by Ellle Parker
While I tried to catch my breath, Seth reached back and grabbed my hand, pulling it around so I could stroke his cock. As soon as I started, he groaned and swore, shoving back against me until I fucked him even harder. That put him over the edge, writhing between my hand and my body for what seemed like ages, until he finally slowed to a stop and dropped on the bed, gasping for air.
I hovered over him, making sure he was okay, and marveled at just how sexy he really was. As first times go, I’m not sure I would have chosen to get rough like that, but as he said, we were playing by his rules. I brushed the damp hair off his forehead and he smiled at me without opening his eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “That was fucking fantastic. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I am capable,” I said. “It’s just not my usual order of things.”
“I know,” he told me, rolling onto his back. “You have this whole code of conduct deal or whatever. Is there a handbook I should read?”
“You know what? Shut up.”
“I’m sorry.” He wound his arms around my neck and pulled me down on top of him. “You’re an old-fashioned guy, I get that. I actually like that, Dino. It’s hot.”
“Yeah, all right.”
It’s impossible to get mad when you’re still buzzing from an intense orgasm. Seth’s body was warm and comfortable under me, and I preferred to use what energy I had left kissing him. He allowed me to be as slow and old-fashioned as I wanted, and that was apology enough.
It was late and we were tired, so I left to get something to clean up with, and by the time I got back, he was sound asleep. I took care of us both and went to turn down the music. It took some work, but I managed to get him roused enough to get under the covers, then he was out again. I climbed in next to him and curled up along his back, feeling exhausted, satisfied, and completely out of my league.
Chapter 19
I woke up early the next morning, disoriented and tense. Beside me, Seth snored softly, one arm shoved up under the pillow and the other draped loosely over his stomach. When he shifted and rolled to his side, I saw he had crease marks on his cheek from the pillow. God, he looked so young.
He looked like the shirtless college boys in the club in South Beach. Hell, he was like the guys in the club. That was his world, wild all-night parties, heavy drinking, crazy sex, then do it all over again the next night. What the fuck did I think I was doing?
It was the first time in my life I can remember actually feeling old. We all joke about it from time to time, but this was real, this was me feeling old and like an ass for trying to be something I wasn’t.
Suddenly, I felt ridiculous being in his bed, so I got up. I went and used the bathroom, then hunted around until I found my clothes and got dressed. I was putting on my shoes when Seth rolled over into the middle of the bed. He made the usual waking-up faces and pried one eye halfway open. He spotted me and frowned. “What’cha doin’?”
“I have a lot of stuff to get done today,” I said. “I’m going to head home.”
“What time’z it?”
“Early. Go back to sleep.”
“Mmm,” he murmured, eyes already drifting shut again. “I’ll see you later, ’kay?”
“I’ll give you a call,” I told him. He was already sound asleep.
I drove to the bakery with the good coffee and bought some breakfast, then went back to my place, letting myself in quietly so I wouldn’t wake any of the ladies. I shouldn’t have worried. Ruth’s bicycle was gone, and the downstairs hall smelled of eggs and toast. My stomach growled.
I ate half my breakfast, but it wasn’t sitting right. I was still tired, and mentally drained, so I crawled in bed and slept for a couple more hours.
It was a little after ten when I woke up. I reheated my coffee and sat down at the desk to take stock of my day. There were several cases in my current workload that only required computer time on my part. I separated those into one stack, figuring the state I was in, that would be the best use of my time.
Even at that, I found I couldn’t focus very well. I decided to see if the ladies were around, so I put on a clean shirt and went to find them.
Downstairs, the whole gang was sitting out on the patio, drinking iced tea and having a lively conversation about something they didn’t exactly see eye to eye on. When I went around the corner, I discovered the debate involved planters for a garden they were planning.
“Ruth, you just can’t have a bunch of cornstalks and beanpoles all over the place like some Farmer Brown. They’d be horribly ugly.”
Ruth laughed and said, “I’m not planning to grow corn, Della. There are plenty of ornamental vegetables that flower magnificently. They would look perfectly beautiful and make practical use of the some of the space. I want to grow herbs too.”
“Adele,” Della pleaded, “can’t you talk some sense into her. Those garden society ladies will think we’re a bunch of hicks.”
“Why don’t you put a lid on the Southern drama,” said Adele. “This isn’t Gone With the Wind. I like Ruth’s idea.”
Della flapped her hands and made a little pouting noise. I decided that was a good moment to make my presence known.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said cheerfully, slipping my hands into my pockets and strolling over to where they sat.
“Dino, darling!” Della jumped up and gave me a warm hug and a pat on the cheek. “We haven’t seen you in days. How are you? Come sit down, you should have some tea.”
I sat in an empty chair, while Ruth poured me a glass. Adele said hello, and Fern stared. I smiled at them all and said, “Things have been fine. I just got back from a couple days in Miami, working on a job. Didn’t turn out to be much, but it paid all right.”
“It still sounds exciting,” Ruth said.
Della sat in her chair and leaned toward me. “We were just planning our garden. Don’t you think that masses and masses of beautiful flowers are just the thing?”
Ruth intervened and explained, “We got to talking with one of the women in the Gulf Beaches Garden Club the other day, and she agreed to bring a few of her friends to help us design a garden out here. We’re going to have them visit on Tuesday.”
“And Ruth wants to embarrass us all by telling those society ladies that we want to plant vegetables.”
Adele piped up. “Where do you keep getting this society shit? It’s a garden club.”
I took a sip of my tea and measured my words. Finally, as gently as possible, I said, “Della…you don’t really think you can plant a society garden in the back yard of an old hardware store, do you?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, I just want to start getting invited to all those lovely garden parties. But that’s not going to happen if they think we’re planting crops out here.”
I laughed and shook my head. “My ma used to grow herbs and stuff in our backyard, and it always looked pretty to me. Aren’t urban vegetable gardens supposed to be the big thing now? Politically correct or whatever?”
Ruth laughed this time. “That’s true, and there’s nothing as tasty as homegrown veggies.” She gave me a conspiratorial smile that suggested she was grateful for my support.
I stayed for a while to finish my tea and listen to them talk about what they wanted to plant. They also spent a lot of time discussing how they were going to entertain their “society” garden club guests on Tuesday afternoon. It was a pleasant break from the constant whirlwind going on inside my head.
Upstairs, in my apartment, I saw Seth had called my cellphone while I was gone. There was a voice message, but I didn’t listen to it right away. It would be his usual “Give me a call or stop by” with some newly added innuendo mixed in. I’d deal with it later.
I worked steadily for about an hour and a half, then went downstairs to smoke in the storefront. That wasn’t the best idea in the world, since it left me too much idle time to think about Seth. I spent ten minutes mentally reliving the night in the hotel room and felt old all
over again.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I went back upstairs to work. After a while, Ruth tapped on my door, and I invited her in.
“I was just heading up to cook a little lunch, and I thought I’d stop and see what you’ve done with the apartment,” she said, looking around with interest. She gravitated to the desk where my paperwork was spread out and ran a hand over the wood. “This is stunning. Where did you get it?”
“It was my granddad’s. Ma gave it to me when he died. It’s pretty great.”
She stayed a few more minutes, checking out the place, then gave me the kind of shrewd once over only mothers can do. “Della and I are going to get some pizza and wine and watch a couple of movies tonight. Why don’t you come join us?”
I gathered she sensed my mood and thought I needed a little cheering up, which wasn’t entirely wrong. It might be good to get my mind off current events for a while and relax, and the truth was, the set up around there was beginning to remind of me home.
“Yeah, I’ll probably come over,” I said, “if I get enough work done.”
She smiled. “That’s fine. You can join us whenever you want.”
I thanked her and saw her out, then sat down and buried myself in my work. If there was one good thing that came out of the day, it was that I made a lot of money. At the end, I had six full reports, complete with invoices, ready to mail out.
When I went over to Ruth’s, I left my cellphone behind and made a mental apology to Seth. I just wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.
Chapter 20
Pizza and wine with pleasant ladies was a pretty good escape from my troubles for a while, but Sunday morning brought the full weight of them back down on me. I tried to stay asleep as long as I could, but by nine, I had to admit I was awake. My brain was going to start working whether I liked it or not.
I went through the motions of coffee and shower and breakfast, intentionally dragging my feet just to use up time. I felt restless, like I had an itch I couldn’t scratch, but my motivation to do anything at all was completely gone. I had no focus.
That’s how I ended up wasting the entire afternoon at the Backroom Bar watching guys shoot pool out back, nursing beers, and ignoring my cellphone. I didn’t want to think about Seth, but he was on my mind anyway, and I knew I had to figure out what I was doing. I couldn’t keep avoiding him forever, and I didn’t want to. But I needed to get back to a place where things felt normal again. I was exploring the possibility of going back to being just friends, when Seth himself plopped down in the chair opposite me.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” he said. He looked mildly irritated, but not exactly pissed off. “Do you know how many bars I’ve been to in the past two days?”
I shook my head. “I was working all day yesterday.”
“Is your cellphone broken?”
“I was just real busy, Seth, I’m sorry. I had a lot of catching up to do.”
He shot me a look that said he knew I was full of shit, and went to stick his head through the bar window to ask for a beer. She handed one out to him and he came and sat down, taking a sip.
“I’m a little surprised,” he said. “I thought a freak out of this size would have been reserved for when I nail you, not the other way around.”
He had a wicked glint in his eye, and with one sentence, he brought back the memory of Friday night so strong I could practically feel his skin against mine. I felt old and out of touch all over again, and I needed that to stop. I didn’t want to know what it felt like when he finally realized I wasn’t in his league.
“Look, Seth…I don’t know about this.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I even thought about it.
Seth smirked and dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “What are you talkin’ about? Things are cool.”
“No, they’re not. Sooner or later, the novelty’s going to wear off and you’re gonna decide I’m just not your speed.”
He paused with his bottle halfway to his lips. “Dino, don’t.”
“You know I’m righ—”
“I’m serious. Don’t do this.” His eyes were boring into mine. “What? Are you still hung up about the age thing?”
“It’s not just age, it’s everything that goes with it.”
“What the hell does that mean? I thought things were great. We’ve been having a blast.”
“Yeah, it’s been one big party,” I said. “I’m sorry. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”
“Dino, that’s crap. You know you were into it. You can’t possibly try to tell me that you realized you don’t dig men after all.”
“It’s not that. I’m just pretty sure you and I won’t work in the long run, and we should cool it before we both regret it.”
He quit arguing with me and stared for a moment. His eyes were like ice, and his mouth pressed into a firm line.
“That’s great,” he finally said, barely audible. “That’s just great.” He got up and walked back through the bar, leaving his beer half full on the table.
I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but I didn’t like leaving it that way, so I jumped up and went after him. If he knew I was behind him, he didn’t show it, and he let the front door swing shut in my face. I caught it and followed him out into the parking lot, in the fading light.
“Seth, come on,” I said. “I told you in the beginning it wasn’t such a great idea. Let’s just go back to the way things were before. I wanna stay friends.”
In the blink of an eye, he whipped around and decked me so hard, I landed in a heap on the ground, gravel digging into my shoulder. Pain exploded in my head, and I groaned, blinking to clear my vision. I tasted blood. As I rolled to my back, I swiped a thumb over my mouth and found I had a split lip.
I was still dazed when Seth dropped on my stomach and grabbed a handful of shirt, raising his fist to take another shot. I reached out to block the blow, catching his arm and holding it at bay. We struggled in the dirt, ending up locked in a stalemate.
“You son of a bitch,” he seethed. “You’re so damned convinced I’m gonna kick you to the curb, that you had to do it to me first. What happened to all your bullshit about not doing flings and taking this stuff seriously?”
He ignored my attempt to answer. Instead, he gave me one final shove and stood up, muttering, “Asshole,” before he trudged off in the direction of home.
I didn’t think it was a good idea to go after him again. It wasn’t just anger I saw on his face, there was hurt too.
I sat up and gathered my wits before trying to stand. That was the hardest punch I’d taken in a long time, and I was going to be feeling it for a while. Aside from my head and jaw, there was the throbbing pain in my shoulder where I’d hit the ground. I felt like shit inside and out.
When I got home, I stopped in the kitchen and drank a shot of whiskey. Then I went into the bathroom and took a look at my face in the mirror. My lower lip was starting to swell, and there was blood smeared on my chin. My left cheek was red where he’d hit me. By morning I’d probably have a pretty good bruise.
I got out the bottle of ibuprofen and swallowed a couple with water from the tap, then grabbed a washcloth and soaked it. As I started to wash my face, I thought about the last time I’d had to clean up after a fight. Ironic that it ended the same way it began. That time, I’d wound up with Seth in my arms, and even though I was caught off guard, I knew damn well I liked it.
I liked it, and deep down I still wanted it. Problem was, I’d just made sure it would never happen again.
“How fucking stupid are you?” I asked my reflection.
It was fear that drove me to do it, plain and simple. Seth was absolutely right about that one. I was afraid he’d get tired of me and leave. I’d also been afraid of him getting close in the first place, because I just don’t usually let people get that close.
On top of everything, if I was being completely honest with myself, I was surprised by the idea of being gay, and m
aybe that scared me a little too. I’d never seriously thought of myself that way, and that’s a pretty big leap of self-perception right there. It’s a far cry from being attracted to guys once in a while.
I thought about the look on Seth’s face when he’d left the parking lot and considered for the first time that I might have been wrong. He wasn’t just ticked off because he’d lost a fuck buddy, he was genuinely hurt. I’d treated him the way I was afraid he’d treat me, and not only did I throw away what could have been a hell of a good thing in my life, but I’d probably lost a friend as well.
The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I had to splash cold water on my face.
The whiskey, on top of an afternoon of beer, made my head feel heavy and slow. Which had been the idea, of course. Fix it so I’d fall asleep as quickly as possible. I went into my bedroom and got undressed. Unfortunately, I lay in the dark feeling miserable for hours, torturing myself with both the good memories and bad.
Chapter 21
Mondays are shitty enough without having lost your best friend, and I was in a foul mood all day. I made it through two meetings barely clinging to this side of civility, but I put the fear of God into some kid I caught leaning on my car. I nearly beat the crap out of a guy I was supposed to be pumping for information.
By three o’clock in the afternoon, I’d had it and called it a day. I picked up some Chinese food for dinner later on and went home to sulk in front of the TV. I checked my messages several times during the day, but Seth never called. I didn’t really expect him to.
At nine, I finally got sick of the dull ache lodged in my chest and decided to get thoroughly drunk. I took down the bottle of whiskey, but it was almost empty. There was no way I had enough to do the job. The refrigerator had two beers in it, and the only other liquor I had in the apartment was half a bottle of amaretto. You can get hammered on amaretto, but I don’t recommend it.