Chapter 6: Something Unspoken
The bass line thrummed through the floorboards, a physical vibration that climbed up Xairo’s legs and settled in his teeth. Kaz’s apartment was a swollen, sweating beast of a place, packed with bodies, the air hazy and thick with the smell of spilled modelo and sweat. Red and green laser lights cut through the smoke, catching on sequins and the foil of beer bottles.
Xairo stood near the wall, a fresh bottle of Corona sweating in his hand. He wore black jeans and a grey hoodie that was a size too big, the fabric swallowing his lean frame. It was armor. In a crowd like this, with his teammates orbiting nearby, he needed the camouflage.
On the makeshift stage by the far wall, the Banda was in full swing. Ricardo was front and center, belting out a corrido into the microphone, his guitar slung low. Hector, his face set in its usual permanent scowl, pumped the accordion with violent enthusiasm.
And then there was Kayden.
Xairo’s throat went tight. Kayden was playing a red bass guitar, his fingers flying over the frets with an easy, practiced grace. But it was the outfit that stole the air from Xairo’s lungs. A black silk shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, unbuttoned just enough to show the chain resting against his darker brown skin. Black pants that fit him like they were painted on. And in his light brown hair, strands of red tinsel caught the light every time he moved, glinting like wicked promises. He was smiling, that million-dollar, ladies-man smile, flashing it at the crowd, at a group of girls dancing near the stage. He looked like a different person. Electric. Untouchable.
A hot, possessive jealousy coiled in Xairo’s gut, immediately followed by a wave of shame. He didn’t own him. He had no right. He took a long pull of his beer, the taste bitter.
“Dude, you see that bass player?” Orlando nudged him, his words slurring just a bit. “My sister’s friend knows him. Says he’s smashed half the cheer squad.”
“Looks the type,” Brian chimed in, leering.
Xairo just grunted, his eyes locked on the stage. He watched the muscles in Kayden’s forearm flex as he plucked the strings, remembered the feel of that arm under his hand, the taste of that skin. The memory was so vivid, so at odds with the flashing lights and the screaming crowd, it felt like a hallucination.
The set ended with a roaring applause. The band members set down their instruments, wiping their faces with towels. Kayden laughed at something Ricardo said, the sound swallowed by the din, but Xairo saw the white flash of his teeth. Then Kayden’s eyes scanned the crowd. They passed over the cheering girls, over the dance floor, and landed, unerringly, on Xairo.
The charming, public smile didn’t vanish, but it changed. It softened at the edges, the crow’s-feet around his eyes deepening just for a fraction of a second. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
Xairo felt the acknowledgment like a touch. He didn’t smile back. He just lifted his chin, a bare centimeter, holding the gaze until Kayden turned away, swallowed by his cousins heading toward a long table laden with food.
“Let’s go grab some eats before these locos inhale it all,” Isaac said, clapping Xairo on the shoulder. Isaac was his anchor, his best friend since freshman year, solid and unknowing. The guilt was a sour pit in Xairo’s stomach as they moved through the crowd.
They claimed a corner of the food table. Xairo piled a plate with carne asada and beans, not because he was hungry, but because it gave him something to do with his hands. He could feel Isaac studying him.
“You good, man? You’ve been quiet all night.”
“Just tired. Practice was hell.”
“Coach still on your ass?”
“Always is.” Xairo shoved a forkful of food in his mouth. It tasted like nothing.
A moment later, the energy around the table shifted. Kayden, Ricardo, and Hector arrived, plates in hand. Hector scowled at the soccer players, deliberately turning his back to them as he loaded up on tortillas. Ricardo offered a polite, reserved smile. Kayden slid in almost directly across from Xairo.
Up close, the effect was worse. The red tinsel was woven into his hair. A faint sheen of sweat glossed his collarbones where the shirt hung open. He smelled like night air, cigarette smoke, and expensive cologne.
“What’s up, fellas,” Kayden said, his voice easy, the party-host charm dialed up. “Y’all enjoying the show?”
A chorus of “hell yeahs” and “you guys killed it” came from the team. Xairo just nodded, his eyes on his plate.
“That bass line on ‘El Karma’ was sick, man,” Brian said.
“Preciate it,” Kayden said, taking a bite of his taco. His eyes flicked to Xairo. “You into banda, Xairo? Or you just here for the free beer?”
The question was casual, but it felt loaded. The table’s attention turned to him.
“Beer’s good,” Xairo muttered, not looking up.
“See? A man of simple tastes,” Kayden said, grinning. But under the table, Xairo felt the toe of a boot nudge against his sneaker. Once. Then again, a slow, deliberate pressure against his foot.
Xairo froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. He didn’t pull his foot away. The contact was hidden, intimate, a secret in the roaring room. Heat flooded his veins, fierce and immediate. He risked a glance up.
Kayden was listening to something Ricardo was saying, nodding thoughtfully, but the corner of his mouth was tilted in a tiny, private smirk. He dragged the toe of his boot slowly along the side of Xairo’s foot.
It was an obscene gesture disguised as nothing. It was a promise. Xairo’s knuckles went white around his fork.
Ricardo, who had been quietly observing, saw it. His eyes darted from his cousin’s focused, relaxed face down to the hidden space under the table, then up to Xairo’s rigid posture. His own expression didn’t change, but a subtle knowing settled behind his eyes. He took a slow drink of his soda, saying nothing.
“We gotta get back,” Hector announced, tossing his napkin on his half-finished plate. “Five minutes, prima. Don’t be getting distracted.” He glared pointedly at the table of soccer players, his gaze lingering on Xairo with open suspicion.
“I’m coming,” Kayden said, the charm slipping back into place as he stood. As he pushed his chair back, his hand, holding his empty plate, brushed against Xairo’s shoulder. It was a fleeting touch, could have been an accident in the crowded space. But his fingers trailed, just for an instant, over the back of Xairo’s neck, a scrape of calloused skin that sent a jolt straight down his spine.
“Later,” Kayden said, to the table at large. But the word felt aimed solely at Xairo.
Xairo didn’t watch him walk away. He stared at his cold food, his heart hammering against his ribs. The ghost of that touch on his neck burned.
“Weird dude,” Brian mumbled.
“Nah, he’s cool,” Isaac said. “Throws a good party.”
Ricardo lingered for a second longer. He met Xairo’s eyes. There was no judgment there, just a quiet, unsettling observation. Then he nodded, once, and followed his cousins back toward the stage.
The music started up again, even louder now. But Xairo heard none of it. All he could feel was the brand on his neck and the echo of pressure on his foot. The party around him became a blur of noise and light, meaningless. The only thing that was real was the phantom touch and the crushing, exhilarating weight of the secret, trembling now on the brink of exposure.
He stood up abruptly, his chair screeching on the floor.
“Where you going?” Isaac asked.
“Need some air. It’s loud.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He pushed through the crowd, a singular mission forming in the haze of his want. He wasn’t going to the balcony. He headed down the dim hallway, past a line for the bathroom, toward the back of the apartment where he knew the bedrooms were. He tried a door. Locked. Another. It opened to a dark, quiet room, likely Kaz’s. It was empty, lit only by the neon glow from a street sign outside the window.
He stepped in, closing the door behind him, muffling the thud of the music. The quiet was a physical relief. He leaned against the door, tilting his head back, trying to get his breathing under control.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Two minutes later, the door handle turned. It opened, bumping against his back. He stepped aside, and Kayden slid into the room, closing and locking the door in one fluid motion.
The party persona was gone. His smile was different now—hungry, edged with the same desperate tension Xairo felt.
“Saw you leave,” Kayden said, his voice low and rough.
“You followed me.”
“Yeah. I fucking followed you.”
They stared at each other in the semi-dark. The red tinsel in Kayden’s hair was absurd, provocative. Xairo reached out and yanked a strand, not gently. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s for the show.” Kayden stepped closer, crowding him against the door. “You like it?”
“You look like a fucking idiot.”
Kayden grinned, a wild, unfiltered thing. “You’re hard as a rock right now, ese. Don’t lie.”
Xairo was. The bulge in his jeans was painful, undeniable. Kayden pressed his palm against it, rubbing slowly. The friction through the denim was maddening.
“All those girls screaming for you,” Xairo snarled, grabbing a handful of the black silk shirt. “You love that shit, don’t you?”
“I love this,” Kayden breathed, his mouth hovering inches from Xairo’s. “Right here. This is what I’m thinking about up there.”
He kissed him, and it was nothing like the staged charm of the party. It was all tongue and teeth, a raw claiming. Xairo tasted the beer on his tongue, the sharpness of his sweat. He spun them around, slamming Kayden against the door, the bass from the living room a distant throb through the wood.
His hands went to Kayden’s belt, fumbling with the buckle. Kayden shrugged out of his shirt, the silk pooling on the floor. In the neon-lit dark, his skin was a canvas of shadows and light. Xairo dropped to his knees, his own need secondary to a driving urge to mar the perfection, to make this pretty, popular boy his in the most visceral way possible.
He yanked Kayden’s pants and briefs down to his thighs, not even bothering to take them off. Kayden’s cock sprang free, fully erect, the head already wet. Xairo didn’t tease. He took him in deep, swallowing him to the root in one go, gagging slightly before he relaxed his throat.
“Fuck! Yes,” Kayden hissed, his hands tangling in Xairo’s black hair, dislodging more strands of tinsel that drifted down like scarlet snow.
Xairo sucked him with a brutal, punishing rhythm, using his mouth like a weapon, a testament to his ownership. He deep-throated him over and over, saliva slicking his chin, the obscene, wet sounds filling the quiet room. He reached around, grabbing Kayden’s ass, fingers digging into the muscle, pulling him deeper into his mouth.
“Gonna come… gonna come in your fucking mouth…” Kayden choked out, his hips stuttering.
Xairo pulled off with a gasp. “No. Turn around.”
He stood, shoving his own jeans down. He was beyond gentle, beyond foreplay. He spat into his palm, slicking himself, the crude preparation sending another bolt of dark heat through him. He pushed Kayden’s shoulder, turning him to face the door. Kayden braced his hands against the wood, spreading his legs, his head bowed.
Xairo positioned himself and pushed inside.
It was tight, almost too tight without proper lube, a dry, burning stretch. Kayden let out a sharp, punched-out groan, his back arching. Xairo didn’t stop. He drove in to the hilt, burying himself in that incredible, clenching heat. He paused, shuddering, feeling Kayden’s body pulse around him.
Then he fucked him. It was raw, animalistic, each thrust a slam of hips against ass, the sound of skin on skin a frantic counter-rhythm to the distant music. He held Kayden by the hips, his fingers sure to leave bruises, using him for leverage, chasing his own release with single-minded ferocity.
“You like getting railed in some random bedroom?” Xairo grunted, his breath hot against Kayden’s sweaty neck. “This what you wanted when you was smilin’ at all them girls?”
“Yes! This! Just this, Xairo, fuck!” Kayden pushed back against him, meeting every thrust.
“You’re mine,” Xairo growled, the words torn from a place deeper than pride, deeper than fear. It was a primal truth, spoken in the dark. He bit down on the junction of Kayden’s neck and shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to mark.
The pain seemed to tip Kayden over. His body seized, his cock jerking, spilling thick stripes against the dark wood of the door as he came with a muted cry. The frantic clenching of his ass pulled Xairo’s orgasm from him. He came with a guttural roar, hips pumping erratically as he emptied himself deep inside, the pulses going on and on until he was spent, collapsing forward against Kayden’s back, both of them slick with sweat and gasping for air.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the muffled thump of the party. Reality seeped back in, cold and sharp. The smell of sex. The sticky mess on the door. The neon light exposing everything.
Xairo pulled out, turning away to deal with the condom. His hands were unsteady. The post-coil clarity was a vise. What the fuck was he doing? In someone else’s house. At a party. With his teammates and Kayden’s cousins just rooms away.
Kayden turned, leaning against the ruined door. He looked wrecked, beautiful, the red tinsel still clinging pathetically to his disheveled hair. He reached for Xairo, but Xairo took a step back.
“We can’t stay in here,” Xairo said, his voice flat.
The hurt in Kayden’s eyes was instant, but he masked it quickly, nodding. “Yeah. I gotta get back anyway.”
They dressed in silence, not looking at each other. Kayden pulled on his silk shirt, now wrinkled and stained with sweat. He tried to pick the tinsel from his hair.
“Leave it,” Xairo said. He didn’t know why.
Kayden’s hand dropped. He unlocked the door, the roar of the party flooding back in. He paused on the threshold, the party boy ready to re-emerge. He glanced back, his expression unreadable.
“See you out there,” he said, and then he was gone, swallowed by the noise and the crowd.
Xairo waited a full minute, then slipped out, melting back into the shadows of the hallway. He found Isaac by the balcony door, talking to Montreal.
“There you are. You get lost?” Isaac asked, his brow slightly furrowed.
“Needed a minute,” Xairo said. His voice sounded normal. His body felt like a lie.
From the stage, the music swelled. He didn’t look over. He couldn’t. But he felt a gaze on him, heavy and knowing. Not Kayden’s. He slowly turned his head.
Ricardo was singing into the mic, his eyes closed in faux passion. But Hector, standing beside him glaring at the crowd, was staring directly at Xairo. His expression was pure, venomous suspicion. He’d seen something. Maybe not everything, but enough.
Hector leaned over and said something into Ricardo’s ear. Ricardo’s eyes opened. They found Xairo. This time, there was no neutral observation. There was a warning. A sharp, silent shake of his head.
The chill that went through Xairo had nothing to do with the night air from the balcony. The secret wasn’t safe in the room anymore. It was out here now, in the open, in the seeing eyes of a homophobic cousin and a wary, observant one. The party’s noise became a dull roar in his ears, a soundtrack to the high, thin wire he was now walking, completely alone.