Bone

Another Newport party. If you'd asked him a year ago if he'd be sick of parties in Newport, he'd have laughed. Newport might as well have been Mars, or at least New York for all the chance he'd have had to party there.

Funny thing was, parties were parties no matter the zip. Same shit, different decor. Too much booze, too few clothes, too many ways to fuck it all up, and if Seth hadn't wanted to go, well, he wouldn't be there. But Seth did want to go, so. He went where Seth went, that's how it worked. It worked, it did. It worked better than anything else he'd tried, and it wasn't like he had anywhere better to be.

He'd been to Holly's so many times over the summer, it had started to feel as familiar as the pool house. He knew the downstairs toilet always got clogged, he knew the chair in the corner smelled perpetually of spilled beer. At least this time nobody'd gotten beat up, or shot. Yet. Still early, though, and by the look of the girls hanging off the spiral staircase, the odds for high drama were still pretty good.

He looked around, scanning the crowd for Seth. Usually, he just had to follow Summer's high-pitched giggle, which came in at a frequency usually reserved for fire alarms. Find Summer, look behind her, and there Seth would be, hands in his pockets, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, waiting for an opportunity to say something, anything, just to get a word in edgewise. Summer might be the only person who could take Seth in a talking contest.

Not this time, though. This time, he found Seth in the kitchen, gazing with near-Summerlike intensity at the bottles on the counter. Christ, whatever poison you wanted, you could find it here—from Zima to Stoli and everything between. Holly's dad obviously spent a bazillion bucks on hooch, and didn't he ever wonder where it went? Didn't he care that his underage kid and her friends tossed it back like Juicy Juice?

He walked up to Seth and said, "Hey."

Seth started, then turned to look at him. "Hey."

Okay. Quiet, and Summer wasn't around. What was up with that?

"You know, if you want to drink, I'll drive," he offered.

Seth took a breath, then whooshed it out. "Yeah, I know. Thanks. I could. Drink, I mean. I don't, usually, because of the whole sixteen thing, the car, the dad, and even if you did the car, there's still the dad, you know?"

Ryan nodded. He didn't really know about the dad thing, but he could imagine it.

"I just wondered," Seth said, then stopped. Looked at the bottles again. Looked at Ryan.

"What?" he asked.

"If it wouldn't make it easier," Seth said with a shrug.

"Make what easier?"

Seth licked his lips, then nodded his head, indicating a couple making out in the corner. From here, Ryan wasn't sure who they were, just two dark heads moving slowly against each other, hands in places they shouldn't have been.

"You think hooking up's easier if you're loaded?" Ryan asked.

Again with the shrug. "Couldn't be any harder," Seth mumbled.

Ryan leaned closer. "Seth—"

"I mean, how does that happen otherwise? How do you get from this," indicating himself, "to that?" pointing to the couple, now horizontal and missing strategic pieces of clothing.

"Seth—"

"Look, just ignore me. Pityville, party of one," Seth said.

Ryan wrapped his arm around Seth's shoulders, tugging him away from the counter. "Let's go."

"Go? Go where?" Seth made a half-hearted attempt to duck out from Ryan's hold, but Ryan just squeezed down hard enough for Seth to say, "Okay, fine, jeez, let's go."

They made it out the door just in time to hear a crash and screams of hilarity behind them. Ryan sighed and kept walking.

Seth stayed quiet most of the way home, and Ryan didn't push it. They pulled in the driveway and Ryan looked up at the dark house. Sandy and Kirsten must have turned in already. At least they were home; the Beemer was in the driveway. Used to be when he got home from parties, his mom was still out partying herself. It felt…nice…to know there were parents around, even if they were asleep.

Seth turned off the ignition, unfastened his belt, then settled back in the seat, propping one arm on the open windowsill.

"Sorry about that, back there."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Ryan said, dropping his head back and stretching out his legs. They had a perfectly good house, not to mention the pool house, but if Seth wanted to talk in the Rover, fine by him.

"It's not like I spend my whole day thinking about…that," Seth said.

Ryan turned to look at him and Seth grinned.

"Okay, okay, I spend a lot of the day thinking about that."

"What's the rush?" Ryan asked.

"The rush? You ask what's the rush?? Are you not sixteen? God, Ryan, I can't believe you don't get this. You get everything else."

"I get it, I do," Ryan said.

Seth stared out the front window. "Really, it's not that I'm in a rush. There's no rushing going on. It's not like there's anyone who's gonna…do that…with me right now. I just. I can't say this."

Ryan smiled. "You? You say everything."

The look Seth gave him wasn't one Ryan knew. It made him look older. It made him look like somebody else, somebody he might become, or would be now if he'd grown up in Chino.

"No, I don't," Seth said. "Not even close."

Ryan unfastened his seatbelt and turned toward Seth, drawing up one knee onto the seat. He could see muscles working in Seth's jaw, and felt a wave of warmth for him.

"I don't know what to do," Seth said in a quiet rush.

Ryan leaned closer, unsure he'd heard right.

"About what?" he asked.

"No, dude, I don't know what to do," Seth said, still in that urgent whisper. He turned to look at Ryan. "That time, when Summer kissed me? I didn't even kiss her back. I had her right there, and I still didn't do it right. Fuck." Seth pounded the steering wheel a couple of times, then sucked the palm of his hand. "Ouch."

"Seth, you're not supposed—"

"I know, I'm young and stupid, and don't you think I know that? But we're the same age, and you played tonsil hockey with my grandmother, so I don't really need the 'you're too young' speech right now, okay?"

"I wasn't trying—"

"So she just walked up and planted one on you?"

Ryan took a breath. Did he want to talk about this?

"Pretty much," he said.

"And you…what."

"Kissed her back," he said. He squirmed a little. Bad as it turned out, just thinking about Gabrielle and what she'd felt like and smelled like still got him hard.

"How?" Seth asked softly.

Ryan froze. Whatever they'd been talking about, it didn't seem like they were still talking about that. Seth had that look again, the one where he wasn't so familiar anymore. The Rover, which always felt so big after a lifetime of Tempos and Celicas, suddenly felt small and dark. The silence stretched, but Seth didn't break eye contact, and Ryan couldn't look away.

"Show me," Seth said.

People underestimated Seth. Ryan had always thought so. They looked at the skateboard and the rapid patter and God, those t-shirts, and that's all they saw. They didn't see what Seth showed Ryan, what he was seeing now. The courage it took to say those two words…well, Ryan would rather have faced Luke on a rampage than say them.

But showing—he could do that.

He reached out one hand and slid it behind Seth's head, cupping his neck, so he felt it when Seth started to shake, and it made his dick throb in his jeans. For Seth, if that wasn't a kick in the pants. He was hard for Seth. Fucking crazy world.

Seth leaned in, let himself be led by Ryan's hand, and met his mouth halfway.

"Open up," Ryan said, and Seth did.

God. Seth had a good mouth, a really good mouth. All that talking or something, but whatever he lacked in skill, he made up in rarin' to go. The first time Ryan closed his teeth on Seth's lower lip, Seth sucked in a breath and immediately copied what he'd done, only harder, which was, yeah, better. The first time Ryan touched Seth's tongue with his own, Seth moaned and grabbed him, scraping his hands over Ryan's chest, then reaching around his back, trying to get closer. He had big hands. Big warm hands doing their best to bring Ryan right over the console into the seat with him, but no, no, that wasn't going to work.

"Seth, wait—"

"Oh, Jesus, no, please don't make me wait," Seth panted into his mouth. He radiated heat, his body burning hot, and this close, Ryan could feel the shudders racking his body.

Ryan pulled back, shocked at how hard it was to do even that. Seth's hair stood up wild, rumpled into a riot. Ryan ran his hand over it, and Seth moved into his hand, asking for more.

Ryan remembered his first time—at a party, no shit, on a pile of blankets in somebody's messy garage, fourteen and half-drunk, and she didn't want to fuck, but she let him take off her panties and play with her, rub against her through his jeans, and it maybe took three minutes. He couldn't have stopped then, and he didn't want to stop now. Didn't want to stop Seth, who'd moved his mouth to Ryan's throat and was worrying at the skin there, breathing, "Is this okay? Is this okay?" against him.

"Yeah, you're doing good," he murmured.

He felt Seth exhale against his collarbone, felt him drop heavy into him, and he realized how hard it had been, how much Seth had been holding back.

"We could go inside," he said into Seth's hair.

"No, no, this is good," Seth said, clutching him.

"Back there then," Ryan said. He pulled away long enough to push himself onto the broad back seat and laughed at how quickly Seth followed, falling on him with enough wiry weight to knock the breath out of him. Now Ryan had all that heat spread on him, Seth's angles digging in all the right places. Seth wriggled on top of him, murmuring, "Good idea, good idea, this is, oh, this is much better."

Ryan stopped the wriggles by putting both hands on Seth's ass and holding him tight against his hips. Seth stilled abruptly and groaned, "That's good."

"Yeah," Ryan said, using his hands to move Seth against him. It was good. It was always good, but somehow, this was better. He wasn't sure he'd ever known anyone as well as he knew Seth, and maybe that made the difference. With Gabrielle, with others, the mystery of it all was part of the fun, the jolt. Seth wasn't much of a mystery, but this, with him, this was just good in all kinds of ways.

Seth whimpered into his neck, his hands tightening on Ryan's shoulders. "Oh, shit, Ryan."

"You're okay," Ryan said, letting one hand wander up Seth's back, patting him, stroking up under his t-shirt.

"I've got to…can I?" Seth bit his neck, hard, and Ryan arched up underneath him, lifting them both.

Seth liked that. Ryan could feel Seth's dick pushing against his own, Seth's body far more aggressive than his mind seemed to understand, and his own body responded. He found himself less capable of leading, more aware of himself, and how close he'd gotten to coming while he was paying attention to Seth.

He slid his hand from Seth's ass around to the front, fumbling a little with the snap on Seth's jeans, which faced the wrong way somehow, but eventually he got it open and got the zipper down. He grinned at the wheezing sound Seth made when he reached in Seth's boxers and wrapped a hand around his dick. Not something he could say he'd done before, jerking off somebody else, but damn, if he didn't like doing it to Seth. Especially when Seth was so gratifyingly appreciative and so willing to copy him stroke for stroke.

No fumbling on Seth's end, he noted with the small part of his brain not occupied with sending blood to his dick. No, Seth had it under control at this point, and Ryan just went along for the ride. Seth got his jeans open, his shorts pulled down and his dick out, all the while talking, finally talking again.

"This is hot, hot, hot. You're hot. I thought it was the wifebeater, a style thing, but this is hot. God, no wonder grandmas put out for you."

Ryan laughed, which hurt given how much weight Seth had on his upper body while their hands worked below.

"Try this," Ryan said, tugging Seth's hand away from him, abandoning Seth's dick despite immediate, voluble protests. "Just keep your pants on."

"Oh, right, not quite possible there, Ryan," Seth said, but allowed Ryan to maneuver them so their dicks lay side by side, skin on skin. When Seth finally settled again, Ryan flexed experimentally, then did it again.

"Okay, you—"

Whatever he might have said never made it because Seth slid one way while Ryan thrust the other and the good of it blew the thought forever from his head. So good. Seth's strong body arched down, the heat from his skin burning everywhere they touched, and first time or not, they had it down, the rhythm taking over until nothing else mattered but seeing it through.

Seth went first. He seized up, gasped Ryan's name, and Ryan felt wet heat spit suddenly between them. It made it just that much better, and he followed, letting everything fall away for once, only aware of how good his body felt, how good Seth felt shivering above him, and how very right it felt to be there with him, sprawled out in the back of the Range Rover, only naked a little bit.

When it was over, he tugged on Seth's hair, pulling his head up. He stared at Seth, at his shining eyes and wet mouth, at the sloppy grin that Seth gave him.

"Man, I had no fucking idea I wanted to do that," Seth said, and leaned in to kiss him again, showing Ryan what he'd learned.

"Me, neither," Ryan said when he could take a breath. "I mean, I didn't know I wanted to do that."

"You know, this wasn't really what I had in mind when I said we should stick together," Seth said, collapsing against him again.

"Works, though," Ryan said.

He felt Seth nod into his chest. "That it does, my friend. That it does."