Summer Sons(96)

Andrew smacked the inside of the door once in agreement and returned to the Supra. When he started it, the temperature gauge read closer to normal. If he didn’t act an ass, he’d get home fine. He gave Sam a thumbs-up and watched him roll out, disappearing into the night with the familiar stink of exhaust.





26


Andrew sat on the end of Eddie’s bed, working his fingers against one another, thumbs digging into the meat of his palms. His phone stuck out from the folds of the comforter. Curtains billowed in the breeze from the open window. The faint crispness of oncoming fall lingered in the gust of cool air. Summer’s end. Nights that felt open with possibility, weather for a hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, cigarettes and bourbon to fight off the hint of winter rolling in from the north. It came earlier in Columbus. For his twenty-second birthday he and Eddie had gotten kicked out of four bars in succession and ended up unconscious in a stranger’s yard, three-quarters of the way home. Freezing dew and predawn light had woken him, dappling his eyelashes. He found his phone, wallet, and keys in his snapback turned upside down like a bowl at his elbow. Eddie’s leg, thrown over his shins, had cut off the circulation to his tingling feet. One of Eddie’s hands had rested on top of his head, gripping his hair loosely; surrounded from all angles. He’d lain there, listening to Eddie breathe in his ear wheezy and slow, for an extra thirty minutes. He’d only woken Eddie when he started to shiver in his jacket.

A text alert lit up his phone.

Sup?

home

Good, stay there

Andrew stopped in the bathroom to piss without closing the door—Riley wasn’t home. He brushed his teeth without inspecting himself in the mirror. Worming, suggestive tension knotted his muscles. Was Sam going to take him out, like Eddie had? He hadn’t gone to a bar in Nashville since he’d moved. He spat in the sink and grimaced at the streaks of pink from his gums. He needed less coffee, more food, less liquor. The house murmured creakily as he descended the stairs.

“Don’t, thanks,” he said out loud. The sounds settled.

He wasn’t sure if he’d rather that be a product of his imagination or not.

Scrolling on his phone passed the time as he fought to tamp down the swelling tide of memories and miseries. The kitchen door opened and shut. More than one set of footsteps came in.

“Happy birthday,” Sam yelled.

The fridge opened. Glass clinked on glass. Sam rounded the corner with the tall woman from his party at his elbow. She grinned and waved before flopping next to him on the couch. Andrew glanced from her face to Sam’s as he sat on her opposite side and passed them each a beer.

“Hi there, name’s Irene.” She took his hand in an awkward shake. Her skinny jeans hugged her thighs and a side-slashed cutoff revealed a neon green sports bra. “Nice work at Halse’s little get-together, by the way, we all appreciated the show.”

“Sure,” he said, confused.

Sam tipped his beer in salute. “Irene and I were chatting about it being your birthday.”

Her arm looped around Andrew’s shoulder with a casual masculine grace, sneaker nudging against his. Sam wormed his arm between her back and the couch to rest his fingertips on the patch of bare skin between Andrew’s belt and shirt. The small proprietary touch connected the three of them on one plane of contact.

Irene swigged from her beer and said, “Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m very much not Sam’s birthday present to his buddy.”

“Then what’s going on?” Andrew asked while Sam’s questing fingertips wedged into the gap at the waistband of his jeans.

Irene laughed a husky laugh as she placed her bottle on the coffee table, then angled herself to press one cute, firm tit to his arm and her mouth to his ear. “Sam kept mentioning his hot new bestie to me, and maybe he also mentioned how bad you needed some attention. I’m a fan of threeways, plus it just so happens to be your birthday. We’re all consenting adults.”

Andrew dropped his arm out of the way as Irene swung a knee over his lap to fit her narrow, muscular frame neatly on top of him. No longer trapped behind her, Sam’s hand ventured beneath Andrew’s shirt, sliding over his rib cage until his middle finger brushed the edge of an areola. Andrew’s lungs seized in his chest, forcing out a breathless grunt; Sam dug that fingernail into his nipple while Irene caught his chin in hand to kiss him. Weight pinned his thighs and steady hands forced his shoulders into the couch, her tongue in his mouth searing hot. His eyes shut without his permission.

The sofa springs creaked under the first testing grind of her hips, pressure sliding over the bulge of his trapped dick. Sam cupped the base of his skull and crossed one foot over his to pull his legs open with one hard jerk, startling a moan out of him into Irene’s mouth.

“Oh, he likes that,” Irene growled.

His hands floundered for a place to rest. The cushion skidded with a leather squeak under his palm; the other hand twisted in the hem of Sam’s shirt for a lifeline. He’d held on like this before, but he’d never been so aware of the reason. Now he was starting to understand where the instinct to grab for Sam came from, and the resulting vertiginous swoop in his belly. Del’s calm accusation played through the base of his skull, I’m a person, Andrew, not a stand in for something else—and then Sam tugged on his hair.

“I heard this was maybe your thing,” Sam murmured against the side of his neck, closely eager. The thumb he dug into Andrew’s pulse point said control. “I owe Riley a beer for guessing you right.”