Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
A piece of Pike’s heart cracked off, pierced by Zack’s wounded expression. Pike’s free hand rubbed his own sternum, as if he could stem the bleeding he was likely to do over this complicated man.
“You have more willpower than anyone I’ve ever met.” Pike squeezed Zack’s neck. “This isn’t about willpower.”
“I get that.” Zack sighed. “It makes logical sense, but my head...it’s all fucked up. I keep hearing my dad’s voice telling me to stay away from West Coast queers. But then I think about how Ryan’s the best friend I’ve ever had. More like a big brother. He’s not some...sex criminal. He’s just Ryan.”
“And he’s happy,” Pike pointed out because Zack so clearly wasn’t. “And loved. And he knows who he is and accepts himself—these are important things too, man. I mean I get that your family and your religion is important to you, but that’s not everything.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I look at him and I just...” Zack’s voice got soft again.
“I get what you mean. And Zack, you can be like him.”
“Not and be a SEAL. Not and be my father’s son. Not and be able to ever enter our church again.”
“I can’t fix the family shit for you,” Pike admitted. “But you wouldn’t be the only gay SEAL by far. You could talk to—”
“I’m not ready.” Zack shook his head. “Hell, I’m barely able to say the words you need—”
“Hold up.” Pike stilled his hand on Zack. “I don’t need an admission for me.” That might be a tiny bit of a lie—Pike had after all said no to more kissing. And he’d own up to his own...issues. And sure enough Zack gave him a skeptical look.
“Most of my prodding is about you at least being honest with yourself. For you. Because I watched Roger and I know what lying to yourself does to a person. I don’t need you to say you’re pan or bi or gay or—”
“Gay.” Zack gave a sharp nod and the green tinge to his skin coupled with the tight lines around his mouth made him look like he was about to hurl. “I don’t know what that other is. But I’m not bi. I’ve tried hard enough—yeah, not bi.”
“See, you know yourself. Doesn’t talking it out help some?”
Zack shook his head. “I don’t know crap anymore. What we just did—I wish I could do that over and over, but then I look at you and I want to take a half dozen trips through the grinder to get away from all these questions.”
“Don’t run.” Pike hadn’t intended to say that aloud, but judging by Zack’s softening muscles, maybe it was the right thing to say. “And that wasn’t—”
“If you say that wasn’t anything, I’ll smack you,” Zack growled. “That was something, and we both know it. But fuck all if I know what to do with that.”
“Maybe we don’t have to do anything with it,” Pike suggested, even though it charred his insides to forgo the idea of a repeat. “We can be friends—”
“But what if I want that again?” Zack’s voice sounded like he was asking himself as much as Pike. “Can’t this be our thing? Our private thing?”
“So you’d like to what...be fuck buddies?” That sounded like an epically bad idea. One you love. No, he’d need to put his foot down—
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Zack’s eyes were big and soft. “I just know that I’m so tired of hating myself every second of every day, and when I’m around you, I don’t hate me so much. I’ve spent the last year trying to make sense of me, but when I’m around you, it feels like the answer might actually be out there.”
Fuck. Pike had totally been prepared to say no to secret fuck buddies, but given that pretty little speech how could he say no? You can’t.
“I can be here while you figure stuff out. Be a friend. And the extra—” he waved his hand in a vague gesture “—we can figure out as we go.”
“I don’t like winging it.” Zack’s eyes pinched closer together and his mouth pursed. “Fuck. I wish I had a plan for what comes next.”
“Here.” Pike stood and offered Zack a hand. They were going in circles now. The big questions in Zack’s life weren’t getting solved in one hallway confessional session. “Step one, we shower that spooge off your face and hair. Come on, I’ll wash your back.”
He tugged Zack into the bathroom. Zack’s eyes got wide. “Together? You want to shower together?”
* * *
“Yup.” Pike lost his towel as they entered the bathroom, and Zack lost another little piece of his mind. Pike waved his hand in Zack’s general direction. “Strip.”
Zack’s hands went automatically to his buckle, even as his mind raced. Okay, he’d had sex—gay sex—and hadn’t spontaneously combusted. But Pike’s easy grin as he assumed that Zack was about to hop to and get in the shower represented something entirely different. This wasn’t letting the lust-filled hormones take over and push Zack to his knees. This was a deliberate choice.