Chapter Eleven
It’d been a mistake - a huge mistake - and I had several hours of hungover driving during which to mentally kick myself for it.
Frustrated by the radio, and then frustrated again by the silence when I turned it off.
Blood pressure spiking at the traffic, even as I knew that was only projection.
An excuse; yelling at my fellow motorists for their stupidity, their lack of foresight, standing in for accusing myself of the very same things.
I shouldn’t have kissed him, and I shouldn’t have gone out for dinner with him, and I shouldn’t have stayed an extra night, just because he wanted me to.
Just like I should’ve walked out of their apartment as soon as William led me into the bedroom and I realized it was Flynn there, sitting in his cuck chair in the corner.
One bad decision atop so many more. I sat down on the edge of the mattress, my room somehow simultaneously reassuring and confining, and put my head in my hands.
The drink was to blame, of course, and the unexpected path the weekend had taken.
Acting on impulse each time, not thinking beyond what might feel good in the moment.
Blind, even, to how attractive Flynn actually was: the angry part of my brain relying on its own well of fury to keep that from becoming an issue.
And then, when I’d tamped down on that anger, no safeguards or precautions to stop me from making a ridiculous mistake.
I’d got hard, in the truck, thinking about the kiss.
Frustrated at myself for it, but physicality impossible to deny.
Straining against my boxer-briefs, tenting my jeans practically, to the point that I considered unfastening them.
Only the idea of getting pulled over, on the highway, and some patrol officer glancing inside to see me that way stopped me from giving in.
Now, though - stripped down to my underwear and a closed bedroom door between me and the rest of the world - there was nothing to hold me back.
Not from thinking about his cock, pressed into me as we pulled each other close.
Flynn’s hand at the small of my back; the softness of his lips, and the faint burr of his stubble.
Nothing to stop me remembering the intense expression in his eyes as he silently watched me and his boyfriend on their bed.
He’d not been restrained, not been tied down. No limitations to his reaction, in fact, bar the gag across his mouth; even then, Flynn’s hands had been free to rip that away, if he’d wanted to. He could’ve stood up at any time, and stormed over to pull us apart.
Demanded that I leave, that this was an unforeseen betrayal of his arrangement with William.
Demanded to join us, to make it the threesome I’d first expected it to be.
There were other possibilities, ones which involved throwing his boyfriend out of the room and it being simply Flynn and I, but I felt too guilty to consider them. Even if just the vague outline of that idea was enough to have me throbbing with excitement.
I’d spent so long angrily dismissing him, scorning everything about what he’d grown up into, the speed at which that had flipped over into hunger was borderline comical.
I wanted to text him, suddenly frustrated at the distance, and the way things had ended after he’d walked me back to the hotel.
But I knew, even if I only meant to make conversation, how those messages would go.
The trajectory of flirting, of heavily-dropped hints.
I could imagine aiming my phone’s camera down, at the splay of my bare thighs and the outline of my erection through the tight cotton, and sending him that snap.
The tongue-in-cheek excuse I’d give for why he needed to see this particular view.
Nothing good could come of starting that.
I threw my phone down in frustration, sending it bouncing on the bed. Annoyed at myself; at my impulses, and at my restraint, too.
It’d been flirting, and not just on my part, I was sure of it.
Even if his erection had been an entirely physiological reaction to our kiss, no conscious thought behind it whatsoever, there was only one way to describe what’d led up to it.
Our conversation over drinks, in the restaurant.
The things we’d talked about, even if his boyfriend had been part of them.
The slightest gap in my armor, and suddenly I couldn’t think of him as some two-dimensional enemy any more. Not after that kiss, or that erection; not with how easy he’d been to talk to, once my resentment had abandoned me and taken my defenses with it.
“That’s not how it works,” he’d said, as I squeezed him through his jeans. And instead of asking him to explain, to put into words the context of the hard inches I was groping, I’d walked away like a frustrated child told he couldn’t play.
I fell back onto the comforter, with a grunt of annoyance.
The phone buzzed next to my ear. Kyle’s name on the screen.
“Drinks tonight?”
The alternative, I knew, was stewing in my ire. Interspersed with my parents trying to make conversation. Suddenly, the thought of treating what of my hangover lingered with a few more beers seemed like an excellent idea.
#
There were other bars, other pubs, in our town, but we only went to one. First, because it’d been the only one that served us with our less-than-convincing IDs. After that, from a sense of loyalty, perhaps.
I grabbed the two beers, for Catherine and I, and the cider for Kyle, and manhandled the three drinks back to our usual table.
“You realize you can just order apple juice, right?” Catherine grinned at Kyle, who promptly flipped her off.
“Now now, children, play nice,” I mock-scolded.
It was easy, familiar. Their sniping good-natured, but with the precision aim of people who’ve grown up together. Who’ve seen your weak spots, and know just the right threads to pull.
I should’ve known, then, that calling an end to Catherine’s teasing of Kyle would only bring the crosshairs around to me.
“So, did you have fun?”
I figured Kyle’s wink was meant to be suggestive. “You mean you didn’t get the invite to the photo album I shared?”
He made a face. “Like I want to see your spotty naked ass.”
“Hey, my ass hasn’t had a spot on it since high school gym class.”
“I didn’t want to see it then, either.”
I chuckled into my beer. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
“Boys, boys,” Catherine gestured at us, like a teacher pacifying unruly students. “So, was he worth the trip?”
I threw her what I hoped was an innocent-looking glance. “Was who worth it?”
If she was the teacher, then I was the student who’d just given the most ridiculous answer.
“The guy who you drove all that way to see, idiot. Or aren’t we meant to have worked out what prompts these little cross-state jaunts, yet?”
It wasn’t like it was a secret, inasmuch as something I felt a bit sheepish about.
Self-conscious, that my physical needs were so pressing, I had to jump in my old truck and drive for hours just to get laid.
Even though Catherine and Kyle both knew how few my options were locally, I still half-expected them to judge me, somehow.
“That didn’t work out,” I admitted, grudgingly.
“His loss,” Kyle said.
I raised my bottle to him, in appreciation of the moral support.
“And yet...” Catherine sounded curious, bordering on suspicious. “You don’t look disappointed. So, what happened?”
“Surprises happen,” I said, with a shrug.
“Did you stumble into love?” Kyle’s tone was teasing.
“Not that sort of trip.”
“How about Flynn?”
I frowned, automatically. Surprised by the segue. “Uh, what do you mean?”
Catherine raised an eyebrow. “I mean, he lives there. He was just here. I thought you guys might’ve... looked each other up?”
Keeping my face impassive, while my brain was screaming that it needed to find out just what she might be implying, was an unexpected struggle.
“It’s not like we’re friends,” I hedged, finally.
“When have you ever needed to be friends with a guy to have sex with him?”
I glared at Kyle. “He has a boyfriend.”
“Oh, but if he didn’t, you’d be interested?” Catherine’s expression was that of a bird of prey, one that just spotted something small, vulnerable, and probably delicious.
“I barely know him.”
“When did you ever need to know a guy, to have...” Kyle started
“Okay, okay, wiseass.” I ignored his clear amusement. “We had dinner. That’s why I came home late.”
“Flynn, you, and his boyfriend?” Catherine still had that curious-predator look.
“Just me and Flynn.”
They shared a glance.
“Oh, stop it, the pair of you,” I snapped. “Can’t two gay guys be friends?”
Kyle raised an eyebrow. “You just said you weren’t friends.”
The twisting, knotting conversation was starting to give me a headache. I decided it was easier to focus on specifics; or, more accurately, specific denials. “Flynn and I didn’t sleep together.”
Kyle actually looked disappointed, though I had no intention of digging into that reaction. Especially because Catherine hadn’t shed her suspicious expression.
“Dinner, or a date?”
“He has a boyfriend,” I repeated.
“Okay, so did the boyfriend know about your date?”
“It was just dinner!” I bit my lip, annoyed at myself for getting worked up. The protest had come out louder than I intended it to.
Catherine nodded, slowly. As if that reaction - more than anything I’d said - had clarified things perfectly. “When are you seeing him again?”
I shrugged, trying not to frown or look like the question had at all occurred to me before she asked it. “Who knows. We’re in two very different places.”
#
Catherine may have asked the question out loud, but it wasn’t like my brain hadn’t churned over it a few dozen times already. Was still churning through it, in fact, even as I sipped my beer and listened to my two closest friends in the world bicker about inconsequential bullshit.
In theory, I could tell them. Perhaps not all the details, not everything that’d happened while I was away.
Leave out the fact that I’d hooked up with Flynn’s boyfriend while he watched, perhaps; skip the whole surprise-cuck-play aspect that I still struggled to get my head around.
Pare out, instead, the most basic details: enough of a framework sufficient to drape with my current confusion.
I’d hated him, and then I was attracted to him.
Two intense feelings, but ordinarily ones you’d not expect to make for a natural transition.
That I’d gone from wanting to wring Flynn’s neck - preferably with his mom watching - to thinking about having sex with him seemed like an atypical development.
“Have you thought about leaving?”
Kyle’s question shook me from my thoughts. I frowned at him. “Like, for good?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “It worked for Flynn.”
It hadn’t, of course. Not financially; not in terms of the sort of freedom he’d gone to the city expecting.
Flynn had found a guy he liked, and he had a nice apartment and a nice car, but none of those things came without strings attached.
Something I couldn’t explain to my friends, not without breaking his confidence.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I asked instead.
Kyle frowned into his cider. “It’s just... we all know there’d be more guys there. Guys who you might be into.”
“Not only closet-case middle-aged farmers in loveless marriages looking to cheat, y’mean?”
“Right,” he agreed, “that.”
I chuckled. It wasn’t like I made a frequent habit of complaining about the potential dating pool - or, more accurately, the potential hookup pool - around town, but there’d been the occasional, usually-alcohol-fueled bitching session in the past. Enough that Catherine and Kyle knew better than to expect me to find a boyfriend locally.
“I’d need money, so much more money, if I was going to move,” I pointed out.
Kyle nodded, sagely, and seemed content to let the topic drop, but that only left the reins for Catherine to pick up.
“But, if you had a job. Or savings, or whatever... would you?”
“Would I what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Would you want to move? Like, to the city. Like Flynn did.”
I didn’t much appreciate the connection she was drawing, between moving away and it being to where Flynn was. Expressing that, though, would leave her thinking there was a deeper story, if only she went digging for it. Catherine could be merciless when she thought you were skipping details.
“It’d be a very different pace of life,” I hedged, taking a drink.
“Right, but...”
The question hung between us. Eventually, I realized, I was going to have to supply at least some sort of answer.
“There’d have to be a really big, tangible reason for me to move,” I said, and told myself I had no idea what such a reason might be.