He lay there, panting, cum cooling on his skin and his pants sticking to him uncomfortably, wondering what the fuck was wrong with him. It was clearly just the stress of the phone call. His past coming back to bite him in the ass. He’d been better off when all he’d had to do was send a check every month. He hadn’t signed on for funerals or burials. That was for the old Calder, the responsible Calder. The ranger Calder.
That Calder was dead.
This Calder lived free of commitments and responsibilities, fucked like a rock star, and screwed up as much as possible. He liked being this Calder. He needed to be this Calder. It was the only way for him to stay sane.
“So, you jerked each other off, and then he snuck out in the middle of the night. Hate to say I told you so…” Charlie said, scratching her nails along Robby’s scalp before she took another sip of her wine.
Robby’s head swam from too much merlot. He didn’t know what was more disturbing, how comfortable he was around Charlie and Wyatt or the fact that Charlie wasn’t talking to Robby when she said ‘I told you so.’ That comment she aimed at Wyatt who sat opposite her at the other end of Robby’s sofa.
Wyatt scoffed. “What do you mean? It totally worked.”
“How?” Charlie all but shrieked. “All our sweet baby gay got was a handjob and heartache.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m heartbroken—” Robby started only to be cut off once again by Wyatt.
“Exhibit A,” Wyatt crowed, waving the paper towel Calder had left behind. “He put his personal phone number, not his work phone.”
Charlie waved her wine glass precariously over Robby’s head, her words slurring. “Okay, that’s flimsy at best.”
“I’m not done. We also have this.” Wyatt stabbed at the paper where Calder had scrawled XO.
Robby’s heart tripped in his chest. He’d folded and refolded the paper towel enough for it to look battered even though it was only three days old. It was the XO that had thrown Robby too. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? It was hard to know.
Charlie blew out a breath through her nose. “Okay, that is…odd. I’ll give you that. But still, something spooked him.” She turned an accusatory gaze towards Robby. “Did you do something clingy? Did you cry or say ‘I love you’?”
Robby swung himself into a sitting position, the world tilting on its axis. “What? No. I didn’t do anything… I mean, I don’t think I did. We did…what we did, and then he just dried us off and tucked me in and told me to get some sleep. Then he crawled in beside me. I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was gone and this”—he plucked the note from Wyatt’s fingers, refolding it carefully—“was on the bedside table.” He sighed. “He even fed Cas before he left.”
Wyatt and Charlie exchanged glances.
“Will you two stop doing that?” Robby snapped. “It’s creepy. What is going on?”
Charlie refilled Robby’s wine glass and handed it to him. “Drink,” she commanded.
He did as he was told, annoyed with himself for giving in to her so easily. When he’d drained half his glass, she seemed satisfied. “Okay, so we just think that Calder needs to settle down. His horndog ways are fucking with Linc’s business, which puts Linc in a bad mood, which fucks with Wyatt’s getting laid on the regular.”
Robby blinked at Charlie. “What?”
She rolled her eyes as if Robby was dense. “Calder needs to settle down with someone, and the only person who can tame a manwhore is a virgin and of-age virgins are like unicorns.”
“The virgin being you,” Wyatt supplied.
Robby felt himself sulking. “What makes you two think I’m a virgin?”
Charlie gave him a pitying gaze. “Oh, sweetie. If we were villagers, you’d be the first one we’d chuck into a volcano to appease the gods.”
“Wow. Am I that obvious?”
“Well, yes. But that’s a good thing. You’re a unicorn. Now you get to offer up your virginity to Calder in exchange for living happily ever after together. That’s a good thing. I mean, a guy who’s fucked as many people as he has must be aces in bed. Why bother with some sad little dweeb who wouldn’t know your ass from your elbow?”
Robby’s face was in flames, but he didn’t know if it was the alcohol or humiliation. He tried to focus, but his head was full of bees. “So, you guys dangled me in front of him like a piece of meat ‘cause you thought…what? He was going to fall in love with me? You bet on the wrong version…er, virgin. I’m invisible to guys. They just look right through me.”
Robby bit down on his lip to keep from confessing any more of his secret insecurities.
Wyatt scoffed. “Calm down, Mr. Cellophane.”
Charlie shook her head, her wine sloshing dangerously close to the top of her goblet. “Nope. No way. Calder was all over you. He zeroed in on you so fast it was like he could smell your virginity.”
“Gross,” Robby muttered, still not really buying that somehow he was the one Calder wanted. If that was true, why hadn’t he called? “It doesn’t matter anyway. It didn’t work. I’m still a vers-vers-I’m still volcano bait. He prob-a-ly just felt sorry for me. My tongue’s not working,” he confessed. “I’m sleepy.”
