But talking about the band, how Henry and I had pulled Craig and Riley in when we were all still in high school and Riley was testing out different pronouns every week before they settled firmly in nonbinary land—shit, talking about Henryat allfelt a little weird with Landon.
Mostly because I didn’t want to come across as one of those guys still hung up on tragedy. That didn’t change the fact that it was pretty fucking tragic. Henry hadn’t even made it to thirty.
Didn’t change the fact that I still carried my wounds around either.
I just wasn’t enough of a moody artist to feel great about going on at length about somebody I loved to the guy I was interested in now.
It was a balancing act, trying to be honest while not making him uncomfortable.
When he started fiddling with the seam on his pants, I reached for his hand, and he slipped his fingers easily behind mine. No hesitation, no pulling away. He was just there, a steady presence beside me. His eyes were wide and earnest as he listened, and I thought?—
Well, I thought he heard me. I didn’t feel judged, and he didn’t act like I’d disappointed him or was asking too much by talking like this.
Which, of course, just meant I spent the evening being a selfish asshole who wasn’t paying enough attention.
That was what I’d convinced myself of by the next day, when I was meeting Lucas for dinner after work.
We had a booth to ourselves, and big steaks cooked rare, seared just right on the outside, with a big pat of butter in the middle.
Sometimes a big cat just needed a hunk of meat, you know?
We talked about his work and trivia and what I’d been reading and when we should go see Mom and Dad next—there was a long weekend coming up and Lucas offered to drive.
I didn’t work up the courage to ask about Landon until after we’d eaten all twelve ounces, but the night was coming to an end, and I couldn’t let it slip past without spreading some more angst around to all my friends, family, and folks at home.
While I screwed my lips to the side, Lucas tilted his head curiously. “Something on your mind?”
I stared at my empty plate, smeared with red. “Did Landon seem, I don’t know... okay? At work today, I mean.”
“Sure did!” Lucas announced with a smug grin, so loud I blinked at him. “Asked him how your date went, and he turned red as a cherry. I think you’ve charmed him, big bro. You haven’t lost it yet.”
“Ah.” Really? He wasn’t upset. “Ah, that’s, ah, good? Yeah. That’s good.”
I was scratching the back of my neck when Lucas narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. “Is it? Because you don’t seem that stoked.”
“I am! I am. He’s great. Landon’s great. So fucking smart, and he does this thing with his nose when he doesn’t like something that’s just—” I shook my head. No, I didn’t need go on about Landon’s crinkly little nose his coworker, even if Lucas was my brother and was wearing a shit-eating, triumphant grin already.
“I like him,” I admitted, biting my lip while my mouth stretched wide. “A lot.”
Too much, maybe, given how even when I was crashing out about the band, my ennui was derailed every time I remembered how hot it was when his hands were on me, the tight, needy sounds he’d made when his dick was in my mouth. There was something about rendering a clever man like that speechless that fucking did it for me.
But that wasn’t what we were talking about.
I grimaced at my brother. “I kind of... unloaded on him last night.”
Lucas arched a brow. “I’m going to need more details than that, dude. What do you mean, ‘unloaded on him’? You don’t mean?—”
He glanced significantly down at the tabletop, and it took me a second to realize he wasn’t interested in the treated wood, but was glancing at my crotch like he had X-ray vision.
It was just about cause enough to turn the same table over on him.
“No, dude!” I growled. “Fuck. No.”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, I don’t know what kind of hip new lingo you artist types are using nowadays.”
“Hip? You sound like Dad.” I sighed, dragging a hand down my face. “Okay, so, not that. I—Craig’s leaving the band.”
Lucas blinked, as startled by that admission as I’d been that it just fell out of my mouth like that. Context, right? I needed to provide context.
