Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 145088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Shane raised his eyebrows, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed that he was eating up all this drama.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Frank growled, moving his gaze from Dex to Hammer, who sipped his drink.
“Again, I don’t see how that’s any of your business. You’re treating him like a child.”
Frank’s chin lowered, and he laughed, soaking up the spilled beer with napkins. “You say that, but I’m the one who needs to fucking remind him to take the pills, use condoms, and I’m the one to pay for STD treatments”
“And yet here I am, alive and well!” Dex growled as he opened the final packet of ramen with his teeth and then shook it over boiling water to make the noodles fall in.
Frank turned toward him, and his expression became even more severe than usual. “Fuck knows for how long, because you just told me that while we were looking for you, worried that this fucker might have killed you and dumped you in a ditch, you’ve been to a bareback orgy!”
Dex rolled his eyes. “Actually, everyone was required to play safe, and all the other guys wore rubbers! It’s not that complicated.”
“How many other guys?” Shane asked casually, but Dex could see this was just an attempt to bait him into more accidental info spillage.
Hammer sat still, likely wondering why he’d bothered to come over in the first place, but he still cut Shane off like a sharp knife. “Come with us next time, and you’ll find out.”
Dex’s heart soared, and he grinned, separating the softening noodles with a spoon. He then opened his cupboard again and started grabbing the ingredients he needed one by one. Since he only had a single hand available, everything took way longer than expected, and he was already anticipating issues. He itched to climb the heights of cooking show artistry and chop the meat with a big fancy knife, but with things being as they were, he might need to use scissors on the bacon. Hammer deserved to receive the best food anyone ever created, but Dex’s ramen would have to do.
“My nephew won’t be your experiment,” Frank said, and the frost coming off him made Dex shudder all the way by the counter. The microwave announced the TV dinner was ready, but Frank didn’t even twitch and stared at their guest, who met his eyes from behind the can of beer.
Dex raised one hand. “I can be whatever, I don’t mind.”
He knew he’d fucked something up when Hammer’s gaze settled on him with the weight of an anvil. “You’re not meant to be anyone’s ‘whatever’.”
Dex stalled, looking back as his scissors cut through a rasher of bacon. His heart bubbled with heat, going soft like the noodles in the pot.
This guy. He was… everything.
No one had ever made Dex feel this way. He’d cut his finger off right now if it meant Hammer stuck around for longer.
Shane had a sip of beer, and the little slurp seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet room. “So you’re gay?”
Hammer shrugged, lowering his gaze, as if the question had thrown him off guard. “Dex and I have… lots of commonalities that brought us together. I might not want to share it with the club for now, but why overthink something that works?”
“So he is an experiment?” Frank insisted, walking up to the microwave to retrieve his food. Dex attempted to ignore him, but since the heat of dark eyes scratching at his back was impossible to miss, he focused on opening a can of peas, which was deceptively hard with one hand working at fifty percent capacity.
“You are really trying to make me the bad guy, aren't you?”
“It’s hard not to see it this way when you abduct him and then brainwash him into thinking it’s all good,” Frank said through gritted teeth, but before Dex could have answered, his uncle took the can from him and opened it within five seconds.
It was embarrassing.
“H-he didn’t brainwash me into anything. Have you seen him? Why would I not want to…” Dex hesitated when he met Hammer’s clear gaze again. For some reason it felt weird to only talk about him in the context of fucking, because there was so much more to their connection. So much he couldn’t yet name.
The heated conversation was distracting him from cooking, so he attempted to ignore everyone’s voices and threw the peas into the pot along with the spices and some pre-sliced pepper. He added a drizzle of hot sauce to finish the dish before giving it a vigorous stir.
“Come on, Frank,” Shane said, surprising Dex with his support. “You gotta let the kid enjoy his life. Haven’t we all done something stupid at one time or another?”
There, Shane would get extra bacon in his bowl.
Hammer chuckled. “I sure hope he doesn’t end up thinking I was a stupid mistake a year from now.”