Eighteen Arya
eighteen
Arya
All right,” Farzan said, once their server had taken their orders and wandered off. “Spill it.”
“Spill what?” Arya said automatically.
He’d known this was coming since practice yesterday.
It had been obvious from the way Farzan and David kept shooting him (and each other) looks on the field.
Or that time Noah had jogged over to Ramin and Jake during a break to meet Simon and had gotten sucked into a conversation with Ben that Arya hadn’t been privy to.
Or from the way his phone had been weirdly silent since yesterday afternoon.
Almost like his friends were on a separate group chat, planning this very ambush.
“Come on,” David said, reaching for his wine. He’d picked a bottle of Domaine Serene, an exquisite Oregon Pinot Noir, for the table. He swirled the inky red wine and sipped. Arya tasted his own, cocktail cherries bursting on his tongue.
It was good fucking wine.
David had picked this spot—a new restaurant that had just opened in the River Market—after meeting some of the servers at Aspire.
He was wearing a weathered-looking teal KC Current shirt; he and Farzan had snagged season tickets.
(Arya had known Farzan three-quarters of his life, but somehow he was only now learning that Farzan loved women’s soccer.) Farzan was in a plain gray Henley, but he’d undone all the buttons, letting his salt-and-pepper chest hair spill out, and the way he kept looking at David, rubbing his arm, made Arya wonder if he and David had fucked this morning.
There was no question Ramin and Noah had: Despite being more put together (a button-up for Ramin, a polo for Noah), both had messy hair and rosy cheeks, and Ramin in particular had a glint in his eye that Arya recognized as the trademark of the freshly fucked.
It was all the more impressive since Noah went to church most Sundays.
Had they had a quickie? Done it in the car?
Ugh, why was he thinking about that anyway? He loved his friends and was happy for them to have healthy sex lives, but one reason their friendship worked so well is that they had never seen each other naked and had no plans to do so, like, ever.
They were brothers as much as friends.
Besides, Arya was supposed to be the slutty one here.
The one with wild stories to share over brunch.
Like the twin mix-up. Or the time a guy wanted to eat a fresh Krispy Kreme donut off his dick and accidentally bit him.
Or the guy whose bathroom was decorated with a hundred porcelain angels.
(Arya had noped out of that hookup real fucking quick.)
Now here he was, with nothing to show for his libido but a poorly concealed shower jack-off and a fake dating scheme.
Fuck his life.
“Something is going on with you and Ben,” Farzan said. “Come on. You know you can tell us.”
Arya sighed, took another sip of his wine—it really was fantastic, with a nice zip to it—swallowed hard, and laid it all out for them.
Ramin’s jaw dropped. Noah’s eyes went wide. David bit his lip, holding in laughter.
Farzan did start laughing, so hard he snorted, and then the dam burst and all five of them lost it. The table next to them looked over, but Arya ignored them. They were hardly the loudest table at brunch, and even if they were, so what?
One by one their laughter ebbed, with a few final chortles.
Arya stared into his wine, swirling it in the glass and studying the vortex.
What had he gotten himself into? It had all seemed perfectly logical, sorting out the rules with Ben.
It had felt righteous, even, pissing off Justin (fucking guy!) at practice yesterday.
But now, laying it all out there for his friends, well… “It’s ridiculous, right?”
“I mean, a little,” Farzan said. “But only because out of all of us, I always figured you were, statistically, the least likely to get roped into some sort of fake dating scheme.”
“Doesn’t fake dating usually end in real feelings?” Noah asked, reaching for his espresso. Whenever they all went to brunch, he and Ramin always got espressos. They said it reminded them of being in Italy.
Ramin beamed. “When did you get so genre savvy, baby?”
Noah chuckled and reached for the little silver cross he wore around his neck, rubbing it with his thumb, while he blushed and studied his breakfast.
Ramin turned to Arya. “Ben seems like a good guy, though.”
“Agreed,” David said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“What? I see him at Aspire a few times a week. We talk. He’s thoughtful, he’s kind, he’s hot. What’s not to like?”
“Exactly,” Arya agreed. Way too quickly.
All four friends turned to stare at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Noah shot Ramin one of those looks that couples are always giving each other, the see me after class kind.
“Come on. You can say it.”
Ramin reached for his wine, avoiding Arya’s eyes. It was Farzan who finally spoke up.
“You sure this is all just… business?”
“Positive. Why would you even ask?”
“I mean, you seem like you like him is all. Are you sure you’re not biting off more than you can chew?”
Arya rolled his eyes. Yeah, he liked Ben. Yeah, he kept thinking about the way Ben had kissed him yesterday after their date. Practice kissed. It didn’t count.
“Listen.” He splayed his hands on the table. “This is me we’re talking about. We’re not even fucking. Everything is strictly business between us. So you don’t need to worry about me going and falling in love.”
Noah chuckled. “Falling in love’s pretty great.”
He reached over and took Ramin’s hand.
It was so sweet, it made Arya’s teeth hurt.
He shook his head. “That might be the case for some people, sure. But you all know I’m not built for that. You don’t need to act like this is something more than it is.”
“We know,” Farzan said. “You—”
He paused as their brunches arrived. Arya had ordered the cheddar biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs, and the plate came out like a picture of perfection: eggs sunny yellow and gleaming, biscuits freshly split and still steaming in the few spots that weren’t smothered in creamy white gravy dotted with pepper and sausage.
His stomach growled.
God, he loved brunch.
“Anyway,” Farzan said. “All I’m trying to say is… all we’re trying to say is, we want you to be happy. Okay? You’ve always been there for us, through the good, the bad, and the ridiculous. So we’re here for you, too. Even if this whole thing is a little ridiculous.”
Arya couldn’t argue. It was a lot ridiculous.
But as long as it worked, it’d be worth it in the end.
“Thanks, guys,” Arya said. He raised his glass. “Cheers, queers.”
“Cheers, queers!” his friends agreed, clinking with him.
After a long, satisfied sip, David set his glass down and leaned in. “Did anyone else notice how Justin looks like he and Todd could be long-lost brothers?”
Ramin choked and started coughing. Noah reached over to rub his back.
Arya cackled. “Oh my god, dude, they totally could.”
“No wonder Ben wanted away from him,” Farzan said.
“Exactly.” Arya dug into his biscuits, savoring his brunch, while David regaled them with the story of yet another couple that came to Aspire on a date, only to announce mid-dessert that one of them wanted a divorce.
He really loved his friends.
Maman
You’re still coming for dinner?
You don’t have to work?
Arya
I’ll be there Maman
Don’t worry
Arya sighed and flopped backward onto his bed, scratching at his bare stomach. He needed to trim his happy trail. Then he remembered it didn’t matter, because he and Ben had agreed no sex. And no hooking up with other people during their arrangement.
What was wrong with him?
Granted, even if he had been able to arrange a dick rotation, he was too busy dealing with his company imploding.
He’d spent the last week taking meetings with every company in town he could think of, either with their internal event team if they had one or their marketing manager if they didn’t.
He’d even spent a whole day scrolling through old emails, looking for new prospects, checking up on old contacts to see who might’ve moved to a new company that could use a production company.
But there was nothing. He had no leads, other than Ben’s lead on the Holbrooks, and when Arya asked, Ben said he’d talked to his parents and heard that the Holbrooks were out of the country right now.
So who knew when, or if, that would happen.
No. Ben would keep his word. Whether it amounted to anything or not? That was up to Arya.
God. No wonder he was in an orgasm deficit.
He sighed, swiping around on his phone to the screen with all his dating apps. Grindr, Hinge, Scruff… shit, he even kept a Tinder profile just in case.
His hand hovered over the Grindr icon. He’d had it on his phone for the last fifteen years. His Grindr account was older than his car. Or his apartment building!
It was fine. He could download it again later. It would be waiting for him to come back. He needed to do this.
He took a deep breath and deleted the apps one by one. Each vanished off his phone with so little fanfare, Arya was almost offended. Him signing out seemed like the kind of event that should’ve been marked with somber music, or Pride flags flown at half-mast, or a sad, cinematic rainstorm.
But nope. They were just gone.
So now, here he was, half naked with his hand down his underwear, playing with his limp dick because he couldn’t figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do.
Worse, he still had to go have dinner with his mom and dad tonight.
Fuck my life.
He released his dick, rubbed his head, and rolled off the bed to go change.
Arya’s mom (and, for tax purposes, his father, too) lived in a cute house in the Northland, not super far from Shiraz Bistro or Ramin’s house.
But then, no matter where you were in the Northland, anywhere else in the Northland was twenty minutes away.
Unless you had to go to, like, the edge of Liberty.
But that barely counted as the Northland anymore; it was halfway to Independence.