Chapter 7 #4
“Well, there is that. But I was thinking more along the lines that you didn’t hesitate in the slightest to suck my dick or swallow,” he said with a curious look.
“How the hell did I never know that about you? Like, I know you don’t talk about your personal life, let alone your sex life, but c’mon… I should have suspected you were bi.”
“A little,” I said, and when he rolled his eyes, I scoffed. “Well, it’s true. My experiences and interest in men have been dwarfed by those I’ve had with women.”
“A bit of bi is still bi,” he said, looking done with me. “I just…why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it didn’t seem necessary for you to know,” I said automatically, and then closed my eyes. “Sorry, that was…knee jerk.”
“Okay, well, my feelings are only a little hurt. But you’ve got the chance to give what must be the real answer so I don’t have to sit here and feel bad about myself,” he said brightly, as if he were just giving me shit.
Except I knew Reggie, I’d watched him deal with many people over the years, and I learned he was one of the best at hiding a lot behind a smile and a joke.
“Don’t do that,” I said with a shake of my head.
“I apologize for being…an ass, but you don’t have to pretend it was funny when it wasn’t.
The truth is, I didn’t tell you because I just didn’t tell many people…
at first, when we became friends. Afterwards, it just…
well, a large part of it was habit, an old one. ”
“Which die the hardest deaths,” he said with a smile. “I know that well. I sense there’s more?”
“At some point, and don’t ask me when, I started having…complicated feelings for you.”
“Complicated or horny feelings?”
“I…horny ones,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “You really know how to take the gravitas of a situation and throw it right out the window.”
“Well, being horny isn’t really complicated…you’re just horny,” he said with a shrug.
“Yes, but it can make a situation or relationship far more complicated by existing in the first place,” I told him dryly.
“Such as when you’re having feelings for someone you shouldn’t be having feelings for because they’re your close friend, and also the same person who was your late best friend’s husband. ”
At that, Reggie’s smile faded, and he scratched his collarbone. “Right, yeah, I suppose…I can see how that would be complicated.”
I watched him for a moment, wondering if he had felt the same complications, or if I had just manifested them in his head. “Sorry.”
He glanced up and shook his head. “Don’t be.
I-I loved him, and in a way, I still love him, and I’m always going to remember what we had.
But I’m not going to live my life as if he’s still here, or that I should live my life as if waiting for him to come back.
And get that look off your face. You didn’t make me feel guilty because I gave my late husband’s best friend a blowjob in his office. ”
“I feel like this would blow his mind,” I said with a shake of my head. “He was always trying to get the two of us to be closer, to get along better.”
“We got along, but you were busy, I was busy, all we really shared was him…while he was alive,” he said quietly. “You know what he’d say about us getting close after he died, right?”
I didn’t have to think hard, smiling. “That he shouldn’t have had to work that hard to get us to be good friends.”
Reggie grinned. “And in that irritated way he of his when he was this close to being over your shit.”
I nodded. “I can’t picture what he’d say about this development.”
“I think he’d…” Reggie began and then stopped with a frown. I could see him working through his thoughts, and I gave him the moment. Then he opened his mouth and frowned. “What the fuck?”
“What?” I asked, turning to see what he was staring at. Then blinked as I watched headlights approach from the front drive and circle around to the entrance. “What the…oh hell, Jude!”
“Wow, we forgot your son,” he said, and slapped himself on the forehead with a sigh. “What in the—”
I yanked on my jacket, momentarily forgetting what we’d just done, and about the best friend that I might or might not have been insulting with what we’d done.
What mattered was that my son was down there, and while I was going to give him holy hell for not giving me updates, I was glad to see him face to face for the first time in weeks.
“Go,” Reggie said with a laugh when I gave him an uncertain look.
“I’m not going to collapse into a pile of self-doubt ridden goop just because you want to go see your kid.
Go on now. I’ll meet you after you guys do your father and son moment down there, unless you wanna give him the tour and I’ll just go to bed? ”
“I probably should, huh?” I asked.
“You should; he’d love it, then I’ll take over after he’s got some sleep,” Reggie smiled and then surprised me by leaning close and kissing the corner of my mouth. “Good night, sleep well when you get there…and no more drinks, you’ve had enough.”
“Sure,” I said distantly, touching where his lips had been and watching him as he left. “Sure thing.”
Ah, this wasn’t anywhere near over.