22. Ainsley
Chapter 22
Ainsley
“ C an we come up with some kind of truce?”
I’m up to my elbows in some flour and cornmeal mixture, trying not to feel like too much of a fool in the hot pink floral apron Taylor insisted was the only other one in the house.
His apron is dark brown canvas with a handy front pocket.
Mine has lace trim.
He set me to work shaping dough into balls to “rest” as he put it. I think I did a pretty good job, considering it’s my first time.
Unsurprisingly, Taylor disagreed.
“What do you mean a truce?” he asks.
I sigh, leaning against the counter and patting one of my lumpy little dough balls. “You know what I mean, asshole. We’re in this thing together. Would it be so hard to stop acting like such a dick all the time?”
“Says the man who just called me an asshole.”
I fight back a smile as he rightly calls me out. “So you’ll agree to the truce?”
“Is that what I said?”
“No, but it seems like what you meant. And besides, what choice do you have? I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to end up in that bed together again?—”
“If you’re lucky,” he cuts me off, smirking.
And maybe it’s that egotistical look on his face, like he’s the one with all the power, but I need to bite back. “Yeah, well, that’s the thing. I am pretty lucky. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed.”
He grunts out what could be a laugh or a curse, turning back to the stove, where he’s babysitting a pan of cooking onions far more than seems necessary.
“Okay. A truce it is,” I announce, tapping my finger against my chin theatrically, remembering too late it’s covered in flour. I quickly clean my face with my sleeve. “You’re going to stop being such an arrogant prick all the time,” I start.
“And what are you going to do?” Taylor says, taking a step closer to where I still lean against the counter.
He brings with him a certain heat, an intensity that wafts from him like vapor.
I try to take a step back but there’s nowhere for me to go.
“What…what do you want me to do?” I try to force my voice to be confident, steady, but I fail miserably.
He smirks again, taking another step toward me. “I want you to calm the fuck down when we’re in her bed together.”
My mouth falls open, and I snap it shut. “Well, you’ve gotta stop trying to put your tongue in my mouth.”
His eyebrows go sky-high, but he doesn’t step back. “Why?”
It takes me a moment to process the question, and when I do, I still can’t find any words that don’t sound completely idiotic.
So I go ahead and say something completely idiotic. “Because I’m not gay.”
Taylor’s smirk deepens as I fall right into his trap. “You think I’m gay?”
“I don’t know,” I sputter. “Aren’t you?”
His eyes narrow as he clearly considers my fate.Then he seems to change his mind, shrugging and turning back to the stove. “Why does anyone have to be anything? Why do you need to label everything?”
“I don’t need to label everything,” I say quickly, even as it registers in my mind that I do, indeed, have a clearly defined label for everything in my life.It’s what I’m digging for right now. A label for this relationship. My relationship with Gem, my relationship with Taylor, our relationship as a threesome.
Threesome isn’t actually a terrible label. If he fails to help me out here, I might just go with that.
“What are you going to tell your dad?” he asks suddenly.
I cringe before I can catch myself. I fix my face quickly, but I know Taylor saw.
“What do you tell your parents?” Maybe turning it back on him will take the heat off me, but he’s too smart to allow me to wriggle off the hook so easily.
“You ever let a guy suck you off before?”
I sputter but am unable to make a single intelligible word come out.
Taylor looks like it’s his damn birthday. “In all those fancy school locker rooms and sleepover camps? Weren’t you ever curious?”
“No.” My confidence rises as I finally manage to speak. I should quit while I’m ahead but, of course, I don’t. “I mean…no. I never… What? Jesus man, you’re talking about children. What’s wrong with you?”
Taylor just shakes his head. “The pretty boy doth protest too much.” He slides the pan off the flame and turns back to me, grinning. “Methinks.”
I’ve got to get out of here. “I’m going to go see if the girls need help…with…setting the table.”
I make it one step away from the counter before Taylor puts his body in my path. I just stand there, staring at my shoes, considering whether I should actively try to escape or not.
“You don’t have to be as careful, you know, when it’s with a guy.”
“What?” My eyes shoot up to meet his, and the fire I see there is disconcerting enough to make me look away quickly.
Yup, definitely need to escape.
“I watched you try to be careful with Gem the other night, even as you were coming so hard. With a guy, you don’t have to worry about being rough.”
I can feel the flame from his gaze burning into me, and know my cheeks must be bright red. I shake my head, still staring at my feet. “I don’t know…I’m not…I’m going to go help…”
I push past him and escape into the cool air of the hallway, taking my first breath in what feels like forever.
I can hear him laughing behind me as I put distance between us.
Straight out of the pot into the fire.
“Were your ears burning?”
I’ve barely had a moment to recover from whatever the hell that was in the kitchen before I’m confronted by one of the ghostly apparitions from the other night.
Who I now know is one of Gem’s roommates. Either Lana or Eva. I doubt I’ll ever be able to tell them apart.
“Hey. Oh, yeah, kinda.” I try to play it cool, but I know my face is still on fire. I look down at my still floury hands and try to pull the meaning of her idiom from my frazzled brain.
Then it hits me. She meant they were talking about me. I’m not sure what’s worse, being grilled by Taylor about sucking cock or listening to a group of women talk about me. All I know for sure is that I need a second alone.
“Is there a bathroom down here where I can wash my hands?” I hold them up and hope she’ll take pity on me.
For once this evening, I get off easy.
“Right this way.”
Sliding the ancient brass lock into place, I lean against the door and close my eyes.I want to be furious at his inappropriate, unprovoked attack. I want to seethe and storm out of here and never look back.I want to hate the guy even more because I know damn well what he’s trying to do—knock me off my game and make me look like an idiot in front of Gem. Maybe he's trying to get rid of me after all.But now that I’m safe and alone in this tiny, windowless room, I have no choice but to admit that what I’m actually feeling is some kind of twisted turn on. That wasn’t a fight at all, it was more like the teasing banter of sexual tension.
I push angrily at my half hard cock as I turn to the sink and start the flow of warm water.I don’t know how the guy gets to me every time. Even when I’m the one seemingly on the offensive, trying to be the bigger man and coming to an agreement that will allow us to both be with Gem and respect each other’s space…he still somehow gets the upper hand.
And while my father, the lawyer, definitely impressed upon me the power of a well-placed lie, he also taught me it’s pointless to tell them to yourself.If there’s any anger locked in this bathroom right now, it’s anger I’m feeling toward myself.
Because Taylor wasn’t entirely wrong.
I mean, he was wrong about me doing those things in the locker rooms and annual sleep-away camp I attended on the shores of Lake George. Plenty of other guys snuck off to mess around, some did it in plain sight of the rest of their cabin.
But, as curious and possibly jealous as I was, I could never join in.
Because at the end of camp, I would get picked up by my father, and there was no way a single lie was getting past his well-trained scrutiny.Honestly, I’m not even sure he would have been mad about it being boys. He’s a fairly progressive guy, as much as any rich, bubble-dweller can be. But admitting to him that I’d done anything that broke the rules, anything that could threaten our already fragile state of happiness? Impossible.I spent my childhood carefully selecting the happiest, most upbeat truths from my time away from him, at school, at camp, at birthday parties. Telling them in animated stories with my hands and making him laugh.
God knows we’d done enough crying for one lifetime.
And now, when I have no choice but to show up back at his house at the end of the quarter and tell him I fucked up and need to choose a different major and start all over. That I wasted his money and my time on the stupid dream of a kid, high on travel, so sure of himself that he fought for something he had no idea about…
Fuck.
I know he just wants me to be happy. He tells me all the time.
It’s my job in life to be happy. For him.
But what happens when I’m not?
“Hey.”
I jump a foot toward the wall and raise my wet hands defensively as a pound and a shout echo through the still locked door.
“What?” I ask, although I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“We’re getting started on pizzas in the kitchen. If you’re done jerking off in there…” Taylor’s voice is both loud and muffled, as if he’s speaking with his face pressed against the door.
I take a step closer, imagining him out there. I reach my hand out to touch the wood, but shake it off and grab the hand towel, drying my hands and opening the door.
“I was washing the flour off my hands.”
He smirks. “With the door deadbolted?”
I look down at the sage green and brown paisley printed towel in my hands, completely and utterly at a loss for what to do next.I can’t stomach the thought of spending the rest of this evening making pizza and playing nice while this guy badgers me at every turn, calling out every word that comes out of my mouth. Always being there to swoop in and show me who knows Gem the best.Maybe this is where I give up. Call her the one who got away. Call this whole thing a fantastic learning experience about staying in your goddam comfort zone.
And maybe Taylor sees all of this on me, takes pity or decides to let me off easy, because his next words are softer, smoother around the edges and spoken like one human speaks to another. “Come on, it’s going to be fun.”
He walks away without waiting for a response, and I look up, watching him go.
And then I hang the towel neatly on the hook and follow.