Page 19 of Tough Guy and the Show Off

“A lot better. Thanks.”

“You bet.”

I start to sit up, but Trav drags his fingers through my hair. He chuckles at the fight scene on the screen, the first one where Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are beating each other up in the parking lot of the bar. Instead of fighting it anymore, I do what I always do and relax. This is Trav, my best friend. My partner in crime. This is normal for us and I’m the one making it weird by thinking about it too hard.

“Oh man, I love this part,” Trav says.

A strange sense of peace and familiarity washes over me as I settle on his lap. “I know you do, bud.”

TEN

SHOW

I’m dreaming. I know I am, mostly because everything feels so hazy and hard to grab on to, too visceral and primal to be grounded in anything physical. There’s bare skin, tangled limbs, and deep, husky moans echoing in my ears. My cock is hard and my heart is pounding, and there’s this feeling of wanting deep in my gut that’s so intense I can hardly stand it.

“Trav.” It’s Beau’s voice, whispering my name. It fits in my dream somehow, but it also feels far away.

And then, in an instant, it all vanishes. I bolt upright in bed to a roll of thunder rattling the windows and rain violently pelting the glass so hard that it almost sounds like someone’s throwing millions of tiny pebbles at it rather than droplets of water.

It only takes me a second to realize that the storm isn’t what actually woke me. Beau is standing in the shadows just inside my bedroom door, clutching his pillow to his chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, raking his fingers through his messy tangle of hair.

“Shut up,” I say with a laugh, holding up the edge of my comforter and scooting over to make room for him.

Shit, my dick is still hard from that dream. The images from it are already slipping away, but my cock is throbbing insistently. Beau crawls into bed and I move over a few more inches, just to make sure I don’t accidentally brush up against him with the wood I’m sporting. Jerking off together to preserve our friendship was one thing, but grinding my wet dream erection up against his ass would probably be crossing a line or two. It would help if Bozy’s ass weren’t so damn… present though.

He shuffles closer and I scoot back until I’m practically hanging off the edge of the bed with nowhere else to go. The scent of his vanilla bodywash immediately fills the space between us and he relaxes into my pillow, still clutching his own to his chest like a teddy bear, with his back to me, his shoulders moving with his breaths. I watch the movement to make sure he’s breathing slow and steady.

I remember the first time we shared a bed during a storm. We were on a roadie in Florida when a hurricane changed course and ended up hitting us head-on in the middle of the night. I woke up and Beau was sitting up in his bed, clutching his knees to his chest, taking shallow, panicked breaths. I scrambled out of my bed and crawled into his, wrapping my arms around him without even thinking about it.

“I’ve got you, Bozy, I’ve got you. Try to take some slower breaths. Everything’s okay.”

It took a few minutes of that before I got through to him and he was able to breathe slower and deeper, little by little managing to calm down and ease out of the panic attack. I was about to go back to my own bed when he grabbed my arm and gave me a pleading look. So, I stayed. We got under the covers and lay down just like we are now, with his back to me, and I rubbed slow, soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

I do the same thing now, out of habit and because I’d do anything to make sure Beau feels safe. He lets out a measured exhale and wiggles back just a little farther, leaving me no choice but to end up with our bare legs touching and my still aching cock barely an inch from the swell of his ass.

“Thanks,” he whispers.

“Any time, Bozy, you know that.” I yawn and let my eyes drift closed, my hand still moving automatically in lazy circles right between his shoulder blades.

“Did I tell you about the dog I had growing up who would howl any time a storm was coming?”

He did. Many times. But that’s okay. Talking will help keep his mind off of the storm, so I mumble “Uh-uh” through another yawn.

“She was a husky mix, but she wasn’t very talkative. She never made a peep, actually, except when a storm was coming. It could be the middle of a sunny afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, not so much as a drop of rain in the forecast, and Vinnie would let out this long, high-pitched howl and my parents would immediately start closing all the windows to get ready for a storm.” He chuckles at the memory.

“Dogs are the best,” I murmur sleepily. “I want a dog.”

“I know. We’ll get one someday, after we retire,” he promises. I know he means that we’ll each get a dog, but I’m half-asleep and feeling kind of fuzzy and affectionate toward the big teddy bear, and the idea of sharing a dog sounds nice. We’d be like co-parents. He could handle the training and I’d be the fun dad who takes the dog to the park and sneaks him burgers.

Beau keeps talking, rambling quietly about any random thing that crosses his mind—movies, other childhood memories, shared experiences from the last handful of years since we became teammates and best friends. Eventually, the claps of thunder get further and further apart until they stop altogether, and we both drift off to sleep.

“Rise and Shine.” I bring my hand down hard on Beau’s ass cheek. In my defense, he kicked the covers off sometime during the night and now he’s lying face down in my bed with his ass fully on display. I mean, not fully, he is wearing underwear, but still, it’s impossible to resist.

He yelps and his eyes fly open.

“Wakey, wakey,” I sing-song, shaking the bed. “If you hurry up, we can swing by that smoothie place you like before our workout.”