Rhys #2
“Something G-rated,” I urged, keeping my eyes on him as I retreated the rest of the way into my room, lowering myself back down into the armchair.
He eyed me for a few moments, before following me the rest of the way in and plopping down on the edge of my bed, pulling his legs up into a criss-cross position.
I’d tried not to look below his waist while we’d been talking, but now that his body was pushed up into my view, I couldn’t stop my eyes from flickering over his whole form.
How could a guy be so small and smooth and pretty?
“I don’t know if I have any fantasies like that,” he admitted.
“I just want…” He trailed off, before pushing a hand through his bangs, looking mildly embarrassed.
It was worrisome how badly I wanted him to finish that sentence.
“I just want, like, a real relationship. I want a house. I want a yard. I want kids one day. I want a guy that looks at me and likes everything about me and doesn’t think about how I’d be hotter if I didn’t paint my nails or if I worked out a little more.
Or that I should get a real job and stop putting dumb clips of myself online or whatever.
” He stopped suddenly, seeming to realize he’d been rambling a bit. Not that I’d minded.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re asking for a lot.”
“It doesn’t feel like it either.”
“So…” I started, shifting in my seat as I let the question I had stewing in my brain make its way to my mouth. “If that’s how it is, how come you’re not barefoot and pregnant in some guy’s kitchen right now?”
Snorting, he gave me a dry but amused look. “I’m afraid I have something to tell you about my anatomy that might blow your mind, Rhys.”
“No, I know,” I said quickly, not able to stop my own laugh. Kendall’s dick was the absolute last thing I needed to be thinking about in that moment. “You get what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Um, it’s just not that easy, I guess. I’m picky.”
“Ah,” I acknowledged with a nod. A twinge of bitterness bloomed in my gut, threatening to dash out all the warm, fuzzy comfort he’d lit up inside me by being so sweet and supportive. “Let me guess. You want a guy with a big wallet, a big house, and a big dick.”
“Oh! God, no,” he denied quickly, shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. I don’t need to be rich or anything. Um, it’s more of, like, a problem with… Well, I mean, look at me.”
“Yeah?” I didn’t have a clue what he could possibly mean by that, but his assertion that he wasn’t another stuck-up materialistic snob sent a wave of pure relief through me.
In terms of his appearance… There was nothing wrong.
Nothing. Not one single thing about him that wasn’t completely adorable, or almost unbearably pretty.
“Well, I’m not exactly a beacon of, you know, macho virility.”
“You’re gay,” I blurted out, confused. He blinked in surprise, but the corner of his lips perked up, his green eyes dancing with amusement. “I mean… The guys you date are gay, right? Shouldn’t they be into that? How you are, I mean?”
“Guessing you haven’t heard of masc for masc.”
“Mask?” I repeated, my brows drawing together. “Like… A medical mask? To keep from getting sick or something?”
He stared at me, unblinking, for the span of several heartbeats before bursting into laughter.
Clutching his stomach, he rolled over onto my bed as he let it out.
The new position unfortunately gave me a perfect view of the outline of his perky little peach of a butt through those stupid little shorts.
Please don’t get hard again, I silently begged my dick.
I wasn’t ready to consider the implications of that.
I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to consider the implications of that.
“Oh my god,” he panted after a few more seconds. “You’re killing me, Rhys. That’s so cute.”
“What’d I say?” I asked, pointedly ignoring how the way he’d called me cute had my stomach clenching and and tensing, sending tingles of pleasure spiraling out through my limbs.
In a direct insubordination to what I’d only just asked of it, my cock stiffened, tenting out my jeans.
Adjusting myself quickly before he could sit back up and see, I cleared my throat.
“Masc for masc is like… What guys put on their dating profiles when they’re only looking for other masculine guys,” he finally said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye once he’d composed himself enough to talk.
“They mean they’re not interested in guys who are effeminate or androgynous or whatever. Guys like me.”
“That’s crazy,” I said honestly. If I was into guys, Kendall would have been exactly my type. But I wasn’t into guys. So he wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” he shrugged. “People are allowed to have preferences. And I mean, I’ve dated guys who were into me like that.
It just… Hasn’t worked out. I don’t know.
” He paused, biting down into his lip as he took in a deep, slow breath.
“I think I’m just wanting this, like, perfect fantasy relationship with this perfect guy that maybe doesn’t exist.”
“No,” I insisted. There was no way someone like him couldn’t make it work. He was cute, sweet, funny, and working his ass off running his own business. If he couldn’t make a relationship work, then what fucking chance did someone like me have? Zero. “You just haven’t found the right guy yet.”
He brought his knee up to his chest, resting his chin on it as he stared into my eyes. God, his eyelashes were so long and dark. Like a doll’s.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s it,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
The sound of a door creaking open across the hall had both our faces turning toward the noise. He was off my bed like a shot, the thick socks on his feet allowing him to silently pad across the floor and hide behind my open door, so he wasn’t visible from the hallway.
Josie appeared, looking inquisitive as she glanced around my room.
“Were you talking to someone in here?” She wondered. It took every ounce of my self control to prevent myself from glancing over to where Kendall was hidden, plastered against my wall. I didn’t know exactly why he was hiding. We hadn’t been doing anything wrong… Probably.
“Watching videos on my phone,” I lied, glad I’d grabbed it off the arm of my chair before she’d walked up. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“Oh, no,” she said, sighing and rolling her eyes before giving her round stomach an affectionate pat. “The baby uses my bladder as a trampoline all night, so…”
“Right,” I said, grinning in sympathy. I couldn’t imagine. “Frequent bathroom breaks.”
“Precisely.”
She waddled into the bathroom, and Kendall and I stared at each other in complete silence for what had to be at least two minutes before she came back out. My heart had sped up in my chest, and I had no clue why.
“Well, try to get some sleep,” she advised me on her way back to the room she was sharing with Benjamin. “Early start tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’m about to crash,” I assured her. “Night.”
When the sound of her footsteps retreating were punctuated by their door closing, Kendall stepped out from his self-imposed hiding spot.
“Um, well… I guess I should…” He trailed off, gesturing toward the hallway.
“Yeah,” I agreed, feeling a little dazed by everything. “Me too.”
“Night, Rhys.”
“Sweet dreams, Sparkles.”
His cute mouth spread into this adorable little grin before he whirled on his heel and hurried out of my room. I sprang up behind him, finally closing my door before I could do something insane like ask him if he’d be okay all by himself in the duck room.
What the fuck was going on inside my head? What was going on with my body, for that matter?
Sex. I needed it. That much was obvious. A problem I would soon be solving with the help of the all-too-eager Brie. And then everything would be back to normal. As normal as a jobless, mid-divorce, living with my parents existence could be, anyway.