“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer or the intent, because I do, but I don’t need you to wingman for me,” I told him with a chuckle. “And that still goes for you coming to my defense, by the way. I don’t need that either.”
“Yeah, I know…sorry.”
“I thought you weren’t going to apologize for it?”
“Well…I am.”
“Don’t be; it’s been a while since I had someone I could trust to have my back completely.”
He smiled at that, and for a moment, I could forget that both of our lives had gone to hell in the past few years. There was just him and me standing there, the same old Cade with his dopey but endearing smile, as happy to receive praise as he was to hear a good joke. Trust was scarce for people like us, and even harder to give to someone else. He knew better than most how valuable and rare it was for me to hand out trust for something like monitoring my six.
“And I’m sorry I was such a dick,” I said with a sigh.
Cade’s smile disappeared under a grimace. “Ya weren’t wrong though. I been thinkin’ about it, and you’re right. I dunno what to do about it, but…you were right.”
“Maybe I was,” I said, choosing to ignore his nakedness as I reached out and touched his chest gently, also having to ignore the feel of his hard muscle and the brush of his chest hair against my fingers. “But I didn’t need to be such a dick. You don’t need someone riding your ass; you deserve to have a friend.”
“Eh, friends can be rough with each other when they need to be,” he said with a laugh that I could feel rumbling in his chest. He reached up and rapped his knuckles against his head. “I can be hard-headed sometimes, I know. It can be the only way to get me to listen.”
“Well, next time I need you to listen, I’ll be nicer about it first,” I told him, pulling my hand away because despite the change in tone, my dick was still not behaving, and I needed to put some space between us so it stopped trying to show off.
“Yeah, sure,” he said with a snort. “But I’m gonna be honest, you were always the one I could trust to say what needed to besaid, and not always gently And ya know how it goes, ya listen to the guy who keeps your inside bits on the inside.”
“Speaking of bits,” I said, glancing down. “Yours are out and they’re…distracting.”
He looked down in surprise, missing my horror as I realized I’d just thrown out all the work keeping my feelings to myself with that one comment. He looked at me, eyes wide, and stopped before he said whatever had been bubbling up. It was then I realized, much to my continually growing horror and embarrassment, that he had noticed my…predicament.
“Oh, uh,” he said, but it was too late. I could see his eyes darting to the front of my underwear before he locked onto my face. “Right, uh, sorry about that. I didn’t realize that, uh?—”
“You’re naked? Or that although I know you’re straight and we’re friends, my body is still going to react to seeing a naked, wet, hot guy standing in front of me?” I asked dryly because, fuck it, I’d already told on myself. Trying to soften the truth was going to be as effective as trying to soften my dick while I could still see Cade’s.
“Right,” he said slowly, and then shook his head. “I’m gonna go finish my shower. Well, get my towel anyway. I already showered like twenty minutes ago. But I’ll get my stuff so I can dry off and you can shower.”
“Sure,” I said with a casualness that I definitely wasn’t feeling. “I can wait for you to get out.”
“I wasn’t sayin’ ya had to…” He stopped himself, looked confused, and then sighed. “Alright, sure.”
He walked away, and this time I could hear his leg thump softly. All was forgiven for my harsh words, but somehow, I didn’t think he was going to forget that I’d not only told him I was attracted to him, but his eyes had given him all the proof he needed. I didn’t think he would avoid me after something like that, but if he did, I wouldn’t blame him.
“Smooth, Walker,” I muttered as I stripped my underwear off and threw it into the dirty laundry sack in the locker, grabbing my towel to wrap around my waist. “Real smooth.”
CADE
I fidgetedoutside the closed door, feeling as stupid as I probably looked. It wasn’t like it was weird for me to go to Walker’s room. If someone saw me standing there, they’d assume I was just paying him a visit. It wasn’t a secret that he and I were friends; we had been around each other constantly since he’d first arrived at Arete. If anything, people would find it weird if I wasn’t around him during our free time.
From what I’d heard people saying when they thought I couldn’t hear them, they were wondering if the reasons I’d been hanging with Clay were like me hanging around Walker all the time. That both of them were…well, into men, and it was my way of flirting with the other side of things without actually committing. Which was stupid because Clay wasn’t gay; he was bi. The difference was still lost on a lot of people even today, but it probably wasn’t helped that Clay didn’t have any opportunity to show he was attracted to women at the resort and for obvious reasons, he hadn’t spoken about his late wife to anyone but me, and eventually Isaac.
That wasn’t why I was outside Walker’s room, though, or why I was being so weird about it instead of just letting him know I was there. Well, I guess it had something to do with both things.I was outside his room because I wanted to spend time with him while the place was on an informal lockdown, but I was being weird about it because…I didn’t know how to act around him.
It was more like he didn’t know how to act around me lately. Ever since I’d tried to help him with Logan, he’d been…odd. He wasn’t avoiding me or not talking to me; he was just…quieter than usual. He’d never been the sort who felt the urge to fill a silence, but he didn’t spend time around other people with long stretches of silence.
Was it because I had interfered or because of the naked thing?
Before I could fall down that rabbit hole, I hit the button on the panel outside the door. I was only imagining there was the sound of rustling from the other side because there was no way sound was getting through the door. The panel made a soft noise; the door slid open, and Walker peered up at me in confusion. His hair was ruffled on one side, along with an imprint of a pillow. He was wearing a pair of pants, and I wondered if he’d just thrown them on before coming to the door, from how low they sat on his otherwise bare torso.
“Hey,” he said in a rough voice that confirmed he had been dead to the world.
“Hey,” I said, momentarily distracted. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him without a shirt, but this apparently was when I noticed he clearly hadn’t been slacking since leaving the Army. Despite his height, he had never put on a lot of muscle, or at least not obviously. Considering he had sparred with all of us, I knew just how much strength his body hid, and he didn’t look like he was in a different shape than when we’d served together.
