Page 58 of Any Given Lifetime
“I never led him on,” Neil said.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Joshua said. “You’ve always been honorable. Even before.”
Neil’s eyes went up to the ceiling like he was trying hard not to freak out, and then he nodded and stepped back from Joshua. “All right. We’ll do this your way.”
“You think?”
Neil nodded again. “Yep. You’ve got more experience at it than I do, so okay. You can be in charge of this part of…this.”
Joshua watched as Neil pulled on his pair of black jeans and grabbed a clean, black T-shirt from his drawer. They should shower. He knew they should. But if they did, then Joshua had no doubt they wouldn’t make it away from each other. He had to leave now if he was going to go. Neil seemed to understand.
Music blared from Derek’s room as Neil walked Joshua to the door. They lingered there for a minute, and Joshua stroked his fingers down Neil’s determined face. It struck him as ridiculously cute that Neil had to steel himself almost as much as Joshua did for this, and yet seeing that made him go deeply and suddenly calm, too.
Neil put his hand on Joshua’s cheek, too. “If I don’t see you again, I’ll understand. You shouldn’t worry about me. I love you.”
Joshua didn’t know why his reaction to that miserable statement was to laugh softly, but he did. He pressed his cheek into Neil’s hand and cupped Neil’s neck with his own. “Neil, you’re ridiculous.”
Neil’s lips curved a little.
Joshua kissed him, and Neil held onto Joshua’s face, a hint of desperation in his grip. Joshua understood. He couldn’t believe he was going to walk out the door. He took another look at Neil. “Do what you have to do, because if this is going to work, we have to face reality. And I want it to work, Neil.”
Neil touched his cheek again, and then Joshua stepped out into the unseasonably warm Atlanta mid-morning. He looked back twice. Neil lingered in his open doorway, barefoot and looking incredibly young, watching him go.
Chapter Twenty-One
The shower washot, and Neil leaned into the stream. He didn’t know how to process what he was feeling emotionally, so he concentrated on his body. His ass was sore, his arms ached from the positions he’d held himself in to fuck Joshua, and his legs trembled in exhaustion. He thought they’d probably slept for less than two hours the night before, so lost in each other’s bodies and in making sure it was really real.
Neil had never felt anything like the sex they’d had, the love they’d made. He knew that’s what Joshua would call it. Hell, he knew that’s what it was. It was an intense, wholly emotional experience that had blown his mind. He’d enjoyed fucking Derek. They’d had really good sex. But with Joshua, it was like all inhibitions broke away entirely, and he wanted to be in him, over him, and around him all at once. He’d never known desire like that before.
Thethump-thumpof Derek’s music rattled the bathroom wall, and Neil rinsed the suds of shampoo from his hair and scratched a soapy hand over the dried come on his stomach and stuck in his pubic hair. He hesitated before washing it away, a sense of loss descending on him. Aside from the messed-up bed, the plates in the kitchen sink, and the possibly hurt feelings of his roommate, he’d just watched the evidence of the most important thing in his life go rushing down the drain.
“Get a grip,” he muttered to himself. But when he closed his eyes, he saw Joshua’s smile. As he shut off the shower and toweled dry, he had to talk himself out of getting a car to take him to Joshua’s hotel.
And that was when he’d remembered that he didn’t know where Joshua was staying. His heart hammered wildly. What if Joshua didn’t return? What would he do then?
He’d follow him back to Scottsville, that’s what.
The song from Derek’s room changed tempo and speed. The new music was a melancholy, slow piece sung by a drugged-up-sounding man. Neil pulled on fresh clothes, ran a comb through his wet hair, and noticed in the mirror for the first time the dark, red hickey that Joshua had left on his neck, and he touched it. A stupid smile turned up his lips. Joshua would be back. He’d said as much. Neil believed him.
Neil sat down at his desk and made the necessary arrangements for the project. He notified Peters and the graduate students that he’d be out for a few days for personal reasons and outlined how to proceed in his absence. And then he called in a favor with a fellow grad student named Eric Johns to get a sub for the next week of classes for him.
He had to concede that Alice had been right. She’d suggested that he help Eric out with his classes the prior spring when he’d been laid low with mono. The extra money Neil earned—all of which went to pay off the final debt that Alice had owed the private high school Neil had attended—was the deciding factor, but now Neil made a note of how handy it was for Eric to owe him. With one fast text, Neil was able to give over the reins of his professor’s classes without any worry.
When another sad song started from the bedroom next door, Neil sighed. He couldn’t escape it any longer. Joshua had specifically directed him to talk to Derek, and later Joshua would want to know how it had gone. Assuming Neil was right to believe in him, and he didn’t freak out and board the next plane to Nashville. Neil shook that thought away. It was something he couldn’t contemplate orhe’dfreak out and start searching every hotel in Atlanta.
Neil knocked on Derek’s door. He didn’t wait for Derek to open up, though, twisting the knob and walking in.
Derek was stretched out on his bed. His eyes looked a little red, but he was reading something on his touchpad and otherwise looked okay. He looked up at Neil in surprise.
Neil waved toward the door. “See how I did that? It’s called knocking.” Neil sat down in the chair opposite the bed. Normally, he’d have crashed down next to Derek, and the sex would have started immediately. But that was never going to happen again.
“Yeah, sorry.” Derek brushed his long hair out of his face. “I didn’t think he’d still be here when I got back. I figured he’d be gone, and you’d be in there moping. I thought I was gonna have to cheer you up.” His mouth quirked up and his lips quivered. “Funny, huh?”
“No. It was smart. The best, most logical conclusion. What actually happened was unexpected.”
“Is he gone?”
Neil nodded.
