22. George
George
I drop Lance at the hospital a little before seven and head straight for the shop.
His car is still idling rough in the driveway, alternator rattling worse than yesterday.
I tell him again he needs to bring it in so I can fix it properly, but if the alternator’s gone I’ll need it for a few days.
I’ve offered him one of my spare vehicles at the shop more than once.
Same answer every time. Later. After overtime.
After the next shift. Whatever version of later fits the week.
He says it like the problem will politely wait for him to have time.
The shop keeps me busy enough to stop thinking about it. Silverado transmission finally buttoned up. Two scheduled services. One walk-in coolant leak that turns out to be a cracked reservoir and a swap. Nothing that makes me stay late.
At three, I pull up outside the hospital.
Lance comes through the sliding doors a couple minutes later still in scrubs, carrying the usual post-shift exhaustion from eight hours on his feet.
He climbs into the truck with a long exhale and immediately kicks off his shoes.
“Long day?” I ask.
“The usual,” he says. “But I’m alive. Barely.”
I pull away from the curb.
Traffic’s light heading south. Lance spends most of the drive half-slumped against the seat, eyes drifting shut every few minutes while the stereo plays. By the time we hit his street, some of the exhaustion’s worn off him.
I slow near the mailboxes at the front of his building.
“There’s a parcel in there,” Lance announces suddenly, sitting up.
I lean across automatically and pull the truck alongside the curb. The mailbox units are oversized metal ones built for deliveries. One of the doors is hanging open with a brown box shoved inside.
I grab it before he can reach over.
The second it’s in my hands, Lance snatches it off me fast enough to almost miss.
“Got it,” he chirps. He’s too quick.
The box disappears against his chest immediately, both arms around it like he thinks I’m going to take it back.
I glance sideways at him. “What’s in there?”
“Nothing,” he says. There’s color high in his cheeks now.
I don’t miss the fact he’s acting weird about it. I kill the engine.
Lance reaches for the handle, then pauses long enough to grab my forearm with his free hand.
“Thanks for the lift, man.”
He says it fast, still not looking directly at me. Then he’s gone, beelining for the building. I watch the door shut behind him.
I make it halfway to Chula Vista before I notice his hospital backpack sitting in the passenger footwell.
I stare at it for a second. He was so focused on that damn package he forgot the bag entirely. I hiss a curse and swing the truck into a turn lane.
When I get back, his front door is unlocked. I wasn’t expecting that.
I pause at the door, his bag hanging at my side, before pushing it open and stepping inside. I’ve told him a dozen times to lock this damn thing properly. Lance listens to safety advice the same way he listens to assembly instructions. Briefly, politely, and with no intention of sticking to it.
I’m about to call him out when I hear something from deeper in the apartment.
It’s not a conversation at all. Low, broken sound carrying through the room, distorted slightly through speakers. A man’s faint voice, with another answering. A rough cut of sound that stops too abruptly to be real.
For a second, I think there’s someone else in here with him. I go still before I’ve decided why. I listen again.
There’s another muffled sound, followed by a rhythmic creak and electronic crackling through speakers.
I slip further inside without making a sound. The lounge is empty. The kitchen too.
His jacket is on the hook by the door but not quite right, one sleeve twisted under itself.
His shoes are left near the mat instead of properly lined up where he normally puts them.
There’s a half-finished coffee on the counter and one of his trauma textbooks open face-down beside it, pages bent.
He would normally have something to say about that if it were anyone else doing it.
At the end of the hall, his bedroom door is open a crack.
I set his bag down quietly near the kitchen and make my way down the hall.
Through the gap, I catch pieces of the room first. The corner of the bed. Clothes draped over the chair instead of thrown on the floor. Curtains half-drawn. The room sits dimmer than the rest of the apartment.
Then I see Lance.
He’s standing beside the bed in nothing but a towel low around his waist, fresh from the shower. Water still clings to his shoulders and chest, disappearing beneath the towel at his hips. His blond hair wet, pushed back messily from his face.
His phone is propped up on a small tripod on the nightstand.
An open box sits beside him with ripped packing paper and plastic wrappers scattered across the duvet.
He’s too focused to notice me. I nudge the door open a little further with one finger.
Still nothing.
His laptop is open near the pillows, a video playing across the screen.
The room in the video frame looks familiar. Same curtains and bedside lamp. Same hardwood floor.
Then my brain catches up to what I’m actually looking at.
The camera angle is low, pointed toward the floor beside the bed. Some man is on his hands and knees, a dark silicone dildo suctioned against the hardwood beneath him.
I recognize the body immediately.
The frame catches the line of his back, thighs spread wide while he moves against the toy in slow, rough strokes, cock hanging beneath him with every movement.
The sounds coming through the laptop speakers are raw and wet.
Broken moans dragged out of him between uneven breaths.
Silicone sliding against slick skin. A sharp groan every time he drops down harder onto it.
And, spread out neatly on the bed, is a collection of toys.
One is a dark silicone dildo. I recognize it immediately. I’ve watched and jerked off on that exact same one too many times.
Next to it, a set of graduated anal beads is laid out in a straight line. Each bead is slightly larger than the last, made of black silicone with a glossy finish. They start small enough to ignore and end thick enough that my jaw tightens.
Two plugs sit near the edge of the bed. One is metallic rose gold with a weighted jewel base. The other is deep purple, heavier in the body, with a firm taper and a wide base that looks like it’ll stay locked in place no matter how much the body moves.
Then there are the newer items from the parcel, still carrying the faint sterile smell of fresh packaging and warehouse plastic.
One is a slim anal vibrator with a curved head clearly designed for one very specific job. A small wireless remote rests beside it, black and discreet enough to look like it belongs to a car alarm.
Another is a fat dark red dildo, shorter but noticeably thicker through the middle, covered in raised spirals that twist up toward the blunt head.
And then there’s the strangest one.
Black and green silicone, alien-looking as fuck. Thick through the center with soft raised ridges running along the shaft and a narrow-hooked base designed to lock it deep inside. It looks aggressive enough that I immediately understand why he sounded nervous about it.
“Okay,” Lance says aloud, picking up the alien-shaped dildo and angling it toward the phone camera. “This one honestly looked way less threatening online.”
He sets it back down carefully and reaches for the red one, turning the box over to read the side.
“Jesus Christ! ‘Advanced thrust technology.’ What the fuck does that even mean? Why does it sound military?”
Despite myself, my mouth twitches.
Lance shakes his head at the box with deep personal disappointment. “Am I buying a prostate toy or getting drafted into combat?”
Lance is holding both dildos, turning them slowly like he’s trying to decide which one to destroy himself with first.
I shift my weight once and immediately regret it. I almost lost my balance from leaning in too far to get a closer look.
He sets the red one down, reaches down and lifts the hem of the towel, and pulls his cock out.
He starts stroking—slow at first, then firmer, thumb sliding over the head on every upstroke.
A low, rough sigh escapes him as he tilts his head back, eyes half-closed, clearly lost in it while the video of himself keeps playing on the laptop.
“You reviewing sex toys professionally now?”
Lance freezes. He yanks his hand away from his cock like it burned him, but it’s too late. I’ve seen everything.
He turns slowly after that. Slow enough that I know he already knows exactly what he’s about to see. The second he sees me standing there, his eyes go huge.
Silence hits the room for a second.
Then, with absolutely no dignity whatsoever, he yelps and throws the nearest pillow at my face.
I catch it without looking at it, then toss it on the floor.
His hands go still at his sides.
His eyes move fast—bed, the stuff on it, me, then straight to the cabinet in the corner.
The cabinet door is left slightly open, just enough to notice it wasn’t properly shut.
“I can see quite a selection there.”
“That’s nothing,” he blurts out almost unintelligibly. “Just stuff I ordered. What are you doing here?”
“Left your backpack in the truck.”
His eyes flick toward the hallway, then back. “Right.”
He shifts his weight. The towel shifts with him. Small, completely pointless movement. He already knows exactly how much I can see.
“You could’ve left it,” he stalls.
“I was already turning around.”
He nods once and runs a hand through his damp hair, but he’s clearly not listening to me anymore. His attention keeps drifting away, snapping back to that damn cabinet like it’s physically pulling him in. It flicks back to me, then to the cabinet again.
Suddenly, I’m dying to know what the hell is in there. At the exact same moment, he realizes I want to.
We move at the same time.
Lance lunges toward it. I shove off the doorframe right after him. We collide hard.
Lance’s back slams against the front of the cabinet. I end up pinning him in place, one hand splayed against the wood next to his head. Our bodies flush from chest to thighs. His towel slipped dangerously low from the impact.
We’re both breathing hard. His blue-gray eyes are wide, pupils blown. I can feel the rapid thud of his heart against my chest, the way his breath catches every time he stirs. My own cock is rock hard in my jeans, pressed against his hip. And I know he can feel it. I know he can feel all of me.
Neither of us moves out of the way.