becoming us (10 page)

It would be so good to make someone he cared about feel like that. But he couldn’t. Something would happen and then he’d be throwing up bile and coffee and wanting to peel off his own skin and wash under it.

“It can’t be about them, Bryce.” Zac lifted his head to look up at Bryce. His expression was sad, hurt. “If you don’t want it, then you don’t. If you do, then... Then it’s about what you’re ready for, not what you’re trying to prove.” Zac’s mouth twisted unhappily.

“Don’t look like that.” All Bryce’s own concerns were washed away when he looked at Zac. He couldn’t take it anymore. “Please. Zac. I didn’t mean to make you sad. That’s what I don’t want to do.” He was a shitty friend. He’d gotten Zac to do all these
things
with him and then freaked out and hurt Zac’s feelings and made him feel bad about it all. “I do want it. I wouldn’t ever use you to make a point, Zac. Never.” His chest hurt and he leaned over to stroke Zac’s cheek with one hand; just touching Zac made everything hurt less. “I trusted you.” Zac put his coffee aside. “I know you did. I’m sorry I didn’t do a very good job of living up to it.” He leaned into the touches and looked up at Bryce with those beautiful, clear hazel eyes. “I don’t want to screw this up for you. Figuring this stuff out, there’s no rush.” It was so hard to remember that when Zac was in his arms. That was the problem. Bryce hadn’t been ready to
want
Zac so damn much, either time. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, Zac. Last night... I don’t want to do that again.” Bryce stroked Zac’s cheek, feeling soft skin and fine stubble. “I don’t want to do that to you. It’s wrong.”

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He wanted to kiss Zac so badly right now. It would feel so good to lose all the hurt in touching and kissing and... anything more. Everything more. Maybe a hot shower. Zac looked good when he was all sleek and... God, how the hell was Bryce ever going to negotiate a locker room again?

Zac shook his head, and then nodded, like he wasn’t sure what the right answer was. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Bryce.”

“I mean freaking out... not... not the other.” The words stumbled out, Bryce’s honesty running away with his tongue before his brain could think twice. Bryce felt his cheeks burn so hot he was afraid his hair was going to catch fire.

“Oh.” Zac bit his lip and looked up at Bryce through his lashes. “Okay. I, um. I mean, I understand why you freaked out, and it’s okay. But. I’m glad you didn’t mean the other.”

“It’s not okay.” Bryce wanted to bang his head on something. He got up and went to the punching bag, hauling off and popping it a good one. “You shouldn’t have to put up with that shit.” He punched it with his left, imagining catching one of his brothers in the gut with it. Josh.

Fucker.

“Bryce.” Zac scrambled up to his feet and stood behind the bag to hold it. He peered around it, and said, “You can’t expect to be okay with all of it all at once, Bryce. It’s not that easy. It wasn’t that easy for me, and I didn’t have...” Zac didn’t have Bryce’s dad and his brothers just waiting for him to ‘fail’ by admitting he was gay like his uncle.

“I hate them.” Bryce hit the bag again, hard, punctuating his words with one punch after another.

“So much. I never would have even thought about it except they never. Ever. Shut. Up. About. It.

Fucking. Bastards.” He was breathing hard, trying not to cry.

The punches, the slaps, the mockery -- it never ended. It wasn’t just at him. It never ended for anyone. For him, it was just being a ‘fag.’ There was a target on everyone’s back, but it never seemed to hurt anyone the way it hurt him. Everyone else just got tougher, and he broke down.

When he stopped hitting the bag, his hands were killing him.

“Bryce...” Zac let go of the bag and came around to stand in front of Bryce. “Christ.” Carefully, he lifted one of Bryce’s hands; the skin over the knuckles was broken and bloody. “C’mon. We gotta get you some Band-Aids or something.”

“I’m fine. It feels better like this.” Bryce ran his palm over his sweaty forehead and looked down at Zac, not trying to hide his feelings now. “I’m
so sorry
, Zac.” Poor Zac, who was only good to him, having to put up with this shit. He wanted to do something to make it better. “I’m sorry.” He reached out and touched Zac’s pretty mouth with his fingertips, instead of kissing it. “I don’t want you to feel bad; it’s not your fault or your problem. Promise me.”
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“I can’t.” Zac shook his head just a little, not enough to displace Bryce’s fingers, not until he spoke again. “You’re... I’m not going to promise that I won’t worry about you, Bryce. I’d be lying.”

“I didn’t mean to get you into my mess,” Bryce said sadly. He wanted to kiss Zac so much right now. “I just wanted to kiss you. You... you looked so happy right then. I just wanted to know what it was like to kiss you. It was so good.” He traced Zac’s lower lip with a fingertip. Zac had a beautiful mouth. Bryce had never failed to see that. If there was ever a man he could have understood wanting to kiss, back when he’d first had to deal with Perry and everything, it was Zac.

“I was worried about you before you kissed me,” Zac said. “Now I just know why. But, Bryce...

I’m glad you kissed me.”

“So am I.” Bryce didn’t want to feel like he had last night ever again; it had been horrible and humiliating. He never wanted to do that to Zac again, either. But right up to then, he’d been wildly turned on and he’d felt so
close
to Zac, so
right
. “I just don’t want to fuck up again, Zac.”

“It’s okay, Bryce. We’ll deal with it, if anything happens, if we screw up.” Zac raised one hand to touch Bryce’s cheek. “We, Bryce. If anything happens, it’s because both of us did it. Not just you.”

We
. Bryce’s breath caught. He didn’t deserve Zac.
We
. He didn’t have anything he could say to that, so he leaned in and kissed Zac on the cheek, cupping Zac’s other cheek in an aching hand.

He didn’t pull away, either, nuzzling back to breathe in the smell of Zac’s skin. Zac’s arms slid around him, holding him close.

Zac gave such good hugs, warm and comforting. Zac always hugged like he meant it. Bryce hid his face in the curve of Zac’s neck, trying to get close, sliding his other hand into the small of Zac’s back. Their bodies felt so good together. Bryce kissed the curve of Zac’s neck tenderly, trying to tell Zac he wasn’t mad about last night.

Zac shivered a little, then took a deep breath and said, quietly, “You’re gonna be okay, Bryce.

We’re gonna be okay.”

Bryce nodded and closed his eyes, swallowing hard. “I want us to be okay, Zac.” Zac smelled good, still warm and sleepy and sexy. God. Bryce was always fond of that warm scent; now his body was learning that it meant sex and it was turning him on.

“Good.” Zac slid one hand up into Bryce’s hair, petting him gently. “Good. Then we will be.” Zac sounded so sure, so certain.

Bryce sighed and let the tension go out of him. He didn’t want to give up on them... He hadn’t even known there was a ‘them,’ but apparently there was now. “Are you okay?” He pulled back to look at Zac closely, frowning.

Becoming Us - 51

“I’m okay.” Zac was still tight around the eyes, but he didn’t look nearly so sad or hurt anymore.

“You sure?” Bryce was pretty good at reading his friend. He stroked Zac’s cheek with his fingertips. “I mean... tell me, Zac?”

Zac smiled wryly. “Hangover.”

“Dork.” Bryce rolled his eyes at Zac, then he kissed him on the forehead. “Go back to bed. I’ll bring you breakfast, if you want it.” That would be nice, to do something good for Zac. He’d manage, before his hands stiffened up too much.

“Only if you promise to do something about your hands.” Zac raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I will.” Bryce stroked Zac’s head. “Go on. You look like shit.” Actually, Zac looked incredibly kissable, but Bryce was resisting. They needed to talk about things like that first.

Zac rolled his eyes, laughing quietly. He looked pleased, though, maybe because of the petting.

“Thanks. That’s exactly what I like to hear from the guy I’m flirting with.” He smiled at Bryce.

“I’ll see you upstairs.”

***

His sheets and covers were cool on his warm skin. It felt good.

He watched the door, waiting for Bryce. He hoped Bryce was okay. Bryce had seemed okay when Zac left him in the basement, but he knew it might not take much to ruin that. He wanted Bryce to be okay, not only because Zac felt responsible for what had freaked him out in the first place, but also because Bryce was Zac's friend. And because he wanted so badly for Bryce to be more than that, too. All this time, he’d never even thought about it being possible, and now he couldn’t stop.

Bryce was up about fifteen minutes later. Peeking into Zac’s room, he looked a little surprised.

“There you are.”

Bryce had taped up his fingers, as promised. He was still bare, though, except for the tape and his worn jeans that hung low on his hips, so low that he probably wasn’t wearing anything under them. God, Bryce looked good. Zac tried to remind his body and his head that licking the line of skin where it disappeared into Bryce’s jeans was a bad idea.

“How’s your head now?” Bryce asked. He’d found a tray for their breakfast somewhere, probably left over from some party when they’d thought it was necessary to have one. He was even breaking his own rules and having waffles with butter and syrup and more coffee with Zac.

He came over to the bed with the tray.

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“It’s... ah, it’s better. I took aspirin a while ago. I think it’s kicking in.” Zac wriggled back in bed so there was room for Bryce to sit.

Bryce put the tray down beside Zac and sat down by Zac’s feet, tucking one leg up under him and tugging his jeans lower in the process. “Good. You looked really rough earlier.” He rubbed Zac’s knee with one hand. Speaking of rough, his hands still looked chewed to pieces, but he didn’t seem to care. “Eat some breakfast. I’m sorry if I woke you up this morning.”

“You didn’t.” Zac sat up so he could pick up a fork. “I kinda wish you had. Just so, you know, maybe we coulda talked about shit before you beat your hands all to hell.” He bit his lip and poked at a waffle, feeling nervous all over again.

“Eat your breakfast,” Bryce chided, taking a bite of his. “Those waffles didn’t get from the freezer to the toaster by themselves, you know.” He was still managing to use his utensils pretty well. “My hands are okay. Maybe...” He ate another piece of waffle. “Maybe we could talk after breakfast. If you wanted. You know.” He shrugged a bare shoulder.

Zac nodded. That sounded... well, it sounded terrifying, but it sounded good, too. He wanted to talk to Bryce, to figure some of this stuff out. “Okay.” He cut away a bite of waffle and ate it. He was hungrier than he’d realized and ended up finishing his waffles very quickly. He groaned contentedly and sat back with his coffee mug cradled in his hands, watching Bryce eat.

Bryce ate precisely and neatly, not wolfing his food down the way Zac had. He was slimmer than he had been last year; it was probably because he was staying away from the alcohol a little.

When they were done, Bryce got up and took the tray with their plates over to the desk and came back with his mug in his hand.

“So.” He looked shy, and his cheeks got red. “What did you want to talk about?” He sat down half-facing Zac with one leg tucked up on the bed, eyes on his coffee, biting his lip.

“Um.” Zac stretched out one leg and tapped Bryce’s knee with his bare foot, nervously trying to get Bryce’s attention. “I wanted... I like you, Bryce. I know I said that last night. It wasn’t just

‘cause I was drunk. I like you a lot.” His stomach was tying itself in knots around the waffles and he could feel the heat in his cheeks spreading down his neck to warm his chest as well.

Bryce looked at him from under his lashes. His fingers kept twisting the cuff of his jeans. He was still blushing pretty deeply, too. “Okay,” he said tentatively, nodding.

“I mean. No pressure. You don’t hafta...” Zac shrugged and looked down at his coffee again.

Admitting that he liked Bryce like that was harder than he’d thought. He’d slept around with guys, had a sort of friends-with-benefits thing with Perry, but he’d never really
liked
a guy like this, except for little crushes. Nothing that could mean anything. “I just thought you should probably know that, like, you don’t have to wonder if I want you around or anything. ‘Cause the answer’s yes.”

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Bryce put his coffee down on the bedside table. “So, more than friends?” Glancing up, Zac didn’t miss the nervous expression on Bryce’s face. He shook his head.

“Doesn’t have to be. I mean, how I feel? Yeah. But. That doesn’t mean you gotta do anything different. I just... thought you should know.”

“No. No. It’s... it’s good.” Bryce bit his lip, then moved, leaning over to catch Zac’s mouth with his own. His kiss was awkward and sudden, but full of meaning.

Oh
. Zac couldn’t help but smile against Bryce’s mouth, and then he kissed Bryce back, sweetly and softly.
Good
.

“I like you, too.” Bryce sounded so insecure. He touched the back of one of Zac’s hands, running his fingers over Zac’s. “I mean. A lot.” His cheeks were still dark red. “It feels nice when you’re around. It always has. And...” He swallowed hard and shrugged, looking down at their hands. “I never thought of... doing things... before. But I do now. Just. Only with you.” He looked at Zac now, looking a bit frightened by the admission. “So far.” Zac put his coffee on the table by Bryce’s and leaned forward to kiss Bryce again, softly, on the corner of his mouth. “I don’t, like, date guys. I mean, I haven’t. Just girls,” he admitted. “I only really ever just had sex with guys. But I want. I mean...” He looked at Bryce helplessly. He was supposed to be the one who knew what was going on, but he was just as nervous as Bryce, in some ways. “I wanna be with you.”