“My dad. Twenty years, and he’s still working a dead-end job at a crappy chain, and he coughs all the time at night, and his hands are always dirty. And he works so hard, but he can never get ahead. My mom’s a nurse, and she does okay, but the minute they figured out I was good at school, they told me I had to…I had to make it out. They gave up so much for me, so I didn’t have to have a job in high school, or in undergrad.”
Fuck. Marsh’s eyes were stinging, and he couldn’t even name why.
“I work because they’re counting on me,” Greg said. “Because I have to take the chance they gave me. I have to.”
Marsh’s chest burned. “They have to be so proud of you.”
“They are.” Greg sounded so confident about it, like that was something he’d never had to doubt the way that Marsh had. “And I earn that. Every day.”
What the hell was Marsh supposed to do with that? What, except scoot across the floor and take Greg’s face in his hand and kiss his mouth. And he didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve to have someone so smart and downright
good
sitting on his floor eating takeout with him, but by some miracle, he did. He nipped at Greg’s bottom lip and pressed their foreheads together and tried to say all the things he couldn’t quite, because there weren’t words for this. If there were, he’d never found them.
But then again, he’d never gotten so close to someone who made him want to say them before.
When he pulled away, his face felt warm, and something in his chest did, too. Greg squeezed his hand. “What was that for?”
“Just because I wanted to.” It came out a little too honest, but with everything else he was holding in, maybe there wasn’t any way around that.
Marsh took his hand back and retreated over to his side of their takeout picnic. He downed a couple of bites that didn’t taste as good as Greg’s lips had and that didn’t ease the deeper hunger that never seemed to go away now.
“Well,” he said after a minute. “Whatever your reason…” And he wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Brains were brains and jocks were jocks, but really, he’d never felt like he was on the good side of that dividing line. “I respect it. I don’t know if I could ever work that hard.”
“Sure you could. If you found something you cared about enough to want to.”
Marsh thought about that. What the hell did he care about that much? There was baseball, sure. He loved the moment of calm when he was up at bat, the thrill of his blood rushing through his veins as he rounded a base. There was the thread of history unwinding before him, intricate and twisting. The looks on the faces of those kids he’d helped learn how to judge a pitch.
“How did you know?” Marsh heard himself ask.
“Know what?”
“What you wanted to do? When you grew up, or whatever.”
Greg’s face softened, and Marsh felt more out of his league than usual. Younger and more ridiculous.
“Science is always what I was good at. My dad…he’s a mechanic, right? He used to take me to the shop with him sometimes, and he’d show me how things worked when he had time. I got really into it, but not just that. I wanted to know
why
things worked the way they did. I found some books on it, and I had a couple teachers along the way who gave me extra stuff.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just made sense to me in a way nothing else did.”
“Must be nice.” Marsh tried to swallow the rueful edge to the words.
“It is, in its own way. But people who are good at a lot of things…I’ve always envied them. Sure, I figured my stuff out early, but it was partly because it was the only thing I was ever really good at. Makes it easier. But try telling that to my high school English teacher.”
Marsh couldn’t even imagine Greg struggling at anything.
Greg paused. “Have you done any internships or anything yet? Those are a way to figure out what you might want to do with yourself. Or at least try things out.”
“Nah.” Yet another way Marsh had fucked himself over. Any summer internships he might have applied for he’d had to pass over in favor of his damn baseball schedule and trying to fit in some paying work around it. “Though…”
“Yeah.”
“It’s nothing.” Marsh’s gaze drifted to the box in the corner of his closet. “I mean, it’s not
nothing
, just some stuff I did at summer camps the past few years. Teaching kids.” There was a whole crew of them, junior high age mostly, that showed up for a couple of weeks in the middle of Marsh’s training camp. He and some of the other guys would volunteer to work with them between practices in the afternoon. “Mostly just helping them with their swing, but there was some other stuff, too. That was pretty okay.” More than pretty okay. It was the best he’d felt about anything, other than on the field.
“That’s definitely something. Teaching is cool.”
Marsh chuffed. He couldn’t really picture himself in front of a classroom, or in a tie, or being responsible for anything.
Except that sometimes, he could. “It was,” he said, after chewing contemplatively. “Cool, I mean. At least the summer camp stuff.” He pointed his fork toward his closet, and his ribs felt tight just bringing it up. Because he didn’t tell anybody about this kind of stuff—about what a sap he could be sometimes. “The kids all, like, wrote me thank-you letters at the end of it. I still have them. They cheer me up sometimes.” Times when Marsh had needed something to remind himself he wasn’t a complete and total waste.
Greg twisted around, looking where Marsh had directed him. His eyes alit on the box of letters before he turned back around, poking his chopsticks at his rice and looking down. “That’s awesome. The kids I teach, I consider myself lucky so long as they don’t hurl rotten fruit.”
“Sure.” Marsh bet Greg was a great TA. He was smart without acting stuck-up about it. Approachable.
A beat of silence passed before Greg said, “You’ll figure it out.”
Marsh grunted noncommittally, his stomach dipping at the quiet tone of encouragement.
Because he
had
to figure it out. Unconsciously, he glanced at his bag. The still-unpaid bill was practically burning through the nylon now, and he wasn’t going to get many more chances.
He had decisions to make, but how was he supposed to? How was he supposed to know what to do about any of this when he didn’t know what the point of it all was?
Even if he signed the paperwork and hocked himself into debt for the rest of his life, what was it for? A useless degree? A piece of paper to hang on his wall while he ended up as bad as his own dad, thinking about the glory days when people thought he was hot stuff just because he could hit a ball?
Back when he was fucking someone who was going to go on to win a Nobel someday?
God, he was getting whiny—even in his own head he could hardly stand the timbre of it. He pushed his plate away and drained the rest of his beer.
On the other side of the room, Greg was finishing up his own meal. He licked his lips and set his chopsticks down. Fidgeting, he drummed his fingers against his knee. Barely done, and already he was eyeing the door.
Marsh forced himself to smile. He tried to keep the disappointment from his tone as he asked, “You gonna get back to it?”
“Probably should.” Greg’s posture eased, one side of his mouth quirking up. Probably relieved he hadn’t been the one to have to come up with an excuse to go. “You don’t mind?”
“Not gonna kick you out, but no. You got enough stuff to do.”
“That’s an understatement.” Closing up the containers that still had food in them, he waved toward the door. “Want me to put this stuff in the fridge?”
“Yeah, sure.” Marsh started gathering up the trash.
Greg stood, and Marsh didn’t look at him.
But then there were feet in his vision, a hand on the scruff of his neck. Marsh flickered his gaze up, and Greg curled his fingers into the hair at Marsh’s nape, tipping his head back.
“Thank you.” Greg bent over, pressing his lips to Marsh’s. And it felt like the thank-you was for more than just the food.
“Anytime.”
Another kiss, and then Greg straightened up.
“Don’t work too hard,” Marsh admonished once Greg was at the door.
Greg turned to him, and his smile was tired, so tired, but there was light in his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it all under control.”
Chapter Nine
Greg had told Marsh he had everything under control. He’d even managed to say it like he believed it. But one short week later, and everything had started spinning out, accelerating to the point where he was running to stay in place.
Just thinking it made him want to scream.
It was like when his dad had thrown that seventh ball into the mix when Greg had been learning how to juggle as a teen. That crystal moment just before it all collapsed, the timing one millisecond off, and everything was ready to come crashing to the ground.
He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep. The only times he felt like he had a grip on anything at all were times like these… Times like this. Right now.
He closed his eyes against it all and nosed harder at the tender flesh beside the crest of Marsh’s hip, twisting his fingers deeper into the slick, soft give inside. It was all heat and the rush of having someone—having Marsh beneath him. Even still, he was ready to flame out, ready to burst.
Because he only had control here—here in the space between Marsh’s parted legs, smelling musk and scraping teeth along the marks he’d left the day before and the day before that—because he was holding on to it so tightly. Clinging and grasping on, forcing himself into a shape he was never meant to fit. The casual paramour, the pushy top, the
fuckbuddy
, and God, he hated that word.
Almost as much as he loved, loved,
loved
the noises Marsh made. The choked inhale when Greg stroked his prostate and the groan as he danced fingertips up and down the length of his cock. The way Marsh clutched the sheets and the times when he grabbed Greg’s hair.
Greg soaked it all up and bundled it, precious and necessary, and hid it deep inside himself, in amongst the reserves that would get him through, somehow.
“Greg—Greg, Christ.” Marsh was dripping sweat, his hair falling into his eyes. He looked wrecked and fucked-out and desperate, the sheen to his eyes so perfect that Greg could read things into them that he shouldn’t, not if he wanted to stay sane. “Please.”
Marsh was begging, and Greg’s cock bobbed against his hip. Greg gave another quick twist of his wrist before pulling his hand free.
And Greg didn’t have time for this. There were so many things to do, but taking Marsh apart this way was like a drug, and he didn’t know when he’d get his next fix. He didn’t know when Marsh would realize what was going on here and walk away. When Greg’s oasis in the desert dried up completely, leaving him scrabbling at sand.
A skitter of pain seared its way through his chest at the thought of it, there and gone in a flash. Refusing to dwell, Greg shook his head and swiped his fingers across the sweat-slick plane of Marsh’s abdomen. Wrapped a hand around his cock and gave it one wet stroke that had Marsh keening.
“Come on,” Greg grunted, shoving at Marsh’s hip, and Marsh went over willingly enough. Greg rolled a condom on and got himself wet, and then wrested Marsh’s legs apart. He bit his lip at the first rough push inside. Marsh was so hot and tight, flat on his stomach as he let Greg take him and fuck him and fuck his own problems out of his mind. Greg lay himself out across the sheets of rippling muscle, every inch of them pressed together as he fit his mouth to the hollow of Marsh’s ear.
Every time was the best time, but this was more. This was Marsh panting and perfect underneath him, and Greg
needed
this. With everything else in his life seeming to slip through his fingers, he held fast to it with everything he had left.
“Do it,” Marsh groaned as Greg paused. “C’mon, fuck me, fuck me.”
It broke the spell.
Sex. Greg was here for sex and not salvation, and he was too close, Marsh’s skin too hot, and there was too much of it pressing up against him. He reared back, fitting hands to thighs to push Marsh wider, getting his knees beneath him.
Just once, he wished he could be the one lying on his back, letting himself be exposed. Taking it. Slow and sweet, and with his hands on Marsh’s face, kissing his mouth and giving him all the things he was so tired of trying to hold on to.
But not tonight.
He closed his eyes. With one hand braced on the bed and one on Marsh’s shoulder, Greg fucked into him, fast and brutal and efficient and just like everything else.
When Marsh came, it was with a cut-off cry that sounded like Greg’s name but that could have been
God
, or anything. Greg focused in on the sound of it and on the feel of hot flesh through latex and away from the jagged edges in his chest. His balls ached as the swell of climax arched its way through him. He buried himself deep and gave in and let it go, and for a shining moment, he felt
amazing
.
Like somehow, someway, everything would be okay.
Sagging, he let his head rest on Marsh’s shoulder, and Marsh made a wrung-out humming sound low in his lungs. Greg gave himself a second.
Then he pulled out, and it was over, and he was weak-kneed and exhausted and more brittle than he had been before. He disposed of the condom and started looking for his clothes.