The trick really is to blank out the face in your mind. To go above and beyond the call of duty to erase the thought of your obsession. Drugs, booze, sex, running, sleeping, fighting. All of the above would help to lessen the pound of a memory on your brain like a fist. Every single one of them could fuck you over, too.

I touch the boy’s face and close my eyes. My mind wants to supply Jason’s face there. I push the thought aside; focus on the sensation of him sucking my middle finger into his hot wet mouth. I think of him as a boy because he, at nineteen, is a good decade younger than I am. If you consider life experience, probably two. His youth and beauty and innocence almost make me feel guilty for what I am about to do. Almost.

‘Why won’t you look at me?’ Matthew says. His name is Matthew. Something Irish for the last name but it escapes me.

‘I am looking at you.’ I push my pointer finger past his lips and watch it sink into oblivion, trapped between two plump perfect lips the colour of early summer roses. ‘See me looking at you?’ I can hear the arousal in my voice and my cock is harder than it has been in a long time. That’s mostly because this boy is so close to Jason physically. His voice has almost the same timbre. His cologne is even close. Something faint with a touch of sandalwood and leather and sunshine.

Matthew, he of the beautiful big green eyes, sucks my finger harder and there is that invisible tug between finger and dick. It’s as if my cock is on an unseen string that Matthew with the Irish last name can control with his wet, wet tongue. I press my shoulders back into the green sofa cushions and he kneels on the floor. His rug is the colour of tomato juice. He presses his lean, hard self between my thighs and leans into me. Kisses me. His tongue is like an electric spark when he touches it to mine. My hips rock up and my cock rubs his. This should stop.

‘Will you look at me naked?’ he asks, kissing over my jaw. His fingers are pushing my polo up just a bit, thumbs rubbing softly along my flanks. It almost tickles, but mostly it just makes me want to take him down. Flip him and fuck him because he is paying for Jason’s sins today.

I want him because he could be a stand-in. I hate him because he could be a stand-in. Poor kid doesn’t stand a chance.

‘If you insist.’ I try to keep my tone light but it rumbles out of me with a hint of anger. Matthew catches it and stops, big green eyes searching mine. I force a smile.

‘You don’t like me?’

‘I do.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ I touch his face. I force my hand to be gentle. I stroke. ‘Nothing at all.’ Again, my mind supplies Jason’s image. His face when he’s laughing. His face when he’s angry. His face when he’s coming. My throat shrinks two sizes too small and I try to swallow.

Matthew nods, seeming satisfied. My eyes are watching him work my belt and my fly but my ears hear only the tick of the clock on the wall and the slam of my heart. When he bows his head and runs his tongue over me, takes me in his mouth, his profile is so strikingly familiar I feel insane. Have I finally gone and lost it?

‘Do you like that, Kyle?’ he asks, his mouth full of my cock.

I nod, my breathing rushing in and out like I might die. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’

‘Show me.’ He pushes my thighs hard to the sofa. Pinning me. He’s not big but he sure as shit is strong. But my hips fly up all on their own, blindly seeking to sink deeper into his throat. His eyes tilt up to study me and he smiles around my shaft.

‘Brat.’ I laugh when I say it, but I mean it. If he keeps that up, I’m going to come. And I don’t want to come yet. I want to stay trapped in this mind-fuck, this bittersweet remembering. The place where if I close my eyes it’s Jason sucking me: Jason holding me down: Jason kissing me and wanting me inside of him. And even when he’s being an asshole, Jason loving me. My throat shrinks again and I just wonder in passing, a casual thought – can you die from a broken heart? It sure as fuck feels like it. Then the anger rushes in, red and wet and messy and I growl at the kid, ‘Let’s lose the pants, Matt. Let’s see what you’re packing.’

I don’t care what he’s packing. I want to fuck him and call it a day. My little plan has become too much and I want to run home and lick my wounds. But first, I’ll give him what he’s expecting.

He is everything that haunts my thoughts – long legs, wiry with muscle, a Celtic tattoo along his calf. A perfect ass, perfect cock, jutting to the left so that I had to turn my head a bit to catch up with it. His hands are big and they slide under my hair and across my scalp like a rush of warm air. I sigh, forcing my lips further down. Forcing my tongue to still and my lips to a perfect ‘O’. I force myself to breathe and take in the scent of him. Force myself not to cry when he says my name and his voice sounds so much like one from my past.

This is entirely Hazel’s fault. Entirely. I know that when I slide a condom on and work my fingers into him. I curse her when he touches my dick with only the tips of his fingers so I shiver. I hate her when I rock into him on that first perfect stroke and his long-lashed lids slide closed over his gemstone coloured eyes and he arches up under me, taut, smooth belly fluttering with pleasure. The muscles rippling with his movement like a human wave. I watch him and then when I am about to come, I close my eyes. Because Matthew isn’t Matthew any more. He’s a ghost of emotions past.