Tension knotted through my neck and shoulders when the glass door behind me slid open. But it was just Manson. His hair was still disheveled with a sheen of sweat across his bare chest. Jess had left long scratches on his arms, and the sight made my cock twitch again, but I was too tired for round two.
“How is she?” I said.
“I think we fucked the sarcasm out of her, for now,” he said, grinning as he held up his hand. I passed him the cigarette, reading what he wanted easily. “She’s getting cleaned up in the bathroom, changing into something comfortable.”
“I can walk back to the house. You can take the car when you’re ready.”
“Come on, man.” He gave me alookbefore he brought the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled. “You’re dropping. You shouldn’t be by yourself.”
Dominant drop was what he meant. That intense feeling of guilt and exhaustion that could hit you after an intense encounter like the one we’d had. But it wasn’t just the dopamine suddenly leaving my system that made me want to take off.
I didn’t stay after a fuck. Ever. My policy was to hit it and bail. I wasn’t a gentle guy, so sitting and talking, “decompressing,” all that soft shit? It wasn’t for me. Putting space between Jess and I was for the best. We had our arrangement and herdebtto us didn’t involve getting any warm and fuzzy feelings about each other.
“You know how it goes,” I said, taking the cigarette back as he offered it. “I’m not the guy you want around when everyone is feeling vulnerable. You can take care of her.”
Manson made a disapproving noise, but I was being honest. What the hell did I know about this shit? The closest I’d ever come to anormalromantic relationship was with him — and even that I knew I wasn’t great at. I could swing from hot to cold and back again within the space of a week, but he knew me too well to be bothered by it.
At least, I didn’t think it bothered him. He’d never said anything about it. When I needed space, he gave it easily. When I needed to give up control, I trusted him to take it.
But I didn’t need softness. I didn’t need intimate, quiet moments.
That was what I told myself anyway.
My dad had been a man-up-and-take-it type, who would rather beat his sons into toughness than offer a shred of compassion, and Mama hadn’t been much better. Gentleness wasn’t just a foreign concept; it was fucking uncomfortable, like trying to have a conversation in a language I only had an elementary knowledge of.
But Manson had told me even before we showed up here that I needed to stay. For her. To look after her. Care for her. Do all thenice, compassionate,gentlethings I was supposed to be able to do but couldn’t.
“Look, I’m fine,” I said, stubbing out my cigarette against the sole of my shoe and looking around aimlessly for an ashtray. Apparently no one in this household smoked.
Manson plucked the cigarette out of my fingers, nodding his head back toward the house. “Come on. I wanna show you something.”
It was a trap to get me to come back inside, but whatever. If he wanted me to sit around like a baboon with his thumb up his ass, sure, I’d stay.
Jess was showering, the sound of running water coming from the closed bathroom door. Our cum had been all over her face, her chest, her hair. She could wash it away, but I hoped the scent of us would linger. I wanted to leave her with something tangible, something she couldn’t easily forget and others couldn’t deny.
Fuck, if I was a dog, I probably would have pissed on her to stake my claim. Maybe I really would, eventually, if she stuck around that long.
Manson was sitting on the edge of the couch when I came to his side, staring down at a piece of paper in his hands. It was a half-completed sketch showing the front of a house with a wraparound porch. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until I realized how familiar the house was.
“Is that our place?” I said.
“Pretty sure it is. She’s taken some aesthetic liberties.” He traced his finger lightly along the intricate woodwork designs she’d drawn along the windows.
“Did you know she could draw?” I said as he carefully put the paper back down on the coffee table. The water in the bathroom had turned off, and it made my heart speed up a little.
“Not until now,” he said. “She must have drawn all this frommemory.”
She had even drawn flowers and bushes along the front porch. The new features were small, but the effect was drastic. It made the house look more like a home, like someone had put love and care into it.
“Should we plant flowers?” I blurted out. The dirt yard was so damn barren.
“It does look nice…I guess we could.” He didn’t sound entirely pleased about the idea, but I couldn’t blame him. Living in that house at all was a challenge for him, even with all the changes we’d made.
We’d done a lot of work since we moved in, but it was always with a single-minded focus. We needed to get the house ready to sell. As fortunate as we’d been to get the place after Manson’s mom passed away, his childhood home carried far too many memories for him.
He was braver than me. I hadn’t been back home to see Mama even once since Dad and I left. Even now, years later, I didn’t think I’d have the courage to walk into the house I’d spent the first fourteen years of my life in.
Jess walked into the living room, squeezing a towel on her damp hair. She looked between us, her eyes narrowing as she tried to figure out what we’d been up to. Then she looked down and spotted the drawing on the coffee table.