I finally got the chance to talk to Jayden right before spring break. The timing felt lucky because if this shit blew up in my face, we’d all go our separate ways and it could blow over before the start of the last part of the school year.
“Okay, so talk to me. You’re really Chase’s Daddy now? Like, not just spank me and call me Daddy, but he’s…little?” I asked as I started pulling everything out of the fridge for dinner. Jayden didn’t respond right away, and I worried that I’d fucked up. “You know I’m not judging but I’m curious how that works.”
“Works just fine,” he responded defensively. He looked at the ingredients I had laid out on the counter, then pulled out a bag of chicken nuggets from the freezer. I almost said something, but then remembered Chase didn’t do tomato-based sauces, meaning spaghetti was a no-go. He’d eat it to be polite, but then he’d be miserable the rest of the night.
“How deep into it does he go?” I dumped some more chicken nuggets on the tray and grabbed the bag of tater tots. If Matt wanted to see what it was like to be little, doing it with a friend seemed like the best idea.
“That’s something you should probably ask him.” Jayden’s eyes widened when he saw the nearly overflowing sheet pan. “You know he’s not going to eat that much, right?”
“I want to try something.” I prayed Jayden let me work through this on my own. I wasn’t ready to vent to him about how Matt was asking for shit I wasn’t sure I could give him. “You know it’s just the four of us tonight, right? Zach and Daniel have some meeting, or so they said. Knowing them, they’re going out and didn’t want to offend us by trying to get us to one of the meat markets they go to. I just hope they don’t bring home a girl again. The girl they brought home last night was a screamer. And I think she’s watched too much porn, based on some of the noises she was making. Seriously, I don’t think me being gay is the reason she sounded insane, moaning the way she was.”
“Glad I missed that.”
“I’m not fucking sure how,” I grumbled. Between Matt being needy last night and the fuck brothers on the other side of wall tag teaming a screamer, I felt like the alarm went off minutes after I’d finally passed out. “Seriously, pretty soon we’re going to have to have a meeting and talk about rules. The first one I’m going to propose is, if you’re with someone who insists on making noise, you damned well better find a way to gag them.”
When Jayden choked, I smacked him on the back a couple of times. “You okay?”
“Yep. Fine,” he choked out.
“I’m not talking about you guys, you know that, right?” He looked up, and I had to look away. God, this was so not the type of shit I was used to talking about. “Even if you were loud, it would be different.”
“How so?”
“It just is. Sometimes it seems like they’re going out of their way to see if they can piss us off. You’re lucky that you’re on the other side of the suite from them.”
“Have you tried, oh, I don’t know, talking to them about it? Zach can be a bit of a shit, but Daniel’s reasonable. If you tell him, he can reel Zach in.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I shrugged.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” I waved him off. The contents in the door of the fridge rattled when I slammed it closed.
Jayden wandered off and started working on one of his papers while I finished dinner. Within minutes, Jayden slapped his pen down on the table and glared at me. “Okay, that’s e-fucking-nough. Get your ass over here and tell me what’s going on.”
“You didn’t want to talk about it,” I sniped.
“Yeah, and now I do.” He started packing up his books and binders. “I thought you were trying to get me to dish about my relationship and I don’t work that way. But it’s obvious to me there’s something bugging you, beyond the soundtrack of Zach and Daniel’s exploits. So, what gives?”
I ignored him while I stirred the sauce. He stared at me as I pulled a spoon out of the drawer to taste it. It was still bland, so I added a bit more garlic, some pepper, and a pinch of sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes. Unable to stall any longer, I grabbed two beers out of the fridge. I handed one to Jayden as I passed him.
“I just want to understand what you guys do,” I said as I flopped onto the couch. I groaned, scrubbing a hand over my face. “No, that came out wrong. I do not want to know the details of what you do behind closed doors, but I want to understand.”
“Why?”
“Because Matt’s been talking about some stuff and I’m trying to get it, I really am, but I don’t know man.” I groaned, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. “The calling me Daddy stuff was a joke at first. Hell, he called me Daddy before we were even fooling around. Once we did start sleeping together, it was hot. But now…he makes all these off-handed comments like he’s trying to test me.”
“How so?”
“Like, the other day I came home from class and he was sitting on the floor putting together a puzzle while he watched cartoons. He looked up at me and said,hi, Daddy. And then he just watched me like he was waiting for a reaction.” I stared straight ahead. That moment had freaked me out more than the stuffed animal on his bed or sleepy time cuddling. He’d been on the floor playing like a kid in the middle of the day. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Maybe you could talk to him about it?” I shook my head. No, I wasn’t wanting to talk to him about this. He’d assume the worst and feel bad for pressuring me into something. “It sucks, but sometimes you have to just sit down and ask him where he sees things going.”
“Was it weird for you?” I took a long draw off my beer. “The baby stuff, I mean. Maybe that’s the wrong way to say it, I think.”
“There was a little bit of awkward when I first realized Chase was little,” he admitted. “But it didn’t take long for everything to make sense. It’s not weird, it’s just who he is. And now, I’m not sure I could ever see him without his little side.”
“But what about…” My cheeks turned red as I tipped back my bottle.
