rivers_bend

Master Post
Part 1

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It's 10:45 on Saturday morning and Adam's eating pancakes with his parents and his brother when the phone rings. Neil, who has a birthday party to go to later and is waiting to hear if he can get a ride with his best friend, Stephen, or if Stephen is still grounded, flies to answer it.

"No," he says, and then, "Fine," and he slams the phone down on the counter and sulks his way back to the table.

"Who was it?" Leila asks when he starts picking at his pancakes.

"It's for Adam."

Not for the first time, Adam wonders exactly what the rules are for justifiable homicide. "You couldn't bring me the phone?"

"What, did you break your legs?"

The only person Adam might want to talk to who would call his land line is Tommy, and Tommy clearly has no intention of ever calling him again, so it's hard to get enthused about having to get up from his breakfast to answer, but he's not going to compound his brother's rudeness. The display says, unknown number, so Adam's a little wary when he says, "Hello?"

"Hey," a familiar voice says. Adam can't quite place it until, "I forgot to put your number in my phone or something," follows, and Adam realizes it actually is Tommy.

"That's okay," Adam says while he considers and rejects, Is that why you never texted me back? and the only possibly less desperate-sounding, I’ll put my name on my texts next time, and, I'm glad you called. He goes with, "What's up?"

"Wanna maybe hang out today?"

Adam wanted to hang out at the movies three weeks ago, but whatever. He's over it. Mostly. "Sure," he says. "What'd'you wanna do?"

"Beverly Center? And then, like, I don't know," Tommy says. He doesn't really seem like the shopping type, but there's food and a movie theater and stuff, and Adam knows people go just to hang out. He can totally do that, he's sure.

"What time?"

"I'm leaving now, so like two hours?" He's taking the bus, then. Adam's hoping he can get a ride from his mom or dad.

"I'll text you my number so we can find each other."

"Yeah, cool. I don't know what happened," Tommy repeats.

When Adam sits down at the table again, both his parents are looking at him quizzically.

"I'm just gonna go to the mall with Tommy," Adam says casually. He dodged their questions last time when they wanted to know what had prompted him and Tommy getting together again, and he didn't tell them about Tommy standing him up or anything. They haven't asked him if he was dating anyone since eighth grade when he and Danielle went to the Christmas Formal together and he gave them a lecture delivered mostly at screaming volume about how boys and girls could be friends and everything didn't have to be about sex all the time. He doesn't want to talk about what he is doing with boys any more than he wanted to talk about what he wasn't doing with girls.

"I have to get something at the Apple Store if you want a ride," Eber says.

"Cool." Adam stuffs a forkful of pancakes in his mouth like he wasn't gonna ask for a ride if no one offered. Perfect.

There ends up being drama over Neil's party, and it's more like two and a half hours before Adam can get to the mall. He's torn between stressing about being late and feeling a vicious stab of justification given how long he waited for Tommy at the pizza place and the fact Tommy never showed up at all to the ArcLight. They text back and forth the whole time Adam's in the car with his dad and Neil, Tommy making snarky comments about the people on the bus and then people at the mall, Adam laughing at Tommy's observations and complaining about emo twelve year olds. When he finally texts, Here, as his dad drops him off, Adam's surprised when the return text says, "in sephora. meet u there."

Sephora is like Danielle's favorite store, and Adam's bought some stuff there for drama class, but he can't really picture Tommy wandering among the liners and polishes and brushes. When he gets there, Tommy is definitely not wandering. He's sitting on a stool, eyes rimmed with heavy kohl and thick mascara, with a Slave-to-the-Rhythm era Grace Jones look-alike (seriously her hair is amazing) painting his lips with something so dark it's almost black. Adam stops and stares as she fits her little brush under Tommy's lip ring, carefully tracing the edge of his lip and then pulling the line all the way across to the opposite corner.

Adam wants to pin Tommy to the floor and rut up against him until neither of them can breathe. Which is not all that conducive to his being able to breathe normally even just standing there. It's also not his usual reaction to seeing a guy in makeup. Adam makes an awkward and totally involuntary noise which draws Tommy's attention from the mirror he's holding in front of his face.

Somehow―Adam wonders how much practice he's had―Tommy doesn't move his mouth at all, but he does a sort of eye-widening thing that seems to imply hello and I'll be done in a minute and what do you think? all at once.

"Fuck me," Adam chokes out, not at all what me meant to say, because it's far to close to what he's actually thinking.

"I told you I was good, honey," Grace says, smiling at Tommy as she finishes his lips with a final dab of her brush.

"You did," Tommy agrees, putting down the mirror and picking up the lipstick, checking the bottom. "I'll take this―" he looks at Adam for a second. "And the eye stuff."

Grace looks at Adam, too, her smile widening. "Good choice," she says over her shoulder to Tommy as she goes off to get his things.

"Do you do this often?" Adam asks, giving up on not staring. Tommy's eyes are crazy beautiful.

"Nah. Tried my sister's eyeliner and liked how it looked, but she threatened to run me over with Dad's car if I used it again, so I thought I'd get my own. I was gonna just get the cheap stuff, but then I saw this place and thought, why not?"

Why not indeed. Except for how they're at the mall on a Saturday and there are like eleven thousand other kids here and at least half of them probably like to beat up guys in makeup. Adam's not sure if Tommy hasn't thought about that or if he just doesn't care. He thinks it might be a combination of both, and his stomach twists with jealousy. Adam can talk the talk about not caring what other people think, but he's actually totally hung up on it. Since about the time they moved to Santa Monica and he started junior high, actually. Only when he's up on stage does he feel brave enough to wear whatever he wants.

"You look amazing," Adam says past the lump in his throat.

"Hell, yes, I do." Tommy jumps off the stool, hip-checking Adam's thigh as he goes past on his way to the counter to pay.

It doesn't occur to Adam until Tommy's walking toward him again that it would have looked less odd if he'd gone to the counter with Tommy instead of standing next to a perfume display clutching the edge of a shelf staring at Tommy's lips while he chatted with the sales girl. "You're a fucking creeper," he mutters to himself, singing a snatch of the song on the PA to cover his lips moving when he realizes it was actually aloud.

"Dude," Tommy says. "Celine Dion? Really?"

There's a comeback there about Tommy knowing who it is, but Adam can't find it. "You wanna get something to eat?" he says instead.

"You're totally buying me fucking Chipotle." Tommy swings his Sephora bag so it hits Adam's wrist. "This shit is expensive."

"I didn't tell you to buy it," Adam protests.

Tommy just laughs. Apparently the staring wasn't subtle in any way.

"Fine," Adam says. "But I get to borrow the eyeliner sometime."

"Maybe." Tommy skips ahead and turns to walk backwards like Adam isn't walking fast enough. "Carnitas with black beans and the works. Biggest Coke they have."

"You get everything you want, don't you?" Adam asks.

Tommy laughs so hard at that he nearly falls on his ass.

The line at Chipotle is out the door which means they have to stand in front of California Pizza Kitchen. Adam's hit with a flood of remembered embarrassment, transported back to the table in Hollywood with the waiter giving him pitying looks while he waited for Tommy. But Tommy doesn't seem to get the connection, just leaning against the window like some kind of supermodel in his makeup and ripped jeans and faded concert t-shirt. Adam can't help staring at him, and he catches a few other people staring too, including a guy in jeans so tight Adam's not sure how he can walk. Tommy meets the dude's gaze and blows him a kiss, which the guy catches and presses to his crotch.

Adam tries not to look too horrified, while Tommy laughs and the guy winks and carries on into the mall, but he can't help asking, "Did you know he was gonna do that?"

Tommy snorts dismissively, shrugging up off the window so they can move forward in the line. "Put my kiss on his dick? Nah. Figured he'd appreciate it, though."

Wondering if the guy speculated about whether Adam was with Tommy or with-with him, or if he'd even noticed Adam at all, Adam misses when the line moves again, and Tommy has to grab his wrist and tug him up to the door of the restaurant. Then he doesn't let go. They're not really holding hands, and from most angles it probably looks like they're just standing face to face, but Adam can feel a flush starting on his cheeks and a thousand stares prickling at the back of his neck.

"Dude, chill," Tommy says, dropping Adam's wrist like it's hot.

"I'm not―" but he was. Somehow he manages not to look around to see who's watching when he reaches for Tommy's hand, hooking their fingers together. "This is better," he says.

Tommy rolls his eyes, but he doesn't let go.

They eat, Tommy finishing Adam's burrito when he can't, and then Tommy asks if Adam wants to go to The Grove. Adam is starting to re-evaluate his assumptions about Tommy's shopping habits.

The bus stop on Third is crowded, but Tommy doesn't have Adam's hesitancy to push past people who've been waiting longer, so they manage to get seats right at the back. There's no trench coat today for Tommy to grope him under, and there are bodies pressed all around them besides, but Adam's still a little bit disappointed. Tommy isn't even paying any attention to him, leaning over to look out the window.

"We don't get off til Fairfax," Adam says. "It's a few more stops."

But Tommy straightens up and says, "No. Here," as the bus swings to a halt, and stands to squeeze through the crowds toward the door. Adam trips on someone's shopping trying to follow him, elbowing a woman in the back of the head, leaving a string of clumsy apologies in his wake while Tommy holds the bus door open making it beep. When he escapes the bus and looks around, they're standing in front of a bakery.

"You can't need more food. Seriously."

"Nah, gotta see a friend about something across the street. It'll just take a second."

Across the street there seems to be a beauty salon. "Okay," Adam says. They wait for the light to cross, Adam patiently, Tommy twitching and staring at the traffic like he can make it stop if he just glares hard enough. Adam's tempted to fling Tommy's "dude, chill," back at him, but he doesn't want that glare turned in his direction.

They don't stop at the salon, heading back up toward the Beverly Center another block until they get to an auto shop. "Wait here," Tommy says, almost a whisper, though they're alone on the corner of a busy intersection in LA, so Adam's not sure who might overhear them.

Adam doesn't want to wait here, but before he can say anything, Tommy's trotting down the side of the building toward a driveway at the back. Adam decides he'd rather wait than follow him. He's true to his word, doesn't take long, is back with a smile on his face in less than three minutes.

"Cool," he says when Adam looks at him quizzically. "We can walk from here; it's just a few blocks."

When they get to the Farmer's Market, Adam figures they'll wander around, look at things, but Tommy darts through the crowd, ignoring all the vendors, and heads for the parking garage.

"Now where are we going?" Adam's panting a little trying to keep up.

"Nowhere," Tommy says, slowing down once they're walking through the garage doors. Adam really hopes they aren't here to steal cars or something. Maybe that place was a chop shop and Tommy works for them.

"What are we looking for?" Adam's seen Gone in Sixty Seconds. People steal cars to order sometimes.

"You ask a lot of questions," Tommy says, but he says it more like he thinks Adams amusing than like he's really pissed.

"Only two," Adam feels compelled to point out.

Tommy laughs and speeds up again, heading toward the far side of the lot. Adam takes a deep breath and keeps up with him, so they're side-by-side when they round a corner and end up in a three-sided dead space about six by three feet, next to a sign that says, Employee Parking Only.

Adam doesn't see a single thing that Tommy might look triumphant about. Unless― Maybe Tommy wants to make out again. No one could see them here. Adam would do it. He might even let Tommy touch his dick. Before he can say anything, though, Tommy pulls a baggie out of his pocket.

"I'll save you asking," he says. "We're gonna smoke up."

Adam's not a total square. He's been to parties, and drunk wine with dinner sometimes on special occasions, and, unlike Bobby Preston's parents, who sent him to boarding school when he smoked pot in his dad's Mercedes, Adam's pretty sure his mom and dad wouldn't do much more than frown disapprovingly if they caught him smoking weed. But he's still never done it. As far as he knows none of his friends have done it. Except, obviously, Tommy, who he guesses counts as his friend again.

Adam says, "We are?" and hopes that sounds less stupid to Tommy than it does to him.

"Sit down," Tommy says.

There's nothing to sit on and the ground is filthy, so Adam sort of crouches against the wall. Tommy sits crosslegged on the asphalt in the protected corner where Adam had thought they might make out without being seen, and pulls a lighter and rolling papers out of his Sephora bag.

"A little dirt's not gonna hurt you." Tommy smacks the ground next to his hip. Adam sits before he's even decided that he's going to. Tommy rolls in silence, and Adam can't think of anything to say, so they just listen to the chirps of car alarms and the revving of engines headed up the ramps, Adam's eyes on Tommy's fingers. He seems like he knows what he's doing. Not like James Franco or whatever, but this is not his first time.

"Does your dealer work at that car place?" Adam asks while Tommy's licking the rolling paper to seal the joint.

"He's not my dealer," Tommy says, putting air quotes around the word with the lighter and the joint. "He's a buddy of mine. Graduated last year. He has a medical card."

Someone who's selling the pot he gets from a dispensary sounds like a dealer to Adam, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe he's not selling it. Maybe he just gives it to Tommy because he likes him. Or maybe Tommy gives him something else in return. Adam remembers the guy in the tight jeans at the mall, feels the same twist in his gut he'd felt watching Tommy blow kisses at him. He is so fucking pathetic. They've gotten off together once, and now he's all jealous.

Tommy lights up and takes a huge drag, then passes the joint to Adam. Remembering the choking disaster on Tommy's thirteenth birthday, Adam takes the tiniest inhale he can. He still coughs a little, but everyone coughs a little when they're smoking pot. At least in the movies.

"You don't have to smoke if you don't want to," Tommy says, holding out his hand for the joint.

He might have mentioned that before, but going back over their conversation, Tommy hadn't actually said anything about Adam having to. He just assumed Adam would want to, leaving it up to Adam to correct that assumption.

Adam doesn't hand the joint back, though. Instead, he takes a little bit bigger hit, trying to pull the smoke into his mouth first and then breathe it in so he can do it slowly.

"Or," Tommy says, smiling slyly up at Adam from under the fall of his bangs, "you can totally cave to peer pressure."

Adam lets him take the joint, and leaves his hand in the air, middle finger extended.

"Any time, baby boy. Any time." Tommy takes a huge hit, but looks at Adam and ends up doubled up laughing and coughing.

"What?" Adam says when Tommy seems to be breathing again.

"Oh my fucking god your face." Tommy takes another hit and hands the joint back. Still holding his breath, he croaks, "Classic."

Adam isn't sure he wants to know classic what, but he can guess surprise wouldn't be too far off. He wants to say something back that will put the same look on Tommy's face, but he can't imagine what that would be. Instead he takes another hit, and then another slightly larger one when that one doesn't make his chest seize up.

"How's it feel to lose your virginity?" Tommy asks while Adam's inhaling.

And fuck his chest seizing, Adam's whole body seizes up.

"This is your first time, isn't it?"

Adam's heart starts beating again with a thump that nearly knocks him on his face.

Tommy plucks the joint from Adam's numb fingers and watches him while he relights it and drags deep. Adam stares back, eyes on Tommy's lip ring, the way it touches the joint as he purses his lips to inhale. He thinks about the lipstick in Tommy's bag, and how it would stain the paper, and Adam would be able to see if its base is red or purple or true blue-black.

"They say you don't get high your first time," Tommy says, breaking Adam's trance. "But I got soooooo fucking high."

"I don't know if I'm feeling it," Adam answers. He isn't hungry, and nothing seems very funny, and Tommy's voice doesn't sound weird except for how so was really really long, but Adam's pretty sure Tommy did that, not his ears.

"You haven't smoked very much," Tommy says. "You should have some more."

"You have to give it to me," Adam says, because Tommy's still got the joint clamped between the fingers of the hand resting on his far knee. Adam would have to lean over him to get it.

Adam's pretty sure he shouldn't lean over him right now.

"I can give it to you," Tommy says, and giggles a little. But he doesn't hand Adam the joint.

"Give it to me, then," Adam says after thirty seconds or so of watching Tommy's hand and seeing it not move.

Tommy grins and hands it over, his fingers brushing Adam's deliberately. Adam thinks about Tommy's fingers brushing his dick and wonders if that might happen again. He hopes so, but Tommy isn't really giving him any clues and Adam hasn't got the first idea how to ask.

"You have to put it in your mouth and suck," Tommy says, and Adam realizes he's just staring at his fingers where Tommy touched them. Tommy's holding out the lighter, thumb over the wheel, and Adam pulls himself together, putting the joint to his lips and leaning into the flame when Tommy sparks it.

He doesn't choke, or even cough, somehow figured out how to smoke between the last hit and this one, and he leans back against the wall, tipping his head up and looking at the ceiling. Someone's sprayed an 8 on it in lime-green paint.

"Dude," Adam says, and he's going to ask Tommy why someone would do that, but he hears heels echoing through the parking lot, click, click, click, getting faster, getting closer. "Fuck, fuck!" he whispers, grabbing Tommy's arm. "Someone's coming!"

Tommy doesn't panic though, he laughs, hunched up over his knees, wheezing into his fist. There's a scrape, and a chirp, and then the heels stop, a door slams and an engine starts.

"Fucking Bowfinger,” Tommy gasps, still laughing, clutching Adam's arm back, so they look like they're trying to save the other one from falling off a cliff or something. Adam has no idea what Tommy's talking about.

"Fucking dog in fucking shoes."

Adam's still lost, but Tommy's laugh is infectious, and now he's laughing too.

"Man, you are baked," Tommy says, yanking on Adam's arm and headbutting his shoulder.

"You're the one talking about dogs in shoes," Adam points out. Totally reasonably.

"You cannot tell me you haven't seen Bowfinger. Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy."

"Oh, yeah," Adam says. He's never even heard of it. He's totally seen LA Story, and Beverly Hills Cop, though. And there's a video store around the corner from Danielle's house and she totally thinks Steve is hot with his white hair, so she'd probably let him choose it without asking any questions if he lets her think he owes her one for something.

"Let's go," Tommy says. "It smells like fucking gas in here."

There is so much Adam could say to that, but it seems like way too much trouble, so he just laughs again and lets Tommy haul him to his feet.

Instead of leading him back the way they came, Tommy tugs Adam by the hem of his shirt in the other direction, and they come out across the street from the park. "Need a fucking soda," Tommy says, and looking both ways, he darts out into traffic.

Adam freezes―he really doesn't want to die today, and his parents would kill him―but the cars are all going slow trying to find parking, and a woman in a station wagon with two carseats in the back glares at Tommy's back and waves Adam on.

"No fucking respect for people who don't have fucking cars," Tommy complains when Adam catches up to him. "You supposed to drive from the mall to the park?"

"I think you're supposed to use the crosswalk," Adam says, but Tommy's off again at a trot, leaving Adam to jog to catch up.

Adam's never been to Pan Pacific on a Saturday, and it's kind of crazy. All the picnic tables seem to be full, and there's a crowd of people playing baseball and a group of kids who seem to be playing tag, and where the fuck is Tommy going? Adam figured they'd head for one of the buildings, maybe one of them is a snack bar or something, but Tommy's going the other way, toward a mixed-generation crowd, maybe some kind of family reunion, barbecuing under a tree. Adam hangs back, unsure, not really wanting to meet people he doesn't know while he reeks of pot. But then Tommy's gone, and Adam's left on the path, standing in one spot and spinning, looking around like an idiot.

Until there Tommy is, on the other side of the crowd now, heading up a hill, a can of Coke in the hand not holding his bag of makeup. Adam spots an open cooler under the tree, none of the family paying attention to it. Tommy just fucking stole a can of soda from a family in the park. Adam should be mad. He is mad, but he's hella impressed, too. That fucking takes nerves of steel. He could never do it.

By the time Adam catches up to Tommy, he's found a patch of shade away from most of the crowd and is lying on his back, head pillowed on one elbow, Coke can to his lips. He looks gorgeous and dangerous, makeup starting to smear around his eyes, studded belt sticking out from under the hem of his tee, boots scuffed and worn and too-big looking on his feet. For a moment, Adam hates him with a frightening ferocity, hates how he can lie there without caring what anyone thinks, without being scared, no doubts, and Adam wants to fall on him, hold him down, arms pinned, legs trapped between Adam's thighs, explain to him that that's not how the world works. That there are rules.

And then Tommy looks up at him and grins, wild and happy, and he's six years old again, just found out he can go to day camp in the park with Adam in August instead of going to a babysitter with his cousin, and it's like the whole world is his, and Adam just wants to kiss him.

He settles on saying, "What the fuck?" and flopping down in the grass next to Tommy's bag, figuring he's less likely to try to do something stupid like hold his hand if there's something in the way.

"They'll never fucking miss it." Tommy holds out the Coke, dripping condensation on Adam's chest. The drops are cold, and spread out on his shirt, sticking the cotton to his skin and sending goosebumps pricking up the back of his neck. He doesn't want it, but his mouth is really dry, so he takes it and gulps some down.

"If you close your eyes and listen," Tommy says, taking the can back when Adam holds it out to him, "you can hear all the different sounds in layers, like the instruments in an orchestra."

Adam closes his eyes, but just hears noise.

"The traffic," Tommy says. "The people talking. The sound of the bat and the ball slapping into the gloves. The dogs barking. Just listen."

Adam listens. And Tommy's right. It's like music if you let it be.

When Adam opens his eyes again, seven loud cheers from the baseball diamond later, Tommy's rolled onto his stomach and is propped up on his forearms staring at Adam's face.

"Um," Adam says, his heart pounding.

"I didn't know if you were sleeping." With his teeth,Tommy twists his lip ring so the ball is hidden in his mouth, and then back again so it's resting against his lip, and then repeats the motion. It's really really mesmerizing.

"Um," Adam says again. "No." He's still staring at Tommy's mouth, and Tommy's still staring at his― He doesn't know exactly what, because he can't look away from Tommy's lips to see quite where his eyes are.

"I'm kind of housesitting for my uncle," Tommy says. "We could go over there if you want."

"Yeah," Adam says. "Yeah. Okay." Housesitting means no one is home. And the way Tommy's staring at him― Adam feels a grin start in his chest, bubble up 'til it hits his cheeks.

"Okay," Tommy echoes. "Yeah." He's smiling too as he stands and reaches out a hand to Adam.

They have to get the bus to Van Nuys, and then walk, and by the time they get to a low, pale stucco house, the sun is almost gone. Instead of heading for the door, Tommy angles across the front lawn to a gate at the side of the house.

"Where are we going?" Adam asks. He was looking forward to sitting down somewhere comfortable.

"Wanna show you something," Tommy says, fiddling with the latch, opening the gate just wide enough for them to squeeze through.

And Adam can see why. The grass and weeds growing alongside the house are waist high and the ground is littered with rocks ranging from fist-sized to head-sized. The gate can only open eighteen inches or so. Picking their way to the back in the dark is perilous. "We couldn't have gone through the house?" Adam asks.

"Just, come on. Don't be a baby."

When they get to the back of the house it's much brighter; a security light on the corner of the roof angles down to light up a small patio with a barbecue, two chairs and a table, and an old Cadillac that's seen better days. Adam's not sure what he's supposed to be looking at, but Tommy heads right for the car. "C'mon," he says, beckoning Adam with a flap of his hand as he opens the driver's door.

Neither of them are old enough to drive, and Adam can't see a gate big enough for a Beetle, never mind a Cadillac, so he doesn't think they could get out of the yard anyway, and it seems like that was an awfully long bus ride to look at a car. He's about to ask again what they're doing out here, but Tommy reaches around him and flips the seat forward, pushing him into the back, climbing in after him and taking the baggie and zigzags out of his pocket.

Adam doesn't want to be stoned when he gets home, but most of his buzz has worn off, and Tommy's really fucking hard to say no to. It's not so much that Adam likes being friends with him again and doesn't want to piss him off―Tommy doesn't really seem to be like that―it's more that Tommy makes everything thrilling. Makes things prickle under Adam's skin, and he doesn't know what to do with it except follow along.

Tommy makes quick work of rolling another joint. Giving Adam's face a quizzical look and not seeing a no there, he places it between Adam’s lips. His fingers brush against Adam’s cheek when he's lighting it, and despite the way Tommy was looking at him in the park, Adam isn't sure if it's an accident or not.

Smoking for a few minutes in silence, Adam squints through the haze at Tommy, trying to figure out what he wants, and then when Tommy arches an eyebrow at him he shakily gestures with the spliff in Tommy’s direction. Tommy takes it and inhales deeply before leaning into the front seat and stubbing it out in the ashtray.

Everything feels like it's spinning, and Adam leans back, letting his eyes drift shut, just for a minute. He doesn't even make it that long, because next thing he knows, Tommy's got his fingers sliding along Adam's hipbone into the waist of his jeans.

Tommy?” Adam's eyes fly open.

Tommy just grins at him, not moving his fingers. Instead he lays the flat of his hand on Adam’s stomach, half under his t-shirt, half under his jeans, watching Adam's face carefully, clearly pleased with himself.

Adam wants to be chill, act like he hasn't been hoping this would happen all day, like this isn't any big deal that they're doing this again, but he can feel his breathing quickening and his hips rising a little to meet the questing fingers. Pot's supposed to slow you down, but Adam's brain is flying, spinning―be cool, be cool, and oh my god, is this gonna mean we're boyfriends? what is he doing, fuck fuck fuck―and this shouldn't be harder than the first time, but somehow it is.

While Adam's distracted, Tommy’s other hand moves to his fly, and before Adam can even be sure how he got there, Tommy's fingers close around his cock. The grin Tommy gives him when he gasps is feral. And really fucking hot. Adam tries to breathe again and it comes out all thready sounding.

Licking his lips, Tommy pushes up Adam's shirt, and it's all Adam can do not to ask out loud if Tommy's gonna blow him, but Tommy's hand just keeps stroking Adam's dick, and when he leans in, it's to fasten his lips around Adam's nipple. Adam hadn't thought that sensation could get any better than it was the first time in Tommy’s bed, but high it's like his nipple is actually part of his fucking dick. No amount of embarrassment could stop the sound he makes when Tommy uses his teeth.

Please…” Adam begs as Tommy pushes his shirt up higher, nips at the skin under his collar bone, making him whimper again. “Please.”

Please what?” Tommy slows down his hand movements to a near standstill and stops all the kissing and biting. He clearly gets off on making Adam ask for what he wants. Adam's not sure how he feels about that.

Wanting to make Tommy feel the way he's feeling, Adam grabs his face and drags him forward to fall against his chest. He tries to kiss him but Tommy eludes his lips, kissing his jaw instead. Trying again to capture his mouth, Adam only gets Tommy’s lips brushing his cheek. Horny, stoned, and getting pissed off, Adam tightens his hold on Tommy's face. “If you don’t kiss me I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

Tommy starts laughing and can't stop. Adam's about to push him off and just leave―he doesn't have to put up with this shit―but Tommy's lips are all pouched out where he's trying to hold in the giggles, and Adam has to have them. While Tommy's distracted, Adam pulls him close and sucks his lower lip into his mouth.

Like he flipped a switch, Tommy stops laughing and starts moaning. Both hands on Adam’s chest, he's pushing him sideways in an effort to get him lying on the back seat. Adam wants Tommy underneath him, but he hasn't got the balance to resist. Then Tommy tries to get up onto his knees and falls onto the floor. Now they're both giggling.

Fuck man, I’m totally mashed.”

Laughing loosened the knot in Adam's chest, and he says, “Get up here. I have a cure for that,” which is a blatant lie, because all the making out has done for him is make him feel more baked.

Tommy starts to move back up onto the seat and then stops, his face inches from where Adam's dick pokes out of his jeans.

"Oh," Adam says.

"Oh," Tommy echoes, and suddenly two pairs of hands are shoving the jeans out of the way and Tommy's sliding his lips over Adam’s length, pushing at Adam's leg, though there's nowhere for it to go.

Dude. We’re in a car here. Not a lot of room,” Adam says, amazed at how steady his voice sounds.

"Mmmpf," Tommy murmurs, opening his mouth around Adam's cock and sucking on the head.

And yeah. Adam's not so much with the steady anymore.

With one leg folded up against the car door and the other crooked at an awkward angle in the footwell, Adam is far from comfortable, but his dick is in a boy's mouth―in Tommy's mouth―and no amount of fantasizing about the perfect romantic cock-sucking interlude comes even close to what it feels like to be actually getting his dick wet.

He has no idea what to do with his hands, since it seems rude to grab Tommy's hair like he wants to, so Adam grips the seat and the bunched-up fabric of his jeans and tries desperately to keep still. He can see Tommy jacking the base of his cock, though Tommy's hair is blocking the view of where his mouth wraps around the head. Scary and thrilling and amazing, when Tommy pulls up to lick the tip of Adam's dick, Adam can feel his lip ring catching the ridge. He's not sure it should feel as good as it does.

"I― You―" he says, his hand gripping Tommy's hair despite his best efforts. Maybe it's not as rude as he thought, though, because Tommy moans and shoves like half Adam's dick in his mouth, sucking hard and moaning again so it's all hot and wet and kind of vibrating in this amazing way. Adam's orgasm catches both of them by surprise.

Tommy coughs and splutters, dribbling jizz all down Adam's cock to soak into his boxers, and Adam vows to give some kind of warning next time. Assuming there is a next time. Maybe if you come in a guy's mouth that's a deal breaker.

"Sorry," he says, trying to sound earnest but mostly sounding dazed.

"S'okay." Tommy pats his hip. "Just took me by surprise. I'm cool with swallowing though. It's not like you have the clap, right?"

Adam has absolutely no idea what to say to that. He's pretty sure, "You're the first person I ever even kissed how the hell would I have the clap?" is the wrong thing, though, so fortunately when he opens his mouth nothing more than a gurgle comes out.

"I don't either," Tommy says. "The school nurse will test you and shit. It, like, got in the papers because the parents had a fit, but it has private funding or whatever. So."

Adam tries to imagine a clap clinic at his high school. No fucking way. "Okay?" he says. Maybe the pot was stronger than he thought, and he's imagining this whole conversation.

"You don't have to blow me, though," Tommy says. "You can just―" he makes the universal sign for jacking off.

Kissing, Adam thinks. Kissing would make all the talking stop. He pulls Tommy up off the floor and onto his chest.

They end up with Adam half on his back and only half on the seat and Tommy half on top of him and half holding him up, a position which is only tenable if they both stay still. This time it's Adam who ends up on the floor.

Ow! Fuck!” He hits his hip on the foot well divider and his right leg, tangled in his jeans, twists under him.

Tommy laughs so hard he hits his head on the arm rest. “Shit! Ow.” But he still can't stop laughing.

Shut up. It’s not funny.”

Tommy laughs harder.

This is ridiculous. But Tommy does seem to be laughing at the situation and not at Adam. Which is something. “Will you help me out here?” Adam tries not to sound like he's sulking.

Trying to look serious and failing spectacularly, Tommy manages to sit up and tug Adam’s pants off the leg that's still half on the seat. This enables Adam to sit up and finish the job. Tommy looks down at him where he's crumpled on the floor of the car, fully naked now. “Damn,” he says, under his breath. He says it like he thinks Adam's sexy.

Not sure what to do with that, Adam tugs at Tommy’s jeans, trying to pull them all the way off while Tommy divests himself of his shirt.

When they're both naked Adam stops to wonder what the hell they're doing in the back of Tommy's uncle's vintage Cadillac without their fucking clothes on, but then Tommy stops laughing and leans in to kiss him again, and Adam really couldn't care less if there are more practical places they could be.

Until, trying to get a better angle to kiss Tommy and get a hand on his dick, he brings his kneecap down on the button fly of his discarded jeans. He almost bites Tommy's tongue off.

Dude, what the fuck!”

Sorry. Buttons, knee, ow. It was bad.”

Let me see.”

Are you kidding? I can’t even see. It’s dark, I’m stuck in the foot well of a car―"

At least you got to come already.” Tommy's jacking his own dick, slow and insolent, his pierced eyebrow raised at Adam.

"It's so not my fault. You brought me out here. Doesn't your uncle have a couch or something?"

"C'mon up here. I can sit on your lap and you can get me off."

Adam does as he's told, but only because the seat is really much more comfortable than the floor.

He's not sure what he was picturing when Tommy said "sit on your lap", but somehow it wasn't Tommy kneeling either side of his hips, looming over him with his dick hard and right there against Adam's stomach. Still getting used to that, Adam's also not prepared for Tommy to sit, and Adam has to shove his thighs together at the last second so Tommy doesn't just sink down between them.

"Gonna touch me?" Tommy asks, maybe―just maybe―a little bit breathless and hopeful.

Adam's fucking hopeful anyway. He’s spent a lot of time in the last few weeks thinking about how Tommy’s dick looked in his hand, and he wants to see it again. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah." It still takes him a second to move, though. To get his hands up, one on Tommy's hip and the other wrapping around his dick, too hard, then too loose, then hopefully close to just right.

"Fucking three bears," he mutters, and god, was that out loud?

But, "What?" Tommy asks, and then, "Unngh," as Adam rubs his thumb across the slick on Tommy's cockhead, so probably he didn't hear.

"Good?" Adam asks, now that he's pretty confident the answer is yes.

"Yes it's fucking―"

Adam jerks faster, harder, stuck staring at the shine on his thumb and Tommy's dick reflecting the spotlight on the back porch. Not that the pizza night left him in any doubt, but, oh, fuck yeah, Adam really fucking loves dick.

"Don't fucking stop," Tommy gasps when Adam slows down just long enough to cup Tommy's balls with his other hand.

Tommy's high-pitched grunt when he squeezes brings Adam's eyes to his face, and damn, that's almost better than watching his dick. His eyes are closed, head tipped back just enough so his throat is long and tempting, glistening with sweat, and Adam wants to bite his lip ring, give him a whole necklace of hickeys, bury his nose in the hollow between his collar bones, but he just stares, rapt, wondering how the fuck he got so lucky.

He's so busy watching Tommy’s face that Tommy’s orgasm comes out of nowhere. Next time, though―god there better be a next time―he's going to know that the twitch of Tommy's jaw, the jerk in his shoulder, means he's about to come. Adam wonders if he looks like that when he's coming. Wonders how many other guys know that's what Tommy looks like.

He doesn't say, You're fucking beautiful when you come, thank fuck, managing instead to put a tease in his voice and ask, “You didn’t get any on the seat did you?”

Tommy chuckles without opening his eyes. “You can lick it up if I did.”

Yeah, not licking upholstery, but Adam is willing to lick the patch near the edge of Tommy’s left nipple, so he does. Then, to forestall any more comments about his come-tasting habits, he says, “If you think I’m putting my tongue anywhere near this seat you are so fucking high.”

"Not that high." Tommy grabs his shirt and wipes off the rest of his chest, checking the seat either side for spills.

Adam figures he, at least, still is pretty high, because he's a little disappointed that he didn't get to lick any more of it. Even though it's not exactly ice-cream flavored.

"Gonna smoke the rest of this with me?" Tommy asks, arching back alarmingly to grab the joint out of the ashtray between the front seats.

Snatching at Tommy's waist so he doesn't fall, Adam doesn't answer, but when Tommy comes back up again he puts the roach between Adam's lips anyway. The lighter is apparently on the back window shelf behind Adam's head, because Tommy's hand shoots out and the next thing Adam knows there's a flame flickering in front of his lips, Tommy's face looking wild on the other side of it. He inhales, lighting the spliff, and promptly hacks and chokes and nearly spits the thing at Tommy.

Tommy's hands fly to cover his crotch, making Adam acutely aware that they are still sitting in some guy's car, completely naked. He just had sex in a car. With a boy. His bare ass is on the seats. "How is this my life?" Adam says, filters shot to hell by the pot, and the naked, and the sex.

"Somewhere in your youth or childhood, you must have done something good," Tommy says, and seriously? How the hell is he quoting The Sound of Music? Why the hell is he quoting The Sound of Music?

"I'm pretty sure I'm still in my youth," Adam retorts, because he's ignoring the quoting thing, in case it's Tommy making fun of the fact that he's a theater geek.

"And you definitely did something good," Tommy says, leering, and leaning forward to take a drag from the joint Adam's pinching loosely between his fingers.

It feels like Tommy's inhaling his skin, all the way up his hand and his arm, into his shoulder. "Fuck," he says. Tommy lifts that eyebrow ring again before cupping Adam's cheeks and pulling him close enough to press their lips together, exhaling his lungful of smoke into Adam's mouth.

The hands on his face were just enough warning that Adam manages not to choke again, though if this is supposed to be a kiss, it's not exactly the best ever.

"Okay, now I'm high," Tommy says, mouth moving against Adam's. Then, resting his forehead on Adam's shoulder, "We're really naked."

"In your uncle's car," Adam reminds him.

"We should get dressed."

Adam hates to agree, but he really agrees. It's sticky and sweaty and weird now that they're not really doing anything anymore. "Yeah," he says.

Getting dressed in the back of a Cadillac is an adventure, and not one Adam really wants to repeat. They both have comestains on various pieces of clothing, Adam nearly gives Tommy a black eye with his elbow, and they both hit themselves at least twice on the windows or each other. Adam's parents have date night every other Friday, and they like Tommy―or at least they did before, he's not sure what they'd think of his piercings and his attitude―so probably they would be okay with Adam having him for a sleep over. He's totally going to figure out if Tommy would think that was the lamest thing ever, and then invite him. Because he's pretty sure they could have a lot more fun on a queen bed.

"I've gotta get home," Tommy says, once they're both dressed again.

"I thought you were housesitting for your uncle?"

Tommy busies himself getting the door open―not that easy from the back seat of a two-door car.

"Tommy?"

As he's climbing out, Tommy mutters, "Nah, he's just at poker tonight."

It sounds like Tommy just said they broke in to his uncle's yard to have sex in his car while he was out, and could come home at any moment. Adam wonders briefly if he's going to be sick. Then he remembers that pot is an anti-nausea drug, so he probably won't. Plus, they didn't get caught. But if he keeps sitting here, they might. He gets out of the car so quickly he's not even sure how he does it.

"Are you kidding?" he asks, because Tommy could totally be kidding.

"Didn't think you'd come otherwise," Tommy says, still not looking at him.

"You were right." Righteous anger is filling Adam's chest, but he tries to keep a lid on it.

"And you had fun, so. And I had fun." Tommy looks at him then, a quick flick of his eyes, and a quirk at the edge of his mouth. "Totally worth it."

Adam did have fun. But fucking hell. "C'mon," he says. "Let's get out of here."

They split up at the corner, no kiss goodbye, just an awkward bro-hug, and a murmured "text me" from Tommy who heads east to catch his bus home, while Adam turns south to get the bus into town where his Dad promised to pick him up if he called before 11:30. It's only 9:15, so Adam has a chance to air out a little. His dad for sure knows what pot smells like, but not necessarily in a way that has him being okay with his fifteen-year-old kid smoking it. Though Adam's pretty sure he'd be more okay about that than about his son letting a boy suck his dick in essentially a stolen car.

Maybe he shouldn't invite Tommy over. Tommy is just the kind of trouble his parents are always trying to keep Adam out of. He probably shouldn't see Tommy again at all, but Adam's pretty sure it's a little bit late for that.

Part 3