6. Wes
6
WES
“Are you sure you don’t mind going?” Jett asked Ez, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Not at all.” Ez jingled his keys. “All set?” he asked me.
“Yup.”
The crew had spent most of the day helping Jett move into his new apartment, and we’d volunteered to pick up a couch from one of his aunt’s friends.
Jett wrung his hands in front of him.
“Jett,” Ez said softly.
Jett looked at him, something I couldn’t read flickering in his expression.
“It’s no problem. Focus on getting everything set here, and we’ll be back in a bit.”
“Okay.” Jett cracked a small smile. “Thanks.”
Ez smiled reassuringly. “You’ve got this.”
“Do I?” Jett huffed out a laugh. “I feel like I’m doing this adulting thing wrong.”
“Pretty sure we’re all doing it wrong,” I said.
“I know I’m doing capitalism wrong,” Noah said as he and Zane came through the door carrying a huge box between them.
“I blame my ancestors.” Gray pushed his hair back from where it had fallen over his forehead. “Where’s my generational wealth? Isn’t that how you do capitalism?”
“No, no, no.” Zane halted. “Haven’t you heard? No one wants to work anymore. That’s why we’re all poor.”
“He says an hour before we have to head to our second jobs.” River looked up from where he was drawing something on one of Jett’s boxes with a Sharpie. “I thought it was because we drink too many lattes and blow all our money on luxuries like phones and food?”
“How dare we communicate or eat. We’re the literal worst.” Gray tossed a ball of rolled-up tape at River. “You gonna help or keep doodling?”
“Doodling.” River didn’t look up.
“Does anyone need a break?” Jett asked.
“I need a break.” Nick flopped down on the worn easy chair tucked into the corner of the living area. “Supervising you guys is hard.” He tilted his head back and looked at Gray. “Be a dear and get me a slice of pizza.” He batted his eyelashes prettily. “Please and thank you.”
“Yeah, not happening.” Gray marched over and sat on Nick’s lap.
“Oof.” Nick peeked around Gray’s bigger frame. “Does this mean someone else is getting my snack?”
“Children,” Zane said, coming out of the bedroom. “Do I need to separate you?”
“Sorry, Daddy,” Gray said with a cheesy grin, leaning back so the only parts of Nick I could see were his legs and the top of his blond head.
“Dare I ask?” Quinn came into the apartment carrying a giant garbage bag stuffed with what looked like clothes or linens.
“The kids are at it again.” Zane leaned against the wall.
“Aren’t they always?” Quinn made a big show of sighing. “River, are you drawing dicks on Jett’s boxes?”
“No comment,” River said, his Sharpie scratching over the cardboard.
“Nick, can you breathe?” Quinn asked.
Nick’s hand came out from behind Gray and gave everyone a thumbs up.
“And are you having fun?” Quinn asked Gray, his lips twitching as he tried to keep up his stern demeanor.
Gray pretended to look confused. “Whatever do you mean? I’m just taking a much-needed break. Nothing to see here.”
Ez caught my eye. I folded my lips inward to keep from laughing.
Life was never boring when the crew was around.
“We’re going to grab that couch from Jett’s aunts’ friends,” Ez said to Quinn. “Good luck with…everything.”
“It’s like herding cats,” Quinn said affectionately. “Never a dull moment.”
River started snickering at whatever he’d drawn on the box. Ez motioned for me to follow him out of the apartment while everyone was distracted.
“So, he’s been weird today, right?” I asked as we headed to the main entrance of the building.
Ez nodded. “Yeah. Same as Quinn’s barbeque and when we go to Ralph’s after work.”
Pushing the front door open, I waited for Ez to exit first.
The fallout from our disastrous first day had slowly faded over the last month, but that only seemed to apply at work. When we were on-site, Jett was a completely different person. He laughed and joked and teased and made snarky and sassy comments to everyone, including us.
But anytime we were away from the site, he was nervous and quiet and seemed to slip into some sort of servant role. He didn’t just try to accommodate people or make sure they had what they needed; he made everyone’s comfort his top priority.
“I asked Quinn if he’s noticed how different he is. I thought maybe this started when we got here, but according to Quinn, he’s way better now than he was when they first met.”
“Is it just me, or does it feel like he was trained to be that way? Like you can see him shut down and literally switch personalities.”
“It definitely does.” Ez used the key fob to unlock the doors to our truck. “He’s mentioned how he grew up religious, and all the little things he’s let slip about his home life make me think this is part of that.”
“How far is this place we’re going?” I asked, climbing into the truck.
“About twenty minutes.” He closed the door and stuck the key in the ignition. “Hopefully they know we’re showing up because we’re heading to the Vale Estates.” He cranked the car.
“Remember the last time we were there?” Leaning back against my seat, I relaxed as Ez pulled out of the parking spot.
One of the subcontractors who worked with the last crew we’d been on lived in the affluent area, and we’d gone over a few times to play cards. The people in his neighborhood hadn’t appreciated a bunch of blue-collar construction workers showing up and parking their work trucks on their fancy street.
“I’ll never forget the poker game that got broken up by a crowd of angry homeowners.” Ez smirked. “What has to go wrong in your life that you’d show up at your neighbor’s house en masse and demand they stop hosting poker games because ‘gambling brings unsavory characters around?’” He pitched his voice to mimic the nasal jackass who’d led the charge that night. “And I think that one lady needs someone to explain to her that a poker game with a twenty-dollar buy-in isn’t gonna make anyone catch RICO charges.”
“Didn’t you hear her? She knows someone who knows a district attorney. She could make it happen because she knows important people.”
Ez snickered. “They always know someone who knows someone. But it might be better if you go to the door alone. You’re too pretty to be scary.”
“Awww, you think I’m pretty.” I pretended to blush and pressed my hand against my forehead like I was about to faint. “Be still my heart.”
Ez caught my hand loosely in his. Not taking his eyes off the road, he brushed a kiss over my knuckles. “Prettiest person I’ve ever seen.” He flicked his heated gaze to mine, then returned it to the road.
This time my blush was real.
“How about we get this couch, then get our asses home so we can start our date night?” I asked, my dick waking up and going half-hard.
Ez placed my hand on my thigh, then dragged his palm over my crotch before returning it to the wheel. “A fine idea.”
I let out a breathy laugh and adjusted my dick so it wasn’t being crushed in my jeans. “You don’t play fair.”
“Nope.” He grinned wickedly.
I focused on the road ahead of us—and getting rid of my boner before we reached our destination.
“Did you text that we’re here?” Ez asked, adjusting his grip on the couch. “Fucker had to be a hideaway bed.”
“Yeah, when we parked.” I shifted the heavy piece of furniture to one hand so I could knock.
“Sorry.” The door flew open, and Jett stepped back, looking flushed and flustered. “I didn’t hear my phone.” He eyed the doorway. “Will it fit?”
“It will. We measured before we picked it up. Ready?” I asked Ez.
“Yup.” He dropped his end down so it hovered just over the ground.
Lifting my side, I twisted the couch and angled it so we could squeeze it through the doorway. It would have been easier with the door off, but we made it work without damaging anything.
“How did you do that?” Jett asked as we set the couch down in the living room. “I was sure it wasn’t going to fit.”
“We used to work for a moving company.” Ez stretched his arms over his head. The bottom of his shirt lifted, showing off a stripe of his abs and little bits of his tattoos. “You learn a trick or two when your paycheck depends on your ability to fit things through doorways.”
Jett spun on his heel so his back was to Ez. “Oh yeah?”
“Relax, kid,” I teased. “No one is going to fault you for looking. My man is hot.”
Ez dropped his arms with a smirk.
Jett turned back to face us, a nervous smile on his lips. “I’m being weird. Don’t mind me.”
Ez looked around. “Where is everyone?”
“Gone.” Jett hurried over to close the front door. “They had to head to the club for work.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. He didn’t just look flustered; he seemed panicked.
“I’m fine.” He raked a hand through his messy hair.
“Are you sure?” Ez asked, tossing a quick look my way.
“No.” He laughed, but the sound wasn’t humorous. It was the type of laugh you used to cover up the urge to cry or scream.
“What’s going on?” I asked, making sure to keep my tone low and soft. “I know we’re not your first choice for talking shit out, but we’re not monsters.”
“I know.” He dropped his face in his hands. “I know you’re not.” His voice was muffled, but clear enough for us to hear him. “I’m just not good at this.”
“At what?” Ez asked gently.
“Life. Being a person.” He dropped his hands, his face twisted up in what looked like anguish. “I don’t know how to be an adult.”
“What do you mean?” I stepped closer to him.
“I’ve never lived alone.” He swept his arm around the room. “I don’t know how to do any of this.”
“You’ve never lived alone?” Ez asked.
“No.” He let out another of those nearly hysterical laughs. “I lived with my parents, then I moved into the house my parents and in-laws bought for us, but because I was the husband, I wasn’t allowed to learn anything related to running a household. Then I moved in with my aunts, and they had to teach me how to budget and pay bills and buy groceries. Everything. What the hell was I thinking moving into this place?”
“It’s normal to be nervous about being on your own for the first time,” Ez said, taking a half step closer to Jett. “It’s a big deal.”
“It shouldn’t be. Not at my age.”
“You’re twenty-three,” I pointed out. “I know lots of people your age who haven’t moved out yet.”
“But that’s the thing. I did move out. Twice. And I still don’t know how to be a functioning adult. Do you know what I was doing when you texted? I was freaking out because the oven light is burned out. I build houses for a living, but I don’t know how to change the lightbulb in my oven.” He glanced at the kitchen area. “I can’t do this.”
“You can.” Taking a chance, I stepped closer, stopping when we were about two feet apart. “You can do this.”
“I don’t know if I can.” His tone dropped to one of defeat. “I don’t know how to be alone.”
“What do you mean?” Ez asked. Gently, he put one hand on Jett’s shoulder and nudged him toward the couch.
Jett dropped down on it and put his elbows on his knees, leaning over with his head hanging down.
“I’ve never been alone. Not really. I went from sharing a room with three of my brothers to living with my ex to living with my aunts to this. I’ve never spent more than a night in a house alone, and now I’m supposed to do that every night? I’m so pathetic.”
Carefully, I sat on the couch next to him. He didn’t move away or tense. That was progress. “You’re not pathetic.”
“I am.” He sighed. “I almost had a panic attack because of a lightbulb. That’s pathetic.”
“You didn’t almost have a panic attack because of a lightbulb.” Ez sat on Jett’s other side. “You almost had a panic attack because you’re going through this huge change in your life. The bulb was the trigger, but it wasn’t the cause.”
“It’s hard to remember that when you’re lying on the floor and hyperventilating because a light won’t turn on,” he muttered.
“And it’s not your fault you weren’t prepared to live on your own. That’s the fault of the adults in your life,” Ez continued. “You don’t just magically learn all these things when you turn eighteen. You need to be taught how to budget and shop and pay bills. That’s not on you either.”
“I thought I was ready for this.” He leaned back against the couch and let out a heavy sigh. “I mean, I went from dude virgin to getting fucked by a couple and didn’t freak out, but I lose my shit when I think about changing the lightbulb in my oven or making a grocery list? That’s not normal.”
Wait. What?
I caught Ez’s eyes over Jett’s head, and the horror in them mirrored my own.
Jett had never slept with a guy before us?
That meant I’d taken his virginity.
“I’m being stupid.” He sighed again. “Thanks for getting the couch.” He started to stand.
“Wait,” Ez said.
Jett paused. “What?”
“You were a dude virgin that night?” he asked, enunciating his words carefully.
Jett jumped and rushed over to an open box a few feet away. “Yeah.” He rummaged through it, not looking at us. “But it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not a big deal?” I repeated dumbly.
“No.” He pulled a towel out of the box and held it against his chest like a shield. “It’s not.”
“How can it not be?” I asked, still too shocked to fully process the situation.
“Because it isn’t.” Jett hugged the towel against him, still not meeting our gaze. “Go big or go home, right?”
“That works in sports, but not so much when it comes to the people you sleep with.” Ez’s tone was careful, but I could hear the emotion under it. “You said you went to the club to suck a dick and maybe get yours sucked too. You never planned on fucking anyone, did you?”
He shrugged, still looking into the box.
“Jesus.” Ez jumped up and started pacing behind the couch. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Why would I?” Jett finally looked up, his expression defiant. “Why is it up to you what I do? If I’d told you, would you have gone through with it?”
“No,” we said in unison.
“And how is that fair to me?” He tossed the towel into the box and crossed his arms. “I have to hand my autonomy over to you because I’d never taken a dick? I’m not allowed to decide what I want to do with my body because you don’t think I did it right?”
“No.” Ez stopped pacing. “But…”
“But what?” He glared at Ez.
“It should have been different for you,” I said softly.
He turned his glare on me. “Why?”
“Because your first time should be special.”
“You think so? My first time with a girl wasn’t special. It was supposed to be, and they promised it would be, but it was awkward and weird and neither of us enjoyed it. I’d rather never have sex again than go through that again. Not everyone has what you do. Not everyone gets the fairy-tale romance and the magical first time. Some of us don’t want that.”
“How many people have you been with?” Ez asked.
“None of your business.” Jett uncrossed his arms and closed the flaps of the box in front of him.
“How many?” he repeated quietly.
“Three.” Jett didn’t look up. “My ex-wife and you guys.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Ez raked his hand through his hair. “You’ve never messed around with another guy? Like at all?”
He shook his head, his shoulders dropping as his defiance melted into defeat. “I wasn’t ready before.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Something about the way he worded that was setting off alarm bells in my head.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled to the floor.
“Does it have anything to do with the way you grew up and hearing things about LGBTQ people?” I asked carefully.
He nodded. “I’ve known I’m bi for a long time, but it took me a while to undo that shit and get to a place where I was ready to explore that side of myself.”
“What happened that night?” Ez asked. “You said something happened and it made you go to the club.”
“My mother sent me a letter after a year of ignoring me.” He finally looked at us.
“What was in it?”
“Just stuff about my siblings.” He kicked the box gently. “I made a snap decision, and I went to the club. Maybe I didn’t go there looking to have sex, but I did. I made a choice.” His eyes filled with something akin to despair. “I knew if I told you I was a virgin, you’d stop, and I didn’t want you to stop. I wanted it. I needed it. I don’t regret it, but it kills me that you do.”
“We don’t regret it,” I said quickly.
“You expect me to believe that after you raged out?” He waved at Ez. “I saw the look in your eyes. You were ready to punch something. Of course you regret it.”
“I wasn’t raging out because I regret it,” Ez said. “I was angry at myself because I was too rough with you. All that shit I said?—”
“So you would have treated me like glass if I’d told you.” He rolled his eyes. “You don’t think that’s maybe part of the reason I didn’t say anything? I don’t need a knight in shining armor to save me from myself. I don’t need you to whisper sweet nothings in my ear or treat me like I’m breakable. I wanted exactly what you gave me. End of story.”
“We didn’t even kiss you,” I said, still a bit dazed.
He’d had sex with two men, but had he even had his first kiss with one?
“So?” Jett looked away. “You said that wasn’t your thing.”
I looked at Ezra. His expression told me all I needed to know.
“You’re right,” I said to Jett.
“Huh?”
“We don’t have the right to tell you what you can and can’t do. And you had every right to keep that to yourself. You’re an adult, and it’s not fair for us to project our feelings about the situation onto you.”
He relaxed. “Why is it such a big deal to you?”
“That I was your first?”
He nodded.
“Because I’ve never been someone’s first.”
Jett swung his gaze to Ez.
“You might have noticed Wes and I have a particular dynamic when we bring in thirds.”
Jett smirked. “You mean the good top, bad top routine? I noticed.”
Ez chuckled. “Yeah, that one. But that’s not how things are when we’re alone.”
His forehead knitted in confusion.
“Wes and I…”
“He’s a top, and I’m vers,” I explained. “But I’m only vers when we have a third. I don’t want to top him because that’s not our dynamic. It’s hard to explain, but what we do with thirds is completely different from how we are with each other. That’s when we push boundaries and explore things we can’t do when it’s just the two of us.”
Jett nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense.”
“And we don’t actually fuck a lot of our thirds,” Ez added.
“You don’t?” He looked between us.
“Nope. We usually just play in the back room, get them off, then we go home and fuck like bunnies all night.”
“But you had a hotel room.”
“We got it for Ez’s birthday. It was a way to have a night off and pretend we could afford an actual vacation and celebrate Ez turning twenty-five. We were open to the possibility of finding a third, but that wasn’t why we went to the club or got the room.”
“So you wouldn’t have just found someone else if I wasn’t there?” he asked, sounding sad and so damn young.
“No.” I stood as well. It was awkward being the only one still sitting. “I’m not going to lie to you. We were looking when we saw you, but that’s part of the fun for us. We scope the room and talk about guys who interest us, but it’s just foreplay. It doesn’t mean we’re going to do anything about it.”
He looked away, his cheeks flushing with color.
“But we both wanted you, and you wanted us.” Ez came around the couch and stood next to me. “So we did something about it.”
“Oh.” Jett let out a shaky breath. “Okay. That’s reassuring.” He shot us a wry smile. “Helps to know I wasn’t just the first guy on the list who said yes.”
Ez wrapped his arm around my waist. “You were the only one we wanted that night.”
“I don’t know how to do this.” Jett’s eyes were bright with something I couldn’t read.
“Do what?”
“This.” He motioned between us. “I don’t know what to do with this. You know so much about me. You know things that no one else knows, and you’re saying all this nice stuff, and I’m trying to remember that we’re coworkers, but none of my other coworkers know about me being bi. They don’t know how I look when I come. They didn’t see me beg to be fucked.”
My dick went half-hard at his words, and memories filtered through my mind.
Not now , I chastised both my dick and my brain.
“They haven’t seen our O faces either. They don’t know we like to pick up thirds. They have no idea that we loved every second of you begging us to fuck you.”
Jett swallowed at Ez’s words.
“We all have secrets,” he continued. “We all have things we keep from the people in our lives.”
Jett licked his bottom lip, slowly dragging his tongue over the plump flesh. His eyes flashed with heat.
“Do you want us to leave?” Ez asked, his voice low and raspy.
My stomach swooped and my balls tightened. That voice always did things to me.
Jett shook his head.
“Do you want us to pretend this conversation never happened and go back to figuring out how to be coworkers?”
Jett hesitated, then shook his head again.
“Do you want another night with us?”
Jett’s eyes widened. “But you said you only do one-offs.”
“We did.” I glanced at Ez to make sure we were on the same page. His look told me we were. “But that was before. We’re flying blind here too. We’ve never been in a situation where we’ve seen one of our thirds after the fact. We’re trying to figure shit out the same as you.”
“And if we do it again?” he asked in that breathy tone I liked way too much. “Won’t that make things even more complicated?”
Ez shifted me so I was in front of him, and he could lean me against his front. “It will.” He slid one hand down my chest and stroked my stomach. I sighed and relaxed against him. “It’s your call what you want to do.”
He chewed on the corner of his lip, heat and uncertainty warring in his gaze. “Are you going to treat me like I’m breakable?”
“No.” I pushed my ass back and rubbed it against Ez’s hard cock. “But we’d like to kiss you this time.”
His eyes rounded comically. “What?” he squeaked.
“If you consent, of course.” Ez pressed a soft kiss against my neck.
I tilted my head so he’d do it again. He obliged.
“But you don’t kiss others…”
“No, but we also don’t do repeats,” I said, circling my hips to tease Ez’s cock. His soft moan fanned over my ear and lit me up from the inside. “Rules change.”
What the fuck was going on?
I meant every word I said, and Ez agreed with me. But what the ever-loving hell was happening? I’d never once had the urge to kiss anyone other than Ez. Not once in my entire life, but I wanted to kiss Jett.
I couldn’t even blame knowing the truth about his inexperience or wanting to make up for taking his virginity before he got his first kiss with a man.
I wanted to kiss him. Just like I’d wanted to that first night.
“Are you sure?” Jett licked his lip again.
“Yes.” Ez slipped his hand under my shirt and rubbed my bare skin.