Tied Together (9 page)

A queen dressed like Marilyn Monroe in a low-cut dress took to the stage to welcome everyone to the performance. She even sounded like Marilyn, using her famous airy voice and lip movements. After getting the crowd worked up, she introduced Jasmine to the crowd. Hoots and hollers echoed around the club as Jasmine stuck out one black pant leg from the wings of the stage. The song “Vogue” played on the speakers, and I rolled my eyes at the cliché of it. I definitely was going to have to talk to Sam about new material. However, no one in the club seemed to mind because the catcalls only got louder when Jasmine came out in her black cone-shaped bra and slicked-back blond ponytail. Even Brandon put two fingers in between his lips and blew out a whistle. I was insanely jealous of those two fingers.

I watched Brandon out of the corner of my eye as he bounced to the rhythm of the music. He clapped his hands and let out a few wolf whistles, which encouraged Jasmine to come out into the crowd and dance around Brandon. I saw the blush on his cheeks when she vogued around him. I smiled and shook my head, admiring how cute Brandon looked.

Jasmine performed two sets, changing a total of three times. During the show, Brandon had visited the bar at least two more times and was officially three sheets to the wind. After Jasmine’s show came to a close, the DJ started pumping dance music through the speakers. Crowds of people congregated on the dance floor, making the whole place vibrate with energy.

Brandon turned to me and said something, but the music was so loud I couldn’t hear him. I shook my head and put my hand up to my ear to signal I didn’t hear him. He looked at me for a moment with glassy eyes. Then he grabbed my shirt with both hands, pulled me close, and spoke in my ear.

“I wanna dance!” His breath floated in my ear, and I smelled the remnants of the alcohol he’d drunk.

“Go ahead!” I yelled back.

He shook his head and pulled me closer. “I wanna dance with you!”

Well, fuck me and call me Frank.

My heart picked up the beat of the bass as Brandon took my hand and led me to the middle of the dance floor. Sweaty bodies surrounded us, and it got crowded on the floor, giving us no option but to touch. We moved to the beat and before I knew it, Brandon whipped behind me, grabbed my waist, and ground his hips against my ass. I felt his stiff erection as he pulled me tight against him.

In that very moment, I promised God if this were all happening for real, I would gladly go home and start a strict regimen of flogging myself of a daily basis.

We got back to my place well into the early hours of the morning. The apartment was empty; I wasn’t expecting Sam to be home because he liked to hang at the club and then go out with a few of his drag sisters.

“Do you want something to drink?” I asked as if Brandon hadn’t been here a thousand times in the past and capable of getting his own.

“No, I’m all right.” He gave me a slight wave of his hand and sat on the couch.

“Okay, I’m going to grab some water. Make yourself at home.”

What the fuck? ‘Make yourself at home’?
I sounded like a bad episode of an eighties sitcom. I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with cold water. I brought the shaking glass up to my lips and chugged the water down, hoping it was enough to settle my nerves. I set the glass on the counter but missed the edge and it crashed to the floor, splintering into chards.
Fuck.

“Are you okay in there?” Brandon shouted from the other room.

“Yeah, I just dropped a glass. I guess I have butter boner. I mean butter
fingers
!” I squeezed my eyes shut and bent my head down to my chest. Christ on a cracker. Why was I so nervous? It was just Brandon. Oh, perhaps it was because I felt his erection against my ass when we danced.

I bent down to pick up the slivers of glass and cut myself on the first piece I touched.

“Fuck!” I cried out while grabbing my finger.

“What happened?” Brandon came rushing into the room.

“I sliced my finger on the glass.” I stuck my finger into my mouth to stop the bleeding.

“Here, let me look at it.” Brandon stepped over the debris on the kitchen floor.

“I’m okay, really.”

“Hey, I’m studying to become a doctor, remember. A little blood doesn’t scare me. You can pretend to be one of my patients.”

Oh, shit balls.

The idea of playing doctor with Brandon was one of my biggest fantasies. I imagined him in blue scrub pants and a stethoscope hanging from around his neck. Maybe he’d even be wearing one of those little caps surgeons wore so I could rip it off and pull at his hair. Damn, now the half hard-on I was sporting had turned into a full boner, pressing against my jeans and aching to break free.
Forget the finger, maybe he can check the blood flow that’s going straight to my dick. No, bad Ryan.
I needed to think of my grandmother naked or something.

“It’s just a little cut. Doesn’t look like you got any glass in it.” He walked over to the sink and wet a paper towel. He came back, took my finger in this hand, and wiped the blood away.

“Where are the Band-Aids?”

“In the cabinet over the coffee maker.”

After finding the Band-Aids, Brandon came back to me and wrapped my cut.

“There, all done.” He shot the wadded-up paper towel into the trashcan, lifted my finger to his lips, and kissed it. “It always helps when you give it a kiss.”

Where did my saliva go? I couldn’t swallow. All the saliva in my mouth had pooled on the floor at Brandon’s feet.

“Is that how you plan on treating all your patients? With a kiss?” Oh fuck, I wanted to go hide somewhere. Seconds passed as I waited for his answer. He chuckled and put his hands into his pockets.

“Since I’m planning on going into gynecology and obstetrics, that probably wouldn’t be such a great idea. I don’t think women would be too happy if I attempted to kiss their vaginas to make them feel better.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of woman out there who want you to kiss their vaginas.” My eyes shifted to the floor and my mouth turned down as I thought about the time Brandon was with Nicole. I tortured myself while I lay in bed, wishing Brandon’s tongue was on me instead of lapping at Nicole’s nasty pussy. After getting a small taste of what his tongue felt like, any woman should be so lucky to have that tongue on them.

“Maybe that’s not where my tongue wants to be,” Brandon said in a low voice.

My head immediately shot up, and I looked straight into his brown eyes. They turned dark and predatory. For as long as I’ve known Brandon, I’ve never seen him look so serious.

“Where does it want to be?” I asked in an equally quiet tone.

Brandon moved toward me, crunching glass under his shoes. He lifted his finger and touched it to my bottom lip, dragging it from corner to corner. I closed my eyes to soak in the sensation.

“I want to kiss your bottom lip and maybe slip it between my teeth and nip at it.” He studied my mouth, dragging his finger back and forth. Then his eyes moved from my lips to my eyes. He saw straight into my soul, searching for an answer to his unasked question to continue.

I hoped Sam wouldn’t freak out when he came home and saw parts of my body splayed all over the apartment because I was about to combust. It would be like a CSI crime scene, and all detectives would be able to identify was my rock-hard dick standing proudly amongst the rumble.
God, why does my mind go on weird tangents? My best friend wants to kiss me.

Brandon leaned in further, and I met him the rest of the way, sealing our lips together. My eyelids shut, but I wanted to open them again to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Just to make sure, I snuck a look and there was Brandon. My Brandon.

A flood of confusion mixed with happy relief coursed through my body. I’d wanted this for so long and spent many nights jacking off to the thought of Brandon sucking me or me lodged deep inside of him while he screamed my name. Ever since our first kiss in my bedroom after graduation, I’d compared every man to Brandon. They never came close to how his lips felt, the taste of his tongue was so unique, and the way his fingers felt when they grazed my cheeks put me into a daze. But with those memories came another memory I detested. The one right after that kiss when he said it was a complete mistake.

I broke off the kiss and took two steps back, panting from the adrenaline.

“What’s wrong?” He blinked.

“I… I just… I don’t know what happened?”

Well, jackass, you just experienced one erection-inducing kiss. What part of that doesn’t make sense? Oh yeah! The part where it’s your best friend, who you thought was straight, but is ready to devour you like a prime rib dinner.

“Brandon, do you know what you’re doing? I think you might be drunk.”

“Liquid courage,” he croaked. “Isn’t that what they call it?”

I placed my hand on his cheek and stared into his deep brown eyes. They were glazed from drinking, but they held so much heat and lust. Was it possible Brandon wanted me? We’d been best friends for so long and established a perfect routine between us. How did I not see this? Was this part of him so guarded that even I couldn’t see it? Or maybe it was my hope making his desire come to life. Perhaps I wished and prayed for my best friend to return my feelings so badly I projected my feelings onto him.

“Brandon, I don’t know if we should do this,” I said, letting my hands fall to my sides.

Brandon’s face fell and he took a step back. “Right, umm, I should get the pan and broom to clean this up.” He started searching the kitchen, looking everywhere but at me.

I caught his arm. “Bran, talk to me.”

“What? There is nothing to say.”

“ ‘
Nothing to say
’?” I said incredulously. “I think there is a lot to discuss. We have a whole Oprah special to discuss between us.”

Brandon put his hands in his pockets. He nodded slowly at me and went back into the family room. I cleaned up the mess on the floor. For a brief moment I considered the shattered glass a foreshadowing of what was about to happen to our friendship.

After I finished cleaning in the kitchen, I walked into the family room. Brandon sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his face buried in his hands. I sat next to him and pulled at his forearm to reveal his eyes. Brandon always felt like safety to me; whether it was right or wrong, he was the one I went to for comfort. I wanted nothing more at this moment than to be the comfort he needed.

“What’s going on?”

Brandon sat up, puffing his cheeks and letting out a breath of air. “You know the first time we met in the field next to the high school track?”

“You mean when I came to your rescue like a white knight on his noble steed?” I smiled, trying to lighten the situation.

“Yeah, something like that.” Brandon smiled sadly. “Do you know what happened?”

I shook my head.

“My fucking dick got hard.”

My breath hitched, and I felt a little light-headed.

Brandon huffed. “Don’t look so surprised. You were licking that spoon like it was the last dick you were ever going to have in your mouth.”

“I—”

“No, let me say what I need to say.”

I shut my mouth and nodded for him to continue.

“My dick was so hard because I was so attracted to you. It was everything—your looks, your charm, the way you took over the room with your personality. I wanted to know what you tasted like, even rub some of that cherry filling onto your lips and lick it off.”

Brandon paused and brought his finger back to my lip, drawing a line back and forth as he had in the kitchen.

“But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to want those things. I had school to worry about. If my family had even the smallest hint that I was attracted to guys, my dad would have found a way to destroy everything I wanted. And he would have come to hurt you. So I locked that part away and tried to ignore every feeling I had. I let my true self slip the night of your graduation party. I’d become desperate and needed a small part of you that I could carry with me. I thought that if I had just that small part, I would be okay. But it wasn’t enough.”

I nodded, urging him to continue.

“I was in such denial. But when I went out with Nicole, everything just fell into place. I didn’t want to be there with her. I realized I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any woman the way I feel when I’m with you. When Nicole kissed me, it didn’t feel the same as when we kissed. There was something missing. When we were in the club, and I was dancing with you, I felt the connection I’d been trying too hard to fight. But I don’t want to fight it anymore.”

All I could do was stare in awe at the man before me. He’d hidden away the part of himself that came so naturally to me. I could never imagine hiding my homosexuality long term. But I had the support of my family and my friends who cared about me to get me through it. I was lucky when I came out, but my heart crumbled for Brandon.

“Brandon, I am so sorry,” I whispered.

Brandon shifted in his seat to face me. “No, don’t do that. Don’t feel sorry for me. I did what I did to protect myself and you because I cared so much about you, and the thought of anything happening to you made me want to go apeshit.”

I smile sheepishly. “Being a little overprotective, aren’t you?”

“Never when it comes to you,” he said softly, stroking my face with the back of his hand.

Any other words I wanted to formulate left my brain the second Brandon touched me. My chest felt full, and my stomach twisted in knots. I leaned into Brandon’s touch and shut my eyes. Then Brandon’s soft, sweet lips were back on mine.

I had no intention of pulling back this time.