Chapter 10
Avery
There was a stark difference between going out for a few drinks with a couple of friends and catching up while we eyed the bar for singles and getting shit-faced drunk while being reminded of the fact that I was painfully striking out at every turn.
While I’d never had any difficulty in pulling interest from women at bars, nothing had been striking me no matter how much Silas and Marlow were egging me on in an effort to also get me laid.
The sad thing was that apparently my pent up frustrations were obvious to pretty much everyone around me, including them, which had me wondering if Brandon had also picked up on it somehow.
Having that question teased in the back of my mind the entire night was the final nail in the coffin of me ending up stumbling out of the bar earlier than expected while both of my friends were finding themselves entertained with a couple of guys they’d been invited to play pool with.
I hadn’t had the heart to try and worm my way between any of that—not wanting to bring down the vibes with my obviously overly intoxicated behavior that was getting eyebrow raises from both Silas and Marlow on multiple occasions.
And once I’d seen an out, I’d gone for it.
That’s how I’d somehow found myself wandering the streets of Edgewood until the doors to Brandon’s shop were staring me right in the face.
To be fair, I’d only planned on trying to the handle on the off chance that it’d be unlocked, which to my surprise it was.
And then I’d only planned on stepping inside to use his phone to call a rideshare.
But that wasn’t exactly an easy task to accomplish with how fried I was.
Brandon actually still being there so late at night was a small miracle.
One that I felt that whatever God was actually out there had somehow blessed me with.
His mussed up hair and the single grease stain that was smeared across his cheek had made me melt, causing me to foolishly beg him to take me home like some stray cat hoping that their new human companion would spare them an empty box to sleep in for the night.
Never did I expect to find myself in bed the next morning with our limbs tangled together and my face buried in his neck while I breathed in his slightly salty and musky scent.
Or the fact that my morning wood would be pinched between our bodies, throbbing with the need for any type of friction to relieve the pressure that was building in my balls.
Brandon’s soft and labored breath was the only thing that soothed me and my raging hard on. His chest rising and falling against my mine, his breathing that fell in time with me, and the small ticks in his limbs that coincided with whatever he was currently dreaming about.
Being pressed up against him like this—like we were a couple of fucking ferrets tangled into a mess of a pile together—it felt good. Warm and welcoming. Coming home after a long day out in the cold and finding solace by the fireplace.
I could chalk all of this up to my hangover and my inability to invite any of the women who approached me last night back home with me so that I could finally find some fucking relief.
There were too many excuses in my head the entire night, none of them mattering now that I was trying not to grind my hard on into my former best friend’s thigh and get myself off.
What would even happen if I tried that, anyway?
Sometimes, I really envied Silas and Marlow.
Out and proud of themselves as gay men who took no shame in finding what they wanted and taking it home with them.
While I wasn’t gay myself, I always found that quality in them was something that I lacked.
I’d been so stuck in my ways for so long that at this point in my life, I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
Carrie had been my ticket to figuring it all out. Marrying her had made sense for both my career and my family’s legacy. When it all came crumbling down, I’d felt lost for so long that work had seemed like the next best thing to bury myself in.
And now it was almost three years later and I still didn’t know what I fucking wanted.
Nothing made sense.
Nothing but Brandon made sense.
What did that mean?
What was so special about the friendship that we had together that made it so hard to let it go?
Brandon shifted under me, letting out a long sigh while rolling his body into mine. The motion of it sent a zing of pleasure shooting straight to my boner, forcing a hiss out of me as I fought the urge to move with him.
Oh, fuck me...
I was too comfortable in an agonizing kind of way. Not to mention my hangover was making me a little dizzy. What I really needed to do was roll over and go to the bathroom so I could rub myself raw over the fucking toilet.
With my arm pinned under him, radio static shot through my limb the second I tried to move it out from under him. Flames licked at my skin from the blood finally returning to my poor arm, causing my shoulder to cramp up in the process.
I used my other arm to sit up slightly, and the loss of the weight on his chest had Brandon moving once more. His legs crushed my thigh between them, holding me in place. That’s when I felt something else brush up against my hips. Hard and tenting the front of his pants.
He moaned softly in his sleep, the sound a wonderfully enticing thing that had my mouth dropping open to suck in a surprised gasp of air.
As I stared down at where we were entangled, my brain began to short circuit. The collective symphony in my horny brain egging me on and telling me that just a little bit more friction and I’d finally find what I’d been chasing after since last night.
I knew I was going to monumentally regret this.
I didn’t care.
Lowering myself down on top of Brandon again and burying my face into the crook of his neck, I breathed in deeply. God, he smelled fucking good. I was tempted to open my mouth and lick at his skin, which I had a feeling would taste salty and slightly bitter from him working at the shop all day.
Under me, Brandon’s hips clashed again with my own, rolling in a slow motion that had me seeing stars.
“Fuck,” I whispered against his neck.
I needed to come so fucking bad it was boarding on painful. Matching his rhythm, I ground myself against him until I could feel the hard line of him hidden under his jeans. That had me gasping in his ear, the unexpected shot of pleasure building at the base of my spine.
I’d never had any questions about my sexuality, never found my own gender appealing, let alone want to rub my dick against another one like this. It felt so good, to the point where I didn’t even care that another man was currently getting me off.
“Ahh...” Brandon whimpered.
Hearing him like this, in an intimate way, was something that felt forbidden—wrong in a way.
Like I was intruding on a private moment that I wasn’t meant to share with him.
We’d only been open to a point about our hookups in high school, and with not much experience under either of our belts, we’d had very little in the ways of bragging rights.
So what Brandon was like in this kind of setting was foreign to me. Yet it did nothing to deter my balls from squeezing out enough precum to wet the front of my slacks in an embarrassing way.
My hips snapped into his, pulling a moan from my own mouth.
Oh, fuck. I was going to come just like this. Humping my former best friend like a thirteen year old who just discovered the beauty of an overly squishy pillow and a cock slicked with half a bottle of lotion.
So close...
There was a gasp and then his hands were slamming into my chest, thrusting me back hard enough to send me sprawling off the bed.
Nearly hitting my head on the way down, I snatched the side of the nightstand for purchase, only missing the corner of it from slicing my forehead open at the last second.
My shoulder hit the floor first, my legs still hanging up onto the bed as I tried to blink away the black spots forming in my eyes from my headache.
“Oh my god— Fuck.” Brandon’s face appeared over the side of the bed. “Are you okay?”
I only groaned in response.
“Just, uh, stay right there,” he said, scrambling off the other end of the bed.
His footsteps moved around his room and then disappeared down the hallway, leaving me to slowly peel myself up off the floor in a humiliating show of stupidity. Well, that was one way to kill a boner...
Mortified wasn’t even going to cover what I felt at this moment.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Just as slumped back onto the bed, I heard Brandon coming back down the hallway.
His eyes were downcast while he stretched his hand out to me, a glass held in one and a fist full of something in the other. When I opened my palm up toward him, he quickly slapped a few tablets of meds on it and then all but shoved the glass of water at me.
“For your hangover,” he said, refusing to even glance in my direction.
Oh, I’d royally fucked up.
Popping the pills quickly and downing the entire glass all in one go, I carefully handed it back to him, saying, “Thank you.”
“Yeah, no worries.”
There was a heavy pause that fell over us, enough to make my body want to twitch as the anxious feeling inside of my stomach was twisting it into knots tight enough to make me feel nauseous.
There was no doubt about it, he was definitely freaked out.
And why wouldn’t he be?
It wasn’t like it was an every day thing to wake up to your straight, former best friend humping you like a fucking dog in heat. No matter what delicious sounds were coming out of your mouth because of it.
Jesus fuck.
‘Delicious’?
I needed my head checked.
Sighing, I said, “Brandon—”
“I should probably shower.” His words instantly had my mouth snapping shut. “Got to work soon.”
Swallowing the bitterness on my tongue, I forced myself to stand. “Yeah. Of course. I’ve got a rideshare coming already.”
He only nodded and quickly stepped out of my way. When we finally made eye contact, his face flushed a dark rosy color and he turned away once more.
“Have a good morning,” he mumbled.
The second I was out the door and had it firmly shut behind me, I fought the urge to look up at the sky and curse at it.
Fuck my life.