Open Road (22 page)

“Let’s go back to the room,” Reece said.

“Okay.”

THEY SAT
on the bed and ate their pretzels slowly. Angus wasn’t hungry anymore; his belly full of butterflies kinda made that impossible.

“Okay, you have to tell me what’s up,” Reece finally said. “You’re freaking me out a little.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, maybe that you’re sitting there all silent and picking at your pretzel instead of downing it like you usually would. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just….”

“What?”

“So like, what I said last night. What if I wanted it now?”

Reece coughed. “
Now
, now?”

“Yeah. Do you not want to?”

“Yes. Yes, of
course
. I just didn’t expect you to say that this exact moment.”

“Oh, God. Now this is awkward.”

“No. Not awkward. Amazing.” Reece cupped Angus’s face with his hand. He’d been doing it more and more often lately, and Angus decided he loved it. “Why don’t we just go in the shower for a little bit. Relax, warm up.”

It had been a little chilly that evening, and standing in the hot shower with Reece did sound nice.

“Okay.”

“C’mon.”

Reece took what was left of their pretzels and dropped them in the room’s trash bin. Then he led Angus into the bathroom and turned on the water in the big tiled shower stall. “I love this shower. Best one we’ve had yet on the trip.”

“It is.”

“Might have to work on mine at home. It’s not very glamorous. Or big.”

Angus wrapped his arms around Reece’s waist and tried to focus on the moment instead of picturing months and years showering and sleeping by Reece’s side.

Reece washed his skin gently with the coconut shower gel he’d picked up a few states back, massaging Angus’s shoulders, and planted small kisses on his neck. Angus was losing his nerve, mostly just concentrating on Reece’s skin and the way his kisses set Angus’s blood on fire. He didn’t want to get out of the shower, but eventually they did. They dried each other off, and Reece led him to the bed. Angus would have almost thought it was him who’d never been with a man before, the way he was nervous and Reece was so comfortable with the idea.

Reece pulled the covers back and let Angus slip underneath them.

“I’m a little scared,” Angus said.

“Because I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“No. Because this kind of changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“I think everything changed back in New Orleans.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

Reece grinned. “Didn’t say I wasn’t.”

“Jerk.”

“Hey. You know we’re going to be okay, right?”

“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t know, but he hoped. He hoped like hell. “I’ve always been jealous of your body,” Angus whispered. “Your skin and your hair and everything is so golden and beautiful.”

Reece leaned in and nuzzled up against Angus’s neck. “You know what’s always driven me crazy?”

“What?”

Reece trailed his fingers down to the cluster of stars Angus had gotten tattooed on his hip one night when he was barely old enough to do it legally. “These.” He shimmied down the bed and kissed them, sucked a bit on the sensitive skin. Angus gasped softly.

“That feels amazing,” he breathed.

He knew how it would feel to be with Reece like this. He’d known since the second they’d kissed, and he felt about a million times more everything than he’d ever felt with anyone else. Angus sank his fingers into Reece’s damp hair and arched his back, and all of a sudden, them together the way they were felt like the most natural thing in the world. He almost couldn’t believe he’d been nervous about it.

They kissed for a long, long time, and stroked each other’s skin. Reece sucked little love bites into the pale flesh of his thighs, and Angus slicked Reece’s hard cock with his tongue and lips and even his throat until Reece told him to stop before he came too soon and ruined everything.

“Do you want me to get myself ready?” Angus finally asked. He wanted to feel Reece push in, thick and hot. He needed to feel the fullness.

“Show me what to do,” Reece breathed.

Angus rolled over and reached for the lube in the shopping bag that was still sitting on the floor.

“Oh, is that what you were really doing in there?” Reece asked with a grin.

“Obviously.” Angus gave him a cheeky smirk. He dripped some of the lube onto his fingers and slowly pushed one in. It had been months since he and Brad had been together, and a long time before that since they’d even had sex, so it took a bit of patience, but he had himself up to two fingers and then three. He watched Reece’s face the whole time as it went from intrigued to lusty.

“Let me do it,” Reece finally said. “I want to touch you.”

He slicked his own fingers up and slid two of them in slowly. His hands were much bigger than Angus’s, and his fingers were thick and gentle, and they felt so damn good. Angus wriggled around to help Reece find
there.

“Fuck,” he grunted.

“I really want to know what that feels like someday soon,” Reece murmured.

The thought of getting to show him nearly made Angus come. “I’ll show you. Promise. I’m ready, babe. I want you.”

Reece swallowed. “Tell me how to make it good?”

“Yeah.”

Angus watched as Reece rolled the condom on. It was surreal, like the trip itself. He felt like he were living in an alternate reality with the same people but a completely different life. Angus spread his legs around Reece’s hips and slipped a pillow underneath them.

“Here. Just….”

Reece got it, though. Like he was born to do it. He guided himself to Angus’s hole and pushed gently until the tip popped in.

“Oh, Jesus.” Reece squeezed his eyes shut and pushed slowly, slowly, until he was all the way in. “That feels so…. I can’t believe it.”

“You feel amazing,” Angus said. He lifted his legs and wrapped them around the back of Reece’s thighs. His toes curled at the sensation of being so full, so close to Reece. He thought he’d never feel right without it, after this. He and Reece were meant to fit together.

Reece looked a little shaky. He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from Angus’s face.

“You okay?” Angus asked.

“Yeah. I’m okay. So much more than okay.”

“Can you move? I want to feel more.”

“Y-yeah.” Reece looked like he’d barely thought of it, too bowled over by the fact that he was in Angus and it was so incredible between them.

He slowly started to move his hips, pulling out, grinding in. Angus helped him until he hit the exact right spot, and then he could barely do anything but hold on for dear life.

“Right there?” Reece asked.

“Yeah,
shit
. Yeah.”

Reece picked up the pace, sliding in and out, hitting Angus in all the right places—he didn’t know if it was Reece’s size or if he was a fucking natural or if it was because it was
Reece
, but Angus felt himself spiraling out of control faster than he ever had before.

“Not going to last long,” he whispered. “You feel too good.”

Reece barked out a hoarse laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’m about to lose my mind. Come. Please.”

He went faster again, skin slapping against Angus’s, slick belly rubbing against Angus’s sensitive tip. It was too much—too much sensation, too much heat, too much love. Angus couldn’t hold on anymore.

“I’m
coming
,” he cried out, and just then the wave hit him, shivering out from the base of his spine and crashing through him. His vision blacked out, and the only things he was aware of were the subsiding waves of pleasure and Reece, thick and perfect inside him.

“Keep going,” he whispered, voice hoarse from shouting. “Don’t stop.”

It didn’t take long for Reece, only a few more strokes, and he was crying out too, frozen over Angus for long moments, face screwed up with emotion.

“Jesus,” he finally whispered.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Angus burst into giddy, happy giggles, then gave Reece a long, deep kiss.

REECE GOT
up a little bit before him and showered and dressed. Then he came out and gave Angus a long kiss and told him to get up, because they didn’t want to miss anything.

Angus wanted to keep kissing Reece, stay in bed with him, fuck and eat and laugh and be together. He was so deep in the haze from the night before he didn’t know how he’d get out of it. Like he wanted to. He’d be happy to wallow in it forever. The past few days had been a blur of discovery for him. So many things had happened that he’d never expected. Reece had happened. Angus had always expected Reece to be a constant in his life, just like he would be for Reece, but the way they were together, how good it felt, how addictive and sexy and real? He’d never expected any of that. The shock still hit him every so often.

It had been a long time since Angus felt it, that stomach-floaty feeling of falling for someone. A few times before Brad, and for sure in the beginning there, but this was bigger than he remembered it feeling. Stronger. Because it wasn’t someone. It was Reece. And it felt huge and wonderful and like he wanted to live in that feeling for the rest of his life—except he didn’t know how he could possibly function as a human with how much he felt.

“Come back to bed.”

“We’re in New York.”

“I just….” He didn’t want to be the only one. And he hoped he hadn’t misread how much Reece loved it.

“I know. Believe me.” Reece leaned over and gave him a long, deep kiss. “I know. I want to—
damn.
” Reece slid his hand under the sheet and cupped Angus’s cheek in one big, warm hand. He slipped a finger in between and tested his hole gently. “You sore?”

“A little. It feels good, though.” Angus pushed against Reece’s finger.

Reece laughed a little and shook his head. “You make me want to forget about seeing New York.”

“No, no. We can’t skip New York.” Any other city, maybe. But New York? It seemed disrespectful. “I’ll get up.”

Angus hopped out of bed, showered, and dressed in his last clean outfit. They’d need to find somewhere to do laundry again soon, or else he had to go shopping, and Angus didn’t have the kind of money to go shopping in the good Manhattan stores. At least not with his champagne taste. It would be too tempting to want to go for the good stuff they didn’t have in Portland. Not without a job waiting for him.

Reece practically dragged him to the elevator and through the lobby of their hotel. “Where do you want to see first today?”

Angus was too busy staring at Times Square. Sure, he’d seen it already, they’d wandered around for close to an hour last night when they got back from the park, but he’d been so ready to go to bed with Reece, so drunk in lust and love that it had all seemed like a cheerful, colorful background to him and Reece and what they were about to do. So in the bright light of day, it seemed like he was seeing it for the first time.

“I don’t…. Wow.”

“I know. I never quite get over it either. Kind of like its own version of Vegas, isn’t it?” Reece asked.

“Yeah. I just…. I want to see everything.”

“You know what neighborhood I remember loving? The Village, especially the West Side. I think you’d really like it too.”

Angus laughed a little. “Weren’t you like thirteen the last time you were here?”

“Yeah. But it’s so hard to forget.” Reece shrugged.

“The Village it is. And then let’s go to the Met too. I’ve always at least wanted to sit on the stairs.”

Reece snorted. “Oh my God, you were so obsessed with
Gossip Girl
. I’d almost forgotten.”

“I was obsessed with Chuck Bass. Come on, R. Let’s go see the Village, and then we’ll hit the Upper East Side.”

“Remember how to get to the subway?”

“Yesss… maybe?”

He grinned. “This way. We’ll want the same train, I think, but downtown instead of up.”

“Look at us,” Angus whispered. “All big city and shit.”

Reece grinned and squeezed his hand.

THEY MADE
it to the Village without any fuss, and wandered around quaint brownstones and tree-lined streets.

“I could see living here,” Angus said.

“Yes. Us and our millions. We’d totally fit in.”

“It’s so pretty, though. I think I like this better than where we were yesterday. It just seems warmer somehow.”

Angus found himself picturing him and Reece in one of the brick buildings, hanging out on their stoop and drinking coffee, just like he’d imagined them in the French Quarter, and even in a cottage in Santa Fe. It seemed like he’d always pictured his life with Reece. Even when Reece was only in it as a friend. Angus wondered how the hell it had taken him so long to figure out.

“Off to the Met?” Reece asked.

“Yes, please.”

It was a bit more complicated, but they got off the train at the station closest to the Metropolitan Museum and walked the rest of the way, wandering between brick apartment buildings and huge town houses. When they got to the Met, Angus sat on the stairs and reenacted his New York fantasies. Then they took the train downtown all the way back to the Village, where they’d seen a place they wanted to eat lunch.

“New York is definitely on my list too,” Reece said.

“What?”

“If I was super rich, I wouldn’t mind having a place in Manhattan. I really like it here.”

“And the French Quarter?”

“Yeah. And maybe San Diego.”

“What about Portland?”

Reece laughed. “Who says I can’t have one there too.”

Angus shook his head. “Better get really damn good at editing.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“Hey. At least you have a job. I’m the one who’s going to be a househusband when we get home until I find something.”

“Take your time. It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m not going to freeload off you.” Angus hated the idea of Reece resenting him. He refused to let that happen.

“I know you won’t. But like I said. It’ll be fine.”

Provincetown

“I CAN’T
believe we’re summering in the Cape,” Angus said.