Chapter 39
ISAAC
Jake’s injury is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.
The loss of control alone, coupled with my total inability to fix it, threatened to send me into a spiral.
I don’t spiral, though. I can’t. Nothing else mattered when I was sitting by his ICU bed waiting for someone to come and explain to me what happened to him, but more importantly—what would happen to him now?
He took a brutal beating resulting in a broken cheekbone, nose, arm, and swelling around his brain. That was why he was in the ICU. By noon, the swelling was better, and they diagnosed him with a severe concussion before they started talking about discharging him in the morning.
While I was horrified that they’d send him back out onto the street in that condition, Jake was having some lucid moments and expressed his wishes that he, too, wanted out of the hospital.
My first impulse was to call Evan. Not because he has any expertise on caring for injured people, but because I rely on him when I can’t think straight.
My call went to voicemail, and when I tried him at the office, the phone call rolled over to one of the other assistants who said Evan was out of the office.
Deacon is still around even though I told him he didn’t have to wait for me. I could tell how overwhelmed he’d been when we got here in the middle of the night. He said he wasn’t going anywhere, but I haven’t seen him. We text each other about once an hour, checking in.
On my second morning waking up in a hospital chair, I open my email.
To: Isaac.Sullivan@
From: EvanLockwood15@
Re: Letter of Resignation
Dear Isaac,
Please accept this notice as my official letter of resignation. Recently I was given an opportunity to head up workforce management at Four Points Freight, and I’ve decided the time and opportunity is right, and it’s what’s best for me and my career.
Please know your mentorship has been invaluable.
I never would have had the confidence or the skills to accept a position like this if it hadn’t been for your generosity and your support.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me and for believing in my ability to be more than an assistant. Thank you for everything,
On a more personal note, I want to assure you that despite my inability to give you adequate notice, I’m not leaving with any anger or bitterness. I do, however, regret not being able to do more. I hope you understand.
Be well. Take care.
Best,
Evan Lockwood
I close my phone with that punched in the gut feeling. Leaning forward in the chair, I let my head hang between my shoulders as I slump and think of all the ways I fucked this up.
Because if I hadn’t fucked up, he’d be here right now. Next to me. He might even be holding my hand or giving me the hug I so desperately need. He’d tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do next. Four Points Freight is based in LA.
I won’t lie and say I didn’t see this coming.
The moment he told me he knew about my date with Deacon, I sensed the beginning of the end, but I thought I’d have more of a chance to show him what we could be together.
I was careless, and I mismanaged the fight between him and Deacon—I mismanaged Evan.
As much as I hadn’t intended to, I gave him the impression I was taking sides.
I wasn’t able to give him what he needed from me, and now I’ve lost him.
Fuck.
A nurse comes into Jake’s room, and I snap my head up.
“I have his discharge orders. I just need to take out his IV and catheter, and then I can go over all the instructions and medication with you.”
I swallow the enormous lump in my throat and nod. I stand, wanting to give Jake the privacy even if he’s barely conscious. Talking about his dick with him is one thing, but watching a nurse remove a catheter from it is different.
When I’m in the hall, I text Deacon.
Me
Are you still here?
Deacon
I’m in the car.
Me
They’re discharging him soon. Do you mind driving us back to my place?
Deacon
No problem.
My eyes burn as the phone screen blurs. Huge emotions fill my chest, and I have to fight for my next breath.
It takes about an hour for the hospital staff to wheel Jake down to the entrance where my car is waiting with Deacon in the driver’s seat.
The sight of him is more of a relief than I thought it’d be.
He’s gentle when he helps me get Jake into the backseat and doesn’t mind that I want to sit with him on the ride back into the city.
He plays Bach at a low volume on the drive, and I start to realize how exhausted I am. “Did you sleep at all?” I ask him.
“Off and on,” he says.
Good, I think, but don’t manage to say. To keep myself sane since we got to the hospital, I made a police report and got the punk who did this to my brother arrested.
What started the fight is still a mystery to me, but I know it was one of his fraternity brothers.
Unsatisfied with a mere arrest, I’ve also gotten my own attorneys involved.
I want to know everything there is to know about this guy and the family he comes from.
If I don’t stay angry, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart.
Jake barely makes it into the guest room in my apartment before he collapses. Tears are streaming down his face—pain and exhaustion written all over his swollen features. I give him his meds then rub his back until he falls asleep.
Deacon brings me a sandwich and rubs my back while I eat it. “You should get some sleep,” he murmurs.
“I wanna sleep in here,” I tell him.
“Maybe a shower? I can stay in here.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“I’ll come get you if he needs anything.”
It goes to show how exhausted I am how much the offer stumps me.
I get stuck on the whole—“but he doesn’t know you”—and then I realize Jake hadn’t known any of the nurses at the hospital either, and he’s on so many drugs, he probably barely realizes I’m here, or where he is. “Sure. Yeah. A shower sounds good.”
The sandwich is perfect, but my stomach is twisted into a thousand knots. I only manage to eat half of it. “Thank you,” I tell Deacon.
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and a wave of warmth flows down my body. Where did I find this fucking angel?
“He’ll be okay,” Deacon says.
“I hate that you have to see him like this. He was the most beautiful boy.” I feel myself getting choked up. Clearing my throat, I stuff it back down.
Something about having Deacon at my side right now is deeply familiar and right. Maybe because from the moment I met him, I subconsciously started adding him into my life. I’m starting to understand how people can get married after a great weekend in Vegas and somehow make it work.
“Join me in the shower?” I ask him.
He glances at Jake, then frowns at me.
I hold up both hands. “I’m not seducing you, but we both need one. I have a double.”
“A double?”
“Two shower heads.”
“I’m familiar with your shower.” He picks up the plate with the half-eaten sandwich. “Go get started. I’ll come check on you in a minute.”
By the time I find some clean clothes and turn on the water, all I can think about is how badly I don’t want to think anymore.
I’m not horny, but I don’t want to be alone, either.
I could use a nice, hard body to lean against, hold onto.
Hold me up. This is making me wonder if I was ever really as self-sufficient as I thought I was.
I sort of wish I were, just to make extra sure my father was wrong about me, but maybe he was right, and I’m weak.
As I drag myself into the shower and stand under the spray to wash off the hospital and all the time we spent in the car, I can’t make myself care about anything.
My eyes are closed, but I feel the surge of cooler air as Deacon enters the shower.
The other faucet comes on, and I turn to see his backside in all its naked glory step beneath the spray.
He turns in a one-eighty, getting his entire body wet.
His cock is playing it safe, not entirely soft, but still hanging low, close to his sac.
I close the distance between us in two steps, draping my arms around his shoulders as his hands fasten themselves to my waist. I tip my chin up slightly, and he kisses me.
“Have you heard from Evan?” he asks.
The knife twists in my chest, his resignation email suddenly too vivid in my memory. “Just be with me,” I whisper, praying that’s something he’s capable of—that we both are.
“You want me to take care of you?”
I nod, not without some shame, my tongue darting out to lick some water off his neck.
“You’re sexy when you’re pathetic.”
“I’ve never been so flattered.”
“I’m serious.” He turns me around before walking me to the wall. “I’m learning all kinds of new things about myself from being with you.” He places my hands one at a time, palms flat, against the tile and sucks some water from the nape of my neck.
It sends a shuddering thrill through me. My hands clench on nothing, and I let out a low, unrestrained moan. His cock, now very hard, rubs against my ass, and it becomes the sole focus of my existence. As exhausted as I am, I need him. Now more than ever.
His hand slides down my chest, scratching through the hair on my lower belly before wrapping around my slowly thickening length.
I arch my back and tilt my head toward the shelf on my side of the shower. “There’s lube.”
“Have you forgotten we’ve been here before? I know where the lube is.”
“Sorry. I’m not thinking.”
He grabs the soap. “I never asked why you keep lube in the shower.”
“I entertain myself here a lot.”
“Oh, fuck yes,” he groans. “Say something else you should be ashamed of.”
“Don’t make me tell you what I sometimes do with the other nozzle.”
He chuckles against my skin, and it sheets me in chills.
With lathered hands, he continues to work my cock with a twisting grip.
He also washes my back, my arms, my pits, my ass crack.
His touch is firm and deliberate, but it feels like he’s everywhere all at once.
He’s got me hard, though. I’ll give him that.
Hard and pressing my ass against him as urgency builds in my groin to fuck and forget.
To feel so much it overwhelms everything else.
Jake, the asshole who hurt him, Hunter fucking Cross… and losing Evan.
I would tell Deacon what I need, but I don’t have to. I never have to. He’s already positioning my hips, sliding lube around my hole, and angling his cock to slide in. That done, he steps forward, moving a hand up to squeeze my pec as the other chokes the base of my dick.
I roll up onto my toes, my face hitting the tile as he slams inside.
“Yeah,” I sigh, and admittedly, it does sound pathetic.
Hauling me up until my back hits his chest, he keeps his strokes short and deep.
I’m stuffed full, blind to everything but him and the way he feels, the heat of his quickening breaths against my cheek. So close to my mouth.
I turn enough that our lips meet, and his tongue takes me over there, too. I make a helpless sound as he fucks and kisses me and holds me up, because he’s owning me.
An orgasm builds, fast and furious, and his next shove inside pulls the trigger.
I shoot onto the wall, gasping to catch any breath he’ll let me have.
He licks at my lips and tongue, his pace picking up as his cock rearranges my insides to make space for him.
When I’ve settled down enough to coordinate a more coherent kiss, that’s what sends him over the edge.
Everything in the shower is hot and wet, but the feel of him coming in my ass is hotter and silkier than anything hitting my skin. The way he thickens and throbs, the way it gets even slipperier and sexier as he moves.
I’m not sure if I wanted that or needed it or both or neither, but now that it’s done, I feel a little less alone. Does he know? Has he heard from Evan? Fuck, we shouldn’t have done this.
But I don’t have a chance to articulate any of that because Deacon is kissing me again and making me melt against the wall. He’s still mostly holding me up, and he’s not even inside me anymore.
When he pulls away, I whisper, “Don’t go.”
“We need to wash your hair.”
“I know, but I mean…don’t go.”
“I’m not.” He leans his head against the wall beside mine. We’re now face to face and chest to chest. His leg is between mine, and I can’t help myself from balancing half my weight on it as I lean into him.
“Do you know Evan’s gone?” I ask.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“He resigned. I think he’s moving to LA.”
Deacon’s face goes blank for a moment before his brows draw together and he shakes his head. “No.”
“I’m sorry. I think I fucked it all up that night.”
“You didn’t. I was the one who fought with him. When did you talk to him?”
“I didn’t. He resigned in an email.”
“I’ll fix it,” Deacon says.
I touch his face and make him look at me. “Hey. This isn’t on you.”
He looks as devastated as I feel. “I’m sorry.”
“It was his decision. And I get it.” It’s not like Evan hasn’t been guarded and hesitant about this relationship.
His first instinct was to stay out of it, but I dragged him right into it.
Telling him I love him and then expecting him to be okay with the fact that I can’t give up Deacon was unreasonable, but I did think I could love them each enough to keep them both.
“We can make this work, right?” I ask the man left standing. “You and me?”
“But you love him.”
I feel myself getting choked up again, and I have to look away. “Just give me a chance, okay?”
He pulls me into his arms and kisses the side of my head. “I swear I’m not going anywhere.”
The way his hard, strong body molds itself to mine is almost everything I’ve ever wanted.
I’ve never been less than a thousand percent gay, and this is one of those moments, despite all the hate my father spewed at me, where I thank God I was born this way, and for good men like Deacon who’ll take me whichever way I come.