,” Hal said, nuzzling Pierce’s bicep.

“I did, a little.” Pierce smiled complacently, so happy in this moment he was surprised he had the wherewithal to speak. “I… this here? Us. You in my mouth? It’s perfect.”

Hal dropped his head to rest it on Pierce’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

They didn’t mention the deadline or the things they might not get a chance to do.

It was the only time in Pierce’s life that he was content to let “perfect” just exist, even if it might not be “permanent.”