Part 4 (1/2)

Ian changed the subject by licking his way up Cal's stomach and pus.h.i.+ng him down on the floor, relis.h.i.+ng the way he bucked and arched off the cold hardwood, barely touching with the points of his shoulder blades. Ian had never done this with a guy before, but Cal was solid, a continuous span of taut muscle, and every touch, every lick, nip, and breath rippled through him like a telegraph. It wasn't hard to figure out what he liked, not any harder than it was for his own d.i.c.k to find the groove of Cal's jutting hip bone.

”Ah!”

Ian thought it was a gasp of pleasure until Cal reached between them and rolled his own jeans down the rest of the way, the zipper of which had sc.r.a.ped a channel in his flesh.

”Sorry,” Ian whispered, barely lifting his head as he snaked his tongue between ribs and teased along the leading edges with his lower teeth, just enough to make Cal wriggle and twist up into the contact. He was only a little self-conscious when he felt Cal's hand inside the waistband of his shorts, too busy finding out Cal's nipples were more sensitive than any girl's he'd ever been with. Lost in the sensation, Ian rutted against Cal's hip, pulling one nipple and then the other into his mouth just to hear Cal make that little grunting noise deep in his throat.

G.o.d, Cal's hands were huge, grabbing Ian's a.s.s and kneading each cheek, first simultaneously and then alternating. Sweat trickled down between them, and Ian became aware of the stashed playing card glued to the front of his stomach, just above the hairline, the corners poking and prodding with every grinding thrust he made.

He was about to move up a little higher, find out what that little divot under Cal's Adam's apple 33 tasted like, and surrept.i.tiously remove the card from his boxer briefs, when, ”Ah!” He jerked straight up, the elastic of his underwear snapping against his flesh.

He wasn't a prude. He wasn't. He just, somehow, lost track of Cal's hands for a second there, and one of them, just a finger... at least, if felt like a finger went... Well, no one had ever touched him... there before.

Cal looked up at him, agape, chest still heaving, but now he had his hands splayed against the floor. ”I'm sorry, I... I thought we were... I should've gone slower.”

”Nooo, n-n-n-nooo,” Ian waffled. ”We were, I mean, I think we were going... uh, there, but I guess...” His stomach rolled, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Cal sat up, nearly dumping Ian off, but caught him with strong hands around his biceps before he hit the floor. ”Look, Ian, we don't have to. There are other things we can do besides that. We can start with...”

”Oh, h.e.l.l no!” Ian's was not some woobie little schoolgirl. He was far from virginal, and he f.u.c.king liked s.e.x. This day was not going to end up as awkwardly as it had started. They were clearing this hurdle once and for all. ”We are doing this. Now!”

He lunged forward, knocked Cal back to the floor, and started kissing anything he could get his mouth on, sucking and biting at collar bone, chin, and lips until Cal was back to gasping and unable to argue. Nipping up along Cal's jaw bone to his ear, he whispered, ”I have everything we need. Just... how do you want to do it...?” A swirl of tongue around an ear lobe, a tender bite to Cal's pulse point. The tip of his nose nuzzled into the hair line. ”Any way you want.” He hoped he sounded more sure of himself than he felt. He swore he'd never been this nervous when he was a virgin the first time.

He thought he was hiding it pretty well. No way Cal heard the gurgle in his stomach over the heavy breathing, and if his...um... interest was flagging a little, he had no intention of letting it continue. Bracing himself on his elbows, he sagged so his forehead rested against Cal's collarbone and huffed into the little valley between the bulging pecs, hips flexing and grinding.

Ian's heart pounded. Sweat burned in his eyes when hands slid up off his a.s.s and along the dip in his back, up, up, and up, until Cal's thumbs hooked around Ian's jaw from behind and tilted his head up. ”Hey...” Cal's voice was distant, lost in the pounding of blood in Ian's ears, somewhere miles away behind his closed eyelids, until Cal thrust up once, hard and throbbing, into the soft spot below Ian's navel and twined their ankles together, spreading Ian's legs until he lost his leverage. ”Hey. Look at me.”

Ian did, eyelids fluttering against the weight of sweat clinging to his lashes. When he did, Cal was there. Cal, the guy his mother used to give the extra cookie to when they came home from school. The kid who told him what it meant when his pants got too tight for no apparent reason, and what to do to fix it. The only one who believed he could make it as an actor and gave him a room in his own house when he wasn't so much making it as taking it. The friend who got him a 34 meeting with the producer on the show he was a production a.s.sistant on when the c.o.c.ky lead threw a tantrum and walked off. It was crazy how much Ian owed this guy, how well he knew him, and how much more he was about to know. Something like doubt crawled up his spine, because, f.u.c.k, what if he messed it up, and he coiled, ready to lurch up and make a run for it.

But Cal knew Ian as well as Ian knew Cal. He thrust up again, one hand reaching between them and tightening around Ian's c.o.c.k, his eyes open and soft the whole while, searching Ian's as he smiled. ”G.o.d, what you do to me.” He pulled Ian down, thumb stroking along his jaw and over the sh.e.l.l of his ear, until they kissed, both inhaling until their stomachs b.u.mped, trying to draw each other deeper from the inside out.

One flick of Cal's wrist, and Ian came with a shout, adding some sticky to the slick of sweat between them. He collapsed into Cal's neck, breathing through the tremors and waiting for his stomach to stop its clenching roil.

Only it didn't.

Ian's head was just starting to clear, the high-pitched white noise waning away like the tail end of a cicada song, when something became painfully obvious. He loved Cal, which was awesome, but that wasn't it. Well, it was, but unfortunately that was not the most urgent thought.

See, that thing he was thinking earlier? About having nothing left to lose? He was wrong. Ian still had something left to lose. Dinner and... dessert.

He barely managed to roll to the side and jerk his underwear back up before he avoided throwing up in Cal's lap by throwing up all over their discarded clothing instead.

As it turned out the most eventful thing that came of their trip to the local emergency room was that the nurse discovered the Queen of Hearts glued to the skin inside his boxer briefs, reminding him that he hadn't even managed to get fully naked before coming like a teenager. She almost concealed the smirk with a more professional expression when she tucked the card into his personal effects bag without a word, and then left him with an emesis basin and a call b.u.t.ton for the entirety of the three hours they had to wait while the couple dozen or so other people who were stupid enough to eat the chili dogs got treated first. After the humiliation of that and, well, the whole puking thing, the shot of anti-emetic and prescription for a good antidiarrheal were pretty... anticlimactic.

What the f.u.c.k was it with the dramatic pauses? His brother always did say he was a drama queen when he was sick.

Not that Ian was anywhere near the point of giving a d.a.m.n by then. He didn't even ask if he could take the shot in his arm, just rolled over and pulled down his pants, which was a whole lot easier when he wasn't hard enough to drive nails, and held onto the emesis basin for dear life. He had no pride left whatsoever.

35 He had really, really reached rock bottom, and he was determined to just stay there and wallow for a while.

For the next two days, there were lots of buckets and trips to the bathroom and bottles and bottles of Pedialyte, because Gatorade just wouldn't cut it, and Ian liked the grape-flavored Pedialyte better. Through it all there was Cal, bathed in the halo of light from the aquarium. He left it on twenty-four hours a day to avoid turning on anything harsher while still being able to see when checking on Ian. Not that there was much checking to do, considering he never really left, no matter how rank the room got or how many buckets of puke he had to hose out.

Aside from the whole being sick at both ends thing, Ian thought he could get used to the attention. It was nice to have Cal in his room without the pretense of checking on the fish, air quotes or none.

He didn't feel like he got more than five or ten minutes of sleep at a time during the whole ordeal, but whether he was just falling asleep or barely awake, Cal was there, his hands on Ian, the only things soft and soothing in the midst of stabbing pain, chills, intense cramping, and bitterness. Cal's hands were huge. Ian had teased him about them at least once a day since they discovered he could palm a basketball in the seventh grade. But now they weren't big enough, two little oases in the desert of sickness.

f.u.c.k that. Ian didn't wax poetic when he was healthy. He sure the h.e.l.l wasn't doing it now.

He liked Cal's hands. He liked them a lot. And what he knew from the whole being sick thing was they felt good on his forehead, brus.h.i.+ng his hair back, on his jaw, turning his head so he wouldn't soil the sheets when he started to gag. They were better than a salve, smoothing out the tightness in his back and shoulders, warmer than the sheets Cal tucked up around him when he was done convulsing and was trying to sleep before the next attack.

Best yet, they were attached to those huge-a.s.sed arms and shoulders that sloped into a bulging chest. And when taking care of Ian was too much for either of them to take, Cal's hands, his arms, his shoulders, his chest, all of him, curled up around Ian so they were close enough that Cal's drool spot was on the collar of Ian's t-s.h.i.+rt.

Ian didn't have to do or say anything to keep Cal from leaving. But he didn't want to keep Cal from living his life. Two days of catching and mopping up various bodily fluids... that was more of Cal than Ian had the right to ask for.

”Cal,” he whispered, barely turning his head because Cal was tucked into the crook of his neck, ”I'm okay. You don't have to stay.”

”I want to.”

”Dude, no one's that desperate.” He was sore and grimy, rank enough to peel paint, and not stupid enough to believe Cal was enjoying himself. Ian wriggled out of Cal's reach and all the 36 way to the edge of the bed, hunched in on himself like he could get small enough to disappear.

For some reason, Cal didn't get that Ian was just looking out for his best interests.

”f.u.c.k you.” Cal extricated himself from the bed and stalked over to the fish tank, making a show of feeding them like he could force the awkward out of the situation with a dose of normalcy.

The dude had just spent the last couple of days cleaning up all the wrong bodily fluids, and Ian had basically given him a 'thank you, Jeeves,' and pointed him toward the guest quarters.

Yeah, awkward.

Ian bit his lip and huffed into his pillow, but when his tongue got forked like it was then, there was no keeping it in check. ”Yeah, that went well.” He wasn't sure what he meant by that. True, it didn't go well, 'it' being anything that equated to him and Cal being anything more than just really good friends, but he wasn't sure if the blame in his voice was meant for himself or for Cal.

He didn't know how he had ever expected he could suddenly realize he was gay for his best friend, and then just go about pursuing him the way he would have any of the girls he'd ever dated, and have that work out. Because those relations.h.i.+ps had always ended so well.

Cal dropped the lid on the fish tank abruptly enough that the fish all darted to the bottom. ”Look.

I know things haven't exactly gone smoothly.”

”Your powers of deduction... they astound me,” Ian sniped, curling tighter around himself to make up for the lack of Cal to keep him warm.

Cal turned around, hands on his hips, his head tilted defiantly to the side. ”I'm not going to do this with you.”

”Do what?”

”You know what. Let you prod me into an argument until we're both so p.i.s.sed we can't see straight and give you an opening to run away.”

”That's not what I was doing.” He lied. He was a lying liar who lied. He knew that. But it wasn't fair that Cal knew him better than he knew himself. It was his hang-up, and he'd pout if he wanted to.

”Dude, I've been in shouting distance for at least three of your breakups. I know how you work.