Chapter Nine – When I’m Around You
April spent a long time in the bathroom, pretending that he needed a long shower after such a long day. When they were joking to one another like that, everything appeared to be normal. But the thought that he would spend his entire night wrapped around … No, that wouldn’t happen. No, no, no.
But Jett had said that he wanted to use him as his personal body pillow. All right, so he wouldn’t be the one to do the wrapping around stuff, but the situation wasn’t better.
Jett wouldn’t jump his bones, right? Right. Handjobs were one thing. Sleeping together had nothing to do with sex. Everything was simple, really. April should know that he had nothing to worry about. Right?
“Why?” he asked his reflection in the mirror. “Why this guy?”
Why haven’t I gotten over him? April kept the last words to himself; he couldn’t share them even with his reflection. It was uncanny how fast they had fallen into a familiarity that could only be explained by the fact that they knew each other. Of course, Jett didn’t know that, and it appeared that his original suspicions had evaporated since no one could tell twenty-year-old April was the same with thirteen-year-old Theo. Jett probably blamed it all on some weird coincidence and uncanny resemblance. For a short while, April had been scared that Jett had figured it all out.
Maybe he could go ahead and tell Jett. It was an idea.
No, not a good idea. April could feel his feet getting cold, only thinking about it. What could go wrong? Well, a lot of things, he argued with himself. For starters, Jett was just fooling around with him, and handjobs aside - and hot kisses! - he was still as straight as they come. Secondly, they hadn’t parted on good terms. What was he thinking? Jett had made it pretty clear that time and thirteen-year-olds couldn’t lie, right? They had to hate one another. Not that April hated Jett, and he hadn’t done that, ever. He had been upset, sad, but hate hadn’t been among the emotions he had experienced. He had no idea what had gone through Jett’s mind all these years, and he was no psychic. Probably Jett hated him. No, not him-him, but Theo. That wasn’t the vibe April got from Jett, but he wasn’t willing to risk it.
Moving on. It was a bad idea because the chances were he would have to leave, and that meant he wouldn’t see Jett again, probably. And there were other pressing matters, like maybe the fact that Jett had paid his debt toward the Z brothers, in exchange for April taking care of Jay. If Jett were still pissed at Theo for that thing, April would be left out to dry.
Great. He was good at fooling himself rather well. “You are a damned coward, April Summer,” he said to his reflection in the mirror.
“You could say that again.”
“Fuck!” April jumped. “Are you a frigging ninja? How did you open the door without making a sound?”
Jett grinned as he stood in the door. “It’s a skill. Nah, I’m playing with you. Dweeb, you were so lost in thought that you didn’t hear me, that’s all. What’s this about you being a coward? Are you afraid I’m going to jump you or something?”
“Truth be told, yes,” April replied and tried to save a smidge of dignity by squaring his shoulders and trying to walk by Jett.
No wonder there, Jett grabbed him by the waist and looked at him. April felt so lost when they stood so close, and he was overly conscious of Jett’s hands on him.
“I won’t. It’s a promise. Of course, if you want me to jump you --”
“Why would I want that?” April protested.
Jett was leaning in, and their mouths hovered close. “Because you like me.”
“And?” April tried to pretend he was unaffected.
Jett’s grin grew broader. “You don’t deny it.”
“You’re handsome.” April could feel his cheeks growing hot. “You’re a great kisser, and I would be a liar if I said you didn’t turn me on. But --”
“No ‘buts’. I like what I hear. Just keep it at that.”
“I’m sorry, but your huge ego must hear this, too,” April replied. “I’m not just saying that I want someone special in my life. Fooling around with you --”
“Fooling around? What do you mean by that?”
Now April could feel Jett’s hot breath on his cheek. Damn, it was hard to focus. “You know, all this kissing, and teasing, and touching each other’s dicks --”
“It’s all in good fun.”
“Exactly. But it is also dangerous.”
“Dangerous, how?”
April drew one deep breath. And then he released all the words, part of the fears he kept inside in one go. “For you, it’s just fun, but for me, it’s not. I could fall for you, and that’s not an option because you’re straight, and I would just sign up for a lot of heartache, not to mention you’re a gangster and a punk, and I have no idea what you do all day when you’re not around, and you could get in real trouble, and if that happens, I don’t know what I should do, and there’s also Jay, and you scare me, and --”
April gasped as Jett kissed him. The hands on his waist were no longer there; they were in his hair, grabbing strands of it and guiding April’s mouth into the kiss, which was maddening and so unfair. Was Jett ever listening to anything he was saying?
He put his hands against Jett’s chest, but didn’t push him away. He let them there, feeling the hard muscles moving underneath the t-shirt and thinking for the umpteenth time that this wasn’t fair.
Jett broke the kiss and then stared into April’s eyes. “I like you, dweeb. Stop worrying so much. I like to kiss you and to hold you like this. But this doesn’t mean I’ll steal your heart or pop your cherry.”
April rolled his eyes at that. But Jett seemed serious, in his punkish way, so he needed to listen to this.
“I’ve only known you for a few days, but I like you. So don’t fret about what I might do to you. Look, I’m making a promise right now. I won’t fuck you unless you ask me to.”
If there was a moment when he needed to be entirely and utterly dumbstruck, that was it. “I won’t ask,” April said.
“Fine by me. But think a little. You’d want a bit of experience until you meet that Mr. Perfect or whatever. The least you could learn is how to give a proper handjob.”
“I don’t remember any complaints,” April said airily.
“There’s room for improvement.”
“Jett, you can’t teach me anything. You have no experience with gay sex whatsoever.”
“That doesn’t mean that I’m not game if you want to practice on me.”
“Really?” April smiled. “What if I want to fuck you?”
The look in Jett’s eyes spoke volumes. It was something between a deer caught in the headlights and a hedgehog wondering about the meaning of life on Earth while a truck was speeding toward its spiky self.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t jump you,” April said with a smirk.
Jett wasn’t the only one who could rattle the other’s cage. Now he had something to worry about, and April felt better.
“Why?”
The question caught him unawares. “What do you mean ‘why’? Lots of reasons. First, because you’re straight. Second, because I don’t do such things. Three, I still want to do that with, well, Mr. Perfect.”
“So you’re not a bottom? You look like a bottom boy to me.” Jett’s eyes were thinning now and gauging April’s every reaction.
“I am yet to find out, right? Plus, when I fantasize about guys, I see myself in both positions. That’s all.”
“So why wouldn’t you jump me? I’m not your type or something?”
You have no idea. Before, April hadn’t had a clue about how Jett looked like now, so his fantasies were pretty fuzzy, but now, it was a blessing and a curse to see Jett in all his manly glory. “That’s not the idea. Don’t you hear a word I’m saying?”
“You don’t hear a word I’m saying. I make you hard, and I like you, too. So why won’t you fuck me?”
“We’re talking hypothetically here, right?” April threw Jett a dubious look. “What are you getting so worked up about? It’s not like we would fuck anyway. So no one is fucking no one.”
Jett pursed his lips. “We’re going to watch some gay porn, and you’ll show me exactly your type.”
“What? Watch gay porn?!” April could feel the upper hand from earlier slipping through his fingers.
“What are you into? Daddies? BBC? Twinks?”
“No, no, no, my ears are all wrong,” April complained and put his hands over his ears. “How do you know about stuff like that?”
“I live on this planet, and also Zane,” Jett explained it right away.
“Zane. Right,” April murmured. “Well, I’m not into anything. First, I need to meet this special someone. And it doesn’t matter how he looks.”
“But it would be cool if he were hot,” Jett pointed out.
“Yeah, but that’s not the point. Let’s not watch gay porn, Jett. Please.”
Jett shrugged. “Okay.”
Good. April exhaled. Crisis averted.
“Still, why don’t you like me?” Jett insisted.
“I do like you. It’s your personality that sucks, but your physical appearance is, um, erm --”
“Dweeb, I’m going to show it all to you.”
“Show what?” April asked, but Jett was already dragging him away to the bedroom. “Wait, did you check on Jay?”
“Yeah, but you can do it, too. Also, I set the monitor to alert us very very loudly if the boy wakes up.”
April just nodded. Jett seemed a little more serious about taking care of Jay then before. Baby steps. Yes, he needed something like that, too, or Jett would make him lose his mind.
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