twelve kinds of donuts
Josh is the one who had made it all happen. As Drake’s manager, he’s the one who’d worked out all the details with Sounds magazine: five thousand dollars for an interview and photo shoot with Drake to coincide with his current single. They’d both been delirious with joy when the final papers had been signed, because Drake’s never landed a gig that pays like this, and he loves himself on camera so much that he probably would’ve done the whole job for a bucket of chicken. Josh had missed the shoot when Helen had forced him to take an extra shift at the Premiere, but he’s home when the copies are finally delivered: a sleek box with a sleek label, and inside, on top of the complimentary magazines, a sleek envelope with Josh’s name on it. Josh rips into the envelope, eager to see their take on Drake Parker. Drake hadn’t said much about the shoot. It was cool, he’d said, and They had twelve different kinds of donuts. Josh had imagined a swankier version of their senior portraits, so when he flips through the stack and finds his eyes skidding across way too much bare skin, he wheezes with shock, clutches his chest and slaps the stack of photos back down. It takes him three panicked tries to get them back into the envelope, which he stuffs into the box and carries to his room, feeling the whole while as though he’s trafficking contraband and might be busted at any moment. Drake. He’d said there were twelve different kinds of donuts, but he hadn’t mentioned this? After a few moments of quiet panic and some nervous laps around the room, Josh sits down and opens the envelope again. This time, he pulls out the whole stack and goes through them one by one, holding his breath. Drake playing his guitar: okay. That’s good, very musical. Appropriate. Drake with his guitar propped between his legs, shirt open at the collar. Josh’s eyes catch on Drake’s widespread knees, but he figures that’s the point. He sorts through the rest with his heart thumping so wildly his hands tremble on the thick photo paper, all because he knows what’s coming. Drake reading music, a pencil caught between his teeth. Drake from behind, in a bathroom. His head is bent to rinse his face with cupped hands, and the long, lean lines of his back are clearly supposed to be the focus, but Josh’s eyes are drawn to the details of his freckled shoulders, the shadowed small of his back. Josh hadn’t seen this one the first time. The nape of his neck looks pale and naked, and Josh wishes he’d been at the shoot, because he doesn’t like the idea of Drake being posed every which way by people who can instinctively find all his vulnerable places. Josh slides that photo from the top of the pile to reveal the next one, and there it is: the image that had sent him into hiding. He doesn’t know what to do with the Drake in this picture, a Drake he’s seen and yet has never seen. He’s still in the bathroom, bare-chested and barefoot on the white tile floor. Those are his own jeans; Josh recognizes the embroidery at the edge of the pockets, but everything else about the photo is unfamiliar, from the way the fly is open and half-unzipped to the way Drake has used the running faucet to slick back his hair, which is the moment that’s been snapped on film: hands frozen halfway through his hair, arm muscles flexed in movement, gaze on the mirror. In the 9X12, Josh can see each freckle on Drake’s arms and every wet trail that drips from his fingers down his chest, over his belly, and… Josh’s stomach clenches with uneasiness. Drake’s whole face is slicked with water, his eyelashes dark and gleaming, and Josh wonders what they’d said to get him to look at his reflection that way, so dark and studious, as though he’d seen something there that needed figuring out. It’s hard for Josh to believe there had been a whole crew on set for the shoot, because Drake’s introspection has left him so open—too open, Josh thinks as he goes back to the place where Drake’s jeans are undone. If he didn’t wear such tight jeans, they would’ve fallen down. Instead, they stay in place low on his hips, hipbones in stark relief with his arms raised to his head. Maybe this is what Drake does at night. Maybe he really stands in the bathroom and looks at himself this way, but if he does, it’s private. A million people shouldn’t have that image lying on their coffee table to examine anytime they please. Josh slowly drags that photo from the top of the pile. The next one is a closeup of Drake smiling. It’s a startling contrast, and the smile rattles Josh nearly as much as the others had. He knows that smile, but it’s different like this, as though each proof is making a statement about how good Drake looks, how much everyone is supposed to want him. How much Josh is supposed to want him. With a whimper of distress, Josh stuffs the stack of proofs back into the envelope and grabs for a magazine, paging through until he finds Drake’s shoot. They’d used the sexy guitar photo, the smile, and the first bathroom shot. He doesn’t know what had stopped them from using the second one, but it’s such a relief he whispers, “Yes,” and when he hears the front door, shoves the envelope under the sofa cushion. It’s stupid to be embarrassed when Drake comes in, because it’s not like Drake is a mind-reader or anything—not that Josh has anything to hide. All he’d done is looked; pictures are for looking, and his name had been on the envelope. It had been an ambush, and Josh can’t be held accountable for his kneejerk reaction that feels a lot like the time Mindy’s hand had first drifted onto his lap at the drive-in, those initial trembling moments when his body had begun to take notice. It’s so much like that that when Drake tosses his bookbag onto the floor and says, “Hey,” Josh is sitting with one leg crossed over the other and hands folded, so flustered he forgets to reply. “Whoa, what’s with you?” Drake says, coming closer, and Josh tries to sink further back into the sofa. “Nothing. Your magazines came,” he says too loudly, pointing maniacally at the box. It works, and Drake forgets all about him as he snatches a magazine and starts looking for his article. “This is awesome!” Drake says, waving the first page with the weirdly eroticized guitar photo. “I look good. Those guys seriously knew what they were doing.” “Yeah,” Josh says, his voice weak. “So you, you like it?” Drake’s head is bent to the magazine. “Yeah,” he says, and turns the page to the photo with his bare back. “Do you know how many girls I’m gonna get because of this?” He holds it up for Josh, who feigns approval with a nod he can’t quite control. They had twelve different kinds of donuts, Drake had said, and nothing about wetting down his skin for a stranger’s lens. It just seems like the kind of thing he could have mentioned, that’s all. * “You look very handsome, sweetie” Mom says, when the magazine is passed around the dinner table. Josh has already seen it, so he just pushes broccoli around on his plate and pretends he’s fine. “I just don’t see why you had to take your shirt off,” she adds. “I’m not sure about that one.” “I’m sure it makes me puke,” Megan says. “But thanks for keeping your pants on.” Not really, Josh thinks, and gives his vegetables a vicious stab. * A while back, flipping through channels one night, Josh had stumbled upon gay porn. It had been soft-core, but explicit enough that Josh had been aware of the slow migration of blood between his legs, and how he’d been intermittently turned on for days afterward. He’d told himself it was the act that had affected him, the willing mouths and soft sounds of pleasure, and he’d even believed it--right up until he’d held Drake’s picture in his hand and had the same response, all because of some unfastened jeans. Or…maybe it’s not the jeans. Josh sits on his bed and studies the picture the way he’s been doing more often than he would like to admit. He should’ve given Drake the proofs when they’d come last week, but he didn’t, and now it’s too late. He’s got to get rid of them, but first he needs to figure out why he’s been in knots ever since he’d opened that envelope. It’s not the jeans. There’s a chance it might be the pale skin Drake had exposed when he’d opened his pants—or had someone else opened them? Josh can’t even imagine how that would have played out. It’s just too intimate, he decides, stretching out on his belly and rubbing his fingers idly across the edge of the photo. This photo emphasizes all the secret places that Josh has only glimpsed briefly over the past few years: the thatches of hair on Drake’s pale armpits, and a soft line of the same down below his belly. Then there’s that look, and maybe Drake had been acting, but Josh has the feeling he’d known, in that moment, what this photo was meant to do. He had to have known, because—and Josh finally lets himself look at what he’s been avoiding this whole time—just to the side of Drake’s zipper is the outline of what lies just beneath. Josh has seen Drake in tight jeans a million times, has wrestled around with him in the same, so he’s noticed the way those jeans fit over his crotch. Everyone has probably noticed. But in the photo, the contours are thicker, fuller, and prominent enough that it draws the eye almost as much as the bare stretch of skin over his hipbones. Josh touches the photo and wonders how it would feel to press his fingers to those bones, to trace his way down past soft skin—and then he’s drawn back to the bulge that definitely means Drake had been at least a little turned on. Maybe he’d gotten hard just looking at himself. Josh swallows hard, staring dumbly at the focus in Drake’s dark eyes. He can feel his face burning, and when he shifts his hips on the bed, sensation rolls through him as strongly as the last few strokes of a great jerkoff session. He freezes, breathing through the need to move, to feel that again, to finish himself off. He is not going to do this. Maybe they’d shown Drake a dirty magazine to get him like that. Some cute topless blonde, and Drake would have adjusted himself in his jeans, ever-obliging, because he likes himself on camera. Or maybe he’d touched himself—a few furtive rubs over the front of his jeans until he’d firmed up—and Josh’s hands are clumsy as they cram the photo back into its envelope and slide the whole thing under his mattress. With a quick glance at the closed door, he braces his forearms on the bed and drags his hips forward, sweet pressure on his dick and Drake’s wet skin spinning through his mind. He’s really doing this, he realizes far too late; he’s getting off on Drake just like he’d known he would even when he’d first opened that box, so he just goes for it, humping the mattress until his biceps are sore and his pajama pants are soaked. When it’s over, he’s a wreck, his bed is messed up, and even though he’s just come all over himself, he’s still excited—in his head, at least, where he doesn’t think he’ll ever get past that glimpse inside Drake’s jeans. So when it comes down to it, he doesn’t even need the pictures anymore. * By the next weekend, Josh still hasn’t thrown out the pictures, and he’s been avoiding Drake so much that he’s not sure he can get away with it much longer. Drake pulls a brown blazer over his white t-shirt and shakes out his arms. “You’re not even dressed,” he says, coming around to where Josh is watching TV. Josh sighs. He’s trying to be excited about Drake’s big single release party, but the magazine came out today, and everyone is going to be waving it around and reminding Josh what a psycho he’s being, not to mention how they’ll want to ogle Drake and touch Drake and everything else that happens when Drake turns it on. “I don’t know,” he begins, but Drake stops him with a hand on his leg, just above the knee. “No. No, no, no. You can’t wuss out on me now. You have to come, Josh; you’re my manager.” Drake leans in and pushes Josh’s hair out of his face. “What’s going on with you, man?” Josh drags his teeth over his lower lip, uncertain how to answer. He’s not sure when he went from being a great brother to the worst brother, but he doesn’t deserve Drake’s casual affection and he doesn’t deserve praise as his manager, either. “I always come to your nerd parties, and you never come to mine,” Drake says. “There’ll be lots of girls there who’ll want to hear all about your wheeling and dealing.” “I don’t know,” he says again, and Drake’s expression flickers from confusion to hurt to annoyance. “I’m playing tonight.” It’s his last attempt, Josh can tell, and he feels like such a heel making Drake beg like this that he caves, and five hours later, Josh is standing on Trevor’s back porch while a hundred guests trash the inside of his house. As the guests have grown drunker, the girls have grown bolder, and Josh had last seen Drake in the kitchen, cornered by two girls that he’d been doing an impressive job of kissing one after the other after the other; a slow, easy exchange that only Drake could pull off. That’s when Josh had decided to get some air. He has a bottle of water and a good view of the festivities in the yard below, a dancing crowd he’d been a part of before he’d wandered off to find Drake. Now he remembers why he doesn’t like to do parties with Drake: they always end this way. Josh reclines on a plush lounge chair and looks up at the stars. It looks like it’s past curfew. “Hey.” Josh turns in time to see Drake climbing onto his chair, shoving him over to make room so they can both stare up at the sky. “Hey,” Josh says. “Didn’t think I’d see you anytime soon.” He can feel Drake’s self-satisfied smile, can hear it in his voice. “I had to make sure my manager was having a good time.” Josh can’t help but smile back. “How’s that working out for you?” “Not good,” Drake says. “He’s all by himself, when there is fun to be had. And want to hear a secret?” “Sure.” Josh searches for the big dipper. “I don’t think he likes my magazine article.” Josh crosses his arms over his chest, away from the warmth of Drake’s body. “I like it.” “But you always cut out my reviews and stuff for that scrapbook.” “Maybe I got tired of you calling me ‘Mother Josh’ every time I wrote in it.” “Did you?” Josh sighs. “Not really. I’m sorry.” He knows Drake wants to hear about how good he looks, but he’s already heard that from everyone here tonight, so does he really need to hear it one more time? “Don’t be sorry. Tell me what’s wrong with the interview.” This would be so much easier if he’d accepted the beer Drake had tried to push into his hand a couple hours ago. “Nothing,” Josh says slowly. “It’s a good interview, good exposure.” Drake nudges his elbow into Josh’s side. “And…?” Drake Parker does not need to fish for compliments. It doesn’t make any sense for him to go so determinedly after Josh’s approval, but Drake’s mind is a surprisingly complex place for how simple he appears on the surface, so Josh grits his teeth and says, “And you look fantastic, okay?” He feels a ripple of satisfaction go through Drake’s body. Josh keeps his gaze on the sky, but he can smell Drake, the smoky scent from Trevor’s basement, and beneath that, something faintly reminiscent of citrus and cut grass. This is how Drake always smells: a combination of body wash and the stuff he smoothes through his hair when it’s wet. This time, it doesn’t seem quite as intrusive when Drake tips his head to rest against Josh’s shoulder. “We missed curfew, you know,” Josh tells him. “I was wondering when you were gonna notice.” “I noticed a while ago, but you looked like you were having a good time. In the kitchen.” “Yeah,” Drake says happily, and tucks himself into Josh’s side. To Josh, this feels better than making out with two girls at once, not that he would know what that feels like. Drake is more than enough for him. He always has been, and Josh has always thought it had something to do with how cool it is to have a real family, but now he knows better. “Drake,” he says slowly, because it’s not often he gets Drake to sit still without a million other distractions, and he’s not even sure what he’s going to say. Wanting something from Drake is like trying to control the weather: there’s a fifty-fifty chance it’s not going to happen. “Yeah?” Drake shifts again, relaxed against Josh’s side, and his fingers worrying absently at the hem of Josh’s t-shirt. “Have you ever liked somebody you didn’t necessarily want to like?” Drake goes stiff. “Is this about Mindy?” “No!” Josh says, but as soon as Drake says it, he has the horrible revelation that this is a pattern with him; that maybe he’s destined to like the wrong people for the rest of his life. “Good,” Drake says. “And no, Josh. I like liking people.” “I do, too,” Josh says, tracking the slow path of a blinking airplane across the sky. “But it’s not always that simple.” “Nah. You make everything too complicated,” Drake says. He kicks his shoe against Josh’s; a few idle, affectionate taps that make Josh want to press his face into Drake’s hair and hold him close. “I know I do.” “It’s not a teacher, is it?” Drake asks, after a few seconds. Josh smiles. “No.” “Is she ugly?” “Drake.” “Sorry, sorry.” Josh is finally relaxed, drowsy with the cushion at his back and Drake’s body heat at his side. Drake taps their feet together a few more times, and the sensation goes right through him. He wants so much, and it’s hard to swallow before he says, “Not ugly. The opposite of ugly.” “What’s the problem, then?” “The problem is that this person would never be interested in me, and they wouldn’t like it if they found out I was thinking about them that way.” “Huh.” Josh can’t help but smile again, because of course Drake would be stumped by what to do if someone didn’t fall into his lap when he indicated the slightest interest. “It’s okay, I’ll figure it out” Josh says, and with Drake lying against him, in no hurry to go anywhere, he almost believes it. * By the time they’re climbing up to their bedroom window, Josh has worked up a good case of nerves about staying out so late. He’s not as experienced with this climb as Drake, who makes it look effortless, but it’s not effortless—it requires plenty of effort, and when Josh takes a wrong step, he finds himself dangling with his hands on the windowsill, shoulder throbbing with the impact of catching his weight so abruptly. “Drake!” he starts to yell, but Drake is already pulling him in, gripping his forearms and holding on until Josh collapses on the floor inside, clutching his shoulder and panting through the pain. “Dude, are you okay?” Drake drops to one knee beside him. “No, I am not okay,” Josh moans. “I pulled at least four muscles, and maybe a bone.” “Heh. Pulled a bone,” Drake snickers, and it’s lucky that Josh’s arm is only attached by a few remaining tendons or Drake would be dead right now. On the bright side, blinding pain does a lot to cancel out any desperate yearnings Josh might normally feel, with Drake kneeling beside him and rubbing his shoulder that way. Desperate yearnings or not, Josh still jumps a little when their bedroom door is flung open and Megan storms in, arms crossed, hair impossibly smooth for the middle of the night. “If you’re going to sneak in past curfew, it might help if you were better at sneaking,” she says, and Josh just isn’t in the mood, with his arm still smarting and Drake right there on him, still rubbing, impossible to enjoy. “It might help if you minded your own business, little girl,” he says. It’s dangerous because somewhere along the way she’s grown out of that little girl, and the last time he’d called her that, she’d turned his laptop inside out. “Ooh,” Drake says quietly. “You’re right, I should mind my own business,” she says sweetly, and turns to go. Josh sighs with relief. Drake’s fingers are warm and firm, and are actually beginning to dissolve the pain. Josh takes a deep breath and starts to relax just as Megan stops in the doorway and says, “Don’t worry, Josh. Since it’s not my business, I won’t tell Drake what you’re hiding under your mattress.” She shuts the door with a slam loud enough to wake Mom and Dad. “Dude, what’ve you got?” Drake asks as soon as she’s gone. Josh fights down a sudden wave of nausea. “I—“ Drake squeezes his shoulder one last time. “Don’t worry about it; I’ve got some, too. Maybe we can trade.” He climbs up his bed and pushes his hand between the mattress and box springs before he comes out with a worn issue of Funboy. Josh claps his hands over his eyes when he sees the giant-breasted cover model. “Drake.” What if Mom came in right now? “What?” Drake gives the cover an appreciative look. “Is yours better?” “Yes! I mean, no,” Josh says, getting to his feet with only a few twinges to his arm. “I mean, I don’t have any porn.” He eyes his bed, trying to gauge whether or not he can get to his bed and dispose of the evidence before Drake. It’s hard to tell, because Drake is fast and he’s interested, and when Josh glances back over, Drake is eyeing Josh’s bed with the same expression. “It’s private,” Josh says, edging away from the window. “It’s not what you think, it’s—“ and then they’re both racing across the bedroom. They both reach his bed at the same time. Drake is fast, but Josh is terrified, which gives him the burst of speed he needs to catch Drake and drag him down to the floor. It works for a minute, but Drake is wiry and determined, and he manages to get his hand under Josh’s mattress even as Josh clings to his waist and pleads with a desperation that just makes Drake more curious. It’s over when Drake’s hand reappears holding a big yellow envelope. “Ha!” he says. “I knew it.” Josh stumbles over to the sitting area and sinks down into the armchair, his stomach queasy as he stares at Drake, who really has no idea what’s about to happen as he cackles happily and empties the contents of the envelope onto Josh’s bed. “Wait. What?” Drake reaches for one of the pictures, and Josh can guess which one he’s reaching for. He knows very well that one of those photos doesn’t match the others anymore, doesn’t have the same high gloss, is worn at the edges and wrinkled at the corners. His stupid hands have been all over that print a million times, and why hadn’t it occurred to him earlier that since the day he’d moved into this house, he hasn’t been allowed any secrets? Megan. “What are these?” Drake asks. “The proofs from your shoot,” Josh says, and buries his face in his hands. He’s so mortified that it hurts; an ache of regret in his chest, his throat, and along with that, the conviction that he’s going to puke. “Yeah, my shoot,” Drake says, gathering the photos and clutching them to his chest. “So why are they in your bed, like—“ Josh doesn’t have to look up to know that Drake has just figured out the answer to his own question. “I’m sorry.” Drake doesn’t say anything for a while, but he can’t stand there forever, so he finally says, “I’m taking these,” as if he expects Josh to give him a fight. “Drake,” Josh says, but Drake says, “Go to bed,” and since it’s nearly morning, Josh does what he says. * They both sleep in the next day. Josh thinks he’ll never be able to rest again, but obsessing over Drake is exhausting, and he wakes around noon, vaguely aware of people moving around downstairs, before he turns his face into his pillow and falls asleep for so long that when he wakes, Drake is gone and the light has turned to late afternoon gold. He gets a slow start, partly because he’s gotten too much sleep and partly because he remembers what went down last night. Just to make sure, he checks under his mattress. When he’s finally showered and downstairs, it’s nearly five o’clock. “Where’s Drake?” he asks Megan, belatedly remembering his vow to never speak to her again. She doesn’t look up from the TV. “He left a couple hours ago. Said he was going to meet someone.” Someone. Josh doesn’t have to ask what that means. He starts to walk away from Megan, who says, “Don’t you want to know who he’s meeting?” Even after all that sleep, he’s still tired. “Not really,” he says, flopping down on the sofa. He tries to watch TV, but can feel Megan looking at him. “You’ve been asleep for a long time,” she says. “Maybe I had nothing to get up for.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means you ruined my life,” Josh says, crossing his arms over his chest as he slouches down on the sofa. “I don’t get you. I know you have this need to prank me and Drake every chance you get, but this is different. Drake was my—“ He stops when he feels his throat closing up. “Your soul boob?” Megan says. “He’s not going anywhere.” “He’s already gone. He wouldn’t even talk to me after he found the…you know.” She has the nerve to roll her eyes. “First of all, the you know was disturbing. And secondly, you have no clue who Drake went to meet, do you?” “I don’t care who he’s meeting. He meets a lot of people.” “Whatever,” Megan says, tossing him the remote as she gets up. “I have a date. You can figure out your own love life.” She’s just gone upstairs when the doorbell rings, and Josh drags himself to the door, where he finds himself face to face with Mindy. She’s wearing a little blue sweater set and an expression remarkably similar to Megan’s, and the first thing she says is, “You’re an idiot.” “What?” She lets herself in and begins to climb the stairs. “Come on, there’s no privacy down here.” “There’s no privacy anywhere,” he says, and follows her because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Mindy, I, it’s not that it’s not good to see you, but this isn’t the best time.” “Why?” she asks as she closes the door behind them. “Because you finally put the moves on Drake?” Josh is pretty sure he blacks out a little. “I didn’t; Mindy, I didn’t…I wouldn’t even know how to- I didn’t do that.” “Come on.” She’s as pushy as ever, tugging his hand until he sits with her on his bed. “You say you didn’t put the moves on Drake, but he came to me with an awful lot of questions about you.” Josh falls backward and buries his face in his pillow. “He didn’t tell you?” “No, but he was pretty freaked out. Whatever you did, it must have been huge.” “Forget it. It’s too embarrassing. Why are you here?” And why had Drake told his ex-girlfriend on him? Unless he’d hoped Mindy would get back together with Josh, which is so depressing Josh considers crawling under the covers and never coming out. “Because I was starting to think this day would never come, and I wanted to be here when it did. Josh, do you really think anyone is surprised, here?” “I don’t know; Drake seemed pretty surprised.” “He was surprised when you…?” Josh glares. “I will never speak of my humiliation.” “Whatever.” She slaps his hip. “Buck up, Nichols. It could be worse; you could have wasted three years dating a guy who’s gay for his stepbrother.” When she puts it like that, it sounds even worse. “What did Drake say to you?” She shrugs. “Not a lot. He actually wanted me to do the talking, if you can believe it. He may have the brain capacity of a peanut, but he’s figuring things out.” “With your help.” “What, you want to keep on like this? All paranoid and miserable and doing who-knows-what to humiliate yourself?” Josh sits up and rubs his face. “I just want it to stop.” He looks at Mindy, who is being way too nice, not that he’s complaining. It helps that she’s still as bossy and impatient as ever. That part is familiar, and Josh is almost grateful for it. “Well, it isn’t going to stop. Drake is eventually going to come home, and I just figured you deserved a heads up on what he’s been doing.” “What has he been doing? What did he ask you?” She laughs, low and throaty, and folds her hands on her lap. “He’s Drake; he was very direct. Not direct enough to talk to you about it, apparently, but he seemed…” “Mad?” Her expression turns thoughtful. “Maybe. But I was going to say…serious. Serious for Drake, at least.” “Oh.” It isn’t exactly what he wants to hear. “I’m going to take off before he gets back,” she says, getting up and smoothing her skirt. “I’ll let myself out. But do yourself a favor and settle this while it’s on the table, all right?” Josh isn’t making any promises, but Mindy’s come all this way because she cares, so he says, “Thanks, Mindy,” as he watches her go. * Drake doesn’t come home until after dark. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s watching Josh—blatantly staring, actually, and while Josh would normally tell him to knock it off, he knows he has no room to talk. “So, I guess you really liked those pictures,” Drake says, once he’s retreated to the safety of his bed. Josh closes out the email he’d been writing at his desk. At least Drake can’t see his face right now. “I’m sorry.” “Nothing to be sorry for,” Drake says. Josh hears him pluck out a few notes on his guitar. “That’s what they were there for.” “Okay.” “I mean, I don’t know exactly what you were doing with them,” Drake says casually. “But I can guess.” “Congratulations.” “Yeah.” Drake leaves him alone for a few minutes, just long enough for Josh to nearly finish his email, before he says, “So, you thought they were pretty hot, huh?” “Drake,” Josh groans. “Do you think I want to talk about this?” “I’m just interested,” Drake says. “I didn’t know you were so good at keeping secrets.” Josh puts his head on the desk. “I didn’t do a very good job of keeping this one.” “Well, Megan,” Drake says. “That’s totally not your fault.” And for such a small admission, it feels a lot like forgiveness. * Drake is polite but distant over the next few days. Josh doesn’t push to go back to their old relationship, because why would Drake want to curl up with him, now? Wednesday night, Josh is holed up in the bedroom watching television and thinking about how much time he’s going to be spending alone from now on. When Drake comes in, he just goes to his dresser and gets a change of clothes for the shower. “Hi,” Josh says. Drake slams his top drawer shut. “Hi,” he says, and disappears for forty-five minutes. When he comes back into the room, Josh hears the door lock, which is surprising because it means Drake is planning to voluntarily spend time alone with him, at least for a while. It surprises Josh even more when Drake comes around to the sofa and kicks his feet up on the coffee table, wet-haired and smelling of the shower, and wearing nothing but jeans. The jeans from the shoot. Josh looks at him in a confusion of indignation and despair, but then Drake reaches down and very deliberately thumbs open his jeans. The indignation disappears, and Josh’s face goes hot. Drake’s zipper makes a grating sound as he drags it down, down, until it’s all the way open, and he’s all stretched out for Josh to see. Since he’s Drake and cares about doing things with style, he tugs open the corners of his jeans for good measure, all pale skin and jutting hipbones and the sudden abundance of hair that Josh wants to pet all the way down inside his jeans. He jerks his gaze back to the television, but Drake takes the remote and presses the mute button. “What, do I have to be wet for you to like it?” Slowly, Josh looks over at Drake. “No,” he blurts, convinced it’s a trick question. It’s a crazy question, because Drake’s hair is wet and slicked back, just like it had been in the photo. Everything is the same, except that this time Drake seems scarily accessible, as though Josh could just turn toward him and slide his hands down into Drake’s pants. “I…are you making fun of me?” Drake squints at him in annoyance. “This is what you liked, right? You want me like this so you can…” He gestures at the way he’s sprawled out for Josh’s enjoyment. “So, do it.” “Do what?” Josh turns on the sofa because after that offer, he knows he’s at least allowed to look. “Touch me,” Drake says. His hand drifts down and rubs at the side of his jeans, where a full erection is pushing against the tight fabric—nothing ambiguous, this time around. “But, why? I mean, what can I do?” “Anything.” Drake lets his arms fall to his sides. “I know you’ve thought about it. Right?” “Yes,” Josh admits. He just isn’t sure he wants Drake to know how much he’s thought about it. “But what if you don’t like it?” Drake just looks at him, and this is somehow worse than being caught with the pictures, because although he’s clearly supposed to do something, whatever he does is likely to be wrong. Finally, Drake heaves an annoyed sigh and eases himself up from the sofa. For one panicked moment, Josh thinks he’s going to leave. It makes him sick to think he’s missed his chance all because he’s too chicken, but Drake just moves to stand between Josh’s legs. “Here,” he says. He reaches for Josh’s hand draws it in, brings it close so Josh’s fingers are flush against the soft skin of his belly. He holds it there, as though he knows that Josh will jump away the moment he lets go. “Okay?” he asks. Josh nods. “Did you think about doing this?” Drake asks, pushing Josh’s hand down further, over the bump of his hipbone, and over until his fingers have slipped behind denim. “Yes,” says softly, watching the slow path of his hand under Drake’s direction. His fingers skim the hot length of Drake’s dick as Drake guides his hand in a crawling upward path. “Did you think about doing this?” “Yes,” Josh says, and whimpers when the tip of his finger catches the head of Drake’s cock. With reluctance, Drake withdraws Josh’s hand from his jeans and brings it to rest on his belly. Josh’s stomach flutters with the worry this might stop. Drake isn’t doing anything else, but the door is still open, so he takes over, moving his hands across Drake’s skin with hesitation. It helps when he thinks about the things he’d imagined doing when the photos had been in his hand. He does want this, and Drake’s patience is likely to run out soon, so he wraps his fingers around Drake’s waist. When Drake steadies himself with both hands on Josh’s shoulders, it feels like explicit permission. Anything he wants, which is to touch, so he starts by dragging a thumb through the trail of hair beneath Drake’s belly button, feeling the clench of muscle far beneath that soft stretch of flesh. He uses a light touch over Drake’s chest, careful fingertips over his nipples, and he hopes Drake won’t think it’s weird how much time he spends rubbing his nipples into hard points. When he glances up to check, Drake is watching him with heavy eyes. His hips feel restless in Josh’s other hand, as though Drake is having a hard time keeping them still, and nipples suddenly seem intolerably boring compared to other places Josh could be touching. With the zipper undone, it’s easy to shove his hands down into the back of Drake’s jeans, Drake’s ass in his hands, his thumbs stroking at the small of Drake’s back. It feels so good that it takes a Herculean effort not to make the ecstatic sound that keeps rising up in his throat. What he really wants is to pull Drake in and get his mouth on belly and nipples and even lower, but that would be…Josh squeezes Drake’s ass and stares at the small glimpse of dick he can see…that would be oral sex. A blow job. Drake had said he could touch, not taste. Josh could ask, but it might be weird to talk while he’s got both hands on the curve of Drake’s perfect little ass, so he holds off and tries to figure out how to get the jeans even further down. Then, so softly Josh thinks he might be imagining it, Drake moves a hand from Josh’s shoulder to the back of his neck. It’s a nudge, nothing more; a mere suggestion of what he wants. Drake is normally so pushy about what he wants, yet Josh is pretty certain it’s an invitation. As he leans in toward Drake’s belly, the fingers follow, spreading into his hair. This time, Josh does moan when his mouth touches bare skin. Drake’s belly feels warm and alive against Josh’s lips, the way it flexes and trembles as he lays a light trail of kisses that inevitably ends up below Drake’s belly button. Then it’s Josh’s tongue across the line of hair that’s been off-limits for so long, and he grasps Drake even harder and sucks just below his hipbone, his face practically in Drake’s crotch now. “Feels good,” Drake says, his voice low and serious, unlike anything Josh has ever heard. If Drake thinks that feels good, then maybe he won’t mind if Josh yanks his hand out of Drake’s pants and pulls the front of his jeans down on one side to expose his erection, which stands up against his belly, dripping wet at the tip, the head smooth and gleaming and the perfect size for Josh to close his mouth around. Drake’s hands tighten in his hair. “Josh,” he says, but the sound deteriorates into a helpless, throaty sound when Josh drags the flat of his tongue across that slick, salty surface. He’s got this, now. This is what he’d wanted all along: his hands on Drake’s slim hips, thumbs pressed to the hard ridge of hipbones, and finally, finally, his mouth pulling at Drake’s cock. Now that he’s started, he doesn’t think he could stop, and he knows he’s just manhandling Drake right now, but Drake seems cooperative enough and goes easily where Drake wants him, pushes his hips forward into Josh’s mouth when he goes down further. He even lets Josh peel his jeans all the way down to his knees, which leaves Drake completely exposed to him, and Josh can feel his own dick starting to throb in warning, as though he could come just from all this glorious tactile input: Drake’s belly heaving against his hand, the taste of sex in his mouth, and when he gets a little more daring, the heaviness of Drake’s balls in his palm. It’s good, but he still wants more. With a source of aggression deep in the pit of his belly he hadn’t even known existed, he pushes Drake back onto the coffee table and pins him there, wide open for whatever Josh wants to do next. Drake goes, his legs flailing momentarily before he gets up on his elbows and watches Josh brace his hands on either side to take him all the way in his mouth, sucking and swallowing and panting around the solid length that feels as though it can’t possibly get any harder, any tighter, until Drake says, “nngh, coming, Josh.” Josh pulls off to watch Drake’s cock jerk all over his belly. It’s so much more than that; it’s the way his hair has begun to dry in crazy tousled pieces, the way his head arches back to expose his throat, and most of all, the way his hand reaches blindly to press against his dick, fingers sliding through his own come as he pants through the rest of his orgasm. “Open your pants, I want to see you,” Drake says, squeezing himself one last time. For once, Josh doesn’t argue; just fumbles his dick out as quickly as he can, already pulling at it with purpose, because he’s only a few strokes away. “Yeah, do it on me,” Drake says as though it had been Josh’s idea all along, and he’s so casual about it, when Josh feels as though he’s choking, having an aneurism from pent up lust, so urgent that he can’t take the time to be self-conscious as he speeds up his hand and adds to the mess that’s already glistening on Drake’s stomach. He gets Drake’s cock head, too, which wrenches another surge of pleasure from him, and then he collapses onto the sofa, dick hard and sticky in his hand, and Drake utterly wrecked on the coffee table. “Oh my God,” Drake says on a long, satisfied exhalation. Oh my God, Josh thinks. His mouth feels sensitive and tingly from its determined slide up and down Drake’s dick. Oh my God. Drake stretches into a sitting position, kicking off his jeans the rest of the way so he’s just sitting bare-assed on the coffee table, covered in both their come. “I can’t believe how hard it was to talk you into that,” he accuses as he pushes his hair back. “For a minute, you had me thinking I had it all wrong.” “I, uh, no. I was a little surprised,” Josh says. He discreetly lets go of his dick and tugs down his t-shirt. “Usually, people talk about these things first.” “Usually, people don’t spend a month jerking off to naked pictures of their brother.” Drake has him there. “I’m the one, right?” Drake looks as though he’s about to get on Josh’s lap, which makes him nervous at first because of the mess, but he’s already a mess, and he’s thrown off by the sweet kiss Drake presses to his mouth when he goes ahead and climbs on. “I’m the one you don’t want to like, but you do.” “Maybe,” Josh sighs, and is rewarded with another kiss. Drake’s lips are warm and firm against his, and have a vaguely familiar feel, as though Josh known all along this was how Drake would kiss. This time, he gets in on it and draws his tongue along Drake’s lower lip, hands all over his smooth, bare back, and the most surprising part is how Drake melts into every touch. “Drake, wait.” Josh breaks the kiss, but doesn’t let go. “You seemed so pissed off about the pictures, and now you’re…I like it, but how are you okay with this?” “Mindy said you’ve liked me for a long time.” “Yeah, but that’s me.” Drake has that look as though he’s debating whether or not to cop to something, and then he takes a deep breath and says, “She said you’re like, in love with me.” Josh wishes he could just slip away right now, and avoid this whole conversation. Maybe he’d been a little inappropriate with those pictures, but he’d have been content to just look for the rest of his life. He hadn’t asked for Megan to out him or Drake to show up in those pants or for Mindy to give away something he’d never trusted her with in the first place. “Hey,” Drake says, his fingers light on Josh’s face. His eyes are careful and searching, and Josh can’t look away. “I told you; I like it when people like me.” Josh licks his lips. “Yeah?” Drake’s mouth drifts over to Josh’s ear. “But you know what?” “What?” “I love it when people love me,” he says, and wraps himself around Josh with an iron grip. Josh already knows this about Drake. Of course he loves to be loved; it’s the basis of his entire career. But there’s a difference between beautiful fawning fans and a clunky stepbrother with a persistent rash. “Even me?” “Dude, especially you,” Drake says softly, and presses a kiss just below Josh’s ear. “Who can love me better than you?” Nobody, Josh thinks, and holds on tight. |