What Remains (31 page)

Rupert closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his gaze was so tortured that Jodi’s heart skipped a beat. “I never walk this way.”

“This way?” Jodi glanced around. “What do you mean ‘this way’?”

More silence. Jodi surveyed his surroundings again, taking it all in—the betting shop, bakery, and Halal butchers. The people, cars, zebra crossing.
Shit. The zebra crossing.
“Is that the place?”

Rupert nodded. “Didn’t you know?”

“Nope.” Jodi hadn’t given much thought to where the accident happened, and it had never occurred to him to avoid the scene. He’d crossed the road at the very same crossing just yesterday. “Are you all right?”

Rupert shrugged and looked away. Jodi caught his face in his hand. “Don’t hide from me. It’s okay to be upset. I sort of wish I was too.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Not really. It’s just a road. The accident could’ve happened anywhere.”

“You’re right.” Rupert pried Jodi’s hand from his face. “It’s . . . I don’t know. I see people going about their business without a care in the world, and I kinda want to scream at them. Tell them how dangerous it is. Then I picture you doing the same thing, back then, and now, and I want to scream at you too.”

“Scream at me?”

“Or at least wrap myself around you so nothing ever hurts you again.”

“Nothing’s going to hurt me. Come on. Let me cross the road and show you.”

“No.”

“Rupert.”

Rupert shook his head. “No. I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can. Don’t take that day and make it everything. There’s so much more to us than that. Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

Jodi held out his hand. “Then let’s go.”

Later that day, Jodi persuaded Rupert to go the gym. They’d made it across the road unscathed, but Rupert had been on edge afterward—distracted and jumpy. He’d needed a break from the flat, from Jodi, from everything. He would never have said it, but Jodi knew. How could he not? Besides, Rupert’s absence gave Jodi a chance to do something he probably should’ve done weeks ago.

He stood at the kitchen window and waited for Rupert to disappear into the Tube station, then went to the office and shut the door, like the barrier between him and the rest of the flat somehow contained the embarrassment of what he was about to do.
Daft twat.

Since the accident, and especially since he’d been left alone more, the internet had become his best friend. He’d googled everything from how to cook scrambled eggs without them sticking to the saucepan, to the correct way to load the dishwasher. So far, providing he stuck to legit sites, it hadn’t let him down, but this . . . Yeah. This was something else.

The search engine filled the wide screen of his iMac. Jodi hesitated. Would there be pictures? He hoped so . . . or did he? Would seeing it on screen be better than the images he’d conjured in his mind?

Jodi took a deep breath and typed
anal sex
into the search engine. A barrage of pornography and sites aimed at women came back. He forced himself not to look at the porn, and considered the
Cosmopolitan
article. It had been written for women thinking of trying anal sex for the first time, but it was all the same, right? A year ago, he’d have known.
Like that matters now.
Jodi silenced his demons and scrolled past the article.

It took some searching, but eventually, he found a blog post that seemed to have been written just for him. He scanned the article, taking in the hints and tips on preparation. One word stood out—
relax
. Was he relaxed? Naked with Rupert, he felt a million times the opposite, but there was no doubt in Jodi’s mind that he was ready for Rupert to fuck him.

A tasteful diagram caught his attention. Heat crept over him, warm and slow, like lava oozing down a mountain, and he resisted the urge to shove his hand down his jeans. He hadn’t had a wank since he and Rupert had started building new bonds where old ones had been swallowed up by the accident. It had almost seemed like the promise of what was to come had been enough, that glimmer of hope . . . a future to replace the past he’d lost. Wanking over that felt a little wrong, but as he read the article a second time, picturing Rupert’s fingers, and then his dick, easing inside him as he got lost in Rupert’s gaze—Jesus. Was there anything hotter?

Jodi didn’t reckon so, and getting tied up in Rupert-laced knots didn’t bode well for the relaxation the article said he’d need if getting fucked by Rupert wasn’t going to hurt like hell and be a disaster for all involved.

Relax
. Another deep breath. Jodi memorised the preparation tips, then tore himself from the computer and went to the bedroom. The lube bottle was still in the drawer, and a rummage under the bed revealed the plastic box he’d stumbled across the day the hemiplegic migraine had knocked him for six last week. A box he wished he’d found months ago, when the possibility of hot man sex with Rupert had first entered his mind.

Jodi lifted the lid from the box. The dildo and a vast array of other sex toys stared back at him in much the same way they had when he’d first found them. He picked up a big purple dick with a pump attached to it. Knowing he’d been the bottom in his and Rupert’s sexual past, there was only one place these things had been.

Perhaps they’re new?
Jodi snorted. As if. Who kept a stash of unused sex toys under the bed?

He put the giant purple cock down and rummaged around for something smaller. The article had said preparation was key, and with nothing bigger than Rupert’s crazy-hot tongue paving the way in recent memory, he needed to start with something smaller. Except, it seemed the old Jodi had been far braver than Jodi felt now. A thorough search revealed nothing smaller than a butt plug that made his eyes water.

Then his gaze fell on what looked like some kind of torch. He picked up and pressed the button, but instead of light, came vibration . . . a deep, low buzz that travelled right through him. A click he hadn’t heard in ages sounded in his brain. It was a probe, he was sure of it, and though a memory of using one eluded him, he was suddenly certain that this toy was
good
.

So what now? Jodi stared at the toy. Having a wank was one thing, but did he really have the nerve to press that thing into—

The front door opened. Jodi jumped a mile and threw the probe back in the box, jammed the lid on, and shoved it under the bed. What the fuck was Rupert doing home already? Jodi scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and fell to his knees again just as Rupert appeared in the bedroom doorway.

Rupert sighed. “Seriously? Will you stop tidying?”

Jodi got, carefully this time, to his feet. “I’m not tidying. I was, er, looking for something. And what the fuck are you doing here anyway? You left, like, ten minutes ago.”

“Twenty-five, actually. Just enough to get all the way to the gym and realise I’d forgotten my bag.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’?” Rupert raised an eyebrow. “I know you shoved me out the door, but I figured you wouldn’t be that upset to see me.”

“I’m not upset.” Jodi tried to push crossly past Rupert, but Rupert caught him in a grip strong enough to make Jodi weak at the knees.
I like that.

“Why are you all flushed?” Rupert put his hand to Jodi’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine! Fuck’s sake. Stop treating me like I’m breakable.”

Rupert let Jodi go. Jodi didn’t move, guilt warring with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Rupert seemed pissed and frustrated, like he was ready to blow, and Jodi was lost in it, snared, and couldn’t look away.

“What were you doing when I came in?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Jodi swallowed. “I was going through the box.”

“What box?”

Jodi couldn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. Comprehension dawned on Rupert’s face, and it was his turn to have colour in his cheeks.

“What were you looking in there for?”

Jodi shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just thought I needed to do something . . . you know, to be ready for you, I’m so scared I’m going to do it wrong, but that box is full of massive dildos, and then I found this probe thing and—”

Rupert ended Jodi’s embarrassed ramble with a kiss that drove every emotion he’d ever felt from his soul, all except the desire and love Rupert had never hidden from him, even when Jodi hadn’t had a clue what it meant. “Boyo, if you taught me anything, it’s that you don’t need nothing but two boys that love each other to make this good. Will you let me show you what you showed me?”

Rupert walked Jodi slowly to the bed and pushed him down. He’d been waiting for this, yearning for it. For weeks, Jodi had claimed to be ready, but Rupert’s heart had said no, and so Rupert had said no too, distracting Jodi with other things . . . other ways to come, all the while waiting for the final knot of fear in his gut to give way. Fear of his own failure and of Jodi’s relapse. Fear of losing everything they had—old and new—all over again.

He couldn’t quite say what had changed. Maybe it had been seeing Jodi stroll through the scene of the accident without a care in the world. Like he hadn’t left his—and Rupert’s—whole life in bits at the side of the road. Like the event itself really had ceased to matter.

Or perhaps it had been observing Jodi as he’d stared at the toys in the box, unaware of Rupert watching him from the doorway. Anyone else would’ve just seen a young man kneeling on the floor, looking into a nondescript box, but Rupert knew all too well what Jodi had been staring so hard at. That probe. Rupert shivered. Jesus, they’d had some fun with that.

But he pushed the toy box from his mind. The time for play would come later. For now, it was all about Jodi, and him, together, like they’d always been, even when they’d been so far apart Rupert had truly believed they’d never find their way back.

He kissed Jodi with all he had, and covered him with his body, feeling their contours mould together like they had been one and the same to begin with. Jodi shuddered. Rupert opened his eyes to find Jodi gazing at him with a healthy mix of love, arousal, and apprehension that made Rupert’s heart swell, healing the many cracks it’d suffered since the accident. The old Jodi was gone, and Rupert would mourn him forever, but this Jodi . . . Rupert loved him more than he would ever have believed possible, and despite the pain that had brought them to this point, part of him wouldn’t change a thing. Wouldn’t give up this moment.

Rupert stripped Jodi’s clothes, peeling back the layers of pain and heartache until there was nothing but Jodi—his long limbs and bare skin. Rupert kissed every inch of him, rolled him over and kissed him again and again, burying his face in him, breathing him in, saturating himself in all that was Jodi, as Jodi writhed beneath him.

Jodi gasped. “Please, Rupe, please. I can’t.”

“Can’t what? What do you want?”

“You. I need you.”

It had been a while since those words had last turned Rupert inside out. He scrambled out of his own clothes and tossed them aside. He grasped Jodi’s hips and yanked him back, grinding his cock along where Jodi needed him most. “This what you want? Like this? You want it like this?”

“I don’t care. Just fuck me. Please. Don’t make me beg.”

As if. Rupert had never made Jodi beg for anything, but taking Jodi on all fours when he hadn’t been fucked for months was probably a bad idea, especially when there was no guarantee that Jodi’s body would remember Rupert’s dick any more than Jodi did.

He rolled Jodi onto his side and fumbled in the bedside drawer for condoms and lube. Then he lay behind Jodi, hooking his arm loosely around Jodi’s neck so he could grip his hand, for his own benefit as much as Jodi’s, needing something—anything—to ground him.

Jodi’s shoulders trembled. Rupert kissed his cheek. “Don’t be scared, boyo. I’ve got you. I promise.”

“I know. I’ve always known.”

That was enough for Rupert. He rolled a condom on and lubed up, then turned his attention to Jodi, gently rubbing lube into him with a slick finger.

Jodi groaned. “Damn. I like that even more than I thought I would.”

“Yeah?” Rupert twisted his finger, then added a second, slowly, trying not to get lost in the wet heat of Jodi’s body tightening around him. “What about this?”