by May Archer
Good.
I ran my fingertips under the top of his boxer briefs—I was so right about his underwear—at the same time I licked into his mouth, and Mason groaned louder than ever. I swallowed the sound and molded the length of him through the cotton.
Mason broke the kiss and sucked in a huge gulp of air, oxygen starved. He turned toward me just a little and traced his fingers up my stomach, too, eyes wide.
“Now what?”
It was cute. I’d never been an expert guide at anything before, and I kinda liked it.
“Now… this.” Within two seconds, I’d peeled our underwear down and introduced our cocks to one another. I licked my palm, wrapped my fingers around both of us, and started jacking us together slowly.
With the first tug, Mason’s eyes rolled back in his head. With the second, he started praying to saints I was pretty sure even my mom had never heard of. Something like, “Jesus fucking Christ and all the sweet baby bunnies, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
I would have given him shit for finding religion all of a sudden, except I was thinking just about the same thing, and I couldn’t help kissing his swollen lips again.
He started writhing against me—long, sinuous movements in perfect rhythm with my strokes—and I knew he was close when he reached down and grabbed my wrist, not to move me away or control the rhythm, but like he wanted to be an active part of the process. My stomach, which was already soaring and dipping like a kite on a breeze, flipped over entirely.
“Stay with me, Fenn,” he said, the way other guys might yell don’t stop or something. “Stay with me.” And the look in his eyes as they locked on mine was…
Shit.
In that moment, there was nothing I didn’t like about Mason Bloom.
“Mason,” I breathed—just that one single sound—and I came all over both of us. Half a second later, Mason shouted my name as he came, too.
It was one second of utter bliss—powerful and life changing.
And then it was all completely over.
I hadn’t even moved my hand away before Mason stiffened and sucked in a breath, and I could almost hear the vacuum-sucking sound of rational thought rushing into Mason’s head, replacing the lust we’d burned off.
What have I done? And why with Fenn? What the fuck was I thinking?
I wiped my hand on the blanket and turned on my back with a sigh.
“Good?” I said lightly.
Mason’s chest heaved and his gaze latched onto my mouth, but he blinked in confusion like I’d started speaking Swahili. “Huh?”
“Are. You. Good?”
“Oh. Yes,” he croaked. “I think…” He touched his fingers to his lips and frowned. “I think very good?”
I smiled. “Agreed. Really good. High five. Good job, Loafers. Experiment was a success.”
I needed to stop talking. I needed a shower.
I pulled off my shirt and used it to mop at my stomach, then offered the fabric to Loafers. I pulled up my shorts, sat up with a groan, and ran my clean hand over my head to shake out the sand.
“I can’t decide if rolling off the blanket means we lose points or get bonus points,” I teased. I organized a bunch of the empty bottles in the cooler and put the lid on it. “We should coordinate showers when we get back. I’d hate to overload the system.” I pushed to my feet.
“Right.” Mason was still lying on the ground, clenching my shirt, his lower half resting on the blanket so I couldn’t shake it out. “Fenn? Are we okay?”
“Duh. Why wouldn’t we be?” I busied myself dusting sand off my ass.
“Did I sorta guilt you into—?”
“No! Don’t do that. We both just agreed that was really good, right? If no one’s told you this before, lemme clue you in: you’re hot. The hair. The eyes.” I shrugged. “Definitely not a hardship.”
“But then why… I mean. This has the feeling of you running away again,” he said darkly, sitting up and mopping off with my shirt at last. “Is this a you thing? Because it’s really annoying, if so.”
“Hey!” I scowled. “I’m not running away. I never have.” I licked my lips and honesty compelled me to add, “But you might say I’m… walking. At a sedate and moderate pace. Totally different.”
He frowned. “But why?”
I sighed and raked both hands through my hair. “Loafers, it’s important that you take your time with all this stuff and wrap your head around it with zero pressure from some random guy who wants to hook up with you. You don’t owe anybody anything. Nobody else’s expectations matter, even mine. You with me?”
“I’m with you.”
“Good. But I… I do have expectations.” I shrugged apologetically. “Of the guys I’m with, I mean. I usually don’t do hookups—”
“You did with Gerry.”
“I was feeling sentimental,” I said defensively. “They played ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. I want someone I can hang out with. Someone I can date. Openly. I don’t need to take out a billboard on Route 75, but I’m not into being someone’s hush-hush experiment or their gay test, either.” I tried to say it kindly. I was pretty sure from his expression I’d missed the mark. “I’ve tried that in the past, Loafers, and the experiment didn’t go well. Safe to say we, ah, blew up the lab.” I licked my lips and went all in on the honesty. “Which is why it’s time to pull back and be friends while I still can. Okay? We stop now, it’s a hand job between buds, and that’s nothing.”
Mason nodded slowly. “You think it’ll be that easy?”
It had better fucking be. “Yeah. Trust me. Happens all the time. I mean, I’m hot, but I’m not that hot.”
Mason’s face heated. “Right. Okay, then.”
“Good.”
And it was. Very good. Even if I hadn’t expected him to agree quite that quickly. Even if I hadn’t left him much room to disagree unless he was about to pull a rose from his pocket like this was some hidden-camera episode of The Bachelor and make an insincere public declaration of his undying love.
Instead, he just stood up and dusted off, and we worked together in silence to fold the blanket. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but all of our earlier closeness had fled, and I found that I missed it.
A lot.
Not enough to take back what I’d said, though.
It’s okay to set boundaries, I told myself. It’s okay not to take every risk. But I didn’t quite manage to convince myself of that either.
Thunder boomed in the distance, and Loafers jumped.
“Another storm. Third or fourth night this week.”
Loafers nodded jerkily. “Fifth, actually. We should hurry.”
“We’ve got a few minutes before it hits,” I reassured him. “Thunder another one of your not-irrational concerns?”
“Maybe.” He bit his lip and forced a smile.
I wanted to take his hand, but I couldn’t.
And in the end, Loafers and I left our little cocoon and walked back along the shore to the boardwalk, letting the tide erase our footprints like they’d never existed at all.
Chapter Ten
Mason
That night, I dealt with my thunder absolutely-not-a-phobia by barricading myself in the bathroom with the door closed and my headphones in, praying the rain would fuck off soon.
According to Kono, the pint-sized brunette married to Taffy’s boyfriend Orry’s brother Tim, nighttime thunderstorms were pretty rare this time of year.
Marius Wynott, on the other hand, who had about fifty-seven books on the subject of weather on the Gulf Coast, told me this kind of storm pattern came around every ten years or so. “They call it shipwreck weather!” he’d said, which was just super, super comforting.
But when Juju Irvine, Lety’s sister-in-law, who worked the cash register at the Concha, had started complaining, Lety had waved a giant spoon in the air like a magic wand, and solemnly declared, “Cuando lluve, deja que llueva,” like this was the final wo
rd on the matter.
“Just means, ‘When it rains, let it rain,’ Doc,” Bubba had said mildly, like he was used to his wife making pronouncements he thought were mostly nonsense. But as far as I was concerned, Lety’s words had power.
Bad things were gonna happen. You could sit around trying to predict them, or dissecting what had caused them, or wishing them away—for example, while lying flat on your cold bathroom tiles as an infomercial blared in the other room, subliminally convincing you to get a home gym that folded under your bed—but ultimately, you couldn’t control it, so why bother. Why not just accept what you couldn’t change and move on?
I mean, let’s be honest, I would literally never be able to live that way, but I admired people who could be all Zen and not overthink shit and have it work out for them. When I didn’t overthink things, I ended up stranded on Crazy Island, making out with a guy.
I shifted onto my stomach and elbows on the hard tiles and stared down at my phone screen. Not sure why I was staring since I’d more or less memorized the picture already. My lips were pressed to Fenn’s cheek, and he looked a little startled, but not unhappy, I didn’t think. Meanwhile, I was grinning like a fool because I was a little drunk from the beer, a little drunk on my own boldness, and a whole lot drunk on just being with Fenn. That fact was far easier to accept than it would have been even a couple of days ago.
I wanted Fenn Reardon. Simple as that.
I wanted him the way I wanted my next breath—the kind of wanting where it physically hurt and made my heart pound in fear to consider not having it.
And I’d been right that I’d needed to kiss him again to prove it to myself. When I could close my eyes and remember the exact feeling of his bicep against my chest when I’d leaned in to kiss him, or the way his fingers had felt sliding down my back, or how his big, calloused hand had fit perfectly around my cock, or how every movement of his lips on mine made electric sparks zing through my bloodstream, it was pretty hard to pass off the attraction as loneliness or adrenaline.
That was how someone else’s hands on you were supposed to feel. That was the answer to the question I’d never thought to ask. There was the heavenly chorus, the puzzle pieces clicking, the feeling people fought wars over… and possibly the feeling people abandoned their fiancées and jetted off to Belize for. That was the passion Victoria said I’d been missing, but which Fenn seemed to have no problem unearthing.
It was very, very real.
But when symptoms came on as fast as my attraction to Fenn had, who knew if or when they’d resolve? Maybe I’d wake up in the morning, or next Tuesday, or sometime in November, and my feelings for Fenn would have faded back to normal friendship. Wouldn’t I feel foolish if I’d rushed to acknowledge my new sexual orientation publicly, only to have to change it back again? “Poor Mason. He’s been so confused since Victoria left,” people would say to themselves. “How gross that Mason Bloom’s jumping on a trend and trying to get social cred,” they’d think. “What kind of idiot doesn’t know who he’s attracted to after thirty-five years?” they’d wonder. “Isn’t he supposed to be a doctor?”
And they’d be right.
I’d never suggest a patient change his future plans based on a condition he could maybe have. Every day in my practice, I weighed the risks of action versus the risks of inaction. I remembered to first do no harm. And yet, I’d forgotten every fucking part of that back down on the beach. I’d gotten so caught up in how good it felt, how right it felt, that I hadn’t considered any of these important, responsible things. Fenn had been right to pull back and protect himself from the quivering mass of anxious uncertainty that was me.
Mason Bloom Takes Control and Lives Fearlessly was doomed before it began, really. I might have changed my job and my wardrobe and my state of residency and even who I found attractive, but ultimately, I was the same person I’d ever been.
Still unsure. Still afraid. Still paralyzed by thinking, thinking, thinking.
The phone rang while I was holding it, and a picture of my best friend’s grinning face appeared where the image of Fenn and I had been.
After a heart-pounding second of completely forgetting how technology worked, wondering whether Toby could see what I’d been looking at, and how the hell I would explain it if he could, I remembered that this wasn’t science fiction.
Besides, it was only Toby, who’d probably understand better than anyone.
Maybe even better than me.
I swiped the screen to accept the call.
“Chubby baby Jesus and all the heavenly angels, he lives!” Toby said, before I had a chance to even say hello. “Are they keeping you prisoner down in that resort, Mason, sweetness? Cough once for yes, twice for no. Cough three times if your captors are adorable and I should change into something devastating before I fly down to rescue you.”
I snorted. “Hello, Toby.”
“Do not Hello, Toby me, Mason Bloom! How many times have I called you in the past week? Hmm? Two? No. Four? No. It’s been eight times, Mason. Eight times, these poor little fingers had to dial your number, not knowing if you were dead or, worse, alive but with a new best friend! I even wondered if somehow I’d gotten your number wrong, and I had to call Yiannis to see if he had a better one!”
“Yiannis? Who in the world is Yiannis?”
“Who’s—” He made a disbelieving noise. “You wound me, Mason. You really do. Yiannis is the host from Davio! Remember, last time you visited, when Yiannis got us the patio table and later that evening I, ah, compensated him appropriately for his kindness? Thirty-inch neck, adorable Greek accent, hung like a horse?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Tall guy? Dark, curly hair?”
“Mason.” Toby gave a long-suffering sigh. “Your descriptions are deplorable.”
“Yes, I’m a constant disappointment to you,” I agreed sadly. “And after you made the huge sacrifice of calling Yanny just to try to track me down and everything.”
“Yiannis. And I’ll have you know, we conducted an extensive search for you, Mason. Up and down. Ngh. High and low. We went All. Night. Long. And we did not rest.”
I shifted to sit against the bathtub with my knees up and found myself grinning. “Why do our conversations always become X-rated, Tobias?”
“It’s your punishment for running out on me and leaving me to suffer in the frozen tundras of New York on my own.” Toby sniffed.
“It’s May. Hardly frozen.”
“And then compounding your sins by failing to answer a single call or text for a solid week.”
“I’ve been busy—”
“Mason, sweetness, ‘busy’ is a sham,” he said darkly. “You weren’t too busy to eat, were you? Or shower? Or cavort on the beach and work on your tan? One would think I’d be at least that important, after decades of friendship.” He sighed again. “Gone a week, and I’m already forgotten.”
“Hardly,” I told him honestly. “You are utterly unforgettable.”
Toby hmphed. “Make it up to me. Tell me every detail right now and I might decide that our friendship can continue. Remember to describe things properly.”
I laughed weakly. “Hard to know where to begin, really.” Which was why I hadn’t answered any of his calls or increasingly demanding texts for pictures and updates. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth.
Toby was momentarily silent—a minor miracle—and when he spoke again, his voice was serious. “Alright, what’s up? The island not as amazing as you thought it would be?”
“No. Not exactly.” I sucked in a breath and felt tears prick behind my eyes. More like, nothing like I thought it would be. And I was nothing like I thought I would be.
“Tell me!” he insisted.
Well, Toby, the plumbing is trying to kill me.
I’ve watched thirteen infomercials in a week, and I’m considering turning my motel room into an As Seen on TV showroom.
One of my patients ingests pheromones to increase his sexu
al potency, and has a possibly cancerous mole that he swears grows and shrinks according to the tide schedule on Whispering Key Beach.
My boss is a treasure-hunting con man.
Geckos are fucking terrifying Satan-spawn, and the way they dart around on their disgusting gecko-feet makes me want to burn the entire earth just to eradicate them.
I’m thirty minutes from a laundromat that doesn’t contain reptiles, and I’m sweating through my clothing at an alarming rate.
There’s a man on Whispering Key who looks like a GI Joe doll who rescues kittens and tells me my aura is pink.
There’s a lady here who makes the world’s tastiest pineapple bread as a weight-loss supplement and has very concerning petechiae on her feet, but refuses to stop wearing her too-tight shoes.
And there’s this guy… this one, amazing guy… and he kissed me… and then we… and then we…
“The job’s not what I expected,” I choked out. “I’m leaving as soon as I can find a new one.”
“Ah, shit. I’m sorry, boo.” But I noticed Toby didn’t sound all that upset. “I’m sure you’ll find something else soon. Maybe back here? Closer to the city? We could be roommates, just like the olden days.”
“Also, I… I have a patient,” I lied. “He’s, uh… he’s having a hard time. With his sexuality. Potentially coming out? It’s concerning.” I folded the edge of the shower curtain into a triangle and smoothed the line with my fingernail.
“Oh,” Toby said, all sympathy. “That’s rough. A kid?”
“No, he’s older, actually. Around our age. Which is part of the trouble.”
“Yeah, more complications that way sometimes,” Toby agreed. “He have children? A wife?”
“No, no. Nothing like that! Just, you know. It’s a little odd, right?” I forced a slight laugh as I folded my fabric triangle into ever-smaller triangles. “He’s that old, and he’s only just now figuring his shit out?”
Toby was silent for a long minute. “No, Mason. Not odd at all. Come on, baby, this is Gay 101. You know better. Sexuality evolves.”
