That earned a genuine laugh from him. “Do you see my point, though?”
“You know, there are actually some straight men who just occasionally want their dick sucked by another man. They don’t want to kiss a guy, and certainly don’t want a relationship with a guy, but they like a blow job every now and then.”
“Sure. But this guy wasn’t that. He fully believed he was straight, and then after six months of hooking up with me, he said it was like a dam burst inside him. Like something had finally dawned on him.”
“Did you end up dating the redhead?”
“No,” Chase said. “He promptly told me he was done with me, and left me for his gay best friend, actually.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“I am not,” he said. “I still think about that guy’s precum ‘til this day. Never seen that much precum leak from a dick as I did with that guy. I’m talking dripping down his cock, Harlan—”
“I get it, TMI king,” I protested.
“Not to get all wisdom-twink on you, but life isn’t always as smooth and predictable as we assume it is.”
I breathed deep. “I know.”
“At least give Sawyer some time and a chance to tell you what he feels before you squash it down?”
Something about what Chase had just said felt like a door opening inside my mind.
And as soon as that door was opened, a realization hit me like a sledgehammer to the fucking head.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, leaning forward on the couch and looking down at the ground.
“You okay?”
“I’m an idiot,” I said softly, gears turning in my mind. “I am so dumb.”
For my entire friendship with Sawyer, I’d been hell bent on one thing more than everything else: I hated that no one in his family had ever listened to him. Never supported him. Never let him express what his true feelings were.
Yet that’s what I’d been doing with Sawyer.
Tonight, and last week, and the week before.
Denying him. Not believing him. Doing everything his family had done to him for his whole life.
“You look like you either just had a religious epiphany or you’re about to go run a marathon, and I don’t know which one it is,” Chase said.
“I just need to let Sawyer be Sawyer,” I said. “I don’t know whether he’s straight or not, but I do know I’ve been an asshole to him without even knowing it. And he doesn’t deserve that.”
“I mean, you let him come down your throat tonight, so I’m not sure you’ve really been an asshole to him,” Chase said. “He’s probably up there right now, dreaming of throatfucking you all over again.”
I looked at Chase. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re crazy, Chase?”
He beamed like I’d given him a compliment. “All the time.”
I stood up.
“Thank you for talking to me. I really mean it,” I told him. “I didn’t want to talk at first, because I never really want to talk to anyone who isn’t Sawyer. But I think I really needed it.”
“Naturally.”
“It means a lot to me. So thanks.”
“My pleasure,” Chase said. “Wisdom-twink, at your service. The only repayment I ask is that if any hot guy ever comes into Jade Brewery just desperately looking for a blue-eyed horny camera man with a blue streak in his hair, you direct them right over to me, okay?”
“Of course, Chase. I’ll know exactly where to send them.”
When I got back up to the hotel room, Sawyer was sleeping like a rock exactly where I’d left him.
I tucked into bed next to him, heart pounding again, but for different reasons.
I was still terrified. I was still gun-shy about just about any type of intimacy, after everything that had happened in my past.
But I was going into the unknown, with no clue what might happen. And if Sawyer wanted more of me, then I would give him more of me. If he wanted to wrap his lips around my cock again, I wasn’t going to deny him.
And I wasn’t going to hesitate to taste his skin. To soak in every moment of it, even if it eventually might go away.
Because I wanted to hear him moan and shudder and whisper my name again, right as he came. I was already getting hard again now, thinking of it.
So I’d let him take the lead.
If he asked for me, he’d get me. And if he didn’t, I wouldn’t interfere. I wouldn’t push for anything. I’d just let him be him. I would be the same friend I always had been.
I had to see what happened, no matter what the consequences might be.
10
SAWYER
“Hey, you. IPA or lager, tonight?” I heard from behind me. My heart suddenly felt like it had skipped ten beats.
I turned around to see Harlan behind me, and goddamn, he was dressed to kill today.
Well, actually, he was dressed like he always did, in flannel and jeans. But today, the deep green of his flannel brightened something in his eyes, and I didn’t know if his dark denim was new or not, but it made me want to squeeze his thighs on sight. Did he always look this good, and I’d just been too oblivious to see it?