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The best place to be during a party is the bathroom.
It’s one of Chris Hartley’s quiet convictions, the kind he’ll never admit out loud. His friends would roast him to embers, and they have enough ammunition as it is. But he knows it to be true, even at the most enjoyable get-togethers. The intimate ones, without any interlopers. Where their edges are sanded by warm food and good company and the exact right amount of alcohol. Where they fight against their circadian rhythms because no one wants to see the night end.
Even then, there’s nothing like the reprieve of an empty room. The click of the closing door sends a signal to Chris’s brain, filling his mind with pleasant static. Sometimes he excuses himself when he doesn’t even have to go. He just needs to stand in relative silence—absorb it into his skin, let it soak into his bloodstream—and he’ll be good for another two hours. Three, if he’s lucky.
Tonight, Jess’s bathroom has done its job. Ready to rejoin his friends in the living room, Chris pulls open the door—and nearly jumps out of his skin.
“Jesus Chr— Okay, we’re a solid three weeks past Halloween. Can you stop trying to give me a heart attack already?”
Josh stands in the doorway, a wide grin on his face. “I’m not even trying, man. Honest. You’re just that easy. And even if I was, could you really blame me? With that thing you do? You know, the…” He shimmies his shoulders, hands clawed in a sort of T-Rex pose.
“What the fuck is that?” Chris asks.
“You tell me! It’s your thing. Your little, like—” Josh does it again, as though Chris didn’t get a good enough look the first time. “Scaredy-cat dance.”
Chris presses his lips together. Perhaps it’s best to neither confirm nor deny.
“There’s a bathroom upstairs, you know,” he says as Josh crosses the threshold. “If you needed to go so bad.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to use the bathroom upstairs. Maybe I wanted to use this bathroom.”
Chris scans their surroundings. The shower curtain is a cascade of shimmering scales, ocean-blue and sea-foam green. On the sink rests a faux shell, a pearl of soap nestled inside. Chris doesn’t know how the hell Jess finds perfectly round balls of soap, but they’re incredibly annoying, always slipping out of his hands and ping-ponging around the sink bowl.
But it isn’t the worst offender. That honor goes to the mermaid figurine. She’s positioned to face anyone using the toilet, offering a roll of toilet paper in her outstretched hands. Chris avoids making eye contact with her even more pointedly than he does with real people.
“Why?” he asks. “Got a thing for mermaids?”
The door clicks shut again, closing them in together, and Chris’s mind doesn’t go fuzzy. It sharpens, rendering Josh bright and crisp as he steps closer.
“Definitely not.”
Josh’s lips are strawberry-sweet, the taste of Jess’s mocktail still lingering. Chris hums in contentment, murmurs, “You taste good, bro.”
Josh rewards him with a gentle brush of tongues. It’s enough to send Chris into a sugar high. He anchors himself on Josh’s hips as he chases the taste deeper into Josh’s mouth.
In his defense, they’re twenty-four hours into their Thanksgiving break with hardly any alone time to show for it. After arriving home yesterday evening, Chris had the obligatory dinner with his mom, then the obligatory awkward conversation with his mom.
It went well enough, but it also ran longer than Chris anticipated. By the time his mom granted him freedom to leave, Josh had texted three times. He scampered off to the Washingtons’ house as fast as his tin-can car—and L.A. traffic—would allow.
Sam was already there. There were hugs all around, even from Beth, and Hannah held them hostage late into the night—until her drooping eyelids betrayed her insistence that she wasn’t even a little bit tired.
When they finally crawled into Josh’s big, fancy queen, not even Josh had any gas left in the tank. He gave Chris a goodnight kiss that felt like an IOU, and they passed out in a tangle of limbs.
In the morning, Josh wasted no time making good on his wordless promise. They were still cocooned under the blankets, shrouded in a sleep-haze, when lazy fingers brushed Chris’s boxers. It was a slow, easy thing, neither of them impatient for once.
Josh’s hand had only just dipped inside when a polite knock sounded at the bedroom door. Hannah informed them that pancakes were ready—and that Beth was enforcing a strict “you snooze, you lose” policy. Josh let out a harsh breath against Chris’s neck, the longest his annoyance with Hannah was capable of lasting. Then he twisted his head toward the door and said, “Thanks, Han. We’ll be down in a sec.”
The day was spent like the night, soaking up one another’s company. Come evening, the five of them piled into Sam’s Crosstrek and headed to Jess’s house for a mandatory reunion party. She missed them all like crazy, she informed them via text, and they had to show up or she’d cry so hard forever.
Not that Chris is complaining. College has been good—he likes his newfound independence, his budding friendships—but his roots are here.
He’s just hardly had a second to think since he left his house, which means he’s failed to relay a crucial piece of information. With great effort, he pries himself away from Josh’s mouth.
“Oh my god, I keep forgetting to tell you—my mom wants to have you over for dinner this week.”
Josh looks displeased with the sudden gear-change, but he rolls with it. “She knows I’m off the market, right?”
“Now she does. That’s the whole reason she wants to have you over.”
“Well, besides Thursday, I’m basically—” A frown creases Josh’s brow. “Wait. You mean she just found out?”
Oops. As communicative as they’ve tried to be, Josh never asked whether Chris told his mom about the shift in their relationship. In hindsight, Chris realizes, Josh probably assumed it already happened—and Chris never said otherwise.
“I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret or anything,” he hurries to explain. “I just thought ‘by the way, I’m bi and I have a boyfriend’ was kind of a lot for a phone conversation, so I waited till I was home. Told her last night.”
Josh nods as he takes this in. “Okay…so what you’re really saying is…” He casts a despondent look at Chris. “Ms. Hartley doesn’t follow me on Insta?”
Chris laughs, his anxiety evaporating like rain on sizzling hot pavement. “’fraid not, bud.” He gives Josh’s shoulder a squeeze, equal parts sympathy and apology. “Sorry about that, though. I should’ve given you a heads up.”
“No big deal,” Josh shrugs. “I’m guessing everything was cool?”
“More or less. At first she thought I just didn’t want to admit to being gay, so I had to do some, uh, Bisexuality 101.”
“Well, lucky for you, you love doing 101s. It’s your favorite thing. Shortly followed by 102s, 103s, and sneaking off to the bathroom when you don’t actually have to piss.”
“‘Wow, Chris, that was really brave of you to come out to your mom. I’m so glad it went well.’”
Josh waves a hand. “Eh, that too.”
“Once we got to the second part of the conversation—”
“Damn, you really one-two punched her, huh?”
“—she was…not surprised. That it was you, I mean.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Uh, the fact that she said, quote, ‘I’m not surprised.’”
“Oh. Well.” Josh taps the heel of his palm against his forehead at the same time as Chris. Chris may as well be a mirror, reflecting Josh’s duh gesture back at him. They laugh in unison, perfectly synced.
“So,” Josh says. “Dinner.”
“Yeah. Dinner.”
Another laugh bubbles out of him, tinged with nerves. “Shit. What should I wear?”
Chris might be new to this, but he isn’t clueless. He knows he should tell Josh that it doesn’t matter. That Ms. Hartley already loves him, even if she doesn’t follow him on Insta. Or any other platform.
Instead his eyes wander down to Josh’s T-shirt. It bears a clean white plate on the chest, framed by a fork and a knife—and overlaid with a vibrant, slime-green declaration: I EAT ASBESTOS.
“Well,” Chris admits, “probably not this.”
Josh doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even look offended. He just cackles, all glee.
“Not that I have a problem with it,” Chris adds. “I just think it might give her some misconceptions, you know? About what to serve you.”
“You’ll have to pick something out, then,” Josh says. He lays his palms against Chris’s chest, like he’s testing the material of the plaid button-up, judging it as a contender for dinner-wear. But as he drapes his arms over Chris’s shoulders, his eyes are fixed squarely on Chris’s mouth. “Later.”
It’s frightening how easily the world falls away, how quickly Chris forgets they’re in their friend’s bathroom. That there are, in fact, eight friends in the living room just down the hall. He doesn’t know how much time passes before he comes to his senses, but he knows it’s too much.
“Josh,” he sighs.
“Mmm. Like it when you say my name like that.”
Chris muffles a groan against Josh’s cheek. “We gotta go, dude. Been gone too long.”
Josh detaches himself without argument. When he steps back, it’s like he takes something with him, leaving a hollow, hungry ache in Chris’s belly.
“Door’s right here, bro,” Josh says with a tip of his head. “I’m not stopping you.”
Chris drinks in the sight before him. Color blooms high on Josh’s cheeks, red as his bitten lips. He tucks his hands into his back pockets, drawing Chris’s gaze to the bulge in his jeans. Not the first or even second time that’s happened, but the feeling it provokes in Chris is just as strong, a potent blend of heat and pride and possessiveness.
He did that. Better yet, he’s the only one Josh wants to do it.
“Yeah,” Chris agrees, swiping his thumb across his bottom lip. “Door is right here, isn’t it?”
In the blink of an eye, Josh is shoved roughly against it. Chris refrains from kissing him just long enough to watch his mouth drop open, to hear the giddy, high-pitched laugh that spills out of it. Then Chris dives back in, slotting his thigh between Josh’s legs. Josh whimpers into Chris’s mouth, his hands grasping helplessly, unsure where to settle.
Chris knows exactly where his hands are going. The last time he buried his fingers in Josh’s curls—when Josh was on his knees in his dorm room, proving he could do something with his mouth besides run it—Josh had what could safely qualify as a strong reaction. It led Chris to wonder if he was just really excited about the dick in his mouth, or if this was a thing for him.
Or both.
Now seems as good a time as any to test the hypothesis. Chris starts with a few gentle passes through Josh’s curls. It should be background noise for him, barely noticeable compared to the tongue in his mouth and the thigh between his legs, but a low hum picks up in the back of his throat. Encouraged, Chris gets a firmer grip and pulls. Not too hard—just enough to tug Josh’s head to the side, offering better access to his throat—but the effect is immediate. Josh’s hum blossoms into a moan, his hands tightening on Chris’s shoulders.
“Thought you might enjoy that,” Chris says. He tries not to sound too smug about it.
Josh’s laugh is breathy, his pulse pounding under Chris’s lips. “That obvious, huh?”
“Kinda.” Chris drags his tongue down Josh’s neck, dips it into the hollow of his throat. “I like it, though.”
“Yeah?”
Chris feels it in the air: the briefest shimmer in the mirage of Josh’s confidence. He straightens, taking Josh’s jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Course I do.”
A quiet keening noise slips past Josh’s lips, barely audible. “Fuck,” he breathes. He grinds against Chris, and Chris doesn’t need to be told how badly Josh wants this; he can feel it, hard against him. Josh repeats himself, a little sharper, a little more desperate. “Fuck.”
“Think you could get off like this?” Chris asks, voice low. Instinct guides his thumb up Josh’s chin, bumps it against his lips. Curiosity ripples across Josh’s face, but he doesn’t answer. Not yet.
And who enjoys filling dead air more than Chris?
“You seem pretty worked up,” he continues. “Not sure you need me. I could just let you fuck yourself on my thigh till you come.”
Josh’s eyelids flutter, but he shakes his head, quick and decisive.
“You don’t think so?” Chris presses, feigning surprise. He runs the pad of his thumb along Josh’s bottom lip. A tongue flicks out to greet him, but he ignores it in favor of slow drags, back and forth. “I dunno, man. I know I’m working with a small data set here, but based on what I’ve got…” Finally he breaches Josh’s lips, letting his thumb sink knuckle-deep into Josh’s mouth. “Doesn’t seem like it takes very much.”
Josh is panting now, breath hot against Chris’s skin. With a muffled noise of effort, he stills his hips and presses the flat of his tongue against Chris’s thumb. Chris retracts it, easing his thigh back from between Josh’s legs.
“Good?” Chris asks.
“Too good, man. Jesus. I don’t wanna come in my pants.”
“What do you want, then?”
Josh rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Chris replies. “That’s why I’m asking.”
“Chris, I’m gonna fucking—”
“Kill me, yeah, yeah. Save it for later.” Chris leans in for a kiss, long and lingering. A parting kiss. “And turn around.”
Josh turns around.
“Good,” Chris says. “Now put your—”
Josh lays his hands against the door.
Chris chuckles. “Look at that. I don’t even need to tell you.”
He plasters himself to Josh’s back. Josh fits so neatly against him, like they’re a matching set, factory-made. Chris marveled at it the last time they were together, when they posed front-to-back for one of their Halloween photos. Damien was manning Josh’s phone then, looking quietly bemused as Josh explained precisely how the shot should be framed.
Now they’re alone, and Chris’s hands are free to wander. They slip beneath Josh’s shirt, roam down the smooth plane of his stomach. Muscles tense beneath Chris’s touch; by the time he hits denim, Josh is taut against him, practically vibrating in anticipation.
“Got any other instructions for me?” Josh asks with undisguised hope.
“Just one.” Chris pops the button of Josh’s jeans. Lips against the shell of Josh’s ear, he whispers, “Be quiet.”
Josh shivers at first touch. His head drops forward as Chris treats him to—or tortures him with—the same kind of touches they shared this morning, purposeful but achingly slow. Josh was game then, but the long day has eroded his patience. He rocks back against Chris, needing no words to send a clear message: More. Now.
“First you want me to slow down, now you want me to speed up… Pick a lane, Washington.”
Josh opens his mouth before remembering his orders. Pressed up against him, Chris has a front-row seat to the tension in his jaw as he traps his response behind clenched teeth.
“What, you think I’m gonna reward you for your good behavior?” Chris teases. “Is that it?”
Josh exhales sharply through his nose. With a chuckle, Chris pushes Josh’s jeans and boxers out of the way. And just like that—like he’s tripped an invisible wire—alarm bells ring in his mind. They aren’t messing around anymore. Josh’s dick is out, warm and heavy in Chris’s hand. If any one of their friends tries to use this bathroom, Chris’s last ounce of reason informs him, they're going to have a problem.
Like an idiot, Chris ignores it.
“Jeez,” he remarks with an appreciative stroke. “You’re ready to fuckin’ go, huh?”
Josh throws a glare over his shoulder. His lips part again, and after the briefest internal debate, he takes the risk. “I missed you.”
Josh might be the only person capable of saying those words with such bite, like an accusation. Chris tucks his smile into the curve of Josh’s neck.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I missed you, too.”
The phone sex was a pleasant surprise, once they stopped fucking around long enough to get to the sex part of it, and Chris has half a mind to try video chat sometime. That’ll be a fun experiment, good enough to tide them over between visits, but the best webcam in the world couldn’t compete with this. Josh is pliant in Chris’s hands, skin flushed beneath his mouth. Every sight and sound is as tormenting as it is thrilling, an aching reminder of the weeks Chris has gone without, and what begins as a simmer of heat beneath his skin quickly boils over. He wants out of his jeans, wants friction on his dick, wants—
“God, I wanna fuck you,” Chris growls. Josh bites off a moan, spurring Chris on. “Y’know, if we had lube, I could fuck you right here. Right up against this door.”
“Thought you—” Josh’s breath stutters as Chris drags his thumb over the head of Josh’s dick. It comes away slick, and Chris swallows another teasing comment about what a mess Josh is; he can guess the rest of Josh’s sentence, but he wants to hear it. “—wanted to do it in a bed.”
Chris did. Still does, actually. As desperate as he feels, he highly doubts he’d follow through on this particular impulse. But with Josh hanging on his every word, he finds it dangerously easy to lie.
“Think I could make an exception,” he says. Josh’s hips are moving again, tiny motions into Chris’s hand, and Chris picks up his pace. “I mean, I feel like I could drill through steel right now, dude. You really think I’d pass on the opportunity to sink my dick—”
It’s no surprise when Josh comes. Chris hasn’t exactly gone easy on the guy, and he cataloged the signs even as he was busy talking. But it’s a hell of a surprise when Josh comes with a sharp cry.
“Shit,” Chris laughs. He claps his free hand over Josh’s mouth, but it’s too late. All Josh does is breathe hot and heavy into Chris’s palm.
Chris has only seen Josh come, live and in-person, a few times. Not nearly as many times as he hopes to, in the grand scheme of their lives. But in his limited experience, he’s noticed they kick Josh clean out of his body. After uncovering Josh’s mouth, he braces himself. He’s ready and waiting when Josh drops his hands from the door and slumps bonelessly against him.
Josh blinks a few times, as though waking from a stupor. “That was kinda loud,” he whispers.
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
Josh breathes a laugh, head tipping back against Chris’s shoulder. “You think anyone heard?”
For the first time in…Chris doesn’t want to know how long, he shifts his focus to the world beyond the door. He catches a stray laugh from Ashley, but the rest of their friends’ chatter is masked by the endless stream of pop songs pouring from Jess’s stereo.
“I dunno. Hopefully the music—”
Bzzt.
Josh’s phone buzzes at the same moment Chris’s watch lights up. They glance sidelong at each other, and Josh brings his finger to the tip of his nose. “Not it.”
Chris checks his watch, but it’s pointless. His texts used to appear on the screen, but after Josh decided that yo can i suck ur dick was a good conversation starter, Chris feared traumatizing the unlucky person sitting next to him in class. He delved into the watch’s settings, tweaked them so his text notifications reveal only the name of the sender.
He also disabled heart rate alerts.
With only one clean hand and Josh acting like he couldn’t possibly muster the energy to help, Chris has no choice but to resort to his phone. He fishes it out of his pocket and taps the screen. “It’s—”
“Wait, where’d you get that?”
“The Apple store,” Chris deadpans.
“I mean your background,” Josh replies. He follows it up with a muttered “asshole,” but it’s weak and belated. He may be playing up the exhaustion, but he isn’t at the top of his game.
“Oh, that?”
It’s an outtake from their Halloween shoot. Josh is all business when the camera turns on, always has been. Chris is far less concerned with getting a perfect shot right off the bat, meaning the two photos left on the cutting room floor were entirely his fault. He was supposed to stand behind Josh, chin hovering just above his shoulder, and flash a wicked grin. Instead he tickled Josh’s sides, making Josh yelp in surprise. In the photo, Josh is a blur of motion as he whirls on Chris.
On their second take, Chris waited until Damien’s thumb was poised over the screen. Then he leaned in and asked Josh, “So do you think they started fucking before or after the murder stuff?”
That photo—Josh laughing at Chris’s stupid joke, Chris beaming in return—currently graces Chris’s lock screen. And his home screen.
“Sent it to myself from your phone,” he explains. “Or did you think you were the only one capable of cracking a passcode?”
Josh sniffs, the closest he’ll get to admitting defeat. “So did we get a text or what?”
Chris nods. “From Jess. ‘Wipes under the sink, please’—that’s all caps—‘don’t use a towel. Crying emoji, crying emoji, praying emoji.’”
Josh snickers. “Cat’s out of the bag, I guess.” He sounds shameless, not a hint of remorse. Until he looks down. “Shit. I fucked up my shirt.”
“Oh, no,” Chris says dryly. “Not your I Eat Asbestos shirt.”
Hoping Josh is capable of standing on his own two feet, Chris peels away from him and heads for the sink.
“Hey, d’you think it’s weirder to answer her or not answer her?” he asks.
“What?” Josh must still be rebooting. It takes a second for him to process the question. “I dunno. They’re both weird.”
“Yeah,” Chris agrees. He takes the path of less social interaction and drops his phone next to the bowl. After wrestling with the pearl of soap—and only dropping it once, an incident that goes mercifully uncommented on—Chris washes his hands and grabs the wipes from under the sink.
As ill-advised as this situation is, he can’t help but feel it’s a step up from the first time, in Josh’s dorm. The bathroom was all the way down the hall, meaning they had to do the best they could with paper towels before venturing to the showers.
Chris insisted on cleaning Josh then, and he intends to do the same now. Wipe in hand, he turns back to find Josh has buttoned himself up—and pulled his shirt off. Chris runs his eyes along Josh’s body, from the jeans riding low on his hips to the dusting of dark hair on his chest. RIP to the shirt and all, but if you ask Chris, it’s a worthy sacrifice.
“You’re so fucking hot, dude,” he says. “Like, it’s annoying how hot you are. It should be illegal, even.”
The compliments sail past Josh, who holds the limp shirt in his arms the way one might cradle a fallen comrade. He turns to Chris with an anguished expression. “What am I gonna do?”
“Why are you asking me? It’s your cum.” Chris steps closer. “And it really is all over the shirt, huh.” He wipes the fabric, frowning. “I like it better when it’s on you.”
“Yeah, me too,” Josh grumbles. “Over here, dude, you put your dirty hand on this side.”
“Sorry,” Chris laughs. At the disapproving click of Josh’s tongue, he adds, “It’s not a big deal, Josh. I mean, the shirt’s black, so it won’t really look damp or…stained. You could probably just…”
“What?”
“Wear it?”
“Oh, gross. Come on, man, even I have standards.”
“That’s news to me,” Chris says under his breath.
Josh narrows his eyes. “What was that?”
“I said you’re beautiful to me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Figuring he’s done the best he can without a washing machine, Chris tosses the wipe into the most decorated wastebasket he’s ever seen. It’s designed to look like netting, peppered with seashells and a variety of plastic aquatic animals. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jess glued them on herself.
“Look, if you don’t wanna wear it, just toss it,” Chris advises. The wastebasket is small enough to sit wedged between the toilet and the sink, but if they bundle the shirt and bury it, no one will notice. At least not tonight. The thought of getting anywhere near bathroom trash is gross, but admittedly, not much grosser than what they’ve already done in here.
“Toss it?”
“I’ll give you my button-up for the rest of the night. There are easier ways to get my clothes, by the way—like asking nicely, for example—but I won’t let my bro down in his moment of—”
“No.” Josh shakes his head. He looks aghast, somehow even more affronted by this than the suggestion of wearing it. “I’m not throwing it out. No fucking way. Not my I Eat Asbestos shirt.”
“Josh, your family owns a mountain. You could buy a thousand I Eat Asbestos shirts.”
“I didn’t buy it. Don’t you remember? Like three, four years ago? I made fun of you for not being able to eat spicy food, and you made fun of me for eating—”
“Anything?” Chris suggests.
“Not the point of this discussion, but—”
“Honestly, man, I’m not sure what that is anymore.”
“—let me state for the record, as God is my witness—”
“Well, he’s not real, so that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Jesus, I just—”
“Not him either, I’m afraid.”
“What I’m trying to say,” Josh snaps, “is that sometimes—most of the time, actually—it’s for a bet. I got fifty bucks off that sour gummy pizza, and I don’t regret it.”
“Josh, your family owns a mountain. You don’t need to take bets!”
Josh dismisses the comment with a wave of his hand. “We’re losing the plot. Point is, that Christmas I got you the Tummy Ache Survivor shirt, and you got me this.” He shakes the shirt for emphasis. “So I just—I don’t want another I Eat Asbestos shirt. Alright? I want this I Eat Asbestos shirt.”
Chris’s resistance melts like sour gummies on pizza. “Oh,” he says, voice pitching up without his permission. “Okay.”
Josh shrinks into himself, scowling. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I said something you don’t already know.”
Chris shrugs, too pleased to feel any sort of embarrassment. “Still nice to hear it.”
He drapes an arm over Josh’s shoulder and leans in close, their typical conspiratorial stance. Usually it’s Josh pulling Chris down to his level, but Chris is up for a little role-reversal.
“So we just need to get this thing from here to the car without anyone noticing, right?” He waits for Josh’s nod. “That’s kindergarten stuff. What if I make a grand re-entrance to the party, and you sneak out the—”
“Front door’s right by the living room,” Josh argues. “If it was one person, maybe two, then sure. But there’s too many of them. I can be quiet—”
“Can you?”
Josh elbows him in the gut. “What I mean is, it doesn’t matter if no one hears me. With eight of ’em, someone’s gonna see me.”
Chris hums in thought. His hand slips off Josh’s shoulder, ghosts down Josh’s side. He wiggles his fingers, and Josh jumps away, barking, “Will you fucking quit it?”
Chris reels him back in, grasping hands clinging to bare skin. “Okay, okay. I’ll be good.” He plants an apology kiss on Josh’s cheek, then lingers there a moment, cheek to cheek. Chris’s stubble has grown back over the past few weeks, just the way Josh likes it. “I’ll be good.”
It does the trick. Josh sinks back against Chris as he scans the bathroom, the gears of his beautiful, frightening mind beginning to turn.
“Alright, there’s probably more garbage bags under the sink. We stow the shirt in one, then hide it behind the shower curtain. On our way out, you distract Jess while I hit the bathroom—” Josh pauses, frowning. “No, I distract Jess, you hit the bathroom—”
“Why can’t I distract Jess?” Chris asks. It’s simple curiosity at first, but as he voices the question, a delightful answer occurs to him. “Ohh, I see. You’re scared she’s gonna kiss me again.”
It would never happen, of course. Calling Jess an affectionate drunk is like calling a torrential downpour “a little wet,” but ever since she and Emily figured out that being together was much more efficient than trading boyfriends, Jess has had eyes only for her girlfriend. Shining, lovesick, puppy dog eyes. Not even getting shitfaced would make her look twice at Chris.
“No, I’m not,” Josh insists. “You’ll bore her. I can hold her attention, at least.”
“If she thinks I’m so boring, why’d she lay one on me in the first place?”
Josh squirms at that, twisting around in Chris’s arms. “Man, can you shut—”
Chris shuts them both up with a kiss, warm and sound. The tension seeps out of Josh’s body.
“Jesus,” Josh breathes. “Probably because you kiss like that.”
“I didn’t kiss her like that.”
“What about Matt?” Josh presses.
“Dude, you saw that one.”
“I know, I’m just—I’m just asking. Like, from your perspective.”
“When are you gonna let this go, huh?” Chris brings his hands to Josh’s face, tips it up to make Josh look at him. “Seriously, how many times do I have to kiss you before you forget about it?”
Josh considers the question. He really does. Chris knows the difference between Josh’s thinking face and his pretending to think (while waiting to crack a joke) face. This is without a doubt the former.
“A thousand,” Josh decides.
Chris raises a brow. “Not a million?”
“My therapist says I should practice restraint.”
“Okay,” Chris laughs. “One thousand, then.”
“And it’s not retroactive.”
“Okay,” Chris repeats. “One thousand, starting now.”
Josh studies Chris’s face. “You’re doing it again, Hartley.” He doesn’t sound accusatory; he sounds disbelieving.
“Doing what?”
“Going soft on me.”
Chris snorts. “Blah, blah, sex joke.”
“Yeah, that was an easy one.”
“Low-hanging, you might say.”
Josh smirks. “You’re a dumbass,” he declares, as though it’s the highest honor he can bestow. His gaze makes Chris wonder if it’s fair to be the only one accused of softness, but the words stick in Chris’s throat as he’s maneuvered against the sink. Josh drops his asbestos shirt unceremoniously next to the bowl, heat flickering behind his eyes. “Can I suck your dick?”
“You forgot the ‘yo,’” Chris reminds him.
“I’m serious, man.” Josh digs his fingers inside the waistband of Chris’s jeans, like an animal scratching at a door, desperate to be let in. “I want your cock in my mouth so bad.”
Reading Josh’s words over text was an undeniable turn-on; hearing them straight from his mouth is a whole new level of hot. Josh’s hand moves lower still, palming Chris through his jeans. “Seems like you want that, too,” he remarks.
“Josh, we’ve been in here forever. I feel like I was born in this bathroom. Like I’m gonna die in this bathroom.”
“You won’t die-die. Just a little one.” Josh punctuates his words with a gentle squeeze. “Besides, everyone already knows what we’re doing.”
“No, Jess knows.”
“Yeah, and if Jess knows, everyone knows. Hell, she’s probably sending out a public service announcement as we speak. What’s the point in being a martyr?”
Chris tries to muster an answer, but Josh’s touch is scrambling his brain, even through two layers. And Josh knows it. He cocks his head as he waits, a grin curling his lips. Not quite the cat who got the canary, but the cat who’s confident he’s about to.
“Um.” Chris licks at his lips. There are words in his head. Somewhere. He just can’t for the life of him find them. “Yeah, I got nothin’.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” The pressure eases as Josh brings his hands to the broad expanse of Chris’s shoulders. “I’m taking you up on your offer, by the way.”
Josh guides the shirt down Chris’s arms, and Chris lets it happen, all too happy to see it change hands. He’s even more pleased when Josh leaves it pointedly unbuttoned.
Grasping eagerly at the hem of Chris’s T-shirt, Josh asks, “Can I…?”
“Have it? No, I think I’ve been generous enough.”
Josh rolls his eyes. “I mean pull it up for a minute.”
“Oh. Sure, yeah.”
Josh responds in a rush of breath, a thankyou so quick and quiet that Chris can’t tell if it’s supposed to be sarcastic or not.
No time to dwell on it. Josh rucks Chris’s shirt up and dips his head. Lips circle Chris’s nipples, kiss a fiery trail down Chris’s abdomen. Hands follow in their wake, fingers roaming, cataloguing, like the faint stretch marks on Chris’s hips and stomach are lines on a map, and Josh is determined to commit them all to memory.
As he sinks to his knees, he turns his face up, revealing something Chris still struggles to believe someone could feel for him. Desire, so fierce it borders on worship. Palms flat against Chris’s thighs, a disciple at the altar, Josh asks, “Will you get yourself ready for me?”
Chris feels pretty ready, but he’s beginning to suspect Josh enjoys watching almost as much as participating. Chris nods, reaching for his belt as Josh sits back on his heels.
It was easy to tell Josh to be quiet, to laugh and tease him when he failed spectacularly. But as Chris touches himself for his rapt audience of one, he understands just how difficult it is to keep everything behind his lips. When Josh’s eyes flick up to his face, desire sharpening into raw, animal hunger, Chris can’t help himself. A whimper escapes him, and Josh pushes up on his knees.
“Stop, stop. You’re having too much fun.” Josh scoots forward, flashing his tongue. “No purple-Slurpee tongue this time. You’ll have to compare and contrast.”
Chris laughs, a short huff of breath. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to take copious notes.”
His voice has dropped, gone low and rumbling. Josh’s mouth sighs open at the sound, and of course it’s now—at the worst possible moment—that Chris realizes they’re forgetting something very important.
“Wait.” Chris nods toward the bath mat—an artistic depiction of the sea floor, with the words Mermaid Territory written in a looping, borderline unreadable script. “You should put that under your knees.”
“My, what a gentleman,” Josh purrs. He situates the mat under his knees before promptly turning his attention back to Chris, curving his hands along Chris’s thighs. His gaze travels up the length of Chris’s body, agonizingly slow. “Some girl would be real lucky to have you, Cochise.” At last, they lock eyes. “It’s a shame I’m not gonna let that happen.”
Maybe Josh wants payback for Chris’s merciless teasing earlier, or maybe he really is trying to practice restraint. In any case, he takes it slow, sticking to heavy kisses and long strokes of his tongue. Far be it from Chris to complain.
When Josh pulls back, Chris averts his eyes. Last time—the purple-Slurpee-tongue time—he couldn’t resist watching as Josh took him into his mouth, and the sight alone was enough to kick Chris way too close to the edge. Determined to last a little longer, he white-knuckles the edge of the sink and focuses on the only thing in this room that isn’t on-theme: the ceiling.
Nothing happens.
After an agonizing few seconds, Chris forces himself to glance down. Josh is still on his knees, mouth hanging open in front of Chris’s dick. The look on his face is nothing short of pleading.
Chris swallows. “You want me to…?”
Josh nods.
“Now?”
Josh nods again.
“In Jess’s mermaid bathroom?” Chris hisses.
Josh chuckles warmly. “Yeah, bro. In Jess’s mermaid bathroom.”
Chris’s hand finds its way into Josh’s hair, fingers winding through curls. “This would be hotter in the theater room,” he says, unsure if he’s trying to convince Josh or himself.
“’s hot now,” Josh murmurs. He leans into the touch, and Chris curses under his breath.
“You’re gonna be the death of me, dude. And not the French one, I mean the actual, real-deal death.” Josh shrugs, like there are worse things he could be responsible for, and Chris somehow manages to tear his gaze away from the man in front of him. “You definitely locked the door, right?”
“No one’s gonna barge in on us, Chris. I promise.”
“That’s not an answer,” Chris points out. But as the words leave his mouth, he realizes he doesn’t actually care. “Fuck. Okay, but—if you want me to stop, you need to—”
Josh gives him a sharp pinch on the thigh.
“Okay,” Chris breathes. “Okay, that’s good.”
He’d ask if Josh is ready, but there’s no point; his mouth has fallen open again. Chris keeps a firm grip on Josh’s hair, holding him still as he sinks himself into wet heat.
It’s nothing Chris hasn’t felt before, in terms of pure sensation, but there’s something about being in control, about Josh handing it over willingly—gladly—that makes this especially hot. Not even the garish decor can spoil it.
Chris knows he isn’t living up to the fantasy, though. That version of him was free from inhibition. The real Chris—the one fighting to keep his mouth shut behind an unlocked door at their friend’s party—is keenly aware that this is Josh’s second-ever blowjob. He keeps his thrusts short and shallow, fearful of going too far, too fast.
When Josh adjusts his angle in obvious invitation, Chris hesitates to take him up on it. Josh squeezes Chris’s ass, as impatient as he is encouraging. With a semi-coherent “fuck, fuck, okay,” Chris pushes deeper, waiting for a pinch that never comes. Josh makes a noise of satisfaction, expression growing hazy as Chris fucks his mouth a little harder, a little faster.
Heat pools low in Chris’s belly, and he knows he doesn’t have much longer. His breath is coming hard, his thrusts beginning to lose their rhythm.
“Josh,” he warns. It was all he needed to say last time, and Josh pulled off, pushing Chris over the finish line with a few strokes of his hand.
This time, Josh doesn’t move.
“Josh,” Chris growls. He tugs roughly on Josh’s hair, and Josh responds with a firm slap to Chris’s ass. The meaning is abundantly clear. Do it.
Between the unexpected sting going straight to his dick or his proven inability to resist one of Josh’s commands, Chris is done for. He comes, teeth sinking viciously into his bottom lip as he spills down Josh’s throat.
Josh hangs on until Chris is spent, then drops ungracefully onto his ass. Without an anchor, Chris stumbles back against the sink. When he finally has enough breath to speak, his voice is as weak as his knees.
“Jesus fuck. I think you sucked all the bones outta my body.”
“Shit.” Josh coughs into his fist. “Don’t make me laugh.”
Suddenly realizing he’s still bare-assing it, Chris straightens up. Josh gets back on his knees, shooing Chris’s hands away. His fingers tremble as he fixes Chris’s clothes, but his movements are deliberate, almost reverent, like this is a sacred ritual he has to see to the end. When he’s finished, he places a single, tenderly possessive kiss above Chris’s belt before rising to his feet.
“Oh, fuck,” Josh exclaims, “you’re bleeding.”
“I am?” Chris sounds dazed, even to his own ears. He brings a finger to his lips. “Huh. Guess I am.”
Josh stares at Chris’s mouth, transfixed. Before Chris can muster his defense—that he at least succeeded in staying quiet—Josh surges forward. It’s a no-holds-barred kiss. Long, deep, and admittedly, stranger than any Chris has tasted.
Josh pulls back, lips smeared red, and says, “Nine hundred ninety-nine.”
Chris says, “Ow.”
Josh snorts. “I think you’re gonna make it, princess.” He hip-checks Chris out of the way and raids the cabinet. A moment later, he hands Chris a damp paper towel. “Here.”
“Thanks.” As Chris dabs his stinging lip, his eyes wander to Josh’s discarded shirt, lying in a crumpled heap on the sink. “Wait. What’s our plan again?”
Josh is bent over the sink, giving his mouth a thorough rinse. “What?” he gargles.
“With the shirt.”
Josh makes a garbled noise of understanding. He spits. “I dunno, man. I need a nap. Let’s just, uh…” He dives back into the cabinet, pulling out a roll of trash bags. He peels one off. “Shirt in bag. Bag in shower. Deal with later.”
“Fine by me.”
Chris grabs his phone while Josh stows the shirt and lazily kicks the mat back into place. When the bathroom looks just as they found it, they stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the mirror.
“How do we— Wait.” Josh hurriedly buttons his shirt. “Alright, how do we look?”
They assess their reflections. Josh’s curls are tousled beyond belief, Chris’s shirt hanging loose on his smaller frame. Meanwhile, Chris feels strangely exposed in only one layer. His bottom lip, while no longer bleeding, bears a split straight down the middle.
“Like we got in a fight,” Chris says. He frowns, his lip responding with a weak throb. “And you won.”
“Silver lining: I think I’m kinda working the shirt.”
Josh’s tongue pokes between his teeth, and Chris knows the shirt will never grace the inside of his drawer again. Josh still hasn’t returned the clothes he stole for his passenger skeleton, or the shirt he swiped from Chris’s backpack the morning after they first slept together.
“Do you wanna go first, or should I?” Josh asks.
“Why don’t you convince everyone I was never here while I figure out how to flush myself down the toilet?”
“You it is, then.” With an encouraging pat, Josh turns Chris to face the door. “Knock ’em dead, Cochise.”
***
“Right? And then he gave me an A minus, which is just so— Jeez, Chris, what happened to you?”
“Josh,” Chris says as he joins Ashley and Sam in the living room. “Josh happened to me.”
“My gosh. What kind of sex are you two having?” Ashley screws her eyes shut, fending off unwanted visions. “Wait, wait, never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Who says we had sex? Maybe he just clocked me and stole my shirt.”
Sam looks at him with despondent concern, like he’s a walking ASPCA commercial. “Chris, blink twice if you need help.”
“Don’t look him in the eyes, Sam,” Ashley warns. “Those piercing blues do serious damage.”
Fortunately for the both of them, Sam doesn’t need to hold his unblinking gaze to know he’s a lost cause. She turns back Ashley with a sigh. “You were saying, Ash…?”
Shortly after, Josh saunters into the living room, casual as anything. Chris is trying very hard to listen to the latest installment in Ashley’s ongoing feud with her history professor, but even as he bobs his head in supportive agreement, his eyes track Josh crossing the room.
Josh’s wardrobe consists of rich blacks, deep blues, and slate grays. Forest green isn’t usually his color.
But damn if he isn’t working the shirt.
“Hey Jess, you mind mixing another one of those strawberry drinks for me?” he asks.
“Why?” Mike pipes up. “Need to wash something out of your mouth?”
Jess responds with a loud “ewwww,” Hannah by clapping her hands over her ears and taking up a chorus of off-key la-la-la’s.
“Gross, dude,” Matt says. “His sisters are here.”
“I’m the gross one? Me?” Mike scoffs. “Last I checked, I’m not the one who—”
Beth cuts him off. “One more word, Mike, and I swear to God.”
“Why do we need to wait for another word?” Emily asks.
“Oh, sweet,” Josh chirps. “I’m back in time for Mike’s public execution.”
“Which you should enjoy with a pretty little drink,” Jess decrees. She turns on her heel and hooks her arm through Josh’s. “Let’s go.”
“How am I the bad guy right now?” Mike calls after them. “I’m right.”
No one responds.
As Jess leads Josh back the way he came, he catches Chris’s eye. A grin unfurls across his face, like a rising sun spilling over the horizon. Its warmth reaches Chris from all the way across the room. Just before they turn into the kitchen, Josh winks, and Chris has never been more firm in his conviction.
The best place to be during a party is definitely the bathroom.