by Gregory Ashe
The phone buzzed with an incoming call from Amos.
“Are you here?” Amos asked.
“Just checked in.”
“Great, great. Guys, let’s wrap it up. Tean’s here.”
“No,” Tean said, flopping back onto the bed. “No, don’t come back just for my sake. I’m exhausted. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
“I don’t care if you haven’t had your turn yet, Cor. Tean’s just checked in. Let’s go!”
“No,” Tean said. “Don’t. What are you guys doing, anyway?”
“Zipline. It’s this adventure park. I know we’re only halfway through it, Seth. It was only forty bucks. Suck it up.”
“You guys stay. Have fun. We’ll get breakfast tomorrow; trust me, I’m not going to be good company.” A knock came at the door. “I’ve got to go.”
When he answered the door, Ammon stood there barefoot in mesh shorts and a thin, athletic-fabric gray tee. It hugged his body, tracing his pecs and abs. He’d lost weight. A lot, Tean realized now, and he’d added definition and tone to the muscle he already carried. He looked more than ever like the man Tean had fallen in love with. His hair was wet, his cheeks ruddy, and he smelled sweet. Verbena, Tean thought. And lemon.
“Eyes up here,” Ammon said with another of those soft laughs. “Can I come in?”
Tean stepped back. Down the hall, the elevators dinged, and two women traded tips on the slots. Ammon followed him into the room and shut the door.
“I called the hospital. Jager is still in surgery. Unofficially, they say he’ll pull through, but I guess we have to wait and see. The earliest we can see him is tomorrow afternoon.”
“The perfect reason to get away from my family. I looked up Kalista and Nick, by the way. I think those were fake names.”
“That sounds about right. Too bad; wherever they went, I don’t think we’ll see them again.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that; the silence made Tean’s skin prickle.
Ammon smiled. He stepped forward. Tean stepped back and bumped into the desk behind him. The plastic phone clicked in its cradle. Distantly, the elevators dinged again. Ammon stepped forward again, and this time, Tean didn’t have anywhere to go. Ammon’s arms slid around him, pulling him tight. Tean remembered this: the hard lines and planes of Ammon’s body, the way they fit together. He remembered how it felt to stand like this naked, with only Ammon’s arms between him and the world, and to feel safe.
Ammon tried to kiss him, and Tean buried his face in Ammon’s shoulder. If it bothered Ammon, he didn’t give any sign. He laughed, running one hand down Tean’s spine. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” He kissed just below Tean’s ear. “When I thought I’d lost you.” He kissed his neck. “When I thought I’d never see you again.” He kissed his shoulder. “When I thought I’d never get to be with you again, I wanted to die. I’d rather die than lose you. Do you understand that? I will die before I lose you. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
“I’m all sweaty,” Tean whispered, raising his head. “And I don’t know if—I think we should slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down. You’re everything to me. You’re my whole life. And I don’t care if you’re sweaty. You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met. Everything about you turns me on.”
The words popped out before Tean could stop them: “Even my toenail gunk?”
Ammon stopped moving. Then he chuckled. “I forget how you like to ruin a moment.” He released Tean, but he kept him penned against the desk. He got down on his knees. One hand hooked the waistband of Tean’s chinos. With the other, he palmed Tean’s erection. Tean let out a shaky breath, and Ammon smiled up at him, blue eyes bright and surprisingly boyish. “We never got to take our time, did we? I never got to show you how good I can make you feel. I want to make you feel so good, Tean. I want to show you how special you are.” He was still massaging through the chino’s thick cotton, still smiling up at Tean. His fingers slid along the waistband, and one-handed, he undid the button. He yanked the zipper down in two tries and folded back the chinos. Then he leaned forward, kissing the hard line of Tean’s dick through the boxers. “I never got to do this for you,” Ammon said, his voice husky. “But will you believe me when I tell you I jerk off to it? I want you to pull my hair.” He guided Tean’s hands to his head. The strands were silky and soft, and he moaned when Tean buried his fingers in it and gave a soft tug. Ammon leaned forward in response. This time, he licked the cotton boxers, the heat and texture of his tongue making Tean gasp.
A knock came at the door.
“Oh shit,” Tean whispered.
“Ignore it.”
The knock came again, longer and louder.
Tean let go of Ammon’s hair.
“Ignore it,” Ammon said, catching his wrists. “They’ll go away.”
“No.” Tean let out a long, unsteady breath. “No, I think we need to slow down. This is too fast for me.”
For an instant, Ammon’s eyes were flat. Then he shifted his hands to Tean’s waist, his mouth hot and wet as it closed around the head of his dick, pasting the cotton against sensitive skin. He sucked for five seconds, maybe ten, and pulled away. Wiping the back of his mouth with his hand, he got to his feet. His erection bulged behind the gray mesh of his shorts. With a wry grin, he dropped onto the bed, which helped. A little.
Tean adjusted himself, zipped up the chinos, and swore when he saw how he looked in the mirror: face flushed, strands of hair stuck to his forehead, and, as Jem probably would have put it, a boner as big as King Kong and just as hard to miss.
“Tean? Have you fallen in the shower and can’t get up? Press your Life Alert bracelet if you need me, Tean. Tean, tap out in Morse code the lyrics for ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ if you’re being held hostage. Tean, are you trying to take a nap, are you—”
“Just a minute,” Tean said.
“Are you going to smashtown? If you’re going to smashtown, make that fake orgasm noise that I taught you, and I’ll come back in thirty seconds when you guys are finished.”
“Jem, just a minute.”
Panic went a long way to killing the buzz of hormones, and after adjusting himself one last time, Tean opened the door.
When Tean opened the door, Jem was standing there, hair wet and perfectly combed, wearing a Saved by the Bell t-shirt that said ZACK MORRIS IS MY BABY DADDY. Grinning, he pushed into the room. “Seriously, is it porksville in here? What are you—oh.”
“You’re in a better mood,” Tean said.
“Meaning,” Ammon said, “you don’t seem batshit crazy. What the heck was going on with you earlier?”
“Bad case of the grumps,” Jem said, moving to the dresser, where he did something with Tean’s room keycards before drifting to the window. He rolled up the blinds; the Vegas lights wove a quilt of green and red and blue haze over the city. “Aren’t these rooms fucking ace?”
“If I were a World War II fighter pilot, sure.”
“Oh my God, did Ammon Young just make a joke? Did you accidentally fall off a cliff? Maybe you knocked that stick out of your ass.”
“I certainly feel like I hit my head.”
“Ammon was just telling me that he’s already checked with the hospital,” Tean said. “Jager’s still in surgery. We’ll have to see if we can talk to him tomorrow.”
“Great,” Jem said. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Umm, first to get food and drinks. Lots of drinks. And then to Omnia. That’s the club here. And then to get pounded or to do some pounding—gentleman’s choice.”
Tean glanced over at Ammon.
“Seriously?” Jem said. “Your phone has been blowing up since we got here. Have you even looked at the guys who have clawed you on Prowler?”
“Well—”
“Oh my God. You’re extremely hot. You’re smart. You’re a new guy in a town that’s always floode
d with tourists. Let’s find you a rich, greasy sleazeball who will let you fuck him until he calls you daddy. You’ll feel a million times better in the morning.”
Tean glanced at Ammon again. Those blue eyes were as flat and shiny as mirrors.
“Yeah,” Ammon said. “Let’s see who’s been hitting you up.”
“Fuck yeah,” Jem said.
“No,” Tean said. “No way.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“I’m tired. No, I’m exhausted. I’m filthy. I’m hungry. I’m going to get roofied and have my kidneys stolen. I just gave you five good reasons.”
“You gave me four shitty reasons. You said tired and exhausted; that’s the same thing. Let’s see who’s trying to throw your little doggy a bone.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Jem moved faster than Tean expected, snatching the phone from the bed, “let’s find you a hot piece of ass.”
“Give that back,” Tean said, surging up from the bed. Jem fended him off with one hand while he tapped the screen. “Jem, don’t you dare!”
“Here’s Billy, from Missouri. He’s an actor, and he’s in an open relationship. He—”
Tean knocked Jem’s arm out of the way and lunged.
Jem was faster. He tossed the phone to Ammon, who still had an athlete’s reflexes and caught it.
“Or,” Ammon said, swiping at the phone’s screen, “there’s Nottingham. He’s from Utah, big surprise with that name, and he works in musical theater. His favorite place to get coffee is,” Ammon made a face, “out of a bowl on your kitchen floor while you use him as a human footstool.”
“See?” Jem said. “Dick shopping and furniture shopping all at the same time! Vegas is magical.”
“Hippos attract mates by peeing,” Tean said. A little too loudly, maybe, because Ammon lowered the phone and Jem covered his mouth. “And male white-front parrots vomit on the females they want to mate with.”
“Thank God you’re gay,” Jem whispered.
“And male peacocks make fake mating noises to attract mates.” Tean’s face was hot, and he was sweating. He picked at the polo bunched under his arms. “It makes them sound more popular, um, you know.”
“With lady peacocks.”
“They’re called peahens.”
“No, that’s stupid.”
“This whole thing is stupid,” Ammon said, standing and tossing the phone on the bed.
“Jesus Christ. Are you saying that my fake orgasm noise that I taught you is a legit, Animal-Planet sex move?”
“Ok, I’m out,” Ammon said. “You can do whatever you want.”
“He doesn’t need your permission to date.” To Tean, Jem added, “You don’t need his permission to date.”
“Tean, I’d really like to finish our conversation from earlier.”
Tean couldn’t bring himself to meet Ammon’s eyes. He looked at a spot over Ammon’s shoulder. “Maybe not tonight. I really am tired.”
“Yeah. Of course you are.” Ammon stomped toward the door. He tried to slam it shut behind him, but the door closer interfered, and eventually he let out a frustrated breath and marched down the hall.
When the door finally clicked shut, Tean said, “Please don’t say anything.”
“One thing.”
“No. Zero things.”
“One tiny thing.”
Tean couldn’t help himself: he made a high-pitched noise and fell face-first onto the bed. The mattress dipped as Jem dropped down next to him. “Even if you end up with Ammon,” Jem said, “don’t you want to make sure you’re doing it for the right reason?”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Tough titties. This is really, really important. For you, I mean. And you need to do it even though it’s hard. You told me Ammon is your whole life. Ok. But you broke things off with him for a reason, and I think you owe it to yourself to see what else is out there before you decide to spend the rest of your life with someone who treated you like a cum rag for ten years.”
Tean raised himself up enough to glare at Jem.
“Yeah,” Jem said with a tiny smile. “I knew that’d get you mad enough to stop sulking. Let’s look at some hot guys.”
“No.”
But five minutes later, he and Jem were lying shoulder to shoulder on the bed, staring at the screen as Tean tried to decide.
“He’s smart,” Jem said. “He’s an anesthesiologist.”
“He’s giving his mom a piggy-back ride.”
Swipe left.
“This guy brings his own bag of anal training cones. Look!”
Tean couldn’t close his eyes fast enough.
Swipe left.
“Ricardo has a nice penis.”
“It’s not that nice. And he’s got a bull tattoo, which means he’s compensating for something.”
Swipe left.
“This is pointless,” Tean said. “Did you know that on average, ten percent of dating accounts are created by scammers?”
Jem flopped onto his side, his head pillowed on Tean’s shoulder.
“And only thirty-three percent of online daters ever form a relationship. An equal number finally just give up.”
“Giving up is underrated. I like giving up.”
“It’s a one-point-eight billion-dollar industry, and it’s all pointless because no matter how much time and effort you put into those online profiles, it doesn’t mean anything. Research has shown that people decide whether or not they’re attracted to someone within three seconds of meeting in person.”
“Three seconds seems like a long time. It doesn’t take me that long.”
“When they survey women about dating fears, women mostly fear that they’ll date a psychopath who will hurt or kill them. Men, on the other hand, in a charming example of how fucked up the entire male gender is, are afraid of a lot of things: they’re afraid a woman will come between them and their friends, they’re afraid a woman won’t allow him to have free time, they’re afraid she’ll be a stalker or high maintenance. But mostly—I’m not even joking here—they’re afraid she’ll be fat.”
“Tean?”
Tean refused to look. He stared at the ceiling, where the paint was imperfect around one of the overhead fixtures.
“I know it’s scary. But you’re very brave. And more importantly, you deserve to be happy, and that means taking some risks. It means trying new things. Sometimes, it means letting old things go.”
“Ammon—”
“I’m not talking about Ammon. I’m talking about a lot of stuff, I guess. But mostly I mean, it’s ok to let things come to an end. You’ve had some bad dating experiences. That’s not your fault. But you need to stop letting that stuff haunt you.”
In the room next door, Ammon was blasting SportsCenter.
Tean squirmed until his head was resting against Jem’s.
“All right.”
“You’ll look at some more?”
“Please don’t tell anyone you gave me a motivational speech.”
“I won’t. I’ll tell everyone you gave me a demotivational speech.”
“That would be perfect,” Tean murmured.
Fifteen guys later, it was a match. Jem passed off the phone so Tean could type, but he insisted on Tean reading every new message to him.
“This is perfect,” Jem said, bouncing on the bed hard enough to shake Tean. “This is perfect. He wants to have dinner tonight. He wants to have drinks tonight. Say yes!”
“It seems—”
“If you say too fast, I will go borrow that other guy’s bag of anal cones and shove them all up your butt at once. Say yes. This guy is cute. He’s got a nice smile. He writes polite messages. And the whole point is to try something while we’re here. If you don’t like him, you don’t have to smush. Just pay for your half of the meal and get out of there.”
Tean hesitated. Then he typed: Yes, I’d love that.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” Jem screamed, grabbing Tean in a bear hug and rolling across the mattress. They hit the floor in a tangle. Jem burst out laughing. Tean, to his own surprise, burst out laughing too. Then, slapping Jem’s chest, he tried to work his way free.
“What the heck is wrong with you?”
“God,” Jem said, still laughing, “I don’t even know.”
31
When Tean left for his date—freshly showered, hair combed and styled courtesy of Jem, and wearing a powder-blue button-up that made him so gorgeous Jem wanted to cry—Jem made a big show of going back to his room. He wished Tean goodnight, loudly. He walked to his room, loudly. He shut the door as loudly as he could, although the door closer made it difficult. Then he pressed an ear to the door and waited.
The elevator dinged.
Thirty seconds.
Ammon’s door opened.
Jem counted to fifteen, checked that he had his own room key as well as Tean’s spare, which he had stolen on his earlier visit, and let himself out into the hall. Ammon had changed into jeans and a short-sleeve gray henley, and he stood at the bank of elevators, pressing the down button.
“Hey stranger,” Jem said as he joined him. He flashed a hard smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Ammon’s face was expressionless.