Chapter 10
TEN
Van’s angry reaction alarmed Joshua enough that he counted to ten in his head, and then followed Van outside.
He found Van halfway down the street, sitting on the curb between two parallel-parked cars, knees pulled tight to his chest. Arms around his legs, face pressed down. Joshua’s heart thundered with real worry as he approached.
“Van?”
“Go away,” was the muffled response.
“I’m sorry.”
“Go. Away.”
He should. He really, really ought to go back to the party and let Van stew over whatever Joshua’s begging had stirred up. Except if this was his fault, then he needed to fix it somehow. “Sorry, pal.” Joshua plunked down next to him on the curb, keeping a few inches of distance between them.
Van looked up, his face creased in a frown that seemed more grief-stricken than furious. “You’re a stubborn little shit, aren’t you?”
“I feel responsible for this. Whatever this is. You said no, I pushed, and I of all people should understand that no means no.”
Something flared in Van’s eyes. “What do you mean, you of all people?”
Joshua took a fortifying breath. “When I was ten, my uncle molested me twice. It fucked up my relationship with my family.”
Van’s hands jerked, as if he wanted to reach out and touch Joshua. Or lash out at the ex-uncle who’d hurt him. Both thoughts only endeared him more.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Van said softly. He seemed poised to ask something, but also hesitant to dig.
Joshua was enjoying this quiet moment too much to end it, so he offered a bit more. “No one believed me when it happened. Not my parents or the sister who was married to the guy. I was the youngest, so everyone thought I was acting out to get attention.”
“Jesus.” Van looked angry enough to spit nails. “Did they ever believe you?”
“Yeah. Five years later, when they caught the piece of shit touching one of his own kids. Everyone tried to apologize and make it up to me, but the trust was gone, you know? I don’t see them much.
When I was in the accident last year, they begged to be able to help me, but I didn’t want their charity, so I stayed with Benji’s parents. ”
“You’re lucky to have Benji.”
“I know.” He was so fucking lucky his chest ached sometimes. “Van—”
“If you thank me one more time for getting you two back together, I will deck you, I swear.”
Joshua smiled, and that seemed to soften some of the anger in Van’s eyes. “Sorry. And I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier.”
“I have good fucking reasons for not playing anymore. Things I don’t want to talk about or remember, okay?”
“Okay.” Joshua held his hands up in surrender. “No more guitar talk with you. Promise.”
“Thank you.” Van’s expression shifted to something softer, almost sad. He looked very young in that moment, younger even than Emmett, and Joshua couldn’t help it.
He slid his arm across Van’s shoulders. Van sagged against him, a solid, warm weight that fit so perfectly his breath caught. His body tingled with the contact, and he tried to tell himself he was comforting a friend. A platonic friend.
Yeah, right.
Van shivered despite the warm night air, attention suddenly riveted on his knees, hands clasped in his lap.
He almost seemed . . . vulnerable. And until that moment, Joshua never would have imagined assigning that word to the cocky bartender who strutted around Off Beat and flirted with everyone.
Not even to the new friend who’d kidnapped him and driven him to Virginia Beach so he could get his boyfriend back.
This was a different side of Van, whose emotions were close to the surface, and who looked one wrong comment away from bursting into tears. Joshua’s insides rolled, terrified of fucking this up. Of saying the wrong thing, or making the wrong move.
Don’t get involved with someone you’re attracted to. This is a bad idea.
“What can I do?” Joshua whispered.
Van moaned softly, then met his gaze. Desperation and sadness clung to him like a second skin, and the need to make it go away hit Joshua in the balls.
Van surged forward, and Joshua didn’t have time to avoid the hard, gasping kiss that Van pressed to his mouth.
So many things tumbled around in Joshua’s mind—lust, desire, shock, worry, stop this now!
—and locked him into place, unable to resist the way he knew he should.
Hands cupped his cheeks. Questing lips moved and plucked, and Joshua savored the song they played on his mouth.
He grabbed both of Van’s wrists, uncertain if it was to keep him close or push him away, while his emotions ran riot, leaving him aching and hard and a little bit terrified.
The kiss was everything he’d imagined, and everything he’d dreaded, and that conflict allowed his lips to part.
Van dove inside, licking and sucking on his tongue. Christ, it felt good. Too fucking good, and it was just a fucking kiss. Joshua made a sound that was half-encouragement and half-fear, and for the briefest moment, he started to kiss Van back.
No. No!
He tore away so fast that Van tilted over sideways on the street.
Panting and trembling, Joshua backed up a few feet until he hit the grass of someone’s lawn, putting the entire width of the sidewalk between them.
Van gaped at him with shock and regret etched across his face, his sprawled position doing nothing to hide his erection—the sight of which made Joshua’s mouth water. Christ, he needed to get it together.
I kissed him back. I kissed someone not my boyfriend.
He touched his lips, where the taste of Van lingered, horrified at what he’d done, but unable to actually regret it. He’d wanted Van for almost a month, and the kiss proved that those initial sparks of attraction were not a fluke. This was real.
And it couldn’t happen.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Van said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I am so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“The fuck it wasn’t. I kissed you, not the other way around. Your boyfriend is going to cut my balls off.”
“No, he won’t.” Joshua hadn’t even considered what telling Benji might mean. He couldn’t take seeing Benji look at him like he was a horrible cheater, no better than his parents or siblings.
Oh God, I’m as awful as them.
Joshua’s chest ached so badly that he couldn’t breathe. He slammed his eyelids shut against hot tears, hiccupped, desperate for air and dizzy with the weight of what he’d done.
“Hey, focus on my voice,” Van said somewhere close by. “Deep breaths, okay? Just breathe.”
He tried, and finally the fist around his lungs let go. He sucked in oxygen, but couldn’t make his eyes open. His worst nightmare had come true, and he didn’t have the strength to face it.
“Listen to me.” Van squeezed his shoulder once, and then let go. “You did not cheat. I was the one who kissed you. I did this, not you.”
Joshua shook his head. The self-loathing in Van’s voice was what got him to open his eyes, and then the expression on Van’s face was almost worse.
He looked devastated. And still so goddamn young.
“We both did this,” Joshua said. “I’m as responsible as you.
I won’t throw you under the bus to make Benji hate me less. ”
Saying his boyfriend’s name churned his gut even harder with guilt, a toxic sludge that made him want to vomit.
“I’m the biggest prick on the planet,” Van said. “I practically forced myself on you. How do you not hate me?”
“I like you too much to hate you.” The inappropriate response slipped out.
Van’s nostrils flared. “I need you to tell me to stay the hell away from you or else. Deck me, swear at me, but please do something.” His chest heaved once. “Because all I can think about right now is how much I want to kiss you again, so please: Say something.”
For a moment, Joshua felt time stretch out, leaving him standing on the precipice of something hugely important.
He could step back from it, return to the safety of the world behind him where the rules made sense, and accept whatever consequences his actions brought.
Or he could step off the ledge and plunge into something new, something potentially amazing and complicated and perfect.
Something he’d hungered after for weeks.
Not something. Someone.
He stood to gain so much, but he also stood to lose a huge part of himself if it all went the wrong way. One way or the other, he had to take a step. He had to pick a direction.
So he did.
Joshua didn’t trust himself with words, so he grabbed Van by the shoulders and yanked him into a hug.
Van shuddered once, and then his arms circled Joshua’s waist and squeezed.
Fingers twisted in the back of his band tee.
Van pressed his face into the crook of Joshua’s neck, bathing his skin in warm pants of air.
Everything about it was perfect, like coming home again.
So much like holding Benji, but also different.
Van was taller, leaner, and he vibrated with sexual energy.
But Joshua’s connection to Van wasn’t about sex.
It went so much deeper. It was about how Joshua reacted to him at an instinctive, almost primitive level—exactly the way he’d fallen hard and fast for Benji.
His beautiful Benji, who trusted Joshua with his heart and soul.
Joshua had to tread very, very carefully now.
A kiss was probably forgivable, but he couldn’t let it go further with Van.
Not without a long conversation with his boyfriend.
“This is kind of fucked up,” Joshua said. “All of this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” He pulled back so he could look Van in the eye. Van’s guard was up, his expression blank. “Some days I love Benji so much my heart hurts, but I can’t ignore how I feel when I’m with you. And I know you feel something back.”
“So what if I do? You can’t have us both.”
Why not?
The thought startled Joshua. Sure, threesomes were sexy as a fantasy, and maybe even once in real life, but how did three people create a relationship? Not to mention maintain one in the long term?