rivals in the sheets

chapter twenty-two

[chapter includes mature content]

X

Ethan closed the car door behind him and put his seat belt on.

He watched Lucas walk around the car, stop to drop his things on the backseat, and sit down in the drivers' seat.

The two of them drove home happened in near-silence.

Well, it was completely silent except for the album that carried on until it finally ended and started all over again. 

Ethan thought about taking another disc and changing what they were listening to, but he knew that he would actually have to talk to Hamilton if that happened, and he didn't think that could happen without things becoming extremely awkward between the two of them.

He actually enjoyed the second song on the album a lot more than he did the first time around, and if things were a little less awkward between the two of them he would ask for the title. Instead, he would just have to google it when he got home and hope for the best.

Lucas stopped in front of Ethan's house, with seemingly no plans to get out of the car and continue whatever they had started.

Ethan wasn't sure what to do. He knew things would get awkward if he tried to speak about it, but at the same time he knew that he needed to say something.

He turned his head to look at Lucas, thinking about what to say. 

He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Hamilton spoke up, "I think I should get going. But thanks for playing with me."

"No problem," Ethan answered, trying to not think of all the ways Lucas' words could be interpreted in a dirty manner. "Thanks for the ride."

"Yeah, no problem."

With that, Ethan got out of the car and didn't look behind him before he was inside. There, he took a moment to look through the window that was next to the door, only to see Lucas rubbing his temples and look like he was questioning his entire existence.

Ethan didn't want to think that he contributed to that, but he knew that the kissing was definitely what set it off.

He thought for a moment about going outside and actually trying to talk to him about it, but he knew that would just make things worse. Ethan would have to wait for a bit and process things on his own—or at least pretend to—until he could talk to Hamilton normally.

Shower. He needed to shower, because he still felt like he needed to wash the shame off him.

It wasn't just the fact that he was kissing a boy, it was the fact that he kissed Lucas Hamilton of all people.

Just a couple of weeks before, when Joshua finally officially came out to him, he was totally fine with it. If anything, it made him like Joshua more, mostly because it made him feel like Joshua trusted him completely. But now that he was on the other side of things, it suddenly felt entirely different, and he didn't know why.

He locked the bathroom door behind him even though he was all alone and took off his clothes, trying his best not to look at himself in the mirror. Relaly, he tried to do everything to avoid looking at himself, just out of fear that he would see shame in his own eyes.

Ethan turned the water on and waited patiently for it to turn scorching-hot. He didn't want to think about what had happened in that locker room at all. If anything, he wanted his mind to get miles away from it and never think about it again.

He wasn't clueless enough to think that he wouldn't have to deal with it once he returned to school and during their next practice, but he could at least pretend nothing happened for a little bit until the real world would come and confront him about it.

He let the water wash away the thoughts and tried his best to focus on other things.

Ethan tried to make a small list of things he had to do before his parents came back home, but could only come up with three little tasks that would help him occupy the time.

There was a part of him that wanted to text Hamilton as soon as he would get out of the shower, just to ask him to talk about everything, and maybe even invite him to sleep over, just for old time's sake. However, he knew that there was no way that would end well, so he just let the water wash those thoughts away as well.

If one good thing came out of it, it was that he now realized that he maybe liked kissing guys as well as girls. Even if that meant he'd have more than a lot of problems when it came to picking a college he could go to if anyone else found out, as well as dealing with those feelings of shame that came along with it.

X

On his bed, Ethan grabbed his laptop as he sat down on his bed and typed in the words he would probably regret typing in later.

He clicked on the first link, and there appeared a number of different categories with pictures of conventionally attractive naked guys making out or touching each other in private places or downright fucking.

He obviously knew what porn was, and he knew how sex worked, but he hadn't explored this side of porn before.

It had never crossed his mind, and honestly, why would it?

Until about a couple of hours ago, Ethan thought he was as straight as a line, and now that had apparently changed. 

He scrolled through a few thumbnails and clicked on the first one that didn't scare him, because some of them were entirely too scary. 

It was just two conventionally attractive guys who acted out a horrible script before starting to kiss each other and then suddenly, the scene switched to them already naked on the bed. 

At least Ethan couldn't pretend that he was watching the video for cinematographic purposes...

Ethan slowly slid his hand into his sweatpants, hesitant if he even wanted to do this or not. 

He felt like kissing Lucas was one thing, but this was an entirely other problem. There was no way of going back after doing this.

Still, he felt more than intrigued and when one of the guys got on his knees in front of the other one and wrapped his hands around the taller guy's cock, Ethan began growing hard.

He started to jerk off, and it didn't take him long to come close, and he didn't stop until he came all over his hand.

Immediately after coming, he slammed his laptop shut. It felt wrong doing this, for some reason.

It felt so incredibly new, but also a lot more intimate than any of the porn he had watched before. It felt like he was actually looking into people's lives and he never felt that way when watching straight porn.

He felt a wave of shame wash over him and as he washed his hand he tried his best not to think about what he had just done. He probably wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it, but as long as he tried his best, he could avoid having the fact that he came while watching gay porn off the front of his mind.

Ethan returned to the living room and turned on the TV, hoping to lose himself in a bad reality show where he could laugh at the contestants' stupidity instead of deal with his own problems. Everyone had their own way of coping with things, and that was one of his.

Ethan checked his phone, expecting to see a message or two from his parents, but instead he saw a message from Lucas.

Let's never talk about this again, okay?