The Stepfather (MxM) ✓

Chapter 21

Birthdays were never really my forte, even to this day. There was something pointless about the celebration over another year to add to your life, but it had been a long year.

So maybe this celebration was going to be different.

It already had one profound difference in contrast to my other birthdays – and that was the change in location.

Rather than the ridiculously dreary weather and the familiar thrum of persistent traffic outside, there was a heavy heat and an odd silence when I woke up that morning. For some reason, I had expected something a little different than silence.

Kelly's snoring, or even Alice's inane chatter.

But there was nothing.

I sat up slowly, gunk in the corners of my eyes until I absently picked them out and stretched. Pretty mundane morning actions that every individual went through, but they seemed slower that morning. Briefly, my mind pondered with the overused joke 'it must be old age', which I had to inwardly scold myself for even considering it.

I was seventeen, at an age that people usually disregarded you as a child – not yet legal, and still looked down upon by the law. It wasn't a really big milestone, but it still felt somewhat significant. I had lasted another year and, for once, things seemed to be looking up.

Nothing much had changed over the last week other than, of course, the addition of sex with my mother's fiancé.

Which was, to put it bluntly, pretty damn fantastic.

The reality of the situation had still to drop with me, but for that time being it was just good sex with an attractive man that I actually liked spending time with. Not that I would have ever admitted that out loud, but it was an internal thought that I couldn't help but warm up to with each and every passing day.

It was a bit of a miracle how my mood had lifted somewhat with that addition. According to Austin, I walked with a spring in my step (but that might have been attributed to the night before), and there was allegedly more colour in my cheeks (and I still blame that on pale skin in a constantly sunny environment) – but that was only one man's opinion, and Austin was known to exaggerate.

Of course there were aspects of the whole... arrangement that really should have been discussed – which is why I pointedly avoided them.

When Alex and I were sitting on the couch, subsequent of a quick handjob or something like that, and it looked as though he was about to say something heavy and meaningful – I abruptly got up and went for a shower or something.

Anything to avoid the weighted topic that was at the back of my mind.

If I pretended that it wasn't an issue for long enough, then maybe I could actually convince myself to believe that lie. It was decent logic, and I was determined to follow it.

Right now, all Alex and I had was physical. And maybe a bit of friendship in there – but I wasn't going to tell him that for the life of me. He could either figure it out himself or remain perfectly oblivious in the land of sexual favours.

However, that wasn't what was running through my mind when I woke up. I was more concerned about the stale smell that might very well have been my shirt and the insistent pangs of hunger in my stomach. Pulling my shirt over my head as discarding it to some far corner of the room, I wandered up to the kitchen in my boxers.

If the house was this quiet, it was likely that I was the only one currently occupying it. Which was the main reason why I had no hesitation in walking around half naked. While previous bruises had healed, Alex had taken care in supplying one or two to my collarbone. In consideration, he had asked if I minded hickeys – in which I had lightly smacked him on the side of the head and told him to get on with it.