I shove my hand down my pants and jerk myself off right there against the workbench, fast and rough, thinking about how he tasted. How he felt. The sounds he made when I bit his lip, when I grabbed his ass, when I told him all the things I was going to do to him.
It's quick and unsatisfying and leaves me feeling emptier than before. The release does nothing to ease the ache in my chest—if anything, it makes it worse. Because now I'm standing alone in my garage with my hand in my pants, thinking about a man I just hurt because I was too fucked up to give him a simple answer.
I clean up, take a cold shower that doesn't help, and end up sitting on my couch in the dark like the pathetic mess I apparently am.
The house feels hollower now than it did before he came. At least before, I didn't know what I was missing. Now I can imagine him here—in my kitchen, in my garage, on this couch. And I can imagine how good it could have been, if I wasn't so broken.
My phone is in my hand before I consciously decide to reach for it.
Need to talk. Come over.
Robin's response is immediate:Jason just walked in looking broken so no, we're not talking, because I told you to be careful with him and not fuck him if you weren't going to keep him
The word broken lands hard. I did that. I made him look broken.
Yeah, I know. That's why I didn't fuck him.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Then:What?
I didn't touch him. Much. Sent him home.
A long pause. I can picture Robin staring at his phone, trying to figure out what the hell happened. Then:On my way.
---
Twenty minutes later, Robin's in my kitchen drinking my whiskey while I pace.
The house feels even more bare with someone else in it—their presence just highlights all the spaces where no one lives. All that square footage, all those rooms, and nothing in them except furniture I bought online without looking at. Robin's sitting on a barstool at the kitchen island, the only island in the place because I figured kitchens were supposed to have them, watching me with the expression he gets when he's trying to figure out whether to be sympathetic or sarcastic.
"So let me get this straight," he says. "You had Jason literally begging for it, and you sent him away."
"He asked what I wanted. Beyond sex."
"And?"
"And I didn't have an answer."
"Bullshit." Robin takes a sip of whiskey, grimaces slightly—it's cheap stuff, I haven't had time to stock the bar properly—and takes another sip anyway. "You once told Dad's girlfriend to get out of our house while simultaneously making me a pancake. Didn't even stop flipping it."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I knew how to get rid of her. She was mean to you."
"Ah." Robin sets down his glass, studying me. "So the problem isn't that you don't want to date him. It's that you don't know how."
I stop pacing. That's actually accurate.
"He wanted to know if I'd date him. If I wanted more than just fucking." I grab the bottle, pour myself a glass. "And I just stood there. Like an idiot. With my hand on his dick."
Robin laughs. Actually laughs, head thrown back, the full-body kind that makes his whole frame shake.
"It's not funny."
"It's a little funny." He's still grinning when he looks at me. "Big bad special forces soldier defeated by feelings. The man who infiltrated terrorist cells and extracted hostages from war zones can't figure out if he wants to take a cute boy to dinner."
"I don't know how to do relationships, Robin. What would that even look like? What would I even do with him when we're not—" I gesture vaguely.
