Trent
He wanted me to remember, but no one else to see.
I couldn’t even be mad, because I understood. I felt the same.
Before this weekend, I was worried I’d lose my family if they found out the way I felt about Drew. Yes, because I thought he didn’t feel the same and it would drive a wedge between us. But also because I was “suddenly” gay.
Granted, I wasn’t really suddenly gay, but that’s how it was going to look. I might have taken a lot of hits during football, a lot of them to my head, but I wasn’t stupid. It might be a new age, and I might live in a world of intense political correctness, yet…
Facts were facts.
Not everyone was so accepting of a person’s choice to love someone of the same sex. By some, it was considered a sin. It made others uncomfortable, and to the real assholes of the world, it made us perverts.
I didn’t want to be judged for a choice… a choice my heart made out of love.
I didn’t want that for Drew either.
With Romeo’s and Braeden’s high-profile careers as football players, the last thing they needed was me announcing I wanted to be with Drew. They wouldn’t understand.
How could they? I could barely wrap my head around it.
The way we jumped apart when the family got home Sunday was like a bucket of ice water to the balls. Who was I kidding? A relationship between Drew and me couldn’t work. Especially if we both acted like we were doing something wrong whenever another person was around.
Reality blew chunks.
Even though I was nauseous from life, I still couldn’t stay away. Drew had his first big interview today. It was literally the first day of the rest of his life in racing. I was going to be there come hell or high water.
Oh yeah, and someone had to drag his ass out of bed.
How the guy managed to get himself to his day job on time every day (At the early hour of eight a.m. Yeah, he’d never survive football practices at five.) I honestly would like to know.
I went over earlier than I needed to for two reasons:
1) I didn’t want anyone to see me sneaking up to his room.
and
2) I missed him.
I lay awake a long time, trying to fall asleep the night before, thinking about him. About how good it was to be with him the way we were over the weekend. About how I loved him and kinda wished I didn’t. I thought about how we went back to just “friends” as soon as the family walked in and how hard it was to not be able to reach out and touch him if I wanted. I spent a lot of time the last few years trying to love someone. Every girl I met, I wondered if she’d be the one, even though I always sort of knew she wouldn’t.
I loved Drew without trying, in spite of trying not to.
I found it incredibly ironic that now, when we stood in a room full of other people, I had to be careful how I looked at him. I had to be careful the love I always tried to have for someone didn’t show in my eyes.
It shouldn’t feel like a punishment or a crime to love someone. Anyone. People stepped out in the world today with guns and bombs. They killed one another without any thought of an actual human life.
But I lay there in bed and worried what people might do when they found out I loved someone.
I woke up reaching for him, but he wasn’t there.
Drew might be the cause of the debate inside me, but he was also the solution. I didn’t know anything else, but I did know that.
This morning, it was enough.
I used the key Romeo gave me months ago; it was the first time I’d ever actually used it. I remembered thinking at the time it was unnecessary I had a key because someone was always home when I came over, but Romeo said even though I didn’t live here, this was still my place.
I was grateful for that key right now. It kinda made me wonder if he’d known I’d need it someday.
It wasn’t super early, but early enough that no one was up and moving around yet, but I knew they would be soon. Nova didn’t let anyone sleep late in this house. Because of that, I moved fast, as soundless as I could up the stairs and down the hall.
Prada barked from inside B and Ivy’s room, and I winced but kept moving and stealthily let myself into Drew’s room, closing the door behind me quickly and quietly.
The room was very dim, but I could still see him on the bed. Instead of taking up the middle of the mattress, he was lying on his side. The one he slept on when I was here. It was like he, too, in such a short time, got used to sharing the bed with me.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe that.
His chest was bare. One of his arms, which was strong and defined, was thrown up over the pillow. Drew looked younger when he slept. The intense edge of the daredevil in him was buried by the fullness of his relaxed lips, the smoothness of his face, and the way his lashes swept down, hiding the cloudless blue color of his sometimes penetrating stare.
I didn’t prefer him one way or the other. I liked both. That’s what it was to love someone, right? To love all parts of them.
I wanted to slip right beneath the sheets and claim my place at his side, but I hesitated. We didn’t acknowledge the way we changed last night once everyone came home. Even alone in the car when he drove me back to the house, we didn’t mention it.
We just talked and joked like we always had and pretended everything between wasn’t fundamentally changed. When I got out of the car, we didn’t touch or embrace. I didn’t brush my lips across the scruff on his jaw. I didn’t tell him I loved him.
I was afraid to.
What if the weekend was just a weekend? What if the entire two days were like our first kiss—something to try? What if after I left and he came home, he decided this was insane?
I probably shouldn’t have snuck in here.
It might be awkward.
Why didn’t I think of this before?
Good timing, Mask, I scolded myself. You’re supposed to think your play through before it’s in motion.
“You’re being creepy.”
I jolted at the sound of the voice breaking into my thoughts.
Drew made a sound and looked up at me through barely cracked eyes. “I like creepy as much as I like mornings.”
“I, uh—” All these thoughts in my head and I couldn’t seem to string together one sentence or excuse as to why I was standing in his room.
“You gonna get in bed?” he asked, thumbing at my side of the mattress.
My eyes flew to his face. I couldn’t help but feel surprised. And relieved. He wasn’t even looking at me. His eyes were back to being closed. How could he just lie there and sleep?
The dirty bastard.
My type must be dirty bastards because I grinned, kicked off my shoes, and walked around the bed. I crawled in fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a preppy-looking sweater. It was cold out this morning, but I figured I should at least make an effort to look like I made an effort to get dressed for the interview and shoot.
I wouldn’t be doing any talking or smiling for the cameras, but since I was Drew’s manager (still a super weird thought), I basically represented him, and I wasn’t about to look like some loser off the street.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Drew said as he rolled toward me.
“How do you know? You haven’t even opened your eyes,” I argued.
“I’m naked,” he announced, and as if he needed to prove it, he lifted the blankets to show me that yes, indeed, he was naked.
He also was hard.
“Forrester.” I gasped. “What kind of depraved person sleeps butt-ass naked?”
“The kind who hopes someone might sneak in their room to take advantage of them.”
I clamped my hand around his bare hip and hauled him close. “I think I might be the man for that job.”
His body stiffened. “Your hands feel like you slept in the arctic!”
“It’s cold out.”
“Take your shirt off.”
“I’m over here freezing and you want me to get undressed? I feel the love.” I teased.
“I’ll warm you up.” The sleepy quality to his voice totally turned me on. I ripped the shirts over my head and tossed them over the side of the bed.
We reached for each other at the same time. Our bodies and lips locked at the same time. We kissed like we hadn’t in weeks, and his bare legs tangled through my jean-covered ones as if he didn’t care how knotted up we became.
I tugged on his lower lip with my teeth and rubbed a palm over the scruff on his face. He pulled back abruptly and ducked his head.
“I have morning breath,” he groaned.
“I like morning breath.”
We went back to kissing, and my hand found its way around his cock. Drew’s hips tilted up to give me better access, and I licked deep into his mouth and slowly jacked his length.
He made a sound of pure satisfaction that tightened my balls when I flattened a palm on his chest and pushed him flat on his back.
“Lose the jeans,” he murmured, his hips still seeking my attention.
“No time for me right now,” I said and stroked him again.
He couldn’t argue. His head fell back, his mouth going open with a silent O. I should have just finished him off right then. I could have, but I was greedy.
I spent way too much time last night and this morning thinking the weekend was all we were going to get. But now I had another moment.
Another memory to fold into my head.
I wasn’t going to make it fast because we were pressed for time or because there were other people in this house. I could be thorough and quiet behind his closed door. I wanted Drew to feel my hand even after we were dressed.
Before sliding down his body, I leaned up and scraped my teeth over his ear. “You fucking turn me on,” I growled. My entire body disappeared beneath the sheets, and I took him in my mouth.
I sucked him down deep, fitting his long, hard girth all the way to the back of my throat. I liked the feel of him inside me like this. I liked being almost overfull with Drew.
It made me curious for other ways he could be inside me, but now wasn’t the time for that. When that time came—if I were ever lucky enough for it to come at all—it was going to be something that would happen when we were totally alone and had all night.
I pulled back and licked all around his smoothness. His cock was quaking and his head was swollen.
With one hand, I cupped his balls and caressed his taint, which caused him to shudder. The other hand I wrapped around his shaft and pumped up at the very same time my lips closed over his tip.
The sudden sensation of his warm release coated my tongue, and I lapped it up with pride. It wasn’t gross to me. It wasn’t just his cum. It was his pleasure, and he was giving it to me.
I made sure to suck him gently until his body stopped quivering and he went boneless against the bed. I pressed a kiss to the inside of his thigh (because I wanted to) before lifting up the blankets to join him at his side.
“Fuck, man,” he whispered. “You seriously know how to suck a dick.”
“Maybe that’s because I know what feels good.”
“Advantages to dating another man,” Drew mused.
I tried not to react, to not make a thing out of what he said. Inside, I was freaking out, like running around like someone who had way, way too much caffeine.
Drew seemed to realize what he said as well, because he’d gone still. His head rotated in my direction, and we locked eyes.
“Are we dating?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back.
“Maybe we should keep this conversation for a time when we don’t have somewhere to be,” I suggested.
His eyes cleared and he nodded. “Yeah.”
I allowed my eyes to roam his face, because I knew once we left this room, I’d be fighting the urge to stare at him. He stared back, and I wondered if it was because he felt the same way.
“I like the way you look at me,” he confessed quietly.
The words squeezed my heart. It was exactly what I’d known. I wore my heart in my eyes.
“I like looking at you,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.
His hand began exploring my chest and his fingers lightly pinched my nipples. I closed my eyes and surrendered for a few long moments, drinking in the way it felt to have his hands upon my skin.
It nearly killed me to put a hand over his when he reached for my jeans, but I had to.
“I need to go downstairs, and you need to get ready for the shoot.”
“We have time,” he urged, trying to push my hand aside.
“Forrester, if I’d known this was the greeting I’d get, I would have snuck in here hours ago. But I didn’t, and you can’t be late.”
“You’re hard as a rock,” he pointed out.
Like I didn’t know.
“No kidding,” I drawled.
“Let me,” he enticed.
I moaned and almost gave in. The sound of a door opening and closing somewhere in the house was what made me keep my head. My hand closed around his. “I need to go downstairs, unless you want to explain to everyone why I was coming out of your room.”
The frustrated sound he made was reinforcement he didn’t want to explain to anyone either. “Fine,” he muttered. “But later.”
“No argument from me.” I agreed and began untangling myself from his body. The cold air of the room was extra harsh compared to the heat in the bed.
“Take a shower,” I said low, pulling my shirts back on. “I’ll be downstairs.”
“It’s too early,” he grumped and pulled a pillow over his face.
I bit back a laugh and shoved my feet into my shoes, grabbing my coat off the dresser nearby. “Hey, I got you something.”
The pillow disappeared, and he was suddenly awake. I dug around inside my coat pocket and closed my hand around a large round object. “Catch,” I said and tossed it at him.
Drew snatched it out of the air and looked down. Then he glanced back up at me. “An eight ball?”
I grinned. “It’s magic.”
Drew rolled his eyes, but then he started shaking it.
“Figured you were probably nervous about today, with your first interview and all. If they ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, just ask the eight.”
“What would Gamble say if he heard I was consulting an eight ball to answer my interview questions for a national magazine?” Drew cracked.
“Magic eight ball.” Drew spoke down to the black softball-sized toy in his hand like he was summoning a spirit.
It was highly amusing.
“Will I totally rock this interview today?” He gave it another small shake, then flipped it over to the bottom where the window was. I knew the triangle inside would float to the surface with his answer.
He glanced up.
“Well?” I asked. “What did it say?”
“All signs point to yes,” he read.
“See?” I spread my hands out in front of me. “It works.”
“Dude, you are lame.”
“I can take it back.” I stepped forward and reached for the gift.
He tucked it into his chest and gave me a hard look. “Get your own!”
I straightened away from the bed and left the toy in his arms.
“Hey, frat boy?”
“Yeah?” I raised my brows in response.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I went to the door quietly, and listened for anyone out in the hall.
“Did you ask it a question, T?” Drew asked.
I glanced back. He was in the center of the bed, the ball still in his hands. My heart constricted.
“No.” I lied.
He nodded. “I’ll be down in a few.”
Yeah. I lied.
Sometimes a lie is kinder than the truth.