Don't Try This at Home

by Ellee Hill

  Ah, so maybe Bryce was the jealous type. “Really,” Alex said coyly. “Is he hot?”

  But Bryce pulled back just enough for Alex to see his face, his eyes fixed over Alex’s shoulder, and his expression was not one of playful jealousy. “Uh, not so much ‘hot’ as ‘a little crazy around the eyes’.”

  “Um,” Alex said, his throat suddenly going dry, “shift around and let me see?”

  Bryce executed a neat little 180-degree spin so that Alex could see what he saw. And it was bad. So very, very bad.

  “Quick! Around again!” Alex hissed, turning them so fast that he nearly tripped over Bryce’s feet and sent them both to the ground. “Shit shit shit. Did he see my face?”

  “Yes,” Bryce said definitively.

  Alex swore heartily under his breath; he should have known his luck wouldn’t bear out. He didn’t think Jason even knew Alex liked to come here, but apparently Alex had picked one hell of a night to be wrong.

  “Let me guess,” Bryce muttered. “Ex?”

  “Ex-boyfriend or ex-con? Because the answer to both is ‘yes’. But no, I didn’t know about the ex-con bit at the time.”

  Bryce’s eyebrows shot up, and he actually looked a little impressed. “Alex. I didn’t figure you for the type.”

  Alex groaned. “I was young. Mistakes were made.”

  “How young?”

  “Erm, a year younger than I am now? It still counts as ‘young’.”

  “Hey, no judgment here. Though you should probably know that your prison bitch is currently headed this way. And if you want to curse some more, go for it, it’s kind of hot.”

  Alex accepted that offer, frantically trying to think of a way to get out of this without dying of either embarrassment or Jason. Not that Jason had ever actually hit him, but there were some flying coffee cups that came close. And Alex had handled the ending of the relationship… poorly. “Bryce,” he groaned, burying his forehead against Bryce’s shoulder so he wouldn’t have to turn around, “Bryce, I broke up with him by text.”

  “Okay, see, now I’m judging you. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to help you out, though.”

  Alex had no time to ask what that meant before he felt a thin, wiry claw of a hand clamped on his shoulder, spinning him around. Jason didn’t look all that physically intimidating, but he had a temper. “Alex,” he said in that painfully familiar, reedy voice. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  Before Alex could answer, Bryce gently pushed him aside and smiled cheerfully down at Jason. “He’s enjoying a night out in this fine establishment. As I assume you are.”

  Jason squinted up at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “That’s not really important, is it?”

  “The fuck it’s not.”

  “Quite an impressive vocabulary we have here. All right, sir, how can I help you?”

  “Move out of the way. I need to talk to that guy hiding behind you. We have unfinished business.”

  Yes, okay, at some point Alex had moved behind Bryce, but he wasn’t cowering. There was no cowering involved. Just a little… sheltering. But Bryce didn’t seem inclined to move. In fact, he turned quickly to face Alex, just long enough to mutter “Run!” and give him an encouraging and thorough grope on the ass.

  Alex ran.

  It was not the proudest moment of his life, ducking and twisting between other bar patrons who were now turning to see what was going on. Alex heard Bryce’s voice rising above the clamor: “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve consulted with my client and he’s not prepared to meet with you at the moment—”

  Bryce was cut off by a barrage of cursing, which was the last thing Alex heard as he exited the club and ran for his car.

  It was only when he was back on the road and his heart rate had decreased to a less stroke-inducing level that he realized he didn’t have Bryce’s number or even his last name. Nor, he learned after thoroughly checking his pockets, did Alex have his cell phone.

  WHEN Alex’s landline rang the next morning at 6:00 a.m., he answered it for fear it might be a family member calling with an emergency.

  Nope.

  “Alex!” he heard in a far too cheerful tone. “How’s it hanging?”

  It took Alex several seconds to recognize the voice. “Bryce? Wha—? The hell did you get my number?”

  “Aha, yes, well, uh, I may have palmed your cell phone last night. A little bit.”

  Alex remembered the gratuitous ass-groping and buried his face in the pillow until he could compose himself. He couldn’t quite quash the sarcasm, though. “I appreciate your help last night, but I’m not looking to trade one criminal for another.”

  “Yeah, no, I’m really sorry about that. But I figured it was the only way you could escape and I could get your phone number. I wasn’t planning on keeping it. That’s why I’m calling so early—I wanted to catch you before you left for work, so I could meet you somewhere and give it back to you if you needed it.”

  Alex found himself grinding his teeth. “It’s. Saturday.”

  “Is it? Fuck me, sorry about that too.”

  “Why are you even awake?”

  “Never went to sleep. I work odd hours. And, ah, tend to forget what day it is, sometimes.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Look, let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you dinner tonight when I give the phone back. I know this amazing little Cuban place. Better than all the other amazing little Cuban places, I swear.” He paused, and for the first time, Alex sensed a wavering in Bryce’s considerable self-confidence. “Unless, uh, you need it back earlier. And then never want to see me again. Which I suppose would be understandable, but disappointing, as I find the thought of you eating coconut rum flan very, very arousing.”

  Oh goddamn it, Alex knew better than this. But… “Coconut rum flan?”

  “It’s insane. It’ll make you weep with bliss.”

  There was a perfectly good innuendo to be made there, but it was far too early for Alex to put it together. “All right, fine. Call me back at a decent hour and we’ll figure it out.”

  “Awesome.”

  “And Bryce?”

  “Mmm?”

  “If you try to hock my phone, I will make you pay. Jason taught me a few things about kneecaps.”

  “Message received.”

  IF Bryce hadn’t actually called Alex back, he would have thought the whole thing was a dream. As it was, he didn’t get the call until almost three because Bryce had been “napping.” So much of this whole mess should have set off Alex’s mental Red Alerts—the ones he’d ignored about five minutes after meeting Jason, and for several months thereafter—but it didn’t. The memory of Bryce’s heavy-lidded hazel eyes as he murmured you smell good still made Alex reach down and adjust himself in his jeans. And that was to say nothing of the way they’d moved together on the dance floor.

  So after calling a friend to let him know about the date—standard anti-serial-killer precautions, especially necessary in Florida—Alex wriggled back into his best jeans and set off for the restaurant. It really was a hole in the wall, but out front was Bryce, looking suitably apologetic (and gorgeous) and holding out Alex’s phone.

  Bryce grinned as he took it. “It says good things about you that you don’t need to be glued to your phone on a Saturday.”

  “It’d say better things about you if you didn’t go snooping through it,” Alex said, trying to remember to be wary in the face of that disarming smile.

  “Just looked to find your home number, I swear. Oh, and I peeked at your Words With Friends games. I couldn’t help myself, but I’m hoping the fact that you played surveyor for 83 points against someone named ‘sherlockian47’ will make up for it.”

  Alex couldn’t help but forgive Bryce on the spot—Alex had to beat his sister at that stupid game, just once. “I guess I won’t turn you into the police, then.”

  Bryce chuckled, but Alex could hear some genuine relief. “Thank you. I know it was a stupid, impulsive thing to do, but
I really wanted to see you again.” Then his expression turned downright mischievous. “And tell you that Jason now thinks he’ll be arrested if he comes within 500 feet of your house, says your name over the telephone, or even looks at your Facebook page.”

  “What are you, the Batman of lawyers? Roaming the streets by night making insane legal threats?”

  “Nah, I’m just a freelance photographer—not Spiderman, either, before you ask—and your ex-boyfriend is really, stupidly terrified of violating his parole. But you can call me Bryce Wayne if you like. If you want the rubber suit, though, you’re going to have to give me some time.”

  Alex stared down at his phone for a moment. Sure, Bryce shouldn’t have taken it, but it had been in a moment of surprisingly quick thinking that had gotten Alex out of a nasty public scene. “I should thank you. For last night, with Jason. As you may have guessed, I’m not so good with, uh, confrontations.”

  “I did pick up on that, yeah. Just out of curiosity, what landed Jason in the slammer? I’m dying to know.”

  “Um, securities fraud. And some light embezzlement.”

  Alex could see Bryce’s eyes watering with his fervent attempt not to laugh. “I see. You must have been so afraid for your poor kneecaps.”

  Alex sighed. He felt like he ought to be offended, but… yeah, okay, it was kind of funny. In hindsight. “Oh, shut up. He was a grade-A dickweed; I just couldn’t bring myself to say it to his face.”

  “No, no, I get it,” Bryce said, squeezing Alex’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for. I love telling off dickweeds to their faces. One of the few great joys in life.”

  Dinner went surprisingly smoothly: two whole hours in Bryce’s company with no vomit or crazy exes or petty theft. Well, Alex was reasonably certain about the petty theft. Bryce was a little on the odd side, but he made every story he told—even sitting through a teacup poodle fashion show for a glamour shot of the winner—sound like an adventure. It made Alex’s answer to the inevitable “So, what do you do?” pretty anticlimactic.

  “Uh, I’m a database administrator for an accounting firm,” Alex said directly into the remains of his ropa vieja.

  Bryce shook his head, but he was smiling. “Man, that computer shit. I can do a little work with Photoshop—have to, these days—but I prefer old-school methods. I am in total awe of people who can make computers do their bidding. To me, it’s just a big gray box that sits on my desk and runs on magic. Or possibly several very tired hamsters on wheels.”

  Alex laughed, delighted he hadn’t gotten the blank-faced What? that always made him feel like he had to justify his living. “First of all, if you’ve still got a ‘big gray box’, you’re way past time for an upgrade. It is the era of progress, my friend. The wheels are smaller, but the hamsters are twice as fast.”

  “I’ll be damned. And you… communicate with these hamsters, do you? You speak their language?”

  “I make those little bastards speak my language.”

  He was rewarded yet again with that laugh. It made something in Alex’s chest ache, and he realized he needed to laugh more often.

  “So you enjoy it?” Bryce asked, seeming genuinely interested.

  “Well, if we may lay the hamster metaphor to rest…” Alex said, and was met with a brief but adorable pout. “Yeah, I do. I mean, it’s tedious at times, but some of it’s like detective work: running searches, hunting down missing data. And it’s really gratifying when I figure out how to make something run more efficiently, get the right information to the right people faster. Take something that’s clunky and outdated and make it… elegant.”

  “And it would seem you’re a poet, too.”

  Alex shook his head, suddenly embarrassed. “Wow, okay, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been guilty of romanticizing my job. Out loud, at least.”

  “Not at all,” Bryce said with a flourish of his fork. “It’s important, right? Without you, all those hamster wheels would grind to a screeching halt.”

  “Hardly. There’d be three guys fresh out of college ready to take my place.”

  Bryce snorted. “Let’s not compete in the Job Security Olympics. Any idiot with a camera can do what I do.”

  “I seriously doubt that. You don’t go into something like freelance photography unless you can’t live without doing it. So what do you photograph? I mean, other than annoying little dogs in sequined vests.”

  Bryce looked contemplative for a moment. “I hate taking pictures of still things. I love movement, you know? Even those awful little dogs. Their owners want the perfect freeze-frame of little Precious staring directly into the camera, but if I can get Precious prancing down that stupid miniature runway like she’s the queen bitch—and I do mean that literally—I’m happy.” He paused to consider it. “Well, happier. Animals are fun, but I prefer people. So many more stories to tell.”

  “You’ll have to show me some of your work,” Alex said, but Bryce didn’t get a chance to respond, because just then the waiter brought dessert to their table.

  The coconut rum flan was everything Bryce had promised and more. Alex was starting to wonder if it wasn’t some kind of aphrodisiac, because every time Bryce licked his lips, Alex’s heartbeat started to quicken. He remembered the hot press of Bryce’s body against his own, and his toes were curling in his shoes as they waited for the check to come.

  They made it out to the parking lot before they were on each other, Alex pressing Bryce up against the car and licking into his mouth to sweep up the last traces of coconut before he could get to the taste of Bryce himself. Bryce moaned, surrendering to Alex’s kiss and plunging his fingers into Alex’s hair. He rested his weight back against the car and spread his legs just enough for Alex to push a thigh between them, just as he had on the dance floor. This time, Bryce was even more shameless about grinding his hardening cock against Alex’s leg, and when they had to break for air, he chuckled against Alex’s mouth.

  “Your place or mine?” asked Alex.

  Bryce grinned, letting his tongue peek out for a quick swipe at Alex’s lips. “I live five minutes away.”

  “Yours it is, then. And while you’re at it, you can show me some of your work.”

  “That was either a compliment or a really terrible innuendo,” Bryce laughed, taking one last nip at Alex’s lower lip. “Either way, I’ll take it.”

  The drive felt like a hell of a lot longer than five minutes, probably because Alex was so turned on he was practically molesting the stick shift. He parked his car behind Bryce’s and chased Bryce up three flights of stairs to his condo door. They were both panting and laughing like idiots when they got there, but Bryce was surprisingly quick with the keys and before Alex could even get his breath back, they were tumbling into Bryce’s living room, barely avoiding the coffee table as they managed to land on the spacious couch.

  There was no jockeying for position; Bryce slid neatly under Alex’s body as if he’d done it a thousand times. Alex had to smile at that, kissing Bryce down into the cushions. But Bryce was hardly passive; Alex felt Bryce’s hands working their way into the back pockets of his jeans, gripping Alex’s ass to rock him down into Bryce’s hips. They moaned together, and Alex slid his hand down between their bodies, feeling the distinct outline of Bryce’s erection through his trousers. Alex lifted up a little and used his thumb and forefinger to tease, rubbing at the crown of Bryce’s cock through the fabric.

  Bryce gasped and thrashed beneath him, reaching down to paw open Alex’s belt and zipper. But that was as far as he could get, because Alex’s hottest pair of skinny jeans, while greatly increasing the likelihood of getting him into this position in the first place, were not made for easy removal once there. Alex quietly cursed this paradox while Bryce tried in vain to shove the jeans down further, or even pull Alex’s cock from his underwear, but none of that was going to happen while they were twined together on the couch. Bryce had to settle for shoving his hand the best he could into the miniscule gap between Alex’s j
eans and his briefs and squeezing lightly at Alex’s growing arousal.

  In turn, Alex continued to rub the whole of Bryce’s considerable length with his palm. It slowed Bryce’s hand in his own pants to a dead stop. But Alex was in no hurry; he had all night to explore the hard, writhing body beneath him: the long limbs, the lean torso, the hungry mouth that was now sucking at Alex’s tongue. He could only imagine what that mouth would feel like on his cock, Bryce’s hazel eyes flickering up at him as Alex—

  —heard the key turn in the lock and froze. But the door only gave a muted thud. That’s when the pounding started.

  “Bryce! Bryce! Open the fucking deadbolt, man!”

  “Who the hell is that?” Alex hissed against Bryce’s mouth.

  “Roommate,” Bryce groaned softly, beginning the slightly arduous process of extracting his hand from Alex’s jeans. “But he was supposed to be spending the night at his girlfriend’s place.”

  “You have a roommate?”

  “I’m a freelance photographer. I had to make some sacrifices to find a decent place to live.”

  At least they both still had their clothes on; maybe the skinny jeans were a good choice after all. Alex held Bryce close and started to nibble at his ear, whispering, “Well, let him in and we’ll go back to your room.”

  But Bryce pulled away and rubbed at the back of his neck, obviously embarrassed. “Yeah, see, he doesn’t like to be here when I have guys over.”

  Outside, both the pounding and shouting increased in volume, and Alex rolled his eyes. “What? Why? You’re an adult.”

  Bryce’s face turned an even darker shade of red, and he looked away. “I don’t know,” he said, so quickly that Alex was positive Bryce knew very well and didn’t want to share.

  “Well, tell him to go back to his girlfriend’s place!”