Chapter Text
It takes me a few moments to find the courage to ring the bell. The third time I’ve worked up the nerve this summer. The first time I got an apologetic Sarah and she told me Nick was out, but I know I saw him at the bedroom window on my way up the drive so that stung. The second time I’m pretty sure they were in Menorca.
Eventually I push the bell. I hear movement straight away and the adrenaline starts to surge through my chest. The door opens…and it’s David. He looks at me for longer than feels comfortable. I guess he’s working out how to get me to go away.
“Oh, it’s you. He’s not home.”
“Okay,” I say. My heart sinks through my stomach and I turn to leave. This was it. And it’s not happening.
“Wait,” David calls, and I spin on my heel to face him again. “Him and mum have just gone to take the dogs out. Why don’t you come in and wait?”
And there’s a decision to make in the moment. Go in and be in the house with David, alone, or leave and pass up the opportunity to see Nick one last time before he leaves.
I walk in; the setting instantly familiar but the feelings totally alien. I can smell Nellie and Henry, and the pot pourri that Sarah puts in the downstairs loo, and maybe the faintest hint of Nick’s aftershave. Or maybe it’s David’s? Perhaps they use the same one.
I haven’t been here for three months. Three months of anguished texting, negotiating who will attend what with friends while I hoped secretly that someone would mess up and we’d have to see each other, or that I’d bump into him around Rochester, or out, or at the shops. But it didn’t happen and I felt it slipping away. It started to feel hopeless about five weeks ago. I did the photo thing, and nothing. I tried talking to Tara, but she was a brick wall. Very kind about it, but a brick wall nonetheless. As a last-ditch effort I tried the rugby boys via Tao. Otis said Nick was a mess, and for a while that felt like a flicker of hope, but as the weeks passed and I didn’t make any headway I started to let go. There are only so many times you can send cheesy messages and photo throwbacks before you need to accept it’s not happening.
And yet here I am, one last effort before Nick leaves for Leeds and is gone. One last go before I lose him to a wave of freshers’ fun and new experiences that will carry him from me forever, just like I worried it would when I pushed him away in the first place. I can’t believe I wasted the magical summer we could have had together. I can’t believe he did. I want to believe that what we had meant something. Those two years together where we were everything to each other.
So I’m waiting, flicking between Whatsapp and Insta, scrolling mindlessly, until I catch David in my peripheral, leering at me the way he always has done, like I’m some sort of novelty. Like I don’t belong here. Like I did something wrong just by meeting Nick and falling in love with him. Or making him fall in love with me. I think he did love me?
David puts me on edge. I’ve been on edge since he invited me in, and it’s got to have been about ten minutes now that I’ve sat here feeling uncomfortable in the way David is uniquely able to make me feel. But I know him, how to push his buttons, how to get under the skin of this homophobic piece of shit. And so I turn to him where he’s staring at me from the doorway and I say;
“See something you like?”
And he leers at me some more and replies.
“You’d like that wouldn’t you.”
As if I’d ever be attracted to David. Everything about him drips with the arrogance of someone who’s moved through their life effortlessly being an asshole to everyone they encounter. He’s almost the polar opposite of Nick, despite the physical resemblance.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I scoff.
He goes to speak and I steel myself for an acid-tongued response. But his expression changes and he says,
“You’ve changed though.” And he looks at me like he’s really looking, like he’s seeing me. And he looks softer. Without the sneer and the smirk, he looks…No. I steer my brain away from the thought and snap at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, but it took me too long to get there. He can sense that there isn’t as much venom behind it.
“You look…older,” he says, and I’m back on safe ground.
“I am older, genius. I haven’t seen you since Easter.” I make my face into a scowl even as I consider the similarity between his hair and Nick's.
“Stronger,” he continues, not seeming to have registered my reply as he moves across the room towards me. I can tell now that the aftershave I was smelling is his, and it’s the same one Nick wears. Used to wear. I don’t know now.
“Uh…” I intone, uselessly as he pulls level with the sofa I’m sitting on. And now I’m looking at him properly. He really does look completely different. Earnest, maybe? His features now untwisted by sibling rivalry or competition for a parent’s attention.
“When you and Nick were together you always seemed kind of…delicate. But now…” David reaches out and traces a finger down my cheek and my skin is crawling but I can’t move. God, I hate him so much. But he’s still talking, “I don’t know. I don’t see that now. You’ve grown into yourself.”
My breath stutters as he lifts the finger from where it was resting on my cheek and touches it to my lips.
And then all I can see is the brown eyes, and they’re Nick’s. I focus on them, and I allow myself to get lost in them. My body does what it always wants to do when I’m looking into those eyes and there’s flesh on my lips. I kiss the pad of his finger and I hear him gasp as I take his hand in mine and suck the finger just into my mouth. I use my tongue to tease at the end of it, enjoying the few moments of delicious contact.
He yanks his hand away.
“What are you doing?” He sounds angry, but I realise it’s hard to tell it apart from confusion.
“What are you doing?” I reply, “You touched me first.” I sound like a schoolchild. I notice an almost imperceptible shift in his stance and I know instantly what it means. “And you liked it,” I say softly.
He’s staring lamely at the withdrawn hand, something between hurt and wonder on his face. I take it gently in mine again, wrapping my fingers around the top and resting my thumb in his palm, and he doesn’t resist. He lets me guide it back to my lips, and this time I take two fingers into my mouth and start to suck, moving them back and forth over my tongue. I shift my gaze from his eyes to his crotch and I can see the beginnings of the reaction I am expecting. When I look back at his face his eyes have closed and his mouth is slightly open. He’s loving it. I close my own eyes and all I can think about now is how good it feels to press my tongue against these warm fingers. My mind drifts to the way Nick’s lips would curve when I touched him, and I think about all the other ways I can show the man in front of me that I can make him feel that good.
I open my eyes and stand slowly, never letting up the pressure on the fingers in my mouth. I lick and suck and the noises are obscene and I know I’m making him think about what else I could be doing with my tongue. I start to move towards him and he inches backwards until he’s against the wall. The fingers of his other hand splay and curve against the design of the faded wallpaper. I move to close the distance between us and slot my leg between his. He’s breathing heavily, eyes still closed with his head resting against the wall. I nudge my knee into the gap and roll my thigh up so that I’m pressing into his crotch. His breath catches as I rub against his erection and I wait for him to open his eyes so I can get a glimpse of the beautiful brown as I work him up.
Finally his eyes open and I gaze into them through my own, heavy lids as I rock into him, pushing my own arousal into his thigh.
“Is this happening?” he asks in a whisper, and I nod.
He pulls his fingers out of my mouth and goes to take my waist. I don’t want him to touch me like that, so I take his hands and move them to his trousers.
“Off.”
He works quickly, unfastening and then dropping his chinos. I reach down to palm his length over the top of his briefs, delighted that there’s already a wet patch. He moans my name and surges forward.
I don’t want him to kiss me either. I pull his head to my neck and let myself get lost in the feeling of his hot breath and his lips tickling my skin. I fumble with the waistband of his underwear, eventually slipping my fingers under and curling them around his erection. He moans and gasps into my neck and I can feel him mouthing at my flesh, sucking and nipping as I stroke him.
“Wanna blow you,” I murmur. “Need a condom.”
He pulls back and nods, breathing heavily and flushed with lust. He steps out of the trousers, leaving them pooled on the floor. I lead him up the stairs to Nick’s room. Before I cross the threshold he tugs on my hand, and when I turn to face him his eyebrows are raised and he’s shaking his head.
“Come on,” I say, “I know where everything is.” I don’t really care if my motives aren’t well hidden. At this point I’m pretty sure I could get him to do whatever I want.
It’s all still where it used to be: in the bottom drawer of Nick’s bedside table. There are condoms, wipes and lube, and I notice the pictures I dropped off weeks ago. I wonder if it means anything. I wonder if Nick misses my body, and whether he still thinks about me when he comes. I select a square packet and rip it open. Then I kneel at David’s feet, the carpet soft through the rips in my jeans, and I pull down his underwear. His cock stands erect, flushed and leaking. Aching for what’s next.
I stroke him a couple of times and then place the condom on his tip. As I roll it down I put my lips to him, taking his tip in my mouth and starting to work it over with my tongue. Then I push down, using my tongue on the underside as I take about half of him in before pulling back, and then pushing down again as I finish rolling the condom on.
“Oh my god, fuck…Charlie.”
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so I move one of them to my hair and let him rake his fingers through it as I suck him off. He starts to pull a little and I worry that maybe he’s getting close and I don’t want that yet. I pull off slowly and look up at him through my lashes. I can see in his eyes that he wants this. He’s completely gone.
“Need you to fuck me.” He nods again, and I strip my lower half and climb onto the bed. This isn’t how I imagined the day would go, but I had high hopes and prepared accordingly. I lube my hand up and reach back to start fingering myself. David’s touching himself and moaning, and he follows me onto the bed. Once I’ve worked myself open I drop my head to the pillow and breathe in deep lungfuls of Nick’s scent.
“I’m ready.”
I’ve no idea if he’s done this before, but he does it well. He breaches me carefully and presses in slowly, panting and swearing; pulling out a little each time before inching back in until he’s bottomed out. I tell him that he needs to wait, and I breathe deeply and relax as much as I can. I’m surrounded by Nick; his bedding, his posters, his smell. Our place. And I’m full. It basically feels perfect; with how long it’s been and David being fractionally smaller I find that when the burn subsides I just feel perfectly full.
“Okay, you can move now.”
He takes a few strokes to start with and he’s loud. He’s swearing and praising and moaning my name. And then he starts to thrust and I can hear that he’s losing his mind.
I don’t know what this is about for him, but I know what it’s about for me and I hate myself. I feel pathetic for seeking relief and comfort from this pale imitation of the love of my life. But I can’t pretend I’m not enjoying it.
“I’ve thought about this,” he strains out.
I don’t want to talk. And I want him to stop talking, so I just hum.
“All those times I heard the two of you at it, heard Nick saying how tight you are.”
I definitely can’t deal with him talking about Nick.
“In French…” I say.
“What?”
“Talk to me in French…”
He switches effortlessly and his words become a parade of beautiful syllables that pour into my ears like music. In the unfamiliar language their voices are almost indistinguishable. I can pick out the odd phrase. He’s telling me I’m beautiful. He's talking about my lips. He’s saying he likes fucking me.
I feel momentarily amazing; transported to six months ago, Nick making love to me over the Easter holidays. We had days together when Sarah visited family and we hung out and talked and had sex for hours. I remember the way his hands felt on my hips, the exact spot his thumbs would dig in. How careful he was to begin with, before we learned what we liked and he fucked me hard till I came.
I can hear the slight shift in his register and I start to stroke myself. It makes me tense a little around him and he starts to groan. I shift slightly to help him find the right spot and I cry out as he hits it over and over. He’s so close now and I’m pretty sure we can finish at the same time. I speed up my own efforts and think of Nick, thrusting into me and calling my name. I picture his face; flushed pink, eyes closed and mouth open as he fills me up. I come hard over the pillow and onto the headboard. I clench through my orgasm and feel him releasing into me, grunting and tugging on my hips as he comes, pulsing waves deep inside me.
I feel him steadying himself with his hands on my hips, and then one hand is gone and I’m empty because he is pulling out. I roll over, exhausted, and watch him leave for the bathroom.
I clean myself up with the wipes, balling up the debris and leaving it on the side for David to deal with. I pull on my clothes before the shame sets in, and head downstairs. I’m sitting on the bottom step putting my converse on when I hear voices and the front door swings open. Sarah greets me warmly with an awkward look that says ‘I’d hug you if my hands weren’t full’ and I smile back at her before she bustles through to the kitchen with the dogs in tow.
“Charlie?” Nick sounds confused and upset as he registers my presence and straightens up to look at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just leaving,” I say as I stand and move towards the door.
I hear the sound of the bathroom door opening on the landing above, and I watch as Nick turns towards the noise to see David emerging, naked except for a towel. And I see as his eyes flick to the lounge where David’s trousers are still on the floor. I feel sick, and I look away before Nick can turn back to me.
“Have a good time at university,” I choke out before the tears start to fall, and I walk away knowing there’s no coming back from the wreckage I’ve left behind.