Landon reaches out with a hand and brushes it through the ends of my beard. “You have snow stuck to you.”
He hands me the mug in his hand. I look down and see little marshmallows floating in the chocolatey liquid. It makes me smile. God, this man… “Drink. It’ll warm you up.”
His fingers brush mine as he takes my bag from me and wheels it into the house. “I’m gonna start the shower for you.”
He wheels the bag right into his room. I know I should argue and go upstairs to my old room, but I’m starting to shiver. So I sip the hot chocolate and head into Landon’s bedroom. I put the cup on the night table and peel out of my clothes. He comes out of the bathroom and watches me. “I put fresh towels on the counter. The water’s hot, but on the generator, I can’t guarantee it’ll last long.”
I walk toward the bathroom in nothing but my underwear, and Landon steps out of my way, which disappoints me, and then I hate myself for feeling that way. Thankfully, the water stays warm throughout my shower, and by the time I emerge from the bathroom, I find Landon lying on the couch in the living room. He’s smiling at his phone in his hands. On the table in front of him are two fresh steaming mugs of hot chocolate. “What’s got you smiling?”
He sits up a little, making space at the end of the couch, but I take the large recliner across from him instead. He sits up even more, types something, then drops his phone onto his lap. “I started a group chat for me and my siblings.”
“Oh.” I reach for a cup and relax into my chair.
“I was jealous of yours,” he admits. “For a long time, I just assumed that Callan, Lola, and I could never be close because of our age difference and stuff, but then I realized you guys—you and your cousins—are a range of ages and you’re all close. I figured maybe I would try. So I tried, and I mean it’s only been a few days, but they’re interacting.”
“Yeah? What are you guys talking about?” I sip the hot chocolate.
He gives me a little self-conscious shrug and reaches for his own mug. “Well, at the moment it’s mostly Lola saying insulting stuff like ‘this group chat is about as interesting as soggy Brussel sprouts’ and Callan asking stupid things like ‘when is mom’s birthday again?’. But it’s something.”
I chuckle under my breath. “It’s actually the same asinine shit that’s in my group too.”
He sips his drink, eyes intently studying me over the rim. “Well, thanks. Because being around you has made me want to connect with my siblings instead of just giving up.”
That compliment makes me wildly uncomfortable. We’re firmly in the more-than-sex category, and I don’t do that. It’s not my thing. I shift in the chair and stare at the marshmallows. “Look, I think I’ll just pack up and head back to my place for the night.”
There’s a long beat of silence, and I’m too much of a chicken shit to look up from my disintegrating marshmallows to gauge his reaction. Finally, he speaks. His voice calm and unaffected. “Right. Makes sense. Your place is going to be a dark freezer. Why wouldn’t you want to sleep there?”
“It’s just… I’m wiped after the road trip, and I mean the sex is great, but I’m too exhausted and?—”
“And why would you want to be around me if we couldn’t fuck, right?” Landon cuts me off, his voice still calm and even, which is becoming mildly unnerving to hear. “It’s not like we get along, are basically best friends, or give a shit about each other at all.”
Finally, I find the nerve to lift my eyes to his. His expression is blank. No emotion on his perfect face. “I like you. As a friend.”
Ouch. That hurt to say, and clearly, by the way Landon’s face drops, it hurt to hear. I don’t know if I can make it better, but I'll try. “We’re great friends. We’re great fuck buddies too. I’m just not… I don’t do relationships, and if I start staying over without sex or like?—”
“Spending the night being the big spoon?” Landon cuts in. “Like you were half the road trip. The half where you weren’t fighting your feelings?”
I swallow. How is my throat so dry when I’ve been pouring liquid down it? I take another sip of the hot chocolate. “This is complicated. I don’t want to make it messy, Landon.”
A sliver of a smile quirks his lips, and his eyebrows rise. “Grady, I’ve had your cum all over my chest and in my mouth. I think we’ve done messy.”
My dick stirs in my pants. I ignore it. “That’s not what I meant.”
We’re silent for a minute, and he leans forward and puts his half-empty mug back on the table. He stands and walks right up to my chair, lifting the mug from my hand. When he turns to place it on the coffee table, it causes Landon to bend with his ass in my face. My mouth waters with the urge to bite his cute butt right through his thin flannel pajama bottoms. “Well, this whole thing started with a threesome with my girlfriend, which we both agreed to only so we could touch each other. So we’ve had the emotionally messy covered from the start, too.”
He turns to face me. He’s standing so close to the chair I’m sitting in that our knees are bumping. I should probably get up and just leave. “I don’t date.”
“Why not?” Landon asks. “And is it that you don’t date or you don’t date me?”
“I don’t date, period,” I say, still not moving. Still trying to ignore how much I like his closeness. How easy it would be to reach up, cup his perfect round ass, and pull him into my lap. “I’m closeted and I’m staying there. That’s not a fair position to put anyone in. Also, you’re freshly out of a relationship, and jumping into a new one is probably not the best idea.”
“Angie left three and a half months ago, Grady,” he says, and then he starts to climb up on the chair. In a quick succession of movements more graceful than a man of his size and bulk should be capable of, Landon is straddling my lap, sitting right on my growing erection. He doesn’t miss that fact—I can tell by the smile that blooms on his face. “And unlike you, I can’t pretend that this isn’t real. You want to stop altogether?”
“Well, I’m all for a bed buddies thing.”
“Because you don’t like me?”
“Landon, you’re like my best friend,” I scoff at his stupid comment.
