AS SOON AS the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Micah’s face twisted in disgust, his brows knotting together, his lips pulling into a thin, angry line. I didn’t mean them in the way he’d heard them, but they were out there, driving a wedge between us just when I thought I was bridging that gap.
With everything muddled and confused, only one thing was certain: I needed to get Brandon out of my backyard now.
By the time I opened the sliding glass door, Micah was already out of the kitchen, no doubt packing his bag to leave. Again. “What the hell are you doing here?” I didn’t even bother to cover up the annoyance in my words.
“Nice to see you, too, asshole,” Brandon greeted, stepping past me and right into the empty kitchen. “And you know why I’m here,” he declared, resting up against the island. “Since when do you have a dog?” he asked, tipping his head toward the bowl of food on the floor.
On cue, Sarge walked into the kitchen, his guard up. Alert and focused on Brandon, Sarge stood between him and Micah, protecting his master from the man he didn’t know. “He doesn’t have a dog,” Micah stated plainly, cold even. “Come, Sarge,” he commanded, walking into the living room.
There was no mistaking the arctic air accompanying him, but I didn’t know what to do to change it. And Brandon being here complicated it even more. “What’s his problem?” Thankfully, Brandon kept his voice low enough so that Micah couldn’t hear him. But that didn’t mean his words didn’t piss me off.
“Nothing. Look—” I pulled him deeper into the kitchen, further away from the living room where Micah couldn’t hear us. “—now isn’t a good time. Maybe—”
Cutting me off, he held his wrist up, tapping the face of his watch. “It’s Friday. It’s seven o’clock. That means ladies’ hour. And it also means if we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late. So let’s get your asses in gear and get the fuck outta here.” He laughed, tipping his head into the living room. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
I wanted to sayno, I want to get back to him being naked,but I doubted Micah would appreciate me telling Brandon that. And I doubted Brandon would enjoy that piece of information. So I opted for “Uh, yeah, sure” instead.
Hoping that some reasonable excuse would come up in the next twenty steps, I tried to walk as slowly as possible. By the time I reached Micah, I didn’t have a single valid reason not to introduce him to Brandon. Deep down, I knew Brandon was a good guy. I’d worked with him for the last few years. I knew he was great with the kids and he truly cared about them. But despite being a good guy, he thought being a guy’s guy often meant being as much of a douchebag as possible. All in good humor, of course.
“Micah,” I called his attention away from his folded hands hanging between his knees. “This is Brandon. We work together.”
As he stood, something changed in the air surrounding him, but with placing so much focus on Brandon and how much of his foot he could shove in his mouth, I couldn’t think too much aboutwhathad changed. “Hey,” Micah greeted, holding his hand out to Brandon’s proffered one. “It’s Micah. Nice to meet you.” It bothered me more than it should have that he didn’t want to shake my own hand just yesterday when he arrived.
Other than the first time he’d met my father, I’d never heard him so cordial in all my life.
“Brandon,” he responded. “Good to meet you, too, man. I’d like to say I’ve heard all about you, but asshole over here hasn’t mentioned you at all. Not until this afternoon, anyway.”
What a jerkoff.
Picking up on my mild embarrassment, Micah explained his very unexpected stop here. “But that’s okay, you can still blame him,” Micah joked, cracking a small smile. Dumbstruck and utterly speechless, I didn’t know where the hell his change in attitude came from.
And considering he was more than likely ready to leave a Micah-shaped hole in my front door just minutes ago, this was a very welcomed change in mood.
“So,” Brandon drew out the word, looking between Micah and me, “What do you say? Ladies’ hour is calling.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The sarcasm laced in Micah’s words was so thin, if his cock hadn’t been stuffed down my throat no more than ten minutes ago, I wouldn’t have picked up on it. The glint in his eyes was also a dead giveaway. If this was the game he wanted to play, he had no fucking clue who he was up against.
Pretending to live a life that wasn’t mine was something I did every single day. If there was an Olympic event in lying to your friends, then I was the gold medalist.
“I sure as hell don’t want to miss out on ladies’ night.” Micah’s statement cut through my distraction, securing him the spot as silver medalist.
And before anyone could say anything else, the three of us were walking out the door, leaving Sarge, and apparently reality, behind.
I hated this place. I wish I could say I’d never been here, but if I wanted to keep up the façade of everything, I needed to join my friends every now and then.
And those were usually the times I’d wished I had enough of a backbone to tell them who I really was. As far as they knew, I spent my weekends taking care of my sick father. It was the perfect excuse for almost never having to go to the bar with them, and it was also true. Well, mostly. He really only needed a few hours of my attention, usually on Sunday afternoons. Food shopping. Bottle returns. Cooking for the week. Shit like that.
But they didn’t need to know that.
And they certainly didn’t need to know that I usually drove two hours away from here every Saturday night to some hole-in-the-wall gay bar five towns over so I could let loose.
“What’ll y’all have?” the bartender yelled over the growing crowd.
“Bud,” I answered and then looked over my shoulder to see what Micah wanted. He held up two fingers. “Make it two.” Fifteen dollars later, I walked away from the bar, shaking my head. My father would have a fucking aneurism over that. He could get a twenty-four pack of PBR for the same cost here at this shithole of ladies’ hour. They didn’t charge the women for drinks the whole night so that meant they charged the men twice as much.
Bullshit.
The loud bass of some new dance song pulsated in the background as we made our way to the table where Brandon and a few of his friends were waiting for us. “It’s about time,” Brandon yelled, holding up his glass. “Was starting to think you two left out the back door.”
