Chapter Ten #2
“You know,” I counter, inching closer as he starts to make a plate with his free hand. “Not everything I say is a dig. You ... you know that, right?”
“I do,” he says, offering me a plate with a hamburger and a hot dog on top. “And I don’t.”
“Well, it isn’t,” I insist, piling on a few rippled chips and pickle spears for good measure. “So maybe ... lighten up?”
He nods, smiling. “I’m trying,” he insists, making a plate for himself before nodding to the patio set as we sink into opposing deck chairs. “This is pretty new for me.”
“You’re not a virgin, are you?”
“Fuck no!” He chuckles, setting his wine down on a nearby table. “I just meant ... it’s not so easy to find like-minded fellas in these parts, you know?”
I nibble a chip, starving but also ... wanting a nice, flat belly if something’s going to happen later. “I could see that.”
He notices me picking. “You’re not hungry?”
I smile. “Do you have to notice everything?”
“About you?” he blurts, perhaps regretting it. “Sorry, but ... yes?”
“I don’t mind,” I insist, since we’re clearly being honest.
“So?” he presses. “You’re not hungry?”
“I’m starved,” I admit. “But I never eat much on a date.”
He beams. “Me either! Lucky it’s not one!”
My face falls. He notices that, too. “I just mean, Chet, a date is something you do out. On the town. A restaurant. A movie theater. Bowling alley, skating rink, concert, play, whatever. This is more like...”
“A hookup?” I offer, admiring the way my hot dog glistens in the waning sunlight.
He nods almost shyly. “If you want to, I mean, I realize...” He waves his half-eaten burger around the patio. “I was probably a little forward in setting all this up, huh?”
“I don’t mind forward, Grady,” I insist, sensing an opening and rushing in before I can chicken out. “As long as there are a few ... ground rules first.”
“What?” he teases. “Like safe words or whatnot?”
“Wow, you are forward.” I chuckle. “No, I meant like ... expectations. About this. About ... us.”
He wipes a blot of ketchup from his big, full lips, sitting back in his chair as he slides his plate on the cushion next to him. “As in ... there is no us?”
I nod, glad he was the one to say it first. “Not after this week, Grady. No.”
He nods back, reaching for his wine and sipping it quietly. “Are you ... okay with that?”
“Are you?” he asks, not unkindly.
I think for a moment before answering. “I guess we’ll find out, huh, cowboy?”
He sighs. “Is this how they do things out in Hollywood?”
“It’s ... how I do things, period. Ever since Pierre, I mean.”
He frowns. “Baggage much?”
I snort. “Yeah, probably, but ... been there, barely survived that, you know?”
“Like I haven’t?”
“Have you?” I challenge, but not so playfully this time. “I’m serious, I mean, I’m genuinely interested.”
“I have,” he insists. “If you’re asking.”
“I am. I did.”
“What, you mean I should tell you about it?”
I smile. “If you want,” I tease, borrowing some of his cowpoke lingo for the moment.
“I don’t mind.” He sighs. “It was a long time ago, but it still hurts.”
“Who hurt you?” I huff, balling a fist with my free hand and carefully not to spill my wine with the other. “Lemme at him.”
“Fat chance.” He sighs, crossing his legs so that the bottom of his boot glistens in the light from the living room.
I notice, curiously, they’re hardly scuffed.
As if maybe they’re ... brand new? And maybe, just maybe, he wore them just for little old me?
Because ... I asked? “You’d have to go all the way to Arizona to catch him playing ball. ”
“Yeah?”
“He’s the kicker for the Arizona Armadillos these days. Or was, last time I checked his socials, which was, well ... last year, I reckon.”
“Armadillos?” I huff, figuring it’s safe to diss someone who hurt poor, sweet, lovable Grady.
“It’s not a big school, but he sure couldn’t wait to light out of here the minute he got that scholarship,” he muses.
“He is ... who now?”
“Caleb.” Grady sighs wistfully, the same way I used to about Pierre before he threw all my worldly possessions out onto the curb and ghosted me faster than the speed of light. “Caleb Channing.”
“Well, the name’s sexy at least.” I curl my legs beneath me, sumptuous in my linen loungewear and settling in for story time, southern style.
For the record? If this whole sexy cowboy, property manager, eligible bachelor, local land baron thing goes south for him?
Grady certainly has a bright future narrating audiobooks!
Hell, his voice is so smooth, his delivery so warm and soothing, I’d listen to him read the phone book.
“Oh, he was sexy all right,” Grady insists, not surprisingly. After all, I can already tell he has impeccable taste in men! “Captain of the football team. Prom king. Class president. Blond and blue-eyed. Cocky grin and even cockier swagger. All the girls wanted him.”
“And, of course, so did you?” I purr.
He blushes, nodding across the coffee table at me. “I wanted him so bad. But would never say, never even hint. If anything, I made it abundantly clear I wanted nothing to do with him, which is, I guess, why he cornered me one night at some house party and asked me why.”
“No shit?”
He shakes his head. “It was late. Everyone else was drunk or passed out already, and he kind of cornered me in the shadows, out on the front lawn, as I was trying to leave. He was drunk, too, but not that drunk. He knew what he was saying when he said he just wanted to be friends. I was surprised. Honestly. And took him at his word. Said to meet him at the school gym the next morning. We could work out together.”
“Was that something you did?”
“Back then?” Grady nods. “I was on the baseball team, didn’t work out much, but I was no stranger to the gym.
Anyway, I reminded him it was a Saturday, and he said it was cool, no problem.
Coach had given him a set of keys, on account of who he was and all.
I didn’t sleep all night. Jerked off like eight times, just in case. ”
I snicker-giggle, struggling not to faint at the vivid imagery of a young, strapping Grady pounding his pud beneath his baseball-covered sheets, probably. “Wow, impressive.”
He blushes. “I mean, not literally, but it sure felt like it. Anyway, I got there early, what with all the pining and the not sleeping. Waited like an hour, pacing around, checking my phone to see what time it was. He never showed.”
“Fucker.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, well, I was young, dumb, and full of cum and wanted to get rid of it any way I could, you know? Anyway, Dad was still alive back then. I worked weekends for the company, rehabbing rental properties with Parker, cleaning up after tenants, that kind of thing. I had a crappy yellow truck back then, rusting out everywhere. Everyone knew it by sight. I guess Caleb did, too. Anyway, I was on a job. Alone. The day was almost over, and I’d long since given up on anything happening between us.
Then he knocked on the door. It was open, I think I was finishing up some drywall or something.
I saw him standing there, letterman’s jacket, tight blue jeans, his ballcap backward, Jesus, I about came buckets right there, you know? ”
He's not alone! I shift uncomfortably, making room for my growing hardon, shimmering and silken against my loosely bound linen slacks with not a stitch of underwear to keep it in place. “Sounds like the beginning of a porn flick.”
He harumphs. “The outtakes, maybe. Anyway, I was in coveralls, all sweaty, spackle stains and drywall dust all over me. Must have looked a mess. He came in. Shut the door behind him. It made a ‘click’ sound I can still hear to this day. Said he was sorry. About ghosting me at the gym that day. Said that was really rude of him. That he hated doing that, to me of all people. Said some of his bros came over unexpectedly and he got scared they’d find out we had a date, so. ..”
“A date?” I muse.
“In his mind, anyway.”
“And yours?”
“I had a date with Caleb every night in my room.” He sighs. “If you know what I mean.”
I smile. “I think so, perv.”
He chuckles. “Anyway, I could see he was already hard. In his jeans. He said he’d liked me for a long time.
And knew I liked him back. I tried to deny it, but he put his finger across my lips.
Real possessive like. It was big and thick and sweaty already.
What’s more? It was trembling. Told me if I’d be quiet, like a good little boy, he’d let me . .. let me...”
“Let you what, Grady?” I realize I’m at the edge of my seat by this point. Wineglass half-empty, but long forgotten with the breathless nature of Grady’s very horny, very sordid, very exciting tale.
Our eyes meet once more. Grady’s voice is blunt as he answers, “He’d let me ... jerk him off.”
“Right there?”
He nods. “Right there. He said he’d been driving by the site all day, waiting for everyone else to leave, and was about ready to blast any second.”
“Stalk much?” I gush.
“Maybe, but at the time, I was flattered. This was Caleb Channing we were talking about. My first man crush. Everyone’s first man crush. And he’d waited all day for me to jerk him off.”
I frown, red flags waving in front of my widened eyeballs. “I mean...”
“I know, Chet.” Grady sighs, as if he were seeing them too.
“I know how toxic this story is, trust me. But again? At the time? I just ... gave up at that point. I nodded, and he dropped right there in the half-finished living room. I was still fully dressed. He was hard as a rock. Hadn’t worn any drawers, just .
.. unzipped, tugged his jeans down halfway and out popped his big, fat chub. ”
“Wowza.”
“Yeah, right? I mean, it wasn’t big, but it was my first ever real live guy right there in my hand, and boy was it pretty to me at the time.
And smooth. So smooth. And hard. Curved upward, like a banana.
He was already leaking, didn’t take much to have him wet and trembling with just a few light strokes, and I liked that, you know?
Big strong guy, captain of industry, MVP, and he was panting, begging for it, calling me ‘baby’ and telling me how good it was and, well, I guess neither of us heard Parker’s truck pull up outside. ”
I literally sit back in my seat, clapping both hands together in surprise. “No!”
“Yes,” he dishes, rolling his eyes as if we’re live texting about the latest episode of Actual Housewives of Madison County.
“He stormed in expecting me to be alone and caught us in the act. Caleb jerked back to life, as if realizing what we were doing. Called me all kinds of names, said I’d lured him there for a job, all kinds of hateful bullshit.
I was too stunned to deny it, watching him yank up his drawers and try to shove past Parker. But Parker’s Parker, right?”
“The big guy?” I ask. “Cowboy hat. Boots. Jaw you could strike a match on? From your office this morning?”
“That’s the one. He followed Caleb out to the drive.
Called his lying ass out right then and there.
Told him if he ever breathed word of this shit, word one, he’d flatten him right there on the football field at his very next game.
He’d left the door open, maybe on purpose?
Either way, I heard it all, standing there shaking, crying like some big, fat baby, and then I heard Caleb stammer out a scared as shit ‘Yes, sir’ and peel off in the stupid convertible that his daddy bought for him the year they won state. ”
“And after that?”
“Parker came in and sat me down. Got me a glass of water. Said he’d always suspected and didn’t care what I did in my personal life, but to never, ever, even think about doing that in one of our properties again.
I agreed, and then he stood up and walked out the door.
Or started to, anyway. Before he left, he turned, winked to tell me everything would be all right, and told me to never give something away without getting something in return.
Then he just walked out the door, burned rubber in his truck, and we never talked about it again. ”
“Damn, Grady. That’s ... wild.”
“Buck wild,” he teases as we collapse into nervous giggles as if it had just happened.
“But ... your promise?” I remind him.
“Which one?”
“To never do anything in one of your properties again. Isn’t this ... one of your properties?”
“Back then,” he reasons. “When I made that promise? It was Dad’s property. Well, he and my stepmother’s. After he passed a few years back, he left me controlling shares in the company. So I guess you might say, this here is my property.”
I gulp and nod, finding myself hard as a rail after Grady’s sexy little story. “You mean the cabin is your property?” I ask breathlessly, shooting my shot at long last. “Or ... I am?”
He beams in the day’s last light, taking me in and spying my throbbing erection beneath my wispy linen slacks. Hell, I’m so hard right now, they can probably see my stiffy from the Hollywood sign back home!
“Would you like that, Chet?” he croaks, standing slowly until he’s towering above me in those brand new boots and faded blue jeans. And suddenly? I’m not the only one hard in my pants.
“Would you like to be ... mine?”