“Sean, I’m sorry if I crossed the line out there,” I started, not wanting to go to my own room without getting this off my chest. “I wasn’t trying to be nosy, but I worry about you. I always have. And I know how you are. You bottle everything up inside until it suffocates you. I guess I just wanted you to know you can still talk to me about anything.”
Just don’t go into details. I’m not sure I can handle that,I added silently. He’d never know that I’d thought about him more often than not when rubbing one out in the shower or between the sheets after a long day.
“Are you done now?” he asked. He opened his eyes as he rolled onto his side, squinting up at me in the darkness. “I’m pissy and I’m tired. I figured it’d be better for me to crash for a bit before I said something stupid. That’s all.”
“Yeah, I’m done. Why don’t you get comfortable and I’ll check on you in a bit,” I offered. “I’ll take you back to the hotel in the morning.”
I knew the pain of being alone where there used to be someone to keep you company, and I didn’t want that for him. It would be bad enough when they got on the plane to Boston for the next series, but at least for one night I could spare him the time alone in his head.
“I should probably get back to the hotel,” he responded as he moved up on the bed and rolled over to get comfortable. I had to laugh at his feeble protest.
“Yeah, okay. Well then, you nap for a while and I’ll take you back.”
“Sounds good,” he said, already falling back to sleep. “Hey, Mace?”
“Yeah?” I leaned against the doorframe, waiting to see if he’d say something or if he was already sleeping.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said sincerely. “I missed you.”
“Missed you too,” I responded. There was an unfamiliar ache in my chest and I wished he knew how much I thought about him when we were apart.
I tried sitting down to play my game for a while to unwind, but it was futile. Sean was sleeping at the other end of the condo and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help him.
Well, Icould, if I didn’t mind potentially throwing away seven years of friendship and having to explain why I’d never told another living soul that I’d always thought about what it’d be like to be with a man.
I wound up sitting in the dark on the end of my bed, staring across the hall at Sean’s sleeping form in the other bedroom for a long time, wondering if it’d be worth mentioning to him. I knew deep down that my desire to explore the other side of my sexuality was part of the reason why I had no interest in finding a woman to spend a night with now that I was only a few formalities away from being a free man.
If anyone would be able to help me sort myself out, it’d be Sean. He’d be patient with me and wouldn’t expect anything in return. But I couldn’t tell him because that’d be like opening Pandora’s Box. Once he knew that much, I wouldn’t be content until I told him how often I’d thought about being with him, and that would be what sent him packing.
3
Sean
It tookme a minute to get my bearings when I first opened my eyes. Light streamed into the room from a door in the hall, so I knew I wasn’t in my hotel room. Then I remembered Mason coming in to check on me, to take care of me.
I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying to sort out reality from dreams, because I vaguely remembered him standing in the doorway, muttering to himself when he thought I was asleep.
The clock on the nightstand read a few minutes after one in the morning. The condo was still as I walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. I leaned on the granite countertop, wondering who besides Mason knew what Eric and I had been doing in hotel rooms across the country. If they had, no one said anything, but that wasn’t any sort of assurance.
It wasn’t exactly cool to go up to another guy and ask if he was plowing his roommate into the mattress, so they might be keeping their assumptions to themselves. And if those thoughts were floating around, today would have only helped to confirm their suspicions.
“God, you’re an idiot sometimes,” I scolded myself. “You have to be more careful, otherwise you’re going to turn into a media spectacle, which is exactly what you’ve been trying to avoid this whole time.”
“You need more help than I thought if you’re talking to yourself.” Mason’s rich voice startled me, causing me to spill half a glass of water all over the counter.
I looked up and saw him leaning in the doorway, looking drop-dead gorgeous. The light streaming down the hall silhouetted him. His dark brown hair was long on top, sticking up in every direction from sleep. The heat of his nearly brilliant green eyes cut through the darkness.
“This is why I wanted you to talk to me. When you talk to yourself in the dark, you come across as a little crazy.”
I allowed Mason to lead me into the living room and we sat next to one another on the couch. He slid closer to me. I tried to ignore the heat of his body and the way his sweat pants shifted lower on his hips as he tried to get comfortable.
He placed a hand on my knee, and my cock began stirring.
Don’t do this,I warned myself.He’s your very straight best friend. You cannot sport wood just because he’s touching you.
Maybe Mason was right; maybe I was losing my mind. “Are you feeling any better after a nap?” he asked, squeezing my knee. Yes, the nap took the edge off my anger and bitterness, but those feelings were quickly being replaced by desires I couldn’t possibly entertain.
“Yes, Mom.” I sighed dramatically. “As much as I appreciate you worrying about me, it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m angry that they traded Eric, not so much for myself but because he’s a good guy and he was happy in Milwaukee.”
