Kiss Me Tenderly

Silence.
We sat in complete silence. The low click of the clocks hand ticked by, signalling the passage of time, slow as syrup on a winter’s morning. Thoughts buzzed their busy way around my skull.
How?
Why?
What?
“Jack?” Alex’s voice questioned, cautious. I felt his cold fingertips touching lightly at my bicep.
A breathe.
“Jack? Jack, answer me.”
A deep breath, trying to breathe in the atmosphere, oxygen disappearing.
“What”- another gulp of air- “did Owen mean when he said ‘Are you going to adopt me too?’”
Alex recoiled to the opposite end of the couch.
“I-uh, well,” he stammered, obviously uncertain about how much he should tell me.
I blinked, stunned at his sudden reluctance to tell me things. Not that we were attached at the hip or anything, Alex was normally very open with me, you know?
“I mean, like, you don’t have to tell me,” I said awkwardly, tugging on the hem of my shirt, anything to keep my restless hands busy. “Like, I’m your friend and I wanna be there for you but like, if you don’t want me to ask it’s your business, not mine, you can tell me whenever you want to but I just want to know...”
My voice trailed off, leaving a tangible void in the room.
Alex was nibbling - chewing, rather - on his perfectly pink lip.
And though it was completely inappropriate for the situation, a prickle of arousal shot through my entire body.
I watched Alex’s face twist, contort with inner turmoil. He seemed distressed, almost on the verge of tears again, and I couldn’t bear the strain that showed on his adorable face, so I just pulled him into my lap again. He curled up in a ball, leaning into my chest for comfort. And I’m not going to lie, my heart kind of swelled. But just a little bit.
I rocked him gently in my arms, humming a lullaby I sang to my daughters when they woke up in the middle of the night with night terrors. My thumb abraded his shoulder gently, keeping time with the swaying of our bodies. At first, his body was tight with stress but his muscles soon unkinked, one by one, until I felt his arms snaking around my waist to pull us even closer.
“Jack?” Alex’s voice was muffled against my shirt. He pulled back a little to look up at me with huge doe eyes.
“Yeah, ‘Lex?” he dimpled slightly at the mention of the pet name I had bestowed upon him before it faded.
“I’m ready to tell you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Finally. Some answers to the enigma that is Alex Gaskarth.
Alex shifted in my arms, his own wrapped around my waist slightly tightening, as if for support. I nuzzled his dark hair and touched my cheek to the top of his head in silent encouragement.
“Well,” he began. “Where to start...” He deliberated before speaking up again.
“You should know. Owen’s not really my son. I mean, he is, because I adopted him.”
I gaped. What the fuck? Why does he look so mu-
“And he looks like me,” he continued. “Because he’s my identical twin brother’s son.”
Oh.
But.
Wait.
Where’s his brother?
“What happene-”
“Tommy and his wife, Alicia, were both killed in a car accident a few years ago.” His face fell; he looked miserable.
Oh. Again.
“Look, you don’t have to-”
“Just let me finish, okay, Jack?” He looked me straight on, waiting for me to agree.
I nodded for him to continue.
“It was right when Owen turned two and a half. He could recognize faces pretty well but would get my brother’s face confused with mine, almost every time, calling me Daddy, and him, Uncle Lex, and vice versa. It was endearing, always a source of teasing between us. Tommy and Alli were coming home from a date night-I was watching Owen- when it happened. A drunk driver hit them head on.” His eyes looked haunted at the memory. “They said if Owen had been in the car, he would have died too.”
My arms tightened around his body involuntarily, my eyes slipping shut. My chest ached for the loss Owen and Alex had incurred, especially so early in life. This family had gone through so much.
“At the time, I was dating Nick, our third anniversary.” My fingers flexed at their place around his waist at the thought. “He had proposed to me a few weeks before the accident, bought me a beautiful ring. Everything was going great, I had an amazing fiance, an adorable nephew, the love of my brother and his new wife. But then they died and Owen ended up staying at our place for a while. Nick was really good with Owen, loved to play with him, take him places. But when I brought up adopting Owen, he balked, refusing to take care of another life. His reasoning was - and this will always grind my gears - that ‘he was too young to take care of a kid, he just wanted to party and have fun.’ Like, what the fuck?” Alex was trembling with indignation. I cuddled him closer, silently prompting to continue.
Alex took in a shaky breath before going on with his story.
“So, I adopted him, all on my own. Poor kid. Owen Kaleb Gaskarth is a very confused boy. He knows I adopted him but doesn’t recognize the fact that I’m not his true father.”
He sighed heavily, a rush of hot breath whispering across my skin, making me shift uncomfortably.
“Who does he think he is, coming back after three years like I’m just going to take him back like all his desperate whores,” Alex grumbled. “If he really thinks that, honey, he’s got another thing coming...”
I wrapped my arms even tighter around him, pressed my lips to his temple.
“If I could make everything better, I would,” I told him, chafing his arms lightly.
He hefted another heavy sigh. “And now, he’s coming into my work, texting me, telling me he misses me, he loves me, to give him another chance. That he’s been holding onto the ring, waiting for the right time to give it back. But the only way we can be together again is if I gave up Owen. And that, that right there, was a deal breaker. He’s the last piece of my brother I have left, and he expects me just to give it up? No way in hell.”
“I wouldn’t have given you up in the first place.”
The statement had just slipped past my lips, unbidden, hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine. Okay, this won’t help deny my feelings for him.
Alex shifted in my lap so he could look into my eyes, a grin on his lips.
“Why, Jack Barakat, was that a love confession?” he cooed, the mood in the room shifting entirely.
“Uh, no, I don’t think-I mean, no?”
He smiled impossibly wider, moving so he was facing me, legs bracketing my thighs on the couch. He leaned forward, pressing our foreheads together, eyes boring into mine. His fingertips grazed my forearms around his waist. Warm breath caressed my lips, my tongue darting out to wet them in nervous half anticipation. He giggled, a puff of happiness spreading across the space between us.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” He was already moving in closer, maintaining the direct eye contact he had fixed me with.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, mesmerized by the way he blinked, the way his eyelashes curled, the nervous flick of his eyes downwards to my lips, his own tongue curling out to touch chapped lips.
Alex was quick to close the gap, moving his lips gently against mine, a soft brush of the lips before a harder touch was needed. His hands moved up to frame my face, my own hands gripping onto his hips. We kissed, sweet, tender kisses, a nice rhythm was established when I felt Alex’s tongue tracing the seam of my lips, asking permission.
I gave it, allowing his tongue to into my mouth, let Alex explore with little wet flicks. My own tongue lightly massaged his, drawing him deeper.
After a while, Alex started to draw back but I wasn’t letting him go that easily; I pushed forward, pressing our lips together. This time, I took the initiative, slipping my tongue into his mouth, feeling the light rumble of a moan exhaled by Alex. He ground down lightly, the evidence of his arousal painfully clear. Without even thinking about it, my own hips pushed upwards against his, eliciting low groans from the both of us.
We remained like this for a while, grinding slowly, lips moving with a desperate urgency that belied our eagerness, but when my hands moved under the back of his shirt, Alex ripped himself away from me.
“N-no, Jack, we can’t, not here, the kids,” Alex looked beautiful, helplessly aroused, stuttering, his lips swollen a brighter pink, cheeks flushed, his hair mussed, arousal prominent. I couldn’t be much better.
I leaned up, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, tugging his shirt back down around his hips.
“Okay,” I whispered against his lips.
And in that moment, I realized I had fallen completely head over heels for one Alex Gaskarth.
Told you so.