Chapter 7
SEVEN
The unfamiliar cadence of someone snoring by his ear snatched Joshua out of a deep, dreamless sleep and crashed him back into his body with a startling jolt.
He jerked up from the pillow only for a bolt of agony to slice down the back of his neck and spine.
He smashed his face back into the pillow until some of the dizzying pain of the headache relented, allowing him a chance to take stock of things.
His mouth tasted like stale liquor and lemon, and his stomach was sloshy, which hinted at tequila shots—one of Benji’s favorite things when he was feeling playful. Tequila helped him relax, and some of the best, rowdiest sex of their lives had happened while Benji was hammered on tequila.
Benji doesn’t snore.
Horror stole over Joshua. He tried to move again, only to realize that his bare skin was pressed against the sheets.
Why am I naked? Who the fuck is snoring?
Another naked body was plastered close to his, an arm across his waist—opposite side of him from the person snoring.
He hazarded a quick peek. The sight of Benji sleeping next to him released some of the fear that had frozen his insides—fear that he’d only managed to go half a day without cheating on his boyfriend.
Thank God, he hadn’t fucked it up already.
Except snoring person.
Risking more pain from his hangover headache, Joshua turned his head to his other side. Van was sleeping next to him, one arm flung across his eyes, mouth wide open, and snoring.
He was also on top of the covers and fully dressed in yesterday’s clothing.
Joshua groaned in relief, then snuggled closer to Benji, easing into the embrace. Benji snuffled once, and the arm around his waist tightened. Warm kisses landed on back of Joshua’s neck. He relaxed into the joy of being in bed with his boyfriend.
And a third guy.
That thought sent him bolt upright. His aching head screamed at him, and the sudden motion startled the other two guys awake. Benji groaned. Van sat up more slowly, apparently clear-eyed and not hungover at all.
Did he drink with us?
“The hell happened last night?” Benji asked. “My mouth tastes like ass.” Then he spotted Van and startled so hard he rolled right off his side of the bed. “Ow. Fuck.”
“No one fucked last night,” Van said. He stifled a yawn, which made Joshua yawn too.
“Oh, thank God.” Benji’s head popped up over the side of the mattress. “Then why am I naked?”
Van glanced at both of them and blushed.
Really, truly blushed. “After the concert last night, I was going to drive home and leave you two to celebrate, but you”—he pointed at Benji—“insisted I stay and hang you with guys. We hit up a few bars; you two did quite a bit of drinking, so I named myself your chaperone for the rest of the night. Joshua came up with the bright idea to buy a bottle of tequila and a pack of cards, and to come back to your room to play strip poker.”
Joshua groaned and dropped his face into his hands.
Benji climbed back into bed, the sheet tight around his waist. “How badly did we embarrass ourselves?”
“Not too badly.” Van laughed. “Although it’s too bad we weren’t playing for money, because I’d have cleaned up.
By the time you were both down to your underwear, you’d stopped playing and started groping each other.
You got in bed, and then you just kind of fell asleep together.
I was too tired to drive home, so I crashed here. ”
As drunk stories went, that wasn’t a bad one.
Joshua and Benji had both been drunk and naked.
Joshua very much believed Van about no one having sex last night.
First, he helped Joshua fix his relationship, and then he stayed hands-off despite blackout drunkenness and the very real attraction between them.
There aren’t enough decent guys in the world.
“Thank you,” Benji said.
Van tilted his head. “For what? I don’t poach other people’s boyfriends, and I don’t take advantage of people too drunk to consent.”
“I mean, thank you for being a good friend to both of us. You didn’t have to babysit our drunk asses.”
“No worries. Besides, it’s not like this was my first threesome.”
Joshua laughed, though the comment did funny things to his insides. Insides that were still sloshy and dehydrated, and dear God, he needed a shower. And an Advil the size of a house cat.
“You’ve done a threesome?” Benji asked. His curiosity surprised Joshua a bit, especially with the two of them sitting there without a stitch on. He expected Benji to dive for his clothes any second, not sit around making small talk.
“Twice, actually,” Van replied. “Once as a third with an established couple, and once as a one-off with two strangers.”
“Which one did you like more?”
Joshua stared at his boyfriend, who was watching Van with innocent curiosity. The same look he got when engaging a new person who offered him a different perspective on life, work, music, or anything else. It was both incredibly endearing, and a little bit confusing.
“I enjoyed both experiences for different reasons,” Van said. “With the strangers there were no expectations, no specific roles or histories. Just three people having a good time in bed.”
“And the couple?”
“It was more intense. They’d been married for years, but occasionally brought a third in to play, so there were rules about certain things.
Their limits, my limits. Who could do what to who.
Playing with people who are very much in love, knowing they’re sharing their partner with you?
It’s intense. And in some ways, kind of an honor, so you have to respect it. ”
All of this sex talk with Benji naked less than a foot away was not doing Joshua any favors. He tried to casually move the sheet on his lap to better cover his erection, but both men in the bed noticed.
“Anyway,” Van said, “you two clearly need to get dressed, so I’m going downstairs to rustle up some water, food, and ibuprofen for your hangovers. Be back in half an hour?” He vaulted off the bed and was out the door before Joshua or Benji could respond.
Joshua fell onto the soft mattress, stupidly relieved that Van was out of the room for a while. A lot of tension had left with him, but goddamn, this side of the bed smelled like him. The mattress moved, and then Benji was curled up against him, his head resting on Joshua’s shoulder.
“Well, I guess there’s good news to all of this,” Benji said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup. We got drunk and acted like fools, but at least we did it as a couple.”
Joshua snickered, then kissed Benji’s messy hair. “True story. And thank Christ Van is a genuinely decent human being, considering he’s attracted to both of us.”
Benji lifted his head, eyebrows furrowed. “He’s attracted to me?”
“Duh. Did you see the way he looked at you last night?”
“I only saw the way he looked at you. And the way he deliberately tried not looking at both of us this morning.”
Joshua had noticed that too. “I didn’t know you were so fascinated by threesomes.”
“I didn’t either.” Benji traced circles on Joshua’s abs with his fingertips. “I’ve never known anyone who’s admitted to having one. I was curious.”
The gentle inflection on the final word snagged Joshua’s attention, and he looked at Benji. Really looked at him and saw a raw curiosity there. It gave him the courage to ask something he’d never thought to ask Benji in his life. “Would you ever want to have a threesome?”
The fact that Benji didn’t say no right away stirred something inside of Joshua. A deep down longing he’d never acknowledged before. Benji held his gaze with an intensity that only amplified that longing before asking, “Do you want to have a threesome?”
“With Van?” hung off the end of that question as surely as the sky was blue and water was wet.
We promised to be honest, always.
“Maybe,” Joshua replied. “But doesn’t that kind of defeat the point of closing the relationship?”
“Not necessarily. Closing it was about declaring us an exclusive couple, no hooking up allowed. A threesome isn’t one of us hooking up. It’s inviting a third person into our bed. Sharing equally.”
“But would you really want that?” Joshua nudged him until they were both sitting up and facing each other.
The intensity of the conversation had his dick in a confused state.
He was aroused by the sex talk, but losing focus with all of the emotions involved.
“For three years you had the ability to fuck around and you never did. Why would you want to start now?”
Benji huffed. “Did you hear me? This isn’t about fucking around with random dudes. This would be you and me agreeing on one guy to have together, as a committed couple who love each other.”
He still couldn’t get any of this to track with what Benji had told him yesterday about his sexuality. “Is this some kind of test?”
“What?”
“A test. A trick question. Some sort of way of finding out if I meant what I said yesterday about us being exclusive. Because you told me you don’t want to have sex with anyone else, that you needed the emotional bond we created before we had sex the first time, and now you’re telling me something completely different. ”
Benji’s face crumpled. “Really, Josh? You think this is me trying to trick you? Are you kidding?”
“What am I supposed to think? One day we’re a twosome, and the next day you want to have a three-way?”
“Look, I’m confused by this, too.” Benji climbed off the bed and paced to the opposite wall near a wooden dresser. “I’m still figuring out what it means to be ace, okay? And I didn’t say I wanted to let someone else besides you fuck me. I don’t think I could do that.”
“Okay.” Joshua hated the distance between them, and he hated the way Benji seemed to shrink.
He got up, yanked the coverlet off the foot of the bed, and went over to wrap them both up in it.
Benji leaned into him, and Joshua held him while fine tremors ran down his arms and shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry.”
“Me too. This is coming out all wrong.”