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rivers_bend at 07:39pm on 07/01/2012 under adam/tommy, fan fiction, lbb, nc17, rpf, slash, you only live forever
rivers_bend at 07:39pm on 07/01/2012 under adam/tommy, fan fiction, lbb, nc17, rpf, slash, you only live foreverMaster Post
Prologue
Shouting so he can be heard from downstairs, Adam’s dad calls, “Adam! Get your butt in the car, or we’ll be late.”
Poking his head over the banister, Adam sees him standing by the front door, keys in hand. He has his I-have-to-drive-in-LA-traffic frown on, but it’s hardly Adam’s fault his parents decided to move to Santa Monica where you have to drive through LA to get just about anywhere, but especially back to Burbank, where they had a perfectly good house, and Adam had friends, and― ugh moving is stupid. “Coming,” he says, and he is. He finally found his other shoe―in the hamper in the bathroom, because his little brother is a total dickface―and he has Tommy’s present, and his new school jeans have been washed and dried enough times that they don’t look starched to the point of standing up on their own. And he wants to see Tommy. He really does. He just doesn’t particularly want to meet any of Tommy’s new friends.
“Now, or we’re not going at all.”
Adam shuts his bedroom door tight—his parents won’t let him get a lock even though Neil always does stuff like stealing his shoes—and goes downstairs.
The party, when they get there, is pretty much what Adam expected. He’s the last one to arrive, even though they only left like three minutes after the time his dad said, and everyone is in the back yard kicking around with a soccer ball. “Go and join them, sweetie,” Mrs. Ratliff says, taking the present from him and waving out the door to Adam’s dad where he’s idling at the curb to make sure Adam gets in the house okay. Adam hated soccer when he was little and his parents thought it would be good for him, and he always thought Tommy hated it too. He seems to like it fine now though, running around with the other boys, smiling, barely pausing to say hi when Adam appears at the edge of the lawn. A tall blond kid gets the ball past another kid playing goalie between a sweatshirt and a tree, and half the boys whoop and the other half groan.
Tommy does stop then, flaps his hand at Adam and says, “C’mon, you’re on my team.” Which is something, considering Tommy knows how well Adam plays.
“I’m Mark,” says a kid in a striped polo shirt with hair like Neil’s, and another guy says, “Kevin,” and actually holds out his hand for Adam to shake. Everyone else is busy wrestling the goal-scoring kid to the ground, and don’t seem to notice Adam’s joined them.
Not that Adam ever gets a foot on the ball. No one passes it to him, and the two guys playing forward on Tommy’s team are pretty good, so Adam just kind of stands around near Kevin who’s alternating guarding the goal and shouting encouragement. Finally, Mrs. Ratliff calls them in for food.
There’s a taco bar set up on the kitchen island, and Adam waits until everyone’s done pushing and shoving to get a plate and help himself. There’s nowhere left to sit near Tommy once Adam gets to the living room, but no one is sitting in the big arm chair that used to be Adam’s favorite spot when he’d watch TV with Tommy’s family when he still lived up the street. Mr. and Mrs. Ratliff and Tommy’s sister Lisa would share the sofa, and Adam would curl up in the chair while Tommy took the giant ottoman, using Adam’s wide chair arm as a backrest. Adam settles into it now, and feels comfortable for the first time since getting out of bed this morning. The conversations going on around him become white noise, and he just watches how the boys talk to each other, who seems to be most popular, who’s nicest to Tommy.
Adam’s idly picking the scraps of lettuce off his plate, watching Tommy watch three of the other guys talking intently about something Adam thinks might be a sports team, when Tommy catches Adam’s eye and smiles. It’s not the smile Adam’s seen on his face all day, the one he’s been thinking of as new-Tommy’s smile; it's the one Adam remembers. Even as Adam feels his own face grinning back, he’s overwhelmed with hating his parents for moving, and Tommy’s parents for keeping him from going to music camp the last two years, and never wanting to drive him out to Santa Monica, and everything that means Adam hasn’t seen his best friend in almost ten months. Kevin is sitting on the ottoman, and it’s on the other side of the room, but Adam wants to push him off it and drag it over so Tommy can sit next to him again and they can talk about everything, easy, without having to be cool.
But then Mrs. Ratliff comes in and says it’s time for cake, and when Adam tries to stand near Tommy at the table, Tommy moves away, stands between two of the kids who didn’t even bother looking at Adam when he got there late, leaving Adam standing mostly alone until Tommy’s dad comes out and puts a hand on Adam’s shoulder like he feels sorry for him. Because Adam wasn’t feeling enough like a loser already. When it comes time to sing, Adam just moves his mouth and doesn’t make a sound. It’s the first time Adam can remember having an opportunity to sing and not taking it.
After cake, Tommy’s dad sets up a piñata in the back yard. Tommy’s had one every year, and a lot of times Adam got to go with him and his dad to pick it out. This year he got one Adam’s pretty sure is supposed to be Freddie Krueger. Adam overhears a group of the guys complaining that they’re not little kids and piñatas are stupid. Adam’s never been all that into this part of the party, but this year he’s glad to get a chance to hit something.
Of course the boys who complained the most about having a piñata at all are the ones greediest with the candy when it spills out onto the ground. They’re grabbing it up and filling their bags when parents start to arrive. Adam doesn’t see his dad in the cluster of adults near the door, and he wishes he’d just hurry up already. Somehow when the phone rings, Adam knows it’s him, so he’s not surprised when Mrs. Ratliff comes over to say his dad’s going to be about half an hour late. Adam wonders if he can go wait on the curb. Probably Tommy’s mom won’t let him, though, even if Tommy would prefer it if he did.
But as the last of the other kids leave, Tommy smiles at him again, taking Adam’s hand and pulling him toward the stairs. “C’mon, I want to show you something,” he says, eager. Happy.
The floor is littered with books instead of comics, bits of electrical junk that might have been an amp at some point instead of legos, video games instead of board games, but thanks to the discarded clothes, looks a lot like it used to when they were little. Tommy’s bouncing on his toes like he did whenever he got a new toy he couldn’t wait for Adam to see, and Adam relaxes back onto the bed when Tommy puts him there, saying “Hang on,” heading for the dresser in the corner.
Adam’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it definitely isn’t a crumpled packet of Marlboro Menthol Lights, a lighter peeking out of the torn corner.
“Where’d you get those?” Adam hisses, not wanting to draw the attention of Tommy’s parents. He’s sure they wouldn’t approve.
"I lifted them. Want one?" Tommy flops down on the bed, head under the open window, holding out the pack.
"Won't your mom smell the smoke?"
"Nah, that's why we blow it outside. You'll have to come over here though. It's no good you sitting on the end of the bed, it's too far away." Tommy scoots up, pulling a pillow over and propping his head on the window sill. Torn between being scared of getting caught and scared Tommy will go back to ignoring him, Adam moves closer as instructed. A challenge in his eyes, Tommy hands him a cigarette and the lighter.
Adam’s never smoked, but he’s paid attention to people lighting cigarettes. Putting the filter in his mouth, he flicks the wheel of the lighter. It takes a few tries to spin it fast enough to spark the gas, and Tommy’s watching the whole time, mouth twitching. Adam wants to say, “fuck you,” wants to shove the cigarette back at Tommy and tell him to light it himself if he wants one, but he just keeps trying. When Adam finally gets the flame to touch the end of the cigarette, he sucks in too hard and ends up coughing violently, flailing, dropping the lighter and nearly burning Tommy in the face with the glowing butt-end.
"Hey! Watch it!" Tommy plucks the cigarette from his fingers, putting it between his own lips. "And quiet down will you? Mom will be up here if you keep that up."
Adam leans over Tommy to get the other pillow to muffle his coughing, and feels a warm brush of fingers on his waist, making him jerk backwards and nearly fall off the bed. When he finally gets the coughing under control, Adam looks at Tommy over the top of the pillow, finds him watching Adam through his eyelashes, cigarette held loosely between his fingers, ribbon of smoke trailing out the window. He probably thinks he looks like a rock star or something, but he just looks stupid. Adam keeps the pillow over his face. What the hell happened to his best friend? Since Adam saw him last he’s turned into kind of a jerk.
They sit in silence, Adam wishing his dad would just get here already, until, taking a final drag, Tommy stubs out the butt on the windowsill and pushes himself up on his elbows. "You okay now?" he asks.
Still watching from behind the pillow, Adam nods. Tommy’s staring at him like he’s not sure if Adam’s telling the truth or not. Adam doesn't know what to say, so he just stares back.
Shifting his weight to one arm, Tommy reaches out and draws the pillow away. Adam lets him. Reaching out again, Tommy takes Adam's wrist and pulls him forwards, ignoring Adam's resistance, tightening his grip so Adam overbalances and falls onto Tommy's chest. Adam doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on. His heart is fluttering against Tommy's ribs, and Tommy’s face is so close Adam can’t focus on it, then there’s a hand on the back of his head and Tommy's mashing his lips into Adam’s, sliding his tongue wetly between them, tasting of smoke and chocolate. He’s kissing him. They’re kissing. Kissing, and it’s not like they’re playing spin the bottle or truth or dare or any of those other games Adam was glad he wasn’t going to have to worry about when he found out Tommy wasn’t having girls at his party. They’re just here in Tommy’s room and Tommy’s kissing him for no reason at all.
Planting his hands on Tommy's shoulders, Adam shoves away, slides off the bed, runs down the stairs and out the front door. He’s four streets away when he sees his father's car turn the corner. Luckily, his dad’s got his bluetooth in, and by the time he’s finished his phone call, he forgets to ask Adam why he was in the street instead of at Tommy’s house.
It’s the tail end of summer, and Adam’s watching Rachel Maddow with his dad, waiting for it to be over so he can steal the remote and watch Project Runway. He started watching it in self defense because his friend Danielle’s obsessed with it and talks about it all the time, but it’s kind of fascinating how they turn all those scraps into actual outfits, and how do you not like Tim Gunn? Even Adam’s mom watches sometimes because she thinks he’s a sweetheart. (Adam isn’t sure that’s the word he’d use, but whatever.) When the phone rings, Eber doesn’t even glance away from the television, so Adam goes to get it.
“Hello?” He’s hoping it’s for his dad so he can maybe get the TV early and doesn’t have to risk Eber trying to watch whatever’s on after Rachel. But the voice on the other end says, “Adam?”
Since he finally got his own phone when he started high school, Dani and the kids from his theater group mostly call him on that. The voice definitely sounds like someone his age, though. “Yes?” he says.
“Hey, it’s Tommy. Whatchu doin’?”
“I― Tommy?” It’s been three years. First Adam was too embarrassed to call, then he was mad that Tommy didn’t call since it was his fault things were weird, then it had just been too long, and he had no idea what he’d say, anyway.
“Yeah, so do you wanna get some pizza tomorrow night?”
Adam’s heart is racing, his face and chest are all prickly, he can hardly breathe, and Tommy just sounds like they’re ten again, playing all day and Tommy wants to know if Adam can stay for dinner.
“Pizza?” It would be really awesome if Adam could do anything but repeat Tommy’s words back at him.
“CPK at Hollywood and Highland. Six o’clock okay for you?”
“Won’t it be kind of crowded on a Friday night?” Which sounds nothing like Why are you calling me after three years to go have pizza in tourist hell? which is what Adam’s thinking.
“It’s usually worse after seven. It’ll be cool.”
Adam wants to ask why now, and why pizza, but apparently the part of him that still lies in bed at night and wonders what Tommy’s doing, and wishes he at least had a Facebook so Adam could see what he’s up to without having to have that awkward, so remember how you kissed me that one time? conversation, is in charge of his mouth right now, because he says, “Okay, six o’clock,” instead. On the plus side, it doesn’t seem like Tommy’s planning on having that conversation anyway. Adam is grateful for that as Tommy says, “Later,” and hangs up.
“Who was that?” Eber asks as Adam sits down on the sofa again. Rachel is talking to the guy with red hair, so the show must be almost over.
“Tommy.”
“Tommy Joe? How’s he doing?”
Adam’s starting to wonder if he’s the only one who noticed that he and Tommy haven’t said one word to each other in three years.
“We’re having pizza tomorrow night. I guess I’ll find out then?”
“Your mom and I are going out, so we can’t drive you. Are you meeting somewhere you can take the bus?”
Adam forgot his parents had their supper club. At least he doesn’t have to watch his brother. “Yeah,” he says. “Hollywood. I’ll be fine.” Adam can’t wait til he’s sixteen. Having to get the bus everywhere blows.
“Text us if you’re going anywhere afterwards, and absolutely no getting in a car with anyone under eighteen.”
Eber reminds Adam of this rule every time he leaves the house. Adam’s stopped saying, “I know, Dad,” or trying for sarcasm; he just says, “Okay.” He doesn’t even know anyone under eighteen who drives except Marco from his theater group, and he’s a total stickler for rules and would never risk losing his license driving other kids around.
“And tell Tommy your mom and I say hi,” Eber says as he hands Adam the remote of his own volition and wanders off in the direction of the kitchen. Ignoring the bizarre turn his life has taken in the last fifteen minutes, Adam gets his phone out of his pocket and texts Danielle: “So who you think’s gettin eliminated 2nite?”
Tommy was right that even on a Friday, at six o’clock there isn’t too bad a wait for tables. Adam doesn’t see a sign anywhere that all parties must be present before anyone can be seated, so he puts his name down even though Tommy isn’t there yet. It’s about ten past six when they call him, and no one protests when he says his friend is on his way, they just ask if he wants a drink while he’s waiting. By six thirty, Adam’s starting to wonder if this is Tommy’s idea of a joke. Scared the waiter’s patience is going to run out, Adam orders garlic bread he doesn’t really want, then wonders why he bothered. He looks like a total loser, all alone on a Friday night in a crowded restaurant. The ice is melting in his Coke, making it taste slightly bitter. Adam’s flicked his phone open and closed a hundred times even though it’s useless because he doesn’t even know if Tommy has a cell, and it’s not like Tommy has Adam’s number to send him a message, even if he does.
“Anything else?” Adam’s waiter interrupts his internal argument about staying or going. Fuck it. Adam doesn’t have to put up with this. There’s bound to be a movie starting somewhere nearby just after seven, and at least in a crowded theater it’s not so obvious you’re alone.
“Just―“ Adam starts, intending to get the check and get the hell out, but then a familiar shape slouches through the door. Tommy’s taller now, has a ring in his lip, and another in his eyebrow, and his short brown hair has been bleached bright white, but he still has that hungry-eyed look Adam remembers from the last time he saw him. The waiter follows Adam's gaze, flaring his nostrils slightly at the boy in baggy jeans and an oversized black trench coat weaving his way through the tables. Tommy doesn't exactly blend in with the crowd.
"I'll come back to take your order," the waiter says, sounding totally unimpressed. Adam isn't impressed either, and wishes again that he'd left after the first twenty minutes.
Pulling out his chair and sliding bonelessly into it, Tommy stretches out one booted foot and nudges Adam's ankle. "Hey. Sorry I'm late. Places to go, people to do…"
Even though he’s pissed, Adam shrugs like it doesn't matter. Tommy’s―god. He’s like David Bowie meets Bender in The Breakfast Club (which is still Adam’s mom’s favorite movie, even though it’s like a hundred years old). If Adam’s really honest with himself, he’ll admit that there were a few moments since Tommy’s call that he’s thought about Tommy maybe wanting to kiss him again. But there is no way this kid wants to kiss Adam. That would be like Bender wanting to kiss Brian or something. Not going to happen. Tommy’s hot. And cool. And all the things Adam isn’t. This was such a bad idea.
"We eating? I'm hungry." Tommy manages to sound like Adam’s the one nearly forty-five minutes late. Like it’s his fault they aren't already ordering dessert.
You’re the one who’s late,” Adam snaps. “We’d be eating already if you'd gotten here on time. What do you even want from me?” Adam isn't usually snippy to his friends, but he’s not even sure Tommy still falls into that category.
Tommy's lip ring twitches in amusement, but he snags his menu and doesn't say anything.
Adam chose when he first got here, but picks up his menu again for something to look at. He sees movement out of the corner of his eye and looks up to see Tommy picking up Adam's Coke and putting Adam's straw in his mouth. The tip of his tongue darts out for a moment, making Adam's stomach lurch uncomfortably. He stares dumbly as Tommy sucks up a mouthful of soda, pulling the straw out of his mouth before swallowing. "Kind of watery," Tommy says.
"The ice melted while I was waiting for you. What are you doing drinking my Coke anyway?" Adam fantasizes about pushing away from the table and striding out of the restaurant, leaving Tommy alone to pay for the glass of watery soda and the cold, rubbery garlic bread. He can sit there like he’s the one who’s been stood up. Instead, Adam snatches the glass back, plucking the straw out and throwing it on the table, and drinks down the rest in one swallow.
The waiter’s back. "What can I get you?"
Tommy goes first. "I'll have a Margherita pizza and a beer."
"I don't think so. Pizza and a Coke, maybe."
Tommy looks for a moment like he’s going to argue, but backs off under the waiter's stare. "Fine, I'll have a Coke."
"I'll have a Giardiniera and another Coke too, please." Adam’s aware he’s being extra polite out of embarrassment but he can't stop.
"Margherita and a Giardiniera and two Cokes." Rolling his eyes, the waiter tucks his pad into his apron and heads towards the back.
"Did you really think he was going to bring you a beer?"
"I've gotten beer before. Some places don't ask for ID. They can't do anything to you for asking."
Adam doesn't know what to say to that. Tommy’s fifteen. There’s no way he's ever been served alcohol in a restaurant. Tired of whatever game Tommy’s playing, Adam says, "So what are we doing here?"
"I like it here. The pizzas are good."
"But what am I doing here? Why did you call me? We haven't spoken in three years. Why now?"
Tommy worries at the ring in his lip with his teeth. "I just thought you might like to get a pizza is all. No special reason."
The waiter comes back with their drinks and Adam turns his attention to the other customers as he toys with his new straw. The other one―the one that’s been in Tommy's mouth―is still sitting on the table, right by Adam's wrist. He can feel Tommy's eyes on him, but works hard to ignore them. It’s awkward as hell, but Adam isn’t going to be the one to break. Tommy’s the one who wanted to do this, he can be the one to make conversation if he’s not even going to answer Adam’s simple questions. They’re still sitting in silence when their food comes out. Adam picks up his knife and fork and starts cutting.
Like he was just waiting for food to loosen his tongue, Tommy says, “So do you really like all those vegetables, or do you just order them to be a good boy?"
"I like vegetables." Adam tries to match Tommy's look of disdain. "Isn't that pizza boring? You could have gotten pepperoni or something."
"I like it better like this." Tommy sounds irritated, but then he breaks, grinning, looking for the first time like the kid Adam remembers, and he twirls a piece of cheese around his finger with a flourish, popping it into his mouth.
Adam can't help but smile back at the display. "Classy."
Still smiling, Tommy says, "Simple pleasures."
After that things start to get easier. Tommy drops some of his attitude and they just talk. About school, and music, and what movies they've seen recently. Definitely not about Tommy’s birthday party and what happened afterwards, though every time Tommy starts a sentence with ‘remember when’ Adam cringes inside, but Tommy just brings up old games they used to play and teachers they used to have, and the summer they taught Adam’s bunkmate how to swim in the pool at camp. By the time they’re nibbling at the last edges of crust, Adam’s actually glad he came.
They split the bill 50/50, even though Adam’s pizza cost more and Tommy didn’t eat any of the garlic bread. “Least I could do for making you wait,” Tommy says when Adam tries to argue. Adam takes it as the apology Tommy clearly intends it to be.
"Can you hang some more?" Tommy asks as they push through the doors of the restaurant into the street.
Since Adam’s parents won’t be back until late, and it’s not like he has a fixed curfew anyway, he nods, and they head away from the madness of Hollywood Boulevard until they get to a quiet street where the trees and parked cars seem part of some stage set, illuminated by the never-really-darkness of the city.
Seeing a little pocket park at the end of the block, Tommy skips ahead, twirling round and walking backwards so he can watch Adam. He narrowly avoids trampling a small dog pulled out of the way by its owner at the last moment, and then falls off the curb, laughing at Adam's wide eyes. "Come on. Hurry up," he calls, and Adam quickens his pace until they’re side by side. They cross the road to the park.
Under the shadowed side of a tree, Tommy stops and leans against the trunk. He looks dangerous, his spiky hair the only thing Adam can see clearly in the dark. It’s the exciting kind of dangerous, though, not the serial killer kind. Adam’s pretty sure that under the lip ring and bravado, Tommy’s still the kid who let Adam drive his KITT car the first day they met. Not a hundred percent sure, though, so Adam stays in the circle of light from the streetlamp.
Tommy gestures Adam closer with two slim fingers protruding from the overlong sleeve of his coat. "C'mere."
Adam takes a step closer. Impatiently, Tommy gestures again, and Adam steps close enough for Tommy to grab the front of his jacket. It’s still not serial-killer scary, but Adam is definitely reconsidering the idea that Tommy’s forgotten all about his party and would never want to kiss him. Looking down at Tommy's hand fisted around the edge of denim hanging open over his t-shirt, he imagines he can feel the heat of Tommy's knuckles on his stomach through the thin cotton and millimeters of air between them. Tommy tugs until Adam has his right foot between Tommy's boots, until their thighs are nearly touching. Adam can't fill his lungs. He stops breathing altogether when Tommy's hand releases his jacket and snakes around his waist instead.
"No running off this time," Tommy says, before pulling Adam against him with the hand on the small of his back. Adam feels Tommy's fingers twist in his hair, and then they’re kissing. Nothing like it looks on TV, it’s all sloppy with open mouths and sharp teeth, and it kind of feels like Tommy is biting Adam’s lips, which is not something Adam would have said he liked the sound of, but when it’s actually happening, it’s pretty awesome. Adam even likes metal taste of Tommy’s lip ring. They’re in a park, and it’s not that late, and anyone could see them, but Adam can’t seem to tear himself away from Tommy’s grip. He’s known for a while now that if he ever kissed anyone he hoped it would be a boy, but he never imagined it out in the open like this. He’d thought more like his college dorm, or at least someone’s house. Adam checks in with his legs, but they definitely don’t seem to be planning on running.
Releasing Adam's hair, leaving his scalp tingling, Tommy drops his hand to Adam's ass, canting his hips forwards, grinding against Adam's thigh as he pulls Adam hard against his hipbone. Adam can't tell if the soft noises reaching his ears are coming from his throat or Tommy's, or if they're swapping moans as well as spit. He pulls away, gasping for breath, flushed hot but with gooseflesh stirring the hair at the back of his neck.
Dropping his head back against the tree, Tommy breathes, "Fuck. When do you have to be home?"
Adam takes a second to figure out what the words mean and another to get what the question implies. He tries to extricate himself from Tommy's grip, but Tommy’s stronger than he looks.
"No. Come on. You want this." Tommy rubs lewdly against Adam's hard-on. "Let me touch you." The hand on Adam's ass moves towards his fly. Gripping Tommy’s wrist tightly, stopping him, Adam looks wildly around to see if anyone’s watching them. "Or come home with me. No one's there. Just for a little while. Please."
Adam does want this. He never thought he’d get it, not for years, anyway, and not with someone who looks like Tommy looks, and he’s still not sure he’s ready to admit he thinks about boys like this to his parents or his friends or anyone, but there is no way he’s saying no.
When Adam nods, Tommy kisses him once, hard on the lips, and taking his hand, runs for the metro.
They have to stand on the train, but once they get off the metro and emerge onto the street again it’s quiet. Too late for commuters and too early for the nightlife crowd to be heading home, the bus when it comes is almost empty. There are four girls near the front laughing and shrieking over something one of them is holding, and a guy sleeping with his head against the window, but Tommy and Adam are alone in the back. Tommy’s hand is on Adam's dick through his jeans, the skirt of his coat draped over Adam's lap. Adam wants to stop him, wants to thrust into that hand until he comes, wants to suck on Tommy's lip ring and tongue. Instead he sits, stock still, watching Tommy's reflection in the glass as Tommy smirks in the direction of the giggling gang.
They wind through Studio City, Tommy's hand a constant tease making Adam's breath catch and his thighs clench so tightly they ache. When the girls pile off the bus Tommy leans in and bites Adam's earlobe. "Next stop," he whispers, and squeezes to emphasize his point. Adam bites his tongue and shuts his eyes, wishing desperately that Tommy would just leave him alone for a minute to let him get some air in his lungs.
A group of older boys, sixteen or seventeen years old, push and shove their way to the fare box. Tommy apparently has some sense of self preservation left; by the time they’ve paid the driver, his hands are in his own lap and he’s leaning away from Adam, looking out the opposite window. The bus lurches, knocking the smallest boy hard into the biggest. The tall one shoves him into a seat. "Hey, faggot, watch where you're going."
Adam thinks he might throw up. The Tommy he knew would never talk to strangers on a bus, never do anything to call attention to himself, but this new Tommy might do anything. Adam’s night can only handle so much excitement.
Nothing else happens though. The small boy holds out a placating hand, and says, "Sorry, sorry. I just lost my balance." Everyone ignores him.
When they've all settled into seats, Tommy stands and presses the bell. Hunching in an effort to hide the bulge in his jeans, Adam follows him over the obstacle course of sprawling legs to the stairs. The cool air when the bus doors open to release them into the night is a relief.
They’re still several blocks from Tommy's house, one street up from the corner where Eber picked up Adam after the first time Tommy kissed him. “Shit,” Adam says. “Gotta text my parents.” He doesn’t say that he’s pretty sure his dad meant the movies or something, not Burbank, when he said Adam could go somewhere after dinner, because he doesn’t want to seem like a dork who has to check in every time he does anything, but Tommy doesn’t comment. Adam’s had plenty of practice texting and walking, so letting his parents know he’s safe but will be home late doesn’t slow them down. He’s about to slide his phone back into his pocket when Tommy grabs it from him.
“Giving you my number,” Tommy says before Adam has time to protest. Adam’s distracted by Tommy’s fingers as he slides the phone back into Adam’s pocket, and doesn’t notice that Tommy doesn’t put Adam’s number in his own phone.
By the time he’s over the brush of Tommy’s fingertips, they’re passing Adam’s old house―painted something dark now, instead of the pale gray it was when he lived there―then they’re in Tommy’s front yard, then on his porch, then inside with the door shut and nothing but the way Adam seems to be totally paralyzed to stop them kissing again.
“Want a drink?” Tommy offers.
Adam shakes his head.
“Wanna go upstairs?”
Licking his lips nervously, Adam nods.
Tommy's bedroom is no cleaner than the last time Adam saw it, and Tommy has to kick aside a pile of books and clothes to clear a path from the door to the bed. The bed Adam’s sat on more times than he could count, the bed he’s slept on when Tommy was being generous and taking the sleeping bag on the floor, the bed where Adam had his first and only kiss. Until tonight. Tonight there has definitely been kissing. And now there’s a bed and they’re going to do more than kissing, probably, if Adam can just keep breathing.
Like all of this isn’t remotely terrifying, Tommy flings his coat casually over his desk chair and urges Adam closer so he can push Adam's jacket off his shoulders to get lost in the general mess on the floor. Adam can hear his own mom preaching about hanging things up when you’re done with them, and Tommy’s mom telling Tommy that Adam will have to go home if he doesn’t get all the dirty clothes in the hamper by the time she counts to ten, and Adam really doesn’t want to be thinking about anyone’s parents right now. “C’mon,” Tommy says. “Don’t you wanna―“
Adam does want to, except now Tommy’s tugging at Adam's shirt like he’s planning on taking it off. The lamp on his desk is shining on Adam like a spotlight, and Adam isn’t ready to be shirtless in the spotlight. Not with Tommy, who seems to have skipped the part of puberty where your height hasn’t quite caught up with your weight, and who doesn’t seem to have any pimples or freckles or any of the other things that make Adam frown when he looks in the mirror. It’s not like when they were little and it didn’t matter what either of them looked like. Tommy wants to kiss Adam now, and Adam would like him to keep wanting that. Squeaking a little in protest, Adam takes Tommy’s hands off the hem of his shirt, lifting them around his neck, then puts his own on Tommy’s waist like they’re slow dancing.
“I want to,” he says when Tommy looks at him quizzically.
Fortunately, Tommy doesn’t ask questions, just takes advantage of his new grip to pull Adam down, kissing and biting the spot under his ear. It feels so fucking good, like when Tommy was grinding on him in the park, and Adam forgets all about wishing Tommy would let him leave his shirt on, and sinks onto the bed, pulling Tommy down on top of him.
They grapple, mouths and hands hot on each other's skin, Adam thinking, this is making out. This is making out. This is making out, until he’s not thinking about anything at all except how Tommy needs to be closer. Everything is hot. So, so hot, and clothing gets pushed and tugged and stretched, legs tangle and press, and Adam wonders if it’s actually possible to go on kissing forever.
Finally they lie panting―Adam with one foot on the floor, Tommy half on top of him, his booted feet hanging off the side of the bed. "No shoes on the bed,” Tommy says, somehow sounding both firm and like the rule is a surprise to him right now.
Disentangling his fist from Tommy's twisted t-shirt, Adam allows him to sit up and unlace his boots. Adam would like to take his own shoes off, but Tommy’s sitting between his splayed legs and he isn't sure he can sit up. Or convince his fingers to work. Besides, he likes watching Tommy taking his boots off. He likes it even more when Tommy takes his shirt off next.
When he realizes Adam’s just lying there, Tommy nudges his thigh, then fingers the hem of Adam's shirt, running the flat of his hand across Adam's stomach. "Shirt off too." That idea’s still not Adam’s favorite, but the bed’s mostly in shadow, and the need to have Tommy closer is still buzzing under his skin, so Adam lets Tommy pull him upright. While he’s toeing off his shoes, Tommy takes care of his shirt for him. Despite his determination to be as casual about it as Tommy is, Adam crosses his arms over his chest and shivers in the draft coming around the edge of the window.
"Do you want to get under the covers?"
Adam nods.
They lie down next to each other, comforter up to their shoulders. Adam thinks now that they’re actually in Tommy’s bed it might be like when they were six and hiding under the covers with a flashlight trying to finish the Lego Death Star after final, final lights out time, but it’s nothing like that at all, and he isn't sure what he’s supposed to do. But then he doesn't have to think about it because Tommy’s pushing him down onto his back and kissing him again, and Adam's arms wrap around Tommy's waist of their own accord.
Making out with no shirts on is totally amazing; Adam could probably get off forever on just thinking about Tommy lying on top of him like this. The heat and weight of him, the slightly sticky friction as they shift and move, and god, the way Tommy feels under his hands. Tommy’s skin is thin and stretched tightly over his bones, but it moves under Adam's fingers, softer and more pliable than he expected, not really that different from Adam’s own. Then Tommy’s hand is on Adam's stomach again, fingers teasing under his waistband, and all thoughts of skin are replaced with a need to have those fingers wrapped around him, tempered, as Tommy’s fingers grow more determined, by a fear of Tommy touching him there without the dubious protection of denim.
Tommy apparently has no such fear because he’s fumbling with Adam's button and zipper, pushing Adam's boxers out of the way, and sighing into Adam's mouth as his hand reaches flesh. "You're so hard.”
Adam face heats up and he starts to protest, but Tommy’s kissing him again and it seems that wasn’t a complaint. Tommy’s hard too―Adam can feel it against his hip. He must want this, or he wouldn’t be here, his thigh heavy on Adam's leg, his fingers cupping the back of Adam's head. Taking a deep breath, Adam thrusts into the hand stroking him, tilting his head back, remembering how it felt to have Tommy kissing his neck. Tommy chases his lips, and Adam turns his head more, dragging air in through his mouth against the intensity of the hand moving on his dick, hoping Tommy will get the hint.
“You okay?” Tommy asks, slowing down to a torturous pace.
“Fine,” Adam gasps, going to kiss him again. He doesn’t want Tommy to feel like he’s doing something wrong.
“What d’you want?” Tommy speeds up again jerking Adam off, but he’s propped on one elbow, out of reach of Adam’s lips.
“Nothing,” Adam tries, too embarrassed to ask Tommy for anything more that what he’s already doing. “That’s good.”
But Tommy nudges Adam’s face to the side again with his nose, and kisses the spot below Adam’s ear. “This?” he asks.
Adam can only jerk in response, the whisper of a whimper escaping his throat.
“Yeah,” Tommy says, does it again, mouth open this time, wetter, the ring in his lip sliding over Adam’s skin. “Yeah. You like that.”
Adam really, really does. It doesn’t even matter that Tommy’s getting distracted from the smooth tugs on Adam’s dick, his rhythm going ragged, concentrating too much on the base. Adam’s clutching him with abandon, fingers digging into ribs and ass and waist, up to grip his shoulders, then back down again, trying to pull him in while he arches up into Tommy’s mouth.
“More?” Tommy asks, breathless, and Adam starts whining, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Licking, sucking, kissing his way down Adam’s throat, getting rougher as he goes, Tommy nips at the skin over his collarbone and then bites hard into his chest, sucking a bruise up into his mouth, edges defined by the twin curves of his teeth. It hurts more than Adam expected, the blood throbbing against Tommy’s tongue and in Adam’s cock, and he gasps, twisting against the weight of Tommy's leg, thrusting hard into the fingers tightening around him, coming messily over himself and Tommy's hand and the sheets.
When he looks down at Adam, Tommy has a gleam in his eye that makes Adam look away. It’s like Tommy can see every thought Adam’s ever jerked off to in secret, and Adam can't face anyone else knowing about all that. "I should go," he mumbles into the pillow.
"Not yet." Tommy takes Adam's hand and places it over the bulge in his jeans. "My turn." And god, right, Adam totally isn’t going to be that guy. The selfish lover guy who only cares about his own orgasms. It’s not like he spends all his time reading his mom’s magazines or anything, but he’s read enough to know that’s not cool. Besides which, wow. That’s Tommy’s dick, like right there, and Adam is really into that. Like, super-a-lot, being-gay-is-not-just-a-theory into that.
None of the porn or the jerking off or the fantasizing prepared Adam for the feel of another guy's dick in his palm. It isn't like having his hands on himself; it’s the wrong angle and a different shape. But even with the wrong hand, it feels good. So fucking good. But still the wrong angle and Adam hasn’t got the first clue what the hell he’s doing, and Tommy is seriously in a hurry, undoing buttons, shoving Adam’s hand down and in.
"No, I'm right handed," Adam blurts at the first touch of skin. He’s got no hope at all of being good if he’s doing this with the wrong hand.
Trying to get a better position, Tommy rolls further on top of Adam, but there’s no room on the other side of him to lie. "Stupid single bed. Scoot over." Tommy lifts up a bit to give Adam wiggle room.
It shouldn’t be this difficult, but it takes forever to get themselves situated so Adam can use his right hand. When he’s got it, though, it feels even better. It’s still an awkward angle, and it’s strange to have all the sensation in his hand with none on his dick, but Adam is definitely into boys. He can feel the weight of Tommy, the heat, and the softness of his skin, and even better, they’ve pushed the covers off in their maneuvering and Adam can see the way Tommy’s dick pops out of the circle of his fingers, how red it is, how it’s getting so so slippery the more Adam squeezes and pulls.
“You’re―“ he starts, but it might be rude to point out that Tommy leaks a lot more than Adam does, and besides, Tommy’s shaking and his eyes are squeezed shut tight, and there’s no way he’s even listening. Adam always likes it fast and tight right before he comes, and he hopes Tommy does too. Everything’s so much, hot and close, Tommy’s breath on the side of Adam’s face as he stares down at Tommy’s dick in his hand, watches Tommy’s hips lift as he shoots up over his chest and belly, and Adam thinks maybe he could go again. That it could be like an endless cycle of handjobs and kissing. But when Tommy drops his head heavily to the pillow, all the tension leaking out of him, Adam rests his head on Tommy's shoulder, sharp need dialing back to a satisfied hum. He did that. He made Tommy come all over himself. Curious, Adam runs a finger through the cooling streaks on Tommy's skin and puts it to his tongue.
Tommy shifts, twisting to look at him. "What are you doing?"
Adam doesn't know. "I don't know."
"You're different than I remember."
Adam tenses. Tommy’s obviously done this before. Maybe Adam’s doing it wrong. Probably you’re only supposed to taste a guy’s jizz when you’re actually sucking his dick.
Tommy pokes him gently. “Never said that was a bad thing."
Adam pulls the blanket back up so it’s covering Tommy’s dick and the come that Adam still kind of wants to play with.
“Really. It’s cool.” Tommy sounds like he means it.
Adam relaxes a little under Tommy's stroking fingers, says, "So seriously, why'd you call me?"
Tommy squeezes him tighter. "This wasn't a good enough reason?"
Giving himself a moment to think of an answer, Adam pulls the covers higher, tucking them in. And realizes that’s an answer in itself.
"Thought so," Tommy says into Adam's hair.
No curfew doesn't mean Adam can stay out all night without calling, but by the time he wakes up again, the buses have stopped running. The rule is that it's never too late to phone, but the chances of his dad wanting to drive out to Burbank at half past two in the morning are pretty slim. Adam's not sure if Tommy's parents are out for the night or if they're away, or maybe they came home while Adam and Tommy were asleep and they're gonna freak out if he's still here when they wake up. He's not sure what to do.
"Stop wiggling," Tommy mutters, pushing Adam's chest with a sleep-heavy hand. "Sleepin'."
"I think I have to go." Adam whispers, in case the Ratliffs are home.
"No buses 'til like 4:30." He still doesn't open his eyes, but Tommy moves his leg, making Adam realize he has no feeling at all in his left foot where Tommy's been crushing it.
Adam really has to call his folks. But the last thing he wants to do is get in trouble with Tommy's parents. "Are your parents home?" At least he can know how quiet he needs to be.
"Nah. Hawaii."
Adam would be pissed if his parents went to Hawaii without him, but Tommy just sounds bored. Actually, Adam might sound bored at two in the morning, too, and he'd be fine if they went to New Jersey to visit relatives without him, and Adam's pretty sure he remembers that's where some of Tommy's family lives. "Sorry," Adam says, still whispering, but not as quietly. "I've really gotta call my dad." He tries to lean over Tommy to get to his jacket on the floor, but it's too far to reach. "Sorry," he says again, and starts climbing over Tommy's legs.
"Gotta piss anyway," Tommy grumbles, finally opening his eyes and squinting at Adam in the light from his computer screen. "C'we go back to sleep after, though?”
That at least answers Adam's question about whether Tommy wants him to leave now. While Tommy's in the bathroom Adam checks his phone. Two missed calls and a text saying that if ‘I’m going to Tommy’s house’ meant spending the night he should have said that.
Adam calls his parents and explains that he's safe and still has his bus pass and will be home in the morning. “You need to tell us what you’re doing, Adam, your mother and I aren’t mind readers.”
“I did text,” Adam reminds him. Even though it will just mean a more long-winded version of the SMS lecture his dad already sent.
Tommy comes back while Eber is droning on at Adam about being more precise when he’s sending texts and telling him to get some sleep and they'll talk more in the morning. Tommy's not wearing any of the clothes he fell asleep in. He's not wearing any clothes at all.
"Oh," Adam says, thumbing the hang-up on his phone.
"Fucking jizz all over my pants," Tommy mutters, climbing under the blankets. He holds them up like he's waiting for Adam to join him.
Adam would love to join him. As soon as his legs unfreeze and his eyes stop trying to bore into the shadows to see Tommy's dick.
"Should I―" he says, trying to encompass take my jeans off too and get in and jump you again or let you sleep in a single gesture, but probably failing to convey any of them.
"Just fucking get over here," Tommy says.
In a fit of panicked compromise Adam takes off his jeans and leaves on his come-stained boxers, crawling under the sheets into the tiny space Tommy's left for him. Single beds kind of suck for sharing once you've hit puberty. Except for how he's forced to lie practically on top of Tommy. Naked Tommy. Oh god.
Probably some, like, eighty-year-old guy with prostate cancer or something could avoid getting a boner sharing a single bed with a naked dude who just gave him his first hand job, but Adam is so not that guy. He tries to hunch his hips and keep it to himself―since turning over now would be completely obvious―but Tommy throws his arm across Adam's waist and wriggles closer.
"We're both guys," he says, but his voice is all slurry like he's almost asleep again, so that obviously means, I don't care if you're hard rather than, here let me take care of that for you.
Adam's actually pretty okay with that. His dad and Tommy can't both be wrong; he probably should get some sleep. It won't be the first time he's drifted off in the middle of the night with a tent in his shorts.
Tommy's still asleep when Adam wakes up again, this time with the sun glinting into his eyes. Adam squints at the offending reflective surface and finds a cheap-ass sports trophy, the same one that's still on the top shelf of his parents' bookshelves at home, from Adam's one year playing soccer when he was eight. Despite how much Adam had sucked, his team had made it to league championship even with the requirement that all the players, including Adam, played at least half the game.
The trophy seems out of place with all Tommy's goth rocker paraphernalia, but looking around there are other things too that are clearly just left over from another era: a flocked kangaroo coin bank Adam remembers Tommy getting for Christmas from his dad's friend when they were seven or so; a handful of Matchbox cars; an old clay handprint they made in kindergarten; a plastic slinky. That's the thing about not moving. You don't ever have to sort through your stuff.
Adam finds the dim glow of numbers coming from Tommy's clock. 7:37. He really should go. It's gonna take like two hours to get home from here, and he doesn't want to try his parents' patience. He tries to wake Tommy up, but only gets a grumble in response, so he finds his clothes and uses the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed before trying again.
"I'll call you," Tommy murmurs when Adam finally gets him to understand that he has to leave.
"I'm not some girl," Adam says, because he's not, but he really kind of wants to see Tommy again, even if they don't do the sex stuff―the sex stuff is awesome, but he really did miss his best friend―so he adds, "I'm going to see that Hitchcock thing at the ArcLight next week if you want to come."
"Hell, yeah, Hitchcock," Tommy says, but his eyes are closing again and he's tucking the covers up under his chin.
Adam sees himself out.
Tommy doesn't call, and doesn't text back when Adam texts him to check if he wants to meet up first or meet at the theater for the Hitchcock retrospective. It’s not that there's any reason Adam can't call Tommy, except once he's texted him three times and gotten no reply he feels like calling might be edging into stalker territory. Cosmo and Teen Vogue don’t exactly tell you what you’re supposed to do when the guy you were best friends with your whole childhood calls you up after three years, acts like a jerk, gives you a handjob in his bed, then doesn’t return your texts.
Since he was going to go on his own anyway before he asked Tommy, Adam just does what he’d usually do, which is turn up at the box office forty-five minutes before doors to get tickets, then go get fish tacos while he waits for the doors to open. He doesn’t text Tommy to see if he should get an extra seat, but he does maybe send one just to let Tommy know he’s over at Baja Fresh, just in case. His phone buzzes two seconds after he hits send, and his heart jumps, but it’s only Danielle telling him to have fun and not let The Birds give him nightmares.
Sitting in the theater on his own waiting for Rope to start, Adam reminds himself it's not like they're boyfriends. They used to know each other and they had some pizza and they hooked up. Tommy probably hooks up a lot. He's really fucking hot, and cool and all confident and shit. And sure, after a rocky start it had been almost like old times, talking and joking around, but that doesn’t mean Tommy wanted to be, like, best friends again. They still live on opposite sides of the city, and the buses are really fucking slow, and obviously Tommy is busy and stuff. Adam’s busy too. School’s gonna be starting soon, and he’s got drama and choir, and his mom said he can start voice lessons again if he wants to, now that his teacher’s back from her trip to Africa, so maybe it’s better if he and Tommy don’t try to hang out or anything.
Except Adam really, really wants to. When he was just watching GayTube late at night with the sound muted, jerking off to the pretty guys touching each other, Adam was okay with waiting until he went to college to have actual sex with an actual boy. But now that he knows what he’s missing, he can't stop masturbating.
He hasn't worried that his dick would fall off since he was twelve and his mom told him that Gary Stukey was lying and if touching yourself feels good you should do it as much as you want as long as it isn't interfering with your schoolwork and blah blah some other stuff that frankly Adam was too embarrassed to listen to once he got the message that he wasn't going to lose his junk if he played with it too much. But he's been doing it so often lately that it doesn't always feel good. Sometimes it hurts. And not in the fun way he read about in the magazine Danielle found under her dad's toolbox in the garage. More a raw, red, chaffing kind of pain. And he'll promise he isn't going to do it again until the redness goes away, and then he'll smell tomato sauce, or hear a bus going past, and the memory of Tommy's hands on him is so strong it's a kick in the gut, and he's got his hand in his pants before he knows it. Being fifteen sucks sometimes. Especially when it's so much like being thirteen, because he really thought he'd outgrown this.
If the theater weren’t so crowded, Adam would probably have his hand in his pants right now. Or, not really, because that’s just creepy and gross, but he’s thinking about it, and that can’t be a good sign. He’s always fucking thinking about it, and that’s the problem. Shoving Tommy and his hands and mouth and bed and― Yeah. Not helping. Shoving all the thoughts out of his head, Adam tries to concentrate on the conversation the girls next to him are having while they wait for the lights to go down. But they start talking about how the murderers in the movie are really gay, and they couldn’t show it because it was like 1950 or something―Adam doesn’t correct them on the year―but everyone knew it, like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and wasn’t Paul Newman like the hottest ever, and that isn’t distracting Adam from sex at all. He considers going and jerking off in the bathroom, but he’s in the middle of the row, and the lights are dimming, so he ends up just pressing his ice-cold drink to his crotch and waiting it out.
Rope isn’t exactly a boner killer, but Psycho for sure is, and by the time they get to the break before North by Northwest, Adam isn’t tempted at all to do anything more than piss during the intermission. The crowd by concessions is crazy, people stocking up on popcorn and soda to sustain them through another two films, but it feels too good to stand up and move around for Adam to take refuge in his seat again until he has to. Besides, he’s found a good vantage point on some stairs, and it’s interesting to see who’s here, the mix of people old enough to have seen at least some of these movies the first time around, film-school hipsters with their stupid sunglasses and skinny jeans and scarves even though it’s August in LA, and families and couples, and just people like Adam who like Alfred Hitchcock movies.
Then, across the foyer, Adam sees someone short and slight with a shock of bleached-blond hair, a mess of spiked and floppy and shaved on the sides, and he thinks, he came. Tommy came! He’s pissed Tommy didn’t bother texting him, and frustrated that there are so many people he’s got to fight through to get to him, and there’s still a chance they’ll get called back in before he makes contact, but at least he came.
Except just as Adam’s close enough to say his name, a girl in an I’m not gay but my girlfriend is t-shirt comes up and kisses the blond on the lips, and they turn, and it’s not Tommy at all. Her hair is almost exactly the same, and she’s got the same boy hips and black belt that isn’t doing much to hold her jeans up, but those are definitely boobs stretching out the Vertigo graphic on her chest. It’s a pretty cool t-shirt, but it would probably look better on Tommy.
He’s not really in the mood for more movies, but he’s paid for the ticket, and his mom isn’t due to pick him up until ten, so Adam buys himself some insanely expensive Junior Mints and heads back inside, where, on the plus side, Roger Thornhill is having a worse day than he is. Tommy might be an asshole, but at least no one is kidnapping Adam or trying to kill him with an airplane, and he’s pretty sure that no matter what happens, Tommy's never going to make him scale Mount Rushmore pursued by gunmen in ugly suits.
Part 2
Shouting so he can be heard from downstairs, Adam’s dad calls, “Adam! Get your butt in the car, or we’ll be late.”
Poking his head over the banister, Adam sees him standing by the front door, keys in hand. He has his I-have-to-drive-in-LA-traffic frown on, but it’s hardly Adam’s fault his parents decided to move to Santa Monica where you have to drive through LA to get just about anywhere, but especially back to Burbank, where they had a perfectly good house, and Adam had friends, and― ugh moving is stupid. “Coming,” he says, and he is. He finally found his other shoe―in the hamper in the bathroom, because his little brother is a total dickface―and he has Tommy’s present, and his new school jeans have been washed and dried enough times that they don’t look starched to the point of standing up on their own. And he wants to see Tommy. He really does. He just doesn’t particularly want to meet any of Tommy’s new friends.
“Now, or we’re not going at all.”
Adam shuts his bedroom door tight—his parents won’t let him get a lock even though Neil always does stuff like stealing his shoes—and goes downstairs.
The party, when they get there, is pretty much what Adam expected. He’s the last one to arrive, even though they only left like three minutes after the time his dad said, and everyone is in the back yard kicking around with a soccer ball. “Go and join them, sweetie,” Mrs. Ratliff says, taking the present from him and waving out the door to Adam’s dad where he’s idling at the curb to make sure Adam gets in the house okay. Adam hated soccer when he was little and his parents thought it would be good for him, and he always thought Tommy hated it too. He seems to like it fine now though, running around with the other boys, smiling, barely pausing to say hi when Adam appears at the edge of the lawn. A tall blond kid gets the ball past another kid playing goalie between a sweatshirt and a tree, and half the boys whoop and the other half groan.
Tommy does stop then, flaps his hand at Adam and says, “C’mon, you’re on my team.” Which is something, considering Tommy knows how well Adam plays.
“I’m Mark,” says a kid in a striped polo shirt with hair like Neil’s, and another guy says, “Kevin,” and actually holds out his hand for Adam to shake. Everyone else is busy wrestling the goal-scoring kid to the ground, and don’t seem to notice Adam’s joined them.
Not that Adam ever gets a foot on the ball. No one passes it to him, and the two guys playing forward on Tommy’s team are pretty good, so Adam just kind of stands around near Kevin who’s alternating guarding the goal and shouting encouragement. Finally, Mrs. Ratliff calls them in for food.
There’s a taco bar set up on the kitchen island, and Adam waits until everyone’s done pushing and shoving to get a plate and help himself. There’s nowhere left to sit near Tommy once Adam gets to the living room, but no one is sitting in the big arm chair that used to be Adam’s favorite spot when he’d watch TV with Tommy’s family when he still lived up the street. Mr. and Mrs. Ratliff and Tommy’s sister Lisa would share the sofa, and Adam would curl up in the chair while Tommy took the giant ottoman, using Adam’s wide chair arm as a backrest. Adam settles into it now, and feels comfortable for the first time since getting out of bed this morning. The conversations going on around him become white noise, and he just watches how the boys talk to each other, who seems to be most popular, who’s nicest to Tommy.
Adam’s idly picking the scraps of lettuce off his plate, watching Tommy watch three of the other guys talking intently about something Adam thinks might be a sports team, when Tommy catches Adam’s eye and smiles. It’s not the smile Adam’s seen on his face all day, the one he’s been thinking of as new-Tommy’s smile; it's the one Adam remembers. Even as Adam feels his own face grinning back, he’s overwhelmed with hating his parents for moving, and Tommy’s parents for keeping him from going to music camp the last two years, and never wanting to drive him out to Santa Monica, and everything that means Adam hasn’t seen his best friend in almost ten months. Kevin is sitting on the ottoman, and it’s on the other side of the room, but Adam wants to push him off it and drag it over so Tommy can sit next to him again and they can talk about everything, easy, without having to be cool.
But then Mrs. Ratliff comes in and says it’s time for cake, and when Adam tries to stand near Tommy at the table, Tommy moves away, stands between two of the kids who didn’t even bother looking at Adam when he got there late, leaving Adam standing mostly alone until Tommy’s dad comes out and puts a hand on Adam’s shoulder like he feels sorry for him. Because Adam wasn’t feeling enough like a loser already. When it comes time to sing, Adam just moves his mouth and doesn’t make a sound. It’s the first time Adam can remember having an opportunity to sing and not taking it.
After cake, Tommy’s dad sets up a piñata in the back yard. Tommy’s had one every year, and a lot of times Adam got to go with him and his dad to pick it out. This year he got one Adam’s pretty sure is supposed to be Freddie Krueger. Adam overhears a group of the guys complaining that they’re not little kids and piñatas are stupid. Adam’s never been all that into this part of the party, but this year he’s glad to get a chance to hit something.
Of course the boys who complained the most about having a piñata at all are the ones greediest with the candy when it spills out onto the ground. They’re grabbing it up and filling their bags when parents start to arrive. Adam doesn’t see his dad in the cluster of adults near the door, and he wishes he’d just hurry up already. Somehow when the phone rings, Adam knows it’s him, so he’s not surprised when Mrs. Ratliff comes over to say his dad’s going to be about half an hour late. Adam wonders if he can go wait on the curb. Probably Tommy’s mom won’t let him, though, even if Tommy would prefer it if he did.
But as the last of the other kids leave, Tommy smiles at him again, taking Adam’s hand and pulling him toward the stairs. “C’mon, I want to show you something,” he says, eager. Happy.
The floor is littered with books instead of comics, bits of electrical junk that might have been an amp at some point instead of legos, video games instead of board games, but thanks to the discarded clothes, looks a lot like it used to when they were little. Tommy’s bouncing on his toes like he did whenever he got a new toy he couldn’t wait for Adam to see, and Adam relaxes back onto the bed when Tommy puts him there, saying “Hang on,” heading for the dresser in the corner.
Adam’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it definitely isn’t a crumpled packet of Marlboro Menthol Lights, a lighter peeking out of the torn corner.
“Where’d you get those?” Adam hisses, not wanting to draw the attention of Tommy’s parents. He’s sure they wouldn’t approve.
"I lifted them. Want one?" Tommy flops down on the bed, head under the open window, holding out the pack.
"Won't your mom smell the smoke?"
"Nah, that's why we blow it outside. You'll have to come over here though. It's no good you sitting on the end of the bed, it's too far away." Tommy scoots up, pulling a pillow over and propping his head on the window sill. Torn between being scared of getting caught and scared Tommy will go back to ignoring him, Adam moves closer as instructed. A challenge in his eyes, Tommy hands him a cigarette and the lighter.
Adam’s never smoked, but he’s paid attention to people lighting cigarettes. Putting the filter in his mouth, he flicks the wheel of the lighter. It takes a few tries to spin it fast enough to spark the gas, and Tommy’s watching the whole time, mouth twitching. Adam wants to say, “fuck you,” wants to shove the cigarette back at Tommy and tell him to light it himself if he wants one, but he just keeps trying. When Adam finally gets the flame to touch the end of the cigarette, he sucks in too hard and ends up coughing violently, flailing, dropping the lighter and nearly burning Tommy in the face with the glowing butt-end.
"Hey! Watch it!" Tommy plucks the cigarette from his fingers, putting it between his own lips. "And quiet down will you? Mom will be up here if you keep that up."
Adam leans over Tommy to get the other pillow to muffle his coughing, and feels a warm brush of fingers on his waist, making him jerk backwards and nearly fall off the bed. When he finally gets the coughing under control, Adam looks at Tommy over the top of the pillow, finds him watching Adam through his eyelashes, cigarette held loosely between his fingers, ribbon of smoke trailing out the window. He probably thinks he looks like a rock star or something, but he just looks stupid. Adam keeps the pillow over his face. What the hell happened to his best friend? Since Adam saw him last he’s turned into kind of a jerk.
They sit in silence, Adam wishing his dad would just get here already, until, taking a final drag, Tommy stubs out the butt on the windowsill and pushes himself up on his elbows. "You okay now?" he asks.
Still watching from behind the pillow, Adam nods. Tommy’s staring at him like he’s not sure if Adam’s telling the truth or not. Adam doesn't know what to say, so he just stares back.
Shifting his weight to one arm, Tommy reaches out and draws the pillow away. Adam lets him. Reaching out again, Tommy takes Adam's wrist and pulls him forwards, ignoring Adam's resistance, tightening his grip so Adam overbalances and falls onto Tommy's chest. Adam doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on. His heart is fluttering against Tommy's ribs, and Tommy’s face is so close Adam can’t focus on it, then there’s a hand on the back of his head and Tommy's mashing his lips into Adam’s, sliding his tongue wetly between them, tasting of smoke and chocolate. He’s kissing him. They’re kissing. Kissing, and it’s not like they’re playing spin the bottle or truth or dare or any of those other games Adam was glad he wasn’t going to have to worry about when he found out Tommy wasn’t having girls at his party. They’re just here in Tommy’s room and Tommy’s kissing him for no reason at all.
Planting his hands on Tommy's shoulders, Adam shoves away, slides off the bed, runs down the stairs and out the front door. He’s four streets away when he sees his father's car turn the corner. Luckily, his dad’s got his bluetooth in, and by the time he’s finished his phone call, he forgets to ask Adam why he was in the street instead of at Tommy’s house.
It’s the tail end of summer, and Adam’s watching Rachel Maddow with his dad, waiting for it to be over so he can steal the remote and watch Project Runway. He started watching it in self defense because his friend Danielle’s obsessed with it and talks about it all the time, but it’s kind of fascinating how they turn all those scraps into actual outfits, and how do you not like Tim Gunn? Even Adam’s mom watches sometimes because she thinks he’s a sweetheart. (Adam isn’t sure that’s the word he’d use, but whatever.) When the phone rings, Eber doesn’t even glance away from the television, so Adam goes to get it.
“Hello?” He’s hoping it’s for his dad so he can maybe get the TV early and doesn’t have to risk Eber trying to watch whatever’s on after Rachel. But the voice on the other end says, “Adam?”
Since he finally got his own phone when he started high school, Dani and the kids from his theater group mostly call him on that. The voice definitely sounds like someone his age, though. “Yes?” he says.
“Hey, it’s Tommy. Whatchu doin’?”
“I― Tommy?” It’s been three years. First Adam was too embarrassed to call, then he was mad that Tommy didn’t call since it was his fault things were weird, then it had just been too long, and he had no idea what he’d say, anyway.
“Yeah, so do you wanna get some pizza tomorrow night?”
Adam’s heart is racing, his face and chest are all prickly, he can hardly breathe, and Tommy just sounds like they’re ten again, playing all day and Tommy wants to know if Adam can stay for dinner.
“Pizza?” It would be really awesome if Adam could do anything but repeat Tommy’s words back at him.
“CPK at Hollywood and Highland. Six o’clock okay for you?”
“Won’t it be kind of crowded on a Friday night?” Which sounds nothing like Why are you calling me after three years to go have pizza in tourist hell? which is what Adam’s thinking.
“It’s usually worse after seven. It’ll be cool.”
Adam wants to ask why now, and why pizza, but apparently the part of him that still lies in bed at night and wonders what Tommy’s doing, and wishes he at least had a Facebook so Adam could see what he’s up to without having to have that awkward, so remember how you kissed me that one time? conversation, is in charge of his mouth right now, because he says, “Okay, six o’clock,” instead. On the plus side, it doesn’t seem like Tommy’s planning on having that conversation anyway. Adam is grateful for that as Tommy says, “Later,” and hangs up.
“Who was that?” Eber asks as Adam sits down on the sofa again. Rachel is talking to the guy with red hair, so the show must be almost over.
“Tommy.”
“Tommy Joe? How’s he doing?”
Adam’s starting to wonder if he’s the only one who noticed that he and Tommy haven’t said one word to each other in three years.
“We’re having pizza tomorrow night. I guess I’ll find out then?”
“Your mom and I are going out, so we can’t drive you. Are you meeting somewhere you can take the bus?”
Adam forgot his parents had their supper club. At least he doesn’t have to watch his brother. “Yeah,” he says. “Hollywood. I’ll be fine.” Adam can’t wait til he’s sixteen. Having to get the bus everywhere blows.
“Text us if you’re going anywhere afterwards, and absolutely no getting in a car with anyone under eighteen.”
Eber reminds Adam of this rule every time he leaves the house. Adam’s stopped saying, “I know, Dad,” or trying for sarcasm; he just says, “Okay.” He doesn’t even know anyone under eighteen who drives except Marco from his theater group, and he’s a total stickler for rules and would never risk losing his license driving other kids around.
“And tell Tommy your mom and I say hi,” Eber says as he hands Adam the remote of his own volition and wanders off in the direction of the kitchen. Ignoring the bizarre turn his life has taken in the last fifteen minutes, Adam gets his phone out of his pocket and texts Danielle: “So who you think’s gettin eliminated 2nite?”
Tommy was right that even on a Friday, at six o’clock there isn’t too bad a wait for tables. Adam doesn’t see a sign anywhere that all parties must be present before anyone can be seated, so he puts his name down even though Tommy isn’t there yet. It’s about ten past six when they call him, and no one protests when he says his friend is on his way, they just ask if he wants a drink while he’s waiting. By six thirty, Adam’s starting to wonder if this is Tommy’s idea of a joke. Scared the waiter’s patience is going to run out, Adam orders garlic bread he doesn’t really want, then wonders why he bothered. He looks like a total loser, all alone on a Friday night in a crowded restaurant. The ice is melting in his Coke, making it taste slightly bitter. Adam’s flicked his phone open and closed a hundred times even though it’s useless because he doesn’t even know if Tommy has a cell, and it’s not like Tommy has Adam’s number to send him a message, even if he does.
“Anything else?” Adam’s waiter interrupts his internal argument about staying or going. Fuck it. Adam doesn’t have to put up with this. There’s bound to be a movie starting somewhere nearby just after seven, and at least in a crowded theater it’s not so obvious you’re alone.
“Just―“ Adam starts, intending to get the check and get the hell out, but then a familiar shape slouches through the door. Tommy’s taller now, has a ring in his lip, and another in his eyebrow, and his short brown hair has been bleached bright white, but he still has that hungry-eyed look Adam remembers from the last time he saw him. The waiter follows Adam's gaze, flaring his nostrils slightly at the boy in baggy jeans and an oversized black trench coat weaving his way through the tables. Tommy doesn't exactly blend in with the crowd.
"I'll come back to take your order," the waiter says, sounding totally unimpressed. Adam isn't impressed either, and wishes again that he'd left after the first twenty minutes.
Pulling out his chair and sliding bonelessly into it, Tommy stretches out one booted foot and nudges Adam's ankle. "Hey. Sorry I'm late. Places to go, people to do…"
Even though he’s pissed, Adam shrugs like it doesn't matter. Tommy’s―god. He’s like David Bowie meets Bender in The Breakfast Club (which is still Adam’s mom’s favorite movie, even though it’s like a hundred years old). If Adam’s really honest with himself, he’ll admit that there were a few moments since Tommy’s call that he’s thought about Tommy maybe wanting to kiss him again. But there is no way this kid wants to kiss Adam. That would be like Bender wanting to kiss Brian or something. Not going to happen. Tommy’s hot. And cool. And all the things Adam isn’t. This was such a bad idea.
"We eating? I'm hungry." Tommy manages to sound like Adam’s the one nearly forty-five minutes late. Like it’s his fault they aren't already ordering dessert.
You’re the one who’s late,” Adam snaps. “We’d be eating already if you'd gotten here on time. What do you even want from me?” Adam isn't usually snippy to his friends, but he’s not even sure Tommy still falls into that category.
Tommy's lip ring twitches in amusement, but he snags his menu and doesn't say anything.
Adam chose when he first got here, but picks up his menu again for something to look at. He sees movement out of the corner of his eye and looks up to see Tommy picking up Adam's Coke and putting Adam's straw in his mouth. The tip of his tongue darts out for a moment, making Adam's stomach lurch uncomfortably. He stares dumbly as Tommy sucks up a mouthful of soda, pulling the straw out of his mouth before swallowing. "Kind of watery," Tommy says.
"The ice melted while I was waiting for you. What are you doing drinking my Coke anyway?" Adam fantasizes about pushing away from the table and striding out of the restaurant, leaving Tommy alone to pay for the glass of watery soda and the cold, rubbery garlic bread. He can sit there like he’s the one who’s been stood up. Instead, Adam snatches the glass back, plucking the straw out and throwing it on the table, and drinks down the rest in one swallow.
The waiter’s back. "What can I get you?"
Tommy goes first. "I'll have a Margherita pizza and a beer."
"I don't think so. Pizza and a Coke, maybe."
Tommy looks for a moment like he’s going to argue, but backs off under the waiter's stare. "Fine, I'll have a Coke."
"I'll have a Giardiniera and another Coke too, please." Adam’s aware he’s being extra polite out of embarrassment but he can't stop.
"Margherita and a Giardiniera and two Cokes." Rolling his eyes, the waiter tucks his pad into his apron and heads towards the back.
"Did you really think he was going to bring you a beer?"
"I've gotten beer before. Some places don't ask for ID. They can't do anything to you for asking."
Adam doesn't know what to say to that. Tommy’s fifteen. There’s no way he's ever been served alcohol in a restaurant. Tired of whatever game Tommy’s playing, Adam says, "So what are we doing here?"
"I like it here. The pizzas are good."
"But what am I doing here? Why did you call me? We haven't spoken in three years. Why now?"
Tommy worries at the ring in his lip with his teeth. "I just thought you might like to get a pizza is all. No special reason."
The waiter comes back with their drinks and Adam turns his attention to the other customers as he toys with his new straw. The other one―the one that’s been in Tommy's mouth―is still sitting on the table, right by Adam's wrist. He can feel Tommy's eyes on him, but works hard to ignore them. It’s awkward as hell, but Adam isn’t going to be the one to break. Tommy’s the one who wanted to do this, he can be the one to make conversation if he’s not even going to answer Adam’s simple questions. They’re still sitting in silence when their food comes out. Adam picks up his knife and fork and starts cutting.
Like he was just waiting for food to loosen his tongue, Tommy says, “So do you really like all those vegetables, or do you just order them to be a good boy?"
"I like vegetables." Adam tries to match Tommy's look of disdain. "Isn't that pizza boring? You could have gotten pepperoni or something."
"I like it better like this." Tommy sounds irritated, but then he breaks, grinning, looking for the first time like the kid Adam remembers, and he twirls a piece of cheese around his finger with a flourish, popping it into his mouth.
Adam can't help but smile back at the display. "Classy."
Still smiling, Tommy says, "Simple pleasures."
After that things start to get easier. Tommy drops some of his attitude and they just talk. About school, and music, and what movies they've seen recently. Definitely not about Tommy’s birthday party and what happened afterwards, though every time Tommy starts a sentence with ‘remember when’ Adam cringes inside, but Tommy just brings up old games they used to play and teachers they used to have, and the summer they taught Adam’s bunkmate how to swim in the pool at camp. By the time they’re nibbling at the last edges of crust, Adam’s actually glad he came.
They split the bill 50/50, even though Adam’s pizza cost more and Tommy didn’t eat any of the garlic bread. “Least I could do for making you wait,” Tommy says when Adam tries to argue. Adam takes it as the apology Tommy clearly intends it to be.
"Can you hang some more?" Tommy asks as they push through the doors of the restaurant into the street.
Since Adam’s parents won’t be back until late, and it’s not like he has a fixed curfew anyway, he nods, and they head away from the madness of Hollywood Boulevard until they get to a quiet street where the trees and parked cars seem part of some stage set, illuminated by the never-really-darkness of the city.
Seeing a little pocket park at the end of the block, Tommy skips ahead, twirling round and walking backwards so he can watch Adam. He narrowly avoids trampling a small dog pulled out of the way by its owner at the last moment, and then falls off the curb, laughing at Adam's wide eyes. "Come on. Hurry up," he calls, and Adam quickens his pace until they’re side by side. They cross the road to the park.
Under the shadowed side of a tree, Tommy stops and leans against the trunk. He looks dangerous, his spiky hair the only thing Adam can see clearly in the dark. It’s the exciting kind of dangerous, though, not the serial killer kind. Adam’s pretty sure that under the lip ring and bravado, Tommy’s still the kid who let Adam drive his KITT car the first day they met. Not a hundred percent sure, though, so Adam stays in the circle of light from the streetlamp.
Tommy gestures Adam closer with two slim fingers protruding from the overlong sleeve of his coat. "C'mere."
Adam takes a step closer. Impatiently, Tommy gestures again, and Adam steps close enough for Tommy to grab the front of his jacket. It’s still not serial-killer scary, but Adam is definitely reconsidering the idea that Tommy’s forgotten all about his party and would never want to kiss him. Looking down at Tommy's hand fisted around the edge of denim hanging open over his t-shirt, he imagines he can feel the heat of Tommy's knuckles on his stomach through the thin cotton and millimeters of air between them. Tommy tugs until Adam has his right foot between Tommy's boots, until their thighs are nearly touching. Adam can't fill his lungs. He stops breathing altogether when Tommy's hand releases his jacket and snakes around his waist instead.
"No running off this time," Tommy says, before pulling Adam against him with the hand on the small of his back. Adam feels Tommy's fingers twist in his hair, and then they’re kissing. Nothing like it looks on TV, it’s all sloppy with open mouths and sharp teeth, and it kind of feels like Tommy is biting Adam’s lips, which is not something Adam would have said he liked the sound of, but when it’s actually happening, it’s pretty awesome. Adam even likes metal taste of Tommy’s lip ring. They’re in a park, and it’s not that late, and anyone could see them, but Adam can’t seem to tear himself away from Tommy’s grip. He’s known for a while now that if he ever kissed anyone he hoped it would be a boy, but he never imagined it out in the open like this. He’d thought more like his college dorm, or at least someone’s house. Adam checks in with his legs, but they definitely don’t seem to be planning on running.
Releasing Adam's hair, leaving his scalp tingling, Tommy drops his hand to Adam's ass, canting his hips forwards, grinding against Adam's thigh as he pulls Adam hard against his hipbone. Adam can't tell if the soft noises reaching his ears are coming from his throat or Tommy's, or if they're swapping moans as well as spit. He pulls away, gasping for breath, flushed hot but with gooseflesh stirring the hair at the back of his neck.
Dropping his head back against the tree, Tommy breathes, "Fuck. When do you have to be home?"
Adam takes a second to figure out what the words mean and another to get what the question implies. He tries to extricate himself from Tommy's grip, but Tommy’s stronger than he looks.
"No. Come on. You want this." Tommy rubs lewdly against Adam's hard-on. "Let me touch you." The hand on Adam's ass moves towards his fly. Gripping Tommy’s wrist tightly, stopping him, Adam looks wildly around to see if anyone’s watching them. "Or come home with me. No one's there. Just for a little while. Please."
Adam does want this. He never thought he’d get it, not for years, anyway, and not with someone who looks like Tommy looks, and he’s still not sure he’s ready to admit he thinks about boys like this to his parents or his friends or anyone, but there is no way he’s saying no.
When Adam nods, Tommy kisses him once, hard on the lips, and taking his hand, runs for the metro.
They have to stand on the train, but once they get off the metro and emerge onto the street again it’s quiet. Too late for commuters and too early for the nightlife crowd to be heading home, the bus when it comes is almost empty. There are four girls near the front laughing and shrieking over something one of them is holding, and a guy sleeping with his head against the window, but Tommy and Adam are alone in the back. Tommy’s hand is on Adam's dick through his jeans, the skirt of his coat draped over Adam's lap. Adam wants to stop him, wants to thrust into that hand until he comes, wants to suck on Tommy's lip ring and tongue. Instead he sits, stock still, watching Tommy's reflection in the glass as Tommy smirks in the direction of the giggling gang.
They wind through Studio City, Tommy's hand a constant tease making Adam's breath catch and his thighs clench so tightly they ache. When the girls pile off the bus Tommy leans in and bites Adam's earlobe. "Next stop," he whispers, and squeezes to emphasize his point. Adam bites his tongue and shuts his eyes, wishing desperately that Tommy would just leave him alone for a minute to let him get some air in his lungs.
A group of older boys, sixteen or seventeen years old, push and shove their way to the fare box. Tommy apparently has some sense of self preservation left; by the time they’ve paid the driver, his hands are in his own lap and he’s leaning away from Adam, looking out the opposite window. The bus lurches, knocking the smallest boy hard into the biggest. The tall one shoves him into a seat. "Hey, faggot, watch where you're going."
Adam thinks he might throw up. The Tommy he knew would never talk to strangers on a bus, never do anything to call attention to himself, but this new Tommy might do anything. Adam’s night can only handle so much excitement.
Nothing else happens though. The small boy holds out a placating hand, and says, "Sorry, sorry. I just lost my balance." Everyone ignores him.
When they've all settled into seats, Tommy stands and presses the bell. Hunching in an effort to hide the bulge in his jeans, Adam follows him over the obstacle course of sprawling legs to the stairs. The cool air when the bus doors open to release them into the night is a relief.
They’re still several blocks from Tommy's house, one street up from the corner where Eber picked up Adam after the first time Tommy kissed him. “Shit,” Adam says. “Gotta text my parents.” He doesn’t say that he’s pretty sure his dad meant the movies or something, not Burbank, when he said Adam could go somewhere after dinner, because he doesn’t want to seem like a dork who has to check in every time he does anything, but Tommy doesn’t comment. Adam’s had plenty of practice texting and walking, so letting his parents know he’s safe but will be home late doesn’t slow them down. He’s about to slide his phone back into his pocket when Tommy grabs it from him.
“Giving you my number,” Tommy says before Adam has time to protest. Adam’s distracted by Tommy’s fingers as he slides the phone back into Adam’s pocket, and doesn’t notice that Tommy doesn’t put Adam’s number in his own phone.
By the time he’s over the brush of Tommy’s fingertips, they’re passing Adam’s old house―painted something dark now, instead of the pale gray it was when he lived there―then they’re in Tommy’s front yard, then on his porch, then inside with the door shut and nothing but the way Adam seems to be totally paralyzed to stop them kissing again.
“Want a drink?” Tommy offers.
Adam shakes his head.
“Wanna go upstairs?”
Licking his lips nervously, Adam nods.
Tommy's bedroom is no cleaner than the last time Adam saw it, and Tommy has to kick aside a pile of books and clothes to clear a path from the door to the bed. The bed Adam’s sat on more times than he could count, the bed he’s slept on when Tommy was being generous and taking the sleeping bag on the floor, the bed where Adam had his first and only kiss. Until tonight. Tonight there has definitely been kissing. And now there’s a bed and they’re going to do more than kissing, probably, if Adam can just keep breathing.
Like all of this isn’t remotely terrifying, Tommy flings his coat casually over his desk chair and urges Adam closer so he can push Adam's jacket off his shoulders to get lost in the general mess on the floor. Adam can hear his own mom preaching about hanging things up when you’re done with them, and Tommy’s mom telling Tommy that Adam will have to go home if he doesn’t get all the dirty clothes in the hamper by the time she counts to ten, and Adam really doesn’t want to be thinking about anyone’s parents right now. “C’mon,” Tommy says. “Don’t you wanna―“
Adam does want to, except now Tommy’s tugging at Adam's shirt like he’s planning on taking it off. The lamp on his desk is shining on Adam like a spotlight, and Adam isn’t ready to be shirtless in the spotlight. Not with Tommy, who seems to have skipped the part of puberty where your height hasn’t quite caught up with your weight, and who doesn’t seem to have any pimples or freckles or any of the other things that make Adam frown when he looks in the mirror. It’s not like when they were little and it didn’t matter what either of them looked like. Tommy wants to kiss Adam now, and Adam would like him to keep wanting that. Squeaking a little in protest, Adam takes Tommy’s hands off the hem of his shirt, lifting them around his neck, then puts his own on Tommy’s waist like they’re slow dancing.
“I want to,” he says when Tommy looks at him quizzically.
Fortunately, Tommy doesn’t ask questions, just takes advantage of his new grip to pull Adam down, kissing and biting the spot under his ear. It feels so fucking good, like when Tommy was grinding on him in the park, and Adam forgets all about wishing Tommy would let him leave his shirt on, and sinks onto the bed, pulling Tommy down on top of him.
They grapple, mouths and hands hot on each other's skin, Adam thinking, this is making out. This is making out. This is making out, until he’s not thinking about anything at all except how Tommy needs to be closer. Everything is hot. So, so hot, and clothing gets pushed and tugged and stretched, legs tangle and press, and Adam wonders if it’s actually possible to go on kissing forever.
Finally they lie panting―Adam with one foot on the floor, Tommy half on top of him, his booted feet hanging off the side of the bed. "No shoes on the bed,” Tommy says, somehow sounding both firm and like the rule is a surprise to him right now.
Disentangling his fist from Tommy's twisted t-shirt, Adam allows him to sit up and unlace his boots. Adam would like to take his own shoes off, but Tommy’s sitting between his splayed legs and he isn't sure he can sit up. Or convince his fingers to work. Besides, he likes watching Tommy taking his boots off. He likes it even more when Tommy takes his shirt off next.
When he realizes Adam’s just lying there, Tommy nudges his thigh, then fingers the hem of Adam's shirt, running the flat of his hand across Adam's stomach. "Shirt off too." That idea’s still not Adam’s favorite, but the bed’s mostly in shadow, and the need to have Tommy closer is still buzzing under his skin, so Adam lets Tommy pull him upright. While he’s toeing off his shoes, Tommy takes care of his shirt for him. Despite his determination to be as casual about it as Tommy is, Adam crosses his arms over his chest and shivers in the draft coming around the edge of the window.
"Do you want to get under the covers?"
Adam nods.
They lie down next to each other, comforter up to their shoulders. Adam thinks now that they’re actually in Tommy’s bed it might be like when they were six and hiding under the covers with a flashlight trying to finish the Lego Death Star after final, final lights out time, but it’s nothing like that at all, and he isn't sure what he’s supposed to do. But then he doesn't have to think about it because Tommy’s pushing him down onto his back and kissing him again, and Adam's arms wrap around Tommy's waist of their own accord.
Making out with no shirts on is totally amazing; Adam could probably get off forever on just thinking about Tommy lying on top of him like this. The heat and weight of him, the slightly sticky friction as they shift and move, and god, the way Tommy feels under his hands. Tommy’s skin is thin and stretched tightly over his bones, but it moves under Adam's fingers, softer and more pliable than he expected, not really that different from Adam’s own. Then Tommy’s hand is on Adam's stomach again, fingers teasing under his waistband, and all thoughts of skin are replaced with a need to have those fingers wrapped around him, tempered, as Tommy’s fingers grow more determined, by a fear of Tommy touching him there without the dubious protection of denim.
Tommy apparently has no such fear because he’s fumbling with Adam's button and zipper, pushing Adam's boxers out of the way, and sighing into Adam's mouth as his hand reaches flesh. "You're so hard.”
Adam face heats up and he starts to protest, but Tommy’s kissing him again and it seems that wasn’t a complaint. Tommy’s hard too―Adam can feel it against his hip. He must want this, or he wouldn’t be here, his thigh heavy on Adam's leg, his fingers cupping the back of Adam's head. Taking a deep breath, Adam thrusts into the hand stroking him, tilting his head back, remembering how it felt to have Tommy kissing his neck. Tommy chases his lips, and Adam turns his head more, dragging air in through his mouth against the intensity of the hand moving on his dick, hoping Tommy will get the hint.
“You okay?” Tommy asks, slowing down to a torturous pace.
“Fine,” Adam gasps, going to kiss him again. He doesn’t want Tommy to feel like he’s doing something wrong.
“What d’you want?” Tommy speeds up again jerking Adam off, but he’s propped on one elbow, out of reach of Adam’s lips.
“Nothing,” Adam tries, too embarrassed to ask Tommy for anything more that what he’s already doing. “That’s good.”
But Tommy nudges Adam’s face to the side again with his nose, and kisses the spot below Adam’s ear. “This?” he asks.
Adam can only jerk in response, the whisper of a whimper escaping his throat.
“Yeah,” Tommy says, does it again, mouth open this time, wetter, the ring in his lip sliding over Adam’s skin. “Yeah. You like that.”
Adam really, really does. It doesn’t even matter that Tommy’s getting distracted from the smooth tugs on Adam’s dick, his rhythm going ragged, concentrating too much on the base. Adam’s clutching him with abandon, fingers digging into ribs and ass and waist, up to grip his shoulders, then back down again, trying to pull him in while he arches up into Tommy’s mouth.
“More?” Tommy asks, breathless, and Adam starts whining, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Licking, sucking, kissing his way down Adam’s throat, getting rougher as he goes, Tommy nips at the skin over his collarbone and then bites hard into his chest, sucking a bruise up into his mouth, edges defined by the twin curves of his teeth. It hurts more than Adam expected, the blood throbbing against Tommy’s tongue and in Adam’s cock, and he gasps, twisting against the weight of Tommy's leg, thrusting hard into the fingers tightening around him, coming messily over himself and Tommy's hand and the sheets.
When he looks down at Adam, Tommy has a gleam in his eye that makes Adam look away. It’s like Tommy can see every thought Adam’s ever jerked off to in secret, and Adam can't face anyone else knowing about all that. "I should go," he mumbles into the pillow.
"Not yet." Tommy takes Adam's hand and places it over the bulge in his jeans. "My turn." And god, right, Adam totally isn’t going to be that guy. The selfish lover guy who only cares about his own orgasms. It’s not like he spends all his time reading his mom’s magazines or anything, but he’s read enough to know that’s not cool. Besides which, wow. That’s Tommy’s dick, like right there, and Adam is really into that. Like, super-a-lot, being-gay-is-not-just-a-theory into that.
None of the porn or the jerking off or the fantasizing prepared Adam for the feel of another guy's dick in his palm. It isn't like having his hands on himself; it’s the wrong angle and a different shape. But even with the wrong hand, it feels good. So fucking good. But still the wrong angle and Adam hasn’t got the first clue what the hell he’s doing, and Tommy is seriously in a hurry, undoing buttons, shoving Adam’s hand down and in.
"No, I'm right handed," Adam blurts at the first touch of skin. He’s got no hope at all of being good if he’s doing this with the wrong hand.
Trying to get a better position, Tommy rolls further on top of Adam, but there’s no room on the other side of him to lie. "Stupid single bed. Scoot over." Tommy lifts up a bit to give Adam wiggle room.
It shouldn’t be this difficult, but it takes forever to get themselves situated so Adam can use his right hand. When he’s got it, though, it feels even better. It’s still an awkward angle, and it’s strange to have all the sensation in his hand with none on his dick, but Adam is definitely into boys. He can feel the weight of Tommy, the heat, and the softness of his skin, and even better, they’ve pushed the covers off in their maneuvering and Adam can see the way Tommy’s dick pops out of the circle of his fingers, how red it is, how it’s getting so so slippery the more Adam squeezes and pulls.
“You’re―“ he starts, but it might be rude to point out that Tommy leaks a lot more than Adam does, and besides, Tommy’s shaking and his eyes are squeezed shut tight, and there’s no way he’s even listening. Adam always likes it fast and tight right before he comes, and he hopes Tommy does too. Everything’s so much, hot and close, Tommy’s breath on the side of Adam’s face as he stares down at Tommy’s dick in his hand, watches Tommy’s hips lift as he shoots up over his chest and belly, and Adam thinks maybe he could go again. That it could be like an endless cycle of handjobs and kissing. But when Tommy drops his head heavily to the pillow, all the tension leaking out of him, Adam rests his head on Tommy's shoulder, sharp need dialing back to a satisfied hum. He did that. He made Tommy come all over himself. Curious, Adam runs a finger through the cooling streaks on Tommy's skin and puts it to his tongue.
Tommy shifts, twisting to look at him. "What are you doing?"
Adam doesn't know. "I don't know."
"You're different than I remember."
Adam tenses. Tommy’s obviously done this before. Maybe Adam’s doing it wrong. Probably you’re only supposed to taste a guy’s jizz when you’re actually sucking his dick.
Tommy pokes him gently. “Never said that was a bad thing."
Adam pulls the blanket back up so it’s covering Tommy’s dick and the come that Adam still kind of wants to play with.
“Really. It’s cool.” Tommy sounds like he means it.
Adam relaxes a little under Tommy's stroking fingers, says, "So seriously, why'd you call me?"
Tommy squeezes him tighter. "This wasn't a good enough reason?"
Giving himself a moment to think of an answer, Adam pulls the covers higher, tucking them in. And realizes that’s an answer in itself.
"Thought so," Tommy says into Adam's hair.
No curfew doesn't mean Adam can stay out all night without calling, but by the time he wakes up again, the buses have stopped running. The rule is that it's never too late to phone, but the chances of his dad wanting to drive out to Burbank at half past two in the morning are pretty slim. Adam's not sure if Tommy's parents are out for the night or if they're away, or maybe they came home while Adam and Tommy were asleep and they're gonna freak out if he's still here when they wake up. He's not sure what to do.
"Stop wiggling," Tommy mutters, pushing Adam's chest with a sleep-heavy hand. "Sleepin'."
"I think I have to go." Adam whispers, in case the Ratliffs are home.
"No buses 'til like 4:30." He still doesn't open his eyes, but Tommy moves his leg, making Adam realize he has no feeling at all in his left foot where Tommy's been crushing it.
Adam really has to call his folks. But the last thing he wants to do is get in trouble with Tommy's parents. "Are your parents home?" At least he can know how quiet he needs to be.
"Nah. Hawaii."
Adam would be pissed if his parents went to Hawaii without him, but Tommy just sounds bored. Actually, Adam might sound bored at two in the morning, too, and he'd be fine if they went to New Jersey to visit relatives without him, and Adam's pretty sure he remembers that's where some of Tommy's family lives. "Sorry," Adam says, still whispering, but not as quietly. "I've really gotta call my dad." He tries to lean over Tommy to get to his jacket on the floor, but it's too far to reach. "Sorry," he says again, and starts climbing over Tommy's legs.
"Gotta piss anyway," Tommy grumbles, finally opening his eyes and squinting at Adam in the light from his computer screen. "C'we go back to sleep after, though?”
That at least answers Adam's question about whether Tommy wants him to leave now. While Tommy's in the bathroom Adam checks his phone. Two missed calls and a text saying that if ‘I’m going to Tommy’s house’ meant spending the night he should have said that.
Adam calls his parents and explains that he's safe and still has his bus pass and will be home in the morning. “You need to tell us what you’re doing, Adam, your mother and I aren’t mind readers.”
“I did text,” Adam reminds him. Even though it will just mean a more long-winded version of the SMS lecture his dad already sent.
Tommy comes back while Eber is droning on at Adam about being more precise when he’s sending texts and telling him to get some sleep and they'll talk more in the morning. Tommy's not wearing any of the clothes he fell asleep in. He's not wearing any clothes at all.
"Oh," Adam says, thumbing the hang-up on his phone.
"Fucking jizz all over my pants," Tommy mutters, climbing under the blankets. He holds them up like he's waiting for Adam to join him.
Adam would love to join him. As soon as his legs unfreeze and his eyes stop trying to bore into the shadows to see Tommy's dick.
"Should I―" he says, trying to encompass take my jeans off too and get in and jump you again or let you sleep in a single gesture, but probably failing to convey any of them.
"Just fucking get over here," Tommy says.
In a fit of panicked compromise Adam takes off his jeans and leaves on his come-stained boxers, crawling under the sheets into the tiny space Tommy's left for him. Single beds kind of suck for sharing once you've hit puberty. Except for how he's forced to lie practically on top of Tommy. Naked Tommy. Oh god.
Probably some, like, eighty-year-old guy with prostate cancer or something could avoid getting a boner sharing a single bed with a naked dude who just gave him his first hand job, but Adam is so not that guy. He tries to hunch his hips and keep it to himself―since turning over now would be completely obvious―but Tommy throws his arm across Adam's waist and wriggles closer.
"We're both guys," he says, but his voice is all slurry like he's almost asleep again, so that obviously means, I don't care if you're hard rather than, here let me take care of that for you.
Adam's actually pretty okay with that. His dad and Tommy can't both be wrong; he probably should get some sleep. It won't be the first time he's drifted off in the middle of the night with a tent in his shorts.
Tommy's still asleep when Adam wakes up again, this time with the sun glinting into his eyes. Adam squints at the offending reflective surface and finds a cheap-ass sports trophy, the same one that's still on the top shelf of his parents' bookshelves at home, from Adam's one year playing soccer when he was eight. Despite how much Adam had sucked, his team had made it to league championship even with the requirement that all the players, including Adam, played at least half the game.
The trophy seems out of place with all Tommy's goth rocker paraphernalia, but looking around there are other things too that are clearly just left over from another era: a flocked kangaroo coin bank Adam remembers Tommy getting for Christmas from his dad's friend when they were seven or so; a handful of Matchbox cars; an old clay handprint they made in kindergarten; a plastic slinky. That's the thing about not moving. You don't ever have to sort through your stuff.
Adam finds the dim glow of numbers coming from Tommy's clock. 7:37. He really should go. It's gonna take like two hours to get home from here, and he doesn't want to try his parents' patience. He tries to wake Tommy up, but only gets a grumble in response, so he finds his clothes and uses the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed before trying again.
"I'll call you," Tommy murmurs when Adam finally gets him to understand that he has to leave.
"I'm not some girl," Adam says, because he's not, but he really kind of wants to see Tommy again, even if they don't do the sex stuff―the sex stuff is awesome, but he really did miss his best friend―so he adds, "I'm going to see that Hitchcock thing at the ArcLight next week if you want to come."
"Hell, yeah, Hitchcock," Tommy says, but his eyes are closing again and he's tucking the covers up under his chin.
Adam sees himself out.
Tommy doesn't call, and doesn't text back when Adam texts him to check if he wants to meet up first or meet at the theater for the Hitchcock retrospective. It’s not that there's any reason Adam can't call Tommy, except once he's texted him three times and gotten no reply he feels like calling might be edging into stalker territory. Cosmo and Teen Vogue don’t exactly tell you what you’re supposed to do when the guy you were best friends with your whole childhood calls you up after three years, acts like a jerk, gives you a handjob in his bed, then doesn’t return your texts.
Since he was going to go on his own anyway before he asked Tommy, Adam just does what he’d usually do, which is turn up at the box office forty-five minutes before doors to get tickets, then go get fish tacos while he waits for the doors to open. He doesn’t text Tommy to see if he should get an extra seat, but he does maybe send one just to let Tommy know he’s over at Baja Fresh, just in case. His phone buzzes two seconds after he hits send, and his heart jumps, but it’s only Danielle telling him to have fun and not let The Birds give him nightmares.
Sitting in the theater on his own waiting for Rope to start, Adam reminds himself it's not like they're boyfriends. They used to know each other and they had some pizza and they hooked up. Tommy probably hooks up a lot. He's really fucking hot, and cool and all confident and shit. And sure, after a rocky start it had been almost like old times, talking and joking around, but that doesn’t mean Tommy wanted to be, like, best friends again. They still live on opposite sides of the city, and the buses are really fucking slow, and obviously Tommy is busy and stuff. Adam’s busy too. School’s gonna be starting soon, and he’s got drama and choir, and his mom said he can start voice lessons again if he wants to, now that his teacher’s back from her trip to Africa, so maybe it’s better if he and Tommy don’t try to hang out or anything.
Except Adam really, really wants to. When he was just watching GayTube late at night with the sound muted, jerking off to the pretty guys touching each other, Adam was okay with waiting until he went to college to have actual sex with an actual boy. But now that he knows what he’s missing, he can't stop masturbating.
He hasn't worried that his dick would fall off since he was twelve and his mom told him that Gary Stukey was lying and if touching yourself feels good you should do it as much as you want as long as it isn't interfering with your schoolwork and blah blah some other stuff that frankly Adam was too embarrassed to listen to once he got the message that he wasn't going to lose his junk if he played with it too much. But he's been doing it so often lately that it doesn't always feel good. Sometimes it hurts. And not in the fun way he read about in the magazine Danielle found under her dad's toolbox in the garage. More a raw, red, chaffing kind of pain. And he'll promise he isn't going to do it again until the redness goes away, and then he'll smell tomato sauce, or hear a bus going past, and the memory of Tommy's hands on him is so strong it's a kick in the gut, and he's got his hand in his pants before he knows it. Being fifteen sucks sometimes. Especially when it's so much like being thirteen, because he really thought he'd outgrown this.
If the theater weren’t so crowded, Adam would probably have his hand in his pants right now. Or, not really, because that’s just creepy and gross, but he’s thinking about it, and that can’t be a good sign. He’s always fucking thinking about it, and that’s the problem. Shoving Tommy and his hands and mouth and bed and― Yeah. Not helping. Shoving all the thoughts out of his head, Adam tries to concentrate on the conversation the girls next to him are having while they wait for the lights to go down. But they start talking about how the murderers in the movie are really gay, and they couldn’t show it because it was like 1950 or something―Adam doesn’t correct them on the year―but everyone knew it, like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and wasn’t Paul Newman like the hottest ever, and that isn’t distracting Adam from sex at all. He considers going and jerking off in the bathroom, but he’s in the middle of the row, and the lights are dimming, so he ends up just pressing his ice-cold drink to his crotch and waiting it out.
Rope isn’t exactly a boner killer, but Psycho for sure is, and by the time they get to the break before North by Northwest, Adam isn’t tempted at all to do anything more than piss during the intermission. The crowd by concessions is crazy, people stocking up on popcorn and soda to sustain them through another two films, but it feels too good to stand up and move around for Adam to take refuge in his seat again until he has to. Besides, he’s found a good vantage point on some stairs, and it’s interesting to see who’s here, the mix of people old enough to have seen at least some of these movies the first time around, film-school hipsters with their stupid sunglasses and skinny jeans and scarves even though it’s August in LA, and families and couples, and just people like Adam who like Alfred Hitchcock movies.
Then, across the foyer, Adam sees someone short and slight with a shock of bleached-blond hair, a mess of spiked and floppy and shaved on the sides, and he thinks, he came. Tommy came! He’s pissed Tommy didn’t bother texting him, and frustrated that there are so many people he’s got to fight through to get to him, and there’s still a chance they’ll get called back in before he makes contact, but at least he came.
Except just as Adam’s close enough to say his name, a girl in an I’m not gay but my girlfriend is t-shirt comes up and kisses the blond on the lips, and they turn, and it’s not Tommy at all. Her hair is almost exactly the same, and she’s got the same boy hips and black belt that isn’t doing much to hold her jeans up, but those are definitely boobs stretching out the Vertigo graphic on her chest. It’s a pretty cool t-shirt, but it would probably look better on Tommy.
He’s not really in the mood for more movies, but he’s paid for the ticket, and his mom isn’t due to pick him up until ten, so Adam buys himself some insanely expensive Junior Mints and heads back inside, where, on the plus side, Roger Thornhill is having a worse day than he is. Tommy might be an asshole, but at least no one is kidnapping Adam or trying to kill him with an airplane, and he’s pretty sure that no matter what happens, Tommy's never going to make him scale Mount Rushmore pursued by gunmen in ugly suits.
Part 2
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