“Not half the reaction she’s going to get if she even thinks of stealing Bubba. I’ll crush her.” I fold my arms across my chest and pout. “And her little twink too.” I bite my bottom lip, considering the twink. “Maybe not the twink, actually. Jaden is a strange one, but I like his vibe. He’s giving Scotty Levinson meets Bette Davis, and I can’t lie. I don’t hate it.”
“Who the hell is Scotty Levinson?” he asks, before deciding against it, shaking his head. “Scratch that. It’s probably just one of your busted-up best friends back in Texas.” He looks over at the door. “Jay’s a good kid, bro. Faith too. Well, she ain’t a kid, but she’s still pretty fuckin’ great. I promise, she ain’t here to win him back. You didn’t see them by the end of their marriage.”
“Was there a bitter end to their twisted tale?”
“Twisted tale?” He stares at me like I’m a moron, which, yeah. Fair. “They didn’t hate each other, but neither of them lost any sleep over their divorce. I get why you’re scared, though. I felt the same way when I found out about you and Bubba. It’s scary to have to worry about someone wrecking what you’re working for.” My face must be a dead giveaway for the guilt I feel, because Johnny’s hand squeezes my shoulder, and he brushes gentle circles against my skin with his thumb. “I ain’t mad at you no more, Ez. You didn’t do nothing wrong. I’m the one who got scared and ran away like a kid.”
“You were scared.” It’s true. I know Johnny pulled a dick move by running away when Bubba needed him most, but Johnny’s realizationthat he’s some shade of queer after a lifetime of believing he was straight must have felt like a gut punch. It was hard enough for me, but I knew what being gay meant. I knew the label, and I knew I loved the way I looked wrapped up in it. It’s the way I was born, and it will be the way I die, and there isn’t a single thing wrong with that. Johnny didn’t know all that, though. For Johnny, being gay wasn’t even an option. I have no idea how the hell a town could exist for centuries without a single queer person questioning their sexuality long enough for word to get around, but from what Johnny tells me, he’s the first of his kin to turn out queer. I can’t imagine how confusing it must have been.
“And then you came home and found a devastatingly handsome man sleeping on your side of the bed. I know that must have hurt.”
“Devastatingly handsome?”
“You know it’s true. My point is, I guess I never stopped to consider your feelings until I went through something similar. That was a real jerk move on my part.” I gnaw on my bottom lip, because I see it through his eyes. I see how badly we must have hurt him. Johnny came home expecting a cookie-cutter life with his best bro. He must have felt so fucking happy on the drive home, hyping himself up for a big love declaration, and instead, he got me. And I fucking gloated. I threw it in his face for months.
“Ez?” His thumb brushes against my cheek. I guess a tear slipped out. “Baby, it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny. I’m sorry for taking him from you. For being such a dick about it. She hasn’t even touched him, and it feels like my heart is being sliced down to ribbons. I don’t like it, Johnny. I don’t like it at all.”
“I appreciate that. I won’t lie and say it didn’t suck, because it did.” He inches even closer, though I’m not sure how it’s humanly possible. “But it’s sucking a whole lot less now.” He strokes my cheek with histhumb, making my whole body buzz like a vibrator. “This is weird, isn’t it?”
“The fact that you’re stroking my cheek?” I shrug. “A man once asked to urinate inside my asshole. Trust me, I’ve dealt with weirder shit than codependant jealousy.”
“No, not that.” He stares down at how we’re tangled together, hands touching places they usually wouldn’t, faces so close, we’re practically kissing. “This thing between us. Me and you.”
Me and you.
Johnny thinks there’s a him and me? Is there? I mean, I’m straddling his lap, my cock only a few inches from his, so obviously, there’s something brewing. The way he’s looking at me, all nervous like a blushing virgin, makes me think I kind of want there to be a him-and-me. The pull may not be as strong as it is with Bubba, but it’s there, and considering the speed we’ve traveled the enemies-to-lovers pipeline, I have no doubt one day soon, they’ll stand on equal ground. He’s pretty fucking close already.
“You and me?”
He blushes. “Yeah. If that’s something you’re interested in.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a fishing lure on open water. “I like you, Ez. Is that okay?”
My heart pitter-patters like mad, and I let out a soft whimper as his grip on my hip tightens. I smile softly. “Absolutely unacceptable."
“Then I guess I’ll have to beg your pardon.” God. That country twang. The way he reaches up and dips an imaginary cowboy hat, like a gentleman to a lady. “Little Dick.”
Fuck me, I’m falling for the bastard.
“I’ve warned you, Jonathan. On multiple occasions.” I’m not into humiliation kink. At all. In the slightest. I don’t want to be degraded or made fun of for having a perfectly average penis. I have no desireto place my moderately sized penis beside Johnny’s and ask Bubba to compare them in great detail, showing me inch by inch why Johnny is more of a man than I’ll ever be. No, I don’t want that at all. I know this about myself, and I'm having trouble reconciling the fact that each time he calls me Little Dick, my mouth goes dry and my cock grows stiff. This cocky motherfucker knows it, too, because he’s looking right at it tenting below.
“Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “It’s just so fuckin’ pretty.”
“And it’s big,” I add, and as God as my witness, he better fucking agree. “Say it’s big.”
His hand slips a bit farther back until it’s resting right on my ass. “If that helps you sleep at night.”
I scowl at him, playfully slapping him on the arm, my back arching, leaning into his touch. “Fuck you, prick.”
“Not now. Maybe tonight.”
My eyes bulge. “What?”
He shrugs. “I said what I said, bro.”
“Don’t you dare try to weasel your way out of this by quoting Nene Leakes to me.”
“Relax,” he says, his voice a little more soothing than before, his fingers dragging lightly against my ass, tracing small circles. “I’m only joking with you.”
