Touch the Sky (Free Fall Book 1) (9 page)

L
ucas
,

At least when you used your fist against your mom’s boyfriend you were protecting a person you love. When my dad uses his fists, it’s because he wants to intimidate me or teach me a lesson. He hasn’t used them much, but it doesn’t even matter, the damage is already done.

I swear if I ever have a kid, I won’t raise my hands as a fear tactic. I won’t catch him off guard, like my dad did with me yesterday, because Mom told him I was moping around in my room. I won’t slam my child into the wall, place my forearm against his throat, cut off his airway, and tell him to stop acting like a moody girl. I’ll talk to my kid for fuck’s sake, try to get inside his head, help him cope better with life. Make him feel like he has somebody who’s in his corner.

Sometimes I just want to get the hell away from this house, this life. To go up in the sky, where there are only birds and clouds, and fly. Did I ever tell you how it felt the first time my Uncle Dorian took me up in his plane? He’s a commercial pilot and really cool. He made me feel like dreams were possible. He told me to contact him when I graduate high school and he’ll help me figure it all out. Sometimes I wish he were my dad.

Glad you got a new computer, because I have you to talk to again. I missed you. I can’t even imagine what my dad would do if he found out I was jerking off to gay porn. Is that what you meant about being scared? Or did you mean about the actual sex part? I hope my first time is with somebody who knows what they’re doing and who will help me figure it out. Or at least somebody who cares. Sometimes I dream that my first time is with somebody like you. Don’t freak out or take that the wrong way—I just mean somebody who gets me. I almost didn’t write that sentence but I figure you’d understand.

You and me? We got this.

Gabriel

I
’ve been walking
for hours. It’s the only thing I can think to do to exhaust myself, rid myself all this negative nervous energy since I got an email from my mom. She told me that my Uncle Dorian died suddenly from a heart attack. It was like a punch to my gut.

It’s not like he and I were that close—we probably only spoke by email twice a year since graduation. He was my father’s brother and he knew his boundaries when it came to involving himself in our family business. My dad made it clear that I was enrolling in SDU and to stop encouraging me with talk of flying. But even then, Uncle Dorian had remained a kind of lifeline for me, somebody who I still aspired to be. And now it feels like one more piece of the landscape of my life has shifted and changed.

It’s been a week since I last saw Lucas, we’ve both been pretty busy with work, yet somehow I end up at his apartment. He isn’t home. Behind my initial disappointment, I’m mostly relieved. I’m kind of a mess and if he sees me like this, he might wonder how in the hell he could’ve kissed or touched me with that much longing and passion the other night. Fuck, I’ve probably jerked off thinking about the weight of his body on top of mine three times since then.

Sliding down the wall, I decide to rest for five minutes on the hallway’s dingy carpet. Just to get my breaths in some semblance of order before hiking it out of here. I didn’t realize how tight my muscles had grown from being in constant motion.

I rest my head on the flaking paint—my hands twitching, my foot still tapping away from restless energy, anxious thoughts about my uncle—and consider my options. There’s a club within walking distance from here. Maybe I should dance my ass off, even get a BJ in the bathroom, and then go home to sleep it off.

Except that doesn’t exactly sit right in my brain. I don’t know what this is with Lucas. It’s not like we discussed what that kiss and hand job meant. But I don’t want anybody else to touch me. Not now that I had Lucas’s fingers in my hair, his breath against my lips. I can’t explain it any other way. A long time ago, my friend had sewed himself into the very fibers of my skin—my heart—and since then, he’s added a few more stitches.

“Gabe?” Lucas says as he climbs to the top stair. Oh shit. I should’ve left before he saw me this way, like some stalker, sitting outside his door.

“Fuck. Sorry,” I say, standing up on wobbly legs. “I only meant to sit down for a minute and then be on my way.”

He steps closer as he looks me up and down, like I’m an injured animal. I feel like curling up into a ball the size of my fist so he can’t see all my wounds so plainly on display. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, zipping up my hoodie. “I just—”

“It’s not nothing.” He grips my arm. “Look at you, I can tell something happened.”

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have come here, you’re not responsible for—”

His fingers curl tighter on my bicep, not too tight, but as though he knows I’ll try and pull away if he doesn’t keep a firm grip. His other hand is busy pushing the key into his door. Despite his grasp, there’s tenderness in his gaze, and concern. “Get inside.”

Once he closes the door behind me, I stand there like an idiot. I don’t even know where to put my hands, except to shove them deep inside my pockets. But I’ll admit, I like how there’s concern in his eyes. It’s different than the look Ezra or Lou give me. It’s more compassion than pity.

His fingers rush up and down my arms as if to warm me up. “You’re trembling, Gabe. Are you cold?”

“No,” I say as he grabs for my elbow and tugs me farther inside the room.

“Talk to me.” His voice is shaky. “There’s a reason you came here.”

My shoulders slump. I wish I didn’t need to let this out, but I do. “I just found out some crappy news and I thought maybe you—”
Could fuck my brains out, kiss me senseless, talk to me about everything, so that this buzzing stops in my brain, in my heart, even in my throat.
I fucking hate my body for betraying me like this.

He heads toward the kitchen and I hear him open his cupboard, turn on the faucet, and then he’s back with a glass of water. “What’d you hear?”

I don’t realize how thirsty I am until I grab the cup and gulp the liquid down. He watches me, his gaze focusing on my throat, and then my eyes.

“Better?” he says, reaching for the empty glass. “You need something stronger?”

The sentence hovers in the air as I consider it. I could’ve easily stopped at a bar and gotten hammered. But that isn’t my thing. I constantly feel like I’m fraying at the edges so I don’t need to add alcohol to the mix.

“No,” I say and his shoulders relax. It reminds me of that look he gave me at Pete’s the other night and then it hits me. His mom was an alcoholic. Yet he works in a bar.

Before I can reason through that further, he motions to his couch. “Sit.”

I pitch forward and numbly sink down on the cushions, relief coursing through me about finally landing on a soft surface.

Suddenly he’s on his knees and reaching for my boots. They’re black, thick soled and laced up, but he unties them easily. “Talk,” he says as he slides my boots off one at a time.

It’s one of the nicest things anybody has ever done for me and I feel like real-life Lucas is surprising me at every turn.

I clear my throat. “My uncle died. He lives in Arizona and I guess the funeral was yesterday. My mom decided to wait to tell me, which feels so strange, like I was an afterthought. Guess I’ve always been to them.”

I’m rambling but he sits down beside me and zeroes right in, picking out the important pieces. “Your uncle, the pilot? The guy who took you up in his plane?”

I slouch backward feeling much more relaxed than I have in hours. “Yeah, fuck. See this is why I knew you’d understand.”

My lip is trembling as my gaze meets his. I feel like a baby for being so emotional. Guess I’m more shocked than anything about my uncle’s death. He seemed so invincible to me, so larger than life.

“Come here,” Lucas says and pulls me toward him. “Tell me what you need.”

“Just this. Just you…” I mumble and then cringe at how desperate I sound.

My head lands on his shoulder and I sniff him. He smells like comfort and calm and home. Goddamn, he smells like home. Not the home I left. No way in hell. But the home I wish he could somehow become.

But that’s just my emotions talking. That kind of thinking will only hurt later, when Lucas realizes I’m some clingy messed up dude who runs hot and cold and still needs to get his life in order.

Lucas shifts downward, taking me with him, and now I’m lying on top of him. I feel like I fit perfectly here, hip to hip, chest to chest, in the circle of his arms.

He reaches for the remote to turn on the television and flips to a comedy, exactly what I need. I sigh and snuggle farther into his warmth as his hand reaches up absently to stroke my hair.

“I’m sorry about your uncle,” Lucas whispers a minute later.

When I glance up, his hand traces my cheek, and he hauls me into such a devastatingly tender kiss I’m not sure if my heart can handle it right now.

“Thank you,” I murmur as our tongues flick lazily against each other once more. “I guess it’s just…he’s the first significant person in my life to die and it feels…I don’t know.”

Lucas becomes completely motionless as a flash of pain flits through his irises. He’s staring straight through me to the wall. I grasp for his chin, forcing him to look at me.

“Tell me, Lucas.” I lightly kiss his lips. “I know there’s something else. Please tell me.”

Our eyes latch for a long moment and then his arms are tugging me closer, wrapping me so tight against him, I can scarcely breathe.

A whimper bursts from his throat and his mouth is bruising, his tongue slashes past my lips and he’s kissing me like his life depends on it.

When he drags his mouth away, I see a dusting of tears on his lashes, but I don’t draw attention to it. He’s more closed off than I know him to be and I desperately want him to trust me again. Whenever he’s ready.

“I
will
tell you, just not today. Today is about you.” He pecks my temple. “Now lie back down and watch a movie with me.”

I
don’t remember falling
asleep but Lucas’s arms are lax around my shoulders and my cheek is against his chest, as his heart beats a languid staccato rhythm. I lift my head and see his eyelashes fluttering like he’s lost in a dream and I can’t help watching him.

Tearing my gaze away and looking toward the window, I notice that it’s already dawn. I’ve got to get my ass home and soon. I can’t miss work today.

I nestle back into his warmth and give myself five more minutes. Lucas mumbles something and sighs and I can feel his morning wood digging into my stomach.

It lights a fire in my groin, and suddenly I’m blinded by the idea of tasting him. Right the fuck now.

I slide lower on the couch and reach for his waist. When I unbutton and unzip his jeans, his hips sway a little in my direction, and damn if he isn’t sexy, even in his sleep. “Luke—”

“Yes…” he mumbles softly, as he rocks toward me again.

As I stretch the waistband of his briefs down his hips, I notice that his heavy cock is flushed and hard as a fence post. I didn’t get a good enough look the other night, but I knew it would be as pretty close up as I imagined with those long veins and the thick mushroom head.

Dipping my mouth, I lick around the crown and then dig my tongue in the slit as a burst of salty pre-come blooms across my taste buds.

Lucas stirs and shifts, his hand reaching for my hair. “Gabe…”

“Shhhhhh… I’m sucking your cock.” I bury my nose into the dark patch of hair at his groin. It smells clean with a hint of musk and makes my own dick fatten against my zipper. “You were amazing last night and I realized that I wanted to—”

“You don’t need to blow me as thanks for last night,” he says in a hoarse, teasing voice.

“Funny guy.” My mouth savors the long, slow licks up and down the length of his shaft. “I’m sucking your cock because I want to eat your come. Want to taste it on my tongue at work today.”

“Ah fuck,” he replies groaning, his fingers clutching tightly at my hair. “You keep talking like that, I’m going to lose my load in two seconds flat.”

Sucking his crown, my tongue continues to circle the underside of his head as he writhes and moans. He pants openly as I engulf his length and feel him hit the back of my throat. My fingers reach inside the fabric, below the seam of his zipper for his firm and heavy balls. When I brush my fingertips across them he shivers.

“Damn, that’s—” he gasps as he buries his head into the cushion. “I dreamed about this.”

I hum against his skin because I imagined this same scenario as well. “You taste as good as my dream.”

It doesn’t take long before he’s thrusting his hips, his stiff cock jerking inside my mouth, and his come is spurting in ribbons across my tongue.

I
wanted
to take care of him.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. All I know is the second I came home and saw Gabe sitting outside my apartment, I knew something was wrong. My gut clenched. My chest got tight. And my first thought was that I needed to take care of him, to comfort him, to make him feel better.

I’ve spent most of my life seeing one of the only people I’d ever cared about hurting. Mom tried to cover it with laughter, but I always saw her pain. She tried not to, but she covered it with alcohol more often than not. I think that’s why my gut reaction was to ask him if he wanted something heavier to drink. I kind of hate myself for that.

Besides Mom, Gabe is the only other person in my life who has ever meant something to me. I don’t know what it means, or what he is to me, but he means something. He was my lifeline at sixteen and now he’s flesh and blood. I can touch him, and it’s almost like we picked up where we left off, only this time it’s real. Which in a way is fucked, because I’m not sure either of us knows what the hell we’re doing.

But still…there was nothing I wanted more than to make him feel okay last night. That’s the only way I know how to be.

I wait until I think it might be close to his lunchtime before I text him.
How you feelin’?

Less than a minute goes by from when I hit send to when he replies.
Okay…thanks for being there last night. Sorry I just showed up like that.

What he doesn’t know is that I’m glad he did. I’ve never been real good at most things. The only thing I really know how to do is to take care of people, even if I do a shitty job of it. It’s why no matter how much I want to design skyscrapers, I haven’t done shit about making it happen.

It’s what Mom wanted for me, one of the only things she wanted. For my dreams to come true and for me to have a better life than she did. There’s no fucking way for that to happen. It’s not like I could ever get scholarships. It’s not like I’m good in school. I have my GED but that’s the only thing I’ve done.

That’s lame. Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you came…and hey, I did too Thx for sucking my dick. LOL.

I imagine him eating lunch at a jobsite somewhere and smiling. Or at least I hope he is. Maybe it’ll help him not think about his uncle.

Haha. THAT’S lame. Don’t thank me for the blowjob. I’m glad you came, too

What ya doin’ on Saturday?
His response doesn’t come right away. When I realized I’m staring at my phone like an idiot, I toss it to the bed, and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I’m mid-brush when my phone buzzes. I spit, keep cleaning my mouth as I go to my bed and grab the phone.

Hopefully something with you.

It’s a perfect fucking response.

He sends another message before I can respond.
I’ve always wanted to hike Runyon. I feel like being outdoors. Moving around.

I’ve never done it either. It’s not until after I type,
Let’s do it
and hit send, that I realize I’m smiling. It feels good.

W
e decided
to take the bus. Parking is a bitch around Runyon Canyon, much like it is most places in LA. It’s a pretty warm day, mid seventies and we both have on T-shirts, shorts and tennis shoes. Gabe’s shirt is a V-neck, and a little tighter than mine. I like the way it looks stretched across his slender body. He’s thinner than I am—not too thin, but smaller and sexy as hell.

“You’re staring.” Gabriel winks at me, but then his eyes dart away as though he’s slightly embarrassed he called me out.

“Maybe I like what I see,” I shrug and then nod toward the trails. “We can go up clockwise, toward the back of the canyon. It’s less steep of a climb to go up that way. Or we can go counter clockwise, if you want something a little more strenuous. We’ll be going up the steps and the steeper slopes instead of down. What are you in the mood for?”

Gabe cocks a blond brow at me and I know before he answers what he’s going to say.

“The steeper trail it is.”

“Cool,” he replies. “It’ll help me burn off a little energy. I’ve been feeling a little antsy.”

We begin our hike and I’m not sure if I should ask him the question running through my head. “Is that a typical thing for you or is it part of…you know.”

Gabe chuckles and some of the weight in my chest melts away. “Bipolar. You can say it.”

“I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing.”

He frowns which tells me I just did. “You can’t think of it that way, okay? That’s why I was nervous to say anything. I just want to be Gabe to you. It’s okay to ask questions, but I don’t want you to stress and overthink things. The last thing I want is for you to walk on eggshells around me. I can’t handle that. Not from you.”

Which makes sense. I would feel the same way. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” There’s a question in my head, a quiet whisper,
why not from me specifically? Because I mean something to you?
Two questions, I guess. I keep them both trapped in my head, though.

“I mean, in a way the energy can be because of that. There are highs and lows with bipolar disorder. I’m not at an extreme right now though. Well, mostly,” he says, his anxious eyes flashing to mine. “I think it’s just everything I have going on. My uncle…seeing you and stuff like that…”

We’re both breathing a little heavier as we make our way up the trail. It’s not a hard hiking trail—not that I have a lot of experience with hiking—but it doesn’t feel difficult. So far it just feels like a strenuous walk, so I wonder if we’re both breathing a little harder because of the hike or each other.

“Yeah…yeah, I understand that.” When I look at him, I wouldn’t think he’s bipolar. I know that sounds dumb. How can you tell something like that from looking at someone? When you looked at my mom, you couldn’t tell she was an alcoholic. She hid it well. When you look at me I don’t think people see the kid who fucked up more than once, and the guy who finally got locked away. Still, sometimes I look at Gabe and don’t believe his diagnosis.

We reach a steeper part of the climb. I go before him. Voices carry on the wind from higher up. From what I’ve heard, it’s always pretty busy here, but I’m glad there’s no one directly in front or behind us.

“Here.” I hold out my hand for Gabe. Logically, I know he doesn’t need it, but I want to touch him. Want to feel his warmth.

He latches onto me, and I pull slightly to help him over a rough patch until we’re in line again. My hand opens automatically to let go of him, but he doesn’t. He holds on tighter. It reminds me of that day in the alley when he wrapped his arms around me. This time, I don’t pull away.

I’m twenty-two years old and I’ve never held a guy’s hand before. Not like this. It doesn’t last long because holding hands and hiking don’t go well together, but in those few moments, I can see why Gabe likes touch so much.

“Can I ask why you got locked up?” he says softly after a few moments of silence. It’s as though one of the rocks from the trail is a knot in my gut, making it heavy, almost too heavy to carry.

This really isn’t the conversation I want to have. It takes me back to the Lucas I’m trying not to be. I haven’t gotten in trouble since all that shit went down and I want to move forward. But it’s what happened while I was behind bars that makes me want to throw up. That and the fact that I was pissed at him when I did what I did. They’re twined together. I was angry and being an asshole when Gabe didn’t have a choice in cutting contact with me. Gabe was institutionalized.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

But I do. He’s given me way more than I’ve given him. Not all of it, though. I won’t burden him with the why of it. “It’s stupid, really. It was just me being a fucked up kid. You know I used to fight a lot. I was angry. A guy pissed me off. We fought. His sister was there and said she was calling the cops. I ran. A lady left her car running while she checked her mail and I guess I thought I’d be really fucking smart and jump in it. It was a third strike kind of thing. Judge wanted to send a message. I’m lucky I was seventeen. If I’d have been eighteen, it could have been a lot worse.”
And I wanted to pretend I didn’t care about anything.
I’d been angry at Gabe, feeling sorry for myself and took it out on that kid. I’d thought,
who fucking cares if I get into trouble?
And jumped into that car. Because at the time, I’d felt abandoned. He was the only person who knew me and he’d walked the fuck away.

But he hadn’t walked away, had he? And because of my hot head, my mom died alone, so I got released as an eighteen-year-old who was fucking lost.

Needing something to say, I add, “I’ve never been known as the smartest guy around,” before nudging him with my elbow.

“Don’t do that.” Gabe stops walking. I watch a bead of sweat roll down the side of his head. “You’re not stupid. You made a mistake. You were a fucking kid. We all do stupid stuff, Lucas.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. Fuck, I needed to hear that. What is it with him? Why does it feel like we’ve spent our whole lives entwined with each other? “I promised myself I’d be better, though. I won’t let myself fuck up like that anymore.” For my mom. I at least owe her that much.

I take a drink of my water and then say, “Come on. Let’s keep going.”