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He cleared the history and cleaned up the registry to make sure nothing had slipped in to the Murphys’ computer while he was poking around, then took out his phone to leave a private post on
2top4u
’s profile.

Supposing I did get to the city, how do I know you’re for real?

The answering post pinged back after lunch while Jonah was helping with the dishes. He took the trash outside to read it in privacy.

Isn’t the danger part of what gets you hot?

Jonah tucked his phone away and stared into the yard.

He felt warmth behind him before he heard Evan’s voice. “Our reputation has been sullied.”

“Huh?” Heart in his throat, Jonah spun around quickly. “I didn’t—”

The protest faded as Evan raised his eyebrows and offered a half smile. “My sisters and April have challenged the gay men to some kind of dancing video game. Are you ready to defend the honor of homosexuals everywhere?”

The men won on points, though Natalie had the highest individual score. She’d clearly played before. Kelly could move like he didn’t have a spine, which inspired some awkward feelings, since Jonah was already overdosing on guilt.

The girls blamed Caroline for dragging them down. “Yeah, you try those moves after three kids.”

“No one made you have them,” Natalie sniped back.

Jonah didn’t remember last Christmas or even Thanksgiving being this tense, but then last Christmas, Paul had been there with a joke or a story that defused whatever sprang up. After dinner, the six of them played a board game while Evan’s mother accomplished the astounding task of arranging sleeping quarters for nineteen in a four-bedroom house.

During the game another argument burst out between Evan’s sisters. It might be only his second Murphy Christmas, but he’d heard this argument from them last year, something to do with a TV show they’d watched obsessively years ago.

“If it had been anybody but Madison,” Caroline started.

“It doesn’t matter, they were broken up at the time.” Natalie yanked the box of question cards away from her sister.

“I don’t think he knew what that meant to her,” April added.

“Of course he did. That’s why it was Madison. He did it to get back at her. That’s why it was like cheating.” Caroline picked up the dice and shook them in her hand.

“He didn’t remember—” Natalie began.

Kelly cut her off. “Not to denigrate my entire gender, but I think you’re giving the guy too much credit for using his upstairs brain. If an opportunity presents itself and he’s unattached, well...” he leaned back to make sure they were the only ones in the dining room, “...a hole’s a hole. Sorry, Caro.”

All three of the girls made a face at him with April adding an “Ew, thank you for the image, brother.”

Kelly shrugged.

“Six years of this, for God’s sake, like they were real people.” Evan waded in, but instead of the calm finality Jonah was used to in Evan settling an argument, his voice shook with emotion. “They were broken up. Whatever fucking happens after a breakup is not cheating, no matter who the fuckee is. Now can we finish the game before dawn?”

“Lighten up, Evan. It was just a TV show.” Caroline tossed the dice onto the board.

“I’m done.” Evan pushed away from the table.

Caroline and Natalie stared at his retreating back, but Kelly and April fixed their gazes on Jonah. As if he knew what had set Evan off. Jonah spread his palms and shrugged. Evan in this mood was not something Jonah wanted to decode. He’d finish the game and give him a chance to calm down.

It was more than an hour before the game wrapped up. In the dark of their bedroom, Evan sat up as Jonah closed the door.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Jonah whispered.

“I was awake.”

“Oh.”
Probably not calmed down then.

Jonah hadn’t done anything wrong.
Yet,
his conscience whispered. Still, he hadn’t so much as touched another guy since that first night with Evan almost two years ago. And he hadn’t wanted to.

Jonah stripped and sat on the edge of the bed. “Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Jonah chose his words carefully. “You got a little intense.”

“Growing up with two sisters plus April made me really glad I’m gay,” Evan said dryly.

There wasn’t a lot of room in the double bed, but after Jonah had settled under the sheets, he found Evan managing to keep a few inches between them.

Preserving that distance, Jonah rolled on his side to face Evan. “Kelly seemed better today.”

“Yes, I’m sure he’s completely recovered from losing the love of his life.” Evan turned onto his back.

Jonah let those words sink into his head. Evan didn’t throw that word around a lot. In fact, despite the whole he-has-wedding-rings-in-his-desk thing, Evan had never once told Jonah he loved him, was in love with him, whatever. Jonah was pretty sure he had said it to Evan. Maybe not directly, but ways like “I love when you cook me dinner,” or “I love what you do to me in bed,” but considering that Jonah also said with frequency how much he loved a song or his phone, Evan might not have taken it the way Jonah had meant it.

Somehow, he knew Evan really needed to hear it now.

“Evan.”

Evan turned his head to look at Jonah.

Jonah swallowed. “I love you.”

Evan’s features softened in that way Jonah knew was just for him, a slow smile, warm eyes crinkling. Evan put his hand on Jonah’s cheek and tipped him until their foreheads touched.

“Good. Because I love you, too, babe.” Evan rubbed his thumb along Jonah’s jaw, behind his ear. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Evan pulled Jonah onto his chest. “You never told me what you wanted.”

Jonah shrugged. “Couldn’t think of anything. Besides this.” He swept his hand down Evan’s flat stomach, fingers furrowing through the hair above his cock.

Evan caught Jonah’s wrist. “You already have that.”

“Can always have more.” Jonah raised his head to leer at Evan.

Evan pulled Jonah back down. “If you do figure out what you want, will you promise to tell me?” Evan’s tone wasn’t playful at all.

Jonah wrapped his arms around Evan’s chest and squeezed. “You’ll be the first to know—after me.”

Chapter Eight

Six garbage bags of wrapping paper, five pounds of oranges squeezed to juice, four hangovers, three dozen eggs, two tantrums from the under-eight set and one Murphy Christmas morning later, Jonah couldn’t wait to get in the car.

“Next year, have mimosas at breakfast,” Evan said to his mom as he kissed her goodbye.

“Screw that, I’m making Bloody Marys,” his mom muttered back, offering Jonah her cheek. “A pitcher of them. Right now.”

Kelly, one of the hangover victims, gave Jonah a sloppy hug, then clung to Evan for a few minutes, whispering.

Jonah only caught a few words,
thanks, keep in touch, I’m sure he’s—
before the rest of it was drowned out in the shrieks of two of the boys running through the foyer, knocking him back against the wall.

“He came.” Matt yanked open the front door. “Uncle Paul.” He barreled out and hugged the man on the front step, his younger brother following by half a step.

Jonah glanced around. He wasn’t the only adult who stood frozen, staring. Kelly’s back was to the door, and he was the first to move.

Paul put his hand on Matt’s head and set Connor on his feet. “I have to say hi to everybody else. Can you guys give me a sec?”

They might be kids, but they weren’t stupid. With glances around at the grown-ups, they sidled off.

“Kel?” Paul’s voice was hoarse.

“What? You thought of another way to humiliate me and ruin my life but you couldn’t do it over the phone?” Kelly snapped.

“No. Kel, I came to say I’m a complete ass—” he glanced up at Evan’s mother, “—idiot. The biggest idiot in the world.”

“No argument here.” Kelly folded his arms.

“I—can I come in?”

“Why?”

“Fine. I’ll grovel out here. Kelly, I love you, I do. I was just scared and I needed to be sure.” Paul dropped the bag over his shoulder and went down on his knees.

“For Christsake. I’m coming out.” Kelly stomped onto the step and shut the door behind him.

Damn
. Jonah really wished he could hear the rest of this conversation.

“Well,” April said.

Evan’s father grunted and went back to cleaning up the kitchen.

“I think I will mix up that pitcher now,” Evan’s mother said. “I’m certain they won’t go to waste.”

April waved Jonah and Evan over to the bay window in the dining room. Jonah trotted after her, but Evan yanked him back.

“What?”

“Obviously Kelly doesn’t want an audience.”

Jonah kept replaying Paul’s words in his mind.
I was scared and I needed to be sure.
Had he meant about getting married? Because that was something Jonah would like a little more information on.

“Crap. They left in a car.” April let the curtain fall. “Do you think they’re going to work it out?”

“Do I look like a psychic?” Evan asked. He disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes. When he came back out, his face was set, unreadable. “You ready?” He turned to Jonah.

“You don’t want to wait?”

“I want to get home. There’s snow in Lee.”

“It’s always snowing in Lee,” Jonah grumbled but hoisted his bag up on his shoulder.

They were on the Massachusetts Turnpike when Evan said suddenly, “I know how it’s going to turn out.”

“Kelly and Paul, you mean?”

“Kelly will take him back. Paul pulled the same shit back when they were first dating, it’s why they opened the relationship up. But it’s been years. I thought he’d...grown up.”

“Are you saying Kelly shouldn’t take him back?”

“None of my business.” Evan shrugged, but the rapid tattoo of his fingers against the steering wheel said he had a different opinion.

Jonah was used to Evan’s quiet disapproval, had managed to learn what that tongue poking into his cheek meant when Jonah was dressed to go somewhere and Evan disapproved of the selection, or the way Jonah never knew exactly how much was in his checking account.

This was different. Evan was swallowing back something a lot bigger than a desire to say “You look like you slept in that shirt.”

Jonah thought back over the almost two years he’d known Evan and realized he’d never seen Evan really angry. Irritated, frustrated, pissy even, but not mad. This was the closest thing Jonah had ever seen. It left Jonah suffering something like the car sickness he used to get as a kid, when after anything over forty-five minutes in a car had made him yell to his mom to pull over. He wasn’t quite there yet, but it felt pretty close. No matter what
2top4u
had to offer, it wasn’t worth this risk. He promised himself he’d ignore anything else the guy posted.

Neither guy made it easy though. Evan was distant the whole day, right on through the work week. Not rude, not withdrawn, but Jonah could see that whatever energy and polite smiles Evan summoned were as fake as the secretary at work’s new tits.

* * *

Beginning the day after Christmas and every night after,
2top4u
sent a suggestion, an image or both, which were increasingly hard to ignore. Like a pic, the one with a copy of Jonah’s profile picture in his hand, the smile aimed at the man’s thick cock, which didn’t necessarily prove that it wasn’t a fake, but at least the picture hadn’t simply been ganked from someplace else on the internet.

And the post,
Every time I think of that smile I want to put you on your knees for me.

A definite change from the profanity-laced text speak that usually passed for flirtation on the site.

Jonah had promised to tell Evan what he wanted when he figured it out. How was he supposed to figure it out unless he tried what he might want? If Evan had been acting the way he had at his parents’ house, pinning Jonah’s hands over his head, driving him crazy with those whispered commands, it might have been a little easier to test the waters with Evan without feeling like Jonah risked screwing up the best thing he’d ever had a chance.

After three days of no action, Jonah decided he wasn’t going to let Evan’s dick go into hibernation for the winter. Dragging himself out of bed, Jonah slipped into the shower to launch a stealth blowjob attack.

At first he thought Evan would push him away, but the hand on Jonah’s head slipped down to the back of his neck and dragged him forward as Evan came to life in Jonah’s mouth. The firm hand held him there as the blood-filled length started to crack his jaw and choke him, until he thought he’d have to squirm away because the water from the shower was filling his nose and he couldn’t breathe. Jonah tried to lift his head, and Evan used both hands to hold Jonah there, spasming, choking on a throat full of cock, deeper and longer than Jonah had ever held anyone. Some of the water on his face was tears now, because he couldn’t breathe. At last Evan eased back, and the lack of pressure was so good, the air such sweet relief in Jonah’s lungs he wanted to dive back in until he drowned.

Evan didn’t let go, now he used his hips to control how much dick Jonah got in his mouth. The tease of Evan’s taste smeared across Jonah’s lips, a light plunge that was barely enough to let Jonah hollow his cheeks and suck.

Evan held himself away so that the tip of Jonah’s tongue could barely get at the slit, burying him in complete frustration as the shower washed away the taste Jonah craved. He started to shake his head free, but Evan cranked Jonah’s head back, forcing him to look up.

The polite mask Evan had been wearing was gone, but the face remained a stranger’s, hard, unmovable. Jonah’s dick throbbed between his thighs, the tip tingling from a pulse of precome.

Jonah’s neck strained from the way Evan was holding him. Unsure of what Evan wanted, Jonah rubbed his hands on his thighs, wondering if he should use his hand and mouth like he would normally. Evan shook his head.

Confused, Jonah blinked water out of his eyes, mind racing as he tried to figure out what was next. If Evan wanted to jack off in Jonah’s face, Evan would have to let go with one of his hands or use Jonah’s, or fuck his mouth and pull out. Or maybe Evan wanted to fuck now. They’d never seemed to get so freaking complicated before. Jonah’s dick felt as if it weighed fifty pounds, so damned heavy and aching for something. And Evan just wanted to do this staring thing?