Kiss Me Like you Did -IGHS Sequel-

Okay, so I don’t think there’s any point in pretending otherwise: I have some experience at not knowing how I feel, or why I feel it. Let’s be honest here. For one, I’m gay. That was a pretty confusing thing for an eleven year old to suspect about himself. Then, there was the whole falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend when I was fifteen, which was maybe even worse, cos I didn’t understand for a long time why I felt empty inside when he wasn’t around.

And then there’s now. I know I’m small and skinny and he could step on me like a bug, and I know he’s pretty much doing us a massive favour, but a quite large part of me wants to punch Johnny really hard in the face. The urge got stronger and stronger as I walked down the stairs to Jake’s room the next day, irrationally thinking he’d be in there, alone, with Jake, even though I knew he and Ryan had both left for their exam ten minutes ago.

By the time I knocked on Jake’s bedroom door, I was royally pissed off.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jake asked, frowning, as soon as he opened the door and saw my face, stepping back quickly to let me in without anyone seeing. He closed the door behind me and I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms tightly around his ribs and burying my face in his chest. Mine.

His arms snaked around me quickly and held me against his body as he rested his chin on my shoulder and stroked my back. ‘You gonna tell me what’s up?’ he asked gently after a few seconds, and I pulled back, glaring at him. I knew I was in no position to be angry, but I still was.

‘Have you done anything with Johnny?’ I demanded.

I guess I’ve gotten a little too used to Ryan coddling me. Jake crossed his arms over his chest, raising one eyebrow sceptically, and I knew he wasn’t gonna put up with my bullshit.

‘Have you done anything with Ryan?’ he asked mildly.

I felt my lower lip jut out defensively. ‘I asked first,’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘No I haven’t,’ he said, blinking those big ice-blue eyes at me. ‘Your turn.’

I dropped my gaze to the floor, ashamed. ‘Do you really wanna hear the answer?’ I whispered.

‘Dude, Johnny did us a really big favour yesterday,’ Jake said evenly, putting his weight on his right leg. ‘Why were you even back here?’

I shrugged. ‘I was trying to break up with Ryan,’ I said, feeling like a monumental dork. When he didn’t say anything I looked back up at him, to see his expression registering surprise.

‘You were?’ he managed, his voice kind of hoarse all of a sudden.

I shrugged. ‘Well. Yeah. I mean, we’re getting back together, right?’ Any other option hadn’t really occurred to me. We were perfect together. We were both still in love. What else would we do? ‘We can’t exactly do that if I’m still with Ryan, can we?’

‘We’re getting back together?’

I made a face at him. What was this shit? ‘Are you trying to fuck me over or something?’

‘No! No. I just, you know. Didn’t really know where I stood.’

I frowned, lifting my right hand to put it over my heart. ‘You stand here,’ I said firmly.

Jake grinned. ‘How on earth do I fit?’ he joked, and I scowled til he walked over and smoothed my face out with his hands, leaning in to kiss me once softly. ‘Skate park?’

I grinned as well. ‘Let’s go.’

Jake’s POV

Okay, so in theory I knew it was really stupid for Taylor and I to risk being seen walking together to the skate park. We should have met there. But we had Johnny and Kelly to back us up if we got accused of anything, and anyway, for the most part, to outsiders, Ryan and Taylor looked really happy together. They couldn’t see that one was far too dependent on the other. That one was in love with somebody else. That one was really, really fucking irritating... Okay, now I’m getting personal.

We didn’t hold hands on the way to the skate park even though I was itching to twine my fingers through his – it felt wrong to walk so close to him and not hold his hand, even though out of all the years we’d known each other, we’d only been doing that for two weeks – but we did walk probably a little closer together than we should have. On top of the euphoria of finally being back on the same page, being back to what was right, I think we both knew there was a certain thrill about sneaking around behind people’s backs. It was exciting knowing that at any second during a kiss, we might have to spring apart, adrenaline pumping. Kids with their hands in cookie jars.

‘Hey,’ I said conversationally, once we’d stationed ourselves at the top of one of the ramps, earning ourselves some disgruntled looks from the kids who actually had skateboards under their arms, ‘if it gives you any peace of mind, Johnny has a crush on Noah. Not me.’

Taylor blushed. ‘I know there’s nothing going on. I just got jealous when he held your hand and stuff...’

‘Yeah, I get jealous sometimes when Ryan doesn’t come back to our room til the next morning,’ I said, trying to sound breezy and conversational.

‘Sometimes?’

‘Dude. Not cool.’

‘I haven’t had sex with Ryan. Ever.’

My heart gave a little surge of hope and relief. ‘But you’ve been together for so long?’

Taylor rolled his eyes and rested back on his palms. ‘Yeah, you’re right, I should totally do him.’ He looked over at me. ‘I don’t have sex with people I’m not in love with,’ he said evenly, his gaze locked with mine. Transfixed, I reached over suddenly and caught his face in my hands, kissing him forcefully on the lips. My heart flipped over when he responded immediately, bringing one hand up to slip around the back of my neck. ‘I’ve never cheated on anyone before,’ he said simply once we’d pulled away.

‘I have.’

Taylor grinned. ‘I guess we’re evens then. You cheated on Jenny with me and I’m cheating on Ryan with you.’

‘But,’ I said significantly, ‘I broke up with Jen like two days after we first kissed. So that gives you less than twenty four hours.’

‘You broke up with Jen because she was a homicidal maniac who was cheating on you with her dad.’

‘I would’ve done it anyway!’ I exclaimed, hurt.

Taylor rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, after she moved to the other side of the country and couldn’t hurt you.’

‘Taylor,’ I said seriously, catching his face between my hands again. ‘I had been in love with you for a year at that point. I was breaking up with Jenny no matter what.’

‘I’ll do it tonight,’ he said evenly, as if I hadn’t even spoken. ‘But it’s gonna take hours.’

‘And I was so hoping you’d end your year-long relationship in twenty seconds,’ I said sarcastically, even though I did want him to get it over with quickly. It killed me that they had history.

Taylor groaned. ‘Can we stop talking about Ryan?’ he edged closer to me until he was actually sitting in my lap, both legs swung to the right, resting his head on the crook of my shoulder. ‘I want it to just be about us for a while,’ he murmured, snuggling into me. I wrapped my arms around his middle and held him closer to me, breathing in his still-familiar smell and relishing the feeling of him in my arms.

‘I love you,’ I murmured into his hair, feeling soppy and sentimental all of a sudden. Taylor squeezed his arms tighter around me, burying his face even deeper, as if he was trying to get his head inside my chest or something. ‘You know, that’s the second time I’ve said I love you in about as many minutes that you haven’t said it back,’ I told him bemused.

‘Huh.’ Taylor sat up and moved around on my lap, so he was kneeling with one leg on either side of my waist, sitting on my knees. ‘I love you too. I love you too. Times a thousand.’ With which he leaned forwards and pressed his lips to mine, sliding his hands into the hair at the back of my neck and pulling me closer. My eyes drifted closed as my heart started beating steadily faster in my chest, our lips moving in sync.

‘Mm...’ he murmured against my lips, and then his tongue was on my bottom lip and my mouth was dropping open to let him in, and I was whimpering quietly in pleasure as one of his hands roamed down my chest, and mine grabbed his hips, pulling him closer. I’d been so consumed by love for him that I’d forgotten all about the massive lust he instilled in me as well. I wanted to push him back and take him right here on the skate ramp.

‘What time is it?’ he gasped against my lips, and I glanced distractedly at my watch.

‘Eleven,’ I answered, going in to kiss him again.

He kissed back quickly then, ‘My room...’

Taylor’s POV

I fell back onto my bed, pulling Jake with me, and pushed backwards until I was sitting propped against my pillows with him kneeling between my legs, our lips burning with the intensity of our kiss. How had I managed to keep my hands off him for so long? My dick twitched in my pants as his knee accidentally brushed against my inner thigh. He made me so hot...

Jake gently laid down on top of me – he was lighter than me now. It wasn’t bad exactly, but I had liked that he was stronger than me. My stupid fucking bitch of a pseudo-shrink had messed up more than my life when she banned me from talking to him – and rested one hand lightly on my chest, the other resting on the bed beside me, touching my shoulder. We grinded against each other slowly, provocatively, falling back into the habits of knowing what the other liked... And then we were both naked, sweat making our bodies slip against each other.

I flipped us over – I’ve always been good at that – and sat between his legs happily. ‘You want top or bottom?’ I asked cheekily.

‘You need to ask?’ He raised an eyebrow sceptically. We’d done it both ways often enough, but Jake definitely preferred top.

‘I’m stronger than you now,’ I said idly, glancing at him to gauge his reaction.

Jake folded his arms behind his head confidently. ‘I’m still older and wiser.’

Grinning, I quickly stuck my index finger in my mouth and then...

Jake bit his lip, trying to hold back his moan as I teased his prostate. I pushed a second finger in and this time he couldn’t help it; he moaned quietly and the sound was so sexy I almost moaned myself, though he wasn’t even touching me.

‘I’m pretty sure he’s not here dude, he wasn’t when I woke...’ Landon’s voice trailed off, and Jake jerked himself away from me as we both tried to cover ourselves. Not that it did much good. The shocked face of Ryan standing behind my roommate let us know that he’d seen just as much as Landon had. ‘You’re supposed to put a sock on the door, dude,’ Landon muttered, walking into the room unfazed.

Ryan was still standing in the doorway, while I was stuck to the bed by virtue of the fact that the only thing covering my modesty was the blanket.

‘Ryan...’ I tried half-heartedly. What was he doing out of his exam? There was over an hour left!

Ryan blinked and swallowed. ‘It’s time for your meds,’ he said hoarsely, walking into the room and over to my medication bag. I’d have to take them this time; I had no sleeve to hide them in. Or...

‘I’m not taking them,’ I said quietly.

Ryan stiffened, his back to us. ‘Of course you are,’ he said finally, going back about taking out the correct ones.

I sighed. ‘No I’m not Ryan. They numb me. I hate them.’ I felt Jake’s hand slip into mine and squeeze gently before he stood up and quickly dressed himself, not even seeming to care that Landon was regarding the whole situation with a mildly amused expression.

Ryan didn’t stop messing with blister packets and containers as Jake looked at me, bit his lip, and shrugged. I knew he wanted to kiss me before he left, but we both knew how inappropriate that would be.

‘I’ll, um... I’ll just go...’ he mumbled, his face saying See you later.

I waved and gave him a small smile, before Ryan turned around and walked over, sitting on the edge of my bed with the pills in his hand. ‘Your boyfriend is waiting for you in our room,’ he said monotonously, no hint of judgement, malice, or bitterness in his voice. He was the one who sounded numb now.

Jake glanced at me one more time, and I shook my head slightly, telling him it was okay to go.

‘Good to see you Jake,’ Landon said loudly and cheerfully as Jake crossed the room. ‘Come again soon!’ Yeah, he definitely doesn’t like Ryan.