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When Alex first bought the house, the pool was simply an afterthought. He didn’t need it, it wasn’t a necessity of any sort, but it had its benefits. His backyard was always a nice hangout spot when co-workers came by. When June and Nora visited with their daughter, the pool was always the center of attention. It only took a few weeks for him to get used to it. He even had a pool house installed on the patio.
But owning a pool came with the responsibility of maintaining a pool. And he did keep up. Sort of. The first three years, the pool and the pool house were always in pristine condition. Eddie was an exceptional pool boy, even if he was pushing fifty, but that only meant that he had nearly thirty years of practice up his sleeve. He came by once a month for three years until the pool no longer became a priority to Alex. He was recently hired to represent a rather famous rock star in court after a bus crash and a suspected DUI, and after securing the victory in that case, the cases kept coming and coming, the offers grew larger and larger, and he fell so deep into work yet again that the pool became the least of his concerns.
Now, however, he is forced to confront the neglected pool. He has a total renovation of his house to thank for that. For the entire summer, he is going to be living in the small pool house, working and eating and sleeping and staring out of the many screened windows, and after the first week in the pool house, he has the epiphany that waking up to the sight of a clear, glittering pool would be much more captivating than a ratty old tarp.
He calls the pool cleaning company the next morning. “I’d like to schedule an appointment with Eddie for eight o’clock.”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” the woman on the other line says in a soft Southern accent. “Eddie left for another company 'about seven months ago. No chance gettin’ him back, I’m afraid.”
“That’s a shame,” Alex mutters, and it truly is; he rather enjoyed Eddie’s company and wisdom.
“But I can get you a Henry at that time,” the woman continues. “How does that sound?”
So Alex wakes up to a buzzing at the gate next Friday morning at eight o’clock, and he meets Henry. And Henry is… well. Henry is no Eddie.
For starters, he’s young. He can’t be more than a year older than Alex is. He has sweeping blond hair and deep blue eyes and a faint dusting of freckles over his nose. His grip is firm when Alex shakes his hand in greeting, and Alex notices the muscles in his forearms that automatically flex. He leads him through the house and to the backyard, and Henry says that the rose bushes look lovely, and he has a soft, rounded English accent, and something in Alex’s chest does a weird little flippy-thing.
Henry lets out a low chuckle when he peeks under the tarp. “You’ve been seriously neglecting this pool, haven’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Quite.”
“Yeah, that’s on me. I barely use it, and I feel like I haven’t had a day off in two years, and I guess I just… forgot that it was here. But now I’m living in this pool house for the summer and, well, it’s not very appealing to wake up to a pool that’s green.”
“No, definitely not.” Henry takes another long look under the tarp before standing up. “The initial cleaning will take a bit longer than usual. I would say I need to come in for the next three days to get this back to its pristine condition. Then, if you still want to keep me along, it will be the regular weekly cleanings.”
Alex cracks a smile. “Let’s see how well you do with those three days. Then we’ll talk.”
Henry gets to work straight away. By the time Alex comes back from the office, Henry is gone. Alex peers under the tarp as he passes by. For someone who owns a pool, he doesn’t know that much about them, but he thinks Henry did an adequate job. At least there aren't green chunks floating in the water anymore.
Henry shows up at eight o’clock on the dot both Saturday and Sunday morning. Alex doesn’t let his presence distract him from his usual weekend doings. He goes for a run Saturday morning. He sits at the small counter in the pool house’s kitchen with his laptop and plans out his work schedule for the week. He calls June. But now, with Henry around, there’s a little extra flair to his usual schedule. He waves to Henry when he comes back from his run. When he makes lunch during his planning hours, he’ll offer a small plate for Henry as well. He sits outside on one of the lounge chairs when he calls June, and more than once, he catches Henry smiling to himself at the sound of their banter.
When Henry finishes with the pool — three days, just as he suspected — Alex can only stare at it in awe. Henry wasn’t kidding when he said he could bring the pool back to its pristine condition. It looks just as good as it did when he first bought the house. Better, even.
“All right then,” he says simply. “How do Fridays at eight o’clock work for you?”
And so Henry becomes a weekly thing. Alex just manages to catch him every morning before leaving for work. Their interactions are just about the same; Alex will ask how Henry is doing, Henry will say he’s fine and Alex how he is, Alex will respond with a simple, “Busy.” Alex will tell Henry that the pool is looking wonderful. Henry will say it’s nothing special. And when Alex returns from work later in the afternoon, the pool is crystal clear and Henry is off at his next appointment.
That should be it. Henry is doing his job; the pool is getting cleaned, and Alex shouldn’t think anything more of it. Then why does he feel the slightest bit of disappointment when he walks back to the pool house and Henry isn’t there?
It’s not as if he’s close to Henry, or as if he knows him at all. He’s hiring the guy to clean his pool, for God’s sake. He shouldn’t even want to get to know him.
And then something short of a miracle happens — things at the firm start to slow down. His client’s court date gets pushed back. He has time. Enough time, it seems for his boss to tell him to choose a day to work from home.
Of course he picks Fridays.
Every Friday without fail, he migrates from his work setup on the coffee table in the pool house to one of the lounge chairs by the pool so he can chat with Henry. He still doesn’t quite understand this pull he has towards Henry. It was never like this with Eddie; he always let him do the work and made sure to tip him extra when he was done. But there is something about Henry. It could be his stories growing up in London, it could be the way he spurts out information about Jane Austen and the history of the monarchy, but Alex, well. Alex can’t seem to get enough of it.
“How did you end up as a pool boy, anyway?” Alex asks one day.
Henry pauses, resting his chin on the end of the pool net. “I’m in the midst of receiving my masters in English and American literature,” he says. “I usually spend my summers in London and find a job there. But there have been some… familial problems, to put it lightly. I’ve been staying in New York the past few years and, well, this job was offered. It seemed easy enough.”
Alex shakes his head in disbelief. “And you became an expert at pool maintenance in just a few years? Wizardry, that is.”
“It’s not very hard, actually,” Henry says through a large grin. Alex realizes he’s grinning back before he can stop it. “I can show you, if you want.”
Alex raises an eyebrow. “Is this a way to get out of working while still getting paid?” he teases, emitting a musical laugh from Henry, and he very much does not think about the way his heart beats irregularly in his chest.
Moments like those are strange enough. But nothing compares to what happens the week after.
Alex is sipping at his coffee before going for a shower that Friday morning, wrapped in a thick robe, scrolling aimlessly through his emails. The room seems lighter than it normally is in the mornings. Alex glances up to see the curtains to one of the windows still open. He must have forgotten to shut it last night. He’s about to think nothing of it and go back to the emails when he makes the mistake of looking through the window, and the sight in front of him is enough to make every other detail incredibly insignificant.
From this angle, he can see Henry working on the pool perfectly. The morning sun is shining on the surface, making the water glitter with every lap of a wave, but Alex is more distracted by the way the sun’s rays catch in Henry’s sandy locks, turning his hair an even deeper shade of gold. He has stripped of his usual attire of a loose-fitting tank top in place of absolutely nothing at all, and Alex can’t look away. His shoulders are broad, his chest muscular. His skin is already a faint pink color from the heated sun. He brings one hand up to wipe at his sweaty forehead, the muscles in his biceps flexing as he does so, and suddenly, Alex realizes that his dick is hard and straining against the robe.
Well. This is certainly a new development.
It’s nothing a shower can’t fix, he thinks. After all, what’s a bit of morning wood? So he gets in the tiny pool house shower and wills his boner to go away, and for some reason, he can’t stop thinking about Henry and the taut muscles of his abdomen and every inch of his long legs that his shorts do nothing to hide, and his dick is still fucking hard, and the first touch of his palm against his erection is so good, and in no time at all, he’s gasping as he finishes, the evidence of his actions slipping down the drain.
Alex leans against the shower wall, trying to catch his breath. Huh, okay. Okay.
He’s pretty certain it isn’t normal for guys to jerk off to the thought of their pool boy.
But he wasn’t really thinking of Henry, right? Sure, Henry was on his mind, but just as a passing thought, just because he was surprised to see Henry without a shirt for the first time, and that was hardly enough to be considered as jerk-off material, and he’s fine. He’s fine.
He thinks he’s fine.
He’s less than fine when he finally emerges from the pool house and Henry is still, in fact, very shirtless. He smiles at Alex when he notices him, and goddammit, it makes his heart do that flippy-thing again. He has no idea what it means.
“I started to think you got lost in there,” Henry teases, fishing out a leaf with the pool net.
“Ha ha,” Alex offers sarcastically. He decidedly does not look at Henry’s bare chest as he props open his laptop.
Next Thursday night, Alex hesitates when closing the curtains. He doesn’t even know why he has stopped until the memory blooms right in front of his eyes, something hot curling in his gut at the realization.
He’s starting to think this isn’t normal.
He decides to leave one of the curtains open. It’s the window he can just make the pool out from his bed, and better yet, at a sharp enough angle where any outsiders won’t be able to see in. That way, no one will be able to intrude on his little… experiment.
The next morning, he wakes up to the sight of the sun shining on Henry’s broad shoulders and the feeling of his very hard dick pressed against the mattress.
He leaves the curtains open next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. And each Friday morning, he starts his day off jerking off in his bed or in the shower, and each time he comes down from his mind-blowing orgasm, he has to convince himself that the thought of Henry’s big hands wrapped around the pool net was not what pushed him over the edge.
He doesn’t know if the intensity of his orgasms are a result of simply not being in a relationship for so long or whatever this… this thing is that he has for Henry. He probably hasn’t had a serious girlfriend in three or four years. Hookups haven’t been a priority for him lately, either. Surely that’s what is causing the shakiness in his fingers and the lack of tension in his shoulders each time he gets himself off.
But then he catches himself staring at Henry for a second longer than he should when he’s working by the poolside, he notices the way his heart flips each time Henry says his name in that stupidly posh accent, he recognizes that offering Henry a beer and talking with him hours after Henry has finished attending to the pool is bordering on an edge he isn’t quite sure if he’s ready to tip over yet.
And then he says the stupidest thing, drunk on the late afternoon sun and mid-July air, getting distracted by the dotting of freckles that have appeared across Henry’s nose: “I’m having my sister over for a small barbecue tomorrow. I think she’s bringing my niece; she’s been super excited to see the pool again. Would you… would you want to come?”
Henry seems surprised at the offer, his eyebrows shooting up into his hair. “Are you sure?”
“Course I am. It’s all your hard work, after all.”
Henry nods slowly, chewing on his bottom lip. “I have a few appointments tomorrow, but I suppose I could swing by later in the day.” He smiles softly at Alex. “Thank you. Truly.”
“It’s no problem,” Alex says immediately. “Oh, uh. Just so you know. My sister, she’s, uh — well, her wife will probably come along. So. If you’re cool with that…”
Henry waves a hand. “Yes, of course, no problem. I’m gay myself, actually.”
“Oh.” The words fly out of Alex’s mouth before he can stop them. “You have a boyfriend or anything?”
Henry snorts. “No. As surprising as it may seem, telling dates that I clean pools for a living tends to turn them off. And I don’t get much action from the housewives who want to fuck their gay pool boy.”
That startles a laugh out of Alex. “That’s gotta be a fun conversation.”
“Truly.” Henry sits up in the lounge chair, stretching. A bit of his shirt rides up, exposing a stripe of his taut stomach, and Alex very deliberately does not stare at it. “Speaking of, I have another cleaning I need to get to. Thank you again for the beer.” He stands up, looks back at Alex. “I’ll, erm. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“See you,” Alex echos back, watching Henry gather up his supplies and disappear behind the backyard fence. The pool feels empty with Henry gone. Like something is missing.
He figures he should actually get some work done today.
Despite whatever conflicting feelings he may hold towards Henry, it’s all worth it at the sight of Amelie’s face lighting up when she runs into the backyard and spots the shimmering pool. “You got it cleaned!” she cries out happily, running over to her uncle.
Alex scoops her up in his arms. “Of course I did. I told you I was going to, didn’t I?”
“A long time ago,” Amelie giggles, causing Alex to gasp dramatically, tickling her stomach until she’s squirming and laughing in his arms.
“Ames, let’s get you changed,” June says when Alex sets the young girl down. “You wanna swim, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Amelie exclaims, running towards her mother and practically dragging her to the pool house to change into her swimsuit.
Nora lets out a wolf whistle as she crosses to Alex, nodding at the pool. “She’s a sexy one. What made you want to get it back into shape, anyway?”
Alex shrugs, turning the heat up on the grill. “I’ve been sleeping in that damn pool house for a month. It was sad waking up and not even being able to see a pool. And —” He stops, catching himself just in time.
But Nora immediately notices. She narrows her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing,” Alex says quickly, suddenly paying very close attention to the ribs on the grill.
Nora opens her mouth to push him even further, but at that moment, Amelie runs out of the pool house, floaties snug around both arms, June following close behind. Amelie wastes no time and jumps right into the pool, laughing as she kicks in the water. “Mama, look at me!”
“You’re looking great, kiddo!” Nora calls back. She turns back to Alex, points a finger at him. “Don’t think that I don’t know you’re hiding something. You’re lucky I gotta be on Mom duty. I’ll wiggle it out of you later today.”
Alex pretends to not be afraid. Because if there’s one thing he knows about Nora, it’s that she always gets what she wants. Even Alex’s expertise arguments can’t compete with her death glares.
June, apparently, notices this as well, giving Alex a funny look as she appears beside him. “What is she grilling you about this time?”
“Nothing,” Alex mumbles, and June snorts. “Seriously! She was asking about the pool, and I told her I was just sick of waking up to a dirty pool, that’s all —”
He hears the gate to the backyard creak open, making his head snap up. He sees a mess of blond hair and strong shoulders and something immediately blossoms in his chest. He just — he just missed Henry, that’s all. You can miss a friend. He supposes that’s what he and Henry are now at this point: friends.
June follows his gaze. “Who’s that?”
“Right,” Alex says, trying to collect himself. He clears his throat. “I may have, uh, invited someone. It was a little last-minute. So.”
“Oh my God,” June says, her face splitting into a smile. “Alex, you made a friend.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Alex, you made a friend!” June emphasizes, grabbing his arm and squeezing as if he missed it the first time. “You never make friends! God, I’m so proud of you.”
“Okay, first of all, rude —”
“Where’d you meet him? Work?”
“Ah,” Alex manages, cringing at himself. “Work — work was involved. Just… not my work.”
“What —” June starts, but Henry is within earshot now, so he waves a hand to shut her up.
“Hey, man,” he greets. “I thought you said you’d be coming late.”
“Last-minute cancellation,” Henry explains. Alex takes him in for the first time today. He’s dressed differently, not in his usual loose-fitting muscle tees but in a light blue polo instead, the first button popped open, showing off the dips of his collarbones. His skin still has a light pink tinge to it. Alex wonders if he has a permanent sunburn during the summer. Not that he minds. Henry looks fucking good with a bit of pink in his cheeks.
“June, this is my friend, Henry,” he introduces. “Henry, this is my sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Henry says politely, shaking June’s hand.
“You too,” June says. Alex can see the look in her eyes; she’s still trying to piece together how he and Henry got to know each other. “How do you know Alex?”
“Oh —” Henry glances at Alex, who shrugs and continues flipping the peppers. “I’ve, erm. I’ve been cleaning his pool for the summer.”
“Hold on,” Nora calls from where she’s sitting at the pool’s edge. “I never would have guessed. You look like a fancy English scholar or something.”
“Funny you should say that,” Henry says, his face splitting into a grin, walking over to the poolside to talk with Nora. The minute that he’s gone June turns back to Alex, a smirk tugging at her lips and a glint in her eye. Alex refuses to look at her.
“Don’t say a fucking word,” he mutters.
“I’m not.”
“You’re thinking something.”
“I’m not,” June says again, smirking. “I’m glad you made a new friend. He seems nice.”
“He is,” Alex says before he can stop himself, and fuck, he’s smiling too, fuck. It doesn’t make sense, all these things that happen to his body when he’s around Henry. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.
“You’re blushing,” June comments a moment later, effectively forcing away the smile on Alex’s face. She gasps. “Oh my God, you’re blushing. Alex, do you like him?”
“What?” Alex scoffs loudly. Maybe a little too loudly to be innocent. He shakes his head. “That’s ridiculous. Of course not. He’s — he’s just cool, that’s all, I — I like talking with him, if that’s what you mean; we hang out and do our work together —”
“Uh-huh,” June says, an amused little smirk etched upon her lips. Alex is just about to fire back a witty response when Amelie calls out for her mother. June pokes Alex’s shoulder. “We’re not done with this, just so you know.”
“We very much are,” Alex calls back as she walks away. His cheeks are still burning after she’s gone. Fucking Henry.
Amelie finally gets the courage to speak to Henry halfway through their dinner, still in her swimsuit but wrapped in a fluffy blue towel. “You put water back in Uncle Alex’s pool?”
Henry nods, smiling warmly. “I did.”
Amelie narrows her eyes at him, as if taking him in for the first time. “I like it,” she finally says. “Can you make it pink next time?”
“Hmm,” Henry muses, mulling it over. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not sure if your uncle would like a pink pool. You’ll have to take it up with him first.”
“We don’t have to tell him,” Amelie whispers loudly, making Henry laugh.
“Maybe for your birthday,” Alex chimes in. “How does that sound, Ames?”
Amelie folds her arms in front of her. There’s a glint in her eyes all too familiar to Nora. “You promise?”
Alex holds three fingers up. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a boy scout,” June snorts.
“Now that surprises me,” Henry interjects.
Alex whips his head to stare at him. “What does that mean?”
Henry shrugs. “You look the type. Rugged, outspoken. I see how you pour all that energy into your arguments.”
Alex blinks. “You’ve seen my cases?”
Henry lifts one shoulder. In the dim evening light, Alex can’t tell if the pink in his cheeks is from the sun or the simple effect of his words. “That first one that was televised, the bus crash, wasn’t it? You were… you did really well.” The corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile. “And I see you practicing in your pool house every now and then. It’s quite captivating seeing you in your element while you’re not physically there.”
Alex can’t breathe.
Later, when he and June are bringing the plates back into the tiny kitchen of the pool house, she sticks to her promise. “So. Henry.”
Alex groans. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alex, did you even hear him out there?” June presses. “He was practically showering you in compliments. He called you rugged. He barely looked away from you all throughout dinner.”
“Well, yeah, because —” Alex sputters, turning on the sink. “Because he doesn’t know you two. It makes sense that he would feel more comfortable around me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” June says immediately. “Or did you conveniently forget the twenty-minute conversation I had with him about Pride and Prejudice? Alex, I’m telling you. He has it for you.”
“June,” Alex groans, dropping his elbows on the counter and his head in his hands. “I’m straight.”
Alex isn’t sure what response he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a badly-concealed snort of laughter. When he shoots his head back up, June is covering what could only be an amused smile with the back of her hand. “What?”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just —”
The door to the pool house opens with a quiet click, and Nora walks in, holding her own stack of dishes. “Alejandro, you scored high with that pool boy.”
“Oh my god,” Alex says in exasperation, dropping his head back in his hands as June breaks into a fit of laughter.
“Nora,” she finally says after she’s composed herself, “we’re two steps ahead. Alex still thinks he’s straight.”
“Oh. Oh, shit.” Nora sets the dishes down. “So if you two aren’t dating or fucking or whatever, then he’s got it bad for you.”
“Wait,” Alex says after a moment, his brain still moving slowly from everything June has said. He points at his sister. “You said I still think I’m straight. What… what’s that supposed to mean?”
June and Nora exchange a look. “Well,” June starts, “We’ve… noticed things… over the years. Like your second year of law school. Liam?”
Alex rolls his eyes. “Liam and I were friends, you know that.”
Now it’s Nora’s turn to snort. “Alex, you don’t take a friend to your dad’s lake house for the summer. Alone. And you don’t send the group chat a message telling us not to disturb you and your friend the entirety of the trip.”
“Well, yeah, when you put it that way!” Alex exclaims. “Sure, we fooled around, but that was it. Like I said, we were just friends.”
“Didn’t you say Liam was planning on proposing to his boyfriend?” June asks. She bites her lip to hide her smile. “They must be pretty good friends to want to marry each other.”
Alex groans, rubbing his face with one hand. “Sure, Liam turned out to be gay, but I’m…” He stops, not quite sure how to end the sentence. It certainly doesn’t help his case, he realizes with a glance at June and Nora’s expressions. “Never mind. Anyway, June, you can’t talk! You did the same thing I did, you took Nora to Dad’s lake house one summer.”
“Alex, we’re married and we adopted a daughter. Do the math.”
“You —” Alex breaks off, his head spinning. He thinks back to Liam. Liam, whom he met within his first week of law school and immediately hit it off. Liam, who would jokingly grind behind him when they were drunk and at a club with their friends. Liam, who didn’t protest when Alex pulled him in for a messy kiss one night because his hair was sticking to his slightly sweaty forehead and his Adam’s apple was bobbing distractedly every time he took a shot and his lips were rough and his tongue was warm and, God. That summer. Alex hasn’t thought about that summer in years.
Before then, he and Liam had the occasional kiss, the occasional slip of the tongue, the occasional hand job. Alex wasn’t really sure what he was thinking when he invited him to spend the summer at his dad’s lake house. To be fair, he and Liam were drunk when he proposed the question, and Alex was very distracted by the way his lips looked wrapped around the mouth of the bottle, and Liam immediately agreed to it, and before he knew it, he and Liam were alone in a beautiful lake house for three months.
But that was college, wasn’t it? Alex was experimenting then; that’s what college is all about. And if Liam turned out to be gay and has a stable, loving relationship with his boyfriend, then that’s that; it shouldn’t matter if Alex is straight, and that was only one time in life —
He’s suddenly thrust backwards to the final year of law school, running into one of his favorite professors, Professor Westbrook, and his boyfriend, with his dark hair and dark stubble and loose collars, and Alex remembers feeling very very hot when he shook his hand in greeting.
He thinks back even more. Ten years old, watching Star Wars for the first time, his heart leaping in his throat whenever Han Solo came on screen. The posters of him he pinned up in his room.
High school lacrosse. The way his mouth went dry at times when he stared at a guy’s bare chest for too long.
And Henry. Henry and his impossibly broad shoulders and his kind smile. His blue eyes, almost the same color as the pool, the realization that Alex wouldn’t mind drowning in them instead of the actual water. His strong hands. The way he would pull up the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe away the sweat on his brow. The way Alex has been jerking off every Friday morning to the sight of him.
Huh.
Alex blinks. Takes a step back. “Shit, wait.”
Nora grins at June. “I think he’s finally getting there, babe.”
“Wait,” Alex says again. He rubs his face with both hands. “Fuck, that’s — that’s not — straight guys don’t make out with other guys.”
“They very much do not.”
“Fuck,” Alex repeats. His vocabulary has been greatly reduced by this newfound realization, it seems. “So I’m — what, I’m gay?”
“Alex, we can’t tell you that!” Nora says loudly, but her words are gentle all the same. “That’s for you to figure out.”
Alex chews on his lip, staying quiet.
Nora sighs. “Here, I’ll help. When you think about any of your past girlfriends, do you regret it all? Did you find yourself not enjoying dates or kissing or anything like that?”
“No,” Alex says immediately, which is very much true. He’s always found girls attractive. There is no doubt about that.
He suddenly snaps to attention. “Did you just leave Henry out there? Alone?”
Nora waves a hand. “Calm your tits. Ames was asking him more about the pool, he’s fine.”
Alex rolls his eyes. “You two are terrible. I’m going to see how he’s doing.”
“And leave us to the dishes, I see how it is,” June mutters under her breath.
“Don’t worry, we’ll give you two some space!” Nora calls after him as he walks to the door, and Alex throws her the bird over his shoulder.
It turns out that Henry is, presumably, fine. He and Amelie are sitting at the pool edge, their feet dipped in the water, talking quietly. Henry has a soft smile on his face. Alex’s heart stops just looking at him.
Maybe June and Nora weren’t exactly wrong.
“Hey there,” he says once he’s walked up the pool edge. He kicks off his own shoes and sits next to Amelie, dipping his own feet into the pool. He tickles the girl’s stomach, making her squirm with laughter. “What are you bothering Henry with, huh?”
“Oh, nothing,” Henry says with a chuckle. “Just trying to convince me to build a pool in her own backyard. I told her she needs to get permission from her mums before I agree to anything.”
“You build pools, too?”
“I’m no good at it, but I help out occasionally,” Henry says off-handedly, as if the thought of Henry sweaty and in a hard hat doesn’t make Alex’s gut curl in all the right ways. “I’m much more familiar with the cleaning aspect.”
“But you can still build one, right?” Amelie says hopefully, bouncing up and down in excitement.
Henry grins. “Again, that’s up to your mums to decide, not me. Although you bribing me with biscuits certainly helped your case,” he adds, making Alex laugh.
Amelie suddenly stands up. “I’m gonna talk to Mama right now!” she exclaims, running away to the pool house in a flash.
Alex watches her run, shaking his head in amusement. “Sorry June and Nora left you with her,” he says to Henry. “If it makes any difference, I think she likes you.”
“It was no problem at all,” Henry insists. “Honestly, I’ve missed being around little kids. My older brother has two, a boy and a girl. I haven’t, erm… I haven’t been able to see them much.”
Alex cocks his head to the side. “Is it hard finding time to visit London?”
Henry turns back to the pool, a sad little chuckle falling from his lips. “I guess that’s part of the reason. The other part — the bigger part — is that my brother hasn’t talked to me in about four years.”
Alex’s eyebrows fly up. He remembers vaguely, only a month or so into Henry’s weekly pool cleanings, asking him about London. And he remembers Henry’s response, something about “familial problems”, as he put it. He never thought it would refer to years of silence between brothers.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks tentatively.
Henry sighs. “It’s… it’s a bit of a long story.”
“I’ve got the time.”
It’s a warm summer night, the water is cool against his ankles, the pool lights give just enough light to illuminate Henry’s face. Alex truly doesn’t have anywhere better to be.
Henry presses his lips together in a thin line. “My father passed away when I was in my last year of uni,” he says quietly. “I think that was the start of it all. My mum, well, she never fully recovered from the grief. She still hasn’t. My brother thought it was his responsibility to be ‘the man of the family’ or whatever rubbish he was going off about. That, and my gran was pressuring him to step up as well. She never liked my dad, I don’t think. It was… a very messy time.
“I didn’t handle it well. Parties, hookups, all of it. And one night, I wasn’t being careful enough, and somehow, my gran found out I was gay. To say she wasn’t supportive is an understatement. She grew up in a very wealthy family, always concerned about status, and I endured a very lengthy talking to that night. My brother wasn’t completely on her side, but it was clear that he wasn’t completely on my side either, so I told him it didn’t mean shit if he was going neutral. So that’s when the tension really started to sink in. Of course, I saw him at family gatherings, and I kept civil around him, mostly so I could see his kids. Then —” he breaks off, biting on his bottom lip. When he speaks again, there’s a slight quiver to his voice. “My sister has always had a problem with addiction. Five years ago, she relapsed.”
Alex’s heart stops. “Henry…”
“She’s okay now. But that night, Christ. That was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. And Philip and I, we got into the worst fight over it. I said we should get her into rehab. He said — he said we should have nothing to do with her because she let the family down.”
Alex’s jaw drops. “That motherfucker.”
Henry nods in agreement. “So that was it. He said he was never going to let an addict go near his kids, and if I was going along to help her, he wouldn’t let me see them either. That was the last time I ever spoke to him. I don’t regret what I said, I don’t regret parting ways — but I do regret not saying goodbye to my niece and nephew before I did.”
Alex doesn’t think — he reaches over and covers Henry’s hand with his own. “Your brother is a piece of shit, and you and your sister didn’t deserve any of that. I’m so sorry, Henry. But none of that is your fault, you know that, right? You didn’t choose to stop talking to your niece and nephew. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
Henry gives the smallest of smiles. He twists his hand around so they’re palm-to-palm, wrapping his fingers around his hand and squeezing. “Thank you, Alex. Truly. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about this. I’m… I’m thankful that you listened.”
“Hey, I’m a lawyer,” Alex jokes lamely. “Listening’s in my blood.”
Henry laughs quietly. They fall into a comfortable silence, and it takes Alex a moment to notice that their hands are still tangled together. It takes him yet another moment to realize that he really doesn’t mind.
He thinks back to what June and Nora said. Thinks back to Liam, thinks back to every moment he convinced himself that it was simply something a straight man would do. He’s not gay, he knows that. But he’s becoming more and more sure that he isn’t straight with each passing second of Henry’s hand weighed against his.
“I have something to tell you,” he says before he can stop himself. Henry looks up curiously. “It’s just — well, you told me this huge thing, and —”
“Alex,” Henry says quickly, “you don’t have to say anything you’re not comfortable with. You don’t owe me anything.”
“It’s not that. It’s something, um.” He rubs his face with his free hand. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, anyway. So, uh. I like girls. But I also… I also think I might like guys?”
Henry’s expression softens. It’s beautiful. “Oh,” he says quietly. “Like… like, bisexual?”
Bisexual.
And there it is — a word that takes a weight off his shoulders that he didn’t even know was there. He’s heard the term before, but always in passing, never aimed towards him, never giving it a thought if he could possibly be that way. But now that Henry has said it — it feels good. It feels more than simply good — it fits.
“Yeah,” he finally says. “Yeah, I… I think I’m bisexual.” His voice sounds rough. He clears his throat. “You’re the first person I’ve ever said that to.”
Henry’s soft smile appears again. He squeezes his hand once more. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. Coming out is a big step. I’m proud of you.”
And fuck, Alex certainly didn’t expect Henry to say anything like that, and he certainly didn’t expect to feel the lump slowly growing in his throat, and he certainly didn’t expect his vision to start to blur in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t expect to feel so safe, so welcome, so loved, all by that simple confession.
He’s about to open his mouth and tell Henry just that, but before the words can come out of his mouth, he hears the creak of the pool house door and the soft patter of footsteps against the concrete. He turns his head to see Nora and June walking out of the pool house, June holding a very tired looking Amelie on her hip.
“I think she finally crashed,” June says quietly. “We’re going to head out now. It was nice meeting you, Henry.”
Henry waves a hand goodbye as Alex nods, muttering his own goodbye so as to not rouse Amelie again. He watches June and Nora walk through the gate and back to the front yard, deliberately ignoring the knowing look Nora shoots back at him and Henry.
“I should get going as well,” Henry says after a moment, pulling his legs out of the pool. “Thank you for dinner tonight, it was lovely. And thank you again. For letting me ramble.” He looks away, a faint blush coating his cheeks, and this time Alex knows it’s definitely not from the sun. “I usually hold all those thoughts inside until it’s too much to handle. It was nice talking about it for once.”
“Hey,” Alex hears himself saying, “I mean it. I’ll always listen. And you too, thanks. For listening to me.”
Henry smiles, a wide, crooked, beautiful smile, and Alex just about dies. “Goodnight, Alex.”
“Goodnight,” Alex replies when he manages to find his voice again.
He falls asleep that night to the memory of Henry’s smile, and Henry haunts his dreams as well; appearing shirtless in his pool, and suddenly Alex is in the pool as well, and Henry is coaxing him to come closer, closer, until their chests are touching, and Henry’s breath is hot against his lips, and he tilts his chin up, and —
He realizes, waking up hard and Henry’s name on his lips, that there is no possible way that he could ever be straight.
He texts June and Nora later that day, a simple, Thanks for talking me to my senses last night. I’m pretty sure I’m bi, followed by lots of party face emojis from June and a message from Nora that says, Join the club. Alex laughs and reads their messages over and over until his cheeks hurt from smiling. Not even a bottle of lube and a stack of condoms that Nora sends him the next day can stop it.
Henry doesn’t change. He still arrives every Friday morning to clean the pool, and Alex continues to work by the poolside every Friday morning, talking and joking with Henry. Something feels different between them after their talk, Alex realizes. If he wasn’t sure if Henry was his friend before then, there’s no doubt that he is now. It’s hard to have your pool boy spill out his guts to you and not befriend him after that.
The only thing that does change, however, is that curling in Alex’s gut. It’s so much more intense now that he knows exactly what he has been feeling, now that he can put a word on it. And that feeling, fuck, he knows what that feeling is — longing. Desire. Adoration.
He wants Henry. Wants him more than he’s wanted anyone before.
And at this point, quite honestly, it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Henry will simply say hello to him and Alex will get hot watching the bob of his Adam’s apple. When Henry is shocking the pool, his tousled hair falling over his safety glasses really does something for Alex. It’s all Alex can do to not knock the pool net out of Henry’s hands and wrench him into a searing kiss, because, well. Alex isn’t sure if Henry wants him just as much.
Sometimes, though. Sometimes he’ll entertain himself with the idea. Sometimes when he’s practicing for court in the pool house, he’ll leave the curtains open just for the chance of Henry watching him, like he said he’s done before. When Henry is wrapping up for the day, Alex will pretend that he takes longer than usual to pack up just so he can stay a little longer with Alex. When they both get distracted from their own work because they’re talking to each other too much, Alex imagines what it would be like to simply lean over and kiss Henry on his perfect lips, and more times than not, he gets distracted by the stupid fantasy of Henry’s eyes focusing on his own lips when he talks.
That tension builds inside him throughout July, each time Henry gets water on his hands and pushes them through his hair and causes water droplets to slide down his temples, each time Henry squats down to check the pH of the pool and Alex can’t look away from his ass, each time Henry even fucking looks at him. By the time August rolls around, he’s just about at his limit. He can’t keep pretending that he’s not attracted to Henry, especially so when Henry is around, and each second that passes where Alex isn’t running his hands over his strong abs seems like a fucking crime. He feels like a rubber band, stretched tight, ready to snap at any second.
And then one Saturday afternoon late in August, the rubber band finally does snap. But not by him. By Henry.
Alex wakes up realizing that for spending all this money getting his pool cleaned, he hasn’t been swimming in it much. And what better way to spend today? It’s the weekend, the temperature is pushing ninety — he deserves to cool off in his own goddamn pool for once.
The water is cool and refreshing as he steps in, making him sigh in relief. It’s been a long fucking three weeks. His Fridays have been consumed by the office once again, hurrying to collect evidence against a new case, and Alex feels like he did three years ago, swamped with work and riding off the high of it, not pausing to take a break or sit down or even breathe… but now, standing waist-high in the water, he realizes he’s missed the feel of relaxation.
But the pool, evidently, also makes him think about Henry. Being back in the office on Fridays means he hasn’t seen Henry in nearly three weeks. He didn’t realize how much he would actually miss him, miss their conversations, miss Henry’s freckled shoulders. Fuck. The mere thought of Henry and his impossibly broad shoulders already has his dick twitching in anticipation.
He could just — no else is around, no one would know, even if it’s not in the safety of the pool house — but he could be quick, and no one would have to know, and Henry —
He hears the back gate open and his entire body snaps to attention. Fuck. Henry. Henry is here.
Henry looks just as surprised to see Alex in the pool as Alex is to see him. “Erm.” He stops in his tracks. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Alex offers. “Uh — why are you here?”
Henry blinks. “I had to reschedule,” he says. “I’m sure I called you yesterday. Remember?”
Alex has the faintest memory of it, piled into a room with three other colleges, going over what to do in this new case, his assistant rushing in the room, saying something about a pool cleaner, Alex waving him away with a “Yes, sure, whatever.”
He groans.
“Shit, sorry. I’ve been so busy at the firm, I forgot. I’m sorry. I can —” he starts to make his way out of the pool, but Henry stops him.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve been wondering how you’ve been. You haven’t been here the last few times I have and, well.” Henry hesitates for half a second. “I was concerned.”
“Oh,” Alex says. Concerned. He doesn’t know what to make of Henry being concerned. “I’m fine, it’s just work. This was my first proper day off in a while and I figured I should actually use the pool before the summer is over.”
That, at least, prompts a laugh from Henry. “Of course,” he says, smiling softly. “You deserve a break. I can come back next week, it’s no problem.”
The words are out of Alex’s mouth before he even realizes it: “Or you could stay here.”
Henry pauses. “Sorry?”
“Uh,” Alex manages, fumbling to save himself. “I just meant, you know, you work hard too. And I don’t even see you at your other appointments, but I know you bust your ass to clean those pools. And we rescheduled for today, and if you leave that’s just an hour you have to waste on your own, so… you can like, swim with me. You deserve to relax, too.”
“That’s, uh.” Henry coughs. “That’s very kind of you. But I don’t have any swim trunks.”
“I don’t mind.”
He immediately regrets it, immediately opens his mouth to apologize, but then — then Alex looks at Henry’s face, and oh. Oh.
Maybe all those times where he was fantasizing about Henry looking at him like he wanted to devour him weren’t fantasies at all. Because the look on his face right now… well. Alex isn’t sure he could imagine it if he tried.
“You don’t mind?” Henry repeats, his voice low. It hits Alex right in the gut. “Or… or do you want me to?”
Alex gulps. “I want you to.”
He swears Henry’s eyes grow dark. Before he can even blink, Henry drops the pool net and his bag of supplies and rips that stupid muscle tee over his head, letting it drop right next to the discarded bag. He kicks off his sandals next, and in one smooth motion, pushes his shorts down his legs and steps out of them, leaving him in nothing but a pair of deep blue underwear. Without so much as a second thought, he steps into the pool, and Alex. Alex can’t breathe.
Henry doesn’t stop until his body is inches away from Alex’s, the water rippling around their waists, making Alex shiver in anticipation. He locks eyes with Henry, feels his hot breath against his own lips. If he just closed those few inches of space between them, he could —
“Tell me now if I’ve read this situation completely wrong,” Henry murmurs, dropping his eyes straight to Alex’s lips, “in case I need to spare myself from further embarrassment.”
Alex almost laughs at that. He shakes his head. “No, I —” Impulsively, he moves his hands forward, grips Henry’s hips, makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat at the feel of Henry’s warm skin. “God, I want this so much. I want you, Henry.”
“Fuck,” Henry manages, sounding wrecked already, and then Henry’s hands are cupping his jaw and pulling him into a searing kiss.
Alex groans immediately. He drops his mouth open and pushes his body entirely against Henry’s. Henry’s tongue slides into his mouth, warm and wet and fucking sexy, and Alex tightens his hold on Henry’s hips. He’s never been kissed like this before. The frantic energy mixed with built-up passion and the scrape of Henry’s jaw against his chin and the low moan against his mouth is really doing something for him, making him weak in the fucking knees, and luckily Henry notices, because in no time at all, Henry has him pressed against the pool wall, his lips desperate and wild.
“Henry,” Alex manages, digging his nails into Henry’s waist, sighing when Henry’s mouth slips off to kiss a trail down the side of his neck.
“You don’t understand how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Henry groans against his skin, placing a wet kiss to his throat, making Alex bite his lip to hold back a whimper. “From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. Christ,” he says, sounding so wrecked already, so fucking wrecked. “I didn’t think I had a chance, and then you told me you were bi, and I — fuck, I need to —” He fits his mouth back to Alex’s, kissing him messily, threading his wet hands through Alex’s curls.
“God,” Alex gasps in between kisses. He’s gained enough confidence to touch Henry in places other than his hips, and he takes the opportunity to run his hands over his abs, practically melting at the contact. “I didn’t understand what I was feeling,” he manages to say. “I thought I was just really horny for no reason — fuck, I jerked off every morning you were here.”
Henry makes an animalistic noise, and it drives Alex insane. “Christ, you — fuck — can I touch you? Are you okay with that?”
“Oh my God, Henry, please,” Alex practically begs.
Henry pushes his hips against Alex, the water sloshing around them, and Alex can feel Henry’s cock against his thigh, noises reduced to sputtering whimpers when Henry does a slow, desperate grind, making them both gasp out in pleasure.
“Oh God,” Alex whimpers. He tilts his head up again, lips landing messily on Henry’s jaw. He kisses back up to his lips, licking into his mouth. “You’re so hard already, God —”
“Alex,” Henry says in that stupidly gorgeous accent, and Alex swears a part of him dies inside. “I need to know.” He pulls away enough for Alex to chase his lips, falling back when he’s only met with air. “How far do you want to go with this? Because I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.” He swallows, his eyes darkening all over again. “But if you want to…”
Alex nods frantically. “I want to,” he promises. “I’ve, uh. I’ve sex with a guy before. I’m okay with — with whatever you’re okay with.”
He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it certainly isn’t a laugh. He blinks, some of the desire fading from his brain, bringing him back to reality. “Huh?”
“You’ve had sex with a guy before, but you just came out as bi?” Henry chuckles. He moves back into Alex’s space, sucking his earlobe in between his lips, and Alex gasps. “Have you been shagging any man you could find for the past month?”
“I — I guess I was in denial for a long time — fuck, shit,” Alex manages, very distracted by Henry’s tongue. He digs his nails into Henry’s sides, dragging them down his skin, his stomach flipping at the delighted sound Henry makes from that. “Now are you gonna keep talking about the imaginary men I’ve fucked, or…”
Henry’s lips ghost over his cheek, his nose sliding against his own. “Or what?” he says in a low voice that hits Alex squarely in the gut.
Alex swallows, hoping Henry won’t notice how the desire is practically eating away at him. “Or are you gonna let me fuck you?”
Henry’s lips are back on his before he even realizes. Alex moans, first at the feel of Henry’s tongue swiping at his bottom lip, then at the press of his palm against his clothed cock under the water. He ruts into Henry’s hand involuntarily. And then Henry’s hand creeps higher, curls around the waistband of his swim trunks, slips inside, and — and fuck, Henry’s hand is gripping his cock, which is embarrassingly hard, and his motions are slow from the drag of the water but it only heightens Alex’s sensitivity, holding back a moan as he tugs on Henry’s bottom lip.
It isn’t fair that Henry’s doing all the work, Alex realizes in his libidinous haze, so he pulls Henry’s boxers down to his thighs and grips his cock, and oh. Henry is just as hard, nearly throbbing in his grip. He gives a short little moan as Alex runs his hand up and down his shaft, trying to familiarize himself with it. It’s been a while since he’s held another man’s dick. He racks his brain for memories of Liam, what he did to get him off, and tightens his grip on the upstroke, twisting his wrist ever so slightly. Henry falls right into it, practically growling against Alex’s mouth, and he moves his own hand faster, kisses Alex harder.
“You’re so hot,” he hears himself whisper in between kisses. He pushes his hips up, his cock brushing against Henry’s, making them both cry out. “Fuck, how are you so hot?”
“You’re the one to talk,” Henry breathes out, tonguing at the corner of Alex’s mouth. “You and your stupid face and your stupid blazers and your stupid mouth, Christ —” Henry breaks himself off, groaning into another messy kiss. Alex is just falling into it when Henry pulls back. “I don’t want to you fuck me in your pool.”
Alex blinks, trying to catch his breath. “Really? Because it’s kind of working for me.”
“God, me too,” Henry mutters, a hungry look forming in his eyes. “But I want you to take me. Properly.”
Alex can’t fight away the helpless noise that rises in his throat. He nods furiously. “I can do that.”
“Do you have lube?” Henry asks, tugging his boxers back up and pulling Alex to the steps of the pool.
Alex cringes. “Yeah, I, uh. Nora sent me some. She kind of, um, thought we were together at the barbecue.”
“Was I that obvious?” Henry says casually, climbing out the pool. Alex becomes momentarily distracted by the droplets rolling down his taut stomach, his strong thighs. He only snaps out of his daze when his eyes land on the large bulge in Henry’s boxers, suddenly reminded of what he’s about to do, and he scrambles out of the pool.
The second Alex slams the door to the pool house shut, Henry has him pressed up against it, pushing his hips shamelessly against Alex’s and grinding frantically. They moan in tandem, hands flying to get their clothes off, and they would be naked by now if they could just do this in an orderly fashion, but the desire is too strong, the lust built up since the beginning of the summer, and they’re much too desperate to take their time.
Alex’s swim trunks come off first, Alex stepping out of them clumsily as he pushes Henry towards the bed, and then Alex manages to peel Henry’s wet briefs off of him, and he has his hard cock in his hand again, and they fall onto the bed, Henry underneath him, hungrily thrusting into Alex’s fist.
A choked moan escapes from Henry’s lips, and in a second, he flips them over, pinning Alex’s hips to bed with his weight and pinning his wrists with his hands, kissing him wantonly. It’s a messy slide of lips and tongues, the air heavy with arousal, their cocks sliding together, precome already leaking from Alex’s tip. It’s the hottest thing he’s ever felt.
Henry kisses down his jaw, his chest, his stomach, kissing both of his hip bones as he settles in between Alex’s legs. He blinks at Alex. His lips are parted, deep pink and slightly swollen from all the kissing, his chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. He eyes Alex’s cock greedily. “Is this — can I —”
“Fuck, do whatever you want,” Alex says breathlessly.
Henry moans. He wraps his hand around Alex’s cock, giving it a few quick strokes, making Alex hiss and thrust upwards. He watches as a bead of precome forms and rolls down his shaft, watches Henry zero in on it, and then all thoughts are out the window as Henry licks a stipe up his cock.
“Shit,” he gasps, biting hard on his bottom lip. Henry doesn’t stop. He takes the head of Alex’s cock into his mouth instead, swirling his tongue around, groaning at the taste of his precome. He inhales through his nose, and without any warning, sinks his mouth over the rest of Alex’s dick, not stopping until his lips touch his own fist.
Henry doesn’t waste any time, hollowing his cheeks and sucking, bobbing his head up and down in time with Alex’s pathetic little thrusts, making pleased noises whenever Alex’s dick touches the back of his throat. And Alex was wrong before, this is the hottest thing he’s ever felt, Henry looking so wrecked just from having Alex’s cock in his mouth, his hips pushing against the mattress, trying to give himself some sort of relief, blinking up at Alex with his deep blue eyes as he swallows him down.
“Henry,” he manages to pant when Henry eases off his cock and starts to lick at his balls, sucking one of them into his mouth. He cries out, fingers twisting into the sheets. His cock is straining, the head a dangerous shade of red, and Alex doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard in his life. “Henry, I don’t think I can last much longer.”
Henry doesn’t respond. He pops his mouth off his balls, planting slow kisses to the underside of his dick, breathing in his scent. It’s so fucking erotic, and the heat is stabbing in Alex’s gut, and now he knows he’s going to lose it if Henry keeps this up for one more second, so he threads his fingers in Henry’s hair and pulls his head up. “You’re amazing. Fuck,” he laughs. “But I need to fuck you. Now.”
Henry shivers. He nods, twisting his head to the side to press a kiss to the inside of Alex’s wrist. “Where’s your lube?”
“Uh.” Alex turns his head towards the other side of the pool house, trying to spot the box. He ignores the way Henry is placing delicate kisses to the palm of his hand, to his fingers, but it’s fucking hard. He can’t believe this is actually happening, that he has a man who is basically a personified version of sex itself in his bed, a man who seems just as turned on by him as Henry is making him feel. Henry sucks two fingers into his mouth, moaning, and Alex muffles his whimper as best as he can. He finally spots the box that Nora sent over, hastily thrown underneath the coffee table. “It’s underneath the table there,” he says roughly, pointing. “There’s condoms too.”
Henry pulls off his fingers. “Excellent,” he says, and there’s a slight rasp to his voice, too, and the sound of it should not make Alex’s insides twist the way they do.
Henry clambers off the bed and starts for the box. Alex watches him walk over, his eyes shamelessly trained on his bare ass. Fuck, all his fantasies of Henry’s ass doesn’t do the real picture justice. He pushes himself against the pillows as he tries to get comfortable, fighting the urge to touch himself. He’s afraid that he’ll come the second he slips into Henry’s tight heat, and he’s prepared to do anything to make him last as long as possible, even if that means depriving himself of any relief.
Henry comes back with the bottle of lube and a long string of condoms. “Just in case,” he rushes out, climbing back on top of Alex and fitting their mouths together. Alex kisses him with no restraint, gasping feverishly against his lips and tugging Henry closer by his hair.
Henry presses the lube bottle into his palm. “Can I ride you?” he asks in a wrecked voice. “I just — fuck, you would look so hot, please —”
“Oh my God, yes,” Alex groans. He tries to uncap the bottle, but his hands are shaking so much that he keeps missing. He finally succeeds after three tries and manages to pour some into his hand. “Do I — do I just —”
“Here,” Henry says, his voice suddenly sickeningly sweet, and he holds Alex’s wrist in his hand and guides it to his behind. Alex’s hand brushes against the soft skin of his ass, and fuck, he wants nothing more than to grab it, but then his fingers are pressing against Henry’s hole, and it’s all Alex can focus on.
He doesn’t push in, just rubs his fingers against Henry’s entrance, spreading the lube. Henry whimpers, pressing back against Alex’s hand. “Don’t be a tease,” he pleads.
“Whatever you say,” Alex manages, kissing Henry’s jaw, and then he’s pushing a finger inside, long and intrusive, but clearly Henry doesn’t think so. He welcomes it, drops his mouth open and moans, immediately pushes the finger back to get it in deeper.
“Fuck,” Alex pants. He moves his finger in and out, setting up a slow pace, not sure how Henry wants it. “Is it good?”
“It’s so good,” Henry praises. His head drops back in a soundless moan. “Another, I need more.”
Alex pulls his finger out, then presses two together and slides them back in. Henry is so tight, so fucking tight, the pressure already so good around his fingers, and Alex is sure that he’ll die once he’s actually inside of Henry. He crooks his fingers as he starts up shallow, short thrusts, trying to find the spot that will make him fall apart. Henry helps him, whispering things such as, “Right there, right there,” or “Aim up a bit,” or even pushing himself up on Alex’s chest and saying, “Let me,” and proceeding to ride Alex’s fingers right then and there.
Alex can’t do much except lay there and watch, and he’s certainly not complaining, God, if he was turned on at the sight of Henry with a pool net, this was on a completely different level. He lets Henry take the lead, crooking the tips of his fingers every once in a while to offer any source of stimulation, and after a moment, Henry freezes up, his eyes flying open as he gasps and his hips rut against Alex’s abdomen.
“There, huh?” Alex chuckles breathlessly. He stops Henry’s hips with the press of his hand, using the other to thrust hard into Henry’s prostate. Henry just nods and groans, greedily welcoming each thrust of Alex’s fingers.
“Another,” he demands, and Alex can’t fucking say no, not when they’re this far in, so he slides a third finger next to the other two and continues with his thrusts, doing everything he knows to stretch Henry out. “Alex, I — Christ, your fingers, I’m going to come if you —”
And Alex can’t have that, oh no, he can’t have that at all, so he hastily pulls out his fingers, much to Henry’s disapproval. He groans in frustration rather than arousal, shooting Alex a death glare from above him.
“I thought you wanted me to fuck you,” Alex says as casually as he can muster, reaching for one of the condoms and tearing the wrapper open with his teeth.
Henry’s eyes widen, as if he forgot what the eventual goal was, and he nods. He bends down, catches Alex’s lips in a greedy kiss, pushing his tongue in his mouth and drinking up his moans. It’s so distracting. The condom falls from Alex’s hand, and Henry grabs it himself. “Let me,” he says again, his voice low, dripping with sex itself, and Alex shivers, perfectly content with letting Henry take control.
Henry lifts himself off Alex’s hips and settles in between his legs once more. Judging by the look in his eyes, Alex thinks Henry has half a mind to forget about fucking and simply go back to sucking his dick, but Henry only kisses the tip of his cock, collecting more precome with his tongue. He slides the condom over Alex’s hard length and reaches for the lube.
Alex hisses when Henry touches him again, desperately trying to keep his hips still and let Henry do what needs to be done. And Henry doesn’t waste any time; he hastily slathers on the lube and straddles Alex’s hips once more, gripping Alex’s cock with one hand. They lock eyes. Alex can’t fucking breathe.
Henry shifts, the tip of Alex’s cock pressing against his hole, making Alex gasp without meaning to. And then Henry is sinking down, overwhelming Alex with the heat squeezing around every inch of him. He wants to thrust up so badly, his instincts heightened more than they ever have before, but he stays put, controls himself by running his hands up and down Henry’s stupidly strong thighs as he waits for Henry to adjust.
Henry lets out a low moan, rolling his hips. His cock is fully erect and pointing up, precome dripping down the length, and he looks so fucking gone already, and they haven’t even started. Fuck, they haven’t even started, and Henry already looks like this. He probably has no idea how good he looks, how blissed out his face is, how dilated his pupils are and how flushed his face and neck are.
Henry zeros on him with a hungry gaze. Alex gulps. He’s suddenly aware that he has no idea how he looks, and yet Henry does. Henry does, and Henry looks like he’d devour him in a second if he could.
Henry plants his hands over Alex’s chest and rises an inch or two off of Alex’s cock, then drops back down. The moans that startle out of the both of them are low and wanton, full of desperation and months of yearning, and finally, finally, they’re here. They’re here, on the small bed in Alex’s pool house, Henry slowly, slowly riding him.
Henry’s face flashes with pleasure as he picks up the pace, lifting himself more and more off of Alex and slamming back down. “Alex,” he cries out, sounding so broken, and Alex’s toes curl at the sound. “You feel so good, Christ, you’re so hard, can’t believe we waited so long.”
“I know, baby,” Alex gasps, the pet name slipping out, and Henry moans loudly. Alex stares up at him, incredulous.
“Call me that again,” Henry mutters softly, his eyes closed, his cheeks pink, moving slowly up and down Alex’s cock.
“Baby,” Alex says immediately, and Henry whines, nodding. Alex moves his hands to Henry’s waist, thumbing over his hip bones, not attempting to control the pace that Henry set but simply feeling it, being as close to it as possible. “Baby, you’re so good. You’re beautiful, you don’t know how long I’ve been imagining this, God —”
“Move with me,” Henry commands, sliding one hand down Alex’s chest, his stomach, as close as he can get to his hips. “I want you, I want to feel you, Alex.”
“Fuck, okay,” Alex moans, and any bit of resolve he had left is gone, gripping Henry’s hips with vigor and thrusting into him. Henry slams down at the same time, a guttural groan flying from his chest as their bodies sink together. It’s better this way, the two of them moving in tandem, drawing out every bit of pleasure in each other and relishing in it. Alex has never felt this before. Not with any of his girlfriends, not with Liam, but somehow with Henry, it’s nothing he’s ever experienced before. It’s driving him insane in the best way possible. Alex isn’t able to get enough of it.
The late afternoon sun has been steadily dropping down the horizon, and now, peeking through the many windows of the pool house, it falls directly on them, and Alex is mesmerized by the sight in front of him. Henry, bathed in the warm light of the golden hour, glowing and radiant, perspiration shining on his forehead, his throat, his shoulders, and Alex couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.
He meant what he said before — You’re beautiful. Because Henry is beautiful, he always noticed Henry’s beauty, but now, with Henry letting his beauty shine through for him and only him to see, it hits Alex with so much more intensity than he thought it ever could. It has tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. Or maybe that’s simply the result of the mind-blowing orgasm that’s sure to erupt from him in any second.
He wants to tell Henry exactly how he feels, wants to describe Henry’s beauty in words that haven’t even been invented yet, but the only thing that he can make fall from his lips are moans and broken cries, so he grabs Henry’s wrist and tugs him down, fits his mouth to his once more. He’s moaning wildly into their kisses, and so is Henry, and they’re both so desperate that it doesn’t matter, hips meeting again and again and lips moving gracelessly, drunk on the image and the taste and the sounds of Henry.
Alex shifts, taking hold of Henry’s hips and thrusting at a new angle, and Henry’s entire body convulses. His moan is only muffled by Alex’s lips against his. He breaks away, resting his forehead against Alex’s. “Do that again,” he says breathlessly. “Right there. Please.”
“I’ve got you, baby,” Alex promises, and Henry cries out again, from the angle or from the name, Alex can’t tell. He squeezes Henry’s hips with ferocity as he pounds into his prostate over and over again, Henry’s hips wild as he tries to meet his thrusts, his body on autopilot now, but Alex can’t bring himself to care. In fact, he loves it even more, seeing Henry utterly taken apart, unable to be in control of his own movements. He groans against Henry’s mouth as he kisses him.
“I’m so close,” Henry breathes, tangling both hands in Alex’s hair and tugging, wrenching a moan out of Alex, and fuck, he likes that. He likes that a lot. He kisses Alex with desperation, hips working furiously. “Can’t stand how good you feel, how fucking good —”
He’s cut off by a long moan as Alex wraps a hand around his throbbing cock. Alex swipes his thumb over the head, spreading the precome, matching his strokes with his thrusts. His own orgasm is just under the surface, threatening to bubble over, toes curling in anticipation, but he won’t let himself come until Henry lets go, until Henry gets there first.
“You still with me?” Henry pants, and Alex realizes that his eyes have slipped shut. He opens them, locks immediately with Henry’s deep blue irises. He blinks, words failing him. Henry brings their mouths together again in a chaste kiss. “Love, talk to me,” he murmurs against his lips.
Alex has to do everything in his power to stop the embarrassing whine threatening to rip from his throat at the nickname. Love, fuck. “I’m good,” he manages. He licks over Henry’s bottom lip, nudges their noses together. “Wanna see you come.”
“Christ, I’m nearly there, I’m —”
Henry cuts himself off by his whole body shaking. Alex feels the come dripping down his fingers before he realizes what’s happening, but once he does, he fucks Henry through his orgasm, milking every drop of come out of him until Henry is boneless and about to collapse in his arms.
Except he doesn’t. He stills on top of Alex’s cock for a moment, catching his breath, and then he straightens up again. Alex is two steps behind him, not realizing what Henry’s plan is until Henry is lifting himself off Alex’s dick again and slamming back down. Alex’s hips thrust into Henry’s tight heat automatically, a moan flying from his lips.
“Come on,” Henry mumbles, more to himself than to Alex, letting his head fall back between his shoulders. He moves his hips faster, clenching around Alex. “Come on, come on —”
Alex’s orgasm bursts out of him without another thought. His mouth drops open as he pushes his head into the pillow, hips bucking helplessly into Henry as he empties himself. Henry takes it all, whimpering from the oversensitivity, but he doesn’t complain, just moves in time with Alex’s body until he’s spent, gasping at the ceiling and unable to move.
Henry manages to pull himself off of Alex’s cock before he crashes beside him. They don’t speak, the only sound between them being their heavy breaths as they try to come back to their senses. Alex blinks. He can’t feel his legs. His lips feel swollen. He feels absolutely wrecked, and God, he loved every second of it.
Eventually, enough feeling returns to his legs for him to discard the condom in the bathroom trash bin. He falls back in the bed next to Henry, who immediately curls an arm around his waist and pulls him closer, lips grazing his throat. He hums contentedly, sending shivers all through Alex’s body.
“That was amazing,” Henry says in a weak voice. “You were amazing. Fuck.”
Alex agrees; it was amazing. And Henry, well, he doesn’t have the words to describe how amazing Henry was. He stays silent, breathing in the scent of Henry’s hair until Henry pulls back enough to look at him, his brow furrowed in concern.
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, his thumb brushing tenderly over Alex’s cheekbone.
“I like you,” Alex hears himself say. He swallows. Fuck, there’s no going back now. “Do you… do you like me? Or was this just sex?”
Henry blinks. “Of course I like you,” he says. “Christ, Alex — I had to stop myself from getting my hopes up every Friday. When you started staying out with me when I worked, I thought it was too good to be true. I would go back home and look up your court cases and watch them for hours, and I would be mesmerized by the way you took control of the room. And I got to see you practicing here, and you were so real and passionate and I thought I couldn’t hold back any longer. Yes. I like you so much.”
“So, um.” Alex can’t believe what he’s hearing. “A date sometime?”
Henry’s face splits into a grin. “I would love that.”
Alex grins as well, and Henry leans in to kiss him, messy and giddy and unabashed, and Alex’s heart flips in his chest, like it’s been doing ever since Henry stepped foot on his back patio. He thinks to himself that he’ll never get used to the feeling.
“You can stay if you want,” he tells Henry after they break apart, and Henry smiles and says he will, and they spend the rest of the afternoon trading lazy kisses and soft touches, only getting out of bed to fix dinner and then falling right back in again, making good use of the rest of the string of condoms.
Henry does more than stay that night. He stays for the rest of the summer, stays through the autumn, and when Alex covers the pool up for the winter Henry still stays, no longer Alex’s pool boy but Alex’s boyfriend, his boyfriend whom he now lives with, his boyfriend whom he loves with his entire being.