Talker

Blaize,
    without thinking that anything could possibly go wrong.
    He especial y thought so when Tate said, “You’re my Prince
    C harming, saving me from me.”
    Brian grunted, and didn’t add, “Yeah, but not soon enough,”
    because that was going to be his own burden to carry. He didn’t
    say, “But what if I die?” either, even though he, of al people, knew
    that losing the people you loved most was a real possibility. That
    thought was morbid and it was the last thing Tate needed to hear or
    think about. What he did say, however, was maybe one of the
    wisest things he’d ever thought of.
    “Yeah, Talker, but do you have any idea how many people it
    took to get me in that bathroom?”
    “How do you mean?”
    Sigh. “I mean, it took Virginia to help me come out of the
    closet, and Aunt Lyndie to help me get dressed and to accept me
    for who I was, and it took the guy I knew from work to take my shift
    for me and it took Jed to put the big yel ow sign up so we didn’t get
    interrupted forty gazil ion times… and that was just to get me into
    that bathroom. Talker—al you got is me. And Aunt Lyndie—you
    know that, right? She loves you too.”
    “Mmmm.” Tate took one of Brian’s hands and rubbed his
    cheek against it. “I like her too.”
    “G ood,” Brian said. Talker’s neck was there, and exposed, and
    he had to kiss that before going on. “But you need someone else to
    help you fix your heart.”
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    Tate was quick, way quicker than Brian, and Brian knew the
    moment he was truly awake and had followed the conversation.
    “O h geez… Brian… I don’t want to.”
    “I’ll go with you,” Brian said firmly. “And I don’t want to either.
    But I want you happy. You didn’t see me. I mean… you saw me,
    but you didn’t see me. You needed someone to keep you safe so
    bad, you didn’t see that I loved you too. Now that you know I love
    you, I think you need someone safe.”
    Talker sighed, hunched his shoulders, and shivered. Brian
    covered those narrow shoulders with his own. “We can’t afford it,
    and even if we could, I don’t even know where to go.”
    “It’s free at school.” He’d looked into counseling the day Tate
    had made laundry explode al over the washroom.
    Talker made a negative sound, and Brian persevered. “I’ll
    make the appointment for you,” he whispered. “We can go during
    our break between classes. Please, Talker. Please.”
    There was a taut and palpable silence. F inally Tate’s
    shoulders relaxed, and Brian knew he’d won.
    “Yeah, fine. But I gotta tel you, you sure can kil a good
    morning glow, you know?”
    Brian’s naked body was pressed along Tate’s naked back, and
    Brian’s relief was so acute that all of that glorious skin to skin gave
    a big, happy throb. He wiggled his hips suggestively and smoothed
    his hand down Tate’s stomach and al points south.
    “Sorry, baby,” he soothed, taking Tate’s semi-hard cock in his
    hand and playing with it to see what made it grow harder. “Let me
    make it up to you.”

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    E pilogue

    Later

    HE DIDN’T warn Talker about the appointment. He made it, and a
    week later, as they were meeting during their class break, Brian
    grabbed Tate’s hand and said, “C ome with me.” (They’d scheduled
    a break between classes together since they’d moved in. Thinking
    back on that decision, Brian had to wonder at his own stupidity.
    What guy does that for someone he doesn’t want to sleep with?)
    Talker’s disappointment when they showed up at the school
    counseling center was palpable.
    “Brian.…” he said, and it was dangerously close to a whine.
    “Talker.…” Brian warned.
    Tate sighed, and his shoulders slumped, defeated. “You’re
    coming with me, right? You promised.”
    In the past week, Brian had gotten very used to holding Tate’s
    hand in public, to kissing him briefly in the quad, to not giving a shit about what people thought of the two of them. He’d let Tate buzz
    his Mohawk into a faux-hawk and then taken crap about his haircut
    and laughed it off (although he was very glad it was growing back
    in), and taken compliments on the studs in his ears and the one in
    his nose. He’d gone into the club to wait for Tate, and although he
    still didn’t want to dance, he’d learned to appreciate the joy of
    dancing, and how the men in that club were happy—so happy—to
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    be someplace where dancing with men