Chapter 22
MATTHEW
It wasn’t that I was ignoring Jett’s opinion on the matter, but it was more like every time I was with Troye, he took up all my attention. I was enamored with him, from the way he moved to the impish look he’d get on his face sometimes when he was feeling particularly sassy.
From our time together, I’d learned that there were many sides to Troye.
There was the version I’d met on the plane.
The overwrought, overstimulated, under-caffeinated version who was high-strung and about to snap.
There was the avid gamer boy, the one who could talk about game play and strategy for hours.
Who could dissect user experience like a surgeon with a scalpel.
Then there was the current version of him.
The comfortable Troye. The kind of silly, kind of sassy version of him that he let loose when he was comfortable.
I’d only just met this version, but it was quickly becoming my favorite. This version of Troye was soft and sweet but able to tease me playfully with a rapier wit. He didn’t worry about saying the right thing or acting the right way.
This version of Troye was the one who called me Daddy more often than not.
The one who asked for spankings and who cuddled me after and told me how good the spankings made him feel.
This version of Troye felt like it was mine and mine alone.
Like maybe it hadn’t existed until I’d given him the space to find this particular Troye inside him.
The end of March had come and gone, and the days were increasingly spring-like in length and warmth, prompting me to want to spend some time outside with Troye.
We went for walks along the riverfront, and after I’d buy him hot chocolate and we’d sit in a cafe and drink until his nose and cheeks were no longer wind-kissed and pink.
It was on one of these occasions, about mid-April, when Troye looked at me from across the table. His hands were wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, even though the day had been unseasonably warm.
“My best friend, Charlie, wants to meet you. He’s been after me for a while, to be honest.” Troye ducked his head like he’d done something bad by delaying the request of his friend. Troye couldn’t stand not pleasing people.
“I’d love to meet your friends.”
Troye’s laugh didn’t have any air in it.
“Friend. Singular. Not plural. Charlie is the only fleshy friend I have. All my other friends live in my computer and a lot of them aren’t friends; they’re just people I know.
Well, not even that. They’re usernames I’m familiar with.
” Troye snapped his mouth shut. He looked like he wanted to reach out and snatch the words back and unsay them.
“I know how that feels. Jett is my closest friend, and for years he was the only person I socialized with. It was hard to have a social life when you were working twenty-six hours a day, ten days a week.”
“But it paid off. Gemstone is an amazing company.”
Sometimes when Troye looked at me, it was like he had stars in his eyes. As if I were the universe, and he was in awe of me. I was sure that I didn’t deserve such admiration, and though I told him as much, it was one thing Troye refused to budge on.
Gemstone was an amazing company, though.
And Jett was an infinitely patient partner because he was still waiting on me to have Troye sign that release.
Or be officially hired. Or for me to do literally anything that would protect the company in the event that Troye ended up being secretly litigious.
The question felt like acid in my mouth, like the words were made of weapons and launching them would destroy Troye.
I trusted him. I trusted him with everything, and maybe I shouldn’t.
Maybe Jett was right, and it was better to be safe than sorry, but there was no universe in which I could imagine Troye suing me.
Or my company. It would be a hard case to prove anyway.
Most of our conversations about the game had happened in person.
Troye had no way to prove that the ideas had come from his mouth.
But I knew.
And Jett knew.
And Troye knew.
And I understood why Jett didn’t trust easily, but by now he should be able to trust me and the fact that he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, didn’t sit right with me.
“Is something wrong?” Troye asked.
Under the table, his foot bumped against mine, and I thought it might’ve been an accident, but then his foot didn’t move. It stayed there, a steady pressure to reassure me that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Do you remember Jett?”
Troye’s frown didn’t smooth away. “Yeah. He’s your business partner. The other half of Gemstone. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. As far as I know.” I sucked in a breath and raked my hand through my hair as I exhaled, already exhausted from carrying this around with me for weeks. “He’s upset with me is all.”
“Oh, shit. How come?”
“Well… see… he knows that the bulk of the premise for the foster village game came from you, and he asked me to have you sign some releases or waivers basically saying that you can’t sue us for using these ideas.
It’s either that or hire you, and if you’re not agreeable to either of those things, he insists on pulling the plug on the project and starting over with a new premise. ”
By the time I was done talking, I was so tired it felt like my bones would turn to dust. Troye stared at me like he’d just met me, and I feared the worst.
“The last thing I want is for you to think that I don’t trust you. I do.”
“But Jett doesn’t,” Troye stated, his expression calm.
“He doesn’t. But to be fair, Jett doesn’t trust anyone.”
“I mean… he’s allowed to be protective of his company. And if it would make him feel better, I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign. I know that I’d never drag you to court over this, and you know that I’d never drag you to court, but he doesn’t know that.”
“You’ll sign?” Relief washed through me, soothing the month-long ache in my bones.
“Of course, I’ll sign. How long ago did he ask you?”
“Not long after you came to work with me that day.”
“That was over a month ago,” Troye chastised me. “Why didn’t you ask me sooner?”
“I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t trust you. Or that I was only out to use you or something.”
Troye tipped his head back and laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry.
You’re sweet, but kind of ridiculous.” Troye leaned across the table, and the heat in his gaze went from zero to inferno in a blink.
“In case it has escaped your attention, I want to be your good boy, and I want to be your smart boy. The boy with the ideas. I want to help, and I want you to do whatever is necessary to let me. I want you to use me, in every sense of the word.”
If we were anywhere else, I’d have hauled him to the bathroom and fucked him right there, but this was a family establishment and not some club with a dingy bathroom and a bowl of condoms on the sink.
“You’ve been very agreeable today, sweetheart. I think someone has earned a reward.”
“I think we need to leave. Like now. Like ten minutes ago.” Troye downed the rest of his drink and stood, prompting me to follow his lead.
As the daddy in the relationship, I was supposed to be in charge, theoretically.
But Troye and I didn’t operate like that most of the time.
We were daddy and boy in bed only for the most part.
Troye could run his own life and make his own decisions.
He could manage himself and his emotions and didn’t want or need someone taking over his every decision or ruling over his every waking moment.
But sometimes he liked the world to go away. Sometimes, he liked to let go and let me shoulder everything. Sometimes he liked the freedom of not having to make decisions or choose or even think. All he had to do was feel.
Though his set-up was at his place, he spent an increasing amount of time at mine. Sometimes only leaving to go home and stream and then he’d be right back, asking if I minded that he was there again. The truth was that I minded it more when he left.
Soon, I planned on asking him if he wanted to live with me, but I worried that I was moving too fast. I’d never met anyone who fit me the way Troye fit me, and the last thing I wanted was to scare him away.
Maybe he’d agree to use my set-up. It wasn’t like I did much streaming.
The only reason I was even set up for it was that I occasionally appeared on podcasts, and I was used to having to schedule those at strange hours, making it less convenient to go to the office.
So I had a set-up at home that was as good or maybe better than Troye’s.
Now I just had to convince him to use it.
By the time I locked my front door behind myself, Troye was halfway naked.
His eager nature was endearing and kind of hot.
He was a handful of years younger than me, not enough to call what we had an age gap but enough to make me smile at how smoothly he went to his knees as mine had already started protesting that kind of thing.
“Someone’s eager.” I stayed still as Troye reached for me. His hands slid up the outside of my legs, and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against my thigh. I dropped a hand onto his head and combed my fingers through his hair. “Did you need something, sweetheart?”
Sometimes Troye liked to pretend that he needed my permission to do things. Like suck my cock. Or come. Or touch himself.
“Daddy,” Troye whined, already tormenting himself by denying himself the things he wanted so that I could be the one to let him have them. Troye took a trembling breath.
“Can I suck your cock?” He looked up at me, his eyes soft and pleading.
“You were such a good boy for me today. Of course you can. But no touching yourself. Not yet. Not until Daddy says it’s okay.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” Troye was already undoing my pants and pulling them down, being sure to drag my briefs with them. Once my cock was free, he wasted no time in leaning forward and flicking his tongue out over the tip to catch the salty bead of precum.
“You have the best mouth,” I told him. I often told Troye a lot of things, and all of them were true. I meant every word I’d ever said to him. And I meant words that I had yet to speak into existence.
Like the fact that I was falling irrevocably, irreversibly, head over heels in love with him.