Touch the Sky (Free Fall Book 1) by Nyrae Dawn, Christina Lee

breaths.
    He comes first. He cries out as I feel him tense, feel his sticky fluid running down our cocks as he keeps working them, and I keep thrusting. He’s fucking gorgeous this way, lost in passion, and then I’m coming too, white ropes spilling all over his T-shirt. Gabe won’t be wearing that home. “Good thing you brought that hoodie,” I tell him, before collapsing on top of him. Our laughter blurs together, our chests and stomachs vibrating against each other.
    This moment is one of the coolest I’ve ever lived.

17
    Gabriel
    L ucas ,
    At least when you used your fist against your mom’s boyfriend you were protecting a person you love. When my dad uses his fists, it’s because he wants to intimidate me or teach me a lesson. He hasn’t used them much, but it doesn’t even matter, the damage is already done.
    I swear if I ever have a kid, I won’t raise my hands as a fear tactic. I won’t catch him off guard, like my dad did with me yesterday, because Mom told him I was moping around in my room. I won’t slam my child into the wall, place my forearm against his throat, cut off his airway, and tell him to stop acting like a moody girl. I’ll talk to my kid for fuck’s sake, try to get inside his head, help him cope better with life. Make him feel like he has somebody who’s in his corner.
    Sometimes I just want to get the hell away from this house, this life. To go up in the sky, where there are only birds and clouds, and fly. Did I ever tell you how it felt the first time my Uncle Dorian took me up in his plane? He’s a commercial pilot and really cool. He made me feel like dreams were possible. He told me to contact him when I graduate high school and he’ll help me figure it all out. Sometimes I wish he were my dad.
    Glad you got a new computer, because I have you to talk to again. I missed you. I can’t even imagine what my dad would do if he found out I was jerking off to gay porn. Is that what you meant about being scared? Or did you mean about the actual sex part? I hope my first time is with somebody who knows what they’re doing and who will help me figure it out. Or at least somebody who cares. Sometimes I dream that my first time is with somebody like you. Don’t freak out or take that the wrong way—I just mean somebody who gets me. I almost didn’t write that sentence but I figure you’d understand.
    You and me? We got this.
    Gabriel

    I ’ve been walking for hours. It’s the only thing I can think to do to exhaust myself, rid myself all this negative nervous energy since I got an email from my mom. She told me that my Uncle Dorian died suddenly from a heart attack. It was like a punch to my gut.
    It’s not like he and I were that close—we probably only spoke by email twice a year since graduation. He was my father’s brother and he knew his boundaries when it came to involving himself in our family business. My dad made it clear that I was enrolling in SDU and to stop encouraging me with talk of flying. But even then, Uncle Dorian had remained a kind of lifeline for me, somebody who I still aspired to be. And now it feels like one more piece of the landscape of my life has shifted and changed.
    It’s been a week since I last saw Lucas, we’ve both been pretty busy with work, yet somehow I end up at his apartment. He isn’t home. Behind my initial disappointment, I’m mostly relieved. I’m kind of a mess and if he sees me like this, he might wonder how in the hell he could’ve kissed or touched me with that much longing and passion the other night. Fuck, I’ve probably jerked off thinking about the weight of his body on top of mine three times since then.
    Sliding down the wall, I decide to rest for five minutes on the hallway’s dingy carpet. Just to get my breaths in some semblance of order before hiking it out of here. I didn’t realize how tight my muscles had grown from being in constant motion.
    I rest my head on the flaking paint—my hands twitching, my foot