A One-Time Thing

14. Gil

CHAPTER 14

GIL

L ate Wednesday evening, my doorbell camera alerted to motion on the porch. I glanced at the alert on my phone, shoving my chair back from my desk to stretch. The day had really gotten away from me, and my eyes were bleary from how long I’d been focused on my screen. It had already been a rough week at work, with all kinds of things going wrong and I was the only person capable of putting out the fires. I was about an hour out from finishing what I hoped were the final corrective actions, but I definitely needed a break.

Before the Verne men had moved to town, I wasn’t the type to get visitors. Jack came over often, but for the most part he was on a schedule, and he was also my best friend so the rules didn’t quite apply to him. Fisher had been over more than his dad, but I found that neither of them were as unwelcome as they should have been. I was a solitary man and I enjoyed my peace and quiet. Fisher was anything but, and Rowan…well…he was something else entirely.

I knew one thing for certain, navigating out of my office and to the front door, it wasn’t Jack on my porch. After seeing him on Saturday when he’d managed to drop two bombs in one go, he’d been scarce. Not ignoring me, but not as talkative as he usually was. His brother would always be a sore spot between us, but I didn’t know which was more shocking. The fact Philip had asked Jack to be in his wedding or the fact he was getting married at all. A thousand questions about my ex’s life tangled up in the back of my throat at Jack’s confession, but I’d swallowed them all down. They would keep for another day when he didn’t look so terrified of me. God knew what expression my face must have contorted into at the mention of Philip getting married.

Had he decided to settle down with a man or a woman? Did his intended have kids? Did they want kids? They’d have to, because there was no reason for it to have been our deal breaker for nothing.

Right?

Right?

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I pulled open my front door, half-expecting to see Fisher and his bike on my porch, but definitely not expecting to see Rowan, bent over with his ass in the air as he retrieved the keys he must have dropped. A white envelope stuck up out of his back pocket. He had on khaki pants that stretched across his ass in all the best ways, and I really did enjoy how proper he presented himself until I stripped him down to fuck.

“I normally like to do this kind of thing indoors,” I said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing one ankle in front of the other. “But if you’re into exhibitionism, we can give it a try.”

He started at the sound of my voice because of course he did, straightening up fast as a shot and almost falling over himself and into my grass. Rowan turned quickly and managed to regain his footing, showing me he had on a blue and white checkered button-up, short sleeves, with a blue floral bowtie collared neatly around his throat.

“I’m not,” he said quickly, face as red as the roses around his neck.

I hummed. “That’s a shame.”

Rowan didn’t say anything to that, so I cocked my head to the side and waited for him to announce himself.

Nothing.

“What brings you over this way, Rowan?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“I, uhm…I got your mail earlier this week.”

I arched a brow. “My mail?”

“That you left for me, I mean.”

Oh. My test results.

“Just being responsible after the fact since we weren’t in the first place,” I said.

“Right, of course.” He reached into his back pocket and produced the white envelope, shoving it against my chest.

I reached for it before he could drop it, fingers grazing against his before he pulled away. I didn’t anticipate there being any surprises inside or Rowan would have been a lot more flustered than he was. A quick scan of the printout confirmed we were both clear to continue the way we’d started. A quick flash of arousal snaked up from the base of my spine, the mere thought of finally coming inside of him enough to almost send me over the edge.

“Where’s Fisher?” I asked.

“Home,” Rowan answered with a shrug. “Doing homework. I was going to pick up a pizza and wanted to come drop these off.”

“How long do you have?”

Rowan’s face somehow turned darker, and I realized my question must have sounded like a proposition.

“Not to fuck,” I quickly corrected. “To talk.”

Was it just me, or did he look crestfallen?

“I have five or ten until the pizza is ready,” he said.

I gestured for him to follow after me, and then we were both alone in the entryway of my house, Rowan looking awkward as ever. This was new for us, I realized. Talking with clothes on had never been part of the spark between us, no matter how much we’d pretended to preface our sexual encounters with it. This was just talking, no promise of sex in sight.

“We’ve been fairly heat of the moment about things so far, and I just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” I explained.

He laughed nervously. “I’m just happy we’re in the same book, but go on.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I’d ask him another time.

“I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” I told him.

“I know.”

“And I’m not looking to be a dad. Step or otherwise.”

Rowan opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, but closed it before any words escaped. That was probably for the better.

“I’m not offering you anything more than what I already have,” I said.

“Intimacy,” he murmured.

“No.” Rowan needed to get that idea out of his head immediately. “Sex.”

“Same thing.”

“No,” I said again. “It’s very much not.”

I’d been intimate with Philip, just like Rowan had been intimate with his wife. You were intimate with partners, not neighbors you took to bed to pass the time.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you…having sex with other people, then?”

“No.”

“Are you intimate with anyone?” he asked me next.

“If I was, you wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Rowan grimaced, knotting his fingers together anxiously in front of his stomach like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“You’re the only person I’m doing anything with,” I explained. “I would like to keep doing those things with you and I’d very much like to keep doing them without condoms, but if you’re doing them with anyone else, if you’re dating, if you’re intimate ?—”

“I’m not,” he said quickly, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m not.”

“You can if you want,” I said. “I don’t mind if you want to date other people, as long as they know about me.”

About us.

“I’m not dating anyone,” Rowan said quietly. “I don’t have time, even if I wanted to. There’s so much to do on the house and I’m getting settled at work, and Fisher starting his new school…”

“I’m just saying, if you wanted to.”

Rowan squinted like he was thinking about something, but he was quick to clear it away. “Okay,” he whispered.

“Do you want to start using condoms?” I asked.

His test results crinkled under my grip, and I smoothed them out again with steady fingers, waiting for his reply.

“I don’t know, Gil,” he finally answered, eyes downcast. “I’m not just new to men, I’m new to all of this.”

It had been far too easy to forget that Rowan hadn’t been with a man before me. That he hadn’t warned me or even hinted that I was about to be his first. He’d been so eager and awkward, I thought he was just nervous, and I’d spread him out and fucked him like he had twenty years of practice taking a cock up his ass.

Sighing, I tossed his test results onto my coffee table.

“How about we keep things as they are for now, but when you decide to start dating someone else, we start using condoms,” I suggested, forcing out the next sentence like the words were wrapped with barbs. “Or stop the whole thing entirely.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

It was a relief in some ways. A burden in others.

“That’s fine for now,” I agreed.

“Good. Great.” Rowan straightened his posture and smiled at me. “That’s settled.”

“It’s settled,” I said, completely smitten with every single thing about him. “You should go pick up that pizza. I’m sure Fisher’s hungry and waiting for you.”

“What?” he asked, brows knit in confusion.

“Your son,” I reminded. “You were just stopping by here on your way to get him dinner.”

“Oh! Yeah. Right.”

Rowan turned quickly for my front door, muttering something under his breath I couldn’t quite make sense of.

“I’ll see you soon, Rowan,” I promised once he stepped onto my porch.

“When?”

I wanted to tell him whenever you want , but carte blanche didn’t feel very casual to me. Carte blanche felt very close to intimate.

“Can you come over Friday night? After Fisher is asleep?”

“We used to watch movies on Friday nights,” Rowan said, bobbling his head side to side. “I’m trying to start it up again.”

“That’s why I said after he’s asleep.”

“It’ll be late.”

Late was casual.

Late was perfect.

“I know,” I said.

“Maybe you can come over after the movie is finished instead?” he proposed.

“You’re too loud,” I told him.

Rowan pulled his lips between his teeth, pupils dilating into dark, black pools.

“Another time,” I conceded. “Come over Friday night, however late it is.”

“Okay,” he rasped, not making any move to leave.

“Go get your pizza, Rowan.”

He barked out a hoarse laugh, stepping backward and off my porch. He managed to catch himself before falling, adjusting his bowtie and smoothing his hands down the front of his shirt before turning and heading down to where he’d parked his car. I watched him go, wondering all the while if I wanted to tell him that his son already suspected there was something going on between us.

Fisher had all but implied it Saturday morning when he’d shown up uninvited. I hadn’t confirmed or denied, and I didn’t know anything about having kids, but I knew they were terrifyingly smart and attentive. The less time I spent at Rowan and Fisher’s place, the better, because another thing I knew about kids was they were impressionable, and the last thing I wanted was for Fisher to get the impression that I was around for anything more than a good time with his father.

Rowan and I were good in bed. Hell, we were great in bed, but that was where our compatibility started and ended. He was too proper, too maintained, too talkative for me. And he had Fisher which, as great of a kid as he seemed to be, was still a deal breaker for me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself, locking the door and walking into the kitchen. I turned the lights on as I went. A reminder of how holed up in my office I’d been for the whole day. The kitchen lights were glaringly white, but they made it very clear I didn’t have anything worth eating in my fridge. Nothing more than a six-pack of beer with one bottle left inside. I cursed under my breath and slammed the fridge closed.

Pizza sounded perfect, but there was no way I was going to head into town after Rowan and meet up with him on accident in the takeout line. My options were sandwiches, Chinese, or I could take a ride to Ridgecrest and get a pizza there. I passed the crumpled test results on my coffee table, my fingers itching to check them one more time and I knew staying local wasn’t an option.

I needed to get on my bike and get out of town before I did something stupid and forgot what the word casual fucking meant.