Bad Attitude (22 page)

“My apologies. I suppose I’m unaccustomed to direct speech.” Gavin fell in step beside Jamie.

“What are you used to?”

“Uh.”

It was the first time Jamie could remember something so inelegant coming from Gavin. He stopped with his hand on the garage door and waited.

“I’m used to looking for a hidden agenda. How did you put it, the hook in your mouth?”

Jamie shrugged. “Not my style.”

“I think I’m seeing that. In my experience, people use polite, seemingly meaningless speech to cut into each other.”

“Sounds bitchy.” Jamie opened the door and hung Quinn’s stuff back on the pegboard. “I’m still listening.”

“That’s all I had,” Gavin said, making it like another apology.

“God, you guys did not have to do it in the garage. We have a spare bedroom,” Eli called from the back door.

“Eli. Neighbors.” Quinn came to stand behind him.

“They fucking get off on it. You guys seen Silver?”

Gavin stepped forward with smooth apologies, something about Marco and someone needing his help. Jamie followed.

Eli kept going as they came in through the back door. “Well, Silver didn’t have to leave. We would have brought him back down. Or he could have gotten a ride with Nate and Kellan. It’s his birthday.”

“Seriously, buddy,” Jamie said to Quinn in passing, “if you have to take your dick out of his mouth, there’s this thing called a ball gag. You’ll thank me.”

Quinn’s missing teacher friend was younger, a cleaned-up hippy look to him, wavy bronze hair pulled into a ponytail at his neck. It reminded Jamie of Quinn having gone to work at that summer camp for kids with cancer and, surprise, turned out that’s where he’d met the hippy. Evidently, Eli and Quinn were running their own Charity Home for Friendless Queers because Zeb had moved back to the area recently, didn’t know anyone, and Quinn had befriended him out of pity.

Zeb didn’t talk enough to get on Jamie’s nerves, but from behind his bottle of Flying Dog beer, he watched Eli’s editor ex get his hackles up over something Zeb said. Gavin noticed it too, because he defused it with a comment about the pictures on the wall.

Jamie hadn’t paid them any attention, but he did now—black-and-white photos from around the Inner Harbor and downtown with only one bit in color.

“Your photography collection is beautiful.” Gavin gestured at the frames. “I love the single element—is it hand colored? I don’t recognize the artist. Someone local?”

“Really local,” Nate said.

“They’re Eli’s.” Quinn’s expression was as proud as if he’d held the camera for the kid and told him where to point it. Jamie smirked at him, but Quinn was busy looking at his boyfriend.

“That’s incredible. What gallery has your work?” Gavin said.

Eli laughed. “Very exclusive. Limited to 957 Rockwood Avenue. Jamie, I like this guy. Can we keep him?”

“He’s a free man, ask him yourself.” Jamie shoveled in more lasagna.

Gavin peppered Eli with a bunch more questions about how he did that coloring and what kind of diffusion or whatever he used. The two of them pushed back from the table and went over to one of the pictures.

Quinn picked up the salad and empty bread bowls. Tapping Jamie on the shoulder, Quinn asked, “Ready for another?”

“I got a pair of working legs.” Jamie picked up the empty plates and followed Quinn into the kitchen. As Quinn covered the salad to stuff it in the fridge, Jamie said, “I ever tell you how goofy you look when you moon over him because someone liked his pictures?”

“Nope.” The smug tone Quinn had should have warned Jamie. “Can see that in your face right now.”

“I’m not mooning.”

“That smile. It’s different on you.”

Jamie stopped himself in time to keep from feeling his lips.

Quinn handed off another Flying Dog. “He seems like a nice guy. Why the hell does he put up with you?”

“Fuck if I know.” Jamie popped off the top. “He’s…” He dug around for a way to say it that didn’t sound like some chick with man trouble. No matter what Jamie did or said, Gavin kept coming around, but that was all Jamie got out of him as far as interest in keeping things going. “…hard to read,” he finished.

“Even for you?” Quinn looked at Jamie sharply.

“Careful, son. Somebody might take that as a compliment.”

Quinn took out the last of the four-pack, popped the cap and tapped Jamie’s bottle with a nod.

“You seem good though.” Not that Jamie was planning on using Quinn as a model, but having Eli around was a hell of a lot better on the guy than clinging to that dick Peter had been.

Quinn’s smile wasn’t smug this time. It went all the way up to his eyes. “I am.”

“Oh my God.” Eli bounced into the kitchen and flung himself on Quinn. “Gavin says he knows this gallery owner, and he’s going to call him and tell him about my work and then maybe I can get a chance to show something.”

Gavin had followed. Jamie caught his eyes, asking, and Gavin nodded in a way Jamie knew meant that the offer was serious. Jamie nodded back in surprise. Then Quinn cut between them to shake Gavin’s hand.

“Did you leave those guys alone?” Jamie asked. “I think one more muttered comment about imperialism and religious interference, and your new bud is going to deck Eli’s ex.”

“They’re all right.” Eli had gone back out for the smaller lasagna dish made with rabbit food. “Nate snorted his wine when Gavin said that about the gallery owner, so Kellan is pounding him on the back. Besides, Kellan is good for Nate that way. Keeps him from getting too high on his horse.”

Kellan was good for Nate, Eli was good for Quinn. Maybe Jamie could be good for Gavin? Quinn and Eli moved around each other, putting stuff away in a kind of dance where they knew all the right moves, a touch and a stroke here and there. Comfortable.

Jamie realized that Gavin never seemed to be in Jamie’s way at his house. He hated if his mom or sisters came over, hated people in his space. Gavin felt right there. But maybe that was because Gavin was so good at trying to disappear when no one was looking at him.

“Seems weird having the cake and all when Silver took off.” Eli peeled the plastic wrap from the top of the pan.

“Better this way. No one needs to sing.” Jamie eyed the cake. The frosting was chocolate buttercream. Though his mouth watered, his gaze was fixed on Gavin, and Jamie was hungry for something else. “Let’s move this along.”

“Kellan brought his guitar, and Silver actually has a great voice,” Eli said.

“He wouldn’t be singing happy birthday to himself, now would he? It would just be us croaking along,” Jamie pointed out.

Because the birthday boy wasn’t there to cut the birthday cake, talk turned to Silver and Eli’s family having cut them off when they found out their sons were gay. Jamie figured it was Eli’s way of getting the attention back on himself, but it turned into a roundtable discussion.

“Mine are evangelicals, so I waited until I was graduating from college to tell them.” Zeb had a habit of sounding like he thought he was really profound. No wonder he pissed off Eli’s know-it-all ex.

“How did they take it?” Kellan leaned forward.

“Badly, of course. It’s still rather frigid, but I’m their only child so there’s some civil contact. Usually in the form of urging me to get counseling to fix me.”

“Frosty I get.” Kellan nodded. “Man, do I get it.”

Nate gave Kellan a look that almost made Jamie forgive them for having so much fun playing fairy godmother when they’d dressed him for Gavin’s fancy party.

“Well, it must be nice to have a dad who gave money for marriage equality even when the archbishop came to talk to him.” Eli stared at Gavin.

Gavin rested his fork on his dish. His face was blandly polite, but Jamie read the tension in the rigid way he held his body. “My father’s support is gratif—”

“Hey, just because his family makes the papers doesn’t mean you get to pry into his business,” Jamie cut in.

There was a sudden silence, not so much as a bit of chewing. Quinn reached for his beer.

“You’re right.” Eli grinned, showing his sharp crooked tooth. But the speed at which he gave in made Jamie feel more like he’d won a battle and lost the war.

“I enjoyed meeting your friends,” Gavin said as they came into Jamie’s house. He’d been quiet—extra quiet considering he wasn’t usually one for blabbing—during the drive back. The mist had stopped, so they rode with the top down. It wasn’t quite like being on the boat, but it was nice, the warm night air cooling with their speed. Jamie noticed they stayed within fifteen miles of the limit.

“They’re not all my friends. Really only Quinn. Eli, eh, he grows on you. Like a bratty case of fungus.”

“How did you meet Quinn?”

Jamie tried to remember how many personal questions Gavin had flung at him while they’d been sleeping together. It seemed the more time they spent together, the less likely Gavin was to ask. “We met at a Gay Vet support group, back when he was fresh out of the service.”

“You’ve known him a long time then?”

“Seven years.”

“I can see that you struggle with commitment.”

Jamie started to laugh, then narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to make some kind of point with that? Is this one of those indirect-speech things?”

Gavin shrugged. “It seems for you, action speaks louder than words.”

Since Gavin’s next action was to get on his knees and undo Jamie’s fly, words stopped being a priority.

The guy was pretty intent about stripping Jamie of everything but the need to get more of his cock in that mouth. This wasn’t foreplay. This was a focused attack to get Jamie off hard and in a hurry.

His dick loved it. But something unpleasant coiled up his spine, even while the pleasure pulsed in his balls, which Gavin was right now giving attention to with a warm tongue.

Jamie put a hand on Gavin’s cheek and, with Jamie’s downstairs brain screaming for him to not be an utter fucking dipshit, moved Gavin back.

“Something wrong?” Gavin’s voice was cool, polite. Distant like the night of the party out past Edgemere.

Jamie tried to talk, but Gavin’s tongue flicked across his lips and Jamie shuddered. He cleared his throat—twice—then managed, “Want the bed.”

Gavin nodded, and despite a lot of hands-on interference delays, they made it to the bed clothes-free, hard and eager. Jamie wanted Gavin on his back, wanted to be able to kiss him, to watch his face, to feel those lean legs locked on as Gavin pulled himself harder into a thrust, but Gavin had a plan of his own.

Jamie wasn’t sure how it happened, but he was blaming the electrical shock from jumping the solenoid and Gavin’s amazing mouth for it going as far as it did. Jamie was flat on his back, Gavin straddling him, holding Jamie’s lubed cock steady as Gavin rubbed back and forth over the head. It felt so fucking good, all that sensation on the head of Jamie’s dick, the soft rippled skin of Gavin’s hole, muscles jumping, waiting for Jamie to push in. Jesus. The heat on his skin.

It wasn’t until Gavin started to sink down that Jamie realized what was different.

He grabbed Gavin’s ass and tried to pull him up. “No.”

“Oh yes.” Gavin moved back off, then dipped again.

It was close. Christ, was it close. If there had been something in Gavin’s face other than cold calculation and determination, Jamie might have given in. Might have said,
Fuck yeah, go for it. Take my dick raw
. Might have driven up deep inside Gavin and flooded his ass with come.

But this wasn’t an accident in the heat of the moment. Not the way Gavin was looking down at him.

“No.” Jamie managed to separate them a little. Gavin was a lot stronger than Jamie had suspected. “Don’t do this to me.”

“To you?” Gavin stopped resisting him for a moment.

Jamie swallowed. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive either one of them if he let it happen. “To us.”

Jamie was ready to push him off hard, but the confusion, the hurt on Gavin’s face, made him stop.

“What if I wanted to do it
for
us?” Gavin whispered.

“Then we talk first. Please,” Jamie said.

Gavin nodded and released Jamie’s dick, shifting forward onto his knees. Jamie pulled Gavin down until he was stretched out on Jamie’s chest and legs.

“I trust you to have told me if there’s a reason not to.” Gavin breathed the words into Jamie’s neck.

“Thanks.”

Gavin lifted his head to stare at Jamie, like he was back to looking for hidden meanings.

Jamie tucked Gavin’s head back down under his chin. “Babe—”

“Babe?” Gavin raised his head again.

“Listen for a second. I appreciate it. And I’m not saying I don’t ever want to. But that kind of risk—jumping into something like that—it’s not— You don’t have to prove something. Not to me. And not that way.”

“So what do you want?” Gavin asked.

“I was enjoying everything just fine.” Jamie grinned, folding his arms behind his head. “We don’t have to rush that.”

Gavin nodded and swung off, got a rubber and rolled it down, covering it with more lube.

He was barely back on top before he sank down, every inch of him tight and squeezing and hot. Not like that early tempting slick skin, but still so damned good. And deep. Each time Gavin came back down he took Jamie deeper.

Though Gavin’s mouth was open, neck arched back, a bright flush coating his throat and upper chest as he moved, Jamie felt pretty fucked himself. He reached for Gavin’s hips to slow him down, but Gavin caught his hands and held them, their fingers intertwined, palms fused together like their bodies.

Jamie had known he couldn’t even risk a few strokes inside Gavin bare, because the load weighting Jamie’s balls was close, damned close to exploding already. Gavin tightened his muscles, his ass pulsing on Jamie’s dick, grip like a fucking fist, and Jamie arched his back and came hard. Came out of his skin it shook him so fast.

Gavin dragged the condom off and settled down next to Jamie as he caught his breath.

Jamie rolled on his side and slipped a hand over Gavin’s hip, rubbing his ass to make him groan before sliding back to stroke his cock lightly.