Read Online M/M- Ripped (Boys Of Summer) by Mia Downing - Free Book Online Page A

exhausting. “Don’t get killed for me.”
     
    “Hang tight, Erik.”
     
    How many times had he watched Gavin swim toward him? But now he stroked with a different purpose, that same lethal animal covering footage across the waves. It was weird, the sun beating down, the water sparkling, the sky so blue. They loved the beach, both of them. Skipped school to come here, even in winter. How sad to die here.
     
    So tired. Erik fought to keep his head above water and went under again. It was harder to come back up, but he did, his lungs burning. His arms and legs were hotter and heavier than heated steel. So easy to simply go under and stop fighting.
     
    “Erik, stay with me.”
     
    “Save yourself,” he muttered. But he fought, because Gavin sounded desperate. Gavin would be sad if he went under forever.
     
    “I’m going to toss this to you, okay? Hang on to it.” Gavin’s voice was closer. Something pinged on the surface of the water, splashing him. Erik grabbed for it and held it to his chest, leaning into the red flotation device, grateful he didn’t have to struggle anymore.
     
    “I’m here, babe. I’m here,” Gavin said. “You hang on to that, okay? If you grab me, we’ll both die. You understand?”
     
    “I don’t want to kill you.” Was that his voice, that weak, mumbled whisper?
     
    “Good. You hang on.” Gavin swam, towing Erik back to shore.
     
    “Tired, Gav.” So tired. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, could barely hang on.
     
    “You hang on, okay? We’re almost back.”
     
    Forever was a shorter span of time. But after forever, the ground came up to his knees with a jolt, the sand biting. Erik let go of the flotation device and sank.
     
    Gavin hauled him up by the hair, and then caught him around the shoulders, tugging him against his strong chest. “Sorry, Erik. But you’re not drowning on me in a foot of water. Come on.”
     
    A crowd closed in on them, so many feet, so many hands, all reaching for him. Too many voices, too loud. They carried him and set him down on a towel. Erik sputtered again, his lungs still burning. He searched the sea of faces, all blurred until he locked on the one he needed.
     
    Gavin was at his side, inspecting his arms and legs.
     
    “Gav,” he whispered.
     
    So much emotion there in Gavin’s eyes, especially the one thing he was desperate to see, but didn’t dare acknowledge. Gavin loved him. “You made it.”
     
    “Thank you,” he managed. Gavin loved him. He held that tight and took that down with him, under a different kind of darkness.
     
    ****
     
    Gavin rode with Erik in the ambulance and wanted nothing more than to hold Erik’s hand in his shaking one. He didn’t dare. He sat on the bench, Erik’s stretcher beside him, with the EMT on the opposite side.
     
    Erik had weakly protested as the ambulance arrived and threatened to get up and leave, which sparked a family uproar. It freaked Gavin out, but it was oddly healing to see people he loved fight and not come to blows. Gavin answered the EMT’s questions as he’d been trained. Erik was exhausted, nothing injured, probably didn’t need the hospital but his parents had insisted, and so Erik had demanded Gavin go with him.
     
    But the steel nerves that went with training had dissipated, and Gavin found himself a shaking, weak fucking mess. Story of his life.
     
    “This smells like Colorado.” They’d given Erik oxygen, and he inhaled deeply, smelling the pure air. It was the most he’d said since threatening to leave on the beach. Erik replaced the facemask and gave him a tiny smile. “Yep. Fresh air.”
     
    The EMT was jotting down statistics, so Gavin smoothed the hair back from Erik’s forehead. “Have you ever been to Colorado?”
     
    “No,” he muttered through the plastic.
     
    Gavin smiled, because this was totally unlike Erik’s brand of logic. “Then how do you know what it smells like?”
     
    “Dunno.”
     
    Gavin’s smile faded as he flashed