Chapter 52 Deacon
DEACON
It takes almost six hours to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, not factoring for LA traffic. Isaac is driving, and though I offered him the passenger seat, Evan got into the back.
While an occasional song interrupts us because someone—usually Evan—is too into it to keep talking, the three of us maintain a steady conversation the entire time.
And we don’t talk about any of the things I thought we’d be sorting out on the drive—how this is going to work with Evan in another town, when are we going to see him again, is there a plan for tomorrow?
No. The closest we get to that is a discussion about going to Mexico together this summer, which is months away.
Instead, Evan and I fill Isaac in on everything he’s accomplished with his software and the few things we still need to work out.
Isaac talks about starting his company and the day he knew it was going to take off.
For the first time, I give them the names and details about my high school friend group who wound up leaving me OD’d in an emergency room, and Evan tells us all about Easter with his mom and how jealous she is of his dad.
Isaac winds up apologizing for what he said this morning—about how I had him for an hour last night, and I admit, I feel a little bad about it, too.
But Evan tells us that as much as he hates the way his mom and dad fight over him, it’s more because he feels like he’s being used as a weapon.
He says we’re doing it right, whatever that means.
The discussion is, in turns, light-hearted and deep, and though I’m vaguely carsick from having to keep turning around to look at Evan, I’ve never felt better in my own skin. They like me enough that it shows, and that makes it as easy to talk to them as it is to write about them.
Evan is nosy, though. While Isaac is content to let me say something like “it was just easier to hook up than date,” Evan needs more information. Did I ever want to date, or did I think the drugs were the bigger problem? Would I have ever asked Ryan out if Malcom hadn’t come along?
Big no there, by the way. As far as I knew before Malcolm, Ryan was straight, and I’m no masochist.
“What about him?” Isaac asks at that point, tipping his head in Evan’s direction.
“Would I have gone out with Evan?”
“Yeah—say you hadn’t met me that night. Say you had shit luck on the dating apps.”
“You know, I’m not good with hypotheticals,” I remind him.
“Of course you are. You’re very good at second guessing yourself. It’s pretty much the same thing.”
I give Isaac a side-eye.
“I’ll be honest,” Evan says. “I would have probably had too much to drink and thrown myself at you eventually.”
I look over my shoulder at him, trying to picture that and the imaginary scenario wherein I had no luck dating strangers.
It’s a little harder to imagine being a person who doesn’t already know what it’s like to have sex with him, or how fun it is to kiss him, or the way he uses his hips and ass to get himself off no matter what position he’s in.
“How would you have thrown yourself at me?”
“Probably either straddling you on the bench press or cornering you in the kitchen.”
“Let’s go with the bench press for my enjoyment,” Isaac says.
Evan laughs. “I’m kidding. I wouldn’t have done that.”
“What would you have done?” Isaac asks. “Help him out.”
Evan mulls this over. “Okay, well the closest I got to doing anything was at Bailey’s birthday party last fall.”
I frown.
“I was just gonna ask you to dance.”
“Why didn’t you?” Isaac and I both ask at the same time.
“You kept getting messages on your phone and responding. I thought you might be dealing with something, so I chickened out.”
I remember that. My old friends had been blowing me up because it was a weekend, and I wasn’t there. I had plans to meet up with them later, but they wouldn’t leave me alone until they saw my face.
“If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would’ve danced with you.” That much I know for sure.
“Yeah?”
“I would have been surprised you asked, though.”
“Why?”
“You said you weren’t sure I was gay.”
Evan shrugs. “You were hanging out with an awful lot of gay people that night. I figured you’d probably play along either way.”
I grin. “You’re right. Makes me wonder why you ever questioned it.”
“Millie…”
“Well…Millie is her own thing.”
“How is Millie?” Isaac asks.
“I’m not sure I wanna know,” Evan says.
“How’d you guys get tangled up with her anyway?”
“Do we really have to talk about her?” Evan complains.
“We have three hours left according to the GPS.”
While Evan gives Isaac all the details about our quirky neighbor and her dog, I get fixated on this idea of whether I would have danced with him or not, and what kind of song it would have been, and if he would have given me any indication he wanted more.
Forty minutes or so later when Isaac is all caught up on the right girl, wrong apartment story, I ask the question that’s been knocking around my head.
“Would I have known by dancing with you that you were interested?”
Evan blushes. “If you didn’t, it wouldn’t have been for my lack of trying.”
“Would you have kissed me?”
A sharp laugh bursts from him. It comes off as more surprised than a rebuke. “No.”
“He would have been trying to get you to kiss him,” Isaac supplies.
“Oh, how would you know?” Evan asks him.
“Because I wouldn’t have tried to kiss him, either.”
“Hey,” I say, not sure what to think about that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it’s impossible to tell what you’re thinking until you start talking—or kissing,” Isaac says.
“Great poker face,” Evan attempts to translate, but I already got the gist.
“Well,” I say, “I wouldn’t have kissed you on the dance floor. But I probably would have wanted to. Dancing is like...” I trail off, looking out the window at a field of wind turbines.
“Like what?” Isaac asks.
“Like sex,” I say.
“See?” Evan says, to Isaac. “I had no chance with him.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” I say. “In terms of the whole hypothetical. Not really sure why it matters, though. Worked out pretty well for me.”
Isaac laughs.
The truth is, I was horny as fuck the night I met Isaac. The fact that he was my CEO barely factored in to my reasoning for kissing him. I was there to get laid, and I was damn determined.
However—if that hadn’t worked out the way it did, and I went another week without getting laid or any prospects for the following weekend, and I was home with Evan, and he’d asked me again if I wanted to go out to dinner with him to try a new restaurant, I guess I can visualize a scenario where I would have been all—fuck the food.
My impulse control isn’t the best, and without systems of guarantees in place, there’s no telling what stupid roommate rules I would have compromised to get off.
I turn back to Evan. “It would have happened.”
His head jerks, and his eyes widen. “You think?”
“One week of striking out, and I would have snapped.”
“You think it would have worked out?” he asks.
I think about the first time we had sex, and the unabashed way he wanted me—the way he fucked me. And everything I know now. “I can’t see how it wouldn’t have.”
We’ve thoroughly wrecked Evan’s bed, and he still hasn’t picked up his dog. I guess I might have had something to prove when we got to his apartment, and unlike the patience I’ve been preaching with Isaac, I showed none whatsoever.
While Evan claims his hole is off limits “until next time,” he had no problem sitting back on Isaac’s face while I fucked my CEO and kissed Evan until we were all coming.
Isaac is busy convincing Evan to have Hunter drop the dog off without any of us having to leave the apartment while I’m flipping through my Spotify, trying to remember all the songs that played at Bailey’s birthday party when I could have danced with Evan.
I get a text, and I hear the familiar chime of Evan’s phone, too. It’s a photo from Millie.
“Shit,” I say.
Evan lifts his head from Isaac’s chest. “What?”
I show him the picture of the litter of six puppies. Half of them black, and half of them white with black spots.
“Motherfucker,” Evan mutters.
Isaac sees the photo and laughs before patting his lap. “Come here, grandpa. I can make you feel better.”
“Fuck you for calling me that. She’s lucky I’m rich now.”
When Evan doesn’t make a move toward Isaac, Isaac pulls him over himself. Evan winds up straddling Isaac’s lap but facing me.
I text Millie that we’ll be in touch, then I give up on Spotify, put my phone on do not disturb and move closer to them. “She’s gonna want child support, too.”
“Maybe you could just marry her instead,” Evan says.
“I’m gonna have to move out of the apartment, aren’t I?”
This perks Isaac up, and I realize I definitely said that out loud in his presence. “That gives me a wild idea,” he says.
“Look,” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“What was it you were saying earlier, baby?” he asks Evan. “Something about everything happening in its own time?”
Evan puts his hands on my shoulders and makes me look him in the eyes. “You never needed a roommate, you know?”
I frown at him, sort of aware of what he’s getting at, but still needing him to say it. “I love that apartment.”
“Then keep it. Rent it to someone else. Find someplace even better for you guys.”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t the deal.”
It’s his turn to look at me in confusion.
“You belong with us,” I remind him. “We agreed. Remember?”
Evan is quiet for a moment while he looks at me. I don’t look away. Isaac wraps his arm around his bare waist and kisses his shoulder.
“I need,” Evan whispers. “I need…”
I wait for either him to finish or Isaac to help him out. I have no clue what Evan needs beyond everything I’ve already traveled hundreds of miles to give him.
Isaac presses a kiss to his cheek and says, “A yard.” He looks at me. “A nice weight room.”
I move to sit, wrapping my legs around both of them, listening intently, like it’s the best bedtime story ever told. Evan rests his head against my chest, and I lean my cheek against his hair.
Isaac stares into my eyes. “A gourmet kitchen with a huge refrigerator and a double oven. Gas burners. Two sinks?”
I nod.
He goes on. “Bay windows. A big shower.”
“A guest room for Jake,” I say.
“Dedicated parking.”
“A really nice, private patio,” Evan offers softly.
“A fully functional and connected office. The biggest bed I can find,” Isaac says.
“No elevators,” I say.
“You can live without a view?” Isaac asks.
“I like my view from here,” I tell him.
“Am I close?” Isaac asks with another kiss to Evan’s shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll give you a dream home if I can get you to come home.”
Evan sighs, his breath whispering against my chest. “I love you.”
“I love you.” Isaac reaches past Evan to rest a hand on my face. “You, too.”
I nod. “I think I feel the same.”
“Try it,” Evan says sleepily, his hand moving across my abs. “Try saying it.”
“I love you.” I copy the way Isaac said it because it sounded nice, and I like the way he looked when he said it, too.
Evan sighs again, and Isaac gives me one of those incredible smiles. “That was so good.”
I lean forward and kiss his lips softly. His forehead rests against mine over Evan’s shoulder. After a few extremely contented moments, someone’s stomach growls. It could be mine. I can’t tell.
“What do you guys want for dinner?” I ask.
“Down, boy,” Evan says.
“We’ll order something,” Isaac seems to agree.
“Do I have to wait for the fancy kitchen? Yours looks like it works fine.”
“I’d ask how to convince you to stay in bed, but I’m afraid I already know the answer,” Evan says.
Isaac says, “I swear to God, I’d marry you both right now if I could.”
“If anybody can figure that out, it’s you, babe.”
Isaac buries his nose in Evan’s hair, but his eyes are still set on me.
“You know,” I say, “starting a business together is a little like getting married. If you structure the contract properly.”
He lifts a brow.
“Slow down, Romeos. Is that gonna be my job in this relationship? The brake pedal?
“You can be the caution sign,” I say.
“Just know, I’ll probably ignore it most of the time,” Isaac adds.
“Jesus, you guys. If you weren’t both so unbelievably good looking…”
“You’d what?” Isaac asks. “Put up a stop sign?”
“No, but I’d have to come to terms with how fucking sweet you both are, and I think I’d go into a coma or something.”
“House first,” I say. “I want him home.”
“You got it, babe,” Isaac says. “But then I want my fucking contract.”
“I think I’m starting to understand love languages,” I say.
Evan laughs and snuggles even more tightly between us.
“Shit,” Isaac says.
“What?”
“I’m getting hard again.”
“Erections are not emergencies.” Evan sounds slightly alarmed.
“If you’re telling me to pump the brakes, I’ve got bad news for you, baby.”
Evan groans as Isaac’s hips start to move in an unmistakable rhythm. Glancing down Evan’s back, I see Isaac’s cock moving above Evan’s plump ass cheeks. Damn that looks good.
“My turn next,” I say.
Evan reaches up and grabs my face, bringing his lips to mine. “Only if you say the magic words.”
I guess I’ll have to get used to this. “I love you.”
He kisses me, and as our tongues collide and my skin sparks, the words and all the things I’m feeling for both these men click so neatly into place, I finally understand what we’ve found together.
It is love. It’s not a feeling. It’s a promise.
With everything I am, I tell them through my kiss and my grip that I will never let this go.