“You’re cute as fuck, Danny,” I continued. “And kissing you was the most fun I’ve had in months, but I’m not the right man for you.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just not. There’s too much shit going on in my life. You’ve got your own shit to deal with too, and you need someone who’s going to be able to help you with that or support you while you figure it out.” I shook my head and let out a dry, hollow laugh. “I’d only offer you a drink and a blow job to forget about it.”
“What if that’s what I want?” Danny asked defiantly. “You can’t make this decision for me! What if I don’t want to think about what’s going on in my head and just figure it out as I go? Kissing you was the first time I’ve felt anything like that, and if I am gay, I want to do this with someone I’m attracted to and who knows what the fuck he’s doing, because I don’t!”
“I can’t, but I do get to consent to my involvement. You can’t force me either.”
“Please, Ezra, I want this.”
“Do you?” I asked, levelling my gaze at him and studying his expression. There was uncertainty there, but he was pouting again and it looked so sweetly determined I nearly threw everything out of the window and pulled him into my lap.
“Yeah, I do. And I think you do too,” he said. He squeezed my arm gently and smiled. “Look, I get it. You’ve had a really crap time and been through a shit breakup. Like probably the worst breakup you could go through. But I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re messed up or not there for me. I don’t need a therapist. I just want someone to have sex with.”
I chuckled. It wasn’t eloquent, but it didn’t need to be.
“Fine,” I said. “We can do this. On one condition.”
“What is it?” He looked suspicious and rightly so, because I already knew my pouting puppy wasn’t going to like it. But it was for his own good.
“You need to think about if this is something you really want and figure out where your head is. And I don’t mean taking two minutes now. I mean really thinking about it.”
“You’re kidding, right? This is a joke.”
“No,” I said firmly. “You need to think about this until at least Friday night. That’s what, three days? If you’re still sure by then, then I’ll kiss you. Really, it should be longer.”
Danny pouted and folded his arms, scowling at me. “This is bollocks!”
“No, puppy. These are the rules.”
We were both going to need them if we wanted to make it out in one piece.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Danny
This was wank.
A proper, hot, steaming pile of dogshit.
More bollocks than… I dunno, a big pile of bollocks. Whatever way I looked at it, this was fucking shit and I hated it.
I mean, if Ireallywanted to look closely, then maybe I’d have agreed that Ezra’s three-day waiting period was a good thing, but I’d always loathed other people making decisions for me and telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I was a fucking adult. I should get a say in this!
Although if I did, then Ezra should too and consent was important. But that didn’t mean I liked it.
It had been two days since we’d kissed in his office and he’d taken me back to his, only to hit me with rules and guidelines and all that shit. I didn’t want the terms and conditions. I wanted him to fuck me and finally shut down the voice in my brain.
“Fucking hell,” Mason said, leaning on the edge of the weight rack I was supposed to be using. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing! Why’d you think something’s up?” I asked as I grabbed some plates to stack on the bar, grateful that Charlie had gone to fill up our water bottles, so he couldn’t see me pouting.
No, I wasn’t pouting. I didn’t pout.
Except on special occasions. Necessary occasions. When it would get me something.
“That, for starters,” Mason said. He waved his hand at me in an all-encompassing way. For someone who insisted I was the nosiest man he’d ever met, he didn’t half do a good job of following in my footsteps. He just managed to frame it as being concerned. “And you’ve been a right mardy git all week. I know it’s the first week back, and Gavin seems to think we’ve been off for six months rather than eight weeks, but still, you’re being a real brat.”
