Keep Me Close

We stayed in the park for a couple of hours before parting ways and promising not to wait so long again before getting together. By the time Benjamin and I got back home it was nearly eight thirty and the sun was on its way down. The effect of the brownies had worn off about an hour before we left, mainly because I didn’t make them very potent in the first place. We all still had an all around great time though. I really did miss hanging out with those guys, because they have been some of my best friends for a long time and we really didn’t see each other a whole lot once we graduated from college.

Benjamin pushed open the front door of our apartment and flipped on the light next to the door. We both got into the apartment and threw our jackets on the back of the couch in the living room. “So why’d you decide to make those anyways?” Ben asked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “I mean, I obviously have nothing against them, and they were amazing, but I was just kind of curious.”

“Well I wanted to make those brownie things but I was a bit skeptical about them because I wasn’t sure exactly how they would turn out. So I decided that at least if they turned out nasty or something like that, then we’d still eat them because they’d be a bit addictive on their own. Then they turned out amazing by themselves, so I guess I didn’t need to make them special, because they were addictive enough without the grass oil,” I explained, laughing at the way I chose to phrase that last sentence. Sometimes I say things and don’t even mean to say them. A lot of those times, what comes out of my mouth is actually kind of funny, but sometimes it turns out to be serious things that I mean but don’t mean to say. That’s when I don’t like that happening, because it can get me in trouble.

“You should make them again sometime without the ‘grass oil’ as you so cutely put it,” he chuckled.

“You think I'm cute?” I questioned, raising my eyebrow a bit.

“I didn’t say that,” he answered almost a little too quickly. “I said that the way you said that was cute.”

“That’s basically calling me cute,” I smirked, walking closer to him and tapping him on the nose.

“No it’s not,” he muttered, looking down at the floor around our feet.

“Yes it is,” I giggled.

“Whatever. Why don’t we just go watch TV or something?”

“Sure Benji,” I laughed, now just making fun of him.

“Oh, stop,” he chuckled slightly.

“Okay, Benji, let’s go watch some whole hearted television,” I said jokingly. I'm not a big fan of television, and neither is Benjamin, but we do sit down to watch it sometimes.

“Are you sure you’re not still high, Jeffrey?” he asked, walking down the hall to his room, where we normally watch TV for some reason.

“Well.” I drug out the word longer than really necessary to get my point across. “I think I'm just still hyper. The pot has surely worn off by now.”

He merely laughed at me as we entered his room. I went to his bed and sat on it as he turned the TV on. “What do we want to watch?”

“I don’t care,” I shrugged, shifting with the movement of the bed as Benjamin climbed up next to me. “Check the SyFy channel. Or see what’s on BBC America. Those are usually pretty promising channels.

“Oh, my nerdy little friend,” he laughed, flipping through the channels to find the nearest of the two. “Ew, Star Trek: The Next Generation, I hate that show.”

“And I'm the nerdy one,” I laughed sarcastically, pushing his shoulder a bit. He started to change the channel, but I put my hand over his to stop him. “Wait, don’t change it yet.”

“Why?”

“It’s almost the change of the hour. See what’s on next,” I offered.

He pressed the guide button on the remote control and laughed. “Star Trek again.”

“I swear,” I laughed, shaking my head and removing my hand, “that show is on 20 days a week.”

“20 days a week? Don’t you mean 20 times – “

“No, I mean 20 days. That’s how often it’s on,” I nodded, looking at him at an angle.

“Whatever you say,” he chuckled at me, skipping through the channels again. He stopped on BBC America, where a new episode of Doctor Who was playing out. “Ooh, I love this show!”

“Again, I'm the nerdy one in this friendship,”

“Alright, we’re both nerds,” he admitted, smiling as Matt Smith spun frantically about the room on TV with his sonic screwdriver outstretched. “Have you seen this one before? I don’t think I have.”

“No, neither of us have. It’s a brand new episode,”

“How can you tell?”

“Every Saturday and nine, there’s a new episode. It’s Saturday and it’s a little past nine. It’s a new episode, dear,” I explained sarcastically, giving his an all-knowing look just to piss him off. I loved messing with Benjamin, partly because he always let me do it without much of a fight.

“Oh ha-ha, Mr. Smart-Ass,”

“Alright, let’s shut up. I want to watch this,” I said, leaning on my back stretched hands. He chuckled at me and did the same thing, eventually getting just as into the episode as I was. During a commercial break about half way through the program, I looked at Ben out of the corner of my eye and an idea flew through my mind. “Hey,” I said, nudging his foot with mine. “Guess what?”

“What?” he asked, looking over at me too.

I smirked. “You think I'm cute,” I told him, bumping my shoulder against his as well.

“I never said that,” he replied, less hostile than the first time.

“So you think I'm ugly?”

“I never said that either.” His voice had quieted and his eyes had softened. A moment that started out as playful turned quickly into something a lot different.

“So what do you think I am?” I asked curiously, unintentionally biting my lip.

“I think you’re pretty fucking beautiful,” he answered, smiling at me as he placed his hand on my left thigh.

“Well this is new,” I whispered, smirking slightly at the heat of his hand through my jeans.

“Is ‘new’ good or bad?”

“Tell me what you think in a second,” I smirked one more time, placing my right hand on his left hip before leaning in and pressing my lips to his. The kiss only lasted a couple of seconds before he pulled away smiling.

“I'm taking that as good,”

“You’re right then,” I said, closing the distance again. My fingers played with the hem of his shirt, pushing the fabric up so they could dance across hi skin. He angled his body towards me so that the both of us were more comfortable. The chemistry between us was far great than I’d thought it ever would be, but neither of us were complaining. It was just a completely new experience for us. Not in the respect of us making out with other boys, but making out with each other. I doubt that it’s never crossed his mind – I know it has mine – it’s just that we’ve been friends for so long that it almost seemed odd that it was happening now after all this time. Neither of us have ever acted upon any feeling we may or may not have had, not even while drunk or high.

I let out an unanticipated moan as Ben moved his hand farther up my thigh and gripped it intensely. I could feel him smirk into our kiss, so in retaliation, I slid my hand from his hip and into the back of his jeans, squeezing his ass hard. “Jesus Christ, Jeffrey.”

“That’s the spot!” we heard from the TV across the room.

“See, The Doctor agrees with me,” I joked, gripping his ass cheek once more. “Now, we’re missing the show. Come on, let’s watch it.”

He grumbled and detached himself from me as I did the same. However much fun we were having, I really wanted to see how the episode played out. Call me selfish or even say that I didn’t have my priorities straight, but the way I saw it, Ben and I lived together and could do things like that any time we wanted to. Sure, I could catch the show later, but it was very interesting so far and would have left me wondering like crazy about how it ended.

A couple minutes back into the program, and I felt the bed shift again as Benjamin moved behind me and attached his lips to my neck. His arms trailed around my torso and his hands started massaging my lower abdomen. “What are you doing?” I asked in a low voice, looking over my shoulder at him.

“Nothing,” he answered, his voice equally low.

“So this is nothing?”

“Uh-huh,” he mumbled against the skin of my neck.

“Does this mean anything to you, or are you just really horny right now?”

He sighed and sat back down, removing his hands from my body. “You really think that I would do something that could potentially ruin our friendship just because I haven’t had sex in a while?”

“I never said that, Ben,” I said softly, turning around to look him in the eyes.

“But that’s what was implied,”

“I didn’t mean it like that at all,” I shook my head. “I just meant that, well, neither of us have ever done anything like this to each other. We’ve never talked about having any feelings other than friendship towards each other. This is just so new for us, and I just want to make sure that we both want this for good reasons. That we’re not just about to do something like this because we feel like it.”

“Jeffrey, I do have feelings for you,” he answered, placing his hand against my face softly. “I think I've always had feeling for you, but I've denied them for a long time out of fear of our friendship being ruined. But now, I just don’t really feel like hiding anymore. And now that I know that you’re not all weird about us doing this, I really want to try something between us.”

“I've always thought about us together, but I've always been kind of afraid as well,” I admitted. I laid my hand on top of his and caressed it with my thumb. “I don’t want us to fuck up our friendship, though.”

“I don’t think we will. I think that, especially with the way we’re talking right now, we’ve got strong enough feelings for each other that a relationship would actually work out. I at least want to give it a try.”

“Yeah, I think I do to,”

”Yeah, that’s it,” Matt Smith’s voice sounded.

“I think The Doctor is telling us to go for it,” he chuckled, kissing my forehead lightly. “It’s like he just knows.”

“He’s The Doctor; of course he knows. He knows everything,” I laughed, rubbing my nose on his like an “Eskimo kiss”, as my mother used to call them.