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I didn’t answer, just let my slicked fingers trail back, teasing gentle circles against his hole until he was rocking his hips down to meet my hand, wanting me inside him. I slid one finger into him slowly, feeling his ring clench around it, watching his whole body arch up off the bed with a groan that about undid me right then and there. I took his cock back into my mouth at the same time, working him from both ends, and felt him relax beneath my hands little by little.

“West, I’m—” he gasped, his fingers tightening in my hair again, this time with real intention. “I’m close, I’m real close.”

He was fucking my mouth now. He couldn’t help it. So I hummed around him, curling my finger just right. And that was all it took. He came with a broken sound, his whole body shaking through it as his salty sweet taste cum filled my mouth. I swallowed every drop, continuing to suck until he’d gone soft and trembling.

I crawled up his body and tucked myself against his side, pressing a kiss to his jaw while he caught his breath.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“Mmhm,” he murmured, eyes still closed, a real smile finally settled on his mouth. “Best damn medicine I ever had.”

I tucked my head against his chest and listened to his heart slow back down. “You doin’ okay Buttercup?”

“Yeah,” he replied after a moment or two. “It’s just… it’s been a long week.” He let out a short laugh. “It’s been a long life, if I’m bein’ honest.”

I looked up at him, searching those blue eyes. “But it’s better now, right?”

He was quiet for a long moment, long enough that I pushed myself up on one elbow to look at him properly, to see whatever was moving behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s better. Lots better.” But his gaze had drifted off toward the window, toward the dark street below where somebody’s porch light flickered against the night. “I just keep thinkin’ about gettin’ out of here. And I’m just worried that gettin’ to know those guys tonight made me want that less.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

He let out a small huff and shook his head. “I’ve been plannin’ on leavin’ Sagebrush for a long time, West. Long before any of this happened between you and me. I’ve been lookin’ forward to startin’ a new life for so long and now… now I feel like everything is workin’ against me. That all the work I did to be okay with it, to get out of here, was all just… for nothin’.”

I didn’t have a quick answer for that, so I just lay there against his chest for a minute, feeling the steady thump of his heart under my cheek, trying to find the right words instead of just the easy ones.

“It ain’t for nothin’,” I said finally. “You’re still you, Buttercup. Still got all them years of wantin’ better for yourself. That don’t just disappear ‘cause you had a good time eatin’ brisket with some new friends.”

“Feels like it might, though.” He reached up and dragged a hand down his face. “Feels like every little good thing that happens here is another rope tied around my ankle, keepin’ me from walkin’ out that door someday.”

“That ain’t how I see it.” I pushed myself up further, resting my chin on his sternum so I could look him in the eye. “Seems to me like maybe you’ve been so scared of gettin’ attached that you never let yourself believe you could have both. A life here that don’t hurt you, and still get to leave someday if that’s what you decide you want.”

He was quiet, chewing on that, his fingers coming up to brush slowly through my hair. He did it without conscious thought most days now.

“I just don’t want to wake up five years from now,” he said slowly, “still here, still scared, just with better friends to be scared around.”

“You won’t,” I said, and meant it with everything I had in me. “‘Cause I’m gonna be right there with you, whichever way it goes. If you want to leave in six months, I’ll pack my own bag right alongside yours. If you decide you want to stay a little longer, we stay. Ain’t no clock runnin’ on this, Buttercup. Not one I set, anyhow.”

Something in his face softened at that, the tightness around his eyes finally letting go for real this time, not just the temporary kind that came from a fancy blowjob.

“You really mean that?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“Of course I do.”

He let out a long breath, like he’d been holding it in since we walked up Marcus’s porch steps, and pulled me back down against him, tucking me in close under his chin.

“I think,” he said slowly, like he was testing the words out loud for the first time, “I think I liked tonight more than I wanted to.”

“That’s alright.”

“Is it?”

“‘Course it is.” I pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “Don’t mean you gotta give up on leavin’ someday. Just means maybe this place ain’t quite as rotten as you always figured it was. Folks can hold two things at once, Rhett. Hate for what happened to you here, and a little bit of hope for what might still be good about it.”

He didn’t say anything to that, just held onto me a little tighter, his breathing slow and even against the top of my head. I didn’t push him for more. I figured whatever he was working through in that head of his needed time to settle, same as everything else had these past couple weeks.

Outside, somebody’s dog barked twice down the street and went quiet again, and the window unit hummed along steadily in the corner. For a while that was the only sound in the whole apartment besides the two of us breathing.