We both fumble between our bodies, working our erections. Bolts of pleasure rocket through me and I grab at Rafe’s arms as he drives our hips together. I’ve missed this so much. Forgetting myself in his body, his smell. Rafe’s usual finesse is nowhere to be found, and it’s as if a wall has dropped between us. He’s wild, overwhelming, his weight pressing into me, his ragged breaths in counterrhythm with the groaning of his horrible mattress as we hump against each other. After only a few minutes I lose it, shuddering hard against him, shooting onto his stomach, crying out into his mouth, and pulling his hair harder than I mean to. He moans and comes with a few more strokes, heat blooming between us, and collapses next to me, sweaty and flushed.
When his breathing evens out, he pushes up on one elbow and kisses me sweetly—barely a kiss at all. More an innocent press of lips. A teenager-on-tiptoes impulse. We lie on our backs, our faces turned close together. I look at the freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, and his eyes linger on my mouth. Rafe twines our fingers together and squeezes my hand, eyes fluttering shut.
Despite the saggy mattress and the stickiness coating my belly and thighs, I’m almost asleep with my face in Rafe’s dirty hair when he cups my cheek.
“I love you too,” he says. And I don’t have to see his face to know he’s smiling.
Epilogue
“THANKS FOR coming with me,” I tell Rafe as we walk to the restaurant where we’re meeting Daniel and Rex for dinner. They’re moving here next month so Daniel can take a job teaching at Temple, and they’re in Philly to find an apartment.
“Well, it’s the least I could do since you’re coming to Gabriela’s birthday dinner with me this weekend,” he says, smiling.
“Uh, I am?”
Rafe spins me around the corner and presses me against the wall in an alley between a parking garage and a 7-Eleven.
“Please?” he says, leaning in to kiss me softly.
“Hmm,” I murmur against his mouth.
He runs a hand down my neck and presses a thumb against my lips. “I can make it worth your while,” he whispers, and he slides a muscular thigh between mine, making my breath catch.
“Hmm?”
“Oh yeah. Never doubt it.” Then he kisses me until I’m clutching at the back of his shirt and pressing against him and we’re both breathing heavily.
“We’d better go to that restaurant right this second or else I’m taking you home,” he says heatedly. “Besides, it’s filthy in here.”
I look around. It’s definitely… an alley. “Hey, you dragged me in here. Besides,” I say, bumping his shoulder, “don’t knock it. We met in an alley just like this.”
“Yeah, and if I remember correctly, I wanted to take you home that night too.” He kisses me again, then pulls me against him so he can look into my eyes, his expression suddenly kind of… sappy. “I knew you were something special that night, Colin. Even though you didn’t.”
“Aw, man.” I can feel myself blushing. “Well, I thought you were basically a dick.” Way to ruin a moment. Rafe laughs and grabs my hand, pulling me toward the restaurant.
There should be a word for living a life so different from anything you ever thought was possible that you don’t even recognize yourself in it.
The last few months have been hard. Rafe didn’t adjust well to not being able to see the kids, and in an attempt to fill the space they’d left behind, he threw himself into political organizing projects so aggressively that I wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time. Which made me think he didn’t want to be around me. Which made me act like an asshole and insult his work when I did see him. Which made him actually not want to be around me.
Things were awkward for me at the shop. I’d told Luther and the other guys about being gay since it seemed ridiculous to keep it a secret when Sam knew. Though Luther didn’t care much, the others’ reactions varied and some of them ended up quitting.
Finally, though, after some epic fights and a particularly dark moment of Rafe’s when the only thing that made any difference was forcing him to watch the video testimonials that the kids had recorded for the YA board, things have turned a corner. Rafe has had a bunch of meetings with people who are interested in helping him start a support group for queer youth and young adults who are currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania. They’re only in the planning phase, but some of the calm satisfaction that he got from working with the kids at YA is already back.
And I’ve been trying to integrate our relationship more into my life outside my house. That’s Rafe’s term for it, anyway. Which basically just means keeping the promise I made about being willing to go out to dinner or the movies, and to meet his family.