Sweaters & Cigarettes (4 page)

Theo doesn’t look away this time. Instead,
he closes his eyes, suddenly aching for those lips, aching to feel Max move
against him, bodies pressed together. He swallows hard.

“I know you want me,” Max whispers, still
teasing at a kiss, his mouth tantalizingly close to Theo’s. Theo tightens his grip
on his hips. “And honestly, I’m getting hard just looking at you.”

Theo involuntarily groans. How can Max
talk like that? Theo has never heard
anyone
talk like that, not to him,
and hearing it from Max's mouth, so close to his own, those hips grinding
against him as Max straddles his lap, is close to unbearable. He doesn’t know
what to do, doesn’t know how to react.

He can hear Max's breathing getting
heavier, can feel it, and he tries to focus. Why is Max doing this? Why won’t
he just get this over with, do something,
anything
, instead of teasing
Theo like this?

Then Theo realizes it; Max wants
him
to
make the move. So Theo does.

Max's lips are a fraction of an inch away,
and as soon as Theo steals them with his own, he knows he’s done for.

Max's entire body presses against him,
grinding slowly, hands moving down along his chest and digging into his hair,
Theo’s tongue pushing into his mouth and brushing against that metal ring in
his bottom lip. Max emits a small moan, as Theo’s hands wander up along his
back and down over his ass, pulling him closer. He’s breathing heavily,
quickly, while Theo is trying to remember how to breathe at all.

Theo’s skin is on fire. He can feel Max's
hands skimming along his body, smoothing over his chest, the kiss deepening as
Theo slips one hand underneath that black, thin shirt,
finally
getting
to feel Max's skin against his fingers. And he can feel Max tense up, groaning
against his mouth, tugging at Theo’s bottom lip gently with his teeth. It’s a
complete overload of sensation, like Theo has never felt before, and he’s so
wrapped up in it that he barely even notices the hard-on underneath his jeans.
And as he feels Max grind against him, he can tell that Max wasn’t lying
before; he’s hard, too.

It’s only when Max's hands move down to
the fly of his jeans that Theo reacts, and he actually flinches, making Max
pull away again. He looks surprised and a little bit confused. And Theo feels
so annoying, all of a sudden, for interrupting this thing, over and over. Max
must think he’s ridiculous.

“What?” Max asks breathlessly, and Theo
swallows, glancing away. Max seems to consider this for a moment, before
lowering his chin a bit, eyes on Theo.

“You have done this before, right?” he
says, and Theo shifts uncomfortably, but doesn’t reply. And Max takes a deep
breath, as he gets it.

“So,” he says, a bit hesitantly. “You
haven’t…?”

Theo looks up at him, and Max cocks his
head a bit, asking a silent question, and Theo grits his teeth.

“Not exactly,” he finally admits, his
voice gruff, as he looks away from Max again. He can see Max nodding, out of
the corner of his eye.

“Right,” he says, and Theo suddenly feels
very embarrassed, rather than turned-on and impatient. He hadn’t thought about
this, about this question actually coming up. He hadn’t thought about the fact
that although he has done
this
before, making out and such, he hasn’t
gone further. He has never gone further than this, not with anyone.

“Huh.” Theo frowns at the small sound
coming out of Max's mouth, and he looks at him.

“What?” he says, a bit defensively, and
Max shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says. He looks a bit
pensive. “Just surprised, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well,” Theo grumbles, looking away
again, embarrassed. “Whatever.”

Neither of them says anything for a few
seconds, and Theo suddenly feels the urge to just run, to leave this room and
this house and never come back. Because Max has
clearly
done this
before, and he must think Theo is completely ridiculous, and Theo tries not to
think about it.

After a little while, Max sighs.

“It’s fine, you know,” he says. “We don’t
have to do this right now, if you don’t want.”

Theo looks at him. He could have sworn
that Max almost sounded sincere, just now.

“I mean,” Max continues, way more
nonchalantly, as though noticing the almost suspicious look on Theo’s face. “If
it’s too much, or whatever…”

He glances away then, looking oddly
subdued. Theo is reminded of earlier that day, when Max gave him his number; he
had that same look then, a sharp contrast to the cocky, predatory one he usually
wears.

“Yeah,” Theo says quietly, and waits for
Max to say something.

Then, suddenly, Max exhales and turns back
to Theo. He leans in and kisses him on the mouth, but not like he did before. It’s
softer, this time, slow and surprisingly chaste, with no tongue and no
impatience. When he pulls away, Theo just stares in surprise.

“Wanna watch
The Dark Knight
?” Max
says, and Theo blinks.

“What?” he says, and Max raises his
eyebrows slightly.

“Well, I don’t want you to leave,” he
says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Theo just keeps
staring at him. He’s honestly surprised. He was half-expecting Max to not be
the least bit interested in
actually
hanging out, and the fact that Max
is, makes him feel oddly warm inside.

“I thought you didn’t like Batman,” Theo
says, and Max smirks.

“I never said that,” he says. “I just find
him inferior to Superman.”

He cocks his head, as well as his
eyebrows.

“And I watch it mostly for the Joker’s
sake, anyway.”

He smiles at Theo then, an actual smile.
It’s the first time Theo has seen his expression look so soft, somehow. It
looks unfamiliar, but he likes it.

“Fair enough,” he says, and Max nods,
before glancing away and wiping that smile off his face, as though he can feel
how unfamiliar it looks.

“Great,” he says, getting off Theo’s lap
and standing up. Theo just sits there for a few seconds, watching as Max gets
the movie started. He feels oddly soft and relaxed, a complete one-eighty from how
he felt just minutes ago, and he exhales slowly.

Max eventually sits back down beside him,
and Theo looks at his profile, as Max leans back against the couch. Then Max
turns to him.

“What?” he says, but Theo just shakes his
head, turning to look at the TV, where the movie is starting.

He does his best not to smile.

Chapter 4

Roof

Theo has never really been good at studying, at least not when it comes
to certain subjects. He has always been eager to learn, though, always done the
work and tried his best. But his attention span doesn’t always seem to
cooperate, so some subjects, like math, are a bit trickier, and he often ends
up in the library, pouring over his books.

Today is no exception.

The library is virtually empty; Theo
supposes that most people don’t use their free periods to study. But on the
bright side, it gives him the peace and quiet he needs to focus, or at least
try to, and he actually manages to get some work done.

His friends, Hannah, Michael and Ben, were
here too, a little while ago, but Theo’s not quite sure where they went.
They’re not as ambitious as Theo is, and get bored with the studying pretty
fast. Except for Michael, but everything seems to come so easily to him. And
he’s on the basketball team, too, which means that academic grades aren’t
really quite as valuable to him as they are to Theo.

Theo’s been sitting in the corner of the
library, by a small table, for about an hour, now. There’s a small, sturdy,
wall-like parting right next to the table, a few feet high. It stands parallel
to the longer side of the table, and Theo is sitting at the far end, which puts
the wall to his left. He appreciates it; it kind of shields him from the rest
of the large room, and gives him some peace and quiet.

At least, until someone suddenly shows up
beside him.

Theo almost jumps in his seat, and turns
to look at the newcomer. And at once, he spots Max, who lightly hops up and
perches on the parting wall, swinging his legs over the edge and planting his
feet on the seat of a chair in front of the wall, by the table. Theo suddenly
feels startled, surprised, and oddly nervous, all at the same time.

“Jesus, Max,” he mutters, glancing down at
the table. “Don’t do that.”

Max ignores the reprimand.

“Hey, baby,” he says, and Theo looks up at
him again. Max is wearing that smirk, the one that makes him look like a
rebellious angel, and Theo fidgets a bit.
Baby
. Max hasn’t called him
that before.
No one
has
ever
called him that before.

Theo automatically glances around them, and
Max notices.

“Relax,” he says, sounding bored. “Your
stick-up-the-ass friends aren’t here.”

Theo looks at him.

“You shouldn’t talk about them like that,”
he says, but Max isn’t fazed.

“Really?” he says, eyebrows raised. “You
mean, as opposed to how they talk about me and
my
friends?”

He gives Theo a pointed look, and Theo
looks down at the table. He can’t argue with that.

Max sighs quietly.

“What are you doing?” he asks, and Theo
keeps his eyes on his notes, as he replies.

“Studying,” he says. “Or trying to, at
least.”

Max nods. Theo can see it out of the
corner of his eye.

What is Max doing here, anyway? They had
fun the other night, sure; Theo hasn’t had that much of a good time in ages,
with anyone. But still.

When he came over to Max's place, they
really did just hang out―at least, after the whole make-out session on
the couch, which left Theo feeling very turned-on and awkward, all at the same
time.

They watched
The Dark Knight
, commenting
on it now and then, Max occasionally pointing out how Superman would have
handled this and that situation way better. But he mostly did that to tease
Theo, and Theo didn’t mind.

Although, a few times during the movie,
they did catch each other’s eye, and then Max would lean in and kiss Theo on
the mouth. He didn’t take it further than that, though, not after that first
time, when it had gotten really intense, when Theo had basically told him that
he was a virgin. Instead, he kept it rather soft and slow, and only got into it
more, if Theo wanted to. And after the first few times, Theo even plucked up
the courage to kiss Max, taking the initiative, to Max's obvious and pleased
surprise.

Theo left only when it was getting really
late, that night, after the movie was over, and Max's parents would be back
home soon. He didn’t want to, he remembers. He wanted to stay there, wanted to
stay on that couch, Max's warm body right next to him, and watch that stupid
movie over and over again.

Max kissed him goodnight, though, before
he left. It was a really good kiss, soft and warm and greedy, all at once, and
Theo smiled almost all the way back home.

But still. He has no illusions about what
Max wants from him, or about what kind of relationship, if any, they have. He’s
not stupid, or naïve; despite his own crush on this guy, he doubts that Max
feels the same. He clearly isn’t into that kind of thing, from what Theo can
tell, and he’s still kind of shocked that Max actually wanted to hang out with
him the other night, and didn’t just send him home as soon as it became clear
that he wasn’t getting any.

So why is Max here?

Several seconds of silence follow, and the
whole time, Theo is painfully aware of Max sitting there, looking at him. He’s
a bit higher up than Theo, sitting on that little wall, but Theo can
practically sense him watching him. And then, Max suddenly makes a small
thinking noise, and Theo frowns. He looks up at him.

“What?” he says, and he can see Max
considering whether or not he should answer. He’s got the smallest frown on his
face, eyes on Theo’s notes. And then he seems to decide to say what he’s
thinking.

“That one goes there,” he says, pointing
at the notes, and Theo looks back at them. And then it dawns on him.

“Right, I forgot,” he says, just a little
bit bitterly. “You’re a genius.”

He hears a small chuckle from Max, more
like a scoff, and when Theo looks up at him, he looks oddly self-conscious,
beneath that confident expression.

“Is there anything you can’t do?” Theo
asks, with a hint of sarcasm, the kind he barely ever manages to pull off. Max
smirks, that self-consciousness gone.

“You’d be surprised,” he says. Then he
looks back at the notes on the table in front of Theo, and sighs. “However,
algebra is not one of those things.”

He looks at Theo, and extends his hand, a
question written on his face;
May I?
Theo doesn’t answer him, just hands
him his notes, full of equations and formulas, and Max takes the notepad from
him, placing it in his lap.

It somehow looks odd, Theo thinks, as he
watches Max. He’s sitting on that small dividing wall, black Dr. Martens
planted on the chair’s seat in front of and below him, a notepad full of
formulas and mathematical scribbles in his lap. He looks at it with complete
focus for a few seconds, brow slightly furrowed, rolling his tongue piercing
between his teeth―for some reason, Theo loves that quirk of his. He has
no idea why.

Finally, Max lets out a deep breath and
actually hops off the dividing wall, feet landing with a soft thud on the
floor.

“Alright,” he says, pulling up a chair and
sitting down. He squeezes in beside Theo, even though there’s barely any room
at the end of the table, where he sits. He moves so close that their shoulders
brush together, and Theo just stares at him, while Max keeps his eyes on the
notes, not bothered at all. “Here’s how it works.”

He’s clearly referring to Theo’s algebra,
and Theo glances down at the notepad, confused.

“You’re helping me with my homework?” he
blurts, and Max glances up at him. Theo could have sworn that there was the
slightest hint of nervousness in those blue eyes, just now. But if there was,
it’s gone now, as Max frowns a bit.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he
grumbles, rather unlike his usual, confident self. “It’s not like I’ve got
anything better to do.”

They look at each other for another moment
or so, before Max turns back to the notes.

“Right,” he says, clearing his throat.
“You gotta―”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
Theo, on some kind of impulse, puts his hand by Max's face and angles it, so
that he can kiss him on the mouth, and it shuts him right up.

The kiss only lasts for a few moments, but
Max reciprocates it, and when Theo pulls away, those black-lined eyes are just
a little bit widened. And Theo just looks right into them, until he realizes
that maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he went too far. And for a split second,
he panics. But then, Max blinks, and he swallows hard, before turning back to
the notes.

It’s a few minutes later, when Max has
explained to Theo how to solve his current problem, that Theo gives it a try.
And as he leans forward slightly and tries to focus, he feels the lightest
brush of Max's lips against his neck, in a soft, chaste kiss. And he smiles.

♦

“Are your parents
ever
home?” Theo
asks, and Max glances over at him. They’re at Max's house, in his room, this
time, and they’re all alone.

“Not often,” Max replies. “My mom works
nights a lot, and my dad goes out of town on business. So actually, I guess
they’re home, just not when I’m home.”

Theo nods.

“But hey,” Max says, smiling suggestively.
“More privacy.”

Theo can’t help but quirk a small smile,
but still glances away. He still feels really shy around Max a lot, especially
when he talks like that.

“What about your folks?” Max says, making
his way over to the bed, where Theo is sitting.

He came over here after school, and for
the past twenty minutes or so, he’s been awkwardly sitting in the same spot,
cross-legged, on Max's bed. Somehow, he didn’t expect to see Max's room; last
time he was here, they didn’t even leave the living room, and this feels much
more…
personal
, somehow. Although, he doubts that Max sees it that way.

He’s not sure what he expected Max's room
to look like, but it seems to fit him perfectly. The walls, one of them
slanted, are plastered with posters, ranging from bands like Korn, Marilyn
Manson and Seether, to movie posters with prints from
A Clockwork Orange,
Underworld
and
Queen of the Damned,
and Theo just sits there, taking
it in. He likes this room, he decides. It’s messy and cluttered, but Max's
personality seems to be written all over it. Even the music playing in the
background sounds like him; it’s not really Theo’s style, but he doesn’t mind.

And the room smells like him. Theo tries
not to think about that.

Max sits down in front of Theo, who’s
sitting practically in the middle of the bed, which is placed practically in
the middle of the room, its headboard against the wall below the room’s only
window. He crosses his legs, mirroring Theo, and Theo looks back at him and
meets his eye.

“They’re pretty ordinary,” he says, in
response to Max's question. “My dad’s a mechanic, and my mom’s a grade school
teacher. And if they’re not home, there’s always my little brother.”

Max frowns the slightest bit, as though in
a question, and Theo explains.

“His name’s Riley,” he says, and he knows
that the affection for his brother is clear in his voice. It seems that he will
never grow out of that. “He’s fourteen. Kind of a genius. You two would get
along, I think.”

He adds that last part a bit jokingly, and
Max actually smiles. And again, Theo is struck by how Max's expressions have
slowly started going from smirks to smiles, softer and more genuine. Or maybe
he’s just imagining it. Max seems to notice, though, and when he does, he
quickly tries to stop smiling like that, as though it feels uncomfortable and
unfamiliar on his face.

“I’ll have to meet him, sometime,” he
says, glancing away for a moment, before looking back at Theo. “So, I’m
guessing there’s not much privacy at your house?”

Theo cocks his head.

“Not really.”

Max nods slowly, and then, for several
seconds, he just stares. He just stares at Theo, an unreadable expression in
those dark blue eyes, and Theo can’t help but stare back, shifting slightly in
his seat. And then, suddenly, Max blinks, as though coming out of some deep
thought, and he clears his throat.

“Sorry,” he says, in that typical tone of
I’m
not really sorry at all
that he seems to use a lot. “I know I shouldn’t.”

Theo frowns.

“Shouldn’t what?” he asks, honestly
confused, and Max exhales slowly, a small smirk on his face. He licks his lips.

“I’m exercising a lot of restraint, here,”
he says. “I just want to kiss you, and I know I shouldn’t.”

Theo swallows nervously.

“Well, you can,” he says with some
hesitation, but Max shakes his head a bit.

“No, you don’t understand,” he says, an
oddly hungry, slightly amused look on his face. “I want to kiss you, but I also
want to pin you down and rip your clothes off. And I think that crosses the
boundaries we’ve set up.”