Adulting 101 Read online

“Nick always gets the staff special,” Ebony says.

  The staff special. The kitchen crew makes up a few per shift. It’s whatever pizza they feel like eating, but “ruined” with the wrong sort of cheese, or slightly burned around the edges, or some other thing that makes it unfit to sell to the public. It’s another thing Pauly absolutely doesn’t care about.

  “Nick’s not staff,” Jai says.

  Ice clinks as Ebony shoves the glass against the dispenser. She raises her eyebrows. “He would have been.”

  Jai’s distracted by a woman rushing inside to collect a phone order. By the time he turns back, Ebony’s gone, and over in his booth, Nick is jabbing a clump of ice with his straw and reading something on his phone.

  Devon moves in behind the counter to get someone’s bill.

  “Devon?”

  “Mmm?” Devon is poking at the register and squinting at the screen like he’s not sure he can believe whatever it’s telling him. Apparently he likes math just as much as Nick.

  “Did Nick apply for the job here too?”

  “No.” Devon glances up and shrugs. “I asked him if he wanted it, and he said Pauly should hire you instead. He’ll probably be stuck riding his bike all summer.”

  “Why?”

  “His dad won’t let him get his car back until he gets a job. Because of the whole—” Devon makes a vague gesture “—thing.” He catches Jai’s blank look. “The whole blowjob thing?”

  Jai clears his throat. “Right.”

  Devon takes the bill over to the waiting customers, and Jai watches Nick out of the corner of his eye as he works. He feels a rush of affection for Nick. Recommending him for the job was a nice gesture. It may even be more than that. Jai doesn’t know if Nick really wanted the job or not. Maybe he’s happier doing nothing and having to ride his bike instead of drive his car, but, even so, it’s still a nice gesture. It’s generous. He didn’t just turn down a job. He remembered how much Jai needed one.

  When Jai gets his break, he heads into the kitchen to grab a few slices of the staff special, loads them onto a plate, and joins Nick in the booth.

  “Hey.”

  Nick sets his phone aside and grins. “Hey.”

  Jai slides the pizza toward him.

  “Dude, I just ate two slices,” Nick says, but takes another one anyway. “What time are you working until tonight?”

  “I finish at ten.”

  “That’s excellent. So, like, are you kind of free after that?”

  “Nah.” Jai gives Nick a second to look disappointed. “Got a hot date. With you.”

  Nick makes a sound caught somewhere between a snort and a giggle, and then widens his eyes in mortification. “Oh, wow. I’m so smooth.”

  You’re cute, Jai wants to tell him, but just laughs instead. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  They eat their pizza.

  Nick: STOP LOOKING AT ME!

  Devon: Dude, I’m not even.

  Nick: U r. It’s making me nervous.

  Devon: He’s totally into u.

  Nick: STOP TEXTING ME!

  Devon: Show him some nip, bro.

  Nick flails, squawks, and almost knocks over his soda in his haste to shove his phone back in his pocket.

  Jai reaches out and steadies Nick’s wobbling glass. “Okay?”

  Nick shoots a narrow look at the counter, where for some reason Devon is grinning like a lunatic. “Um, yep!”

  “Devon says you don’t have your car.”

  Nick nods. “I rode my bike.”

  “I’ll give you a ride to my place when my shift’s over,” Jai offers.

  Nick’s jaw drops. “On your motorbike?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Nick grins. “It is the opposite of a problem! Except I’ve never been on one before, so is there anything I need to know?”

  “You just hold on,” he says, warming at the idea of Nick’s arm around him. “Let me take care of the rest.”

  Jai doesn’t even realize how filthy that may sound until Nick’s eyes widen and then glaze over, and he starts rubbing his straw against his bottom lip in an incredibly distracting way.

  “Nick?”

  Nick starts. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good! I’ll get Devon to take my bike home in his truck.” He glares at his phone. “He owes me.”

  Jai looks over to Devon, who suddenly grabs the cordless phone by the cash register and starts taking someone’s order loudly, even though Jai would swear the phone hasn’t rung. When it suddenly does, Devon drops it in surprise, and then doubles over laughing.

  “You guys are idiots,” Jai tells Nick with a smile.

  Nick is laughing too, so hard that he’s bright red, and all he can do is laugh louder and nod in response.

  This may be the greatest moment of Nick’s life. Apart from the time he sucked Jai’s dick, maybe. And vice versa. But in terms of things Nick feels comfortable sharing on social media afterward, this is obviously the greatest moment of his life.

  “You good?” Jai asks, adjusting the straps on the motorbike helmet, and okay, great, now Nick feels about five years old.

  “Yeah, let’s do this!”

  Jai straddles his bike.

  It’s hot. His jeans pull tight against his ass, and the tendons in his forearms cord as he grips the handlebars, and . . .

  Wait. Are they still called handlebars on a motorbike? Nick actually knows nothing about motorbikes, except that he’s about to ride one, like, pressed up against Jai. With his arms around him and everything. And there will be a throbbing engine that will, well, throb. It’s going to be fucking incredible.

  “Come on, then,” Jai says with a grin.

  “Am I wearing a helmet because you think I’m going to fall off?” Nick asks, eyeing the bike and trying to figure out how to climb on.

  “You’re wearing the helmet because I only brought one,” Jai tells him, which may just be a way of avoiding giving a straight answer. “Now get up here.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Nick says under his breath, and clambers on. Is he supposed to stand on that thing? That’s a foot peg, right, not something mechanically critical? But at last he manages to swing a leg over the bike and get his ass on the seat. He lands heavily, and the slope of the seat immediately means he’s slipping forward and shoving his dick against Jai’s ass. His already hard dick. Nick thinks it’s been hard since Jai offered to take him for a ride on his bike.

  Fuck.

  Who is he kidding? It’s been hard since the moment he set eyes on Jai Hazenbrook and his incredible ass that day weeks ago in Mr. Grover’s office. Years from now, when Nick tells the story of his summer romance, he’s going to say he noticed Jai’s eyes first. That will be a lie. Nick is pretty sure he didn’t notice Jai even had eyes. Because, really? That ass. It draws attention away from everything else Jai has going for him. Which is literally everything else. Jai is perfection in a way that shouldn’t be allowed to live outside Middle Earth or the Marvel universe. He probably doesn’t even have a single toenail that grows in a weird, gnarled way.

  “Hold on,” Jai says.

  Nick slides his arms around Jai’s waist.

  Jai starts the bike.

  Oh God. It’s like leaning against the washing machine when it’s on the spin cycle but way, way more intense. It’s very possible that Nick has died and gone to heaven. The vibrations of the engine are thrumming through him, and settling right in his balls, and do motorcycle manufacturers know what a public safety hazard these things must be? How is anyone supposed to keep an eye on the road when all they can think about is their balls? Clearly this is why they’re so dangerous.

  When Jai hits the throttle, Nick meeps.

  Like Beaker from the Muppets.

  Luckily the engine is so loud that Jai probably doesn’t notice. And he doesn’t seem to mind when Nick tightens his arms convulsively and clings to him like a slightly terrified possum.

  Nick squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and when he opens them again, t
he bike is moving. The storefronts zip past in a blur that seems so much more terrifying and exhilarating than when Nick watches from behind a windshield. It’s probably the way that Nick can feel the wind tugging at him. Or maybe because of the way he can feel Jai’s muscles shifting under his hands whenever he moves. Yeah, it’s probably the second thing.

  It would be a really, really bad idea to slide one hand down Jai’s jeans, right?

  Yes. Yes, it would.

  Nick keeps his hands where they are. Regretfully.

  It takes Nick a few minutes to get used to the bike, and then everything he thinks he’s learned goes flying out the nonexistent window when they take a corner, and Nick sees exactly how fucking close the road is to his head. His stomach does the flippity-floppity thing it usually reserves for roller coasters, whenever Devon can bully him into going on one. It’s much easier, though, to put his trust in Jai than it is to put his trust in some faceless and possibly incompetent cabal of roller-coaster engineers.

  By the time they take their second corner, Nick’s fear has transformed into a sort of breathless joy. This is fun. It’s also superhot and sexy. And, when they pull up at a red light, Nick gets to preen a little when two middle-aged ladies in a hatchback look over at him and Jai enviously. Also lustfully. Because Jai is hot as fuck. That’s, like, an objective scientific truth, the same as gravity. Nick doesn’t know how either one works exactly, but they’re both demonstrable facts.

  And, behind his helmet, Nick could be hot as fuck too, for all those ladies know. It feels like Nick’s probably not going to get a lot of chances to play out a fantasy like this one, so he’s going to enjoy it, okay? He makes a show of running a hand over Jai’s jean-clad thigh.

  Okay, it’s not just for the benefit of the ladies in the hatchback.

  Jai turns his head, grinning, and says something that’s lost to a roar of the engine as they speed off again, leaving the hatchback behind them. Nick very quickly puts his hand back where it was, and holds on.

  This is so cool.

  Nick is actually disappointed when they get to Jai’s house and Jai stops the bike.

  He climbs off, unfastens the helmet, and removes it. He’s pretty sure it leaves his hair doing weird things, but who cares about that? He just rode on a motorbike!

  “That was so great!” he exclaims, hugging the helmet because, no, he never wants to give it back, thanks very much. If he keeps it, Jai will have to keep taking him for rides, right? That’s probably how it works.

  Jai laughs and takes his hand and leads him inside the house.

  It’s late, and all the lights are off. Jai knows where he’s going though, and Nick follows him and just hopes he won’t knock into anything on the way. When they reach the door to the basement, Jai opens it and flicks the light on, and Nick follows him downstairs.

  He sets the helmet down on the scuffed coffee table regretfully, and then lets out an embarrassing whimper when he turns around to find Jai tugging his shirt off. It’s like . . . it’s like there should be music playing in the background, and some sort of product placement. Maybe for aftershave. Or expensive razors. Or any other sort of commercial that Nick jerked off to furtively when he was twelve, before he discovered GayTube. Which was both a red-letter day and a day that will forever live in infamy. A happy, dirty, confusing, guilt-ridden hell of a day. What can Nick say? GayTube very much shaped the person he is today. He won’t apologize for that.

  “I stink of pizza,” Jai says when he gets his shirt over his head. He balls it up and flings it into the corner closest to the washing machine.

  “I like pizza,” Nick says slowly, unable to tear his gaze away from Jai’s abs. Wild horses couldn’t even. Nick will stab them if they try.

  Jai’s grin turns a little predatory, and that is totally okay with Nick. Jai steps toward him. “Maybe you stink of pizza too, huh?”

  “What? No, not really.” Nick sniffs experimentally, and then catches Jai’s questioning look and flushes. “Oh, okay, was that like some hint for me to take my shirt off as well?”

  “It was.”

  “Oh, dude, no, you really need to spell shit out for me if you’re going to be all like—” Nick waves his hand at Jai’s ridiculous abs. “All like hot and in my face and whatnot. My blood isn’t exactly running to my brain, yeah?”

  Because abs. And also nipples.

  Nick is already hard. Well, okay, he’s been hard since he straddled Jai’s motorbike, but that’s splitting hairs. Nick had thought that once he was getting off regularly with someone other than his own hand, he’d maybe learn some control or something? Get just enough experience to say, Hey there, boner, what do you say you settle the fuck down for a minute, huh? That does not appear to have happened at all. Nick probably needs more experience.

  Jai’s smile and his laugh are just perfect, and how is he even a little bit real?

  More to the point, why does he want to fool around with Nick when clearly he could have any man or woman on the planet?

  Look, Nick hasn’t got terrible self-esteem or anything, but he is a realist. He has eyes. He knows he’s not a troll, exactly. In a favorable light he could possibly be the mild-mannered librarian alter ego of a superhero. But Jai? Jai is like winning the sexual lottery, if there were such a thing.

  Note to self: pitch that as a reality TV show. For now, remove shirt.

  Nick tugs his Alderaan Fire Department T-shirt over his head, drops it on the floor, and steps forward into Jai’s space because now it’s time to man the fuck up. He puts one hand on Jai’s shoulder and tilts his jaw for a kiss.

  Jai Hazenbrook is the only guy Nick has ever kissed. He kissed a girl once, but that probably doesn’t count because it was for spin the bottle, and also he was too drunk to actually remember it happening. He only saw it on Facebook the next day. But even though he’s not really experienced, Nick is pretty sure they’re doing this right. It feels too good to be wrong. Jai takes the lead, because he knows what the hell he’s doing, but it’s not long before Nick is kissing him back and easing his tongue into Jai’s mouth.

  Strange what a tiny bit of contact can do. Two wet muscles sliding against one another—and okay, that sounds gross—but it’s somehow electric. It makes Nick shiver. Makes him feel flushed. Makes his erection twitch and his balls ache.

  Making out is awesome, but it’s also a huge tease, because the need for more twists tighter and tighter in Nick until he’s gripping Jai’s shoulders roughly and trying to climb him like a tree. He’s got one leg hooked around Jai’s thigh when Jai finally takes pity on him and gets his hands under Nick’s ass and lifts him. Then, instead of to the couch where Nick figured they were headed, he lugs Nick over to the wall, props him up against it, and gets a thigh between his legs. Nick straddles him like he straddled the bike. And, yes, things are throbbing again.

  Jai leans away a little, breaking the kiss. His gaze rakes over Nick, and then he pushes forward and licks a stripe along Nick’s collarbone.

  Zing.

  Nick’s nipples are suddenly very much joining the party.

  Nick groans and drops his head back. It hits the wall, and he doesn’t care. He presses a hand against the back of Jai’s head and shoves him into position. Jai makes a low, satisfied sound. His tongue laves Nick’s left nipple.

  Nick stares at the washing machine on the other side of the room, and at the container of laundry detergent sitting on top that promises the whitest of whites. Holy shit. Jai is licking his nipple because Nick pushed his head there. And—oh my God—now he’s sucking it. If Nick weren’t about to come in his pants, he’d probably be panicking a little about the weirdness of this. As it is, he shivers and holds Jai’s head closer and tries not to think about Renaissance paintings of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus.

  Fuck his brain, seriously. Why would it even go there?

  And then Jai bites, actually bites, and Nick’s brain shorts out due to sensory overload.

  “Oh my fucking God!”

&nb
sp; His mouth still works though. It’s never needed his brain to function. Ask anyone.

  Jai’s fingers make quick work of Nick’s fly, and then his jeans and underwear are being tugged down to his knees, and speaking of knees, Jai is suddenly dropping to his. There’s a wet-sounding pop as Jai disengages from Nick’s nipple, and he shudders as the air turns Jai’s spit cold. But he’s only got a fraction of a second to process that before Jai’s lapping at the head of his dick.

  Bye-bye again, brain.

  Nick squeezes his eyes shut, breath hitching, fingers scrabbling for purchase in Jai’s too-short hair. He’s definitely not going to last. Definitely not. But then, who cares? It’s not a fucking competition.

  The sound of the basement door hitting the wall is as sharp and shocking as a gunshot.

  “Jai? Have you seen— Holy shit. My bad!”

  So.

  So Nick’s leaning up against a wall with his jeans and underwear around his ankles, and his wet dick flapping in the breeze. This is very probably exactly as mortified as Jai felt when the foreman wrenched the porta-potty door open.

  Except the guy standing on the steps is not the foreman from Mr. Grover’s site.

  Oh sweet, squishy mother of Cthulhu.

  The guy standing on the basement steps is Mr. Green, Nick’s former history teacher.

  “Jesus Christ, Ronny!” Jai exclaims.

  Mr. Green’s eyes are as wide and disbelieving as that time Nick told him the answers on his history test couldn’t actually be wrong because there were an infinite number of timelines in the multiverse. It had been worth a shot, right?

  Nick scrabbles to hitch his jeans and underwear up.

  Well, this is awkward, Nick wants to say. Instead he just gapes at Mr. Green and wonders who’s next. His childhood dentist? The woman who babysat him when he was six? His mom? Seriously, who?

  “Nick,” Mr. Green says.

  “H-hey, Mr. Green.”

  Jai’s head snaps back around, and he stares up at Nick. “Oh Jesus. Really?”

  Nick can’t answer him. He’s thinking about more important things, like does this basement have another exit? Or a self-destruct button? Either would be sweet.