AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The problem was Joq was starting to feel like a fool. And that was making an unfamiliar form of anger simmer just below the surface.
He clicked the door shut and George called out, “In the kitchen,” and Joq felt himself close down.
“Hey,” he said as he walked in.
“Hey, babe,” George replied as he shot him a warm smile and then went back to whatever he was making. It was not stir-fry and a cookbook was open.
“What’s all this?” Joq asked. He cocked his hip against the bench, folded his arms over his chest.
“Thought I’d try and cook you something different,” George winked.
Joq felt part of his anger abate, and a crack of guilt come in.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” George smiled, closed mouthed but warm, and went back to some kind of fillet he had marinating in a bowl, before he took it out and rolled it in crumbs. “It might suck balls, but I can always correct next time.”
Joq snorted. “Okay, coach,” he went for the fridge.
“I got the wine you like,” George said and Joq saw a bottle of his favourite Sauvignon blanc and a six-pack of the ciders he’d been ordering when they went out next to it.
Joq grabbed a cider, cracked it, and went over to the window to look at the pool. He listened to George behind him, hummed when George started talking about the team’s chances now they were almost certain to make the final eight, and tried his best to shake the remnants of his anger, tried to break out of the shell of indifference he felt himself encased in.
“Looks good,” Joq said when they sat down at the long dining table inside.
George gave him a grateful smile. They ate. It almost felt normal. The food was good, surprisingly so, and Joq couldn’t help the genuine way he felt when he told George, “You been holding out on me.”
George laughed it off, cleared the table, and finished his water.
By the time they went to bed, Joq had almost forgotten about the existence of Finn. He was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined the invisible strain between him and George.
George wrapped his arms around him, pressed his hardening dick against Joq’s ass.
“Not tonight,” Joq heard himself say and didn’t understand why, but he knew he was definitely not in the mood.
“Really?” George asked, surprised. But he was quick to let Joq go and roll onto his back, his hand still on Joq’s hip, squeezing reassuringly.
“Yeah, long day, management, you know? They want bag checks on game days, security scanners…” Joq heard himself rambling.
“Hmmm,” George sounded sleepy when Joq finally petered out.
“George?” Joq asked a while later.
George didn’t reply, his hand lax on Joq’s hip, his breathing deep and even. Joq couldn’t sleep, his mind turning over the evening, that USB in his bag taunting him, the remnants of that quiet anger still simmering as he berated himself to let it go.
25
George was doing laps when Joq got up the next morning. The coffee was already made, the house toasty warm with the heaters on, and the soft glow of the lamps made the place feel cosy against the dark chill of the early morning outside.
As Joq watched, he thought George must’ve changed the pool to warm; he always did it around this time, switched between going for a run and doing laps. He drank his coffee, thought about all this and couldn’t fathom a world where they broke up. His original thinking had been right: let it play out. Don’t look at that USB stick. In fact, he should destroy it. It was none of his business.
“Cold?” he asked when George came in.
“Nah,” George grinned. “Heater works a treat.”
“Training?”
“Yeah,” George looked at the clock, rubbed his head with the towel. “I better hustle, you workin’ tonight?”
