My old best-friend - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Author’s note: All my characters are consenting adults (18+). All sexual acts depicted are consensual between the adult characters.

Chapter 1

It was the hottest summer anyone in town could remember.

The kind of heat that didn’t care about shade or fans or the fact that you’d already taken three cold showers before noon. It sat on your skin and stayed there. I had just turned eighteen. College started in six weeks — English literature, the only thing I’d ever been sure about. I was skinny, tall, completely hairless, and had the athletic ability of a wet paper bag. Most of my friends had already left for the coast or for summer jobs in bigger cities. I had a cheap pop-up pool in the backyard, a stack of books I kept meaning to finish, and a mother who worked double shifts at the hospital and didn’t want me rattling around an empty house until September.

That was how Jonas Weber ended up back in my life.

My mom’s best friend since nursing school had to fly to Germany on short notice. Jonas’s grandmother, had taken a bad turn. Someone needed to be there. Jonas’s mom asked if he could stay with us while she was gone. My mother said yes before she even ran it by me.

“He’s a good kid underneath all the noise,” she said while packing lunch for her night shift. “You two used to tear around the backyard every summer until they moved. It’ll be fine.”

“He used to hold my head underwater until I actually panicked,” I said.

“You were children.”

“He was thirteen. I was twelve. He timed it.”

She gave me the look that ended conversations. “He’s nineteen. You’re eighteen. You’re both adults. The guest room is full of your aunt’s boxes, so he’ll take the extra mattress in your room. A few weeks. Be decent.”

I wasn’t decent about it in my head.

Jonas had always been bigger. Even before the wrestling obsession and the serious lifting, he’d been the kind of kid who occupied space like the rest of us were temporary. When his family moved to the house next to us when I was around note or ten, he arrived with a mean streak, and a talent for finding the exact place I was soft. He had always an older vibe, a precocious teenager. He’d grown into all of it. From the rare photos that still showed up on mutual friends’ stories he looked like someone who lived in a weight room and never missed practice. Shaved sides, longer on top. Hoodies and headphones. The same half-smile that used to mean I was about to get shoved into something.

I was the one who had to pick him up at the airport.

I saw him before he saw me.

Gray hoodie zipped halfway despite the heat pouring in through the terminal windows. Big headphones around his neck. Gym bag over one shoulder. Black shorts that sat loose on his hips. He walked like the crowd should part. When he finally spotted me and changed direction, the first thing I noticed was the thickness of his arms under the sleeves. He stopped in front of me, looked me over from shoes to hair, and grinned.

“David. Holy shit. You’re still a stick.”

“Hi, Jonas.”

“That’s the greeting? No hug for the guy who taught you how to take a punch?” He stepped in and gave me two solid hits in the shoulder, the same casual “violence” he used when we were kids, except now it left a real ache. “You got taller. Still look like a strong breeze would fold you in half.”

“Good to see you too.”

“Liar.” He smelled like cheap body spray and recycled airplane air and something warmer underneath that was just sweat. “Lead the way, nerd. I’m melting in this thing.”

I walked him toward the parking garage. He talked the entire way — the flight, how strange it felt to be back in this city without his mom, how his grandmother still only spoke German and her sudden disease. His voice had dropped since the last time I’d heard it in person. When he laughed it came from somewhere low in his chest.

“You still write those little stories?” he asked as we waited for the elevator.

“Trying to.”

“Cute. You gonna write one about me this summer? The tragic return of the childhood friend?”

“Hadn’t planned on it.”

“You should. Make me look good. Big arms. Heroic jaw. The whole thing.” He flexed once in the elevator doors’ reflection and laughed at himself. “I’m serious. If you’re gonna be a writer you might as well start with quality material.”

The car was an oven. The second we closed the doors the heat amplified everything. Jonas dropped into the passenger seat like he owned it, kicked the seat back, and immediately reached for the aux cord.

“You still listen to sad guitar music?”

“Sometimes.”

“Criminal.” He connected his phone. Travis Scott filled the speakers at a volume that made the rearview mirror vibrate. He stretched his legs as far as the footwell allowed, cracked his neck, and finally yanked the hoodie off in one motion.

The white tank top underneath was already stuck to him in places.

I tried not to look. I failed almost immediately.

His arms were worse up close. Thick through the biceps, veins running down into his forearms, the kind of size you only get from years of actual work. His armpits were dark with hair and visibly damp. The moment the hoodie came off, the smell hit the closed cabin in a solid wave — deodorant fighting a losing war against pure heat, travel, and sweat. It was sharp and heavy and unmistakably male. It went past my brain and straight into the base of my stomach.

I cracked my window.

Jonas noticed and smirked without turning his head.

“What, I stink already? Sorry, dude, long hot flight.”

“It’s hot.”

“No shit.” He lifted one arm and scratched the back of his neck, giving me a clear view of the wet hollow. A single drop of sweat rolled from the center of his pit and tracked down his ribs before disappearing into the tank. “Germany’s summers are not like this compared to this. I forgot what a real summer feels like. You still spend all day reading under a tree like you’re allergic to sunlight?”

“Pretty much.”

“Figures. Somebody’s got to keep the nerd numbers stable.” He adjusted the vent so it blew more on him than on me. “You actually excited for college? Books and papers and sitting still for four years?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Adorable.” He said it like an insult and a compliment at the same time. “Little David the writer. Bet you still keep a journal with feelings in it.”

I didn’t answer. Traffic thickened near the highway on-ramp. The car crawled. The AC made a tired sound and mostly failed. Jonas’s tank was translucent in patches now. Every time he shifted in the seat another pulse of that male scent filled the space between us. I kept both hands on the wheel and stared at the brake lights ahead like they were the only solid thing left in the world.

“You’re quiet,” he said after a while.

“I’m driving.”

“You’re always quiet. Used to drive me insane when we were kids. I’d shove you into a bush and you’d just sit there looking at me like you were taking notes for later.” He laughed, low. “You ever tell your mom about any of that?”

“No.”

“Smart man. She still thinks I’m a good influence?”

“She thinks if I talk to you enough you might apply to community college.”

Jonas snorted. “College. Right. I’ll get on that right after I win a title and learn how to sit still for more than ten minutes.” He turned his head and looked at me properly for the first time since the airport. His eyes were darker than I remembered. “You really like that shit? Reading. Writing. All of it.”

“Yeah.”

“Weird.” He said it without heat. Almost curious. “I don’t get it. But I guess somebody’s got to.”

The light ahead turned red. We stopped. A drop of sweat left his hairline, ran down the side of his neck, and vanished under the collar of the tank. I watched it. He watched me watch it. I couldn’t stop looking, it was magnetic. His scent was addictive. I wish I could…

Then, without any warning at all, Jonas reached across the center console, fisted a handful of my hair, and dragged my head sideways into his armpit.

The smell was total.

Hot skin. Wet hair. The broken chemical edge of deodorant ripped open by hours of travel and this heat. Underneath it, something thicker and living that was only him. My nose was crushed against the damp center of his pit. My mouth opened on a sound I didn’t plan. His bicep locked against the back of my skull like a strap, holding me there while the Travis Scott “Fein” kept playing like nothing was happening.

“There we go,” he said, voice almost light. “Soak some of that up. You still smell like paper and laundry detergent. Fucking sad.”

I shoved at his ribs. My palm hit solid muscle and did nothing.

“Jonas—”

“Relax. It’s good for you. Real testosterone. Scientific.” He dragged my face an inch higher, then an inch lower, smearing the wet heat across my cheek and the bridge of my nose and the corner of my mouth. I could taste salt. My cock jumped so hard in my shorts that I was grateful the steering wheel blocked any view. “Breathe, lil’ buddy. You’re turning the color of a stop sign.”

I breathed.

I hated how deep the breath went. I hated the way my eyelids fluttered. I hated that for one long second I stopped pushing and just took it — the smell, the heat, the casual ownership of his hand in my hair — like my body had been waiting for this exact humiliation since the last time he’d shoved me under water.

Jonas held me there longer than a joke required.

When he finally let go, my face was slick on one side and the entire right half of my head smelled like him. He was already looking forward again, one arm draped over the back of the seat, the picture of innocence except for the faint color high on his cheekbones and the way his chest was rising a little too fast.

“Green light,” he said.

I drove.

My hands were locked on the wheel hard enough to ache. Every inhale pulled another hit of him off my own skin. The worst part wasn’t the embarrassment. The worst part was the clean, sharp fact of how hard I was, and how little control I seemed to have over it, and how Jonas had done it as easily as changing the song.

He turned the volume up and tapped out the beat on his knee with two thick fingers.

“This summer’s gonna be fun,” he said, almost to himself. “I can already tell.”

I didn’t trust my voice.

I kept my eyes on the road, face still damp, the smell of his armpit living in my nose, and tried to count how many weeks were left before his mother came back from Germany and took him away again to their city.

It already felt like too many.

And not enough.