Enemies with Benefits, page 17
"Like I had a choice," I said, eyeing Micah, now in the deeper end of the pool, legs curled up so he was left to bob lazily in the middle. I was struck by the sudden image I had seen once on some nature show of how manatees would do something similar when they were relaxed. "You try telling that kid no when he asks you."
"He asked if you were going to come, not if you would," Jace pointed out, arching a brow with a pointed look.
Annoyance flashed through me. “You ever think maybe I can read between the lines with that kid better than you can?"
"You ever think maybe I could have handled it?"
"Dom came too, in case you forgot, because you know, he's right here."
"He's not a dickhead who has to be up my ass all the time."
"God, that's some interesting phrasing," I snapped at him, arching a brow.
His face contorted as pink rose to his cheeks. “Your brother's right, you really are a deviant."
"God, you two," Dom muttered behind us, a thunk echoing through the pool room as he flopped back, his bulk making the chair jump. "Get a room already. I'm sure there's a utility or storage room nearby that you can get all this excessively gay energy out in."
It was how close Dom was getting not only to the truth, but the specifics of what had really happened that shut me up in an instant. Jace and I could only stare at one another, apparently neither of us willing to risk opening our mouths and saying anything else. It wasn't easy to read anything behind the anger that still burned on his face. General, normal anger at me, an anger and outrage at what I'd said because now making dirty jokes at his expense had greater weight than before that night we'd fought and both of us had been hard and rutting against one another.
Right. Don't have those thoughts while your brother and nephew are around. Don't do that.
I forced myself to huff and glance over my shoulder at my brother. “You know, you accuse me of being depraved, and then you say shit like that. You've been reading too many of those dirty books of yours."
"They're not dirty books."
"Dude, I took a peek at one of them, and I've watched porn that was less graphic than what was printed on those pages. How that shit is legal to read in a public place is beyond me."
"You read porn in public?" Jace asked, sounding appropriately scandalized at the thought.
"They're romance novels," Dominic corrected. "Not porn."
"Sure as shit read like porn," I told Jace.
At that, Jace sighed. “Yeah, I had an ex who was fond of those. She got upset when I called them porn too."
"Porn is strictly sex done for the sake of sex," Dominic said in a superior tone. "Romance novels have sex scenes in them...sometimes. And they serve a purpose."
"Do me a favor," Jace grunted. "Whatever purpose they serve for you, keep it to yourself."
I snorted, surprised that he'd managed to say something genuinely funny and catty for once. “Probably serves the same purpose as the bottle of lube he keeps with him while he's reading them."
"There's a mental image I do not need," Jace said, and I glanced to see him wrinkling his nose.
"Ah, right, my apologies," I said with a grin, which widened slightly when his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I forgot that a strapping, completely heterosexual man like yourself wouldn't want to even think for the briefest moment about another man jorking it."
His expression clouded over. “Do you even know how not to be an asshole for longer than five minutes?"
"Oh, lord, just keep it down so the kiddo doesn't hear you," Dominic muttered as he rolled to face away from us, jamming his ear buds back in and tapping his phone's screen.
"How am I being an asshole?" I asked, relaxing on the pool chair once more. If we were going to go back to familiar territory, I might as well be comfortable. "I'm just trying to be mindful of what makes you uncomfortable?"
"Since when have you ever given a shit about what makes me uncomfortable?"
"Well—"
"Except for when you use it to make me uncomfortable?"
"Ah, well, outside of that? Never."
"See? You're an asshole."
"Dirty hands are the quickest to point fingers."
"Fuck you."
I raised a brow. “Promise?"
It was amazing to see how quickly his anger was tempered with first confusion as his brow knitted together, and after a flash of understanding, a desire he immediately tamped down. Just as amazing was how I immediately latched onto it, arching a brow and even spreading my legs a little, pushing my fingers just slightly under the band of my board shorts, not enough to be a spectacle if anyone were to glance over, but enough for his eyes to latch onto the movement and hold for a moment.
Amazing and still so fucking weird.
As per usual, he jerked his eyes away from what I was doing to glare at me, as furious as ever that I was getting a reaction out of him. Of course, lately, that reaction had been a lot more fun than his normal reactions to what I said and did. More confusing for both of us, but also more fun. But just as I always had when I knew I was getting a reaction, I just stared at him, openly showing my amusement. Not just amusement, though, not with this because I knew he was thinking about what it might be like to go so far as to fuck me. He definitely wasn't giving thought to me fucking him...yet, his desperate-to-be-straight mind couldn't handle that, but I had to wonder how tempted he was.
"Yeah," I said after a moment, keeping my voice low. The only person capable of hearing us was Dominic, and from the chair next to me, I could hear his music, which meant it was far too loud for him to hear anything except maybe a bomb going off outside. "You're definitely thinking about it, aren't you?"
"Stop," he hissed quietly through his teeth. "Your brother and...Micah are right there."
"Micah is currently trying to figure out if he's going to be...I think that's an otter, or if he wants to fish up some food, considering the time. And Dominic is dead to the world and drowning out what he thinks is pointless bickering, when in fact it's confused and arousing flirtation disguised as normal arguing."
His scowl deepened. “You call this flirting? How the fuck did you ever get laid?"
"I could ask you the same thing, but c'mon, we're both good-looking guys, that can be enough to make up for... a lot of things."
"Well, maybe you think this is flirting, but as far as I'm concerned, you're just—"
"Tempting you?"
"Getting on my nerves."
I leaned forward, eyes roaming his body. “That's a shame. There's at least one other thing that I could see myself getting on that would be a lot more fun."
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, wiping his face but not hiding the flush that was creeping across his skin. "Can you just...be normal?"
"I feel obligated to point out that you're not telling me no. Have you finally given up the fight to proclaim your heterosexuality? Or is your dick taking over long enough for you to forget that?"
"I'm not gay," he hissed at me, eyes darting over to Dominic, who continued to lie on the pool chair without paying the slightest bit of attention to us. I expected at some point for him to check, if only to make sure we hadn't killed each other.
I raised a brow. “You, uh, aren't trying to tell yourself you're straight, though, right? Like...that ship has sailed, good buddy."
"We're not buddies."
"No, seriously," I continued, frowning. "You're not trying to lock yourself up in denial so hard that you're ignoring reality...right? Like—"
He looked away from me, his jaw tight and his eyes narrowed. "I don't know what to call...what's been happening. But I'm not gay."
"Look, you're looking at the wrong guy if you think I'm going to insist that you are. I like women as much as the next guy...well, you know what I mean. Maybe you could make an argument that the first time was a one-off. A few wires getting crossed, mixed in with some curiosity you didn't know you had, and that the first time took care of things. But uh...it's been more than once."
"I know that."
"And if I'm not suddenly suffering from a random bout of psychosis, then I'm not imagining that you are seriously considering doing it again."
"You are suffering from psychosis, because I'm not."
"Mmm, right. You just felt the need to tuck that towel over your crotch when I was coming onto you for the fun of it. Not because it would be the only way to hide the fact that you were getting turned on. Because we both know there's not a whole lot you could do to hide that thing otherwise."
My attempt at a compliment didn't seem to have done much as his brow furrowed even further while he sat on the chair, glaring into space. Then again, I couldn't exactly pretend that he was readily going to receive any compliment from me. Complimenting him wasn't familiar to me, but hell, I wasn't blind, and I wasn't so far in denial that I couldn't acknowledge the truth. From what I remembered, his parents had been miserable pieces of shit, but at least their physical genetics had been good, his looks were probably the only decent thing his parents had passed along to him.
Finally, he glanced at me, lips thin and a furrow in his brow. "Everything's so easy for you, isn't it?"
Well, that took me off guard, and I leaned back with a startled laugh. "That’s news to me. Where in the fuck did that even come from?"
"You've always been like that. Everything is just so easy, and you expect everyone else to have it as easy as you do."
"Again, confused where the fuck that's coming from. And getting pissed because you sound like a dick head who doesn't know what he's talking about." It wasn't like I pretended I’d had a particularly hard life, especially compared to some people. That didn't mean my life had been easy, and even vaguely insinuating that I had floated through life without struggle was stupid.
His face contorted for a moment before he grimaced and looked away, peering out at the rain. "Before...a few weeks ago, what I knew about you was that you were straight. You'd never shown any interest in guys. Then I find out that isn't true."
"Right, things can change when you leave high school."
"I know that. But it doesn't look like it's bothered you in the slightest."
"Should it?"
"Does me."
Reflex told me to shoot down the idea as stupid, to roll my eyes at his constant need to make everything a struggle. The words died in my throat before they could be given a voice as I watched him, his expression strained, his fingers curled into fists on his knees.
"It used to," I replied before thinking what I was doing.
The strain on his face gave way to a mild surprise as he glanced at me. “What?"
I shrugged. “Things weren't like they are now. Even back in school, I knew there was something...different about me, and deep down, I suspected what it was. It wasn't until I left high school that I had my first really clumsy experience with another guy, and I couldn't deny it anymore. Even then, it wasn't easy to admit, and I was practically on the verge of a heart attack trying to admit it finally."
"To your family?” he asked with an incredulity that bordered on suspicion. "Your family?"
I laughed a little. “Yeah, man, even my family."
"That's stupid, your family was known by everyone for being cool with just about anything."
Annoyance flashed through me. “Yeah? And what's got you so scared about admitting it to yourself? I hope it's not your parents, because they're gone. And from what I saw, your buddy, Kayden, wouldn't give a shit if you told him you were into guys. Emotions are fucking stupid, especially fear."
He opened his mouth and then closed it gently with a thoughtful grunt. “Yeah, I guess...sorry, that was stupid of me."
Anything I might have said in return was lost in the face of an apology I would never have predicted. I didn't think he was even capable of the words, let alone use them for me. I supposed it was a sign of the war that was waging inside him, which, if I were honest, I understood all too well.
I sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, at least your first time was somewhat fun."
"Was it?"
"Dude, you got off hard."
"You didn't your first time?"
"No, we were both drunk off cheap boxed wine at some party, both of us so deep in the closet we would have passed Narnia if it existed. Just drunken awkward fumbling, some groping, he got off in thirty seconds flat and made a mess of my shirt, and then ran when he got that post-nut clarity. Little shit left me in the lurch. So I got my bi awakening and didn't even get an orgasm out of it."
Jace snorted. “You know, it shouldn’t, but somehow you getting fucked over like that does make me feel a little better."
"Wow, it's nice to know my suffering is good for something."
"I think you've managed to recover in that amount of time."
"Yeah, well, the bad sex maybe. Took me a little longer to deal with what that meant for me. And even longer to lose my best friend."
Jace's brow jumped. “Wait, you fooled around with Logan?"
I couldn't help but laugh at the open shock on his face. “Yeah. Sometimes, I wonder if that was part of why we were so close for so long. Both of us were closet cases, and both of us were into each other. But the minute we tried to step out of the closet, he freaked out and backed deeper into it, and decided he wasn't as into me as he thought."
"Oh, so he didn't...you guys didn't—"
"Nothing else happened between us. After that, he stopped talking to me, went off to college, and got on with his life, without me in it. Last I heard, he married some girl a year later, had two kids, got divorced, had two more kids with two more women, and now works for some construction company and apparently bitches endlessly on Facebook about how fucked up the system is because he's broke all the time from child support."
"Jesus," Jace grumbled, wrinkling his nose. "No offense, but from how much of a man whore you used to be, I would have expected you to have a kid out there."
"Mmm, that's a bold claim for you to make," I said, glancing over at Micah, who was now practicing floating on his back. I recognized it as a sign that he had probably gotten himself too riled up earlier and was consciously doing something that still required focus, but was far calmer. It was something Moira had worked with him on over the past few years, and at eight, he was clearly able to do it on his own.
"Alright, that's...actually fair. Never mind."
I laughed, raising my hand and making a cutting motion. “Plus, I took care of any possibility of that happening many years ago. You wouldn't believe how hard you have to fight to have something like that done. Doctors are so convinced that eventually you'll change your mind."
He cocked his head. “Wow, you actually found a doctor willing to do that?"
"Yep."
"How?"
"Female urologist. If there's anyone who understands that you don't want to risk kids and want a procedure done at a young age that most doctors refuse to do just in case, it’s a woman."
"That was good thinking."
"I have my occasional moment."
"Regretted it like the other doctors said you would, yet?"
"Nope. How about you?"
"What do you mean?"
I glanced over at Micah, smirking when his head sank beneath the water before he corrected himself, snorting water in the process. "Regretted procreating yet?"
"No," he said quickly. "I mean...I'm not sorry the kid exists, he's a good kid. I was just...never sure about being a parent, and now it turns out I didn't get a choice, and now I've got that choice, and it just...it's a lot."
"You know, it's alright not to know yet. Not everything has to have an answer right away. My sister didn't exactly give you much of a chance to deal with everything beforehand."
"Would she have told me at all if I hadn't come in here that day?"
"Do you want the honest answer to that?"
"She probably wouldn't have, I know."
"Probably not."
His shoulders slumped at that, and he sighed heavily, looking back toward Micah, who was now using one of the rails at the pool ladder to stay afloat, clearly having given up on trying to float. "I just...I still don't know how to feel about that. I get why she didn't tell me in the first place, but it just doesn't sit right with me that I had a kid out there the whole time and never knew. Never got the chance to decide if I was ready to be a parent or not."
"Would it help if I said that she was fucked up for making that choice for you? You deserved to know."
He snorted. “What a weird place in my life, where you, of all people, are backing me up on something."
"Yeah, well, life is weird."
"Tell me about it."
I didn't have to think too hard to put myself in his shoes. I absolutely knew I didn't want kids, and being an uncle was the closest I ever wanted to get. Yet if my vasectomy had failed and I got a woman pregnant, I would want to know if she carried that kid to term and decided to raise it. Not only would I deserve to have a say in whether I was in that hypothetical kid's life, but that kid would deserve a chance to have a father in their life as well.
It was that last thing which really bothered me, even more than deserving to have a choice. My sister knew just as well as I did what it was like to grow up without a father. Sure, Marcus was a good man, and it was nice to have a father figure, but even then, I had lost someone who meant the world to me. Sure, I had gotten over it...mostly, but that event still left its mark on my life, and I knew it had been the same for her.
So what was it like for Jace, whose father had been an abusive piece of shit from what I'd heard? To be the sort of person who was terrified of the idea of being a parent, not just dead set against it, to find out you actually had a kid? I could barely imagine how awful it had to be, knowing you had a kid the whole time and now trying to figure out if you were the right person to be a father. Parents left a mark on you, sometimes it was the gentle touch that carried you through life, or in Jace's case, the scars left behind by the person who should have been your protector and caretaker.
"You're an insufferable asshole," I told him without thinking.
