Direct Confusion - 15. Chapter 15

“Can you imagine if we got caught?” Erin runs his fingers through his still damp hair, and glances quickly at me with a wide grin. “But I expect you’d get off with a week’s detention, what with you being Captain and all.”

I laugh.

“Not likely. Let’s just be pleased that we didn’t get caught, eh?”

Erin drives with the windows open to try and wash out the chlorine smell, and I shuffle in my jeans in a slightly uncomfortable manner. Going commando is not something I actually do, and the idea of having to spend the whole day at school without boxers isn’t very enticing. On the other hand, most of my discomfort at sitting down in the pick-up is probably to do with the fact that I spent twenty minutes being reamed by my boyfriend in probably one of the most sensual manners I have ever come across. I came in my speedo, again, and Erin told me I was the most amazing boy who ever lived right before his orgasm. It doesn’t occur to me until now that we really should have used condoms.

“Um…”

“Yeah…” Apparently Erin is having the same thoughts as I am. “About that…”

“Condoms?”

“We kinda let it get away from us didn’t we?”

“You have before right?” This is a shitty time to have this conversation, and that seems to be becoming a theme in our relationship. I reach across and grab his hand on the stick shift in reassurance. His fingers wrap tightly around mine.

“Always. You too?”

“Yup. You know we still have to go get checked out right?”

“Oh, this I am not looking forward to.” Erin sighs heavily. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” I kiss his knuckles gently. “That was awesome.”

“Yeah.” Erin is grinning again, his eyes dancing. “It was. Thank you.”

We are silly and giggly by the time we pull up in the driveway of the Parker house, and Erin tries to smooth his hair so it looks less obvious that we have been somewhere wet and probably without our clothes. His waistcoat hides that his shirt is damp, and I have rolled my sleeves up to the elbow to cover the fact one of them landed in a puddle. We look reasonable, if a bit rumpled. It’s pretty late, and the house is quiet and mostly dark.

“If we’re lucky, everyone will have gone to bed.”

But we’re out of luck for the evening, and as Erin pushes open the front door, his parents are on the stairs, obviously on their way up to bed. Standing in their hallway knowing I’ve just had excellent sex with their son is slightly more awkward than I thought it would be, but we both manage to smile and nod when asked about our evening. Dinner seems like a long time ago.

“Why don’t you go up, Luke?” Mrs Parker smiles at me. “Erie and Jameson have their own bathroom on the left of the landing there. I think there’s a spare toothbrush for you.”

Erin gives me a desperate glare, but there is no way I am going to be interrogated by his parents as well as my own. It took long enough to get permission to stay at his place on what my mother still insist on calling ‘a school night.’

“You never did learn to knock…” I push the door open to reveal Jameson’s narrow gymnasts figure dressed in nothing but boxer shorts. He looks up from the sink and meets my eyes in the mirror. “Luke!”

“Sorry!” I slam the door and stand in the hallway feeling stupid. Unfortunately this means I can hear the conversation going on downstairs.

“You’ve surely not been at the restaurant this late?”

“We went for a drive.” Erin answers. It’s sort of the truth. While I’m not a big fan of lying to anyone, no teenager should have to tell their parents everything.

“Is that all?”

“Mom!”

“Darling, leave him be.” Erin’s father’s voice is soothing. “If you push him to tell you everything, he’ll end up telling us nothing.”

I nod to myself; I like that man.

“Thanks.” Erin sounds like a petulant child, and then his voice softens. “There might have been kissing.”

“I’m sure I don’t need to know.” His mother seems to have changed tack very quickly. “As long as you both had fun and were safe.”

“Yes mom.” That one is sort of a lie.

“We’ll see you both for breakfast then, Erie darling. Good night.”

“Night mom, night dad.”

Footsteps on the stairs make me panic. I doubt the Parkers would be pleased to know that i eavesdropped on the whole thing. I slip back into the bathroom.

“Make up your mind Luke.” Jameson has finished brushing his teeth and seems to be inspecting himself in the mirror. “Are you staying or going?”

“Is there a magical third option which doesn’t leave me trapped in a bathroom with my boyfriend’s half naked twin?”

Jameson points to the door on my left.

“Erin’s room is there, the other one is mine. Don’t end up snuggling up to the wrong one of us in the dead of night, eh?”

“Great, cool.” I doubt that my face can get any redder, and I dive for the door.

Erin’s room is quite a lot like mine, only smaller, because he doesn’t have an attached lounge like I do. The bed is made, for a certain value of the word, which allows for the throwing of a quilt over whatever might be below, and most of his clothes are hung up or lying on an extra chair near the window. There are a couple of sets of small hand-weights in the corner by the wardrobe, and his desk is covered with school work and a sleeping laptop. Most of the posters on the walls are actually cool wildlife shots, and I wonder whether it is the animals or the photography that interests him. Interspersed between them are pictures of food, often annotated by hand, and little printed out recipes with highlighted and circled notes all over them. There are a couple of pictures of him and Jameson on a shelf along with a few football trophies, a little wooden shield obviously won at a sports camp and half a dozen medals for cross country running.

I kick off my shoes and socks and pile them neatly on the less occupied looking half of the bed, and then the sound of a door distracts me.

“Oh hey.” Jameson obviously still hasn’t left the adjoining bathroom. “How was your date?”

“It was excellent.” Erin sounds smug. “And he liked the flowers. You were wrong.”

“It has been known to happen.” Jameson pauses. “You smell.”

“Err… thanks?”

“No, I mean you don’t smell like DKNY Red Delicious which was what you stole off me earlier.” I smile, because I had been wondering why Erin always seemed to smell of apples. “You smell like you’ve had a shower or something.” Another pause, “And your hair is damp.”

I wince. Damn that boy for having no concept of other guy’s personal space.

“Ummm…”

“Oh-my-god! You had sex already didn’t you?”

“Fuck-! Shut up Jame!” Erin hisses angrily. “You think I want our parents to hear you? They’ll never let him stay the night again!”

“I can’t believe you had sex on the first date.” It’s hard to remember that Jameson is straight when he sounds so camp. “Oh bro…”

“Jame? Where is Luke?” It’s as though Erin had only just realised I’m still around somewhere.

“Oh, in your room, probably listening to everything we’ve just said.”

I wince and step back away from having my ear pressed to the bathroom door just in time to not have it hit me in the face.

“Hey Erie.” I smile apologetically at him. “Good talk?”

“Oops.” Jameson giggles. “Night boys.” He looks supremely smug as he exits the little bathroom for his own bedroom.

“Erie I swear I didn’t mean to.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Erin pulls me against his chest with an arm around my neck. “He won’t let up until we’ve told him everything anyway.”

“Everything?” I query in horrified disbelief.

“Yeah, probably.” Erin hands me a plastic wrapped toothbrush from under the sink. It’s red and white and makes me think instantly of the rinsed out wet speedos making a damp patch in my jeans pocket. “You even get your own toothbrush, should I ever be able to convince you to come back. My family is insane.”

“All families are insane.”

We brush our teeth sharing the same sink and then I rinse my speedos out again and hang them over the head of the shower while Erin goes next door to ‘tidy’. As I stare at his bedroom door, I keep telling myself I don’t need to be nervous.

You’ve already let the guy fuck you senseless in a swimming pool. Being apprehensive about actually sleeping with him is ridiculous.

I roll my eyes at my inner voice. For all the excellent sex that Jeremy and I spent the summer having and the wonderful first and only date I took to my junior prom, I have never actually slept beside someone like this. In my head, last night doesn’t count, because we stayed up for ages and slept in the hallway. It wasn’t exactly intimately romantic.

There is a soft knock on the bathroom door and Erin peeks in.

“Babe?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I smile at him. “Oddly nervous.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I feel so much better admitting to him that I’m not always confident. He takes my hand and tugs gently.

“Come on, I’m beat.”

The room is marginally tidier, and the bed has been made properly; the pillows look as if they’ve been plumped. Erin strips out of his date clothes, but stays in his boxers.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.” I say in answer to the question he doesn’t ask, and he leaves them on as he sits on the edge of the bed. As I strip he holds out to me a choice of loose pinstriped boxers or a tighter pair of bright blue boxer-briefs. I take the latter and pull them on. “Thanks. I’m stealing these now.”

“You’re not gonna walk around school with no underwear?” Erin tries to look at me with puppy eyes, but fails to follow through.

“You kinky bastard.” I fall onto the bed tickling him, pushing him back into the mattress. “You’re going to be insatiable from here on out, aren’t you?”

“Like you aren’t?” Erin grabs the back of my head and pulls me down for a long kiss. “I love having you here.”

“I love you.” It’s the first time I’ve said it without the coercion of immediate sexual gratification, and the words make my heart thump in a dangerously additive way. I hadn’t known they could do that.

This is not a good time to be falling in love; my brain tries to tell me as we slip beneath the covers. You’ve got a lot on already.

Erin kisses me gently and turns the light out. I sink gratefully into the softness of his bed for a moment before his head finds my shoulder and he snuggles against my side, my chest becoming his pillow. I wrap my arm around his shoulders, my fingers lingering in the delicious furrow of his spine. I’m horny, but I’m tired, and comfortable. Erin’s breathing evens out very quickly, the long deep breaths which reflect sleep, and I yawn once before deciding not to hold onto consciousness. Whatever issues my brain has got with me being in love, it will wait until morning.