Fairyville (Fairyville #1)(31)
Author: Emma Holly

Bryan released the breath he’d been holding, wondering if hearing Alex say this made him feel better. He sat beside his friend and colleague on the narrow bed, letting the brush of his arm warm the other man’s. "I’m glad you want me, I really am, but you can’t spend your whole life hating yourself for having different needs from other folks."

"I hate myself for hurting her. I loved her so much. I just don’t understand how I could have done it."

Alex’s confession sounded as if it hurt his throat. Bryan took his hand and held it loosely against his thigh. Unable to resist, he ran his thumb over the knuckles. Alex’s palm was as smooth as if he scrubbed it with a pumice stone. "I think you should tell me what happened with this Coach Vickers. I think you need to get it off your chest."

Alex sighed. "I wish it were that easy, but I guess you might as well hear the tale from me."

The temperature had cooled enough to leave the windows open. Alex wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and forget everything in the soft, juniper-scented breeze.

"Lie back," Bryan said as if he knew. "It’s easier to talk in the dark."

Alex kicked off his sandals and let Bryan turn off the lights. The bed was narrow, especially for two grown men, but it felt good to have Bryan stretch out beside him. Alex was on his back, his fingers laced on his belly. Bryan rolled onto his side and covered them with one hand.

"Whatever it is, I’m betting the statute of limitations has expired."

It never would for people like Mrs. Fairfax, but Alex began anyway. "I played football in high school. Quarterback. I could take a hit if I had to, and I had good instincts for how to use the rest of my team. When you play for a town called Fairyville, winning cuts down on a lot of teasing. I knew how to win, and since I was more outgoing then, I was popular."

"I can see how that would be the case." Bryan scooted down to settle his head in Alex’s shoulder. It wasn’t his usual careful gesture. It was trusting and relaxed, and it made a part of Alex relax as well.

"My friends had a nickname for me. They called me the Super Outer."

"The Super Outer?"

"A couple times, guys on the team who were… conflicted about their sexuality came to me for advice. I think it was partly me being a big brother figure, and partly because they hoped I’d admit I thought about guys that way myself and might offer to initiate them."

"And did you think about guys that way?"

Bryan shifted beside him, lying heavier against his side. The slight increase in pressure had Alex’s ever-willing c**k weighing heavier, too. Alex blew out a laugh.

"From the first time I gave myself a hand job, which was—I don’t know—maybe at thirteen, it seemed like I thought about every erotic possibility under the sun. Everything was sexual to me: guys, girls, new leather seats in cars. Luckily for me, I looked more mature than I was. By the time I hit fifteen, girls were throwing themselves at me—older girls especially. My mother would have died if she’d known, but I was having regular sex with girls, more than once a week, at sixteen. It seemed easier to leave the nonstandard options to my fantasies."

"And then you met Coach Vickers?"

"Not quite. Then I met Zoe." Arousal spurted through him at the memory, changing his c**k from heavy to stiff. Trapped by the cloth of his trousers, the head began to push down his leg. He lifted a knee to give it room, this sort of adjustment second nature to him. "The guidance office assigned her to tutor me in some stupid math crap I couldn’t pass, and, God, I fell for her hard. She was cute and weird, and every time I looked at her, she blushed beet red. She’d barely kissed a boy before I met her. I knew she was too young for me, and way too innocent, but I couldn’t make myself turn away from how much she liked me. It was one of those can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, can’t-think-of-anything-but-you crushes. Just seeing her smile at me was a drug."

"So you gave up your harem for her."

Alex snorted. "I suppose you could call it a harem. Romantic genius that I was, I thought true love would cure me of wanting those other girls. I knew Zoe wouldn’t believe I loved her if I kept seeing them, that she’d be so hurt if she heard about me cheating that she’d probably run away. The way she looked, she should have been tripping over would-be boyfriends, but she was too much of an oddball. I had no competition. There was nobody to keep me from having her but me."

Restless, Alex turned to face Bryan, their hands tangling together on the quilt. "We did everything I could think of short of intercourse and o**l s*x—well, short of o**l s*x on me."

Bryan chuckled. "You performed o**l s*x when you were in high school? I’m impressed."

"I would have done anything to make her happy. I didn’t want her dying of frustration the way I was. The funny thing was, I was actually getting off more than usual, but nothing we did seemed to be enough. I was obsessed with going all the way—with getting my dick inside her pu**y. I started looking at other girls again, started noticing everyone who gave me any sort of an eye. And that’s when Assistant Coach Vickers hit my radar."

"He was g*y?"

"He wasn’t supposed to be. He was engaged to another teacher at the school, some pretty English teacher who’d started chasing him as soon as he got the job. I guess he wanted to be straight, because he let her get her hooks in, but the closer the date for the wedding came, the more I noticed him watching me. Tom was fresh out of college. Couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. He was a good coach—a good guy who wasn’t ready to admit what he was. He didn’t do anything overt, just a little too much eye contact. When he offered to oversee a new weight-training regimen to increase my upper body strength, I knew his reason wasn’t just to give his winning quarterback a stronger arm."

Sighing, Alex let his chin rest on Bryan’s head. "I don’t even know who made the first move. One minute he was spotting me at the players’ gym after-hours, and the next we were rolling around the floor mat like animals, trying to rip off each others’ clothes. I’d never done it with a man before, but—by God—Tom wasn’t going to let me stop once we started.

"I remember him saying nothing but ‘fuck me, oh God, f**k me’ for at least five minutes, and it took that long to get me in. He was like, ‘Just spit on it. Just push harder.’ It was exciting to see anybody that desperate, and even with both of us being clueless, the sex was great. We blasted off like we were never going to have that kind of sex again—which was probably what Tom was afraid of, what with the wedding looming over him.