“Sure you do,” Bowen says and leans back, his ass resting on the table behind him. He lets his hands rest just a smidge lower than his hips, next to the bulge under his shorts. My dick twitches involuntarily. “You could ask to date me anyway.”
“I can’t because—"
“Because I said I don’t do closeted.” I nod and Bowen seems to be thinking really hard for a minute. Then he looks me in the eye again. “Want to smoke?”
He reaches into the pocket of his sweats and pulls out a perfectly rolled joint. I eye it and then move my gaze to his face, which is staring back at me with the softest expression I’ve seen since our last hook-up. “I should probably be going.”
“Oh. Okay.” He walks to the door and holds it open for me. Then he follows me out into the yard after turning out the lights and telling his pot plants to “Sleep tight.”
I smile in the moonlight at that. Bowen is delightful. We walk side-by-side through the backyard. He lights his joint by the side of the house, stopping to look at the fields just beyond. I watch the end of the joint glow as his perfect mouth sucks on the other end. Fuck, now I’m jealous of a joint. Jesus.
“When do you plant?” I ask, looking for something — anything — to get my mind off the sex we can’t have.
“Soon. We’ll till the soil again end of this month and we’ll seed a couple weeks later,” Bowen says and then he hands me the joint.
I shake my head. “I have to drive home.”
“Do you?” he asks, still holding it out to me.
I sigh and shake my head with a heavy smile on my lips. “Look, I respect your boundaries. I even admire them. And I think this friendship will work, but I’m not ready to spend the night on your couch or whatever. And your sister kind of doesn’t like me so I should go.”
I start to walk away. His voice carries across the slightly overgrown grass. “So as soon as you hit twenty-eight, you’re out?”
“I promise. Not you, but myself,” I reply, turning slowly back to face him. He’s blowing a cloud of smoke into the darkness and is moving toward me with a lazy, sexy gait. “And before you ask, if it costs me my family, I’m good with it. I’ve lived long enough by their rules, and it hasn’t made me happy.”
“What makes you happy?”
I watch the moonlight bounce across his high cheekbones. “Music. Gigs. Your blow jobs.”
He chokes, but it quickly turns into a laugh. When he’s recovered, he hands me the joint again. “You don’t have to sleep on my couch. You can sleep in a bed. With me.”
We stare at each other, my eyes scanning his face, trying to figure out what the trick is in that statement. There’s got to be a ‘but’ or a catch of some sort. But there isn’t. When I still don’t take the joint he puts it to his lips, inhales deeply, and then holds it to the side as he very gently moves his mouth to mine. He’s hesitant, waiting for me to pull away or resist, but when I part my lips it sure as hell isn’t to say no. It’s to let in the smoke and then, let him in. After I blow the smoke out my nose, our mouths tangle again in a searing kiss. Tongues searching, lips smashing, teeth nipping.
“Are you really okay with this?” I ask when we finally come up for air.
He steps away, untangling himself from me, and grinding out the flame on what’s left of the joint against the wall of the house, as he nods. “Yeah. I am. You’re not scared of who you are. This isn’t a permanent place for you. And with the way I feel about this… I’d be an idiot to wait around for something to change.”
He kisses the side of my mouth and then my neck, his hands wandering under my suit jacket. “So, you’ll keep this a secret. Us? No one can know. Not even your family.”
“Yeah. It’s fine. For six months.” He kisses his way to my ear. “And twenty-four days. And nine hours.”
“Almost eight hours now.”
“Look at that. Time flies.” He palms my erection through my dress pants, and I swear my knees almost buckle. “Not a second more.”
“Not a second more,” I promise and shove my hand into the front of his sweats as our lips connect again. He’s not wearing underwear and he might be harder than I am. Thank Christ. “But… your family.”
“There’s a studio above the garage my dad used for jam sessions. Separate entrance,” he whispers against my mouth as I wrap a hand around him and glide my thumb over his leaking tip. “It’s got a bed too for when his music buddies had a few too many beers. I can tell them we worked on a new song for the band and you crashed.”
Is it slightly risky to spend the night with his brother and sister so nearby, regardless of the excuse? Yes. Am I going to do it anyway? Also, yes.
“Lead the way.”
12
BOWEN
I don’t feel one single second of trepidation as I agree to step into Chase’s closet to be with him. The second he explained his story, I got it. He’s not afraid of who he is or embarrassed by it. I would lie too for a chance at life changing money. I understand him and that’s all it took to let this warm fuzzy feeling in my chest smother the deep scars of past heartbreak. Scars I didn’t realize were still sore until I met Chase. And fuck, it’s only six months. I don’t want to miss half a year with him because of old wounds.
