L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement (13 page)

In spite of their familiarity—or maybe because of it—I felt very, very out of place that night. Though I didn’t feel in the least bit guilty about my relationship with Brandon, I suddenly felt like I was hiding some sort of dirty, shameful secret. It didn’t help that I knew Dan and Tristan were more than a little homophobic. Part of me was afraid that if they looked close enough, they’d see “I’m gay” written across my forehead.

“The show isn’t for another half hour,” Tristan said, glancing at his watch. “Anyone up for a game of pool before it starts?”

“I’ll play,” I said. It would be something to do besides sit there and hope no one noticed what—or who—I was thinking about. We got up and headed across the club to the pool tables, and as I racked the game, I was starting to regret the decision to play. It certainly wasn’t going to do a damned thing to make me stop thinking about Brandon.

Everything about pool was Brandon now. The first time I had seen him, he was leaning over a pool table with his long, slender fingers bridging the cue on the familiar green felt. Someone at another table took a shot, and the distinctive
crack
immediately sent me back to my first game with Brandon. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I remembered that palpable tension between us. It—

“Yo, Dustin,” Tristan waved a hand in front of my face. “You okay, man?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” I lifted the rack off of the table and turned around to get my beer.

“You sure?” He leaned over to take his shot, but he lifted his eyebrows and gave me a concerned look.
“I’m good, don’t worry,” I said, pausing to sip my beer. “Just been a long fucking week.”

“I hear ya.” His cue snapped forward and the balls broke, but nothing went in. Scowling, he said, “Your shot.”

I took a long swallow of beer, pretending that my mind hadn’t replaced Tristan’s voice with Brandon’s smug, cocky way of saying “Your shot.”
Come on. He’s not here. Just focus.

As I took my turn, Dan came up to the table, beer in hand. “So how have you been, Dustin?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you since... you know....” His mouth twisted as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

“Since the divorce?” I said. It annoyed me to no end that everyone beat around the subject as if the very word was some sort of evil incantation. I certainly wasn’t the first person in the world to get a divorce, and I doubted I’d be the last. My friends and family had no qualms about trying to relieve me of my single status, but avoided
That Word.

“Yeah, since the divorce,” Dan said, quickly taking a drink of his beer as if he didn’t like the taste of the word.

 

“I’m fine.” I furrowed my brow as I focused on knocking the four into the corner pocket.

To Dan, Tristan said, “Man, you should hear our mom. Every five minutes, she’s trying to hook him up with someone.”
“Anyone cute?” Dan asked with a smirk.

“A few,” I said, chuckling. The four dropped. “You’re stripes, Tristan.”

My brother nodded and thumbed the neck of his beer bottle. “Well, at least when she’s hounding you for a new girl, it keeps her occupied enough that she’s not after me and Olivia for a grandkid.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, is she
still
on you guys about that?” I looked up from my shot.

He rolled his eyes and nodded again. “She’s backed off a bit since Wesley was born.” Our sister, the youngest of the four of us, had a three month-old son, the coveted first grandchild.

“Maybe she’ll start hounding Rick and Lisa too,” I said. “Now that she can’t harp on them about getting married, it’s time to apply the grandkid pressure.”

“Christ, your mother needs a hobby,” Dan said.
“No shit,” Tristan and I said in unison.
I scratched, so I stepped away to let Tristan take over. “You know what else Mom is freaking out over?” I said,

watching Tristan stare the cue ball down. “As if her own kids don’t give her enough to do, now she’s freaking the fuck out over Nathan and Tonya.”
“Nathan and Tonya?” Dan said. “What happened with them?”

Our families had all been close friends growing up. We had all known Tonya’s family since we were kids, so I was surprised that Dan didn’t know.

“You didn’t hear?” I said. “They’re getting a divorce too.” Raising my beer bottle to my lips, I added, “Must be something in the water.”

“Yeah, but I can’t blame her for freaking out over
them
,” Tristan spat. He dropped the twelve and stood, eyeing the table. Something twisted in the pit of my stomach, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Why’s that? What happened?” Dan asked.
“He left her for a
guy
,” Tristan said, his lip curling with disgust. I swallowed hard. “What? I hadn’t heard about that.”

“Yeah,” Tristan said. “Mom found out from Tonya’s folks. Guess the bastard had been in the closet the whole time and just decided to tell her that he was queer.” I flinched but didn’t say anything. Tristan’s aversion to homosexuality had always grated my nerves, but it was hitting too close to home now.

“Who the hell would leave
her
for a man?” Dan said. “Christ, what an idiot. Well, he certainly had us all fooled.”

“Unless he just didn’t figure it out until later,” I said, regretting that I’d ever brought it up.
Tristan snorted. “That’s crap. How does someone
not
know they’re a fag?”

“You’d think the ‘not being attracted to a woman like a normal dude’ would clue him in,” Dan said, wrinkling his nose and sipping his beer.

“Or wanting to take it up the ass,” Tristan said. “Fucking freak.”

Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to stay calm. As much as I hated listening to them talk like that, I was afraid that any defensiveness on my part would tell them more than I was ready to let them hear.

I cleared my throat. “Well, whatever keeps Mom occupied and off my back.”
Until and unless she hears about Brandon.
Tristan laughed as he took his shot, then cursed when the fourteen missed the side pocket. “You’re one of her top priorities, Dustin.” He clapped my shoulder as I moved towards the table. “And as long as that keeps her off of
me
, it’s all good.”

“Fuck you,” I laughed.
“Think you’d have to talk to Nathan about that,” he said. He and Dan laughed, but my blood turned to ice. I pretended to be extra focused on my shot. They obviously didn’t know, or they would have been hostile toward me, but I couldn’t shake the nagging worry that all it would take was one wrong move on my part and they
would
know.
Troy came up to the table. “Hey guys, the show’s starting soon.”
“Yeah, naked women!” Dan said, waving his beer around.
“Still has that novelty, doesn’t it?” Tristan said, elbowing him. “Funny how that happens when you don’t see it often.”
“Asshole,” Dan muttered.
I put my cue back on the wall and followed them to the table with the other guys.
As the show started, we moved from our table to the chairs around the stage. Nervousness gnawed at my gut. I hadn’t even looked

at a woman since I had started seeing Brandon. Would I still be attracted to them? If I wasn’t, would the guys know?

 

The lights went down, and a blonde in ridiculously high heels came out onto the stage.

As soon as she started dancing—her scarlet red G-string and bra showing much more than they hid—I was as mesmerized as any other guy beside the stage. Reaching into my pocket for my wallet, I shifted, trying to get comfortable in spite of my hard-on.

Well, that answers that question.

B
Y THE
time I left the strip club, I was horny as hell and felt more distant than ever from my brothers and our friends. They’d bought me almost as many lap dances as we bought Rick, and each time, I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew something, if they were looking for some sign of what I was hiding. Rationally, I knew there was no way they could possibly know about Brandon, but logic never did shit to ease a paranoid mind.

It wasn’t until the next night, though, that I realized just how wound up I was around the guys.
Brandon and I met for dinner at a restaurant near the university, and as soon as he walked in the room, my mood changed. His mere presence gave me a sense of calm, the ability to exhale as my mind said, “Ah, there you are.” It was that relief, that calm, that told me just how spun up I’d been since I showed up at the strip club almost twentyfour hours before.

His arrival also ignited a different kind of tension that set my nerves on edge. A half dozen lap dances couldn’t hold a candle to the hunger and promise behind that grin when he saw me from across the restaurant.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he said, extending his hand as he came to the table. Since we were out in public, we kept our physical contact strictly platonic. Brandon knew I wasn’t quite comfortable with being outwardly affectionate with people around, and being this close to where he worked, it was probably for the best.

“No problem, I was a bit early.” I smiled, grasping his hand.

He held my gaze and hand a second longer than social protocol dictated before winking and taking a seat across from me. After we’d ordered and made some small talk, he said, “So how was the bachelor party?”

“Enjoyable, if you’re into such brazen acts of drinking and debauchery in public places.”

“Which I am.”
Lifting my glass, I said, “Then you would’ve loved it.” “I assume you had a good time, then?”

I grinned above the rim of my drink. “Absolutely.”
Aside from the homophobic jackasses I associate with.
“Which club did you go to?”

“The one down on Main, the one called….” I paused, drumming my fingers. “Damn, what was that place called?” I made a frustrated gesture in the air. “The one, damn it, the one with the big neon cat for the sign.”

“Cressida’s?”
I snapped my fingers. “Yes, thank you. Cressida’s.”

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. “How is that place? I haven’t been there.”

 

I shrugged. “It’s not bad. Booze was expensive; lap dances were cheap.”

 

Nodding with approval, he said, “Well, as long as the lap dances were cheap.” He sipped his water. “Are the dancers hot?”

“Some of them,” I said. “There was this one brunette, oh my God. The way she moved, she reminded me of a cat.”
He let out a breath. “I think I may have to pay this place a visit.”

“Trust me, if she’s there, she’s worth the cover charge and then some.”

 

“What about the others?”

 

“Some of them were hot, some were so-so.” I laughed. “One of them made me think of you.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Oh really?”
“She was wearing dog tags.”
“Ooh, now that’s hot.”

“She gave them to my brother,” I said. “I thought about asking if I could bring them back to you as a souvenir, but I wasn’t about to try to explain my way out of that one.”

Clicking his tongue, he pretended to pout. “Oh come on, they were
dog tags
. Surely that’s worth an awkward discussion with your brother?”
“Sorry,” I said, shrugging.

With a huff, he set his glass down. “Fine, fine. No dog tags for poor Brandon.”

I laughed. “I’m sure you’ll cope.”
“Somehow, I think I will.”

Our meals came, and the conversation meandered. All the while, I couldn’t help but watch everything he did—the way his lips moved or when he occasionally paused to shake a strand of hair out of his face or how he steepled his fingers and furrowed his brow when concentrating on something either of us said—and wish I could touch him, just for a moment.

He rested his hand on the table, running the back of his thumbnail up and down his glass, drawing my attention to it. It was all I could do not to put my hand over his just to make some sort of physical contact.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I realized I’d been staring at his hand. For how long, I didn’t know. Wetting my lips, I said, “You’ve had a lap dance or two in your day, haven’t you?”

“One or two. Maybe.” He put his hands up defensively. “But I was forced. It was entirely against my will.” He smoothed the air with both hands, a “don’t worry, it’s cool” gesture. “And I closed my eyes through the
whole
thing.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right.”
He winked. “Yeah, I’ve had a few.”
“Only a few?”

“Only a few—” He coughed to mask the additional “dozen”. Then he gave me a devilish grin. “Why do you ask?”
Folding my hands on the table, pretending I couldn’t feel the heat from his hands, I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “You know that frustration? Like you want to fuck the hell out of her right then and there, but you can’t?”
He picked up his glass and nodded. “I most certainly do.” My temperature skyrocketed as he sucked an ice cube into his mouth and rolled it around on his tongue.

Taking a deep breath, I somehow managed to continue. “And the fact that you can’t touch her makes her that much hotter?”

He crunched the ice, nodding slowly. “We want what we can’t have.”
My eyes flicked towards his hand on the table, then back at him. He stopped chewing his ice. Looked at his hand. Looked back at me.

His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly as he swallowed hard. Then he smiled and leaned toward me. “But you know as well as I do”—he was almost whispering—“that you will get to touch later.”

“I know,” I said. “And that’s making it much, much worse.”

B
RANDON
kicked the front door shut behind us. It had barely closed before I had him up against it, kissing him passionately, my hands tangled in his hair. He met my kiss with the same breathless fervor, pressing his hard-on against mine as he pulled me closer to him.

“How the hell am I supposed to keep my hands off of you for hours at a time?” he whispered as I kissed his neck.

“Fuck if I know,” I said against the skin beneath his ear. The shiver that ran through his body raised goose bumps on mine. I sucked his earlobe into my mouth, then murmured, “But another minute of it and I was going to come unglued.”

He took my face in both hands and raised my head so he could kiss me again. Just before our lips met, he growled, “Then you’re a hell of a lot more in control than I am, because I’m
long
past coming unglued.”

His desperate, hungry kiss made my cock ache and almost knocked my knees out from under me. He was breathless and trembling, grasping my shoulders, my clothes, the back of my neck, whatever he could get his hands on. “Christ, Dustin, I’ve been dying for this all night.” His voice was as unsteady as his hands.
Kissing his neck, I said, “Bedroom?”