Always Forward- Never Straight

by Charley Descoteaux

  Or maybe Valerie’s voice inside my head.

  They both noticed how close I was as soon as they turned away from the counter, but neither commented. Mac grinned and said she was stealing my boyfriend, but if I wanted to join them in the shade tent to eat that would be okay. After lunch, we watched the performers until six. While Always Forward! played I got the stink eye from Val, but as far as I could remember I never promised to hang out with only Mac.

  Bryan didn’t dance, even when Mac used all the tools in her impressive arsenal. He wouldn’t even be shamed into dancing, which impressed the hell out of me, but he hadn’t been wrapped around her little finger for the past fifteen years either. Still, it worried me a little—what if he didn’t want to go dancing?

  The answer came to me quickly. We’d go back to the Westside and do the Horizontal Mambo instead of profiling to a dance mix amid a crowd of sweaty queers.

  Either sounded good to me, as long as we ended up sweaty before the witching hour.

  It took a few songs and a beer, but Bryan relaxed and loosened up. We danced in a crowd of men outside one of the trendiest gay bars in Portland. The sun had almost set and stars twinkled above us while paper lanterns and rainbow flags rippled gently in the breeze coming off the river, but all I could see was Bryan—his face flushed, smiling, his eyes always on me. I got my wish to rub against him to the music. After he was good and loose, I leaned in to whisper in his ear.

  “I knew you were a good dancer.”

  He blushed and laughed.

  “Did you drive?”

  He shook his head, and his smile turned naughty.

  I couldn’t help myself, I pulled him close and spun around. And that’s when I got the first real surprise of the weekend, when I saw him.

  “Shit.” If I could have, I would’ve grabbed that word back. As soon as I said it—or shouted it, I might have shouted it—Bryan tensed.

  “Sorry. Did I step on your foot?” Bryan’s smile was history, and he seemed smaller somehow.

  Just my imagination.

  “No. You didn’t do anything.” The music quieted so my words sounded loud. But, as soon as I went on the next song started, so I had to repeat myself. Poor me, I had to press my lips to Bry’s ear to be sure he heard. “My boss. I think I saw my boss.”

  Bryan leaned back—as much as he could in the sea of dancing bodies—and our eyes met. His were wide.

  “Are you not out at work? Oh, will this be bad for you?” He froze.

  He looked genuinely concerned. No. he looked afraid. I tried to shrug it off.

  Normally that’s the kind of thing I can do, especially on a crowded dance floor with a hot partner whose bones I wanted to jump. That time, it wasn’t so easy. His reaction seemed out of proportion to what had happened. I embraced him and swayed to the beat while I spoke against his ear. “I’m not out at work, but neither is he. I doubt it’ll be a problem, so don’t worry about it. Okay?”

  Bryan actually took a couple of slow, deep breaths before he said “okay” back. I found myself tensing with the desire to make whoever had made Bryan afraid tremble in his boots, because it came to me that his flinching and the tone he used while talking about his ex could be related.

  But being wound up wasn’t the way to help Bryan relax—I’d learned that from Mac when she was a baby—so I took my own cleansing breath and then stepped back. I hadn’t expected to see my boss—Will Holden, the owner of Holden the Tech, the cheesiest-named startup in the Silicon Forest and quite possibly in the world, and creator of a line of cheap household drones that reminded me of flying Roombas. To be honest, it made me shudder to think of actually owning the things I was helping him sell to people. I mean, who wants something that’s routinely used as a weapon prowling around in their home? It had been easier when he sold stupid game apps, even if the profit margin for the drones was higher.

  It’s official. I’ve watched The Terminator too many times.

  Holding Bryan’s hips loosely, I danced us faster and faster until we’d caught up with the beat. When he smiled at me, I kissed him. His lips trembled a little and he might’ve been pale, but it was hard to tell in the dark.

  When we’d both relaxed enough to almost forget about seeing Will, I asked if he wanted anything. “Thirsty? Hungry?”

  He pressed the length of his body against mine and grabbed my ass. “How about I give you directions to my place?”

  “Where’s the exit?”

  Bryan kissed the grin from my face, and when I walked him backward, he moaned. Or sighed. With all the noise around us, I couldn’t hear the actual sound he made, but felt it tickle my lips and vibrate against my chest.

  The Buick didn’t have a bench seat—damn, I miss bench seats—but no console to get in the way either so Bryan practically sat on my lap the whole trip. His hands roamed across my chest and down my arms; he kissed my neck and bit my earlobe. Every so often he’d look up and tell me to turn or to watch for something, but otherwise, we could have been in his living room making out.

  Well, we didn’t actually make out until I jumped off the highway. We might have spent the night at one intersection if someone behind us hadn’t honked when the light turned green.

  The whole way, though, he was careful not to go too far. I noticed that much—only because my dick ached to be touched and it didn’t happen.

  When I pulled into the parking lot of a nice-looking apartment complex, though, he nuzzled my shoulder and then slid away. I reached out and he took my hand, resting it on his thigh. His leg felt so warm, something inside me swooned.

  It took a full turn around the parking lot to find an open space, and it was far from the building. As soon as I killed the engine, Bry leaned across my lap and kissed me, his hand pressing against the front of my jeans.

  “Oh, fuck, Bry. I’ve missed you.”

  He pressed harder and rubbed, moaning against my mouth as he nibbled on my lower lip.

  “Inside.” I groaned in frustration and a second later he pulled away and grinned.

  I followed him across the parking lot, wanting to touch his adorable ass and barely restraining myself. I didn’t have a clue what his neighbors knew about him, but even more than that I didn’t want to startle him, to make him flinch by grabbing him when he didn’t see it coming. My feet slowed while I processed the thought, but I took the stairs two at a time so I wasn’t far behind when Bryan stopped at a door and opened it, his hand holding the key shaking hard enough to be noticeable.

  Bryan pushed the door open and gestured for me to go inside first. The front door opened into the living room, and in the short time while he closed and locked the door, I saw all there was to see: a sofa along one wall with a coffee table in front of it, opposite a blocky wood cabinet holding a turntable and flanked by two large speakers. I’d just thought that the space under the turntable was probably filled with records when he took my hand and pulled me down the hall.

  His bedroom was nearly as minimalist, but he did have a plant on the window sill that crept up over the curtain rod and cascaded down, peeking outside. Before I had a chance to figure out which direction the window faced, Bryan dropped to his knees in front of me. The plant could have started speaking, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  Chapter Five

  Bryan

  I’d been thinking about nothing but Cay for days—his eyes, his lips, the way he holds me, ungh. I could barely work. In the month since I’d met Cay, I’d fallen behind schedule and had never quite caught up. Rosie was patient and seriously happy for me to be getting some action—and constantly alluding to the fact that it sounded like more than just fun and sex—but she was close to getting ticked. If I pushed a date again, one deadline or one teleconference, she’d probably show up at my doorstep unannounced. It wouldn’t worry me so much, except she had a key. If I couldn’t hide from her, I’d have to give her what she wanted to keep her away.

  She could let herself in while Cay was ov
er and then… Well, she’s known I like men for a long time, but I never wanted to star in any porn.

  The high of bringing Cay home Saturday—my favorite Pride since college, or maybe of all time—got me through most of Monday, and a day closer to finished. Another day or so and BaxCo would concentrate on the next phase, in which I had a far less important role. So when I heard the knock, my first thought was that it was Rosie. Then I hoped it was Cay.

  I opened the door, every nerve ending reaching out to him, my body tingling in anticipation. He looked upset, frowning, his body stiff and tense instead of relaxed and easy the way I’d always seen him. I beckoned him inside, hoping he’d come for a little naked exercise to help him forget whatever was wrong.

  He strode inside, knocking against me so I almost lost my balance. But there weren’t any sparks. In fact, the way he stomped in and turned on his heel looked intimidating. I closed the front door…reluctantly, but that’s what you do when you ask someone in and they enter.

  “So, what’s going on? You seem…a little tense.”

  Cay paced my small living room. Well, it’s larger than his, but not by a whole lot. I needed a two-bedroom so I could dedicate one room to the business—nothing else was done in there, officially, only work—and that extra bedroom came with a bigger living room than I needed. To be honest, I didn’t need anything more than a studio, but Rosie was a stickler for regulations. Especially when they involve the IRS. She had wanted to have the company buy a house to work out of, but I didn’t want to have to keep it up.

  While I rambled in my head, I watched Cay pace a tight pattern on the cheap cream-colored carpet, like a mouse watching a cat from the other side of a glass partition. Like that fictional mouse, I hoped the partition was thick and would remain secure between us for as long as he wore that angry look. When he turned to me, I flinched.

  “What’s going on? Are you seriously pretending you don’t know?”

  “Um, yeah. I mean, no. I don’t know. Can I get you something to drink? Or…anything? Do you want to sit?”

  “No, I don’t want to sit.” He closed the distance between us in two large strides, and I stepped backward. Cay fixed me with a harder stare than I would have guessed he was capable of, his blue eyes boring holes into my mousy brown ones. “I got fired today.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “What?” I wanted nothing more than to flee. I didn’t give a shit that it was my apartment, in that moment, I was as scared of the man I’d been falling for as I had been of my ex or the bullies back in junior high school. And felt about as mature as that eleven-year-old, as clueless about how to handle this situation as I had been back then. I backed up another step and felt the front door right behind me. It made me queasy to think it, but I was afraid Cay was about to kick my ass. He smacked a hand against the door—not close to me, not exactly, but I jumped. “Fuck. What’s going on?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’re half of BaxCo?”

  “It—it didn’t come up. What does that have to do with you losing your job?”

  “I work—worked—for Will Holden.”

  I groaned, and it felt like my stomach plummeted into my shoes. Why did he have to work for our biggest rival, the guy who’d publicly accused me of stealing his work for Alfred, our first-generation drone butler. Was it my fault the idea to have Alfred create patrol maps with a simple walk-through of your property was a logical step in the evolution of personal drones—and that my product hit the market first?

  Well, technically, the timing was my fault. It seemed convenient at the time that I had no life to speak of and spent all my time working…

  I wanted to beg Cay to stop but felt powerless—unable to speak or move. He kept speaking. Shouting really, maybe even ranting. I knew what was coming and almost wanted him to kick my ass instead of talking.

  “My boss, Will, he thinks I’m the reason you beat him to market with the Alfred design. He thinks I’ve been sharing his secrets with you for a while now.” Cay looked from me to his hand on the door and then stepped back. A look of pure anguish skittered across his face and was gone.

  “I don’t understand what the fuck he was talking about with that coding shit. I wouldn’t know what to look for even if I wanted to steal his shit—and he knows that. Says either I was manipulated or just stupid to think you were after anything beyond his secrets.”

  “That’s not true. I didn’t know you worked there. I wasn’t looking for…I don’t want to admit the last time I went looking for someone.”

  If only I’d seen his boss at Pride, or asked one question about what he did for a living…

  “Bullshit. You lied to me the whole time. How do I know this isn’t another lie? You didn’t even tell me your real name when we met.” He pulled both hands through the long strands of his hair and then scrubbed the shorter sides looking confused, lost. Maybe less like he wanted to pound on something. But still he paced like an animal in a cage. It was…unnerving.

  “Wha—yes I did.”

  “You said Bryan. That’s not—”

  “Nobody calls me by my first name. I hate it. I haven’t answered to that since I was a kid.”

  “Then why were you even there? You don’t run.” He looked me up and down, but not the way he had after the race or any other time since.

  “Yeah. Of course that’s obvious to you.”

  His eyes narrowed, and my gut clenched. This was not going well at all. Every time I opened my mouth, he seemed to get angrier.

  I’d been hoping to see him, hoping he’d come over even though I said I didn’t have time—which was pretty terrible in itself, even if it was honest—but not like this. My legs shook so hard I needed to sit—I couldn’t order my thoughts enough to have this conversation and stand at the same time, so I lurched over to my secondhand couch and dropped.

  “It was supposed to be a good promo op for the business. And I did train. I thought I might run at least most of it. Jeez, Cay, I never…I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to—I mean, I…” I dropped my head into my hands and concentrated on breathing for a moment. I didn’t drop dead so the breathing worked better than the calming-down I’d hoped for.

  But he hadn’t left.

  “What? What do you actually mean, Baxter Bryan, CEO of BaxCo?”

  It took a second for that to sink in and when it did, I groaned.

  “The company is named that because I started it with my cousin. Rosie Baxter.” I dared to lift my head and he wasn’t any closer to forgiving me. Or believing me, for that matter. I couldn’t have said which was worse. Yes, I could; the worst was I felt so guilty it had to seem to him as though I were lying. I stunk of guilt even to myself. “Rosie is my mom’s brother’s daughter. I got that stupid name because it’s my mom’s maiden name. It’s not my fault my name sounds like it’s put together backward.”

  Great. Not only did you get this amazing man fired, now you’re whining as though you really were back in junior high.

  “And I’m not CEO. Rosie is. I’m the nerd who figures out how to make stupid programs work to move glorified model planes on command.”

  Cay came closer and stood over me, breathing hard, fists clenched. The scent of him filled my head, along with the crushing realization that he wasn’t going to believe I hadn’t stalked him so I could steal information from his boss. Not today, and maybe not ever.

  On the heels of that came another horrible thought: I’d brought this on myself. On both of us. If I hadn’t been so ashamed of my life—which wasn’t all that bad, considering—I would have told him what kind of work I did, about the company.

  And even that was a lie.

  Fear. It was fear that had kept me from letting Cay get close enough to know who I was. For all of our talk about music and books and movies, what we liked and things we believed in, I’d been afraid to let my guard down. Afraid he would turn into another Rob—charming until he turne
d cruel and abusive.

  Another thing Rob ruined for me.

  Maybe if Cay had heard everything from me instead of Will, he could have believed me. The part that made me sick—he probably would have. Maybe I really could have had a life with this kind, sexy man if I hadn’t constantly second-guessed every-fucking-thing, hadn’t tried so hard to protect myself. Protect myself from happiness? Protect myself from love? It all seemed so pointless and pathetic now. Because I had fallen for him. Yes, I realized I was in love with Cay only when I knew he was about to tell me to go to hell.

  “I’m sorry, Cay.” He flinched when I said his name and for a nanosecond I might have seen real pain in his eyes. “I’ll talk to Holden, tell him—”

  Cay’s bitter laughter cut through me. “That won’t help me. I just had to know why. Why me? Why not an engineer or someone in R and D who could give you what you wanted?”

  “I…I can’t answer that. I’m sorry.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, in which he might have considered kicking my ass again, and then he turned and left. He didn’t even slam the front door.

  Chapter Six

  Cay

  I stood in front of Val’s door before I realized what a bad idea it had been to go there. Maybe I should have taken some time to cool off before running to her—some time to come up with a plan? But no, and before I could turn around, she knocked on the kitchen window and waved me inside. The front door had barely closed behind me when she led me to the living room and sat me on the couch. It took a long time for words to come, but she waited patiently. She probably had plans—she usually had plans even when she wasn’t seeing someone, and Mac had said Val had “a new friend” too, even if she hadn’t met them yet.