Tyler stared at the long line of Skylar’s back peeking out from under the blankets where he slept. Ten hours had passed since they’d had their little conversation and Tyler still had no clue what he was going to do when his parents came back from their little cruise. For a split second, he almost wished they wouldn’t come back. But he quickly brushed that out of his mind.
Instead, he thought about the last part of his and Skylar’s conversation. I’m not going to leave you. Never. I promise. Those had been Skylar’s exact words. He wasn’t going to leave him. Not ever. The idea of having Skylar with him all of the time, forever, brought warmth to his whole body. If that wasn’t love, Tyler didn’t know what was.
Pushing away from his position against the wall, Tyler took a few steps closer to the bed. He needed to be closer to Skylar. He wanted to hear his breathing. To see the rise and fall of his chest. Maybe even be able to feel the heat emanating off of Skylar’s body. He wasn’t sure exactly what he needed, but he needed more.
He should have been working on his school project that he’d neglected all weekend, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Sure, the folder and his research were only a few feet away in the corner of the room where he’d set up shop at first, but he didn’t want to move. He’d just gotten close enough to watch Skylar’s eyelids flutter as he undoubtedly dreamed, and he wasn’t about to give this up for anything.
The need to touch Skylar was getting more and more intense as the nights dragged on. Sitting here just watching him was getting to be not enough. He was so close – all he had to do was reach out and touch him. But it was too dangerous. If Skylar caught him in here, with his school books and his homework like he was having a camp out, he wasn’t sure how he would explain himself. So, he kept his hands to himself. For now.
A loud buzzing noise ripped Tyler’s attention from his brother and onto the nightstand where Skylar’s phone was vibrating. One glance at the clock told him it was nearly 5:30am. Who the hell was bothering Skylar at 5:30am?!
His eyes ticked from Skylar to the phone and back, calculating the pros and cons of grabbing the device while Skylar slept. Ultimately, curiosity won out. His fingers curled around the device, snatching it soundlessly off the nightstand as his eyes scanned the screen.
Anger burned deep inside of him when he saw that Jessie was the one who dared message Skylar so early in the morning. And it wasn’t even the fact that she had texted him, but it was the context of the message. His fingers tightened around the phone so hard that he was honestly surprised the screen didn’t crack.
Quickly, Tyler unplugged the device, gathered up his things, and walked out of the room. His footsteps were feather light as he made his way to the stairs, taking each step far more gracefully than he ever would have prior to coming back from the dead in the pitch dark of the house. Once he was downstairs, he tossed the phone onto the counter, glaring at the screen.
Sky, I’m worried about you. I’ve been trying to text you all weekend, and I feel like you’ve been avoiding me. Did I do something wrong Friday night? I didn’t mean to upset you if I did. Please just talk to me so we can clear this up?
The use of the nickname had Tyler’s blood boiling. Sky. No one called Skylar that other than him. What did she think? Tyler had died, so now she was just allowed to swoop in and snatch his nicknames for his brother?! It was outrageous!
Another message drew his attention to the phone before he could get himself too worked up. I think I should come over tonight. You’ve been distant for months now and I’m really worried. It’s not good for you to be sitting at your parents’ house all alone every day. I understand that grief is hard, but you can’t let it consume you. Please, let me help you, Skylar.
Help him?! Skylar didn’t need her damn help! And he wasn’t sitting here alone all day either! He was with him! Right the hell where he belonged. Again, Tyler could feel rage building deep inside of him. Jessie was really getting on his last nerve. It was like she’d made it her new mission to try to steal Skylar away from him. And he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
His first instinct was to block her number. But he knew Skylar would get pissed off about that. And it was much harder to explain away a blocked number rather than just a deleted text. So, he simply deleted both text messages as if they’d never been sent. He then put the phone on the charging cable in the kitchen so Skylar would think he just left it down here when he’d gone to bed.
Sighing, Tyler headed to the breakfast bar where he’d set up shop with his computer. He had class this morning, and he’d skipped class yesterday, so he needed to get some work done. If he slacked off, there would be no future in medicine for him. And that meant there would be no need for Skylar to leave town with him. Unacceptable – he needed to get his head back in the game and get his schooling finished.
With one last glance at Skylar’s phone, Tyler pushed the whole ordeal out of his head and got to work on his report. His professor was probably going to dock points for it being late, but at least he wasn’t getting an incomplete. He could easily make up for the few points lost over the course of the next two weeks before finals. After all, he’d always been a straight A student, and he didn’t expect that to change any time soon.
The project was finished and turned in within an hour. Just in time for Skylar to wake up for his classes. When the other man walked into the kitchen, Tyler’s eyes immediately landed on him. He was wearing a gray Henley and loose fitting, dark wash jeans. The look was tied together with a pair of boots and Skylar’s classic leather jacket. It almost had Tyler’s mouth watering.
“Hey, have you seen my…phone?” Skylar started, smiling as he walked the few steps to the sink and grabbed his phone from the charger. “Nevermind, I found it.” He tucked the device into his front pocket as he made his way to the pantry and grabbed his protein powder. “Coach wants me to stay after practice today to work on some long distance throwing, so I’ll be home later than usual. Thinking we could just do something quick for dinner? Like pizza? Or maybe you could whip up some eggs?”
Pain shot through Tyler’s chest when Skylar told him he was going to be late. Perfect. As if being gone from 7am until 5pm wasn’t bad enough? Now the coach wanted him to stay even longer? Tyler knew his brother loved football, but he also knew the other man wasn’t thinking about making it a career, so he didn’t know why he was trying so hard. Skylar was going to be a lawyer – not a football star.
Still, he knew how much the game meant to his brother, so he didn’t say anything. “Yeah, I can probably manage to make eggs without burning down the house,” he teased. They both knew that Tyler was an avid Food Network binger, and he knew his way around the kitchen. If his brother wanted a five course gourmet meal, Tyler could probably dish it out as long as he had all of the ingredients.
Shaking his head, Skylar chuckled, “Don’t get smart with me.” He twisted the lid of his shaker cup closed before he vigorously shook the contents, eyes locked with Tyler’s. “I didn’t want to assume anything.”
When Skylar shook his shaker bottle, Tyler felt his breath hitch in his throat. The way he’d locked eyes on him couldn’t possibly have been an accident either. “Okay,” he breathed. “Um…I can make eggs if you want me to. I don’t care. Just text me when you’re on your way home and it’ll take like ten minutes. Maybe bacon too if we have it.”
Oblivious to what he was doing to Tyler, Skylar merely smiled. “Great! Eggs and bacon for dinner it is!” He took a large swig of his protein shake, needing to get it finished before he left for class. The last time he’d taken a shaker bottle into his Jeep, he’d forgotten about it. And when he’d finally found it again, there was absolutely no saving it. “Ooh, maybe you can make French Toast too?! I love a good piece of French Toast.”
At this rate, Tyler was going to have to make a trip to the store! “Yeah, I think we have bread,” he assured the other man, trying not to pay too much attention to him after his little performance. “Class will be over by 3:30, so I have all evening to make it. I will have to get my assignments done, though. You know I don’t like waiting until the last minute to get things finished.”
Nodding, Skylar agreed, “Oh, I know you don’t.” Taking another long pull from his shaker, Skylar smiled. “You would always have the assignments finished weeks before they were due. Sometimes, you’d even finish them the day they were assigned. You’re a little bookworm. Teachers love you.”
“I know they do,” Tyler assured his brother. And yes, he was proud of that fact. At least he’d used to be. Now, he didn’t really care what these teachers thought of him. After all, it wasn’t like they even knew who he was. They stared at him through a computer screen all day and then graded the assignments he turned in. It wasn’t exactly the school environment he was used to.
Once Skylar was gone, Tyler settled into his studies. The ache in his chest made it very hard to concentrate, but he was honestly getting used to it at this point. A quick glance at the clock told him that it was just after 8am. His class was due to start in thirty minutes, and he didn’t want to be late. But his mind was being plagued with images of Skylar – he couldn’t get him out of his head.
He tried to immerse himself into his anatomy book, but staring at a bunch of pages of human anatomy – human male anatomy – was not doing anything to help him. But he needed to focus. This was his least favorite class, so he needed to pay close attention if he wanted to actually pass. And with it being online, it was harder for him to get his mind around some of the stuff. He was a very visual learner, and this was more just lecturing.
Thankfully, the thirty minutes seemed to fly by and before he knew it, his teacher’s monotone voice was filling his kitchen as he tried to explain the different muscles in each part of the body to his class. This particular professor liked to make weird jokes that he would be the only one laughing at, which tended to make class pretty awkward. But Tyler suffered through it, grateful that he got a break halfway through the day to stretch his legs.
*~~*
Skylar was sore. The coach hadn’t been lying when he said he’d wanted to work him out like a professional. He’d started practice with sprints. Then they moved on to passing drills. And then he’d made him hit the weight room. Then one more round of passing drills before he dismissed him to the showers. And Skylar had taken that shower with no cold water so his muscles could relax.
“I’m back,” he called as he pushed his way through the door. He ignored the way his arm shook with the weight of it. “You will not believe the hell that Coach put me through today during practice. He was fucking brutal.”
As soon as Skylar walked through the door, Tyler could tell he was hurting. And he hated it. That coach had always been on his radar. He would push his athletes too hard, and honestly, Tyler was surprised none of them had been hurt. They didn’t have a team medic on staff, so the coach just ran around and did whatever the hell he wanted with absolutely no consequences.
But he didn’t want to start a fight, so he kept his mouth shut. “Hey,” he answered back, placing a plate down on the breakfast counter in front of Skylar. “I can only imagine. You look like you’re hurting. Did he even consult anyone before he started your new training program?” He said it using quotation marks since this coach probably didn’t know anything about a true training program if it came out and bit him in the ass.
Honestly, Skylar wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. He thought the man was a great coach because all he cared about was winning. And if that meant that you had to push harder than ever before and test your limits, then he would do it. As his coach said, no legends were ever made without pushing them to their limits, and then pushing them another mile. And that’s what the coach was doing – he was pushing Skylar that extra mile.
Shrugging, an action he immediately regret as pain shot through his upper back and shoulders, Skylar answered, “I don’t know. Who would he consult?” He grimaced as he rotated each shoulder one at a time, hoping to clear up some of the tension in the muscles. “It’s not like we have a medic on the team. You know the school won’t pay for that. I mean…do we even have medical staff for teams in Briar Hollow?”
It was hard for Tyler to see his brother in so much pain. If the coach was planning on doing this to him frequently, they were going to have a problem. “I’m not sure,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “Sports were never really my thing.”
Tyler continued to watch Skylar as he ate – tracking his every move, learning where he seemed to be hurting the most. He had an idea, and he wanted to see if his brother would go for it. Finally, when Skylar finished his dinner, Tyler threw out his idea. “Can I ask you to help me with something?” he asked, biting into his bottom lip as his eyes trailed over his brother’s body. “I have this assignment due for my occupational therapy class. I have to give someone a therapeutic massage. And since I can’t exactly go anywhere…I kind of need someone to massage.”
A small frown came to Skylar’s lips when Tyler asked for his help with this project. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked, teasing his brother. “I’m just messing with you. Yeah, you can use me as a test dummy. Just tell me what to do.”
Satisfaction swelled inside Tyler’s body when his brother agreed to be his subject. “Okay, yeah, um…you don’t really need to do much for it. I’m the one who has to do the work. Basically, I have to massage each part of the body and recite the muscles. At the end, you just have to write an email saying how it felt and if you would trust me with your occupational therapeutic needs.”
He could see that Skylar was not really following along with what he was saying. Skylar didn’t know the muscles in the body the way Tyler did, so even if Tyler got them wrong – which he wouldn’t – Skylar would be none the wiser. “This actually works great because you’re an athlete, and this is the kind of therapy you’d need after a rough day on the field. So you can really give me a candid, real world evaluation.”
“So, you’re kind of like the medic for the football team in a sense right now,” Skylar chuckled. “And here we were debating on if there was anyone to help me, and here you come swooping in like a real doctor. How formal does this email have to be?”
Tyler could honestly care less about the email right now. Honestly, he was planning on just typing something up himself and pretending like he’d done the assignment since he couldn’t really interact with the public. But this was so much better. “Um…not really, I don’t think. You can just type a few sentences and be done with it. Just tell the professor that I knew all of the muscles and you felt safe with me.”
Nodding, Skylar pushed himself out of his chair and cleared his dinner plates. “I can do that,” he assured his brother. “I’m not too sure about all of the muscles in the human body though, so I’m just going to assume you’re right. You know your shit, bookworm.”
When his brother called him a bookworm, Tyler rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. I do know my shit,” he teased back. “Now, you need to lie down, so we should probably just go to your room for this.” He moved to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, tossing it to his brother. “And you need to make sure you’re hydrated. Therapeutic massages can be intense. You’re probably just gonna want to go to sleep after it. I mean, you might even fall asleep during it. At least that’s what I’ve read, anyway.”
Without argument, Skylar followed Tyler up the steps to his bedroom, taking a long pull from the bottle of water. “Okay, so you’re not going to be offended if I fall asleep, then right? Because I’m pretty beat.” He’d had a long day today, and then the coach making him practice so hard only added to it.
Quickly, Tyler shook his head. “No, it’s fine. The email can be sent tomorrow. The professor gave us until the end of the week to complete the assignment. I just wanted to get it done early so I don’t get behind. I mean…it’s not like I can just go find someone to massage, right? I’m kinda stuck here. Not like the other students in my class.”
A pang of guilt shot through Skylar when his brother reminded him that he didn’t have anyone else to ask. “I know,” he mumbled. “But I don’t have a problem with it, really. I can send the email tomorrow while I’m in my study hall. So…do I just lay down? Face up or face down?”
“You gotta take your shirt off,” Tyler explained. “Therapeutic massage requires some sort of base with it. Given that your coach rode you pretty hard today, I was going to use muscle rub. It’s going to tingle a little bit and kind of feel like an icy-hot patch. But it’ll really loosen everything up and it’ll feel better in the long run.”
Again, Skylar did as he was told without question. He usually slept shirtless anyway, so this wasn’t really a big deal. “Can I leave my pants on, or do you need those off too?” he teased, chuckling when Tyler told him it didn’t matter. It wasn’t unusual for Tyler to not know when he was being sarcastic – the other man was always so in his head about his assignments, so he didn’t think it was odd that Tyler was being particularly clinical.
The bed creaked a bit as he crawled into it, lying face down on the mattress with his arms out wide at his sides and his legs pin straight. It took him a couple of tries to get comfortable, but he finally settled into position, closing his eyes as he waited for his brother to begin.
Tyler watched as Skylar got himself settled into the bed, taking in his brother’s perfect form. When he squeezed the bottle of muscle rub, it spit out a glob the size of a dime and the smell of menthol filled his nostrils. Tyler quickly rubbed the thick substance between his palms, eager to get his hands on his brother’s beautiful body. “Just relax,” he murmured, eyes taking in the slow rise and fall of Skylar’s back as he moved toward the bed.
His hands settled carefully against Skylar’s upper back, palms flat against warm skin as he began slow, even strokes outward along the trapezius before gliding down the length of his back. The motion was steady and methodical. He spread the muscle rub evenly with every stroke so that each pass felt smoother than the last. His hands adjusted to the heat beneath them, mapping the muscle without needing to look. “This is your trapezius,” he explained, trying not to think too hard about the fact that Skylar was half naked and letting him rub his hands all over his body.
When Skylar mumbled that he actually knew that one, Tyler couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay,” he breathed, allowing his hands to slide just a little further down. “These are your rhomboids. And they’re really tight. Not surprising since you spent the better part of the last 2 hours throwing around a football and then lifting weights.” That coach was really a damn idiot. Tyler made a mental note to come back to these to get those knots out as his hands glided over to his brother’s deltoids. “And your deltoids.”
As Tyler worked, he made mental notes on the parts of his brother’s body that were particularly tight or parts that had knots he was going to have to work out. “Latissimus dorsi,” he recited as his palms slid down the large muscles along he sides of Skylar’s back. “And the erector spinae.”
His hands slowly slid upwards again, moving out toward Skylar’s outstretched arms. “Triceps brachii and biceps brachii,” he explained as he ran his hands first over the right arm, and then moved to do the same with the left. “And finally, your forearm flexors and extensors.” He ran his palms over every muscle one more time, committing the feel of Skylar’s skin under his palms to memory. “These are the areas we’re going to be focusing on today.”
“I knew a lot of those actually,” Skylar mused, pretty proud of himself. He had a damn good workout regiment and his upper body days actually included a lot of those muscles. So while he was going into this thinking that he was just going to take Tyler’s word for it, he impressed himself with as much knowledge of the human muscular system he actually knew. “I could basically be a massage therapist.”
Chuckling, Tyler started to add more pressure. “It takes a lot more than just knowledge of the muscles to be a massage therapist, Skylar,” he assured the other man. “You also have to know the different techniques and when to use them. Like right now, I’m using effleurage, which is just these long, smooth gliding strokes with my palms. Once I feel which areas need more attention, I’ll focus on petrissage, friction, and compression.”
Another chuckle escaped him when Skylar muttered that he was a showoff. Sometimes, he supposed that was true. “Just shut up and let me work,” he smiled, giving the expanse of his brother’s back one last long, smooth stroke before he increased the pressure once more. His thumbs pressed a little deeper near the base of Skylar’s neck before his hands swept outward again, slower this time. One hand lingered near Skylar’s spine while the other traced along his shoulder blade, following its shape with quiet precision. He repeated the motion a few times, the rhythm settling into something consistent. Something predictable and controlled.
Before he could allow his brother to get too comfortable, his hands shifted, fingers curling slightly as he began to knead into the muscles at the tops of Skylar’s shoulders. The trapezius was tight beneath his grip, resisting at first before finally giving way as he worked it between his fingers and thumbs. He moved inward toward the space between the shoulder blades, repeating the motion there. His movements were slower now, more deliberate, as if he were testing how much pressure the muscle would take before it softened.
Tyler’s thumb pressed into a knot near Skylar’s right shoulder blade, working small, controlled circles into the tension he found there. He focused on it longer than he needed to, feeling the resistance beneath his touch before it finally started to give. When he shifted to the other side, the motion was the same, only quicker and less patient, before his attention drifted back again without much thought.
His hands slid lower, following the natural lines of Skylar’s back as he worked along the lats. The strokes were broader here, palms gliding from the center of his back outward toward his sides before returning again. The muscle rub had warmed fully now, leaving a faint heat beneath his hands that only seemed to intensify the longer he worked it in.
Flattening his palms, Tyler pressed down firmly into the center of Skylar’s back, holding the pressure there for a few seconds before slowly releasing it. He repeated the motion again, slightly lower this time, the weight of his hands steady and unmoving as he leaned into it. For a moment, everything stilled. There was no movement, no rhythm – just the quiet pressure between them.
This felt so good. He’d been so focused on doing the assignment at the beginning that he hadn’t even fully let himself enjoy it. Now, his hands hovered for a second longer than necessary before settling back down. It wasn’t like Skylar was going to question this. He doubted the other man really had time to be going to get professional massages. When he resumed, the pattern wasn’t quite the same. The strokes were slower now, less structured, drifting rather than following the clean lines he’d started with. He didn’t bother correcting it.
He moved to Skylar’s shoulders, fingers slipping into the familiar motion of kneading the muscle there. But it wasn’t as precise as before. The pressure shifted inconsistently – sometimes deeper, sometimes lighter. His hands lingered at the curve where neck met shoulder before moving on. It was the same technique. But it didn’t feel the same. It felt better.
Again, Tyler’s hand drifted lower – lower than it had before – stopping just short of brushing against the waistband of his brother’s basketball shorts. His fingers pressed in as if he’d meant to be there all along, hiding his momentary slip up. He held it for a couple of seconds before continuing the motion upward again like nothing had changed.
Somewhere along the way, he’d completely lost track of what he was doing. The names, the structure, the purpose of it all – all of it slipped away until there was nothing left but Skylar. There was no pattern anymore, no method. Just the slow movement of his hands against his brother’s warm skin and the steady rise and fall beneath them.
Tyler had been so caught up in his own head that he hadn’t realized at some point that Skylar’s breathing had evened out, deep and steady beneath him. He slowed his movements without fully stopping, letting the motion taper off naturally until his hands finally stilled against his back. He didn’t pull away right away though. For a second, he thought about lying down next to Skylar. Maybe it would help him sleep.
Maybe after weeks of not being able to fall asleep, all he’d needed was to curl around his brother’s body and everything would have been so much easier. He was just about to do it before the sound of Skylar’s phone vibrating ripped through the silence, pulling him from his thoughts and slamming him right back into reality.