“No, it wouldn’t.”
“Yes, yes, it would—”
“No, no, it wouldn’t. I mean, the same rule would apply, Ten, but look at you. If you were dating women, do you think you’d have been so hungry Friday night? Would you have gone—what? How long was it?”
“Two and a half years,” Tenner muttered, hardly able to believe that dry spell was over.
“Yeah. If you and Nina had split up and you’d been dating women, do you really think you would have gone so long after the divorce to get you some?”
“That’s insufferably crude,” Tenner said before taking a sip of his beer. And belching.
Ross laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s the problem. I’m being crude. No, fess up. There’s something more going on here.”
Tenner regarded him with a certain amount of distrust, which was hard, because Ross didn’t get any less pretty after three beers.
“It’s Nina,” he said after a minute. “In the custody settlement, I get fifty percent custody, more or less, because swapping Piper out over the school week seemed unnecessary to both of us. So we try to make that up over the summer. And Nina travels a lot with work, so we do that too. But the legal agreement says, and I quote, because she could afford a truly fancy lawyer, that as soon as I start ‘flaunting my lifestyle,’ we will have to revisit the agreement. I could lose custody completely.”
Ross’s eyes were all over the place and so was his expression. It went from disbelief to anger to confusion and back to disbelief again.
“Can she do that?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know!” Tenner protested. “I don’t. I signed it. Because I wanted it to be as quick and as painless as possible. And as long as I got to see my daughter again, it felt like a fair trade.”
“It was not!” Ross argued, and apparently, he’d settled on anger. “What does that even mean?”
“I assume it means she doesn’t want me to date men,” Tenner said, shrugging.
“Or maybe it means she doesn’t want you to have key parties with a lot of cocaine and a disco ball!” Ross argued. “Because what kind of lifestyle does she think you’re going to flaunt? Mediterranean salad and microbrews aren’t exactly noteworthy as a lifestyle. Does she have a thing with computer engineers? I mean, most of the time I assume they’re sort of boring, but I kind of like you, so you get a pass—”
“Thanks so much.”
“Yeah, well, you’re sarcastic and that turns my key. But oh my God! No wonder you were uptight! Tenner, that’s no way to live!”
“Well, it’s certainly no way to date,” Tenner muttered, taking another swig of beer.
Ross dropped his chin to his chest and massaged the back of his neck with one hand. “Tenner, man, you deserve more than a quick fuck against a wall. How are you ever going to meet someone if you’re afraid to even step a toe out of line?”
Tenner set his mostly empty beer down and straightened, then got up and moved behind the couch. “I have no idea,” he said, tired enough to not dodge the question. “But I’m not meeting the perfect guy and getting married tonight.” He paused. “Here—put both your hands down by your side. I’m going to show you some neck stretches, okay?”
“Gonna rub one out, I mean rub my neck?” Ross said, and he must have been tired and drunk, because so far he’d been more subtle than that.
“Sure, I’ll rub one out on your neck.” Tenner giggled a little. “Seriously, you’ve been resting all your weight on your elbows, and that’s not good for your shoulders or your neck. Now straighten up and look straight ahead.”
Ross did, and Tenner placed careful fingers on the sides of his neck and his jawline. “Now look over your left shoulder—stretch—no, don’t use your fingers. Just look as far as you can for a good ten seconds.”
Tenner counted silently to himself, the soft heat of Ross’s skin burning through his fingertips.
“Return to neutral. Now, look the other way.”
And again. Tenner’s palms itched with the desire to cup Ross’s jaw, to lean his head in and nuzzle the back of his neck. God, the alcohol was part of it, but the warmth, the closeness, the permission—the intimacy—all of it was making Tenner’s skin throb with the promise of heat.
He must have paused too long since that last exercise, because Ross’s voice came as a surprise. “Whatever you’re thinking about, go ahead.”
Tenner took a step forward, surreptitiously checking the staircase with his eyes to make sure there was no small person there to see things she shouldn’t.
Then, very carefully, he ran his lips along the back of Ross’s neck. Ross hummed in his throat and leaned back against the couch, tilting his head and exposing his jawline.
Tenner leaned a little more and nibbled up the side, to his jaw, to his ear. He sucked on the lobe for a moment and watched as Ross arched his hips off the couch.
“You like that,” Tenner whispered, and Ross arched again.
“I’m a total freak for my neck and ears,” Ross admitted. “How far do you want this to go?”
Tenner started to withdraw, but Ross turned his head and caught his lips first. A quiet kiss, lingering just enough for tongue, for a gentle gasp of acceptance, and then ending.
“Not tonight,” Tenner rasped.
Ross’s slow grin made him regret those words almost instantly. “I’ll be back,” Ross promised. “Maybe not tomorrow—I gotta work late. But Tuesday. You doing anything Tuesday?”
Tenner thought but it was hard, because he was still leaning over the couch and he could still smell Ross’s grass and earth and sun smell, which apparently didn’t go away when he was indoors, and ah, God. “Dance. Piper has dance class, and she likes it when both Nina and I watch her.”
“Aw, man! I’ve got softball practice with Pat Wednesday night!” Ross’s face lit up. “You could come too! We don’t even have to… I mean I’d like to… but come! Maybe we can figure out how to help your team limp forward a little.”
“Into the T-Ball leagues?” Tenner asked dryly. Well, Ross had been there. He’d seen what a disaster they’d been.
Ross raised his ringers to Tenner’s cheek, rubbing a little against the rasp. “Yeah,” Ross said. “Do that. We can have all Thursday after work together, and I’ll leave Friday morning. I’ll bring clothes Wednesday night….” He paused and his eyes searched Tenner’s. “A sleepover. If that’s okay.”
Tenner bit his lip, suddenly embarrassed. On the one hand, cow and barn were never destined to meet again. But on the other… oh, had this been like a first date?
“Sure,” he graveled. “Sure.” All his reservations about Ross leaving, about Piper getting attached—they could deal with that, right? Ross could come over Wednesday, and people could assume he was spending the night in the guest room, the way he’d be doing tonight, right? It’s not like Tenner would get attached to this gorgeous roller coaster of a man who liked to laugh and play Mario Kart and who cut a hot dog piece in half on Piper’s plate so she could win the game of who had the most hot dogs.