Chapter 27
Love stories had played out in living color right before my very eyes.
Momma and Ben, Wren and Tate, Cal and Jack, even Jamie with Michael in some weird kind of love, but theirs all the same.
However, I’d never had delusions that everyone was so lucky.
This, though, this had been better than a dream, and Luke was definitely my Prince Charming.
After our soak in the tub, after I’d blown him, then massaged his entire body with soap until his moans became exhausted sighs, I dried him off and tucked him into bed. We’d snoozed, waking every few hours to kiss and come and snooze more.
Being the oldest of six kids, I’d never been the priority. I’d never been someone’s sole focus. Every fiber of attention I showed him, Luke returned.
We woke late that morning. Luke made breakfast, teasing me about breaking his back with our rambunctious activities all night long.
“Not only did you break my back, but you broke my dick,” he said.
He stood in his kitchen in a pair of pajama pants of some soft, clingy-in-all-the-right-places material. His ass drew my hands to it, but the outline of his dick made my mouth water.
“Highly doubt it’s broken,” I said.
“It is.” He sniffed. “No more sex for you.”
I dropped right there and mouthed over the thin material.
“Asher,” he panted immediately, gripping the counter and pressing his hips forward. Had him trained like a good boy.
“Don’t stop cooking.” I blew over the soaking wet spot. “I’m hungry.”
Luke shivered. I’d warned him on our first date.
When I started having sex, opened that can of worms, he’d better be in shape.
My libido had a couple of years to make up for, but his had decades.
His poor, repressed sexuality made me double my efforts.
I wanted to blow his mind, make him realize he couldn’t live without this side of himself.
He couldn’t live without me.
He played along for a minute, then just stopped until I had his come coating the insides of my stomach before finishing with breakfast.
“This is good,” I said around a bacon and egg sandwich. “I like cooking too. I had to do it a lot for my siblings.”
“Next time, you can cook for me.” Luke grinned, but his phone buzzed on the counter, and the smile fell.
“Who is it?” I asked. He hadn’t reached for his phone, but by the slump of his shoulder, he knew. “Don’t answer it,” I added before he moved.
“Hopefully, this won’t take long.” He wiped his hands on a linen napkin—so snooty britches—and answered his phone as he walked out of the room
His first floor had the great room and another room he used as an office I’d found this morning while I scoped out the place. Luke ducked inside it and pulled the door closed, but not before his words drifted in the silence.
“Morning, Father.”
Fuck James Dorset. A night of unfettered Luke had paused those feelings, but they were very much alive and well in my gut. Luke was too precious of man for such horrible parents.
I took my glass of orange juice and walked to the wide wall of windows in the living room.
Every part of Luke’s place had the bare minimum it could hold and still be called furnished.
The only space that remotely was lived-in was the bathroom and closet since it had his stuff.
Even the wine room, which had tons of character, was still bare other than racks and racks of bottles.
No pictures hung on walls or sat on tables.
He had artwork, and it was all nice, I supposed, but not personal.
Almost everything was white—Momma would’ve fainted at the stains waiting to fall everywhere—and the few colors of washed-out green and barely peach were so intentionally unobtrusive they might’ve well been white too.
Pop of color was nowhere to be found. When I questioned it, he’d said it was his mother’s idea.
And that explained everything. The woman had probably insulted the colors, wilted them on the spot.
Luke’s home was fancy, though, and the view at night was really great, but it wasn’t him. This place was an image, the one he kept molding himself to, the one his parents wanted for him. God, I hoped he realized it one day. I hoped he woke up and started living his own life.
With a glance at his closed door, I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Jamie.
“Can you talk?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Daddy’s still at work. Why’re you whisperin’?”
“I’m at Luke’s. He’s in his office on the phone, but I don’t want him to hear me.”
Jamie cackled. “Well, come on, then. Michael’s showerin’, so get it out ’cause I know you got somethin’.”
“Somethin’ like I had sex?”
Silence.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. Still connected. “Hello?”
“I’m really not sure what to say to that.”
“With a guy, not my hand, if that inspires.”
After another pause, he asked, “Pitchin’ or catchin’?”
“Pitchin’.”
Jamie huffed. “You like it?”
“Like would be an understatement.”
“And this was the old dude?”
“Age is only a number.”
“To a point. What about your plans to fuck your way through college?”
“I don’t think those were my exact words.” I thought for a second. Maybe, but that was the plan before I’d had a taste of Luke. “Okay, very close to those words, but things change. Luke is sexy and smart and classy and fun—”
“Until he ignores you in the street.”
“Don’t say shit like that.”
“It’s the truth, ain’t it? He’s closeted.”
I didn’t want to think about it, so I changed the subject and gave him the quick rundown from last night, pumping up the moments where no one caught on that I was a guy and downplaying how disgusting Luke’s parents were.
“You gonna keep dressin’ up, then? Marry him all doodied up like Ashley?”
“Do what?” Michael growled in the background. I rolled my eyes because now this would be some drama. With Michael near him, Jamie got all ballsy and opinionated.
“Nothin’,” Jamie said to him. To me, he said, “You turnin’ trans?”
“No, don’t be stupid.”
“It ain’t stupid. How’re you supposed to see this guy dressed like a girl, lettin’ folks think you’re a girl, and you not being some sort of trans?”
“I don’t think it’s trans unless I feel like a girl.”
“Well, do you?”
Dressing as Ashley had been fun in the beginning and kinda sexy in some ways. I hadn’t minded the clothes or the panties, but none of it made me feel female or wish to be one. It actually made me feel more masculine, as if those frilly things emphasized the parts of me that made me male.
“Nope. No, I definitely don’t feel like or want to feel like a girl. Dressin’ up was a sexy secret only he and I shared but in plain sight of everyone.”
“Hmm. Is that how this guy sees it too? He tryin’ to make you be a girl?”
“Not at all. Luke loves dick. He loves my dick.”
“Why’s Asher tellin’ you about his dick?” Michael griped.
“He’s not,” Jamie said. “He’s tellin’ me someone else likes his dick.”
“He don’t need to be fillin’ you in on anyone’s dick.”
“Tell him to shut the fuck up,” I barked.
“He heard you,” Jamie said at the same time Michael snapped, “I heard that, bitch.”
I swallowed the tinge of fear that always slithered down my spine when Michael got angry. “Uh, anyway, it was my idea to do the Ashley thing. It was like a kink, like callin’ him daddy or somethin’.”
“You call him daddy?” Jamie asked.
“He does what?” Michael added.
“Who am I talkin’ to?” I asked Jamie. “You or him.”
“Mikey, would you leave me alone so I can talk with Asher in peace?”
“Nope,” Michael said simply.
“Whatever.” I leaned my shoulder against the glass and sighed. “I like Luke. A lot. I want to ask him to come home with me before classes start up.”
“And? What’s stoppin’ you?”
“Is it too soon?”
“No. You met his parents.”
“Not really, though. They met Ashley’s bitch ass.”
“Yeah, right. Personally, I don’t think you should take him home. Your momma’d have a fit if she knew how you bent over backwards for this fuck and he’d done nothin’ for you.”
I flinched as if he’d hit me. “It’s not—”
“Ash, this dude lets you dress like a girl so he can hide the fact he’s gay, sits there dickless while his parents insult you, and you think he’s gonna just up and decide to come out to your family?”
“He could—”
“No, he won’t.”
I straightened, hating the truth in his words, hating to hear anyone talk bad about Luke, and hating even more that I agreed with some of what Jamie said.
“You may know about being in the closet, but you don’t know Luke. Okay, Jamie? So until you find the balls to come out yourself, don’t talk shit about other people’s struggles with it.”
Tears of anger burned my eyes while I took several slow breaths to get myself under control. Jamie didn’t comment. Michael didn’t bitch in the background. Silence spanned so long I had to check the call was still going.
I shouldn’t have gone off like that. Especially not with Michael nearby. Jamie was deluding himself to think Michael wasn’t well aware of his brother’s sexuality, but if he wanted to keep lying to himself, that wasn’t my business. Still, I shouldn’t have barked at him.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “Sorry, Jamie.”
He sniffled. Worse than him yelling back at me were his tears. Jamie’s struggles were rough too. I should’ve thought of that before I snapped.
“Jamie—”
“You’re right. I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t judge.”
“Did Michael …”
“He walked out—after.”
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Jamie whispered. “I think he knows.”
“Since when?”
“I dunno. He’s just been different lately,” Jamie said, which said a lot.
“You okay? I mean, are you safe? You know Momma would welcome you at our house.”
Jamie gave a wet chuckle. “I know, but I can’t leave Mikey here.”
I snorted. “Uh, he can take care of himself.”
“Yeah,” he breathed as if he might go on, but changed the subject. “I hope Luke gets his head outta his ass.”
“Would be nice.”
“When’re you comin’ back home?” he asked, breezing right over our fight as we always had. Forgotten. The past. Nothing we’d hold on to.
“Sunday. Gotta be back before classes start on Wednesday. You comin’ over?”
“Of course.”
“Good. We got the duck hunt.”
Jamie groaned, then laughed. “We’ll be there.”
“Reckon I’m on Michael’s shit list for upsettin’ you.”
“Who knows. So were you nervous as fuck around his parents?”
“Nah. Sorta. They’re the worst. Like, not just bigots but everything, all of it. Racists and elitists and assholes.”
Jamie huffed. “Pricks.”
“He’s on a call right now with his daddy, and I dunno who’s gonna walk out his office door. The man who’d begged for more on my cock last night or the grumpy fart who he was around his folks.”
“He sounds like more trouble than he’s worth.”
Before I could defend Luke, Michael grumbled, “Dump his ass.” Wherever he’d gone off to, Michael must’ve remembered it wasn’t around Jamie and came back.
“Tell him he’s a bad influence.”
Jamie didn’t get to, but his squeak ended with Michael’s growl in my ear. “The fuck you say?”
“I jumped down some dude’s throat at a car show and about had my ass handed to me.”
“How’s this my problem?”
“You always had my back, asshole. Got me thinkin’ my balls are bigger’n they are.”
Michael snorted. “That’s on you, weak ass. What happened?”
“Nothin’. I calmed him down.”
“Good thing that mouth gets you outta trouble same way it gets you neck-deep in it.”
The line rustled again, and then Jamie said, “Get off me, Mikey.”
I snorted as he chuckled through a “Fuck you.”
Jamie growled, there were slaps and grunts like they were wrastlin’, and then he laughed harder, probably because Michael did something stupid to entertain him. After a second, he sighed. “Promise me you won’t fall any harder until he’s out?”
“Jamie …”
“Nope. I need this guy’s address and his social security number. When he acts a fool, he’s gonna have me showin’ him why that was a bad move”
“Jesus, you’re as bent as my cousin Seymore.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Fine. I’ll try. Try not to fall, I mean. I ain’t givin’ you Luke’s social.”
“Get me an address and I won’t need it.”
“Seek help.”
“You first.”
We snickered, and then I said, “Love you, Jamie. Thanks for cheerin’ me up.”
“Backatcha.”
“Okay, I’m gonna get off here before he catches me on the phone whisperin’ about how tight his ass was ’til I wrecked it.”
Jamie groaned.
“Give Michael a kiss for me.”
“I hate you,” Jamie grumbled and hung up before I could laugh in his ear.