Broken Home Pt. 02

She rode it out, head twisting gently to one side. It was my turn to bring my hand to her chin. I twisted her head towards me but she caught my fingers before they withdrew. Watching me, she sucked two fingers down as she reached for my other hand. This she pulled from her sweatpants, then slowly, staring up at me the entire time, Hannah dropped to her knees.

Her slim fingers undid the button to my jeans and tugged them down along with my underwear. That beautiful, sweet face against my cock was one of the hottest things I'd ever seen, and the reality was so much better than my fantasies when she sucked my tip into her mouth. I stroked her hair as she slowly bobbed her head back and forth, taking her time with me and lavishing my underside with her tongue.

At the same time, she slowly brought her sweater up and over her big breasts. Her bra pushed them up proudly, as if presenting them for my inspection. I moaned in mock frustration when she popped off my cock.

"Oh, you don't want to see my boobs then?" she asked.

"Definitely do."

She tugged the sweater up and over her head. I took it from her and laid it out over the back of the nearest chair. When I returned to her, the only thing holding up her bra was her hands. She pulled them away, the bra coming free, and I was frozen in place. I might have had some experience, but Hannah's body was nothing short of incredible. Slim and trim in the waist, but flaring out from there and making me realize a blowjob was most definitely not what I wanted right then and there. I grabbed her under the arm and tugged her to her feet, pushing her back against the wall again as I filled my hand with one of her breasts and the other with her deliciously full ass.

"Fuck, you are incredible," I breathed, and crushed my lips to hers. When I pulled back, I said louder, "Your bedroom. Now."

She grinned and trotted away, giving me a great view of her ass in that thong. I watched for a moment, transfixed, then hurriedly dropped and grabbed my jeans up to find my wallet and a condom.

When I joined her again, she was on the bed on her knees and elbows, feet kicking against her butt as she looked back over her shoulder at me, honey blonde hair spilling down to the bedspread. Her thong was gone, leaving her completely bare to me. "I think this is how you told Kara you fantasized most about me?"

I groaned. "She told you?"

"Oh yes." Hannah blushed. "While I was eating her."

I was stunned into silence for a moment. I didn't know Hannah was bi. "Kara never said."

"She's not out yet either, so..."

"Yeah, I won't say a word."

"Good. Thank you." She stretched backwards. "But right now, I think I'd like something, mm, hard."

There was probably a comeback to that but my brain was most definitely not firing on all its cylinders. I came to the bed, unwrapping the condom. I climbed on the bed and rolled it on. She looked back at me. "If you don't mind getting tested, I'm on the pill. We could, um, do it bare if you're clean."

"Shit, I'll call the clinic the minute we're done."

She laughed, but it cut off quick when I stroked her bared pussy with my thumb. She had big full lips like Deana, and her bud was bleached. I'd never seen that before on a woman and I liked it.

Then it hit me. I mean, really hit me. I was about to have sex with Hannah Labine, the girl of my dreams. I might have dreamed about fucking her from behind like that, but for our first time, for this, I heard Deana's words as though she were speaking right into my ear. She needs you.

"I want to see your face the first time," I said softly.

Hannah looked at me again. "But..."

"If you really want it this way, of course I'll give it to you however you like it." I smacked one cheek lightly. "And I'm definitely going to want to try that eventually. But I care too much about you not to see your face this first time, if you want it that way too."

"Nick..." she whispered. Then slowly, she twisted onto her back and scooted up the bed to the pillows. I came to her and leaned in to kiss her while I stroked myself to full hardness again. Her eyes watered as her lips gently met mine, and we spoke no words as I lined myself up and slowly eased into her. There was just the soft release of breath from two people on the verge of realizing how deep their feelings for each other really ran. I loved Deana. I loved Hannah. I knew there were going to be complications there, and pain, and probably a lot of confusion and anger, but there was, at the core, love. Lust came second to that.

We made love for a long time, and it was not the sort of thing that translates well to a page. Our hips swayed in an easy back-and-forth, our lips met, our hands roamed, but mostly we just moved together. How long, I'm not sure. Half an hour, an hour. Her phone rang and we ignored it. One of her roommates came home and laughed out in the living room about the mess of clothes we left behind. We ignored her too. There was only each other for a while, and it was, to this day, some of the best sex of my life.

We could have stayed like that forever. I think we both would have, if we had any choice in the matter. But things end. Life. Relationships. Sex. Forever wasn't our reality. Our reality was having to leave that bed and deal with the real world, and Brandon's death, and her shitty father, and my lack of a job, and my impending prostration before the temple of my parents' house.

But not right then. Right then, we had each other, and it was how both of us got through what was to come.

* * *

Hannah took the first shower and touched up her makeup while I headed out to the living room wrapped in her fluffy robe. Her roommate, a happy-go-lucky bespectacled junior in college named Lizzie, looked up from her Kindle and grinned. "You look good in pink."

I folded my hands together and put them under my chin. "Good enough to be a model?"

"Oh yeah."

"Good to see you, Lizzie."

"You too. So, you two finally hooked up?"

"Uh. Yeah."

She grinned and poked a mismatched chair with her foot. "Sit. Details. Or I don't give you back your underwear." She sat up and produced my briefs, and promptly sat on them again.

I groaned and sat, but stole Lizzie's bowl of cheeseballs as revenge. We talked some the walk in the park. Knowing how close I was to Brandon and the emotions that must be running high between Hannah and myself, she tried to keep things light and I really appreciated that. Of course, she asked the big question, if Hannah and I were a couple.

"it's too early to put a label on it but you know she's been a friend forever."

"I love love love friends-to-lovers romances. Especially the pervy kind," Lizzie said, and clutched her Kindle close as she writhed on the chair.

I laughed, and about then, the doorbell rang. Just as Lizzie tossed me my underwear, whoever it was opened the door up and called, "Baby! Dad's here!"

Oh, fuck. Gordon.

He walked right in, and gave me a smirk that I vaguely remembered from my childhood. "Looks like a party's happening here."

When I knew him, Gordon was still trying to pretend like he wasn't graying, but now embraced it in the other direction with what was clearly a dye job probably worth as much as my car. Gray and white ran in tousled curls on his head. His face was too smooth not to have seen some plastic surgery, and I could swear he had lip injections done, though I wasn't a hundred percent certain on that. He might have been handsome without the smirk and lizard-like eyes, but with it and his gray suit, he looked every inch the asshole he was.

Behind him was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. Like Gordon, her hair was the first thing I noticed, dark blonde at the roots and fanning out in stylish waves to lighter shades. She had a strong-featured face with small, peach-kissed lips and eyes like a cloudy day. It was clear she was dressed to show off, in a tight pencil skirt, black blouse, and a matching blazer fringed in white. Curvy, but maybe not quite as curvy as Hannah or Deana. I wasn't sure, but I wouldn't have minded finding out. The one thing I couldn't pin down was her age. She could have been in her twenties or thirties, and unlike Gordon, I didn't think her flawless features were due to surgery.

"Hello again, Mr. Sellars," I said.

He frowned. "Do I know you?"

"You do. Nick. I'm... I was Brandon's best friend."

His frown didn't break for a long moment, but then he brought his hand up, finger pointed at the ceiling before it settled in my direction. "You're the kid who ate all the damn cookies in the pantry..." He started chuckling and I fought the urge to throw a right at his stupid, smug face. "...and the marshmallow cereal... and drank the soda... and puked a line from the dining room all the way to the front door, right?"

"I guess I am," I said, though I'd eaten four cookies, had one can of pop, and as it turned out, was suffering from a vicious stomach bug.

"Didn't have you pegged for the women's wear type." Gordon chuckled harder. The man never really laughed. It was more like a "huh huh huh."

The woman pushed around him and gave me a weary smile as she held out her hand. "I'm Rachel. So sorry to hear about Brandon. I wish I could have known him. He sounds like a wonderful person."

I shook. "Thanks. I... yeah, thanks." To Lizzie, who had watched all this with a cheeseball in hand and forgotten about, I said, "I'm going to go get dressed."

"Okay!" Lizzie chirped, stretching the word out. Ohhh-kay!

Hannah poked her head out of the bathroom. "Hey, Dad. Out in a second." When I snuck in there with her, she muttered, "How bad is it?"

"Well, he already brought up the pukestorm incident, so I'm ready to punch him."

She winced. "If you want to get out of here, I completely understand. I'm sure Lizzie could give you a ride back to Mom's."

"That'd probably make things easier for you, huh?"

"Sorry."

"Don't be." I kissed her. "if you need me, let me know."

She wrapped her arms around me and held me tight for a long minute. I thought of Deana, and I thought of that strange moment in the car when Hannah maybe hinted that she knew about the two of us hooking up. Or was she referring to something else? Regardless, she didn't want to talk about it for a couple days, so I said nothing about it, dressed, and took that ride from Lizzie, still feeling Gordon's cold eyes on me long after I left that place.

* * *

I packed up what little shit mattered in the morning and threw it into the trunk and backseat of my car. I dressed as best as I could, in dark blue jeans two sizes too big for me now and a black short-sleeve button-down that billowed out and made me look like a ship from the 1600s when the wind blew. And the wind blew plenty that fucking freezing, miserable day.

I had to talk to my parents before the funeral, or else I was going to be too emotional to think straight later. My car let out a particularly desperate gasp when I started it up. Just a while longer, I told myself. I can stay at home, pay off some bills, get a bus pass... things would be all right. It was going to suck having to go back home again, but it would be okay eventually. This was not the end of the world.

As evidenced by their cars in the driveway, they were both home. My dad had the TV on so loud the walls thundered with it. An old Bruce Willis Western thing. He didn't like any movies with actors he didn't recognize, so nothing made after about 2000 made the cut. I had no doubt my mom was in my old bedroom, now her hobby room, and grimacing about the noiseg but unwilling to say anything to keep the peace. My mom and brothers always tried to keep things level. I was the little asshole who always had to piss Dad off, and whoops, wouldn't you know it, here I went again.

He was half-dozing on the couch, sprawled out and watching the screen with half-lidded eyes. When he saw me, he gestured towards the back of the house, as if to say, "Your mom's that way." He was tall like me and both my brothers, and retirement brought on some extra weight to him. He wasn't quite fat yet, but veering in that direction. I couldn't really blame him on that account, though. For all my problems with my dad, he was a hell of a reliable guy and, until he hit sixty, he generally worked at least twenty hours of overtime a week delivering gas and propane to his company's customers. Forty-five years, he did that. That's respectable, and there's not a bit of irony to me saying that.

I shook my head at him and pointed at the TV. He paused the movie, and pushed himself up a little straighter and called out, "Eve? Nick's here."

"Oh hey, honey!" Mom called from her hobby room. Bingo, called that. She emerged, a tall woman in her own right, given over to a general thickness a long time ago but never carrying much more than that. She was a very youthful woman for her age with sparkling eyes and skin generally untouched by the sun she loved so much when she was out puttering in the garden. "Are you on your way to Brandon's funeral?"

She gave me a one-armed hug, about as much affection as we showed each other in that family. PDA was not a term in my parents' vocabulary. I had thought maybe they would go to the funeral since Brandon came over a lot, but they never even mentioned it as a possibility. Then again, while they were always polite to Brandon, I couldn't remember a time they really ever acted close to him, so going to the funeral would have been a token gesture on their part anyways.

"Soon," I said. "I had a favor to ask you."

"Oh boy," Dad said. "We knew this was coming."

Mom gave him a glance, the closest thing she would ever come to a "hush" from her. "What is it?"

I took a deep breath. "I lost my job."

"I heard you quit," Dad said. "Tried to hit a customer and walked out."

"Who told you...? I didn't try to hit him," I said. "I just heard the news about Brandon and the asshole..." I forced myself to keep my temper in check. "The guy was being a dick. I slapped some chips out of his hand and I quit."

"And now you need money?"

"A place to stay," I said. Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. You knew he would want to score points on you. You deserve this. "I have interviews next week at a few restaurants and fast-food places. Good hours, good pay. I just need somewhere to stay."

"What's wrong with your house?" Dad asked. "Roommates kick you out?"

And there went my self-control. "Something like that," I said wearily.

"Or exactly like that? Your friend Tim reached out to us. Said he was worried. Said you owed some utilities."

"And they'll get the money as soon as I can get another job," I said.

"And live here, without having to worry about rent or food," Dad said.

"I could pay you rent, goddamn it," I snapped. "I never said I wouldn't."

"Don't swear, let's not swear at each other," Mom said.

Right over the top of her, Dad said, "You apparently can't pay rent, or else you wouldn't be in this situation. You are the poster boy for your generation, you know that? Can't hold a job, can't pay the rent, going to spend the rest of your life here where Mom and Dad can take care of it."

Hot tears of shame burned my eyes with such intensity that I couldn't do anything but blink for a few long seconds. My mom started to say something about me being able to stay there, but I never heard her finish the sentence. I walked out. Fuck it. I'd go to a shelter until my friends were back and I could live with them. I'd figure something out.

My mom followed me out, trying to plead with me, but I left her at the curb.

* * *

I used the last of my cash on gas and a tall cup of coffee. Whatever I needed until I got where I was going, I'd have to rely on the credit card for now. I vaguely wondered if I could pay first and last month's rent with it. Something to think about, I guess, but my mind wasn't capable of fixating on any one thing. I kept getting drawn back to Brandon, to the last good days with him in the hospital, playing an electronic memory game with him in the hopes that it would help him retain something just a little while longer. His speech was badly mangled by that point but it was the last time I could remember where his intent was clear. On the room's TV, game shows blared. During one trivia game, he kept guessing even if he knew the words coming out of his mouth weren't what he meant to say. Then he'd turn to me and grin, making fun of himself at the last and making me laugh too, even if the jerk made me feel guilty doing it.

I missed him so goddamn much.

Finally it was time. I drove first to Deana and Hannah's, but their place was crazy so I found an empty parking spot a block on and texted Hannah I'd meet them at the funeral home. She apologized again for her dad and when I asked how it was going with him, she sent me back a puking emoji.

The funeral home and cemetery were all in the same complex. The funeral home was a big square building, fronted by tall darkened glass panes. The lobby was a tasteful light blue-gray, the auditorium where the service would be held much larger and slightly darker in color. I was way early but there were already people milling around, mostly the funeral home director, the pastor, and staff. I introduced myself, but I was distracted by the casket up front and the man I'd come to say goodbye to, if that was ever possible. The casket was closed by Deana's request, but I laid a hand on it and stayed there for long minutes, my mind still dizzy and unable to focus.

When people started drifting in, I moved to the back until the flood of Brandon's family arrived. Hannah and Deana were near the front of the pack with Gordon and Rachel. Gordon eyed me with another smirk and offered his hand. I shook, and remained quiet as I hugged Deana and Hannah in turn.

But right away, the guy had to be an asshole. When I went to sit with them up front, Gordon said, "We're going to do family right up here, and friends in the next few rows, okay bud?"

"He IS family," Hannah spat.

Deana took her hand and squeezed. "Nick stays up here. It's what Brandon would want."

Gordon immediately turned on the charm, his widening smile open-mouthed, like he might try to swallow one of the chairs. "Of course."

More than once, I saw Deana and Hannah glance in Rachel's direction. The blonde was again dressed to kill in a plunging black dress that was more suitable for a night out than a funeral. She shifted from time to time, clearly uncomfortable, and her own gaze often drifted towards Hannah and her mom. But she stayed silent, listening to family and friends come and talk and offer well wishes.

More people flooded the funeral home, a lot of whom I knew. Brandon was well-loved, and I saw at least fifty or so of our classmates that day, people I would have loved to talked to another time. And don't get me wrong, it was great to see them and I appreciated them being there, but the stories they shared, the sympathies, eventually they all rolled into one ball of me nodding and trying to smile while Deana and Hannah did the same a few yards away.

The actual service was a lot shorter than my wait for it. There were songs, and the pastor led us in prayers, and there was a brief talk about Brandon's life, about how he inspired the best in others and brought a singular light into this world. Hannah was right beside me, Deana on the other side, and she held both our hands. I couldn't tell if she was shaking or I was.

Stories were welcomed about Brandon, and right off the bat, Gordon stood up and delivered a long, rambling spiel about the tragedy of watching his son disappear right before his eyes and to never take any loved ones for granted. I swear I thought I saw sparks actually fly from Deana's eyes at that one. He was not going to leave town without him missing a big chunk of his ass when she chewed it off.