“Probably.”
“Then… What’s the plan? You keep this a secret forever?”
“We’re not talking about forever. It’s just a mutual attraction, and we’re… acting on it. It’s not a forever situation.”
Cash is giving me a dubious look. I roll my eyes.
“He’s my dad’s best friend. I think we both know—okay, weallknow—this isn’t a forever relationship. We’re just hooking up. Because it’s forbidden and hot. Don’t tell me you don’t see the appeal in sneaking around. Even if Onyx never flirted and never kissed you, Ben would still lose his shit if he learned you and Onyx were becoming friends. Which lends a different kind of appeal to the situation, right?”
“Yeah,” he agrees, though reluctantly. “I know. I just…” His words trail off as he drops his head against his bed. “I blow off everyone’s advances,” he says quietly. “No one is even remotely appealing, you know? Even though I’ve been crushingon Onyx for ages, I thought he’d be no different. Like, I’ve maybe fantasized about him kissing me and whatever, but that’s happened before.”
“Chester Bloomburg,” I say.
Cash snorts. “Yeah, Chester Bloomburg.”
His crush throughout high school. When Chester finally started flirting with him, Cash was ecstatic. But as soon as Chester tried to hold his hands, kiss him, or touch him in any way, Cash was completely over it.
“I thought Onyx would be the same. I kinda don’t know what to do because it’s not the same thing.”
“Can I ask you something?” Cash nods. “Do you think maybe it’s different because you want it to be? Or because it’ll piss Ben off? Or do you actually feel differently?”
“It’s real,” he says quietly. “With Chester and Luke, I immediately felt revolted when they crossed the line into wanting to kiss me. I kissed them both because it felt really weird not to, right? But then I shoved them both away. My entire body felt ick. They instantly lost all appeal.”
“Not the same with Onyx.”
A soft smile touches his lips. “No,” he whispers. “Why him? Why the one person who will make my brother lose his damn mind?”
I huff. “Gee. I have no idea what that feels like.”
Cash laughs. “We’re quite the pair, huh?”
“At the very least, this speaks to our poor judgment in choosing men.”
“There’s a common theme here,” Cash points out. “Laiken has been around your entire life. Onyx has been around the vast majority of mine.”
“That’s… weird. Interesting. Also, a little creepy.”
He smiles.
I shift so I’m sitting beside him on the floor, leaning on the bed. We rest our heads together and sit in silence for a while.
“He kissed me right here,” Cash says quietly.
I grin.
“You know what I’m most afraid of?” he asks, and I shake my head. “Falling in love with him. There’s no worse person to fall in love with. It’s Romeo and Juliet. Ben will lose his mind. He’ll make life so fucking miserable that being together would be a mountain to scale every day. Or… he’ll leave like my brother says they’re going to once Whiskey Horizons catches a break. Either way, I feel like a broken heart is inevitable.”
My situation might be different, and yet, there are some weird and freaky parallels. Either way, nothing between Laiken and me can last. There’s no such thing as an indefinite secret relationship. At some point, one or both of us will get tired and want to stop hiding it.
Which means there’s one solution: no relationship at all. It ends. It wasn’t even supposed to begin.
We both crossed a very bright, solid, crisp line. Besties code. Father/son code.
This might be why I’m insisting that this is nothing but sex. Nothing can come of it, and I don’t fancy a broken heart from a man I’m never going to escape. He’ll be there every single day for as long as I live because he’s my dad’s best friend.
I sigh, closing my eyes. There’s a lot of fun involved. A lot of heightened sexy time because we shouldn’t be doing it. But at the end of the day, no one is going to come out of this on top. My gut tells me that this is going to end really,reallybadly.
Cash picks up the newsletter and flips the page until we come across the short installment of King Arthur’s Camelot. I close my eyes as he reads it, imagining myself as Lancelot and Laiken as King Arthur, sneaking a forbidden kiss late at night by torchlight.
