Thirteen
Wes
“What’s with you?” Tash asks, eyeing me curiously as she shoves a handful of crisps into her mouth.
“Nothing,” I mutter, scowling at the empty inbox on my email app.
“Then why are you glaring at your phone like it’s just said something to deeply offend you?”
I let out a heavy sigh and set my phone down, bringing my pint to my lips for a long swig. “He’s stopped replying.”
Natasha’s brows draw together in confusion. “Who?”
“The email guy. Daredevil. He hasn’t written back all week.”
She shrugs. “Maybe he’s just been busy?”
“Too busy to shoot off a quick reply that says ‘hey, sorry, I’m swamped right now but I’ll catch you later’?” I groan and rub a hand over my face. “Oh, fuck. I sound like a thirteen-year-old girl, don’t I?”
She offers a wry smile. “A little bit.”
“It’s just a bit weird, that’s all,” I say with a sigh. “I know it sounds kind of mad, but we’ve sort of become…friends. And you of all people should know I don’t like being ignored by my friends.”
“Oh, do I ever.” She gives a little shake of her head, no doubt recalling the countless times I’ve spammed her with texts after a day of radio silence.
“Okay, let me read the emails,” she says, holding her palm out for my phone.
“All of them. I think it’s time you got an objective outsider’s opinion about this. ”
I hesitate for a moment. There’s some information contained in these emails that I’ve never actually divulged to Tash, despite how close we are, and I’m not entirely sure I want her finding out now.
At her expectant expression, I finally relent. “Okay, fine. But you have to promise not to judge me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please, if I can get past that thing with the Kraft Singles I can get past anything.”
“That was a scientific experiment,” I say defensively.
She holds up a palm. “Let’s not re-hash it.”
I hand over my phone and she starts going through the emails. “Alright, let’s start at the beginning.”
I watch anxiously as she reads, her expression growing more and more wide-eyed the further she gets. Finally, she sets the phone down and gazes up at me. “Oh my god, Wes. I know who this is.”
My jaw practically hits the table. “What? How could you possibly know? He’s a stranger from the internet. He could be in Australia, or Denmark, or Indonesia for all we know.”
“He has a dot UK email address, and he follows Chelsea, not to mention all the British slang—I think it’s safe to assume he’s from here.”
“Well, congratulations, then. You’ve narrowed it down to over sixty million people,” I say dryly.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Look, just hear me out, okay? And whatever you do…don’t freak out.”
“Okay…” I lean back in my chair, suddenly overcome by a sense of wariness. “Who is it then?”
She draws in a breath, as though she’s preparing to deliver news of a fatal diagnosis. “Devon.”
I sit bolt upright. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t possibly think this is Devon Montgomery ,” I say, gesturing wildly at my phone.
“Just think about it for a second,” she urges.
“This Daredevil guy broke up with his ex on the exact same day Emma and Devon broke up. A couple of threads in, he mentioned he was at a party with people he didn’t want to be around, including his ex’s brother who he supposedly hates.
That same night, Devon was at Emma’s going away party, where you just happened to be in attendance.
Also, Daredevil is clearly quite well-off if he’s gifting two hundred pound vouchers to trendy restaurants—that sounds exactly like something Devon would do, doesn’t it? ”
“I think you’re reaching,” I manage to cut in, although I’m starting to get a queasy feeling in my stomach.
She lets out annoyed huff. “Fine then. Time for the coup de grace: I don’t know which team Devon supports, but I do know that Ryan’s daughter is named Lola. I talked to him at Emma’s party, and he mentioned she’d just turned four .”
I shake my head in denial. “No. No this can’t be right.”
“Wes, I think the reason he’s stopped replying to you is that he figured out who you are,” she says gently.
My brows creep up in surprise. “And how would he have worked that one out?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But do you really think it’s a coincidence that the emails stopped after you guys caught up last week?”
“We didn’t ‘catch up’,” I correct. “We just happened to be in the same place.”
“Whatever. You still talked for a while. You must have said something to tip him off.”
“I—” I break off, trying to remember what Devon and I even talked about last week. It was all so strange, it’s kind of a blur. “He didn’t know I’m gay,” I tell Tash. “Can you believe that? We’ve known each other for, what—two years now? And he didn’t know I’m gay.”
“Well, that would explain why he never suspected you before then. And it’s reasonable that you didn’t think of him as a possibility either considering you didn’t know he’s into guys. Or at least, I’m assuming you didn’t know?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I argue. “Devon Montgomery is not into guys.”
“How do you know? Have you ever actually asked him?” she asks pointedly.
“Well, no…”
“If history has taught us anything, it’s that you have a horrible gaydar, Wesley.”
I shake my head slowly. This just doesn’t make sense.
Yes, I’ve thought about it. I’ve dreamed about it.
I’ve tossed off to incredibly vivid fantasies of it more times than I can count.
But the idea of Devon Montgomery genuinely being interested in having another guy’s cock up his arse, or down his throat, or really anywhere in his general vicinity outside of my imagination just seems ludicrous.
It’s as though Natasha is trying to convince me that the sky is green.
“Wes, think about it. If I’m right about this, it means Devon Montgomery has been having some pretty wild fantasies…about you.”
I shake my head again. “There’s no way you could be right about this.”
Try as I might to ignore Natasha’s theory, I can’t seem to get the thought out of my head.
What if she’s right? What if Devon really has been having the same filthy fantasies about me as I’ve been having about him?
The question is eating me alive, and I know I won’t rest until I have the answer.
The great thing about wanting to shag someone you hate is that there’s literally nothing to lose.
If I ask Devon and it’s a no-go, then so what?
It’s not as though our relationship could get worse.
With my decision made, I hop on a west-bound night bus and alight a few streets from Devon’s townhouse.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, clearly suspicious to find me standing on his front steps.
I give a sharp shake of my head and push past him into the house. What am I doing here? Maybe Tash was wrong. Maybe Devon isn’t the guy I’ve been emailing. All the connections she pointed out could just be really random coincidences.
“What’s your football team?” I ask a little gruffly, surprised at myself for not knowing the answer already. It seems like one of those fundamental things you should know about the guy your sister was involved with for two years. Kind of like how he should have known I’m gay.
Devon’s eyes flare in recognition, mingled with wariness, and I have my answer. “Chelsea.”
Despite the evidence in front of me, I still feel like I need more confirmation, so I ask, “And what’s Ryan’s daughter’s name?”
He hesitates for longer this time, before finally answering, “Lola.”
Before I can second-guess myself, I close the distance between us, kicking the front door shut behind me as I wrap my hand around the back of his head and draw him in, crashing my lips to his.
He seems momentarily stunned, and for a second, I worry that I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion after all. I’m just about to pull away and start apologising when he kisses me back, his hands reaching out to grab at my t-shirt, pulling me closer against him.
I groan at the touch and press deeper with the kiss, attacking his mouth with mine. He responds eagerly, his lips hungry against mine, our tongues locked in a battle that’s making my head spin.
I shove him back against the hallway wall, pinning him with my body. My hands begin to roam, sliding over the lean muscle of his torso in a way I only ever imagined in some of my crazy fantasies. And he’s letting me…
He’s letting me touch him. He’s letting me run my hands down his body, past his waistband, over the front of his jeans… well, hello.
“ Shit…Wes,” he pants, gasping for air as we break the kiss.
Before he can say anything that will snap me out of the lust-filled haze that has taken control of my senses, I close my lips over his again and continue to devour his mouth. My hands tear at the front of his jeans, unfastening them and delving inside to slide over his hard cock.
He lets out a strangled groan at my touch, his own hands roaming underneath my t-shirt, sending white hot sparks skimming along my skin with each brush of his fingers.
I release my grip of his cock so he can tug my t-shirt over my head, and then for a moment we just stand there, his eyes completely transfixed on my abdomen.
“That bloody belly ring,” he says on a frustrated breath.
I roll my eyes. “You seriously hate it that much?”
He shakes his head. “God, no.” And then to my utter astonishment, he drops to his knees in front of me, bending his head so he can slide his tongue over my abs, paying special attention to the piercing.
“Fuck,” I groan, unable to stop myself from reaching out to thread my fingers through Devon’s hair, which for once is free from all the shit he usually uses in his impersonation of a 1940s band leader.
His hands move to the front of my jeans, deftly unfastening them and pulling out my throbbing cock, my head spinning as he slides his hands over the shaft.
“I wondered,” he murmurs, the corner of his mouth quirked up.
I can barely think right now with the way his hands are on me, but I manage to croak out, “Wondered?”