4. Mason
FOUR
Mason
I wish I knew what to do now. Becca had spent the last thirty minutes explaining how if I didn’t talk to Xander today she was going to lock the two of us in a room until I faced up to how I was feeling.
I knew how I felt. I was in love with him, and I had been since I was fourteen.
And now I was stuck in a darkened hallway, a party just outside, my brother right there with the rest, and I was going for it. Putting everything out there, telling Xander how I felt, and handling the fallout.
“We have things to say to each other,” I began and cleared my throat, the scent of his shampoo and the way I had to crane my neck to look up at him so familiar.
“I need to go, kid.” He placed his hand over mine and gently removed it from where I was touching his chest.
Flirt with him. Becca was in my head again. Flirting. Okay, I could do that.
“I’m not a kid, Xander. I think you know that.” Before I could second guess myself, I rose to my toes and pressed my lips to his, taking him by surprise as he reared back in shock.
For the longest moment, he stared at me, and then he raised a hand, cupping my face and rubbing his thumb on my cheekbone. I couldn’t move, or take my eyes off him, wondering if the heat in them was mirrored in my own.
“Jesus,” he muttered and in a smooth move, he pressed me back against the opposite wall and kissed me.
Only this wasn’t a soft, gentle touch. It was hunger and lust and need, and it was a clash of teeth and tongues.
I scrambled to grip hard to any part of him I could get to, just for balance.
He gentled the kiss, tilted his head, carded his hands through my hair, held me still, and I was done.
I was not at all prepared for this kiss, and I don’t think he could have been either.
He groaned into the taste of it, nibbling at my lip then tangling my tongue with his, and his cock was hard against my belly.
I wanted to be higher. I wanted to climb him so I could feel the rigid length of him pressing against mine, and I tried to move, but he held me still.
I gripped his ass, all hard muscles under shorts loose enough that I could slip my hands under to get my first touch of his skin, warm and smooth and everything I wanted.
His touch roaming across my body, from shoulders to hip bones, resting them there for a second and then gripping me and lifting me up on my toes.
I wanted his hands on me. I needed him to fall to his knees, suck me.
I wanted to suck him… I wanted everything.
“Xander! Come and sort these fuckers out!”
Hearing my brother’s voice broke us apart. Not by me, I was clinging to Xander like a limpet, pathetically trying to hold on as he wrenched away, extricating himself from my hold and palming his cock.
“Coming!” he called, and I winced at the strength of his hockey game yell.
My brother cursed loudly. “Hurry the fuck up, dude!”
“One minute, asshole!” Xander called back.
We stood in silence staring at each other. “Xander?” I asked with caution.
“No.” He took a step back, avoiding my hand as I reached for him. “What are we doing? No, what am I doing—this isn’t happening. No.”
He tugged his shirt down over his shorts, rubbed his face, and left.
The sound of the door slamming behind him was the first moment I was even able to move, but it wasn’t to follow him.
Bypassing the hallway and heading through a door at the back, I stepped into my small apartment, shut and locked the door, then slid to the floor and buried my face in my hands.
I’d just fucked everything up.
Even two weeks later, with the gift of blurred memories, I couldn’t deny the kiss had happened, and that I’d thrown myself at him.
I’d tried denial but it didn’t work, and it morphed slowly into anger.
I still hadn’t processed the fact that he’d shoved me away and told me no.
Which led me straight onto the third stage of this shit fest. Bargaining.
Last week I’d written out a text offering to meet and talk but realized it was a really bad idea in a world of bad ideas.
I didn’t send the text, but at least I’d gotten my head around the fact that he’d called time on a kiss, as well, it seemed, as anything else.
Closely linked to bargaining came more embarrassment, and at that point, I came up with a whole load of excuses not to go to Aruba.
Then I slipped into a weird depression. It didn’t happen overnight, it kind of crept up on me, and I didn’t even really notice until I saw two empty Ben and Jerry’s containers on my counter and realized I’d cleared them both in one day.
Eli noticed though, which is why he stood in my room early this morning, staring down at me as I woke up, scaring the shit out of me, and brandishing my passport menacingly.
“No more excuses, we’re going to Aruba!” he shouted down at me as I scrambled away and fell out of bed.
He wasn’t going to let me mope about giving up my safe job, apparently. If only he knew the real reason.
And now I had to move on to acceptance. Lots of people have crushes, and not all of them work out.
Hell, I used to imagine marrying Enrique Iglesias, watching the “Hero” video on repeat, pausing it when Enrique sang that he could take away my pain.
The year Xander and Eli left for Boston was the year of Enrique.
My reasoning was that if I concentrated on marrying not-gay Enrique then I wouldn’t have to think about my unrequited crush on also-not-gay Xander. Problem solved.
I should have canceled this whole stupid party vacation thing that Eli wanted for Xander.
I could have said I wanted to stay at home because I was busy.
The idea of two weeks in Aruba, just me, Eli, and Xander had sounded like such a great idea when Eli had suggested it, but then, with Xander’s big announcement and my own all-consuming feelings getting in the way, the idea had turned to shit.
Eli had been the one to buy Xander the vacation as a thirtieth birthday gift, he just never mentioned that me and him would be turning up to help celebrate.
This was going to be so bad. But still I was here, in the car, heading for the airport next to Eli, ready to spring the surprise on an unsuspecting Xander, who was heading to Aruba thinking he was on his own.
I should have known something was wrong when Eli bypassed the main exit for Logan International Airport and instead headed out toward the private area reserved for chartered flights.
In fact, I should have known this birthday vacation was going to go horribly wrong when Eli guilted me into still going.
Apparently, my excuse that life was busy wasn’t going to cut it, and the guilt and pressure was trademark Eli.
He pointed out that I didn’t have a job anymore, and I pointed out that this was the very reason I couldn’t go because Becca and I were very busy with the new venture.
Only Becca turned to us, all innocent, and said we couldn’t do anything until contracts were signed on the new property, so hey, I should go to Aruba.
How did I get out of this vacation? I couldn’t exactly, to be honest.
Yeah, sorry, big bro, but I sucked face with your best friend, and he rejected me, and he hates me, and my heart is freaking broken.
“You’ve gone past the airport.” I sighed. Eli was a crap driver at the best of times.
“I hired a jet.”
“For the two of us? You have more money than sense.” I wasn’t shocked my stupid ass millionaire brother had done something that ridiculous.
He’d been in charge of flights, and yeah, I’d imagined we’d be flying first class but a private jet?
That was either stupid or it was something else altogether.
“We split the cost.” He added his car to a line of flashy cars a lot like his and killed the engine.
Wait? What? “What do you mean, we split the cost.”
“The team.” He spoke like that wasn’t news to me, but our birthday surprise with just the three of us had suddenly become something different.
“All the team?” God help me if Xander was on this fucking plane.
Fourteen days since that kiss and I still flushed scarlet thinking about the way I’d thrown myself at the man and got off, every single night since, to the memories of the kiss and the way he held me.
Becca called me an idiot for not demanding Xander stay, but I think he’d made it very obvious that he didn’t want to be with me by his emphatic use of the word no.
Something he’d repeated three times if I recalled right.
I thought I’d have the flight to get my head around seeing him. Hell, I’d decided I’d go into the small bathroom to practice my nonchalance for when I saw Xander again.
“Marquis, Renco, Dunny, and me.”
Jeez. It was like a who’s who of the single guys, all of them prank-playing idiots.
“Oh, and Austin who is bringing his boyfriend with him.”
“Xander’s not gonna like this—”
“He’ll love it!” Eli enthused, but I didn’t get a chance to argue any more when Eli spent at least five minutes explaining to the poor valet guy just how his sapphire blue F-Type should be placed carefully away from other cars, and that he’d taken a picture of the mileage just in case people decided to take it for a joy ride.
The valet and I exchanged looks, and I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Eli and his damn car had this weirdly symbiotic relationship, and both Xander and I teased him that he needed to get laid instead.
And there it was, my thoughts returning to Xander, and my face heating as a consequence, which I would’ve then had to blame on the warm Boston day if I was asked.
The rejection still stung, the lust I swear I’d seen in his eyes had to be due to a lack of sex in his life, or maybe some unconscious reaction to losing against LA.
Who knew what it was, but the embarrassment was real.
“Earth to Mason?” Eli poked me in the belly and pulled me from my woolgathering. “Bags?”
“Asshole,” I grumped and pulled out my one small bag from the teeny tiny trunk.
Then hoisted the rucksack that’d been on my lap all the way here, up and over my shoulder.
“Travel light, he says. It’s Aruba, he says.
Let’s have some brotherly bonding, he says!
Just the three of us,” I mumbled under my breath.
“I could’ve stayed at home,” I said louder.
“Stop moaning, you have the next two weeks off, and it’s a free vacation for which you’ve created a detailed itinerary.”
“Yeah, for three of us.” Two when I used a whole list of excuses I’d mentally listed. “Not an entire team.”
“You’ll have fun with all the guys.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you back, freeloader!” Eli grinned at me as if he didn’t know it hurt to hear him call me that.
I know I was lucky. Having my own place at my brother’s house, with no rent or utilities to pay meant I’d saved a good amount of money to go toward the new venture with Becca.
But yes, I knew I was freeloading. Still it was part of the brother code that I get my own dig in.
“It’s not free when I have to put up with your face or you breaking in and staring down at me when I’m asleep,” I groused.
“You’ll enjoy the break, get out of your head, see the world.”
“Whatever. It was bad enough when it was just us, but now you add jocks with no social skills.” I tried to get the last word in, but of course, Eli wasn’t going to let me.
“Think of the women in bikinis!” Eli pointed out and that earned him a smack upside his head, which he shrugged off as if it was nothing. Which it probably was, given he was used to landing on his head.
The jet was party central for the five hours it took to get to Aruba and land in Oranjestad. Mostly I joined in because what sane younger brother didn’t like shooting the shit about pranks in the locker room, particularly ones involving Eli and focusing on his humiliation.
Austin and his boyfriend were a surprise, kind of cute and optimistic about their future. What I wouldn’t have given to have fallen so deeply in love at their age. I did. Only with Xander.
I tuned out when the talk turned to sex, or hockey, or when the mood dipped as the younger guys on the team talked about losing to LA. Then I put in my headphones, sat back in a luxurious seat with an ice cold Sprite, and thought back to my reaction at the thought he might be on the jet.
Horror? Was it that? Excitement? Embarrassment?
I turned up my music, settled even deeper in my seat, and closed my eyes.
I have to accept that I have no chance with Xander. I have to move on.
I can do this.