Page 67 of One More Time

His gaze moves from my eyes to my lips, and he leans down and presses a kiss to my mouth. I don’t do anything to rush him, just let him lazily kiss me until he finally pulls away and rests his head back on my chest. He’s fully on top of me now, and I’m not even mad about it.

This is where he belongs.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

“You should. You’re better than the sandwich shop.”

He snorts and his hand sneaks up to play with my earlobe.

“Thank you. I just…no one’s told me that before, you know?”

I freeze, not wanting to interrupt, wanting to know what makes him tick, what makes him the way he is. I’ve always wondered. For years, I’ve wondered.

“My mom died when I was thirteen. And a few months later my dad left us, and he never came back. I guess he couldn’t deal with raising us on his own. But my sister stepped up and took care of me after that.”

“I didn’t know that. How did your mom die?”

“Natural causes. Just died in her sleep.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, it was a bad time in my life. Not that my parents were great or anything, but they were my parents, you know? And my sister was young but she did the best she could to provide for me. For years, I was a fucking mess—sad about my mom and just so fucking angry at my dad for leaving. It wasn’t until college thatthings started to turn around for me, that I became less bitter and more likeable. Or at least someone I’d like to be around.”

My hands massage up his back and land on his shoulders, kneading them lightly. He sags into me, almost like I’m massaging these truths from him. He pauses for a moment before adding, “My sister has a lot of thoughts about a lot of things. She’s very closed-minded, stubborn, set in her ways. I think my parents were like that too the more I think about it, and I realize she can’t help it, but…if she knew what I was doing with you, if she knew I was…”

His words trail off, and he presses his face into my neck. “She’d keep the kids from me, I think. She’s made comments before about it. How it’s disgusting, how it’s not normal, how she’d never want her kids exposed to that.”

“But she lets the kids be around Ollie,” I say, and he sighs.

“She doesn’t know he’s gay. I’ve made him promise not to say anything.”

My mind is spiraling as I take it all in. I want to ask questions, want him to expand on every detail of his life, but before I can ask, he offers it up.

“I thought the same way as her for a long time. I mean, when you’re raised in that kind of environment with those kinds of ideas shoved in your brain day after day, you can’t help but think like that, you know? I was an asshole to so many people because I was ignorant and afraid. I was so afraid, Alec.”

His voice trembles, and I squeeze him against me, brushing my lips to the crown of his head. God, this is what I wanted. I wanted him to open his goddamn eyes. But not like this. He sounds so fucking sad.

And what makes it worse is that he’s still afraid. He’s afraid he’s going to lose it all because of who he is.

“It’s why I said they’re hobbies. It made me feel better, made it easier. And it was easy to believe when you weren’t around.Because it was just for fun and something I did to decompress. But you’ve turned me upside down, Alec. I don’t know what the fuck to do now. I can’t lose them. I can’t. They’re all I have.”

I don’t know what to say so I just hold him, my mind spinning with all sorts of thoughts, my heart fluttering with realizations. Jude makes so much more sense to me now. He makes so much fucking sense.

“You don’t have to tell anyone anything. You owe them nothing.”

“Yeah, I know.”

It doesn’t sound like he knows, so I grab on to his hair lightly and force his head up. When he’s glancing down at me, my hand cups his face.

“You don’t owe anyone a goddamn thing.”

His eyes water and he bites his bottom lip, nodding.

“Okay.”

I bring his mouth down to mine and kiss him, just because I need him to understand. He needs to understand this truth. His tongue slips into my mouth in a slow and soft kiss. We kiss for what feels like hours until my lips are sore and his are slightly swollen. Only then does he pull away and rest his head back on my chest. Both of our cocks are hard, I can feel mine leaking, but neither of us does anything about it. That’s not what tonight is about. This is so much more than sex now.

“Tell me about your family,” Jude says, his voice a bit rough.