by A. Nybo
“But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want to be with Josh?”
“Yes, but I also want to be with you.” He looked away, but I could see the blush running up his neck. “I think the question now is whether you want to be with me. Because if you don’t, I’ll just bow out now and save us all the embarrassment.”
His head snapped around to me. “I don’t think I could do it without you.”
Say what? Bubbles of happiness fizzed in my chest, but I tried to remain calm. “Why is that?”
He shrugged. “I… you make me feel….” He laughed. “I was going to say you make me feel easy, but that’s not going to sound good given the context.” He stared out over the ocean, “You make me feel things can be easier—that they don’t always have to be as hard as I make them.” He paused. “I was going to say you give me relief, but I think that’s probably the wrong thing to say as well. Okay, third time lucky,” he said. “How about you ease me.”
My heart felt it was about to burst with pleasure knowing I could be that for him. I couldn’t keep the grin from my face, so I gave up trying. I bumped his shoulder with mine. “I think you’ve said enough, so I just want to hold you and possibly never let you go.”
“Would you?”
“Do you really want me to?”
When he nodded I stood and slid in behind, a leg on either side of him. I wrapped an arm around his chest, and putting my hand to his forehead, I pulled his head back onto my shoulder. “I don’t usually do this in public, but it’s pretty isolated here, so I think we’re safe.” I put my cheek to the side of his head and buried my nose in his cropped hair. With the familiar but faint scent of coconut, I guessed he’d been running his hands through his hair after messing with the board wax.
He abruptly shot to his feet, and I wondered if he had been bitten by something. “Maybe we should go for a surf,” he said.
I looked dubiously at the flat ocean and then back at him. It was his strange stance that gave him away, having used it myself a time or two. He was trying to hide a hard-on. I rose to my feet and pretended I didn’t notice. “Might have to try somewhere else,” I suggested. “No sets here today.”
On the way back toward Margs, the silence suggested his brain was working overtime. “So what are your thoughts on the subject?” I asked.
“Does it really matter? It’s not as if Josh is going to be into it.”
Jesus, if only he knew. “Okay, how about this.” The amount of times I’d said that over the past few days made me feel like a master-plotter—which I guess I was, but I wondered how I’d fallen into the role, as I wasn’t exactly the planning kind of person. “You think on it, and if you decide you want to do it, I’ll bring Josh around.” More like I’ll beat Josh off with a stick until you make up your mind. Although the thought was amusing, it wasn’t really true either. Josh had made it clear as an open window that Dan would have to approach him.
“How do you plan to do that?”
“You’ve got enough to think about, so leave Josh to me. Okay?” He nodded. “So let me know when you’ve made a decision one way or another, and we’ll take it one step at a time. Yeah?”
What the hell had I done? The wait was going to drive me insane, and knowing Dan, it would be weeks before he made a decision.
With the onshore wind, it was obvious we weren’t going to get a decent surf in, so I dropped Dan back at his car, and the first opportunity I got, I texted Josh. Got a minute?
What’s up?
Subject broached. Within two seconds my phone rang.
“What did he say?” Josh’s deep voice rumbled.
“Hello to you too,” I laughed. “Anyone would think you were a bit eager.”
He laughed too. “Hi, Luke. How was your day? Good! Now, what did he say?”
“He said more than he wanted to, I think, but the upshot is that he’s thinking about it.”
A sigh came from the other end of the line. “That’s as good as a no with Dan. Not because it is a no, but because by the time he figures it out, the question will no longer be relevant.”
“Hm, I wouldn’t bet on that. Lust can be a powerful motivator.” That was how I became the master-fucking-plotter. “And let me tell you, the dude is lusting heavily.”
“Oh?” Being a cagey person, his poor attempt to mask his interest was unsettling.
“Josh, if he goes ahead with this and then decides it’s not for him, is that going to be a problem for you?”
I hoped the pause before he answered was him giving it serious thought. “No.” He chuckled. “Who’s being Pama Bear?”
Since when had I found it necessary to be protective of Dan—especially when it came to his best friend? The very friend that had promised to hunt me down if I hurt Dan, the one that refused to even make a bet in case Dan got hurt. Even I noticed the thread of nervousness in my laugh. “So is this official?” I asked trying to deflect. “You’re Muppet and I’m Pama Bear?
“Aren’t bears usually denoted by their size and amount of body hair?” I could hear his grin.
“Give us time. We’re only young yet. We’ve got plenty of time to get big and grow excess body hair,” I laughed.
“So we’ll be the Three Bears? What about when we go surfing at Three Bears? Does that mean it’ll be Six Bears? What’s the collective noun for bears?”
“An orgy? I’m hanging up on you now.” I cackled. As I pulled the phone from my ear to press the off button, I could hear Josh laughing.
Even after my smile disappeared from our call, an inner smile lingered. As I put my phone in my pocket, I tried to weigh up how much came from the implication Josh made when he assumed the three of us could sustain a relationship long enough to know ourselves as the Three Bears.
Over the following week, Josh and I got together at my place a few times to keep our relationship out of Dan’s face so it wouldn’t throw him into any more turmoil. Dan and I went surfing almost every day, but the proposition was never spoken of. I was starting to wish I had never mentioned it. Dan was pulling away from me physically. He was jumpy when I touched him, like he thought every touch was a pass, and he was hyperaware of his body space. Any time I breached that invisible circle, he leaped away like he’d been tasered. The way he was closing off made me feel heavy and flat, like the spark within me was slowly winking out.
Chapter 7
DAN
I WAS beginning to wonder if something was medically wrong with me. I was in a constant state of arousal. Mostly it was an emotional thing, but it was crossing over to the physical, and now I couldn’t get within a foot of either Josh or Luke without getting a hard-on. It wasn’t normal. It was like my body had made some decisions and refused to entertain any counterarguments from my mind.
Not that my mind was being all that helpful. Mostly it liked to focus on the flicker of a muscle, the stubble on Josh’s jaw, the smooth skin of Luke’s lower back that faded from tanned brown to almost alabaster lower down.
Was this what people meant when they said someone made them feel young again? If it was, I could do without it. Both Luke and Josh were making me feel as horny as a teenager. I was certainly masturbating as frequently as I had when I was in my teens, although now it was so I didn’t embarrass myself rather than chasing pleasurable sensations.
I had to set limits because the chafing from overwork was becoming painful, so I only had emergency wanks. Today’s first emergency was when I woke up at 4:30 a.m., an early morning surf with Luke being the trigger. Sure, the cold water, the coolness of the morning, and being able to hide below the water were all helpful, but as I discovered, it wasn’t enough. Not if I wanted to spend any time actually surfing. It’s difficult to surf when you have to keep your crotch below the waterline.
Although it was light enough to see shapes, the sun hadn’t made an appearance by the time Luke and I were out in the lineup at Redgate. A few others were out there, but they were far enough away
for Luke and I to chat privately.
“Are you okay?” I asked. He’d been a bit flat of late and had hardly spoken at all this morning.
He studied me. “I would ask you the same thing if I thought you’d tell me.”
I held his gaze, but I what I wanted to do was fall off my board and hide beneath the water until he went home.
“Why’s that?” I’ve always found it’s best not to show your entire hand when the other person only asks to see one card—that is, of course, if you’ve got more than one card to show, and right now, I was holding at least half a deck.
“You’ve been a bloody moody bastard lately, and anytime I ask, you tell me everything is fine.” When he looked out the back, where the waves could be seen approaching, my gaze followed and I could see the dark shapes of a set rolling in.
“Oh.” There wasn’t much I could say to counter his accusations. What he said was true.
With a single glance, he dropped the subject and concentrated on paddling to kick into the oncoming swell. I watched as he paddled furiously, positioned himself on the shoulder, and dropped into the wave.
From what he said, it was clear this was a problem I had created and I needed to be the one to fix it. I had built the wall; now I had to demolish it. But what was I supposed to say? Sorry, but it makes me cranky not being able to be close to you because every time I am, I get a hard-on. I shook my head when I realized that I probably could say something like that to Luke, but then I might have to continually defend myself. Which was the lesser problem, explaining myself constantly or losing the type of friendship we had? It’s not like I thought Luke would just stop hanging out with me altogether, although that was something I had to consider. No one enjoyed hanging out with a moody prick.
Returning from the white water to the lineup, Luke paddled his board back alongside me.
“It’s the same old problem,” I said. “It just has a new twist and it’s kinda doing my head in.”
He looked confused. “What’s the same old problem?” His mind had probably been to a thousand places since we started this conversation, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he had no idea what I was talking about.
“What’s been bugging me.”
“Oh. So what’s the new twist then?”
I looked around to ensure no one had drifted close enough to overhear me. I was about to embarrass myself and I didn’t want to do it in front of the entire group that was at the lineup. I cleared my throat. “I can’t get too close to you or Josh.”
He frowned. “Do we have rabies? I sure as hell haven’t been frothing at the mouth, and I haven’t seen Josh frothing at the mouth either.” He was quiet for a moment, and then his seriousness slipped. He bit at his lip in an effort not to grin. “Okay, but technically it wasn’t froth.”
This talk was going worse than I thought it would. I didn’t know what the hell to do with his allusions, so I remained silent.
He grew serious again. “Look, I was just trying to lighten the mood, but I chose the totally wrong thing to joke about. Sorry. But bloody hell, Dan, I don’t know what to say to you anymore. You won’t talk to me, you make sure we don’t accidentally touch, hell, you don’t even like me getting within cooee of you.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Well, tell me some other way, because all I recall is that you can’t get too close to either of us. You haven’t told me why. Hence the rabies comment.”
I scanned the area again. “Because I get aroused if I get too close.”
The lack of sunlight stole the color from his eyes, and it was like pits of dark suspicion were staring me down. “What do you mean?”
“What the fuck do you think I mean?” I snapped. “I get a hard-on.”
A laugh from my left caused a sinking feeling. I hadn’t meant to say it that loud, but it didn’t really matter, I doubted they knew what I was talking about anyway—that’s if the laugh was even caused by my comment.
Luke remained totally unaffected by my abruptness. “Seriously? Just from standing near us?”
“That question would be a lot more tolerable if you didn’t have a dick of your own,” I huffed. “They’re not exactly rational decision-makers.”
“Okay, but fuck man, I don’t know what to say. Sorry? Or maybe, lucky you? I don’t know really.”
“No,” I mused unhappily. “Me either.”
“Have you given any more thought to my suggestion?” I side-eyed him. I’d hardly thought of anything else. It must have been written on my face, because a knowing smile graced his lips. “Okay, then maybe it’s time you made a decision.”
“I have,” I said. His head snapped back to look at me. “At least a hundred times.” I could relate all too well to his visible deflation. I would lay money on him giving the same internal sigh of boredom and frustration as I did. He was probably as tired hearing about it as I was thinking about it.
“Maybe it was the wrong decision then. Ever thought of that?”
I appreciated the way he never asked what my decision had been before suggesting I might have made the wrong one. Although I had already guessed as much, it confirmed he wasn’t just trying to get into my pants—he cared how I felt.
“Only the first two times,” I said. “After that I realized it didn’t matter which decision I made, neither one stuck.”
Luke’s smile was gentle. “The thing you gotta remember about decision-making, Dan, is that it doesn’t really matter what you choose. What matters is that you commit to your choice.”
I nodded. The simplicity of it made it an attractive philosophy, and if it helped him with decision-making, who was I to interfere? I had no desire to clutter his mind with the multitudinous aspects involved with each decision I made. But neither did I understand what the hell the point was of sticking to a bad decision.
“Yeah, well,” I finally said, “I don’t think I’m quite desperate enough to commit to losing my best friend in order to get my rocks off.”
“But that’s not what this is about, is it? If it was a matter of just getting your rocks off, you could use your hand.”
“No, it’s not.” I looked out the back for a set. I was tired of this conversation, tired of the topic. Fuck it. I was just tired.
“Besides, who says you’d lose your best friend? Ever think he might just understand your problem? It’s not like he hasn’t faced something similar.” Luke looked around to see how close the others were and lowered his voice. “I’m assuming he braved coming out to you at some point.”
“But it’s not just coming out, is it? I would effectively be dumping the whole friend-fuck dilemma on him, just so I could be relieved of the responsibility.”
Luke shook his head and issued a dry chuckle. “Seriously, Dan, you make everything so complicated. It would only be partially his responsibility, and that would depend on his decision what to do with the information.” He prodded my chest with his index finger and grinned. “Stop trying to rob others of their chance to make a decision.” And then he mumbled, “Fucking responsibility pig.”
Shocked, I looked down at my chest where he’d prodded me. That was the first time his touch hadn’t send a spark of electricity spiraling through my body. Was it because he’d touched the wetsuit instead of skin? Or was the weird thing that caused the electric touch disappearing? The thought I might have overcome the problem by sheer endurance caused hope to skitter in my chest. Maybe I wouldn’t have to make a decision at all.
My mood improved immediately, and once we’d finished our session, we headed back to town. By the time I turned into Luke’s driveway, we had returned to the joking and mucking around that had been dormant between us for the past week or so. Everything was returning to normal and the relief was huge. I really did feel lighter.
Luke opened the car door, and with one foot to the ground and one still in the car, he collected the balled-up towel that contained his wetsuit from the footwell. He picked a misted-up bag out of it. “H
ere, this is your wax.”
As I pinched the bag between my fingers, our hands knocked together, and his touch sent an overcharged electrical sensation through my body. I yanked back with such speed, my momentum sent the bag into the back of the car. Surprised, Luke and I both turned to look at the offending object, now sitting on the back seat appearing all innocent.
“What the…?” Luke turned back to me.
I felt like someone had turned a flamethrower on my face from two feet away, it was burning so badly. Anxiety slammed into me with such force that I thought I was going to throw up.
An odd strangled laugh escaped Luke, and that was it. I lost it. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. My body was my enemy. I had never been so highly aroused, nauseous, and hysterical, all at the same time. I didn’t even know it was possible to have all those competing feelings at once.
Thinking I was going to throw up, I released my seat belt, opened the door, and leaned out. Weak with uncontrollable laughter, I couldn’t hold the door in close enough, and when it opened fully, I overbalanced and fell out of the car. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my face began to contort with the unbridled emotion, and suddenly I wasn’t sure whether I was laughing or crying. Then for a fleeting moment I realized they were the same fucking thing—the release of overwhelming emotion.
But the moment passed, and I lay there on the ground crying as I tried to pull my legs from the car. Thankfully, Luke was still half-in, half-out his side of the car, laughing his box off, so I took the opportunity to pull myself together. I was still wiping my eyes with my arm and sighing when Luke appeared from around the back of the car. It was easy enough to pretend the crying hadn’t happened and the tears were from laughing.
“Are you okay?” he stifled another bout of laughter.
“Yeah, I think so.”
He held out a helping hand and I prepared for the electric experience so I wouldn’t try to knock his hand away in shock. Grabbing it, I hoisted myself upright when he pulled.