Coda Books 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (MM)

Even cruel. But this ? This felt new and pure and fragile. It felt sacred.
    It felt like a second chance.
    And I knew without a doubt that I had no intention of letting it pass me by. I wanted to tell him right now how I felt. I wanted him to know how much I loved him. I wanted him to know that he never had to spend another birthday alone again.
    “Cole,” I said, but before I could finish, he put his soft fingers on my lips. His eyes were wide and a little bit scared.
    “Shhh,” he said. “Don’t say it, Jonny.”
    “But—”
    He shook his head. And then he kissed me. He pulled me close, his arms tight around me. His lips were soft and warm, and his mouth was sweet from the fruit we’d eaten. He wrapped his legs around my hips, and in that moment, he became my whole world. I wanted to pour everything that I was feeling into him.
    We took our time. The urgency of this morning was gone, and now there was only tenderness. I kissed him, feeling his thin body underneath me, his skin soft against mine. I tried to caress every part of him with my hands or my lips or both. His touch was light and gentle, but his fingers dug painfully into my shoulders as I pushed into him.
    And then there was only him in my arms, his legs around me, our breath mingling, and the building pleasure of our bodies locked together. And through it all, the knowledge that I loved him more than I ever would have believed possible.
    Afterward, he was silent. He let me hold him far longer than he usually did. I was just drifting off when he started to move to the other side of the bed. “Please don’t,” I said sleepily, holding him tighter so he couldn’t get away. “Stay here.” I could sense him debating for just a second, but then he sighed—not in frustration or exasperation. It was a sound of contentment. He relaxed again in my arms, and I curled up against his back. And for the second night in a row, I went to sleep smelling strawberries.

Date: April 5
    From: Cole
    To: Jared
    I am a fool, and a coward. I’m not sure which is worse.

    ONCE his birthday was past, the overall melancholy that had shrouded him for the two weeks leading up to our trip disappeared. And yet he still wasn’t quite happy. At least not all the time. I, on the other hand, could not remember having been happier. Not for a very long time, at any rate. I loved him. I loved everything about him. Every moment we were together thrilled me. He was flighty and bright and beautiful and stubborn, and I marveled at how much fuller my life felt now with him in it.
    I was also happy that he seemed to accept now that our relationship had changed. He quit trying to keep his walls between us.
    He let me touch him more. He let me kiss him. He laughed more. And most of the time, he seemed to be as happy I was. But then there would be moments when it was as if the sun had suddenly gone behind the clouds. That laughing light in his eyes would suddenly dim, and he would seem sad.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked him once when it happened. We were in bed, still not quite breathing steadily again after making love, and as I looked down at him, thinking that I loved him more than I could ever put into words, that sadness had come into his eyes.
    He was hesitant to answer, I could tell, and I suspected he was debating whether to deny that anything was wrong at all. But then he said, “I’ll have to leave soon.”
    “Okay,” I said, pulling him close and kissing him. Of course I didn’t want him to go, but it had always been his nature to not stay in one place for too long. “I won’t miss you at all,” I told him. He sighed, but he didn’t say anything else after that.
    My father called a few days later to invite Cole and me to dinner.
    I was still reluctant to put them at the same dinner table again, but my dad insisted. “Jon, you can’t divide your life in half and keep the two of us apart. If this is a relationship you’re serious about, and I’m pretty sure it is, then I think the fruitcake and I will have to get used to each other.”
    “Fine,” I relented, because as usual, he was right. “How about Saturday?”
    “Perfect.”
    “But not a restaurant. He’ll want to cook.”
    “Even better.”
    “And Dad?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Don’t call him a fruitcake.”
    For only a moment, there clouds in Cole’s eyes as I told him about dinner with my dad. But just as quickly, they were gone and he smiled. “Anything you want, love.”
    We had to go shopping on