He’s like his brother, with his cool attitude and ability to charm anyone in the room. Although, since he’s dedicated his life to getting his doctorate so he can be a professor of anthropology, he doesn’t seem to have much time to date. One of the reasons we both get along so well is that we’re both workaholics.
“Sorry, Scott,” Jordan continues. “Don’t mean to bore you with all this talk about girls. There was one guy down there in my team who was gay, and he had a six pack and this massive chest. You would have fucking died.” He turns to Mikey. “Scott loves a beefy guy. Oh my God, when I showed him your picture on Facebook for the first time—”
“He gets it, Jordan,” I interrupt, my face burning from the intense blushing.
“No, no,” Mikey says. “Go on. I want to hear more about Scott’s interest in beefy guys. Is that what his other boyfriends looked like?”
“Oh, no. Sam was pretty lean.”
Now we’re talking about my ex?
“Sorry. We won’t talk about that,” Jordan adds. “Sam was kind of a bastard.”
“Jordan, please.” I’m begging him psychically not to say anything else. I figure my body language must tell him he needs to let it go, but he persists.
“No,” he says. “You need to move on and forget about that bastard.” He turns to Mikey. “He met Sam in college, and they were together for what? Like three years, I guess. Sam got this job as a medical sales associate, and then suddenly he was too good for my man Scott here. Scott evidently wasn’t going to make enough money for them to have any sort of real life together, so Sam broke up with him.”
“That’s really shitty,” Mikey says, and as I make eye contact, I can tell he means it.
This is the first time I’ve felt something from him other than anger about what we talked about this morning.
I wish I hadn’t told him about my dad, because now he gets that Sam’s judgement just further solidified all those things that I have to hear already—how they make me feel like what I’m doing isn’t worth it.
I feel vulnerable—something I don’t feel a lot since I haven’t truly opened up to anyone since Sam.
It reminds me of how nice it felt talking to Mikey about my design work, that he doesn’t think I’m just some guy dicking around all day in Photoshop. Of course, it’s easy for him to be encouraging when he’s not really in my life. It’s one thing just to be someone he’s having a conversation with. It’s another to be in a relationship with him. I doubt I’d be the kind of guy Mikey would ever consider dating.
As soon as I have the thought, I wish I could take it back.
Dating? I shouldn’t even be associating the idea with Mikey. Although, I guess it’s only natural, considering he’s the only guy I’ve done anything with since Sam.
Jordan shakes his head. “You were too good for him.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I’m hoping that placating him will make him change the subject.
“You are too good for that,” Mikey adds, and he sounds sincere.
God, what the fuck is he? A dick? A nice guy? One minute I want him fucking my brains out, and the next I want to get into a wrestling match with him… or is that the same thing? Part of why I think he gets under my skin is because I’m so attracted to him. But it’s more than how hot he is; it’s moments when he reveals there’s more to him than this body—this incredible body.
“You’ll find someone worthy of you, Scott,” Jordan says.
“Yeah, you never know what life’s gonna throw at you,” Mikey adds, and our gazes meet again.
And now I feel all sorts of weird.
Even worse, I feel guilty for how I treated him this morning.
Here he is being supportive and encouraging with me, and I should have been the same way, especially after his first time with a guy.
I was so busy worrying about my selfish concern over my friendship with Jordan that I wasn’t taking his feelings into consideration. He acts so chill and cool about everything that I thought he wasn’t considering the consequences.
But he’s not an idiot. He might look like some dumb blockhead jock, but he’s a fucking engineer. A hell of a lot smarter than me, that’s for sure.
“You never mentioned Scott was gay, by the way,” Mikey says.
“What? Didn’t I?”
“Not that you needed to. I kind of figured it out.”
