Chapter 12
CASH
The rest of the afternoon should have been spent with me packing and moving the stuff over to my cabin.
Instead, I watched porn on my phone, jacked off, and drew some filthy sketches.
I sketched Joel and Tristen sitting on the railing of a deck, each sporting major wood.
With my colored pencils, I filled in Tristen’s blue eyes and Joel’s gray eyes.
When I heard a car pull up to the cabin, I looked up from the sketchbook at the sound of two car doors shutting.
I’d been so immersed in the drawings that I hadn’t noticed the sun was starting to set.
I felt my heart rate begin to pound when I heard two voices approach the door. It was Joel and Tristen.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath as one of them knocked on the door. I dropped my pencil and went to the door.
“Hey,” I said casually when I opened the door.
The two six-foot-fuck-me-three Silver Fox Daddies stood there looking like they could appear on some porn series.
They were both in jeans and dark t-shirts, and the sunset in the background made it look like a scene for some older sexy neighbor adult series on some subscription network.
“We brought the stuff for you to assemble the guest bags,” Joel said.
“But we also came to help you move over to your new place,” Tristen added.
“Oh, uh, I really don’t have much,” I said as they stepped inside. I quickly scanned the living room, suddenly ashamed that I hadn’t packed my stuff up and moved this afternoon. “I can get the stuff packed up.”
“You said you didn’t have a lot of stuff, right?” Tristen asked.
“Right. Just two bags upstairs and a bag that I need to put stuff in down here.”
“Then the three of us will make an easy task out of it.”
The three of us.
I loved the way that sounded. I would hold onto that phrase just as it rolled off Joel’s tongue forever.
“Okay, thank you.”
“Come on; you and I can take the upstairs, and Joel can handle the downstairs,” Tristen said.
Following Tristen upstairs relaxed me a little because staring at his ass was an excellent distraction.
The visual enjoyment turned to total embarrassment, though, when we stepped into my room, and I realized the nightstand still had a bunch of scattered tissue I’d jizzed on.
I saw the light blue lid to the lube as it contrasted wildly against the white sheets.
Buried under the tissues was a tube of lube that was missing the cap.
“Fuck!” I blurted out and hurried around the bed to get to the nightstand quickly.
I gathered the evidence of what I’d clearly been up to today and hurried into the bathroom with it.
After I tossed the tissues in the trash I went to the counter and tried to screw the cap back on.
My hands were shaking from being so embarrassed that it made it nearly impossible for me to get the stupid cap back on.
“Relax, Cash. You’re not shocking me or showing me anything I haven’t seen.”
I nodded and just tossed the tube of lube and cap in the trash. It was almost gone anyhow.
“Take a few deep breaths and relax,” he instructed. I closed my eyes for a moment and took some deep breaths. “There you go. Now, where is your suitcase or bag?”
“It’s in the closet,” I said as I headed out of the bathroom. I grabbed the duffel bag from the closet and set it on the bed. “I just put everything in this bag for the summer,” I explained.
“I’ll pack up your clothes while you take care of gathering your bathroom items,” Tristen suggested.
“Uh, okay. Thank you.” I hurried to the washer and dryer unit that was in a utility closet in the loft. I had done the last of my laundry earlier and pulled the clothes out of the dryer and carried them back to the bedroom. “This is the last of it,” I said as I set the clothes on the bed.
“Go take care of your toiletries, and I’ll take care of this,” Tristen insisted.
I took another deep breath as I raced back into the bathroom.
I started tossing everything in my Dopp bag without any care.
Things that normally had a particular place just ended up haphazardly heaped in the bag.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I didn’t get frazzled by anyone; why did I get this panicked and awkward feeling around these two?
I took another few deep breaths after I finished collecting my stuff.
I glanced in the drawers, the cabinets under the counter, and medicine cabinet one last time to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind.
I went back to the bedroom and set my Dopp bag on the bed beside the duffel bag that Tristen had nearly packed.
He was folding some of my clothes from the dryer and looked at me.
“Did you get everything?”
“Yeah, and I double checked everywhere in there.”
“Your closet and drawers are clear now. But there’s some things in the nightstand you might want.”
Fuck, had he opened the nightstand? I could feel the heat of embarrassment rise up my neck and surround my face in fire.
I was sure my face was red. I went over to the nightstand and picked up the paperback of a gay romance I had been reading.
I felt like I needed to explain or say something about it.
“My friends and I had gone into a charity shop in town and bought some books for the summer,” I explained the origin of the book, though, I didn’t know why.
I slid the paperback into a side pocket of the duffel and went back to the nightstand.
As I opened the drawer, I replayed what I’d said to Tristen about the book.
Why had I said anything at all? As expected, the box of condoms, another small tube of lube, a jar of a different lube, a fidget spinner, and a blue novelty butt plug all stared up at me.
And again, I went into panic mode of feeling like I needed to explain things.
“One of these is Braxton’s,” I mumbled as I unzipped the bathroom bag and tossed them in. “Braxton hates the KY brand, so when we went to an adult novelty store, he picked this up for me and insisted on getting this blue thing for me,” I rambled on.
I wondered if Tristen thought I was a mess, explaining sex toys as “blue things.” Or if he thought Braxton and I were a thing. Again, I felt as though I needed to clarify my relationship.
“Braxton and his boyfriend argue a lot, and Braxton would end up crashing in my room.”
Did he think I was a twenty-four-year-old loser and couldn’t get any action without my friend buying me lube and sex toys?
I jammed the items from the nightstand into another side pocket of the duffel bag.
“It’s just novelty stuff I tossed in there. I don’t even use it,” I lied.
“Cash,” Tristen said, and I immediately looked up at him. Fuck, those blue eyes of his drove me crazy. Once I gazed into them, they were like magnets, and I couldn’t look away.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Cash.” I nodded and managed to force my attention to the small pile of clothes. I grabbed a shirt and started to fold it when Tristen stole my attention again.
“Or to anyone,” he said. I nodded again. “Does that make sense, Cash? You owe nothing to anyone,” Tristen said.
“Okay, and yes, I understand.”
“Good.” He smiled at me and tossed a pair of my shorts at my head. “Now let’s finish this up and get going.”
For some reason, I felt like Tristen understood everything about me in our brief time of packing my stuff up. Not that I felt like Joel and Tristen didn’t get me or were stressors, but now, for whatever reason, I felt like pressure was off my shoulders. How was that possible?
“Do you guys need any help up there?” Joel hollered from the foot of the stairs.
Tristen picked up the duffel bag off the bed and winked at me.
“Nope, we just finished,” Tristen called out as we left the bedroom.
I followed Tristen down the stairs and looked around the kitchen and living room. Everything looked cleaned up and nothing was sitting out. My eyes darted back to the table where my sketchbook and pencils were at. Where did they go?
“I gathered your items from the table and counter and put them right here,” Joel pointed to the small table beside the door.
On top of my sketchbook was my phone charger, backup battery pack and a pair of sunglasses.
Beside that pile of items was my tattered plastic bag that I’d kept my pencils, eraser, and a small manual sharpener in.
My sketchbook was closed, which meant he would most likely have seen what I’d been drawing. Did he look closely enough and realize that he and Tristen were my subjects? Or was my sketch work so poor that he wouldn’t be able to tell?
No. That wouldn’t be the case. My drawings were damn good. Joel had even said as much when he saw the sketch of Frank and Trudy’s deck. But would he think it was weird that I had been drawing them?
“Do you have anything else anywhere down here that you need to take?” Joel asked.
“Just a windbreaker in the coat closet,” I said. I quickly went to the closet and pulled out the light jacket. The only things left in the closet were hangers and an umbrella that had been in there when we arrived at the start of summer.
“Is there any food left that you want to bring to your new place?” Tristen asked while I unzipped the duffel bag and shoved my windbreaker in. I also had room in the bag to put the battery pack, phone charger, sunglasses, and pencil bag.
“No food left. We cleaned out the fridge and cabinets this morning. I ate the last of the granola bars and drank the energy drink.”
“We’ll get you set up with some groceries in the morning,” Joel said.
“It’s not necessary. I can get to the grocery store that’s nearby.” I knew I had some money in my account that I’d be able to use for groceries.
“Let’s go,” Tristen said as he opened the door and then picked up my duffel bag and headed toward the Porsche SUV. I carried my sketchbook and stepped onto the porch. I fished the keys from the pocket of my jeans, locked the door, and held the keys in the palm of my hand for Joel.