One Real Thing (13 page)

Nick didn’t answer, but he did tuck his coffee cup onto the shelf over the bed and then lie down. He didn’t look better, exactly, but at least he hadn’t hidden his head under the blankets. That was a step up from last night.

Holly got to work. He called a cab company and asked them to send a van over. A text message to Julie to say he was dropping by Stone Age NY to pick up a few things would cover him getting Nick new clothes. Most of what he’d found in the boxes were suits; Nick must’ve left his casual clothes in the storage locker—assuming Caroline hadn’t done to Nick what Sierra had done to him—and Holly didn’t want to waste time sorting through boxes there if he could help it. He thought he knew where he could pick up linens too. The apartment needed to be refreshed in more ways than one.

When the van driver arrived, Holly buzzed him up and then checked on Nick again. Sound asleep. He pressed a kiss to Nick’s temple. Nick would be back on his feet in no time. Holly propped the door open with a box and moved things into the hall. It wasn’t much. Nick would be better off if his old life disappeared for a while. Then they could work on starting over.

The cot that folded out from the love seat wasn’t as comfortable as the bed, but Holly had banished Nick from the bed, insisting on washing the sheets and blankets. Nick simply sighed and curled up into a tighter ball, tugging the couch blankets closer. He was so tired lately, always so tired.

Nick couldn’t see what Holly was up to, but he heard water running and something clinking in the sink. Holly’s footsteps came to the bed, and there was a creak as he sat down.

“C’mere, Nick.” Holly ran a hand over his hair. “Let me do something for you?”

Nick rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then blinked at Holly. Do something for him. Holly. Right.

“Okay.”

Holly set things on the arm of the couch. “Sit up for me?”

Rubbing his eyes again, Nick sat up and leaned against the back of the love seat. “What are you…?” Glass of water. Shaving brush. Pot of shaving soap. Razor. “Oh.”

“Up a bit more.” Holly nudged him and then came around the back of the love seat. Without any warning, he climbed over and wriggled behind Nick. Suddenly Nick was nestled between Holly’s thighs and pillowed against his chest. “There we go.” Holly plucked a folded, wet cloth from the stack on the arm of the couch. “Relax.”

Relax. Nick could do that. Couldn’t he? He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

“It doesn’t matter if I haven’t shaved, Holly,” he pointed out. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’ll feel better.” Holly smoothed Nick’s hair back and then washed his face with the warm cloth. “You don’t have to go anywhere. No wiggling, or this might not go well. I like both your ears where they are.”

Nick wasn’t sure anything was going to make him feel better at this point, but he sat still. He wasn’t in a hurry to feel worse either, and he was certain losing part of an ear would do that.

“Just…be careful.”

“I will be.” Holly was so gentle as he went to work, lathering Nick’s stubble and then drawing the razor along the landscape of his face. He moved slowly, peeling away days of sweat and skin and hair.

Something about shedding those days did make Nick feel better. Lighter, at least.

“I could’ve done this myself, you know,” he said while Holly rinsed the razor between rounds of shaving. Probably. It would’ve been a lie to say he
would
have done it himself, though, so he didn’t.

“Then I wouldn’t get to do it.” Holly ran the fingers of his free hand through Nick’s hair. “Want to take a shower afterward?”

The hot water
did
sound soothing, relaxing. Like it might wash away something of the uncertainties still weighing him down.

“A shower sounds good.”

“I’ll wash your hair if you want.” Holly rubbed his cheek against Nick’s ear, then went back to work.

It took a moment for the offer to make sense, for Nick to realize Holly intended to come into the shower with him. By the time Nick remembered he had to answer, there wasn’t enough time to figure out what to say; Holly was already wiping his face with a warm cloth, finished shaving.

“Go on,” Holly said, rubbing between Nick’s shoulder blades with one hand as Nick moved to get up. “I’ll get you started, then come clean up. If you want me to wash your hair, just say so.”

More time. That might help. Might, if Nick could figure out how to say—

“Yes.” Nick swallowed hard, didn’t look back as he said it, just kept moving toward the bathroom. He wanted it, and Holly was offering, and all his efforts to draw some kind of line between him and Holly had only resulted in Nick making a mess of his own life. There was no reason to keep up the pretense of distance at this point.

Holly followed him and turned on the water. There were clean towels—plush black and gray—stacked on the back of the toilet.

“Tell me if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Nick nodded and waited to undress until Holly had left the room and closed the door. He’d been wearing the same pajama pants and T-shirt since the last time he’d showered, after spilling coffee on himself. It hadn’t seemed worth the effort to get cleaned up. Holly was right, though: it’d make him feel better. He left the dirty clothes on the floor and stepped into the shower, turning so the water beat down on him.

“Ready to let me help?” It felt like no time had passed, but Holly was stepping into the shower with him, wearing a pair of swim shorts and armed with a tube of shower gel and a washcloth.

Stepping out of the spray, Nick asked, “You brought swim trunks? To New York?”

“Nope. I picked them up at SAS today.” Holly wet the cloth and drizzled shower gel over it. Then he knelt at Nick’s feet. The water flowed over him and darkened his hair. “So I could do this.” He gently washed Nick’s feet.

Nick had asked for help with his hair; he hadn’t expected Holly to wash the rest of him too. Especially not like this, on his knees. It made Nick remember the way Holly had knelt at his feet to apologize for breaking the rules months and months ago. So many things had changed since then.

Holly was tender and determined. He washed Nick’s legs, working in circles to coax blood to the surface. When he reached Nick’s hips, in the perfect position to suck him off, Nick’s ring flashing gold on his hand, he stood and changed tactics.

Time for Nick’s hair. Holly worked shampoo and conditioner through Nick’s tangled curls, massaging his scalp and temples and neck. All Nick had to do was move enough to get rinsed once in a while. Then it was back to the cloth, scrubbing the dead skin and sweat and failure from Nick’s shoulders and arms and back. Holly turned Nick so the hot spray rinsed his back clean and pounded his aching muscles.

It felt good, indulgent, as indulgent as it had been to hold Holly and pet him when Holly had been the one in need of help. When Holly reached his hips again, Nick stopped him with a touch on his shoulder.

“Let me.” He could wash the rest himself. He could’ve done all of it, but this…He didn’t trust his body to remember this was only about getting clean. When Holly handed over the cloth, Nick said, “Thank you,” and meant it for more than just helping him shower.

Holly straightened to kiss Nick on the cheek. “I’ll wait.” With a final pet of Nick’s hair, he slipped out.

When the door clicked shut, Nick finished what Holly had started. He did feel better, so much better. It felt like he’d shed some of his worries with the sweat and grime that had been weighing on him. It was Holly, Nick knew, more so even than the shower.

Holly. God, how had Nick ever pretended that Holly didn’t affect him? Holly’s hands in his hair, on his skin, all over him. Not just washing him—
serving him.
And that damned ring was still snug on Holly’s finger like Nick had branded him, and every time he saw it,
mine, mine, mine
chanted through his mind.

For all that he’d told himself possession wasn’t what he’d intended in giving Holly the ring, that was what came to mind when he watched the flash of gold move over his own skin. Possessive was how he felt when Holly knelt for him, how he felt when Holly obeyed him without question, asking permission for everything from a cup of coffee to leaving the apartment. And that commitment from Holly, the bone-deep promise the ring symbolized, was as precious as the obedience.

What the hell was Nick going to do with himself? With Holly?

He groaned and leaned his head against the cold shower wall as he wrapped a wet hand around his cock. He knew exactly what he
wanted
to do to Holly. Images flashed through his mind, one after the next. Holly on his knees; his wet, red mouth stretched wide-open; his lips pressed to Nick’s feet; Holly stretched out on his bed, golden and naked and beautiful.

Nick writhed against the wall, fucking his hand, imagining for a moment what might have happened if he’d let Holly finish. Would Holly have sucked him off, used those pretty lips and that clever tongue to make him come? So often in college, Holly had been
right there
for the taking, all wide eyes and flirtatious smiles, so much like how he’d looked today. All those chances and now Nick wondered if it had been a tease or if he could have had Holly by reaching out and taking…

Nick shuddered as he came, and slumped until he sat on his heels, panting. What was he doing? And more importantly, could he trust himself to make the right choices this time?

Finally he struggled to his feet and rinsed off one last time, then shut the water off. Time to get out before he looked like a prune. There was a tap, and then Holly swung the bathroom door open.

“I bought you a new toothbrush,” he said, as though he was blissfully ignorant of what Nick had been doing. The steamy air might have smelled of come, but Nick couldn’t tell. “And toothpaste. I think I threw yours out by accident.”

When Nick mustered the nerve to pull the curtain aside, Holly was wearing a pair of skull-printed gray cargo pants and nothing else. Holly put paste on the brush and ran it under the water before holding it out to Nick.

“Here. You do this. I’ll help you dry off.”

“Well, I suppose that’s simpler than the reverse,” Nick murmured and then stuck the toothbrush in his mouth.

“I would if you wanted it.” Holly snagged a towel and started at the bottom. Holly’s broad, muscled back was still beaded with water. Once Holly had dried his feet and calves, he bent even farther to press a kiss to the top of one of Nick’s feet, then the other, sweet and submissive and loving.

The sight of Holly bringing one of his fantasies to life was enough to make Nick’s dick twitch. He didn’t think he could get hard again so soon, but part of him wanted to find out. Nick leaned over the sink, spitting out his toothpaste before he choked on it, and tried to remember why he wasn’t dragging Holly up to kiss him or suck him off or something, anything.

Holly kept working as though he had no idea what Nick was thinking, taking advantage of Nick’s position to dry his back and rub the towel over his hair. When he was finished, he rested his cheek on Nick’s shoulder. “Let’s go to bed.”

Nick was still so tired, even if the shower—and if he were honest, Holly’s caretaking—had helped. “Bed would be good.”

“There’s clean sheets.” Holly herded Nick toward the bed without waiting for him to get dressed. The apartment looked so good. Spotless. There was even a fire in the fireplace. Flannel sheets waited on the bed for Nick to curl up in them. They would keep Nick warm through the cool night even though the windows were cracked to let fresh air in. “Lie on your belly, and I’ll rub you down. You keep moving like you’re eighty.”

“I keep
feeling
like I’m eighty,” Nick muttered, sprawling on the bed. Mmm, the sheets felt good. Soft. “Like this?”

“Just like that. You look better, though.” Holly smoothed a hand over Nick’s hair as he crouched down to eye level. “It’s gonna be okay, Nicky,” he said, still petting. “We’re gonna be okay. Right?”

Nick wasn’t sure, didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe they’d be okay, maybe he’d be okay. But that wasn’t what Holly needed to hear. “Right.” He managed a smile. “We’re going to be fine.”

“I know we will.” Holly leaned in and kissed Nick’s forehead. “But I like hearing it from you.” He padded into the kitchen, then returned holding a bottle wrapped in a towel. “I like this,” he said, sitting on the bed. “Feel guilty as fuck for that, but I do.” His touch was warm and slick with oil.

“Like what?” Nick turned his head, peering over his shoulder at Holly. Holly didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, not that Nick could see.

“Having you to myself.” Holly wasn’t looking at Nick, and he bit his lip. He kept working, though, his hands strong but gentle on Nick’s back.

Nick pulled away and rolled over. “Look at me.” Holly’s hands dropped into his lap. When he dragged his gaze up to meet Nick’s, Nick said, “You don’t have anything to feel guilty about. Nothing, understand?”

A flush rose on Holly’s cheeks even through the sunburn. Nick took a chance. Maybe he could make the right choices this time, if he did what he wanted to do and not what he thought he
should
do. Nick sat up and leaned in. Holly would pull away, Nick knew he would, but Nick would be okay. At least he’d have finally done it.

Holly cupped Nick’s face with slick hands as he met Nick partway. There was nothing tentative or teasing about the way Holly kissed. It was sweet and tender and open with the gentle brush of Holly’s tongue over Nick’s lips.

It wasn’t anything Nick had expected—it was better. He met Holly’s tongue with his own, tasting him. Holly was every bit as delicious as Nick had ever imagined him to be and more. He teased at Holly’s tongue and then slowly pulled back to press light kisses to Holly’s lips.

“Nothing to feel guilty about, Holly.”

Holly was silent and breathless, and his hands were unsteady. Without warning, he curled over and dropped his forehead to Nick’s thigh. Shivers ran through him, and his breath came in shudders.

“Shh.” Nick petted Holly’s hair and his bare back, trying to soothe him. What had he done now?

Refusing to look up, Holly pressed a kiss to Nick’s thigh and then rubbed his cheek there. Upsetting Holly hadn’t been Nick’s intention. When Holly had kissed him back, Nick had thought…Maybe he’d been wrong.

He tucked loose curls behind Holly’s ear and said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Holly straightened but kept his head down. “Nothing new.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry.”

Oh, Holly.
Nick brushed the tears away from Holly’s cheeks with his thumbs. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” He drew Holly against him, pulled him in for a hug. “You’re okay.”

Holly buried his face in the curve of Nick’s neck and hid there. “Nothing to be sorry for?” He laughed sharply, and then his breath caught. “I’ve been wanting you to do that since I saw you for the first time. You finally get around to it, and the fucking wheels fall off. Maybe I should stick to the housework.”

That long? Holly had flirted with him in college, but Holly had flirted with everyone. Nick had just assumed…“I’m the one who’s sorry, Holly. I didn’t realize. I thought you were joking.”