9. Ezra
9
EZRA
Jesse : you guys home?
Ezra : I am but Wes is out rn
Jesse : want some company? I’m nearby
Ez : always
Jesse : be there in 10
I tucked my phone into my pocket and did a quick sweep of our living room. Wes had a habit of leaving little piles of stuff around the apartment, kind of like breadcrumbs.
Moving on autopilot, I quickly tidied up. More for something to do than a desire to clean. After ten years of friendship, Jesse knew exactly how we lived.
I was just tossing a sock in the hamper when there was a knock on the door.
“Hey.” I pulled it open and stepped aside to let Jesse in.
He held up a six-pack. “I come bearing gifts.”
I closed the door behind him. “You are a beautiful human.”
He smirked and shoved the six-pack at me, pulling one of the beers free. “I know.”
Leaving him to make himself comfortable, I put the spare beer in the fridge. Then grabbed a bag of chips and another of pretzels.
Bringing everything out to the living room, I put the snacks on the table and sank onto the couch.
“Where’s your better half?” Jesse popped the tab on his beer.
“He took Mom to the city to do some shopping.”
“Brave man.” Jesse chuckled. “How many quilting stores do you think she’s going to drag him to?”
“All of them.” I opened my beer. “She promised to take him to that ice cream shop he’s obsessed with as a bribe.”
“The Creamery.” Jesse snickered. “That was either the biggest naming fail or the best idea ever for viral marketing.”
“I’m going with viral marketing. They knew what they were doing when they named it.”
“How have you been? Haven’t seen much of you guys since you started working for my big bro.” Jesse sipped his beer. His body language was casual, but I could see the tension hidden under his careful demeanor.
Jesse was the ultimate chameleon and was a master at hiding his emotions and feelings. Unless you knew what to look for.
Guilt cut through my distraction.
Jesse and I had met when I moved to town with my parents. I was the weird new kid who listened to heavy music and had an eyebrow piercing that the school made me take out while I was on campus.
Jesse and his best friend adopted me on my first day, and we struck up a fast friendship.
And I repaid his kindness by falling in love with his best friend and essentially stealing Wes away from him.
The three of us had been inseparable during school and had stayed close all these years, but it wasn’t the same, and Jesse had basically been our third wheel for the past nine years.
“Yeah, we’ve been pretty busy with work,” I said lamely.
“Right. Work.” Jesse shot me a flat look. “You do remember that your boss is my stepbrother, right? And he talks to me about his work and how busy things are?”
Sighing, I tapped the tab of my beer. “Yeah. I know.”
“So are you sticking with that story, or are you going to tell me the truth?”
“It’s…complicated. But it’s not a big deal.”
I didn’t miss the disappointment that flickered across his face. “Oh. Okay.”
“So, you were in the area?” I asked, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole.
Jesse wasn’t just one of my best friends; he was family. But I couldn’t talk to him about this. I couldn’t talk to anyone about what was going on.
“Yeah. Had a meeting with a client.” He studied the label on his beer can. “One of my regulars.”
“Are you still thinking about quitting?”
He nodded but didn’t look up from where he was staring at his drink.
For the past two years, Jesse had been working as an escort. He didn’t tell me details about his clients or exactly what he did with them, but I knew sex was only one of the services he offered, and he’d mostly had what he called companion clients.
“That was our last meeting, and he was my final regular.” Jesse gulped down some of his beer. “I’m officially out of the biz.”
“Really?”
He’d mentioned wanting to quit the last time we talked. He’d already done it?
He shot me a wry smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Like I said, it’s been a while.”
“I’m sorry.” I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“Are things okay with Wes?”
“Yeah.” I toyed with the tab on my beer can. “We’ll be fine. Things are just a bit weird right now.”
He nodded, his face falling when I didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sorry.” I put my beer on the table so I didn’t chug it or squeeze the can so hard I made a beer fountain. “I really wish I could talk to you about this, but it’s…complicated.”
“More complicated than you and Wes picking up thirds at Envy?” he asked casually.
Thank fuck I’d put my beer down because I would have done an epic spit take if I’d been in the process of drinking when he said that.
Even without the beer, I still choked on nothing.
Jesse stared at me, his face a blank mask, as I composed myself.
“How did you find out?” I croaked.
He put his drink next to mine. “I went to Envy and saw you and Wes bring someone to the back room.”
“When?” I managed, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.
“The night after your birthday.” He leaned back against the chair cushions, that same blank mask on his face.
The night after my birthday? Shit. That meant he’d been there the night we picked up Jett. Had he recognized him?
“Bet it was a surprise seeing your third on my brother’s crew. I’m guessing you had no idea Jett worked for Quinn when you picked him up?”
I gaped at him.
“Really? Still can’t talk to me about it?” He looked away. The hurt on his face finally knocked me out of my stupor. “Fine.” He stood.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
I motioned for him to sit. “I’m not brushing you off. I’m processing. That’s a lot to throw at someone.”
He sat.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I asked.
“Why would I? It’s obvious you didn’t want me to know, and you almost passed out on me just now. I thought we were friends, but whatever. Have your secrets. Ten years of friendship obviously means more to me than it does to you.”
“Jess.” The last of my shock bled out of me in a rush. “It’s not like that.”
He crossed his arms and looked away. “Look. I know you guys will always have stuff you keep from me. I get it. You’re a couple, and that trumps friendship. But you’re both struggling right now, and you’re shutting me out instead of letting me help you.”
“I’m sorry.” I raked my hand through my hair. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. We shouldn’t have kept this from you.”
“Why did you?” he asked softly.
“Because we didn’t know how to tell anyone.”
I was taking a risk by telling Jesse the truth without discussing it with Wes first, but I was desperate.
Six weeks had passed since Wes and I broke our rules and not only hooked up with Jett again, but we’d kissed him. We’d done the one thing we swore we would never do, and we merged our personal sex life with our play one.
We held nothing back, physically or emotionally, that night with Jett. And it had taken its toll on us.
Wes was avoiding me; it was as simple as that. He constantly found things to do without me, like taking my mother shopping or helping my dad with projects around the house. He’d even started spending hours doing unnecessary errands just to get out of the house on the weekends. And he’d been going to bed early to read instead of reading in the living room with me like we always did.
We still had sex and kissed and did all the physically intimate things we’d always done, but there was a disconnect between us that I hated. It was the first time in eight years that we were going through the motions of intimacy. Where every touch felt slightly impersonal, and every night together lacked our usual passion.
I wasn’t innocent in this either. I wasn’t finding reasons to be away from him, but I was holding back emotionally, and that was way worse.
It was the first time in our relationship that we weren’t talking about the important things, and it was killing me.
The only times we were able to pretend we were fine was at work, and when we hung out with the guys after hours. Having a physically demanding job was helpful when you wanted to ignore your problems. We needed to pay attention to every detail to make sure our work was not only up to standard, but that our site was safe for everyone. Being distracted put people in danger, and neither of us would ever forgive ourselves if we were the reason one of our friends got hurt.
I’d thought we’d done a decent job of hiding our issues, especially since we’d pretty much shut everyone else out, but of course we hadn’t been able to fool Jesse.
And we were assholes for trying.
“How long have you guys been doing this? I know that wasn’t the first time. You were way too practiced.”
“A few years.” I tapped a pattern out on my knee distractedly.
“That long? I get not telling everyone, but why did you hide it from me?” The pain in his voice broke my heart, especially since he was still wearing his neutral mask. “Did you think I’d care? Do you think I’m that much of an asshole that I’d judge my best friends for what they like to do in bed?”
“No. We just…didn’t know how.”
“All those times I talked to you about my other job. All the times I came to you for advice, and you never thought that could be a good segue? That it didn’t have to be a huge deal because I wouldn’t care.” He widened his eyes, shock replacing his neutrality. “Did you think I’d be weird and want to join in?”
“No!” I yelped. “No,” I repeated in a normal tone. “That was never even a thought.”
Jesse might be gay like Wes and me, but there’d never been any sort of sexual tension between him and either of us. We’d only ever be friends.
“Then why? I know I should just let it go because you’re allowed to have secrets, but it kills me that my best friends kept this huge thing from me for years when I’ve been nothing but honest. The stuff you know about my other job could put me in jail. I know you’d never tell anyone, but I trusted you with something that could ruin my life. That could destroy everything I’ve worked for. I took that chance because I trust you. I thought you were my family.”
“We are. You’re our family. Full stop.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Jess…”
“Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively, his blank mask back. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not fine. We should have told you. It’s not that we don’t trust you or thought you’d be a dick about things. We were trying to protect ourselves.”
He kept quiet, giving me the chance to keep talking or shut down.
I kept talking.
“You know I don’t give a shit what people think of me. And I’m the first to tell someone where to shove it if they have issues with what I do. But Wes isn’t like me.”
Understanding dawned on his face.
“It’s not easy working in the same industry as your partner. Until we got on with your dad’s crew, we had to hide the fact that we weren’t just roommates every time we started a new job or met new people. We couldn’t even have people over because they’d realize we share a bedroom. It’s isolating, and it took its toll on us.
“Things got way better when we signed on with your Pops and we could be open, but his crews aren’t like Quinn’s. They accepted us as a couple as long as we didn’t act like one. They weren’t dicks about it or anything, and no one was outwardly hateful, but the tension and awkwardness was there any time we looked at each other too long or made the mistake of touching in a way that went outside what ‘bros’ do. It’s exhausting having to pretend that the man you love more than anything is just your friend. It sucks having to put other people’s comfort above your relationship when your colleagues are free to talk about their partners or people they’re interested in. When they can bring someone they met a week ago to the company party, but you have to make sure you don’t stand too close to your boyfriend of seven years at said party because it would make those same people uncomfortable.”
“Why didn’t you tell Pops? You know he would have shut that shit down instantly.”
“I know, but it was easier not to. We had to work with those guys every day. The last thing we wanted was to rock the boat and piss anyone off by putting them on the boss’s radar. And the fact that we’ve known your Pops since we were kids didn’t help us either. They already assumed we got special treatment; tattling would have put a giant target on our backs and made things even harder.”
His features relaxed. “Yeah, I get it. Things at my last shop were like that. The guys were cool with me being out as long as I kept my personal life away from them and pretended like I was sexless. They could say or do whatever they wanted, but I had to make sure I didn’t act, look, or come across as queer at all.”
As a mechanic, Jesse understood better than most, and he’d dealt with a ton of homophobic bullshit before he’d been hired at his current job.
Not all shops or crews were like that, but enough were that our experiences weren’t uncommon in our community.
“We got so used to hiding everything that it just became second nature,” I continued. “We didn’t leave you out because of anything to do with you. We were scared of what would happen if anyone knew.”
Jesse finally relaxed. “And it didn’t help that you worked for my stepdad, and now you work for my stepbrother. It put you in a weird place because I was in a weird place. Not part of things, but not an outsider.”
I picked up my beer and took a sip. “Yeah. And we’re not planning on doing this forever. It works for us now, but who knows how we’ll feel in a month or a year or five years? We figured it was easier just to keep everything on the DL. You remember what happened in high school when we were outed. How everyone talked about our relationship and sex life like it was celebrity gossip. You remember how hard that was on Wes.”
Jesse nodded, his expression grim. “I remember.”
“We should have told you.” Picking up my beer, I took a sip. “I’m sorry we didn’t. I promise it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with trying to protect ourselves.”
“I get it, and I’m not asking how or why you guys started.” Jesse picked up his drink as well. “That’s your business, and you can tell me if you want. But this thing with Jett is obviously a big deal, and I know you. You need to talk to someone about it.”
How the hell had we gotten so lucky to have someone like Jesse in our corner? We lied to him for years, and he was still willing to sit here and help me talk things out.
He wasn’t just our best friend. He was our brother. We needed to do better by him.
“Yeah. I really do.”
He leaned back, his attention fixed on me.
“We had no idea who he was when we picked him up, and that night was different from every other time we’ve played with a third. It’s usually fun. Sometimes it’s a bit awkward, but it’s never like that.”
“Like what?”
“Perfect.” I snort-laughed. “Like we’d preplanned things and were acting out a scripted fantasy. All the usual fumbling and trying to figure out how far to push or what he could handle wasn’t there. We were able to just let go and be in the moment. That’s never happened.” I sipped my drink. “Then we showed up to our new job two days later and there he was, our unicorn. And he had a panic attack the moment he saw us.”
“He did?” Jesse’s eyes bugged out.
“Yup. He’s not out, and he’s dealing with a lot of trauma from how he grew up. Seeing us when he also thought it was a one-and-done was too much for him, and he panicked.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. So we went from being the new guys with a secret to having a third person we needed to protect. The guys on the crew are awesome, and I know they’d be chill with our arrangement now that we know them, but back then, we had no clue what would happen if shit got out. Especially for Jett. We’re out and have been for years. He isn’t, and there was no way in hell we’d risk outing him. Not after what happened to us.”
“So you turned into Fort Knox and shut everyone out.” He nodded in understanding, but his expression was shrewd. “You’re not telling me something. The weirdness and ignoring your best friend got worse, not better, after you started working for Quinn.”
“Yeah, we made a mistake.” I sighed and tapped my fingers against my thigh.
“The kind of mistake where you fucked your coworker again?” He arched his eyebrow knowingly.
“Sort of. We hooked up with him, but we didn’t fuck him.”
Jesse pinned me with a look. “Same thing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We have strict rules when it comes to playing with thirds. No repeats, and we don’t exchange any sort of personal information other than first names. We only kiss each other. And we don’t hook up with anyone we know. We broke all our rules that second night, and it wasn’t even a discussion.”
“How do you mean?”
“We didn’t talk about it at all. Not before, or during. We always preplan things, talk them out, and make sure we’re on the same page about everything. Being honest and having good communication is the only way an arrangement like ours can work.
“That night, we were helping him move into his new apartment, and we were alone after the other guys left to go to the club. We were talking and he let some things slip, and we just looked at each other and that was it. No talk, no discussion. Not even a verbal acknowledgment that we were going to break our rules with him, even though we’d already agreed it had to stay a one-and-done.” I swirled the contents of my drink in the can distractedly. “We kissed him. We’ve only ever kissed each other, but it felt right with him. And now that we’ve broken our rules, it’s like we don’t know how to go back to how things were before.”
“But you and Wes are okay?”
I nodded. “We’ll always be okay.”
“You’d better be.” He shot me a stern look and grabbed the bag of chips. “And no more shutting me out. Promise?”
“Promise.”
He tore open the top of the bag and looked inside. “Jesus. I swear we need to start weighing things before we open them.” He tilted the bag toward me. It was barely a third of the way full. “I love paying for air, don’t you?” He scooped out a handful and shoved them into his mouth.
“Is that considered shrinkflation or greedflation?” I asked. “Or skimpflation?”
“It’s more like fuck you peasant, you’ll pay what we want, or you’ll starve- flation,” he said around his mouthful of chips. “I’m ready to boycott the fuck out of everyone at this point. Seriously, give me a list, and I’ll make it my personal mission to make sure I never support them again.”
I chuckled. “Zane was talking about a boycott movement at work the other day. I’m too poor to buy luxury items like fast food or brand-name groceries or coffee I don’t make myself, so participating is easy. Hell, I’ve been doing it unknowingly for years.”
“I’ll have to look into that. My Gen Z rage needs an outlet.” He pulled a folded chip out of the bag. “Make a wish.”
“I wish for a revolution.”
Grinning, he put the chip in his mouth and crunched down on it. “Come on, chip gods. Do your thing and take these fuckers down.”
“Where did you learn that? The wish chip thing?” I asked.
Jesse had been doing this for as long as I’d known him, but I’d never thought to ask.
“My mom.” He flipped the bag over and pretended to read the ingredients.
Jesse didn’t really talk about his mom, especially since she’d gone no contact with him and Adam, his younger brother, four years ago. Their family dynamics were complicated, and neither of them had fully come to terms with not having her in their lives.
“But back to you and Wes’s thing.” He picked up our trail and circled back to what we’d been talking about before our tangent. “You’ve never had trouble talking about things.”
“Not until now.” I sighed and scooped up the bag of pretzels, needing something to do with my hands now that my beer was done. “I know he’s avoiding me because he feels guilty. I just don’t know why he feels that way.” I opened the bag and pulled out a pretzel. “Is it because he’s feeling things for Jett? Or does he think I am? I don’t know because he won’t tell me.”
“Do you have feelings for him?”
My chest squeezed as the beer and single bite of pretzel I’d taken turned into a giant brick in my stomach. “I’m not sure.”
He tilted his head curiously.
“It feels wrong to even admit that to you.” I put the pretzels on the table. “But I think I do.”
“Romantic feelings?”
I nodded and looked at my hands. Guilt and dread churned in my stomach.
“Do you think Wes feels something for him too?” Jesse asked softly.
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“Do you think he’s maybe pulling away because he feels as guilty as you?”
I paused. I hadn’t thought of that.
“I’ve known Wes since we were eight, and he only does this when he’s punishing himself. He shuts down and tortures himself with his negative self-talk and convinces himself he’s a monster when we both know he’s one of the kindest, most empathetic people out there.”
I sat there, stunned. Jesse was right. Wes only acted like this when he was angry at himself and got lost in his head. Why hadn’t I seen that?
“I think you need to talk to each other. Actually sit down and force the conversation,” he said gently. “You guys have too much history to let this go on any longer than it already has. And you’re Ez and Wes. You’ll figure it out and come out stronger after.”
I nodded, my mind racing. Again, Jesse was right. Wes and I didn’t keep secrets from each other, and now that Jesse had pointed it out, there was no doubt in my mind that Wes was avoiding me because he’d convinced himself that he deserved to be punished for whatever he was feeling.
We needed to talk, and I needed to reassure him that there wasn’t anything in the world that would make me walk away from him.
He was it for me, had been since the first time he said he loved me.
“You still with me?”
“Huh?” I jumped at Jesse’s voice.
“You zoned out there. Was your brain going to bad places? Did I make things worse?”
“No, and no. You gave me a much-needed kick in the ass.”
“I’m awesome.” He grinned and leaned back against the couch, assuming a casual pose with one ankle crossed over his knee and both hands behind his head. “So, what are you making me for dinner to reward me for my brilliance?”
“Pizza?” I offered. I’d planned on eating whatever random thing caught my attention when I was too hungry to ignore my stomach, but we had all the fixings for pizza handy. “It’ll take a few hours for the dough to be ready if I start now.”
“Then you’d better get your butt in the kitchen and start cooking.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “And bring me another beer.”
“Do I look like a bar maiden?” I stood and stretched out my back.
Jesse spluttered with laughter. “Oh god. I just got a mental picture of you in one of those Oktoberfest dresses with giant fake boobs.”
“You don’t think I could rock one of those?” I arched my eyebrow at him.
“I mean, you pulled off that sexy Snow White dress the year you lost that bet and me and Wes got to pick your Halloween costume.” He snickered. “I suppose you could pull off a bar maiden outfit too.”
“Damn straight I could.” I pretended to do a little hair flip. “Now, are you done sassing me so I can go make you food like the good host that I am?”
“For now. But first, beer me.”
“Get your own damn beer,” I called, heading into the kitchen. “Unless you want to spend the whole night wondering what I did to the open can I’m gonna give you.”
“Fucker.” Heavy footfalls rang out as Jesse hurried after me. “I haven’t forgotten what you did at Adam’s twenty-first.”
Laughing, I went to the cupboard to pull out my bread maker.
Shutting Jesse out while I tried to deal with the clusterfuck that was my life had been a mistake. Thank god he cared enough to keep breaking down my walls instead of running away like most people did.
Jesse wasn’t just my best friend; he was family. And I needed to remember that it was okay to lean on your family when things were tough.