Dennis gave Quinn a helpless, confused look. “He never told you about Hubert.”
“No.” Quinn swallowed. “Sorry we missed the surprise.”
“I wish I did. When will they stop acting like birthdays are some kind of sacred institution?”
“Your mom or your wife?”
“Both.” Dennis stared at him, and Quinn pushed away from his car. “So. You’re gay, huh?”
“You got that newsflash?”
“Kind of hard to miss. What the fuck is with you and that kid?”
“I know he looks young—”
“I’m not worried about jailbait. I’m worried about you.”
Quinn shrugged. Maybe once things with the family settled down he could figure out how he felt about Eli—besides the sex Eli had been so determined to point out. That was part of it, but not all, he knew that already. “He keeps things interesting.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Chrissy was on a mission to make up for Peter’s behavior. Operating under the illusion that any cuddling would compensate for the loss of Hubert, she barely waited until Quinn was seated on the couch before dumping a squirming Gabe onto his lap. The baby scowled for a few minutes and then settled. Quinn figured he’d probably just shit. He lifted the bundle to his shoulder and tried a hesitant pat. No way was he pining for fatherhood. After a brief wet hiss, the baby fell silent.
“You’re magic,” Chrissy said. “I’ve been trying to settle him down for an hour.”
Quinn knew a setup when he saw one. “Do you want me to put him down?”
“Would you? Peter, show him. Thank you. I thought I’d be walking him all night.”
Ah. A double setup. Aside from random squawks and gurgles, Gabe had been fairly unnoticeable during dinner. He’d only howled when the birthday serenade had been in full voice, and Quinn could scarcely blame him. His male cousin was particularly shrill. On the way to the stairs, Quinn and Peter stepped over a recreation of the Battle of Anzio formed out of random fast-food toys from Paula’s purse.
Peter flipped on the lights in the room at the top of the stairs to reveal a nursery in soft shades of yellow. Peter hated yellow. Quinn had wanted a warm soft gold in the bathroom, but Peter had sworn it would make him puke to match the bile color. Now that Quinn thought of it, the house was full of the shade—in the dining room, the kitchen, the gold-colored carpet on the stairs. Maybe that’s why Peter’s face in the wedding pictures looked so sour, he was glaring at the carpet.
“Put him on his back,” Peter instructed.
Quinn lowered the sleeping infant into the crib.
“I never thought you’d want to be there. Thought I could at least spare you that. I’m sorry, Quinn.” Peter’s words were soft, so sincere, Quinn could almost believe him if he didn’t know Peter’s wife had put him up to it.
“You could have asked.”
“Okay. It’s not like it’ll come up again, so I can’t very well fix it.” Before Quinn could back away from the crib, Peter put a hand over his on the rail. “I miss you sometimes. I didn’t plan for it to go like this.”
Damn him. Quinn slipped his hand free.
Peter’s fingers tightened on the crib rail. “Don’t think it’s always easy for me. You’re the only guy I ever—”
Quinn looked away.
“You know,” Peter said, voice thick, “forget it. Hate me. I can’t fix it.”
Quinn wasn’t falling for this. He’d seen too much of Peter’s selfishness to believe he ever thought of anyone but himself. Then Peter had to do that blink thing, like his eyes were filling as he stared down into the crib, reaching out to pat his son’s stomach, drawing a sticky sigh from the baby’s lips. “Did you ever think about this? About us doing this?”
It wasn’t only sex and familiarity that had kept their lives intertwined all those years. They’d shared a lot at first. But Peter had never mentioned anything about an urge to be a father.
“No matter how many loads I dumped in your ass, I didn’t think it would come up.” Maybe Quinn was more bitter than he thought, or maybe he didn’t like the way the elephants getting into Noah’s Ark on the lampshade were leering at him.
Peter shook his head, a disgusted snort barely escaping his throat.
“You could have told me. Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Quinn asked.
“I think you answered that pretty well yourself.”
Chapter Ten
Eli watched Quinn come downstairs, an expression on his face like he’d been gut punched. Fucking Peter again. Quinn’s whole tangle with Peter’s family was a fucking shame. For Quinn, and for Eli.
Because a guy like Quinn would be worth waiting for until he came to his senses over how over him his ex was. Except Quinn never would. Not with this mess pulling him back all the time. The whole Laurent family was a tourniquet cutting off blood supply to a healthy life away from them. The only way to save him was amputation. But since Quinn credited them with saving his life, that would never happen.
When Roger lit a cigar in the living room—who still did that kind of thing around other people anymore?—Eli slipped out onto the now-empty back porch to breathe some non-1950’s air. He should have kept going out into the backyard because Peter came out after him.
“Get bored listening to the grownups talk?” Peter said.
“Why are you following me? Here to offer another blowjob?”
Peter leaned back against the table, legs spread wide. “Taking me up on it? Gonna let me in on what’s so special Quinn had to have it in the bathroom at my son’s baptism?”
“Seriously? This is because you’re jealous?”
“Of you?” Peter made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “Not a chance. I don’t fall in love with men. I fuck them sometimes. You queers get that confused.”
“Right. We’re confused.” Eli rolled his eyes. “I’m going to tell Quinn, you know.”
“Tell him what?” But the smugness in Peter’s face said he knew what Eli meant.
“That you hit on me.”
“You’d risk losing your sugar daddy when he finds out you were fucking around.” Peter folded his arms across his chest.
No one, least of all Quinn, had ever asked Eli to be faithful. If he had a boyfriend like Quinn, it wouldn’t be hard. But he didn’t have a boyfriend. Or Quinn. “I told you—”
“Right. You have an understanding. Bullshit.” Peter straightened up. “Fine. Go ahead and tell him. He’ll never believe you anyway.”
Damn. Eli wished he’d worn his boots with the heel. Though they wouldn’t have put him at eye level with Peter, he’d have a harder time looking down at Eli like that.
Eli stuck his hands in his pockets. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because I know Quinn. I’ve known him for sixteen years. How’s that stack up compared to a piece of boy ass?”
“It’s good enough for Quinn.” If he were anywhere but here, Eli could cut Peter to pieces. Tease him and then tear him a hole big enough to fist without lube. But Eli was trapped by these stupid clothes, this stupid fake happy family, his stupid promise to behave.
“For a month or two. Then he’ll be looking for a real man.” Peter stepped toward Eli to whisper, “He loves to get fucked, you know. Goes nuts for a dick in his ass. Comes so fucking hard.”
Quinn had told him not to come. I’ve got plans for that dick. Was that why? Eli would never be comfortable topping like that. Not with Quinn.
“I’m still going to tell him,” Eli said. And then I’m washing my hands of all of your family bullshit.
Peter laughed. “Good luck with that, kid.”
The bastard sounded too much like Quinn. Eli tightened his fists in his pockets. “Why are you wasting your time out here while your dad gives the baby lung cancer? Shouldn’t you go fake some more affection with your wife?”
The back door opened. “Hey.” Quinn headed for Eli, a smile chasing off some of the tired look from Quinn’s face. “There you
are.”
Eli felt a smile slide up to answer, despite Peter, despite everything. Quinn’s hand cupped the back of Eli’s neck. Maybe Quinn thought he could make Peter jealous. Maybe Quinn had never known what kind of a manipulative piece of shit he’d been involved with all those years.
“Eli wants to tell you something.” Peter’s dare was open, mocking.
“Then he’ll tell me when he wants to.” There was an edge to Quinn’s voice, but his smile for Eli was the same look of indulgence Paula gave her war-obsessed toddler.
Eli sealed his lips against the desire to take the bait. It wasn’t that he believed Peter. But Eli had promised Quinn he would tone things down, not make a scene. And who knew how Peter would spin things.
Eli slid his arm around Quinn’s waist. “Later.”
“Tell him now,” Peter insisted, an unpleasant smile on his wide lips.
Quinn’s fingers caressed the back of Eli’s neck.
Eli turned to look up at him. “I think someone should tell Roger not to smoke indoors when the kids are there.”
“It’s one cigar,” Quinn said.
“Like I said, I can’t very well tell my father not to smoke in my house,” Peter added smoothly.
They were looking at each other, Quinn and Peter, a moment of shared sympathy over the dramatic concerns of a child. Eli moved away from Quinn, but between the screen, the table and Peter, there wasn’t anywhere to go.
“Are you ready to leave?” Quinn rubbed Eli’s neck. “I’m getting a headache.”
“Probably the smoke.” Peter laughed.
Eli should have given him the nut-twist treatment at the bar. It was never too late. He shot Peter a glare, and Peter responded with a slow, challenging smile.
Eli smiled back. Oh, it’s coming, you bastard. Just you fucking wait.
Quinn took the interstate loop to cut through Towson on his way home.
Eli had been eerily silent since they left the porch, his goodbyes to the family nothing more than flat nods. Now he said, “Where are we going?”
“My house.” It hadn’t occurred to Quinn that Eli wanted to go somewhere else. He’d been interested enough before they went to the party. And there was that tie in his pockets.
“I thought you had a headache.” The muscle under Quinn’s hand shifted as Eli bounced his foot against the floorboards.
“I did. It’s fading.” The prickle of warning, the lights at the edges of his vision, all of that had gone as he left Peter’s house. He loved seeing the rest of the family, but right now he could do with a few months off without having to disappear to work at a summer camp.
“I’m glad. But you can still take me to my apartment.”
“What’s wrong? Did you really lose you job?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” Headlights flashed across the sign for I-95. “South, Quinn.”
Quinn put on his blinker and took the ramp, waiting until he’d merged before saying, “All right. What did Peter say to you?”
“It’s not what he said. It’s what he did.” Even over the bump and thud of the tires on pitted asphalt, Eli’s shifting and slamming around in the passenger seat was audible.
Maybe Eli had come upstairs and seen Peter’s performance in the nursery. The fake contrition, the I-miss-you lie. They were barely past the stage of a hookup, but Quinn could easily imagine a stab of jealousy at the idea of Eli cuddling up to his ex.
Quinn waited. More shifting and then Eli blurted, “He hit on me.”
“On you?”
“Yes on me. Why the fuck is that so hard to imagine?”
“I meant—” But it was exactly what Quinn meant. “Why would he?”
“Thanks a fucking lot.” Eli kicked at the floorboards. “Doesn’t this car go any faster?”
“C’mon, Eli. Peter’s not going to do that in his house.”
“He did.”
Eli was probably so used to going to bars that he thought five seconds of eye contact was as good as a your place or mine.
“Maybe you misinterpreted—”
A loud sigh cut Quinn off.
“I suppose I misinterpreted him grinding his dick into my ass and offering to suck me off at Grand Central the other night too.”
“Grand Central?”
“Yes.”
“When were you at Grand Central?”
Eli’s voice became a little less certain. “Sunday night.”
“Sunday?”
The stab of jealousy Quinn had imagined at the idea of Eli with his librarian-looking ex was nothing compared to the reality. It landed hard and fast in his gut, a hot flood of anger spilling out until his ears throbbed with it. Eli had left Quinn and his offer down at the harbor and gone to trick at the biggest pick-up bar in Baltimore.
The tiny rational voice telling him he had no right drowned in seconds as the flood washed over him. He had every right. Some anonymous bastard had seen the fading spots from Quinn’s fingers. Maybe left one of his own on that perfect pale curve.
Quinn barely stopped for the light at the bottom of the ramp before yanking the car right.
“Not so sure now?” Eli said, though if he had half a brain, he’d keep his mouth shut. “Peter will fuck anything, Quinn.”
“I guess you would know.”
“Oh, fuck you. Don’t take this out on me because you’re pissed at him.” Eli reached up to brace himself against the door as Quinn squealed around a corner.
“This has nothing to do with Peter.” With two yanks on the wheel, Quinn slammed the car into a spot on Eli’s street.
“Right. Whatever. Feel free to lose my number.” Eli flung off his seat belt and bolted from the car.
Quinn took off after him and barely caught the outside door before Eli could slam it.
“What part of lose my number did you miss?”
“The part where you can tell me what to do.”
Eli took a deep breath. “Listen, that forceful-Daddy crap only turns my crank in bed, so drop it.”
“I’m not playing a game with you, Eli.”
Eli looked up at him sharply. In the dim light from the single bulb on the landing, Quinn read his expression. Startled and still pissed enough to make his eyes almost all black, but not frightened. “Really? Because it sure as hell fucking feels like it. You come down here for a little walk on the wild side and then you want to go back to your perfect suburbia of dysfunctional families and being tolerated by the neighbors. So go back to it. Go back to your chemically green lawn and your repressed sexuality and your high blood pressure and swallow it all until you drop dead of boredom before you’re fifty.”
For a second, Quinn thought he was dropping dead. A heart attack at thirty-five, even younger than his mom’s dad. His chest was too tight. For blood. For breath. For everything he was trying to hold onto. Then something snapped, and if he was dying, goddamn, it felt good. Almost as good as coming because everything he’d kept wound so fucking tight was free. Anger and want and pain.
And the one person who might be able to understand it, might be able to take it and give it back just as strong, stood right in front of him. He reached out and grabbed Eli’s shoulders. “You little shit. You’re right.”
Eli latched his hands around Quinn’s neck. “Of course I am.”
Quinn kissed him, nothing held back, nothing in reserve. He slammed Eli up against the wall in that tiny space between the door and the stairs and let everything go. Eli’s fingers caught in Quinn’s hair, pulling hard enough to sting before Eli hiked a leg around Quinn’s hip and kissed him back, wet and open and almost as desperate.
It was like The Wizard of Oz, instant beautiful color, only Quinn had been living in worse than black-and-white Kansas. He’d been trapped in a monochromatic world of beige, of nice, of going with the flow, not making waves. Eli was the whole super-sized box of crayons, with no rules about staying in the lines.
Quinn dug into Eli’s pocket for the tie he’d shoved there earlier. Eli tried to sh
ift his dick toward Quinn’s searching hand, but Quinn laughed and pressed him harder against the wall.
He lifted his mouth. “Give me your hands.”
Eli met Quinn’s grip somewhere over their heads. “Fuck yeah.”
Quinn did a quick half hitch and then lashed Eli’s wrists together with a few passes of silk.
Every pass of the silk around Eli’s wrists made him buck against Quinn until he’d managed to hitch himself up against the wall with both legs around Quinn’s hips.
“Get me off.” Eli licked the words into Quinn’s ear. “Please.”
Blood stretched the skin of Quinn’s cock even tighter. Eli had handed over more than his hands. It was a lot to hang onto, when Quinn wasn’t sure how he fit back together after the way everything had just shaken apart.
“I got you.”
Eli’s bound wrists came down around Quinn’s neck as he steered them up the stairs, hands under Eli’s ass keeping him locked around Quinn’s waist. He only put Eli down long enough to find his keys and shove open the door. Scooping him up again, Quinn carried Eli in and dumped him on his mattress, Eli’s grip pulling Quinn down after him.
Eli twisted until their cocks lined up then started grinding. “C’mon. C’mon.”
Quinn’s body wasn’t functioning much past the need to pump his hips until he came, but he knew it would be a lot better if there weren’t so many clothes between them.
“Wait,” he murmured.
Eli’s legs stayed locked around Quinn as Eli licked his lips and shook his head.
“Just a second,” Quinn promised. “Got to get naked.”
Eli grunted but relaxed his hold, hands flopping over his head. Quinn sat up and stripped in a second, but as he reached for Eli’s fly, Quinn’s brain caught on to the fact that there was no way to get his shirt or jacket off without untying Eli’s hands.
That wasn’t happening. The power of knowing Eli couldn’t grab his own cock and hurry things along, couldn’t get innovative and sneaky, burned through Quinn’s blood like a drug. One hit and Quinn was addicted. He couldn’t give it up.
Bad Boyfriend Page 11