One More Year 18 ~ Nifty

One More Year

by Bradley Scott

**Note:

This is a rewrite of an older story of mine on here called Another Day, which I never finished, and no longer really like, but I'm hoping to redeem it.

This is written in British/South African English, although almost all similar media I consume is American, so that will probably have its influence, but not on spelling. For the purposes of keeping this note short, I'll include specific non-common words I use in a list at the bottom.

**

**Disclaimer:

No underage sex happens between any of my characters. I tend to make that quite clear in the narrative, but just in case it isn't, I state it here. (This is also more Romance than Erotica, so the sex doesn't happen right away, but when it does, everyone is 18.)**

Chapter 18

"Okay, you ready?" Louis asked, shielding the notecard from me with his hand.

"To stop studying and enjoy my holidays?" I raised my eyebrows.

He smirked. "To face Sue if you're not as prepared as her for the physics moderation?"

"Okay, fine." I groaned. "What's the question?"

"State Newton's Second Law of motion."

"Fuck." I closed my eyes. "Um... The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the force applied to that object, and inversely proportional to the object's mass."

"Uh, that's right, but it's 'net force', I think."

"Does that matter?" I grimaced.

He shrugged. "Do you want to get it wrong in the moderation session?"

"I don't care."

"Fine, but." He titled his head, and smiled mischievously. "Do you want to get it wrong in front of Sue?"

"Ugh. Fine." I laughed. "Net force, net force. I'll try to remember that."

Louis was hanging out at my house, since we'd planned a study group session - in the holidays - to start going over our work, so we were prepared for moderation. As the top performers, it seemed like we were all going to be included in the sessions for most of the subjects we took. We wanted to be ready. Sue and Angela had already prepared for physics, so Louis and I were playing catch up.

Despite it being school work, I'd really had a great time. He and I had set a relaxed pace, but we'd still managed to cover more than half of the physics syllabus by that afternoon. We were more or less done, and just casually going through some of the notecards we'd had trouble with. He was just going to hang around for a bit longer, and then I'd take him home.

I still hadn't told him what had really happened between me, Eric and Nick. Louis had just wanted to get straight to work, and he'd only briefly asked how 'coping with the two of them' had been, and the conversation had moved on. I assumed I'd never do something like that again, so I rationalised that it was probably fine to pretend like it never happened.

Still, I felt guilty about not telling him. When a message from Eric popped up on my phone, I felt a weird urge to hide it, even though it seemed completely innocuous.

Hey

Can I ask you a favour?

You can say no

Depends on the favour

Can you take Nick home when you and Louis are done?

They live in the same neighbourhood

I showed the messages to Louis.

He grimaced. "Sorry. That would be my fault. I told him I was here."

"It's fine." I shrugged. "Nick's actually not so bad."

"I know." Louis put the stack of notecards down. "He asked me if I was okay the night after my bailout, and then thanked me for being nice to him."

"He thanked me for being nice too."

"Such manners." He chuckled.

"I know. I was pretty surprised." Although weirder things had happened that night.

"I can't believe Eric's asking his ex-boyfriend to ferry around his current boyfriend, though." He frowned. "That's kind of ridiculous."

"Yeah, it is a little, isn't it?" I sighed. Also not the weirdest interaction between Eric's ex and his current boyfriend. "I'm probably going to have to, though."

"Yeah, that's fine. I can go home now too if he wants."

I looked back down at my phone.

Please

He can't get an Uber

What? Why not?

His rating is too low

Seriously? What did he DO?

Hahah. No idea

You could get him one.

I could

But he hasn't thought of that yet

And I don't want him to tank MY rating 😁

Fine. I'll take him.

Louis says he can go home now if Nick wants to.

That'd be great! Thanks

I sighed, and looked up at Louis. "Okay, let's go then."

Louis grabbed his bag, and we headed out to my car. We pulled up at our destination a few minutes later. Eric and Nick were standing on the side-walk when we arrived, arms around each other. Things looked a bit tense, and they broke apart as we rolled up.

"Oh, crap." Nick said. "I forgot my bag inside. Sorry, just give me a second."

He ran back into the house.

"Thanks for doing this. He's got a church camp tomorrow, so he has to go home and pack."

"Church camp, huh?" I asked.

"Yep." Eric shrugged.

"Hopefully he manages it better than you." It basically fell out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

"Yeah." He blushed. "I'm going to go see if he needs help finding his bag." He ran back towards the house.

"Well that was oddly brutal," Louis said dryly.

"Sorry." I grimaced. "It just slipped out."

"It's fine." He gave me a cautious smile, and grabbed my shoulder. "It was fair. Just brutal."

Nick came running out the house. Just before he got in, he turned to look back at the house. But only for a second, and then he climbed into the back seat and swung the door shut. "Okay, I'm ready."

He was a little sullen the whole way, which would have been nice, because Louis and I were able to fill most of the awkward silence. But Nick kept sporadically interjecting with something that didn't really fit into the conversation, or called us weird every time we made a joke he didn't get. It felt like a much longer trip than usual.

When we got to his house, Louis mouthed 'Good luck' to me and practically sprinted indoors. Nick climbed into the front seat, and immediately launched into an unrelenting tirade about his irritation with Eric.

"He's always fucking arguing with me, you know?" he said, for about the hundredth time since we'd dropped off Louis. "Like, he has to disagree with me about everything. This is the best kind of ice cream, the one you like is garbage. This music is the best, everything else is trash. This movie is great, that movie you love is terrible, and I can't believe you even like it. It's so fucking stupid. He ever do that with you?"

"Yep. He always gave me grief about having a PlayStation instead of an Xbox. Didn't like the bands I listened to. Thought I had terrible taste in movies. That sort of thing." I shrugged and laughed. "You're not supposed to actually engage him on that. Just make fun of him, and move on."

He scowled. "Whatever. I hate shit like that. I guess he thinks he's being cute, but it's just fucking annoying."

"Sure."

"We're here, by the way. It's that house over there. On the corner."

I pulled into the driveway.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to me. "You should come in. I'll show you my studio."

"Um, okay." I couldn't think of any good excuses why I shouldn't, and I had told him - after that night - that I would.

I followed him inside, and he shut the front door gently, and held his finger to his lips. We were in a beautiful hallway with lots of white walls, marble tiles and gold-painted metal. There was a nook in the wall with what looked like a shrine to some sort of saint. It wasn't really the sort of place I was expecting Nick to live in. Modern, but with elements of the traditional. I'd pictured something wilder, and more bohemian. We heard footsteps approaching.

"Nick, darling, is that you?" A woman came bustling around the corner. She had the same mediterranean complexion as Nick, and the same sculpted nose. "Oh, hello."

"Mom, this is Jay."

"Ah yes, from the school. Thank you for giving Nick a ride home. Those theatre people are so unreliable."

"Oh, no problem." I was slightly perplexed. Theatre people? "I was headed out this way anyway."

"Who's this?" A portly man stepped around the corner behind her, and came up to shake my hand. "Are you another one of these theatre people, like that boy, Eric?"

Ah, THEATRE PEOPLE. Right. I supposed that was a good excuse for Nick, he was probably always working on one production or another, because of how in demand his sets usually were. That probably worked as a great excuse when he wanted to see Eric. But the phrase 'theatre people' sounded like some old-timey euphemism for gays.

"No." I managed, with some effort, not to laugh. "No, I go to Elohim as well."

"Jay is the Maths boy, he's always winning those awards," Mrs. Georgiou said. Maths boy. That was one way of putting it.

"He was in the group that won the science fair. You know, with Angela." Nick rubbed his arm.

"Ah, yes!" his dad said. "I remember that. It was very good. Is that Angela your girlfriend?"

"Dad." Nick looked horrified.

I laughed nervously. "No, we're just friends."

"Amazing girl. You should marry her." Mr. Georgiou smiled. "You would have very smart babies. Good-looking, too."

"Dad!"

"You're embarrassing him in front of his friend." Mrs. Georgiou playfully slapped her husband on the back of the head, and he chuckled affectionately. "You two head up. I'll make something nice for dinner."

"Oh, I'm very sorry," I said. "I can't stay for long."

"Mom, I'm just showing Jay my studio, okay? Don't drag him into dinner."

"Okay, okay. Sorry." She smiled warmly. "Nice to meet you, Jay."

"You too, Mrs. Georgiou. Mr. Georgiou."

"It's Marina, darling. And Costas." She laughed, pointing at her husband. "Mr. and Mrs. Georgio are this one's sour old parents."

I smiled, and Nick quickly shuffled me out of the room. We headed to the upper floor, where he led us up a narrow set of wooden steps with a trapdoor at the top. He pushed it open, and held it as I followed him into the attic, gently lowering it back into place behind me.

"Sorry about that. They're so fucking cringe sometimes I could just drop dead."

I chuckled. "No, it's fine. It was pretty funny. Angela and I would have amazing kids."

"Gross." He wrinkled his nose.

I just shrugged, and he smiled at me. He grabbed a heavy looking box and slid it over the trap door. I raised my eyebrows at the implications of him sealing us in here, but didn't say anything.

"Do you like my studio?" He gestured around the attic grandly.

I turned to face the rest of the room. "Yeah, it's amazing."

It really was. The end I was looking at had row after row of large canvas paintings, stacked against each other and leaning against the wall. Crammed underneath them were big patterned wooden screens that I recognised as pieces of his design projects, or backdrops from our school musicals.

On the other side of the room, there were all sorts of things - a dress manikin, a sewing machine, a basket full of fabric. In the corner there was a futon, decorated with golden cushions and fake fur throws.

Nick was quirky and sometimes a bit unpleasant, but no one could say that he wasn't fantastically creative, and incredibly talented. This room was sort of a monument to the great things he could pull out of nowhere.

"Come on," he said, "I want to show you something."

He led me over to the rows of canvasses, and shifted a few around, before pulling one out. It looked like it was just spattered in paint, until I saw that it wasn't the real canvas, it was just a sheet that had been tightly wrapped around it.

He carried it across to the other side of the room, wedging it between the wall and the futon.

"Have a seat."

I settled myself amidst the bedding, while he fiddled at the back of the canvas. He got the sheet loose, and with a dramatic flourish, he let it drop, revealing the real painting.

It was a life-sized nude, lying on a bed, facing towards us. The figure had a raging erection. It was done in a sort of impressionist style, a bit sloppy around the edges, but the face was unmistakable.

"It's Eric," I said simply.

"It is." He settled next to me on the futon, resting his hand on my shoulder and sounding pleased. "Do you like it?"

"It's hot." Despite its flaws, it definitely had a seductive feel, and he'd absolutely nailed Eric's stare. It was almost unsettling. "You've made his dick far too big though. That one looks massive."

"It feels that size." He said softly, right in my ear, making my hairs stand on end. "When he's fucking me."

It was pretty clear what Nick wanted, at that point. If the blocked-off trapdoor hadn't been enough of a hint, showing me a big, naked painting of Eric made it undeniable what he had in mind. For some reason, knowing what he was doing wasn't protecting me from its effects. I could feel myself getting hard. And reckless. I looked over at him. He was so close.

"He's not nearly as good at it as you are, though." He exhaled softly, looking directly into my eyes. "And I really want you to fuck me again."

Our faces snapped together, and our tongues violently wrestled back and forth in our mouths. I pushed him back down onto the futon, feeling a strange sense of deja vu as I began to run my hands over Nick's body under the seductive gaze of painting-Eric.

He lifted my shirt over my head, and I pulled off my jeans while he started to wriggle out of his clothing. I stood in front of him in my underwear, and he got up to kneel in front of me in his. His right hand reached out and grabbed my waistband to tug it down, while his left went down the front of his briefs and began rubbing.

He grasped my cock firmly, and guided it into his mouth. I gasped as he took me in, and he worked his head back and forth, making a series of wet, squelching noises. He stopped suddenly, and tilted his head back, looking up at me. "Please. Fuck me."

"Are you sure it's okay?" My brain wasn't fully operational any more - I guess the blood was needed elsewhere - but still I thought I should make sure. "With Eric?

"It's fine. We're open. You know that." He sounded frustrated, but he let out a small laugh. "Besides, look how turned on he is."

I looked up at the painting and smirked. Nick pulled his underwear off and flung it at my head. It hit my face and dropped to the floor, and I laughed, but I'd caught a faint whiff of his musky scent. He crawled slowly across the futon, exposing every angle of his ass to me along the way. I pulled off my own underwear and climbed behind him, as he fiddled with a box. He pulled out a condom and lube, and passed them back to me.

I rolled the condom on. Nick had positioned himself on a pillow facing the painting, his ass pointed up towards me and his legs spread, leaving his hole exposed. I liberally applied lube, first on my dick, then into him. I worked in a finger, causing him to gasp. Then a second, and then a third.

I moved my hand in and out, slowly, until he grunted in frustration. "Will you just fuck me already?"

I quickly extracted my hand, and got myself in position. I lined up my dick and - perhaps too aggressively - plunged the whole length in, our bodies colliding with a soft thud.

"Fuck," he hissed, his voice a mixture of satisfaction and pain.

I leaned over until my mouth was right by his ear. "You wanted this." I ground my hips up against him for emphasis.

"Yes." He panted. "And more."

I began to slowly thrust in and out of him, working myself up to a good rhythm. He started to writhe and squirm, trying to suppress his moans. From what I could see of his face, he looked thrilled, and delirious. He kept letting out odd little gasps that almost sounded like laughter.

It was so easy not to think. To just give myself over to it. Nick didn't seem to care about anything more than the sex, and he didn't have weird boundaries like Jamie. I could twist his head around and kiss him while I fucked him. I could just do what felt good, even if I might not feel great about it later. In the moment, it felt like a worthwhile trade.

All I cared about were the sensations running through my body. The feel of my skin against his, and the way his muscles moved underneath my hands. The way his hole had a vice grip on my dick.

Then there was the painting of Eric. It was almost unsettling, but mostly just hot. There was something to the idea of him just being a concept. No personality and issues to go with the rest of it - just the look. If only it could be that simple. My eyes lingered on it as I kept fucking Nick.

"Hold on. I want to do something." He wriggled his way out from underneath me, and stood up, bracing himself against it. "Come on."

I followed him there, and started to fuck him, standing upright. It was a little awkward, since I had to bend my knees slightly to match our heights, but it wasn't long before his whole body tensed, and he began to shoot ropes of cum onto Eric's painted face.

He quickly slipped away from me, and pulled the condom off. He began to kiss me and tug at my dick, while I ran my hand down his back. It was enough, and I started to shoot my load too. I felt a vague sense of amusement as he used his hand to direct the ropes of my cum to join his on the painting.

Panting, I let my knees buckle, and I sort of collapsed in slow motion onto the futon. Nick walked over the window, opened it up and lit a cigarette. I grabbed one of the pillows and put it under my head, and contemplated the newly modified painting of Eric.

"I think I like it better that way." He grinned at me.

"It certainly builds a narrative." I laughed.

"Yeah." He looked down at me. "I should paint you."

"Not quite like that." I smirked.

He shook his head. "Not what I meant."

"Yeah, I know."

He scratched his head. "You should probably leave soon. You said you couldn't stay long, and my parents will probably start bugging us if you're here for too much longer."

"I'll get dressed and go in a second."

I really wanted to be out of there, anyway. I wasn't in the mood to be around him any more, once I'd cum. I felt vaguely dirty, and disappointed in myself. Like I needed a pep talk from a responsible influence. I took a deep breath, got dressed, and left. He barely said a word the whole time.

His parents shouted a farewell to me as he let me out the front door. The drive home was awful. I couldn't really turn the music loud enough to drown out my thoughts. Nick wasn't as bad as I'd thought, but I still didn't like him. Not really. I no longer knew what the hell I was even doing. At least I got along with Jamie. And I'd been drunk that night at Eric's house.

But I didn't have much of an excuse - other than being horny and stupid - for what I'd just done. I should have stopped him from even sealing the trapdoor. Or not gone into his house in the first place. I tried to shower until I felt better, but it didn't really work. I went to bed early that night.

***

When I woke up the next morning, however, I was already feeling less guilty. I kept going back and forth on whether there was actually anything wrong with what I was doing with the two of them. They were a couple, who wanted to have casual sex with other guys - with no attachments. I was just that other guy.

And there was nothing wrong with enjoying sex. We were being safe, so it was fine. That's at least what I was telling myself. Not that it helped much. I was in a chaotic mood when Eric messaged me, and I answered way too quickly.

Hey

Hey.

Wyd?

Nothing.

Me neither

I'm so bored

Come visit me

I can't.

You said you're not doing anything

Okay, fine, I don't want to.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease

I'm bored

And lonely

And it's Saturday

Be a good friend

Ugh. FINE

I really wasn't doing anything, but other than that I had no explanation for why I'd agreed. He'd clearly caught me in a phase of my reasoning where I was okay with what I'd been doing lately, so heading over - inviting what I knew I could happen - seemed logical.

I nearly turned around a few times on my way there, but by the time I'd got to Eric's house, I'd convinced myself to just see him, and see what happened. I messaged him to let him know I was there, but wasn't the one who opened the door. Caitlyn stood in the entrance, a dark scowl on her face.

"Hey Jay," she said, sounding anything but delighted to see me. "I see Eric's managed to scare away every person from North Grove, so now he's working his way through our school for friends."

"Hey Caitlyn." I crossed my arms, and saw Eric pop up behind her. After all the dithering on the way there, and how annoyed I felt with myself, I wasn't in the mood to even be civil to her. "Congrats on your ranking. Twenty-four, right?"

"Thanks." She turned around and marched off, her face stony.

"Wow, nerd politics are scary." Eric chuckled as she disappeared into the house. I just shrugged. He led me to his room, and closed the door and turned to face me, a serious expression on his face. "So... I hear you've been fucking my boyfriend."

My breath caught in my chest. I knew that something like this would happen. Their open-relationship bullshit probably didn't include hookups when the other guy wasn't present. Or something like that. Of course I couldn't have trusted Nick to-

"Relax." He laughed. "I'm messing with you."

"Oh." I let out a sigh of relief, but then I began to feel annoyed. "Hilarious."

"I'm sorry." He grinned broadly. "It seemed funnier in my head."

I just shrugged, and started pacing.

"He loved it, by the way." His eyes followed me around the room. "Did you have a good time?"

"It was all right," I said nonchalantly.

"Apparently I was involved."

So Nick had told him about that part. I shrugged. "Not really. You just lay there."

He chuckled. "Nick's very talented, isn't he?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I assume we're talking about his painting skills."

"Of course."

"I don't know." I shot him a wicked grin. "He could probably learn to portray proportions more accurately."

He crossed his arms. "It looked pretty accurate to me."

"I suppose things look bigger when you're in love." I bit my lip, waiting for him to laugh.

The smile dropped off his face. "We're not in love."

It felt like I'd struck a nerve, so I didn't respond immediately. I just quietly kept pacing, walking along the wall of shelves. "Too soon to say, then?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"Maybe? What does that mean?"

"I just..." He shrugged, following along behind me now. "I don't know if I feel that way about him. He's very... different."

"I thought that's what you liked about him." I said softly.

"He's not very nice."

I glanced back at him. "Neither are you, really."

"Ouch."

I paused, and turned to face him. "Sorry."

"Yeah, me too," he said, with a meaningful look. "Really, really sorry."

I looked away, and resumed pacing. At the end of the shelves, my eyes fell on the oddball collection of items that had never matched the otherwise perfect room. It was still there. The glass paperweight that I'd given him, with the rose inside.

I felt his breath on the side of my neck as he stepped up to me. He put his arm on my shoulder, and reached over to touch the glass sphere with his fingertips. I looked over at him.

"I don't know if I ever told you this, but my mom's obsessed with minimalistic living. We always have to get rid of things we don't need. But this little pile of stuff, I always fight to keep." He sighed, and his eyes shot up to my face. "I try to hold on to things that mean a lot to me."

"Do you?" I avoided his gaze.

"I don't always do the best job."

I locked eyes with him. "No."

"I was very jealous, you know." He said. "When Nick told me what you guys did."

"Sorry." I shrugged, and broke eye-contact. "Maybe you shouldn't have an open relationship then."

"I wasn't jealous that you got him." He ran his hand across my shoulder, and around the back of my neck. "I was jealous that he got you."

He pulled me close and planted a forceful kiss on my lips, his tongue twisting its way into my mouth. There'd always been something about Eric's kisses - the taste, the mastery of it - that couldn't fail to win me over. Regardless of how I felt about him.

Nick always left a bitter tang of ashes and mint in my mouth, and his kisses felt... calculating. Perfunctory. A concession to one of the necessary components of sex. Jamie wasn't even willing to offer that much, and the only comment I could make about the taste of his mouth was that it remained a mystery.

But with Eric, there was a freshness to his breath that undercut whatever taste lingered on his lips. I could have picked it out of a line-up. And the way his tongue moved - passionate, skilful, and completely sincere. I don't think Eric was ever as honest as he was when kissing me.

He pulled back, and I studied him coolly as he pulled my shirt up, and then whipped it off over my head. It scraped me in a few places on the way, but I didn't comment. I was too busy watching him with fascination, studying his frantic speed, and the way he started to scrabble at the belt of my jeans.

Fixing my gaze on him, I reached down to grab his hands. "I've got nowhere to be this afternoon, you know."

"Right." He laughed nervously, pulling out of my grasp. "Sorry."

I just shrugged, and started to unbuckle and unzip. He took a step back and began stripping off his own clothes. They came off so quickly that by the time I was pulling off my socks, he was already completely naked. As I straightened up he crashed against me again, the warmth of his skin washing over mine as we made contact.

With his mouth fastened to mine, he dragged me over to the bed, our hands roaming over each other the whole way. For once, I had nothing to feel self-conscious about. There was no Nick there with us this time, or even a painting to give me an eerie sense of being watched. There also wasn't a sense of the strange boundaries that had been there with Jamie, that had kept me from ever fully letting go.

It was just the two of us, the way it used to be. Well, almost. This wasn't just me and Eric any more. It was me and Nick's boyfriend, me and the guy who'd gotten jealous of Jamie. Me and Jess's unrequited love. Me and Louis' brief fling. Too many things, and without a head full of tequila and my misplaced jealousy, the force of him - his touch, his smell, his heat - was no longer carrying me away like it used to.

Not that he wasn't having his effect. He was still a looming bundle of muscles with a face that made me go weak at the knees. Plus, he had fast hands and a talented mouth. His fist pumped away at my dick, and he kept taking short breaks from kissing me to bite, lick and nibble at my shoulders and my chest.

On the outside, I was a cacophony of groans and gasps as he worked away at me. I pawed at him, feeling his muscles, tugging at his erection. Even if I couldn't match his desperate, violent energy. It didn't matter though. I wanted this. He wanted me.

When he straddled me and held our dicks together to pump them back and forth in his hand, it didn't take more than a couple dozen strokes - along with the pinching of my nipples and the caressing of my skin - before I started to tense and twitch on the bed.

His heavy breathing and that look on his face told me he was close too, and when the pressure built up in my balls, and I was too far gone to hold it back, salty white ropes of his cum shot out soon enough to join mine as they sprayed and pooled on my chest and abs.

I lay there afterwards, gasping, while he absent-mindedly traced a pattern through the cum on my torso. There didn't seem to be a towel on the way. Not any time soon, not without me asking. Chivalry was dead, clearly. I smirked.

"What?" he asked, a relaxed smile playing across his face.

"Nothing..." I shrugged. "Are we going to clean this up? I don't want to drip everywhere."

"You're good." He laughed softly. "I think I've spread it around too much for that."

"Such a gentleman."

"Come on." Grinning, he hopped off the bed and held out his hand to me. "Let's go shower."

"Okay." I grabbed hold of it and carefully pulled myself up off the bed, swiftly pacing over to his bathroom and into the shower before anything had a chance to run. He flipped the water on, and once it was warm I stepped in and rinsed myself off.

He clearly wasn't out of the mood yet, though, pressing himself up against me again and starting to soap me up. I wasn't, either - between him kissing me under the spray of the shower, and the way his hand kept moving up and down my dick while he worked up a lather on me, I was already hard again.

"So." His mouth was right by my ear. "This secret lover guy."

"Yes?" I sighed.

"Promise it's not Jamie?"

I pulled away slightly. "Why do I have to promise you anything?"

"I guess you don't." He shrugged and pulled me back. "Did you really fuck him? Whoever he was."

"Yes."

"So you've fucked two guys now."

"Yep."

"You never fucked me."

I blinked. "I don't remember you ever offering."

"And if I offered now?"

I looked away, and the trickle of the shower filled the silence while I figured out how to respond. "I definitely wouldn't be ready to reciprocate."

"I know. I wouldn't expect you to." He nudged my chin with his hand, so that I looked up at him again. "I'm just asking - what if I wanted you to fuck me?"

"Do you?"

His eyes locked onto mine. "Yes."

Shit. My pulsing erection in his hand was a testament to the fact that I definitely wanted to fuck him. I could have probably worked up a resistance if the concept had seemed scarier. If it were going to be my first time, I would have had a lot more reasons to not do this with him than I'd had with Jamie.

But it didn't seem like that big a deal any more. Hell, I'd already fucked his boyfriend - with him around and without him. I didn't need to feel this big, emotional attachment to him to do something, if I really wanted to do it. Did I? It was hard to properly rationalise, with his hand on me like that. Like he was pulling at the lever that caused me to make terrible decisions.

As if aware of that thought, he slid his hand right down my shaft, drawing a groan from me. He grinned. "Do you want to fuck me?"

I was panting slightly as I nodded.

He let go. "Okay, finish up and head out. I'll be done here in a few minutes."

"Okay."

I quickly rinsed and grabbed a towel, quickly drying myself off on my way into the bedroom. I draped it over his desk chair, and went to sit down on the bed. A flash of light and motion at the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I saw a message from Nick pop up on his phone.

I didn't read it, but it felt like Nick's name was trying to catch my attention, so I stood up, flipped the phone over and took a few steps away from the bed. I'd almost had enough time to start wondering why I was going through with this, when Eric stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam and marched right towards me.

He grabbed me and pulled me into another kiss, his hand immediately wrapping itself around my dick. "Sorry, took a little longer than I thought."

"It's okay." I'd lost my erection while I was walking around, but it didn't take much attention to get it hard again.

He slowly led me to the bed, giving me a gentle nudge as we reached it, and I sat down. He got on his knees in front of me, slipped my entire shaft into his mouth, and began enthusiastically bobbing away. I leaned back and groaned, and he hummed playfully. The sensation almost made me twitch.

He pulled off and looked up at me, a nervous smile on his lips. "You ready?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah."

He reached over to the bedside table and pulled out a condom. He masterfully got it on me and had me lubed up in seconds, never taking his eyes off my face while he was busy. "Lie back."

"Okay." I shuffled more onto the bed, and lay flat, my dick standing upright like a mast.

He climbed on top of me, being careful not to press down his full weight. I watched his cock bobbing, occasionally pointing at my face, as he worked his way forwards. He straddled my hips and reached behind him. I felt his hand on my dick, then gasped as I felt myself edge inside of him, and as he gradually lowered himself onto me. He let out a low hiss, and scrunched up his face.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just taking a second to adjust. I told you, I never really got into this."

Then why was he doing it? I didn't want to actually ask him, though. It was probably more important to figure out why I was doing it. And I really didn't want to think about that. I just waited as his breathing gradually eased, and his face slowly relaxed. He leaned forward, braced his arms on either side of my head, and began to slowly gyrate his hips back and forth. The 'why' of anything stopped feeling so important.

Fucking Eric definitely felt different. Jamie was about my size, and Nick was shorter and quite a lot skinnier. Fucking them had also been a lot more active. I'd felt pressed up against them, wrapped around them. With Eric, I was just laying there, and his bulk loomed over me. I wasn't hating it - I got to see his abs, his chest. Run my hands across his muscles as he rocked his hips back and forth.

Eventually, he stopped moving, panting heavily. He looked down at me and grinned. "Having fun?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, it's all right."

"All right?" He let out a breathy laugh. "Thanks for the high praise."

"Sorry."

"I'm kidding." He inhaled deeply. "Can I lie on my back? I'm getting a little uncomfortable."

"Yeah, sure."

He tumbled off of me, and once I'd gotten up he scooted to the edge of the bed. I grabbed his legs and pulled them up to my shoulders - also a bit more of a struggle than Jamie's had been. But Eric's bed sat higher, so I didn't have to bend my knees to line up the tip of my dick perfectly with his hole.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I gently slid in, and he groaned, looking up at me with a happy grin. I slowly started building up into a slow rhythm, pumping in and out of him as I stroked his dick. We grunted, panted and moaned, our bodies covered in sweat.

He stretched out an arm towards me, imploringly. When I leaned forward towards it, he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me into a kiss. As I pulled away from him, he didn't let me go. He held me a few inches away from his face, and stared deeply into my eyes. "I love you."

"What?" I twisted out of his grip, my dick slipping out of him as I stepped back slightly.

He propped himself up on one arm, and looked up at me. "I love you."

"I should go." I ripped off the condom and tossed it into the bin next to his bed. Grabbing my clothes, I climbed into my boxers, and wrestled myself into my shirt. I began to try and force my still-raging erection into my jeans when he started to speak again.

"Where are you going?" He sat upright, shifting himself towards the edge of the bed. His tone was sharp. Angry.

"Home." I gritted my teeth.

He sat up, looking annoyed. "Seriously?"

"What?" I asked defensively.

"I just told you I loved you."

"I heard." I pulled on my jeans. "And it was fucking inappropriate."

"Why?"

My head could have exploded at that moment. "Are you being serious?"

"Yes." Something about the simple way he said it took me from annoyed to enraged.

"Because I'm not your fucking boyfriend, Eric." I jammed on a shoe. "You have one already, who you apparently don't even really like."

"Okay, fine. I've made some mistakes."

"That's a fucking understatement." I jammed on my other shoe. "What the hell was your game-plan here? We profess our love, you tell Nick to fuck off, and we live happily ever after?"

He frowned, and shrugged.

"Life's not a movie, Eric." I was nearly shouting as I went for the door. "And people aren't your fucking props."

"Tell me you don't love me," he said as I put my hand on the door handle.

"Fine." I turned around, crossed my arms, and gave him a cold stare. "I don't love you."

He didn't move at first, but I could see him inwardly crumple. He'd been standing up, his fists clenched, and his eyes on me. I exhaled slowly as I watched his head drop and his shoulders slacken. He didn't say anything as I opened the door and let myself out. I closed it softly behind me, suddenly too drained to feel angry.

The walk home didn't help me clear my mind. I just felt very, very guilty. I couldn't get it out of my mind. The way Eric's face had fallen kept playing back in my head, over and over. It looked like something had broken inside of him. And my words had done that.

Then there was Nick. I couldn't help but feel that whatever was about to happen between them wasn't going to be good, and that it would be my fault. There were so many things I could have done differently. At the very least I could have not gotten tangled up with the two of them.

Was this all sex was? All it was going to be? Eric, heartbroken. Jamie, freaked out. Nick, cynical and emotionless. What was even the point of doing stuff that felt good in the moment, if I was just going to feel like this afterwards. Did this ever go well for anyone?

And the one person I wanted to comfort me, reassure me that it was okay, I couldn't bring myself to even talk to. Louis would never have done anything like this. Jesus, he put up with a lot, but would even he think what I'd done was okay? I pulled my phone out when I got into my room and just stared at the screen with our messages for what felt like hours.

In the end though, I couldn't do it. I kind of hated myself, and I thought if Louis hated me - or even pitied me, or thought I was gross for just fucking any guy who offered, I wouldn't have been able to bear it. I opened my messages to Ellie instead, and sent her one.

Hey

She didn't respond for the rest of the day. I tried to distract myself, without much success. After dinner with my family, I threw myself down in bed, wishing I could have changed the past. Left Eric the fuck alone, from the beginning. Never met Nick, never done stuff with Jamie.

But then I also wouldn't have been such good friends with Louis. That thought almost made me want to talk to him about it, but Ellie messaged before I found the courage.

Hey!

Sorry, I was with Gary today

He's working at the ferris wheel at the waterfront tomorrow. You should swing by. Keep me company.

I groaned, and put my phone down. I could tell Ellie when I saw her, and everything would be fine. Maybe. In the meantime, I could sleep, and avoid being me for a few hours.

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Terms: (Not necessarily appearing in this chapter)

• Matric - Final year of schooling in South Africa. (Senior year is the American equivalent, I think.)

• Moderation - Sort of an educational audit, where external moderators check up on the school's standards.

• Prelims - Mock finals, essentially mid-terms, but specifically geared to prepare you for finals.

• Maths - Self explanatory, of course, but I just want to make the point that the are MANY mathematics, so calling it Math is bizarre. Get your shit together, America.

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