Read Online Everything Changes by Melanie Hansen - Free Book Online Page B

been tossed, helped him gain his feet, and watched Carey hop off to his bedroom. Carey didn’t look back, going through the bedroom door and shutting it firmly in Jase’s face.
    The next morning Carey hobbled out to the dining room, drawn by the scent of coffee, and sat down at the table, laying his crutches carefully on the floor. Jase silently served him a cup along with a toasted english muffin with raspberry jelly, his preferred breakfast. Jase fixed himself his own meal, then sat down across from Carey and looked at him steadily.
    “We need to talk about this,” he said quietly.
    Carey grimaced. “I know. But I don’t want to.”
    Jase snorted. “Noted. But if we ignore it and let it fester….” He reached across the table and touched Carey’s hand, a spasm of pain going across his face as Carey moved away.
    “Tell me what you’re thinking, Carey.”
    “What am I thinking? I’m thinking what the hell’s wrong with me, is what I’m thinking!”
    “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
    Carey clenched his hand around his coffee mug. “I’m so fucked up, Jase. I’ve been so angry and hurting, and all I wanted was for it to stop. I fucking used you to make myself feel better. That makes me an utter prick.”
    “You’re not a prick, Carey. Sex is a basic human need, a comfort. You needed comfort, and I was there.”
    “Yeah, but you’re a….”
    “I’m a man?” Jase’s lips quirked. “I’m also your friend, and I was willing. What I’m not willing to do is let this affect or define our friendship. You’re too important to me, Carey, to lose you over something like this.”
    “But I’m not gay, Jase,” Carey said miserably.
    “Letting a friend comfort you physically, even if that friend happens to be a man, doesn’t make you gay, Carey. Last night you needed something, and you needed it from someone you can trust, someone you know won’t hurt you and has your best interests at heart. I’m honored that that person was me.”
    Carey finally looked Jase full in the face. “I feel safe with you, Jase. I do. But I feel really weird about what happened. I mean, my best friend jerked me off, for fuck’s sake!”
    “Carey, it was just physical release, okay? It was mutually satisfying, something that maybe we both needed. It doesn’t mean that anything more has to happen, or that I’m going to declare undying love for you now that I’ve come all over your chest.”
    Carey’s eyes widened, then relaxed when he saw Jase’s teasing expression.
    “Come on, man.” Jase said earnestly. “Don’t make more of it than it is. I won’t lie to you; I enjoyed the hell out of it. You’re an attractive man. No, you’re an attractive person. You know I don’t differentiate or label who I’m attracted to. I don’t put people in boxes and say, ‘I shouldn’t be attracted to so-and-so because of what kinds of parts they have between their legs.’ It doesn’t work like that for me.”
    Carey looked back down at his coffee cup miserably. “I don’t know what to say to you, Jase. I feel really fucked in the head.”
    “Carey, cut yourself some slack, man. You’ve been through hell and back. You’ve experienced a trauma that changed your life forever. It would be weird if you weren’t a little fucked in the head. You needed what you needed, Carey. I was here. You said you feel safe with me. You are safe with me.” Carey didn’t say anything, and after a minute, Jase continued in a gentle voice, “What happened last night doesn’t need to define us, Carey. I hope we don’t let five minutes in time change our friendship. Since we can’t undo what happened, I hope that you can look at and accept it in the spirit for which it was intended…. I was a friend just trying to relax and comfort you, Carey.”
    “I started it, Jase. I know that,” Carey admitted. “I don’t put anything on you, man. I just feel… so fucking weird about it.”
    Jase smiled sadly at him, and Carey knew he