Shit.
I don’t know…
Telling him no really didn’t occur to me, but it probably should have.
It’s important, Ryan. If I’m in charge then I’m going to make some rules. I think that’s what you’re looking for anyway.
That just bounced around in my head like a ping-pong ball on steroids.
What kind of rules?
Admitting I was curious about that was easier than promising to talk to Scott, and that was more telling than I wanted to admit. I pictured Dare smiling at me when he texted back.
I shouldn’t let you change the subject but I will this time. Some naughty and some just to let you remember who’s in charge. I bet you’re hard right now, aren’t you?
Yep.
It doesn’t take a mind reader to guess that.
He sent a picture of a laughing emoji and something that looked like a paddle. Fuck.
You’re tempting me, aren’t you?
Tempting him to what? I decided it didn’t matter.
Maybe.
I could honestly say I had no idea what I was doing, but as tired as I was at that point, it didn’t scare me as much as it should have. Maybe it was a lack of sleep or maybe it was just because I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been until Dare had sat down on my lap, but in that moment, I wasn’t sure who I’d been hiding from.
College was long since over and the people at my job didn’t even seem to realize I was human, much less gay. I was just a cog in a wheel, and as long as the paperwork got done, they didn’t care. My family knew I was gay and had handled it just fine, but they’d never asked me overly nosy questions, which I was grateful of.
There was only one person who would really matter.
Scott.
And not just because I was thinking about having sex with him…or at the very least having sex with someone else while he watched…and while I watched him.
I was going to have to talk to Scott.
****
The smell of coffee woke me entirely too early.
I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the thought of Scott going into the office before we’d had a chance to at least try to talk made me uncomfortable. We hadn’t fought, and we hadn’t done anything weird last night, but there was the canyon between us that seemed to be growing wider in my head.
Groaning, I shoved the covers off and ignored my morning wood as I went to the bathroom and quickly rushed through everything I needed to do. Once I was ready, I headed for the kitchen, trying to figure out what I would say.
Scott didn’t always go into work on the weekend, so I wasn’t sure how ready he was to head into the office, but I didn’t want to miss him by seconds because I’d taken my time in the bathroom. As I walked into the small eat-in kitchen, I saw Scott hovering over a cup of coffee, and from a quick glance at the pot, I realized it was probably his second.
Taking his time before going in or a lot on his mind?
His furtive glance in my direction before focusing back on his coffee made it obvious. Scott sat quietly while I poured myself a cup and overloaded it with milk and sugar. The first sign he was really seeing me was when he grimaced at the amount of sugar I spooned in.
Chuckling, I sat down across from him in my usual seat and took a sip. When I set the cup down and stared at him, he blushed. This couldn’t continue. “We’ve been friends for years, right?”
Scott gave me a nod. “Yes.”
“In the closet or out, it didn’t matter because we were friends.”
It wasn’t a question, but Scott nodded again. He took another sip of his coffee, the tension slowly leaving his body. Feeling a little better, I kept going. “This thing with Dare is going to be the same. Whether we do it or not, that’s not going to affect our friendship.”
Scott shrugged, but actually spoke more than a single word, so I considered it a step in the right direction. “It’s not like we’d just be dating the same guy. This is different.”
He didn’t bring up Ian by name, but I knew what he was thinking about.
Shying away from the topic of Ian might have made me a chicken, but I was fine with that. I wasn’t ready to talk about that part, and if Scott didn’t want to either, that was good with me. Finding out your friend liked to be bossed around in bed could be weird.
“Yeah…I know, but it’s…I don’t know. He made it sound reasonable.” Erotic. Sexy. Fascinating. There were other words that would have worked better, but they’d sounded intimate, even in my head.
Scott barked out a laugh and almost choked on the drink of coffee he’d swallowed wrong. When he stopped coughing, he shook his head. “Um, understatement?”
I had to laugh. “Maybe.”
But he’d still sounded…interested…and Scott hadn’t said no.
His gaze fell to his cup, and he swirled the coffee around for a moment. “What do you think he’s going to want to do? Like some kind of a sandwich or something more…like with everyone. Fuck. I sound like a kid.” Scott laughed at himself and took a breath before trying again. “Is he going to expect us to fool around with each other too? We’ve never done anything like that.”
That was the million-dollar question.
“No idea. He’s…confident, but he didn’t push too hard last night, so I don’t think that will change. When we were texting last night, he said we needed to talk things out first.”
“You guys were texting too?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “There was a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah.” Scott nodded and watched his coffee cup like he was afraid it would get up and move on its own. “We were texting about stuff and he said the same thing. Do you think he really wants to…date us? Not just get his kinky rocks off and leave but really date? Do people really do that?”
“Well, the internet universe says they do but the kinkiest thing our town had was Mr. Jamison and his ‘long-term tenant’ Mr. Brooks.” They were two older guys who’d been living together for so long the town had forgotten to be scandalized somewhere along the way.
Scott chuckled. “After I came out, Mr. Brooks came up to me in the store and told me that I could always come by and talk if I needed to.”
They were nice guys. “Mr. Jamison came up to me once we were in college and said that if you ever needed a place to live to let him know.”
Scott’s parents hadn’t exactly taken the news of his coming out well. They hadn’t shoved him to the curb, but he hadn’t gone back in years and they only called on Christmas and his birthday. My parents had done their best to adopt him and treated him the same way they did the rest of the kids in the family, but it wasn’t the same thing.
Scott grinned. “They’re great. Maybe we should get your mom to send them a Christmas card or something from us this year.” The king of changing the subject had done a damned good job…or maybe this one had been my fault. I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah, her list is ten feet long already, one more won’t matter.” Not sure how to bring the conversation back around, I gave up trying to be subtle. “Are you okay with what Dare talked about? We can tell him no if you want to.”
I just wasn’t sure what would happen if we did that. Would he end up wanting to date just one of us? He’d flirted with both of us and we’d both found him attractive at the bar, but Scott had never talked about wanting someone like Dare. Did Scott even understand the other stuff that Dare had been hinting about?
Scott looked up again. “Do you want to tell him no?”
“Oh no, I asked you first. No changing the subject.” I wasn’t dealing with that answering a question with a question crap.
Scott chuckled. “I guess I’m okay with it.”
That wasn’t a confident enough answer. “Do you want to date him together and see what happens?”
“No, you’ve got to answer the other question too before you get to ask another.”
“I guess I’m okay with it.” I cracked a smile when he rolled his eyes. “Now, do you want
to date him together?”
“I guess.”
“I guess he’s got himself two guys to date.”
Lord. We were either going to be the most interesting people Dare had ever dated or the most boring. I wasn’t sure which.
Chapter 5
Dare
When my phone chirped, I’d expected it to be Scott or Ryan, so I had to laugh when I saw it was my mother. For the past week, almost every message or call had been from the guys, and I hadn’t realized how used to it I’d been getting until that moment.
Heading back through the apartment, I swiped my finger across the screen and answered it, still smiling. “Hey, Mom.”
She chuckled. “Why is that so funny?”
Oversharing was an ingrained habit; I didn’t even think twice about answering her honestly as I walked into my bedroom. “I’m turning into Pavlov’s dog. When the phone went off, I automatically thought you would be Scott or Ryan.”
The smile in her voice was obvious. “How are they doing? Any advancement on the communication front?”
I sighed, not caring if I sounded overly dramatic. “No, and I don’t want to back either of them into a corner, but it’s ridiculous. They’re each missing huge red flags the other is waving, and so far, the only thing they’ve discussed is the idea of us dating.”
She clucked her tongue at me like I was a kid again. “You have to let them talk it out, Darren. Anything else would be like outing them.”
I rolled my eyes, thankful she couldn’t see me. “I know. It’s just frustrating because I know once they get past it they’ll both be happier. Right now, they think their own desires are so obvious the other has to be just ignoring them because they’re not ready to talk about it.”
“Just because you’re right doesn’t make it the right thing to do. People need to make those kinds of decisions on their own.” She knew me too well.
If we were going to eventually have sex, they’d have to move past their inability to talk about it. “At some point, it will become obvious.”
“Darren, if they’re important then you shouldn’t be rushing them into bed. If you take your time they’ll feel more special.” I was pretty positive most people didn’t have conversations like this with their mother, but she’d always been that way, so we’d all gotten used to it.
I laughed and started digging through my closet. I had about half an hour before I had to be out the door, and I needed to get ready. “Just because you and Dad had the longest courtship in history doesn’t mean I’ve got that much patience.”
“Learning to communicate and taking our time made everything sweeter.” Her I was so innocent act was so believable it was scary.
Some people would have thought she meant learning to talk things out or something like that, but my parents had a unique start to their relationship. “I’m not learning a foreign language to talk to them. They just need to share more with each other.”
I could almost hear her shaking her head. “I think everyone should have to learn a new language when they fall in love. It made your father and me a much stronger couple.”
I ended up coughing to cover my laughter as I tossed a pair of pants on the bed. “I’m not agreeing to that. I’m glad you learned to sign for Dad, but I’m not going to take a year for our first date.” Just because she’d had a hard time getting him to realize that she was into him didn’t mean I was taking the same path.
Please, God, do not let my guys be as clueless as my father.
My mother was priceless. “I didn’t say you needed to wait a year, just until they’ve talked things out. Otherwise, your first time with them is going to be very awkward. You don’t want that to be their memories thirty years from now, do you?”
I couldn’t contain my laughter. “We haven’t even gone on a date yet. Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun?”
“Of course not. You’re a planner, and I knew as soon as you talked about them it was serious.”
“There’s a difference between planning my day and planning out the wedding before we go on a real date.” A big difference.
She sighed and her voice dropped quieter as if she was hoping she didn’t hurt my feelings. “I’m not trying to get you down, sweetie, but I think it will have to be a commitment ceremony. If you think I’m waiting to celebrate until the three of you can get legally married, you’re crazy.”
How was I supposed to respond to that? “You know I love you, right?”
She snorted. “And you know I’m not falling for that, right? It didn’t work when you were a teenager, and it’s not working now to distract me. But yes, I know you love me. And I love you so much I haven’t even mentioned your new boyfriends to your siblings yet.”
That right there was the only reason the phone hadn’t gone crazy this week. “And I appreciate that.”
With seven siblings, when the gossip tree got going, my phone went crazy. Nosy busybodies.
“Okay, I’m at the store now, but don’t forget to message your father later.”
“Date night, remember?” Grinning, I grabbed the shirt I knew they’d love. My big teddy bears didn’t have a problem with me being smaller than they were, so I wasn’t going to hide it. The fitted button-down wasn’t too casual, but it was soft, and I knew they’d be imagining running their hands over it all night long—and probably imagining asking for permission too—my sexy subs.
She sighed. “Oh, that’s right. I’ll remind him. Just talk to him soon. He’s curious about how you’re doing and hates second-hand information.”
It was a constant game of one-upmanship between the two of them. It brought back the memories from the summer I’d come out. My mother had figured it out first and my dad had pouted for a month. Some kids had problems with their families never accepting them. I’d had a jealous dad.
“He’s been so busy on that new book; I hate to interrupt him.” He got so drawn into the epic fantasies he wrote that pulling him back to real life could be hard some days.
“He’s at the editing phase and is desperate for more interruptions.”
Laughing, I started straightening up the bedroom to kill time. “That’s the real reason you’re at the store, isn’t it?”
She sighed. “Yes, he’s driving me crazy. I can’t wait for this to be done. I’ve heard more about elves and things with this world than I ever wanted to. Why can’t he write romance?”
“Because every time he did something romantic, you ended up with another kid. Can you imagine how many of us there would be if he wrote dirty books?” As kids we’d joked that each time he finished a book, she’d ended up pregnant again.
“Oh, good point. Okay, I have to go. Walmart is like a black hole and I get no service.” I could already hear the distraction in her voice as she thought about her list.
“Have fun. I’m heading out soon anyway.”
“Have fun too, but don’t make things harder on those boys.”
I wasn’t going to be the one making things harder; they were doing that very neatly to themselves.
****
It was either going to be the quietest date ever or the most fabulous—it all depended on if my sexy guys were actually willing to talk. Judging by the texts they’d sent, that was still up for debate. How two such similar guys could be great friends but not see the similarities that had probably brought them together to begin with was beyond me. Once they started to talk, I knew they’d see it, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for them to make the first step.
They were just lucky I was the take-charge type.
As I walked up to the table and watched them awkwardly waiting for me, I knew they still hadn’t talked about the most pressing issue. The little glances they kept sending to each other would have made it clear they’d talked about the dating part even if they hadn’t both confessed it in separate texts.
They were pretty open and honest when it came to telling me the things they liked and wanted. Sure, sometimes there were long pauses an
d they ended up changing the subject, but that just made it even more clear when I’d hit something we needed to talk about.
I’d just hoped that they’d continue the honesty when we were face to face. That was harder than having the anonymity of a text message. If not, I would still count myself lucky that all we had to do was text to talk something out. My mother had needed to learn to sign. I was confident I was coming out ahead when it came to communication issues.
Glancing around the restaurant, I saw it was a lot more packed than I’d expected. I’d wanted to go somewhere so we couldn’t get carried away flirting, but as I weaved my way through the crowded tables, I started to question that decision. It’d show them that I wanted a real date, not just find any excuse for us to jump into bed, but next time we went out, it would be someplace with more privacy.
“Hi.” They stood as I approached the table. I gave Scott a hug and then walked around to give a matching one to Ryan. “I hope I’m not late.”
I’d expected to be the first one there, but when I’d walked in, I’d seen them from across the room. Ryan grinned and nodded toward a blushing Scott. “He was afraid we’d be late.”
They were so cute.
“Late or early, I’m just glad you’re here.” They’d never talked about backing out, but as the week had gone by, I had a pretty good feeling they’d both considered it. I hadn’t been sure if it was the curiosity about each other that had kept them going or the temptation of being able to submit that had more pull.
They weren’t sure what to say to that. Scott mumbled a quiet “thanks” but his blush flared back to life and Ryan took a drink of his water. Not bothering to hide my smile—because how could I, they were too cute—I sat down across from them.
A rectangular four-seater table in the middle of the room wasn’t quite what I’d pictured when I’d envisioned our date, but it would work. There was a menu on the table in front of me already, so I glanced back at them as I sat. “Do you already know what you want?”
Ryan nodded but Scott gave me a half-shrug that could have meant anything from I have no idea to my stomach is turning like a tornado so I might not eat.
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