It wasn’t that he hadn’t dated anyone since Cooper. He’d dated plenty, and he’d been with some people seriously, but Adam always found flaws, found faults. He didn’t allow himself to explore a future because he wasn’t perfectly happy in the present. If he hadn’t settled in the past, he wasn’t going to settle now.
“You know…” Grant buckled his seatbelt as Adam climbed into the car. “Robin might be a good option foryou.”
“Robin isn’t my type.” He turned on the car and backed out of the driveway, angling the wheel and heading toward Devon’s house on the edge of town.
“Willing and limber?” Grant chuckled.
“He’s just…Robin is great, but not for me.”
Grant held up his hands in surrender.
They rode in relative silence to Devon’s, but Grant’s earlier comment about Cooper’s attendance had him feeling unsettled and nervous.
“You don’t think Cooper will be there, do you?” he asked.
“I don’t know why he would be.”
“Because Devon pulled the birthday card?”
“It hasn’t worked on him before. I doubt it would work now,” Grant said. “Besides, he’s always so busy with the shop and the side business. He doesn’t have time for fun.”
“I hope he’s not there.” Adam pulled up alongside the curb, the street already bustling with cars and guests for Devon’s party.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between the two of you?” Grant pushed open the passenger door and stepped out of the car to stretch.
“I told you when it happened.”
Adam leaned into the back of the car to grab his duffel bag and joined Grant on the curb. His statement wasn’t entirely truthful. He hadn’t been forthcoming with Grant about why things had gone wrong between him and Cooper because it was honestly too embarrassing for him to admit. In hindsight, the things that had driven a wedge between him and Cooper seemed so trivial, it was laughable that they’d ever even made his radar. But now too much time had gone by. Too many things had been said, and too many things had gone unsaid, and it was just this thing that existed in his life now.
He wouldn’t have gone as far as to say that Cooper was the one who got away, but he would admit—only to himself—thathewas the one whoranaway. He’d run from a kind man, a good man, a patient and loving man. Cooper had wanted more for them both, and he hadn’t been able to recognize that. It was such an odd thing to have the grace of age on his side, because he’d thought he’d known it all in his thirties, and now…
He hadn't a clue.
But he was proud.
And alone.
“If not the actual Robin, then you need to find yourself another Robin.” Grant clapped him on the back and turned them both toward the house.
“I’m fine without a Robin,” he said. “I’m open to playing with someone tonight if the situation presents itself.”
“Isn’t half the fun making sure that they’re doing the presenting?”
He rolled his eyes. “That was a horrible Dom joke and you need to never make it again.”
“Come on.” They started the walk to Devon’s front door. “It’s a good feeling, yeah? The command to present?”
Adam nodded, fully aware of how powerful it made him feel to drive a partner to their hands and knees. To make them beg, to kneel, to crawl. And he also remembered…well…
He remembered what it felt to be the one doing the kneeling, too.
It was with that thought his cock thickened against his leg, and he cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to walk into the party with a hard-on. He didn’t want to walk into the party thinking about the things he’d done for Cooper—and only for Cooper.
He looked down, adjusting his bag and adjusting himself.
“Well, shit,” Grant muttered under his breath.
“Hmmn?” Adam looked up and followed Grant’s line of sight across the room. Beyond the crowd of half-dressed bodies in various stages of debauchery, he found the birthday boy himself leaning against the bar with a bottle of champagne in his hand, a smile on his face, and Cooper by his side.
