What It Takes (21 page)

“God, Andrew,” Milo says, obviously overwhelmed. “Of course. I—you—”

“Let me touch you. You can keep touching me. You can take your time.”

Milo’s lips meet his tenderly, over and over. They feast on kisses, slipping exhalations into each other, breathing rediscovery into each other’s bodies. Milo gets his hands under Andrew and hauls him on top of him so easily it makes Andrew breathless with a tiny thrill of desire shocking electric in his stomach. Milo arranges him, draping Andrew over his body with his legs spread to straddle his hips. He brings Andrew down for another kiss—one that lasts, that they lose themselves in, slow and growing, unfurling something sweeter in the gradually building heat. Andrew can feel when Milo begins to come apart. They pull away to look at each other. Milo touches him with tenderness that could hurt him; the memory after this night might be too much tomorrow, but right now it’s exactly what Andrew wants. His vulnerability, his love for this man, a constancy that has ached in him for so long: it’s a gift exchanged when he sees that same honesty, painfully exposed, in Milo’s eyes.

Milo massages his fingers into the muscles of Andrew’s back, between his shoulder blades, and Andrew relaxes into the touch. Any remaining tension melts until he feels as if his body is a lose wax structure molding to Milo’s body. Milo’s fingers knead down the length of his spine. Andrew breaks the kiss with a soft gasp when Milo’s fingers start to trace gentle lines over and up his buttocks. It’s skin-prickling and shivery good. Andrew lays his head on Milo’s chest and lets himself soak in the touch. He wallows in the sensation. Milo’s fingers slip up the line between his cheeks, and Andrew whimpers, then kisses Milo’s collarbone. They are skin on skin, both sweating a little. There’s something about that barely there touch that hovers on the edge of too much: too much want; unbearable desire.

“Milo, god,
please
,” Andrew begs, then sucks a nipple into his mouth.

“Do you have lube?” Milo whispers. His fingers press in, a dry touch not quite where he wants it, but it’s enough to set Andrew on edge.

“In the drawer.” Andrew pulls away long enough to open the drawer and search. “Here.” He tosses a condom onto the pillow, then sits up, grabbing Milo’s hand and slicking his first two fingers. “Don’t worry about being gentle,” he assures him, then leans forward and props himself up with hands next to Milo’s head. Feeling the strain against his hips, he spreads his legs farther apart. Andrew leans into the next kiss, sighing against Milo’s mouth—it’s a breath that ends in a sharp inhale when Milo slides cool, wet fingers against him.

“God, fuck
ye-yes
,” Andrew hisses, groaning and feeling himself open with that sharp pleasure he loves so much.

“I can’t believe—” Milo’s eyes are closed and his brow furrowed in concentration. When he opens them, the indigo of his eyes is the last spark Andrew needs to feel his skin light with pleasure like fire. Milo’s fingers slide in easily; he takes his time, drawing that pleasure from Andrew by increments. He pulls his fingers out and grips Andrew’s cock with a sure hand. He uses the other with deliberation and confidence, cupping and pulling a little at his balls until Andrew is whimpering from the slight pain that’s pleasure too, lips open and panting against Milo’s mouth.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Milo whispers and slides his fingers back in, as deep as he can, swallowing Andrew’s moans with open-mouthed kisses. Andrew’s body bucks into the sensation; nerves light from his sensitive rim all through his pelvis. That feeling of fullness, that heavy need to have something inside, pulls and pulls until he’s begging for more.

“I’ll get you there; it’s okay,” Milo assures him. One more finger in and Andrew sits up, leans back until he’s rolling onto them, working himself down.

“Now, now,” he chants.

“I have to—just one more. I don’t want to hurt you.” Milo sits up and kisses the hollow where Andrew’s shoulder and arm meet.

“God.” Andrew pulls back with the last of his composure to joke, “I know you’re big, but I didn’t think you were that big...
headed
.”

“Oh my god, shut up; that was awful,” Milo says, laughing so his eyes crinkle at the corners and
oh
, something cramps in Andrew’s heart.

“I don’t care; it’s fine; go slow and I’ll tell you if it’s too much.” Andrew isn’t sure his body can do this, but he wants that feeling, something indelible that he’ll feel for days, in case this moment is all he gets.

°

Andrew is so tight it seems a near impossibility, but he’s willing—flushed and eager, all sweet hands and begging voice. Milo holds him steady at the hip and waits, lets Andrew control the pace.

“You’re okay, it’s okay,” he whispers, over and over. Andrew has Milo in hand, holding him steady against his hole. He exhales, calming himself, and opens his eyes. They burn when they meet Milo’s. Something like his Andrew smirk, a look perfected and completely, uniquely his, crosses his face as his body relaxes, letting Milo in. Andrew works him in slowly, whimpering with each little rock of his body, and with his face screwed up in concentration.

“Don’t—” Milo bites his lip through the pleasure of that tight, gripping heat. “Honey, don’t hurt yourself.”

“Shut up,
oh god
, shut up, you’re—” Andrew groans and rocks and corkscrews his hips down and down. That thrill, the blissed-out slip of his face makes something almost primal crest in Milo’s body, manifests as an almost uncontrollable desire to grab Andrew by the hips and make this rougher and faster than they want. Andrew finally bottoms out, sighs and relaxes and then tilts forward onto Milo and kisses him with lips like fever. “Now,” he whispers against Milo’s mouth. So close like this, deep inside Andrew where he throbs and sears with heat, with Andrew’s arms next to his head, with his lips all give and invitation and naked need, Milo loses himself. He moves slowly, tries to read the shuddering mess of Andrew’s body. Their foreheads grind together, and for one delirious moment Andrew writhes, frantic and reckless, until Milo puts his hand on the small of his back and gentles him.

They’ve done reckless. They’ve done tenderness, yes, those years ago. But not like this. This is something else. This is Milo laid open and willing to take in every moment, treasure every second, to be so much a part of Andrew they won’t know how to break apart. He pulls his knees up for leverage. “Like this, sweetheart,” he says, slowly sliding into him and out.

“
Sweetheart
,” Andrew answers, voice thick, honey-dazed. Milo kisses him, feels the warmth of one tear drip onto his face. His arms band around Andrew, bringing him painfully close as they move by increments. He hardly dares to breathe.

“God, I wish…” Andrew starts, then stops when his voice breaks.

“Tell me,” Milo says, trying to convey with his body and voice how safe he wants Andrew to feel right now—how safe he feels.

“I want this to last,
god
, you inside me like this,” Andrew says after a few seconds.

“Take a breath, then.” Milo smiles and rolls them over. He kisses the fine ridge of Andrew’s cheekbone and down the curve of his nose and the corners of his mouth and lets his body pin Andrew’s, barely moving.

“Oh.” Andrew arches his neck, head driving into the pillow. He brings his knees up, and takes. He takes and takes, body trembling and pleasure laden and acquiescing to Milo’s pace and Milo’s body. There’s a belonging, a subsumption of their bodies Milo could never have expected; something he couldn’t have known existed.

“Andrew,” he says, long minutes later, after bringing themselves to the brink of orgasm and down again, holding off, not wanting this to end, “Andrew, I love—” Andrew bites down on his lip, then; cuts off his words and his air and kisses him, ferocious and wracking, his body pulsing hard around Milo as he comes.

Andrew moans, falling apart in Milo’s arms, then relaxing by increments. Milo barely moves, just lets Andrew’s body wring from him what pleasure it needs. When Andrew’s eyes open lazy and bright with tears, Milo smiles and starts to pull out.

“No, no,” Andrew clamps his legs around him. “Stay, don’t stop.”

“Andrew.” Milo thinks of the oversensitivity he’s always felt after he comes; that sense of something incredible fading into something not quite comfortable.

“I like it,” Andrew admits, pink cheeked and something like shy. “You can do more. Faster.”

“Oh—” Milo swallows down against a flutter of need and thrusts a little harder, and when Andrew cries out he only stutters for a second, because the look on Andrew’s face is pleasure, not pain.

“Harder, come on,” Andrew goads, pulling his knees up almost to his chest. It’s fucking, hard and fast and bruising, but intimate, somehow even more so, when Milo gives in and lets himself go.

Each thrust is met by a high-pitched noise from Andrew, driving Milo’s body’s instinctive and mindless drive to the cusp, the brink and then the blaze of orgasm. He feels Andrew deliberately clamp down on him, moaning his own encouragements as Milo comes and comes, until he is completely hulled, a trembling wreck in the safety of Andrew’s arms.

Milo pulls out and kisses the slight wince off of Andrew’s lips. He cleans them both up sloppily, wraps the condom in tissues and drops it on the floor; shaking hands and a hard-beating heart make practicalities difficult. Andrew’s arms open for him before he’s finished, and somehow, despite their sizes, he fits into them perfectly. Andrew’s heart thrums where Milo’s cheek rests, thumping rabbit-fast against his ribs. Against his scalp is the tender sweep of Andrew’s fingers, combing and combing.

“Will you ever outgrow this obsession?” Milo jokes through a slightly slurred voice.

“It’s beautiful,” Andrew says softly. “Who would want to?”

Milo kisses his chest carefully, rests his hand in the safe bowl between Andrew’s ribs and hip and feels when they both begin to slip, drifting off sweaty and sticky and still so exposed.

chapter fourteen

W
hen they wake it’s bright morning; gold spills through the open window and onto Andrew’s bed. That’s not what woke Milo, the sun’s too-hot weight on his body. Andrew is no longer holding him; instead he is sleeping adorably with both hands tucked under his face. It’s so innocent, this strangely angelic and child-like self that Andrew hides, demonstrably vulnerable in sleep.

Milo lifts the comforter and slips out of the bed as carefully as he can. He cleans up a little more in the bathroom, brushes his teeth with a spare toothbrush he finds in a drawer and drinks what seems like a gallon of water. When he re-enters the room Andrew is as he was, asleep and tucked up under the covers. He’s less careful getting back in, hoping to catch the moment Andrew slides awake.

He does, just as he settles; Andrew’s body seems to vibrate from stillness to energy. He doesn’t move, exactly, but his body comes awake, his eyes slowly open, then shutter closed. They focus slowly on Milo, dazed and then aware—a flitter of alarm and then skin-brightening joy.

“Hey,” Andrew says in a sleep-sandpapered voice.

“Morning,” Milo whispers. He wants to touch Andrew, his face or shoulder or hair. He wants to kiss him. He wants to say words he’s never dared allow himself.

Instead, he smiles. Andrew’s face is buried in the pillow. Only one sleepy eye peeks adorably at him. His lashes flutter as he wakes, and Milo feels swamped with incredible love.

“I’ve thought of you like this a thousand times,” he admits. “More, even.”

Andrew’s face falls; he rolls onto his back and pulls the covers up, speaks a little hollowly to the ceiling. “I made myself give up years ago.”

Milo bites his lip as the words cut through him. Andrew sighs and rolls back toward him. “Drew,” Milo says as he touches Andrew’s face gently, “I’m—I didn’t mean to make this… sex is just—all of this has always been a little hard for me.”

Andrew snorts and moves away. “Unlike me, because I’ve always been so
easy
, right?”

“That’s not what I mean.” Milo sits up, snatching the sheet up to cover himself. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

Andrew turns his face away and doesn’t speak for the space of ten long breaths, which Milo counts with increasing worry.

“Look, why don’t we call a spade a spade,” Andrew says, sitting and swinging his legs out of the bed. He opens a drawer and pulls on a maroon pair of boxer briefs with his back to Milo. “You say you’ve thought of this; now you’ve had it, right? Now you’ve gotten what you wanted, unfinished business done now. Go home, then.” Andrew turns to him and his eyes are too bright and fierce. “Finish your journey, find the right man—”

“Oh my god, listen to yourself for a second here.” Milo doesn’t move from the bed. “How are you being this irrational?”

“Do
not
talk to me about being rational, Milo. The last time you brought rational to a conversation it was to make choices for the both of us that almost killed me.”

“Me?” Milo cries. “Are you kidding me?
You’re
the one who—” He does get out of bed then, searching for his own underwear, then giving up when he can’t find it. He storms into the living room in search of his jeans. Andrew follows, slamming the bedroom door behind him with a crack.

“I’m the one who what?” Andrew’s voice is dangerously low.

“
You
told me I had to leave. You made me believe I had to move on; you took yourself away and I was so fucked up I didn’t know how to think straight about it.”

“Don’t you dare rewrite history, Miles Graham. You were there. You said it yourself: that I’d only ever love you as some broken kid. You made that choice for me.”

“I didn’t—you said—I can’t…” Milo stutters. “That’s not how it happened! I couldn’t think. It took me months to figure shit out, to wrap my head around everything that happened. And you didn’t give me a chance to fix anything, or set you straight—”

“To set me straight?” Andrew’s voice is climbing, matching Milo’s now. “What the actual
fuck
!”

“And I couldn’t because
you
broke it;
you
deleted yourself from my life, so don’t you dare put this on me!”

“I couldn’t get out of bed, Milo! I couldn’t breathe; I felt like I was dying. I almost failed out of school—” Andrew stops and scrubs tears from his face; Milo swallows down a sick heaviness, tries to breathe and calm himself but can’t; he can’t, because Andrew has it all backwards, acting as if he was
fine
after it, that everything was his fault.

“Do you think you’re the only one whose heart was broken?”

“You didn’t come for me!” Andrew yells. “You
let me do it!”

“You have to be kidding me.” Milo forces calm into his voice, even though he’s vibrating with anger. “How can it be seven years later and you’re still making yourself the martyr?”

Andrew’s face pales and his lips tighten; he takes a step forward—Milo can’t help but flinch because there is so much anger in that movement. But Andrew pulls back and makes fists. “Get out. Get out,
get out
,” he snarls. Milo finds his shirt in a pile of discarded clothes. Andrew is breathing hard—as is he—and not looking at him. He tosses Milo’s shoes into the hall and turns away without a word when Milo passes him, helpless to do anything but leave.

The sound of the door slamming behind him is a finality that takes out the last of his defenses. Weak-legged and trembling, he navigates the stairs down from Andrew’s apartment and then squints into the sunlight. His look is the epitome of the walk of shame: rumpled clothes, hair a mess, and what he thinks he caught sight of in Andrew’s hallway mirror: a small, high hickey under his chin. He pulls his shoes on without socks and walks to the beach to get his car, buzzing in the blank haze that follows blind anger and shock.

He drives home on autopilot, then sits on the gravel by the rock wall in front of the house. His mom will be up, getting the Smiths
lunch, chattering about what the town has to offer, giving advice on what they might be interested in seeing.

Milo cannot face walking in there, not sex-smelling, with shattering devastation all over his face. He’s never been a man of words, not like Andrew. The way everything unraveled so fast he had no way to catch it is stunning; Andrew’s words were slippery fish, desperately escaping his dumb, fumbling fingers, throwing them both into what he realizes was an irrational argument, though threaded with truths he’s not ready to decipher.

Everything Andrew accused him of doing, the held-in anger they both harbored for years, the lives they built that were only a fraction of what they could have made together: it’s all a shameful waste, but one he can’t see having gone any other way. He’s never realized how deeply he blames Andrew, or how much resentment he’s carried by placing the burden of responsibility on Andrew. He’s such a mess, battered by the whiplash of making love to Andrew with the hope of a future, to where they ended up by morning. He might be reeling, but Milo is still determined to fix this.

He gets out of the car, looks into the fecund woods to his left, and dives in. At first he walks blindly, following the whims of his feet. It’s been a while since he’s wandered this way. He could get lost. But he won’t. Andrew taught him these woods. If he wants to pay attention, he’s certain he can get out.

Despite everything—the months home coming to terms with what he’d originally seen as a prison sentence, the months in which he felt himself warming and accepting this town as his, as a place that could be a kind of home—he’s not come this way before.

Dex and Andrew seemed such a unified presence. Milo had no wish to break that apart. When he left home years ago—for what he thought would be forever—he meant to ensure Andrew’s happiness.

The sun at zenith above him, no helpful guide, dapples his skin like water skipping over stones. A tree fell long ago across the path he’s taking. It’s moss-covered, verdant and cinnamon brown, damp decay edging toward umber. The cicadas silence mid-note, reminding him that he’s the intruder. These woods have moved past him; it’s long since he’s been a part of this song.

He veers right rather than climb over the log, then he’s in a clearing. It’s shadowed by enormous trees, but there’s a nice ten-foot area with only scrubby bushes and bare space. Across from him is the fort they built fifteen years before. Milo expected some decay, maybe a fallen-in ceiling and rot. Instead he finds it in good condition, with recent repairs he thinks must be Andrew’s.

He knows that’s a far-fetched deduction; other kids must have found it and repaired it as they adopted it. He remembers the last time he was here, too tall and cramped in the space, saying a goodbye he never thought he would, wrenching his heart out for someone else’s future.

High-handed
, Andrew accused.
Martyr,
Milo said back. In the mire of his grief and fear, he’s always thought Andrew forced something on them he would never have done or agreed too given time to think it over. It took Andrew completely cutting him off almost a year later for Milo to face that he’d been hoping they could reconcile, admitting they’d been stupid—that
he’d
been stupid. But Andrew’s message seemed devastatingly clear, and Milo told himself that the last loving act of kindness he could extend was to respect what Andrew wanted.

Milo ducks into the doorway. The last time he saw this place, Andrew had painted stars in a night sky across the ceiling.

Now, he sees, anguish a crescendo clamoring inside, that the little room is covered in words. The walls are painted with layers of sloppy blacks and browns and, in places, a neutral, untouched tan. The words are stark white.

He was

then I

But it was love spoken

into ocean above empty sky

useless and lost

On the wall above the window frame:

he touches me

and it’s debilitating

guilt you choke me with

the longing for

fingers fleeting in memory

memory, a haunting

And so small he can’t read without the use of his iPhone flashlight:

I love I love I love

linger will always take his shape

°

Milo almost falls asleep, he sits there so long. There’s no way to date these poems. In his dozing haze, Andrew’s words peal like thunder, reverberating inside his head.

How should one unpack blame? They both martyred themselves in youthful idiocy. They both ruined something. But when he thinks of the life Andrew shared with him—travel and jobs, and learning to connect with an audience through words—could he have achieved any of that? While holding Milo’s hand through anxiety and fear for years?

Each visit to a therapist, each time he talked himself through fear, learned to find that handle to hold onto inside himself, and the strength to be a better man: Milo knows he might never have done that with Andrew as his citadel of protection. Love—the kind that sprang from hope of being a different man, not some creature carrying that bag of rocks—could he have ever offered that to Andrew?

The forgiveness he learned in these years, the drive to learn it, sprang from his deep need to be a complete person, to have dreams and to achieve them. Empty years also clamor in memory, though. He worked, driven by a dream for more that he has yet to find. He’s had relationships that never fit for long and a life he enjoyed, friends and fun and a job he likes well enough, but nothing completing.

Home was a thought that trapped him in anxiety and fear when he boarded the plane to Boston. It nearly drowned him that first week. Then he saw Andrew. Was it Andrew alone who sought and nurtured a love for this place in him? Or was it he himself who caused it to bloom?

He traces the words
linger will always take his shape.
Too true, for them both.

The sudden clatter of feet through the forest brings him from the reverie with a snap. Andrew’s head pops in, then startles back so quickly with surprise that he hits his head on the low lintel.

“Ow,
fuck
!” he cries. Milo tries to stand on lifeless legs and flops onto his hands.

“Are you all right?” he calls.

“Yeah, shit.” Andrew climbs in, awkward but careful, still rubbing the back of his head.

“Let me see.” Milo leans forward to feel for a bump, but Andrew pulls away quickly and Milo drops his hand.

“It’s fine,” Andrew’s voice is sharp, his eyes slanted with little warmth and a lot of anger. “What are you doing here?” He’s definitely angry.

“Thinking,” Milo says simply.

“I thought you’d forgotten about this place.” Andrew’s fingers rest on his knees, which he’s tucked up close. He’s wearing different clothes: a long, soft cotton shirt that drapes shapeless in blue. Distressed jeans that aren’t frayed for fashion, but from actual use. Comfort clothes.

“No,” Milo says, then looks around. The ceiling is that beige that says nothing. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Ha,” Andrew says, bitterly. Milo closes his eyes and tries to take apart the instinctive anger into something small and manageable. Put it into a box for discussion later, so he can feel the most important things. Things he’s layered over, things he didn’t think he could let himself feel, not when Dex seemed to be what Andrew needed.

“Why that color?” He points up at the ceiling. Andrew’s eyes shimmer with immediate tears.

“After... that night,” Andrew says, wobbly with something he’s barely managing, “I knew it had to be erased. I had to learn to find a way without you. Those stars were part of a dream for us, and we broke that. I couldn’t stand to leave that dream behind with the constellations I made just for you, while I was still wishing for you.”

“You were a wish, too,” Milo admits.

“Don’t do that—” Andrew says, closing his eyes. “Don’t pretend it was close to what I felt. That you could understand what it was like to love someone like that. Someone who knew, but never could give it back.”