I look him up and down as I take the last of the napkins and wipe the sweat off my neck and chest before pulling my T-shirt back on. “No, that won’t be necessary. We’re pretty much the same size.”
The corner of his lips tilts up, the smirk firmly in place. “Does this make us official? Will I be borrowing your underwear? Are you a boxers or briefs kind of man? I’m bisexual, so I’ll be fine either way.”
Throwing the balled-up paper towels in the trash can on the sidewalk, I shake my head. “And there goes the moment we were having. You were quiet for all of, what, twenty minutes?”
Anders looks like he wants to protest, but Odd interrupts us, bringing over his brother’s gym bag. He pats Anders’ arm and leans in, whispering something in his ear. Anders angles toward me but keeps his eyes down. It’s a weirdly vulnerable look on his usually snarky face, and if I know Odd at all, he told him tobe nice.
Anders tosses his things in the back of the SUV and gets in on the passenger side. The seat makes a squelching noise as soon as my ass hits leather.
I jump up, grinding my jaw as my hand confirms I’ve got lube all over my clothes. I’m free-balling it under my sweatpants, so those stay on as I rip off the T-shirt and use it to wipe down my ass. Anders flushes red and grabs a towel from his gym bag, making his way around to the driver’s side.
Using a push-and-wipe method, he keeps at it until the seat stops expelling lube from its depths. He scratches the back of his head, seeming to argue some detail with himself, then gingerly sits down. No squelching noises. He settles into it a bit more, grinding his ass into the leather, then hops up and checks himself out, a move I try not to find funny. No lube.
His eyes drift to my bare chest, and he has the wherewithal to look sheepish as he gives me two thumbs up.
“Um,” he says, rummaging through his gym bag. “I have a clean T-shirt you can wear.”
One wonders how clean any T-shirt from Anders’ gym bag could truly be, but I take it out of some weird need to make him feel better. I pull on the shirt and curse myself when it smells of laundry detergent and…him.
He’s blissfully quiet on the drive over, a state that lasts until I pull onto the street in front of my condo. It’s a great building, a beautiful mix of Austin retro-cool and green spaces, towering above the city skyline.
“I know this represents the work of a whole team of people, but every time I see it, I’m so proud of my friends. They really outdid themselves,” he says.
I nod, pulling into my assigned parking space. “You mean every time you break into my place.”
He bites his lip and shrugs. “I was merely demonstrating the weaknesses in your security system.”
I turn to him, ignoring the new squelching sound in my seat. “Seriously, how did you get in?”
“You do know my brother is an electrical engineer, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Who do you think was in charge of designing the wiring for this building?” he asks, grabbing his gym bag.
“Okay, but I doubt very much Odd would—”
“I’m just saying…these fancy doors have workarounds if you know how to read the specs. Which I do,” he says, getting out of the car with a powerful elegance I don’t usually associate with him.
Powerful…what the hell am I thinking?Stop looking at the way his body moves, Omar.
I make a mental note to re-install my Grindr app once we’re back from this punishment trip to East Texas. Nothing like a good dicking to take care of unresolved sexual tension.
Powerful elegance, pfft.What the actual fuck, man?
Gesturing up at the tower, he says, “Odd and I share a dorm, and I’m starting to feel like maybe we’re missing out.”
He has to have a lot of cash lying around, and I’m curious if the dorms are mandatory. “That’s the place in Wimberley, right?”
He nods, biting his lip.
No one has ever said outright what he and Odd do at this place in the Texas Hill Country, but the implication is it’s slightly more official than what we’ve got going on with the Guardians.
I also find it interesting that he’s a surgeon, an actual surgeon, a fact I forget as frequently as I remember because I can’t imagine anyone putting a blade in his hand and telling him to open someone up.
I want to ask him more, but the closed-off way he’s holding himself tells me maybe he can’t say much about that part of his life. There’s a contemplative silence as we walk to the elevators, and my phone’s text notification is especially loud when it goes off.
I hit the button on the elevator and surreptitiously look at my phone.
