CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ashton
Ashton “Take a chance” Carmichael did just that… Will it pay off?
We spent hours tearing down the shed. The conversation hardly stopped. Beau talked about his job and his mom and his group of friends.
Rush was apparently a professional motocross racer. I didn’t know much about the sport, but had always been interested in dirt bikes, even though I’d never ridden.
I realized Camden and Sawyer were actually brothers we’d gone to high school with, only they hadn’t been friends with our group. Sawyer had been…shy…quiet, really fucking smart. He’d gotten picked on a lot, and Camden had always come to his rescue. Camden had been known as a troublemaker.
It just struck me that there had been Camden, Sawyer, and Beau around me, who were all gay and no one had ever known it. I mean, obviously I had to have had some inclination about Beau since I’d kissed him, but hell, it could have been a fluke with him the way it was with me.
“This is awful nice of you…helping me out like this,” I told Beau.
He shrugged. “You’re not an asshole.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Just something I’ve told Kenny before.”
Okay… “After we finish the shed, wanna take a break for lunch and beer?” I asked. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, his bicep tightening as he did so. My eyes trained in on the ball of muscle, how firm and cut it was. Yeah, I definitely needed a beer break.
“Sure. And thanks for getting my hat sweaty.”
I grinned, took it off, and held it out to him. “Want it back?”
“Fuck no.”
Laughing, I slipped it back on my head. I didn’t know what had made me take it and wear it all morning, but Beau always made me do weird shit. It was annoying as hell.
So we kept talking about random stuff as we finished up the shed, and then went inside. I ordered pizza, and first thing I did afterward was crack open a beer. “Want one?” I held the bottle up for Beau.
“Sure.”
I pulled a second out of the fridge and handed it to him. When I did so, our fingers brushed. The heat must have begun to get to me because it was making me woozy. I needed to hurry up and get some food in my stomach.
“So, patio cover next?” Beau asked as he leaned against the counter, tilted his head back, and took a few long swallows of beer. And now my eyes were oddly glued to the muscles in his throat, to his Adam’s apple as it moved.
“Yep.” Looking away, I concentrated on a fly buzzing around the yellow kitchen. Relax, dude. You’ve been through this before. Just gotta get your head on straight. It always goes away.
“What are your plans?” Beau asked.
“I was going to build another—patio cover, I mean. I did some construction work in college, helping a buddy out. And that’s what Dad always did. He used to take me to work with him, remember?”
“Yeah.” Beau nodded. “I remember when Wyatt and I went with you guys too. Remember Wyatt nailed his finger to a two-by-four?”
We both chuckled. “Wyatt hated that shit.”
“I loved it,” Beau replied. “I used to wish my old man wanted to take me to work the way yours did. He wanted to leave us instead.”
His words landed in my chest, and I couldn’t help but let my eyes snap to Beau again. He drank the rest of his beer, then turned and washed his hands in the sink. I stared at him from behind, which was strange, I knew. Still, I couldn’t pull my gaze away. It traveled from his sweaty hair, down his back, to his ass before I went to drink the rest of my beer, only to realize it was gone, and I did my best to force my eyes away from him.
“He didn’t deserve you guys. I know that’s not true comfort. I tell that to myself about my birth parents.” Not because they gave me away. No, I was glad they’d done what was best for me there. It was what had happened later, afterward. That dumbass thing I’d done in college that no one knew about.
“Kenny deserved better.”
“So did you,” I replied. “And damn, he’s lucky to have you.”
Okay, so I got that our eyes were always meeting, but it happened again, like they were drawn together. Something shifted in Beau’s expression as he took me in. It was intense, strong as a touch running the length of my body. We didn’t talk like this when we were kids. Hell, I didn’t talk like this with anyone.
He opened his mouth. I waited with bated breath to know what he was going to say and—ding-dong! We both jumped at the sound of the doorbell. I could tell he noticed it in me too because he looked down, shook his head, and snickered. “So luckily, that was just the doorbell and not a serial killer coming to get us.”
“How do you know that’s not who’s at the door?” Beau asked.
“Good point. But would he ring the bell?”
“Maybe to throw suspicion off his true motives.” He took a step toward me, and another. “You go first. I got your back.”
“Oh, I see how it is. You’re sacrificing me?” I teased, even though I liked the idea of Beau by my side, sacrifice or not.
“Your house.”
“Pfft. I’m not taking the fall because of that. If I go down, you’re going down with me.” Damned if I didn’t grab his arm and tugged a laughing Beau along with me.
We ate the pizza that had been delivered and then went right back out to work. The conversation continued to flow, and Christ, he was funny. Beau could always make me laugh, but what made it even better was the fact that he didn’t try. I didn’t think it ever occurred to him to try and be funny the way it did with me.
The thing that was making things tricky was that I couldn’t stop watching him. I hated myself for it in some ways, but I was drawn to him, always had been—to his kindness, his humor, his work ethic…just Beau. When he’d look at me, I always jerked my gaze away. I made sure to drink a few beers, which helped dull the part of me that worried about how much I looked at him or talked to him or enjoyed being around him.
When we finished, I realized I wasn’t ready for Beau to leave yet. “Wanna swim and cool off?” I asked. “We can grill up some dinner. I went grocery shopping.” That wasn’t a strange question. Two friends swim and have dinner together.
“That when you saw Linc?” he asked.
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what? I didn’t say it like anything.”
“You—”
“You want me to go swimming with you?” His brows knitted together as if it was a strange question. “I don’t have swim trunks.”
Then my brain started going haywire because I couldn’t figure out why he was looking at me or why I was so nervous about asking him to swim with me. I almost backed out of it, but that meant he would leave, and I really wanted to hang out with him. “Oh no. Whatever will we do? I mean, I don’t have clothes or anything,” I said sarcastically.
“You want me to borrow swim trunks from you?”
“The only other option is skinny dipping, and I like you, Campbell, but I don’t want to see your ass.” I didn’t. There was nothing wrong with wanting to if I did, but I didn’t. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.
“Your loss, Carmichael, because it’s a fine ass. I’ve never had anyone complain.”
I trembled. Fuck, why in the hell was I trembling? I gripped the porch railing, trying to ignore the waves tracing down my spine. “Eh, I’ve seen better.” I shrugged as my brain fired off questions: Why did you say that? Have you, Carmichael? Have you really seen better?
Stop it!
“Come on. I’ll get you something to cover that hairy ass of yours, and get us another beer.”
“I’m okay on the beer, and you say that as if there’s something wrong with a hairy ass,” Beau replied as we went back inside.
“You like hairy asses?” sort of tumbled out of my mouth. Why had I asked that? What the fuck was with my mouth and the shit that came out of it?
“I’m sure you don’t want to talk about that.”
“What? Just because I’m straight, I can’t want to talk to my friend about his preferences?” Well, now I had to talk about it, to prove a point and all. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, opened it, and took a swallow.
“Typically, yes,” Beau replied.
Again, now I had to keep going to prove to him I wasn’t like the guys he was talking about. “That’s not me. You’re free to talk about hairy or non-hairy asses as much as you like.” Another drink. “But didn’t Lincoln say you were a bottom? Doesn’t that mean…” Drink, drink, drink.
“Oh God. Stop. I can’t talk to you about this, and don’t ever say bottom to me again. It sounds weird coming from you.”
“Fine, but for the record, I was okay with the conversation. You’re the one who was uncomfortable.”
His eyes fired up like I’d seen them do so many times. I’d basically just put us in competition without realizing it, a place we were familiar with from growing up. We’d always loved one-upping each other. “Fine. You wanna do this? We’ll do it. I like hairy ass, smooth ass, just male ass in general. There are certain things I like and appreciate about both. And just because I’m a bottom and lose my fucking mind when someone is playing with my ass, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate another man’s ass just as much.”
Drink, drink, drink. Oh fuck. I drank my beer already?
“Too much?” he asked.
“Nope.” My voice came out rough, my throat parched, and yes, I knew it shouldn’t be, considering I’d just inhaled a whole beer. “I’ll go get those clothes now.”
“You do that.”
“I will.”
“I’ll wait right here.”
“I’ll be right back,” I replied…realized how crazy I sounded, and finally actually went.