Read Online Junk by Josephine Myles - Free Book Online

squeezed his eyes shut. What had he just said? Oh God, Lewis was going to think he was completely hopeless when he explained himself. He cracked his eyes open to find Lewis gazing up at him, the glimmer of a smile haunting his face. Lewis wasn’t going to laugh at him, was he? Jasper didn’t think he could bear it if he was mocked.
    Lewis tilted his head to one side. “Your hero?” he murmured. “I’ve never done anything remotely heroic.”
    “You were out when you were at school. I’d call that pretty heroic.”
    “I don’t know. If I’d realised how it was going to go down, I might have kept my big mouth shut for a few more years.”
    “I’m glad you didn’t.”
    “You are?”
    Could he say this? Jasper turned away to face his kitchen, but all he could see was the defiant face of a fifteen-year-old Lewis walking past a bunch of sniggering lads with his head held high, despite the taunts of “gaylord” and “poofter”. Someone had even drawn a crude cock and balls on the back of his blazer in chalk, and Jasper had wanted to run down the language block steps and tell him. To help him rub the offending picture off. To tell him he wasn’t the only queer at school.
    Jasper hadn’t fallen in love at first sight or anything. As a teenager, Lewis had been all bones and awkward posture, his face blighted with acne. No, Jasper hadn’t even fancied him back then—not like he did now. The scarring on his tanned cheeks gave him a rugged, outdoorsy look, like an explorer in one of the adventure books Jasper had devoured as a child. And like those heroic men, Lewis had grown into his body and gave an impression of great energy held in calm reserve.
    No, back then Jasper hadn’t found the teenaged Lewis attractive, but he’d felt an instant rapport. A recognition of another who was like him.
    Or perhaps not like him, because Lewis was ever so much braver than Jasper had ever been.
    Time to emulate that bravery and come clean.
    “I didn’t notice you until the last few months of my A-levels. Never did find out your name. And I don’t remember Carroll. Was she at a different school or something?”
    “Nope. But we didn’t spend much time together back then. She was usually out in the car park getting stoned with all her weirdo mates.”
    “Ah, I see. And you weren’t like that.”
    “Neither were you.”
    “I was a nerd,” Jasper said decisively. “Teachers’ pet. No friends. Always had my head in a book. I only noticed you because I was on my way to the library one day and I saw you had this…er, this giant pink cock and balls. On your back!” he squeaked, at Lewis’s mischievous smile. “Someone had chalked it on your back.”
    “I would say I remember that day, but it happened a few times, so I can’t be sure which it was.”
    “Well, this bunch of lads were making fun of you outside the language block, but you just carried on walking with your head held high. One of them asked you to, er, service him.” Oh God, he sounded like such a prude. The swaggering thug in question had in fact ordered Lewis to suck his cock like a bitch, since he was a one of them dirty benders. “You told him you wouldn’t touch his nob if he paid you because you didn’t know where he’d been sticking it.”
    Lewis’s grin spread all over his face. “I think I might have put it more crudely than that, but yeah, I remember now. You were watching?”
    “I was watching. You were so brave. I couldn’t have done that. Couldn’t have told anyone. That I was gay, I mean.”
    “There’s no reason why you should have. Everyone comes out when it feels right for them. Hey, it’s okay. There’s no rule book for these things.”
    “Maybe there should be,” Jasper said, surprised at his own ferocity. “I mean, it might have been easier to know what to do then. I left it way too late. Especially with Mama.”
    Lewis laid his hand on top of Jasper’s. “But you told her in the end, didn’t you?”
    Oh, he’d told