“But I’m sorry, if...if that wasn’t what you wanted.”I twisted the paper cup in my hands, left to right.“I don’t know if I’m cut out for the cucking lifestyle.”
Flynn chuckled, softly.“You seemed to rise admirably to the challenge, for the most part.”
I allowed myself the smallest of smirks.“If you’re referring to my cock...”
“Oli,” he scolded, sounding amused.“I mean, it’s a pretty nice cock, I guess.”
“Hey!”I nudged him with my elbow, feeling myself blush.
Flynn laughed, sitting back.“Was I meant to say ‘beautiful’ or ‘magnificent’ instead?”
I buried my scowl in my coffee.“It’s unseemly to discuss a guy’s genitals before breakfast.”
He generously didn’t point out that I’d brought the topic up first.Just took a sip of his own drink, looking out over the frost-rimed shrubs.
“I could taste you, through the mask,” he said, finally.Tone casual, like we were discussing the beans that we’d just watched being finely ground.“That’s what made me...y’know.”
“Cum in your pants, like a horny teenager?”I supplied, my heart racing.
“You have such a way with words.”
“At least I have good aim.”
Trying to choke down his laugh turned it into an ugly snort.“Christ, Oli.”
I shrugged.“I’m not trying to be dismissive of your whole ‘control’ thing, I’m just saying it seemed like you enjoyed it.”
He gestured with his cup.“Enjoyment isn’t the issue.”
I looked at him; at the side of his face, anyway.Waiting until he grudgingly turned to meet my stare.
“Can’t it be the issue?”
Flynn took a deep breath.Let it out, slowly.“It’s not so simple.I thought you understood that.”
“Because you have an agreement with William,” I supplied.“And debt, and regrets.”
His eyes narrowed.Not quite a glare, but the shade of one.“Saying it sarcastically doesn’t make it any less real, Oli.What he and I have, works.For where I’m at right now, anyway.”
In for a penny, some voice in the depths of my brain suggested.
“You know he sleeps with other guys, right?”
“I’m in the room when he does it.”
I shook my head.“Not every time.”
Silence.As brittle as the branches above our heads.
“It’s beneath you, this...”
“No, what was beneath me was your boyfriend,” I said, quickly.Angry, suddenly, at his eagerness to ignore me; to dismiss me, as though I was some gossip trading in second-hand rumor.“And he asked if I wanted to do that again, only without you in the room.”
“You misunderstood.”
I should’ve given William my number, I thought, amid the simmering frustration.That way I could at least produce the inevitable messages, the propositions: make Flynn read them, each incontrovertible bubble of deception, on my phone’s screen.
Instead, I was stuck asking him to believe me, an old friend turned almost stranger, over the guy he lived with.I had a horrible sense that I already knew how that would all play out.
