Love Lessons (36 page)

“We could have just gone to Moe’s,” Kelly scolded him, but he played with the heavy silver spoon while he did so, watching its surface sparkle in the candlelight, looking enchanted.

“I’ve been appallingly inattentive,” Walter said as he scanned the wine list. “We’ve been so caught up in the campaign for Williams that I’ve only ever taken you out for pizza, and that I think happened twice.”

“You’re never inattentive.” Kelly looked dreamily out the window. “Oh my God, it’s so beautiful.”

Walter smiled to himself, feeling very pleased.

He ordered them a bottle of champagne, which prompted the waitress to ask for their IDs—she glanced at Kelly’s class ring as she did so. Kelly caught her glance, and he blushed as he handed over his fake ID.

“Sorry,” he murmured, still red-faced after she left. “Rose is right. I should stop wearing it.”

Walter rolled his eyes. “Forget Rose. You want to wear your class ring, you wear it. It’s kind of cute that you do, really.”

“Cute,” Kelly repeated, making a face.

Walter grinned. “Yes, dear. I’m sorry, but you’re cute.”

Kelly laughed and reached across the table to catch Walter’s hand, which Walter readily gave.

“This is nice,” Kelly said. “Thank you.”

Walter swelled with pride. “For you, anything.”

Kelly kissed their joined hands. He looked relaxed and easy, and the simple sight of him was restorative for Walter. Not for the first time, Walter wondered how he would have gotten through this hell over Williams without Kelly beside him.

He played with Kelly’s hand, loosening their grip on each other and rubbing his thumb over the stone of his class ring. “You haven’t given me a home-front update in awhile. Is that because it’s good, or bad?”

Kelly shrugged. “It’s the same. Still no new job for Mom.”

Walter had figured as much. He teased his fingers against Kelly’s palm. “She’ll find something.”

Kelly smiled, but it was a sad, tired gesture. “What will you do if Williams’s position really does get cut? Will you stay at Hope?”

Just the question made Walter go cold. “He’s not going to lose his position.”

“But if he did?” Kelly’s fingers pressed against Walter’s wrist. “Would you stay?”

Walter wanted to pull his hand away, but he couldn’t, so he looked out the window. “I haven’t thought about it. I don’t want to think about it.”

Kelly squeezed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Their champagne arrived, but Walter held fast to Kelly’s hand. When the waitress left them again, Walter turned back to Kelly.

“I wouldn’t leave you.” Walter tightened his grip and swallowed against the vulnerability that confession left in its wake. He meant the words, but they made him feel raw and exposed. Still, he forced himself to meet Kelly’s gaze, because reassuring him mattered more than anything else. “Whatever happens to Williams, I’ll be staying at Hope. And you’ll be the only sophomore living in the Manors, because those bastards owe us both big time.”

That was meant to lighten the moment, but Kelly appeared as stricken as he had when Walter had first made his promise. “You can’t say something like that. You can’t stay at Hope just because of me.”

Something in Kelly’s tone made the yaw inside Walter gape wider. “Why not?”

Kelly wasn’t blushing—which was weird. “Because you can’t.” He rearranged their hands so his was on top, pressing down hard. His class ring glinted in the low light, and the arch lit up behind him. “You can’t sacrifice your life for other people. Look what happened with your mom.”

“You are so
not
my mother,” Walter said, still trying to turn this into a joke.

Kelly refused to so much as crack a smile, and his grip on Kelly’s hand got tighter. “If you want to transfer, Walter, you’ll transfer. If you want to follow Williams to Hawaii, you’ll follow him. Do you hear me?”

Now Walter was getting annoyed. “I’m not choosing Williams over you, for Christ’s sake.”

“You shouldn’t choose Williams or me over
you
.” The waitress appeared, and Kelly waved her away, not breaking his heavy gaze on Walter. “Walter, I will
not
be the person you sacrifice yourself for.”

“Kelly, I’m not going anywhere, okay? I want to stay. Anyway, nothing is going to change.”

“Things happen. We can’t always control them.”

Walter held up his free hand. “
Stop.
This is supposed to be a romantic dinner, not an interrogation.”

Kelly glanced back over the river behind them, a sad expression on his face.

“Hey.” Catching Kelly’s chin, Walter turned him toward his own gaze. Kelly smiled, and the waitress came to try again for their order.

The smile had shadows, though, Walter couldn’t help but notice, and it worried him.

Somehow it didn’t surprise Kelly that Walter had gotten them a hotel.

He wasn’t even surprised that it was a swanky, upscale number on the river, not far from the restaurant, and that their room had a view of the arch. What he hadn’t been ready for was the bouquet of roses, the box of vegan chocolates and the sea of lit candles floating in a sunken in-room hot tub. When he realized a hidden set of speakers played Sia softly in the background, Kelly became overwhelmed. Half-laughing, half-weeping, he sank onto the silky sheets of the king-sized bed and pulled Walter down with him.

“Is it okay?” Walter asked, smiling, but clearly nervous.

Kelly laugh-sobbed and hit his boyfriend gently in the chest. “You’re
crazy
, you know that? You’re absolutely insane. How can you even ask? Of course it’s okay. It’s beyond okay. It’s
amazing
.” He looked around again, sank back against Walter and caught his hand to squeeze it tight. “You know, one of us in this relationship is a hopeless romantic, and it’s not the one who owns over thirty Disney movies.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day. I wanted to do something special.” Walter wrapped an arm around Kelly and pulled him closer, nuzzling a kiss against his temple. “I like making you happy.”

The kisses along Kelly’s ear began to slow, turning seductive. Kelly closed his eyes and leaned into them. “You make me happy all the time.” He broke from the drugging kisses and turned to Walter, nuzzling his nose. “I love you, Walter.”

Tucking his chin, Walter rested his forehead against Kelly’s, hands skimming up Kelly’s sides. “I love you too.”

The echo of vulnerability lingered in Walter’s words, and Kelly caught his mouth to ease him, reassuring his lover with kisses long and lingering. It didn’t take long for passion and the promise of what pleasure there was to be had in a private hotel room, a large bed and no parents or jocks around to make them self-conscious. Lube and condoms waited on the nightstand.

Kelly was losing his anal virginity tonight.

Nervous, giddy, impatient, terrified—Kelly felt everything at once, but he felt it with Walter, so he didn’t care. He stripped off his shirt and shucked out of his pants, but before Walter could pin him to the bed, Kelly pressed Walter back, sliding down his chest to nuzzle his groin as his hands worked deftly to free Walter’s cock. A second later Walter gasped and Kelly hummed around the warm hardness in his mouth, smiling around his mouthful at the familiar smell and taste of Walter. He wondered if all men smelled and tasted like that or if they were different.

He hoped, in the quiet of his mind where no one could tease him for his sentimentality, that he never got to learn the answer.

While he blew Walter, Kelly also stripped him out of his clothes, first pants and socks, and then, when Walter pulled him up by the hair with a warning that the show was about to be over way too soon, Kelly tugged at the panels of Walter’s shirt until the buttons strained. Laughing, Walter pushed Kelly’s hands away and yanked the whole thing over his head.

They stood a moment, nude, breathing hard, regarding each other.

Kelly grabbed Walter’s waist. They came together in a kiss, cocks and bellies brushing, hands seeking, mouths claiming, and in that tangle, they fell back to the bed again.

Within a minute of making out, though, Walter had Kelly on his belly, knees parted, a pillow beneath his hips. Tense, but in anticipation of pleasure, not pain, Kelly shut his eyes and curled his hands against the mattress. He knew what was coming.

Walter’s hand stroked a lazy trail down Kelly’s spine, and Kelly shivered. Walter laughed, softly. “Don’t worry, hon. You can make as much noise as you want this time.”

Kelly blushed. They’d tried this once back at the dorm, and in addition to bruises on their knees and arms from wrangling into position on the futon, Kelly had made so much noise the linebacker and fullback across the hall had beat on their door and promised to knock it down if they had to keep hearing “cockroaches having sex.” So they hadn’t tried again.

Until now.

Cool hands spread Kelly’s cheeks, a warm tongue pressed against his entrance, and Kelly felt brain cells die from sheer pleasure.

He cried out, a long arpeggio of a gasp that gave way to a tortured moan. His upper body felt like electric spaghetti, aching and splayed and completely void of the ability to move. He could feel Walter’s tongue everywhere—it was like there were eight of them, laving his hole, trailing up and down his crack, running down the line to tease at his balls. Kelly’s jaw ached with want, and he had to actively keep himself from humping against the pillow in an effort to drive against Walter’s mouth. Turning his face into the bedspread, he tried to muffle some of his sounds, sure he was carrying on far more than was normal.

Then Walter pulled his cheeks wider, tightened his tongue into a small, wet spear, and wormed his way inside.

Kelly came off the mattress.

For a second he tried to control himself, lest Walter think he didn’t like what was going on, but Walter seemed to understand, holding Kelly in place and ignoring his struggles, leaving Kelly free to moan and flail and beg incoherently for things he wasn’t sure what they were, exactly, but that he had to have them. He wanted more, he wanted harder, he wanted—

A slick finger poked in beside Walter’s tongue, and Kelly’s whole body short-circuited. Yes. That was what he wanted.

For a long time that was all he got—one finger, probing gently, Walter’s tongue darting in beside it, Walter’s breath hot against his cheeks. This, outside of the rimming, wasn’t new. One of Walter’s favorite games was to sit up late with Kelly, watching TV and driving Kelly crazy with his fingers while he whispered in his ear. “If you want me to fuck you,” Walter would say, “you have to be ready. We have to stretch you, or it’ll hurt.”

“I’m stretched already,” Kelly would complain, arching into the fingers that speared him, the smell of musk and lube heavy in the air. “Let’s do it now.”

“We’ll wait,” Walter always said.

They were done waiting now. Kelly clutched at the bed and submitted to the pleasure Walter gave him, as Walter relaxed him and teased him and spread him with two, now three fingers. He brushed that spot deep inside that made Kelly turn to butter, then rubbed against it so Kelly felt like he was constantly shorting out.

The fingers slipped out, and after a kiss on Kelly’s backside, Walter’s mouth moved away.

Here it comes,
Kelly told himself, feeling dizzy.

The crinkle of the condom seemed to echo like a gunshot. Walter had been tested already in October, just after the last time he’d been with anyone else, but he wouldn’t be with Kelly sans condom, he said, until he had the follow-up in April. Walter’s caretaking made him feel good, and this safety mingled with the truth that sex, always, was something a little dangerous—the whole business simply ramped Kelly’s nerves all the way up to eleven. The lube slick against his skin felt cold, and his arms ached, a thin rust of fear sliding through his veins.

Walter nudged at his entrance, and he tensed. Walter’s hand massaged the small of his back. “Relax, baby. Push into it.” Kelly tried, he did, but all of a sudden he panicked, and he wasn’t sure, and—

The tip of Walter’s cock moved inside, and Kelly pushed up to his hands and knees, eyes wide open. For a long time they remained frozen in that pose, breathing hard, waiting.

Kelly shut his eyes, drew a breath. “More.”

More came, tighter and more impossible than before. Kelly let out a sigh laced with pain.

“Breathe,” Walter advised him. “Breathe and push, and we’ll be at the good part.”

The funny part was that Kelly had read about this—extensively, back in high school and again as he’d come closer to this moment with Walter. He knew to push like he was trying to go to the bathroom. He knew once the sphincter relaxed, the game would change. He knew all of it. Except that was academic. This was his goddamn ass, which he was no longer quite sure was meant to have a cock in it.

Except he wanted a cock in it. He let out a breath and bore down.

With one good thrust and only one more moment of pain, the sphincter gave way, Walter pushed in deep, and Kelly entered a whole new world.

It wasn’t so much that a cock was so much different than fingers. It was, but it wasn’t about girth or length or even the sure, strong thrusts—though those were great. It was that he could feel Walter’s heartbeat against his back. That he felt the nest of hair brushing against his ass, tickling him, teasing the strained, spread skin of Kelly’s asshole. Their balls banged and danced together as Walter pushed deep and withdrew, sawing in and out of Kelly as his hands roved across Kelly’s skin, as his mouth made love to the back of Kelly’s neck. Walter was
in
him. Inside him. With him.