Chapter Text
[Voiceover from Kiara]
When you’re young, your blood is hot and you don’t want to listen to anybody’s plans for your life. Sometimes not even your own.
But then, when you try to step outside the box, you end up walking right down the path of your fate. Sometimes in ways you won’t understand for another decade. And you couldn’t have stepped as perfectly if you’d known every inch of the path in advance.
This is the story of the fate I didn’t see coming.
Chapter 1: It Started With A Kiss
It’s possible the kiss never would have happened if it weren’t for the gold.
The whole year since John B and Sarah had come back from the dead—and the Bahamas—the group had been inseparable. Not in the easy, always-seem-to-find-each-other way that they had before, but more of an anxious wolf pack kind of vibe. Like when they couldn’t all see each other, they couldn’t quite sit still. Of course, there was the Barry thing, and the Ward thing, because of course he made it out on bail.
But mostly, it was that they couldn’t stand to be apart, now that they knew how final that could feel.
It was nice, most of the time. Comforting, boisterous. Annoying, at others. But privacy? Nah, not really a thing.
The only reason Pope was alone in his room with JJ for the first time in forever was because the other two were at their lawyers’ offices. The lawyers were happy to work solely on commission to fight for the Pogues’ ownership of the gold.
The case was as water tight as the skin on a frog’s ass, the head guy had said. The only problem was that they had a classic case of rich man corruption, and his fancy lawyers could tie this up in appeals basically forever or until all the money had been eaten up in legal fees. But this firm was willing to fight, basically forever. For money, obviously, but also because two of them had gone to high school with Ward Cameron and definitely hated his ass.
It was a local law firm, thankfully. The first comment endeared them to JJ. The second to Kiara. The third to John B. But then Pope had to point out that frog’s skin wasn’t watertight at all: it was actually porous to water and a number of pollutants. And Kiara had to ask if they were only willing to fight forever because then they would de-facto get the gold through all those legal fees, and JJ wanted to whittle down their cut, and that was basically the whole problem.
The lawyers liked the case’s chances, but they didn’t like four opinionated teenagers all talking over each other in their office. So the limit became two at a time: usually John B because it was his dad’s gold first, and Kiara because she was the best at keeping it professional and decoding lawyer speak into real language.
That left JJ to sprawl off Pope’s bed with his head out the window, the sun catching gold in his hair and going hazy through the clouds of marijuana vape smoke he exhaled out into the air where Heyward wouldn’t smell it when he got home. A stack of flash cards rested on JJ’s chest, and when Pope kicked his foot, he obediently lifted another and squinted at it.
“Kreb’s Cycle,” JJ prompted.
“A series of chemical reactions used by all aerobic organisms to release stored energy into ATP and CO2.”
“Also known as…”
“Citric acid cycle. Does it say on there what ATP stands for? I forgot.”
“Adenosine triphosphate,” JJ said. “You wrote it on like six other fucking cards, dude. I don’t know how many times you’ve got to repeat that shit.” He took another hit, exhaling as he stared up at the sky, the blue behind him turning hazy and soft from the cloud.
Pope still remembered what it felt like to be high, from that one wild day before they lost John B. It had been good, but it still didn’t feel half as relaxing as it looked when JJ did it. Watching JJ smoke was Pope’s version of getting high. Like as his body unwound, Pope’s tension went with it. Even now, Pope’s shoulders were starting to slump deeper in his office chair, his eyelids getting heavy. He kicked his feet up on the bed, bare toes nudging JJ’s calves.
Pot was supposed to affect your short term memory, he knew that from school, but it didn’t seem to touch JJ. If he heard something out loud, anything, he could repeat it. Whether it was Barry’s coke delivery schedule or the specs for rebuilding a carburetor. If he read it, he couldn’t even remember it well enough to copy it onto another piece of paper. But if he heard it, he could write it down perfectly. And did, whenever Pope’s hands cramped from writing too much and he needed JJ to copy down his homework. It tended to happen a lot, for the few classes they took together.
“Dude, I don’t know what’s wrong with your AP bio class that you’re still studying this shit.” JJ sat up, scattering flashcards everywhere as he flipped his hair out of his face. “We’re going over all this same crap in my class. Shouldn’t you be on to, I don’t know, astrophysics or something?”
“These are the basics. It all ties into the uh, lab experiments we’re doing. That’s where it gets into the AP stuff.”
JJ eyed him. “Isn’t chemistry for lab experiments, not bio?”
Shit. He was so not selling his cover story.
“All branches of science have experiments,” Pope blurted. “The whole scientific method is based on experimentation and repeatability. And it can be applied to everything, even non-science related methodologies like fishing and—”
“Jesus, stop, stop, Professor. Enough school already. There’s a kegger tonight and I need to kill all the brain cells you just grew in my head from those endless flashcards. You really have to learn how to study on your own someday, man.”
“Yeah, uh. Soon. I’ll get right on that.” As soon as JJ started passing everything with the C average he needed to graduate.
JJ lay back down, his shirt gapping to show a smooth stretch of golden tanned skin above the waist of his cargo shorts. The vape pen hissed as he took another long hit, then held it in for so long that Pope started to worry about lung damage before JJ exhaled, the sound slow and low in a way that made Pope’s shoulders unknot.
“Weather’s warming up,” JJ said, his lips forming the words through clouds of vape smoke. They tipped toward a smile. “That means lots of touron girls coming to the island on vacation. Daddy’s little princess is just about to get her sexual awakening a la JJ.”
Pope glanced away, picking up his AP Biology textbook and flicking a pencil against its edge. He should have gotten up early this morning to surf. The room seemed too small this afternoon and he was restless from too much studying—especially since he’d have to do all of his own studying in the wee hours after the kegger since this afternoon had gone to all his faked flashcards for JJ’s classes.
The pencil bounced too hard off the textbook and ricocheted out of his hand. He didn’t have anything to write down anyway, so he didn’t retrieve it.
“Man, what is it with you and the touron girls, anyway? You got a problem with the Kildare Island girls?”
JJ grinned. “Touron girls are on vacation. They like to get a little wild when they’re slumming. Sometimes, they let you put it in their butt.”
Pope twitched, and when the wind blew in off the sea, it ruffled the pages of the textbook against his wrist, tickling the skin and making the fine hairs on his arm stand on end. He slammed the book closed, tossed it onto the floor.
“What’s your problem?” JJ asked, kicking one ankle up across his upbent knee. “You never heard about anything but missionary?”
He moved again, rolling up to sitting in a pull of lithe muscle that reminded Pope of those full-body snaps he used to turn his board along the crest of a wave. JJ could move faster than anybody else he knew, like his muscles were just more awake than everybody else’s.
JJ kicked at the textbook, twisting some of the pages. “It’s just biooology, Pope.” He drew the word out in a teasing singsong.
“Shut up.” Pope stood to retrieve the book and dropped back onto the bed with a bounce, opening the book to fix the rumpled pages. He dodged a glance at JJ as he smoothed a page on cardiovascular dilation. “You’ve really done that? Butt stuff, I mean.”
“Loads of times.” JJ flicked his vape pen up in the air, caught it, and made it walk over his knuckles, his silver rings flashing. “It’s tight as hell. Kinky, you know.”
“Why would they—I mean, doesn’t it hurt?”
The vape pen walked back over JJ’s facile knuckles the opposite way. “If you go slow, it doesn’t hurt.” His blue eyes twinkled as he slung a sidelong look at Pope. “I work it so pain is the last thing they’re feeling, trust me.”
Pope swallowed. Being a virgin at eighteen was the lamest possible thing. It wasn’t even like he was dying to have sex so much as he just wanted it to be something that was…behind him. Something he could say “loads of times” about and then focus on stuff that was really important.
“How do you…I mean, how can you know that?”
JJ hopped up, the vape pen disappearing into his pocket. He pulled a hacky sack out of his other pocket and toed it back up into the air a couple of times. “Lube, first off. But mostly, my dear Watson, it’s about the foreplay.”
“Right, yeah, I mean obviously.” Pope gave a dry chuckle that came out sounding wrong.
The hacky sack went back in his pocket. Pope didn’t realize his truck keys were missing off his dresser until JJ waved his hand over the bedside table and they appeared again. In another life, JJ could have made a half-decent stage magician. He never stole from Pope’s house, or his dad’s store, but it was hard for him to resist practicing. Heyward did not appreciate JJ’s constant rearranging of his inventory, even though he always left all the merchandise behind before he crossed the threshold back to the outside world.
“You start with kissing,” JJ said. “Don’t rush it, enjoy that part. Chicks hate it when they think you’ve only got your eye on the finish line, anyway. Then a little touching—don’t get distracted by their boobs, make sure you put in your time inside the panties, too.” The hacky sack had returned and he tossed it behind his back, caught it again, and collapsed onto the bed next to Pope, lying back. “Then, you take your time getting inside, you know what I’m saying? Play a little, take it slow. Lots of lube so everything slides.”
Pope was breathing way too fast. He stopped entirely, trying to be chill about it, like the topic was no big deal. JJ had no problem talking about sex stuff, and as long as Kiara wasn’t around to overhear, Pope was so up to glean as many details as he could. It was just research, so when his chance with a girl finally came around, he’d have half a clue what he was doing. Preparation was the key to success. The problem was, this particular topic made him feel…funny.
He swallowed, and that stuck, and he had to clear his throat. Quickly, so JJ hopefully wouldn’t notice and think he was being a blushy freaking virgin.
JJ sat up, his elbows leaned on his knees and his whole body jiggling from his right heel tapping the floor. He snatched his hat off the window frame where it’d fallen earlier, and squeezed the brim between his hands, reshaping it. Then flipping it and catching it.
“Too weird for you, Pope? Not kinky like that?” It was the smallest scrap of a look JJ shot over, but Pope still hurried to shake his head.
“Nah, no. I mean, I’m fine with whatever. I mean, not that I’ve—but I mean if you do that’s…cool.” His voice fucking squeaked on the last word.
JJ’s lips turned up at the corner and his hands stilled on his hat, letting it hang between his knees. “Cool, huh? So like, you’d try it someday?”
“I don’t know, man.” Pope tried another chuckle and this one came out a little easier. “I’m still hoping to check blow job off the bucket list someday. Don’t want to press my luck, you know?”
“So you don’t think it’s weird.” It came out of JJ rough, like an accusation.
Pope frowned. “No. Why would I?”
JJ dropped his hat onto his head and sat up, leaning his weight back on one hand. The mattress dipped from the change in pressure and their legs bumped. “Wasn’t always with girls, that’s why.”
Pope was breathing way, way too fast and he couldn’t entirely stop anymore. “Okay.”
“Okay like cool, or okay like you don’t believe me?” JJ pushed off the mattress to stand. Pope was used to his constant changes in position, the way he could only be still in his mind if his body was moving. But this time, Pope caught JJ’s wrist before he could fidget away.
“Okay like cool,” Pope said firmly, holding his friend’s eyes.
JJ’s expression lightened and he smiled a little before he ducked his head. “Yeah. Right.”
“What, did you think I was like one of those homophobic Kooks, is that why you didn’t mention it before?”
JJ’s wrist was hot under his hand. His metabolism always ran high, but today sweat sprang between their skin even faster than normal. But Pope didn’t let go. If this was JJ coming out, if that’s what this was, he wanted there to be no question where he stood.
JJ shrugged, but he didn’t try to pull out of Pope’s grip. “No. ‘Course I didn’t, bro. But—”
“But nothing,” interrupted Pope. “I got you. And we’re cool. Whoever you are, whoever you want, you’re my boy. Pogues for life.”
JJ rolled his eyes. “No need to get all emotional and speechy about it. It was just a little butt sex between friends. Well, Grindr friends.” He winked. “God bless technology, right?”
“So it wasn’t one—” Pope swallowed, trying to get the weird tone out of his voice. “One of the other guys from the marina?”
JJ smirked. “Jealous? You got the hots for one of them?”
“No.” He let go of JJ’s wrist, because there was really no reason to still be hanging on. “Was it—did you like it? As much as with the girls, I mean?” He paused. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business. That was really invasive.”
“‘That was really invasive’,” JJ parroted in a falsetto and then laughed. “Are you serious? What, we can’t talk about this stuff if it’s about dudes? Because yeah.” JJ’s voice was weird now, too. Scratchy, or rougher, or something that was making Pope want to rub his knuckles into his own twitching thigh muscles. “I liked it. As much as with the girls. Maybe more, actually, because the guy I met—he was really into it. Rough and fast, you know.”
Pope did not know.
He was thinking about it very hard, though, trying to picture what rough might look like, when it was two men. When it was the kind of rough you could like.
He was thinking about it so hard that it was maybe why he didn’t notice right away when JJ started to lean closer. They were already sitting side-by-side, and JJ moved all the time, touched him all the time. So by the time Pope registered that JJ’s face was closer than normal, it was right, right there and he didn’t have time to push the sexual, heady pictures out of his head before JJ’s lips brushed his.
Pope had kissed before—been kissed, actually, for the first time by Lucia Rodriguez at the eighth grade dance, lips squishing against his.
This was not like that.
This was like oxygen, hot and necessary, and vaporizing like it had never been as soon as it was over. The tingles spreading from his lips were his only clue that it had really happened once JJ pulled away.
“Bro,” JJ said. “You just let me do that.”
Maybe it was a strange thing to say, but Pope didn’t know because his…everything felt strange right now. He grabbed JJ, gripping the cut between his shoulder and his neck. His other hand clawed against JJ’s knee, fingers digging in.
“Whoa,” JJ said. “Dude, are you having one of your things?”
It was how he’d held onto JJ in the past, when he had a panic attack. JJ hadn’t known what they were at first. Had asked Pope if he’d ever had acid, like it might be a flashback. But usually now, JJ knew to grip Pope right back, his fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck with their foreheads pressed together. Pogues for life. Brothers, together, in whatever would come.
It calmed Pope down faster than anything, even better than Kiara’s soft hands or John B’s bad knock knock jokes. Gripping onto JJ made Pope feel normal.
But not right now. Right now, his heart was beating really much faster than the prescribed resting heart rate of between 60 and 100 beats per minute. 78 was Pope’s normal.
This was so not a 78 kind of moment.
“Are you freaking out, man?” JJ said warily. “Because if you’re freaking out, we can say that never happened. Poof.” He waved his hands. “Just like that. Gone.”
Pope had no idea if that was what he wanted, because he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that kiss. Had he liked it? Not liked it? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he felt like he should be sure. If he was straight, he should have hated that. Had he hated it?
He had a very alarming feeling that he might not have hated it.
“No,” Pope managed. “I—” He looked at JJ. “Can I try that again?”
JJ smirked. “Be my guest, bro.”
“I’m not joking,” Pope said. It wasn’t the most eloquent he’d ever been, but it was important that his friend understood. He stared JJ down, not moving forward.
JJ shrugged, his eyes flicking to the side. “Cool. Okay.” His knee started to bounce.
Pope touched his cheek, trying to steady JJ so Pope wouldn’t do something embarrassing, like miss his lips, but JJ’s face felt so much like…JJ. And so nothing at all like a girl. Not Jewel, the tourist girl he’d kissed in tenth grade, or Rachel, in eleventh. Not even like Kiara, for that one there-and-gone kiss that was over before it really even registered, after John B left. They’d all been fine, pleasant even, but he hadn’t felt this quaking in every part of him like this was something bigger than he had a name for. Something so big he couldn’t even totally tell if it was terrifying or wonderful.
JJ’s jaw muscle was hard, his skin the smallest bit rough with growing stubble. Pope leaned closer, forgetting to close his eyes until the last minute. At first, it was just their lips pressing together. Too hard and then too soft, finding the right pressure. Then his lips naturally found the crease between JJ’s and the softest stroke of tongue over the other man’s lips had him shaking from head to toe.
He pulled back, feeling on the verge of detonation. Maybe not even physically, but mentally, emotionally, hormonally. Okay, maybe physically. Maybe way physically. Pope had the distant thought that he’d love to have a machine hooked to chart his vitals right now because he’d bet they were all way outside normal parameters.
“Oh.” Pope tried to catch his breath, failed. Squeezed a shaking hand into a fist against his knee and stared at his friend. His lover? What did you call a person whose kiss could turn your entire self inside out in the space of a second?
“Are you going to freak out, bro?”
Pope nodded. “Yes, um, yup. I think freaking out is indeed going to happen. JJ, did you—was that—”
JJ grinned. “Are you going to give me the old ‘was it good for you’? Because I feel like it might be early in our relationship for that.” He cuffed Pope in the shoulder, gently. “Save it for after you get me to put out, you fucking overachiever.”
Pope laughed, his eyes falling closed as he sucked in a breath. He was so glad it had been JJ. If a kiss was going to change everything about what he understood about himself, he was so glad they were alone and it was just JJ, his best friend who was cool with him and all his weirdnesses.
“Well, I guess I’m gay,” Pope said.
“You really, really are,” JJ said. “Damn, son.”
Pope laughed, and scrubbed at his forehead. “Wow. What the hell. Wow.” He looked back at JJ, and his friend’s blue eyes sparked with interest.
“Easy, tiger. Give a guy some warning if you’re going to pounce.”
“No, hey.” Pope put up his hands, suddenly worried he’d misread this. “I didn’t mean, that since you’d been with guys, that I was assuming anything about your preferences, or that you necessarily have to be okay with doing stuff with me. I would never assume—”
“That just because I kissed you, and then you kissed me back a fucking way lot better, that maybe I’d be into it?” JJ waved a grandiose hand, water-logged friendship bracelets slipping over his strong wrist. “Please, assume away. Just assume anything that pretty mouth of yours wants to assume.”
Pope’s eyes widened and JJ choked on a laugh, reaching out and gripping his shoulder.
“Don’t pass out, dude. I didn’t mean we had to go there. You’ve known you were gay for like four minutes. I know ‘blow job’ is on your bucket list but we can check it off another day.”
“We?” Pope didn’t mean the question to escape, but his heart felt like it was growing bigger, pressing hard against his ribs like it had filled up with helium, even lighter and more buoyant than air.
JJ shrugged, a languid movement, though his thumb was flicking at his fingers, the flashes of his silver ring giving away the tic. “I’m into it. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
Pope couldn’t stop looking at him. The idea of JJ as his best friend rearranging into an entirely different category. Expanding, really, to cover multiple columns in his mental spreadsheet and God knew how many rows. JJ was good looking, shit of course Pope knew that, how JJ was all grace and slim muscle and those bright, sunny-lashed eyes. But now he could feel the heat radiating between them, too. The way JJ’s easy sexuality seemed charged with electricity now, wired directly into Pope’s veins so all his blood lit right the fuck up and his whole body seemed on the verge of malfunctioning.
“Um,” Pope said.
JJ slipped a hand around his neck, holding the back. Softer than he usually did, but just as grounding.
“Can I? This time?” It was low, almost a growl. It was the voice of a man who’d done this before and knew what he wanted..
Pope nodded, gritting his teeth together just to feel like some part of him was solid, reliable. And not on the verge of some kind of emotional whirlwind he didn’t totally understand.
“Shove me off if you start to freak out,” JJ said, which was weird and blunt, and so fucking JJ.
He kissed him once, quick, a slick of his tongue sneaking inside and gone before Pope could even gasp.
“Okay?”
Pope tried to nod, and a full-body shiver took the tremor all the way to his toes. He had goosebumps, and he was shaking. Fuck, this would be embarrassing if he was with anyone else, but he knew JJ wouldn’t care. It was just nuts that Pope could go from not knowing at all to suddenly this.
Knowing this more than he knew anything else on the planet. More clearly than quadratic equations, or vital sign ranges, or anatomy charts.
JJ’s hand tightened, and when he came back to Pope, he kissed him ferociously. Tipping him backwards, his body rubbing hotly over Pope’s, and whoa, JJ was into this. He was rough and intense. Some deep part of Pope was unsurprised, like he’d somehow known JJ would be this way in bed. The other part thrilled giddily to it because this, this was exactly what all the wildness in him was calling for.
He writhed, panting, as JJ sucked wet kisses down his neck, scraping his pulse with blunt teeth and then biting—fuck, actually biting, yes—the thick muscle of his shoulder.
Pope gripped great handfuls of JJ’s tee shirt. He had a moment to be surprised and then mortified that he’d swelled straight past a semi to fully hard and now his dick was caught in a twist of his boxers. He needed to adjust, and was that cool? Or was that showing all his cards like whoa, he couldn’t even mack a little without boning out? But then JJ adjusted for him, a quick flick of his fingers freeing Pope’s increasingly painful predicament. He didn’t even have a full moment to be embarrassed about that before JJ came down over him, his own erection rubbing Pope’s zipper fly, and oh holy fuck.
He’d seen JJ naked before, a thousand times. Hard, only once when they were young and dumb enough to bust out the ruler on a sleepover and measure. His friend had grown since then, clearly, and Pope found himself deeply interested in exactly how much he had grown.
But then he lost his train of thought as JJ pinned his hands over his head. Their palms came together, fingers tangling as he ducked back to Pope’s mouth, devouring him hot and hard in a way that was ferociously satisfying.
Pope stopped thinking at all.
It had been so long since that happened that the sensation of mental quiet was as unfamiliar and heady as everything else. JJ’s scent was with him, familiar in a sea of everything new. Expensive, stolen cologne, open sea air, and the dark tinge of gasoline from his dirt bike. His body was hard and lithe, and lighter atop him than Pope had expected, JJ’s hips grinding down to him and whoa, and both of them were so fucking wound up.
This couldn’t be happening. Kissing couldn’t be this good, his body couldn’t still be this hungry when JJ was already touching him everywhere. JJ rocked against him, holding him steady between the mattress and his body, their fingers clinging like they were embracing in the midst of an entirely new kind of panic attack. Something was building in his body.
Pope only had instants to realize what was bearing down on him before he was ripping his hand out of JJ’s and gripping himself through his shorts, breathing with great gasping breaths. He wasn’t even self-conscious, that’s how acute his need was to come.
Now, immediately, or every cell in his brain was going to burn itself down from the inside.
“Fuck, yes,” JJ growled and bit his ear, running his tongue along it in a fiery line.
Pope ripped open his shorts and grabbed his cock, out of his fucking mind and beyond all thought.
“Jesus,” JJ growled and then his hand was there, too, helping Pope shove his boxers out of the way. His hand didn’t join Pope’s inside his underwear, though, just gripped Pope’s flexing ass, urging him to push harder, faster as Pope thrust into his own fist. The tangled band of JJ’s friendship bracelets pushed against the bare skin of Pope’s hip and he keened, making a sound that was damn near pain. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
“Do it,” JJ whispered. “Fuck, you’re sexy.” He tipped Pope’s head back, his thumb skimming soft over his throat. “I’ve got you, man. I’ve fucking got you.” His tongue followed the line drawn by his thumb, all the way up under Pope’s ear. He started growling uneven bites against the skin, hot and wet and completely out of control and then Pope was exploding, jerking at himself so frantically it almost hurt.
Lights flashed behind his eyelids as he fell slack, shaking all over and his tongue so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Fuck,” JJ said, and his hand cupped Pope’s face. Casual and sure. “I’ve never seen any shit like that. You’re—”
“Repressed?” Pope gasped, coming back to himself enough to feel the first edge of embarrassment. “I think the word you’re looking for is repressed.”
“I was thinking hot.” JJ kissed him. “Really goddamn hot.”
He sat back on his heels and Pope shoved himself back into his pants, wiping his wet hand on his totally destroyed tee shirt so he could zip up. “Yeah, I’d better—” he muttered, pulling his shirt off over his head before JJ could see the immensity of the wet spot. Jeez, it looked like he’d been saving up for that his entire life. He scooted sideways, trying to get off the bed, but JJ caught his wadded tee shirt and had it out of his hand before he could.
“Missed some,” he said and used the tee shirt to dry some skin beneath Pope’s throat. “You got some range on that one.” He tossed the stained tee shirt to the floor like they’d done this a million times, then caught Pope by the back of his neck, pulling him into a strong hug. “Don’t get weird on me.”
“Not getting weird.”
“Just a little macking.”
“And I sort of jerked off. All over you.”
JJ’s hand twitched. “Fuck, say that again.”
Pope started to laugh, and once he did, it unwound something in his chest and he couldn’t stop. “I should have guessed you’d be the same level of horndog with guys as with girls.” He flopped back, his body suddenly liquid and shakily relaxed. Released in a way he never felt when it was just him and his hand alone under the covers.
JJ grinned and lay down next to him, propping his head up on a hand. “Hey, at least I’m consistent.”
Pope gazed at him, his mental spreadsheet still calculating the algorithm of this new reality. He was still thinking about all those girls at the Boneyard, disappearing into the bedroom at the Chateau with JJ. Off to the lifeguard shack with the broken lock. The gym bathrooms, that one time. “So are you, uh…bi?” he ventured.
JJ shrugged. “Maybe gay? Dunno, I guess I like boobs. And all those touron girls, I didn’t mind it much, no matter which way we did it. But…” He trailed a finger down Pope’s bare chest, watching him in a way that made goosebumps stand out all over. Pope swallowed, and he thought he might understand exactly what lay beyond JJ’s ellipses.
Nothing. Because there’d never been anything like that for him with anyone else.
“How do I know…” Pope almost stopped himself, but it was just JJ. The guy who’d let Pope throw up in his favorite hat when he got a very sudden bout of the flu on the bus in middle school. “How do I know if I like men in general?” he said. “Or just you?”
JJ’s eyes gleamed, and a shy little smile flicked over his face before he pulled off his hat and smoothed it back on, backwards. “Probably it’s just me. I’m pretty great.”
Pope rolled his eyes. “It was a serious question.” He glanced around for his phone. “There have to be resources for this issue on the internet, perhaps some peer reviewed research.”
“I don’t need my peers to review shit for me to know what I want.” JJ pushed Pope back on the bed and crawled up over him.
Pope knew, somehow, that it was important that he sort out what this all meant for him. But JJ was doing something terrifically interesting with his tongue at the moment.
And he also knew JJ, and his friend’s attention span, and how it was never the same girl disappearing into the bedroom at the Chateau twice. It was highly probable that this would be Pope’s only chance, at feeling this good. At being with his best friend in this deeper, more heady and intimate way. And he didn’t want to miss a second of it.