Jordan frowned. “I said I wanted to have sex with him, not fall in love with him.”
“Right? I was thinking the same thing.” Jordan and I fist-bumped. “Our dear, sweet Finley with hearts in his eyes.”
“Oh, so there’s something wrong with wanting other people to have what I do? Or for one of my closest friends and one of Aidan’s closest friends to be happy? You guys suck.” He crossed his arms and pretended to pout.
“We’re not Aidan,” Jordan said. “We’re not going to give you your way if you sulk.” He and I dissolved into laughter, and Finley flipped us off. Jordan sat back in the lounge chair again. “Do you really think he’d be interested? I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I know he’d be interested. He calls you beautiful all the time. He looks at you like he wants to devour you and…well, I’ve only gone there once, but David is very good at devouring.” Finley waggled his eyebrows.
Aidan had shared Finley with David once. I didn’t know all the details, and I was okay with that. Still, the thought of David and Jordan together kicked around in my head some more. The tangle in my belly tightened, before spreading out to a burning in my chest. Jordan was beautiful. Long and lean, and a bit more twinkish than me. He had this cute round nose, and his lips were well-shaped, if sort of thin—I’d been told mine were plump and full, and his were the opposite of that. David, by contrast, was older than us, with bigger muscles—not huge, but definitely something he worked at. His eyes were like chocolate. He looked…distinguished, fancy… I shook those thoughts from my head. Why the hell should I care if David and Jordan started fucking?
“I still can’t believe Aidan shared you with him once,” Jordan replied, though I didn’t know why it surprised him. Aidan wanted Finley to have whatever experience Finley needed. Plus, it wasn’t like the five of us hadn’t had that weird thing that one time in Finley and Aidan’s living room. Aidan had finger-fucked Finley while David had praised him and Jordan and I jerked off.
“I thought you just wanted the sugar-daddy thing?” I found myself asking.
“I mean, who doesn’t want a gorgeous man to take care of him? But no, I mostly joke about that…I think…maybe. I don’t know. It’s confusing and not very cut and dried. I like sex. I like various kinds of sex, and I’m curious. I see the way Aidan is with Finley and…” Jordan shrugged. “No one has ever cared about me like that.” His eyes darted away.
Yeah, no one had ever taken care of me either. Jordan had his grandma, who loved the hell out of him, but he’d never known his father, and his mom had bailed on him. He’d spent his childhood getting teased, and I could relate to that. “We love you, man.” I squeezed his thigh.
“I know. I love you too, but you guys don’t want to fuck me and take care of me, do you?”
He meant it in jest, of course, but a guy would have to be crazy not to want to have sex with Jordan, me included. I felt it again then, that weirdness I couldn’t put a name to, and this discomfort that made me shift.
“I think you should do it,” Finley said. “I still think it would be awesome if you guys ended up in a relationship, but if not, even if you only play together, it would be nice to have someone else who got it.”
I didn’t, and I felt like I failed Finley in that. Still, I tried my best to be supportive.
Jordan and Finley continued talking sex as I pushed to my feet.
“Where are you going?” Jordan asked.
“I need to head out. Have to work in a while.”
“Which job?” Finley asked.
“Valet tonight.” I had two jobs, one washing dishes in a restaurant, the other as a valet, and I was still always broke.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Finley replied.
“Me too,” Jordan added.
“It is what it is.”
We said our goodbyes. I hadn’t even made it to the sliding glass door, so I could go through the house to the front door, before they were talking about David and sex again.
It wasn’t until I got to my car that I noticed the ache in my jaw from clenching my teeth so tight.
My twenty-year-old Honda sat behind Finley’s BMW. There was a scrape all down the side from where it had been in a hit-and-run, and I hadn’t had the money to fix the damage left by whoever had done it. I’d be fucked when it was time for a smog check because it sure as shit wouldn’t pass, but it got me by for now.
I drove to my apartment in one of LA’s many shitty neighborhoods, showered, and got ready for work.
It was a long night filled with rich people eating fancy dinners and treating me like I was nothing.
When I climbed into bed that night, I thought about Jordan and David and felt even more alone.
CHAPTER TWO
Jordan
“Look what I made you—tomato soup with a ham-and-cheese grilled sandwich.” I carried the plate and bowl over to my granny, who sat in her beat-up chair that was likely not much younger than my twenty-three years.
She pulled the TV tray over, and I set the food down. “You take such good care of me.” She looked up at me and smiled.
“That’s because I love you.” I sat beside her. My grandma was…she was the best. I didn’t know how I’d gotten so lucky with her. I sure as hell didn’t know how my mother was her child. She’d always done her best by my mom. They hadn’t had much, but Granny loved her. She’d worked hard to provide for them after my grandfather had died with no life insurance.
My mom had been a wild child, which I got. Growing up in Southern California, that was easy to do. She’d gotten pregnant with me when she was young, and my dad had been a random hookup. When I was ten, she decided she was changing her life around. We’d hoped that was a good thing.
Granny had always wanted to be a nurse, and Mom decided she was going to go to nursing school. Granny had been so proud. Then…well, then Mom met an older man. He was really big in his church. He moved us away to Southern Oregon, and in the beginning it hadn’t been so bad. I missed my grandma, but my stepdad was able to give us things we’d never had before. And Mom had been happy. Who cared if I had to sit through church numerous times a week when I wasn’t sure I believed in it? All I knew was I wouldn’t have to deal with the kids who gave me shit all the time for being poor and gay. I hadn’t known I was gay at first, but the other kids did. They smelled blood in the water, and I was their prey.
It didn’t take me long to recognize I didn’t fit in Oregon. People always thought of Oregon as liberal because of places like Portland, but the smaller communities were conservative as hell. The kids there knew I was gay too, and yep, they’d all been right. I was queer as hell. They reminded me every day, as if I didn’t know. That didn’t go over well with dear old stepdaddy, and I got shipped back to California to live with my grandma, while Mom played happy family without me. She never had anything to do with us after that.
Granny was my world.
“I love you too, kiddo. You make me so proud. You’re going to be the first in our family to graduate college, but even more importantly, you’re a good man with a good heart.”