The Handsome Stranger - Part 5

All characters are consenting adults (18+) 

“That must have been some fall” the nurse smiled, and shot me a look which told me that she hadn’t believed a single word of my story. I turned away as she finished with the cast, and a short while later, we were driving home.

“I’m just glad Austin was there to look after you” Dad said, “what on earth were you doing on the stairs?”

I couldn’t look at him when I lied. Dad was like a human lie detector, so I mumbled off some nonsense excuse, and he chuckled.

“Well, at least you’ve got another hand, huh?”

I grimaced, and as we pulled into the drive, I noticed Austin sitting in the living room.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that he spends so much time with us?” I asked.

“Maybe he’s just lonely” Dad said, “he’s hundreds of miles away from home, so I guess we’re the closest thing to family that he has”.

I played with the idea in my head. Was Austin just doing all of this to be friends with me? The jokes, the teasing, helping me into bed. Was it all just friendly fun? As we walked inside, I wasn’t so sure.

“How is it?” Austin asked, getting to his feet even before Mom came out.

“Uh… Broken” I said, lifting up the heavy cast.

“At least you have another hand” he joked, and I rolled my eyes as Dad cracked up.

“That’s what I said!” I heard him laugh and I walked into the living room and fell onto the sofa.

“So” Austin smiled, strolling back inside. “Got anything you wanna’ say?”

I cocked a brow.

“No?”

“You sure about that?” He smirked, and sat down next to me.

“What would I possibly want to say to you?”

“Oh, I don’t know” he grinned, “sorry, maybe?”

“Why the fuck would I be the one apologising? I hit you because you were being an ass”.

“No, you hit me because you’re an angry little brat”.

“Are we really gonna do this again?” I sighed, because I was completely exhausted from spending the entire day at the hospital.

“Wanna see something cool?” He asked, completely switching tactics, and admittedly, catching me off guard.

“What, are we eight now? No, I don’t wanna’ see your rock collection”.

Austin flashed his perfect smile, and stood up. “Come on” he said, and although I wanted nothing more than to just chill, I reluctantly got to my feet and followed him up the stairs and into Bradley’s old bedroom.

I could smell Austin from the room. I couldn’t deny that it was a pretty nice scent, but I scowled to myself. It felt like part of my childhood had been changed.

“Well?” I said, as he stopped in front of me, “what do you want to show me?”

Austin spun around before I could make sense of anything, and suddenly his body was pressed against mine, and our lips met.

“What the fuck!” I snapped, shoving him backwards as I fell against the door and it slammed shut. “W… What was that?!”

He stared at me with those dark, deep eyes. He was slightly breathless, but not as much as me. The guy had just fucking kissed me!

I expected him to be apologetic about it, but instead, Austin just laughed, and I remained frozen in place, utterly shocked at what had just happened.

“You… You just kissed me!”.

The handsome young man shrugged his shoulders but he didn’t reply, so the two of us stood in silence whilst I tried to make sense of everything.

“Haven’t you ever been kissed before?” He asked, strolling around his bed.

“N… Not like that” I said, but the truth was that I’d never been kissed at all.

“Well, now you have”.

How was he so calm about it? Had this been his plan all along? Is this what Austin did? I rubbed my face and blinked away my shock, before pulling open the door.

“You’re messing with my head, Austin” I sighed.

I spent the entire night playing over what had happened. None of it made sense to me. One minute the guy hated me, and did everything he could to get a reaction from me, and the next minute he was tucking me into bed and kissing me!

Was he even gay? He didn’t seem gay. He certainly didn’t look gay, but then again, what did gay even look like? I didn’t know any other gay people. In fact, I still wasn’t even sure if I was gay, but on a gay-scale, Austin seemed to be at the very, very bottom. Plus, he didn’t act gay, he didn’t sound gay, and if anything, Austin appeared to be even ‘straighter’ than Dad!

I was no longer denying the fact that I was growing increasingly interested in Austin, but I was beginning to think that my interest was based solely on the fact that he was so god damn strange.

When the sun rose the next morning, and Mom and Dad left for work, I considered staying in bed until they returned. The idea of bumping into Austin downstairs after what had happened the previous night made my stomach churn, but after an hour of lying there, I had no choice.

His bedroom door was open, which meant that he was already downstairs. I moved quietly to avoid meeting him, but it was pointless. The house wasn’t that big, and as soon as I walked into the kitchen, Austin walked through the back door, his tanned, shirtless body glistening.

“Mornin’” he said, raising a cup of coffee, “how’s your hand?”

“Uh… Fine” I mumbled, pulling cereal out of the cupboard.

I expected another awkward conversation, but I was beginning to realise that expecting anything from Austin was a mistake. The guy was completely unpredictable, and once he’d filled up his coffee, he returned to the backyard without another word.

I took my cereal into the living room, partly because it was the only time I could eat in there without my parents chewing me out, but also because it gave me a good vantage point. I watched as Austin stretched his impressive body under the sun, and began unscrewing the broken shed door.

“Kiss ass” I mumbled.

How was I supposed to live like this? Deep down I was still kicking myself for reacting so stupidly to the kiss, and now, I’d almost certainly blown whatever it was that was beginning to blossom between us. Austin wasn’t going to try it again after my response, that was for sure, and now I was supposed to just accept it?

“I need your help” his voice came, a couple of hours later, and I looked up at him and pointed to my broken wrist. “I don’t need your hand” he said, “I need your help”.

I rolled my eyes and sighed as I got to my feet and followed the shirtless stud out into the backyard. It was even warmer than it had been before, despite the fact that the summer was drawing to a close, and I felt a flurry of butterflies in my stomach as I stood behind him and watched beads of sweat roll down his muscular back.

“What do you think?” He asked, and pulled open the door to the old shed.

It had been years since I’d seen the inside of it. The last time I’d actually been in there was when I was a kid, with my brother. I remembered the days we spent outside building it with Dad, and smiled to myself as I stepped in.

“Wow” I said, looking around. Not only had Austin repaired all of the broken planks and floorboards, but he’d cleaned the entire thing and made it look just like it did years before. “I didn’t know Dad wanted to fix this old thing up”.

“He didn’t” he said, looking up at the roof.

“So, why did you do it?” I asked, cocking a brow.

Austin looked down at me for a moment, before shrugging his naked shoulders. Once again, the sweet, fresh scent of sweat filled my lungs, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t delicious.

“You like it, then?” He asked, running his hand through his sweaty hair.

“I guess”.

“You guess?” He smiled.

“Yeah, I guess” I replied, smugly.

Neither of us spoke for a moment, but for the first time since Austin had arrived, it didn’t feel awkward. I held his gaze until I couldn’t help but look away, and then I heard him chuckle.

“What’s so funny?”

“You” he said. “You’re funny”.

“How am I funny?”

“You just are, Cooper” he said, and although he didn’t actually move, he felt closer.

“R… Right” I swallowed, then watched as he took a step forward and decided that this time, I would accept the kiss that I had so stupidly refused the night before.

I closed my eyes as the warmth of his body engulfed me, and lifted my head to meet his lips with mine. My whole body felt electrified as Austin brushed against me, until the young man spoke.

“Sorry” he said, and shoved by me, “I just need to get this”.

I looked around, completely mortified as Austin reached above my head and grabbed a tin of varnish from the shelf over me. Immediately, my face burned red with embarrassment, and I shuffled out of the shed.

“Hey, where are you going?” He called, but I couldn’t look back. I was mortified, and now I’d made everything worse.