by Jacy Braegan
While just dancing behind him for a while, I track the way his body moves making mine unconsciously follow along. Even though I haven’t seen his face, that body of his looks like it’s made for fucking good and hard. Damn, but I could really use that tonight. It’s time to make my move. I can always bail later if he’s ugly as sin, right? Just as he raises his arms over his head, I reach a hand out to his hip. Instead of the fabric of his shirt, I glide my fingers against silken skin. Sparks shoot through my fingertips at the skin-to-skin contact that makes me shiver. Fuck, I’d never responded to Blake like that. Do I need to get laid that badly that a stranger attracts me so strongly?
His body goes lax as he leans back against me to dance without even looking back at me. A grin crosses my face as I grind my hips up against this stranger before me, letting him feel all of me. Our bodies press against each other in matching movements before I catch sight of a familiar face. Clay moves until he spies me dancing behind the man. A smile starts to cross my lips before I stutter in my steps a bit at the look forming on his face. Oddly enough, he looks rather shocked to see me. What the hell? Is it that surprising to see me socializing after what happened? Clay’s wide eyes fly back just as the man in my arms starts to turn to look over his shoulder. That’s when it hits me. My entire body freezes as I lock eyes with the dark ones of my old best friend. My Aidan.
It’s as if the entire world goes suddenly still and silent. I don’t catch the word his lips form, but the recognition in those eyes tells me it’s my name falling from his mouth. Shock renders me useless. I tear my eyes from his and flee. Just like when we were fifteen, I’m running.
Chapter 7
Aidan
There are hot men all around and my best gal and best friends surround me. Life can’t get much better (aside from the whole significant other business). It’s a nice summer night. The breeze outside truly makes it feel almost like heaven. Thankfully, it cooled off when the sun went down, or we’d have all been sweaty messes before we even made it through the doors of the club.
What would make the night even better? A hot guy to dance with. That wish is granted as I feel a hard body smaller than my own press against me from behind. I don’t fight the smile that crosses my face before leaning back into that form. What he looks like right now doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m going to take home the first guy that dances or flirts with me.
With as close as our bodies are, his attraction to me is clear as I feel him hardening against me. making me most intrigued with the situation. Okay, maybe I will take the first guy that dances with me home, if the size of his dick is any indication of his looks (we all know how that goes, so don’t pretend with me).
The mystery has me motioning my head to Clay, sending him to do reconnaissance for me on who’s behind me. He’ll give me the heads up on if disappointment is in my future when my eyes lay on the guy. It’s not the first time we’ve pulled this move, so he knows exactly what to do. With an ever so subtle nod of his head, he spins around to my side. Clay’s laughter dies as his face reflects complete shock in a matter of mere seconds. It won’t be easy to forget that look. Interesting.
Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat. Tonight, it got me, too. Who the hell is behind me? As the guy’s movements falter, I turn my head to look behind me, meeting a pair of soulful blue eyes… and not just any blue eyes. These are the blue eyes that taunt my dreams at night. They belong to the boy I’d long ago loved and lost without ever having him. Shock radiates through me and my eyes widen as a whisper bursts out of me, “Jayson...”
Imagine my surprise when for the second time in my life that man fucking runs from me. It makes little sense this time. Since he’d been about to marry a man, it’s not like he’s still in the closet. He’s obviously gay or bi… so, what the fuck is the problem? I can’t allow history to repeat itself. He doesn’t get to just run away this time. My shocked silence only lasts for all of one moment before I turn to run out of the club behind him, leaving my friends no doubt baffled behind me. Clay will understand, and he might fill in the others, especially Vivi.
Pushing open the glass door of the club, I almost trip and spill out onto the sidewalk with my attention tuned to looking for Jayson. My eyes track left and right as I search for that blond head. A groan slips from within me when I don’t spot him. Yet again, Jayson has slipped through my fingers and disappeared. Fate has shoved him in front of me twice now. How was I to find him? Dammit all to hell.
I let my head hang before turning dejectedly to go back into the club. Facing the double doors, the mood for partying leaves me. I can’t forget the electricity that ran through my body as his fingers grazed my skin and I want so badly to feel it again. Let’s face it. I want to see him again. I don’t get it. Why is he always running from me?
* * *
Clay stares at my slumping form as I huddle on the couch where I’d planted myself when we got home. He’s obviously waiting for me to spill the beans making me sigh before raising my eyes to meet his bright green ones. “That’s the second time in my life that man has run from me, Clay.”
Clay looks at me confused as he wrinkles his brow. His head tilts to one side much like a curious puppy. “Who are you talking about?”
“Jayson Martin… the groom that got jilted at that wedding a few months ago. I know him, Clay. Or at least, I used to know him.”
“You do? Why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve invited him to hang out or something. Helped him get over his ex.”
I drop my head back on to the top of the couch, letting my eyes find the ceiling above. It’s not a surprise that Clay isn’t getting my point initially. With a low tone to my voice, I admit the truth. “He’s my Jay….”
Silence greets my words until my friend lets out a gasp that’s no doubt shocked. Apparently, he’d made the connection that Jayson the jilted is also Jay the long-lost boy slash childhood friend. As I prepare to speak, Clay surprises me as the disbelief comes tumbling out of his mouth with his words. “You have got to be shitting me, right? No way that’s the boy who you lost when you were kids.”
“It’s him, Clay. I’m one hundred percent sure of that. At the wedding, he saw me, but I don’t think he made the connection. Tonight… he knew who I was. I saw it in his eyes. He got terrified when he realized who was in his arms.”
Sitting up and looking at him, more words spill from me leaving Clay no time to respond. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair to see him and still want him like I always did. Do you know what it does to me to see him again?”
No longer able to sit still, I hop up from the couch, walking toward the bookshelf. Hearing Clay start to speak, I spin around to face him, interrupting his words. “He almost destroyed me then, Clay… you were there.”
“Can I speak now,” Clay asks me in exasperation. After giving him a nod, he goes on speaking, “You need to talk to him. This shit can’t go on a second time. You know he’s here, so find him. Get the full story from him so you can finally move on.”
Another sigh slips from me as I shuffle my feet against the carpet. “What if I need more from him, Clay? What if this time… I want it all?”
Clay sighs and stands up, moving toward the hallway that leads to our bedrooms. As he gets to the archway, he pauses to look at me with sadness visible in his eyes. “Then I hope like hell the man doesn’t hurt you, again. I don’t know if I can live through that again myself.”
Clay disappears down the hallway to bed, leaving me alone in the living room. Looking up at the ceiling, my heart cries out to anyone listening for guidance. It’s bound to be a sleepless night as I slink toward my room for the night.
* * *
It’s Monday again. Most people dread that day, but typically that’s not me. After that weekend, though, it isn’t too hard to find me down in the dumps. Pulling my planner toward me, my sigh fills the silence of the room. Trying to find the motivation I need to finish preparing for my meeting with the new client tomorrow is hard. Clay had
tried to make me feel better over the weekend, but it hadn’t worked. Thoughts of Jayson fill my mind about how he keeps running from me.
Okay, so yeah, I can understand it when we were kids. Growing up in the south during that time, it was sort of ingrained into your thinking that liking your same sex is bad. We’re not kids anymore though and being gay is becoming more accepted. To see the day of true acceptance of being gay or bi will be phenomenal. Hell, we can legally get married now, so the same reasoning can’t hold up and it baffles me.
Just get to work already. Forcing thoughts of Jayson from my mind, I put earbuds into my ears to listen to my work playlist. Just have to drown out all these thoughts and focus. My mind wanders into the music as my eyes slip shut. Focusing on the lyrics of “Cherry Lane” by my favorite band Downward Spiral, I sink deep into my work.
* * *
As my phone alarm goes off, I force my mind back into awareness. Holy crap, it’s already lunchtime? Pushing the button that puts my command center to sleep, I stretch my long form out from the extended period of sitting before heading out of my room. Clay’s at work, so the house is silent. Looking around the kitchen, my mood isn’t leaning toward cooking anything. Maybe getting out of the house will help, so out to lunch it is. The doom and gloom I’m wallowing in needs to stop. With my keys in hand and my shoes on my feet, it’s time to head out the door. It’s hot as Hades out here right now, but at least the air conditioning in my Jeep works great. With the door locked and shut behind me, the thoughts in my head make me oblivious to what’s going on outside. As I set my foot on the first step down off our porch, I look up to meet a pair of startling deep blue eyes. My breath catches in my throat at the realization that Jayson is walking up my front walkway. Freezing mid-step, I gaze at him warily, watching him approach. This meet-up has been ten years in the making and it’s time for answers.
Even seeing him with my own two eyes and it’s hard to believe Jayson’s here. Shaking myself out of my sudden stupor, I manage to speak without my voice wavering with emotion. “Long time, no see, Jayson.”
Apparently, he’s lost in his own head as he approaches my house, so my words appear to startle him. He physically jumps before stopping and focusing his gaze on me. Those blue depths reflect my wariness, but there is also apprehension and fear. Is Jayson scared of me? What the hell did I ever do to him?
“Um, Aidan, there you are. I… I wasn’t sure you’d be home. Most people are at work at this hour. I planned to leave a note, or a message, or... something.”
His rambling is totally adorable, but I don’t want to see him stammering. No answers would be forthcoming if he was stumbling in his own words. I force my tense shoulders to relax. “I own my development business, so I work from home. I was just heading out for some lunch, but I can call in an order. Would you like to come in?”
He gives me a nod of his head but doesn’t speak as he moves forward towards me. We remain in silence as I unlock the door to let us into my house. He walks into the living room and takes a seat in one of the single chairs. It makes little any sense, but a bit of disappointment settles inside me seeing he wants to sit separately. We’re nothing now but strangers with a shared past. Not yet sitting, I lower my dark gaze to look at him. He twiddles his fingers on his lap with his head down. “I can make small talk about the weather, but I have to admit a curiousness on why you’re here, Jayson. And how you knew I live here.”
Jayson lets out a sigh and his shoulders slump forward. He still doesn’t look up at me as he quietly speaks, “Um… My ex was friends with Clay, but I’d been here before. I knew Clay had a roommate I’d never met named Aidan. I put two and two together and hoped I was right. Looks like I was. I... I needed to come apologize for the other night when I ran out of the club. Seeing you surprised me to no end, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t think a public club was a great place for the reunion I knew we’d have.”
“I’ll agree with that. Things might get a little loud because I have a lot of things I’ve wanted to say over the years and trust me… this weekend didn’t help.”
He flinches at my tone as it had hardened some as I sit down on the couch. It didn’t help my mood that he seems so scared of me. He clears his throat as he takes the chance to flick those blue eyes up at me before looking back down at his lap. “Aid… Aidan, I know I had to have hurt you when we were kids. I made promises I didn’t keep, but I hope you’ll forgive me someday. I was just… Back when we were kids, I was so scared.”
Whoa, wait. There’s that word, scared. Seriously, what the hell? Nothing could stop me from leaning forward to butt in. “Scared? Scared of what? Me? Even now, you can’t look at me.”
He sighs again as he lets his eyes raise to meet my own. “You’ve never scared me, Aidan. I feared myself.”
He stops and looks back down momentarily. His shoulders lift as he seems to decide something. His gaze lifts to mine again. “I had been fighting my attraction to you for a year before you kissed me. It was so fucking hard to be around you and I’ve got to admit, something relieved me about the move even though I hated the idea of losing you. I was so sure something was wrong with me and that there was no way you felt the same. The shock of you kissing me? I shut down and ran. By the time I got home, I regretted what I’d done. It was our last night together for a long time, and I didn’t want to leave it like that. I tried to leave the house and come back, but Mom wasn’t having it. She said I’d had time to say goodbye, and that there wasn’t more time to do it again. I wanted to call you over, but I knew my mom would be in and out of my room, so I... let it go.”
Shocked silence controls me as I watch him get up from the chair to move to the couch and sink down on the end opposite me. He sits leaning back against the arm like he always had when we were growing up. I turn to face him, and he continues.
“It devastated me when we reached D.C. You weren’t there, and I missed you horribly. I knew if I contacted you… that it would never get better for me. I needed you with me, not halfway across the country! I couldn’t handle the sadness I knew I would feel every time we stopped talking. I had to just cut it off. I know I should’ve said something to you rather than just ghosting you, but if I had? I would have failed and we both would have been miserable… I…”
I throw up my hands and wave them side to side to cut him off before jumping to my feet in response to pace. “Did it ever occur to you I was miserable without you, too? God, Jayson.”
I shake my head as I walk toward the window. My eyes are no doubt filled with pain as I turn back to face Jayson. It’s taking everything in me to hold back the tears as memories of days gone by flood my mind. “I was fucking wrecked. Losing you like that? It pushed me so far off the deep end, that if it weren’t for Clay and Vivienne, I wouldn’t be here right now. Do you want to know where they found me? They found me standing on the edge of a bridge over the river. I was seconds away from jumping when they dragged me back over the edge.”
His harsh gasp tears through me as my words come to a stop. The sharp edge of old familiar pain slashes through my chest. This conversation is bringing up all those old feelings of depression as expected. Did they have to feel this sharp, though, so many years later? Apparently, I need some kind of closure to let the past go.
The news of my attempted suicide holds both of us in silence before Jayson jumps up from the couch and moves quickly in front of me. The depth of pain in his shining eyes throws me as if he experienced that pain for me. His hands shake as he reaches up for my shoulders with a tear rolling down his cheek. “Oh god, Aidan… I’m so fucking sorry.”
Jayson pulls me tight against his own body as his arms wrap around my neck. Perhaps it’s shock that holds me still for a moment, just relishing how his body fits against mine. Reality sinks back in and my arms raise to slip around him in return. He buries his face in my shoulder and tears soak my t-shirt. Dammit, I never could stand his tears.
Chapter 8
Jayson
/> Aidan’s arm slips around my waist as my tears sink into his shoulder. Fuck, what had I done to him? My best friend had been the strongest person I’d ever known. I wrap my arms tighter around his neck pulling my body even closer to his. Turning my face into his neck, I whisper another apology. “I’m so fucking sorry, Aidan. I don’t know what else to say…”
How will he ever forgive me? I wouldn’t forgive me if I was him. What I’d done was shitty. He’d made me speechless at the news of his past. If only there was a way to turn back time to take away what I did and just learn to deal with the misery of not having him; instead, he’ll live with thoughts of that bridge in his mind for the rest of his life. It’s hard to imagine ever being on the edge like that.
I sniffle loudly as I try to get my tears under control. Leaning back from him, I reach up to wipe the tears from my eyes. As I rub my eyes, I spy a bookshelf behind him. An old black-and-white photo catches my eye. It isn’t just any old photo. It’s a photo of us a few days before my move. My eyes widen as I walk around him to take a closer look at the photo on display. My gaze focuses on Aidan smiling mischievously at the camera with my head tucked into a headlock. All that’s visible of me is the top of my head. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, biting it with my top teeth. What had happened to us? Oh wait, I know. I did.
There’s no doubt a look of confusion enters my eyes as I look over my shoulder at him. If I’d hurt him so much, why’s this picture out in the open where he can see it all the time, or where people can ask him about it. “Why’s this here?”
Aidan turns to see what I’m looking at, and his eyes warm as he takes in the photo of us. He tries to smile a bit at me. “It was a happy memory. I wanted a way to hold on to who I used to be and why. I keep it around as a reminder of better days. You were better days for me, Jay.”