CHAPTER 1
February 13th, 1993
Diego Gomez lifted his hips meaningfully. He was sprawled out on his back in bed, Ricky Nishikawa on top of him while attacking his lips. The boy sure liked to kiss! Diego liked it too. Almost as much as he enjoyed other things. He raised his hips again so they would press against Ricky’s weight and flexed his proudest muscle. Ricky noticed and pulled back. His mop of black hair was a mess, dark eyes glimmering as he sat up.
“You drive me wild,” Diego growled, thrusting against Ricky’s butt to make him bounce.
Ricky laughed and fell forward, bracing himself on Diego’s chest. Which was no accident. Ricky was always making excuses to touch his pecs, often gasping in appreciation. “The feeling is mutual,” Ricky responded with a squeeze. “As in the verb, not the noun. Get it?”
Diego cocked an eyebrow.
“Because we’re feeling each other?” Ricky tried before shaking his head. “I’ll tell Anthony. He’ll think it’s funny.”
“Oh, this is all some big joke to you, huh?” Diego asked, pulling him close before he rolled over. Ricky held on, wrapping his legs around Diego’s waist after their positions were reversed. Diego pressed against him again. “You got thebigpart right. But you won’t be laughing.”
As if to prove him wrong, Ricky giggled. “I can’t wait!”
“Obviously you can,” Diego said, “or I wouldn’t have chronic blue balls.”
“I asked my mom if that’s really a thing,” Ricky said. “Which it is, but it’s actually called epididymal hypertension. You can get rid of it by exercising to make the blood flow to other parts of your body.”
“When I’m around you, it only flows to one place,” Diego said, “and as much as your nerd talk turns me on, I don’t want to think about your mom right now.” He narrowed his eyes in thought. “Although sheishot. Maybe I do want to think about her.”
“Gross!” Ricky said while pushing on his chest. “Maybe you should think ofyourmom, because my blood is definitely flowing elsewhere.”
Diego grimaced and rolled off him. “Yeah, that works.”
Ricky sat up and cast around for his glasses. When he put them on, they sat askew on his face. That, combined with the hair sticking up in multiple directions, was enough to get Diego in the mood again. He leaned close for another kiss. Ricky reciprocated before pulling back to grin at him.
“Tomorrow is our first date.”
“We’ve been on plenty of dates,” Diego said dismissively.
“Our firstofficialdate,” Ricky said with flushing cheeks. “As boyfriends.”
Diego grinned. He liked how that sounded, which was good, because Ricky had been saying it constantly over the past few weeks. And they could have gone on a date ages ago, but Ricky wanted their “first” date to be epic. And special. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, he’d made them wait until freaking Valentine’s Day.
“What are we going to do?” Ricky asked, his eyes shining in excitement.
“I don’t know,” Diego grumbled.
“Is it a surprise?”
“Yeah.” To them both, because Diego hadn’t come up with a good plan. He’d already made reservations at different restaurants before canceling them. He couldn’t stand the idea of being surrounded by boring adults at some dumb steakhouse, and the mere thought of getting dressed up and having to put on a tie made his skin itch. He kept hoping a better idea would come to him, but it hadn’t, and now it was too late. Almost. He still had time to buy flowers and get Ricky a card. Ugh! That would be so lame. Why wouldn’t Ricky just tell him what he wanted? “What are you hoping for?” Diego asked as casually as possible.
He felt a little better when Ricky seemed to draw a blank. “I don’t know. I just want it to be romantic.”
“Romantic,” Diego repeated. What did that even mean? Was he supposed to say something poetic during their date? Or read an actual poem aloud? Diego had a few dirty limericks memorized. That was about it.
“Yeah!” Ricky said while beaming at him. “Romantic.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Diego said as he stood. “I gotta run. I have some things to take care of.”
“You aren’t working on a Saturday night,” Ricky said, as if that was enough to make it true.
Diego shrugged on his leather jacket. “If you say so.”
“That’s so unfair!”