Bachelor Pad
Carrick doesn’t question me as I drive back to my apartment. I didn’t even ask how he got to the party or if he wanted to go back to my place before I started driving, but he hasn’t complained yet, so I guess this is okay with him.
I know our little encounter with Taylor wasn’t so bad. It could have been a lot worse, but it’s just proof that Taylor doesn’t get it. He runs at the first sign of trouble, and then pretends nothing is wrong. Ostriches could take lessons in burying their heads in the sand from him. Even though he has to know that I’m not happy with him right now, he still treats me as though nothing is wrong. Sure, we need to keep up some kind of front in public, but I know that’s not what Taylor was trying to do.
He honestly thought we could just brush off that fight like it didn’t happen.
Carrick doesn’t run away, though, and he doesn’t push me, either. He hasn’t said a single word since we started driving, unless you count the way he’s softly singing along with the radio. His singing voice is so beautiful that I’m tempted to just drive around in circles so I can listen to him all night. At some point, I’m pretty sure he would notice what I was doing, though.
He doesn’t say anything, though. Not a single word, until we’ve pulled into the parking garage and I’m showing him into the apartment.
“So, this is your bachelor pad, huh?”
I let out a chuckle, holding the door open for him. “Yeah, something like that. It’s not really as cool as that sounds.”
Carrick waits until the door closes behind me and then reaches for my arms, pulling me closer to him. “But you’re happy here? I mean, at least relatively speaking?”
“Relatively speaking?” I ask. “Relatively speaking, moving out of my house is preferable to, I dunno, a root canal. Or finding out Taylor and Natalie have made up.”
“Is that what’s got you supposed upset? The way they were acting tonight?” He asks, running his hands up and down my arms.
I shrug. “No, not really. I mean, not just tonight. We had this… this really nice trip, you know? We shared a room, we had fun… and then she’s right there at the airport, with her perfect wife and family act. And I had no clue. No warning.”
“What would a warning have done for you?” Carrick asks.
I shrug him and his question off and head for the kitchen to fix myself another drink. I had the fantastic forethought to pick up a few cheap bottles of vodka during my shopping trip, and I plan to put one of them to use right now. As for Carrick’s question, I don’t know. I don’t know what difference it would have made if Taylor had told me Natalie was coming back home. It still would have happened, whether I’d known about it or not.
So why am I so damn angry about it?
“Because he lied to me,” I mumble, still pouring vodka into my cup. A little louder, I repeat, “He lied to me. He had plenty of chances to tell me about what was going on with Natalie. I even caught him texting her, and he said he was just checking on the kids. It wasn’t a total lie, but there was so much he left out… so much that would have changed how I felt, how close to him I let myself get. That’s why it makes me angry.”
Carrick stares at me for a moment, like he’s letting my words soak in, and then he nods. I hadn’t even put it all into so many words in my own thoughts before, so it feels better just to know that’s why I’m angry. It doesn’t take much of that rage out of my system, but perhaps just a little bit of it has dissipated. I offer my drink to Carrick, because right now, he looks like he needs it even more than I do.
Carrick takes a long drink then sits the cup down on the counter and pulls up a bar stool. That puts him a little closer to my level and he stares at me for a moment before speaking. “I guess that makes sense. It’s not that you thought he was going to really leave her for you, right?”
“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “Not that I want him to stay with her, but… I mean, he’s my fucking brother.”
“Right. But if you’d known the truth before you guys did whatever you did while you were gone, you would have behaved differently.”
I nod, and realization dawns on me. “He manipulated me.”
“Maybe he did,” Carrick says with a tiny shrug. “Who knows what’s going on in his mind. Maybe he did it on purpose, maybe he didn’t. I’m not making excuses for him; I just can’t say for sure that he knew what effect withholding that information would have.”
“Please don’t make excuses for him.”
“I just said I’m not,” Carrick replies, but he doesn’t sound angry. “I’m just saying. I honestly don’t know what the fuck is going on in Taylor’s brain, and frankly, I don’t really want to know.”
“Couldn’t be any scarier than what’s going on in mine.”
“I don’t think your brain is scary,” Carrick replies, reaching across the counter to grasp my hands. “You’re just… a little lost right now. Floundering, if you will.”
I raise an eyebrow and smirk. “I’m a fish?”
“You’re a smartass.”
“Yeah, but you love me anyway,” I reply. It’s my standard, admittedly smartass, answer to that sort of statement and it rolls off my tongue without a thought. It’s usually good for a laugh or an eye roll. Not this time, though.
“Yeah,” Carrick replies, giving my hands a squeeze. “I do.”
The intensity and honesty in his voice scares me a little, and I have to do something to deflect. I pry my hands from his and take a big gulp of the drink I offered him. After wiping a few stray drops of vodka from my lips, I give him a smirk. “So, you want the grand tour of my bachelor pad?”
Carrick returns the smirk. “How about we start with the bedroom?”
“Can we finish with it too?”
He just chuckles and hops down off the bar stool. That’s enough of an answer for me, so I waste no time at all reaching for his arm and practically dragging him toward the bedroom. It’s not really worth showing off right now; there’s no real grand tour at all. Just me, a bed I didn’t bother to make this morning and a pile of clothes spilling out of a suitcase.
Carrick doesn’t seem to notice any of that stuff, though. He uses my own grip on his arm to pull me closer to him, wrapping his free arm around my waist. He buries his head in my hair and mumbles, “Missed you so much, Zac.”
“I missed you, too… I was only gone for a few days, though.”
“Maybe,” he replies, pulling back and brushing my hair out of my face. “But it feels like you’re still gone. You’re right here in front of me and I still miss you. I’m still trying to reach you and you’re just outside of my grasp.”
I nod, but I can’t find any actual words for him. I know he means because of Taylor. I’ve been so wrapped up in Taylor that I won’t let in the guy who’s actually right here and willing. It’s not fair to him, and I have no excuses for it.
Maybe I can fix it now, though. For tonight, I hope a little physical attention is enough to let him know I really am right here in front of him.
I wrap my arms tightly around Carrick’s waist and drag him toward the bed, not caring that I have to walk backwards to get us there. I’ll be lucky if I don’t fall and kill us both, especially considering the way Carrick is undressing me as we walk. This is not my most graceful moment at all, but I don’t care. It’s clumsy, but unhurried. We’ve got all the time and privacy we need, after all. Carrick starts shedding his own clothes once I run into the bed and somehow manage to fall back onto it without injuring myself. I can’t guarantee that it was remotely sexy, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Unlike so much of what I did with Taylor, this doesn’t seem to be fueled by lust. It’s just… need. A need that goes so much deeper than just wanted to get naked with him.
Although the nakedness isn’t bad either.
Once we’re both completely naked, though, things seem to slow down. His hands run gently up and down my sides as we kiss almost lazily. When his hand finally finds my cock, he’s soft and gentle, but I don’t mind. Any other time, I probably would accuse him of trying to tease me but if this lasts all night, I wouldn’t complain at all.
After a few minutes, his hand begins to creep backwards. He pulls back from kissing me to give me a curious stare, as if he’s asking for permission or making sure I’m okay.
“There’s… I’ve…” I stutter out, suddenly feeling very embarrassed about admitting to the purchase I made earlier. Finally, I manage to mumble, “In the bag by the bathroom door.”
Carrick raises an eyebrow, but follows my directions. Moments later, he returns to the bed with a tiny bottle of lube in his hand.
“Planning something, were ya?” He asks, chuckling softly as he coats his fingers with the sticky stuff.
I can feel myself blushing. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”
“Zac…” he mumbles, sliding his hand between my legs, just barely massaging. “You sure you wanna go there tonight?”
I nod. With his fingers this close, but not yet inside me, it really does feel like he’s teasing me. I know he wants to make sure I’m ready, though. But I am. We might have taken turns when we fooled around before, experimenting with nearly everything else but actual penetration, but right now I really just want his dick inside me.
So much for not minding if we took things slow, I guess.
I should probably be ashamed of how little time and effort it takes him to get me prepared. It’s not like I’ve had that much sex lately, but… well, that’s a line of thought I’d like to avoid right now. I should be focusing only on Carrick, the beautiful boy above me, slicking his own cock with lube and moaning.
“You sure you’re ready?” He asks, just barely pressing the tip of his dick against me.
“Ugh, yes,” I reply, rolling my hips up just to prove my point. He doesn’t slide that far into me, but it’s enough to make him moan again.
After taking a moment to steady himself, he pushes the rest of the way in, until we’re as close as we can possibly get, my legs tangling around his in a pathetic attempt to get him even closer. If we were any closer together, we’d just be one person. Then again, with the way he seems to read my mind and always know what I need from him, we might as well be.
We fall into an easy rhythm, slow and gentle, like everything else we’ve done tonight. Can we just stay this way forever? Seriously. I would not be opposed to that at all, even though I know how unrealistic it is.
And as soon as I admit to myself that it has to end, I feel that end drawing near.
Carrick’s breathing is getting shallow, and I recognize that. I recognize these beautiful moans falling from his mouth. I know he’s close. I snake my hand down between us and wrap it around my dick, not really putting that much effort into my strokes because I have a feeling I’m going to come anyway. I could probably get off without even touching myself, just watching Carrick come undone above me. As it is, I’m just trying to time my strokes just right so that when he comes, I’m right there with him.
And I am.
My free hand claws at the sheets as I feel it wash over me. Carrick shakes, his eyes struggling to stay open but ultimately failing as he lets out this sound that starts as a moan but finishes as a whimper. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him before, but there’s no precedent for what we’ve just done. This is new, the two of us together like this. I didn’t realize that until right now, as he comes to rest on top of me, still panting.
This was our first time.
I wasn’t nervous at all, I suppose because it wasn’t really my first time. This is what first times should feel like. Like the sort of thing that’s supposed to happen and never stop.
Carrick lays on top of me for a while before finally rolling over and sighing. With little more than a grunt and a wave of my arm, I point him toward the bathroom shelf where I keep my towels. He returns a moment later, handing the towel to me after he wipes all traces of me from his stomach. It takes a little more effort to clean myself up, and in the end, I enlist Carrick’s help in just totally removing the top sheet. Who the fuck uses a top sheet anyway?
Once our mess is cleaned up, relatively speaking, we climb back into bed. We’re still both completely naked, but if he doesn’t care, neither do I. It’s July in Tulsa. It’s too damn hot for clothes. We curl up together above the covers, and that’s all the warmth I need to get me through the night. Carrick kisses my forehead and I let out a contented sigh.
“You still miss me?” I ask.
“Nope,” he replies, nuzzling his face into my hair.
And for once, I don’t miss him, either. I don’t miss anything or anyone right now.