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“Or something to eat, maybe? Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.” He spoke rapidly as he pulled a carton of eggs from the middle shelf.
“Avery…”
Avery turned around, his slender fingers clutching the carton of eggs desperately. His blue eyes pale and expressionless. But it was his lips that gave him away, the bottom lip shaking slightly.
“Stop… just… stop, okay?” Ethan whispered as he took a step towards Avery, who in return took a step back, holding the eggs in front of him, like a shield almost.
“Okay,” Avery whispered, looking just as lost in that moment as Ethan felt inside. A sad, resigned slump in his shoulders, Avery looked at him, a single tear trailing down his left cheek. Ethan was suddenly lost for words, brushing his hand through his hair. How had it all suddenly come to this? But then again, what had he expected, dropping by like this on his way home? They both knew that this was a stopover and not a stay put.
“Why are you here, Ethan?” Avery’s defeated voice hung between them, as he brushed the solitary tear away. “I haven’t heard from you in two weeks and now you suddenly appear out of the blue looking like it’s the end of the fucking world. So, why are you here, Eth? What do you want?” A weak laugh escaped Avery’s lips before he continued. “I know it’s not my heart you’ve come back for because I told you already. It’s yours whether you want it or not…” additional tears spilled from his sad eyes contradicting the frozen smile on his lips.
“Avery…” Ethan murmured as he came to a stop in front of him. Reaching out, he wiped at the tears before he leaned in and brushed his lips against Avery’s. The taste of salt exploded on his tongue. And something sweet, perhaps. Avery sagged against him as a strangled sound escaped him. “Baby, please…” Ethan mumbled, nibbling at Avery’s smooth chin. He didn’t know what he was asking, though.Baby, please don’t cry. Please, just let me hold you. Please, just let me pretend for a while that I can stay.
“Yeah, I know… You can’t stay.” Placing his slender hands against Ethan’s cheeks, Avery rested their foreheads together. Breathing in the man in front of him, Ethan momentarily contemplated what it would be like if he stayed. Images of a life with Avery flashed past him like a fast train. Avery smiling at him while he sketched, fingers smeared with black charcoal. Avery wrapping himself around him on the couch. Avery waking him up with a kiss on the forehead, mumblinghandsome…His chest tightened, the air seeping from his lungs along with each memory of Avery that didn’t belong to him. That would never belong to him.
“I have to go home,” he whispered against Avery’s lips. “I just… I just didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.” Something wet hit his cheek and he knew that it was a tear. Whether it was Avery’s or his own, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. It didn’t take a tear to tell Ethan that in that moment his own heart was breaking too.
Avery nodded, a hum leaving his mouth. Eyes closed, he breathed against Ethan’s lips.
“Just my luck, huh? Falling for a nineteen-year-old Texan guy who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.” Avery attempted a weak smile, exhaling deeply. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before. It kind of sucks, to be honest.” As Ethan opened his mouth to respond, Avery covered his lips with his own, mumbling against them.
“Don’t say anything. Please. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You can’t give me something you’re not ready to give willingly. Just let me love you one last time, Eth. Okay?”
Ethan nodded, knowing that one last time with Avery would never be enough. How could it be? But it would have to do. He knew that he should say no. That he was just drawing out the goodbye. Postponing the inevitable. But in that moment, Ethan didn’t care. Right now, this very second, he felt selfish. He wanted to have this one last memory with Avery that he could unwrap whenever he was alone and felt like just revisiting this summer.
• • •
It was the strangest feeling, moving inside someone when you were both crying. When you knew that with every move, with every kiss and with every touch, you got one step closer to the end. With every stroke, it felt like Avery vanished just a little bit more. Pulling away. With every moan and every whisperedplease,the imminent departure closed in on Ethan and he felt Avery slowly slipping away between his fingers.
It dawned on Ethan that it was the first time that they weren’t fucking. This—skin against skin, lips meeting lips in return, fingers linked through fingers—the lightness of every touch and every sigh, the intimacy. This wasn’t fucking. It was something else entirely. It was beyond any physical sensation that he’d ever experienced. It was a push and a pull. There was no giving, there was only taking. As if they were both preparing themselves for being without the other, catering to their own selfish need to force as much pleasure out of this moment and memorize the feeling of the other until it was imprinted into every fiber of their soul. Ethan felt like his insides were being pulled apart, while the bond that connected him with Avery was being stretched out until it threatened to tear.
“Make me come, Eth,” Avery pleaded beneath him, his fists white from clenching the sheets continuously. “Please, make me come,” he whimpered. Biting his bottom lip, Avery writhed with frustration and unfulfilled need, his hips meeting Ethan’s thrust for thrust.
Wrapping his hand around Avery’s smooth hardness, he began stroking him. Slow at first, but when Avery cursed at him tofucking get me there, Eth,he stroked him faster while fucking him harder. Through a veil of tears, he watched Avery fall apart, screaming out his release, a pained and devastated look on his beautiful face where there should have been bliss and contentment. Instead, there was a deranged type of ecstasy. Ethan felt his own desire vanish at the sound of his lover sobbing into the pillow.
“Avery…” he whispered, brushing at his damp hair that spilled across the pillow. “Baby…”
“Just go,” Avery hiccupped. “Please just go.”
“What? Now?” Disbelief coursed through Ethan, something resembling a tight fist squeezing around his heart. “I… I don’t have to go right now. I can stay awhile… let me hold you for a bit…” he trailed off, the squeeze intensifying, every breath a painful reminder that he was falling apart. But Avery squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head, defiantly almost.
“Please, Eth. Just go now,” he whispered.
“Okay… if that’s what you want.”Fuck!He knew that wasn’t what Avery wanted. Avery wanted him to stay. Only, he couldn’t. He had people back home who counted on him. Responsibilities. When he added it all up in his head, it should’ve made sense. It should’ve felt like all the pieces were falling into place. That he could finally settle into his old life back home now that he knew that Matty was safe. That he was happy. Only it didn’t. How come it didn’t? Why couldn’t he just place these few weeks with Avery in a mental box along with other memories and put the lid back on?
Slipping from Avery’s hot tightness, he felt like the lowest of the low. As he got off the bed and reached for his discarded clothes, Avery curled onto his side, his back to Ethan, knees tucked to his chest.
He looks so small,Ethan thought to himself, and in an instant, it shot through his mind.He looks like mine. Shit.Why the fuck did Avery look like his when he wasn’t?Do you ever dream, Eth?Matty’s voice resounded from afar. Pulling on his pants and his shirt, he reached out to touch Avery one last time, but his hand froze midair, and he clenched his fist, while biting the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.I don’t know, Matty.Relaxing his hand against his side, Ethan slowly turned towards the bedroom door.I don’t know anything anymore…
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Matty – Now
“YOU WANNA BRINGthis, too, sweetheart?” Austin was holding up a canvas duffel bag that Matty had left on the front porch.
“Yeah, I guess…” Matty shrugged, feeling out of sorts. He looked at Ray, who was putting a leash on Cassie, smiling weakly. Ray had come to see them off and take Cassie with him to his place. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea to go back to Eden. Well, they weren’t exactly going back to Eden just yet—first stop was Waco, where his mom was admitted to a rehabilitation center specializing in respiratory injuries.
Fiona Craig’s esophagus had been nearly crushed when her husband of twenty-two years had attempted to strangle her to death using his bare hands. She still couldn’t breathe without artificial assistance and her vocal cords had been injured as well, making it difficult for the forty-two-year-old woman to communicate. The rehabilitation center in Waco was supposed to be really experienced in these types of injuries, offering physical therapy, speech therapy and specialized counselling.
