Sweaters & Cigarettes (39 page)

Max's hand is almost tentative, as
it smoothes over Theo's hip, down along his thigh, before moving up to his ass,
and Theo lets out a small breath of surprise, as Max slips a finger inside,
before adding a couple more. It feels amazing, hitting all the right spots, and
Theo closes his eyes, gripping the pillow tightly. Then Max moves his hand
away, and he hitches up Theo's leg a little bit, before lining up, and slowly,
very slowly, pushing in.

The reaction is immediate.

Theo lets out a moan, one that Max
mirrors, and by the time Max bottoms out, Theo is gritting his teeth and
burrowing his face into the pillow.
Jesus christ.

Max doesn't bother asking if Theo
is okay; the way Theo reaches back with his hand and softly smoothes over Max's
lower arm is confirmation enough. Max shudders, before pulling out a bit, and
slowly starting to move, carefully controlling weeks of pent-up sexual
frustration and longing, as he does.

It's amazing, even better than last
time, and with every thrust, Theo moans, Max planting kisses against his neck
and trailing down over his stomach, with his hand. And with every movement, Max
groans deeply in the back of his throat, his hand moving up to keep Theo's hips
firmly in place, as he moves inside him, pushing and grinding. It's enough to
make Theo feel like everything else in the entire world has disappeared,
disintegrated, blown away by the sheer sensation of having Max so close, moving
into him and making them both lose their minds with pure, reckless abandon. It
doesn't take long, before he hears Max's breath starting to stutter.

Theo isn't sure why, but just
hearing Max's groans turn into heavy, panting breaths in his ear, is enough to
make his heart race, that familiar heat coiling in his stomach, and he moves
his hand back to press against Max's hip, as he moves. Max moans deeply, and he
rains kisses across Theo's neck and shoulder, trying to stay in control, while
he moves his hand down between Theo's legs and starts stroking him, slowly at
first, and then faster, in time with his motions. The feeling of it makes Theo
bite out a loud moan, as he squeezes his eyes shut, his focus zeroing in on the
feeling of Max's hand against him, the feeling of him thrusting inside him.

And within seconds, he's just
losing it.

He's almost surprised when it
happens―almost. It hits him like a freight train, and suddenly, Theo is
coming, hard and fast, and he nearly cries out, pretty certain that Max's name
is in there, somewhere, while Max keeps moving, keeps thrusting, faster and
harder. It's the most amazing feeling, and when Theo feels Max tense up against
him, he angles his head back, so that he can reach Max's mouth, in a clumsy,
but incredibly hot kiss, and for what feels like several, blissfully long
seconds, they ride out the climax, together.

It takes a while for Theo to come
back down. His hearing is somehow muffled, from the ringing in his ears, and
lets his head fall back to the pillow, exhausted. Max tries to catch his
breath, planting a soft kiss against Theo's shoulder, as he moves his arm up
across Theo's chest, pulling him closer in a surprisingly tender embrace,
considering how rough he was being, only seconds ago. And Theo lets out a slow,
tired exhale.

"I love you," he murmurs,
and Max lets out a soft chuckle.

"That's nice of you to
say," he says lightly, panting a bit. "You know, when I'm still
inside you, and all."

Theo smiles to himself and gives Max
a lame smack with his hand, which is still resting against Max's hip. And Max
chuckles again.

"Alright, fine," he says,
hugging Theo tighter and kissing his neck, then moving up to kiss his cheek.
"I love you, too."

He adds those last words in a
whisper, just by Theo's ear, and Theo closes his eyes for a moment, his whole
body feeling like it's made of jelly. He can't help but smile.

Getting cleaned up isn't that much
of a hassle, and when Theo comes out of the bathroom later, Max is already in
the process of getting dressed.

"That seems unnecessary,"
Theo says in mock petulance, nearly pouting as he makes his way over to his
boyfriend, who just throws him a small smirk.

"Yeah," he says
sympathetically. "But it's the middle of the day, which I honestly forgot
about. And I just have this weird habit of actually wearing clothes, during the
day."

He frowns a bit at that last part,
as though thinking to himself how weird that is, and Theo just shakes his head,
smiling. He has already put his boxers back on, and he figures that Max has a
point; he does actually feel a bit weird about wandering around half-naked,
right now. Maybe it does have something to do with it not being nighttime, the
cover of darkness absent.

"Fair enough," Theo says,
following Max's example and picking up his pants from the floor. He has only
just managed to pull them on, though, when he sees Max pick up his black,
long-sleeved t-shirt.

"Oh no, you don't," he
says, snatching up the shirt from his boyfriend's grip. "You're almost
completely covered up, already, you gotta leave me with something."

Max raises his eyebrows, mouth
falling open, as Theo pointedly eyes those bare, tattooed arms with obvious
glee.

"You can't just take my
stuff," Max says in a mock accusatory tone. Theo just smiles, though.

"I can," he says, holding
the shirt behind his back. "I just did."

"Give it back," Max says,
stepping closer, but Theo just shakes his head.

"No," he says.

"Theo."

"Nope." As if to
accentuate this, Theo holds the shirt up in the air, over his head, when Max
attempts to take it from him, and Max rolls his eyes. He's smiling a little,
though.

"What are you, twelve?"
he says, but Theo just smiles, and when Max makes another attempt at retrieving
his shirt, Theo throws it away and captures Max in his arms. He kisses him
firmly on the mouth, and it takes only a second for Max to relax against him.
He hums contentedly.

"I'm so glad I got punched in
the face, today," he murmurs, and Theo pulls away. Then Max cocks his head,
as though he realizes how dumb that sounds. "Alright, maybe not
glad
."

He moves one hand up to pull
through Theo's hair.

"But I got to go home
early," he says conspiringly. "And we got to spend some time
together."

Theo can't help but smile at that.

"Yeah," he says.
"That was fun."

Max smiles wickedly, then.

"I bet you think so," he
says, and Theo frowns for a moment, before remembering the stuf he said, in the
heat of the moment. And he groans, looking down at the floor.

"I can't believe I said that,"
he mutters, feeling oddly embarrassed, and Max hums in confirmation.

"Yeah, you were very...
enthusiastic.
"
He smiles wider. "Never knew you had it in you."

Theo glances at that smug face,
before groaning again, and placing his forehead against Max's shoulder.

"Shut up," he mumbles.
"I can't believe I did any of that, it's not exactly like me."

"Well," Max says, a fond,
amused smile in his voice. "Can't say I'm complaining."

Theo tentatively looks up at him,
and Max cocks his eyebrows suggestively, making Theo roll his eyes. He smiles.

"You're such an asshole,"
he says, and Max laughs, pulling him in for a kiss.

"And you love it," he
says, and Theo must admit that he does, as he kisses him.

Theo is too wrapped up in the
moment to really notice the soft, rattling sound coming from downstairs, but
Max isn't, apparently. He noticeably tenses up, and looks toward the open door
of his bedroom, which leads out into the hallway by the stairs. Theo looks at
his boyfriend, and is surprised to find that those blue eyes have actually gone
wide, as though he's on edge, and listening very intently.

"Max?" Theo tries, but
Max doesn't respond.

Then, after a few seconds, Theo
hears it.

"Max!" Someone calls from
the bottom floor. It sounds like a woman. "You home?"

Theo is slightly stunned at the
weird mix of panic, surprise and confusion he suddenly feels, and he watches
Max, as his expression changes. Instead of alert, he looks tense, all of a
sudden, as well as a little bit frantic, and slightly concerned.

Max swallows hard, looking at his
open bedroom door, and Theo glances in the same direction.

"Who's that?" he asks, a
bit hesitantly, and Max exhales slowly. His expression is clearly
uncomfortable, and a little bit worried, when he replies.

"That would be my mom."

Chapter 25

Indifference

Theo really shouldn't be surprised, but for some
reason, he is.

Sure, Max's mother suddenly coming
home, when she should be at work, is definitely a surprise, but come
on―who else would it be?

Max seems rather anxious about it, though.
Or perhaps
anxious
is the wrong word. It's more something along the
lines of
tense
, his eyes fixed on his open bedroom door.

"Your mom?" Theo asks
dumbly, and Max lets out a small sigh, turning to Theo. He doesn't have a
chance to reply, though, before his mother's voice is heard again.

"Max?" she calls, but Max
apparently ignores it, cocking his head, in reply to Theo's question. And Theo
raises his eyebrows at him.

"Well, now what?" he
says, unconsciously lowering his voice, and Max just shrugs. Then he looks over
at the window above his bed, and gives Theo a pointed glance, which Theo
returns with a bored glare.

"Are you serious, right
now?" he says, his tone flat, but Max just shrugs again.

"Well, I don't know," he
says in a low voice, sounding unusually stressed. "It's just a
thought."

"I'm not sneaking out through
the window," Theo practically hisses at him.

"Well, do you have a better
idea?" Max retorts, and Theo looks at him in slight disbelief.

"Yes," he says, voice
still lowered. "I could just, you know,
meet
her."

Max looks slightly surprised at the
hinted sarcasm, but doesn't seem to mind.

"Or not," he nearly
whispers in response, still coming off as slightly on edge. "We've talked
about this."

"Yeah," Theo agrees.
"But you've met my family, since then, and we've been together for a
while, now. I think it's about time. And if nothing else, what am I supposed to
do? Just hide up here, while you pretend I don't exist?"

"That's not what's happening
here," Max points out, sounding both defensive and comforting, as though
desperate to make sure that Theo doesn't think he wants to hide him. "It's
just a bit sudden."

Theo gapes at him.

"Sudden?" he repeats.
"It's not like you haven't had a boy in your room, before."

He chooses to ignore that annoying
twinge of stinging jealousy he feels in his gut, as he says it.

"Well, yeah, but not like
this," Max says, to Theo's slight surprise, and then continues in a
blatantly sarcastic tone, his voice lowered to practically a hiss. "And I
don't know about you, but I feel a bit weird about introducing my first
boyfriend to my mother for the first time, after fucking him in my bed, just
ten minutes ago."

Theo just blinks at him, slightly
taken aback at Max's way of phrasing what they were doing earlier, before figuring
that that
was
exactly what happened, and that Max tends to talk like
that, anyway. Theo is just used to him softening such descriptions, when it
comes to Theo and what the two of them do in bed, together, and he's not
offended, not like he used to be.

And then he realizes what Max just
said.

"Your first boyfriend?"
he can't help but ask, rather softly. He knows that he is, at least going on
what Max said back when they first labeled their relationship as such; he said
he had
never really been anyone's boyfriend, before.
Still, though.
Hearing him say it like this is surprisingly satisfying.

Max just rolls his eyes, clearly
anxious.

"Is that really relevant,
right now?" he hisses, and then starts, as his mother calls his name
again.

"Max?" she says, her
voice carrying up the stairs, and Max sighs sharply, eyes on Theo.

"Come on," Theo says,
cupping Max's face and giving him a deliberate kiss. "Let's just get
dressed, and go downstairs."

"You sure now is a good
time?" Max says, half-serious and half-sarcastic.

"Now's a good a time, as
any," Theo says, sounding so much more confident than he actually is.
"It'll be fine."

Max looks doubtful, but apparently
decides to give in, and Theo isn't about to argue.

They get properly dressed in a
matter of seconds, and as they make their way through the hallway outside Max's
bedroom, Max throws Theo a glance; he looks oddly scared. Theo doesn't say
anything, though. Instead, he just takes Max's hand and squeezes it gently,
before nodding toward the staircase pointedly, as if to say
go ahead, I'm
right behind you.

It seems to make Max relax at least
a little bit.

Theo isn't quite sure, but perhaps
his uncharacteristic lack of nervousness right now is due to Max's equally
uncharacteristic abundance of it. He seems to unconsciously squeeze Theo's
hand, as they make their way down the stairs, and Theo trails slightly behind
him, as they go through the hall and into the kitchen. He can hear someone
opening the fridge, and when he and Max stop in the doorway, she seems to hear
them.

"Hey, honey," she says,
and pulls back to close the fridge. "I just―"

The woman stops dead when she spots
the two of them, clearly surprised, a bottle of juice in her hand. Her
expression gives her open, kind face and sort of vacant look, along with her
blond, pulled-back hair and pink hospital scrubs. She looks to be in her
forties, and she really looks like she's in the middle of a work shift, more
than anything.

"Hello," she says, slowly
making her way over to the two of them. The surprised expression on her face is
fading, and her gaze passes between Max and Theo, before settling on her son.
"I wasn't aware you had someone over."

Max squeezes Theo's hand the
tiniest bit.

"Yeah," he says, sounding
oddly subdued. "This is Theo."

Theo is vaguely surprised at Max
introducing him right away, but he doesn't mention it. Instead, he only glances
at him, before looking up at his mother, who meets his eye.

"Theo," Max's mother
says, as though sampling the name, in a rather neutral tone.

"He's my boyfriend."

This time, the reaction is more
noticeable. The woman looks at her son, her expression a strange mix of
surprise, disbelief and just the slightest hint of something that Theo thinks
looks an awful lot like amusement. She flicks a glance toward the hall by the
front door, where she no doubt now remembers seeing an extra set of outerwear,
next to her son's, which told her he was home, in the first place.

She turns back to Max.

"Boyfriend," she says, halfway
between a question and a slightly doubtful statement, and she gives Max a
pointed look. There it is again, that amusement. It bothers Theo, for some
reason.

Max grits his teeth slightly, but
Theo isn't sure anyone else would be able to tell.

"Yeah," he says, his tone
flat. "Boyfriend."

The look the two of them exchange
then is odd, one that Theo isn't used to seeing between a parent and their
child. Then again, after a moment or so, he recognizes it; it's almost the same
look he knows he gave his parents, when he and they were having their first
Max-related argument. It's a look of slightly annoyed defiance.

It's after another second or so of
silence, that Max's mother takes a breath and turns to Theo, a lighter
expression on her face.

"Well, in that case," she
says, holding out her hand. "I'm Jeanine, Max's mom."

Theo hesitates for a moment, a
little bit unsettled by the weird atmosphere, but he keeps his eyes on hers, as
he politely shakes her hand. Jeanine gives him a small smile, but it's a tight one,
with no real affection behind it.

"What are you doing home,
already?" she says then, releasing Theo's hand and turning to her son, who
just half-shrugs lamely.

"We got out early," he
says, and although Theo's parents definitely would have wanted an elaboration
on that, Jeanine doesn't.

"And how did the test
go?" she asks. She doesn't seem to have to specify
which
test,
exactly, because Max seems to know what she's referring to.

"Nearly a full score," he
says, but there's no hint of satisfaction in his voice. And when Theo sees
Jeanine's expression, he can see why. She looks at Max pointedly, almost like a
parent would look at a small child, as if to say
are you sure?
There's
something oddly condescending about it, and it makes Theo bristle.

"Nearly?" Jeanine asks,
and Max gives her the smallest of nods. Jeanine just looks at him for another
moment, before sighing softly. She doesn't give him any further reply, as she
turns around and makes her way to the kitchen counter.

"I just came home to get
this," she says, picking up a Tupperware container. "Can't forget
dinner, when you're working 'til midnight."

She gives Max a small smile that
implies a shrug, but he doesn't reply, and Jeanine jingles a set of keys in her
hand. She's wearing an open jacket over her pink nurse's scrubs, as well as
shoes, which implies that she really is home only very temporarily, and she
starts making her way past them, into the hall.

"I'll see you later," she
says, leaning in and giving Max only the slightest brush of a one-armed hug. He
barely responds, only nods, and Jeanine glances over her shoulder, as she makes
her way to the front door.

"It was nice meeting
you," she says, looking at Theo, and he gets the impression that she wants
to add his name, but that she chooses not to. Instead, she just gives them both
a small wave, before leaving, and closing the door behind her.

Theo is pretty sure he has never
felt so uncomfortable about something so mundane, in his entire life, and for
several seconds of silence, pierced only by the sound of Jeanine driving off,
he just stands there. Then he turns to Max, who's just looking straight ahead,
an oddly tired, tense expression on his face. Theo squeezes his hand, making
those blue, black-lined eyes turn to him.

"Well," Theo says a bit awkwardly,
in an attempt to lighten the mood. "At least, she doesn't seem to hate me.
My parents would have freaked."

Max knows that he's referring to
the time before Theo's parents accepted Max, and he knows just how true Theo's
statement is; an unfamiliar boy in their home, just like that, wouldn't exactly
be welcome.

Max gives Theo a small, humorless
smile.

"Yeah," he agrees.
"Although, honestly, I kinda wish she would, too. I kinda wish my parents
would actually get mad at me, once in a while. Or happy, or excited."

He looks over at the front door.

"Most of the time, they
just... ignore me."

Theo is struck by the way Max's
voice suddenly sounds very small, and for a moment, he's torn between surprised
sadness and unfamiliar anger.

He knows what's it's like to be
ignored.

For most of his life, before he
befriended Michael, he was ignored by pretty much everyone but his family, and
he knows how that feels. He knows how being ignored somehow makes you doubt
your own existence and importance, to the point where you almost wish someone
would yell at you, for no reason. Because at that point, a negative reaction is
better than no reaction, at all. At least, if you get yelled at, you exist, and
you matter enough to make someone else waste emotion on you.

Theo doesn't want Max to feel that
way. And being ignored by strangers is one thing, but being ignored by your
family is another thing, entirely.

Theo hesitates for a moment, unsure
of how to best comfort Max, who seems oddly deflated and sad about the situation
that just took place. He settles for moving his hand to Max's hip and pulling
him a bit closer to his side, and planting a kiss against his temple.

"That's their loss," he
hears himself say, somewhat unintentionally, and Max looks at him.

"You have a habit of saying
the right thing," he says with a small, almost shy smile, narrowing his
eyes. "You know that?"

Theo cocks his head, in an
unsuccessful attempt to look casually smug, and he ends up smiling, instead.

"I have an idea," he
says, pulling Max closer, so that he can put his hands on his waist. Max
definitely isn't lost on the way Theo is blatantly trying to distract him and
cheer him up, but he seems to just accept it, granting a small, genuine smile
of his own.

"And what's that?" he
asks, while Theo plants a kiss against his forehead.

"We should get some
pizza," Theo says, moving his lips to Max's cheekbone, where he kisses
him. "And we should watch bad movies. And maybe even make out."

Max scoffs.

"Like I'm that easy," he
says in mock, smug offense, and Theo hums against his skin, planting a kiss by
his eyebrow, just below the piercing.

"I would never do you the
dishonor," he says, in equally mock seriousness. "Just some
well-behaved movie-watching, then."

"And pizza," Max
interjects, and Theo smiles against his skin.