m/m Deano's Summer: A Muscle University Story

[S01]

Well it is up North and if you lump kilts in with skirts, I'd reckon that'd be an truly bonnie story 

[muscleaddict]

14 hours ago, suske said:

Well it is up North and if you lump kilts in with skirts, I'd reckon that'd be an truly bonnie story 

 

Why am I thinking Johnny Hoxton would look good in a kilt? 

[Sjdmuscle]

2 minutes ago, muscleaddict said:

Why am I thinking Johnny Hoxton would look good in a kilt? 

Because it'd be a definite improvement over his dad pants! Also easier access to that massive arse of his.

[muscleaddict]

Twenty Two

I wake up, and all I can feel is this crushing sadness. I can’t believe what happened yesterday with Ryan. Or what happened afterwards. I’ve never seen my dad that angry. I don’t think I’ve ever cried in front of him before either.

This thing I’m doing with getting wasted and going crazy every time I feel pissed off needs to stop. I know that now. I just need to stop.

I can’t seem to lift my head off the pillow. My body aches. My mouth tastes like shit. I can’t see my dad right now. I don’t even know what I’d say to him. Maybe I should run away. Just fuck off somewhere. I have money from my student loan and from working at the gym. I have my emergency student credit card. I could just pack a bag right now. Just go somewhere without telling anyone. Switch my phone off. Disappear.

Away from dad. Away from here. Away from Ryan North. Who I’m never going to kiss again. Who I’m not never gonna get to touch in the way I want. 

I stay lying there for hours. Avoiding my dad. Avoiding Josh. Not checking Instagram to see if Ryan North has updated his profile. Or messaged me. I don’t think he’ll have messaged me. 

I can avoid the world for today, but I don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act like everything's normal. Go to work and pretend that nothing happened with Ryan. Be in the same place with him. Work with him. Stand there as dad makes jokes about our haircuts. I can’t do it. I can’t be that person anymore.

And then it happens. I can’t quite believe it when I look at my phone. But I get a text message from Ryan. Four simple words. 

“Are you okay, D?”

My insides twist. God I wanna text him back. No - he doesn’t get that from me now. Everything’s fucked. Everything between him and me is broken. He doesn’t get that version of me anymore. He doesn’t get anything from me.

Later on, I’m still lying on my bed. I can hear Josh and dad downstairs. And out of nowhere, I suddenly have this moment of clarity. I don’t know why it happens or where it comes from, but it's so clear. Suddenly I know what I need to do. 

I get off my bed and walk downstairs, both of my hands tucked into the front pocket of my black Montgomery University hoodie. Dad’s sitting down eating. Josh is leaning against the work surface.

I feel a tug in my stomach. But I know I have to do this.

“Dad …”

My dad looks up and gives me a stern look. “You better keep away from me!” He stands up and puts his plate in the sink. Josh gives me a wide-eyed, warning look.

“Dad …”

“I mean it, Deano!” he cries, his voice rising.

My stomach lurches.

“I don’t wanna work at the gym anymore.”

Josh bites his lip, looking awkward. Dad spins around and looks at me. He looks annoyed. And exhausted. Like he’s had enough.

“You’re seriously pushing your luck, lad!”

And now I’m starting to feel pissed off. Why isn’t this up for discussion? Why can’t he just fucking listen to me?

“You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to work there,” I say.

“I don’t need to ask!” he barks. “I’m your father!”

“I’m not a KID, dad. I’m an adult!”

“THEN PISSING WELL ACT LIKE ONE!” he shouts. 

“You don’t need me there. Just get someone else!”

He exhales loudly and shakes his head, like he’s losing his patience.

“You won’t even listen to me.”

“Okay, Deano. WHY don’t you wanna work at the gym?”

Fuck. I don’t know what to say. I just shrug, trying to think of something.

“Is it too good for you? Now that you’re at that poxy bloody university. Do you think you’re better than the rest of us? Or can you just not fucking STAND to be around us any more than you need to be?”

What the fuck? Where is this coming from?

“No. Dad … that’s not it!”

“Because you clearly DON’T wanna be around us, Deano. You’ve made that bloody obvious ever since you got back from uni.”

My stomach clenches. I shake my head. He doesn’t understand. What I’m going through. What I’ve BEEN doing through.

“Dad - I just DON’T wanna work at the gym anymore.”

“Fine, Deano. You don’t have to work at the gym. But you can get out of this house as well then. And you can forget going back to uni. I’m not bloody paying for you anymore if this is the thanks I get.”

I scoff. “That’s just ... dad, you’re being ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous? What’s fucking ridiculous is YOU coming home drunk, slamming all the bloody doors and telling me to fuck off!”

I look away from him and shake my head. “You didn’t even ask me.”

“WHAT!?” he barks.

I look at him, my chest tightening. “What was wrong!" I can't quite believe I'm saying this. The words are just tumbling out of my mouth. "Why I was pissed off last night. Why I was …” I stop. “You didn’t even ask!”

He’s looking at me angry, the vein in his forehead bulging. Then he shakes his head like he doesn’t care and goes back to the sink. I feel a surge of anger.

“Mum would've asked.”

As soon as I say it, I know I’ve crossed a line.

And then my dad snaps. “THEN FUCK OFF AND GO AND LIVE WITH HER THEN!” And he throws a spatula across the room and it hits the wall. Fuck.

“Dad!” Josh cries.

“Not that she’d have you,” he says, turning back to the sink and not looking at me.

My stomach lurches.

“Dad!” Josh says, in a warning tone.

“Well she didn’t want him when he was a kid, did she? She’s not gonna want him now!”

I feel like I’m gonna fall over. I can’t believe my dad just said those words. I feel sick. I feel angry. I feel like I might fucking cry. I spin around and storm out the room and upstairs.

I leave my phone on the bed and grab my wallet. I need to get the fuck out of this house. I need to get away from my dad. I slam the front door as hard as I did last night and now I’m walking away, half expecting him to come rushing after me shouting. But I know he won’t. Because I have a feeling he knows he’s gone too far.

The words are ringing in my ears. Going around my head. My mum didn’t want me. Maybe my dad shouldn't have said that, but it’s the fucking truth. She didn’t want me. Sebastian Wood didn’t want me. Ryan North doesn’t want me.

He doesn’t want me.

I’m walking towards the station. I know exactly where I’m heading. I don’t really question whether I should or not. I’m a mess. Unshowered and hungover in my trackies and Montgomery University hoodie. But I just keep walking.

I fear I might not be able to find the house. It’s been so long since I’ve been there. But as soon as I see it. As soon as I see the red front door, I know it’s the one.

I hear Chloe inside. And then her voice. She’s so surprised to see me when the door opens. She looks happy. But then … concerned. Like she knows something’s wrong. Like she always bloody does.

Chloe comes running up and clings to my mum’s leg.

“Look who it is, Chloe. Are you going to say hello?”

I offer up a half-smile. She gives me a shy smile back and then runs off. 

I follow mum into the kitchen. She offers me tea. Gary’s out apparently. The house looks different. I don’t really know what I’m doing here.

I sit down at the table, not saying anything. I’m just sitting there with my hands in the front pocket of my black Montgomery hoodie, looking at the table in front of me.

“I’m just glad it’s a bit cooler today. I can’t stand this constant hot weather,” my mum’s saying as she makes me a cup of tea. Like everything's normal between us. 

She hands me my tea and sits down opposite me. I don’t look at her initially. I’m just slumped in the chair with my hands in my front pocket. I feel like I could sleep for about a year.

“Well, this is a bit of a surprise. Not that it’s not nice to see you, Dean!”

I finally look up at her. God - Josh looks like her so much. I suddenly want my mum to hug me. I want her to tell me everything’s going to be okay. Like she did when I was a kid. 

“Is it your dad?”

I roll my eyes and look out of the window. Then I take a deep breath. 

“He just …” I swallow. “He treats me like a kid!”

I feel a stab of guilt. For talking to mum about dad like this. Like I’m betraying him or something.

“You’ll always be kids to us. You and your brother.”

My chest tightens. I'm not looking at her face. I'm just looking at the table in front of me again.

“What did we do, mum?”

Fuck. 

“What was wrong with us?” 

I look up and her lip trembles. “Oh, Dean!”

Oh my God. Don’t cry, Deano. Do not fucking cry.

“You and your brother. You’re the BEST two things that ever happened to me. You know that, right?”

She puts her hand flat on the table and moves it in my direction. As if she’s trying to touch me. But I don’t move. 

I shake my head. Still not looking her in the eyes. “Then why did you leave us?”

I can’t believe I’ve never asked that question before. It was so easy. Maybe I was scared of what the answer would be.

She sighs. “You know I wasn’t much older than you when I met your dad, right?" He was …” she pauses, “God - such a character! Even MORE than he is now. Jesus, Dean!”

I look up at her. I finally look at my mum.

“He had SO much energy. And he was SO confident. I’d never met any boy that confident.”

I roll my tongue around the inside of my mouth.

“Imagine Joshua. Times TEN!”

I manage to smile. Just a little.

“He wasn’t afraid of anything. Or anyone, for that matter! Just … said whatever he thought.”

I scoff. “No change there then!” 

Mum smiles. “Oh, and your grandparents HATED him.”

I smile even more. 

“But … God, I was CRAZY about him. One day, Dean, you’re gonna meet someone …”

Fuck. My chest tightens.

“And everything’s just gonna feel like … it’s the end of the world!”

But I already have met someone, mum. I already have met that person. I bite my lip and close my eyes. Just for a moment.

“Things between your dad and me - they were good for a while. We had a lot of fun. The thing is, Dean. Just because someone makes you feel a certain way now, doesn’t mean they’re gonna make you feel that way forever. Believe me! 

I thought about leaving your dad so many times. And then - well, then your brother happened. And … we had a reason to stay together and make it work, I guess. And then YOU came along. And we were a proper little family. And I loved that. But ... things weren't right between your dad and me, Dean.

And every day, I thought about leaving him. For years, in fact. And I thought,” she pauses and starts to choke up, “no - I KNEW, that if I didn’t just do it, I’d be stuck in that situation forever.

When you get older, you’ll find that a lot of things feel a lot scarier. Pretty much everything does, to be honest. I was desperate. I just had to go. And, bloody hell, Dean - it tore me apart leaving you and your brother like that. I wondered whether I’d done the right thing for years afterwards. I still wonder about that sometimes now.”

I don’t know what to say. My chest feels tight. My insides ache. I’m picturing a younger mum, desperate to leave my dad. I guess I can’t ever really know what she was going through. What was going through her head at that time. Maybe it’s not really up to me to understand. Maybe I just have to live with the fact that she did what she did. 

It still hurts. Like fucking hell. I’m not sure if that will ever really stop.

“Even though I stopped loving your dad, what he’s done with you and your brother, I’ll never stop loving him for that. Do you remember what I used to call you when you were little? My little Deanosaurus Rex?”

Fucking hell. I shake my head, smirk and close my eyes, my insides feeling tight. 

She moves her hand towards me and places it gently on my right arm and I feel like I’m going to break down and cry. I close my eyes and bite my lip. Fucking hell. I open them and she’s looking at me. My beautiful fucking mother. Who I love so fucking much.

“Are you're happy at uni, Deano?”

I bite my lip. My insides twisting. Suddenly all the drama back at Montgomery feels insignificant.

I shrug. “Most of the time. I guess? I mean … nothing’s perfect, is it?”

She smiles at me. “So, what have you and your dad been arguing about this time?”

I groan and look past my mum and out of the kitchen window. “I told him I don’t wanna work at the gym anymore.”

She pulls an eeeek face and then smiles. “You do KNOW why he makes you work at that gym?”

I pull a face and shrug. “Cheaper than getting someone else in?”

My mum playfully rolls her and smile. “He does it because he wants to spend time with you, Dean!”

I screw my face up.

“He LOVES having you back. We all do.”

My chest expands.

“You do know how proud of you is he, don’t you? I think ...” she pauses, “your dad was always a bit jealous of me when you were a kid.”

“Why?!”

“Because you were all over me. All the time. You didn’t really want anything to do with him.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Made up for that since, though, haven’t you?”

I smile and look down at the table. Chloe comes bouncing in, asking for something. She’s all shy around me, but she’s smiling too.

“What do you think, Chlo - does Dean still look like The Incredible Hulk?”

She gives me a shy smile and shakes her head. 

“No?”

“Mmmm! A bit!” she says. Me and mum look at each other and exchange smiles. “But he’s not green like The Incredible Hulk though!”

I let out a little laugh and look at my mum, who’s smiling back.

“So ... are you, like, my brother?” Chloe asks.

Mum bites her lip.

“Erm … kind of!” I say to her.

My mum looks like she might cry.

“But not like a real brother?” she asks.

“Erm. I guess I’m kinda like … a special brother.”

Chloe’s eyes suddenly widen, this look of excitement and elation on her face. She lets out this happy, high pitched squeak. I look at my mum. And oh my God - it feels like such a happy moment. I feel like my heart might just burst through my chest. 

I hang out at mum’s for a bit. I play with Chloe and her toys, my mum drifting in and looking at me all doughy eyed as she cooks us pizza. 

It’s only when I’m leaving a few hours later that I feel a knot in my stomach at the thought of facing dad. And of having to go to work tomorrow and potentially face Ryan. My mum says I can sleep at hers, but I feel like I’m just delaying the inevitable. I just need to go home and face up to it. I can do this.

But as I get to the house, I suddenly want to try and sneak in and upstairs without my dad noticing in. As soon as I place one foot on the staircase though my dad calls out from the kitchen.

“Deano. Come here, please!”

For fuck’s sake. He sounds serious, but not necessarily angry.

I walk in the kitchen, rolling my tongue around the inside of my cheek, avoiding eye contact with my dad.

“Sit down!”

He’s glaring at me wide eyed. I could rebel. But I sigh, roll my eyes and do as he asks. He sits down opposite me.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

I’m folding my arms, looking down at the table, not looking directly at him.

“I was bang out of order!”

Yeah, you were. That’s what I feel like saying. But I don’t. I don’t actually feel that pissed off at me anymore. Not after seeing mum.

“You know your mum …” he pauses and sighs. I look up at him. “You know she fucking adores you! And you know I’m the bloody reason she left, right?”

I don’t say anything.

“Right?? Nothing to do with YOU. Or your brother. Your mum - she was desperate. Sometimes we have to do things in our way. And sometimes that doesn’t make sense to anyone else but ourselves.”

I roll my mouth around the inside of my cheek. I don’t know what to say.

Dad lets out a big sigh. “I’m not gonna make you work at the gym anymore.”

Fuck. What the fuck? He looks so sincere.

“Really?”

His eyes widen and he nods. “You … go and do your own thing," he says, with a slight eye roll.

I bite my lip to try and keep from smiling. My chest is filling up.

“I mean, I would have thought working in the best bodybuilding gym in the South would be the perfect place for you to work.”

I smirk. “Best gym in the South?” I say, with my eyebrow raised.

“Okay - South East.”

I smile and shake my head. 

“Certainly better than that poxy bloody Infinity Fitness anyway.”

And now my stomach feels like lead. And suddenly I’m not smiling anymore. I think about what my mum said earlier. About dad making me work at the gym so he could spend time with me.

“It’s not that I ... hate working there or anything," I tell him. "You know that, right?”

“I know, I know - you wanna make your own decisions! You’re not a kid anymore.”

I bite my lip. There’s a pause. And my dad’s just looking at me.

“Is there something going on, mate?”

Fuck. My chest tightens. I don’t know what to say. I look at his chest.

“What the bloody hell was all that about last night?”

Fucking hell. I shrug. “I was … drunk!”

“Where the hell had you been?”

Fuck.

“Just … out.”

My dad’s giving me this weird, concerned look. Oh God. Does my dad know? Does he at least suspect? No. He can’t do. But I guess … well, I guess I can’t really know what’s going on in his head.

“Has someone upset you, son?”

Bloody hell. My insides clench. I pull a confused face and shake my head.

“Cause if they have - tell me who it is. I’ll rip their fucking head off!”

And now I’m smiling. I can’t help it. I shake my head and he smiles back.

“Oh! Almost forgot …” he says, standing up and rummaging through his jacket pocket.

“Picked up this earlier!”

He throws some rolled up paper at me. I pick it up and open it up. I can’t believe it. It’s an application form to work at Tesco. I’m smiling.

“Still don’t reckon they’ll have a uniform to fit you, though. Who knows - you might even meet someone there!”

“Dad … you do know YOU were the one who mentioned working at Tesco?”

He groans and rolls his eyes. “Fucking hell!” he cries, grabbing the form off me and screwing it up. I watch him and laugh. And he’s smiling too.

And now we’re just looking at each other. He swallows.

“I bloody love you, son. You know that, right?”

Fuck. My chest fills up. I pull a face. “Alright, dad. Calm down!”

He narrows his eyes at me and smirks. “Right - you can piss off now!”

I smirk and roll my eyes.

“Go and do your bloody hair or something!”

I stand up. “Thinking of changing it.”

“GOOD! Now piss off.”

I shake my head and walk out of the room, this mix of warmth and love surging through me as I climb the stairs to my bedroom. Some things don’t need to be said out loud, but I do. I bloody love you too, dad.

[Sjdmuscle]

Yeah!! I'm going to read it now!

[MrLashout]

That's a lot of feels in one chapter. A truly remarkable story continues.

[crushme99]

muscleaddict, our unmet friend . . . 

I bet nearly every one of your readers began following your stories because of muscle and the deep insight which you have about how muscle, strength, and the worship of both can reach down into secret places within us.  Your various stories have done that, in spades.  But now . . . this – this story of Deano, has unfolded on a whole different level.  Yes, the muscle is there of course, hotter than ever in some of your scenes.  But with Deano, you have shown much deeper insight.  This isn't simply "muscle fiction."  In many respects muscle is secondary.  Here you have shown us Deano's heart . . . and you have touched ours.

Thank you.

[DennisFLL]

That chapter moved me so much.  Only great writing can do that, CJ!

[Kons]

Such an emotional chapter. I have gone from slightly hate Deano in Muscle University to love him through your incredible writing. Pls dont let us wait too long for the ending cause I just cant help to root for this little pocket rocket

[muscleaddict]

2 hours ago, crushme99 said:

muscleaddict, our unmet friend . . . 

I bet nearly every one of your readers began following your stories because of muscle and the deep insight which you have about how muscle, strength, and the worship of both can reach down into secret places within us.  Your various stories have done that, in spades.  But now . . . this – this story of Deano, has unfolded on a whole different level.  Yes, the muscle is there of course, hotter than ever in some of your scenes.  But with Deano, you have shown much deeper insight.  This isn't simply "muscle fiction."  In many respects muscle is secondary.  Here you have shown us Deano's heart . . . and you have touched ours.

Thank you.

Thanks for the lovely words @crushme99. The muscle stuff is obviously always fun to do but the more serious/emotional stuff definitely feels more rewarding to write, especially in this story. Hopefully I can keep pushing that element further in future stories and (fingers crossed) continue to improve my writing. Thanks again, matie.