Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Gary rolls his eyes. “ ’Cause we wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of you getting some dick.”
“Don’t be jelly, Gare-bear. I know it sucks now that you guys are tied to your long-term relationships with your top shelf man-beef”—Gary and Hayden have amazing boyfriends, so even though I give them a hard time, I don’t actually think they’re tied down at all—“slung up in your condos, taking it up the ass.”
“And giving it up the ass,” Hayden corrects.
“Yeah,” Gary says. “Technically you’re the only power bottom among the three of us.”
“And proud of it!”
“As you should be,” Hayden says. “Someone has to take care of all those needy tops’ needs.”
“And don’t think my job is easy. Speaking of needy tops, you guys game for going out tonight?”
Gary shakes his head. “Oh no. You don’t get to go out considering what happened the other week.”
“That was like a month ago!”
“It was three weeks ago, and it doesn’t matter when it was. It wasn’t cool.”
“You scared us all,” Hayden says before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose—the way he does sometimes when he’s getting serious.
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I drank too much. Things happen.”
I’m acting nonchalant about it, but I know it was more than just a few too many drinks. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t pushed to go out since then. I’m not proud of what happened, and even though I’ve downplayed the incident when I’ve discussed it with Hayden and Gary, it scared me. Because yeah, I’m game to run around town and hop into bed with whoever the fuck I want, but I’m not an idiot about it…usually. And I don’t get trashed and look for trouble. That night, I was lucky a good guy took care of me. But I know better than most that there aren’t a lot of good guys in this world. That there are plenty who would have taken advantage or left me on the side of the curb.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask. “Sit in my condo all night with Charlie-boy?”
Charlie-boy’s my roomie…and by roomie, I mean my beta fish.
“I couldn’t hang with you even if I wanted to,” Gary says. “Trav and I are having a date night tonight.”
Hayden pipes up. “Yeah, Cody and I are going to see a movie. You could tag along with us if you wanted, though.”
“Fuck that! I’m not going to be some third wheel on your little love date. Sitting beside you while you boys get all smoochy-face in the chairs next to me.”
Hayden laughs. “Well, that’s probably what we’ll really be doing, so you might want to bail then.”
“Don’t go out drinking tonight, though,” Gary warns. “Promise me.”
“Okay, I promise, I promise.”
The conversation shifts to light gossip and catching up about our jobs before we head back to Metropolis. We all live in the same building—the gayest building in the gayest part of Midtown. Like it’s so gay, the gay guys who don’t live here make fun of how gay this building is. But they’re just jelly because we’re the ones who essentially live in an adult frat house.
As I enter my unit, I run my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair, pulling it back before heading into the living area, to the side table with my glass lamp where Charlie-boy lives. It’s an antique lamp I bought at a thrift store when I was looking for some sexy new outfits with Gary. I haven’t always made as much as I do at the salon, and growing up in a trailer park with dick parents and six siblings has made me resourceful as fuck.
The idea of having a fish inside the lamp was Gary’s, and when I saw Charlie-boy at the pet store, looking all sad and mopey in that tiny little glass bowl, I thought I could cheer him up by giving him all this space to move around in. Unfortunately, I’ve learned since I got him that he just likes being mopey.
I remove the shade and light fixture from the lamp, exposing the ring at the top. Fetching some fish food out of the drawer the lamp sits on, I take a bit between my forefinger and thumb and dip them into the water. I have to feed him this way because I learned very early on if I just put the food in the bowl, it drops to the bottom and Charlie-boy is either too stupid to realize it or too disinterested to care. So to keep him from starving to death, this is what I have to do.
Charlie-boy swims slowly to my hand and eats just as unenthusiastically.
“Who woulda thought a guy like me would have ended up with such a sad roommate?” I tell him, and as he finishes up, I add, “Well, Charlie-boy. Now you live another day.”