Page 24 of Summer of the Boy

My laugh dies in my throat. “No. I’m never giving you up. Not until you want to be given up and then I’ll fight to make you want me again.”

He stays quiet, staring out the window while I drive. Leaving with me tonight could not have been easy for him. He’s pushing boundaries, and I’m so damn proud of him for that. Though I’m worried he’s pushing them if not too far, too fast. We have the whole summer. That’s what I should have been reiterating at dinner tonight, not letting my hormones get the better of me and acting like a jealous fool.

A glance over to Rid with his face pressed against the glass, I know exactly where to drive, and it’s not the movies. Out of the residential section of the city, up the street running parallel with the boardwalk and thus, the ocean, we keep driving until there’s no more boardwalk or people, only expanses of beach and water as far as my eyes can see through the dim headlights.

Because of the dark, if I hadn’t been here so many times it would be easy to miss the turnoff. I don’t miss the turnoff, parking out on the solid packed sand, not the loose stuff closer to the water which would get us stuck when we tried to leave.

Finally able to take his hand, I relish the feel of it in mine while walking with him in the blackness toward the jetty. Hardly a star in the sky to light our way, a light, warm breeze blows in off the ocean tonight. The briny scent of saltwater surrounds us. The sound of the waves lapping against the jetty.

I love everything about this place. I love it more with Ridley at my side. Once we reach the isolated rocks, he turns on me, capturing my face between his hands. Ridley leans in kissing me hard and rough. Not the hard like the first time he kissed me, this hard is intentional. And I’m lost to the sensation that’s all him. My arms wrapping around his waist tight, pulling him as close as two separate bodies can stand. The proof he’s a man silhouetted through his shorts and pressing infuriatingly against my own.

Rid ends the kiss by moving back enough so he can rest his forehead against mine. Heaving breaths. Heart beating rapidly. “I love you,” he whispers. He’s never said it before, so god does it feel good to hear. Pulling his lips against mine again, I feel his tears streaking down his cheeks and my cheeks. And he whispers again, still pressing against my lips, “What if she won’t accept me? What do I do? She’s my mom.”

I fall back to sit on the rock behind me, tugging him along to sit on my lap. Never letting go. Holding him the way he needs to be held. Not like a lover, but like he’s loved.

“Babe, I can’t tell the future so I can’t give you a guarantee. But I know she loves you. Honest to goodness loves you from the bottom of her heart. Your dad left and she stayed. She raised you by herself, stayed by your side through all your ups and downs. I think… I think it’s just being a gay man is still a tough road, and you’ve been walking a tough road your whole life. It’s not that she won’t accept you, it’s just she doesn’t want your road to get tougher. Does that make sense?”

His forehead moves up and down against mine. And I hope what I’m telling him is the truth. I mean, I believe it, I have to believe it, otherwise how else do I get him through this? But there’s always that niggling fear I’m wrong.

“When you’re ready, you’ll come out to her again. I guess you keep doing it until she understands this is really you.”

Clearly, I’m talking off the cuff here because my experience was so different. His tears fall harder and I hold him tighter.

“Hey,” I say. “Even if she doesn’t get it at first, if she’s the woman I think she is, she will. She’ll get it and she’ll accept you. Because I cannot imagine that woman spending the rest of her life without you in it.”

Somehow that must be what he needed to hear. The tears taper off and his hold on me shifts, forcing me to relocate my hands on him to the point they no longer comfort, but touch him in a highly sensually suggestive way. Rubbing. Caressing. Drawing my fingers through his thick head of hair.

His lips find mine again, willing and wanting every press, nip or lick he gives. He’s become so bold since the first time we kissed out here on the rocks. It’s still the perfect setting. The warm breeze blowing in off the water lapping against the shore and the rocks sprays us with water droplets. Though the spray feels good, it does nothing to cool our heated skin. I know what might help. Thank the good lord Rid has the same thought.

“Take your shirt off,” he says as he kisses the curve where my shoulder meets my neck, then nips the skin there tugging it between his teeth.

He tugs his shirt up over his head at the same time I do mine. Genetics might have been a bitch to him in some respects, but not as far as his body is concerned. He’s a specimen of beauty. Not because he has an overly sculpted gym bod. But definition formed naturally when the boy fills out, starts becoming a man. And he’s all man. Creamy, smooth skin.

I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of feeling that expanse of skin beneath my fingers running over his broad chest and shoulders. The sharp ridge of his collarbone. Well-defined dips and plains of pecs and abs. Biceps developed by manual labor. Back muscles, the same.

Ridley has a spattering of chest hair and a thin trail of sandy blond starting just below his navel and disappearing beneath the waistband of his shorts that feels so good rubbing against me. I’ve never been a hairy man. So I never thought I’d want a man with any. He’s definitely changed my mind.

“I um… I want to do more than kiss tonight,” he tells me, looking at the sand.

“You do?”

Wow. He truly blows me away with his honesty to tell me what he wants, and his trust in me to know what to do with that honesty. That I’ll do right by him.

Rid tugs at his bottom lip then nods.

“You have to look at me,” I remind him. “You know the rules.”

Ridley stands from my lap and looks me directly in the eyes, even if he blinks several times while he does it. “Leif, I want to do more than kiss tonight.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Do I have to say it?”

“I won’t do it unless you’re willing to say it, babe. Thems the breaks.”

“Okay.” He stretches out the word, pulls in a deep breath then goes for it. “I want to go down on you. And then I want you to do the same to me.”

Um. I think he just gave me the greatest moment of my life. Actually, I’m pretty sure I look like a cartoon character with my eyes popping out of their sockets. There might even be a giant word bubble over my head with the wordBoing!Here I thought he was talking about some mutual jerking, with maybe a little taint rubbing action thrown in for fun.

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