8. Gil
CHAPTER 8
GIL
T hree days later and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Rowan Verne and the bumbling way he tricked me into taking his virginity. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the way his whole body quivered when he had an orgasm, and I definitely couldn’t stop thinking about how hard he made me come. Unfortunately, with all of that, I was forced to remember the way I treated him afterward.
It wasn’t my fault.
The whole thing had caught me off-guard.
From my willingness to take another man into my bed to the post-coital confession that confirmed our romp had to be a one-time deal, the whole encounter had me backpedaling. I’d replayed the whole night—in sordid detail—for myself every night before bed, drinking one of the beers from the second six-pack each time. The crisp flavor of hops was a pale comparison to the deliciousness that was Rowan himself, but the taste of the memory was the only thing I’d get.
A one-time thing.
Fucking stupid. Stupid to say it and stupid to pretend once would be enough.
Thankfully, the sound of Jack’s car horn from my driveway blared loud enough for the whole block to hear, signaling my ride to dinner had finally arrived. I checked my pockets for my wallet, phone, and keys, then locked up and headed out.
“Took you long enough,” I grumbled, sinking into the passenger seat of his car.
Jack rolled his eyes, loosening the knot on his tie. “Some of us have real jobs, Gil. Jobs that require us to go into an office every day and sit in traffic in order to leave.”
“Sounds miserable.”
“You’re telling me.” He threw the car into reverse and backed out, shifted to drive, and took off toward the middle of town. “Are you good with Francelli’s?”
My stomach growled its approval before I could speak.
“You know I’ll never say no to pasta and wine,” I answered, stretching out my legs as far as the small space in Jack’s car allowed. “I’ve been drinking through this shitty six-pack my new neighbor brought me on Sunday and I could use a change.”
“Something from Top Hops?” Jack laughed.
“Yeah, but once he realized how bad it was, he picked something up from the liquor store instead.”
Jack threw a quick glance across the console at me, eyes narrowed. “That’s a weird way to welcome himself to the neighborhood.”
“I fixed his kids bike earlier in the day,” I explained. “Whatever you’re trying to make it into, it’s not that.”
He made a contemplative sound, and I cranked up the radio to drown out whatever smart comment he’d been planning to make next. It wasn’t an admission of guilt, but it wasn’t an acquittal either. To my relief, though, by the time we got to Francelli’s, Jack had decided to tell me a story about one of his co-workers and the possible affair they were having with the head of HR. It was mundane and predictable, exactly the kind of thing I needed in the wake of my poorly thought-out and libido-driven Sunday night fuck fest.
He was still rambling while we got seated in a booth, and going still when the waitress brought us a bottle of Chianti and two glasses. She poured a couple ounces into each, we ordered our usual—fettuccine for me and carbonara for Jack—and he was finally approaching the tail end of his story.
“And then we found out that it wasn’t the fucking guy from IT who was banging Sheila. It was his wife !”
I made a face that I hoped conveyed shock. “You’re kidding me.”
Jack scoffed, sinking back against the red pleather booth and waving a dismissive hand in my direction.
“You’re too isolated for your own good, Gil,” he said, reaching for his wine. “That was top tier office gossip and it didn’t even faze you.”
“Even if I cared what other people did in their spare time, I wouldn’t care who they fucked.”
“Who someone is fucking is generally the most interesting thing about them,” he protested, leaning forward more conspiratorially than before. “Which is why being your friend the past two years is so fucking boring.”
I huffed, giving him the finger and pouring myself another glass of wine.
“Gil, come on.” Jack took the glass out of my hand and threaded our fingers together, blinking across the table at me with eyes that looked far too much like his brother’s. “I’m imploring you to please just go get laid one time.”
“You’re insane.”
“I don’t ask you for much,” he protested, knocking my knuckles into the table.
“I’d do anything for you, Jack, but not tha?—”
I was interrupted by a quiet voice from beside the table. “Hey, Gil.”
Jack gave me a curious look before turning his head to the side, our hands still joined.
“Hey, Fisher,” I said. “How’s the bike holding up?”
“Good, thanks. I was meaning to come by and ask if you cou?—”
“Fish.” Another interruption, another indecipherable look from Jack. I tried to pull my hand away from his, but he dug his nails into my palm, holding me down.
“I was saying hi to Gil,” Fisher said.
Rowan came to a stop in front of our table, stumbling over his own feet and almost sending Fisher onto the floor. He looked…different from the other times I’d seen him. Dressed in creased navy chinos and a short0-sleeved button-up tucked in with a brown belt and matching shoes, a floral bowtie perfectly centered over the dip of his throat. It was impossible to not remember the way he gasped for air and swallowed hard after I pushed the whole length of my cock inside of him.
“Gil,” Rowan said, cheeks flushing beneath this constellation of freckles.
“Rowan.” I tried again to get my hand away from Jack, who finally let up. “Good to see you again.”
“Gil’s trying to have dinner, Fish,” Rowan said, placing both of his hands on Fisher’s shoulders and turning him away from the table. “We should leave him and his…friend.”
“Friend,” Jack repeated, tilting his head to the side.
“This is Jack,” I said, pointing at my asshole best friend who looked like he’d just eaten a canary. “This is my new neighbor, Rowan, and his son, Fisher.”
Rowan wiped his palm on the front of his pants and reached over Fisher’s head to shake Jack’s hand. Jack returned the gesture, then took a drink of his wine.
“Nice to meet you,” Rowan said, glancing nervously between Jack and me. “We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I wasn’t interrupting,” Fisher protested, adjusting the headphones in his ears with a heavy eye roll. “I was saying hello.”
“Good to see you too, Fisher.” I chuckled, lifting my wine up to my mouth as Fisher stalked away from the table. “Looks like you have an escapee on your hands.”
“I…he…” Rowan launched into more of his adorable stuttering before he tugged the end of his bowtie and managed to get himself together. “Nice to meet you, Jack. Good to see you, Gil.”
I tilted my head to the side to watch him go, scratching the side of my nose to cover my smile. The two of them took a seat at a booth across the restaurant, thankfully out of my line of sight. When I turned my stare back to Jack, he was watching me with a smug expression on his face and a threat in his eyes.
“You’re fucking him,” he said, clapping his hands.
“I’m having dinner with you,” I corrected.
“You can beat around the bush all you want, Gil Valentine, but I know you’ve been inside of that man before.”
I groaned, covering my face with my hands and working my fingers back into my hair. The scar across my eye pulled against my grimace, the skin feeling tighter than normal and far more uncomfortable than I was used to. The waitress brought our food, and it was the smell of the house-made alfredo that had my hands falling—defeated—into my lap.
“It was one time,” I conceded, giving my pasta, and not my best friend, my full attention.
“When?”
“Sunday.”
“Why?”
“Because he felt so bad about the shitty beer,” I lied.
Jack scoffed, winding a forkful of noodles around his fork and shoving them into his mouth.
“Why?” he asked again, a pea falling back onto his plate.
“Because I wanted to.”
“He’s nothing like Philip,” Jack said.
I dropped my fork onto the table with a clatter. “Exactly.”
“Shit.” Jack exhaled heavily, half of the amusement leaving his face. “I know that’s what I said, but that’s not how I meant it.”
“Don’t dig a deeper hole; I’m begging you.”
“I just?—”
“I wasn’t even thinking about your brother when I took him to bed, Jack,” I assured my best friend.
“Of course you weren’t.”
I picked up my fork again.
“I really just didn’t ever picture you going for a man like him,” Jack went on, his tone dripping with renewed amusement.
“Like him how?” I managed a bite of my pasta, relieved to find that even though my world was certainly slanting on its axis, the meal tasted normal. “Short?”
“Redhead.”
“Bowtie.”
Jack licked his lips and let out a quiet sigh. “Single dad.”
“Who says he’s single?” I tried to crack a smile.
“You wife him up already, Gil?”
I shook my head and reached for my wine.
“He has a kid,” Jack said. “Where’s the mom?”
“Dead,” I answered.
He made an apologetic sound, and I threw a look up to the ceiling.
“It was a one-off,” I said, hoping that was the truth. “He brought some shitty beer over after I helped Fisher with his bike and one thing just led to another.”
I didn’t need to tell Jack that I’d been Rowan’s first time with a man. I didn’t need to tell him how gorgeous Rowan looked when he was spread open and begging. None of that was anyone’s business besides my own.
“Why just once?” he asked.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
He shook his head and topped off both our wine glasses.
“He has a fucking kid,” I said. “And I’m not exactly step-dad material.”
“No one says you have to marry the guy.” Jack finished working loose the knot on his tie until it hung open and loose in the middle of his chest. He was getting ready to go in for the kill—I knew the signs. “Just take him to bed a few times until you get the gears turning again.”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“You’re just out of practice.”
“Jack. Are you listening to yourself?” I set my fork down again, the flavor still fresh in my mouth, but my appetite gone entirely.
“It makes me happy to see you getting back in the saddle is all,” he said, smiling.
“I need you to relax on the metaphors.”
“Grease the wheels,” he said.
I clenched my molars together.
“Knock boots in the hay,” he said next.
“You’re getting confused.”
“Netflix and chill.”
The worst part of the whole thing was I knew Jack meant well. He’d seen me through some of the worst parts of my split with his brother and, in his opinion, a return to dating was a return to normalcy. It was something we’d never seen eye to eye on, but it wasn’t anything worth fighting over either. His friendship was the most important thing in my life, and I wasn’t going to risk it over something as skewed as a conflict of views about sex and dating.
I finished the rest of my wine and flagged down the waitress for another bottle and a box. That earned a sharp laugh from Jack, who finally relented and dug into his carbonara with as much gusto as he undoubtedly imagined me digging into Rowan with. Thankfully, he hadn’t seen just how much purpose I’d demonstrated when Rowan had been the feast.
Another secret meant just for me and not my nosy best friend.
I made it through the rest of dinner with minimal jabs, but on the way home, I had Jack stop at the liquor store. I picked up a six-pack of the best beer they carried and brought it home with me. If Jack had any suspicions about why I was buying it, he didn’t voice them. He told me goodnight, promised to see me soon, and headed back home.
I set the six-pack of beer on my kitchen counter, trying to decide what to do about Rowan Verne.