Free spirits as they were, they did get married pretty young—they were both nineteen. At twenty-one, my mom had my older sister Marley, and two years later I was born. Wanna take a wild guess who we were named after? Bob Marley and Jimmy Hendrix. As I said, fuck my life. They’re pretty great, though, seriously, even if they embarrass the shit out of me at times.
And now they’re getting ready to celebrate their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. They were supposed to throw a bash at their twenty-fifth, but my mom had breast cancer, so they wanted to wait with celebrating until she was given a clean bill of health. She’s been declared cancer-free, so they’re planning the mother of all parties. That means tons of food and booze, all-night dancing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some strippers show up. Plus, of course, weed. They live in Colorado, just saying.
And I’m supposed to bring a date. Fuck my life.
There’s only one person I can ask, really. Well, technically, I could ask one of my Ballsy Boys co-stars, but I’m not that stupid. My mother has no filter and zero sense of what’s appropriate. I swear, she’d ask Brewer for tips on how to suck cock, and don’t even get me started on her weird obsession with Tank. It’s...super awkward.
It’s one thing to know your mom watches gay porn, but quite another that she’s watching the guys you fuck. Or get fucked by, same difference. Thank fuck she at least has the common sense to not watch my videos.
But yeah, that date? I’ll have to swallow some serious pride and ask Troy. My Banana Boy is the only guy I know who’s crazy and self-confident enough to survive meeting my family.
Wait...what?
My Banana Boy?
What the ever-loving fuck?
Oh, god.
I refuse to think about what this means, but instead pull up his number and call.
“Hey, you miss my tight ass?” Troy jokes as he picks up.
I give a half-assed attempt at a laugh. “Always.”
Really? Always?
Troy laughs. “Says the guy who fucks the most desirable asses ever.”
“It’s just sex, you know,” I say quietly. “It’s my job. It’s fun, sure, but it’s not the same as…”
As with you, I want to add, because thinking of him as my Banana Boy and admitting that I always think of him weren’t sappy enough. Holy hell, I need to stop talking. For real.
“I know,” Troy says, then hesitates. “Are you okay?”
I sigh. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”
Troy waits a beat, then asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
My first instinct is, of course, to say no. But before I realize it, I find myself opening up. “It’s my parents. They’re celebrating their 29th anniversary next weekend, and they want me to come.”
“Of course, they want you to come. What’s wrong with that? Aren’t they nice? Do they have an issue with you being gay or with what you do?”
“No, that’s not it. They’re great about all that, really, and so is my sister, Marley. She’s married to a dentist, for fuck’s sake, the most boring guy you’ll ever meet, but he loves her to pieces, and for some weird reason she has stars in her eyes when she’s with him. No, it’s more that they’re all so...happy. They’re stable and happy and committed, and I don’t know why the hell I’m telling you this when all I wanted to do was ask you on a date.”
It’s very quiet at the other end of the line. “You want to ask me on a date?” Troy repeats slowly.
It’s then I realize that the connection in my head between the party and the date never made it into actual words. “For the wedding anniversary,” I add quickly. “My parents. In Colorado.”
“Dude, I feel like I’m on some game show, trying to guess a word but coming up short on vowels. Use whole sentences, Rebel, ‘cause you’re not making much sense.”
“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to be my date to my parents’ anniversary party, which is next weekend in Colorado,” I say, grateful my brain is finally shifting to the right gear.
Troy is quiet for a long time. “Rebel, I don’t know about this… Meeting the parents, that’s some serious commitment, man.”
“It’s not. I’m not proposing marriage, for fuck’s sake. I just need a date to this party so I don’t look like a total loser. Plus, you know, we could have fun together. There’s food and booze and weed, and we’ll have a hotel room where we can hang out if it gets too much for you.”
On a scale of one to ten, I’m at major pathetic now. If he doesn’t agree soon, I’ll start begging, and it will get ugly. God, what the fuck is wrong with me? I used to be cool and I dunno, detached. For some reason, Troy is fucking with all that. It’s like my brain is short-circuiting where he’s concerned and out comes the stupidest shit.
“Hang out. Is that code for sex?”
I smile, because I can hear laughter in his voice now. Thank fuck. He’s starting to come around. “Yes. I will fuck you six ways into Sunday, whatever you want. I swear, I’ll do a fucking lap dance, if that’s what you want.”
“Your ass, that’s what I want. My cock in your ass.”
“Deal,” I say, not even hesitating a second. Are you kidding me? Getting fucked is rarely a chore for me and especially not with Troy. I can’t wait.
“You’d damn well better pay me in sex, and then you’ll still fucking owe me,” Troy says.
“Whatever you want, baby.”
Baby.
Holy hell.
Kill. Me. Now.
16
Troy
I shouldn’t have agreed to a fifteen-hour road trip to a family function with my fuck buddy. This is too intimate, it’s too boyfriend-y. So why did I agree to it? And why do I feel just a little bit excited?
I grab my bag—packed with a week’s worth of clothes—and fling it over my shoulder. I check the time, Rebel should be outside waiting, so I lock my door and head down.
As expected, Rebel is waiting in his idling car just outside my building. I toss my bag into the back seat and climb in.
“Hey,” Rebel greets me by leaning over the center console. Without thought, I press a quick kiss to his lips, and then I freeze, my stomach jolting.
That wasn’t a let’s get down to business kiss, that was a nice to see you, boyfriend kiss. And the scary thing is it felt so natural. I pull back and paste on a smile. Rebel looks just as surprised and unsure as I feel.
“Hey, listen, I know I told you to call me Rebel, but I think that might be weird in front of my family.”
“Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense. So...I should call you Hendrix?”
His real name on my lips feels strange but somehow also a little thrilling. I can imagine rasping it as he pounds me from behind.
His eyes widen a fraction, and the slightest hint of a blush rises in his cheeks. “Yup, is that okay?” he asks, his brisk tone out of balance with his shy expression.
“Yeah, it’s cool.”
An awkward silence settles between us for a few beats before a genuine smile returns to Rebel’s face. “Guess what we’ll pass right by on our drive.”
“What?”
“Vegas.” Rebel waggles his eyebrows at me, and I do a fist pump.
“We’re going to stop, right?”
“Fuck yeah, we’re going to stop,” Rebel agrees. “It’s only five hours to Vegas. So we’ll head there and spend the night, then we can split the rest of the eleven-hour drive from there.”
“Works for me, let’s do this.”
“Thanks again for coming,” Rebel says, the hint of vulnerability leaching into his expression again.
“No thanks required, just the sex you promised.”
“Oh yeah, we’re definitely doing that. And feel free to entertain yourself during the first portion of our journey by giving me road head, if the spirit moves you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
As we pull out of the parking lot, Rebel selects a playlist, and I relax into the passenger seat.
Even once we’re o
utside the city proper, traffic is at a standstill. Rebel and I entertain ourselves singing along with the radio, pointing out random road signs or anything that gives either of us a chuckle, and talking about nothing and everything.
“Tell me about losing your virginity,” I prompt with a wicked smile at Rebel, who throws his head back and laughs at my question.
“Oh man, this is a really awkward story. I dated this guy, Justin, my junior year of high school. He wasn’t the love of my life or anything, but he was hot and one of the few other openly gay guys. Anyway, we’d been dating for a few months and done everything else so we figured it was time to go where neither of us had gone before. We argued for over a week about which one of us would bottom. Both of us were nervous about being the one to take it. We ended up agreeing to flip a coin for it, I flipped and it came up tails…”
I laugh at the grim way Rebel recounts the story. “Aw, poor baby,” I tease.
“Oh, yeah, just wait. With the important details decided, we made a plan for him to come over to my place after school when I knew we’d have the house to ourselves. We clumsily undressed each other, like we weren’t already well practiced at getting each other naked. Once we were naked, things took a turn for the worst. We’d watched porn to figure out technique, and as I’m sure you might realize there’s one thing that’s missing from a porn education.”
“Oh, my god, you poor thing,” I gasp, guessing where this story is going, and doing a terrible job of stifling my chuckle behind my genuine sympathy.
“Yeah, no prep, no lube, I just bent over, and he went right for it. It felt like my ass was being torn in two. Luckily, he wasn’t the most well hung guy ever, but it was still not awesome. After about thirty seconds, I told him to stop, and he said ‘give me a second.’ When he didn’t stop, I got pissed and shoved him off me and then punched him in the jaw.”
“Oh my god, how is this a real story?”
“I know, it’s crazy, right? That’s not the embarrassing part, though. Apparently, my mom had come home at some point and overheard us. After Justin left, she sat me down and talked to me about lube and prepping for, and I quote, anal play.”
“Yeah, that’s awkward,” I agree, trying to catch my breath from how hard that story made me laugh.
“She’s a great mom. Both my parents are awesome. I wasn’t sure how they’d take it when I started doing porn, but they were cool about it.”
My good humor sobers as talk turns to his parents.
“What about your family? You haven’t mentioned them before.”
“I grew up in foster care,” I answer with cool detachment.
Understanding dawns on his face. “What happened to your parents?”
“Who knows, who cares,” I snap. “They weren’t around a lot when I was young. When they were home, they slept a lot and fought all the time. In hindsight, they were probably drug addicts. When I was six, my mom dropped me off at a police station. She said she’d be right back. That was the last time I saw her. I bounced around to different foster homes until I aged out of the system.”
“I’m sorry.”
The pity in Rebel’s expression is enough to make me want to hit something. “Don’t be. I was fine on my own. I don’t need to rely on anyone but myself, and I’m good with that. I don’t need to be coddled.”
“I get it,” Rebel assures me. “What about your first time?”
The tension in my shoulders relaxes. Bless Rebel for the subject change.
17
Rebel
Foster care.
I can’t even imagine. I mean, I curse my parents at times, especially my mom. There is such a thing as parents who are too supportive, so I’ve discovered. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything, and I can’t possibly imagine what my life would have been like without them, who I would have been without that foundation of love and support.
I’m no shrink, but even the little bit of info Troy gave me on his background explains a lot. No wonder he has a hard time building friendships and relationships. No one has apparently ever stuck around long enough for him to even know what those words mean.
I guess I’ll have to show him.
The thought warms my heart. I like him, this emotionally closed-off guy, who is so sexy and wild and free. And now the strange urge I’ve had to be his friend is even stronger, at least until that constant weariness in his eyes is gone.
“At this rate, we’re never gonna make Vegas tonight,” Troy says. He perked right back up after entertaining me with the story of his first time—convincing a guy he’d had a crush on that yes, he’d done this dozens of times, while praying he wouldn’t fuck up his first time topping. I swear, this guy was born to fuck.
I eye the endless traffic jam ahead of us. Traffic is an eternal curse here in LA, but it seems even worse than usual. We’ve been in the car for two hours, and we haven’t even reached Azusa yet. “There must be some kind of accident,” I say.
“There’s always some kind of accident.”
“True. A bigger accident, then. Bigger than normal.”
Troy smiles. “You know what else is bigger than normal?”
I groan. “Seriously? You’re making a dirty joke out of a potential pile up?”
Wrong choice of words. Troy’s grin widens. “I bet we could create a really big pile up.”
“I give up. You’re determined to turn everything into sex, aren’t you?”
Troy shoots me an innocent look. “Sex? Who’s talking about sex? I never even mentioned sex.”
The traffic has been at a complete standstill for minutes now, which means I can send him a long glare. I don’t think it’s very effective, because he keeps grinning at me.
After a few more minutes of no moving, I sigh. “Wanna get off the freeway and see if we can grab a bite somewhere? This seems pretty useless.”
He nods, then points at a sign, a hundred yards or so ahead. “There’s a mall here. I’m not sure how big it is, but usually if there’s a mall, there’s something to eat, right?”
I swear, it takes us ten minutes to make it to the next exit, and we both sigh with relief as we get off. The mall turns out to be a small one, but there’s a couple of restaurant options, so it works.
When we step out after wolfing down a delicious burger, there’s a guy on the phone in our way. “I’m begging you, Austin, you have to come. You fucking promised me!” he pleads. “I’m gonna be a laughingstock if I show up by myself.”
Apparently, Austin decides to hang up, because the guy locks his phone with an angry gesture. “Motherfucking asshole,” he mutters.
He’s cute, an adorable little twink with a pale face, black hair that’s styled into a careful mess, and a tight little body. He’s also obviously gay. I mean, my gaydar is plinging like a freaking weather alert.
“You okay?” I ask.
He looks up from his phone. His eyes slightly widen when he spots us, but he’s not embarrassed, which I like. “Yeah. No. It’s nothing serious, let me put it that way. Nobody’s dying, not literally at least.”
My curiosity is piqued, I can’t help it. “You got stood up?” I ask. “Sorry, we overheard that last bit.”
He shakes his head, obviously still frustrated. “Yeah. For a Paint and Sip party, can you imagine?”
“A what?” Troy asks the same question that’s on my lips.
“A paint and sip. It’s where they show you how to paint some stupid dumbass painting on two hours, meanwhile serving you alcohol so you don’t realize how shitty your painting really is.”
“Sounds...fascinating,” Troy says.
Actually, it sounds stupid as shit, but I like his version better.
“It’s not,” the twink says. “It’s, like, the most dumbass, asinine thing ever, and I’ve done some weird shit in my life.”
“So why do it?” I ask.
He sighs. “It’s my bitchy cousin’s bachelorette party. She puts the desperate in desperate housewives, and she wanted this for her
bachelorette. So, of course, her equally dumb-as-dogshit Barbie friends obliged. And since I’m the token gay, and I can’t make it to the actual wedding because of work, I was lucky enough to get invited. This guy I’ve been seeing lately, Austin, was supposed to come, but he canceled on me. So now I have to face this horrendous bitchfest by myself, and there’s not enough liquor in the world to make this fun, trust me. Especially when I show up alone, ‘cause they’re gonna get on my ass about that after assuring them I’d show up with a date.”
During his explanation he gets more and more riled up, and he’s a little firecracker. I decide I really like him, and I shoot a quick look over at Troy. Our eyes meet, and he nods. We’re totally on the same page.
“Hi,” I say, extending my hand. “I’m Hendrix and this is Troy. We’d be honored to accompany you to this illustrious party.”
The little twink’s eyes spread open wide. “You’re shitting me, right?”
He takes my hand on reflex, and I shake it. “Nope, we’re dead serious. We’re fun, we’ve got nowhere else to be right now, and if I do say so myself, you could do worse than showing up with the two of us in tow.”
His face splits open in a big grin, as he shakes Troy’s hand with far more excitement. “Holy motherfucking yes, please. I’m Byron.” He sees my face and adds, “My mom loved poetry. Don’t ask.”
“I’m named after Jimmy Hendrix, so I feel you.”
“So, you want us to pose as a threesome or what?” Troy asks.
“Hell, yes,” Byron replies. “I can’t imagine anything better than that to stick it to my stuck-up cousin. Her name is Barbra, by the way, and her unlucky man is Dennis.”
I mentally rub my hands. This is gonna be so much fun. “Give me the Cliff Notes version of you.”
“I’m 23, I’m a teacher’s assistant in third grade, and I’m almost done with my degree in education so I can become a full-fledged teacher. I’m an only child with two great parents, divorced and both remarried with new families, so lots of half-siblings. Let me see... My hobbies are ballet, which I’ve done since I was seven, and designing and decorating shoes. I’m gay as a unicorn, so sue me.”
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