A/N: It's Mother's Day, Momma's Boy is over a year old now and I want to take a quick moment to thank you, reader, for your support. I know I'm slow to update and I'll try to be better, but thanks for sticking around.
I'm sorry I don't respond to reviews and messages, it's nothing personal. I'm usually hella busy and don't actually check this site too often. I read and appreciate every one of them, though. I'll try to be better with that, too. I love you all.
chapter nine;
espresso con panna
"So," I said, flicking the butt of my cigarette out of the window, "Where are we going?"
Roxas, who was driving, gave me a coy smile like he was up to no good. "Oh, nowhere. Just wanted to get out of the house, didn't you?"
"Considering the house is big and fancy and is everything I've ever wanted, I don't mind the house."
Back in the Henley household, things were back to relative normalcy, if you could call it that. I was back to being a stain of guilt, and Roxas pretended we never played tonsil hockey, but, all in all, things could've been worse. The day I returned, Anastasia, Mr. Henley, and Kairi were all waiting in the foyer with gentle smiles. With my lips pressed into a hard line, I wondered if Roxas was going to be hailed a hero for bringing me back.
It had been a week. We were back to the daily grind, as if I never left. They even bought me an expensive cellphone that I didn't know how to use. Then, on a Wednesday afternoon after Roxas was finished with class, he asked if I'd like to go somewhere with him. We were amicable to each other, but not quite this friendly, so I was suspicious.
"Don't worry, Axel, I'm not going to drop you off in the middle of nowhere and leave you."
"That's exactly what someone would say if they were going to drop me off in the middle of nowhere and leave me."
"Honestly, for smoking in my car, I should abandon you. Your smoking habit is disgusting."
"Sorry, I smoke when I'm nervous," I admitted, discreetly pressing the cig I just pulled out back into the crushed carton in my pocket.
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "Do I make you nervous?"
"A little."
"And why's that?"
"I haven't yet figured out you or your family's intentions. For all I know, you guys are cannibals or scientologists or something, and you're all going through so much effort to convince me you're all just a regular family so that when I finally assimilate, you'll use me as a blood sacrifice."
"Are you high?"
"Pft, I wish."
"Why would we go through so much trouble to keep you around if we're just going to sacrifice you? Surely we could've called a family meeting and pooled our resources to find someone who is a lot nicer and more easily influenced. And better looking, too. And definitely someone who doesn't sleep with our girlfriends."
I wearily eyed Roxas. We were on good enough terms, but that didn't stop him from constantly bringing up the fact I had sex with Xion. He was preoccupied with it, and I was awaiting the day he would drop the friendly charade and snap at me again, since he's shown he has the capacity for violent streaks. I just hoped when that day came, it'd be a swift death. "C'mon, man, low blow."
He forced himself to laugh, but I could tell the bitterness lingered. I was molded by bitterness, so I had a sixth sense for these things.
"What can I do to make it up to you, huh? Want me to get a girlfriend so you can fuck her? Or maybe a boyfr—"
"Just shut up, Axel."
Hinting towards his homosexuality was strictly off-limits, but sometimes it's fun to torment.
We pulled into a plaza and into a parking spot in front of a coffee shop. I quirked an eyebrow. "Coffee? You have one of those fancy-ass coffee machines at home. Why'd we need to drive ten minutes away for coffee?"
"Like I said," he turned off the car and stepped out, using the reflection in the tinted windows to preen. "I just wanted to get out of the house. Come on, I'll treat you."
The inside of the coffee shop wasn't too different from every other coffee shop. It was small and decorated with paintings of Venice, and on the menu board were drink names prefaced by their Italian counterpart. You weren't supposed to order a coffee, you were supposed to order un caffè. I rolled my eyes at the pretension. No one goes to small coffee shops to pretend like they're in Italy. They go to sate their caffeine addiction and/or sit in the corner with their laptops to work on their shitty screenplays and novels that will never see the light of day.
We stepped up to the unmanned counter and eyed the menu.
"I worked in an Italian deli," I told Roxas, "And it was less Italian than this. I can guarantee this place isn't run by an Italian. Probably just some American with a massive hard-on for Italy after visiting once."
"You're right, the owner is not Italian," he said. And as if on cue, someone walked out from the back room carrying a tray of clean coffee cups.
"Oh, hey Roxas, you didn't tell me you were going to stop by."
"I wanted it to be a surprise," he said, charmingly leaning against the counter. "You remember Axel, right?"
She didn't seem to notice me at first, but when we made eye contact she went a little pale. "Y-yeah, I remember. Hey, Axel. How're you?"
"I'm great," I told her, trying to resist the urge to punch Roxas in the jaw for whatever stunt he was trying to pull. "And you?"
"I'm fine," she said meekly.
"Xion's parents own this coffee shop," Roxas explained, "And she works here after school during the week."
We fell into an uncomfortable silence and I focused my attention on the menu, scanning through the Italian names for drinks I'd never heard of.
Was Roxas getting off on this?
"We have some tiramisu, if you'd like some," Xion offered. "It was made this morning."
"Sure, why not. I'll take a piece. Axel, want some?"
"I've never had."
"You worked at an Italian restaurant and you never had tiramisu?" He asked, bewildered.
"It was a shitty deli, not a fucking Olive Garden."
"We'll share, Xion. So just give us two spoons. Oh, and two espressos."
"Sure, no problem," she said with a smile before disappearing into the back again.
When I was sure she was completely out of earshot, I grabbed Roxas by his upper arm and pulled him towards me. "What the fuck are you doing?" I growled through gritted teeth.
"Getting us some coffee and some dessert," he said innocently.
"Cut the shit, you know what I mean."
He batted his long, dark eyelashes at me.
"Are you fucking serious right now, Roxas? What's wrong with you? Are you high?"
Roxas scoffed and shoved me away. "You're always telling me to loosen up, maybe you should take your own advice."
Xion came back out with a small plate of tiramisu. She set it on the counter in front of two stools, so we made our way over. "The espressos will take just a minute, I'll bring them over when they're done. Enjoy, guys."
Xion still looked terrified, and I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to be scared anymore, that the jig was up. She turned to fiddle with the espresso machine while Roxas and I sat, the piece of Italian dessert between us, marinating in tension. He grabbed his spoon and scooped a piece of the corner. When he brought it to his mouth, he let out an audible moan.
"Is it good, babe?" Xion asked him.
"Yeah, it's great. Here, Axel, you try."
"Nah, I'm good."
He huffed, set his spoon on the plate, and picked up mine. With furrowed brows, I watched him load the spoon up. I didn't, however, expect the spoon to make a bee-line towards my mouth. I pressed my lips together.
"Come on, Axel, open up. Just try it, it's delicious."
I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster and turned my head away. By this point, we've commanded the full attention of Xion who was probably absolutely perplexed. Last she saw of me, I told her Roxas had soft lips and stormed out. And that was after Roxas told her I'm a drug-addicted criminal. So Roxas trying to force-feed me a spoonful of tiramisu must've been the weirdest shit she'd seen in a while.
"Please try it," he pleaded.
I angrily grabbed the spoon from his hand and fed myself. "There," I said, my voice rising, "Happy?"
"A little," he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, the beginnings of a dimple making itself known. "But, you've got some on you, right," his thumb glided over my bottom lip, "there. Got it."
This was all a game to him. It had to be. It was a reminder that Roxas was still essentially a child, despite how much he tried to act like he wasn't. This whole thing was nothing more than petty drama, proving that no matter how privileged you are, you're still subject to it.
If Xion was weirded out, she didn't make it known. In fact, she was probably too busy walking on eggshells to overthink Roxas's behavior. She brought us our espressos with a cute smile. I wondered if under different circumstances, I would be with Xion. If she wasn't Roxas's arm candy, and I wasn't a piece of shit, would we have seen each other again after our one-night stand? More importantly, did I still owe her money for ripping her bra?
I sipped my espresso, imagining a life in which I was happy and successful, with a cute Asian wife and a labrador retriever. I didn't notice I was staring at Xion until I noticed she was staring at me. For a moment, I wished we could communicate telepathically.
"It's rude to stare," Roxas said, crossing his arms over his chest. I don't know which one of us it was directed towards. He polished off the rest of tiramisu by himself and pulled out his credit card, sliding it across the counter.
"You don't have to pay," Xion said, picking the card up and attempting to hand it back. "I tell you this every time. You're a part of the family."
"I don't think I am," Roxas deadpanned, pushing her hand away.
Her face fell. "What do you—"
"Oh, you know."
Suddenly, angry steel-blue eyes were on me. They were betrayed, accusing, virulent. "You," she hissed, her voice low. "Why? Why couldn't you just keep it to yourself?" Her voice cracked, all hostility breaking away, and in its stead, sadness. "It was a mistake, you know. I had no idea who you were."
"Likewise," I said, trying to keep composure while my leg bounced anxiously.
"It's a small world after all," Roxas chimed in, his tone indifferent.
"So you knew all this time?" Xion asked him. "And you didn't say anything?"
"Actually, I only learned about a week ago."
"I'm sorry, Xion," I apologized, because I did feel bad.
She wiped her forming tears on her apron. It was a good thing the coffee shop was empty save for some hipster in the corner who was typing away on his MacBook and paying us no mind.
"You both are so dramatic," Roxas scoffed. "It's done, alright?"
"We're done?" Xion asked.
"Yeah."
She looked broken and it made my heart ache. Cheating is bad, but pretending to care about someone until they make a mistake is no better. "So, let me get this straight, you took me here so you could act all holier-than-thou and cause a scene? What the fuck, Roxas."
"No, I took you here to get coffee."
"From the get-go this was a game to you. Fuck you. You're fuckin' twisted." I quickly stood up and the stool scraped against the wood floor. "Xion, don't let it bother you, he never cared anyway. It was all about appearances to him. Wanna know why? Because he's a fucking faggot."
I stormed out of the coffee shop. When I came to Roxas's parked Bentley, I had the urge to kick in the fender and hock a loogie on his windshield. Instead I walked around to the other side of the shop near the dumpster and plopped down on the pavement, my knees to my chest. I fished my new cellphone out of my the pocket of my jeans and looked at it, catching my reflection in the screen. I'd never had my own cellphone before. I turned it on and poked around on the touchscreen, trying to figure out how to make it do phone things. Finally, I managed to open the contacts, and scrolled down to the one person I never thought I'd ever be calling.
It rang once.
"Hi. Yeah, it's me. Everything is fine. Can you just pick me up, please?"
"Did something happen? Are you okay?" Anastasia asked me as I got into her car. I had walked about a mile away from the coffee shop, towards some fancy shopping centers and bank buildings. Anything to get far away from Roxas. Sweat beaded on my hairline and upper-lip, I chose the wrong day to wear all black.
"Me and Roxas got into a…" I took a moment to think of the right phrasing. "A disagreement. Who would've thunk it, huh?"
"Where is he now?"
"Dunno, probably on his way home to whine about what a horrible piece of shit I am."
"Axel…"
"What?"
She reached over and placed her hand on my knee. Her nails were perfectly manicured, a big change from the bitten-down stumps I remember from my childhood. "You're too hard on yourself. I'll deal with Roxas later. I know how he can be."
"Oh, do you?"
"He can be difficult."
"Difficult? Try sociopathic. Whatever pills Mr. Henley has him taking need to have their dosage upped."
She eyed me curiously. "He told you he takes medication?"
"Why? Is it some big family secret? I don't give a shit that he's on meds."
"It's just that Roxas is a very private person. That's part of the reason he doesn't have many friends."
"He doesn't have many friends because he's a bag of dicks."
Anastasia pressed her lips into a hard line, and I thought I had upset her by shit-talking her precious little baby. But then she let out burst of laughter. "You're very crude. You have the same sense of humor I had when I was young."
"Oh yeah? What happened to it, then?"
She sighed sadly and her smile faded. "Life happened."
"Drugs? An unwanted pregnancy?"
"Pretty much."
I looked out the window at the town as we drove by. Quaint storefronts with wooden signs, upper-class pedestrians in their nice clothes, pure-bred dogs on leather leashes. How simple life must be for some people. From the corner of my eye, I watched Anastasia. She seemed deep in thought.
"Man, I really ruined your life, huh?" I asked her.
"What? No. You didn't ruin my life, Axel. I promise you. If anything, you saved my life."
"You don't gotta make shit up."
"I'm serious."
"So why did you pretend I didn't exist? I still don't understand that part."
"I… I don't want to talk about this. Despise me all you want, I deserve it."
"Jesus, this whole family is comprised of weirdoes who don't make any fuckin' sense. Except for maybe Kairi, she's pretty normal."
"Everyone has their issues, Axel. It's part of life."
We pulled up to the house, behind Roxas's parked car. He seemed to have no qualms about leaving me behind. I unbuckled my seatbelt and was about to get out when Anastasia grabbed my arm.
"Wait," she said, "Before we go inside, I want to talk for a moment. About Roxas."
"What now?"
"He's been behaving strangely lately, and I know you guys have been spending time together." My heart thumped in my ears. "It's just…" She hesitated. "Don't take this the wrong way or anything…"
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Images of a flushed-cheek Roxas danced in my head. I must've looked so guilty. "Yeah?"
"His academics have been declining. He doesn't seem to care as much as before. Now, I know you guys aren't exactly friends right now, but I just want to make sure you're not negatively influencing him. His teachers have noticed a stark change in his work ethic."
My fear and guilt dissolved into anger. I scoffed. "Seriously?"
"I'm not accusing you. I'm just putting it out there. All jokes aside, Roxas is a boy with a lot of potential and I'd hate to see it go to waste. I can see you're very rebellious and outspoken, but please don't interfere with his future. And by that, I mean don't tease him about his scholastics, he's very sensitive. He's worked so hard up until this point to just throw it all away. I'm hoping he's just a little burnt out and that he'll be back to normal soon."
"Oh, I see how it is. You think Big Bad Axel is tainting poor precious Roxas. Ah, of course Axel is anti-school, he's a lowlife uneducated retard. But we can't have that spreading to our little prodigy, we can't have Axel sabotaging our careful conditioning. You know what, you can fuck off."
"That's not what I meant."
"I should've stayed away," I spat at her. "You're all fucking ridiculous and I'm getting real tired of having to storm off all the goddamn time!" I got out of the car and slammed the door.
When I got to the front of the house, Ivana was waiting in the doorway. "I hear yelling," she said, "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," I told her, "Everything is fine."
People tend to underestimate the power of a good bed. And as I laid in the dark, wrapped in layers of sheets and blankets, feeling like I was resting upon a cumulus cloud, I found myself feeling at peace. It was around midnight, and since I got back to the house in the early evening, I'd been garrisoned in my pink room. At one point, Ivana knocked and asked if I'd like to come down for dinner, to which I declined with the excuse that I wasn't hungry. But really, I just wasn't in the mood. She came back about an hour later to bring me a sandwich and a glass of iced tea. "It's not good to not eat, Mr. Axel," she lectured.
For a little while, I texted back and forth with Riku, since I could do that now. But then he went to bed. I wanted to sleep, too. But I couldn't, so I just rested my eyes.
And maybe I would've dozed off, if I didn't hear the creaking of my door opening and the soft padding of feet on the plush carpet. I shifted slightly and popped one eye open, trying to scout the dark for my visitor with no avail. At first I figured it was probably Ivana, coming in to collect my dirty dishes, but then I remembered it was past midnight and that she'd have gone home by now. Another part of me thought it was burglar, and how painfully ironic that would've been. Finally, in the midst of my pondering, the bed shifted as a weight was applied to the other side.
I forced myself to breathe rhythmically to feign sleep. In the back of my mind, I knew exactly who it was.
My visitor gently crawled closer to me, and a hand scouted the lump I formed beneath the blankets. "Axel?" He called out in a loud whisper.
I didn't know whether to confront him or continue to pretend to be asleep. I decided on the latter, I wanted to see what he'd do. He peeled back my sheets and comforter and settled in next to me. His body was so cold, and body temperature must've been on his mind too, because he softly observed, "Wow, you're really warm."
He cuddled up close to me to leech my heat.
"Are you asleep, or just ignoring me?"
Both, I thought to myself.
"Either way, I just wanted to apologize about today. I don't want you to be mad at me."
"You should've thought about that before being a little piece of shit."
"Aha, you are awake."
"You caught me."
He nuzzled his face against my bare chest and wrapped his arm around me. I wanted to be mad, but I couldn't. I am a slave to affection. "I'm sorry, Axel," he said, his voice muffled. "I just… I wanted it to be over. And I wanted to punish Xion."
"That's disgusting. Xion's guilt was punishment enough. Plus, you're not exactly innocent."
"I never claimed I wasn't a hypocrite."
I pushed Roxas away and rolled over so that my back was to him. "Well, go be a hypocrite in your own bed."
"I think you owe me," he said as he began lazily playing with my hair. "I let you sleep in my bed that one time. You ought to return the favor."
"You want to sleep in here?"
"Among other things."
My cheeks went warm, something they haven't done in a very long time. "What are you talking about?"
Suddenly, he forced me to roll on my back and then there was a weight on my waist as he straddled me. I clumsily reached over to the nightstand to turn on the lamp, exposing a pajama-clad Roxas in his disheveled glory. In the light, I could see the strange look on his face, with his half-lidded eyes and flushed face. It was a look I was all too familiar with.
"Roxas, you're going to regret being sleazy in the morning. Just go rub one out like the rest of us."
But he didn't listen, and instead leaned forward and kissed me. I'm weak and I kissed back. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer to me. He tangled his fingers in my hair, groaning into my mouth, and I was engrossed by every inch of him. In the chaos, I managed to remove his t-shirt, and I planted kisses along his shoulders, his collarbone, his neck. I wanted to devour him.
We separated and looked each other in the eyes with a mixture of shame and contentment.
"I want you," he said, breathless.
Those words alone, spoken in his soft tenor, were enough to make my mind go blank as all the blood left my brain. There's something so sexy about someone telling you they want you, the validation and the ego boost serve as the best aphrodisiac. I forgot all about being upset with him, I forgot about Xion, about my mom, about my feelings of inadequacy, about my shitty childhood. In that moment, there was only us.
I grabbed him close and we continued our makeout session.
A clammy hand snaked down past my hips and dipped into the waistband of my boxers, I sharply inhaled at the contact. "Wow," he said. "You're really hard."
"It's been awhile," I told him. But really, it was because I was very attracted to him, as much as I knew I shouldn't be. He wrapped his fingers around my dick, and I involuntarily shuddered. "Roxas…"
He removed his hand and rolled off of me. I was about to protest despite better judgment, but he tossed off the covers and moved himself to the bottom of the bed. I watched him carefully, wrought with anticipation. He positioned himself between my legs and tugged at my boxers until I was exposed. Usually, I wasn't self-conscious about my penis. But for some reason, under Roxas's gaze, I felt flustered. He saw me naked that day when he showed up and Riku and Naminé's, but I was flaccid and it wasn't under sexual pretense. This was completely different.
"You're not circumcised," he casually noted.
"Is that a problem?"
Instead of answering me outright, he bent his head down and took me into his mouth. I let out a sigh.
If someone would've told me a couple months ago that I would soon get blown by my biological mother's stepson, I would've laughed in their face and asked what drugs they were on. And yet, there I was. I could tell Roxas had never sucked dick before, but it doesn't exactly require much mechanical skill. I watched as his head bobbed up in down, his slurps and grunts harmonizing my deep breaths. It was so wrong, but it felt so right. My conscience didn't stand a chance against my libido. He peered up at me with his beautiful blue bedroom eyes under his fringe. I wanted to cum right there. He must've known, because he suddenly stopped.
"Jesus, Roxas," I groaned, "You're driving me crazy."
The next words out of his mouth lingered in the forefront my brain. "Fuck me," he said.
It was at this point that I started to regain my senses. This was my mom's son, a privileged private school overachiever. An arrogant seventeen year old kid who was struggling with his sexuality. As horny as I was, as much as I would've loved to ravage him, I couldn't. I had seven years on him, and I knew better than to take advantage of someone's vulnerability. Despite the front I put on, I wasn't that much of a scumbag.
I pulled my boxers up and sat up in bed, causing Roxas to furrow his brows in confusion. "I can't do that, Roxas," I said softy.
"What? Why not?"
"You're young, and you're not thinking straight. I don't want to willingly sleep with someone who will regret it in the morning."
He scoffed at me, trying to mask the hurt on his face with anger. "Since when have you been this paragon of virtue? You had sex with Xion, she's also young. You do drugs and party and you admitted to me you've had STDs due to your frivolous views on casual sex, so don't tell me that all of a sudden, you wouldn't feel comfortable with having sex with me."
"Let me get this straight, you want to sleep with me because I'm a big fuckin' whore?"
"No, you idiot, I want to sleep with you because I like you, as preposterous as it sounds." He crumpled into a heap on the bed. "Why can't I ever be good enough?"
It was a question that I'd asked myself so many times over the years, and hearing someone as perfect as Roxas utter it felt strange. Somehow, I knew that he wasn't just talking about sex. "You're good enough, Roxas." I reached over to him and pulled him into me. "I hate your guts sometimes, but you're good enough."
He hugged me back, nestling his face into my chest. "I wish I was you," he mumbled. "Carefree and unabashed."
"Eh, I'm just really good at internalizing. If it's any consolation, I wish I was you. Nice house, nice parents, nice car, cute girls throwing themselves at me."
"You forgot to add the weight of unattainable expectations and the crippling anxiety and depression."
"Hey, I've got those, too."
"Axel?"
"Yeah, Roxas?"
"I'm sorry about today. I'm sorry I'm so awful sometimes."
"Everyone has their issues, Roxas. It's part of life."
"I swear that's something mom says…"
We laid like that for a while, both of us silent. At some point, I nudged Roxas to see if he was awake, and he wasn't. So I turned off the light and carefully shifted to get comfortable without waking him up. Naminé was right, there was never a dull moment with me. And as I drifted off to sleep, I wondered how it was possible to both like and loathe a person simultaneously.
It had been a strange day.