Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Leo’s jaw clenched, and he pulled out of the parking lot. “You definitely try very hard to be that way.”
Zolt snorted when his head rolled over the backrest and almost hit the wall. “I’m doing you all a favor. Straight guys are ticking time bombs. You all really want that wifey, and that picket fence, and that dog. I’m just a glitch in your lives, and when you realize that, you either want to punch my teeth in or suddenly turn out not that straight. It’s best if you get rid of me one way or another.”
Leo shook his head, but in the dark of the night it wasn't easy to gauge his expression. “So now I’m like every other straight guy you’ve ever picked up, huh? That’s what you wrote in your notebook? You don’t care what I want, because you decided for me.”
Zolt took a deep breath, desperately grabbing the water bottle from the cup holder. The cool liquid drizzled down his throat, and he felt it all the way in his chest. Maybe Leo was right. Maybe Zolt was anticipating negative consequences, but what else was he to expect? “You haven’t been me. And whatever you’re saying now, you’re going to run back to your family the moment you see what would happen if they found out what you’re doing with me.”
Leo clenched his teeth loudly. “I told you I never felt like this before about anyone. I spent all of this past week working through ideas of how to break it to my family, because I love you. Because I’m clearly not as straight as I thought, but today I found out I don’t even have a boyfriend! I’m in some fucking friends-with-benefits limbo with a guy who fucks me because it’s convenient. And for the record, I wouldn’t have ran back to my family. I would have taken your side or even protected you, because that’s what a man in love does. Have you forgotten that I’ve already lied to my club for you?”
Zolt listened to him as the lights of the city passed by like beacons calling him to leave the car and roll onto the hard asphalt, where he belonged. But Leo was with him by choice. Leo hadn’t left him to die at the back of a dive bar and had come for him despite the way Zolt had treated him earlier that night. And now he must have left his bike behind in order to take care of Zolt.
Had he been mistaken about Leo?
Zolt’s gaze wandered to Leo’s hands, which squeezed the steering wheel so hard his arms stiffened between his torso and the wrists like two pieces of wood. He wanted to call Leo out on his bullshit, tell him it was easy to make promises while there was no fire under his feet, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew Leo. He knew how honest he was, and how openly he admitted to enjoying not only Zolt’s company but also his body. As if he wasn’t ashamed of it. As if being with a man wasn’t something dirty or something that he hated about himself.
“You really mean that?”
Leo took a few deep breaths, but didn’t yell this time, staring at the road ahead while the lamplight passed over his handsome features. “Of course I mean it. But what does that matter if you don’t want me back? You have your grand Caribbean plan, and I’m just another conquest.”
Words failed Zolt, but no matter how much he feared falling into the trap of Leo’s promises, he also desperately wanted to feel its teeth close around his limbs and hold on to him for as long as he breathed.
His hand slid down to the buckle, and he released the seatbelt, triggering an outcry from the safety system of the vehicle. Leo glanced his way, huffing loudly, but Zolt didn’t wait for scolding and leaned over the cup holders, to rest his head on Leo’s shoulder. Stretching like this was excruciating, as if the seat had already placed harpoons in his flesh and refused to let him go, but the need to sense the heat of Leo’s body was so overwhelming he couldn’t deny himself.
Leo sighed and stroked Zolt’s arm where it rested on his torso. “I know, I know, you’re too drunk to process any of this. I just needed it off my chest,” he whispered.
The familiar streetlight close to Zolt’s pawn shop blinked at him in Morse code, but he didn’t care what it said, because Leo would take care of him no matter what happened.
When the motor quieted, and Leo opened the door on his side, the threat of losing his warmth became so real Zolt held on to him uselessly. He only rolled back into his own seat after some coaxing.