Chapter 65

They did not end up having sex.

They did, however, end up in the same bed, practically naked.

After the movie ended, Jacky and Ryan were still making out, and somewhere in the back of Jacky’s head he heard the music looping on endless repeat and thought to himself, Wow, that’s annoying. Then he’d be distracted by a new spot on Ryan’s neck he hadn’t tasted yet, until he heard the creaky step at the top of the stairs and hurled himself from Ryan’s lap to fiddle with the remote.

“Boys? I’m going to bed now. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Okay, Mom!” Jacky called.

“Good night, Mrs. Jennings!” said Ryan, and Jacky wondered how he had fallen for someone so freaking nice. So he tugged Ryan down to kiss him again.

Eventually they made it up to Jacky’s bedroom, and Ryan started to go into the guest room. Jacky pulled Ryan into his room and closed the door. “What do you normally wear to bed?” Jacky asked.

“Pajamas,” Ryan answered slowly.

That wasn’t the answer Jacky was looking for. “I mean, like, when you were at home.” He swallowed nervously, hoping this wasn’t a touchy subject. “In your own bed. What did you wear?”

“Oh. Just my underwear,” Ryan said.

“Me, too.” Jacky grinned, shifting from foot to foot.

When Ryan finally understood, he could only say, “Oh.”

Jacky had reached out and tugged at the hem of Ryan’s shirt. Ryan blushed as he stooped a bit to allow Jacky to drag his t-shirt over his head. The result left his hair looking like a fuzzy duckling, but Jacky was more consumed with seeing Ryan’s naked torso. He hadn’t realized that it was possible for someone to have abs like that. His chest was huge. Jacky wanted to touch it. He wanted to have all of that pressed up against him all night.

Excited, Jacky tried to haul up his sweatshirt, but realized halfway through that having no shirt on meant that Ryan would see his stump. Not only the stump, but all the scars, and suddenly Jacky was stuck in his sweatshirt trying to keep the t-shirt underneath on. Ryan started to help, and Jacky hissed, “I can do it myself!”

Sweatshirt off, he tugged his t-shirt down. He knew he was scowling.

“Why don’t you take this off?” Ryan asked quietly, tugging at Jacky’s t-shirt.

Jacky couldn’t look at him.

“Hey.” Ryan tugged him closer. God, all that skin. Jacky couldn’t think, especially not when Ryan’s big, bare arms wrapped around him. “If you’re embarrassed about your arm, you don’t have to be.”

When Jacky didn’t – couldn’t – answer, Ryan pulled up the back of Jacky’s shirt. The lack of arm sure made it easy for Ryan to pull it up enough to pop the neck hole over Jacky’s head, even though Jacky wasn’t lifting his other arm to indicate that he wanted this to be happening. He kept his face pressed against Ryan’s pecs as Ryan ran his hand over skin that hadn’t been touched by anyone but a doctor in two years.

As Ryan’s hot palm moved up his ribcage, Jacky shuddered. He had never been able to imagine allowing anyone else to see him like this and still find him attractive. Even with his eyes closed he could clearly see the scars that radiated out from his shoulder, deep red against his pale skin. The dark twisted lumps and the puckered places where there had been stitches and more scars. He could see them as Ryan traced over them with a finger.

It was a good thing Ryan was pressing Jacky to his chest with his other arm because the way Jacky shook now, he’d probably fall down if Ryan let him go. He waited for Ryan to tell him he was gross and ugly and maybe Jacky was right, he should put his shirt back on.

When Ryan lowered his head and kissed him, and he broke.

Ryan held him the whole time he cried. It seemed to last a long time, but it probably wasn’t all that long, and when he was at the point of sniffling and catching his breath, Ryan whispered, “Can I take off your pants?”

Oh, fuck. Jacky grinned and blinked and thought about unsexy things like how much homework he would need to do tomorrow and cleaning his room, because suddenly he was turned on again. He couldn’t remember which boxers he had put on until Ryan’s fingers popped the button of his fly and he saw the black waistband. Oh, thank god.

Jacky’s hand was shaking too much to be much good at taking Ryan’s pants off in the same smooth way. Most of the time he had trouble doing the same to his own pants, so he sat back on the bed in relief when Ryan swiftly yanked them down, revealing… tighty whiteys.

With even more of Ryan’s skin exposed… well, they were the sexiest fucking underwear Jacky had ever seen.

What followed was a solid hour of rolling around on Jacky’s bed, first above the covers, then under the covers – they both got cold despite the heat of their friction, until finally their mouths were raw and there was nowhere to go from here unless they wanted to take it to the next level, which neither of them were ready for.

In the morning, Jacky woke up and immediately felt the stump of his arm cold and hanging outside of the blankets. Moving carefully, he dragged the sheet up to his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.

“Uh, nothing,” said Jacky.

Ryan pulled the sheet away and kissed Jacky’s shoulder.

Jacky looked over at him. “You don’t think it’s ugly?”

“No.” Reaching out, Ryan smoothed down Jacky’s hair.

A knock on Jacky’s door made them both jump. “Boys! I’m making breakfast!”

“Thanks, Mom,” Jacky muttered, then he felt bad, because he still had a mother to nag him.

What followed was a lazy Sunday, in which Jacky’s mom didn’t make him do any of his usual weekend chores (he was sure she’d be on him about taking out the trash tonight) and the two boys spent most of the day outside playing soccer. 

All in all it was a good visit, and a good week that followed, and another visit the next weekend, too. Of course Ryan hadn’t done much more at school than say hi to Jacky in the hallways and maybe talk to him before class. But it helped that he didn’t mind Jacky calling him almost every night.

With things settled, Jacky could concentrate on other things at school, like Cody’s non-existent love life. “Where have you been?” Jacky demanded when Cody finally showed up at his locker with a bruise on his cheek. “Did your stepfather do that to you?”

“Naw,” said Cody. The way he drawled the word let Jacky know he was baked out of his mind. “That was Matt.”

“Matt—” Jacky lowered his voice. “Matt hit you?”

“S’my fault,” Cody said. “Shouldn’a tried to kiss Nina.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” Cody chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “It was nice, though.”

“Getting punched?”

“Naw, the kiss.”

Jacky sighed. “Tell me the whole story.”

“I was juss riding my bike around on Saturday night and there was a mega party over at that guy’s house. Lance. That’s his name. Anyways, I saw Matt’s car and figured Nina would be there and I thought that if I could talk to her I could tell her how I felt. You know? Only except when I got her alone I couldn’t talk so I kissed her, and she kissed me back. Dude, it was, like, the best kiss ever.”

“Have you ever been kissed before?” Jacky asked suspiciously.

“Shut up,” Cody said. “Course somebody told Matt and he got all pissed and hit me and welp, now he and Nina are done.” Now Cody was full-on grinning.

“Dude!” said Jacky. “Aren’t you worried that Matt will beat you up again?”

“He didn’t beat me up! Barely got a punch in before Nina jumped all over him.”

“You’re sure they broke up?”

“I think so.” Cody squinted down the hallway. “Do you see her? I know if I talk to her it’ll all be okay.”

“Uh…”

He did not see Matt or Nina, but he did see Ryan, and he had to look away fast before his body reacted.

At lunch Nina sat with some of the other cheerleaders at one end of the jock table. Monica, Peyton, and the other girls surrounded her like a wall. Matt sat at the other end looking miserable.

“Why she isn’t sitting with us?” Cody muttered. “This is so stupid.” Cody stood up and walked out of the cafeteria.

Haylee watched him go. “He’s leaving?” she asked.

“I guess so.”

Jacky felt bad for her; she probably had no idea what had happened over the weekend. When she had commented on Cody’s black eye, he had completely ignored her.

Over the next few days, Jacky came to understand exactly how Haylee felt. Ryan didn’t mention anything about Thanksgiving. And when Jacky’s mom called to schedule a visit for the weekend before the holiday, she said Ryan already had a visit booked.

“With who?”

“Jacky, you know they can’t give that information out. Why don’t you ask him?”

Ryan didn’t know anything about a visit, not until that night, when he asked the staff about it. “It’s the Johnstons,” he told Jacky on the phone that night.

“That’s not fair,” said Jacky.

“I stayed at your house the past two weekends.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Jacky exhaled in frustration. “You’re visiting her house on Thanksgiving. Right? That’s still happening?”

“Yeah.”

In the wake of Ryan’s silence, Jacky felt his anger growing. “I mean, you’re going to stay with her for, like, four days. And this weekend, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, have you asked if you can stay at my house for part of the time? Like, you have Thanksgiving dinner with her family and then maybe on Saturday you can come to my house for the rest of the weekend?”

Ryan didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, “No, I didn’t ask.”

“Oh.” Jacky didn’t know what else to say. It was pretty clear how Ryan felt. “Okay. I guess if you don’t want to stay at my house anymore—”

“You and Monica don’t have joint custody of me!”

Never had Jacky heard Ryan raise his voice, or speak sharply. Not like this. It stunned him into silence.

“Sorry,” said Ryan. “This is hard.”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it like that.”

“I mean, I want to be with you, but I want to hang out with my other friends, too.” Ryan sighed. “And when they heard that I could stay at their houses over the weekends, they got so excited. I guess Lance had this big party last weekend and I didn’t even know about it. They kept it secret from me. They didn’t want to hurt my feelings because I couldn’t go.”

“And now you can,” said Jacky flatly.

The past two weekends had been so great. Like he and Ryan had been insulated in a happy bubble.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, sounding as unhappy as Jacky.

The next day at school, Jacky glared daggers at Monica throughout English class. He would have continued through the rest of the day, but Ryan pulled him aside after class. “Don’t be mad at Monica.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Jacky said, “if she wasn’t so greedy.”

“Her mom set it up, okay? And she’s letting Monica throw a party this weekend. Monica barely had anything to do with it.”

“Fine,” said Jacky. “I guess I should be mad at Mrs. Johnston then?”

“If you’re going to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”

Jacky met Ryan’s eyes. He’d been trying so hard not to be mad at Ryan. But if he couldn’t be mad at Monica or her mom, he was mad at Ryan. Ryan could say no. But clearly Ryan didn’t want to spend this weekend or Thanksgiving at Jacky’s house.

“Fine,” said Jacky, and turned to stomp off.

Ryan’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Let go of me!” The words came automatically. Jacky wished he could take them back.

“I don’t want you to be mad at me,” said Ryan. “It’s hard to—” Suddenly Ryan stopped, looking over Jacky’s shoulder. “Never mind, it’s stupid. See you later.”

When Jacky turned around, he saw a pack of jocks heading his way. Great, he thought, and glared at the floor as he headed toward them.

“Hi.”

He heard this as he was passing them. He looked up, not sure why. No one ever said, “Hi,” to him in the halls, except Ryan and Haylee and Nina and sometimes now Monica. The only person looking at him was Lance.

It wasn’t fair. Ryan was Jacky’s boyfriend, but they could barely spend any time together. Last weekend had been more of the same, sleeping together half-naked, and Jacky had been hoping that maybe this weekend they could do something more. But no, Monica had to come along and ruin everything. Two whole weekends where Jacky wouldn’t get to spend any time alone with Ryan.

Unless… he went to Monica’s party. He wondered if Cody would be down to be his wingman. Cody and Matt in the same place? Bad idea.

But Cody might want a wingman…