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Their first kiss happened on the twentieth of November. It’s been all downhill from there.
They’ve established a routine over the four days since then: Finny walks Gene to every class and then sprints to his own. Gene hangs around and “does homework” at every one of Finny’s sports practices. They eat every meal with their knees and shoulders brushing. And every single time they’re alone, sheltered from view, they kiss the daylights out of each other.
Phineas feels a little like he died and woke up in heaven. Distantly he’s aware that their obsession with each other will fade to manageable levels with time, they’re just in a phase at the moment, but the idea of being away from Gene for more than a few hours at a time is distressing. They’re still best pals, after all. They’ve just added the kissing bit on top.
In light of this, he’s not looking forward to Thanksgiving break. Five days away from Gene, basically six if he includes the entire afternoon he’d lose with travel. Far too long! It’s the 24th, break begins on the 25th, and Finny is on the brink of being isolated from his brand new fella. He’s going to wither away.
They’re kissing again when Gene has the aha moment. It’s nearly eleven at night but Finny doesn’t have the capacity to feel tired when Gene’s arms are so snug and perfect around him. His own hands are buried in Gene’s hair, messing it up something awful, but that’s perfect because Finny will get to comb it smooth in the morning.
“Hey,” Gene says, entirely too far away now for Finny’s liking.
“What?” Finny says.
Gene breathes in through his mouth, and what is Finny supposed to do but lean in and feel that darling mouth against his own? Gene huffs out a laugh and puts his palm firmly on Finny’s chest. Fine, then.
Gene says, “Do your folks really need you back for Thanksgiving?” Finny blinks. Gene elaborates, “I know mine don’t really give a hoot if I come home any other time as long as I’m home for Christmas and at least part of the summer. I could stay at Devon tomorrow. If you could, too, then we wouldn’t have to… you know.”
Finny tilts his head. Puzzles. Realizes. “Oh. OH!”
“Yeah!”
Finny laughs, a bubbly little thing from somewhere next to his soul. A long weekend with Gene, free from school, unbothered by classmates, and… “Oh.”
“Oh? Oh. Oh.”
And that’s how, after over a year of pining, Phineas gets a return confession, a thousand kisses, and the loss of his virginity in the span of a week.
The virginity bit happens like this:
On the morning of the 25th, Finny runs around their dorm building looking for any other students staying over break. There’s a small neighborhood of them, five or six guys camping out in three rooms, on the first floor. There are two more boys on the top floor, all the way on the other side of the building. Gene and Finny’s room on the third floor is completely isolated unless someone deliberately comes searching. While Finny is doing that, Gene is hunting down Mr. Ludsbury to check up on the staff-to-student ratio and meal schedule for the weekend. He concludes that he and Finny should just take a lot of food up to their dorm and keep it in the forbidden icebox.
Their routine set, their first haul of bread and cheese smuggled to the icebox, and the door closed and locked, they can go back to kissing. The evening brings a weak snowfall; nothing that’s going to stick around for sledding and snowball wars, but enough to darken the sky and make the trees look like they’re getting ready for bed. Gene and Finny are not like the trees.
They’d played cards for two hours before. Gene didn’t know how to play poker. Finny taught him. Now Gene is teaching Finny about all the ways his own body lights up when Gene kisses or squeezes just right. Gene’s lips are staking out territory above Finny’s collarbone, pressing into the soft dip of his throat, and Finny is sighing his approval. He didn’t know that he could ever sit still this long. He didn’t think he could ever be silent with another person and feel so completely occupied and content. It’s a marvel, really. Gene is a marvel. His eyes are the color of the sky out the window when he straightens up to take a breather. Finny looks away just long enough to confirm with the sky. This boy stole your clothes. Flip your wig. I dare you.
The second he looks back to Gene, Gene says, “Your eyes look like the trees out there,” and Finny would have responded but he’s swept immediately into another kiss, this one deep and slow and delicious, like biting into a donut, and Finny gasps. The sound is clear encouragement and Gene takes it correctly. He pets Finny’s waist with one hand and snakes the other up to cradle the back of his head. Finny, for his part, is touching all over Gene’s back, up and down and up and down because he can’t possibly touch only one place at a time.
Finny’s starting to get too warm. He’s two seconds away from pulling off his shirt when he realizes that it could mean something a little different, were it to go without context. Then he spends a little too long thinking about the something, the something that seems very plausible when they’re alone and in love and kissing like this, and all at once the something is very, very enticing.
“Hang on a minute,” he whispers, breath a little thin.
Gene stops. Finny smiles to ease the concerned furrow in Gene’s brow, and the furrow is replaced with a slightly different one for confusion. Gene says, “What is it?”
“Would you like to- ah… um.” Finny pauses. Words are never this slow to arrive. Should he show instead? Perhaps. Let Gene interpret as he wishes. Finny takes off his shirt.
Gene doesn’t say anything for a long moment because he’s entirely enamored with the slope of Finny’s bare shoulders and the neat tuck of his waist and the beginnings of defined muscle in his stomach. Finny is entirely unselfconscious, leaning back a bit on his hands and patiently waiting for Gene to get his shit together. His binding cloth is starting to make his back hurt but he decides to ignore it for the time being. If his hopes come true he’ll be out of it soon anyway.
Gene finally says, “You’re doing that thing where you crunch your chest in.” Finny has to take a moment to swoon at the fact that Gene knows what Finny does when his ribs are hurting at the end of the day. Then Gene adds, “Do you want help taking it off?” and Finny’s brain is down for the count.
He manages to nod an enthusiastic affirmative. Gene gives a fond little smile and tentatively brushes his hand along the seam of the fabric. The binding cloth was the last piece of sewing work Finny had ever done, and the only reason he’s glad he learned to sew at all. It’s only a rectangle of cotton with shoulder straps that laces like a boot in the back but it’s served him well for several years now. Stanpole, the good man, had warned him with a dire tone never to wear it to sleep. So far, Finny hasn’t forgotten this. Much.
He shuffles 180 degrees so Gene can work on the laces. The something is still fresh in his mind, and combined with the inherent intimacy of a boy sitting behind him and loosening the strings that keep Finny’s chest flat, there’s excited anticipation making his heart pick up speed. Gene murmurs, “Arms up,” and Finny feels an intense sweep of affection as Gene pulls the thing up and off him. He leans back against Gene’s chest and looks up with his best puppy eyes, and it works, and he gets a kiss on the forehead. Then Gene’s sneaky hands make their sneaky way around him, sneakily sneaking very obviously around Finny’s waistband. He laughs.
“Is that a yes, then?”
Gene makes a noise like he forgot the question, which given the circumstances is likely.
Finny amends, “Shall we disappoint the pastor?”
It has the desired effect of making Gene crack up, and an unintentional but very pleasant kiss on Finny’s neck. Gene slips a “yes, please” among his snickering as Finny turns himself around again, and then the air is sucked out of both of them as they look at each other.
“Well,” Finny says, “get out of that shirt, mister.”
Gene scrambles to oblige. Finny gets a good laugh when Gene forgets the top button and gets his head stuck, and after that’s sorted out he gets to place his reverent hands on Gene’s chest and, well, feel him up. Gene’s blush makes its way from his ears to his cheeks and down to Finny’s fingers.
“You look damn good,” Finny says, which makes the blush grow.
“Not half as good as you.”
“You know I respect your opinion, but this time you’re flat out wrong.”
Gene is almost offended at that, but pulls Finny closer anyway. He’s about to say something snappy but Finny climbs into his lap and he loses every single word he’s ever learned. The one that does come to mind is magnifique, but he refrains from saying it. He doubts that Finny wants to remember his pile of incomplete French homework when he’s clearly so primed to be kissed out of his head. And speaking of kissing—
“Use your tongue this time,” Finny says, eyes sparkling.
“Yessir.”
And then Finny’s perfect goddamn lips are back against Gene’s, pressing, coaxing, and Gene remembers to open a little wider, and then Finny’s sucking on his tongue and it’s the best feeling in the universe. Every single time is just like the first time they transitioned from soft kisses to sucking face. It was on the second day, just before lunch, and Finny had been sandwiching Gene between himself and the tree. Gene must have tugged his hair just the right way or made some new noise, because Finny had made a cute sound and suddenly the kiss was wet and frantic. Gene learned that day what Finny’s mouth tasted like and he never wants to forget. He’s pleased at the reminder, of course he is, but the sucking and the shirtless and the whole Finny are really making it hard for him to think at his usual level.
Phineas is having a fantastic time. Gene’s got that slow, dazed quality in his movements now, which makes Finny feel justly appreciated. He gently nips Gene’s lip, then sucks on it for a second, and Gene does an adorable little whine that makes Finny feel some things in the crotch region. Yes, there’s certainly something.
Never one to shy from blatancy, he asks, “Can I undo your pants?”
Gene startles but nods quickly and a little too long, like a bobblehead. Finny pecks his mouth again as a distraction while he works on the damn button. It’s only the one, but Gene’s slacks are tighter than usual due to a little (hah) something. Finny wins anyway. Then it’s a careful unzipping and he’s treated with a delightful tent in Gene’s briefs. At a glance Gene looks embarrassed, so Finny dips in to kiss him soundly before anything else. Gene relaxes. Then Gene yelps, because Finny really went straight for the money and put his hand right on Gene’s dick.
“This alright?”
“YES! Yes, ah, but- hah-”
“Oh, uh, sorry. What did you want to say?”
“Just- what about you?”
Honestly, in the wake of all the excitement about Gene being half-hard, Finny had gone and forgotten about himself. After a quick assessment he knows he’s probably quite wet and he definitely does want Gene to touch him, so he stands, shucks his pants as efficiently as he’s able (oh, Lord, he’s really wet, the things this boy makes him feel) and clambers back into Gene’s lap. Gene looks like he’s seen an angel. Or maybe a ghost. Hard to tell with the biblical angels. Anyway, anyway-
“Admiring the view?” he snarks.
Gene shows his lack of appreciation for the sass by squeezing Finny’s hips. Finny finds he rather likes that. He wiggles, settling himself more comfortably, properly straddling Gene’s legs in the process. Gene makes a wounded sound.
Oh.
Finny grins. He rolls his hips down. Gene grunts. Finny does it again. Gene gasps. The third roll, Finny hits some angle that gets him, too, and then he’s a little too gone to realize he’s humping his best friend until Gene actually moans. As much as Finny very very absolutely wants to hear that again, he’d also kind of like to see what he’s doing.
“Why’d you stop?” Gene whines, which would normally just be cute, but presently it makes Finny press his thighs together.
“I want to touch you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Finny grins as he reaches for the window in Gene’s briefs. Then there’s a dick, and Finny would never before have described someone’s genitals as being pretty but Gene definitely has a pretty dick. And it’s also definitely hard. Finny did that. To celebrate the accomplishment, he carefully wraps his hand around the shaft and hears Gene gasp sharply.
Then Gene says, “Wait,” and before Finny can even ask what’s wrong, Gene has pulled Finny’s hand up to his mouth, licked wet and hot over his palm and fingers, and unceremoniously shoved it back down. Finny is happy to oblige. He isn’t quite sure what he’s doing yet, so he goes slow, and Gene tells him when he’s done something right with bitten-off noises from deep in his throat. Finny feels up and down, explores the head and the slit at the top that Gene can’t quite swallow a moan for. Finny’s so, so glad he’s not in Boston shopping for turkey.
Gene eventually gets his wits about him after Finny sets a steady rhythm of stroking. He still loses every neuron in his head when Finny chooses to rub his thumb over the tip, but generally it’s easier to breathe now. He rubs his hands over Finny’s thighs in question. They make eye contact, and Gene’s so damn swept up in those eyes that it startles him when Finny suddenly stands. Finny takes off his briefs. He sits back in Gene’s lap. He gives Gene a kiss. Gene squeezes his hips again, and he only has to squirm happily for Gene to take the hint and touch him.
It’s not as if Finny’s never felt this before. He’s touched himself plenty of times; Pete’s sake, he’s sixteen, what else is he supposed to do? But half the time it ends in the churning feeling in his gut that means he needs to tighten the laces on his back and go play ball until he forgets why he’s different from the other boys here. The other half of the time, he either gets bored before he gets anywhere or he manages to work himself up and through and actually finish. Never once has his own touch felt the way Gene’s does. This is like music up through his spine and into his brain. Objectively it’s not much and it’s clumsy, but it’s the boy he loves prodding at the wetness between his legs and it’s just perfect.
“Up a little bit,” he says. “Right up- mmh. There. Rub a little. Yeah, like that, that’s, oh, that’s-”
Gene cuts him off with a kiss. Finny sighs happily into Gene’s mouth, then squeaks when he presses harder and finds a pattern. God, is sex supposed to feel this nice the first time? Brinker said it was mediocre at best. Ugh, Finny does not want to be thinking about Brinker Hadley when Gene’s free hand is dipping into his slick and waiting for a yes or no about entry. Finny grabs Gene’s wrist and guides his fingers inside.
Then he remembers that he has a task as well. He spits in his palm, which would normally be gross but makes Gene’s eyes dilate wider, and reacquaints himself with Gene’s dick.
They settle into a rhythm. Gene figures out that he can rub Finny with just his thumb and spread the rest of his hand over the soft trail of hair on Finny’s navel. Finny learns that Gene really likes it when he squeezes on the downstroke. They’re panting together, breathy noises overlapping, and then Finny falls forward into a messy kiss. He’s the one of them with a free hand, and he uses it to cup the back of Gene’s head.
The snow is done falling by the time Gene finishes into Finny’s hand. As Gene tips Finny onto his back and builds up to three fingers inside him, the clouds are dispersing. The stars are out when Finny traps Gene’s wrists between his thighs, writhing and moaning. While their breathing slows to normal, Gene’s head pillowed on Finny’s belly and their hands tangled together, Finny looks out the window and smiles at the moon.
That was the first night.
On the 27th, they wake at around nine, eat sandwiches out of the icebox contraband, and walk to the pool house. Gene finds the light switch in an electrical closet while Finny sets an armful of towels at the shallower end for them to put their clothes on. They strip to their briefs and commence a splash war so glorious it could have gone down in the history books if anyone but them had witnessed it. Finny swims like a torpedo back and forth as Gene loosely times him on his watch. Gene finds a nickel on the pool floor. Then for a while they lay on their backs on the cold tiles, shivering but still loving it because they’re together. Finny invents a game in which Gene finds pieces of gravel and throws them in the pool faster than Finny can dive to find them. Eventually there are no more rocks of reasonable size along the edges of the room (“and pebbles don’t count, you cheater, there’s a different game for that”). They swim and float lazily. Finny bursts up from the water like a shark to give Gene a kiss that tastes like chlorine. Then, to Finny’s utter delight and Gene’s uncharacteristic boldness, it becomes a race of who can wriggle into his clothes and get back to the dorm the fastest. Finny wins the clothing half because Gene nearly slips on the wet tile when Finny pulls off his briefs. They don’t feel the cold of late November as they run, just their blood under their skin. Then they’re back inside and the door is locked and it’s only three in the afternoon so they have all the time in the world for each other.
So now Finny is on his knees while Gene sits on the bed wearing only his undershirt, which is sticking to his chest from the leftovers of the pool. Finny thinks it’s damn attractive. Equally good is the noise that Gene makes when Finny takes him into his mouth. Gene’s hands flutter indecisively around before one settles on the bed behind him and the other softly carding through Finny’s hair. Finny hums at the tenderness and Gene shivers.
“You’re, ngh, you’re good at that,” Gene breathes out.
Finny pulls off of him and flashes the smile that always makes Gene weak at the knees. “Just think of how good I’ll be after some practice, huh?” He doesn’t give Gene time to respond before he ducks his head again and sucks luxuriously at the tip.
Gene just whines and pants with his teeth gritted. When Finny licks at the sensitive underside of his head, his hand tightens for a second in Finny’s hair. Finny reads the tremors as he bobs his head, repeating every good move over and over, taking Gene completely apart and cataloguing everything that makes Gene groan. Eventually the noises get to be too much and he has to take one hand from its resting place on Gene’s leg to frantically rub himself between his legs. Gene notices, of course he does, and it’s the look on Finny’s face with his fingers working himself up and his mouth full of dick that pushes Gene over the edge. He barely chokes out a warning and it does nothing because Finny determinedly keeps Gene all the way on the back of his tongue, holding him there even as Gene fills his mouth. Finny swallows once before he has to pull back and cough.
Gene is pretty sure he shouldn’t be so attracted to the sight of his come running down his lover’s chin, but by God he’s attracted. He drops to the floor to take Finny in his arms and kiss him stupid. He can’t keep his hands off him, those miles and miles of bare skin, of warmth and grace and power. Gene pulls away just long enough to wipe Finny’s chin and neck clean with his thumb; then he licks into Finny’s damn near magic mouth again. Finny’s trembling, and for a moment Gene thinks he’s cold, but then he sees the hand clenched tight between Finny’s thighs and remembers that he has unfinished business.
“Gene,” Finny whines, right on cue.
“Hold your horses, I’ve got you.”
He coaxes Finny’s legs apart and gets immediately wrapped in him, Finny’s legs around his waist and arms over his shoulders, those damned burning lips at Gene’s ear and breath scorching his skin like hellfire. He holds Finny’s lower back for support as his other hand goes for the gold. Finny jerks in his arms when he touches the right spot. He rubs there relentlessly, keeping it plenty wet because Finny’s near dripping, hearing the little “hah, hah,” at his ear grow deeper and thinner and then curve sharply upward as Finny bucks his hips. Gene squeezes his waist, and his fingers are exhausted but he refuses to stop. Luckily it’s only another moment before Finny makes a noise like an animal and arches hard into him. Finny moans then, more air than sound, and goes slack in Gene’s arms. Gene can feel his mouth wet and open on his shoulder through his shirt. He kisses Finny’s bare shoulder in return, then up his neck and into his silk-soft hair. He plants one more besotted kiss there and then they’re still. Inhaling, exhaling, holding each other.
“God,” Finny says. “That was sensational.”
Gene can’t stop an astonished laugh. “Yeah. It was, wasn’t it?”
And so it goes. For two more days, everything under the sky is there to provide for them. The river is vacant and quiet for walks and wrestling each other into the frosty grass. They play several unsuccessful two-person baseball innings before Finny gives up on making up rules and they devolve into a game of catch. Gene wanders through the library while Finny lounges on a table and complains about his boredom. They get on their knees for each other in the showers late at night, brazen and risky, and it gives Finny a thrill and Gene some sort of horny anxiety. They wake up later and later each morning until finally it’s Sunday evening, the 28th, and their usual hungry take and give of pleasure is replaced with something much softer, something quietly powerful pulling the ground out from under their feet. They fall into each other like tectonic plates, like something very ancient settling in the nest of its birth. They sleep.
Morning is a glass bottle breaking over Gene’s head. The bustle of boys getting ready is deafening compared to the background noise of trees in the wind from over break. He looks at the clock on his desk across the room and curses. He stands, which core muscles complain about, and this forces him to remember why he’s sore. (Last night, holding himself up over Finny’s golden body, thrusting between his tight-pressed thighs while Finny stared up at him with constellations in his eyes.)
There’s an aggressive pounding at the door. Gene automatically rolls his eyes, which is how he knows it’s Brinker.
“Wake up, knuckleheads, you have to regale us with stories of breaking into the headmaster’s office!”
Gene groans, then shouts, “That wasn’t us!”
“Oh, really? I thought it must have been you. Well, I’ve been telling everyone it was, so Finny had better make it sound convincing!”
Finny squirms, wrapping himself more tightly in the sheet now that he’s not half-sprawled over Gene anymore. “Must’ve been that Wexford kid,” he mumbles, not opening his eyes. “He had that look in’s eyes when I met him th’other day.” Gene hums in acknowledgement and begins dressing himself, beginning with briefs and a pair of pants that are definitely Finny’s.
Finny opens his eyes, finally, and immediately narrows them. “Nooo, don’t do that, I want to see you.”
“We have to go outside, pal,” Gene says with a fondness that catches him off guard.
“Do we truly?”
“We have to eat breakfast, at least,” he says, glancing at the now-empty icebox.
Finny grumbles something into the pillow that Gene doesn’t catch, and then Gene splutters and dies because Finny throws the sheet off himself and lazily spreads his legs. “You can eat me instead,” he purrs.
Gene takes a deep breath. He counts to ten in his head, then again in French. He walks to the bed and Finny has a victorious glint in his eye, then makes an offended noise as Gene only leans down to press a chaste kiss smack dab in the center of his chest.
“Later,” Gene promises, then drags two fingers up the whole of Finny’s slit just for the fun of it. Finny chokes and glares at him, but after being bribed with the offer of a good morning kiss, does eventually get up.
Trigonometry is their first class apart that day, and Gene spends it staring vacantly out the window and hoping beyond hope that Finny will run by to reignite his brain so he can actually pay attention. Gene wants to listen to the information he’ll inevitably need for the next test, he really does, but all his mind wants to do is remember what Finny’s thighs feel like wrapped around his head, what Finny’s lips feel like kissing down his chest, what Finny’s head feels like resting sleepily on his shoulder. Gene might have been annoyed if it wasn’t so pleasant. But, he noted, he should definitely find something drastically unpleasant to think about before he had to stand up at the end of class. He has a reputation among his peers of being the one who doesn’t get distracted by girls. He wants everyone to keep assuming that he doesn’t bother with romance, because if someone starts asking questions, he may just blurt out the truth. I kiss Phineas when you’re not looking. I made love to him while you were listening to Aunt Maude ramble about town politics. I’m sick in the head and it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt.
No, thank you.
(The situation in Gene’s pants is solved when Brinker leans over and draws a penis on Gene’s notes. The irritation erases all physical traces of Phineas, though the penis of course makes Gene think of him. God damn it.)
After that it’s French, and thank the Lord, because Gene’s going through something like withdrawal after five days of being constantly at Finny’s side. Finny himself looks as he always does, all perfect white teeth and oozing joy, not appearing to have suffered terribly at Gene’s absence. Gene is glad for this. He’s sure he looks like a puppy when its person comes home from work and someone might notice if Finny was the same.
Then they sit down and the teacher begins droning on, and Gene regrets every choice he’s ever made. Finny keeps looking at him. Leaning on his hand and tilting his head just so, waiting for Gene to meet his eye (never waiting long), and then the bastard’s perfect mouth melts into a smirk of villain proportions and he winks. Gene is dying. This is hell. This is hell, and his punishment for being attracted to this boy is to watch him lick his lips and have a Pavlovian response. Phineas makes him drool at will.
Class stretches an eternity and Gene doesn’t hear a word. He can’t even bring himself to look at the clock. When Finny isn’t looking at him, Finny is looking up at the blackboard with an expression of perfect interest underneath his charming restlessness. It’s so God damn attractive. Gene sort of wishes he could have fallen for someone a little more manageable, but at the same time, this is the best mental car crash he could imagine. Oh, well.
Finally, the bell rings. Gene knows distantly that there will be homework, and he makes a note to ask Chet what the hell they’re supposed to do. Later. He’ll ask later. Right now, Gene Forrester is on a mission.
Finny is at his arm the moment they stand, and Gene keeps his cool until they’re outside. He leads them around the library. In the distance, there are seniors running laps, little white American specks moving back and forth. Gene decides he isn’t worried about them. Before Finny can get out a witty comment, Gene pushes him firmly against the ivy and attacks his mouth. Finny gasps, then hums happily like this is what he wanted all along. Mission accomplished, you ridiculous boy. You’re taking me apart.
“Hello, sailor,” Finny giggles. Gene’s heart melts.
“Hello yourself.”
They stand there for a moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing. Gene sighs.
“When do you think we’ll go back to normal?”
“How do you mean?”
Gene swallows. “How we were. Before. When I could function without you around. And with you. Now you’re all that’s on my radar, you being there or wishing you were. It’s getting inconvenient.”
Finny smiles, scratches his nails through the short hair at the back of Gene’s head. “I don’t know. Soon, I reckon. Just. we have to make up for the time when we were so close to being this way but weren’t doing it. So many wasted years, Gene. If we’d kissed the first day we met, there would be no wasted time and we’d always be normal.”
“If we’d kissed the first day we met, you’d have fallen right out of love with me. I was sweating like nobody’s business. August in Georgia is the devil’s fireplace.”
“I don’t mind when you’re sweating,” Finny mumbles, a pink blush making its way up his neck. “I really don’t.”
Gene blinks. “You don’t mind sweat in general or you don’t mind when I do it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, much too quickly.
Gene thinks on his for a moment. In a calculated move of vulnerability, he admits, “I like the way you smell when you’ve been running.”
Finny’s eyes light up. Then Finny’s eyes go dark and devious, and Gene knows he made a wonderful mistake.
“Meet me in the boat house after blitzball,” he says. Then the seniors start making their way across the field, voices getting louder and their white speck bodies getting larger, so Finny presses one last wet, tantalizing kiss on Gene’s mouth before hauling ass to his next class.
Gene stands paralyzed for a moment. He turns, leans against the library, the ivy pressing into his shirt, and stares up at the sky. How dare you put this boy here, he thinks, and make him mine. He’s too much. This will kill me someday. Then, after a moment of thought, he adds, Thank you so much. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
Gene catches up on the material he missed, passes his next trig test at the top of the class, and Phineas rewards him with a big hug and his glorious, sinful throat swallowing around Gene until he comes.
Thanksgiving is still a stupid holiday, but Gene thinks maybe he’s beginning to understand the spirit.