Something Like Summer (37 page)

Ben pushed past him and
stepped over Chinchilla, whose whole butt wagged in greeting. He
stomped into the living room to discover a mousey girl pouring over
multiple spiral notebooks.

“
Is that your car
outside?” Ben asked, suddenly feeling stupid.

“
Huh?” the girl replied,
finally noticing him. “Yeah. Do I need to move it?”

“
No. Sorry.”

“
Actually,” Tim said,
entering the room, “we’re going to have to do this tomorrow.
Something’s come up.”

“
There’s only two days
left!” the girl complained.

“
I know. We’ll really nail
it tomorrow, promise,” Tim said.

The girl didn’t look
convinced, but she gathered up her things and left.

Ben sat on a couch, head
spinning. Chinchilla yapped at his feet before piddling in
excitement. Tim was there almost instantly with paper towels. He
eyed Ben with concern as he cleaned it up.

“
You didn’t leave a note
on Jace’s door, did you?” Ben asked. “Or have someone else do
it?”

“
No. Why? What
happened?”

Ben started to explain,
getting worked up again in the process. Tim interrupted him to run
to the kitchen. He came back with a couple bottles of beer. Ben’s
words poured out, some angry and others confused. Tim didn’t offer
any advice; he only made sympathetic noises and occasionally asked
a question.

Once Ben’s demons were
expelled, another round of beers was fetched and they began talking
about their end-of-studies stress. Both of them were under
pressure, but Tim was taking it much easier than Ben. Considering
that he was already independently wealthy, he had little need for a
degree.

“
Why are you even
bothering?” Ben asked him. “I’d drop it all in a second if I were
in your shoes.”

“
I promised
Eric.”

They heated up a couple of
frozen pizzas and downed them with another round of beers. The
light had left the day now, along with Ben’s sobriety. He rarely
drank, so three bottles of beer was his version of a binge. When
their buzzes began to wear off, leaving them tired, Ben followed
Tim upstairs and made a clumsy pass at him. Tim gently pushed him
away and redirected him to one of the guest rooms. If Ben needed
any more proof that Tim was innocent in the recent scandal, this
was more than enough.

Ben slogged through the
next two days of classes with his brain to the grindstone-- not the
traditional saying, but exactly how he felt. For once Tim wasn’t on
his mind. The rift between him and Jace drove him to distraction
until Ben finally gave in and called.

“
Where are
you?”

“
Chicago.”

“
Are you flying back
tonight?”

“
No. Not for a couple of
days.”

“
Oh.”

“
Look, Ben, I think we
both said things we didn’t mean, but I think we should take a
break.”

Ben couldn’t
respond.

“
You have a lot going on
right now with school,” Jace continued. “I understand how much
pressure you are under. I remember. Focus on your finals and your
thesis and make sure you graduate. Once that is out of the way,
then we can talk, okay?”

“
I guess.”

“
Good. I love
you.”

“
I love you,
too.”

Ben hung up the phone,
feeling empty inside. Jace’s suggestion was perfectly reasonable.
Unfortunately, it was opposite of what Ben needed. He had expected
Jace to say that being apart was too hard, that he was sorry for
their argument. Instead he seemed to have flipped his emotional
switch to “off.” Ben couldn’t do that. As he curled up on the bed
and cried, he wished more then anything that he could.

__________

Chapter 25

Three days later and four
finals were out of the way. The last thing Ben had to worry about
now was his thesis. He didn’t understand why they had to be so damn
long. The topic he had chosen was how pronunciation and intonation
had subtly changed over the decades. This theme had seemed a good
way of combining his degree in English literature with his love of
singing, and while it was interesting, he was tired of trying to
track down the source of every fact. He was tempted to have one
single source under his references, listed simply as “the
internet.”

Saturday was a scorcher,
the heat making work on his thesis twice as grueling as usual. As
if reading his mind, Tim called him on the cell phone.

“
Two words,” he began.
“Swimming pool.”

He could have said “free
ice cubes” and Ben would have come running.

The pool behind the house
had an elegant winding shape, edges lined with stained wood, the
walls with decorative tile. Tim, wearing swimming trunks and a
plain grey tank top, balanced a serving tray loaded with pitcher
and glasses. Chinchilla was busy dragging towels around the edge of
the pool, growling as if she’d just vanquished a deadly foe. Ben
sighed, unable to picture a more inviting scene.

“
Monsieur,” Tim said as he
poured a glass of Kool-Aid.

Ben took a sip and tried
not to wince. The drink mix contained too much sugar, but at least
it was cold. Ben downed the rest before stripping down to his
trunks and jumping in the water, Tim cannonballing after
him.

“
This is really nice,” Ben
said, treading water after submerging a couple of times.

“
It’s not bad,” Tim said.
“Too small to do any laps though, making it a glorified
bathtub.”

“
Whatever you say. Pools
are meant for relaxing, not working out.”

“
Working out
is
relaxing.”

“
Whatever, muscle boy,”
Ben teased.

“
I don’t remember you ever
complaining.” Tim dove underwater, performing an underwater
handstand before surfacing again. “Finals out of the
way?”

“
Yeah,” Ben
nodded.

“
And Jace? You two patch
things up yet?”

Ben turned in the water,
not wanting Tim to see the unhappy look on his face. “Kind of the
opposite. We’re taking a break.”

“
Wow,” Tim said after a
moment of silence. “Benjamin Bentley is back on the
market.”

“
Not exactly.”

“
No?”

“
I don’t know.”

Ben let the topic drop. He
didn’t want to think about it right now. Instead they started
splashing Chinchilla, who ran around the edge of the pool, barking.
She would dodge the water before running back to drink from the
puddles they left behind. Soaking her would have been easy, but
they made sure to miss on purpose. Eventually they tired of the
pool, so they retreated to the deck chairs.

“
Put some oil on my back?”
Tim asked.

Ben snorted. “Could you
think of a more clichéd line?”

“
Tried and true,” Tim
replied shamelessly. “It’s withstood the test of time for a
reason.”

“
Fair enough.” Ben sat on
the edge of Tim’s deck chair. He was about to squeeze some of the
oil onto his back when Tim rolled over.

“
Think my front needs
some, actually.”

Ben waited for a laugh, but
Tim’s face had grown serious. The bottle of oil almost shook in his
hands as the oil dribbled onto Tim’s chest. The nervousness soon
turned to lust when Ben re-experienced just how good Tim’s body
felt. He rubbed his pecs, feeling the nipples harden beneath his
hand. Then he moved down to the six-pack.

Tim was transparently hard
by this point, but then, so was Ben. Thoughts faded into the
background as instinct took over. Tim grabbed Ben by the arms,
pulling him down for a kiss. Lips and tongues danced as Tim’s hands
pulled and yanked at their swimming suits. Ben worked with him,
squirming until his trunks were low enough to be kicked off. He
glanced down at Tim’s dick, which looked even bigger than it had
when he was a teenager.

Their kisses intensified
while they rubbed against each other. Ben was about to go down on
him when Tim grabbed the oil. He squeezed some onto both of their
cocks, grinding them together momentarily before pulling Ben upward
so that he could get between his legs. Before Ben could protest,
Tim took him by the wrists. With his hands pinned behind his back,
Ben was forced to lay all of his weight on Tim. He gasped in pain
and then pleasure as Tim entered him. Then Tim began pumping like a
piston, the hissing of his breath in Ben’s ear reminiscent of a
steam engine.

Ben squirmed and writhed,
eager to reach down and play with himself but unable to with his
hands restrained. His cock rubbed against Tim’s stomach, sending
waves of pleasure through him that threatened to drive him mad if
he didn’t find release soon, but Tim didn’t relent. They continued
in this manner for what felt like an eternity, both of their bodies
slick with oil and sweat, until Tim’s thrusting increased in speed.
The friction was enough to send Ben over the edge at the same time
that Tim reached his climax. They moaned loud enough for the entire
neighborhood to hear before collapsing in an exhausted
heap.

Tim released Ben’s wrists
and wrapped him tightly in his arms. “Welcome back,” he
murmured.

* * * * *

Allison pinched the bridge
of her nose and sighed. Then she dropped her hand and shook her
head while giving him a “Mm, mm, mm, mm.” Ben hated when she was
this dramatic, but he probably deserved it.

“
I knew it,” she said,
picking up her fork and poking at the leftover crème brulée. “As
soon as you offered to take me out to dinner, I knew you had done
something stupid.”

“
Stupid might be putting
it strongly,” Ben said in defense.

“
Jace.”

All right, that put him in
his place.

“
You’re right,” Ben
sighed, “but I don’t even know where things stand with
him.”

“
Do you still love
him?”

“
Yes.”

“
Then what are you doing?”
Allison’s expressive eyes pleaded with him to start making sense.
“I know we’re both shocked to learn that Jace isn’t perfect, but
how many times has he forgiven you? Patch things up with him and
put as much distance as you can between you and your
past.”

Ben shook his head. “Tim
isn’t my past, not any more. He’s just as much a part of my life
now as Jace is. Was. I know you’ve never forgiven Tim for hurting
me, but I love him. It’s inexplicable and probably stupid, but I
do.”

“
You can’t have both of
them,” Allison said. “There’s a reason you never see three old
people walking through a park and holding hands. It just doesn’t
happen.”

Ben wasn’t sure about that.
The world was a big place, but it was a moot point since Jace
wouldn’t have it. As possessive as Tim could be, he probably
wouldn’t either.

“
Tim was your first in a
lot of ways,” Allison pressed. She pointed through a waiter to the
entrance. “If Ronnie Adams walked through that door right now, I’m
sure my heart would be all pitter-patter as well, but we had our
chance and it didn’t work out. We’ve both moved on, and that’s for
the best. You moved on too, but Tim never did. Now he’s dragged you
right back to where you left off.”

She had a point. Regardless
of the years that had passed, they had started up again as if
nothing had happened. But she was wrong about them having had their
chance. His relationship with Tim had been cut short, ended by
Tim’s fear of what society and his parents would think. Now he was
old enough to live the kind of life he wanted without fear of being
kicked out of the house. Allison and Ronnie’s relationship had
played itself out naturally, but his romance with Tim never
had.

“
Earth to Ben.”

“
Sorry. You’ve just given
me a lot to think about.”

“
Let me ask you this,”
Allison said. “What is it you see in Tim? I mean aside from his
drool-worthy good looks and the whole high school sweetheart thing.
I get that, but is there really more to it?”

Ben had never found this
easy to explain. There was so much more to Tim beneath the surface
that others didn’t see. The vulnerability on his face when he’d
given Ben the painting as a birthday present was a good example.
Everyone figured Tim was as proud as he acted, and maybe he often
was, but there were other times that he was anything but
confident.

Those emotions had been
easier to see since their reunion. The sentimental way Tim spoke of
Eric and how naturally he’d taken to caring for Chinchilla. Then of
course, there was the way Ben felt needed by him, the way Tim’s
desire almost overwhelmed him. None of this was obvious to anyone
but him.

“
I know this is going to
sound lame,” Ben said at last, “but when he and I are alone
together, he’s different. He needs me. Sometimes I look at him and
all I see is that hurt teenager whose parents never treated him
like they should. I see that, and I want to help him. Jace is the
opposite since he has it so together. I know he loves me, but he
was fine before we met and will be now that it’s over.”