Page 8 of Don’t Get Too Close

Fuck.

I turned toward the bathroom before Kacen noticed my reaction to him. “I should probably take a shower.”

“Oh right.” He seemed startled to be so quickly dismissed. “I’ll get out of your hair, but let me know if you need anything.”

“Yeah, okay.” I kept my back to him until I heard the door close, and then I ran back to lock it. To my relief, it was already locked. Kacen had locked it on his way out. Huh.

The water didn’t get as hot as I would have liked, but it did the job and relaxed all the parts of me that had been tense. Which was basically every part of me. And by the time I stepped out, I felt bone tired. After a long and emotionally taxing day, I just wanted to eat something and go to bed.

I had a towel wrapped around my waist and was halfway to my closet room when someone knocked on the door. As always, I froze in place and clutched the towel at my hip. My heart started pounding and my instinct told me to stay silent.

“It’s just me.” Kacen’s voice was clear as he shouted through the door. “I brought some food. And a fridge.”

A fridge? For once, I let my curiosity get the best of me, and I went straight to the door to see what he was talking about.

When I opened up, Kacen had a hand truck parked just beyond the door with a small refrigerator strapped to it and two grocery bags in his arms. “I picked up replacements for the food you had to throw away. At least the stuff I remembered.” He brushed past me and went straight to the workbench we’d set up as a kitchenette then started pulling things out of the bags. Cup o’noodles, instant oatmeal, the cereal I ate at least twice a day, and other staples. “And the hardware store had this floor-model refrigerator on sale, so at least you have something to keep your milk cold.”

My throat hurt like I’d been punched, but it was actually emotion. Like, the teary kind that I never felt. I had “fear tears” on a regular basis and even “anger tears” from time to time. But I couldn’t remember these kinds of tears ever welling in my eyes before. The kind that came from…kindness.

It wasn’t easy to admit that somebody had paid enough attention to me to know what I ate. But that was the kind of man Kacen was. The kind of man I’d never met before. “This is too much, Kacen.” I cleared my throat, hoping he didn’t hear the croak in it as he plugged in the fridge against the wall and adjusted the feet to level it. “You’re being too nice.”

“It’s nothing.” He didn’t look up from what he was doing. “I want you to be comfortable in here.”

I just stood there and watched him, completely unfazed by the fact that I was naked except for a threadbare towel around my waist.

“There ya go.” He heaved himself up off the ground and wiped his hands on his jeans. “That should be good for now, but let me know if you need anything else.”

He turned to me, and that’s when I saw it. Two dark spots were blooming through the front of his shirt. Right over his nipples, there were small circles of wet fabric that hadn’t been there earlier, and my whole body went still.

I knew what that was.

I’d seen those wet marks before in a house I tried very hard not to think about. On a person I tried equally hard to forget.

Alex.

The kid who was placed with the same homophobic family as me when we were in high school. We were friends, but it took months before Alex confided in me why he had to disappear into the bathroom with a towel over his shoulder every morning and evening. I’d assumed he was jerking off like everyone else, but that wasn’t it. That wasn’t his secret.

When he finally explained that he’d started lactating and couldn’t stop the flow of milk in the mornings and evenings, I didn’t understand it. I guess I didn’t need to understand why or how. All that mattered was that Alex was healthy and it didn’t hurt him.

And as we spent more time together, my curiosity grew as much as my attraction to Alex.

We messed around a little bit, but it wasn’t until our foster father found out about Alex’s milk that he completely freaked out. He started wailing on Alex before taking a turn with me. For two days, neither of us could get out of bed. But as soon as I could, I left.

I’d begged Alex to go with me, but he had a little sister with a different family and he didn’t want to abandon her. If there was any way I could have stayed, I would have. But I didn’t have it in me to take one more beating.

So I ran.

I ran until I knew I could keep myself safe. From people. From emotions. From curiosity. From desire.

And then fucking Kacen waltzed into my life with his big muscles and kind eyes…and a goddamn refrigerator full of food.

Not to mention…the milk that I now knew he was leaking under those growing wet spots. And that same desire I had buried for years was suddenly back with a vengeance as I just stared at him.

“You alright, Ted?” Kacen sounded concerned and then followed my line of sight down to his chest. His arms immediately crossed over the wet spots like that would undo what I’d already seen. “Shit. Sorry. I need to go change, but I’ll see you later.”

“It’s fine, Kacen.” My voice was rougher than I meant it to be as I did my best to be reassuring. “I get it.”

He didn’t turn around before he hauled ass to his own house. I didn’t blame him.