CHAPTER1
BEN
Ben tracedhis finger over the rim of his wine glass, eyes heavy with exhaustion and body sore from use. His boyfriend, Cody, sat across from him at the glass-top dining room table, an uneaten plate of food in front of him. It was a Friday night and, as had become their very short-lived tradition, Cody had grabbed Chinese takeout after work and brought it to Ben’s apartment. They were going to eat, watch a movie, and fuck until they couldn’t get hard.
It was Ben’s idea of a perfect Friday night, but Cody’s mood had already put a damper on the evening.
“It’s like you’re not even listening,” Cody complained.
Benwasn’tlistening. He didn’t need to because it was a conversation they’d had at least half a dozen times in the past month. Not to mention they’d only been dating for a month to begin with, and the conversation—or, rather, the complaints—were already tired and old.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That you won’t do it again.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Ben said.
“I saw the way he looked at you when we were coming back upstairs,” Cody accused.
“I can’t control how other people look at me.” Ben raised his wine glass to his lips and swallowed back the remainder of the contents. It was a large swallow, and he cleared his throat, wiping his thumb across the corner of his mouth to catch the stray droplets.
“Of course you’re drinking instead of recognizing that you should have at the very least told him to stop looking at you like he wanted to eat you for dessert,” Cody griped.
“Maybe if you drank a little more, we wouldn’t have these arguments all the time,” Ben suggested. “If you were a less high-strung, maybe you’d realize how ridiculous you sound. Like it’s my place to monitor everyone’s eyes.”
“You’re not being fun, baby. Come on, this is our thing,” Cody coaxed, pushing his untouched plate toward the center of the table. It rucked up the table runner and nearly knocked over a burning candle. Ben wished he had more wine so, if Cody burned the building down, he wouldn’t feel it.
“Our thing?”
“Our thing.” Cody stood up and walked around the table. Ben slid his chair back and turned his body to meet Cody’s approach. Their knees brushed together and where he used to feel a spark of excitement at the promise of Cody’s touch, he only found ripples of unease and repulsion roll up his spine.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You deliberately do stuff to make me angry, we fight, then we make up.”
Ben scrunched his nose, pushing his chair back to put space between them. “That’s absurd. I don’t do anything to make you angry—”
Cody interrupted him, “You doa lotto make me angry.”
“I don’t do anything to make you angry,” he repeated. “Orb at least, nothing I do ever warrants this kind of anger. And yet you always offer it up.”
“Our thing,” Cody murmured again.
Ben didn’t know what had changed over the past month, but he hated it. He’d met Cody at a bar. Out with friends to celebrate a birthday, Cody had been charming and suave, and he’d hooked Ben from the very first look. He’d leaned in a little too close, but not enough to make Ben feel uncomfortable, just enough for him to be sure Cody was really interested in him. Cody had held his hand a little too tight on their first real date, but again, it was a reminder, a promise. The first time they’d gone to bed together, Cody had taken his time. He’d been gracious and generous, and Ben thought that maybe this guy could be the one.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
But it wasn’t so bad. There was a lot about Cody that Ben didn’t like, and a few things he did, and while the balance wasn’t even—it wasn’t insurmountable. Even though they were well on their way. He knew there would be a time in the very near future where he no longer had it in him to tolerate Cody’s behavior, let alone the ridiculous notion the constant negging and arguing was somehowtheir thing.
“But you know what?” Cody clapped his hands together and closed the space between them, climbing onto Ben’s lap. Cody straddled him and ground against him until Ben’s cock had no choice to do anything besides get hard.
“What?” he murmured, closing his eyes and letting his head fall backward. Cody took the movement as an invitation, leaning in and pressing a kiss against the column of Ben’s throat.
“If you don’t like it, we don’t have to.” Cody shifted his weight and reached between their bodies. His fingers made swift work of Ben’s zipper and then the cool touch of Cody’s palm wrapped around Ben’s cock.
“Don’t have to what?”
“Our thing.”
