Chapter 12
Oakley
I freeze the moment the word leaves Lawson’s mouth. No.
“Law…”
“Don’t move,” he says before I can do just that. “I just…” He pulls in a breath, the wobble in his voice ratcheting my alarm. “I… I don’t think I’m bi, Oak.”
The vise that tightens around my chest is instantaneous, remorse following like a slap to my entire being.
The cloud I’d been floating on disperses into nothingness, and I’m left falling from a great height.
I shift backwards, readying myself to apologize, to ask if he’s okay, if I hurt him, if he needs space, if there’s anything I can do.
But Lawson grabs my hip, much as he did earlier, keeping me as close as he can. “Oak. Please.”
God.
My cock slips from Lawson’s body, but I don’t try another retreat. “Are you all right? Fuck, Law. I’m so—”
My sorry never makes it past my lips, Lawson’s own words interrupting me. “I’m…gay.”
I still, wondering if I heard him right. “What?”
“I’m not bisexual,” he says, a hitch in his voice, even as he sounds more certain than before. “Not straight, either.”
“Are… I mean, are you sure?”
His chuckle is hollow, the shake of it like a small tremor.
“I’m pretty damn sure, Oak. I don’t even know how to explain it.
I just…” There’s a pause, achingly long, before he says, “Imagine you’ve been given the same ice cream all your life.
You’re told it’s ice cream, and you have no reason to doubt that’s the truth.
But then, one day, someone gives you a kind you’ve never had before.
It’s full-fat and tastes completely different, and you realize all this time you’ve been eating frozen yogurt.
And this, this, is ice cream. The real deal. You’re sure of it.”
Lawson lets out a heaving breath, his back warm where I’m pressed against him. I don’t interrupt, even as my mind reels.
“I didn’t know,” he continues, a sort of pain in his voice I wish I could erase. “I didn’t know because…I never wanted a guy like this. I had Laura, and I thought I found what everyone talked about when they spoke of romance and a perfect match. But it wasn’t right. Not for me. It wasn’t…this.”
Lawson turns his face enough for me to get a glimpse of his eyes, tears lining the brown.
“Fuck,” he says with feeling. “I’m gay, Oak.”
I press my face to the back of Lawson’s neck, my arms snaking underneath his chest so I can hold him in a hug, trembling as it is. Every piece of me, trembling. “Law.”
“I know,” he says, his voice hitching again. “Believe me, I know.”
Over twenty years. So much time he spent with Laura.
In her bed. Making a life with her out of a sense of loyalty, even if it never fulfilled Lawson’s own needs.
He stuck with it because he never knew anything else.
Until he did. Until he realized he wasn’t happy.
Until he couldn’t keep with it any longer.
“I didn’t know,” he says again. “Because I don’t think attraction works for me the way it works for most folks.”
I nod against him, inhaling a slow, slow breath, neither of us having moved an inch from our spots kneeling on the floor.
“But I know what that was,” he goes on roughly. “That was ice cream.”
Despite it all, I huff a pained laugh, my chest so tight it feels as if it might snap. “God, Law. I’m so sorry. But I’m glad, at least, that you figured it out.”
“Thanks to you.”
My swallow is heavy. “It was never like that with Laura?”
“No,” he says without hesitation. “It wasn’t. Not even close.”
I nod again, loath to let go of the man but knowing we can’t stay like this forever. “Should we get cleaned up? Or do you need another minute?”
He sighs, his back bowing beneath me. “Let’s clean up.”
It takes some effort to disentangle and stand, my knees protesting the rough surface they were on while I fucked Lawson.
I try not to think about that right now.
Instead, I swipe off the condom and hold a hand Lawson’s way, helping him to stand with his own wince and grunt.
Heading to the bathroom, I toss the condom and turn the shower on, not surprised when Lawson walks right in, naked as the day he was born.
I am surprised when his hand snakes out from behind the curtain before I can exit the room, halting my momentum. “Where are you going?”
“Uh. Figured I’d let you shower first.”
He makes a sound of impatience, giving me a firm tug.
Feeling a bit like I’m dreaming, I step in beside my friend, his body already wet.
There’s cum on his stomach that he drags a hand over, his cock hanging softly and the man himself utterly unperturbed by sharing a shower.
As if that’s something we do. As if any of this is normal.
My heart pounds heavily as I watch him soap off.
There’s a realness to Lawson’s body I appreciate, time having softened his edges some, a lack of vanity or self-consciousness leaving him unbothered by my gaze yet entirely unaware of the effect he has on me.
His eyes flit to mine for a second before sliding down to a new set of bruises on the side of my abdomen.
He winces slightly. “What happened there?”
“The usual. Bumped up a bit during a round-up.”
His fingers skate over the spot, and my stomach muscles jump. It’s such a soft touch, so instinctual, not sexual, not suggestive, just…Lawson.
I clear the tightness from my throat, although my voice still comes out hoarse. “Are you all right?”
He nods, his touch flitting away. Lawson finishes rinsing under the showerhead before stepping aside in a clear invitation for me to take his place. “Feeling foolish, mostly. That I didn’t know this about myself. How couldn’t I have known, Oak?”
“Like you said, you’d only tried frozen yogurt.”
His expression is grudgingly amused. It shifts, however, to a sort of melancholy that makes my chest ache.
Lawson steps out of the shower ahead of me, grabbing a towel from the bar.
I hastily finish rinsing off before following after him.
He’s quiet all the way back to my room, the towel wrapped around his waist as he sits at the edge of my bed, only a couple feet away from the mess I’ll need to clean up later.
I sit beside him, damp hair dripping down my neck. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“We just did.”
It’s all I can do not to flick the man’s forehead.
“Sure,” I say slowly. “But maybe it’d help to air whatever you’re feeling? To work through it all. With me or…even a professional.”
He’s silent for a beat. “You think me figuring out I’m gay after having been married to a woman most of my life is going to lead to an emotional fallout.”
Christ, this man.
“Maybe?” I admit. “I don’t know. This can’t be easy for you.”
“It’s not, and it is,” he says, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.
I have the urge to card my fingers through his hair but hold myself back.
“I don’t like realizing I should have listened harder to that not right feeling when it came to intimacy with Laura.
But… It’s hard to describe. I didn’t hate it at the time, at least not in the beginning.
It just wasn’t…much of anything. And I thought that meant it was a me problem.
Like maybe sex for me wasn’t a big deal. ”
He blows out a breath, lost in thought for a moment.
“But knowing what I do now…that sex can feel like that? Natural and right? Damn it, Oakley. It’s like this door is opened up I never even saw before. I’m relieved. Because I finally have answers to some of those questions I’ve been asking myself for so very long. Thank you for giving me that.”
I nod, all I can do.
Lawson lets out another breath, shifting back to rest his elbows on the bed.
It’s a battle not to trace his skin with my gaze.
Not to let my eyes wander down to the towel wrapped so precariously around his hips.
“Maybe I should talk to someone,” he says at last. “But… I don’t want to think about any of it right now.
” His head rolls in my direction, gaze intent in a way that has my pulse jumping. “Can I try something?”
“I… Sure?”
Lawson leans toward me, tugging the end of my towel loose. My heart races, my mouth running dry as Lawson stares down at my dick. It twitches to life, and he sucks in a shallow breath, his fingers skating over the length of it before wrapping around me in a loose fist.
Ah, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Law?” I ask, my voice garbled.
He pumps me once, twice, seemingly transfixed by the motion of his hand on my dick. “Maybe it’s selfish to ask,” he finally says, thumb rolling over my crown. “But fuck, Oak. Make me feel that again?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, all of my baser instincts battling with the rationale I’m trying so desperately to hold on to. It was supposed to be one time. One time.
But how can I possibly tell this man no? How can I walk away when he’s asking me to make him feel good?
Lawson lets go of my dick, scooting back onto the bed and lying down. He holds my eye as he drags his towel off his hips, gifting me with a view of his soft cock before he’s rolling onto his stomach, his ass offered in clear invitation. I damn near swallow my tongue.
My hand moves as if it has a mind of its own, skating along Lawson’s backside, over warm skin that’s not quite rough but not perfectly smooth, either. Lawson cants his hips up, an anticipatory catch in his breath as he spreads his legs wider.
“You’re not too sore?” I ask, my words coming out as if dragged across hot coals.
“Not at all.”
I ease out a breath, knowing there’s no way I’m going to refuse this man. Shifting, I grab the lube resting beside my pillow and oil up my fingers. My heart feels as if it might just run off.