Layne, River & Damion Read online

  “You read a book with incest in it?” Damion sounded surprised.

  River laughed. “It was really sexy. The author did an excellent job. And if everyone is consenting…” He shrugged. “Besides it was a book. Fiction. Fantasy. Who am I to judge?” He nibbled on his bottom lip. “There was a time when people said being gay or being in an interracial relationship was illegal or an abomination too.”

  “There are still some who say that and still some places where that’s true,” Layne pointed out.

  River nodded. “Exactly. Life is too short. We could die tomorrow. We should spend every day, hour, minute and second that we have with the ones that we love, living life to the fullest.”

  “Wise words to say but so hard to put into practice,” Layne said softly.

  “Not if you want to. Not if you really love the person,” Damion said, his voice angry.

  “Sometimes you make tough decisions because you love that person, Dee,” Layne stated.

  Damion scoffed. “I call bullshit. You made decisions because you were a fucking coward.” He turned and stomped off, leaving River in the room with Layne, the air fraught with silent tension.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Damion was so angry he could very happily slam his fist into a wall! And if he wasn’t sure that he would end up breaking his knuckles he would do it too. There was also the fact he hated pain with a passion, so that was another reason he wasn’t taking out his hurt and frustration, his rage at Layne on the unsuspecting wall next to him, but if those things weren’t a factor, oh man, he would be letting his fists fly right then.

  He shook his head at his ridiculous mental ramblings and continued pacing up and down the hallway outside the employee lounge, silently cursing his ex-boyfriend, the blizzard, and damning his heart. He cursed his damn emotions. The ones that kept him still tethered to a man who would toss him aside just because he found out he had brain cancer. Glioblastoma.

  Damion shuddered and froze in the middle of walking. He knew about that disease. He’d heard about it when he’d been flipping through the channels once before. Depending on what stage it was, when it was detected and the type, Layne could have years, months, or even weeks to live. There could be treatments or there could simply be hospice or comfort care until he passed. What had Layne been thinking? Didn’t he know that he needed Damion to get through this? Layne’s parents had cast him aside when he’d come out to them. Damion and Antwaun were his family now. Why would he distance himself from them? It made no sense to Damion whatsoever.

  “Are you still mad at me?” Layne’s soft voice came to him in the darkness and Damion swung around to face him. He could make out the broad, tall, muscled shape of Layne in the darkness. He couldn’t see his ash blond hair or those green eyes that always made him weak in the knees, but Damion’s mind pulled up an image of how Layne had looked earlier that evening with no problem at all. His cock hardened in his uniform pants and Damion cursed underneath his breath. This was so not the right time for him to be getting an erection. He was supposed to be angry with Layne, not thinking about the man fucking him up against the wall.

  Damion moaned and turned away from Layne. “Of course I am,” he croaked out, his voice raspy with desire.

  “I know that voice,” Layne said huskily. Damion could hear Layne getting closer to him and he wanted to tell Layne to go away. To go back to the employee lounge, but the words were trapped in his throat. It had been too long and he was so sick of his hand. So tired of porn. He ached to feel another man touching him. He yearned to have Layne’s caress on his body again.

  “Are you turned on, Dee?”

  Damion wanted to deny it, but he knew Layne would call him a liar. The man could always tell when Damion was turned on, even when Damion’s back was turned. Even when the lights were off. So, he said nothing.

  “Are you ignoring me now, Dee?” Layne’s voice was closer, his breath hot on the back of Damion’s neck and Damion shivered, biting his lower lip to hold back the whimper that tried to escape. “Now, you know how I feel about you not paying attention to me, don’t you?” Damion jerked as his brain processed the sharp prick of pain from Layne’s teeth biting the skin on the back of Damion’s neck.

  Damion’s hands twitched and he clenched them, stopping himself from reaching for Layne. He panted, closing his eyes as Layne released his grip and sucked the abused flesh. Damion wouldn’t give in this time. He couldn’t give in. He had to teach Layne a lesson. Layne had fucked with their relationship. No matter the reason, he had shattered Damion’s heart and Damion had to remember that, for both their sakes. Otherwise, if something even bigger happened then Layne would think he could get away with it again. Though Damion wasn’t sure what could be bigger than Layne dying. Nothing was. Which was why Damion had to put a stop to this. Right now. Before things went any fur—

  Damion’s brain short-circuited when Layne’s arms wrapped around him and his hand pushed down into his pants to grip his thick erection. Damion’s head must have grown extremely heavy in that moment, because that was the only explanation he had for why he dropped it back onto Layne’s shoulder. He moaned Layne’s name, desperate to feel his former lover inside of him again.

  “I’ve missed you. Your taste, your smell, the sounds you make when I’m deep inside of you, pounding my cock deep in your ass.”

  Damion’s heart pounded as Layne’s hand stroked up and down the length of his cock. He wanted this, wanted to be with Layne again, didn’t he? It was all he’d wanted for the last six months and yet… something about this seemed wrong.

  As Layne’s other hand set about unbuttoning Damion’s shirt, Damion remembered exactly why he had been without Layne for the past six months and he shoved Layne’s hands away from him. He spun around and pushed Layne as hard as he could. He tried not to be insulted when Layne barely moved. It had always been a sore spot for Damion. He was an athlete, yes, but while he was all wiry, toned muscle, Layne was bulky strength, muscles packed on top of one another. In spite of his illness, he apparently still had his physique. Damion wondered how long that would last. He choked back a sob at the image of a frail and helpless Layne, instead focusing on the hail and healthy one who had broken his heart and was currently standing in front of him.

  “Listen asshole, that part of our lives is over, remember? You wanted out. You made that decision. I gave it to you, so you don’t get to come back and decide that you want to fuck me again just because you want to dip your wick in something tight and warm. It doesn’t work like that. You haven’t even begun to apologize to me.”

  “Dee, I—”

  Damion shook his head. “No! I don’t want to hear it. You didn’t trust me. You don’t get it. After everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve shared, everything I’ve done for you, that’s the part that hurts the most. I get that you were scared, Lay, I do. I’m fucking scared out of my mind and it’s not even me, but you didn’t let me share in that fear with you. You didn’t let me cry with you, you didn’t let me grieve with you. Nothing. Because you didn’t trust me. And it wasn’t a matter of infidelity, it was you not trusting me to be there for you when you faced death and that hurts more than you can ever imagine.” He sighed. He lifted his hand and rubbed at the sharp pain in his chest that robbed him of breath. It wasn’t a heart attack, there was no numbness down the left side of his body, he never would have considered it, before, but in that moment, he was almost certain he could feel his heart breaking—again. It was a physical, world-tilting pain that left him weak in the knees. He needed to sit down before he collapsed to the ground and sobbed right in front of Layne.

  Without another word, Damion returned to the employee lounge, hoping that Layne didn’t follow him, but equally afraid he wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Layne stood frozen in the now deserted hallway, shame battered against his mind like a giant wave, disgust tore through his soul like whipping wind, and pain ravaged his heart like the blizzard that currently devastated
the east coast, leaving him cold and shivering. He didn’t deserve to feel the way he did; he was in an agony of his own creation. He was highly aware of that, and yet, how ironic was it, that a mere six months ago, if he’d felt like this he would have gone to Damion to pour out his woes?

  Layne ran his fingers through his hair and lowered his head, sighing. He missed his lover, but more than that, he missed his best friend. Layne was staring at the end of his life and he was looking at it alone. He was scared and all he wanted was for Damion to hold him and tell him that he loved him. That he would always love him. Even though Layne had been a stupid idiot and said they weren’t in love any more.

  He winced. What the fuck was wrong with him? He deserved to die alone. Just like his father had told him he would.

  Turning his back to the wall, Layne slid down until he was sitting on the floor, cradling his head in his hands. His mind drifted back to the day he’d come out to his parents, days after his high school graduation, excited about finally having the chance to live with Damion. He’d thought they would be happy for him. They were anything but.

  § § §

  Layne wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and knocked on the door to his father’s study. His mother’s lighthearted humming following him from the kitchen, providing background noise to Layne’s own pounding heartbeat. He knew how much the older man hated to be disturbed when he was working and usually Layne wouldn’t bother him, but this was important. He had to turn in his paperwork for the apartment that he and Damion wanted to get off campus, and before he did that he needed to tell his parents why they were getting a one-bedroom.

  “Enter,” his father’s booming voice made Layne jump and he exhaled before lifting his hand to the doorknob to open the door.

  “Well don’t just stand there Layngston. You have obviously disturbed me for a reason. What do you want?”

  Layne opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shook his head and tried again and met with the same results. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists at his side. Just tell him and get it over with.

  “If you are not going to speak, then leave my office and return to your room. I am sure you can find something there to do. Something to study. There is always an opportunity to better oneself, Layngston, you should remember that, and with the company you have been keeping as of late, it is perhaps best that you apply yourself a bit more diligently to this truth. I will not have you become one of those gangsters that are always on Fox News. So return upstairs and—”

  “I’m gay,” Layne blurted out, anything to keep his father from his continued tirade for Layne to be a better version of himself. And of course, there was the ever present argument about Layne’s choice of friends. Layne was tired of it. Especially since his father had never spent a minute with Damion, Antwaun, or any of Layne’s other friends. The man had done nothing more than look at the color of their skin.

  Right now his father was looking at him with the same calculated disgust in his eyes. He shook his head and rose from his chair slowly. “No. I must have heard wrong, because no son of mine would dare step into my office to tell me that he was a faggot. That’s just not possible.”

  Layne shook his head as he listened to his father’s hateful vitriol and took a step back. While his father had never hit him in anger, the man definitely believed in corporal punishment, and Layne’s father had, more than once in fact, gotten into fights with complete strangers, so it was not out of the realm of possibility that he would pursue Layne to beat his son to a bloody pulp for some imagined slight. As if Layne’s being gay was a direct reflection or question of his own masculinity.

  Layne squared his shoulders. “If you heard me say that I’m gay then yes, you heard correctly, because that’s what I said. I’m gay. I like guys. Dudes. Damion, that you have such an issue with because he’s a jock just like me and has enough skill to go off and play in the NBA, he’s gay just like me, and he’s actually my boyfriend.”

  Layne watched his father walk towards him slowly around the desk. He stepped back and tried to pull the door closed simultaneously. He jumped and let out a groan when his father whacked his head against the door. His father braced his hand on the door to keep it open and slammed his fist into Layne’s stomach with the other. Layne fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath and trembled in fear when he heard his father crouch next to him.

  “You’ve got an hour to get your queer ass upstairs and pack as much of your shit as you can, and then you get the fuck out of my house. And let’s get one thing straight, I didn’t have an issue with your friend ’cause he was a jock. I didn’t like him because he was black and now apparently because he’s a fag just like you. It’s because he’s black. Now get your shit and get the hell out of my house.”

  Layne had stuffed all of his clothes, DVDs, pictures, personal electronics, and sex toys into his suitcases and dragged them downstairs where Damion and Antwaun were waiting for him, having received his text message. Layne had placed his suitcases in the trunk of Antwaun’s car and climbed in without looking back. He let Damion comfort him that night and never returned to his parents’ home. Not even when his parents both died within months of each other. Instead, he once again sank into Damion’s embrace and let the love of his life hold him close, offering him comfort, and surrounding him with love.

  § § §

  And he’d fucked all that up, and he would never have that ever again. Not only because of the fucking brain cancer that was growing in his brain taking over and making him feel as if he were a ticking time bomb, liable to walk into the middle of a crowd of people and explode. He’d take them all into the depressive hell he’d been forced to live in for the last seven months. Six months, if he only focused on his love life.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d thought would happen. No, he did know. If his parents could toss him aside so casually just for being gay, if people who were responsible for his very existence were capable of giving him up because of something he had no control of then he’d assumed it would be the same for Damion. He had put Damion in the same category as his parents, thinking his lover would leave him when things got tough or difficult, when it turned out that Layne wasn’t exactly perfect. It was stupid and unfair and now Layne needed to figure out how to fix things.

  Soon.

  Being trapped in a library during a blizzard seemed like the perfect time to make things up to Damion. Layne would make him listen, even if he had to get the help of young student who seemed to have taken a liking to Damion to help him do it.

  Layne scowled. He didn’t like that particular detail one bit. He and Damion had been completely faithful to each other since getting together in high school, in spite of the many different people, male and female, who had come on to them. Layne had been propositioned many times, there was even once during an away game when he’d stepped into his room to find three cheerleaders, two girls and a guy all naked, waiting for him. He’d kicked them all out and promptly called Damion.

  So it was a bit unnerving to see someone else draped all over Damion and not have Damion shove the young man away or gently let him down. What was even more confusing for Layne was the fact that he was turned on by the whole thing. Damion’s dark brown skin looked delicious pressed against the student’s when he’d seen them in the glare of his cellphone’s light. More than that, he could see the gentle way Damion cared for the younger man. It touched something inside of Layne. In his relationship with Damion, he was always the protector, Damion taking on the role of caretaker. But with this student, Damion was able to take on the protector role, the alpha role and it suited him. Layne realized his lover was able to be both roles simultaneously and he felt ashamed, wondering for a moment if he had been stifling a part of Damion’s spirit in their relationship.

  Layne was so confused by it all, and he wracked his brain trying to remember everything the oncologist told him in regards to symptoms of the glioblastoma. Was there anything in there about a personality change? Was he su
ddenly going to become an empathetic, sex-crazed being? What would that even look like?

  “Do you plan on spending the entire blizzard sitting out in the hallway?” A soft voice asked. Layne startled and jerked his head toward the door of the employee lounge. He could make out the slight form of the student and felt extremely bad that he couldn’t remember the young man’s name, or that he hadn’t asked it by that point.

  “No. I was about to come in.” Layne pushed to his feet, gritting his teeth against the stabbing pain at the sides and front of his head that accompanied the pressure at the base of his skull. He’d described it to his doctor as if there were two sumo wrestlers engaging in a battle to the death in his brain and both of them were cheating, using weapons in addition to their considerable girth to try and take their opponent out of the competition. Layne felt completely miserable and all he wanted in that moment was some of his painkillers.

  “Hey, I don’t know, or rather, I can’t remember if you told me your name or not,” he confessed as he shuffled slowly towards about the young man who was still standing in the doorway as if waiting for him.

  “No, no. I don’t think we were ever formally introduced. My name’s River.”

  Layne smiled and held out his hand. “Well River, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Layngston, but everyone calls me Layne.”

  “Wow, there’s got to be a story behind that name.”

  Layne chuckled. No one had ever asked him the story behind his name. Not even his teachers. In his entire life, people either knew the story or they just didn’t care. It was nice and refreshing to have someone who didn’t know the story and actually wanted to hear it.

  “It’s actually a family name,” Layne hinted at, waiting for River’s reaction.

  River gasped. “You mean you’re related to Langston Hughes?”