Page 9 of The Cubby Hole

“You sure about that?” Gary asked. “You’d make a good one.” He looked to his partner for agreement, and Michael nodded.

“We did try.” I looked at Ben as if I could read from his expression what he’d want me to say. “Back in the day.” I always seemed to be the first to confess our history to people. I sometimes wondered how he talked about us when I wasn’t around. If I—if we—ever came up.

So I was shocked when Ben said, “We’ve actually been together for twenty years tomorrow.” I’d never heard him state it like that before. “But for most of them, just as friends.”

There was something fond yet sad about his tone, and considering the soft sounds Gary and Michael made, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Like Austin had, they murmured platitudes about how nice it was we could remain friends.

And then an awkward silence fell.

And lingered.

The sauna logs ticked.

Ben looked over at me and smiled, his face flushed from the heat.

With a hearty tone, Gary—bless him—introduced a new meaningless subject. “We thought it’d be busier than this.”

I repeated my theory about most people’s work schedules for the holiday weekend.

“We have some friends coming in tomorrow,” Ben said, “for a birthday party.”

“Who’s having a birthday?” Gary asked.

Again, the answer came out in unison. “Both of us.”

The other men shared another knowing smirk.

We tag-teamed the story of how we’d met on our nineteenth birthday. We’d told it so many times it had evolved into a script.

“Having the same birthday must mean you were destined to be together,” Michael said in a quiet voice. It was the longest string of words he’d spoken, which made it feel profound.

I resisted the urge to confirm that I’d always thought so, waiting to see if Ben would respond. He did. “It does,” he said, catching my eye.

When Ben opened up and started talking and people realized what a kind soul he was, he went from unapproachably hot to dreamy real quick.

The older men’s toothy smiles gleamed in the dim light.

“For the record,” Gary said, “we’re open.”

Uh-oh.

They were sweet guys to shoot the shit with. I enjoyed talking to long-term couples; they gave me hope that ideal partnerships existed. They were nice looking too—playfully randy from the sound of some of their past experiences here—but because of my history with Ben, I did not play around with couples. I was a diehard serial monogamist, only interested in single men with at least some potential for being the real deal.

I was open to minor hookups between my boyfriends—one-night stands, camp romances… But the older I got, the less interested I was in the hunt.

I wasn’t going to speak for Ben, though. I tried to stay out of his way. If he wanted to play around with these guys, I’d let him respond.

But when I glanced over at him, he was giving me the look, a soft blank expression with the hint of a polite smile. It was every bit as effective as a safe word, letting me know he wanted to make our excuses and get out of there. In another circumstance where he might have been interested—and it had gone that way plenty of other times—there would have been an unmistakable twinkle in his pretty blue eyes.

“Well,” I said, taking my cue, “I think I need to get out of here and cool down.”

“Me too,” Ben said, a bit too eager to be subtle. Because of the low ceiling, he stretched down the risers before standing, treating Gary and Michael to a full-frontal view of his body.

Their consolation prize, I thought, although I doubted Ben had done it on purpose. He was the more comfortable nudist between the two of us. He didn’t automatically equate nudity with sex.

I slipped on the bottom riser.

Gary and Michael cried out, but Ben caught me. His strong hands gripped me under my arms, his knee went between mine, his warm soft cock nudged my thigh… The feeling of Ben’s body against mine was muddled by my surprise and embarrassment at almost falling.