Chapter 12
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
The world hates me. Case in point. Ryan Fink.
Ryan is the only person I could tolerate from my old workplace.
To this day, one of the only people I could remotely call a friend and, for some time, the only other gay man in my acquaintance.
He’s also kind of a jerk, and chews gum so frequently and loudly that it drives me insane, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Like most people our age, we keep in touch with intermittent texts, shared memes on Instagram, and that’s about it. Out of the blue, he called me today and asked me to join him for a beer. Since it had been a particularly rough day at home with Dylan, I accepted.
That’s how I found myself at an off campus Irish bar, three tables away from Cory Malkovich. More of the team are with him, Quinn Harris too. But it’s Cory and Cory alone I can’t take my eyes off.
Primarily due to his absurdity.
Gone is the grace he displays on the ice.
He tripped on a chair leg upon entering, again on absolutely nothing when strutting from the bar back to the table, and he squinted at an upside down menu for a good fifteen minutes before the girl next to him angrily tore it from his hands and replaced it with glasses, which he refused to put on … Until she also put him in a headlock.
He’s … odd.
From what I’ve observed from my booth, at practice, and while maturely hiding behind the corners of buildings at BC, there’s three different versions of Cory Malkovich. None of which seem to be out.
Hockey Cory, with his hair slicked back and contacts in, is all swagger, arrogance, and whether he knows it or not, commander of respect.
Around campus, he seems the total antithesis.
Walking with his head down, a backwards cap, that floppy Dean hair hanging randomly over the frames of his sexy glasses.
At my apartment, and here tonight, he seems a mixture of the two, glasses with slicked back locks, cocky, but moving clumsily.
He’s adorable. Should he not be on the team, I would be on him so fast—buying him a drink and asking if I could take him home.
Well, the old pre-Brandon me would have.
Now I just watch wistfully from afar, wishing he was someone different, and that I was too.
“James.” Wriggling his hand, Ryan bobs around before me as though he’s been trying to catch my attention for some time. Reluctantly, I unglue my eyes from where they shouldn’t be, to where they should.
“Sorry, you were saying?”
He waves it off like me ignoring him is nothing, and smiles. “I was just asking how things are going at home with Dylan?” With no conscious decision to do so, I release a slow, deep, indicative of my mood, breath. “That good, huh?”
Nodding, I take a drink. “It’s good and bad, rewarding and defeating all within the same hour. Today, he was heightened as it’s Monday. Mondays are a Manny day, but today, Manny was off sick.”
“Manny’s a carer?”
“Yep. A brilliant one at that. He worked with Dylan at his old day service, and agreed to take on private work for us while we sort out the insurance. With Dad gone, and Faith and I moving in, Manny has been his one constant.” The weight of it all settles over me, and I physically sink in my seat.
I need to change the subject before I end up on the floor like Cory’s drinks.
“God, I’m so fucking depressing. That’s enough about me, how are you and Kane doing? Still renovating?”
“Divorcing, actually.”
“What!” The generous sip of red wine I just took flies from my mouth and all over Ryan’s shirt. His crisp white shirt. “Shit, I’m so sorry.” Jumping to my feet, I rush at him with a stack of napkins, and squat at his feet, patting and rubbing his chest.
He stills for a moment, then chuckles and takes hold of one of my wrists. “Don’t worry about it, it’s Kane’s shirt. Fuck him.”
“Oh.” Slightly relieved, I move to return to a non-crouched, almost in his lap position, but he grips me tighter, holding me in place.
“I know another way we could get to him that might be fun.” I feel the pad of his thumb swipe over my pulse point.
This is not good.
I force myself to laugh, feigning cluelessness as to where this is heading, and make my way back to my seat. “What, are the pants his? Want me to ruin them as well?”
“No, they’re not. But technically what’s inside them is. Since you already fucked his shirt, why don’t you fuck his husband, too?”
“Umm. Well. I. Umm.”
In my mind, I count the days since someone, not on an app, propositioned me. I lose count at around eighteen months. Ryan is a good looking guy. Very good looking. In fact, when I first met him, I harbored a tiny crush.
That was a long time ago.
A lifetime ago.
Ryan’s marriage has begun and ended. As did my time with Brandon, and Dad’s gone. I’ve lost everything, and am trying to carve out some semblance of an existence in a world where nothing feels the same.
Through no fault of my own my gaze lands on Cory as he takes a sip from Sam Bailey’s beer, leaving a thin layer of foam on his top lip.
Huh.
In general, I don’t fancy beer, but I suddenly have an unquenchable thirst for it. Those lips curl into a hint of a smile, causing a tiny crinkling of his eyes. They really are the most alarming shade of blue. Not remotely appealing though, I tell myself.
Remembering I still haven’t replied to Ryan, I force myself to look away.
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Oh, it’s not.” Reaching out, Ryan cups my jaw in his palm, caressing his thumb over my bottom lip and dragging it down. “But fuck it. I’ve been through hell and back in the last twelve months. I know my shit is nothing compared to yours, but maybe it’s time we don’t think and just …”
“Fuck?”
“Exactly.”
At the most fortuitous time blonde man mountain, Brady Basse, and Quinn Harris approach the table. “Ah, it is you, Plummy.” Smirking, Ryan raises a brow on my behalf. He knows I hate nicknames. I’ve told Brady this too, but Faith and he are tight and I’m sure she’s told him to do it regardless.
“We told Cubby it was you,” Quinn adds, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Would you and your friend like to join us?”
“Thanks, Quinn, Coach Basse, but—”
“It’s Brady, remember. None of that Coach rubbish. Makes me sound like an old fart. So, you coming?”
I pause, and glance around Brady to their table.
There’s a flash of Cory’s face, teeth piercing a bottom lip.
Two glimmering blue eyes widening, taunting, daring me to accept, before he ducks behind a menu.
The pretty young woman with her arm draped around his neck, laughs and squeezes tighter, and an irrational burn, indigestion on steroids, scolds my insides.
“I’d love to, guys, but my friend, Ryan and I were just leaving. ”
Before Brady and Quinn can react, Ryan is on his feet, a hand reaching out to pull me into mine. I take it, then sling my arm around his shoulder. Given the circumstances, his waist would have made for a better show, but he’s much shorter than me, and has always been sensitive about his height.
Tossing a twenty on the table even though we hadn’t ordered food, I say goodnight to the loved-up duo and drag Ryan towards the exit. If I yell, ‘your place or mine’, over my shoulder as we pass a certain table, it’s purely by accident.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
In a life littered with monumental errors in judgment, this is surely the most reckless. I’m almost twenty-five years old, and have just used the only friend I have to make someone I can never have, jealous.
Marching to the car like a man possessed, each individual, minuscule piece of gravel I tread on sends a dull throb through my brain.
Losing enthusiasm, my march becomes walking, walking slows to plodding, plodding to stopping.
Ryan, who’s been silent since we exited the bar, halts beside me, tugging on the hem of my shirt, a wide smile making me feel even worse.
“What’s up, big guy? Are you nervous about me ravishing you?”
“What? Nervous. No way. I’m … pumped.”
“Pumped, hey? I’m glad to hear it, because I have this new harness and whip and I’ve been dying to try it out.
The old one snapped in half on the swing.
I think I was a little too rough.” For that last bit, the little too rough bit, Ryan leaned in to whisper, then lick the shell of my ear.
Kinky or not, the prospect of taking an attractive man home should be exciting.
I’m young. Supposed to be dumb and full of …
stuff. But blood rushing south is not going to my groin, it’s going lower.
Draining down my legs, oozing from my toes.
I think I might faint.
All the while, Ryan maintains that smile, teeth glowing under the street lights.
The glow isn’t helping, but now that I think of it, he does look a bit psychotic. Maniacal even. I don’t think he’s blinked this whole time.
“Oh. Whips, hey. Wow.”
“Gags too. The whole basement is decked out.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“Do you want to leave your car here and I can drop you back in the morning ? You probably won’t be able to sit, let alone drive once we’re done.
” Without waiting for a response, he takes off, striding towards his car, a rather hearse-looking black station wagon, looking back at me once he makes it to the driver’s side door.
“You have medical insurance, with that new job, right?”
Still no blinking.
“Oh. I. Um.”
Without moving my head, I scan the parking lot.
My car is hard to spot, it’s in the darkest section on the other side of the lot, right beside the fence that separates O’Reilly’s from a Green Line train stop.
It’s a run-able distance but with the blood loss and my hot girl fitness, I’m pretty sure he’d catch me.