A Righteous Man

by Crownover, Jay

  He was reading scripts until dawn, planning projects with Jeno when most people were dreaming, and if none of that was enough to occupy his thoughts, he would play video games until the sun came up.

  I’d woken up more than once to him tapping away on his phone screen. I’d also woken up and discovered him simply watching me with a look that could only be described as wonder on his face. He made it pretty clear through both his words and actions that he was amazed that I let him back in my world after so many years of accusing him of ruining it. It might’ve come across as a lot, or suffocating, but because it was Salinger and he was shockingly honest in everything he did these days, I was flattered and a little bit touched that he viewed being with me as something special and precious.

  I learned that while he outwardly still looked like a rebellious bad boy who played by his own rules, he was actually a lot more careful and cautious than he had been as a teenager. He was a homebody and very much a guy who kept to himself. He did his best to stay out of the limelight. He didn’t party or go out. He didn’t drink or mingle with the pretty people like he used to. One might actually consider him boring these days. It was evident that his struggle with addiction had left scars and very deep impressions all throughout him. He mentioned it wasn’t so much regret over the fact he nearly died on more than one occasion that finally brought him around; it was the realization that he was hurting the few people who loved him unconditionally over and over again that woke him up and forced him to change. When he talked about the past, I could see how deeply he regretted his actions and how apologetic he was. I knew he was close to his stepbrother already, but now that I was in the picture pretty permanently, I understood that their bond went as deep as any brotherhood could go. Jeno saved Salinger’s life, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the younger man—including putting up with his insufferable mother.

  During our time together, I’d figured out I wasn’t the only one who’d held a grudge and didn’t want to acknowledge that Salinger might have made major changes in his life. He said he had actual enemies who were out to get him and teased that my dislike of him when he originally came back into my life was barely a blip on his radar. I didn’t like hearing he was so easily hated, but he assured me he had the situation under control. He just had to be careful because whatever went down, he didn’t want his relationship with Jeno to be affected. Salinger learned to take responsibility, even bearing the weight of wrongs that weren’t his, for the sake of his younger brother.

  He was a righteous man.

  I never thought I would think of him in those terms: a really, really good guy or a grown man. But here I was. Fooling around with him felt beyond good and made me feel beautiful and powerful, but I knew if I wasn’t careful, I would fall for him, which was problematic on so many levels. I kept telling myself to focus on ‘it’s all fun and games’ and ignore ‘until someone gets hurt.’ I could keep things light and breezy when Salinger wasn’t around. It was a lot harder to get my heart to behave when I saw how much he cared about me, and when his every action toward me was filled with so much more kindness than the man I’d married had ever shown me.

  Speaking of my idiot ex. I was currently awake and very irritated because he’d been calling me for the last twenty minutes after sending a flurry of text messages I refused to read. My plan was to ignore him altogether because I had nothing to say to him, and I knew he wouldn’t call after midnight if he was sober or in his right mind.

  But Salinger, who was awake when the harassment started, was having none of it. Before I could stop him, he leaned over me and plucked my furiously vibrating phone off the nightstand, swiping to answer the call even as I protested and reached for his hand.

  “Why are you calling Maren in the middle of the night? She doesn’t even want to talk to you when it’s a reasonable hour.” There was no greeting, and there was none of the softness in his voice or his expression that was usually there when we were in bed together.

  Erik responded at top volume. I couldn’t make out his exact words, but I knew he was swearing and raising hell. I doubt he expected anyone else to answer my phone, let alone another man. I sighed and lifted my eyebrows as Salinger chuckled at whatever was happening on the other end of the line. Since we were both awake now, and he looked particularly delectable wearing nothing but the white bed sheet bunched up around his waist, I leaned closer and dragged the tip of my index finger across the tattoo that decorated his stomach. Sometimes it looked like his abs had abs when he flexed and moved just right. He was in really great shape for someone who hardly slept and lived on takeout food. He mentioned that Jeno kept him on a pretty strict workout routine that was good for wearing out his body so he could sleep a little, but also took commitment and mental fortitude. So, even if I didn’t see him breaking a sweat regularly, the evidence was in his lean, muscled build that barely had an extra ounce of fat anywhere.

  Oh, to be in your twenties with a metabolism that worked in overdrive. I didn’t often think about the difference in our ages, but when I had to count calories to make sure I could fit into whatever outfit I had waiting for me, it occurred to me that we were definitely in different phases of our lives. Luckily, I think we both found the differences interesting rather than burdensome. The divide between us when we were younger was too large to surpass; our differences in experience and understanding were too vast back then. Nowadays, we were on more equal footing when it came to having lived and learned.

  I heard Salinger suck in a breath as my finger dipped into the divot of his bellybutton. He shifted under my hand when my fingers slipped along the golden happy trail that darted underneath the fabric of the sheet. His hair all over was an interesting mix of blond and brown, light in some spots, dark in others like it couldn’t make up its mind. I always thought the hair on the top of his head was courtesy of an expensive stylist, but I knew now the unusual mix and match were God-given and unique to Salinger Dolan.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is Maren obviously doesn’t want to talk to you, so leave her the fuck alone. Don’t you have a pregnant wife at home you should be taking care of? Dude, you are one big fucking mess. Get your shit together.” He hissed a sound through his teeth when I moved the blankets away from his waist, revealing the ruddy tip of his cock. It was already semi-hard, looking as impressive as ever. When I touched the tip with my finger, he muttered my name and held the phone away from his ear as Erik exploded with a new round of profanity. This time it was so loud I could hear every dirty word and the unhinged rage that colored his tone.

  I had no idea why he suddenly reached out, but I knew I had no need for whatever it was he was trying to bring back into my life.

  Salinger’s dick twitched, and his eyebrows lifted as I circled the tapered head with the pad of my thumb. His stomach clenched, muscles locking as his body reacted underneath my hands. He really was a beautiful man from head to toe. Regardless of where this thing between us went in the future, there was no way I could look back at having him in my bed and body without feeling a sense of pride and a bit of smugness. He made me feel like he was the lucky one to be with me, but I knew there was an entire nation of women—and men—who would kill to be in my place.

  Salinger sighed at whatever nonsense my ex was spewing, but the sound turned into a low moan that finally shut Erik up as I used my tongue to lick around the sensitive rim that flared around the head of his cock. Salinger’s free hand found the crown of my head, and his fingers threaded through my hair. It wasn’t the first time I’d had his cock in my mouth since we started hooking up on the regular, but it was the first time I’d touched anyone in such an intimate manner while someone else was technically in the room. Erik would have an embolism if he knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to him because my mouth was busy with other things.

  “If she wants anything to do with your sorry ass, she’ll call you. Otherwise, leave Maren alone and focus on what you have going on under your own roof. Maren’s too nice to
out you for being the asshole you are, but I’m not. I have no issue contacting the friends I have left in the press and leaking the fact that you’re harassing your ex-wife every chance you get, you washed up loser.” Salinger grunted, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of something Erik said or because I wrapped my lips fully around his length and lowered my head downward, taking as much of him into my mouth as I possibly could.

  History taught me I couldn’t fit all of him in my mouth, so I always needed a hand free to wrap around the wide base of his erection. When the tip hit the back of my throat, my eyes watered a little, so the sight of my phone flying somewhere to the floor as Salinger tossed it was a bit blurry. His free hand reached for my face, and I felt his thumb brush along the curve of my jaw as my mouth moved up and down, sucking and slurping along the rigid length of his cock.

  “That guy is such an asshole. I feel bad for his wife.” He grunted when I used my tongue to trace the heavy, throbbing vein that pulsed along the underside of his erection. “I feel bad for you too. You shouldn’t have to deal with him now that your divorce is final.”

  I didn’t need anyone to fight my battles with my ex for me, but I had to admit, it was kind of nice to have a buffer for once. Not that my friends hadn’t tried to shield me from the worst of the blowback when Erik’s bad behaviors became public knowledge. There was something different about having Salinger here to defend me. I tightened my hand, where I held his most sensitive body part, and watched as his eyes widened a little in alarm. I pulled off the hard flesh that was in my mouth so I could tell him in a dry tone, “You’ve been in showbusiness your entire life. You know that the more high-profile the couple is, the longer they are tied together in people’s minds.”

  Look at Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. They’d been divorced longer than they were married, and Brad had moved on and married someone equally famous, but people still tied him and Jennifer together. It always annoyed me that it seemed like she couldn’t be mentioned without always bringing up him immediately as well, and it was a legitimate fear of mine that I would end up in the same situation.

  “We’re going to be in the same situation if what we’re doing with one another becomes common knowledge.” It already took me a decade to get my name out of people’s mouths when they were talking about Salinger. If the general population found out we were sleeping together, I’d be tied to him and Erik until my last breath, and I could already see the judgment from people claiming I traded one playboy for another, even though Salinger was anything but.

  He grunted when I lowered my head back to its previous position, swallowing him down and shifting my legs in anticipation as a hint of his salty, musky flavor hit my tongue.

  “Guess it’s a good thing I like having any part of me entangled with any part of you, even if it is just our names. If I can’t manage to hold onto you for very long, at least I’ll never forget you were mine for a little bit.”

  I gasped because he was just so damn good with words, even better in person than he was in the script that got me here in the first place.

  I made a startled noise as he suddenly reached for me and pulled me on top of him. I had put on an oversized t-shirt before I went to sleep, so his hands had to reach under the fabric to glide across my skin. I watched him with wide eyes as he lowered himself to the mattress, gave me a cocky grin, and urged me to turn around.

  It took me a minute to get the gist of what he wanted me to do, but the minute I bent over, with a hand braced on the bed and my mouth full of him, I felt his warm breath and rough hands on the parts of me that I should be embarrassed to have all up in his face.

  But his tongue was too talented, and his fingers were too quick to worry about what he was looking at. All I could focus on was how he was making me feel. My body tightened and got heated so fast, it was almost like we hadn’t had sex mere hours ago. He had that effect on me, and I could tell by the way his erection was flexing and pulsing against my swirling tongue that I had the same effect on him.

  I felt his tongue push inside of me as his fingers played with my clit. I was still sensitive from our earlier encounter, so I immediately felt like I was drowning in sensation. I slid a hand along Salinger’s muscled thigh and glided it along the inside of his leg. I used a fingertip to trace along the tightness of his drawn-up sac, and heard and felt him growl against my now wet and slippery opening.

  The room quickly filled with the sounds of sucking and sex. It was heady, and my skin suddenly felt too tight.

  There was no room left to worry about my past or our combined future. All we could do was feel. I’d face the fallout of my choices when I didn’t have any other option. Right now, I just wanted to enjoy the moment, because I liked having any part of me entangled with any part of him, and I was finding I wanted it to be much more than our names.

  Salinger

  “DID YOU REALLY have to go and ban my mom from entering the house? You know I’m never going to hear the end of it. I thought she was going to lock me in my old room at her house and not let me out the last time I visited her.” Jeno heaved a sigh and turned to look at me as I tapped on the steering wheel of the Audi.

  We were headed to Santa Monica to visit our grandmother, but traffic was at a standstill as usual. Jeno had brought up his mom more than once over the last few days, which indicated she was really harping on him about not being allowed at my house. She would not let him breathe until I put her back on the entry list.

  “I told you if she wants to visit you at the house, she is more than welcome to come and see you. You can go down to the gate and let her in, and you can keep an eye on her while she’s there. I don’t want her in my house whenever she wants. It’s uncomfortable for me to randomly come across her, and I think it’s weird she comes and goes as she pleases, even when she knows you won’t be there. I didn’t ban her. I put limitations on her. You’d think she, of all people, would understand the difference considering all the rules she tried to cram down your throat.”

  He sighed again and leaned his head to the side so it was resting on the passenger’s window. “Blocking her from coming into the house has made her even more determined to get me to move home. She wants me to stop working with you and go to school. She’s driving me nuts, saying the same things over and over again. She’s convinced you’ve brainwashed me and are trying to lure me over to the dark side. She even tried to get me to do a drug test last time I saw her. I almost gave in just to get her to chill out, but I knew if I did, it would open the door to even more outrageous demands.”

  “I’m not going to say anything because that’s your mom, and I know you love her, but you are an adult with your own life and his own goals and dreams. Until she recognizes that, she’s always going to steamroll right over you and declare it’s for your own good. There is absolutely no reason she needs access to my house when you aren’t there. Even if it is to do something nice like stock the fridge or do your laundry. It’d be a different story if she didn’t make it abundantly clear on several occasions that she hates my guts. But considering her animosity toward me, I have to tell you straight up that I don’t trust her.” And, I wasn’t about to let anyone who didn’t respect me, and who purposely tried to trigger me, into my space. I had very clear and defined boundaries I protected with everything I had in me. Because I knew if one of those walls fell down when I wasn’t looking, I’d end up right back where I started, drugged up and strung out. That scenario was not acceptable. I had so much more to lose this time around, and none of it was as superficial as my money or my image.

  “Sometimes, I wonder if you just misunderstand her because your mom was never very mom-like. I think the bad blood between the two of you is a holdover from when she was married to your dad and took out all her frustrations with him on you. She’s not a monster. She’s just a little overzealous and wants the best for me. You can’t deny that you were a pretty bad influence back then. No mom wants her kid to go through the things you went through. I would really like fo
r the two of you to make peace someday. You’re both important to me, and I hate feeling like I’m caught between you guys. I’m constantly walking a tight rope because I don’t want to disappoint either of you.”

  I inched the car forward a few feet and gave him a look out of the corner of my eye. “You’ll never disappoint me.” It was true. He could steal everything in my house, drain my bank account, crash the Audi, or walk away from our new business venture without a backward glance, and I’d still love him. “If you want to move out, you can. If you want to go to college, you can. If you want to do something totally different from making movies or higher education, I’ll support you in that as well. I just want you to be happy and to live up to your full potential. I’ve got your back through the good, the bad, and the ugly.” The biggest difference between his mom and me was that I wanted him to figure out what made him the happiest on his own terms. I didn’t want him to have to conform to anyone else’s idea of success.