Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (8 page)

I smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Butler. He isn’t going to tell anyone that we all partied together.”

“I surely hope not, since he would also have to admit to having sex with his former grade team leader.”

“Former grade team leader?” I sat on the edge of my desk. “Papi, Nunzio and I have known each other for twenty years—since you were still watching Sesame Street and getting potty trained. I’m more than his former grade team leader.”

David pointed at me, a triumphant look on his face. “I knew it! You
are
together!”

“No,” I corrected. “We’ve been best friends for twenty years. We’re not together the way you think. That was the first time we’d ever done something like that. You inspired us.”

“Bullshit.”

“How is that bullshit?”

David dropped his jutting finger. “The way he looked at you and the way you were all over him made it seem like you were lovers. Not to mention, he didn’t even use a condom with you.”

The kid sure as hell remembered a lot of details about that night.

“How the hell did you end up working here of all places?”

“I interviewed last spring. My previous school was horrible.”

“Was last year your first year?”

“Yes.”

Figured. I didn’t understand by what logic my administration gave a second-year teacher any kind of supervisory role, but apparently I was too unprofessional to judge anyone about their decisions.

When I got quiet, David searched my face with his lower lip pushed out in a way he was likely unaware of. There was no way he was more than twenty-four or twenty-five.

“What about you? How long have you been teaching?”

“Eight years.”

“What about Nunzio?”

“The same. Neither of us knew what the hell to do after high school and ended up taking the same accelerated Bachelor/Masters teaching program. We got our licenses the same year.”

David wrinkled his nose. “And you decided to teach at the same school? Isn’t that a little codependent?”

“No,” I said, raising the pitch in my tone to mimic his voice. “We started at different schools, but both were failing and had no room to grow, so when this place was built, we both applied. We’re not desperate to be together or something.”

“People talk like you are.”

Again with the bochinche. Did anyone ever shut the fuck up in this place?

“Most people also assume we’ve been sleeping together for years. They read into our every interaction to assign a deeper meaning because apparently two gay men can’t be friends without touching each other’s dicks. But these days, I think they’d be more interested in the fact that we had you begging for it in the middle.”

The sound of laughter—likely Danielle’s, since her room was across from mine—emanated from outside the door. David took a step closer to me so he was out of view.

“Listen.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t intend to see you again. It was just a one-time thing. It shouldn’t have even happened. I was just drunk and all of my friends left before me, so I got a little crazy. I don’t do things like that.”

“Didn’t seem that way.”

“You don’t know me,” he said sharply. “Because I don’t.”

I remembered the morning after the threesome and the way Nunzio had described our guest scampering away like a thief in the night. I’d dismissed it at the time, but now there was no mistaking the stench of guilt coming off this guy. He definitely had a boyfriend.

Just what I needed—to be the other dude when I’d just been dumped by a cheating asshole myself.

“What was that look?” David asked, a defensive edge in his voice.

“Did I give you a look?”

“Yeah. And it was full of judgment.”

“Maybe you just have a guilty conscience.” When David’s face turned stony, I spread my hands. “Do you have a man?”

If he was taken aback, David didn’t give it away. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh Jesus. How old are you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s typical of your generation to answer questions with Facebook status updates.”

“That’s what it is.” The defensive edge was back and stacked with attitude. “We’re off and on. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Then why are you?”

David didn’t have a response for that, but he took a deep breath and stared over my shoulder at the busted projector screen. I tried not to look at him, but everything from the tanned column of his neck to his tapered torso reminded me of how I’d run my hands all over him. He’d been the perfect blend of smooth and hard, responsive and aggressive—and he’d milked my dick with the kind of talent that I loved in a bottom. So many dudes just thought it was enough to bend over and push back on it.

“Stop staring at me.”

I laughed at his embarrassment.

“Can we just never talk about that again?” he pleaded. “Can we just be normal colleagues?”

“Maybe, but it will be hard not to think about.”

“Try not to.”

I leaned back slightly and his gaze swept over me in a way that I knew wasn’t just interest in my lousy outfit.

“I know it’s inappropriate,” I said. “I’m not a total idiot. But I’m also not a saint.”

“I’m not saying you have to be a saint, but we’re colleagues now. I can’t go around daydreaming about how I wanted to watch Nunzio fuck you all night.”

Mental images flew back. Not that they were buried too deep. I’d jerked off thinking about that night multiple times. The description alone had my dick hard enough to strain against my fly.

But still, reality was far from what David had witnessed that night. We’d all been caught up in a fevered fit of drunken horniness. A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Hell’s Kitchen.

“I wouldn’t say he fucked me.”

David gave me a scathing once-over; it seemed to be his signature. “You rode back on his dick like you’d been wanting it for years while sucking on his fingers. At that point, my ass was a glory hole you used while the two of you got hot and heavy.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. “Seems like you enjoyed the show.”

“I did. You two looked amazing together.”

I faltered, unable to find a suitable reply. He grinned at me, full of sass and self-satisfaction, and looked down at my crotch. I didn’t even try to hide the bulge there. I had half a mind to tug him into the corner, way out of sight, and make him take it out just so I could feel his fingers on it. I’d blow my load from the contact alone.

“Goddamn, you’re a nasty bastard, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one who wanted to keep bringing it up. Now you can’t handle it?”

The challenge in his voice turned me on more, which defeated his purpose. “Are you sure you came to warn me? It seems like you came by to make me horny.”

David shrugged and finally broke our standoff. He looked around my classroom as if he found it fascinating. Although he was standing ramrod straight, shoulders pushed back and still as a monument, there was no mistaking his heavier breathing.

I could hear it with every whisper of an exhalation, and I wanted to drag him closer. I didn’t know if it was him I wanted, or if I was just desperate for
someone
after a month and a half of self-imposed celibacy, and a brain full of filthy thoughts starring him and my gorgeous best friend.

“Do you want to do something after you’re finished up here?” I asked.

“Like what?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Get a drink?”

“I can’t.”

“I can invite Nunzio.”

“No!”

“So we go alone.”

“Michael, I’m not going out with you.” David unfolded his arms and swept one out in a dismissive gesture. “I’m attracted to you, but nothing else is going to happen. I don’t care if you jerk off thinking about my ass, I don’t care if I think about you blowing me, or have dreams of you and Nunzio going at it all night—it won’t happen. So please,
please
, try to forget that anything ever did. Like it or not, I am your grade team leader now, and it has to be kept professional.”

Jesus. What a cock-tease. My erection wilted at the sound of him reaffirming his fake-ass authority. I snorted and brushed past him.

The closet door stood open, so I stared inside, willing a distraction to magically appear in the packed confines. I didn’t even remember why I’d unlocked the closet initially, but I grabbed a roll of bulletin board paper so it wasn’t a total fail in front of my new faux supervisor.

“Will do, Papi. As long as you stop flirting with me like a hypocrite.”

David didn’t respond, but I heard the soles of his boat shoes heading for the door. I was hoping that was the end of it. David presented an anomaly that I couldn’t wrap my mind around.

Desiring the same person who possessed every personality trait I loathed wasn’t ideal, especially since he seemed like the type of dude to make a huge deal about it if I did continue with the insinuations and innuendos about our night in threesome heaven. Worse yet, I wondered if Nunzio could handle keeping his own mouth shut before this guy ran and reported us for some kind of harassment.

“I want to try to get along with you,” he said before opening the door.

“So then do it. I don’t see why you have to try.”

“I just don’t understand you. I don’t know if you like me, if you resent me for being young and taking on your role as grade team leader and also replacing—”

“I don’t resent you.” I turned around. “And soon enough you’ll figure out why I didn’t want to be grade team leader in the first place. I know the new teaching programs prepare you kids to use all of your cute behavior management strategies, but none of that shit will ever prepare you for the bureaucracy or office politics of working in a school.”

I almost added something reassuring after catching a flicker of uncertainty in David’s eyes, but I didn’t. Not with him already engaging in the kind of leadership tactics that typically resulted in throwing people under the bus and talking trash. I’d already had my fair share of people questioning my ability to be professional today.

“Watch your ass and don’t become the type of
leader
that teachers hate. You’re new here and maybe the administration loves you, but I guarantee your life will fucking suck if they’re the only ones on your side.”

“But isn’t that what’s important? I spent my first year teaching in a school that was more like a war zone,” David said. “All I want is to not be on the principal’s bad side.”

“It’s a fine line, and that’s all I can tell you. Use your head and don’t forget that you’re still a teacher. Grade team leader is a supervisory role, but it doesn’t give you any real authority. If you act like it does, your boat will sink fast.”

I briefly thought he was considering my words, but then his face cleared. He half turned to the door and discarded my advice.

“I hope you give me a chance. I know you’re upset about Nunzio, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe you’re too close to each other to work effectively on a grade team.”

It was quite an indictment for someone who had been in the building for less than a full day, but I didn’t say anything more. I let my face default to my baseline work expression, complete with glazed fuck-your-whole-family eyes, and waited for David to leave.

He hesitated, looked back at me, and then hurried away with his hands shoved in his pockets.

At the back of my mind, I wondered if he’d relax a bit if I loosened up his ass.

C
OME
MEET
me downtown. I have something interesting to tell you. Work related.

The text message was the most obvious kind of bait. The words “work related” were a lure I couldn’t resist, especially given the way the school year had started.

“Who’s that?” Nunzio asked.

“Danielle. She wants us to go to some gay club downtown.”

“No thanks.”

I looked up from my phone. “You’re turning down a chance to cruise? This is a shocking turn of events.”

Nunzio lifted a shoulder. “I’d rather stay here with you, my pizza, and Netflix like we planned. I want to relax before the kids are in school on Monday, not get turned up and hungover.”

He had a point, and that was why I’d suggested our four-day weekend of movies and vegging out. With the school closed for Rosh Hashanah, it was a prime opportunity to get into teacher mode without the aggravation of drama or my family. Spending time with Nunzio for the first time in nearly two months had released the tension that had built inside me over the summer. As I lay tangled with him on the couch, I was finally able to breathe.

Not to mention, the seemingly unquenchable dryness in my throat had been absent for the two days I had spent in his apartment. Until now, anyway.

Now Danielle had planted the seed of doing shots and drinking whiskey in my head, and I couldn’t push the idea away.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty damn sure, Mikey. Let’s watch another episode.”

I eyeballed the message again and debated how much I wanted to know. The comments both Price and David had made continued to nag at me, and Danielle wasn’t doing me any favors by dredging it up again, but I couldn’t help myself.

“She said there’s a ton of twinks.”

“Don’t care. Not getting up.”

“She also said she wanted to tell me something about work.”

Nunzio looked up. “Don’t let her get you all riled up with gossip shit. She does it every time. She gets off on it.”

“I know, but I still want to know what the hell she’s talking about. I was uncomfortable with some of the things that came up with Price. I hate not knowing who at school is talking shit behind my back.” I tapped my finger, considering. “This is why I used to keep to myself.”

“You still keep to yourself,” he pointed out. “All of our friends moved out of this bloodsucking city or got married.”

“I mean at school. I got soft.”

“Me too. I started expecting things to go well, which is always a stupid idea.” Nunzio rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Seriously, though, I’m too fucking tired to go out. I feel like we haven’t moved in like, a full forty-eight hours, and my ass is glued to this couch.”