The butterfly swan dived into Aspen’s heart, crashing into the walls and making their chest ache something fierce.
“But,” Noah said slowly, and Aspen gripped his arm even tighter, “I think I’d be down for threesomes if that’s what you really want.”
Aspen had to look into his eyes for this. They struggled their way out of his grasp until they could kneel between his legs, cupping his face so he couldn’t look away. “Not just if it's whatIwant, babe. Wouldyoulike to join me in exploring gender-fucky sex with other people?”
Noah’s expression was open and unguarded, so Aspen was easily able to read the truth behind his stern, “Yes.”
Well, that was easy. Now they were just sitting here, cupping his face. Noah gazed at them, clearly wondering what they were going to do next, and at a loss for what else to do or say on the matter, they crashed their mouths together and collapsed on top of him, ignoring his groans of protest.
“Well,” they said several minutes later. “That all sounds great then. You can start looking for our new fuck buddy whenever you’re ready.”
“Wait…what?” Noah asked, doing his best to grab Aspen’s face. “Asp, that wasn’t?—”
Aspen shook off his hands and silenced him with more kisses. When he continued to fight that, they put their hand over his mouth and asked, very clearly, if they could sit on his face. His eyes widened, and he nodded aggressively. Aspen grinned down at him as they managed to yank off their pants one-handed and get into position, refusing to give him any chance to protest their amazing threesome plan.
Chapter 7
Noah
Fix two problems with one stone. That was how the saying went, right?
The stone—or plan, or whatever—was to go to the Rainbow Bean’s bisexual mixer, talk to Frankie and Diego about advertising and possibly fundraising for Charlie’s shelter, and find a nice bi playmate for Aspen. They’d agreed to a threesome to make Aspen more comfortable with the idea of venturing out and finding other folks to date, but in reality, they didn’t think Aspen would need him. Would he like to have a threesome with them? Absolutely. The more they slept together, the more Noah wanted to spend every waking second with them, but he knew that wasn’t sustainable. Eventually, Aspen would need more, and they deserved to have more.
Noah had applied to three different therapists with Charlie’s help–in other words, with Charlie putting Sir Hamlet, the eighty-pound German Shepherd, on his lap and refusing to get him off until Noah sent in the applications. He’d been accepted by one and had his first appointment scheduled for the following week. He knew therapy wasn’t a magic wand, though. There was no telling if his therapist would be able to help him unwind the snarled mess that his parents had turned him into.
Speaking of his parents, something was definitely going on with them. They never reached out to him as often as they were. Every tense phone call and curt text inquiring about his love life and interrogating his every life decision was like a band around his chest. It was making it harder and harder to breathe as he fought with himself each and every day of their trial period to figure out why he couldn’t just have easy, romantic feelings for Aspen.
Of course, not everything would be easy, even if he did choose to date Aspen. His parents still wouldn’t be happy, but at least he’d have something to fight back with. Right now, he felt like he was dodging and weaving expectations left and right, all the while tangling himself up until he didn’t know how he was ever going to loosen the knot in his chest.
It was only going to get worse from here. As the time ticked away on their trial relationship and the holidays approached, he could feel himself winding even tighter. Aspen hadn’t put any real pressure on him, outside of recommending he see a therapist, but his parents were incessant. They wanted him to come home for one, if not both, of the winter holidays, and Noah would rather spend all of Thanksgiving weekend or Christmas week under Sir Hamlet than do that.
He would probably go home for one of the holidays, even though he desperately didn’t want to. His mom had a way of guilting him into a lot of things by recounting all the ways Braxton had let the family down and saying things like “we expect better of you after all that nonsense in your twenties,” or “we’ve already been through enough with your brother, don’t you start now, too.”
At least he had the mixer to look forward to. He always had fun at Rainbow Bean events, and he was rather curious how Aspen was going to go about finding someone to flirt with.
Fifteen minutes into the event, Noah learned an interesting fact about his best friend. They had absolutely no game.
While he talked with Diego about the shelter, Noah watched out of the corner of his eye as Aspen flitted around between groups, awkwardly standing on the periphery, laughing a little too loudly at something someone said, before scurrying off to the next group.
“Alright, I think that’s all the information I need about the shelter,” Diego said, drawing Noah’s eyes away from his ridiculous friend. “We’ll set up a donation box right next to the cash register, and we’ll try to encourage folks to do that instead of tipping.”
“Oh, Diego, you don’t have to do–”
“I can even hold up a photo of one of those sad-eyed dogs!” Frankie said, throwing an arm around Diego’s shoulder and grinning across the counter at Noah.
“We could play that sad dog commercial song over the speakers,” Diego said, clearly joking, but Frankie’s eyes lit up like it was the best idea he’d heard all day.
“Yes! I’ll see if we can get it in different instrumental forms, and we could even name some of the pastries after the dogs in the shelter!”
Diego threaded his arm around Frankie’s waist and pecked him on the cheek. “I was joking about the music,querido, but the pastries are actually a really good idea. It would be free marketing for the animals and hopefully will encourage more folks to donate.”
That did sound like a good idea, but Noah was still pretty hung up on the tipping thing. “Why don’t we put it over by the wall of flyers, and we can put up some posters of the dogs available for adoption. That way, when folks see their names on the pastries, you can direct them over to the donation box?”
Diego squinted at him, but Frankie nodded his head eagerly. “You should make them tear away flyers so folks can take home little pictures of the dogs to their families! We have a lot of success with those.”
They talked for a few more minutes about the size of posters, and Diego even walked Noah over to the wall so he could take some pictures for Aspen to reference later. Meanwhile, Aspen was still doing their awkward flirting musical chairs around the room. He was currently talking to a guy who looked like he’d just arrived from a grunge band practice, and another man who looked ready to give a boardroom presentation.
As Noah approached, he heard the tail end of Aspen telling the grunge guy all the different ways he could style his hair.
