Page 62 of Striking Range

But I’ve known Everett for so long; I would have noticed if that was the case. At least, I think I would have. We’ve encountered gay men before, and he never minded them.

Maybe it’s different when they’re in bed with him. Maybe it’s different when their dick is in his mouth.

But he wanted that! He’s so fucking confusing that I might just hate him. Or I would, if not for wanting him so badly.

Fuck, I think I want him. I want him bad—and not as my best friend. Not just that; not anymore.

I take this thought to bed with me. I take it with me as I jerk off to the memories of that last night we spent together, and while I shower off the shame. And as I’m falling into a fitful sleep, I try not to cry thinking about the friendship we might have just ruined in such a minuscule amount of time.

I am not allowed much time to sleep away this dread before I hear a loud crash sound throughout my apartment. Shooting up in bed, I clutch a hand over my chest as I stay tangled in the sheets, watching the entryway to the bedroom.

Either someone just broke in, or Everett is trashing the place.

Neither is true, apparently, as a very drunk Everett stumbles in holding a smashed picture frame.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, placing the shattered photo of the two of us lounging at the beach onto my dresser. “I fell into the wall too hard.”

“Jesus Christ. What are you doing here?”

I watch as he slides his shoes off, leaving them discarded on the floor as he stands at the end of my bed, chest rising and falling rapidly as he stares down at me.

He’s a mess—clothes in disarray, hair all fucking up, face puffy.

“I came to see you.” His words are slurred.

“Why?” I untangle myself from the sheets and get up, grabbing pajama pants off the floor so that I’m not prancing around in my briefs.

Everett watches my every movement, his eyes roaming every inch of my skin.

So fucking unfair.

“I miss you. Stop being mad at me.” He’s pouting. The audacity!

Sighing, I turn to face him, arms crossed over my bare chest.

“But you’re a dick. Leave—I don’t want to see you,” I demand, but the words lack the bite I intend for them to convey.

Everett stumbles toward me, now only inches away.

And suddenly, I can smell him. A mix of vanilla perfume and sweat—and then something else; something dirty, something I only know how to detect because of him and what we’ve done.

He smells like sex.

“But I want to see you,” he complains. “I know I’m mean; I know I’m selfish. But I can’t help it. I can’t stop thinking about you, puppy.”

I can feel the barbed wire closing around my throat, a hot ache pulsing through my chest.

Those words might have worked in the past; they would have had me sighing and opening my arms, watching as he crawled under the blankets to hold me. To touch me.

But Everett fucked up; he made a vital mistake.

He didn’t realize that by showing me what real pleasure felt like, what it smelled like, I’d be able to detect it on him as he betrays me.

“Fuck you.” The two words leave me before I can stop them; that little monster made of anger inside of me is clawing its way free.

He frowns, eyes watery. “Forgive me. Tell me what to do—I’ll do anything.”

“Leave. You said anything, so leave.” I’m so close to crying. In all the years we’ve been friends, he’s hardly ever seen me cry.