by Sky McCoy
And because Taylor was young and not very streetwise at the time, and he’d thought he loved Dylan, why not pay when his lover couldn’t. But Taylor discovered the real Dylan, and he hadn’t liked what he’d found out.
When Taylor had finally had enough of Dylan and he was packing to leave him and move to San Francisco, he’d found receipts where Dylan was paying for another apartment for his lover, and he had been footing the bills for clothing and food for him.
Fuck him, he remembered thinking. He never cared about me anyway. He probably won’t know I’m gone until he has to pay next month’s rent. But he wouldn’t have to pay it because Taylor owned the apartment, and he was too much of a man to leave without giving him something.
After all he did enjoy and cherish their relationship even if Dylan had no respect for it, and given that was how rich he was, the apartment was nothing. If they had married like he had done with Payton, he could have gotten spousal support. Which would have been a lot more costly than an apartment.
When Taylor packed up and walked out on Dylan, he didn’t look back. He gave him the apartment because it didn’t cost him anything but a broken heart, and he knew only time would take care of that, which it did.
He signed it over to him with no regrets because he met the man who would complement him and his life. A man who was caring, truthful, but jealous and he took his marriage vows seriously.
CHECKING THE CABINETS for a new toothbrush before he walked out, he had time before Noah would pick him up. Taylor was certain he’d find one, and he did along with an unopened box of condoms and unused lube. Taylor smiled and shook his head. He wouldn’t be using that on him.
Not now.
Not ever.
When he found the toothbrush, he laid it down on the counter, glanced into the mirror, raked his hands through his silky hair, dragged his teeth over his lower lip and gave out a small sigh. Then he pulled off his shirt, and dropped his pants, and stepped into the shower. The warm water falling and cascading over his body prickled his skin, reminding him of his showers with Payton. No matter how busy they were, they would take the time to shower together, and get in a little sex before leaving for work. Just the thought of Payton had him fisting his cock. But he stopped. He didn’t want his orgasm like that and not there. Being in Dylan’s shower made Taylor feel as if he had been cheating on Payton. He didn’t know why, he just felt that way.
He had never taken a shower with Dylan even though he’d thought it was a romantic thing to do when he was with him.
He was the romantic with Dylan, however, Dylan wasn’t that romantic with him. But Dylan had been with a few of his lovers, and Taylor had the bills and cards to prove it. So why now the sudden change and interest in him? Taylor thought.
Taylor stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, dried his body, and then his hair and after he brushed his teeth, he tucked his boxers in his pants pocket, and pulled up his pants and strutted out while buttoning his shirt to get the hell out of there. Get the hell away from Dylan as soon as possible.
Noah should be waiting for him by now, he thought, checking to see if he had left anything behind.
On his way to the bedroom, he heard a key in the lock and a door open. He met Dylan with a wide eyed look, and in his hand Dylan had two coffee cups and a bag.
“I have bagels,” Dylan said sounding upbeat. “I know how much you like bagels,” he said opening up the bag and looking down and rifling through it to come up with one of his favorite breakfast foods. Dylan walked to the table and set the bag down. “You remember when I would come home from working in Europe, and I would wake you up with coffee and bagels?”
Taylor didn’t want to remember how happy he had been to see Dylan lying over him with the smell of coffee in the house, and Dylan would lean over him and feed him the bagel and coffee. He didn’t want that in his headspace because it was full of Dylan’s past indiscretions.
Dylan had been unfaithful and more than he knew at the time. He wasn’t what he portrayed himself to be—a loving partner. And Taylor discovered that by accident.
Taylor didn’t blame him, or himself. They were both very young and needed something from the other that they couldn’t give. With Taylor, he wanted a loving trusting relationship, and with Dylan he didn’t know what Dylan wanted from him because he never said. All Taylor knew was he’d been a cash cow, and a warm body where Dylan could place his dick whenever he came back to New York.
“I’ll take the coffee, but I have to go.” Taylor checked around his pockets to see if he had his keys and phone. “How did I get here? I know I didn’t drive. Hell, I don’t remember anything.”
“You could barely stand on your feet.”
Taylor eyes aimed an incredulous glance at Dylan, raising one eyebrow.
“I left the car at the lot and took a cab here. You paid the guy to keep the car for a few days at my insistence.”
Dylan walked close to Taylor and Taylor narrowed his eyes, and he glanced down at Dylan. Dylan looked shorter and older. After looking at Payton with his six feet two stature, and muscular frame, every man who Taylor saw lately couldn’t compare to Payton, and those men, looked a litter shorter, and a little older, and a little less handsome than his husband.
There was no fucking way Taylor would get caught up with Dylan again. Not after all he went through. The men and drama. Dylan carried too much insecurity with him that he couldn’t handle at this point in his life.
Taylor was in love with Payton and he wouldn’t risk Dylan having anything over him. But he did, didn’t he? Taylor had spent the night in Dylan’s bed. Not the same bed he had purchased when they first hooked up, and now he couldn’t remember what it had been like to lay with him and kiss him, and he didn’t want to know, and that’s why he took a step back like he had gotten too close to fire and had been burnt. But he had been burnt and that would never fucking happen again. Not in this fucking lifetime, he thought.
“It was my impression that you wanted to talk,” Dylan said standing when he realized that Taylor hadn’t sat at the table.
“I thought so too, but not to you.” Taylor took the coffee from the table and opened the container and inhaled the aroma, and drank the coffee. He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them up.
“I don’t want you to go, Taylor. I need you.” Dylan’s voice rose and then faded.
Taylor’s eyes moved down to study Dylan’s. “It’s too late, Dylan. Maybe if you would have called me when I left for California, there would have been something we could have salvage, but not now.” Taylor’s jaw tightened, and he shook his head no fucking way.
“You didn’t even try to find me. Nothing,” Taylor said hiding his fragile voice as he glanced at Dylan remembering those painful times.
His heart broke thinking about that time because he thought he had loved Dylan and he thought in Dylan’s own way he had loved him too. But he found out that he had been a means to an end. But no more. That feeling he had for Dylan had washed over him, and been drowned out by Payton, and now Taylor knew by that one conversation with Dylan, what he had to do.
As Dylan sauntered close to Taylor with an air of arrogance, pursed lips, and with one hand on his hip, Taylor raised his hand. “Stop. That doesn’t work for me anymore. You can’t expect all this time to have passed...” Taylor was falling into Dylan’s trap by entertaining him and he cut that conversation off. “Forget that, I’m married...”
And at that precise moment, Dylan seized on the opportunity to remind Taylor of something he could never forget.
“Your partner left you, but I’m here.”
“That’s not how a marriage works. I thought that I would be married to you, but you didn’t have the same dreams I had. I wasn’t mature enough to realize it then, but I do now.”
“Maybe I wasn’t mature either. But I am now and I want you back.”
Taylor headed for the door and stopped in the foyer. “That’s your misfortune because my feelings for you are gone
.”
Before Taylor made it to the door, Dylan grabbed his wrist. Taylor looked down at his hand and he released it from his grasp. “I’ll tell your husband that you spent the night in my apartment.”
“You and I know what happened. Nothing. And if you want to pursue that little venture of yours, I’ll see you in court, and you don’t have enough money to meet me there. Remember you were the one who said, ‘If you get a man by the balls his mind will follow.’ Thank you for that lesson, and all the other lessons you taught me. Goodbye, Dylan.”
Taylor reached for the knob. He never turned around when he heard a glass breaking, and walked out and closed the door behind him.
“WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?” Noah shouted. “If that cop passed around one more time, I would have had to offer him a blowjob to get out of those expensive parking tickets the NYPD is so fond of shelling out.” Noah pulled in front of a cab, and the cabbie leaned out and gave him the finger.
“It’s a good thing I have physician’s license plates on my car because if I get one more parking ticket they will take my license, and Jake will repossess my Mercedes. It was a present from him, but he says it’s costing too much in the city, and I can take a cab. Me, a respected physician take a cab, but that’s another story. Did you get out of that apartment with your virginity intact?”
“What kind of question is that?” Taylor asked buckling his seatbelt as Noah gestured for him to do so, after he pointed to the light on the panel, referring to the incessant noise it was making.
Noah glanced over at Taylor, and then back to the street. “Everyone, I mean the boys say that you top, and that’s why Payton left you.”
“Fuck you, Noah. Is that all you guys do is gossip? I need to get some different friends.”
“Go ahead and try. Who’s going to pick you up early in the morning when you’ve been sleeping around?”
“If you continue with that talk, I’m going to tell Jake that you’re fooling around with Sam and you know how to take off that lock on that cage you’re wearing,” Taylor said narrowing his eyes at Noah.
“You wouldn’t do that?”
“Just try me. Now I don’t want to hear that shit about me with another man. I have enough problems. First, I have to get to work, and I don’t have time to go home and change.” He glanced over at Noah sweating and shaking when he mentioned telling Jake.
“If you don’t mind, I would like to live through this drive without you crashing this car. And I don’t want to hear you repeating shit to those boys who have nothing better to do after you fuck. You’re just like a bunch of bitches when you get going. Your apartment is in the area? Take me there. I need something to wear. ”
“I’m not taking you home with me.” Noah glanced over to Taylor as if he was a stranger asking for a ride some place.
“You have me wrong, because I’m not one of your boyfriends you’ve picked up off the street. I’m Taylor, remember.”
“The way you look, my doorman will think I’ve been fucking you while Jake’s away.”
“And why would he think that?” Taylor glanced over at Noah pinning him with suspicious eyes.
“Alright, I think Jake has a suit and shirt that will fit you. He’s more your size. My ties are only for work, and I don’t lend them.”
“What? Too busy tying up your patients and giving them something so they don’t resist?”
Noah looked to his right at Taylor and sucked his teeth. “I’m a fabulous good-looking gay man, and I don’t have to drug anyone to fuck me.”
“I heard from the boys that’s how you got Jake. There was no way a big strapping muscular straight guy with tattoos up the kazoo would fuck a nerd like you unless you drugged him,” Taylor said trying to hide a chuckle.
Taylor reached over and tapped Noah on the knee, and when he glanced over Taylor said, “Now you see what kind of gossip can be passed around when you have nothing better to do. And I need a pair of boxers, too.”
“What?” Noah said. “I have to supply your underwear?”
“I can’t go into work with nothing under my pants. Maybe that’s how you conduct your business, but we’re a little more professional than that.” Taylor glanced at Noah trying to hide his laugh.
“Why not? Jake does it all the time.”
“I’m not Jake, and he probably has a small cock anyway. Don’t deny it. I’ve seen his hands.”
“I will not dignify that gossip. He has briefs. Jake only wears briefs. He’s your size and I’m lending you one of his suits. Make sure you bring it back. I don’t want him to think I’m giving his shit to Goodwill. He’s kind of touchy about his stuff. He grew up poor.”
“I didn’t know that,” Taylor said.
“He doesn’t wear them, but he likes to know they’re there. Since he’s been in the car business there’s no need for suits. When he gets dressed it’s usually in his jeans and jean jackets. He has this hot cowboy thing working. And that does wonders for our sex life.”
“I’m not interested, Noah. I think I have more information about you and Jake than I care to have running round in my head. Just get me to the apartment and let me change. I’ve got my underwear in my pocket, and I don’t like walking around in public with my cock unprotected.”
“You should have thought about that when you let Dylan take you home.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I was drunk? And please tell me that you have something for my headache.”
“Yeah, but it might make you sleepy.”
“I thought so,” Taylor said with a closed smile and a curl of his lip. “I can handle sleepy, but not this banging in my head. I can’t think with this going on.” Taylor closed his eyes and thought about Payton. What was he doing now? Why didn’t he call?
WHEN TAYLOR FELT THE car stop, he glanced up and around to see that he was in the parking garage of Noah’s building. He closed his eyes for a second and fell asleep.
“Wake up, Taylor.” It took a few minutes for Taylor to get oriented, and then he felt sick. He knew he would have to pay a price for all the tequila shots he put down last night, and with an empty stomach and only coffee, he was feeling nauseous.
Placing his hand to his mouth, Noah turned to Taylor. “Oh no you don’t, Taylor. Don’t fucking upchuck in my new Mercedes. Jake would kill me. Get out now, and try to hold it until we get to my apartment. It doesn’t look good to the doorman and security for me to be dragging in a derelict at six a.m. in the morning.”
“Who gives a fuck? I’m sick and you’re a doctor. Just tell the help if they ask you that you were doing some humanitarian fucking thing. I don’t care, but if you’re concerned, you will need to help me out of this car.” Taylor saw the elevator a few paces away, and he thought he could make it. “Get me into that elevator immediately.”
Taylor’s eyes were opening and closing as he slumped over, and his breathing became shallow. His skin had turned a sickly pasty color.
Noah saw the dilemma he was in, and he helped Taylor out of the car. “Thank God. Now all I have to do is get your ass out of this elevator, and into the apartment before you make me look like I entertain men like you when Jake is out.”
“Fuck you, Noah.”
“Fuck you back.” And they looked at each other in the elevator and then at the image projected on the stainless steel walls, and they began to laugh again. As they hobbled off the elevator with Taylor’s arm hoisted around Noah’s neck, and Taylor’s hands circling Noah’s waist, they both looked a mess.
Taylor’s shirt hiked up on one side and the other side tucked into his pants. The cuffs of his shirt rolled up, and his once laundered white shirt stained with and unknown substance, unbuttoned with only one button clinging on for dear life.
It was that last button which kept anyone from seeing Taylor’s large pecks and muscles straining that one button that led down to his trail of fine hair to his groin.
Even with a hangover and dishevel hair, Taylor made a pretty sight. He was a handsom
e man if any of the men were interested sitting at the security desk, but no one seeing Taylor now looking the way he did, would take him for a handsome stylish attorney.
His fine chest hair trailing down to his groin revealed and stopped at his belt. Noah gazed down and up at Taylor who checked to see if his pants were unzipped.
“Would anyone believe that I’m a doctor and you’re a lawyer?” Noah questioned as he held Taylor with one hand and opened the door with the other. “Now the bathroom is over there,” Noah said pointing to his left.
“Go in there and do whatever you need to do to look like you, which I’m betting will never happen. At least not today. And be quiet for fuck’s sake because Millie and Lucky are sleeping.”
Taylor ambled to the restroom with Noah following him trying to prevent a fall. Before Taylor opened the door, he turned to Noah and said, “Who the fuck are Millie and Lucky?”
“My babies. You and Payton need to consider getting some puppies. It will make your lives a little less hectic.” Noah tiptoed away on the hardwood floor.
Taylor considered what Noah had said. Maybe, that is, if Payton wasn’t still pissed with him over Dylan and would listen and try to work things out. And the only way he could do that was to go to him. But where the fuck is he anyway? Taylor thought.
Taylor looked around and Noah had left him, but when he returned in a matter of seconds, Noah had a concoction for him to drink in his hand, some green looking liquid in a small glass. Noah shoved the glass at Taylor.
“I can’t drink that shit. It looks like what I just threw up.”
“It may, but if you’re planning on recovering enough to get to work, then you’d better drink it. It’s up to you, and you know Max is pissed anyway, and he could fire you. But he won’t.”
“I don’t care. I have enough money.”
“But you’re a workaholic, and you and I know why you work. You cannot stop. And you enjoy your position at M. Gold. Now call in and tell them you’ll be a few hours late. Sleep for an hour, and then you’ll wake up, and no one will know that you were a drunk for a day and probably fucked your ex.”
