Page 59 of Any Given Lifetime
“Oh. Wow.” Derek sat up, put aside his pad, and wrapped his arms around his knees. “So. Was it….” Derek shrugged. “I mean, is he gone-gone? Or just gone? Are you okay?”
Neil looked up at the ceiling. ‘Okay’ was something he didn’t think accurately described the place where he found himself. He didn’t know a word that did. “He’s gone to his hotel. He said he’d come back.”
Though Neil wasn’t sure Joshua had said that at all. He’d said he wanted to make it work. Whatever that meant.
“So, you told him?” Derek peered at him intently. “And what? He just said, ‘Okay’ and dropped trou?”
“No.” Neil didn’t want to talk about it. It was raw, personal, important—the most important thing that had ever happened to him.
“But he knows?”
Neil nodded.
“And he’s not going anywhere, is he?” Derek said. “I mean, he’s really accepted that you’re…him? And he’s going to be with you? Be part of your life?”
“I hope so,” Neil said. It was a massive understatement.
“Right. Wow. So I guess there isn’t one last fuck in this for me?”
Neil pursed his lips and shook his head.
Derek smiled and shrugged. “Oh well. Bound to have ended one day.”
Relief swept through Neil. Maybe he and Derek could still be friends.
Derek glanced shyly up through his lashes. “I have a question, though?”
Neil waited, his knee jittering up and down, a horrible rush of missing-Joshua replacing the blood in his veins.
Derek went on, “Can I keep your mom? I mean, as my friend.”
“This isn’t a breakup. We aren’t dividing our things. We just aren’t screwing anymore. We’re still friends. I mean—aren’t we?”
“Of course.” Derek shrugged. “Right. Well, cool. I’m happy for you.” Derek stood up, arms wide. Neil leaned away as Derek hugged him, and then, with relief, Neil submitted to it.
Derek laughed. “Damn, man. Who would’ve thought? Way to prove us all wrong, Neil. And, hey, I’m really happy for you. I am. Truly.” Derek pulled away, kissed Neil’s forehead with a sticky pop, and then said, “You’d better tell your mom. She’ll be pissed if she hears it from me.”
“Then keep your mouth shut.”
Derek dropped down on the bed, picked up his pad again, and said, “Yeah, you know me. That’s not gonna happen.”
Neil stared at Derek until he was sure the conversation was over, and then he went back to his own room, thrilled by the rumpled, sex-messed sheets on his bed. He dropped down into them, smelling Joshua all over.
He finally made the call, clinging to the pillow that smelled of Joshua’s shampoo and skin. “Hey, Mom,” he said, when she answered. “He’s here. Or he was. I think…I think I’m going to freak out now.”
At the hotel,Joshua stripped out of his clothes. He sat down on the bed. He looked down at himself and at the clumps of dried come in his chest hair, and he started to shake.
He closed his eyes as images rushed through his mind.
Neil’s eyes rolling up as he’d ridden Joshua’s cock. Lee wiping grease from his hands and smiling when Joshua walked into the back of the shop. Neil hooked up to life support, blood caked in his hair, and the light gone out of his eyes. Neil standing barefoot by the door of his apartment, watching Joshua go. Lee smiling and splashing water at him in the Stouder creek, Lee’s scars winding over his arm and body. Neil’s eyes gazing at him with amazed adoration.
Joshua curled up on the bed. Covering himself with a blanket and clutching a pillow, he tried to wait out the tumble of emotions. There was no one to talk to. No one to call. How could he ever explain? He needed Lee now. Lee would understand.
Joshua started to cry. He gave himself some time to grieve and marvel, and had only just gotten himself together again, deciding that a shower had become a necessity, when his phone alerted him that Neil was calling. His stomach flip-flopped, and he hesitated, a sudden surge of worry rushing through him, followed immediately by a tidal wave of excitement and joy.
“Hey,” Joshua answered.
“Where are you?” Neil asked.
