Chapter 7 #2
“Then let me ask you a question. Before Van brought it up, had you ever given serious thought to a three-way?”
“Not serious thought.”
“Casual thought?”
“Last night, seeing you standing beside Van, both of you guys eye-fucking each other? It made me think about you two together. And then Dani made a joke about the three of us getting it on, and waking up with Van in our bed brought that mental image back like a freight train.”
Joshua couldn’t stop the shiver that tore down his spine, and goddammit, his dick was betraying him again. His erection pressed into Benji’s hip, but Benji didn’t comment or move away. “The three of us, huh? You just watching? Or also participating?”
“Watching. I mean, I like Van well enough, and he seems like a fantastic guy, but I don’t know him.”
“And if you got to know him?” The mental image of Van and Benji together was very much fucking with his head right now, and he resisted the need to rut against Benji’s hip.
“I don’t know. This is all theoretical, anyway.”
“And probably unlikely.” Joshua grunted. “Van has flat out told me he avoids complications, so I don’t see him agreeing to participate, even if we asked him.”
“Oh.” Benji almost sounded disappointed. “Well then, I guess that’s that.”
Knowing that Van would likely say no to the invitation into their bed had made the entire threesome topic a moot point? Interesting. And telling. Benji’s interest was about Van specifically, not a three-way in general.
Benji pressed his hip against Joshua’s wood. “I’d offer to help you with that, but my brain is going to leak out of my skull at any moment.”
“Mine too.” Joshua kissed him briefly on the mouth. “Let’s go take a shower. Maybe the steam will help clear our heads.”
“Okay.”
Van dawdled over his choices at the convenience store longer than necessary, taking way too long to find such simple things as bottled water, travel-sized ibuprofen packs, and a few premade sandwiches. He wasn’t hiding, though. Not even a little bit.
Fuck it. Yes, I am.
He’d had an amazing time with Benji and Joshua last night.
They were both funny, engaging guys whose love for each other radiated off them like sunbeams, and he’d enjoyed basking in that love for a while.
Pretending he was part of it, when he was actually an outsider being entertained for the evening as an extended thank you for fixing their relationship.
Well, he didn’t want any more thanks. He didn’t want their gratitude.
After last night, Van knew good goddamn well that he wanted Joshua and Benji.
He’d spent most of the night with a raging boner for both men, and watching them peel back layer after layer of clothing during their hilariously inept attempts at playing strip poker had been torture.
He could look all he wanted, but he could not fucking touch.
For all of Van’s hookups over the years, every single one of them had been stone cold sober and full of enthusiastic consent. And despite both Joshua and Benji getting a bit handsy with him in those final minutes before passing out, he’d kept his own hands to himself.
Then he’d gone into the bathroom and jerked off to memories of the pair writhing around in bed together.
He needed to take his groceries over to the hotel, drop them off, and then leave.
Joshua could figure out his own way home.
Van should put distance between himself and a perfectly happy couple who did not need him panting after both of them like some sort of lovesick puppy. And he wasn’t. Panting. Nope.
I’m Van Fucking Holt. I can handle this.
After adding a banana and chopped fruit bowl for himself, he paid for his basket of stuff and headed back. Slowly. The sidewalks were already bustling with the brunch crowd at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, and he caught fragrant whiffs of bacon and cinnamon over the salty sea air.
The elevator ride was over too fast, and he stood outside the hotel door. He didn’t have a key, which required him to knock, only his hand wasn’t working. He was ten minutes past his thirty-minute return time, so they should both be dressed and decent.
If either one of them answered the door in a towel, he was a dead man.
He knocked.
The door whipped open fast. Benji grinned at him, his hair still damp and uncombed. But he was fully dressed in board shorts and a sleeveless graphic tee. “Hey. You were gone so long I thought maybe I’d scared you off.”
Van pulled back hard on his need to reach out and ruffle that damp hair. “You didn’t scare me off,” he said with just enough sneer to back up his words, which were not true at all.
“Did he bring coffee?” Joshua asked. He was sprawled on the haphazardly made bed, also dressed, thank fuck.
“Sorry, no.” Van pulled his two items out of the plastic bag and dropped it onto the bed by Joshua. “I didn’t even think to.”
“The bathroom has one of those single-serve pod things in it,” Benji said. “I’ll make you some. Van?”
“No thanks, I don’t drink coffee.”
“Smart man. I got addicted in college. By that guy.” He pointed at Joshua, who was digging into the bag of supplies.
“Joshua mentioned you met in college.” That seemed like a safe topic. Van stayed near the door, telling himself it was so he could talk with both Joshua, on the bed, and Benji, who was fussing with the coffee pot in the bathroom.
“Yup,” Benji said. “I was a freshman and he was a junior. I was shocked someone as smart as him was interested in me. I mean, he was computer science with a minor in Spanish, and I was still undecided, leaning toward a music major that I never ended up finishing anyway.”
“You’re plenty smart,” Joshua said. He’d unearthed the ibuprofen and a bottle of water. “Just in different fields than me. Plus I know dick about music.”
Why did he have to say dick?
Benji seemed to have conquered the coffee pot, because he emerged from the bathroom wearing a triumphant smile. “Coffee’s coming, babe.”
Joshua beamed. “Thanks. Is there enough for you, too?”
“Yeah, I’ll make mine next.”
Guh. Could they be more adorable?
Van intended to eat the banana first, except he realized that was probably not the best thing to be eating in front of two guys who kept making googly eyes at each other.
So, he opened the cut fruit instead and used his fingers, because he’d been too distracted to grab a plastic fork.
Benji tore into one of the sandwiches and had half of it scarfed down by the time Joshua’s coffee was done.
He went into the bathroom and fixed it up before delivering it to his boyfriend.
The domesticity of it, the fucking familiarity of a ritual years old, made Van’s insides ache with want.
He’d never had that.
Joshua guzzled the mug of coffee before poking at one of the sandwiches.
“I wasn’t sure what you guys would like,” Van said. “So I grabbed a few random choices.”
“You did good,” Benji replied. He came out of the bathroom with his own steaming mug of coffee, the fragrance of which was filling the room. “Joshua isn’t a big eater when he’s hungover, even though food helps. Actually, he’s a big baby whenever he doesn’t feel well.”
Joshua flipped him off, which made Van laugh. And then ache a little bit more.
“It’s not my fault I’m prone to germs,” Joshua said. “Meanwhile, that one”—he pointed dramatically at Benji—“somehow manages to escape every single cold and flu season without a single sniffle.”
“So you balance each other out,” Van said.
“I guess we do.” Joshua grinned. “So what about you, Van? You don’t drink alcohol or coffee, and you’re over there eating fruit for breakfast. You’re probably the healthiest person I’ve ever met.”
If only that were true.
No way was Van opening up the can of worms that was his own personal health issues. “You only get one body, so you might as well take care of it,” he quipped.
Joshua wiggled his eyebrows. “I’d rather have as much fun with mine as possible.”
“So does that mean last night’s impromptu strip poker isn’t unusual?”
“Not for him,” Benji said.
“Hey,” Joshua said. “You get feisty when you’re drunk too, mister. I’ve woken up with the scratch marks to prove it.”
Van bit down hard on his tongue. That was the only thing that kept his dick from perking up over the mention of scratches. And quite possibly unmentioned love bites.
“I can admit that alcohol lowers my inhibitions quite a lot, versus when I’m sober,” Benji said, looking contrite. “And since I don’t remember much after coming back to the room last night, I apologize if I got gropey or anything, Van.”
Van had enjoyed seeing the uninhibited side of Benji, but he wasn’t admitting that out loud. Or that Benji had tried to grab his dick more than once. “You were fine. Mostly you groped your boyfriend.”
Benji chuckled. “He is quite grope-able.”
“Yes, he is.” Shit, fuck and hell. Stop it, stupid mouth. “Um, not that I’ve ever groped him myself.”
“But you want to.”
Van glanced from Benji to Joshua and back again, surprised at the directness. Even Joshua seemed a bit uncertain where this was going.
“Considering Joshua and I had planned to hook up a few nights ago,” Van replied slowly, “I don’t think I need to answer that.” He did need to shut temptation down fast. “I don’t do guys with boyfriends.”
Benji frowned. “You told us you’d had a threesome with a couple.”
“A married couple. A trans man and his bisexual wife.”
“So a married couple is different from an unmarried one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t want to be having this conversation anymore.
“Lay off him, Ben,” Joshua said. He seemed agitated at the line of questioning. “We already agreed.”
“Agreed to what?” Van asked.
The pair exchanged guilty looks that both terrified and intrigued him. They seemed to do that silent communicating thing that long-term couples somehow perfected, because Benji flushed tomato red.
“Ben and I were having a hypothetical conversation while you were out,” Joshua said, his face also kind of pink. “About threesomes.”
Van nearly dropped his fruit container. “You did?”
“Can we not?” Benji asked. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
All of the pieces began falling into place for Van, painting a very clear picture of where this conversation was going. And if one of them asked, Van would say yes, and he couldn’t say yes, because complicated.
“Then how about we drop it?” Van said. “In fact, I really should be heading home.”
As embarrassed as he’d been a moment ago, Benji now looked all kinds of disappointed. That made Van feel awful, but he needed to get out of that room.
“Are you staying?” Van asked Joshua. “Or do you need a lift back?”
“I’ll stay.” Joshua glanced at Benji with concern. “I can figure out my way home. Thanks.”
“Not a problem. It was a lot of fun hanging out with you both, but the real world beckons.”
“Right. Can I at least give you money for gas?” Joshua had his wallet out and was shoving a twenty at Van before Van could protest. Everywhere their skin brushed burned with something that scared Van, so he pocketed the money and took a full step backward. “I owe you.”
Van shook his head. “No you don’t. Pay it forward, remember?”
“Pay it forward.”
He grabbed his banana and opened the door. As it fell shut behind him, he was sure he heard Benji ask, “Wasn’t that a movie?”
It was a movie. A movie with a fucking depressing ending, which cemented his decision to leave Benji and Joshua alone.
Except he spent the entire drive home missing them both, and that sucked balls.