Unexpected (MxM)

Chapter Eleven- Scared

Chapter Eleven-

Frankie

I look over at Moth while panting softly. He’s already getting dressed again, but I don’t mind being naked for a bit. I like taking my time to reel after we… I never know how to say it. Even in my head, it sounds wrong: making love sounds too cliche, having s*x sounds too technical, f*****g sounds too impersonal. What we do feels different from all of that. We trust, respect, and love each other enough to share intimate pleasure. That’s too many words.

I try not to label anything. I’m so used to trying to put my thoughts into words, but with him, I can just look at him a certain way and he knows. Moth hates when people try to define themselves or their feelings because the second we put ourselves in a box, it limits our ability to get out of it.

I think that’s why Will is waiting so long to define his sexuality. He doesn’t want to say something and then have to change it to something that fits better later.

Moth tosses my shirt at me, making me sigh and sit up as he walks closer, standing above me. “You need to get dressed. Will is coming to get you soon.”

I pout and grab his hips to pull him on top of me. He uses his arms to hold himself up as he looks down at me. “Frankie. We can’t.”

I pull his shirt up a bit and trail my hands over his chest. I can already feel myself wanting to do it again. “I don’t want to leave.”

Moth sighs and sits back, putting his hands on my thighs to look me over with a hot stare. “Trust me, Barbie, I want to. We just can’t. Sawyer can’t know that you’re still seeing me.”

I roll my eyes in annoyance. I know he’s right, but it still upsets me to be torn away from him all the time. We only get a few hours together on weekdays. Weekends are completely off-limits now. It’s just not fair.

I stand when he gets up and quickly throw my clothes on just in time to hear Moth’s phone ringing. When I see Will’s name, I answer and put it to my ear while grabbing my things.

“I’m on my way out,” I tell Will before walking to Moth. I kiss him gently and hug him, laughing softly when he kisses my cheek. “I love you. Bye, Ken.”

“Ew, I don’t want to hear that crap. Hurry up.”

Will hangs up on me as Moth sweetly responds, “I love you too, Barbie.”

I give his phone back and head up the steps, saying bye to his mom before leaving. She never answers anymore. I don’t like to pry, but it seems like she’s going through something.

I get in Will’s car and turn to smile at him. “Let’s go.”

“You smell like sweat and hormones.” Will nags, reaching over to pull my hair. I smack his hand away and glare at him. “There’s a brush in the back. Use it. Sawyer is going to notice your hair looking like that. Maybe tell the kid to stop pulling it when you two get it on so it doesn’t look like birds are nesting in it.”

“It doesn’t look that bad.” I pull down the visor and look in the mirror while using Lottie’s brush to comb through it a few times. “And be quiet. It’s none of your business what we do.”

“If I’m going to be your pimp then it most certainly is my business. I already know everything anyway. It’s not exactly rocket science after Sawyer and I read all your texts. How do you always look like a saint when you're the farthest from it?”

“First of all, you’re not my pimp. I don’t even get paid. Second, that was such an invasion of privacy. I deserve to have conversations that don’t include you, Teagan, or Sawyer. You never should’ve gone through my phone. Besides, Just because I’m comfortable with my boyfriend and confident in myself sexually doesn’t mean that’s all there is to me or that I have to walk around wearing hardly anything. I’m still Frankie. I’m a dork who gets excited about reading and science, and I like how my shirts look when they’re tucked in. None of that is going to change just because I have sex.”

“Really? Because you used to be a little kid that made me sit with you at lunch and hang out with you during recess so nobody would pick on you, and now when I try to spend time with you or stick up for you it’s like you want nothing to do with me.”

I look at him and frown. “Will… I still love you. I’m just older now. I don’t need you to stick up for me all the time, and every time you want to spend time with me I say no because I think you’re only doing it because it’s what I want. It’s not like we have much in common. I always figured you’d rather be with the guys from soccer, Theo, or Jake Dylan, and all his college friends. I didn’t want you to keep having to hang out with me out of pity because I don’t have any friends.”

Will turns toward me at a red light and smiles. “That’s not it at all. I don’t pity you, Frankie. I don’t think you’re a loser. You’re my brother and I love you. It’s just that I graduate soon and my dream school is Stanford. It’ll be the first time I won’t have you there since I was two.”

I lean toward him to put my head on his shoulder. “I’ll come visit. California isn’t that far.”

“You’d be closer to Nova Scotia than to me.”

“It’ll be okay. That’s Theo’s first pick too, right?”

“Yeah. I still think I’m scared.”

I turn to look at him. Will’s always the strong one. He never gets sad about anything. He’s confident and ready to jump headfirst into anything. I’ve always admired how fearless he is, but seeing this look on his face makes it so obvious that he isn’t as fearless as I thought.

“Why are you scared?”

“I’m the best guy on the team. I mean I’ve worked my ass off to get to that point, but once I go there I’ll be surrounded by people who are the best. What if I’m not good compared to them? What if I don’t even get to play? I think all of us Graysons are a little overly attached to our family, and when I get there, I’ll be alone. Theo’s great and all but he can’t fill all of your spots. That’s if I even get in. What if they don’t even like me enough to recruit me? You and I both know I’m not going to get into Stanford on grades alone. What if I end up just like one of those dumb jocks that peaked in high school.”

“I know you’ll be far, but you can call us whenever you want. You’re good, Will. They’re going to send you a letter, and you’re going to play. I know you will because if you get benched, I know you’ll work double as hard to make sure you get on the field. After the first year, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got the number 10 jersey.”

“Thanks. Sorry, I’m not trying to be a downer or anything.” He sighs and pulls up outside of the house. He turns to me and puts his hand on my head. “Stay out of trouble when I’m gone. If someone picks on you, stop being nice. Take your hand, ball it up as tight as you can, and hit them square in the nose. Nobody gets to be mean to you with no consequences.”

“I don’t think fighting is my thing.”

“It could be. You’re pretty good at taking hits. I’m sure you can throw a few.”

I roll my eyes and gather my things, checking my appearance one last time before heading inside with Will following behind me.

I force a scowl, but that isn’t hard to do. Sure, I might still be with Moth, but I’m livid that Sawyer is treating me like a criminal who should be on house arrest.

I told him I didn’t like him treating me like a criminal, and his response was ‘Distributing child p*********y is a crime, so technically, you are one.’

I walk to the kitchen and straight to Sawyer before holding my hand out.

He looks at me and raises a brow. “It’s nice to see you too, Franks. You’re not going to say hi to Teagan and me?”

“After you ruined my life? Yeah, no thanks. I need my phone for school.”

Sawyer rolls his eyes at me and pulls it out of his pocket, typing the code in while making sure I can’t see before handing it to me. “Here, brat.”

“I’m not a brat. God, I made one mistake. I’m sorry for sneaking out. Can you stop being such a d**k about it?” I complain, taking my phone.

Sawyer laughs humorlessly and runs his fingers through his hair while shaking his head as if he can’t believe I said that. “I thought we established that you’ve made plenty of mistakes. You were just hiding them until we found out.”

I roll my eyes and ignore him, walking up the steps to my room. I play some of Moth’s music while starting to study, but turn it down when I hear Sawyer and Teagan arguing.

“You don’t think you’re being too harsh on him? He’s a good kid, Sawyer. This is the first time he’s ever done something like this.”

“Exactly. I want to make sure it’s the last time. The closer he gets with that boy, the dumber he acts. I don’t want him to turn into some emo rebel,” Sawyer grumbles dismissively.

“I understand that, but threatening his boyfriend to stay away? That’s too much. You’re trying to take over again. I’m here too, and you don’t even care what I have to say.”

“You told me I could handle it how I wanted to.”

“When it came to the situation with your mom. I don’t know anything about her or her relationship with the kids. I figured you’d do better in that instance, but Frankie is our kid. I feel like we’re handling this the wrong way. He’s smart. Showing him that we don’t trust him is only going to make him not trust us. I know you’re scared for him, but I don’t think Moth is the issue,” Teagan explains, making me smile a bit. I knew he felt that way. That’s why I was so mad at him for not saying anything about it.

“Then what is? None of this happened before that kid showed up.”

“He’s growing up. Nothing we do is going to stop that. I think you’re looking for someone to blame. Frankie was doing dumb things before Moth showed up anyway. He lost his virginity to a kid who beat him up. He snuck Mason in through his window on multiple occasions. He was getting into fights with Will more often. All of this stuff is just part of him being a teenager.”

“So what? We should just let him run around and do whatever he wants?”

“Of course not. I think we should supervise. Let them date again but only see each other at school and on weekends, but it will have to be here so we can keep an eye on them.”

Sawyer is silent for a while. I almost think they stopped talking before I heard his answer. “Fine. We’ll tell him tomorrow.”

I smile widely and keep studying, holding myself back from rushing downstairs to thank them both. I don’t want them to know I was eavesdropping. I can’t wait to tell him. They’ll even let him come over more often. Maybe they’ll get to know him better and see what I see in him. They’ll see how great he is.