Awkward Love (Stumbling into Love 2)

“Fuck…yes…why did I wait for this? Oh my God, it’s the best. Whoa, when you rub my prostate like that.”

Will chuckled. “I love how open and honest you are with me.”

“Just you.”

He smiled, fucked harder, faster, kissed deeper, moving us into different positions until we were nothing but two sweaty bodies, panting breaths, and leaking come.

I was on my knees, Will holding my hips and slamming into me from behind. God, he could get so deep like that. My balls were full, my dick jerking around every time he thrust into me. I wrapped a hand around myself, stroking in unison with Will’s thrusts until the room spun too quickly for me to keep up. My insides were jittery, my body jelly as my orgasm pulled a loud, “Will!” from the back of my throat. I shot all over my bed, as he buried himself deep inside me. His cock spasmed, his nails digging into my hips.

Will fell on top of me, and we kissed, sticky with come and sweat between us.

I wanted this night to be about him, so I tossed the condom and got a washcloth to clean us both.

“I love you,” Will said into the dark room.

“I love you too.”

I fell asleep in his arms, but when I woke up at dawn and reached for him, Will was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Will

I sat outside of my brother’s small duplex, afraid to go in. I’d been there, in my car, for two hours, just…waiting. I had no idea what to say to him, not even what I felt, but as I’d lain there with Jameson, unable to sleep, I’d known I had to come.

I had missed calls and messages from Mom, Nolan, and Brad, wondering what was going on after the way we’d left, but nothing from Jonathan.

Jonathan, who was queer.

Jonathan, who had been seeing a therapist.

Jonathan, who had been experimenting with men.

I shook that last thought from my head. My phone buzzed, and my heart dropped as I saw my brother’s name on the screen. I see you out there. I can’t sleep either. Might as well come in.

That was all it took to have me shoving out of my car and heading for his place. Jonathan opened the door just as I got to it. He wore jeans and was tugging a blue Carson Construction T-shirt over his head.

Jonathan had always been the biggest one of all of us. He was a few inches taller than me, with a broad, hairy chest and beefy arms. I was the only brother with blond hair like Mom—Jonathan’s was a dark brown like our dad’s.

My hands automatically tightened into fists, my chest feeling full like I couldn’t breathe.

Jonathan held his arms out. “You wanna hit me, go ahead and get it over with.”

He used to fight a lot in school, but Dad rarely got mad at him. He was always telling Mom “boys would be boys.” I thought about it then, the way Dad had always paid more attention to Jonathan. He’d fed into the toxic sort of masculinity I’d always seen in my brothers, Jonathan more than the others.

I couldn’t help wondering how much pressure that had put on him—to be a certain thing, to act a certain way—and suddenly, some of the anger began to give way to sadness. “I don’t want to hit you. That’s not my style.”

“Nah, that’s just mine, right?” Jonathan closed the door behind me.

“You tell me.”

He sighed, walked over to the couch, and sat down. He rested his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, looking down. “I used to hate you. Hell, maybe I still do sometimes, but that’s my issue, not yours.”

My stomach dropped. There was nothing quite like hearing your brother hated you.

I sat on the other end of the couch.

“I don’t think I knew why at first, what it was about you that made me so angry sometimes. I think…I think it’s because I knew, ya know? Even before you came out, I knew. My therapist, he says that…people like us, they often find each other without realizing it, or see something in each other that no one else does, so I think I knew, and I hated you for it.”

“Why? Why would that make you hate me? We could have supported each other, been there for each other. I wouldn’t have always felt so alone in my own family.”

Jonathan groaned, rubbed a hand over his face. “Because I didn’t want to be like this. Because I knew you’d have the guts to be who you were and I never would. Because I didn’t want to be different from Dad, Brad, and Nolan. Because I knew that even though Dad didn’t like it, he would accept it from you in a way he never would me. You don’t know what it was like, Will. I was the oldest. Dad’s right-hand man. I was going to inherit the business. He always said I was just like him, and I wanted that. I loved him. I didn’t know how to be any different.”