Chapter Five

POV: Ethan

I stood at the front window and watched the car pull away. Mom waved one last time from the passenger seat. Mark honked twice like it was some big celebration. They were gone for the whole weekend. Anniversary trip. Just the two of us in the house.

The door shut behind me and the silence hit different. No parents downstairs. No pretending at dinner. Lucas came up behind me and locked the door. His hand brushed my shoulder on the way past.

"Finally," he said.

We ordered pizza and ate it on the couch in the living room. We did not talk much while we ate. Every few minutes our eyes would meet and we would both look away fast. The TV played some old movie neither of us cared about. When the pizza box was empty Lucas carried it to the kitchen and I followed him upstairs.

In our room the air felt thicker than usual. I sat on my bed and pulled my hoodie off. Lucas stayed by the door for a second, then came over and sat on the edge of my mattress instead of his own. His knee pressed against mine.

"We have the place to ourselves," he said.

"Yeah."

He looked at me straight on. "Been thinking about what you said in the garage. About how this is wrong."

I swallowed. My heart started hammering. "It is wrong. They are married. We are supposed to be brothers now."

Lucas did not move away. "I know what we are supposed to be. But every night I lie here and I cannot stop thinking about you. The way you looked at me when we wrestled over that controller. The way you did not pull your leg away on the couch. I keep wondering what would happen if we stopped pretending."

I stared at the floor. My hands shook a little. "I think about it too. All the time. But if someone finds out..."

"No one is here," he said. His voice dropped. "Just us."

He reached over and put his hand on my knee. This time it was not an accident. His thumb moved once across the denim. I looked up and his face was right there. Close enough that I could see the way his eyes had gone dark.

"Lucas..."

He leaned in slow. His lips brushed mine once, testing. I did not pull back. He kissed me again, harder, and something inside me snapped. I kissed him back. My hands came up to his shirt and gripped the fabric. He tasted like pizza and the mint gum he chewed after. His mouth opened and I followed without thinking.

We fell back onto my bed together. His weight pressed me down into the mattress and it felt right. His hands moved under my shirt, palms warm on my skin. I tugged at his shirt until he sat up long enough to yank it off. I did the same with mine. Our chests met and the heat of his skin made me gasp against his mouth.

He kissed down my neck, then lower. I arched when his lips closed around my nipple. "Fuck," I whispered. He smiled against my skin and kept going. His hand slid down my stomach and popped the button on my jeans. I lifted my hips so he could push them down. He took his own off next and then we were just skin against skin.

I had never done this with anyone. My hands shook when I wrapped them around him. He groaned low in his throat and the sound made me bolder. I stroked him the way I liked to touch myself. He did the same to me. We found a rhythm fast, breathing hard into each other's mouths.

"Wait," he said after a minute. He reached for the drawer in my nightstand where I kept the small bottle of lotion I used for drawing. I knew what he meant. My face burned but I nodded.

He took his time. His fingers were careful. I felt every second of it, the stretch, the burn that turned into something better. When he finally pushed inside me I grabbed his shoulders and held on. We both froze for a second.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. Keep going."

He moved slow at first. Then faster. The bed creaked under us. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper. Every thrust hit something inside that made me moan. He kissed me through it, messy and desperate. His hand found me again and stroked in time with his hips.

I came first, hard enough that my vision went fuzzy. He followed right after, burying his face in my neck and saying my name like it hurt. We stayed locked together while our breathing evened out.

After a minute he pulled out gentle and grabbed a towel from the bathroom. He cleaned us up without saying anything. Then he climbed back into my bed and pulled the sheet over both of us. I turned on my side facing him. He faced me too. Our legs tangled.

I traced a finger down his chest. His skin was still damp. "That really just happened."

He gave a small laugh. "Yeah."

We lay there quiet for a while. The house stayed silent around us. No parents coming home. No one to catch us. For the first time since they got married the room felt like ours.

Lucas ran his finger down my spine. His touch was light but his voice came out rough.

"What the hell do we do now, Ethan? Because I don’t think I can go back to pretending.”