2 - Andy “player” Jacobs
2
Andy “player” Jacobs
I would have never imagined I would see the day Dan fucking James would come to me for help. For anything. Not a pencil in an exam (he would have rather used his own blood than ask me for one), not a glass of water in the desert, not for shelter during a snowstorm.
And yet here I was, sitting before him for the first time in two years, and not only was Dan willing to come to me in his time of need, he also wanted me to help him with something else.
Something different entirely.
I want you to teach me to be single.
He had said that with a straight face, even if he was twitching, almost fidgeting, but not quite. It was the most nervous I'd ever seen him be, since usually, his twitching in my presence had more to do with how much I irritated him than actual nervousness. He did it when I did my favorite thing, pressing his buttons, which never failed to make him look adorably scrunchy in a way that told me he was thinking of drowning me.
In any case, he’d said it, and now I stared at him, at his dark hair, curlier and longer at the top, at the shirt that framed him perfectly, at the inches of skin his rolled sleeves were showing —a sight that was so stupidly mouthwatering to me, it should be outlawed—and at the baby-blue eyes that tugged at something inside me despite their animosity, and wondered how I was supposed to interpret his statement.
Because he had asked me. For help. With being single .
And I fucking hoped this was a joke, because my mind was already getting bad, bad ideas, and that was the last thing that I needed.
“Teach you to be single?” I asked, watching closely every single one of the twitches in his expression.
Dan shifted in his seat, like he was considering leaving, but I sure as fuck was not going to let him move his ass from where he was until he clarified.
“I'm not asking you for anything weird, just, going out and that sort of thing. You're supposed to be an expert in the subject, aren't you?” he asked, throwing it out like an accusation.
Ah. So not what my dirty mind had been considering. Which was good. Great, in fact. I wasn’t disappointed at all.
It wasn’t like I’d thought he was basically asking: ‘ Will you fuck me three ways to Sunday, Andy? ’, which, obviously, Dan would never ask.
Because he was straight.
He also hated me.
Not to mention, I knew better than to ever entertain the thought of hooking up with him.
Even if now that the idea was in my mind, my blood thrummed with it.
Even if I wanted to see where Dan would go in this so-called crisis of his, but the smarter part of me was keeping that part in check.
It was keeping that part in check the same way it had done ever since I had seen, for the first time, a very grumpy boyfriend coming to defend the girl that I'd been somewhat flirting with, and instantly thought, I chose the wrong one to flirt with.
Then it hit me in the face how blatantly straight Dan was, not to mention that he decided then and there to hate my guts on pure principle.
His determination would be admirable if not for the fact that it was to my detriment, but in any case, I wasn't going to submit to my baser instincts now.
That encounter had been four years ago.
And now here we were.
Me still being the ‘player’ he thought me to be.
Him still being the definition of a walking-talking wet dream that couldn’t stand me but still needed me to come to his rescue.
He still visibly wanted very badly to leave, but for some reason, probably stubbornness, he was keeping himself on the seat.
It was cute. Even if it shouldn’t be.
I cleared my throat. “And what do you think I should to teach you?” I asked, voice rough. “I want specifics.”
Dan looked away from me for a second, shrugging. “You tell me. I just don't want to be in a relationship again, and you're the only person I know that has singledom down to a science. You're the best person for the job.”
So I was right that something had happened with his ex to trigger this whole thing.
This whole need to uproot his life and go to the least likely person for help.
When Travis, my best friend, had told me of Dan’s situation and asked me whether I could help, I’d damn nearly fallen off my chair. As I said, I’d thought there was just no way that Dan would voluntarily ask me (even indirectly) for anything, so there had to be a very good reason for him to even be considering it.
And the truth was, there was something vulnerable in his eyes, in the line of his shoulders, in his everything , right now, and I just wanted, no, needed to know what if was.
But of course, he wouldn’t tell me.
I also wanted to know why the fuck me. Why not a stranger if he couldn’t stand me.
But the second part of his latest statement–that I had singledom down to a science—made my gut tighten for some reason.
I was a very happy single guy. Had always been. I wasn’t interested in relationships not for any fear of commitment, but because I liked the way my life was, focusing on my goals, my gym, and my friends, and sex was an extra that I indulged in during my free time. And I was good at it. Great , more like. I was a charming asshole and I knew it.
I would have never gone as far as to call myself a player the way Dan did, because none of the people I slept with ever expected anything else other than what I offered, even if I could see why it looked that way to him. I was in it for a good time, I didn’t do repeats, and, yes, I liked to have fun.
(There was also the fact that he’d met me while I was trying to sleep with his then-girlfriend, which, in my defense, I hadn’t known she was taken, but I digress).
So if I was me and I was fine with it, why did it feel like someone was fisting my stomach when Dan told me that he wanted me because I had ‘singledom’ down to a science?
Might be indigestion. That had to be it.
“So what? You want me to take you out to a bar and have a drink?” I asked tentatively.
“No, I want you to teach me to be single, actually be single, and do whatever it is that you do in your free, single man time,” he said very seriously, leaning into the table to meet me halfway. If I had still been right there, I would have been close enough for a kiss, and it would have been way too easy to simply grab onto his nape and slap my lips against his.
Don’t think about it, the wise part of me told me.
But then I processed his meaning. His true meaning.
“You don't want me to teach you to be single, Dan, you want me to teach you to let loose ,” I said, leaning into his space, feeling vicious and bitter all of a sudden, grabbing onto his forearm when he tried to move back. “You wouldn't come to me if it weren't for that, would you?”
Dan visibly swallowed, and my eyes tracked the movement. The cafe seemed to fade all around us, my senses hyper-focusing only on him.
“I know you're the best at being you , and I know that being me is the last thing that I need right now. So are you going to help me or not?”
That didn’t sit well with me.
Neither did, for some reason I wouldn’t look at too closely, the idea of helping him be like me.
So I simply said, “No.”
“No?” Dan said, his eyebrows raising, dumbfounded and irritated all at once. “Why the fuck not?”
I let out a vicious smile with a tight jaw. “You think I have nothing better to do than to teach the more stuck-up, straight-laced, in-bed-by-eleven, always-in-a-relationship guy that hates my guts, to let loose? Please, give me some credit. Especially when I know you'll give up in less than the blink of an eye.”
Was it true that I had better things to do? Yes. But was it also true that the idea of where this was going also fucking with me?
Definitely.
And that , more than anything, made me mad.
Because I shouldn’t care what Dan got to. I shouldn’t care whether he suddenly became a ‘ player’ and started fucking his way through the city.
I shouldn’t care.
But luckily enough for me, I was one hundred percent sure that Dan wasn’t going to go in that direction. He just wasn’t built for it. He was the most solid, relationship-oriented guy I’d ever met. He’d been in a relationship all the way through college, not strayed once, and from what I knew (and I wouldn’t reveal my sources—which were definitely Travis’s boyfriend, who was Dan’s brother’s best friend), that had been pretty similar even before college. This was just Dan having a crisis because something must have happened with his ex and he was trying to run away from it.
Dan's jaw shifted. “You don't think I can do it? Or you don't think you're good enough to teach me.”
“I don't think you have what it takes to keep up with me and my lessons. You'd go back crying to your old predictable life, and then I would be the bad guy.”
Now, Dan had always been, as far as I knew, the closest thing to a rock when it came to peer pressure.
Never had I ever seen him give into anything that he didn't want to do, not at a college party, not anywhere.
But right here, right now, Dan wasn't only observing my dare, there was a fire in his eyes that told me just how much he wanted to take it.
I felt a ball of eagerness and a dread coil inside me, waiting to see what he would actually do in the face of it.
I didn't know if I was strong enough to watch Dan really take on a newly single lifestyle, but I knew it was in my best interest to see it close up, which would hopefully mean watching him fail.
And my intentions might have been on my face, which was probably why Dan looked so murderously determined right now.
“What will it take for you to believe me, then?” He asked, knowing what was next.
Was I crazy enough to do this?
I was. Especially with the way Dan was looking at me.
It lit me up. It made my blood sing, full of adrenaline, it made me want to close the distance and do very stupid things.
So feeling a little crazy and not in my rind mind at all, I said, “You’re going to have to prove it to me in a one-time test, and if you fail, you'll never ask me again.”
Dan’s nostrils flared.
“What's it going to be? Because if you say yes, it's going to be my way or the highway.”
His eyes darkened. He leaned forward again, breath kissing my face.“I’m going to enjoy watching the flies fly into your mouth when it falls open after I'm done with your stupid test.”
My cock twitched.
This was so not how I’d thought this meeting was going to go.
But now I couldn’t walk away from it.
I would just have to make sure that Dan got this stupid idea out of his head, and pray to hell that I didn't regret this.