It had been nearly ten years since he graduated college. Ten years that he'd been selling his art at a moderate level of success. Almost nine years since he’d seen Stewart last. Roland fell back onto the bed, his down comforter making a small oomphing sound as it fluffed up around him.
Nine years.
Roland had been with other men since then, casually. But none of them inspired him. He found himself feeling flat after endless strings of meaningless sexual encounters through his mid-twenties. Roland had met someone a few years earlier, someone he thought might have been able to inspire him but found himself disappointed yet again.
Cody had been different from the men Roland normally brought home from the bar, and most importantly, different from Stewart in all the ways that mattered. And while there was a brighter spark between them, a longer period of that exciting newness they cultivated into something more, Cody left him in the end. Roland was alone again and back to bathroom blowjobs at clubs in West Hollywood.
All in all, Roland’s life had been fine. He’d known success, and wealth, and at one point, love. But it had only been love in the wayfirst lovewas love. Too strong and too calm, too accepting and too judgmental all at once. An all-encompassing whirlwind that wouldn’t leave either party whole in its wake.
Roland found himself now on the backside of thirty. His success waning due to a seemingly insurmountable inspiration block, and his bed, consistently empty. Stewart had been right about one thing, and Cody had told him the same during their relationship as well. Roland’s self-worth was too wrapped up in his art to be healthy. He put so much of himself, of his heart, onto the canvas that when he found nothing to create, it reflected as a shortcoming of himself. Roland had twice in his life spiraled into a deep depression, and he was aware of his mind enough to see the warning signs coming for a third time now.
He didn’t want to go through it for a third time. But he couldn’t find a way to separate from his art enough to save himself from the pain of staring at another blank canvas before falling into a lonely, fitful sleep.
Chapter 3
The Angry Twink Turtle
Donny shutthe door behind him, kicked his shoes off and tossed his wallet and keys on the counter. As far as Saturday nights went, this one had been a huge fucking letdown. First, the heinous date with that douchebag Davis, and then delivering to the hottest and simultaneously rudest man he’d ever met. Roland Wilson could give Davis a run for his money when it came to being a stupid asshole, that was for sure, but something about the whole exchange with Roland made Donny’s cock twitch, whereas over dinner it attempted to crawl inside of his body.
It was probably just because Roland was unfairly handsome. Six feet worth of shiny, olive skin and a mane of hair that looked like spun freaking gold. Donny wanted to climb Roland like a tree and then shove his cock down his throat. He understood this wasn’t a rational reaction to seeing someone he found attractive, and he was fairly certain if they ever found themselves in that sort of situation, Roland would be the one expecting to top, and then Donny would bid him good evening and go home alone.
As was the norm because Donny was very much a top. He was just one who happened to be five and a half feet tall. Donny had bottomed before—he’d tried the whole vers thing—but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t mentally give himself over to the idea of allowing someone else that kind of command over his body, he just didn’t want it all the time… not even ten percent of the time. Bottoming felt more personal to him somehow, and he didn’t want to offer that up to just anyone.
Donny wasn’t one of those people who liked to use the wordnever, but it was as close of a descriptor as he could come to when someone asked him if he’d let someone top him again. The last time he bottomed was in high school, and he was not eager to repeat that fumbled experience.
When he walked into the living room, his cats—Pete, Jack, and Jill—were sprawled out across his couch taking up all the available space. Jack and Jill, as usual, were right next to each other, Pete a little farther off to the side with his tail curled over the armrest. He tried to scoot Jack to the side so he could sit down, but the cat opened his eyes lazily and swatted a claw at Donny so he slid down to the floor instead.
He rested his head against the seat cushion, rolling it to the side to face Pete. Pete stretched out and blinked his sleepy cat eyes at Donny before curling up to accommodate Donny into his space. He leaned in and stroked his hand over Pete’s fur, and his eyes opened again. In his half-slumber, Pete brought his paw up to this mouth and started gnawing at one of the pads on his paw. It was enflamed and looked like it may have bled earlier in the day.
“Fuck,” Donny grumbled, continuing his petting but swatting Pete’s mouth away. He’d have to make time to take Pete to the emergency vet tomorrow so it wouldn’t get infected.
He’d never likened himself to being a cat person, but when he found a cardboard box out back behind Frank’s a week ago with the three little Siamese kittens inside, he couldn’tnotbring them home. Everyone always said cats were independent, and that was true of Jack and Jill, but Pete— Pete was a bit more attached. He seemed to actuallyenjoyDonny’s company.
Donny thought, for a brief moment, he was far too young to become a crazy cat person. He was almost twenty-two and he’d already collected three cats? No boyfriend in sight, three cats. Awesome. Well on the way to crocheting teapot cozies.
If he was being honest with himself, Donny didn’t so much have an issue with being alone now. It was the fear of being alonelaterthat left him unsettled.
Donny had always been too much—too intense, too aggressive, too short, too busy, too introspective.
He couldn’t win.
Donny was a thinker. He liked to observe people and learn their tells; he wanted to understand what motivated people to do the things they did, so he was too manipulative. He wanted to become a better artist and make something of himself, so he was too distracted by his hobbies.
These were all things he’d been told… more than one time.
Was it not just easier to focus on the things that made him happy than to worry about how to fit someone else's happiness alongside his own?
Donny reached his fingers under the couch and felt around for his sketchbook. It had beenonthe couch when he left earlier in the day, but he had no doubt the troublemaking triad had batted it off when they wanted room to lounge. He pulled it out and flipped to an open page, tugging the pencil free from the spiral bind, then he let his mind take over.
When his lines started to blur and the pencil needed sharpening, he looked down and his eyes focused on the sketch.
“I’m a fucking idiot, Pete,” Donny said to his sleeping cat. He dropped the sketchbook on the floor and pushed himself up. He went to the kitchen, dug a pencil sharpener from his junk drawer, and got a beer from the fridge.
When he returned to the living room, Pete had left the couch and was now curled up on top of Donny’s sketchbook, chewing at his foot.That little shit.
“Pete, come on.”
“Mewl.”
