“You should have left the chain on if you doubted it was me,” Alex said. He entered the apartment, and Gage closed the door behind him. “I thought that the text from my phone would beenough.”
Gage looked like he was going to reply, but his gaze landed on Alex’s crotch, and his face twisted with disgust. “Oh my god, Alex. That’s sogross.”
Alex looked down at himself. Some of the mess from his panties had seeped through the front of his pants. He was sure the back was worse—he’d sat on a plastic bag to save his Uber driver’s car. “It is a little impressive, isn’tit?”
“It’s a darn good thing that Bo is sleeping. I can only imagine him trying to latch onto your leg.” Gage cringed. “Okay. So. I’ve got your underwear and your pajamas waiting in the bathroom. I’m going to have to see what we can do about pants for you fortomorrow.”
“If I need to, I can run down to the basement and throw them in the washer. It’ll kill my pants, but they won’t be as bad off as mypanties.”
“Oh mygod.”
Alex winked on his way to the bathroom. “Like it’s any surprise? How long have we beenfriends?”
“I think this is the worst I’ve ever seen you. Usually you clean up before you comeover.”
“Drastic times call for drastic measures. I’ll be right back.” Alex shut himself inside the bathroom and stripped out of his clothing. His suit jacket and his shirt were in decent condition. He hung them on the hook on the back of the bathroom door, then stood on his toes to try to examine the damage done to his pants in the mirror over the sink. There was a visible splotch of wetness over his crotch. The lace had localized his cum, and putting on his pants over it had let the concentrated patch of fluid soak through. He twisted at the waist and tried to take a look at his ass. What little he saw looked like a disaster. Just how much cum had Laurence pumped into him? It felt like he’d pulled out almost immediately. Had he been coming while holding back his knot without Alex realizingit?
If Alex was in a better mood, he would have found it hot as hell. But with the situation as it was, all he felt was empty. He dropped back onto his heels and removed his pants, then the torn panties beneath. After tossing the pants in the sink to spare the floor, he held the panties up and examined them. They were filthy. The black lace was glossed with both of their shared loads, and the back was torn beyond repair. Alex pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth as his heart dropped. It wasn’t like this was anything new—he’d been with men who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves before—but Laurence wasdifferent.
Kinder. Morethoughtful.
He treated Alex like he was a person instead of a walking sextoy.
He’d tried to make Alex dinner, for fuck’ssake.
Alex balled the panties up and tossed them in the trash. He wiped his hands on his bare thighs—like it or not, he was going to need a shower. He wasn’t going to leak all over his new underwear and make a mess of Gage’s place. Bo did a good enough job of that on hisown.
A quick shower later, Alex grabbed his towel—the only gray towel in Gage’s apartment, left out specifically for him—and dried off. He dressed in silence, tearing open the new package of underwear and donning his recently washed pajamas. Phone liberated from the breast pocket of his suit and tucked into the pocket of his pajama pants, he exited the bathroom to find Gage sprawled out on the pullout bed. He was nestled in a pile ofblankets.
“You asleep, Gage?” Alex asked. There was no response. Taking his silence as a yes, Alex made sure the lights were turned off and the house was shut down for the evening. He double-checked the front door was locked, made sure that the windows were bolted, and poked his head into Gage’s bedroom to check on Bo. The person-shaped lump on Bo’s toddler bed murmured something, then rolled over. Alex quietly shut the door and was on his way to turn off the living room light when he noticed that there was light coming from Gage’s office door. He knew better than to pry into what Gage did for a living—they’d argued about it before, extensively, until Alex had decided that he needed to take a step back and mind his own business—but he also knew better than to leave the light on allnight.
Alex sighed and headed for the door, bracing himself for whatever he’d find on the other side. He paid Gage as best he could for the work Gage did for him, but it wasn’t enough to survive on, especially with a growing boy. Gage had crunched the numbers with him more than once. That didn’t stop Alex from disliking the fact that his friend was forced to do the things he did so he could keep food in the fridge and a roof over hishead.
Alex opened the office door. The room inside was small—if he stretched his arms out to either side, his fingertips almost brushed the wall. At the far end of the room on a simple wooden desk he’d helped Gage haul off a street corner last summer was a computer. The screen was on, and a chat program was pulled up. Alex made his way over to the computer, intending just to turn off the screen before he went to bed, but he stopped when his eye caught the name of the room.Single Dad SupportGroup.
“Cute,” Alex murmured. It didn’t look like work at all. He leaned over Gage’s office chair and typed a quick message. It looked like no one had been active since someone named xVerity had said two hours ago that he was going to get Nikki in the bath, then put her to bed. Everyone had said their goodnights, then fallen silent. Two hours ago it had been eight o’clock. Single dads, Alex decided, werelame.
TeenDad2: hey, this isn’t, uh, TeenDad2, this is his friend hijacking his computer. I wanted to say two things. First: TeenDad2 is the lamest username ever, and you can bet your asses I’m going to be teasing my friend about it in the morning. Second: I’m pretty sure one of you told him how to get ketchup stains out of clothing. Thanks. His kid thought I’d like what I was wearing better if it was tasty, so he tried to help me out. I’m wearing my stain-free clothes right now, so whoever it was, yourock.
Alex sent the message and waited for a moment to see if anyone would reply. No one did, so he shut off the monitor, turned off the overhead light on the way out, and went to settle next to Gage on the pullout bed. He wrested one of the blankets free from beneath Gage’s body and wrapped himself in it, then sighed and cuddled closer to Gage, who instinctively draped an arm around him and snuggledclose.
Comfort.
It was rare that Alex acknowledged that he needed it, but tonight, he recognized that he was broken. There was a hole in his heart he couldn’t paint away. After a rocky few years spent proving to himself that hecould, he’d finally managed to show himself that hecouldn’t.
Not withLaurence.
“Thank you,” Alex whispered to Gage, even though Gage was asleep. The noise stirred Gage just enough that he shifted closer, snuggling against Alex’s chest. Alex stayed still until he was sure that Gage had fallen back to sleep, then closed his eyes and tried his hardest to sobsilently.
Pale yellow clouded the darkness behind his eyelids, and it remained there until Alex fellasleep.
* * *
Afinger jammeditself up Alex’s nose, and he woke with a start to find Bo straddling his chest, staring down at his face. With a devilish cry of delight, Bo pulled the offending finger back and rolled off Alex in the least majestic way possible. In the process, he jabbed his pointy elbow into Alex’s gut, knocking the wind from hislungs.
“Ehehehe,” Bo said, which Alex took to mean, “Fuck you very much, UncleAlex.”
“What time is it?” Alex’s voice cracked when he spoke, and sleep crusted his eyes. He rubbed his eyes clean, then sat up slowly. The room was stilldark.
