Tangled with you, p.3
Tangled With You, page 3
“As a table. Right. Perfect.”
Ollie nodded, apparently unaware that he was stirring Trevor up from nothing more than merely existing, then he opened the chair and centered it in front of the bench.
A few minutes later they were settled, drinks in the built-in cupholders, and the pizza on the chair in front of them. Their legs were stretched out, their feet propped up on the low concrete barrier into which the posts for the railing were set. Now they were kicked back, eating and talking and laughing.
It was good. Definitely good. Hell, right then he didn’t care if he never touched the man. Or, more honestly, he cared. He cared a whole lot more than he wished he did.
But he’d deal.
What choice did he have?
* * * *
“This is a stellar location,” Trevor said, then took a sip of whiskey and sighed. “I could sit here all day looking at the view.”
“I have to work hard not to,” Ollie admitted, feeling a rush of pleasure simply from the fact that Trevor liked his place. “One of these days I’m going to talk to Jackson about extending the balcony. Right now, it’s too narrow.”
As if to illustrate the point, he gestured from where they sat on the bench to where their feet were propped at the balcony’s barrier.
“I love that idea,” Trevor said. “And it shouldn’t be too hard for a guy with Jackson’s skills.” He leaned forward, his shirt untucking at the back to reveal a strip of tanned skin.
A strip that Ollie noticed, dammit.
“Sorry,” Ollie said, only then realizing that Trevor had been talking. “I missed that.”
“I said I assume you own the hillside land. Worst case, he could set a post or something, but I bet he could just extend it with a few trusses attached to the house itself.”
“Were you an architect in another life?”
“Nah, but I like working with my hands.”
“Right.” Ollie cleared his throat, deliberately not thinking about Trevor’s hands. “Leah mentioned that once.” Leah was Trevor’s roommate and another agent at Stark Security.
“My hands?” Trevor’s brows rose. “I’m flattered she noticed.”
Ollie rolled his eyes. “That you’d fixed up a house.”
“Yeah.” There was a definite chill in his voice. “That I did.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
Trevor waved his hand, as if shooing away bad omens. “No, it’s me. Not the fondest memories.”
“Again, sorry.”
For a moment, silence hung between them. Then Trevor reached for another slice of pizza. “It was with Greg. My ex. We’d been together for just over two years when the law finally changed and we got married.”
“So fucked up that there had to be a change in the law in the first place. And now the bullshit of knowing that right might be taken away.”
“No kidding.” Trevor grimaced. “Then again, probably would have been easier if I’d never been able to marry the guy in the first place. Would’ve saved a lot of trouble on the backend.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Ollie snapped. “You loved him. You wanted to spend your life with him. It’s absurd for anyone to say you can’t, or that it’s a lesser marriage than between a man and a woman.”
“I know. Believe me, I agree. Stupid joke on my part. Marriage wasn’t the problem. Marrying Greg was.”
Ollie started to say that Trevor didn’t have to tell him any of this; it was obviously a sore subject. But at the same time, he wanted to know. Maybe that made him an asshole, but he stayed silent, taking a sip of whiskey as Trevor continued.
“Anyway, first thing we did was buy a house. Nothing says marriage like community property, right?”
“So they say.”
“Yeah, but what they don’t mention is that when community property is divided, it’s an expensive, stinking pain in the ass.”
“You got divorced.” He knew Trevor was single, so that was easy enough to figure out. “And I’m thinking it wasn’t a congenial breakup.”
“A thousand times no. It was a nightmare.”
“What happened?”
“Things seemed fine for a while. I was working at Stark International doing security. He had a job doing film restoration. We had a yard, a garden, and a dog. I thought we were happy. We were sure as hell domestic. Two years later, he left me for someone else.”
“Oh, man. I’m sorry. How did it happen? How did he meet him?”
“Him?” Trevor asked.
“They guy your husband left you for.”
“They met online. And the pronoun would be her, actually. Turns out he started trolling dating apps about two months after we moved into the house. I found out because he left the app open on his computer the same day he called from work and asked me to forward something in one of his files.”
“Oh, Trev. I’m so sorry.” Ollie’d had his share of heartbreak, but nothing like that. Nothing both out of the blue and perplexing. “You had no idea he was interested in women?”
“I knew he was bi. We’d actually spent a lot of time talking about it. Or, in retrospect, he was just paying lip service. Told me he loved me, and that was all that mattered. I believed him. I never thought—”
He broke off with a shake of his head. “Anyway, that night, I confronted him when he got home. He told me he didn’t want to be gay anymore.” Trevor said the last part with finger-quotes. “How was I supposed to argue with that?”
“Sounds like you’re better off without him.”
“Damn right.”
“But it still hurts.” Ollie knew how that was. Courtney was better off without him for sure, but Ollie knew the on-again/off-again relationship he’d put her through had hurt her, and deeply. It had taken a long time for her to finally say that they were over. Thank god she’d had the guts to. He sure hadn’t.
“Yeah, it hurt. I’d lost my mom about a month before, too. Single mom—I barely remember my dad. All I remember is him walking away from my fifth birthday party and never coming back. So, yeah, Mom was my whole world growing up. And then one day she was gone. I went into the garage to get the last of the groceries I’d picked up for her. When I left, she was telling me the plot of some soap she liked and making corn muffins to go with the chili she’d planned for dinner.” He swallowed. “When I came back, she was dead on the kitchen floor. Aneurism. The EMTs said she wouldn’t have felt a thing. I’m not sure I believe them.”
“Trevor.” Ollie put his hand on Trevor’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was hard. It still is. But it was different. She was older—she had me at forty-five—and we’d had some scares before, including a heart attack. So I’d faced it, you know? But then with Greg walking away…” He trailed off with a shake of his head. “That gutted me. I mean, shit, I even got sideswiped by panic attacks. Never expected that. Left me feeling like I wasn’t the man I thought I was, you know?”
“Yeah,” Ollie said. “I think I do. That must have been horrible.”
Trevor nodded. “It was. But the worst was that it was Greg doing this. Hurting me. We’d meant everything to each other—or at least I believed that. Isn’t that what marriage is? A statement of fidelity and togetherness?”
“I always thought so.”
“Greg didn’t. Either that or he missed the you don’t walk out on your husband day of class.” He waved the words away. “It shouldn’t still matter. I’ve been over him a long time. And yet every time I think about it, I get worked up again. It’s like the son-of-a-bitch cursed me.”
“You still have the panic attacks?”
Trevor shook his head. “Managed to work through that. A bit of counseling. A lot of talking to myself. Greg’s in the past. All of that is.”
“Relationships are hard,” Ollie said. “Especially when they’re complicated.”
Trevor turned, his eyes meeting Ollie’s. “When they’re complicated? Come on, Ollie, when aren’t they?”
Ollie looked away, trying to ignore the uncomfortable zing of awareness that had shot all the way down to his cock. “You make a good point.”
He reached to grab another piece of pizza, then jerked back when Trevor reached for his whiskey at the same time and their hands brushed. That yank back was embarrassing enough, but what was worse was the pizza landing cheese-and-pineapple side down on his crotch.
“Oh, hell,” Trevor said, his fingers brushing Ollie’s sauce and denim-covered package as he grabbed the errant slice. And in the process making Ollie practically leap out of his skin.
Immediately, Trevor drew his hand back, leaving the pizza where it fell as he leaned back, hands up as if in surrender. “Sorry, man. You know I wasn’t trying—”
“No, I—”
“Just hang on,” Trevor said, standing. “I’ll get some paper towels.”
Ollie opened his mouth to tell Trevor to wait—that he was the ass, not the other way around. But Trevor was already gone, and Ollie was left to peel the pizza off his pants while mentally kicking himself firmly in the ass for being such a, well, ass.
All too soon, Trevor was back with the paper towels, which he held out for Ollie to take while he remained standing, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as Ollie started to mop up the cheese, tomato sauce, and pineapple bits.
“Right. Yeah, so, I should probably go,” Trevor said.
“No, stay,” Ollie said, the words tumbling out. “It’s still early, and if you go, I’m stuck with not only pizza but cookies. I mean, how can you go without having at least one cookie with the whiskey?”
Trevor hesitated, his face a study of indecision. “It’s a nice offer, but I think we both know I should get out of here. Maybe tomorrow we can talk. But—oh, hell. I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out, and I wasn’t—”
“Dammit, Trev, do you think I’m an idiot?” The words tumbled out without Ollie thinking about them, and he wasn’t sure he could stop them even if he tried. “I didn’t freak because I thought you were making a move. I freaked because I wanted you to.”
Chapter Three
“Oh.” The word hung in the air as Trevor tried to decide what to make of that very bold—very unexpected—statement. “I’m not sure what to do with that,” he admitted. Any other guy and he’d have him naked by now, but he’d never fallen for a straight guy before. Or mostly straight. Or a guy who thought of himself as straight.
“Do we have to do anything with it?”
“No,” Trevor said, hoping he didn’t sound disappointed. For months, he’d wanted exactly this—for Ollie to admit that there was an attraction between them. For him to acknowledge—to both himself and Trevor—that he wanted to do something about that.
“Right,” Ollie continued. “It’s just, you know, my mind is spinning.” He waved his hand in the general vicinity of his head. “I mean, I’m not gay, so why would we?”
Because you’re curious. Because you’re attracted to me. Because you want this as much as I do.
He didn’t say any of that. Instead, he just shrugged, flashed a cocky grin, and said, “I thought you were the guy who’d try anything once.”
To his relief, the statement didn’t freak Ollie out. On the contrary, he chuckled, his entire body seeming to release the tension that had been coming off him in waves. “So now you’re a pineapple?” Ollie teased.
“Jerk,” Trevor said, dropping back down onto the settee, then reaching for his glass and downing the rest of his whiskey in one swallow.
“Seriously,” Ollie said, lifting his own glass and swirling the now-dwindling ice cube, “I—honestly, I don’t know. But the bottom line is that you’re a good friend. I don’t want to screw that up. Did I?”
“Not even close. And for the record, I don’t want to screw that up either.”
“So we rewind?”
“Full stop rewind. Absolutely.”
“All right. Good.” He motioned to his pants. “I think I’m going to change into something less cheesy. I’ve got the TV set up in the other room. You up for watching a movie?”
Trevor leaned back, walking the tightrope of how much he could tease his friend under the current circumstances. “The other room? Didn’t you tell me yesterday the only other finished rooms are the kitchen and your bedroom?”
“Yeah. It’s in the bedroom. Streamers all ready to go.”
“Come on, man. Are you trying to torture me?”
Ollie shot him a sideways grin that just about melted Trevor. “Damn right I am.”
And just like that, the tension eased. “You can be such a prick McKee. I swear, I don’t know why I keep you around.”
Ollie shrugged, then shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes not quite meeting Trevor’s. “Maybe you like the way my ass looks in jeans.”
Trevor forced himself not to laugh. “Well, yeah, there’s that.”
Ollie looked up, they shared a grin, and the last of the invisible band around Trevor’s chest dissolved. It felt good to be back to normal.
“You mentioned something about a whiskey pairing with cookies,” Trevor reminded him.
“Trust me. That’s not something I’d forget. You take the bottle back. I’ll go get some more ice and the cookies.”
By the time they’d finished the first John Wick movie, they’d polished off two glasses of whiskey each and finished every cookie in the box.
“I think I’m in a sugar coma,” Ollie said.
“I think I’m drunk,” Trevor countered. They were sitting on the bed, propped up against Ollie’s padded headboard, and as soon as he got home, Trevor was going to tell Leah the entire damn story just so he could get the props for making it through the afternoon without making a move on Ollie. A real one, not involving dropped pizza.
Then he was going into his bedroom, shutting the door, and jerking off. Because, damn, he was knotted up tight, and if he didn’t release some of the tension, he would probably just explode in the night.
He shifted to see his friend more directly and say goodbye, and that’s when he saw the chocolate on the corner of Ollie’s mouth.
Never in the entire world had a tiny smear of chocolate looked so damned erotic, and despite the talk in the other room about not wanting to screw up their friendship, right then he wanted to throw all of that bullshit out the window and just go for it.
Wanted to lean in. To use the tip of his tongue to lick away the chocolate. And with the taste still lingering in his mouth, to press his lips over Ollie’s until the other man opened to him. Until he surrendered. Because he would—Trevor was sure of that. All the talk about rewinding. About not screwing anything up. About Ollie not being gay.
It was all just so much noise.
Who gave a fuck if Ollie was gay or not? Whatever he was, he wanted Trevor. Of that, Trevor was certain. And god knew Trevor wanted Ollie.
And that tiny smudge of chocolate could make it all happen. It would be so easy. Just lean in and lick. And everything would change.
He could see it all play out in front of him. Ollie’s gasp of surprise, his body going tense, only to loosen as Trevor deepened the kiss. As Ollie responded, tentatively at first, and then with gusto.
He’d take it slow, but he’d have him naked soon enough, and he’d trail kisses down Ollie’s seriously ripped chest and abs until he reached his cock. And by then, he’d have Ollie so damned aroused he wouldn’t protest. On the contrary, he’d beg.
That’s what Trevor truly wanted. For Ollie to ask for it. Because once he did that, there were no more questions. Once he said please, all bets were off. And, yeah, it would change their friendship, but it wouldn’t destroy it. Because even though he didn’t know it yet, Ollie McKee was Trevor’s. And soon enough, Trevor was going to claim what was his.
But not tonight.
As hard as it would be to leave, tonight he was going home. A little bit drunk, a lot horny, and very much alone.
Damned if he didn’t have his work cut out for him. But it was his own fault. Because what was he thinking falling for a guy like Orlando McKee?
* * * *
Ollie had never been so relieved and so disappointed in his entire life. He should never have invited Trevor to his bedroom, because the whole damn time he was watching the movie he was thinking about what if.
If Trevor had quizzed him on John Wick, he wouldn’t have had a clue. Except for the opening bit about the dog. After that, his head was somewhere else entirely.
As for right now, he ought to take a cold shower. But the truth was, he liked the way he felt, his body tingling, his cock on alert. They’d been playing at flirting, and damned if he wasn’t aroused. So much that he’d almost let the whiskey take over. So much that he’d almost poured a few extra shots in the hope that Trevor would take advantage of the situation.
So why didn’t you?
And wasn’t that a hard question? And one that was getting harder to answer every time he asked it. And he’d been asking it for months. Ever since the Mercury case. Maybe even before.
But that case had solidified it. Being in that club with Trevor. Seeing him dance. Feeling that connection when Trevor focused on him. Probably just because he didn’t want to focus on some anonymous face, but that wasn’t what it had felt like. It had felt real. And more than once Ollie had caught himself thinking not about the money laundering scheme at the club but instead about what could happen in the small room when Ollie “paid” Trevor for his services.
A room that in reality they were using to pass information to each other, but which was intended by the club owners to be used for sex. And they’d been alone in there so many times, Trevor half-naked in a g-string, the room steamy in the faltering air-conditioning, and the memory of the way he’d gyrated on stage, his eyes glued to Ollie’s playing in Technicolor in Ollie’s brain.
Who was he kidding? For that matter, what was he hiding from? What was the worst that could happen? Losing the friendship?
He didn’t buy that. Trevor knew Ollie’s hesitations. If he freaked, Trevor would totally get it. And if the whole thing turned out to be one giant clusterfuck—haha—they’d just go back to their corners and redefine the relationship. Hadn’t they proved on the balcony that they were more than capable of mature, grown-up communication?
