Bitter Taffy (25 page)

“No,” he snapped as soon as they were clear of the doorway—and any listening ears.

“I’m not a child—”

“I said no! I’m not having any thoughts about Ezra. I
promise
you, Derek, that’s not what the wait was about.”

Derek swallowed and nodded. “Okay,” he said, looking away. “I mean, I sort of rushed you. I just didn’t want—”

Rico grabbed his hand and leaned in, talking closely because kissing him senseless was not an option—not here. “Look, you didn’t rush me. You didn’t pressure me. You and me? We happened with full consent and the blessing of the stars, okay? Ezra was almost five months ago—and even if he was yesterday, he wasn’t what I’ve got going inside for you. And you have exes too—”

“Not in a while,” Derek said quietly.

Rico nodded, because he’d known that too. “Yeah. You were waiting for me. I mean, you don’t want to say it, because it doesn’t sound all… educated and businessman, but I get it.” He did too. Underneath Derek’s business plan and his perfect capability of being Captain of the Universe was a little boy who watched his parents raise children and grow old together. Derek wanted that. He
believed
in it. And whether he said it or not, he thought Rico might just be that chance.

“I want to be that guy for you,” Rico said quietly. “I want to be the guy you grow old with, okay? I said afterward, and I meant it. It was a promise. I haven’t broken one of those yet—not to you.”

Derek sighed and nodded and then gave one of those brilliant smiles like the moment of sulkiness had never been. “Yeah, okay. I get it. I’ll borrow my dad’s truck if you want—just let me know when.”

Rico hoped Derek’s overcasualness was fooling Derek, because it sure wasn’t fooling Rico. “This weekend we go to the Giants game?”

“Yeah.”

“Next weekend I move my shit to your house. I don’t have much. We can do it in the cars—it’ll take two trips.”

Derek smiled a little. “You have more stuff than that.”

“No. Adam has most of it. The rest is in storage. So you want me, you got me. I’m a freeloader. None of the shit in storage is worth moving.”

“You’ll want to keep some—”

Rico grimaced. “You
so
do not get how my life started the day I met you.”

Derek’s smile relaxed a notch, turned soft and a little wounded. “Neither do you—for me.”

Rico nodded. “I’m starting to get it,” he said. “I promise I am. Just have a little faith, right? I’ll tell Adam in San Francisco.”

Derek grinned then, and it wasn’t forced, and it wasn’t tinged with melancholy either. “I’ll make sure me and Finn are getting food and beer!”

“Yeah, but not garlic fries—that kid’s digestive system is a
trip
.”

T
HERE
WAS
something lovely about a Giants game. San Francisco could be downright chilly, even in the summer, and Derek and Rico wore their matching River Cats sweatshirts for fun. It was a bright, windy day, and the sky over the Bay was the color of heartbreak and August. Even the scads of tourists couldn’t dim their mood as they made their way down the Embarcadero to find dinner. Finn and Rico had chattered the whole trip down, and Adam and Derek responded laconically during the pauses, so even the traffic at the Bay Bridge didn’t seem like a bother.

Derek took them to a really nice seafood place with a fire pit inside, that served an awesome seafood Alfredo. While they were there, Adam kept looking self-consciously at the other patrons. It took Rico most of the meal to realize he was fingering the frayed cuffs of his hooded blue sweatshirt, and he almost smacked his forehead with his palm.

After their late lunch/early dinner, Rico got Finn to help him haul Adam into a tourist shop, where he and Derek bought them matching orange zippered hoodies with
Giants
scrawled across the front.

“Oh God,” Adam said as Finn zipped him up outside the store. “You can see these things from space!”

“Yeah, I know,” Rico said quietly. “So when it starts to fall apart, I’ll see it and I can get you another one.”

Adam shrugged, and Rico tried not to think about the tattered state of the jacket in the bag. Finn had made a passing remark about how it had been Adam’s winter jacket until he’d pulled Rico’s old peacoat from the closet, and Rico had died a little inside.

Finn grabbed Adam’s hand and hauled him to the back end of the pier so they could look out over the ocean, and Derek hung back next to Rico.

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

“I’m thinking that I’m really glad you and I will live blocks away from the two of them—at least until he’s out of school.”

“Yeah?” Derek was staring at him avidly, and Rico helped the wind clear his hair from his eyes.

“Yeah. I like that you and me and Finn and Darrin can take care of him. I know it’s stupid—I mean, he can obviously take care of himself—”

“But you two need family,” Derek said softly. “I hear you. I’ve always heard you. He’s in, Rico. Don’t worry.”

Rico smiled. “With you? Never. You’re the one guy I’d trust to get that about me and Adam. I’m not worried at all.”

Derek kissed him softly under the bright August sun, and they went to go find Finn and Adam, because it was time to catch a cab to the stadium before there were none to be found.

The Giants played horribly in the first two innings, but by the third they had four runs to Chicago’s three, so there was hope. Derek and Finn went for beer and food in the fifth inning, leaving Adam and Rico sitting in the stands. Rico watched for a second as Adam raised his face to the breeze coming off the Bay. His eyes were closed and his mouth relaxed, and for that moment, Rico could see the gentle little kid he would always think of as his cousin—the boy who would follow Rico anywhere, Rico’s dependable bastion against loneliness.

Funny how Adam had actually led the way here, shown Rico how to live his life with no apologies and with a healthy amount of happiness when it was offered on a silver platter. It wasn’t his years in the military that made Adam brave.

“Good game?” Rico asked, because you don’t talk about things like “You’re my hero” when you’re family.

“Let’s see if they can keep it up,” Adam said, opening his eyes. “Are they really getting garlic fries?”

Rico flashed a smile. “For your sake, I hope not.”

Adam nodded. “I had
plans
for that kid,” he muttered darkly.

Rico laughed. Gassy Finn or not, they would probably still have “plans.” Finn’s sparkly excitement would have rubbed off on the most dour, cynical, withered, bitchy old misanthropist who ever lived. In Adam’s case, he had this sweet half smile whenever he looked at Finn or responded to his enthusiastic babble, or Finn touched Adam’s hand.

Or looked at Adam. Or moved. Or breathed in and out without stopping.

“You and Finn probably make good plans,” Rico said. “He makes you really happy.”

Adam kept his eyes on the game, but the smile that split his face wasn’t going anywhere. “Yup.”

“You guys really helped me find my feet when I got here,” Rico said, feeling awkward. “I appreciate it.”

Adam actually darted his gaze off the field and to Rico’s face. “Course,” he said, surprised. “You’re my family.”

Rico nodded and smiled. “So, uhm, I’d still be family if I moved into Derek’s, right?”

Bless him, Adam didn’t even look surprised. “Course.” He shrugged. “’Bout time I started paying rent on the apartment anyway. Me and Finn’ve been feeling bad about that.”

Rico shrugged. Rent on that apartment was pretty low, and it had been worth it to have Adam and Finn there, making him feel like a part of a group. Making him feel normal. “You were saving for school, right?”

Adam kept his eyes on the field, and his smile turned shy. Apparently just hoping about the future did that to him. “Yeah. Twelve units this semester. Worth the wait so I could build up the money. ’Preciate the free rent.”

“My pleasure,” Rico said. On the field, Chicago’s pitcher threw high and outside, but the batter swung anyway. Pop fly to right field, catch, and out. “Uhm, just ’cause I’m living with Derek, that… I mean, we can still have dinner once a week, and I’ll still want to visit my dog, and we still haven’t gone dancing, and you and Finn can still ask me for rides and—” Oh God. He’d made such a fuss about being worried about Adam, but it was
Rico’s
voice that wobbled, and
Rico
who sounded like a kid leaving home for the first time.

But it didn’t even knock Adam out of the game. “Course,” he said. The batter was walking into the box, which was probably why Adam felt like he could shoot a look at Rico and meet his eyes. “You’ll have a key. You’re not leaving me. I mean”—he shrugged—“it’s a few blocks, right?”

Adam turned his attention back to the field, and the twist to his lips wasn’t quite as happy or quite as free as it had been. “There’s family and family, Rico. You and me, we’re the good kind. Didn’t go away when I was deployed, isn’t going away when you’ll live less than a mile away.”

Rico wasn’t as stoic as Adam—he’d never had to hide under the bed. His eyes burned, and suddenly no amount of pride or manly posturing was enough to keep him from throwing his arm around Adam’s shoulders and kissing him unapologetically on the temple. “I love you, cousin,” he said, his voice rough. “You and me will
always
be family.”

Adam leaned into Rico’s arm for a second and accepted the kiss on the temple. In that second, Rico felt like they were boys again, being tucked into the guest bedroom for their nap. That had been the safest part of their day, and the one time he knew he and Adam would have peace.

“Love you back,” Adam rasped, and at that moment San Francisco hit one over the wall and out into the Bay. Bells, whistles, a steamboat horn—and the crowd going wild, of course. Adam leapt to his feet and cheered, with Rico not far behind, and Finn and Derek walked up with dogs and beer and ice cream in lieu of garlic fries.

San Francisco won eight to six. Best game Rico had ever seen.

S
EX
WITH
Derek that night was sweet and hot—and a little awkward, because it was the hotel room and not Derek’s familiar bed, but maybe that was just Rico.

But in the end, Derek’s cock, breathtaking and huge, thrusting inside Rico’s ass and Derek’s lithe, fit body pounding Rico into the mattress, made Rico forget all about the strange bed and the bright lights while he lost himself in orgasm and the clench of Derek’s fingers at his hips.

Derek cried out and shuddered, spending himself inside Rico with force and enthusiasm, and then he collapsed, sweaty and breathless, on Rico’s back. His harsh breaths puffed against Rico’s ear and interrupted the sound of Rico’s heart thundering in his ears.

“Good?” Derek asked when he could talk.

“Do you even need to ask?” Rico retorted. Ah! Derek’s come was hot and slippery, sliding down his thighs, and his own cock twitched in response. So good.

Derek nuzzled his nape, blowing to clear the hair out of his way. “Getting long. Ready to get it cut yet?”

Rico turned his head and looked at Derek through his lashes. “Can I say no? I like having hair again.”

“You can say whatever you want,” Derek said, smiling. He rested his cheek on Rico’s. “As long as you tell me it’s ‘after.’”

“Afterglow? After sex? After midnight?” Rico teased.

Derek groaned and rolled off him onto the bed, sprawling on his back with his arms over his head.

Rico couldn’t repress the little grunt of loss at the absence of his cock from the depths of Rico’s body. “I’ll want that back in a few minutes,” he said seriously.

“You’ll get nothing and like it if I don’t get a better answer,” Derek growled. Well, he’d been pretty patient so far, right?

Rico rolled so he could rest his chin on Derek’s chest. “Yes, Derek, it’s after. I talked to Adam, he’s fine.
I
was the one who needed reassurance.”

“Did you get it?” Derek searched his face.

“We’re going to have them for dinner a lot,” Rico said thoughtfully. “And we may be spending some time playing video games on their couch.” It felt silly telling Derek that he’d be forsaking his nice house in the thirty block for the small apartment on F Street, but Derek didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“I’d love to play video games. I’m sort of hurt you haven’t asked me before.”

He wasn’t, but it was kind of him to say so. Rico smiled slowly. “You’re so good at everything,” he said, without agenda or envy. “I just didn’t want you to win all the games.”

To his surprise, Derek blushed and rolled to his side, hiding his face in the bright white comforter on the bed.

“What?” Rico asked, laughing.

Derek laughed and shook his head.

“No, seriously—what?”

“M-mmflll…,” he confessed, facedown in the covers.

“Stop talking to the bed!” Rico demanded, still laughing, a little alarmed at how red Derek’s face
had
turned when he came up for air. “What?”

“I’m
awful
!” Derek actually choked on his own laughter. “I’m the worst video game player
ever
. I lost
money
in college. I get
annihilated
!”

Rico started to chuckle. “No, really?”

Derek shook his head, still laughing. “God,
Clopper
could beat me!”

“Well, awesome! We’ll make it a thing!” For a moment Rico couldn’t stop laughing, and Derek couldn’t either. Then, as quickly as the laughter sprang up, it died into a sober moment, when Rico met Derek’s eyes and Derek seemed to probe directly into his soul.

“You’re moving in. It’s a thing. We’re a couple.”

“For as long as you can stand me,” Rico said, and he leaned in to take Derek’s mouth and push him against the bed. This man—not Ezra, not any guy he’d crushed on during his long period of loneliness—was all he needed.