20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Evander
It took the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, but Evander finally felt somewhat human again. He showered and kept scraping sawdust out of his ears, out from under his fingernails, even out of his nose. The snot rockets in the shower were definitely not cute.
I’m going to get back at Ozzy for that shit .
The product that Jake managed to put together was good, at least. A decent bonus. Not quite a salve to the throbbing pain in his skull, but it softened his annoyance. Also, a decent reminder how good Jake was. Intellectually, Evander knew they were all good at their jobs, but it had been a minute since he’d seen Jake work up close and personal. He didn’t even need to make any adjustments to the design, basically plucked out a perfect trellis pattern and a frame, then repeated it over and over until they had exact copies of framed out openings that could be slotted into the fence. Then Jake laid out the plan for how to put them in. It was retrofitting instead of building a new fence from the ground up. They needed to consult with Ozzy on the finish for the trellis sections, see if they should match it or make some kind of contrast, but Jake and the contracting crew had knocked out the bulk of the work without breaking a sweat.
Well, with a sweat. Evander’s hungover senses had picked up on the sweat. There was only so much deodorant could do in the face of hours of outdoor carpentry work. Evander wasn’t spreading blame around. He knew he’d also overpowered his cologne and deodorant while barely doing anything out there. Just lucky I didn’t sweat pure vodka and gin.
He ordered in a Caesar salad and downed a ton of water…and some more of that stupid sports drink Ozzy had brought over for him. He usually wasn’t much for that kind of thing, but it was damn good and seemed to have made him feel better. It could have gone wrong. Evander’s tastes could have changed since the last time he and Ozzy broke up.
But they hadn’t. Dragonfruit tasted like basically nothing, but the pineapple…Evander’s favorite. Top five, at least. If he had to pick one fruit, it would probably be passion fruit, but Ozzy had clearly made the choice deliberately.
Because underneath all the bullshit between them and his brusque demeanor, Ozzy was a decent enough guy. At his core. Buried down deep .
Evander closed his eyes in the dim room, listening to the air conditioner hum, and let his mind wander. Away from work, away from his hangover, away from everything else. He just breathed in and out in the faintly chilly room. The cool air played over his bare chest, perking up his nipples.
He ran his hands down his chest and his belly, down into his trunks. When his mind was left to wander, with the taste of pineapple still on his lips, it flickered to Ozzy. He still remembered the roughness of Ozzy’s hands scraping across his body, the feel of his muscular arms wrapping around Evander’s back and lifting him up, the sharpness of his teeth as he nipped at Ev’s earlobe and his nipple and his belly button.
There was no one living in his head or reading his mind, so Evander didn’t care. Fantasy was fantasy, and even after a couple years, Ozzy was still the only serious relationship Evander had ever held down. Also by far the best fuck, which was what drove his hand lower, cupping his balls, rubbing his taint. Every time he touched the sensitive little bundle of nerves, fire licked up his body, combating the cool from the air conditioner and forcing shuddering breaths past his lips.
It was insanity and he knew it. Repeating the same actions and expecting a different result. Einstein said that and he was smart. Or Heisenberg. Or Feynman. Some famous physicist, but he was pretty sure it was Einstein.
Whoever they were, they were smarter than Evander. Smart enough to know that he definitely shouldn’t get back together with Ozzy, even just for a hookup.
But in a fantasy where no one had any emotions, he could just let imaginary Ozzy trace hands down his body. He hadn’t hooked up with anyone for a hot minute. He’d been in some self-imposed celibacy—too many random one-night stands were sucking his soul dry instead of just his balls—for a couple months before Mason emailed all of them. Then, with all the preparations for the show, he hadn’t exactly been burning up his bed sheets. Then they were on the job. He’d become very familiar with his hand again, that was for sure.
But even being that hard up didn’t explain how vivid this fucking fantasy was. If he kept his eyes shut, he could feel Ozzy laying on top of him, all muscle and warm skin, smelling of damp soil. Evander’s hand was his hand, teasing his cock higher and harder, milking precum out into a wet spot on the front of his underwear.
Evander bit down on a pillow to keep his moaning to a minimum. They were in a hotel, after all. Nobody needed to hear him getting pleasured by his own imagination. His hips bucked, thrusting his cock up into the warm, tight grip as imaginary Ozzy’s hot breath washed over him, briefly counteracting the air conditioning.
He could feel it coming…the cum. His body tensed and he laughed in his own mind. I’m about to shoot my load after five minutes of playing with myself. Jesus .
He tightened his grip as imaginary Ozzy flicked his right nipple over and over again.
Knock knock knock.